Murder Superior(95)

“And I’m Sister Martha Mary,” a younger nun said.

“Are you the Sister Domenica Anne who’s in charge of the field house project?” Gregor asked her.

Domenica Anne nodded. “Yes, I am. I came over—I came over because I heard you were working on an explanation that depended on—that you thought there was something wrong with the financing of my project—some fraud or something I hadn’t caught but Mother Mary Bellarmine had—but it isn’t true, it really isn’t. There isn’t anything like that at all.”

“I know,” Gregor said.

Sister Domenica Anne looked bewildered. “You know?”

“He can’t know,” Mother Mary Bellarmine said. “I know. I’ve been over and over those books. I’ve seen them. If he wasn’t a damn fool like all the rest of them he’d be trying to find out who tried to murder me.”

“Nobody tried to murder you,” Gregor said patiently. “Nobody had the chance—or, at least, nobody with any known motive did. The only person who had an opportunity to put fugu in that pâté was you.”

“Horse manure,” Mother Mary Bellarmine said. “You don’t even know if it was fugu in the chicken liver pâté. Just because Sister’s cousin or whatever he was—”

“I don’t have to worry about Sister’s cousin or Lieutenant Androcetti’s favorite lab technician,” Gregor said. “I have the scapular. Your scapular. The one that was torn yesterday.”

“It was torn,” Mother Mary Bellarmine said, “because this woman tore it.”

“She couldn’t have.” Gregor looked around. “Sister Scholastica? Could you come here for a moment?”

Sister Scholastica came forward. “Is this going to be an occasion of scandal?” she asked dubiously.

“Not if I’m right.”

Scholastica looked as if she were none too certain she wanted to trust in Gregor’s being right, but she stood still anyway. Gregor walked around her once or twice and stopped facing her.

“This habit,” he said, “consists of a black dress topped by a black scapular topped by a black collar that’s what I would call a cape. The collar comes about midway down the upper arms and flutters. All right so far?”

“We all know what our habits are like,” Mother Mary Bellarmine said coldly. “We’ve been wearing them for years.”

Gregor nodded. “Right. Now yesterday, I stood in this foyer and watched Nancy Hare walk up to Mother Mary Bellarmine with a vase of flowers in her hand, dump those flowers over Mother Mary Bellarmine’s head, and generally cause a disturbance. Are we all agreed on that?”

“Of course we are,” Reverend Mother General said. “I wish we weren’t.”

“I’m glad we are,” Gregor said. “My point here is this. In order for Nancy Hare to have torn Mother Mary Bellarmine’s scapular without also tearing the collar, she would have had to reach up under the collar to get at the scapular’s neck hole. I didn’t see her do anything remotely like that. Did any of you?”

“She didn’t go near the collar,” Sister Scholastica said suddenly. “She dumped the roses from up high—I saw her—and then she dropped the vase and stepped away.”

“Why should I have gone near the collar?” Nancy Hare demanded. “I wanted to get her wet, not rip her up.”

“I don’t think it would have mattered if you had gone near the collar,” Gregor said. “I don’t think you could have torn the scapular. Sister?”

“I’m ready,” Sister Scholastica said.

Gregor put his hand up under Sister Scholastica’s collar and hooked his fingers over the tight neck of the scapular. Then he pulled as hard and as violently as he could. Nothing happened.

Gregor flipped the collar up and showed the assembled company the neck of the scapular.

“Not a rip or a tear,” he said with satisfaction, “and I’m far stronger than Mrs. Hare. I’m far stronger than Mother Mary Bellarmine, too.”

“I don’t understand what all this is supposed to mean,” Mother Mary Bellarmine said stiffly. “Obviously, my scapular was torn. Therefore, Mrs. Hare must have torn it. Unless you’re trying to say I tore it before Mrs. Hare attacked me—”

“I didn’t attack you,” Nancy Hare said weakly.

“You couldn’t have torn it before Mrs. Hare doused you with roses, because if you had I would have noticed and so would everyone else. That was a long, dramatic tear. It went right down your chest. What happened to the scapular after you changed out of it?”