Nursery Crimes Part 18

A few minutes after Miss Sheldon-Smythe left the convent grounds in her Morris Eight, Mother Benedicta put a phone call through to the police station and asked for Sergeant Thomas. Anyone not knowing Miss Sheldon-Smythe might not immediately a.s.sess her character. It was necessary that she should be protected from her own folly. She proceeded to put it to Sergeant Thomas as delicately as she could.

After thanking her very much for telling him Thomas said that Murphy had brought his own troubles on his own head and that the law was the law and that he'd heard that the town was getting up a pet.i.tion for a reprieve. They always did. It rarely worked. The verdict, though he didn't tell Mother Benedicta this, had taken almost everyone by surprise. Welsh justice usually leaned so far back from the death penalty that it almost keeled over. This time it hadn't.

Miss Sheldon-Smythe, unaware that the th.o.r.n.y path of martyrdom was to be carpeted over with the polite tolerance accorded to the mildly unbalanced, had packed a small suitcase and put it on the back seat. She felt extraordinarily happy as she drove along. This was one good worthwhile deed that would forever justify her existence. She didn't think they would hang her, but if they did the rope would beat the lump in her breast. If they didn't, the lump would win. Either way, Murphy, young fit and handsome, would walk free. He might even look after her budgerigars for her. She had a vivid recollection of his thick forefinger poking through the bars of the cage as he pushed the little swing.

Swing.

Oh no, Murphy, not you.

Smiling and unaware she drove past the bus-stop where Zanny and Dolly were waiting for the town bus.

"The old b.," Dolly said, "she might have given us a lift."

They were on their way to the dentist. Ostensibly. The only way to get into the town at short notice was to have a raging toothache, so Zanny, wan and distraught, had convinced Sister Agnes that she was in immediate need of an extraction. She would need to have someone with her, Sister Agnes said; she herself was too busy. Zanny, counting on this, had suggested Dolly. The older girls were allowed into the town, if the reason were good enough, in pairs, and Sister Agnes, aware of Dolly's good sense, agreed. It was a pity for Dolly to lose a morning's tuition, she said, but she could probably catch up rather quicker than most.

The dental appointment was booked over the telephone for eleven-thirty. The reason for Zanny's non-arrival would become clear in the evening newspaper. Zanny read it in her mind. "Schoolgirl on Murder Remand. Heroic Confession by Susannah Moncrief. Murphy To Go Free."

"If she had stopped," she pointed out, "she would have landed us at the dentist's - even gone in with us."

At that particular moment the removal of a tooth seemed as easy as gently pulling a daisy out of the gra.s.s. Pain was relative.

Oh, Murphy, Murphy. I love you, Murphy. One day in the future when I come out, you'll be waiting for me. "Zanny - my dearest Zanny," you'll say, "you laid down your life for me - greater love has no man - no woman . . ." Or, no - he wouldn't - that was too Biblical. He wouldn't say anything at all. He would look at her with those beautiful soft brown eyes. He would take her by the hand into the bedroom -- the carpet would be white -- all the furniture would be white. The only touch of colour would be a crimson nightdress on the bed. Chiffon with swirls of white lace. A negligee. Not a nightdress. It would be open all down the front. She would stand facing him, the negligee falling open. He would put his hands on her waist. On the warm, firm skin of her waist. His body - his lovely naked body - would come closer - closer . ..

"Here's the bleeding bus," said Dolly.

Dolly, when upset, kicked words around like an urchin booting an old tin can. When Zanny had asked her to accompany her she had sworn quite luridly, but couldn't refuse. It was difficult to rationalise her mood. Zanny for once in her life was doing the Right Thing.

That she would probably end up in a Borstal for doing it, she didn't seem to know. Then there would be a women's prison -- years of it. Zanny's imagination was like a b.u.t.terfly's wing spread delicately over a t.u.r.d. Dolly, honour bound, had pointed at the t.u.r.d.

Zanny's nose gently wrinkling in disapproval had said something about casting down her life that Murphy might be saved.

"It's a great pity you cast down Bridget's life in the first place," Dolly replied tartly.

It was a ten minute bus ride into the centre of the town. They weren't sure where the police station was and had to be directed. It had been Zanny's decision to by-pa.s.s Mother Benedicta and go directly to the police. She knew Mother Benedicta. She didn't know the police. Mother Benedicta, when angry, could scare the pants off you. Why be bludgeoned twice, she thought, when one confession would do? They thought they were at the wrong place when they saw Miss Sheldon-Smythe's car parked outside.

"Perhaps she's lost something," Zanny said, "and has come to complain."

"Such as what?" Dolly asked, scowling. "Her virginity?"

Dolly's ill humour was something that Zanny couldn't understand. This was her confession, not Dolly's. She needed to be bolstered up so that this, her finest hour, could be lived through with both courage and grace.

"I wish," she said crossly, "that you weren't so cross." Tears, near the surface, appeared briefly and went.

They decided to wait in the cafe across the road from the police station until Miss Sheldon-Smythe emerged. Zanny, who would have preferred a raspberry fizz, ordered coffee. Dolly, not geared to drama, had a raspberry fizz.

Miss Sheldon-Smythe was sipping the cup of tea that Sergeant Thomas had provided. She had written down the statement as he had suggested and now he was reading it through.

He reminded her very much of Oswald, her middle brother, who had become an insurance broker. He had the same shock of grey hair and hadn't any lobes to his ears. He had the same way of speaking, too, rather slow, very soothing. A thick Welsh accent, of course, that was the only difference.

"Well, now, Miss Smythe - Miss Sh.e.l.ly-Smythe - " Thomas said, "there's just one little thing we have to get straight. In what form was the fifty pounds - ten s.h.i.+lling notes - pound notes - or a mixture of the two?"

"A mixture of the two," (less easy to trace?) "and it's Sheldon not Sh.e.l.ly - not that I mind, but you need to get it correct for the record."

Thomas apologised. Sh.e.l.ly. Sheldon. It made no odds. The confession would go in the loonies' file. It was funny how the publicity surrounding a capital murder case brought out the latent lunacy in people. She was a nice old body in her way -- very prim and proper. A very strong motherly instinct, he guessed, badly thwarted. He had an aunt like her whose speciality was beef tea for upset stomachs and a revolting concoction of senna pods if you were bound up.

"And after you pushed her over the cliff," Sergeant Thomas said, "you took the money out of her bag?"

"Yes - as I told you. Unfortunately the wind scattered it. When you find it" (which you won't) "you'll test the notes for fingerprints -- hers and mine. And I think that is all the proof you'll need. In the event of your not finding it, then I'm afraid you'll have to accept the truth as I'm telling it to you now."

"Well -- now -- " Thomas said, "the wind around the coast blows like the devil in pain -- those notes of yours, they'll be winging their way to Ireland by now. Fond of Murphy, were you?"

"I hardly knew him." Miss Sheldon-Smythe looked down at her bony hands in her lap. "I just don't like a miscarriage of justice, that's all. I am perfectly prepared to pay for my sin."

"Well, yes," said Thomas. Convents tended to be rather obsessed by sin. His own chapel wasn't much better. Woe is me, he thought, for I am undone and there is no good in me.

"I have brought an over-night case," Miss Sheldon-Smythe indicated a small leather suitcase by her chair, "in the event of your detaining me in your cell."

Thomas recoiled. "The cell," he said, recovering himself, "is just a little squalid." He could imagine her sitting on the rough brown blanket of the bed. She would wear a white cotton nightdress b.u.t.toned up to the neck. She would have metal curlers in her hair. Her teeth would be in one of the gaol cups. She would hang her cardigan - her black cardigan - over the peep hole in the door before getting undressed.

"Naturally," Miss Sheldon-Smythe said, "I wasn't expecting the Ritz."

"No - but - um - not very nice for a lady."

"I wasn't aware" (very frosty) "that cla.s.s distinction existed in His Majesty's prisons. I am quite prepared to put up with anything that a charwoman would put up with. We are all women under the skin."

To imagine Miss Sheldon-Smythe in her skin wasn't cheering. It was time to bring the interview to an end.

"Quite," Thomas said. "Oh yes, indeed, quite. But the law is very thorough. There is a great deal to look into. Enquiries will be made. If any of those notes turn up then the forensic department will have to test them - as you said yourself. As soon as we know -- beyond any doubt -- then you will be placed under arrest and charged."

Miss Sheldon-Smythe felt her mouth go dry with panic. What a fool she'd been! If they were going to wait for the notes to turn up they would wait for ever. They hadn't got that long.

"As a matter of fact," she said, "I burnt the notes. I knew Bridget's prints were on them and I was afraid they would be connected with me. If you will let me write my statement again, then I'll make it quite clear. I really am so dreadfully sorry."

Sergeant Thomas was beginning to feel irritable. Diawch! but this woman was wasting his time. He suggested that Constable Williams should take over while she revised her confession.

"And then you will arrest me?"

"No," he replied with commendable calm, "but you will be arrested in time."

"Before Murphy dies?"

"Well before," he said, "oh, long, long before. Why not go along to your doctor and get something to make you better - a good tonic for the nerves - something to make you sleep?"

"I am perfectly sane," Miss Sheldon-Smythe said sharply, her eyes imploring him to believe her. "I know exactly what I'm doing."

"Well, of course," said Thomas, "never met anyone more intelligent in my life."

They eyed each other in utter disbelief.