St. Peter's Finger (Mrs. Bradley) Page 4

  “I couldn’t say, miss. We’re lodging, just at present, in the village.”

  Mrs. Bradley came up to them.

  “I hope you’ve booked your room,” said the young woman, extending a hand. “Friends of the nuns are friends of mine. I think they’re simply splendid at that convent. Marvellous people! So simple and sweet, I think. Of course, I happen to get on rather well with them, working, as I do, for half-pay.” She laughed loudly, stridently, and unconvincingly.

  “Interesting,” said Mrs. Bradley. “A strange life, don’t you think, though, that of a nun?”

  “Shouldn’t care for it myself. But there’s no doubt some are called to it.”

  “I met a man yesterday who thought the life iniquitous.”

  “Men will think anything. Thank goodness I’ve no use for them.”

  “Still, a man,” said Mrs. Bradley reasonably, “would have seen that a geyser was properly installed.”

  “Geyser? What do you mean? Of course it was properly installed! They had the Gas Company down to look at it the very same day, as soon as they had got the child out of the bath.”

  “No flue, then, I imagine.”

  “But there was a flue. Look here, are you a reporter?”

  “No, no. The case was in the papers and I cannot accept the suicide theory, that’s all. I suppose you were at the convent when it happened?”

  “Well, I ought not to have been, but I was. Look here, I don’t in the least know who you are, but I suppose, if you’re not a reporter, it’s all right, and you’re bound to hear gossip if you’re staying in the village. We—I mean the convent—have had a lot of trouble. There are some perfectly bloody people living round about here. After all, a child who intends to commit suicide will do it wherever she is. The fact that this little idiot, poor wretch, was at a convent, makes no earthly difference.”

  “So you were actually on the premises when it happened?”

  “Kelsorrow School, where I do the P.T., had a day’s holiday. I hadn’t enough money to do anything decent, so I thought I might as well put in the time at the convent. That’s how it was, and a jolly good thing it was so, too, in a way.”

  “What do you mean, I wonder?”

  “Artificial respiration. No stone unturned. Worked over the child until the sweat streamed off me. Nobody could have done a better job. No go. Child quite finished. Been dead, the doctor said, at least three-quarters of an hour—probably more—before we found her. That was accidental, too. I’d been playing netball with the orphans, and felt pretty sticky and grubby, so I asked Mother Jude for a bath. The kid was in it, of course, and a good old smell of gas. No window open. I flung open the window and we picked up the kid and took her into the nearest bedroom and there I got to work on her at once, but it wasn’t a bit of good. Nice child, too, in her way—which wasn’t mine.”

  “Not good at her lessons?”

  “Lord knows. Probably. No good at games or swimming. Timid as a rabbit. Just the type for suicide, of course. These quiet, mousy kids are always the ones. You never know what they’re thinking, then off they go and do it, and most people feel surprised. Not me, though. I’ve seen so much of it. Germany, now. Kids commit suicide there if they can’t get through their exams. I knew two boys—most brilliant kids—hanged themselves when the results came out. Too terrible.”

  She produced a packet of cigarettes which looked as though it had been sat on, put Mrs. Bradley aside, and got into Mrs. Bradley’s car, where she spread herself over the seat—“too windy to smoke in the open,” she explained—lit the cigarette by striking a match on her knee, waved the match carelessly to and fro, and tossed it, still burning, on to the heather. George walked over and stamped on it. The young woman said, as an afterthought, speaking with the cigarette in her mouth:

  “Hope you don’t mind my getting into your car?”

  “It is a pleasure to have you,” Mrs. Bradley replied, getting in beside her and causing her to move up. “Tell me a little more exactly what you made of Ursula Doyle.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Do you know any Catholic kids? Always pick ’em out in any school. This one was Irish, though. The what-is-it kind of Irish, too. Not the devil type, but the—”

  “But the—what, George?” enquired Mrs. Bradley, sticking out her head and addressing the chauffeur much as a witch might suddenly address her familiar.

  “The Celtic twilight type, madam, perhaps?”

  “That’s it! Deirdre!” said the cigarette-smoker, dropping ash on the cushions. “Pale and interesting. You know. Keen on poetry and afraid of a hard ball, rotten little ass. Although, of course,” she added magnanimously, with a large, sporting gesture which just escaped burning a hole in the car’s upholstery, “that sort can’t help it. That’s my experience. Calling them funks doesn’t help. They only turn sulky on you. Teaching P.T. is no joke, you know, what with them and their sickening parents.”

  Mrs. Bradley sympathized.

  “My name’s Bonnet, by the way. Dulcie Theodora Bonnet. May have heard of me—I don’t know. I row, you know.”

  “George,” said Mrs. Bradley, again speaking out of the window, “Miss Bonnet rows.”

  “Oxford or Cambridge, madam?”

  “Oh, club eight, club eight,” said Miss Bonnet, answering the question herself a little testily. “Naiads.”

  “I place the young lady now, madam,” said George. “She rowed at number five in the Naiad eight which took first place by four and a half lengths in the women’s European championships, inter-club, last year. Later in the season Leander offered the ladies a six-lengths’ start over three-quarters of a mile, but the ladies said they would start level or not at all.”

  “And did they start level?” Mrs. Bradley enquired.

  “No,” replied Miss Bonnet, annoyed. “I should have been Henleying this year,” she added moodily. She got out of the car, tossing away her cigarette which George automatically stamped on. “Well, I’ll look forward to seeing you again. That’s an intelligent man of yours,” she added, in a very much lower tone. “By the way, don’t tell them up at the convent that I’ve said a word to you against poor little Ursula Doyle. They don’t want to have the suicide theory elaborated, naturally. A thing like that hasn’t done the place any good, as you can imagine.” She got into her own car. “Still, it’s straining at a gnat to pretend that she didn’t when she did!”

  Yelling the last words violently across the space between the cars, she drove off bumpily and at a tremendous rate.

  “What did you make of Miss Bonnet, George?” asked Mrs. Bradley, motioning him to take his seat at the wheel.

  “I think the convent must be broadminded, madam.” He climbed into the driver’s seat, and gave an object lesson (unfortunately missed by Miss Bonnet, who had provoked it), in driving off along a bumpy moorland road. Before they had gone very far, however, a small car swept past on two wheels, screeched itself to a rocketing halt about thirty yards ahead, and then, as though as an afterthought, shot out a red warning arrow in lieu of the driver’s hand.

  George pulled up, with delicate preciseness, just a yard behind, got out and walked forward slowly. Miss Bonnet, for it was she, got out of her car and met him.

  “Ah, there you are,” she said. “I just came back to say don’t take too much notice of Mother Francis, that’s the headmistress, you know. She’s just the slightest bit prejudiced. Quite a dear, of course—they all are, bless their hearts!—but, well, call it prejudice. That’s the kindest way to think of it, I suppose.”

  “I will inform my employer, miss, of your observations.”

  Before he had a chance to do this, Mrs. Bradley herself came up to them.

  “I was saying,” said Miss Bonnet, “that you don’t want to take too much notice of Mother Francis, the headmistress. Quite a darling, of course, but—well, better call it prejudice, as I said to your man.”

  “But am I likely to encounter Mother Francis?” Mrs. Bradley enquired.

  “You ma
y not, of course. Oh, well, perhaps you won’t. But, remember, she doesn’t approve of me, and if she mentions me at all—I mean, I’m not touchy—”

  “I understand,” said Mrs. Bradley. “You are not sensitive, but, all the same, you don’t care to be misunderstood. Nobody does, of course. It is a common human desire to be praised above one’s deserts.”

  “Not that I’ve ever met the person yet who understood me,” Miss Bonnet interpolated swiftly, not pleased with Mrs. Bradley’s observation. “Take some of the parents, now. Quite bloody. Oh, well, you don’t want to hear.”

  “And do you like teaching, Miss Bonnet?” Mrs. Bradley enquired with naive, disconcerting directness.

  “I—yes, of course. It’s a bit of a strain at times, but it’s necessary work, don’t you think? And that gives one a feeling of—well, being necessary, and having a little niche,” Miss Bonnet, somewhat incoherently, replied.

  “Like a saint,” Mrs. Bradley suggested.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I was quite a devil at school. When I think of the things we got up to, these present-day kids seem soft. Not, of course, that there was any harm in me. Just full of spirits, that’s all.”

  “Interesting,” said Mrs. Bradley, in a thoroughly damping tone. Miss Bonnet looked at her watch, which was barred all across its face to preserve the glass when she was playing games, and announced that she must simply fly.

  Off she tore again. Mrs. Bradley, watching the disappearing dust, smiled grimly at George and observed:

  “The plot thickens, George, don’t you think?”

  “Modern young ladies are usually up to snuff, madam.”

  “It struck you that way, did it? As a race, George, I don’t think I like the athletic female young. I suppose she is quite as healthy and strong as she looks?”

  “Not much doubt of it, madam, I should say.”

  “Um, well, I hope you’re right. An oarswoman, too, you say.”

  “Quite a famous young lady, madam, in her way, but hampered rather unfairly by lack of funds. It takes a good bit to grease the wheels in amateur sport to-day, madam.”

  “Yes, I expect so. Back to Kelsorrow, George. I’m going to call on the Gas Company.”

  George turned the car by running it on to the heather, and they crossed the moor in the wake of Miss Bonnet. The Gas Company’s showrooms in Kelsorrow were easy enough to find.

  Mrs. Bradley inspected gas-cookers and then enquired for water-heaters.

  “But I must have a safe one,” she observed, as she followed a courteous young man up a short flight of stairs to a showroom on the first floor of the building.

  “All our appliances are fully recommended to consumers as being thoroughly safe, madam.”

  “Yes, but—Oh, well, I suppose, then, you are not the people who fixed the geyser at that convent near Blacklock Tor? I read the report in the newspapers, and almost decided upon an electric heater instead of something with gas, except that one hears extraordinary stories, just the same, about those.”

  “That was nothing to do with the water-heater, madam, that anything happened to the girl. I can answer for that. We fixed it ourselves, and the appliance was fully tested before it was ever used.”

  “Well, the child died, anyhow, didn’t she? And I can’t take risks. I may be having young nephews and nieces to stay.”

  “But, madam, there really is not the slightest danger, I can assure you. The case you are referring to was very unfortunate, but no fault of ours whatever.”

  “Something must have got out of order, though, mustn’t it?”

  “The little girl’s brain was out of order. That’s the truth, as, if you have read the case, you ought to know.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Look here,” said the young man suddenly, “I tell you nothing was wrong at all with the apparatus. We sent our fitters the very same afternoon, as soon as we got the ’phone call from the convent, and I could show you their report. Everything was in order. We’re going to publish the report. It’s damaging when people get ideas that the apparatus must have been out of order. The only thing that could possibly have happened, unless the girl inhaled gas direct from the pilot burner, was this; supposing she’d loosened a joint, either in the gas-pipe or in the flue-pipe—anybody who could handle a pair of pliers or a fitter’s pipe-grips or a footprint wrench could manage to do that, and they learn all about these things at girls’ schools nowadays—my young sister learns it in domestic science lessons. Well, if a joint got loosened, she’d breathe enough carbon monoxide in a very short time to render her unconscious, and probably kill her. Then the inference is that somebody else got in and turned off the gas. I’ve thought a lot about this case—everybody talks about it round here—and so far as we are concerned there’s been no negligence.”

  “How could anybody turn off the gas if it was not known that the joint had been loosened? I don’t follow your argument there.”

  “I know. That’s just where it’s funny.”

  “You can’t explain that, then?”

  “No. I can’t. Well, I could. Do you know that word they use on the pictures—?”

  “You mean—?” said Mrs. Bradley, looking startled.

  “I’m not going to say what I mean. I thought it out for myself, and so can other people.” He returned to his first manner rather abruptly, as though he had given away secrets. “Now, madam, if you like a nice, clean-looking model which will fit any scheme of decoration in your bathroom, I would advise this number, carried out in either cream or silver. The finish—”

  He took her all round the showroom, talking without cessation, and gave her various leaflets. Mrs. Bradley finished up with a gas poker as a present for Mrs. Waller, who had said that she should like one, and with a very vague undertaking to think over the question of installing a geyser in her house. She had arrived at the young man’s theory very easily, and had taxed him with it whilst she was buying the poker. He thought that the convent, hoping to get the doctor to sign a certificate so that an inquest could be avoided, had put right the joint that the child had tampered with before the gas-fitter and his mate had arrived.

  “Do them a lot of harm, a girl committing suicide like that,” he added, having admitted that Mrs. Bradley’s guess was correct. “They’d sooner blame it on to us as accident. There doesn’t always have to be an inquest when that’s the case. We assume no responsibility, and they can’t bring a court case, you see.”

  Mrs. Bradley gave Mrs. Waller’s name and address, so that the gas poker could be sent, and, having got back to the car, told George to hurry.

  “Lunch, madam?” said George.

  “Good heavens, George! I’d forgotten all about it. Are you hungry?”

  “No, madam, but it is now past one o’clock. I find that the Crown and Quest is reputed a very good inn.”

  CHAPTER 5

  ORPHANS

  “Sleep, my babe; thy food and raiment

  House and home thy friends provide;

  All without thy care or payment;

  All thy wants are well supplied.”

  ISAAC WATTS: A Cradle Hymn.

  By daylight the convent looked different—bigger, but not so grim; shut away from intruders, but not so starkly withdrawn. The car drew up at the guest-house entrance at just after half-past three, and Mrs. Bradley was admitted by a very neatly dressed girl in cap and apron.

  The room into which she was shown was simply furnished, but the chairs were comfortable, there were daffodils in glass vases on the table and on the bookcase, and the floor was carpeted. An open grate at one end of the room, and a portable gas fire, attached to a snake-like flex, at the side of it, gave promise of comfort in cold weather. A picture of Saint Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins, not all of whom were depicted, hung on the wall above the mantelpiece. The room had gas lighting, and there were candles on a side table.

  “If you please, madam, I am to ask you to do exactly as you like. Reverend Mother Superior sends her compliment
s by Mother Saint Jude, and Mother Saint Francis is in school at the moment, but can be fetched if you would like to talk to her,” said the girl, coming back and curtsying.

  “And who are you, child?” Mrs. Bradley enquired.

  “If you please, madam, I am Annie, the eldest orphan.”

  “And do you know, Annie, why I’m here?”

  “Oh, yes, madam. Bessie and me have both been told, because we’re to wait on you specially.” She smiled, and added, “And, madam, we are so glad, because you’re really somebody from outside.”

  “Outside?”

  “Yes, madam. Not a priest, or a relation of one of the private school children, or anybody connected.”

  “I see. Well, Annie, the first person I ought to talk to is you yourself.”

  “Oh, madam!” She twisted her apron between her fingers, noticed quickly what she was doing, and smoothed it out again.

  “Yes. Sit down and let’s begin. Did you know the little girl who died?”

  “No, madam, not to say know her. I believe I had seen her about, but we have very little to do with the private school children, even the boarders, and only meet them adventitious.”

  “I see. Who cleaned that particular bathroom, Annie?”

  “Me and Kitty, and other times me and Maggie, or, it might be, Kitty and Bessie. It all depends.”

  “Which days?”

  “Why, every day, madam. Every morning at half-past ten.”

  “Did you notice a smell of gas in the bathroom last Monday?”

  This question, put to test Annie’s degree of suggestibility, evoked no reply for a minute. Then the girl answered,

  “It would be easy enough, madam, now I think it over, to say that I did smell gas, but, honestly, madam, I didn’t, and Mother Saint Ambrose can’t shake me on that, for I know well enough that I didn’t, and Mother Saint Ambrose wouldn’t want me to lie. I reckon all that anybody smelt was the creosote.”

  “Did Mother Saint Ambrose say that she knew there would be an inquest?”

  “Not to me, madam. She wouldn’t be likely to say such a thing to me.”

  “How long have you lived here, Annie?”