He sent for Hannah Barrow again and asked where Sister Monica had kept her private letters and papers. Hannah told him that everything Sister possessed was either in her bedroom or in this office. There was nothing anywhere else. He could see the parlour, but there was nothing there. It was only used when visitors came.
“Do you know anything about her family—next of kin?” asked Peel.
“Her had no family, poor soul. Her was alone in the world,” said Hannah smugly, with the air of one repeating an oft-told tale. “One sister, her had, name of Ursula. Her died way back. Jubilee year ’twas. ‘Now I’m alone in the world so far as kith and kin goes,’ her said. I mind it same as if ’twere yesterday. ‘My family’s here now,’ her said, ‘the little ones, Hannah, and you and the others: you’re my family, and blessed I am to have you all.’ ”
“That’s all very fine and large,” said Peel to himself, “but there must have been some papers I haven’t found. The woman was paid, presumably. She’d have been paid by cheque, I take it. She must have had a banking account, or a savings bank book. There’s something damned odd about the whole setup.”
2
Peel’s next call was at the Manor House. For twenty years Lady Ridding had been chairman of the committee which controlled Gramarye, and it was to be presumed that she knew all that there was to be known about the deceased Warden.
The sergeant was conscious of acute discomfort when he and his attendant constable were shown into the morning room at the Manor. Theoretically, Peel had no undue reverence for the gentry. In the eyes of the law, a witness was a witness, to be treated with neither fear nor favour, but Lady Ridding had given away prizes at the police sports, beamed upon competing police teams in the ambulance competitions, received bouquets from policemen’s small daughters and salutes from sergeants and inspectors. It was Peel’s duty to collect all the available evidence for his Inspector, and information about the financial position of deceased, to say nothing of her next of kin, had obviously got to be obtained, but Peel knew in his heart that be could not really deal with Lady Ridding. If she joined in the “I don’t know” tactics of the village she could defeat him, not by a display of intransigence but by graciously worded regrets for her inability to help him.
Her ladyship (the title was accorded to her by all the village folk) swept superbly into the small room.
“Good morning, Sergeant. Good morning, Constable. Please sit down. This is indeed a sorrowful occasion. Sister Monica’s death is a tragedy, and I feel it deeply. I have had the privilege of knowing her for thirty years, and I cannot tell you how profoundly I grieve at her loss. Now I know that it is your duty to make a detailed enquiry into the circumstances of her death, but I do beg you to remember that I and all who knew her are mourning her loss. I ask you to be brief, Sergeant.”
This speech was delivered with all the virtuosity of one skilled in addresssing committees; moreover, it indicated subtly that Peel was intruding into a house of mourning, and made him feel even less at ease. Essaying a few words of apology and sympathy, Peel started on the easiest question he had to put—the matter of next of kin.
“I have already discussed that with Sir James,” replied Lady Ridding. “The plain answer is that there is no next of kin. Sister Monica told me years ago, after the death of her parents, that she had only one relative remaining in the world, her sister, Ursula Torrington. Ursula died in 1935. I remember it well. Sister Monica went to her funeral. Since then, believe it or believe it not, Sister Monica has never been away from Gramarye. She refused to take a holiday. Her very soul was in her work, Sergeant. She had no other life. Her home, her friends were here, in this place.”
Peel then got on to the rather more difficult matter of “deceased’s estate.” He said that he had been unable to find any private papers, any bank statement, any chequebook. Lady Ridding interrupted him here.
“She had no bank account. Sister Monica was utterly devoid of any interest in money. She despised money. She came to Gramarye thirty years ago, Sergeant. Wages were very different in those days. She was paid forty-eight pounds a year, plus her living expenses, laundry, and insurance. She asked to be paid monthly, in cash, and this method of payment has been adhered to. It was only with difficulty that she was persuaded to accept increases in salary. She was a selfless woman, Sergeant.”
“Do you mean that her salary was still forty-eight pounds
