“Of course we wouldn’t mind,” Mother Mary Deborah said.
“Where’s Agnes Bernadette?” someone in the crowd asked.
“She’s down in the kitchen,” Mother Mary Deborah said. “I saw her go. Oh, dear. I suppose somebody should tell her what’s happened here, and tell everybody else in the kitchen, too—”
“I’ll go,” Scholastica said, arriving at the scene looking red-eyed and breathless. “The police have been called, Reverend Mother. They’ll be here in a minute. I’d just as soon talk to Aggie, if you don’t mind.”
“I think it’s a very good idea,” Reverend Mother General said, “unless for some reason Mr. Demarkian—”
“It’s fine with me,” Gregor said.
“Fine,” Reverend Mother said. “Go.”
Scholastica went.
Reverend Mother looked around. The room had already begun to empty out. Religious obedience might not be what it used to be, but Gregor thought it was good enough, at least in this Order with this woman at its head. He looked through the thinning crowd and spotted a few familiar faces. Norman Kevic had retreated from the food—although Gregor didn’t know if “retreated” was the word he wanted. After all, Norm had been at the head of the line. He had probably had a good deal to eat before the fuss started. Gregor made a note to find out just what it was Norm had eaten. He couldn’t imagine that he was wrong about what had killed Joan Esther and how it had been administered, but it was always good to cross-check. Sister Mary Alice was standing next to the doors leading out to the garden, shepherding shaken-looking novices into the garden. One of those novices was Sister Mary Angelus. He swung around to let his gaze make a circuit of the room. He found neither Nancy Hare nor Mother Mary Bellarmine.
He didn’t see Bennis Hannaford, either, but he wasn’t really worried about that. There had been a sudden death. Bennis Hannaford would show up. He turned back to Reverend Mother General.
“What I want to do,” he said, “is to secure the table next to which Sister Joan Esther was standing when she died. I believe that was the table where the ice sculpture for Mother Mary Bellarmine was set up.”
“Probably,” Reverend Mother General said. “What do you mean, you want to secure it?”
“I mean I want to stand somebody next to it to make sure that nothing on the table is touched.”
“You can’t imagine that the Sisters are going to want to eat after all this,” Reverend Mother General said. “Maybe they will want to eat at that, but you can’t think they’d want to eat from any of the tables in here, under the circumstances—”
“Under what circumstances?” Gregor asked. “You and I both saw Joan Esther fall. So did a couple of dozen other people. That group suspects food poisoning or just plain poisoning. Nobody else has the least idea what is going on. For all they know, Sister Joan Esther died of natural causes.”
“Oh,” Reverend Mother General said.
“Besides,” Gregor went on, “I’m not really worrying about your Sisters eating what’s on that table. I’m much more worried that something on that table will simply disappear.”
“Disappear?” Reverend Mother General looked blank.
“If this is what I think it is, there’s something on that table somebody is going to want to get rid of very quickly.”
“Oh,” Reverend Mother General said again. She blanched, but the loss of color in her face was not reflected in her voice or posture. She said, “Now you understand what I was telling you earlier, Mr. Demarkian, we really are appallingly uneducated in matters of this kind.” Then she marched them both in the direction of the table where Joan Esther had set the statue in honor of Mother Mary Bellarmine. There wasn’t much on it but the statue even now, and that was melting.
Bennis Hannaford was talking to two nuns and edging toward the tables. Gregor caught her eye and waved. She waved back and seemed to use the wave to settle some kind of argument. A moment later she was at their side, puffing on a cigarette as if her life depended on it. Gregor periodically attempted to convince her that her life depended on not, but it never did any good.
“I know we’re all supposed to go out in the garden,” she said apologetically to Reverend Mother General, “but I wanted to talk to Gregor for just a minute before—”
“That’s quite all right,” Reverend Mother General said. “My instructions weren’t aimed at you.”
“I don’t want you to go out into the garden anyway,” Gregor said. “I want you to do me a favor.”