The Religious Body (7 page)

Harold Cartwright sat very still. “You mean Josephine's dead?”

“Yes, Mr. Cartwright.”

“When?”

“She died last night.”

“Why the police?”

“She was found dead at the foot of a flight of steps.”

“An accident, surely?”

“We hope so.”

“It couldn't be anything else here. I mean, not in a Convent.”

“I would like to think not,” agreed the Mother Prioress, “but that matter is not yet resolved.”

Cartwright turned to Sloan again. “Why might it not be an accident? Would anyone want to harm my cousin?”

“I don't know, sir. I was hoping that you might be able to tell us.”

“Me? I haven't had sight nor sound of her for twenty years.”

“You're not her only relation?”

“No. Her father—my uncle—died years ago, but her mother's still alive.…”

“Mrs. Alfred Cartwright, 17 Strelitz Square?”

“That's right. How did you know?”

“The Convent records,” said Sloan briefly.

“They didn't get on.”

“I inferred that.”

“My aunt is a very strong-minded woman. She greatly resented my cousin taking her vows. I don't think she has ever forgiven her.”

“I am sure
she
has been forgiven,” interposed the Reverend Mother.

“I beg your pardon?”

“By Sister Anne.”

“Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, of course.” It didn't seem as if Harold Cartwright had thought of this at all. He waved a hand vaguely. “Before she died, you mean.…”

“Many years ago,” said the Mother Prioress firmly. “It would not be possible to live the life of a true religious and harbor that sort of unforgiveness.”

“No, no, I can see that.”

Sloan coughed. “Now, sir, perhaps you'll tell us what it was that was so important that you had to see her about after all these years.”

But that was something Harold Cartwright obviously did not want to do. “What? Oh, yes, of course. What I'd come to see her about?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it's not really relevant now she's dead. Just a family matter, that's all. Nothing that would concern anyone now, you understand.” He gave a quick smile. “Death cancels all that sort of thing, doesn't it?”

“No,” said the Mother Prioress directly. “Not in my experience.”

“No? Perhaps not, but it does alter them, and it has altered all I had come to see her about.”

Sloan let it ride. This was only the beginning. “Will you be leaving Cullingoak tonight?” he asked him.

“No. Not now—I think I'd better stay on, don't you?” He frowned. “Though there's my aunt. Perhaps I ought to go back to tell her.…”

“I'll do that,” said Sloan suddenly.

Harold Cartwright said, “Thank you.” He looked back to the Mother Superior and said diffidently. “There'll be a funeral, I take it—would I be allowed to come to that?”

She nodded briskly. “Of course, Mr. Cartwright. But first there is, I understand, to be a post-mortem.…”

Cartwright looked quickly at the inspector.

“To establish the exact cause of death,” said Sloan.

It was dark when Sloan came out to Cullingoak for the second time that day. There were bonfires and fireworks all about as the police car slipped through the streets of Berebury and out into the open country towards Cullingoak.

“Get a move on, man,” he muttered irritably, as Crosby slowed down for a crossroads. He sat beside the constable, his shoulders hunched up, hands sunk deep into his pockets, thinking hard.

As they swept into Cullingoak High Street he heard the clang of a fire engine's bell. He saw the engine careening along ahead of them, firemen pulling on their boots as they clung to the machine. It did a giant swerve and headed unerringly between the gates of the Agricultural Institute. Crosby followed suit and bumped up the drive after the fire engine.

The fire was over on their right, away from the Institute's buildings. It was well alight, with flames leaping high into the air. Standing round it like a votive circle were the students. Their faces stood out in a white ring in the darkness, the dancing flames reflected in them.

Sloan burst from the car and ran over to the fire brigade.

“I want that fire out,” he shouted. “Quickly.”

“Blimey,” said a Leading Fireman. “It's only a bonfire.”

“I know it is,” snapped Sloan, “but I want it out before the guy is burnt. This is a police matter, so look sharp. I want that guy in one piece whatever happens.”

“You'll be lucky,” said the man over his shoulder, and was gone.

Round the other side of the fire boys were still feeding the flames, and Sloan shouted at them too.

The fire brigade were running their hoses towards the fire, lacing them in and out of the spectators. The boys divided their attention between them and the fire. The latter was of magnificent proportions now, the flames licking their way to the figure lashed to the top.

There was a sigh from the crowd as the first flame lapped round the feet of the guy.

“Hurry,” urged Sloan.

He squinted up through the smoke and blackness. Impossible to tell if the material was alight or not. A tongue of flame ran up behind it towards the head. Sloan very nearly plunged into the flames himself to rescue it.

Suddenly some boys on his left moved quickly to one side and he saw the hose leap into life.

The noise of the bonfire gave way to the noise of water hissing upon flame, and the delectable smell of bonfire was succeeded by an acrid mixture of smoke and steam. The flames fell back.

“Don't hit the guy if you can help it,” said Sloan to the man struggling with the hose.

“You don't half want a lot, guv'nor,” retorted the man, continuing to play the hose where he wished. “If it falls down in the middle of this you've had it. Besides, a drop of water won't do it no harm, will it? I reckon she was pretty warm where she was.”

Minutes later the Leading Fireman came up to him with the guy lying in his arms.

“Daftest rescue job I've ever done, but here you are.”

Sloan found himself nursing the damp, faintly charred effigy of a nun. There was a pair of spectacles tied ridiculously across the mock face.

A man came up to him. “Inspector? I'm Marwin Ranby, the Principal of the Institute. I'm very sorry about all this. I feel I'm in some way to blame. You see, last year …”

“I know all about last year,” said Sloan grimly.

He had just seen a sight which made him feel very uneasy indeed: Harold Cartwright.

Marwin Ranby led the way into his study. He was hovering round the forty mark, Sloan decided, with a head of fair hair that made him seem younger than he probably was. The study was a pleasant room, with a fire burning at one end, a sofa and chairs round it. At the other end was a desk and bookshelves loaded with heavy agricultural tomes. Over the fireplace hung a Rowland Ward, and in one corner was a tray set with decanter and glasses.

Ranby waved Sloan to a chair and made for these.

“What will you have, Inspector? No? You don't mind if I do, do you?” He groaned. “I don't know what's going to happen when Celia hears about this. Or the Mother Superior.”

Sloan laid his burden down on the sofa as tenderly as if she had been human. It wouldn't do the chintz much good, but Ranby wasn't in a position to complain.

“I blame myself,” went on the Principal. “I gated them, you know, because of last year. I hoped that way we could minimize any damage done. You'd have thought that bus shelter was an Ancient Monument the way the bus company carried on. And look what happens.” He stared at the guy and shuddered. “I'm to be married at the end of the month in the Convent Chapel by special permission of goodness knows who, and they go and burn a nun on Guy Fawkes' Night. What will Celia—Miss Faine, you know—say? And what will the Mother Prioress think?”

He started to pace up and down. Sloan examined the guy closely. The habit was genuine and it was the same as that worn by the nuns next door. The face had been made out of an old stocking, stuffed, with a couple of black buttons sewn on for eyes and the glasses kept on over these with a piece of string tying the ends together at the back. The rest of the habit was spread over a tightly stuffed large sack. No attempt had been made to make feet, and the figure—squat and dumpy—had a distinct resemblance to that of Queen Victoria towards the end of her Sixty Glorious Years.

“I suppose I should have expected something like this,” said Ranby after a minute or two. “They are none of them old. Besides, they took the news of the gating too well.”

“When did you tell them, sir?”

“After supper on Sunday evening.” He laughed shortly. “Gave them a day or so to hatch something up. She smells a bit, doesn't she?”

“The flames caught a little.”

“Inspector …”

“Sir?”

“Don't think me inquisitive but how did you come to hear about this? You're from Berebury, aren't you?”

“That's right, sir. Someone telephoned us.”

“The devil they did! Who on earth would do that? And why?”

“The caller didn't leave his name, sir. Just said he thought we'd be interested.”

“But why? It's not a crime, is it, to burn a guy? Or is it sedition? Or an anti-Popish Plot or something obscure like that?”

“No, sir, not that I know of.”

“Well, Inspector, while I don't blame you for rescuing it, I'm not sure that it might not have been better from my point of view if it had been burnt to cinders. Then there would have been no chance of either the Big House or the Dower House seeing.” He finished his drink. “But they'd have heard in the end, I suppose.”

“Do you know which of your students would have been responsible for this—the idea, getting the habit and so forth?”

“No.” The Principal frowned. “We've got about a hundred and fifty men here with about a dozen natural leaders among them. They're here for three years, but the freshmen have only been in residence a month, so I would say a second-or third-year man for sure. That's a point. The habit … Don't say they took that from the Convent!” He ran his hands through his hair. “I'd never live that down. But they couldn't, Inspector. How would they get in or out?”

“I don't know if the habit came from there or not, sir, but I will find out presently.”

“And I'll find out the man responsible for the guy and take him round to the Convent in the morning to apologize. I think I'd better tell Miss Faine myself. She's a very devout girl, you know.”

“She didn't come round this evening?”

“No, thank God. No, she's gone to London for the day to have a fitting for her dress.”

Sloan straightened up. “Thank you, sir, you've been most helpful. There's just one thing. This ringleader. I want to talk to him myself—before anyone on the staff, I mean. That's important.”

“I'm a bit bewildered, Inspector, but if that's how you want it, I'll track him down and send him to you.”

“If you would. My constable's already seeing how far he can get tonight.”

“Is he?” Marwin Ranby looked momentarily annoyed, and then smiled again. “Perhaps he'll be successful, though I fear we both represent authority. But, Inspector, why this interest in a guy? It's not usual for the police to—”

“Hadn't you heard, sir? One of the Sisters at the Convent died last night from injuries that we can't immediately account for.”

“No!” He looked down at the travesty on the sofa. “We are in trouble then. That makes this very much worse, doesn't it?”

“More interesting, too, sir, wouldn't you say? Now, if you would just hold the door open I'll put her in the car.”

The fire brigade had gone now and a few boys were trying to coax the damp fire back into life. Crosby loomed up out of the near darkness and helped Sloan lay the guy on the back seat of the police car.

“Watch her carefully, Crosby.”

“Inspector Bring-'em-back-alive,” murmured Crosby, but fortunately Sloan was out of earshot. He was stumbling among the trees looking for Harold Cartwright. He found him at the far corner of the reviving fire and drew him to one side.

“There's just one question I want to ask you, sir. Did you or did you not telephone us about this guy?”

“Me, Inspector? No. No, I heard about it in The Bull and came along to see what was going on. I would have rung you as soon as I saw the guy, of course, if I hadn't heard the fire siren.”

“Of course.”

Cartwright gave him a tight smile. “I'm glad to see the Lady's Not for Burning. Funny thing for them to do, wasn't it?”

“Very.” Sloan stumped back to the car and climbed in beside Crosby. He sniffed. “Something's burning—the guy.…”

“No, sir, it's me.” Crosby flushed in the darkness. “A jumping cracker. One of the little perishers tied it to my coat.”

“Get him?”

“No.”

“Let's hope it's not an augury, that's all.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Back in Berebury Sloan dissected the guy with the same care that Dr. Dabbe had gone about his postmortem. He was joined by Superintendent Leeyes.

“Who is this man Cartwright?” he demanded.

“He says he's her cousin, sir.”

“And he just appears out of the blue asking to see her the afternoon after she's killed when he hasn't seen her for twenty years?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What does he want to do that for?”

“I don't know yet, sir.”

“Find out about him for a start. If he hadn't come to the Convent this afternoon was there anything to connect him with this woman?”

“Only his name and address in the hotel register. It needn't have been the right one but it was.”