confirmed her confession,
asked for and received the Last Sacrament, and died. According to her statement
the Reverend Mother was indignant about a remark Sister Rose had made in the
course of the late television programme. She had told her interviewer that she
wasn’t quite content in the convent. ‘What about the life of the spirit?’ she
said. ‘Why don’t we have a spiritual life?’ She had gone on to complain that
the nunnery was virtually nothing but an entity in the National Health Service
and that the Mother Superior was the top culprit in this situation.
Most of
the nuns had a firm alibi for the hour of the crime, and those who had not had no
motive. Margaret, who was interrogated with the others, had been on a visit to
her sister Eunice in Dulwich that night, ‘to see her new nephew’.
The
Mother Superior’s hands had not keen noticeably large. A re-run of the
discarded sequences of the television programme, which had cut out her
speeches, was made for the benefit of the police. They studied the whole film
with predatory attention. The Mother Superior’s confession did seem to alter
radically her image as she sat lording it in the wing chair. So long as she
didn’t have to sleep in the dark, she had told Miss Jones, she was to be
counted on as an active and vigorous member of the community. Her voice seemed
to linger on, and emphasize, the words ‘active’ and ‘vigorous’. Even the
toughest of the detective inspectors felt a slight shiver as she went on: ‘The
others thought I was going to die (slight accent on ‘I’). They look at me as if
I was a ghost, or my face a skull and my body a skeleton under my habit.’
‘It’s
her, all right,’ said one of the policemen. By the time they came to the
interview with the murdered girl (‘… this convent is nothing more than an
entity in the National Health Service. Where is the spiritual side of life? …‘)
they were all disposed to fall back on the evident solution: the Mother
Superior’s confession. It was too late to interrogate her further.
The
trouble was, none of the investigators sincerely believed she had committed
the murder, even though by a stretch of logic she could have done it. They were
looking at least for an accomplice. In her room was found a handbook on karate,
which all the other members of the community professed to have never seen
before.
The
television news re-ran portions of the original programme, accompanied by
Sister Lorne’s comments. ‘This is the end of the community of Good Hope,’ she
said. ‘Most of the younger nuns have left. We can’t help feeling the hand of
the supernatural in this tragic event. The house is to be taken over by a firm
of lawyers.’
Margaret
wrote:
Dear Dad,
I’ll be home again on Saturday. For good.
It is terrible to be within touching distance of a
murder so soon after the last. Fortunately as you heard the Mother Superior’s
confession relaxed the atmosphere. The police here were extremely polite to us
all, and in my case there was no repetition of all that grilling I underwent on
poor Granny’s death. Nobody can understand how the Mother Superior could have
been physically, let alone morally, capable of such an action. There is
something mysterious. It seems the Mother Superior was practising karate. How
could she do that in her condition?
I can’t help feeling it all has to do with that
television programme. One of the crew left a letter on my pillow asking for a
date. Of course that proves nothing. Just his cheek.
I got a letter from Uncle Magnus. He knows I was with
Eunice at the time. But he hints, he throws his suspicions on me without any
evidence at all. Do you know he even quoted Schopenhauer at me anent my alibi —
‘Chronology is not causality.’ Poor old fellow. I could sue him for that.
This place has been sold. Nearly everyone’s left.
There are three nuns still doing their hydrotherapy (washing-up) in the kitchen
and Sister Lorne acting general
asked for and received the Last Sacrament, and died. According to her statement
the Reverend Mother was indignant about a remark Sister Rose had made in the
course of the late television programme. She had told her interviewer that she
wasn’t quite content in the convent. ‘What about the life of the spirit?’ she
said. ‘Why don’t we have a spiritual life?’ She had gone on to complain that
the nunnery was virtually nothing but an entity in the National Health Service
and that the Mother Superior was the top culprit in this situation.
Most of
the nuns had a firm alibi for the hour of the crime, and those who had not had no
motive. Margaret, who was interrogated with the others, had been on a visit to
her sister Eunice in Dulwich that night, ‘to see her new nephew’.
The
Mother Superior’s hands had not keen noticeably large. A re-run of the
discarded sequences of the television programme, which had cut out her
speeches, was made for the benefit of the police. They studied the whole film
with predatory attention. The Mother Superior’s confession did seem to alter
radically her image as she sat lording it in the wing chair. So long as she
didn’t have to sleep in the dark, she had told Miss Jones, she was to be
counted on as an active and vigorous member of the community. Her voice seemed
to linger on, and emphasize, the words ‘active’ and ‘vigorous’. Even the
toughest of the detective inspectors felt a slight shiver as she went on: ‘The
others thought I was going to die (slight accent on ‘I’). They look at me as if
I was a ghost, or my face a skull and my body a skeleton under my habit.’
‘It’s
her, all right,’ said one of the policemen. By the time they came to the
interview with the murdered girl (‘… this convent is nothing more than an
entity in the National Health Service. Where is the spiritual side of life? …‘)
they were all disposed to fall back on the evident solution: the Mother
Superior’s confession. It was too late to interrogate her further.
The
trouble was, none of the investigators sincerely believed she had committed
the murder, even though by a stretch of logic she could have done it. They were
looking at least for an accomplice. In her room was found a handbook on karate,
which all the other members of the community professed to have never seen
before.
The
television news re-ran portions of the original programme, accompanied by
Sister Lorne’s comments. ‘This is the end of the community of Good Hope,’ she
said. ‘Most of the younger nuns have left. We can’t help feeling the hand of
the supernatural in this tragic event. The house is to be taken over by a firm
of lawyers.’
Margaret
wrote:
Dear Dad,
I’ll be home again on Saturday. For good.
It is terrible to be within touching distance of a
murder so soon after the last. Fortunately as you heard the Mother Superior’s
confession relaxed the atmosphere. The police here were extremely polite to us
all, and in my case there was no repetition of all that grilling I underwent on
poor Granny’s death. Nobody can understand how the Mother Superior could have
been physically, let alone morally, capable of such an action. There is
something mysterious. It seems the Mother Superior was practising karate. How
could she do that in her condition?
I can’t help feeling it all has to do with that
television programme. One of the crew left a letter on my pillow asking for a
date. Of course that proves nothing. Just his cheek.
I got a letter from Uncle Magnus. He knows I was with
Eunice at the time. But he hints, he throws his suspicions on me without any
evidence at all. Do you know he even quoted Schopenhauer at me anent my alibi —
‘Chronology is not causality.’ Poor old fellow. I could sue him for that.
This place has been sold. Nearly everyone’s left.
There are three nuns still doing their hydrotherapy (washing-up) in the kitchen
and Sister Lorne acting general
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