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we?”
    â€œWhat’s that, sir?”
    â€œFinding where they left her until they pushed her down the steps, of course. It must be off this corridor somewhere.”
    â€œWhy is that, sir?”
    â€œToo risky to drag a body across that enormous hall, don’t you think? Someone might have come out of the Chapel at any moment and there’s that gallery at the top of the stairs. Anyone might be watching from there. No, I think she was—er—done to death round about here, or perhaps through in the kitchens somewhere.”
    â€œWe’ll see, sir, shall we?”
    Sloan opened the nearest door, but the priest shook his head.
    â€œNo, Inspector, it won’t be there. That’s the—er—necessarium. It’s hardly big enough. Besides, the door only locks on the inside and there would always be the risk of someone wanting to use it, wouldn’t there?”
    The second and third doors revealed a small library, and a garden room with outside glass door, sink and vases.
    They found what they were looking for behind the fourth door. It opened on to a large broom cupboard. Crosby’s torch played over the brown stain on the bare boards of the cupboard’s floor.
    MacAuley peered inquisitively over their shoulders. “Someone kept their head—looks as if she was put in here head first so that the blood was as far away from the door as possible.”
    Crosby shifted the angle of the torch’s beam and said, “Those nuns have been in here this morning for these brooms, I’ll be bound.”
    Sloan sniffed the polish in the air. “I dare say. They wouldn’t have noticed this blood though, not without a light. We’ll see if the doctor has left.”
    â€œConstable, if I might just borrow your torch.…” MacAuley took it deftly from Crosby and began to cover the broom cupboard inch by inch in its beam.
    Crosby stepped back into the corridor.
    â€œInspector …”
    â€œWell?”
    â€œWhat did whoever put her in here want to go and move her for?”
    â€œTake a bit longer to find perhaps.”
    â€œWould that matter?”
    â€œI don’t know yet, but even the most absentminded of this crew would have noticed her when they came to do the cleaning this morning.”
    Sloan was keeping a close eye on Father Benedict MacAuley withal. “Besides, you do get a broken skull sometimes from falling down the cellar steps but very rarely from tripping over in a broom cupboard.”
    â€œThey hoped we would think she had fallen down those nasty steep stairs?”
    â€œI shouldn’t be at all surprised. Most people expect the police to jump to the wrong conclusions. And if you never do, Crosby, you will end up …” He paused. Father MacAuley was backing out of the cupboard.
    â€œWhere, Inspector?” Crosby was ambitious.
    Sloan looked at him. “Exactly where you are now—as a Detective-Constable with the Berebury C.I.D.—because you wouldn’t be human enough for promotion. Well, Father MacAuley, have you found what you were looking for?”
    â€œNo, I can’t think what has happened to them.”
    â€œHappened to what?” asked Sloan patiently.
    â€œSister Anne’s glasses. She couldn’t see without them, and yet they’re nowhere to be found.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    Considering how little of the flesh of a nun could be seen, Sloan marveled how much he was aware of the differing personalities of the Mother Prioress and Sister Lucy. In both cases good bone structure stood out beneath the tight white band across the forehead. There was self-control, too, in the line of both mouths, and, in Sister Lucy’s case, more than a little beauty still. She must have been very good-looking indeed once, and that not so very long ago.
    He opened his notebook. “Now, marm, with regard to comings and goings, so to speak—exactly how private are you here?”
    That would be