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the floor. “Of course, I don’t get about as much as you chaps.… What’s the bell for? Physical jerks?”
    â€œMeditation.”
    â€œThey could start on one or two little matters down here. I shall give my attention to a thumbprint on a manuscript, and I’ll get my chap to begin on the blood grouping.”
    Sloan saw him out and then came back to the cellar. “Dyson …”
    â€œInspector?”
    â€œThe name of your assistant?”
    â€œWilliams.”
    â€œI thought so. Who is Mr. Fox?”
    Dyson hitched his camera over his shoulder and prepared to depart. “One of the inventors of photography, blast him.”
    The cellar door banged behind the two photographers, leaving Sloan and Crosby alone with Sister Anne at last.
    â€œNow, then, Crosby, where are we?”
    Crosby pulled out his notebook. “We have one female body—of a nun—said to be Sister Anne alias Josephine …”
    â€œNot alias, Crosby.”
    â€œMaiden name of—no, that doesn’t sound right either. They’re all maidens, aren’t they?”
    â€œSo I understand.”
    â€œWell, then …”
    â€œSecular.”
    â€œOh, really? Secular name of Josephine Mary Cartwright. Medium to tall in height, age uncertain …”
    â€œUnknown.”
    â€œUnknown, suffering from a fractured skull …”
    â€œAt least …”
    â€œAt least—sustained we know not how but somewhere else.”
    â€œNot well put but I am with you.”
    â€œAs I see it, sir, that’s the lot.”
    â€œSee again, Crosby, because it isn’t.”
    â€œNo?” Crosby looked injured.
    â€œNo,” said Sloan.
    They waited in the cellar until two men appeared with a stretcher and then gave them a hand with the ticklish job of getting their burden up the stairs. Then …
    â€œInspector, I’ve been thinking …”
    â€œGood. I thought you would get there in the end.”
    â€œIf that was the top of her shoe that hit the seventh step, then she didn’t even die somewhere else in the cellar.”
    â€œGranted.”
    â€œSomeone threw her down those steps after she was dead?”
    â€œThat’s what Dr. Dabbe thinks.”
    â€œThat’s a nasty way to carry on in a Convent.”
    â€œBarbarous,” agreed Sloan, and waited.
    Crosby, untrammeled by classes on Logic, should be able to get further than that on his own.
    â€œThe fall didn’t kill her?” he suggested tentatively.
    â€œNot this fall anyway.” He looked at the steep stairs. “A weapon more like.”
    â€œA weapon seems sort of out of place here.”
    â€œSo does a body in a cellar,” said Sloan crisply. “Especially one that didn’t die there.”
    Crosby took that point too. “You mean,” he said slowly, “that they parked her somewhere else before they chucked her down?”
    â€œI do. For how long?”
    He was quicker this time. “For long enough for the blood on her head to dry because it didn’t drip on the floor?”
    â€œYou’re doing nicely, Crosby.”
    Crosby grinned. “So we look for somewhere where someone stashed away a bleeding nun and/or whatever it was they hit her with?”
    â€œIf we have to tear the place apart,” agreed Sloan gravely.
    In the event they didn’t.
    Prowling about in the dim corridor at the top of the cellar steps was Father MacAuley. He was on his hands and knees when Sloan almost fell over him.
    â€œAh, Inspector,” he said unnecessarily, “there you are.”
    â€œYes, sir, and there you are, too, so to speak.” He regarded the kneeling figure expressionlessly. “If it will save you any trouble, sir, I have already ascertained that this corridor was swept and polished early this morning.”
    â€œReally?” He got to his feet. “Good. Then we can get on with the next thing, can’t