A Demon Summer (42 page)

“Who's forgetful?” demanded Dame Hephzibah, sitting up from what looked to have been a light doze. “My mind is as sharp as ever it was twenty years ago.”

Some of them might have been thinking that twenty years ago she was already ancient, but no one said so.

“But that is not all,” resumed Max. “What Sister Rose saw later on that was even more curious, was someone running. An infraction of the rules of which she was generally guilty, or of which the postulant, Mary Benton, was guilty. The other nuns knew better. They did not run, and they most certainly did not run about at night during the Great Silence. It would be an exceptional circumstance for a nun to break conditioning like that.”

Sister Rose looked at Abbess Justina, by a gesture to her lips asking permission to respond. Abbess Justina nodded, her face with its fine high coloring now pale, the pouches beneath her eyes betraying a sleepless night. Hers was a face made for wimple and veil, her bloodless skin as one with the soft marble-like folds of white linen.

“But even more so,” said Sister Rose, “I wondered that she moved so fast. It was most unusual. She was running at full tilt. Generally only a postulant or novice in training does that, when she first comes here. One of the first things we learn is that we are on God's time, not mankind's—there is no great hurry once one realizes that.”

She looked to Abbess Justina for confirmation or approval that she was learning her lessons, this bright young woman who was yet so afraid to question or defy authority. But Abbess Justina only continued to gaze stonily at Max.

Max said, musingly, “I had often noticed while I was here how well long, heavy skirts reaching nearly to the ground can conceal a person's gait. I thought at one point how Dame Hephzibah looked like one of those figurines attached to a clock that glided out on the hour.”

“They all do. I thought the same thing. But this nun was running,” Xanda reminded him.

“Yes,” said Max. “So clearly, at the time of the murder, we have a nun breaking all protocol. Or we have someone disguised as a nun, running about.”

“I don't see how this gets you any closer to the truth, if you don't mind my saying so,” said Piers Montague.

“No,” said Max vaguely. “I don't mind at all. I thought at first, you see, it had something to do with the sheep. With the black-and-white sheep, you see.”

Heads turned in confusion. “Hmm?” said several voices at once.

“I kept thinking of something else Sister Rose had told me, when she was talking of the sheep and their lambs: that the lambs often didn't recognize their own mothers once the mothers' coats had been shorn, and how sometimes the mothers didn't care about their missing lambs. Perhaps this basic bond of mother and offspring, being disrupted, couldn't always be repaired. Mother and offspring didn't recognize each other once the relationship was severed.”

“You're losing me,” said Xanda.

“Me, too,” said Dr. Barnard.

“Am I? I also remembered, being reminded as I was of the sheep by their constant bleating, that a ewe can be tricked after giving birth into accepting the offspring of another sheep as her own. She will nourish it, treating it as hers. Perhaps, we might like to imagine, not caring that it isn't hers.”

“And this has to do with the nun's habit—how?” Xanda asked.

Max returned to them with a visible effort, his mind wandering a landscape many years in the past.

“That part is simple. If you want to impersonate a nun, you borrow a habit. A novice or postulant would have to borrow such a disguise, as would one of the guests in the guesthouse.

“Of course, if you are already a nun, you simply pull the cowl over your head to disguise your face.

“But I believe someone borrowed a habit.

“The only question to be explained on that subject is: when?”

“Well, telling us
who
did it might be nice. You know, save us all some time.” This was Xanda, who today was looking as if she had not washed her hair for weeks, more likely the result of using “hair product,” Max felt, than a sudden lapse in hygiene.

“Getting to that,” Max said. “You really need to quit smoking, you know, Xanda. Do it now, while your lungs are still able to recover.”

“
Smoking
?” said her parents together.

“Thanks, Rev,” said Xanda. “Just, thanks a bunch. I'll never hear the end of it.”

“No, you won't,” said her mother.

“Smoking nearly got you into some serious trouble,” said Max. “Some evidence was found that may have mislead the investigators. Take it as a heaven-sent warning and quit.

“As to the imposter,” he continued, “actually there were two. Let's take them one at a time, shall we?”

He swung back around and pointing at one suddenly wary, alarmed face, demanded, “Who are you, really? And why are you here?”

 

Chapter 36

MAX AND THE CORRECTION OF SERIOUS FAULTS

If after repeated attempts a fault be not corrected, the erring sister shall be asked to leave the nunnery.

—The Rule of the Order of the Handmaids of St. Lucy

Max let his eyes roam over the faces of the group. Only one face continued to show any signs of apprehension.

Interesting, thought Max.

He said: “You all know that song, I am sure, from
The Sound of Music
. ‘How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?' Without fail, whenever I saw Mary Benton about the grounds, she was doing something absolutely marginal, something out of line for a postulant in a religious order. It was not mere incompetence or nervousness. It was a sort of fretting, of fighting and struggling against the many restrictions of the life.

“It was not just her actions, but her appearance that struck me as all wrong. Up to and including her perfectly groomed eyebrows.”

They had all of course by this point turned to stare at the face with the offending eyebrows. Various glances were exchanged.

The abbess was nodding as if to say, “Of course!” She said aloud, “I simply could not put my finger on what the problem was. Of course…”

Max said, “I should think that grooming one's eyebrows is nearly impossible to do without a mirror,” he said. “And having a mirror is a violation of the Rule of St. Lucy. Of course, she might have used the polished bottom of a copper pot or her reflection in a window.

“And so what if she did? I asked myself. Perhaps she was simply guilty of the sin of vanity. This attention to her appearance didn't make her a killer; it simply made her not fit in. I found it curious, definitely odd—an anomaly to be explained away. Where, after all, would she get tweezers? It wasn't until I recalled observing Dame Petronilla in the infirmary, using tweezers to pluck the thread from an old pillowcase she was restitching, that that mystery was solved. A personal grooming item like that in her cell might have been discovered, so here and there Mary must have borrowed the tweezers. All right, we were still in the area of minor infractions, of a forgivable vanity, an inability to readily let go of habits from ‘civilian' life. That must plague most postulants to an extent.

“But then … then it also led me to the next step—to wonder if she was making herself attractive
for
someone, in order to please someone else. Why else, really, would she worry about a detail so minor, so frivolous? And that led me to wonder which person around here she would want to impress with her good looks. If we looked at young and attractive men it would likely be Piers. If we spread the net to include somewhat older men it might be Dr. Barnard or Lord Lislelivet himself. Forgive me, Mr. Gorey, but you did not strike me as a candidate for this young lady's affections.”

“I should think not,” Clement said, ardently seizing his wife's hand. “I'm a happily married man.”

Mrs. Gorey's perpetual glower made Max wonder anew at the mysteries of married love, but it was undeniably true that he could not picture Gorey being unfaithful, certainly not with a girl not much older than his daughter. Clement's affection for Mrs. Gorey was apparently genuine. Nor could Max see Mary Benton being irresistibly drawn to Clement, no matter how hard he tried or how wealthy he was.

“And
I'm
not involved with Miss Benton,” cut in Dr. Barnard.

“Of course not,” said Max. “You heart's desire is elsewhere.”

Dr. Barnard's gaze drifted to the floor. He looked, thought Max, suitably abashed.

Paloma suddenly could not seem to take her eyes off Piers's profile, willing him to look at her.

“There was one further oddity I couldn't fit into this scheme,” said Max. “I saw a flash that seemed to come from a shiny object like a mirror. The flash came from one of the windows of the nun's dormitory. It was as if someone were signaling to someone outside, but to be honest I didn't put that construction on it at the time. I simply observed. I think now it might have been you, Mary, with your mirror, signaling to your accomplice, using some prearranged code.”

Vehemently, Mary shook her head. “You're wrong,” she said.

“Of course, it could have been someone else,” agreed Max. “But it was definitely a signal.”

“So, Mary Benton is the killer?” Xanda asked.

“No,” said Max. “No, she's not. Mary is here as a plant. A spy. She is the red herring in this case. What was needed was someone attached in some way to the nunnery, someone who could be here day and night to hunt for the treasure.

“She was not here to kill, but to assist the man I believe is her lover.”

“What?” This came from various voices around the circle.

“You, Mary, came here several months ago. I commented, you may recall, on your lingering tan. You said you had finished your art history course in Italy last winter and come here following a holiday. I think you went on one last holiday with your lover, before you took up your place here at the nunnery.”
Not all widows are grieving
, thought Max, reminded of Lady Lislelivet.

“But, why? Why would I?”

“For the millions the icon was reputed to be worth—that would make the deception worthwhile. For the small sacrifice of a few months of your life, you could live like a queen forever afterward.

“Someone was needed who could wander about freely in a nunnery—someone female, of course—someone whose presence would not be questioned. However, the rules about lights out and so on—that constantly got in your way, didn't it? As did your instantly recognizable postulant's habit, with its short skirt and veil. That is why you borrowed Dame Meredith's habit whenever you could, a habit which was left folded on a chair in her infirmary room, near her bed.”

“Oh, my,” said Dame Petronilla. “I wondered why it was always folded wrong. The habit is a blessed garment and should not have been refolded any which way. But several times I noticed it folded wrong. Once it was even inside out. I wondered if it kept falling onto the floor by accident, or if Dame Meredith kept knocking it over and Mary or Sister Rose were refolding it wrong.”

“And so
you
kept refolding it, in the prescribed way.”

“Yes,” she said.

“As for you, Mary,” continued Max, “by using this ruse you were freer to roam about. Even if seen coming or going during the Great Silence, with the cowl over your head you'd be far safer from detection than if wearing that immediately identifiable short outfit. Wearing the long habit, you could have been any of a dozen sisters on a legitimate errand.”

“Besides,” interjected the abbess, “a postulant is not allowed to walk about after Compline but must go straight to her cell for quiet reflection.”

“Somehow,” said Max, “I don't think taking time out for quiet reflection has ever been an overriding priority for Mary Benton.”

“Bugger this,” Mary Benton said, reaching up to remove the short veil and headdress that bound her hair back from her face, and shaking loose a cascade of auburn curls. “The damn thing itches and it scratches my scalp, and it's ruddy boiling hot, especially in the great bloody outdoors, where they always seem to be sending me to pick lettuce or to milk the sodding goats or some feudal, forelock-tugging activity like that. I don't know how the rest of you lot can stand wearing that whole kit in summer. And for God's sake, do yourselves a favor and buy a frigging tractor.”

She unbuttoned and rolled up her sleeves next, completely unself-conscious, ignoring the stares of her amazed audience. She had, Max noted, a brightly colored tattoo of a seahorse near the elbow of one forearm.

“The infractions of the Rule were without end in your case,” said Max sternly. But inwardly he was smiling. The ruse was so ridiculous, so poorly planned and executed. And it had failed in its objective, after all. The icon—the Face that had caused so much scrambling, so much disruption of the placid lives of these good women—remained hidden, safe and undisturbed. How long that situation might have lasted was anyone's guess. Mary would have been allowed into the secret when she took her vows, but would she have lasted that long?

“You were always doing something that just didn't fit: dropping things, creating a commotion, talking during the Great Silence, and—most of all—wandering around after lights out. I overheard you being scolded over this by Dame Petronilla. However, if caught in your postulant's clothing, you would pretend you didn't realize what time it was but of course you knew exactly. You had to wait, you and your compatriot, for everyone else to be asleep so you could carry out your search of the grounds. Or so you could meet up. This explains why you were always so sleepy and yawning. You and your friend.”

The friend in question was squirming under the attention, mostly under the attention of Paloma. The light was dawning in her brain, and she looked stricken by the betrayal, as well she might.