St. Peter's Finger

chapter 16

chessboard

“The milky way chalked out with suns; a clue

That guides through erring hours.”

henry vaughan: Sunday.

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Mrs. bradley walked over to the guest-house for Friday tea and brooded as she walked. Her suspicions had now become certainties, and yet there seemed nothing to prove that her theories were facts. The police clues ought, she knew, to be the two hammers, but the confused nature of the prints on tools which had been handled by dozens of people, and on which, in any case, her own prints were superimposed, since, except for the police, she had been the last person to handle the hammers, made the task of using finger-prints as part of the work of detection extremely difficult. It was rendered more difficult because, short of resorting to the somewhat crude expedient of getting all the people she had ever, even remotely, suspected of the murder to grasp a postcard between finger and thumb and then comparing the prints with all those found on the hammers, it was not easy to decide whether or not the weapons had been handled by the person she suspected. Even then, if this person (as was probable) could show reason for having had legitimate possession of the hammers at some time, that piece of evidence would automatically disappear. That was the worst of communal property, she reflected, and was an objection which would apply to almost everything on or in the convent buildings.

Tea, at the guest-house, was a formal meal, and the guests sat down at table, but Mrs. Bradley had a working arrangement with Annie, Bessie, Kitty and Maggie for having hers served in the kitchen. The girls liked the arrangement and enjoyed her company, and even Mother Ambrose, concealing her real feelings, allowed the two orphans who were not on duty in the guesthouse to sneak off on slight excuse from their other tasks to make a cheerful party of five in the guest-house kitchen. Mother Jude did not have any feelings to conceal, but, if she could fit it in with her other duties, she joined the party, eating nothing, but enjoying the conversation. A firm friendship, in fact, was growing and flourishing between Mrs. Bradley and the saintly, tubby little Hospitaller.

“I don’t reckon,” said Bessie, speaking first, for Mother Jude was not present, on this occasion, to be deferred to in the matter of beginning a conversation, “as you’ll ever find out who done it.”

“Why not, young Bessie?” enquired Maggie.

“Less of the young,” said Bessie. “You ain’t the the only one got a boy friend. She won’t, and she knows she won’t, because there isn’t anything whatever to go on, without the sisters tells her a damn sight more than they have.”

“What makes you say that?” asked Mrs. Bradley, startled. Bessie turned up her eyes and folded her hands in scandalous imitation of Mother Ambrose.

“What makes me? Ah, well, I’ll tell you. Look here, stands to reason. Young Maggie, turn down the gas under that there kettle and shove in a couple more spoonfuls. Seems to me they got everything to gain and nothing to lose by that kid being done in.”

“But she wasn’t done in! It was accident!” interpolated Maggie, going off to do as she was bid, for they all took orders from Bessie, Mrs. Bradley had noticed.

“Oh, was it? Well, then, what’s Mrs. Bradley still here for? Can’t you put two and two together? She wouldn’t still be here if it was accident! And who ’it that poor old kite on the ’ead with an ’ammer? And what’s that ferret-faced Maslin bitch still hanging about for round ’ere? You mark my words, and you, too, Annie, for all I suppose you’ll split on me later on to Mother Saint Ambrose, there’s more in this ’ere dope than meets the eye.”

“Go on, Bessie,” said Mrs. Bradley, calmly, watching her very closely.

“Garn!” said Bessie, suddenly on the defensive. “Like me to give meself away?”

“Why not, in the interests of justice?”

“Justice nothing! What’s justice! Seven years ’ard for taking what ought to be yours! Don’t talk to me! I’ve ’ad some! Wait till I gets out of here, and watch my smoke. Queen of the gangsters, that’s me.” She made a loud whooping noise, and cocked a snook, presumably at the innocence of her past.

“Bessie,” said Mrs. Bradley, “don’t be idiotic. You’ve said too much to begin to sidetrack now. Out with it, there’s a good girl.”

“You won’t tell Mother Saint Ambrose?”

“Why not?”

“Oh, have it your own way. What I says is this: this kid got a fortune, hadn’t she?”

“If she had survived her grandfather she would have had one, yes.”

“Same thing, for all I see. She conks. Who gets the dough?”

“Well, who?”

“The other gal Doyle, the cousin.”

“How do you know, young Bessie?” demanded Maggie, whose last Little Penance had been for smuggling forbidden twopenny printed matter of the Cinderella type into Religious Instruction, where it almost immediately caught the eye of Mother Timothy, who sometimes taught the orphans, and was confiscated.

“Talked to the Maslin nipper when she come over here to tea.”

“Oh, dear!” said Mrs. Bradley. “And I brought her!”

“Well, shan’t give her fleas or nothing, shall I?” Bessie enquired, wilfully misunderstanding the purport of the interjection.

“I am not in a position to determine,” Mrs. Bradley gravely replied. As it was by remarks of this character that she had won Bessie’s good opinion, Bessie greeted the reply as a sally of the ripest wit, grinned amiably, and continued:

“Garn! You win! Anyway, had a little chat, and gets quite an earful of the dope. Seems this other Doyle goes batty on being a nun. That being that, the dough all goes to the convent. Well, got two ears and a nose each, ’aven’t us? Or ’aven’t us?” she demanded triumphantly of the others.

Annie looked shocked, and Maggie mystified but impressed. Kitty looked disapproving, and remarked:

“And you to be after thinking the holy Reverend Mother Superior no better than a thief and a murderer? Bad cess to you, Bessie Lampeter, and the back of my hand to you now!”

“Course not,” said Bessie, uneasily. “Who brought Reverend Mother Superior into it? Never said nothing, did I?”

At this point Mother Jude arrived, and room was made for her at the table between Kitty and Annie, Bessie moving up closer to Mrs. Bradley, and the good-natured, rather vulgarly pretty Maggie taking, as usual, the path of least resistance, and moving in the direction in which she was pushed.

“There is rain in the air,” said Mother Jude.

“We have been discussing the Maslin money,” said Mrs. Bradley.

“The Doyle money, surely? Mrs. Maslin is in very great distress. Have you heard the news? Old Mr. Doyle is thinking of leaving all the money to endow a hospital.”

“Really?”

“Spike somebody’s guns,” said Bessie, with fierce satisfaction.

“I thought you didn’t believe in hospitals,” Mrs. Bradley remarked.

“No more I don’t! Taking poor little kids away from their mum and dad just because they got a few spots, and shutting ’em up till they gets the diphtheria and dies! Cruel, I call it. Ought to be put in prison!”

“Bessie happens to know of a very sad case,” said Mother Jude. “But I came to tell you some joyful and interesting news. Sister Saint Simon-Zelotes has at last finished the copies of our famous paten and chalice, and the work is to be on view.”

“That is very interesting,” said Mrs. Bradley cordially. “Shall we all be allowed to see it?”

“Surely we shall! Sister is proud of her work, and so are we all. We hope to have many visitors. An expert is being sent from the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a man is coming from Christie’s. Sister Saint Simon did not expect to finish her work until Easter, but is very happy to have completed it so soon. At Easter it will be shown to all the old pupils of the private school, and we shall put a notice in the paper to let the old orphans know that they are welcome to come and see it, too. It is a better time for noise and rejoicing than now, but as the work is finished, Reverend Mother Superior is willing to have the experts come down to see it. The originals, too, will be on view, so that people can compare them.”

“I suppose you will have the originals carefully guarded?” said Mrs. Bradley.

“Oh, yes, we shall have the police.”

“That will be rather expensive. How many do you think you will have?”

“Half a dozen, so Reverend Mother thinks. We shall not have to pay. The Chief Constable is going to send them. He does not want a big robbery in his district, so he says!”

She laughed gently and happily, and added:

“Sister Saint Benedict’s work will be on view too —those beautiful illuminated pages. And Sister Saint Cyprian’s bookbindings. We are fortunate to have so many gifted people.”

“What about Mother Saint Patrick’s fruit trees?” Mrs. Bradley enquired with great solemnity, “I regard them as no less a work of art, and one in which I had some share.”

“Dear Sister Saint Patrick! She is very proud of the orchard. She told me that you had helped her with the grafting.”

“So did Mary Maslin. We spent Saturday afternoon in handing up twigs for crown-grafting—the older trees, you know. The whip-and-tongue grafting she did by herself, I believe.”

“Like transferring of your blood,” said Maggie, with horrid relish.

“Bessie offered her blood for transfusion to Sister Bridget,”said Mother Jude, smiling at the remembrance of this kindness. Bessie scowled, and Mrs. Bradley remarked:

“You will never qualify, Bessie, as queen of the gangsters, I fear. Your instincts are purely humanitarian and Christian.”

Bessie muttered:

“Garn! You watch my smoke!”

“There is a great deal of good in Bessie,” Mother Jude remarked, when all the orphans had gone. Two went on duty to wait at tea on the guests, the others went back to the Orphanage.

“She is all good,” Mrs. Bradley replied very firmly. “And a girl of character, withal. If you felt inclined to set her free—so to speak,” she added hastily, “—I think I could get her a very good post, and one which she would like.”

“It would be a weight off Sister Saint Ambrose’s heart,” said Mother Jude simply and truthfully. “What is the situation you have in mind?”

“I have a friend who has opened, at her own expense, a small seaside home for poor children. She needs a nursemaid to take the children out and put some of them to bed and wash them, and so forth. It is not exactly domestic service, and I think it would suit Bessie well. She manages people beautifully, and is very sympathetic and kind-hearted.”

“I will ask the permission of Reverend Mother Superior. It is kind of you. Bessie is not a good influence here. Our system is not the best for one of her nature.”

“And experiences,” said Mrs. Bradley, nodding. “I should like to do something for her. She interests me and I admire her.”

They parted at the door of the guest-house, Mother Jude to go to the church, and Mrs. Bradley to write to her friend about Bessie. She read in her room for an hour and a half after that, then bathed and changed for dinner. They called it supper at the convent, but it was always a hot meal, usually soup, fish, meat and a pudding. The oldest orphans cooked it, supervised by Mother Jude and one of the lay-sisters. Two of the orphans also waited at table.

Mrs. Bradley deliberately chose a seat next to Mrs. Maslin.

“I hear you are leaving us,” she said. Mrs. Maslin looked annoyed.

“I most certainly am not leaving yet,” she said. “There is far too much to do.”

Mrs. Bradley could scarcely ask what she meant, and so she filled what might have been a pause in the conversation by remarking:

“I hear that the copies of the chalice and paten are finished.”

“Yes, so I heard. I suppose we shall all be expected to go along and admire them,” said Mrs. Maslin. “Personally, I don’t suppose I shall know the originals from the copies unless they are labelled. Will the new ones look shinier or something? One hates to appear too ignorant, don’t you think?”

Mrs. Bradley replied that she scarcely thought there would be any difference in shine, and turned to her other neighbour, a newcomer to the guest-house. Dom Pius had gone back to his monastery, and this man was a diffident, thin-faced Carthusian lay-brother who, from the age of sixteen, had never been out of his monastery until he had been sent to St. Peter’s to recuperate after influenza followed by double pneumonia.

“I talked with a man to-day who said he had seen the devil,” he said gently. Mrs. Bradley was interested, and they spent a quarter of an hour discussing such phenomena, Mrs. Bradley being tenderly corrected from time to time in her theology by a white-haired priest on the opposite side of the table.

Mrs. Maslin then drew her attention by saying:

“I hear that you have arranged to send Ulrica to New York. I happen to know that her grandfather hates the sight of her. I think, too, that I might have been consulted before such a step was taken.”

“It is a good plan to send her to New York,” said Mrs. Bradley, unperturbed by the waspish tones. “I had not thought of it.”

Mrs. Maslin, rendered more than usually irritable by this blandness, observed that nothing was going to be done in a hurry, and that, for her part, she should be glad to know how the enquiry into Ulrica’s death was going.”

“It isn’t going. The enquiry is finished,” said Mrs. Bradley. “There is no doubt at all but that Ursula was murdered.” She watched the slow red spread over Mrs. Maslin’s face and neck.

“Of course I meant Ursula,” she said. Mrs. Bradley nodded.

“Of course,” she said pleasantly. “The names are somewhat like, and one is apt to become confused in moments of panic.” That the wish is father to the thought had seldom achieved a more apt exposition, she thought.

Mrs. Maslin achieved a kind of snort, which she hoped the company would interpret as a spasm of grief for her niece, Mrs. Bradley supposed.

“I am taking Mary home at the end of the week,” said Mrs. Maslin, later on in the meal.

“And you really think the New York idea is a good one? For Ulrica, I mean.”

“I think it’s ridiculous!” said Mrs. Maslin, shrilly. “Her grandfather hated her father, and has never seen Ulrica in her life! In any case, my husband must be consulted.”

“I feel that Ulrica is a nervous, temperamental girl who is being influenced to her harm by the associations of this place,” Mrs. Bradley concluded, “but by all means let your husband know what I propose.” She left the table and went in the darkness out of the guesthouse, across the grounds and through the orchard to the cloister and the Mother Superior’s lodging. She climbed the steps, found the door open and went in. The Mother Superior was at Recreation in the nuns’ Common Room and would remain there until she went to night prayers at nine. The little room was pitch-dark. Mrs. Bradley, who always carried a small electric torch, flashed it about to find a chair. It was peaceful in the dark little room, except for the sea, which boomed and thundered restlessly on the other side of the church, and Mrs. Bradley spent a quiet hour, or a little longer, meditating—not, perhaps, precisely after the fashion of the religious—and discovering that, with her work there nearly over, she would be very sorry to leave the convent and more than sorry to give up the society of the nuns. In spite of the nature of her task, the investigation had proved, because of its surroundings, a rest cure, as Cèlestine had foreseen.

It was nearly ten o’clock when the Mother Superior returned. Mother Mary-Joseph came first, stepped inside and lighted a candle. Mrs. Bradley saw her shadow blocking the doorway, and said:

“I am here, dear child. Is the Reverend Mother Superior coming with you?” For she knew, by the height, that this was not the Reverend Mother. Mother Mary-Joseph lighted the candle and put a small globe round the flame to keep it steady. Then she turned her head, and answered:

“Reverend Mother Superior is just behind me.” She went out again to help the old woman up the steps.

“It is Mrs. Bradley, Reverend Mother,” she said. Mrs. Bradley did not speak until the aged Superior was seated. Then she said:

“I want to know whether you will allow me to send the girl Ulrica Doyle to my own home for a time. I think she might be better there than here.”

“I know. You told us, nearly a week ago, that we ought to send those children away. But Mrs. Maslin still stays, and her stepdaughter with her, and what to do with the other child we have not been able to decide. She has almost always stayed here during vacations. She has no home, and her grandfather in America is her guardian.”

“So I understand. Mrs. Maslin must be allowed, I suppose, to do as she pleases with Mary, but I do think that Ulrica must leave, and at my house she would be safe and well looked after. My maid, a Frenchwoman, is a Catholic.”

“It is good of you. It seems the best plan, if you are willing to have her. Send her away when you like. We are in your hands. I have been very greatly distressed, and very much mystified. The attack on poor Sister Bridget…”

“Unintentional. It was meant for me,” said Mrs. Bradley, grinning. She grew serious in the face of the Mother Superior’s expression of deep concern.

“My work here is coming to an end, but not in the way the guilty person intends,” she said. “I have no proof yet, but soon I shall be able to make clear to whomever it may concern that it is only a question of time before that proof is obtained.”

“It is horrible,” said the nun. Mrs. Bradley inclined her head.

“I wish I could have come to another conclusion. I wish I could have proved that the death was an accident.”

“I do hope we did the best thing in having an enquiry made.”

“Do not have any doubts upon that score. At the least it has saved a life—possibly two lives—if that is any comfort to you now.”

“I shall not ask you to name the guilty person.”

“I will tell you immediately who it is, if you prefer to know, but I am not anxious to do so. One thing I do tell you. We shall manage without the police. So much I am prepared to promise for the sake of everyone here.”

“I don’t understand.” She shook her head. “But you will know best. I shall leave it to you. God will guide you.”

A comfortable belief, thought Mrs. Bradley, but one which did not necessarily involve a lightening of personal responsibility. “Pray as though all depended on God; work as though all depended on you,” was the way the old priest at table had expressed it. She rose to take her leave, but before she went the Mother Superior said:

“We had hoped that you were going to join us in the Common Room to-night, but I expect you were far too busy. We shall have an immense debt to pay. You are very good to us.”

“I should like to come and sit with you all again. By the way, Mother Saint Simon-Zelotes has kindly undertaken to effect the repairs to the picture which was smashed the other evening.”

“She is clever. Her copies of our chalice and paten are to be on view—you have heard?”

“Yes; I am immensely interested. How long has it taken her to do them?”

“She has spent about six months on them altogether, and has given all the time she could spare, which, here, with the children to teach, is not very much. She has worked behind double-locked doors and fast-barred windows because of the value of the originals. The Insurance Company insisted upon that.”

“Do you ordinarily keep the originals at the bank?”

“Oh, no. We keep them here, very safely locked away. But one of the children, with the best of intentions, I am sure, told her father that the copies were to be made, and so we had several journalists, and some less reputable people, all very anxious to interview Sister Saint Simon. She gave no interviews, but the project had become public property. The Insurance Company were not well pleased when they knew that, but they did not increase our premium. Sister Saint Jude saw the manager.”

“You did not fear theft, though, did you? The chalice and paten are too well known, I should have thought, for thieves to take the risk of stealing them, and to sell the melted-down metal would not be worth while.”

“Every private collector knows them, and so do all the museums. Nevertheless, there are some private collectors who are really, one supposes, a little mad, and will run any risk to obtain possession of something which they covet.”

Mrs. Bradley agreed.

“I like, too, Mother Saint Cyprian’s embroidered bookbindings, and Mother Saint Benedict’s paintings,” she said, to change the direction which the conversation was taking.

“Yes. They are beautiful, both. It is good to use great talents entirely to the glory of God.”

“Are not all great talents so used? It seems to me that, whether consciously or not, all good work is done to the glory of God. But, Reverend Mother, I wish you would indulge a whim of mine.”

“I will if I can. What is it?”

“When are your experts coming down?”

“On Monday or Tuesday.”

“Not to-morrow?”

“No one is coming to-morrow. I thought, as it is a half-holiday, the school-children could see the work then.”

“Could they not wait until Wednesday? That also is a half-holiday.”

“Yes, they could.”

“Will you let me have my own way?”

“Willingly. It cannot make very much difference. I will speak to Sister Saint Simon-Zelotes about it.”

“Thank you very much. I have good reason for asking.”

“I am sure you have,” said the Superior, and blessed her before she let her go.