The Religious Body Read Free

Sisters trooped in. The Mother Superior was working on the morning’s post with Sister Lucy, the Bursar. There were several neat piles of paper on the table, and Sister Lucy was bending over a notebook.
    The Mother Superior looked up briskly.
    â€œAh, yes, Sister Peter. The mark on the Gradual. I’m sure that Sister Jerome will be able to remove it, whatever it is. These culpable faults are all very well but we can’t have you—er—making a meal of them, can we? Otherwise they become an indulgence in themselves and that would never do.” She gave a quick smile. “Isn’t that so, Sister Jerome? Now, stop looking like a Tragedy Queen and go back to …”
    Sister Peter burst into tears. “That’s just it, Mother,” she wailed. “Sister Jerome says …” She became quite incoherent in a fresh paroxysm of tears.
    â€œWhat does Sister Jerome say?” asked the Reverend Mother mildly.
    Sister Jerome cleared her throat. “That mark, Mother. I think it’s blood.”
    Sister Gertrude’s knees felt quite wobbly. She gulped, “And we can’t find Sister Anne anywhere.”

CHAPTER TWO
    Inspector C.D. Sloan had never been inside a Convent before.
    He had, he reckoned, been inside most places of female confinement in his working life—hospitals, prisons, orphanages, offices, and even—once—a girls’ boarding school. (That had been in pursuit of a Ward in Chancery whom a great many other people had been pursuing at the same time. Sloan had got there first, though it had been a near thing.)
    But never so much as a monastery, let alone a Convent.
    The call came into Berebury Police Station just before ten in the morning. The Criminal Investigation Department of the Berebury Division of the Calleshire Constabulary was not large, and as his sergeant was checking up on the overactivities of a bigamist, he had no choice at all about whom he took with him to the Convent: Crosby, Detective-Constable, William. Raw, perky, and consciously representing the younger generation in the force, he was one of those who provoked Superintendent Leeyes into observing (at least once every day) that these young constables weren’t what they were.
    â€œYou’ll do, I suppose,” said Sloan resignedly. “Let’s go.” He stepped into the police car and Crosby drove the five and a half miles to Cullingoak village. He slowed down at the entrance to a gaunt red-brick building just outside Cullingoak proper and prepared to turn into the drive. Sloan looked up.
    â€œNot here. Farther on.”
    Crosby changed gear. “Sorry, sir, I thought …”
    â€œThat’s the Agricultural Institute. Where young gentlemen learn to be farmers. Or young farmers learn to be gentlemen.” He grunted. “I forget which. The Convent is the next turning on the right.”
    It wasn’t exactly plain sailing when they did find the entrance.
    There was a high, close-boarded fence running alongside the road and the Convent was invisible behind it. The double doors set in it were high and locked. Crosby rattled the handle unsuccessfully.
    â€œDoesn’t look as if they’re expecting us.”
    â€œFrom what I’ve heard,” said Sloan dryly, “they should be.”
    Eventually Crosby found his way in through a little door set in the big one.
    â€œI’ll open it from the inside for the car,” he called over, but a minute or two later he reappeared baffled. “I can’t, Inspector. There’s some sort of complicated gadget here …”
    â€œA mantrap?” suggested Sloan heavily.
    â€œCould be. It won’t open, anyway.”
    His superintendent didn’t like his wit and his constables didn’t appreciate it: which was, if anything, worse.
    â€œThen we’ll have to walk,” he said.
    â€œWalk?”
    â€œWalk, Crosby. Like you did in the happy days of yore before they put you