St. Peter's Finger

chapter 20

george

“What behaved well in the past or behaves well

to-day is not such a wonder…”

walt whitman: Stray Thoughts.

« ^ »

George came back at half-past ten with the car, and Mrs. Bradley was notified of his arrival whilst she was still examining the clothing. George had brought a note from Ferdinand. Mrs. Bradley, standing at the door of the guest-house in the thin spring sunshine, read it, then read it again.

“Arrived safely in Wandles. Célestine all ready to receive us. Ulrica asks whether there is any objection to her going to New York to visit her grandfather, since she has been taken away from school. Says she thinks her relatives would give permission, if you think she would be safe. Let me know what you feel.”

“So you arrived safely, George?” said Mrs. Bradley, looking at him with grandmotherly affection.

“Yes, madam.”

It sounded noncommittal, and Mrs. Bradley was intrigued. She pressed the point.

“Quite safely, and in good time?”

“We were delayed a half-hour or so, madam, on account of the young lady’s injury.”

“Good heavens, George! My son has not mentioned her injury. What was its nature and location?”

“I am at a loss how to answer you, madam.”

“Very well. Tell the whole tale. Come inside. There’s nobody here. We can talk in guilty secrecy.”

She led the way into the dining-room where the cloth was spread but the table not set, and motioned him into a chair. George waited until she was seated, and then, with his peaked cap held between his knees, and his feet set as though they were clamped in iron boots to the floor, he began his tale.

“We had proceeded through the village of Blacklock Tor and were about twenty-three miles upon our way when the young lady said she felt faint and would like some water. There being no water apparent, except what was in the radiator, madam, I drove on a couple of miles to the nearest village. There, while Sir Ferdinand ministered to the young lady, I purchased a packet of cigarettes for myself and a couple of cigars to give to Henri, me owing him these on account of a small wager which I had had with him some time previous, and conversed with the woman behind the counter. It was she who had supplied the young lady with a glass of water, and she mentioned to me that she thought the young lady had a sweet face, but looked exceedingly poorly. I concurred in this expression of opinion—”

“You don’t really think the girl has a sweet face, George?”

“I had taken very little account of the young lady up to then, madam, for the reason of her being a passenger and hardly my business, but since you ask me, I thought she looked somewhat ethereal.”

“Do you mean it, George?”

“Well, madam, I thought I did, but since you question the term, perhaps I don’t.”

“Now, be independent, George, and out with it like a man. What made you use the word ethereal?”

“She seemed to me not of this world, madam. She reminds me of what I used to think nuns were like before we knew those here.”

‘’You don’t call the nuns here ethereal?‘’

“They seem to me too practical, madam, to be warrantably called ethereal.”

“Wasn’t the girl practical, then?”

“I don’t know how to answer, madam, for here’s what happened. After we got on our way again, Sir Ferdinand, I fancy, had fallen into a doze, and all of a sudden the left side back window cracked as though someone had struck it smartly with a halfpenny, and at the same minute I heard the young lady cry out. I stopped the car at once, got down and opened the door. She was whimpering and holding her arm—her left arm, madam—and was moaning out.

“ ‘They’ve got me! Oh! They’ve got me!’

“Sir Ferdinand had awakened, and was staring at her and saying:

“ ‘Pull yourself together, my dear child! Whatever is the matter! ’

“He seemed a little testy, because, I think, he was startled, but I’d seen the blood running down, for our inside lights were on, and I said: ‘Hold hard, sir, a minute, I believe the young lady’s hurt!’

“We staunched the blood—a rather nasty cut, madam, that had slashed the sleeve of her coat and dress, and penetrated fairly deeply into the upper arm, about three inches, I should judge, above the elbow—and I drove on pretty fast to find a doctor. He dressed the arm—he thought she had cut it on broken glass from a car-smash, I believe, and none of us, not the young lady, either, said anything different to him.”

“She did it herself, I presume?”

“Very hysterical subject, I should fancy, madam. Rather like some of Herr Hekel’s young ladies, I imagine. Full of imagination, and out for sympathy and notice.”

“And you still looked upon her as ethereal?”

“With all the colour gone from her face, madam, and her eyes all dark underneath, and a general limpness of demeanour consequent upon loss of blood, I must persist, madam, in the description. She wanted to tell us some long rigmarole about having seen a man on the running board of the car. Sir Ferdinand, who has not exactly taken a fancy to the young lady, madam, told her, somewhat abruptly, that this was nonsense, and she made matters not exactly better by referring him to the fact that he had been asleep at the time.

“ ‘Yes, but I wasn’t,’ I said. She told me I couldn’t see behind me. I didn’t argue, madam, but I know no man was there.”

“But did you find the weapon that she used?”

“It was difficult without searching the young lady, madam. Sir Ferdinand remonstrated with her a bit, and told her she must calm down, and then Célestine gave her some milk when we got her home—she wouldn’t have anything to eat, so Célestine told me later—and put her to bed. Then Sir Ferdinand had his dinner, and I sat down to supper with Henri and Célestine.”

“I half-expected that my son would come back in the car.”

“He thought he had better be there to keep an eye on the young lady, madam, I fancy. He specifically referred to her as the apple of your eye, and said he must watch his step, as you would expect an account of his stewardship.”

“Quite right. I shall. Go and send off a wire, George, to tell my son that Miss Doyle can go to New York as soon as she likes, and that the next boat sails on Wednesday.”

“Very good, madam.” He hesitated. “I was to be sure and ask after the other young lady, madam, so the young lady we took with us got me to promise.”

“She’s lucky to be alive, from what I can make out. She fell off a roof before you left.”

“We heard nothing of it, madam.”

“No. By the way, I suppose Miss Doyle said nothing about returning here when you found she had been cut on the arm, George?”

“She mentioned it frequently, madam, but Sir Ferdinand said he had his orders, and would proceed, as planned, to Wandles.”

“Interesting. You knew she wanted to say good-bye to her cousin, and couldn’t find her, did you?”

“I was not so informed, madam, no.”

“Curious, George.”

“She’s a curious kind of young lady, if you ask me, madam.”

“Yes, fanatical, very. I don’t somehow think she will make a very good nun. She’d make a fine missionary, though. She’s quite unscrupulous.”

“Is it the young lady’s intention to take the veil, madam?”

“It is her ambition, I understand. You go to Blacklock Tor, George, with the car, and get them to book me a room. I shall want it to-morrow night for certain, and very likely for to-night. So book it for to-night, in any case, and call for me at half-past nine or so. I feel I ought to go to Church this evening, as it’s Sunday, and I’m not sure at what time to go.”

“Very good, madam.”

“Don’t forget the telegram. If you can’t send it from Blacklock Tor—and ten to one you can’t— telephone it from Kelsorrow.”

“Yes, madam, very good. If I may venture to make a suggestion, you’ll keep an eye skinned for trouble, madam, with Mrs. Maslin still about the place?”

“I’ll bear the warning in mind, George, thank you kindly.”

He saluted, climbed into the car and drove away. Mrs. Bradley went back to the infirmary, this time to visit Sister Bridget. After that, she thought, it would be a good time to interview the inhabitants of the two private houses. The clue she had been waiting for— that she had known must manifest itself sooner or later— was now in her possession. There was little else to wait for.

She walked quietly up the Orphanage staircase and entered Sister Bridget’s darkened room. She smiled at the nun on duty, and then bent over the patient. Sister Bridget’s chief need was for rest and quiet. She lay like a corpse in the silent, darkened room, and either a nun or a lay-sister remained with her all the time. Their devoted nursing amazed Mrs. Bradley, used, as she was, to the selflessness of nurses.

She went down the stairs and out to the orchard where the trees were showing buds and the pear and the plum were nearly out. Nobody was about. She walked briskly to the gate and past the front of the guest-house.

The first man, in his shirt-sleeves, a hammer in his right hand, was not helpful and sounded surly. Yes, he had heard about the death of the little girl, and had complained to the police about the damage done by the hooligans who had demonstrated against the convent. Beyond that he knew nothing, cared less, and would not answer any questions.

“It ain’t my business,” he said, “and what ain’t my business, I keep out of.”

Outfaced by this admirable sentiment, Mrs. Bradley took her leave. She had learned from Sister Geneviève, the boarders’ matron, a good soul not at all averse to gossip so long as it was not malicious, that the man had lost his wife and was very unhappy. He shut himself off from everybody, except when he went on wild jaunts (Sister Geneviève’s words) to London, returning in a couple of days or a couple of months, just as the fancy took him. He was a superstitious man, and had told the builder next door to be sure to let the convent have the guest-house (three houses, actually) cheap.

The builder was a different kind of man from his neighbour. He and his wife invited Mrs. Bradley in, and were anxious and willing to discuss the roof-climbing feat of Mary Maslin. He described the episode fully. It appeared to have caused him some amusement. He was vague, however, about the date on which he had seen the other girl on the roof. Mrs. Bradley attempted to get a description of the girl whom old Sister Catherine had referred to, but this, she found, was impossible. The man appeared to have very little visual memory, and, in any case, the girl had been dressed like all the girls. There was nothing distinctive about her. She was a biggish sort of girl, he would say. Mrs. Bradley then asked him what time of day it was when he saw the first girl. He thought it was early afternoon. It was quite light, he remembered, yet he did not think it was in the morning, although it might have been. He remembered thinking it was a funny kind of convent to allow such goings-on, and suggested that if one of the children broke her neck the coroner’s next set of remarks might be a little sharper.

“Did you go to the inquest, then?” asked Mrs. Bradley. Well, yes, he had; living in the neighbourhood, and so forth, he and his wife had been interested, especially as they had seen the girl on the roof.

Oh, he had thought of the child he had seen on the roof that afternoon, then?

Yes, it had crossed his mind.

Had he mentioned having seen the child?

Not until he mentioned it to the other kid who had tumbled off the roof into his front garden, and lucky for her he’d dug down a couple of spits that afternoon!

Did not he think it important?

He did not know whether it was important or not, but it wasn’t on his roof she was climbing, and he wasn’t going to get himself mixed up in anything if he knew it. Everybody knew that the girl had climbed somehow into that bathroom, didn’t they? And if the nuns were not capable of looking after their pupils and seeing that they didn’t turn on gas taps, and drown themselves in the bath, that was their look out, not his. No, he wasn’t a Catholic. Had no time for religion. Frills, he called it; just frills—and got you nowhere. Cissy, he called it. No, it had been no trouble to answer the questions. He had liked the child he had rescued; nice little kid. No nonsense about her, either. Might have been bellowing her head off after a tumble like that, and must have been hurt, but if so, had not shown it. Wouldn’t mind one of his own like her. No girls. A couple of boys; apprenticed, both of them. Not that there was anything doing anywhere, was there, nowadays? That’s what they always said. Things were bad. Trade was bad. Nobody wanted skilled labour. All the professions were full. He believed neither in Fascism nor Communism. Thought they came to the same thing exactly in the end. Took away your liberty, and what did they give you in exchange? Look at Germany and— No, been no trouble. Yes, there would be some good weather now, he thought. Yes, that was the ladder. He kept it in the front garden. Wasn’t afraid of being burgled. Nothing worth nabbing in their house. Yes, quite a light ladder, considering its length.

He’d got plenty more round the back. Discount allowed to the trade, like in everything else.

Mrs. Bradley perceived that there was nothing more to be gained from the friendly man. George came at half-past nine, according to orders, and drove her to Blacklock Tor.

“Did you telephone, George?” she enquired.

“Yes, madam. Pardon me, madam, but don’t you think it rather a risky proceeding to let Miss Doyle go to New York?”

“I do not anticipate that Miss Doyle will murder her grandfather, George.”

“Very good, madam. May I enquire how the injured party is getting on now, madam?”

“Her head is quite hard, George. I don’t know whether mine would have been as hard.”

“So it was directed at you, madam?”

“It seems likely. Nobody would set out to murder poor Sister Bridget.”

“That’s if we’re on the right tack, madam.”

“Proceed, George. Are you sure you know the right tack?”

“I suppose the money was the motive, madam?”

“It often is, George, unfortunately.”

“There’s such things as guilty secrets, and people getting to know them.”

“Perfectly true. So what?”

“I beg your pardon, madam?”

“So what, George. Neolithic American query capable of being couched in bellicose, disgusted or pseudo-pathetic style. The last was what I intended.”

“Thank you, madam. It occurred to me that the young lady might have been in possession of somebody’s guilty secret, and have been croaked for knowing it, madam.”

“Whose guilty secret, George? Your perspicacity stuns me—and that is not meant sarcastically.”

“One of the nuns. It stands to reason, madam, that a bevy of ladies of this type must house a considerable number of secrets, one way and another.”

“Not necessarily guilty, though, George, do you think?”

“No, madam.”

But he seemed to have something on his mind. She waited, but he said no more. He stared out over the moors—they had not yet left the vicinity of the convent —and towards the lights of the village.

“You know, George,” said Mrs. Bradley, “the most mysterious thing about the whole business is that the dead child went into the bathroom at all. If I hadn’t been entirely mystified by that, I would have turned Ursula Doyle’s form inside out, schoolgirl code or not, and have found out what she was supposed to be up to that afternoon, for she certainly did not go into afternoon school. But from the beginning I was always brought up short by the problem of what on earth—or who!—persuaded a child who never broke school rules, and was sweet, gentle and timid, to do a thing which is immediately visited with expulsion.”

“It certainly is a problem, madam.”

“Think it over, George. She wasn’t forced to go there. There were no marks of violence on the body, and, what is more, she didn’t care whether she was seen to go or not. And she wasn’t the girl on the roof. So much is clear from the description given by the builder, although he’s not got a very reliable memory, and by old lay-sister Catherine. But what do you make of it all?”

“Sounds as if she was taken in there unconscious, madam. Had you considered that possibility at all?”

Mrs. Bradley looked at him with a mixture of admiration and affection. George modestly scratched his head.

“The cigar or coconut, George,” said his employer, “is yours. You have only to choose. Let us get along to the inn. Is there a room for me, I wonder?”

“They were quite delighted, madam, at the idea of seeing you again. ”

“Drive on, then. I wonder whether it’s the room I had last time? The window wouldn’t open, I remember, and I had to leave the door ajar all night.” ( 2 )

The same little chambermaid and same room, Mrs. Bradley found, were to serve her. She had supper— cold beef and pickles, slices of the last of the hostess’ Christmas puddings fried up in the pan (slightly salt), cheese, biscuits and beer. George supped with her, and the two of them sat matily in the parlour behind red curtains, and with a baize-covered parrot between them on the table, when the meal was over, George smoking, and Mrs. Bradley knitting a shapeless garment slowly and very badly. Their conversation was about Charles Dickens, upon whom they held strong and diametrically opposite opinions, George maintaining his worth as a writer, Mrs. Bradley willing to concede him a sociological significance and proclaiming him to be a humanitarian of advanced views, great public spirit and considerable courage, but consigning him, as a writer, to a peculiar limbo of her own where existed also Mrs. Felicia Hemans, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dean Farrer, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and other eminent Victorians not mentionable because not yet removed from our midst.

At half-past ten George had some more beer and Mrs. Bradley went to bed. At eleven o’clock the landlord locked the side door, and at half-past eleven George carried a small hard flock mattress, blankets and pillows stealthily on to the landing, and laid the lot down outside his employer’s bedroom.

At half-past twelve the stairs creaked, and George sat up. Nothing else happened, and so he lay down again. At twenty minutes to one he sat up again. A beam of light was coming up the stairs, a round spotlight, the gleam of an electric torch. The hair on George’s neck began to prick a bit. He remembered Sister Bridget and the hammer. He got up quietly and stepped in his stockinged feet to the opposite side of the passage. The light played on the walls and on the banisters. Then it lighted on the mattress and the pillows. It was switched off. There was darkness and silence. George waited where he was, knowing nothing better to do. Half an hour went by. There had been no sound, but he felt certain that the unknown prowler must have gone. He waited another ten minutes, then, feeling cold, went over to his bed again and crawled beneath the blankets.

He was wide awake, and realised that he was still straining his ears for sounds. Suddenly a horrid idea came into his head. It was possible that the intruder had found a way to climb up to the bedroom window. The next moment he reassured himself, for the window, he remembered, would not open. Anybody entering that way would have to break the glass and make a noise. Then he remembered how easy a thing it was to cut glass and make a way in. Training and common sense wrestled in George, but not for more than a moment. The door was half open. He stepped across his mattress and walked into Mrs. Bradley’s room.

“Stand still!” she said, but not loudly.

“It’s only me, madam. The night has had its suspicious element, madam, and I wondered whether you were safe.”

“Yes, thank you, George. Did somebody come upstairs?”

“You couldn’t have heard them, madam.”

“Second sight, then, George. I certainly thought I did.”

“Well, I saw the beam of their torch, but I certainly didn’t hear anything, and I’m not hard of hearing.”

“It must have been instinct, then. What happened, and how did you know?”

“I happened to be about, madam.”

“Sleeping outside my door? I call that very touching and noble, George!”

George, in the darkness, grinned.

“I didn’t like the things that have happened with hammers, madam.”

“No, George, neither did I. But I slept very peacefully, knowing that you were on guard, for I heard you come. Were you trained as a Scout in your youth?”

“I was a Scout, and then a Rover until I joined the army, madam, yes.”

“Well, you’d better go back to bed. You must be tired. I shan’t bother to sleep any more, so have no fears. Do you know, by the way, that there’s a gas fire in this room?”

“Nothing doing, madam, I shouldn’t think. The young lady wouldn’t have been persuaded to come out here. Besides, the gas! The room ’ud be full of it, without a window open. The murderer would never have got out conscious, and the body was found at the convent, don’t forget.”

“No, I’m not forgetting,” said Mrs. Bradley.

George retired, but no farther than his pallet on the landing. The rest of the hours of darkness passed without incident, and as soon as he heard the servants’ alarum clock ring, he took up his bed and belongings and went back to the room assigned to him.

At breakfast, which he had in the kitchen along with the maids and the barman, one of the girls observed:

“Can’t think how Miss Ada can come to leave the pantry window unfastened nohow. Seems to me that was shut all day long yesterday, on account of the wind being that way.”

“Was the pantry door locked?” asked George.

“Lor’, no. Why should it be?”

“I wondered. People sometimes lock the downstair rooms at night, just in case.”

“In case of burglars, do you mean?”

George agreed that he did, but added carelessly: “Nothing to burgle here particular, I take it.”

“Nothing to signify. All the big takings goes to the bank each day. Of course, there’s the evening custom, but master sleeps on it all, as everyone round about know.”

George went along after breakfast to have a look at the window. There was nothing to show it had been forced, and yet to suppose that the murderer—he assumed that the unknown prowler had been after Mrs. Bradley—had had the luck to find a downstair window open on the only night that it was necessary to get into the inn, seemed far too great a coincidence to be likely. He went outside and carefully examined the ground, but it was crazy paving, and told him nothing. It had retained no marks, and there was no scrape of shoes on stonework, wood or paint round the window or in the pantry.

He went to the landlord.

“Have any unusual customers yesterday, barring us?”

The landlord thought for a minute, then shook his head.

“Not as I recollect. Why, what’s the trouble?”

“The pantry window was left open.”

“That? Oh, that’s my darter, I reckon. Does her Keep Fit in there each night, her do, and deep breathing opposite the window. Told her once to shut it after her and mind we didn’t get cats, I’ve told her a dozen times.”

“Does her exercises in the pantry, does she?”

“Ah, her do, on account of the window opening on to the garden. Mother won’t have her gallivanting overhead, on account of the plaster from the ceilings; there isn’t no room in the kitchen, and the other rooms downstairs is all public rooms, do you see.”

George said that he did see, and went to Mrs. Bradley with the news.

“So it isn’t a mystery, madam, and may have been the ordinary sort of burglar.”

“Most likely,” Mrs. Bradley agreed.

“Odd, though, madam, to pick the very night. And, after all, a good many people at the convent knew you were staying here, didn’t they?”

“Quite true, George; so they did.”

“Do you suppose it might be useful to prosecute an enquiry at the convent, madam?”

“No, George, I don’t think so. The children don’t seem to give one another away, and I can’t believe, somehow, that the nuns have designs upon my life.”

“Religion goes very odd at times, madam.”

“Don’t I know it, George! By the way, I had an interesting thought last night. There’s one nun that I don’t know at all. I’ve seen her but never spoken to her—the history teacher, Mother Lazarus.”

“Would that be the lady like a wax candle, madam?”

“An apt description. How do you know her, George?”

“Well, madam, it was taking a good bit of liberty on my part, and I meant to let you know, but it slipped my mind.”

“George, this is most intriguing! Don’t tell me you’ve been taking the nuns for joy-rides in my car!”

“Well, it almost amounted to that, madam, really, I must confess. They wanted to catch up an expedition to a castle, madam, several miles away, and a museum. This Mother Saint Lazarus was supposed to be in charge of the party—a historical outing, madam, for some of the children—and one of the young ladies was always sick when she travelled by train. Well, it seems she’s the star history pupil, and had to see this castle and museum if it killed her. So they wondered if they could hire a car off the landlord. Well, he couldn’t oblige, his two being in commission moving young pigs, so, before I thought, I had offered, and off we went.”

“So Mother Lazarus came here! And who was the child?”

“Well, madam, as it happens, it was the very same young lady I drove to Wandles with Sir Ferdinand.”

“Ulrica Doyle? That’s interesting. And which day, George, was this?”

“It would have been last Thursday morning, madam.”

“But the fourth form don’t have history on a Thursday.”

“I couldn’t speak as to that, madam, but Thursday is the cheap day’s outing from the halt here.”

“Oh, that explains it, then. Naturally they would want to do the outing at the cheapest possible rate. What was Mother Lazarus going to do if she could not hire a car?”

“I could not say, I’m sure, madam. She seemed greatly relieved at my offer, and said that the rest of the party had gone on with Mother Saint Gregory and Mother Saint Francis, madam.”

“Oh, Mother Saint Francis was there! That explains, then, why Mother Saint Lazarus could leave her major charge to accompany a solitary girl. I suppose there was another nun with her?”

“Yes; an elderly lady by the name of Mother Saint Bartholomew, whom I recollect having seen in Restoration Comedy, madam, before she took the veil.”

“Good heavens, George! I shouldn’t have thought you were old enough to have been taking an interest in Restoration Comedy when Mother Bartholomew was still on the stage. At any rate, thank you very much for your information. Again you have assisted materially in the enquiry.”

“May I be privileged to know in what way, madam?”

“I expected another attempt on my life on Thursday, George, that’s all. By driving those three, the two nuns and the girl, to their castle and museum, you’ve probably—I should say certainly—saved me from attack. Somebody saw the car go out, I expect, and probably thought I was in it.”