The Complete "Father Brown"
by
G. K. Chesterton
The Innocence of Father Brown
1. The Blue Cross
2. The Secret Garden
3. The Queer Feet
4. The Flying Stars
5. The Invisible Man
6. The Honour of Israel Gow
7. The Wrong Shape
8. The Sins of Prince Saradine
9. The Hammer of God
10. The Eye of Apollo
11. The Sign of the Broken Sword
12. The Three Tools of Death
The Wisdom of Father Brown
1. The Absence of Mr Glass
2. The Paradise of Thieves
3. The Duel of Dr Hirsch
4. The Man in the Passage
5. The Mistake of the Machine
6. The Head of Caesar
7. The Purple Wig
8. The Perishing of the Pendragons
9. The God of the Gongs
10. The Salad of Colonel Cray
11. The Strange Crime of John Boulnois
12. The Fairy Tale of Father Brown
The Incredulity of Father Brown
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
The Resurrection of Father Brown
The Arrow of Heaven
The Oracle of the Dog
The Miracle of Moon Crescent
The Curse of the Golden Cross
The Dagger with Wings
The Doom of the Darnaways
The Ghost of Gideon Wise
The Secret of Father Brown
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
The Secret of Father Brown
The Mirror of the Magistrate
The Man With Two Beards
The Song of the Flying Fish
The Vanishing of Vaudrey
The Worst Crime in the World
The Red Moon of Meru
The Chief Mourner of Marne
The Scandal of Father Brown
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
The Scandal of Father Brown
The Quick One
The Blast of the Book
The Green Man
The Pursuit of Mr Blue
The Crime of the Communist
The Point of a Pin
The Insoluble Problem
The Vampire of the Village
The Innocence of Father Brown
The Blue Cross
Between the silver ribbon of morning and the green glittering ribbon of sea, the boat
touched Harwich and let loose a swarm of folk like flies, among whom the man we
must follow was by no means conspicuous — nor wished to be. There was nothing
notable about him, except a slight contrast between the holiday gaiety of his clothes and
the official gravity of his face. His clothes included a slight, pale grey jacket, a white
waistcoat, and a silver straw hat with a grey-blue ribbon. His lean face was dark by
contrast, and ended in a curt black beard that looked Spanish and suggested an
Elizabethan ruff. He was smoking a cigarette with the seriousness of an idler. There was
nothing about him to indicate the fact that the grey jacket covered a loaded revolver,
that the white waistcoat covered a police card, or that the straw hat covered one of the
most powerful intellects in Europe. For this was Valentin himself, the head of the Paris
police and the most famous investigator of the world; and he was coming from Brussels
to London to make the greatest arrest of the century.
Flambeau was in England. The police of three countries had tracked the great criminal
at last from Ghent to Brussels, from Brussels to the Hook of Holland; and it was
conjectured that he would take some advantage of the unfamiliarity and confusion of the
Eucharistic Congress, then taking place in London. Probably he would travel as some
minor clerk or secretary connected with it; but, of course, Valentin could not be certain;
nobody could be certain about Flambeau.
It is many years now since this colossus of crime suddenly ceased keeping the world in
a turmoil; and when he ceased, as they said after the death of Roland, there was a great
quiet upon the earth. But in his best days (I mean, of course, his worst) Flambeau was a
figure as statuesque and international as the Kaiser. Almost every morning the daily
paper announced that he had escaped the consequences of one extraordinary crime by
committing another. He was a Gascon of gigantic stature and bodily daring; and the
wildest tales were told of his outbursts of athletic humour; how he turned the juge
d’instruction upside down and stood him on his head, “to clear his mind”; how he ran
down the Rue de Rivoli with a policeman under each arm. It is due to him to say that his
fantastic physical strength was generally employed in such bloodless though
undignified scenes; his real crimes were chiefly those of ingenious and wholesale
robbery. But each of his thefts was almost a new sin, and would make a story by itself.
It was he who ran the great Tyrolean Dairy Company in London, with no dairies, no
cows, no carts, no milk, but with some thousand subscribers. These he served by the
simple operation of moving the little milk cans outside people’s doors to the doors of
his own customers. It was he who had kept up an unaccountable and close
correspondence with a young lady whose whole letter-bag was intercepted, by the
extraordinary trick of photographing his messages infinitesimally small upon the slides
of a microscope. A sweeping simplicity, however, marked many of his experiments. It
is said that he once repainted all the numbers in a street in the dead of night merely to
divert one traveller into a trap. It is quite certain that he invented a portable pillar-box,
which he put up at corners in quiet suburbs on the chance of strangers dropping postal
orders into it. Lastly, he was known to be a startling acrobat; despite his huge figure, he
could leap like a grasshopper and melt into the tree-tops like a monkey. Hence the great
Valentin, when he set out to find Flambeau, was perfectly aware that his adventures
would not end when he had found him.
But how was he to find him? On this the great Valentin’s ideas were still in process of
settlement.
There was one thing which Flambeau, with all his dexterity of disguise, could not cover,
and that was his singular height. If Valentin’s quick eye had caught a tall apple-woman,
a tall grenadier, or even a tolerably tall duchess, he might have arrested them on the
spot. But all along his train there was nobody that could be a disguised Flambeau, any
more than a cat could be a disguised giraffe. About the people on the boat he had
already satisfied himself; and the people picked up at Harwich or on the journey limited
themselves with certainty to six. There was a short railway official travelling up to the
terminus, three fairly short market gardeners picked up two stations afterwards, one
very short widow lady going up from a small Essex town, and a very short Roman
Catholic priest going up from a small Essex village. When it came to the last case,
Valentin gave it up and almost laughed. The little priest was so much the essence of
those Eastern flats; he had a face as round and dull as a Norfolk dumpling; he had eyes
as empty as the North Sea; he had several brown paper parcels, which he was quite
incapable of collecting. The Eucharistic Congress had doubtless sucked out of their
local stagnation many such creatures, blind and helpless, like moles disinterred.
Valentin was a sceptic in the severe style of France, and could have no love for priests.
But he could have pity for them, and this one might have provoked pity in anybody. He
had a large, shabby umbrella, which constantly fell on the floor. He did not seem to
know which was the right end of his return ticket. He explained with a moon-calf
simplicity to everybody in the carriage that he had to be careful, because he had
something made of real silver “with blue stones” in one of his brown-paper parcels. His
quaint blending of Essex flatness with saintly simplicity continuously amused the
Frenchman till the priest arrived (somehow) at Tottenham with all his parcels, and came
back for his umbrella. When he did the last, Valentin even had the good nature to warn
him not to take care of the silver by telling everybody about it. But to whomever he
talked, Valentin kept his eye open for someone else; he looked out steadily for anyone,
rich or poor, male or female, who was well up to six feet; for Flambeau was four inches
above it.
He alighted at Liverpool Street, however, quite conscientiously secure that he had not
missed the criminal so far. He then went to Scotland Yard to regularise his position and
arrange for help in case of need; he then lit another cigarette and went for a long stroll in
the streets of London. As he was walking in the streets and squares beyond Victoria, he
paused suddenly and stood. It was a quaint, quiet square, very typical of London, full of
an accidental stillness. The tall, flat houses round looked at once prosperous and
uninhabited; the square of shrubbery in the centre looked as deserted as a green Pacific
islet. One of the four sides was much higher than the rest, like a dais; and the line of this
side was broken by one of London’s admirable accidents — a restaurant that looked as
if it had strayed from Soho. It was an unreasonably attractive object, with dwarf plants
in pots and long, striped blinds of lemon yellow and white. It stood specially high above
the street, and in the usual patchwork way of London, a flight of steps from the street
ran up to meet the front door almost as a fire-escape might run up to a first-floor
window. Valentin stood and smoked in front of the yellow-white blinds and considered
them long.
The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen. A few clouds in heaven do
come together into the staring shape of one human eye. A tree does stand up in the
landscape of a doubtful journey in the exact and elaborate shape of a note of
interrogation. I have seen both these things myself within the last few days. Nelson does
die in the instant of victory; and a man named Williams does quite accidentally murder
a man named Williamson; it sounds like a sort of infanticide. In short, there is in life an
element of elfin coincidence which people reckoning on the prosaic may perpetually
miss. As it has been well expressed in the paradox of Poe, wisdom should reckon on the
unforeseen.
Aristide Valentin was unfathomably French; and the French intelligence is intelligence
specially and solely. He was not “a thinking machine”; for that is a brainless phrase of
modern fatalism and materialism. A machine only is a machine because it cannot think.
But he was a thinking man, and a plain man at the same time. All his wonderful
successes, that looked like conjuring, had been gained by plodding logic, by clear and
commonplace French thought. The French electrify the world not by starting any
paradox, they electrify it by carrying out a truism. They carry a truism so far — as in the
French Revolution. But exactly because Valentin understood reason, he understood the
limits of reason. Only a man who knows nothing of motors talks of motoring without
petrol; only a man who knows nothing of reason talks of reasoning without strong,
undisputed first principles. Here he had no strong first principles. Flambeau had been
missed at Harwich; and if he was in London at all, he might be anything from a tall
tramp on Wimbledon Common to a tall toast-master at the Hotel Metropole. In such a
naked state of nescience, Valentin had a view and a method of his own.
In such cases he reckoned on the unforeseen. In such cases, when he could not follow
the train of the reasonable, he coldly and carefully followed the train of the
unreasonable. Instead of going to the right places — banks, police stations, rendezvous
— he systematically went to the wrong places; knocked at every empty house, turned
down every cul de sac, went up every lane blocked with rubbish, went round every
crescent that led him uselessly out of the way. He defended this crazy course quite
logically. He said that if one had a clue this was the worst way; but if one had no clue at
all it was the best, because there was just the chance that any oddity that caught the eye
of the pursuer might be the same that had caught the eye of the pursued. Somewhere a
man must begin, and it had better be just where another man might stop. Something
about that flight of steps up to the shop, something about the quietude and quaintness of
the restaurant, roused all the detective’s rare romantic fancy and made him resolve to
strike at random. He went up the steps, and sitting down at a table by the window, asked
for a cup of black coffee.
It was half-way through the morning, and he had not breakfasted; the slight litter of
other breakfasts stood about on the table to remind him of his hunger; and adding a
poached egg to his order, he proceeded musingly to shake some white sugar into his
coffee, thinking all the time about Flambeau. He remembered how Flambeau had
escaped, once by a pair of nail scissors, and once by a house on fire; once by having to
pay for an unstamped letter, and once by getting people to look through a telescope at a
comet that might destroy the world. He thought his detective brain as good as the
criminal’s, which was true. But he fully realised the disadvantage. “The criminal is the
creative artist; the detective only the critic,” he said with a sour smile, and lifted his
coffee cup to his lips slowly, and put it down very quickly. He had put salt in it.
He looked at the vessel from which the silvery powder had come; it was certainly a
sugar-basin; as unmistakably meant for sugar as a champagne-bottle for champagne. He
wondered why they should keep salt in it. He looked to see if there were any more
orthodox vessels. Yes; there were two salt-cellars quite full. Perhaps there was some
speciality in the condiment in the salt-cellars. He tasted it; it was sugar. Then he looked
round at the restaurant with a refreshed air of interest, to see if there were any other
traces of that singular artistic taste which puts the sugar in the salt-cellars and the salt in
the sugar-basin. Except for an odd splash of some dark fluid on one of the whitepapered walls, the whole place appeared neat, cheerful and ordinary. He rang the bell
for the waiter.
When that official hurried up, fuzzy-haired and somewhat blear-eyed at that early hour,
the detective (who was not without an appreciation of the simpler forms of humour)
asked him to taste the sugar and see if it was up to the high reputation of the hotel. The
result was that the waiter yawned suddenly and woke up.
“Do you play this delicate joke on your customers every morning?” inquired Valentin.
“Does changing the salt and sugar never pall on you as a jest?”
The waiter, when this irony grew clearer, stammeringly assured him that the
establishment had certainly no such intention; it must be a most curious mistake. He
picked up the sugar-basin and looked at it; he picked up the salt-cellar and looked at
that, his face growing more and more bewildered. At last he abruptly excused himself,
and hurrying away, returned in a few seconds with the proprietor. The proprietor also
examined the sugar-basin and then the salt-cellar; the proprietor also looked bewildered.
Suddenly the waiter seemed to grow inarticulate with a rush of words.
“I zink,” he stuttered eagerly, “I zink it is those two clergy-men.”
“What two clergymen?”
“The two clergymen,” said the waiter, “that threw soup at the wall.”
“Threw soup at the wall?” repeated Valentin, feeling sure this must be some singular
Italian metaphor.
“Yes, yes,” said the attendant excitedly, and pointed at the dark splash on the white
paper; “threw it over there on the wall.”
Valentin looked his query at the proprietor, who came to his rescue with fuller reports.
“Yes, sir,” he said, “it’s quite true, though I don’t suppose it has anything to do with the
sugar and salt. Two clergymen came in and drank soup here very early, as soon as the
shutters were taken down. They were both very quiet, respectable people; one of them
paid the bill and went out; the other, who seemed a slower coach altogether, was some
minutes longer getting his things together. But he went at last. Only, the instant before
he stepped into the street he deliberately picked up his cup, which he had only half
emptied, and threw the soup slap on the wall. I was in the back room myself, and so was
the waiter; so I could only rush out in time to find the wall splashed and the shop empty.
It don’t do any particular damage, but it was confounded cheek; and I tried to catch the
men in the street. They were too far off though; I only noticed they went round the next
corner into Carstairs Street.”
The detective was on his feet, hat settled and stick in hand. He had already decided that
in the universal darkness of his mind he could only follow the first odd finger that
pointed; and this finger was odd enough. Paying his bill and clashing the glass doors
behind him, he was soon swinging round into the other street.
It was fortunate that even in such fevered moments his eye was cool and quick.
Something in a shop-front went by him like a mere flash; yet he went back to look at it.
The shop was a popular greengrocer and fruiterer’s, an array of goods set out in the
open air and plainly ticketed with their names and prices. In the two most prominent
compartments were two heaps, of oranges and of nuts respectively. On the heap of nuts
lay a scrap of cardboard, on which was written in bold, blue chalk, “Best tangerine
oranges, two a penny.” On the oranges was the equally clear and exact description,
“Finest Brazil nuts, 4d. a lb.” M. Valentin looked at these two placards and fancied he
had met this highly subtle form of humour before, and that somewhat recently. He drew
the attention of the red-faced fruiterer, who was looking rather sullenly up and down the
street, to this inaccuracy in his advertisements. The fruiterer said nothing, but sharply
put each card into its proper place. The detective, leaning elegantly on his walking-cane,
continued to scrutinise the shop. At last he said, “Pray excuse my apparent irrelevance,
my good sir, but I should like to ask you a question in experimental psychology and the
association of ideas.”
The red-faced shopman regarded him with an eye of menace; but he continued gaily,
swinging his cane, “Why,” he pursued, “why are two tickets wrongly placed in a
greengrocer’s shop like a shovel hat that has come to London for a holiday? Or, in case
I do not make myself clear, what is the mystical association which connects the idea of
nuts marked as oranges with the idea of two clergymen, one tall and the other short?”
The eyes of the tradesman stood out of his head like a snail’s; he really seemed for an
instant likely to fling himself upon the stranger. At last he stammered angrily: “I don’t
know what you ‘ave to do with it, but if you’re one of their friends, you can tell ’em
from me that I’ll knock their silly ‘eads off, parsons or no parsons, if they upset my
apples again.”
“Indeed?” asked the detective, with great sympathy. “Did they upset your apples?”
“One of ’em did,” said the heated shopman; “rolled ’em all over the street. I’d ‘ave
caught the fool but for havin’ to pick ’em up.”
“Which way did these parsons go?” asked Valentin.
“Up that second road on the left-hand side, and then across the square,” said the other
promptly.
“Thanks,” replied Valentin, and vanished like a fairy. On the other side of the second
square he found a policeman, and said: “This is urgent, constable; have you seen two
clergymen in shovel hats?”
The policeman began to chuckle heavily. “I ‘ave, sir; and if you arst me, one of ’em was
drunk. He stood in the middle of the road that bewildered that — ”
“Which way did they go?” snapped Valentin.
“They took one of them yellow buses over there,” answered the man; “them that go to
Hampstead.”
Valentin produced his official card and said very rapidly: “Call up two of your men to
come with me in pursuit,” and crossed the road with such contagious energy that the
ponderous policeman was moved to almost agile obedience. In a minute and a half the
French detective was joined on the opposite pavement by an inspector and a man in
plain clothes.
“Well, sir,” began the former, with smiling importance, “and what may — ?”
Valentin pointed suddenly with his cane. “I’ll tell you on the top of that omnibus,” he
said, and was darting and dodging across the tangle of the traffic. When all three sank
panting on the top seats of the yellow vehicle, the inspector said: “We could go four
times as quick in a taxi.”
“Quite true,” replied their leader placidly, “if we only had an idea of where we were
going.”
“Well, where are you going?” asked the other, staring.
Valentin smoked frowningly for a few seconds; then, removing his cigarette, he said: “If
you know what a man’s doing, get in front of him; but if you want to guess what he’s
doing, keep behind him. Stray when he strays; stop when he stops; travel as slowly as
he. Then you may see what he saw and may act as he acted. All we can do is to keep our
eyes skinned for a queer thing.”
“What sort of queer thing do you mean?” asked the inspector.
“Any sort of queer thing,” answered Valentin, and relapsed into obstinate silence.
The yellow omnibus crawled up the northern roads for what seemed like hours on end;
the great detective would not explain further, and perhaps his assistants felt a silent and
growing doubt of his errand. Perhaps, also, they felt a silent and growing desire for
lunch, for the hours crept long past the normal luncheon hour, and the long roads of the
North London suburbs seemed to shoot out into length after length like an infernal
telescope. It was one of those journeys on which a man perpetually feels that now at last
he must have come to the end of the universe, and then finds he has only come to the
beginning of Tufnell Park. London died away in draggled taverns and dreary scrubs,
and then was unaccountably born again in blazing high streets and blatant hotels. It was
like passing through thirteen separate vulgar cities all just touching each other. But
though the winter twilight was already threatening the road ahead of them, the Parisian
detective still sat silent and watchful, eyeing the frontage of the streets that slid by on
either side. By the time they had left Camden Town behind, the policemen were nearly
asleep; at least, they gave something like a jump as Valentin leapt erect, struck a hand
on each man’s shoulder, and shouted to the driver to stop.
They tumbled down the steps into the road without realising why they had been
dislodged; when they looked round for enlightenment they found Valentin triumphantly
pointing his finger towards a window on the left side of the road. It was a large window,
forming part of the long facade of a gilt and palatial public-house; it was the part
reserved for respectable dining, and labelled “Restaurant.” This window, like all the rest
along the frontage of the hotel, was of frosted and figured glass; but in the middle of it
was a big, black smash, like a star in the ice.
“Our cue at last,” cried Valentin, waving his stick; “the place with the broken window.”
“What window? What cue?” asked his principal assistant. “Why, what proof is there
that this has anything to do with them?”
Valentin almost broke his bamboo stick with rage.
“Proof!” he cried. “Good God! the man is looking for proof! Why, of course, the
chances are twenty to one that it has nothing to do with them. But what else can we do?
Don’t you see we must either follow one wild possibility or else go home to bed?” He
banged his way into the restaurant, followed by his companions, and they were soon
seated at a late luncheon at a little table, and looked at the star of smashed glass from
the inside. Not that it was very informative to them even then.
“Got your window broken, I see,” said Valentin to the waiter as he paid the bill.
“Yes, sir,” answered the attendant, bending busily over the change, to which Valentin
silently added an enormous tip. The waiter straightened himself with mild but
unmistakable animation.
“Ah, yes, sir,” he said. “Very odd thing, that, sir.”
“Indeed?” Tell us about it,” said the detective with careless curiosity.
“Well, two gents in black came in,” said the waiter; “two of those foreign parsons that
are running about. They had a cheap and quiet little lunch, and one of them paid for it
and went out. The other was just going out to join him when I looked at my change
again and found he’d paid me more than three times too much. ‘Here,’ I says to the chap
who was nearly out of the door, ‘you’ve paid too much.’ ‘Oh,’ he says, very cool, ‘have
we?’ ‘Yes,’ I says, and picks up the bill to show him. Well, that was a knock-out.”
“What do you mean?” asked his interlocutor.
“Well, I’d have sworn on seven Bibles that I’d put 4s. on that bill. But now I saw I’d put
14s., as plain as paint.”
“Well?” cried Valentin, moving slowly, but with burning eyes, “and then?”
“The parson at the door he says all serene, ‘Sorry to confuse your accounts, but it’ll pay
for the window.’ ‘What window?’ I says. ‘The one I’m going to break,’ he says, and
smashed that blessed pane with his umbrella.”
All three inquirers made an exclamation; and the inspector said under his breath, “Are
we after escaped lunatics?” The waiter went on with some relish for the ridiculous story:
“I was so knocked silly for a second, I couldn’t do anything. The man marched out of
the place and joined his friend just round the corner. Then they went so quick up
Bullock Street that I couldn’t catch them, though I ran round the bars to do it.”
“Bullock Street,” said the detective, and shot up that thoroughfare as quickly as the
strange couple he pursued.
Their journey now took them through bare brick ways like tunnels; streets with few
lights and even with few windows; streets that seemed built out of the blank backs of
everything and everywhere. Dusk was deepening, and it was not easy even for the
London policemen to guess in what exact direction they were treading. The inspector,
however, was pretty certain that they would eventually strike some part of Hampstead
Heath. Abruptly one bulging gas-lit window broke the blue twilight like a bull’s-eye
lantern; and Valentin stopped an instant before a little garish sweetstuff shop. After an
instant’s hesitation he went in; he stood amid the gaudy colours of the confectionery
with entire gravity and bought thirteen chocolate cigars with a certain care. He was
clearly preparing an opening; but he did not need one.
An angular, elderly young woman in the shop had regarded his elegant appearance with
a merely automatic inquiry; but when she saw the door behind him blocked with the
blue uniform of the inspector, her eyes seemed to wake up.
“Oh,” she said, “if you’ve come about that parcel, I’ve sent it off already.”
“Parcel?” repeated Valentin; and it was his turn to look inquiring.
“I mean the parcel the gentleman left — the clergyman gentleman.”
“For goodness’ sake,” said Valentin, leaning forward with his first real confession of
eagerness, “for Heaven’s sake tell us what happened exactly.”
“Well,” said the woman a little doubtfully, “the clergymen came in about half an hour
ago and bought some peppermints and talked a bit, and then went off towards the Heath.
But a second after, one of them runs back into the shop and says, ‘Have I left a parcel!’
Well, I looked everywhere and couldn’t see one; so he says, ‘Never mind; but if it
should turn up, please post it to this address,’ and he left me the address and a shilling
for my trouble. And sure enough, though I thought I’d looked everywhere, I found he’d
left a brown paper parcel, so I posted it to the place he said. I can’t remember the
address now; it was somewhere in Westminster. But as the thing seemed so important, I
thought perhaps the police had come about it.”
“So they have,” said Valentin shortly. “Is Hampstead Heath near here?”
“Straight on for fifteen minutes,” said the woman, “and you’ll come right out on the
open.” Valentin sprang out of the shop and began to run. The other detectives followed
him at a reluctant trot.
The street they threaded was so narrow and shut in by shadows that when they came out
unexpectedly into the void common and vast sky they were startled to find the evening
still so light and clear. A perfect dome of peacock-green sank into gold amid the
blackening trees and the dark violet distances. The glowing green tint was just deep
enough to pick out in points of crystal one or two stars. All that was left of the daylight
lay in a golden glitter across the edge of Hampstead and that popular hollow which is
called the Vale of Health. The holiday makers who roam this region had not wholly
dispersed; a few couples sat shapelessly on benches; and here and there a distant girl
still shrieked in one of the swings. The glory of heaven deepened and darkened around
the sublime vulgarity of man; and standing on the slope and looking across the valley,
Valentin beheld the thing which he sought.
Among the black and breaking groups in that distance was one especially black which
did not break — a group of two figures clerically clad. Though they seemed as small as
insects, Valentin could see that one of them was much smaller than the other. Though
the other had a student’s stoop and an inconspicuous manner, he could see that the man
was well over six feet high. He shut his teeth and went forward, whirling his stick
impatiently. By the time he had substantially diminished the distance and magnified the
two black figures as in a vast microscope, he had perceived something else; something
which startled him, and yet which he had somehow expected. Whoever was the tall
priest, there could be no doubt about the identity of the short one. It was his friend of
the Harwich train, the stumpy little cure of Essex whom he had warned about his brown
paper parcels.
Now, so far as this went, everything fitted in finally and rationally enough. Valentin had
learned by his inquiries that morning that a Father Brown from Essex was bringing up a
silver cross with sapphires, a relic of considerable value, to show some of the foreign
priests at the congress. This undoubtedly was the “silver with blue stones”; and Father
Brown undoubtedly was the little greenhorn in the train. Now there was nothing
wonderful about the fact that what Valentin had found out Flambeau had also found out;
Flambeau found out everything. Also there was nothing wonderful in the fact that when
Flambeau heard of a sapphire cross he should try to steal it; that was the most natural
thing in all natural history. And most certainly there was nothing wonderful about the
fact that Flambeau should have it all his own way with such a silly sheep as the man
with the umbrella and the parcels. He was the sort of man whom anybody could lead on
a string to the North Pole; it was not surprising that an actor like Flambeau, dressed as
another priest, could lead him to Hampstead Heath. So far the crime seemed clear
enough; and while the detective pitied the priest for his helplessness, he almost despised
Flambeau for condescending to so gullible a victim. But when Valentin thought of all
that had happened in between, of all that had led him to his triumph, he racked his
brains for the smallest rhyme or reason in it. What had the stealing of a blue-and-silver
cross from a priest from Essex to do with chucking soup at wall paper? What had it to
do with calling nuts oranges, or with paying for windows first and breaking them
afterwards? He had come to the end of his chase; yet somehow he had missed the
middle of it. When he failed (which was seldom), he had usually grasped the clue, but
nevertheless missed the criminal. Here he had grasped the criminal, but still he could
not grasp the clue.
The two figures that they followed were crawling like black flies across the huge green
contour of a hill. They were evidently sunk in conversation, and perhaps did not notice
where they were going; but they were certainly going to the wilder and more silent
heights of the Heath. As their pursuers gained on them, the latter had to use the
undignified attitudes of the deer-stalker, to crouch behind clumps of trees and even to
crawl prostrate in deep grass. By these ungainly ingenuities the hunters even came close
enough to the quarry to hear the murmur of the discussion, but no word could be
distinguished except the word “reason” recurring frequently in a high and almost
childish voice. Once over an abrupt dip of land and a dense tangle of thickets, the
detectives actually lost the two figures they were following. They did not find the trail
again for an agonising ten minutes, and then it led round the brow of a great dome of
hill overlooking an amphitheatre of rich and desolate sunset scenery. Under a tree in this
commanding yet neglected spot was an old ramshackle wooden seat. On this seat sat the
two priests still in serious speech together. The gorgeous green and gold still clung to
the darkening horizon; but the dome above was turning slowly from peacock-green to
peacock-blue, and the stars detached themselves more and more like solid jewels.
Mutely motioning to his followers, Valentin contrived to creep up behind the big
branching tree, and, standing there in deathly silence, heard the words of the strange
priests for the first time.
After he had listened for a minute and a half, he was gripped by a devilish doubt.
Perhaps he had dragged the two English policemen to the wastes of a nocturnal heath on
an errand no saner than seeking figs on its thistles. For the two priests were talking
exactly like priests, piously, with learning and leisure, about the most aerial enigmas of
theology. The little Essex priest spoke the more simply, with his round face turned to
the strengthening stars; the other talked with his head bowed, as if he were not even
worthy to look at them. But no more innocently clerical conversation could have been
heard in any white Italian cloister or black Spanish cathedral.
The first he heard was the tail of one of Father Brown’s sentences, which ended: “. . .
what they really meant in the Middle Ages by the heavens being incorruptible.”
The taller priest nodded his bowed head and said:
“Ah, yes, these modern infidels appeal to their reason; but who can look at those
millions of worlds and not feel that there may well be wonderful universes above us
where reason is utterly unreasonable?”
“No,” said the other priest; “reason is always reasonable, even in the last limbo, in the
lost borderland of things. I know that people charge the Church with lowering reason,
but it is just the other way. Alone on earth, the Church makes reason really supreme.
Alone on earth, the Church affirms that God himself is bound by reason.”
The other priest raised his austere face to the spangled sky and said:
“Yet who knows if in that infinite universe — ?”
“Only infinite physically,” said the little priest, turning sharply in his seat, “not infinite
in the sense of escaping from the laws of truth.”
Valentin behind his tree was tearing his fingernails with silent fury. He seemed almost
to hear the sniggers of the English detectives whom he had brought so far on a fantastic
guess only to listen to the metaphysical gossip of two mild old parsons. In his
impatience he lost the equally elaborate answer of the tall cleric, and when he listened
again it was again Father Brown who was speaking:
“Reason and justice grip the remotest and the loneliest star. Look at those stars. Don’t
they look as if they were single diamonds and sapphires? Well, you can imagine any
mad botany or geology you please. Think of forests of adamant with leaves of brilliants.
Think the moon is a blue moon, a single elephantine sapphire. But don’t fancy that all
that frantic astronomy would make the smallest difference to the reason and justice of
conduct. On plains of opal, under cliffs cut out of pearl, you would still find a noticeboard, ‘Thou shalt not steal.’”
Valentin was just in the act of rising from his rigid and crouching attitude and creeping
away as softly as might be, felled by the one great folly of his life. But something in the
very silence of the tall priest made him stop until the latter spoke. When at last he did
speak, he said simply, his head bowed and his hands on his knees:
“Well, I think that other worlds may perhaps rise higher than our reason. The mystery of
heaven is unfathomable, and I for one can only bow my head.”
Then, with brow yet bent and without changing by the faintest shade his attitude or
voice, he added:
“Just hand over that sapphire cross of yours, will you? We’re all alone here, and I could
pull you to pieces like a straw doll.”
The utterly unaltered voice and attitude added a strange violence to that shocking
change of speech. But the guarder of the relic only seemed to turn his head by the
smallest section of the compass. He seemed still to have a somewhat foolish face turned
to the stars. Perhaps he had not understood. Or, perhaps, he had understood and sat rigid
with terror.
“Yes,” said the tall priest, in the same low voice and in the same still posture, “yes, I am
Flambeau.”
Then, after a pause, he said:
“Come, will you give me that cross?”
“No,” said the other, and the monosyllable had an odd sound.
Flambeau suddenly flung off all his pontifical pretensions. The great robber leaned back
in his seat and laughed low but long.
“No,” he cried, “you won’t give it me, you proud prelate. You won’t give it me, you
little celibate simpleton. Shall I tell you why you won’t give it me? Because I’ve got it
already in my own breast-pocket.”
The small man from Essex turned what seemed to be a dazed face in the dusk, and said,
with the timid eagerness of “The Private Secretary”:
“Are — are you sure?”
Flambeau yelled with delight.
“Really, you’re as good as a three-act farce,” he cried. “Yes, you turnip, I am quite sure.
I had the sense to make a duplicate of the right parcel, and now, my friend, you’ve got
the duplicate and I’ve got the jewels. An old dodge, Father Brown — a very old dodge.”
“Yes,” said Father Brown, and passed his hand through his hair with the same strange
vagueness of manner. “Yes, I’ve heard of it before.”
The colossus of crime leaned over to the little rustic priest with a sort of sudden interest.
“You have heard of it?” he asked. “Where have you heard of it?”
“Well, I mustn’t tell you his name, of course,” said the little man simply. “He was a
penitent, you know. He had lived prosperously for about twenty years entirely on
duplicate brown paper parcels. And so, you see, when I began to suspect you, I thought
of this poor chap’s way of doing it at once.”
“Began to suspect me?” repeated the outlaw with increased intensity. “Did you really
have the gumption to suspect me just because I brought you up to this bare part of the
heath?”
“No, no,” said Brown with an air of apology. “You see, I suspected you when we first
met. It’s that little bulge up the sleeve where you people have the spiked bracelet.”
“How in Tartarus,” cried Flambeau, “did you ever hear of the spiked bracelet?”
“Oh, one’s little flock, you know!” said Father Brown, arching his eyebrows rather
blankly. “When I was a curate in Hartlepool, there were three of them with spiked
bracelets. So, as I suspected you from the first, don’t you see, I made sure that the cross
should go safe, anyhow. I’m afraid I watched you, you know. So at last I saw you
change the parcels. Then, don’t you see, I changed them back again. And then I left the
right one behind.”
“Left it behind?” repeated Flambeau, and for the first time there was another note in his
voice beside his triumph.
“Well, it was like this,” said the little priest, speaking in the same unaffected way. “I
went back to that sweet-shop and asked if I’d left a parcel, and gave them a particular
address if it turned up. Well, I knew I hadn’t; but when I went away again I did. So,
instead of running after me with that valuable parcel, they have sent it flying to a friend
of mine in Westminster.” Then he added rather sadly: “I learnt that, too, from a poor
fellow in Hartlepool. He used to do it with handbags he stole at railway stations, but
he’s in a monastery now. Oh, one gets to know, you know,” he added, rubbing his head
again with the same sort of desperate apology. “We can’t help being priests. People
come and tell us these things.”
Flambeau tore a brown-paper parcel out of his inner pocket and rent it in pieces. There
was nothing but paper and sticks of lead inside it. He sprang to his feet with a gigantic
gesture, and cried:
“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe a bumpkin like you could manage all that. I believe
you’ve still got the stuff on you, and if you don’t give it up — why, we’re all alone, and
I’ll take it by force!”
“No,” said Father Brown simply, and stood up also, “you won’t take it by force. First,
because I really haven’t still got it. And, second, because we are not alone.”
Flambeau stopped in his stride forward.
“Behind that tree,” said Father Brown, pointing, “are two strong policemen and the
greatest detective alive. How did they come here, do you ask? Why, I brought them, of
course! How did I do it? Why, I’ll tell you if you like! Lord bless you, we have to know
twenty such things when we work among the criminal classes! Well, I wasn’t sure you
were a thief, and it would never do to make a scandal against one of our own clergy. So
I just tested you to see if anything would make you show yourself. A man generally
makes a small scene if he finds salt in his coffee; if he doesn’t, he has some reason for
keeping quiet. I changed the salt and sugar, and you kept quiet. A man generally objects
if his bill is three times too big. If he pays it, he has some motive for passing unnoticed.
I altered your bill, and you paid it.”
The world seemed waiting for Flambeau to leap like a tiger. But he was held back as by
a spell; he was stunned with the utmost curiosity.
“Well,” went on Father Brown, with lumbering lucidity, “as you wouldn’t leave any
tracks for the police, of course somebody had to. At every place we went to, I took care
to do something that would get us talked about for the rest of the day. I didn’t do much
harm — a splashed wall, spilt apples, a broken window; but I saved the cross, as the
cross will always be saved. It is at Westminster by now. I rather wonder you didn’t stop
it with the Donkey’s Whistle.”
“With the what?” asked Flambeau.
“I’m glad you’ve never heard of it,” said the priest, making a face. “It’s a foul thing. I’m
sure you’re too good a man for a Whistler. I couldn’t have countered it even with the
Spots myself; I’m not strong enough in the legs.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” asked the other.
“Well, I did think you’d know the Spots,” said Father Brown, agreeably surprised. “Oh,
you can’t have gone so very wrong yet!”
“How in blazes do you know all these horrors?” cried Flambeau.
The shadow of a smile crossed the round, simple face of his clerical opponent.
“Oh, by being a celibate simpleton, I suppose,” he said. “Has it never struck you that a
man who does next to nothing but hear men’s real sins is not likely to be wholly
unaware of human evil? But, as a matter of fact, another part of my trade, too, made me
sure you weren’t a priest.”
“What?” asked the thief, almost gaping.
“You attacked reason,” said Father Brown. “It’s bad theology.”
And even as he turned away to collect his property, the three policemen came out from
under the twilight trees. Flambeau was an artist and a sportsman. He stepped back and
swept Valentin a great bow.
“Do not bow to me, mon ami,” said Valentin with silver clearness. “Let us both bow to
our master.”
And they both stood an instant uncovered while the little Essex priest blinked about for
his umbrella.
The Secret Garden
Aristide Valentin, Chief of the Paris Police, was late for his dinner, and some of his
guests began to arrive before him. These were, however, reassured by his confidential
servant, Ivan, the old man with a scar, and a face almost as grey as his moustaches, who
always sat at a table in the entrance hall — a hall hung with weapons. Valentin’s house
was perhaps as peculiar and celebrated as its master. It was an old house, with high
walls and tall poplars almost overhanging the Seine; but the oddity — and perhaps the
police value — of its architecture was this: that there was no ultimate exit at all except
through this front door, which was guarded by Ivan and the armoury. The garden was
large and elaborate, and there were many exits from the house into the garden. But there
was no exit from the garden into the world outside; all round it ran a tall, smooth,
unscalable wall with special spikes at the top; no bad garden, perhaps, for a man to
reflect in whom some hundred criminals had sworn to kill.
As Ivan explained to the guests, their host had telephoned that he was detained for ten
minutes. He was, in truth, making some last arrangements about executions and such
ugly things; and though these duties were rootedly repulsive to him, he always
performed them with precision. Ruthless in the pursuit of criminals, he was very mild
about their punishment. Since he had been supreme over French — and largely over
European — policial methods, his great influence had been honourably used for the
mitigation of sentences and the purification of prisons. He was one of the great
humanitarian French freethinkers; and the only thing wrong with them is that they make
mercy even colder than justice.
When Valentin arrived he was already dressed in black clothes and the red rosette — an
elegant figure, his dark beard already streaked with grey. He went straight through his
house to his study, which opened on the grounds behind. The garden door of it was
open, and after he had carefully locked his box in its official place, he stood for a few
seconds at the open door looking out upon the garden. A sharp moon was fighting with
the flying rags and tatters of a storm, and Valentin regarded it with a wistfulness
unusual in such scientific natures as his. Perhaps such scientific natures have some
psychic prevision of the most tremendous problem of their lives. From any such occult
mood, at least, he quickly recovered, for he knew he was late, and that his guests had
already begun to arrive. A glance at his drawing-room when he entered it was enough to
make certain that his principal guest was not there, at any rate. He saw all the other
pillars of the little party; he saw Lord Galloway, the English Ambassador — a choleric
old man with a russet face like an apple, wearing the blue ribbon of the Garter. He saw
Lady Galloway, slim and threadlike, with silver hair and a face sensitive and superior.
He saw her daughter, Lady Margaret Graham, a pale and pretty girl with an elfish face
and copper-coloured hair. He saw the Duchess of Mont St. Michel, black-eyed and
opulent, and with her her two daughters, black-eyed and opulent also. He saw Dr.
Simon, a typical French scientist, with glasses, a pointed brown beard, and a forehead
barred with those parallel wrinkles which are the penalty of superciliousness, since they
come through constantly elevating the eyebrows. He saw Father Brown, of Cobhole, in
Essex, whom he had recently met in England. He saw — perhaps with more interest
than any of these — a tall man in uniform, who had bowed to the Galloways without
receiving any very hearty acknowledgment, and who now advanced alone to pay his
respects to his host. This was Commandant O’Brien, of the French Foreign Legion. He
was a slim yet somewhat swaggering figure, clean-shaven, dark-haired, and blue-eyed,
and, as seemed natural in an officer of that famous regiment of victorious failures and
successful suicides, he had an air at once dashing and melancholy. He was by birth an
Irish gentleman, and in boyhood had known the Galloways — especially Margaret
Graham. He had left his country after some crash of debts, and now expressed his
complete freedom from British etiquette by swinging about in uniform, sabre and spurs.
When he bowed to the Ambassador’s family, Lord and Lady Galloway bent stiffly, and
Lady Margaret looked away.
But for whatever old causes such people might be interested in each other, their
distinguished host was not specially interested in them. No one of them at least was in
his eyes the guest of the evening. Valentin was expecting, for special reasons, a man of
world-wide fame, whose friendship he had secured during some of his great detective
tours and triumphs in the United States. He was expecting Julius K. Brayne, that multimillionaire whose colossal and even crushing endowments of small religions have
occasioned so much easy sport and easier solemnity for the American and English
papers. Nobody could quite make out whether Mr. Brayne was an atheist or a Mormon
or a Christian Scientist; but he was ready to pour money into any intellectual vessel, so
long as it was an untried vessel. One of his hobbies was to wait for the American
Shakespeare — a hobby more patient than angling. He admired Walt Whitman, but
thought that Luke P. Tanner, of Paris, Pa., was more “progressive” than Whitman any
day. He liked anything that he thought “progressive.” He thought Valentin
“progressive,” thereby doing him a grave injustice.
The solid appearance of Julius K. Brayne in the room was as decisive as a dinner bell.
He had this great quality, which very few of us can claim, that his presence was as big
as his absence. He was a huge fellow, as fat as he was tall, clad in complete evening
black, without so much relief as a watch-chain or a ring. His hair was white and well
brushed back like a German’s; his face was red, fierce and cherubic, with one dark tuft
under the lower lip that threw up that otherwise infantile visage with an effect theatrical
and even Mephistophelean. Not long, however, did that salon merely stare at the
celebrated American; his lateness had already become a domestic problem, and he was
sent with all speed into the dining-room with Lady Galloway on his arm.
Except on one point the Galloways were genial and casual enough. So long as Lady
Margaret did not take the arm of that adventurer O’Brien, her father was quite satisfied;
and she had not done so, she had decorously gone in with Dr. Simon. Nevertheless, old
Lord Galloway was restless and almost rude. He was diplomatic enough during dinner,
but when, over the cigars, three of the younger men — Simon the doctor, Brown the
priest, and the detrimental O’Brien, the exile in a foreign uniform — all melted away to
mix with the ladies or smoke in the conservatory, then the English diplomatist grew
very undiplomatic indeed. He was stung every sixty seconds with the thought that the
scamp O’Brien might be signalling to Margaret somehow; he did not attempt to imagine
how. He was left over the coffee with Brayne, the hoary Yankee who believed in all
religions, and Valentin, the grizzled Frenchman who believed in none. They could argue
with each other, but neither could appeal to him. After a time this “progressive”
logomachy had reached a crisis of tedium; Lord Galloway got up also and sought the
drawing-room. He lost his way in long passages for some six or eight minutes: till he
heard the high-pitched, didactic voice of the doctor, and then the dull voice of the priest,
followed by general laughter. They also, he thought with a curse, were probably arguing
about “science and religion.” But the instant he opened the salon door he saw only one
thing — he saw what was not there. He saw that Commandant O’Brien was absent, and
that Lady Margaret was absent too.
Rising impatiently from the drawing-room, as he had from the dining-room, he stamped
along the passage once more. His notion of protecting his daughter from the IrishAlgerian n’er-do-weel had become something central and even mad in his mind. As he
went towards the back of the house, where was Valentin’s study, he was surprised to
meet his daughter, who swept past with a white, scornful face, which was a second
enigma. If she had been with O’Brien, where was O’Brien! If she had not been with
O’Brien, where had she been? With a sort of senile and passionate suspicion he groped
his way to the dark back parts of the mansion, and eventually found a servants’ entrance
that opened on to the garden. The moon with her scimitar had now ripped up and rolled
away all the storm-wrack. The argent light lit up all four corners of the garden. A tall
figure in blue was striding across the lawn towards the study door; a glint of moonlit
silver on his facings picked him out as Commandant O’Brien.
He vanished through the French windows into the house, leaving Lord Galloway in an
indescribable temper, at once virulent and vague. The blue-and-silver garden, like a
scene in a theatre, seemed to taunt him with all that tyrannic tenderness against which
his worldly authority was at war. The length and grace of the Irishman’s stride enraged
him as if he were a rival instead of a father; the moonlight maddened him. He was
trapped as if by magic into a garden of troubadours, a Watteau fairyland; and, willing to
shake off such amorous imbecilities by speech, he stepped briskly after his enemy. As
he did so he tripped over some tree or stone in the grass; looked down at it first with
irritation and then a second time with curiosity. The next instant the moon and the tall
poplars looked at an unusual sight — an elderly English diplomatist running hard and
crying or bellowing as he ran.
His hoarse shouts brought a pale face to the study door, the beaming glasses and
worried brow of Dr. Simon, who heard the nobleman’s first clear words. Lord Galloway
was crying: “A corpse in the grass — a blood-stained corpse.” O’Brien at last had gone
utterly out of his mind.
“We must tell Valentin at once,” said the doctor, when the other had brokenly described
all that he had dared to examine. “It is fortunate that he is here”; and even as he spoke
the great detective entered the study, attracted by the cry. It was almost amusing to note
his typical transformation; he had come with the common concern of a host and a
gentleman, fearing that some guest or servant was ill. When he was told the gory fact,
he turned with all his gravity instantly bright and businesslike; for this, however abrupt
and awful, was his business.
“Strange, gentlemen,” he said as they hurried out into the garden, “that I should have
hunted mysteries all over the earth, and now one comes and settles in my own backyard. But where is the place?” They crossed the lawn less easily, as a slight mist had
begun to rise from the river; but under the guidance of the shaken Galloway they found
the body sunken in deep grass — the body of a very tall and broad-shouldered man. He
lay face downwards, so they could only see that his big shoulders were clad in black
cloth, and that his big head was bald, except for a wisp or two of brown hair that clung
to his skull like wet seaweed. A scarlet serpent of blood crawled from under his fallen
face.
“At least,” said Simon, with a deep and singular intonation, “he is none of our party.”
“Examine him, doctor,” cried Valentin rather sharply. “He may not be dead.”
The doctor bent down. “He is not quite cold, but I am afraid he is dead enough,” he
answered. “Just help me to lift him up.”
They lifted him carefully an inch from the ground, and all doubts as to his being really
dead were settled at once and frightfully. The head fell away. It had been entirely
sundered from the body; whoever had cut his throat had managed to sever the neck as
well. Even Valentin was slightly shocked. “He must have been as strong as a gorilla,”
he muttered.
Not without a shiver, though he was used to anatomical abortions, Dr. Simon lifted the
head. It was slightly slashed about the neck and jaw, but the face was substantially
unhurt. It was a ponderous, yellow face, at once sunken and swollen, with a hawk-like
nose and heavy lids — a face of a wicked Roman emperor, with, perhaps, a distant
touch of a Chinese emperor. All present seemed to look at it with the coldest eye of
ignorance. Nothing else could be noted about the man except that, as they had lifted his
body, they had seen underneath it the white gleam of a shirt-front defaced with a red
gleam of blood. As Dr. Simon said, the man had never been of their party. But he might
very well have been trying to join it, for he had come dressed for such an occasion.
Valentin went down on his hands and knees and examined with his closest professional
attention the grass and ground for some twenty yards round the body, in which he was
assisted less skillfully by the doctor, and quite vaguely by the English lord. Nothing
rewarded their grovellings except a few twigs, snapped or chopped into very small
lengths, which Valentin lifted for an instant’s examination and then tossed away.
“Twigs,” he said gravely; “twigs, and a total stranger with his head cut off; that is all
there is on this lawn.”
There was an almost creepy stillness, and then the unnerved Galloway called out
sharply:
“Who’s that! Who’s that over there by the garden wall!”
A small figure with a foolishly large head drew waveringly near them in the moonlit
haze; looked for an instant like a goblin, but turned out to be the harmless little priest
whom they had left in the drawing-room.
“I say,” he said meekly, “there are no gates to this garden, do you know.”
Valentin’s black brows had come together somewhat crossly, as they did on principle at
the sight of the cassock. But he was far too just a man to deny the relevance of the
remark. “You are right,” he said. “Before we find out how he came to be killed, we may
have to find out how he came to be here. Now listen to me, gentlemen. If it can be done
without prejudice to my position and duty, we shall all agree that certain distinguished
names might well be kept out of this. There are ladies, gentlemen, and there is a foreign
ambassador. If we must mark it down as a crime, then it must be followed up as a crime.
But till then I can use my own discretion. I am the head of the police; I am so public that
I can afford to be private. Please Heaven, I will clear everyone of my own guests before
I call in my men to look for anybody else. Gentlemen, upon your honour, you will none
of you leave the house till tomorrow at noon; there are bedrooms for all. Simon, I think
you know where to find my man, Ivan, in the front hall; he is a confidential man. Tell
him to leave another servant on guard and come to me at once. Lord Galloway, you are
certainly the best person to tell the ladies what has happened, and prevent a panic. They
also must stay. Father Brown and I will remain with the body.”
When this spirit of the captain spoke in Valentin he was obeyed like a bugle. Dr. Simon
went through to the armoury and routed out Ivan, the public detective’s private
detective. Galloway went to the drawing-room and told the terrible news tactfully
enough, so that by the time the company assembled there the ladies were already
startled and already soothed. Meanwhile the good priest and the good atheist stood at
the head and foot of the dead man motionless in the moonlight, like symbolic statues of
their two philosophies of death.
Ivan, the confidential man with the scar and the moustaches, came out of the house like
a cannon ball, and came racing across the lawn to Valentin like a dog to his master. His
livid face was quite lively with the glow of this domestic detective story, and it was with
almost unpleasant eagerness that he asked his master’s permission to examine the
remains.
“Yes; look, if you like, Ivan,” said Valentin, “but don’t be long. We must go in and
thrash this out in the house.”
Ivan lifted the head, and then almost let it drop.
“Why,” he gasped, “it’s — no, it isn’t; it can’t be. Do you know this man, sir?”
“No,” said Valentin indifferently; “we had better go inside.”
Between them they carried the corpse to a sofa in the study, and then all made their way
to the drawing-room.
The detective sat down at a desk quietly, and even without hesitation; but his eye was
the iron eye of a judge at assize. He made a few rapid notes upon paper in front of him,
and then said shortly: “Is everybody here?”
“Not Mr. Brayne,” said the Duchess of Mont St. Michel, looking round.
“No,” said Lord Galloway in a hoarse, harsh voice. “And not Mr. Neil O’Brien, I fancy.
I saw that gentleman walking in the garden when the corpse was still warm.”
“Ivan,” said the detective, “go and fetch Commandant O’Brien and Mr. Brayne. Mr.
Brayne, I know, is finishing a cigar in the dining-room; Commandant O’Brien, I think,
is walking up and down the conservatory. I am not sure.”
The faithful attendant flashed from the room, and before anyone could stir or speak
Valentin went on with the same soldierly swiftness of exposition.
“Everyone here knows that a dead man has been found in the garden, his head cut clean
from his body. Dr. Simon, you have examined it. Do you think that to cut a man’s throat
like that would need great force? Or, perhaps, only a very sharp knife?”
“I should say that it could not be done with a knife at all,” said the pale doctor.
“Have you any thought,” resumed Valentin, “of a tool with which it could be done?”
“Speaking within modern probabilities, I really haven’t,” said the doctor, arching his
painful brows. “It’s not easy to hack a neck through even clumsily, and this was a very
clean cut. It could be done with a battle-axe or an old headsman’s axe, or an old twohanded sword.”
“But, good heavens!” cried the Duchess, almost in hysterics, “there aren’t any twohanded swords and battle-axes round here.”
Valentin was still busy with the paper in front of him. “Tell me,” he said, still writing
rapidly, “could it have been done with a long French cavalry sabre?”
A low knocking came at the door, which, for some unreasonable reason, curdled
everyone’s blood like the knocking in Macbeth. Amid that frozen silence Dr. Simon
managed to say: “A sabre — yes, I suppose it could.”
“Thank you,” said Valentin. “Come in, Ivan.”
The confidential Ivan opened the door and ushered in Commandant Neil O’Brien,
whom he had found at last pacing the garden again.
The Irish officer stood up disordered and defiant on the threshold. “What do you want
with me?” he cried.
“Please sit down,” said Valentin in pleasant, level tones. “Why, you aren’t wearing your
sword. Where is it?”
“I left it on the library table,” said O’Brien, his brogue deepening in his disturbed mood.
“It was a nuisance, it was getting — ”
“Ivan,” said Valentin, “please go and get the Commandant’s sword from the library.”
Then, as the servant vanished, “Lord Galloway says he saw you leaving the garden just
before he found the corpse. What were you doing in the garden?”
The Commandant flung himself recklessly into a chair. “Oh,” he cried in pure Irish,
“admirin’ the moon. Communing with Nature, me bhoy.”
A heavy silence sank and endured, and at the end of it came again that trivial and
terrible knocking. Ivan reappeared, carrying an empty steel scabbard. “This is all I can
find,” he said.
“Put it on the table,” said Valentin, without looking up.
There was an inhuman silence in the room, like that sea of inhuman silence round the
dock of the condemned murderer. The Duchess’s weak exclamations had long ago died
away. Lord Galloway’s swollen hatred was satisfied and even sobered. The voice that
came was quite unexpected.
“I think I can tell you,” cried Lady Margaret, in that clear, quivering voice with which a
courageous woman speaks publicly. “I can tell you what Mr. O’Brien was doing in the
garden, since he is bound to silence. He was asking me to marry him. I refused; I said in
my family circumstances I could give him nothing but my respect. He was a little angry
at that; he did not seem to think much of my respect. I wonder,” she added, with rather a
wan smile, “if he will care at all for it now. For I offer it him now. I will swear
anywhere that he never did a thing like this.”
Lord Galloway had edged up to his daughter, and was intimidating her in what he
imagined to be an undertone. “Hold your tongue, Maggie,” he said in a thunderous
whisper. “Why should you shield the fellow? Where’s his sword? Where’s his
confounded cavalry — ”
He stopped because of the singular stare with which his daughter was regarding him, a
look that was indeed a lurid magnet for the whole group.
“You old fool!” she said in a low voice without pretence of piety, “what do you suppose
you are trying to prove? I tell you this man was innocent while with me. But if he
wasn’t innocent, he was still with me. If he murdered a man in the garden, who was it
who must have seen — who must at least have known? Do you hate Neil so much as to
put your own daughter — ”
Lady Galloway screamed. Everyone else sat tingling at the touch of those satanic
tragedies that have been between lovers before now. They saw the proud, white face of
the Scotch aristocrat and her lover, the Irish adventurer, like old portraits in a dark
house. The long silence was full of formless historical memories of murdered husbands
and poisonous paramours.
In the centre of this morbid silence an innocent voice said: “Was it a very long cigar?”
The change of thought was so sharp that they had to look round to see who had spoken.
“I mean,” said little Father Brown, from the corner of the room, “I mean that cigar Mr.
Brayne is finishing. It seems nearly as long as a walking-stick.”
Despite the irrelevance there was assent as well as irritation in Valentin’s face as he
lifted his head.
“Quite right,” he remarked sharply. “Ivan, go and see about Mr. Brayne again, and bring
him here at once.”
The instant the factotum had closed the door, Valentin addressed the girl with an
entirely new earnestness.
“Lady Margaret,” he said, “we all feel, I am sure, both gratitude and admiration for your
act in rising above your lower dignity and explaining the Commandant’s conduct. But
there is a hiatus still. Lord Galloway, I understand, met you passing from the study to
the drawing-room, and it was only some minutes afterwards that he found the garden
and the Commandant still walking there.”
“You have to remember,” replied Margaret, with a faint irony in her voice, “that I had
just refused him, so we should scarcely have come back arm in arm. He is a gentleman,
anyhow; and he loitered behind — and so got charged with murder.”
“In those few moments,” said Valentin gravely, “he might really — ”
The knock came again, and Ivan put in his scarred face.
“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, “but Mr. Brayne has left the house.”
“Left!” cried Valentin, and rose for the first time to his feet.
“Gone. Scooted. Evaporated,” replied Ivan in humorous French. “His hat and coat are
gone, too, and I’ll tell you something to cap it all. I ran outside the house to find any
traces of him, and I found one, and a big trace, too.”
“What do you mean?” asked Valentin.
“I’ll show you,” said his servant, and reappeared with a flashing naked cavalry sabre,
streaked with blood about the point and edge. Everyone in the room eyed it as if it were
a thunderbolt; but the experienced Ivan went on quite quietly:
“I found this,” he said, “flung among the bushes fifty yards up the road to Paris. In other
words, I found it just where your respectable Mr. Brayne threw it when he ran away.”
There was again a silence, but of a new sort. Valentin took the sabre, examined it,
reflected with unaffected concentration of thought, and then turned a respectful face to
O’Brien. “Commandant,” he said, “we trust you will always produce this weapon if it is
wanted for police examination. Meanwhile,” he added, slapping the steel back in the
ringing scabbard, “let me return you your sword.”
At the military symbolism of the action the audience could hardly refrain from
applause.
For Neil O’Brien, indeed, that gesture was the turning-point of existence. By the time he
was wandering in the mysterious garden again in the colours of the morning the tragic
futility of his ordinary mien had fallen from him; he was a man with many reasons for
happiness. Lord Galloway was a gentleman, and had offered him an apology. Lady
Margaret was something better than a lady, a woman at least, and had perhaps given
him something better than an apology, as they drifted among the old flowerbeds before
breakfast. The whole company was more lighthearted and humane, for though the riddle
of the death remained, the load of suspicion was lifted off them all, and sent flying off
to Paris with the strange millionaire — a man they hardly knew. The devil was cast out
of the house — he had cast himself out.
Still, the riddle remained; and when O’Brien threw himself on a garden seat beside Dr.
Simon, that keenly scientific person at once resumed it. He did not get much talk out of
O’Brien, whose thoughts were on pleasanter things.
“I can’t say it interests me much,” said the Irishman frankly, “especially as it seems
pretty plain now. Apparently Brayne hated this stranger for some reason; lured him into
the garden, and killed him with my sword. Then he fled to the city, tossing the sword
away as he went. By the way, Ivan tells me the dead man had a Yankee dollar in his
pocket. So he was a countryman of Brayne’s, and that seems to clinch it. I don’t see any
difficulties about the business.”
“There are five colossal difficulties,” said the doctor quietly; “like high walls within
walls. Don’t mistake me. I don’t doubt that Brayne did it; his flight, I fancy, proves that.
But as to how he did it. First difficulty: Why should a man kill another man with a great
hulking sabre, when he can almost kill him with a pocket knife and put it back in his
pocket? Second difficulty: Why was there no noise or outcry? Does a man commonly
see another come up waving a scimitar and offer no remarks? Third difficulty: A servant
watched the front door all the evening; and a rat cannot get into Valentin’s garden
anywhere. How did the dead man get into the garden? Fourth difficulty: Given the same
conditions, how did Brayne get out of the garden?”
“And the fifth,” said Neil, with eyes fixed on the English priest who was coming slowly
up the path.
“Is a trifle, I suppose,” said the doctor, “but I think an odd one. When I first saw how
the head had been slashed, I supposed the assassin had struck more than once. But on
examination I found many cuts across the truncated section; in other words, they were
struck after the head was off. Did Brayne hate his foe so fiendishly that he stood sabring
his body in the moonlight?”
“Horrible!” said O’Brien, and shuddered.
The little priest, Brown, had arrived while they were talking, and had waited, with
characteristic shyness, till they had finished. Then he said awkwardly:
“I say, I’m sorry to interrupt. But I was sent to tell you the news!”
“News?” repeated Simon, and stared at him rather painfully through his glasses.
“Yes, I’m sorry,” said Father Brown mildly. “There’s been another murder, you know.”
Both men on the seat sprang up, leaving it rocking.
“And, what’s stranger still,” continued the priest, with his dull eye on the
rhododendrons, “it’s the same disgusting sort; it’s another beheading. They found the
second head actually bleeding into the river, a few yards along Brayne’s road to Paris;
so they suppose that he — ”
“Great Heaven!” cried O’Brien. “Is Brayne a monomaniac?”
“There are American vendettas,” said the priest impassively. Then he added: “They
want you to come to the library and see it.”
Commandant O’Brien followed the others towards the inquest, feeling decidedly sick.
As a soldier, he loathed all this secretive carnage; where were these extravagant
amputations going to stop? First one head was hacked off, and then another; in this case
(he told himself bitterly) it was not true that two heads were better than one. As he
crossed the study he almost staggered at a shocking coincidence. Upon Valentin’s table
lay the coloured picture of yet a third bleeding head; and it was the head of Valentin
himself. A second glance showed him it was only a Nationalist paper, called The
Guillotine, which every week showed one of its political opponents with rolling eyes
and writhing features just after execution; for Valentin was an anti-clerical of some
note. But O’Brien was an Irishman, with a kind of chastity even in his sins; and his
gorge rose against that great brutality of the intellect which belongs only to France. He
felt Paris as a whole, from the grotesques on the Gothic churches to the gross
caricatures in the newspapers. He remembered the gigantic jests of the Revolution. He
saw the whole city as one ugly energy, from the sanguinary sketch lying on Valentin’s
table up to where, above a mountain and forest of gargoyles, the great devil grins on
Notre Dame.
The library was long, low, and dark; what light entered it shot from under low blinds
and had still some of the ruddy tinge of morning. Valentin and his servant Ivan were
waiting for them at the upper end of a long, slightly-sloping desk, on which lay the
mortal remains, looking enormous in the twilight. The big black figure and yellow face
of the man found in the garden confronted them essentially unchanged. The second
head, which had been fished from among the river reeds that morning, lay streaming
and dripping beside it; Valentin’s men were still seeking to recover the rest of this
second corpse, which was supposed to be afloat. Father Brown, who did not seem to
share O’Brien’s sensibilities in the least, went up to the second head and examined it
with his blinking care. It was little more than a mop of wet white hair, fringed with
silver fire in the red and level morning light; the face, which seemed of an ugly,
empurpled and perhaps criminal type, had been much battered against trees or stones as
it tossed in the water.
“Good morning, Commandant O’Brien,” said Valentin, with quiet cordiality. “You have
heard of Brayne’s last experiment in butchery, I suppose?”
Father Brown was still bending over the head with white hair, and he said, without
looking up:
“I suppose it is quite certain that Brayne cut off this head, too.”
“Well, it seems common sense,” said Valentin, with his hands in his pockets. “Killed in
the same way as the other. Found within a few yards of the other. And sliced by the
same weapon which we know he carried away.”
“Yes, yes; I know,” replied Father Brown submissively. “Yet, you know, I doubt
whether Brayne could have cut off this head.”
“Why not?” inquired Dr. Simon, with a rational stare.
“Well, doctor,” said the priest, looking up blinking, “can a man cut off his own head? I
don’t know.”
O’Brien felt an insane universe crashing about his ears; but the doctor sprang forward
with impetuous practicality and pushed back the wet white hair.
“Oh, there’s no doubt it’s Brayne,” said the priest quietly. “He had exactly that chip in
the left ear.”
The detective, who had been regarding the priest with steady and glittering eyes, opened
his clenched mouth and said sharply: “You seem to know a lot about him, Father
Brown.”
“I do,” said the little man simply. “I’ve been about with him for some weeks. He was
thinking of joining our church.”
The star of the fanatic sprang into Valentin’s eyes; he strode towards the priest with
clenched hands. “And, perhaps,” he cried, with a blasting sneer, “perhaps he was also
thinking of leaving all his money to your church.”
“Perhaps he was,” said Brown stolidly; “it is possible.”
“In that case,” cried Valentin, with a dreadful smile, “you may indeed know a great deal
about him. About his life and about his — ”
Commandant O’Brien laid a hand on Valentin’s arm. “Drop that slanderous rubbish,
Valentin,” he said, “or there may be more swords yet.”
But Valentin (under the steady, humble gaze of the priest) had already recovered
himself. “Well,” he said shortly, “people’s private opinions can wait. You gentlemen are
still bound by your promise to stay; you must enforce it on yourselves — and on each
other. Ivan here will tell you anything more you want to know; I must get to business
and write to the authorities. We can’t keep this quiet any longer. I shall be writing in my
study if there is any more news.”
“Is there any more news, Ivan?” asked Dr. Simon, as the chief of police strode out of the
room.
“Only one more thing, I think, sir,” said Ivan, wrinkling up his grey old face, “but that’s
important, too, in its way. There’s that old buffer you found on the lawn,” and he
pointed without pretence of reverence at the big black body with the yellow head.
“We’ve found out who he is, anyhow.”
“Indeed!” cried the astonished doctor, “and who is he?”
“His name was Arnold Becker,” said the under-detective, “though he went by many
aliases. He was a wandering sort of scamp, and is known to have been in America; so
that was where Brayne got his knife into him. We didn’t have much to do with him
ourselves, for he worked mostly in Germany. We’ve communicated, of course, with the
German police. But, oddly enough, there was a twin brother of his, named Louis
Becker, whom we had a great deal to do with. In fact, we found it necessary to
guillotine him only yesterday. Well, it’s a rum thing, gentlemen, but when I saw that
fellow flat on the lawn I had the greatest jump of my life. If I hadn’t seen Louis Becker
guillotined with my own eyes, I’d have sworn it was Louis Becker lying there in the
grass. Then, of course, I remembered his twin brother in Germany, and following up the
clue — ”
The explanatory Ivan stopped, for the excellent reason that nobody was listening to him.
The Commandant and the doctor were both staring at Father Brown, who had sprung
stiffly to his feet, and was holding his temples tight like a man in sudden and violent
pain.
“Stop, stop, stop!” he cried; “stop talking a minute, for I see half. Will God give me
strength? Will my brain make the one jump and see all? Heaven help me! I used to be
fairly good at thinking. I could paraphrase any page in Aquinas once. Will my head split
— or will it see? I see half — I only see half.”
He buried his head in his hands, and stood in a sort of rigid torture of thought or prayer,
while the other three could only go on staring at this last prodigy of their wild twelve
hours.
When Father Brown’s hands fell they showed a face quite fresh and serious, like a
child’s. He heaved a huge sigh, and said: “Let us get this said and done with as quickly
as possible. Look here, this will be the quickest way to convince you all of the truth.”
He turned to the doctor. “Dr. Simon,” he said, “you have a strong head-piece, and I
heard you this morning asking the five hardest questions about this business. Well, if
you will ask them again, I will answer them.”
Simon’s pince-nez dropped from his nose in his doubt and wonder, but he answered at
once. “Well, the first question, you know, is why a man should kill another with a
clumsy sabre at all when a man can kill with a bodkin?”
“A man cannot behead with a bodkin,” said Brown calmly, “and for this murder
beheading was absolutely necessary.”
“Why?” asked O’Brien, with interest.
“And the next question?” asked Father Brown.
“Well, why didn’t the man cry out or anything?” asked the doctor; “sabres in gardens
are certainly unusual.”
“Twigs,” said the priest gloomily, and turned to the window which looked on the scene
of death. “No one saw the point of the twigs. Why should they lie on that lawn (look at
it) so far from any tree? They were not snapped off; they were chopped off. The
murderer occupied his enemy with some tricks with the sabre, showing how he could
cut a branch in mid-air, or what-not. Then, while his enemy bent down to see the result,
a silent slash, and the head fell.”
“Well,” said the doctor slowly, “that seems plausible enough. But my next two
questions will stump anyone.”
The priest still stood looking critically out of the window and waited.
“You know how all the garden was sealed up like an air-tight chamber,” went on the
doctor. “Well, how did the strange man get into the garden?”
Without turning round, the little priest answered: “There never was any strange man in
the garden.”
There was a silence, and then a sudden cackle of almost childish laughter relieved the
strain. The absurdity of Brown’s remark moved Ivan to open taunts.
“Oh!” he cried; “then we didn’t lug a great fat corpse on to a sofa last night? He hadn’t
got into the garden, I suppose?”
“Got into the garden?” repeated Brown reflectively. “No, not entirely.”
“Hang it all,” cried Simon, “a man gets into a garden, or he doesn’t.”
“Not necessarily,” said the priest, with a faint smile. “What is the nest question,
doctor?”
“I fancy you’re ill,” exclaimed Dr. Simon sharply; “but I’ll ask the next question if you
like. How did Brayne get out of the garden?”
“He didn’t get out of the garden,” said the priest, still looking out of the window.
“Didn’t get out of the garden?” exploded Simon.
“Not completely,” said Father Brown.
Simon shook his fists in a frenzy of French logic. “A man gets out of a garden, or he
doesn’t,” he cried.
“Not always,” said Father Brown.
Dr. Simon sprang to his feet impatiently. “I have no time to spare on such senseless
talk,” he cried angrily. “If you can’t understand a man being on one side of a wall or the
other, I won’t trouble you further.”
“Doctor,” said the cleric very gently, “we have always got on very pleasantly together.
If only for the sake of old friendship, stop and tell me your fifth question.”
The impatient Simon sank into a chair by the door and said briefly: “The head and
shoulders were cut about in a queer way. It seemed to be done after death.”
“Yes,” said the motionless priest, “it was done so as to make you assume exactly the
one simple falsehood that you did assume. It was done to make you take for granted that
the head belonged to the body.”
The borderland of the brain, where all the monsters are made, moved horribly in the
Gaelic O’Brien. He felt the chaotic presence of all the horse-men and fish-women that
man’s unnatural fancy has begotten. A voice older than his first fathers seemed saying
in his ear: “Keep out of the monstrous garden where grows the tree with double fruit.
Avoid the evil garden where died the man with two heads.” Yet, while these shameful
symbolic shapes passed across the ancient mirror of his Irish soul, his Frenchified
intellect was quite alert, and was watching the odd priest as closely and incredulously as
all the rest.
Father Brown had turned round at last, and stood against the window, with his face in
dense shadow; but even in that shadow they could see it was pale as ashes.
Nevertheless, he spoke quite sensibly, as if there were no Gaelic souls on earth.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “you did not find the strange body of Becker in the garden. You
did not find any strange body in the garden. In face of Dr. Simon’s rationalism, I still
affirm that Becker was only partly present. Look here!” (pointing to the black bulk of
the mysterious corpse) “you never saw that man in your lives. Did you ever see this
man?”
He rapidly rolled away the bald, yellow head of the unknown, and put in its place the
white-maned head beside it. And there, complete, unified, unmistakable, lay Julius K.
Brayne.
“The murderer,” went on Brown quietly, “hacked off his enemy’s head and flung the
sword far over the wall. But he was too clever to fling the sword only. He flung the
head over the wall also. Then he had only to clap on another head to the corpse, and (as
he insisted on a private inquest) you all imagined a totally new man.”
“Clap on another head!” said O’Brien staring. “What other head? Heads don’t grow on
garden bushes, do they?”
“No,” said Father Brown huskily, and looking at his boots; “there is only one place
where they grow. They grow in the basket of the guillotine, beside which the chief of
police, Aristide Valentin, was standing not an hour before the murder. Oh, my friends,
hear me a minute more before you tear me in pieces. Valentin is an honest man, if being
mad for an arguable cause is honesty. But did you never see in that cold, grey eye of his
that he is mad! He would do anything, anything, to break what he calls the superstition
of the Cross. He has fought for it and starved for it, and now he has murdered for it.
Brayne’s crazy millions had hitherto been scattered among so many sects that they did
little to alter the balance of things. But Valentin heard a whisper that Brayne, like so
many scatter-brained sceptics, was drifting to us; and that was quite a different thing.
Brayne would pour supplies into the impoverished and pugnacious Church of France;
he would support six Nationalist newspapers like The Guillotine. The battle was already
balanced on a point, and the fanatic took flame at the risk. He resolved to destroy the
millionaire, and he did it as one would expect the greatest of detectives to commit his
only crime. He abstracted the severed head of Becker on some criminological excuse,
and took it home in his official box. He had that last argument with Brayne, that Lord
Galloway did not hear the end of; that failing, he led him out into the sealed garden,
talked about swordsmanship, used twigs and a sabre for illustration, and — ”
Ivan of the Scar sprang up. “You lunatic,” he yelled; “you’ll go to my master now, if I
take you by — ”
“Why, I was going there,” said Brown heavily; “I must ask him to confess, and all that.”
Driving the unhappy Brown before them like a hostage or sacrifice, they rushed together
into the sudden stillness of Valentin’s study.
The great detective sat at his desk apparently too occupied to hear their turbulent
entrance. They paused a moment, and then something in the look of that upright and
elegant back made the doctor run forward suddenly. A touch and a glance showed him
that there was a small box of pills at Valentin’s elbow, and that Valentin was dead in his
chair; and on the blind face of the suicide was more than the pride of Cato.
The Queer Feet
If you meet a member of that select club, “The Twelve True Fishermen,” entering the
Vernon Hotel for the annual club dinner, you will observe, as he takes off his overcoat,
that his evening coat is green and not black. If (supposing that you have the star-defying
audacity to address such a being) you ask him why, he will probably answer that he
does it to avoid being mistaken for a waiter. You will then retire crushed. But you will
leave behind you a mystery as yet unsolved and a tale worth telling.
If (to pursue the same vein of improbable conjecture) you were to meet a mild, hardworking little priest, named Father Brown, and were to ask him what he thought was the
most singular luck of his life, he would probably reply that upon the whole his best
stroke was at the Vernon Hotel, where he had averted a crime and, perhaps, saved a
soul, merely by listening to a few footsteps in a passage. He is perhaps a little proud of
this wild and wonderful guess of his, and it is possible that he might refer to it. But
since it is immeasurably unlikely that you will ever rise high enough in the social world
to find “The Twelve True Fishermen,” or that you will ever sink low enough among
slums and criminals to find Father Brown, I fear you will never hear the story at all
unless you hear it from me.
The Vernon Hotel at which The Twelve True Fishermen held their annual dinners was
an institution such as can only exist in an oligarchical society which has almost gone
mad on good manners. It was that topsy-turvy product — an “exclusive” commercial
enterprise. That is, it was a thing which paid not by attracting people, but actually by
turning people away. In the heart of a plutocracy tradesmen become cunning enough to
be more fastidious than their customers. They positively create difficulties so that their
wealthy and weary clients may spend money and diplomacy in overcoming them. If
there were a fashionable hotel in London which no man could enter who was under six
foot, society would meekly make up parties of six-foot men to dine in it. If there were
an expensive restaurant which by a mere caprice of its proprietor was only open on
Thursday afternoon, it would be crowded on Thursday afternoon. The Vernon Hotel
stood, as if by accident, in the corner of a square in Belgravia. It was a small hotel; and
a very inconvenient one. But its very inconveniences were considered as walls
protecting a particular class. One inconvenience, in particular, was held to be of vital
importance: the fact that practically only twenty-four people could dine in the place at
once. The only big dinner table was the celebrated terrace table, which stood open to the
air on a sort of veranda overlooking one of the most exquisite old gardens in London.
Thus it happened that even the twenty-four seats at this table could only be enjoyed in
warm weather; and this making the enjoyment yet more difficult made it yet more
desired. The existing owner of the hotel was a Jew named Lever; and he made nearly a
million out of it, by making it difficult to get into. Of course he combined with this
limitation in the scope of his enterprise the most careful polish in its performance. The
wines and cooking were really as good as any in Europe, and the demeanour of the
attendants exactly mirrored the fixed mood of the English upper class. The proprietor
knew all his waiters like the fingers on his hand; there were only fifteen of them all told.
It was much easier to become a Member of Parliament than to become a waiter in that
hotel. Each waiter was trained in terrible silence and smoothness, as if he were a
gentleman’s servant. And, indeed, there was generally at least one waiter to every
gentleman who dined.
The club of The Twelve True Fishermen would not have consented to dine anywhere
but in such a place, for it insisted on a luxurious privacy; and would have been quite
upset by the mere thought that any other club was even dining in the same building. On
the occasion of their annual dinner the Fishermen were in the habit of exposing all their
treasures, as if they were in a private house, especially the celebrated set of fish knives
and forks which were, as it were, the insignia of the society, each being exquisitely
wrought in silver in the form of a fish, and each loaded at the hilt with one large pearl.
These were always laid out for the fish course, and the fish course was always the most
magnificent in that magnificent repast. The society had a vast number of ceremonies
and observances, but it had no history and no object; that was where it was so very
aristocratic. You did not have to be anything in order to be one of the Twelve Fishers;
unless you were already a certain sort of person, you never even heard of them. It had
been in existence twelve years. Its president was Mr. Audley. Its vice-president was the
Duke of Chester.
If I have in any degree conveyed the atmosphere of this appalling hotel, the reader may
feel a natural wonder as to how I came to know anything about it, and may even
speculate as to how so ordinary a person as my friend Father Brown came to find
himself in that golden galley. As far as that is concerned, my story is simple, or even
vulgar. There is in the world a very aged rioter and demagogue who breaks into the
most refined retreats with the dreadful information that all men are brothers, and
wherever this leveller went on his pale horse it was Father Brown’s trade to follow. One
of the waiters, an Italian, had been struck down with a paralytic stroke that afternoon;
and his Jewish employer, marvelling mildly at such superstitions, had consented to send
for the nearest Popish priest. With what the waiter confessed to Father Brown we are
not concerned, for the excellent reason that that cleric kept it to himself; but apparently
it involved him in writing out a note or statement for the conveying of some message or
the righting of some wrong. Father Brown, therefore, with a meek impudence which he
would have shown equally in Buckingham Palace, asked to be provided with a room
and writing materials. Mr. Lever was torn in two. He was a kind man, and had also that
bad imitation of kindness, the dislike of any difficulty or scene. At the same time the
presence of one unusual stranger in his hotel that evening was like a speck of dirt on
something just cleaned. There was never any borderland or anteroom in the Vernon
Hotel, no people waiting in the hall, no customers coming in on chance. There were
fifteen waiters. There were twelve guests. It would be as startling to find a new guest in
the hotel that night as to find a new brother taking breakfast or tea in one’s own family.
Moreover, the priest’s appearance was second-rate and his clothes muddy; a mere
glimpse of him afar off might precipitate a crisis in the club. Mr. Lever at last hit on a
plan to cover, since he might not obliterate, the disgrace. When you enter (as you never
will) the Vernon Hotel, you pass down a short passage decorated with a few dingy but
important pictures, and come to the main vestibule and lounge which opens on your
right into passages leading to the public rooms, and on your left to a similar passage
pointing to the kitchens and offices of the hotel. Immediately on your left hand is the
corner of a glass office, which abuts upon the lounge — a house within a house, so to
speak, like the old hotel bar which probably once occupied its place.
In this office sat the representative of the proprietor (nobody in this place ever appeared
in person if he could help it), and just beyond the office, on the way to the servants’
quarters, was the gentlemen’s cloak room, the last boundary of the gentlemen’s domain.
But between the office and the cloak room was a small private room without other
outlet, sometimes used by the proprietor for delicate and important matters, such as
lending a duke a thousand pounds or declining to lend him sixpence. It is a mark of the
magnificent tolerance of Mr. Lever that he permitted this holy place to be for about half
an hour profaned by a mere priest, scribbling away on a piece of paper. The story which
Father Brown was writing down was very likely a much better story than this one, only
it will never be known. I can merely state that it was very nearly as long, and that the
last two or three paragraphs of it were the least exciting and absorbing.
For it was by the time that he had reached these that the priest began a little to allow his
thoughts to wander and his animal senses, which were commonly keen, to awaken. The
time of darkness and dinner was drawing on; his own forgotten little room was without
a light, and perhaps the gathering gloom, as occasionally happens, sharpened the sense
of sound. As Father Brown wrote the last and least essential part of his document, he
caught himself writing to the rhythm of a recurrent noise outside, just as one sometimes
thinks to the tune of a railway train. When he became conscious of the thing he found
what it was: only the ordinary patter of feet passing the door, which in an hotel was no
very unlikely matter. Nevertheless, he stared at the darkened ceiling, and listened to the
sound. After he had listened for a few seconds dreamily, he got to his feet and listened
intently, with his head a little on one side. Then he sat down again and buried his brow
in his hands, now not merely listening, but listening and thinking also.
The footsteps outside at any given moment were such as one might hear in any hotel;
and yet, taken as a whole, there was something very strange about them. There were no
other footsteps. It was always a very silent house, for the few familiar guests went at
once to their own apartments, and the well-trained waiters were told to be almost
invisible until they were wanted. One could not conceive any place where there was less
reason to apprehend anything irregular. But these footsteps were so odd that one could
not decide to call them regular or irregular. Father Brown followed them with his finger
on the edge of the table, like a man trying to learn a tune on the piano.
First, there came a long rush of rapid little steps, such as a light man might make in
winning a walking race. At a certain point they stopped and changed to a sort of slow,
swinging stamp, numbering not a quarter of the steps, but occupying about the same
time. The moment the last echoing stamp had died away would come again the run or
ripple of light, hurrying feet, and then again the thud of the heavier walking. It was
certainly the same pair of boots, partly because (as has been said) there were no other
boots about, and partly because they had a small but unmistakable creak in them. Father
Brown had the kind of head that cannot help asking questions; and on this apparently
trivial question his head almost split. He had seen men run in order to jump. He had
seen men run in order to slide. But why on earth should a man run in order to walk? Or,
again, why should he walk in order to run? Yet no other description would cover the
antics of this invisible pair of legs. The man was either walking very fast down one-half
of the corridor in order to walk very slow down the other half; or he was walking very
slow at one end to have the rapture of walking fast at the other. Neither suggestion
seemed to make much sense. His brain was growing darker and darker, like his room.
Yet, as he began to think steadily, the very blackness of his cell seemed to make his
thoughts more vivid; he began to see as in a kind of vision the fantastic feet capering
along the corridor in unnatural or symbolic attitudes. Was it a heathen religious dance?
Or some entirely new kind of scientific exercise? Father Brown began to ask himself
with more exactness what the steps suggested. Taking the slow step first: it certainly
was not the step of the proprietor. Men of his type walk with a rapid waddle, or they sit
still. It could not be any servant or messenger waiting for directions. It did not sound
like it. The poorer orders (in an oligarchy) sometimes lurch about when they are slightly
drunk, but generally, and especially in such gorgeous scenes, they stand or sit in
constrained attitudes. No; that heavy yet springy step, with a kind of careless emphasis,
not specially noisy, yet not caring what noise it made, belonged to only one of the
animals of this earth. It was a gentleman of western Europe, and probably one who had
never worked for his living.
Just as he came to this solid certainty, the step changed to the quicker one, and ran past
the door as feverishly as a rat. The listener remarked that though this step was much
swifter it was also much more noiseless, almost as if the man were walking on tiptoe.
Yet it was not associated in his mind with secrecy, but with something else —
something that he could not remember. He was maddened by one of those halfmemories that make a man feel half-witted. Surely he had heard that strange, swift
walking somewhere. Suddenly he sprang to his feet with a new idea in his head, and
walked to the door. His room had no direct outlet on the passage, but let on one side
into the glass office, and on the other into the cloak room beyond. He tried the door into
the office, and found it locked. Then he looked at the window, now a square pane full of
purple cloud cleft by livid sunset, and for an instant he smelt evil as a dog smells rats.
The rational part of him (whether the wiser or not) regained its supremacy. He
remembered that the proprietor had told him that he should lock the door, and would
come later to release him. He told himself that twenty things he had not thought of
might explain the eccentric sounds outside; he reminded himself that there was just
enough light left to finish his own proper work. Bringing his paper to the window so as
to catch the last stormy evening light, he resolutely plunged once more into the almost
completed record. He had written for about twenty minutes, bending closer and closer to
his paper in the lessening light; then suddenly he sat upright. He had heard the strange
feet once more.
This time they had a third oddity. Previously the unknown man had walked, with levity
indeed and lightning quickness, but he had walked. This time he ran. One could hear the
swift, soft, bounding steps coming along the corridor, like the pads of a fleeing and
leaping panther. Whoever was coming was a very strong, active man, in still yet tearing
excitement. Yet, when the sound had swept up to the office like a sort of whispering
whirlwind, it suddenly changed again to the old slow, swaggering stamp.
Father Brown flung down his paper, and, knowing the office door to be locked, went at
once into the cloak room on the other side. The attendant of this place was temporarily
absent, probably because the only guests were at dinner and his office was a sinecure.
After groping through a grey forest of overcoats, he found that the dim cloak room
opened on the lighted corridor in the form of a sort of counter or half-door, like most of
the counters across which we have all handed umbrellas and received tickets. There was
a light immediately above the semicircular arch of this opening. It threw little
illumination on Father Brown himself, who seemed a mere dark outline against the dim
sunset window behind him. But it threw an almost theatrical light on the man who stood
outside the cloak room in the corridor.
He was an elegant man in very plain evening dress; tall, but with an air of not taking up
much room; one felt that he could have slid along like a shadow where many smaller
men would have been obvious and obstructive. His face, now flung back in the
lamplight, was swarthy and vivacious, the face of a foreigner. His figure was good, his
manners good humoured and confident; a critic could only say that his black coat was a
shade below his figure and manners, and even bulged and bagged in an odd way. The
moment he caught sight of Brown’s black silhouette against the sunset, he tossed down
a scrap of paper with a number and called out with amiable authority: “I want my hat
and coat, please; I find I have to go away at once.”
Father Brown took the paper without a word, and obediently went to look for the coat; it
was not the first menial work he had done in his life. He brought it and laid it on the
counter; meanwhile, the strange gentleman who had been feeling in his waistcoat
pocket, said laughing: “I haven’t got any silver; you can keep this.” And he threw down
half a sovereign, and caught up his coat.
Father Brown’s figure remained quite dark and still; but in that instant he had lost his
head. His head was always most valuable when he had lost it. In such moments he put
two and two together and made four million. Often the Catholic Church (which is
wedded to common sense) did not approve of it. Often he did not approve of it himself.
But it was real inspiration — important at rare crises — when whosoever shall lose his
head the same shall save it.
“I think, sir,” he said civilly, “that you have some silver in your pocket.”
The tall gentleman stared. “Hang it,” he cried, “if I choose to give you gold, why should
you complain?”
“Because silver is sometimes more valuable than gold,” said the priest mildly; “that is,
in large quantities.”
The stranger looked at him curiously. Then he looked still more curiously up the
passage towards the main entrance. Then he looked back at Brown again, and then he
looked very carefully at the window beyond Brown’s head, still coloured with the afterglow of the storm. Then he seemed to make up his mind. He put one hand on the
counter, vaulted over as easily as an acrobat and towered above the priest, putting one
tremendous hand upon his collar.
“Stand still,” he said, in a hacking whisper. “I don’t want to threaten you, but — ”
“I do want to threaten you,” said Father Brown, in a voice like a rolling drum, “I want to
threaten you with the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched.”
“You’re a rum sort of cloak-room clerk,” said the other.
“I am a priest, Monsieur Flambeau,” said Brown, “and I am ready to hear your
confession.”
The other stood gasping for a few moments, and then staggered back into a chair.
The first two courses of the dinner of The Twelve True Fishermen had proceeded with
placid success. I do not possess a copy of the menu; and if I did it would not convey
anything to anybody. It was written in a sort of super-French employed by cooks, but
quite unintelligible to Frenchmen. There was a tradition in the club that the hors
d’oeuvres should be various and manifold to the point of madness. They were taken
seriously because they were avowedly useless extras, like the whole dinner and the
whole club. There was also a tradition that the soup course should be light and
unpretending — a sort of simple and austere vigil for the feast of fish that was to come.
The talk was that strange, slight talk which governs the British Empire, which governs it
in secret, and yet would scarcely enlighten an ordinary Englishman even if he could
overhear it. Cabinet ministers on both sides were alluded to by their Christian names
with a sort of bored benignity. The Radical Chancellor of the Exchequer, whom the
whole Tory party was supposed to be cursing for his extortions, was praised for his
minor poetry, or his saddle in the hunting field. The Tory leader, whom all Liberals
were supposed to hate as a tyrant, was discussed and, on the whole, praised — as a
Liberal. It seemed somehow that politicians were very important. And yet, anything
seemed important about them except their politics. Mr. Audley, the chairman, was an
amiable, elderly man who still wore Gladstone collars; he was a kind of symbol of all
that phantasmal and yet fixed society. He had never done anything — not even anything
wrong. He was not fast; he was not even particularly rich. He was simply in the thing;
and there was an end of it. No party could ignore him, and if he had wished to be in the
Cabinet he certainly would have been put there. The Duke of Chester, the vicepresident, was a young and rising politician. That is to say, he was a pleasant youth,
with flat, fair hair and a freckled face, with moderate intelligence and enormous estates.
In public his appearances were always successful and his principle was simple enough.
When he thought of a joke he made it, and was called brilliant. When he could not think
of a joke he said that this was no time for trifling, and was called able. In private, in a
club of his own class, he was simply quite pleasantly frank and silly, like a schoolboy.
Mr. Audley, never having been in politics, treated them a little more seriously.
Sometimes he even embarrassed the company by phrases suggesting that there was
some difference between a Liberal and a Conservative. He himself was a Conservative,
even in private life. He had a roll of grey hair over the back of his collar, like certain
old-fashioned statesmen, and seen from behind he looked like the man the empire
wants. Seen from the front he looked like a mild, self-indulgent bachelor, with rooms in
the Albany — which he was.
As has been remarked, there were twenty-four seats at the terrace table, and only twelve
members of the club. Thus they could occupy the terrace in the most luxurious style of
all, being ranged along the inner side of the table, with no one opposite, commanding an
uninterrupted view of the garden, the colours of which were still vivid, though evening
was closing in somewhat luridly for the time of year. The chairman sat in the centre of
the line, and the vice-president at the right-hand end of it. When the twelve guests first
trooped into their seats it was the custom (for some unknown reason) for all the fifteen
waiters to stand lining the wall like troops presenting arms to the king, while the fat
proprietor stood and bowed to the club with radiant surprise, as if he had never heard of
them before. But before the first chink of knife and fork this army of retainers had
vanished, only the one or two required to collect and distribute the plates darting about
in deathly silence. Mr. Lever, the proprietor, of course had disappeared in convulsions
of courtesy long before. It would be exaggerative, indeed irreverent, to say that he ever
positively appeared again. But when the important course, the fish course, was being
brought on, there was — how shall I put it? — a vivid shadow, a projection of his
personality, which told that he was hovering near. The sacred fish course consisted (to
the eyes of the vulgar) in a sort of monstrous pudding, about the size and shape of a
wedding cake, in which some considerable number of interesting fishes had finally lost
the shapes which God had given to them. The Twelve True Fishermen took up their
celebrated fish knives and fish forks, and approached it as gravely as if every inch of the
pudding cost as much as the silver fork it was eaten with. So it did, for all I know. This
course was dealt with in eager and devouring silence; and it was only when his plate
was nearly empty that the young duke made the ritual remark: “They can’t do this
anywhere but here.”
“Nowhere,” said Mr. Audley, in a deep bass voice, turning to the speaker and nodding
his venerable head a number of times. “Nowhere, assuredly, except here. It was
represented to me that at the Cafe Anglais — ”
Here he was interrupted and even agitated for a moment by the removal of his plate, but
he recaptured the valuable thread of his thoughts. “It was represented to me that the
same could be done at the Cafe Anglais. Nothing like it, sir,” he said, shaking his head
ruthlessly, like a hanging judge. “Nothing like it.”
“Overrated place,” said a certain Colonel Pound, speaking (by the look of him) for the
first time for some months.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the Duke of Chester, who was an optimist, “it’s jolly good for
some things. You can’t beat it at — ”
A waiter came swiftly along the room, and then stopped dead. His stoppage was as
silent as his tread; but all those vague and kindly gentlemen were so used to the utter
smoothness of the unseen machinery which surrounded and supported their lives, that a
waiter doing anything unexpected was a start and a jar. They felt as you and I would
feel if the inanimate world disobeyed — if a chair ran away from us.
The waiter stood staring a few seconds, while there deepened on every face at table a
strange shame which is wholly the product of our time. It is the combination of modern
humanitarianism with the horrible modern abyss between the souls of the rich and poor.
A genuine historic aristocrat would have thrown things at the waiter, beginning with
empty bottles, and very probably ending with money. A genuine democrat would have
asked him, with comrade-like clearness of speech, what the devil he was doing. But
these modern plutocrats could not bear a poor man near to them, either as a slave or as a
friend. That something had gone wrong with the servants was merely a dull, hot
embarrassment. They did not want to be brutal, and they dreaded the need to be
benevolent. They wanted the thing, whatever it was, to be over. It was over. The waiter,
after standing for some seconds rigid, like a cataleptic, turned round and ran madly out
of the room.
When he reappeared in the room, or rather in the doorway, it was in company with
another waiter, with whom he whispered and gesticulated with southern fierceness.
Then the first waiter went away, leaving the second waiter, and reappeared with a third
waiter. By the time a fourth waiter had joined this hurried synod, Mr. Audley felt it
necessary to break the silence in the interests of Tact. He used a very loud cough,
instead of a presidential hammer, and said: “Splendid work young Moocher’s doing in
Burmah. Now, no other nation in the world could have — ”
A fifth waiter had sped towards him like an arrow, and was whispering in his ear: “So
sorry. Important! Might the proprietor speak to you?”
The chairman turned in disorder, and with a dazed stare saw Mr. Lever coming towards
them with his lumbering quickness. The gait of the good proprietor was indeed his usual
gait, but his face was by no means usual. Generally it was a genial copper-brown; now
it was a sickly yellow.
“You will pardon me, Mr. Audley,” he said, with asthmatic breathlessness. “I have great
apprehensions. Your fish-plates, they are cleared away with the knife and fork on
them!”
“Well, I hope so,” said the chairman, with some warmth.
“You see him?” panted the excited hotel keeper; “you see the waiter who took them
away? You know him?”
“Know the waiter?” answered Mr. Audley indignantly. “Certainly not!”
Mr. Lever opened his hands with a gesture of agony. “I never send him,” he said. “I
know not when or why he come. I send my waiter to take away the plates, and he find
them already away.”
Mr. Audley still looked rather too bewildered to be really the man the empire wants;
none of the company could say anything except the man of wood — Colonel Pound —
who seemed galvanised into an unnatural life. He rose rigidly from his chair, leaving all
the rest sitting, screwed his eyeglass into his eye, and spoke in a raucous undertone as if
he had half-forgotten how to speak. “Do you mean,” he said, “that somebody has stolen
our silver fish service?”
The proprietor repeated the open-handed gesture with even greater helplessness and in a
flash all the men at the table were on their feet.
“Are all your waiters here?” demanded the colonel, in his low, harsh accent.
“Yes; they’re all here. I noticed it myself,” cried the young duke, pushing his boyish
face into the inmost ring. “Always count ’em as I come in; they look so queer standing
up against the wall.”
“But surely one cannot exactly remember,” began Mr. Audley, with heavy hesitation.
“I remember exactly, I tell you,” cried the duke excitedly. “There never have been more
than fifteen waiters at this place, and there were no more than fifteen tonight, I’ll swear;
no more and no less.”
The proprietor turned upon him, quaking in a kind of palsy of surprise. “You say — you
say,” he stammered, “that you see all my fifteen waiters?”
“As usual,” assented the duke. “What is the matter with that!”
“Nothing,” said Lever, with a deepening accent, “only you did not. For one of zem is
dead upstairs.”
There was a shocking stillness for an instant in that room. It may be (so supernatural is
the word death) that each of those idle men looked for a second at his soul, and saw it as
a small dried pea. One of them — the duke, I think — even said with the idiotic
kindness of wealth: “Is there anything we can do?”
“He has had a priest,” said the Jew, not untouched.
Then, as to the clang of doom, they awoke to their own position. For a few weird
seconds they had really felt as if the fifteenth waiter might be the ghost of the dead man
upstairs. They had been dumb under that oppression, for ghosts were to them an
embarrassment, like beggars. But the remembrance of the silver broke the spell of the
miraculous; broke it abruptly and with a brutal reaction. The colonel flung over his chair
and strode to the door. “If there was a fifteenth man here, friends,” he said, “that
fifteenth fellow was a thief. Down at once to the front and back doors and secure
everything; then we’ll talk. The twenty-four pearls of the club are worth recovering.”
Mr. Audley seemed at first to hesitate about whether it was gentlemanly to be in such a
hurry about anything; but, seeing the duke dash down the stairs with youthful energy, he
followed with a more mature motion.
At the same instant a sixth waiter ran into the room, and declared that he had found the
pile of fish plates on a sideboard, with no trace of the silver.
The crowd of diners and attendants that tumbled helter-skelter down the passages
divided into two groups. Most of the Fishermen followed the proprietor to the front
room to demand news of any exit. Colonel Pound, with the chairman, the vicepresident, and one or two others darted down the corridor leading to the servants’
quarters, as the more likely line of escape. As they did so they passed the dim alcove or
cavern of the cloak room, and saw a short, black-coated figure, presumably an
attendant, standing a little way back in the shadow of it.
“Hallo, there!” called out the duke. “Have you seen anyone pass?”
The short figure did not answer the question directly, but merely said: “Perhaps I have
got what you are looking for, gentlemen.”
They paused, wavering and wondering, while he quietly went to the back of the cloak
room, and came back with both hands full of shining silver, which he laid out on the
counter as calmly as a salesman. It took the form of a dozen quaintly shaped forks and
knives.
“You — you — ” began the colonel, quite thrown off his balance at last. Then he peered
into the dim little room and saw two things: first, that the short, black-clad man was
dressed like a clergyman; and, second, that the window of the room behind him was
burst, as if someone had passed violently through. “Valuable things to deposit in a cloak
room, aren’t they?” remarked the clergyman, with cheerful composure.
“Did — did you steal those things?” stammered Mr. Audley, with staring eyes.
“If I did,” said the cleric pleasantly, “at least I am bringing them back again.”
“But you didn’t,” said Colonel Pound, still staring at the broken window.
“To make a clean breast of it, I didn’t,” said the other, with some humour. And he
seated himself quite gravely on a stool. “But you know who did,” said the colonel.
“I don’t know his real name,” said the priest placidly, “but I know something of his
fighting weight, and a great deal about his spiritual difficulties. I formed the physical
estimate when he was trying to throttle me, and the moral estimate when he repented.”
“Oh, I say — repented!” cried young Chester, with a sort of crow of laughter.
Father Brown got to his feet, putting his hands behind him. “Odd, isn’t it,” he said, “that
a thief and a vagabond should repent, when so many who are rich and secure remain
hard and frivolous, and without fruit for God or man? But there, if you will excuse me,
you trespass a little upon my province. If you doubt the penitence as a practical fact,
there are your knives and forks. You are The Twelve True Fishers, and there are all your
silver fish. But He has made me a fisher of men.”
“Did you catch this man?” asked the colonel, frowning.
Father Brown looked him full in his frowning face. “Yes,” he said, “I caught him, with
an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends
of the world, and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.”
There was a long silence. All the other men present drifted away to carry the recovered
silver to their comrades, or to consult the proprietor about the queer condition of affairs.
But the grim-faced colonel still sat sideways on the counter, swinging his long, lank
legs and biting his dark moustache.
At last he said quietly to the priest: “He must have been a clever fellow, but I think I
know a cleverer.”
“He was a clever fellow,” answered the other, “but I am not quite sure of what other you
mean.”
“I mean you,” said the colonel, with a short laugh. “I don’t want to get the fellow jailed;
make yourself easy about that. But I’d give a good many silver forks to know exactly
how you fell into this affair, and how you got the stuff out of him. I reckon you’re the
most up-to-date devil of the present company.”
Father Brown seemed rather to like the saturnine candour of the soldier. “Well,” he said,
smiling, “I mustn’t tell you anything of the man’s identity, or his own story, of course;
but there’s no particular reason why I shouldn’t tell you of the mere outside facts which
I found out for myself.”
He hopped over the barrier with unexpected activity, and sat beside Colonel Pound,
kicking his short legs like a little boy on a gate. He began to tell the story as easily as if
he were telling it to an old friend by a Christmas fire.
“You see, colonel,” he said, “I was shut up in that small room there doing some writing,
when I heard a pair of feet in this passage doing a dance that was as queer as the dance
of death. First came quick, funny little steps, like a man walking on tiptoe for a wager;
then came slow, careless, creaking steps, as of a big man walking about with a cigar.
But they were both made by the same feet, I swear, and they came in rotation; first the
run and then the walk, and then the run again. I wondered at first idly and then wildly
why a man should act these two parts at once. One walk I knew; it was just like yours,
colonel. It was the walk of a well-fed gentleman waiting for something, who strolls
about rather because he is physically alert than because he is mentally impatient. I knew
that I knew the other walk, too, but I could not remember what it was. What wild
creature had I met on my travels that tore along on tiptoe in that extraordinary style?
Then I heard a clink of plates somewhere; and the answer stood up as plain as St.
Peter’s. It was the walk of a waiter — that walk with the body slanted forward, the eyes
looking down, the ball of the toe spurning away the ground, the coat tails and napkin
flying. Then I thought for a minute and a half more. And I believe I saw the manner of
the crime, as clearly as if I were going to commit it.”
Colonel Pound looked at him keenly, but the speaker’s mild grey eyes were fixed upon
the ceiling with almost empty wistfulness.
“A crime,” he said slowly, “is like any other work of art. Don’t look surprised; crimes
are by no means the only works of art that come from an infernal workshop. But every
work of art, divine or diabolic, has one indispensable mark — I mean, that the centre of
it is simple, however much the fulfilment may be complicated. Thus, in Hamlet, let us
say, the grotesqueness of the grave-digger, the flowers of the mad girl, the fantastic
finery of Osric, the pallor of the ghost and the grin of the skull are all oddities in a sort
of tangled wreath round one plain tragic figure of a man in black. Well, this also,” he
said, getting slowly down from his seat with a smile, “this also is the plain tragedy of a
man in black. Yes,” he went on, seeing the colonel look up in some wonder, “the whole
of this tale turns on a black coat. In this, as in Hamlet, there are the rococo excrescences
— yourselves, let us say. There is the dead waiter, who was there when he could not be
there. There is the invisible hand that swept your table clear of silver and melted into
air. But every clever crime is founded ultimately on some one quite simple fact — some
fact that is not itself mysterious. The mystification comes in covering it up, in leading
men’s thoughts away from it. This large and subtle and (in the ordinary course) most
profitable crime, was built on the plain fact that a gentleman’s evening dress is the same
as a waiter’s. All the rest was acting, and thundering good acting, too.”
“Still,” said the colonel, getting up and frowning at his boots, “I am not sure that I
understand.”
“Colonel,” said Father Brown, “I tell you that this archangel of impudence who stole
your forks walked up and down this passage twenty times in the blaze of all the lamps,
in the glare of all the eyes. He did not go and hide in dim corners where suspicion might
have searched for him. He kept constantly on the move in the lighted corridors, and
everywhere that he went he seemed to be there by right. Don’t ask me what he was like;
you have seen him yourself six or seven times tonight. You were waiting with all the
other grand people in the reception room at the end of the passage there, with the terrace
just beyond. Whenever he came among you gentlemen, he came in the lightning style of
a waiter, with bent head, flapping napkin and flying feet. He shot out on to the terrace,
did something to the table cloth, and shot back again towards the office and the waiters’
quarters. By the time he had come under the eye of the office clerk and the waiters he
had become another man in every inch of his body, in every instinctive gesture. He
strolled among the servants with the absent-minded insolence which they have all seen
in their patrons. It was no new thing to them that a swell from the dinner party should
pace all parts of the house like an animal at the Zoo; they know that nothing marks the
Smart Set more than a habit of walking where one chooses. When he was magnificently
weary of walking down that particular passage he would wheel round and pace back
past the office; in the shadow of the arch just beyond he was altered as by a blast of
magic, and went hurrying forward again among the Twelve Fishermen, an obsequious
attendant. Why should the gentlemen look at a chance waiter? Why should the waiters
suspect a first-rate walking gentleman? Once or twice he played the coolest tricks. In
the proprietor’s private quarters he called out breezily for a syphon of soda water,
saying he was thirsty. He said genially that he would carry it himself, and he did; he
carried it quickly and correctly through the thick of you, a waiter with an obvious
errand. Of course, it could not have been kept up long, but it only had to be kept up till
the end of the fish course.
“His worst moment was when the waiters stood in a row; but even then he contrived to
lean against the wall just round the corner in such a way that for that important instant
the waiters thought him a gentleman, while the gentlemen thought him a waiter. The
rest went like winking. If any waiter caught him away from the table, that waiter caught
a languid aristocrat. He had only to time himself two minutes before the fish was
cleared, become a swift servant, and clear it himself. He put the plates down on a
sideboard, stuffed the silver in his breast pocket, giving it a bulgy look, and ran like a
hare (I heard him coming) till he came to the cloak room. There he had only to be a
plutocrat again — a plutocrat called away suddenly on business. He had only to give his
ticket to the cloak-room attendant, and go out again elegantly as he had come in. Only
— only I happened to be the cloak-room attendant.”
“What did you do to him?” cried the colonel, with unusual intensity. “What did he tell
you?”
“I beg your pardon,” said the priest immovably, “that is where the story ends.”
“And the interesting story begins,” muttered Pound. “I think I understand his
professional trick. But I don’t seem to have got hold of yours.”
“I must be going,” said Father Brown.
They walked together along the passage to the entrance hall, where they saw the fresh,
freckled face of the Duke of Chester, who was bounding buoyantly along towards them.
“Come along, Pound,” he cried breathlessly. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.
The dinner’s going again in spanking style, and old Audley has got to make a speech in
honour of the forks being saved. We want to start some new ceremony, don’t you know,
to commemorate the occasion. I say, you really got the goods back, what do you
suggest?”
“Why,” said the colonel, eyeing him with a certain sardonic approval, “I should suggest
that henceforward we wear green coats, instead of black. One never knows what
mistakes may arise when one looks so like a waiter.”
“Oh, hang it all!” said the young man, “a gentleman never looks like a waiter.”
“Nor a waiter like a gentleman, I suppose,” said Colonel Pound, with the same lowering
laughter on his face. “Reverend sir, your friend must have been very smart to act the
gentleman.”
Father Brown buttoned up his commonplace overcoat to the neck, for the night was
stormy, and took his commonplace umbrella from the stand.
“Yes,” he said; “it must be very hard work to be a gentleman; but, do you know, I have
sometimes thought that it may be almost as laborious to be a waiter.”
And saying “Good evening,” he pushed open the heavy doors of that palace of
pleasures. The golden gates closed behind him, and he went at a brisk walk through the
damp, dark streets in search of a penny omnibus.
The Flying Stars
“The most beautiful crime I ever committed,” Flambeau would say in his highly moral
old age, “was also, by a singular coincidence, my last. It was committed at Christmas.
As an artist I had always attempted to provide crimes suitable to the special season or
landscapes in which I found myself, choosing this or that terrace or garden for a
catastrophe, as if for a statuary group. Thus squires should be swindled in long rooms
panelled with oak; while Jews, on the other hand, should rather find themselves
unexpectedly penniless among the lights and screens of the Cafe Riche. Thus, in
England, if I wished to relieve a dean of his riches (which is not so easy as you might
suppose), I wished to frame him, if I make myself clear, in the green lawns and grey
towers of some cathedral town. Similarly, in France, when I had got money out of a rich
and wicked peasant (which is almost impossible), it gratified me to get his indignant
head relieved against a grey line of clipped poplars, and those solemn plains of Gaul
over which broods the mighty spirit of Millet.
“Well, my last crime was a Christmas crime, a cheery, cosy, English middle-class
crime; a crime of Charles Dickens. I did it in a good old middle-class house near
Putney, a house with a crescent of carriage drive, a house with a stable by the side of it,
a house with the name on the two outer gates, a house with a monkey tree. Enough, you
know the species. I really think my imitation of Dickens’s style was dexterous and
literary. It seems almost a pity I repented the same evening.”
Flambeau would then proceed to tell the story from the inside; and even from the inside
it was odd. Seen from the outside it was perfectly incomprehensible, and it is from the
outside that the stranger must study it. From this standpoint the drama may be said to
have begun when the front doors of the house with the stable opened on the garden with
the monkey tree, and a young girl came out with bread to feed the birds on the afternoon
of Boxing Day. She had a pretty face, with brave brown eyes; but her figure was beyond
conjecture, for she was so wrapped up in brown furs that it was hard to say which was
hair and which was fur. But for the attractive face she might have been a small toddling
bear.
The winter afternoon was reddening towards evening, and already a ruby light was
rolled over the bloomless beds, filling them, as it were, with the ghosts of the dead
roses. On one side of the house stood the stable, on the other an alley or cloister of
laurels led to the larger garden behind. The young lady, having scattered bread for the
birds (for the fourth or fifth time that day, because the dog ate it), passed unobutrusively
down the lane of laurels and into a glimmering plantation of evergreens behind. Here
she gave an exclamation of wonder, real or ritual, and looking up at the high garden
wall above her, beheld it fantastically bestridden by a somewhat fantastic figure.
“Oh, don’t jump, Mr. Crook,” she called out in some alarm; “it’s much too high.”
The individual riding the party wall like an aerial horse was a tall, angular young man,
with dark hair sticking up like a hair brush, intelligent and even distinguished
lineaments, but a sallow and almost alien complexion. This showed the more plainly
because he wore an aggressive red tie, the only part of his costume of which he seemed
to take any care. Perhaps it was a symbol. He took no notice of the girl’s alarmed
adjuration, but leapt like a grasshopper to the ground beside her, where he might very
well have broken his legs.
“I think I was meant to be a burglar,” he said placidly, “and I have no doubt I should
have been if I hadn’t happened to be born in that nice house next door. I can’t see any
harm in it, anyhow.”
“How can you say such things!” she remonstrated.
“Well,” said the young man, “if you’re born on the wrong side of the wall, I can’t see
that it’s wrong to climb over it.”
“I never know what you will say or do next,” she said.
“I don’t often know myself,” replied Mr. Crook; “but then I am on the right side of the
wall now.”
“And which is the right side of the wall?” asked the young lady, smiling.
“Whichever side you are on,” said the young man named Crook.
As they went together through the laurels towards the front garden a motor horn
sounded thrice, coming nearer and nearer, and a car of splendid speed, great elegance,
and a pale green colour swept up to the front doors like a bird and stood throbbing.
“Hullo, hullo!” said the young man with the red tie, “here’s somebody born on the right
side, anyhow. I didn’t know, Miss Adams, that your Santa Claus was so modern as
this.”
“Oh, that’s my godfather, Sir Leopold Fischer. He always comes on Boxing Day.”
Then, after an innocent pause, which unconsciously betrayed some lack of enthusiasm,
Ruby Adams added:
“He is very kind.”
John Crook, journalist, had heard of that eminent City magnate; and it was not his fault
if the City magnate had not heard of him; for in certain articles in The Clarion or The
New Age Sir Leopold had been dealt with austerely. But he said nothing and grimly
watched the unloading of the motor-car, which was rather a long process. A large, neat
chauffeur in green got out from the front, and a small, neat manservant in grey got out
from the back, and between them they deposited Sir Leopold on the doorstep and began
to unpack him, like some very carefully protected parcel. Rugs enough to stock a
bazaar, furs of all the beasts of the forest, and scarves of all the colours of the rainbow
were unwrapped one by one, till they revealed something resembling the human form;
the form of a friendly, but foreign-looking old gentleman, with a grey goat-like beard
and a beaming smile, who rubbed his big fur gloves together.
Long before this revelation was complete the two big doors of the porch had opened in
the middle, and Colonel Adams (father of the furry young lady) had come out himself to
invite his eminent guest inside. He was a tall, sunburnt, and very silent man, who wore a
red smoking-cap like a fez, making him look like one of the English Sirdars or Pashas in
Egypt. With him was his brother-in-law, lately come from Canada, a big and rather
boisterous young gentleman-farmer, with a yellow beard, by name James Blount. With
him also was the more insignificant figure of the priest from the neighbouring Roman
Church; for the colonel’s late wife had been a Catholic, and the children, as is common
in such cases, had been trained to follow her. Everything seemed undistinguished about
the priest, even down to his name, which was Brown; yet the colonel had always found
something companionable about him, and frequently asked him to such family
gatherings.
In the large entrance hall of the house there was ample room even for Sir Leopold and
the removal of his wraps. Porch and vestibule, indeed, were unduly large in proportion
to the house, and formed, as it were, a big room with the front door at one end, and the
bottom of the staircase at the other. In front of the large hall fire, over which hung the
colonel’s sword, the process was completed and the company, including the saturnine
Crook, presented to Sir Leopold Fischer. That venerable financier, however, still
seemed struggling with portions of his well-lined attire, and at length produced from a
very interior tail-coat pocket, a black oval case which he radiantly explained to be his
Christmas present for his god-daughter. With an unaffected vain-glory that had
something disarming about it he held out the case before them all; it flew open at a
touch and half-blinded them. It was just as if a crystal fountain had spurted in their eyes.
In a nest of orange velvet lay like three eggs, three white and vivid diamonds that
seemed to set the very air on fire all round them. Fischer stood beaming benevolently
and drinking deep of the astonishment and ecstasy of the girl, the grim admiration and
gruff thanks of the colonel, the wonder of the whole group.
“I’ll put ’em back now, my dear,” said Fischer, returning the case to the tails of his coat.
“I had to be careful of ’em coming down. They’re the three great African diamonds
called ‘The Flying Stars,’ because they’ve been stolen so often. All the big criminals are
on the track; but even the rough men about in the streets and hotels could hardly have
kept their hands off them. I might have lost them on the road here. It was quite
possible.”
“Quite natural, I should say,” growled the man in the red tie. “I shouldn’t blame ’em if
they had taken ’em. When they ask for bread, and you don’t even give them a stone, I
think they might take the stone for themselves.”
“I won’t have you talking like that,” cried the girl, who was in a curious glow. “You’ve
only talked like that since you became a horrid what’s-his-name. You know what I
mean. What do you call a man who wants to embrace the chimney-sweep?”
“A saint,” said Father Brown.
“I think,” said Sir Leopold, with a supercilious smile, “that Ruby means a Socialist.”
“A radical does not mean a man who lives on radishes,” remarked Crook, with some
impatience; and a Conservative does not mean a man who preserves jam. Neither, I
assure you, does a Socialist mean a man who desires a social evening with the chimneysweep. A Socialist means a man who wants all the chimneys swept and all the chimneysweeps paid for it.”
“But who won’t allow you,” put in the priest in a low voice, “to own your own soot.”
Crook looked at him with an eye of interest and even respect. “Does one want to own
soot?” he asked.
“One might,” answered Brown, with speculation in his eye. “I’ve heard that gardeners
use it. And I once made six children happy at Christmas when the conjuror didn’t come,
entirely with soot — applied externally.”
“Oh, splendid,” cried Ruby. “Oh, I wish you’d do it to this company.”
The boisterous Canadian, Mr. Blount, was lifting his loud voice in applause, and the
astonished financier his (in some considerable deprecation), when a knock sounded at
the double front doors. The priest opened them, and they showed again the front garden
of evergreens, monkey-tree and all, now gathering gloom against a gorgeous violet
sunset. The scene thus framed was so coloured and quaint, like a back scene in a play,
that they forgot a moment the insignificant figure standing in the door. He was dustylooking and in a frayed coat, evidently a common messenger. “Any of you gentlemen
Mr. Blount?” he asked, and held forward a letter doubtfully. Mr. Blount started, and
stopped in his shout of assent. Ripping up the envelope with evident astonishment he
read it; his face clouded a little, and then cleared, and he turned to his brother-in-law
and host.
“I’m sick at being such a nuisance, colonel,” he said, with the cheery colonial
conventions; “but would it upset you if an old acquaintance called on me here tonight
on business? In point of fact it’s Florian, that famous French acrobat and comic actor; I
knew him years ago out West (he was a French-Canadian by birth), and he seems to
have business for me, though I hardly guess what.”
“Of course, of course,” replied the colonel carelessly — “My dear chap, any friend of
yours. No doubt he will prove an acquisition.”
“He’ll black his face, if that’s what you mean,” cried Blount, laughing. “I don’t doubt
he’d black everyone else’s eyes. I don’t care; I’m not refined. I like the jolly old
pantomime where a man sits on his top hat.”
“Not on mine, please,” said Sir Leopold Fischer, with dignity.
“Well, well,” observed Crook, airily, “don’t let’s quarrel. There are lower jokes than
sitting on a top hat.”
Dislike of the red-tied youth, born of his predatory opinions and evident intimacy with
the pretty godchild, led Fischer to say, in his most sarcastic, magisterial manner: “No
doubt you have found something much lower than sitting on a top hat. What is it, pray?”
“Letting a top hat sit on you, for instance,” said the Socialist.
“Now, now, now,” cried the Canadian farmer with his barbarian benevolence, “don’t
let’s spoil a jolly evening. What I say is, let’s do something for the company tonight.
Not blacking faces or sitting on hats, if you don’t like those — but something of the
sort. Why couldn’t we have a proper old English pantomime — clown, columbine, and
so on. I saw one when I left England at twelve years old, and it’s blazed in my brain like
a bonfire ever since. I came back to the old country only last year, and I find the thing’s
extinct. Nothing but a lot of snivelling fairy plays. I want a hot poker and a policeman
made into sausages, and they give me princesses moralising by moonlight, Blue Birds,
or something. Blue Beard’s more in my line, and him I like best when he turned into the
pantaloon.”
“I’m all for making a policeman into sausages,” said John Crook. “It’s a better
definition of Socialism than some recently given. But surely the get-up would be too big
a business.”
“Not a scrap,” cried Blount, quite carried away. “A harlequinade’s the quickest thing we
can do, for two reasons. First, one can gag to any degree; and, second, all the objects are
household things — tables and towel-horses and washing baskets, and things like that.”
“That’s true,” admitted Crook, nodding eagerly and walking about. “But I’m afraid I
can’t have my policeman’s uniform? Haven’t killed a policeman lately.”
Blount frowned thoughtfully a space, and then smote his thigh. “Yes, we can!” he cried.
“I’ve got Florian’s address here, and he knows every costumier in London. I’ll phone
him to bring a police dress when he comes.” And he went bounding away to the
telephone.
“Oh, it’s glorious, godfather,” cried Ruby, almost dancing. “I’ll be columbine and you
shall be pantaloon.”
The millionaire held himself stiff with a sort of heathen solemnity. “I think, my dear,”
he said, “you must get someone else for pantaloon.”
“I will be pantaloon, if you like,” said Colonel Adams, taking his cigar out of his mouth,
and speaking for the first and last time.
“You ought to have a statue,” cried the Canadian, as he came back, radiant, from the
telephone. “There, we are all fitted. Mr. Crook shall be clown; he’s a journalist and
knows all the oldest jokes. I can be harlequin, that only wants long legs and jumping
about. My friend Florian ‘phones he’s bringing the police costume; he’s changing on
the way. We can act it in this very hall, the audience sitting on those broad stairs
opposite, one row above another. These front doors can be the back scene, either open
or shut. Shut, you see an English interior. Open, a moonlit garden. It all goes by magic.”
And snatching a chance piece of billiard chalk from his pocket, he ran it across the hall
floor, half-way between the front door and the staircase, to mark the line of the
footlights.
How even such a banquet of bosh was got ready in the time remained a riddle. But they
went at it with that mixture of recklessness and industry that lives when youth is in a
house; and youth was in that house that night, though not all may have isolated the two
faces and hearts from which it flamed. As always happens, the invention grew wilder
and wilder through the very tameness of the bourgeois conventions from which it had to
create. The columbine looked charming in an outstanding skirt that strangely resembled
the large lamp-shade in the drawing-room. The clown and pantaloon made themselves
white with flour from the cook, and red with rouge from some other domestic, who
remained (like all true Christian benefactors) anonymous. The harlequin, already clad in
silver paper out of cigar boxes, was, with difficulty, prevented from smashing the old
Victorian lustre chandeliers, that he might cover himself with resplendent crystals. In
fact he would certainly have done so, had not Ruby unearthed some old pantomime
paste jewels she had worn at a fancy dress party as the Queen of Diamonds. Indeed, her
uncle, James Blount, was getting almost out of hand in his excitement; he was like a
schoolboy. He put a paper donkey’s head unexpectedly on Father Brown, who bore it
patiently, and even found some private manner of moving his ears. He even essayed to
put the paper donkey’s tail to the coat-tails of Sir Leopold Fischer. This, however, was
frowned down. “Uncle is too absurd,” cried Ruby to Crook, round whose shoulders she
had seriously placed a string of sausages. “Why is he so wild?”
“He is harlequin to your columbine,” said Crook. “I am only the clown who makes the
old jokes.”
“I wish you were the harlequin,” she said, and left the string of sausages swinging.
Father Brown, though he knew every detail done behind the scenes, and had even
evoked applause by his transformation of a pillow into a pantomime baby, went round
to the front and sat among the audience with all the solemn expectation of a child at his
first matinee. The spectators were few, relations, one or two local friends, and the
servants; Sir Leopold sat in the front seat, his full and still fur-collared figure largely
obscuring the view of the little cleric behind him; but it has never been settled by artistic
authorities whether the cleric lost much. The pantomime was utterly chaotic, yet not
contemptible; there ran through it a rage of improvisation which came chiefly from
Crook the clown. Commonly he was a clever man, and he was inspired tonight with a
wild omniscience, a folly wiser than the world, that which comes to a young man who
has seen for an instant a particular expression on a particular face. He was supposed to
be the clown, but he was really almost everything else, the author (so far as there was an
author), the prompter, the scene-painter, the scene-shifter, and, above all, the orchestra.
At abrupt intervals in the outrageous performance he would hurl himself in full costume
at the piano and bang out some popular music equally absurd and appropriate.
The climax of this, as of all else, was the moment when the two front doors at the back
of the scene flew open, showing the lovely moonlit garden, but showing more
prominently the famous professional guest; the great Florian, dressed up as a policeman.
The clown at the piano played the constabulary chorus in the “Pirates of Penzance,” but
it was drowned in the deafening applause, for every gesture of the great comic actor was
an admirable though restrained version of the carriage and manner of the police. The
harlequin leapt upon him and hit him over the helmet; the pianist playing “Where did
you get that hat?” he faced about in admirably simulated astonishment, and then the
leaping harlequin hit him again (the pianist suggesting a few bars of “Then we had
another one”). Then the harlequin rushed right into the arms of the policeman and fell
on top of him, amid a roar of applause. Then it was that the strange actor gave that
celebrated imitation of a dead man, of which the fame still lingers round Putney. It was
almost impossible to believe that a living person could appear so limp.
The athletic harlequin swung him about like a sack or twisted or tossed him like an
Indian club; all the time to the most maddeningly ludicrous tunes from the piano. When
the harlequin heaved the comic constable heavily off the floor the clown played “I arise
from dreams of thee.” When he shuffled him across his back, “With my bundle on my
shoulder,” and when the harlequin finally let fall the policeman with a most convincing
thud, the lunatic at the instrument struck into a jingling measure with some words which
are still believed to have been, “I sent a letter to my love and on the way I dropped it.”
At about this limit of mental anarchy Father Brown’s view was obscured altogether; for
the City magnate in front of him rose to his full height and thrust his hands savagely
into all his pockets. Then he sat down nervously, still fumbling, and then stood up
again. For an instant it seemed seriously likely that he would stride across the footlights;
then he turned a glare at the clown playing the piano; and then he burst in silence out of
the room.
The priest had only watched for a few more minutes the absurd but not inelegant dance
of the amateur harlequin over his splendidly unconscious foe. With real though rude art,
the harlequin danced slowly backwards out of the door into the garden, which was full
of moonlight and stillness. The vamped dress of silver paper and paste, which had been
too glaring in the footlights, looked more and more magical and silvery as it danced
away under a brilliant moon. The audience was closing in with a cataract of applause,
when Brown felt his arm abruptly touched, and he was asked in a whisper to come into
the colonel’s study.
He followed his summoner with increasing doubt, which was not dispelled by a solemn
comicality in the scene of the study. There sat Colonel Adams, still unaffectedly dressed
as a pantaloon, with the knobbed whalebone nodding above his brow, but with his poor
old eyes sad enough to have sobered a Saturnalia. Sir Leopold Fischer was leaning
against the mantelpiece and heaving with all the importance of panic.
“This is a very painful matter, Father Brown,” said Adams. “The truth is, those
diamonds we all saw this afternoon seem to have vanished from my friend’s tail-coat
pocket. And as you — ”
“As I,” supplemented Father Brown, with a broad grin, “was sitting just behind him —
”
“Nothing of the sort shall be suggested,” said Colonel Adams, with a firm look at
Fischer, which rather implied that some such thing had been suggested. “I only ask you
to give me the assistance that any gentleman might give.”
“Which is turning out his pockets,” said Father Brown, and proceeded to do so,
displaying seven and sixpence, a return ticket, a small silver crucifix, a small breviary,
and a stick of chocolate.
The colonel looked at him long, and then said, “Do you know, I should like to see the
inside of your head more than the inside of your pockets. My daughter is one of your
people, I know; well, she has lately — ” and he stopped.
“She has lately,” cried out old Fischer, “opened her father’s house to a cut-throat
Socialist, who says openly he would steal anything from a richer man. This is the end of
it. Here is the richer man — and none the richer.”
“If you want the inside of my head you can have it,” said Brown rather wearily. “What
it’s worth you can say afterwards. But the first thing I find in that disused pocket is this:
that men who mean to steal diamonds don’t talk Socialism. They are more likely,” he
added demurely, “to denounce it.”
Both the others shifted sharply and the priest went on:
“You see, we know these people, more or less. That Socialist would no more steal a
diamond than a Pyramid. We ought to look at once to the one man we don’t know. The
fellow acting the policeman — Florian. Where is he exactly at this minute, I wonder.”
The pantaloon sprang erect and strode out of the room. An interlude ensued, during
which the millionaire stared at the priest, and the priest at his breviary; then the
pantaloon returned and said, with staccato gravity, “The policeman is still lying on the
stage. The curtain has gone up and down six times; he is still lying there.”
Father Brown dropped his book and stood staring with a look of blank mental ruin.
Very slowly a light began to creep in his grey eyes, and then he made the scarcely
obvious answer.
“Please forgive me, colonel, but when did your wife die?”
“Wife!” replied the staring soldier, “she died this year two months. Her brother James
arrived just a week too late to see her.”
The little priest bounded like a rabbit shot. “Come on!” he cried in quite unusual
excitement. “Come on! We’ve got to go and look at that policeman!”
They rushed on to the now curtained stage, breaking rudely past the columbine and
clown (who seemed whispering quite contentedly), and Father Brown bent over the
prostrate comic policeman.
“Chloroform,” he said as he rose; “I only guessed it just now.”
There was a startled stillness, and then the colonel said slowly, “Please say seriously
what all this means.”
Father Brown suddenly shouted with laughter, then stopped, and only struggled with it
for instants during the rest of his speech. “Gentlemen,” he gasped, “there’s not much
time to talk. I must run after the criminal. But this great French actor who played the
policeman — this clever corpse the harlequin waltzed with and dandled and threw about
— he was — ” His voice again failed him, and he turned his back to run.
“He was?” called Fischer inquiringly.
“A real policeman,” said Father Brown, and ran away into the dark.
There were hollows and bowers at the extreme end of that leafy garden, in which the
laurels and other immortal shrubs showed against sapphire sky and silver moon, even in
that midwinter, warm colours as of the south. The green gaiety of the waving laurels,
the rich purple indigo of the night, the moon like a monstrous crystal, make an almost
irresponsible romantic picture; and among the top branches of the garden trees a strange
figure is climbing, who looks not so much romantic as impossible. He sparkles from
head to heel, as if clad in ten million moons; the real moon catches him at every
movement and sets a new inch of him on fire. But he swings, flashing and successful,
from the short tree in this garden to the tall, rambling tree in the other, and only stops
there because a shade has slid under the smaller tree and has unmistakably called up to
him.
“Well, Flambeau,” says the voice, “you really look like a Flying Star; but that always
means a Falling Star at last.”
The silver, sparkling figure above seems to lean forward in the laurels and, confident of
escape, listens to the little figure below.
“You never did anything better, Flambeau. It was clever to come from Canada (with a
Paris ticket, I suppose) just a week after Mrs. Adams died, when no one was in a mood
to ask questions. It was cleverer to have marked down the Flying Stars and the very day
of Fischer’s coming. But there’s no cleverness, but mere genius, in what followed.
Stealing the stones, I suppose, was nothing to you. You could have done it by sleight of
hand in a hundred other ways besides that pretence of putting a paper donkey’s tail to
Fischer’s coat. But in the rest you eclipsed yourself.”
The silvery figure among the green leaves seems to linger as if hypnotised, though his
escape is easy behind him; he is staring at the man below.
“Oh, yes,” says the man below, “I know all about it. I know you not only forced the
pantomime, but put it to a double use. You were going to steal the stones quietly; news
came by an accomplice that you were already suspected, and a capable police officer
was coming to rout you up that very night. A common thief would have been thankful
for the warning and fled; but you are a poet. You already had the clever notion of hiding
the jewels in a blaze of false stage jewellery. Now, you saw that if the dress were a
harlequin’s the appearance of a policeman would be quite in keeping. The worthy
officer started from Putney police station to find you, and walked into the queerest trap
ever set in this world. When the front door opened he walked straight on to the stage of
a Christmas pantomime, where he could be kicked, clubbed, stunned and drugged by
the dancing harlequin, amid roars of laughter from all the most respectable people in
Putney. Oh, you will never do anything better. And now, by the way, you might give me
back those diamonds.”
The green branch on which the glittering figure swung, rustled as if in astonishment; but
the voice went on:
“I want you to give them back, Flambeau, and I want you to give up this life. There is
still youth and honour and humour in you; don’t fancy they will last in that trade. Men
may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of
evil. That road goes down and down. The kind man drinks and turns cruel; the frank
man kills and lies about it. Many a man I’ve known started like you to be an honest
outlaw, a merry robber of the rich, and ended stamped into slime. Maurice Blum started
out as an anarchist of principle, a father of the poor; he ended a greasy spy and talebearer that both sides used and despised. Harry Burke started his free money movement
sincerely enough; now he’s sponging on a half-starved sister for endless brandies and
sodas. Lord Amber went into wild society in a sort of chivalry; now he’s paying
blackmail to the lowest vultures in London. Captain Barillon was the great gentlemanapache before your time; he died in a madhouse, screaming with fear of the “narks” and
receivers that had betrayed him and hunted him down. I know the woods look very free
behind you, Flambeau; I know that in a flash you could melt into them like a monkey.
But some day you will be an old grey monkey, Flambeau. You will sit up in your free
forest cold at heart and close to death, and the tree-tops will be very bare.”
Everything continued still, as if the small man below held the other in the tree in some
long invisible leash; and he went on:
“Your downward steps have begun. You used to boast of doing nothing mean, but you
are doing something mean tonight. You are leaving suspicion on an honest boy with a
good deal against him already; you are separating him from the woman he loves and
who loves him. But you will do meaner things than that before you die.”
Three flashing diamonds fell from the tree to the turf. The small man stooped to pick
them up, and when he looked up again the green cage of the tree was emptied of its
silver bird.
The restoration of the gems (accidentally picked up by Father Brown, of all people)
ended the evening in uproarious triumph; and Sir Leopold, in his height of good
humour, even told the priest that though he himself had broader views, he could respect
those whose creed required them to be cloistered and ignorant of this world.
The Invisible Man
In the cool blue twilight of two steep streets in Camden Town, the shop at the corner, a
confectioner’s, glowed like the butt of a cigar. One should rather say, perhaps, like the
butt of a firework, for the light was of many colours and some complexity, broken up by
many mirrors and dancing on many gilt and gaily-coloured cakes and sweetmeats.
Against this one fiery glass were glued the noses of many gutter-snipes, for the
chocolates were all wrapped in those red and gold and green metallic colours which are
almost better than chocolate itself; and the huge white wedding-cake in the window was
somehow at once remote and satisfying, just as if the whole North Pole were good to
eat. Such rainbow provocations could naturally collect the youth of the neighbourhood
up to the ages of ten or twelve. But this corner was also attractive to youth at a later
stage; and a young man, not less than twenty-four, was staring into the same shop
window. To him, also, the shop was of fiery charm, but this attraction was not wholly to
be explained by chocolates; which, however, he was far from despising.
He was a tall, burly, red-haired young man, with a resolute face but a listless manner.
He carried under his arm a flat, grey portfolio of black-and-white sketches, which he
had sold with more or less success to publishers ever since his uncle (who was an
admiral) had disinherited him for Socialism, because of a lecture which he had delivered
against that economic theory. His name was John Turnbull Angus.
Entering at last, he walked through the confectioner’s shop to the back room, which was
a sort of pastry-cook restaurant, merely raising his hat to the young lady who was
serving there. She was a dark, elegant, alert girl in black, with a high colour and very
quick, dark eyes; and after the ordinary interval she followed him into the inner room to
take his order.
His order was evidently a usual one. “I want, please,” he said with precision, “one
halfpenny bun and a small cup of black coffee.” An instant before the girl could turn
away he added, “Also, I want you to marry me.”
The young lady of the shop stiffened suddenly and said, “Those are jokes I don’t
allow.”
The red-haired young man lifted grey eyes of an unexpected gravity.
“Really and truly,” he said, “it’s as serious — as serious as the halfpenny bun. It is
expensive, like the bun; one pays for it. It is indigestible, like the bun. It hurts.”
The dark young lady had never taken her dark eyes off him, but seemed to be studying
him with almost tragic exactitude. At the end of her scrutiny she had something like the
shadow of a smile, and she sat down in a chair.
“Don’t you think,” observed Angus, absently, “that it’s rather cruel to eat these
halfpenny buns? They might grow up into penny buns. I shall give up these brutal sports
when we are married.”
The dark young lady rose from her chair and walked to the window, evidently in a state
of strong but not unsympathetic cogitation. When at last she swung round again with an
air of resolution she was bewildered to observe that the young man was carefully laying
out on the table various objects from the shop-window. They included a pyramid of
highly coloured sweets, several plates of sandwiches, and the two decanters containing
that mysterious port and sherry which are peculiar to pastry-cooks. In the middle of this
neat arrangement he had carefully let down the enormous load of white sugared cake
which had been the huge ornament of the window.
“What on earth are you doing?” she asked.
“Duty, my dear Laura,” he began.
“Oh, for the Lord’s sake, stop a minute,” she cried, “and don’t talk to me in that way. I
mean, what is all that?”
“A ceremonial meal, Miss Hope.”
“And what is that?” she asked impatiently, pointing to the mountain of sugar.
“The wedding-cake, Mrs. Angus,” he said.
The girl marched to that article, removed it with some clatter, and put it back in the shop
window; she then returned, and, putting her elegant elbows on the table, regarded the
young man not unfavourably but with considerable exasperation.
“You don’t give me any time to think,” she said.
“I’m not such a fool,” he answered; “that’s my Christian humility.”
She was still looking at him; but she had grown considerably graver behind the smile.
“Mr. Angus,” she said steadily, “before there is a minute more of this nonsense I must
tell you something about myself as shortly as I can.’”
“Delighted,” replied Angus gravely. “You might tell me something about myself, too,
while you are about it.”
“Oh, do hold your tongue and listen,” she said. “It’s nothing that I’m ashamed of, and it
isn’t even anything that I’m specially sorry about. But what would you say if there were
something that is no business of mine and yet is my nightmare?”
“In that case,” said the man seriously, “I should suggest that you bring back the cake.”
“Well, you must listen to the story first,” said Laura, persistently. “To begin with, I
must tell you that my father owned the inn called the ‘Red Fish’ at Ludbury, and I used
to serve people in the bar.”
“I have often wondered,” he said, “why there was a kind of a Christian air about this
one confectioner’s shop.”
“Ludbury is a sleepy, grassy little hole in the Eastern Counties, and the only kind of
people who ever came to the ‘Red Fish’ were occasional commercial travellers, and for
the rest, the most awful people you can see, only you’ve never seen them. I mean little,
loungy men, who had just enough to live on and had nothing to do but lean about in barrooms and bet on horses, in bad clothes that were just too good for them. Even these
wretched young rotters were not very common at our house; but there were two of them
that were a lot too common — common in every sort of way. They both lived on money
of their own, and were wearisomely idle and over-dressed. But yet I was a bit sorry for
them, because I half believe they slunk into our little empty bar because each of them
had a slight deformity; the sort of thing that some yokels laugh at. It wasn’t exactly a
deformity either; it was more an oddity. One of them was a surprisingly small man,
something like a dwarf, or at least like a jockey. He was not at all jockeyish to look at,
though; he had a round black head and a well-trimmed black beard, bright eyes like a
bird’s; he jingled money in his pockets; he jangled a great gold watch chain; and he
never turned up except dressed just too much like a gentleman to be one. He was no
fool though, though a futile idler; he was curiously clever at all kinds of things that
couldn’t be the slightest use; a sort of impromptu conjuring; making fifteen matches set
fire to each other like a regular firework; or cutting a banana or some such thing into a
dancing doll. His name was Isidore Smythe; and I can see him still, with his little dark
face, just coming up to the counter, making a jumping kangaroo out of five cigars.
“The other fellow was more silent and more ordinary; but somehow he alarmed me
much more than poor little Smythe. He was very tall and slight, and light-haired; his
nose had a high bridge, and he might almost have been handsome in a spectral sort of
way; but he had one of the most appalling squints I have ever seen or heard of. When he
looked straight at you, you didn’t know where you were yourself, let alone what he was
looking at. I fancy this sort of disfigurement embittered the poor chap a little; for while
Smythe was ready to show off his monkey tricks anywhere, James Welkin (that was the
squinting man’s name) never did anything except soak in our bar parlour, and go for
great walks by himself in the flat, grey country all round. All the same, I think Smythe,
too, was a little sensitive about being so small, though he carried it off more smartly.
And so it was that I was really puzzled, as well as startled, and very sorry, when they
both offered to marry me in the same week.
“Well, I did what I’ve since thought was perhaps a silly thing. But, after all, these freaks
were my friends in a way; and I had a horror of their thinking I refused them for the real
reason, which was that they were so impossibly ugly. So I made up some gas of another
sort, about never meaning to marry anyone who hadn’t carved his way in the world. I
said it was a point of principle with me not to live on money that was just inherited like
theirs. Two days after I had talked in this well-meaning sort of way, the whole trouble
began. The first thing I heard was that both of them had gone off to seek their fortunes,
as if they were in some silly fairy tale.
“Well, I’ve never seen either of them from that day to this. But I’ve had two letters from
the little man called Smythe, and really they were rather exciting.”
“Ever heard of the other man?” asked Angus.
“No, he never wrote,” said the girl, after an instant’s hesitation. “Smythe’s first letter
was simply to say that he had started out walking with Welkin to London; but Welkin
was such a good walker that the little man dropped out of it, and took a rest by the
roadside. He happened to be picked up by some travelling show, and, partly because he
was nearly a dwarf, and partly because he was really a clever little wretch, he got on
quite well in the show business, and was soon sent up to the Aquarium, to do some
tricks that I forget. That was his first letter. His second was much more of a startler, and
I only got it last week.”
The man called Angus emptied his coffee-cup and regarded her with mild and patient
eyes. Her own mouth took a slight twist of laughter as she resumed, “I suppose you’ve
seen on the hoardings all about this ‘Smythe’s Silent Service’? Or you must be the only
person that hasn’t. Oh, I don’t know much about it, it’s some clockwork invention for
doing all the housework by machinery. You know the sort of thing: ‘Press a Button —
A Butler who Never Drinks.’ ‘Turn a Handle — Ten Housemaids who Never Flirt.’
You must have seen the advertisements. Well, whatever these machines are, they are
making pots of money; and they are making it all for that little imp whom I knew down
in Ludbury. I can’t help feeling pleased the poor little chap has fallen on his feet; but the
plain fact is, I’m in terror of his turning up any minute and telling me he’s carved his
way in the world — as he certainly has.”
“And the other man?” repeated Angus with a sort of obstinate quietude.
Laura Hope got to her feet suddenly. “My friend,” she said, “I think you are a witch.
Yes, you are quite right. I have not seen a line of the other man’s writing; and I have no
more notion than the dead of what or where he is. But it is of him that I am frightened.
It is he who is all about my path. It is he who has half driven me mad. Indeed, I think he
has driven me mad; for I have felt him where he could not have been, and I have heard
his voice when he could not have spoken.”
“Well, my dear,” said the young man, cheerfully, “if he were Satan himself, he is done
for now you have told somebody. One goes mad all alone, old girl. But when was it you
fancied you felt and heard our squinting friend?”
“I heard James Welkin laugh as plainly as I hear you speak,” said the girl, steadily.
“There was nobody there, for I stood just outside the shop at the corner, and could see
down both streets at once. I had forgotten how he laughed, though his laugh was as odd
as his squint. I had not thought of him for nearly a year. But it’s a solemn truth that a
few seconds later the first letter came from his rival.”
“Did you ever make the spectre speak or squeak, or anything?” asked Angus, with some
interest.
Laura suddenly shuddered, and then said, with an unshaken voice, “Yes. Just when I
had finished reading the second letter from Isidore Smythe announcing his success. Just
then, I heard Welkin say, ‘He shan’t have you, though.’ It was quite plain, as if he were
in the room. It is awful, I think I must be mad.”
“If you really were mad,” said the young man, “you would think you must be sane. But
certainly there seems to me to be something a little rum about this unseen gentleman.
Two heads are better than one — I spare you allusions to any other organs and really, if
you would allow me, as a sturdy, practical man, to bring back the wedding-cake out of
the window — ”
Even as he spoke, there was a sort of steely shriek in the street outside, and a small
motor, driven at devilish speed, shot up to the door of the shop and stuck there. In the
same flash of time a small man in a shiny top hat stood stamping in the outer room.
Angus, who had hitherto maintained hilarious ease from motives of mental hygiene,
revealed the strain of his soul by striding abruptly out of the inner room and confronting
the new-comer. A glance at him was quite sufficient to confirm the savage guesswork of
a man in love. This very dapper but dwarfish figure, with the spike of black beard
carried insolently forward, the clever unrestful eyes, the neat but very nervous fingers,
could be none other than the man just described to him: Isidore Smythe, who made dolls
out of banana skins and match-boxes; Isidore Smythe, who made millions out of
undrinking butlers and unflirting housemaids of metal. For a moment the two men,
instinctively understanding each other’s air of possession, looked at each other with that
curious cold generosity which is the soul of rivalry.
Mr. Smythe, however, made no allusion to the ultimate ground of their antagonism, but
said simply and explosively, “Has Miss Hope seen that thing on the window?”
“On the window?” repeated the staring Angus.
“There’s no time to explain other things,” said the small millionaire shortly. “There’s
some tomfoolery going on here that has to be investigated.”
He pointed his polished walking-stick at the window, recently depleted by the bridal
preparations of Mr. Angus; and that gentleman was astonished to see along the front of
the glass a long strip of paper pasted, which had certainly not been on the window when
he looked through it some time before. Following the energetic Smythe outside into the
street, he found that some yard and a half of stamp paper had been carefully gummed
along the glass outside, and on this was written in straggly characters, “If you marry
Smythe, he will die.”
“Laura,” said Angus, putting his big red head into the shop, “you’re not mad.”
“It’s the writing of that fellow Welkin,” said Smythe gruffly. “I haven’t seen him for
years, but he’s always bothering me. Five times in the last fortnight he’s had threatening
letters left at my flat, and I can’t even find out who leaves them, let alone if it is Welkin
himself. The porter of the flats swears that no suspicious characters have been seen, and
here he has pasted up a sort of dado on a public shop window, while the people in the
shop — ”
“Quite so,” said Angus modestly, “while the people in the shop were having tea. Well,
sir, I can assure you I appreciate your common sense in dealing so directly with the
matter. We can talk about other things afterwards. The fellow cannot be very far off yet,
for I swear there was no paper there when I went last to the window, ten or fifteen
minutes ago. On the other hand, he’s too far off to be chased, as we don’t even know the
direction. If you’ll take my advice, Mr. Smythe, you’ll put this at once in the hands of
some energetic inquiry man, private rather than public. I know an extremely clever
fellow, who has set up in business five minutes from here in your car. His name’s
Flambeau, and though his youth was a bit stormy, he’s a strictly honest man now, and
his brains are worth money. He lives in Lucknow Mansions, Hampstead.”
“That is odd,” said the little man, arching his black eyebrows. “I live, myself, in
Himylaya Mansions, round the corner. Perhaps you might care to come with me; I can
go to my rooms and sort out these queer Welkin documents, while you run round and
get your friend the detective.”
“You are very good,” said Angus politely. “Well, the sooner we act the better.”
Both men, with a queer kind of impromptu fairness, took the same sort of formal
farewell of the lady, and both jumped into the brisk little car. As Smythe took the
handles and they turned the great corner of the street, Angus was amused to see a
gigantesque poster of “Smythe’s Silent Service,” with a picture of a huge headless iron
doll, carrying a saucepan with the legend, “A Cook Who is Never Cross.”
“I use them in my own flat,” said the little black-bearded man, laughing, “partly for
advertisements, and partly for real convenience. Honestly, and all above board, those
big clockwork dolls of mine do bring your coals or claret or a timetable quicker than
any live servants I’ve ever known, if you know which knob to press. But I’ll never
deny, between ourselves, that such servants have their disadvantages, too.
“Indeed?” said Angus; “is there something they can’t do?”
“Yes,” replied Smythe coolly; “they can’t tell me who left those threatening letters at
my flat.”
The man’s motor was small and swift like himself; in fact, like his domestic service, it
was of his own invention. If he was an advertising quack, he was one who believed in
his own wares. The sense of something tiny and flying was accentuated as they swept
up long white curves of road in the dead but open daylight of evening. Soon the white
curves came sharper and dizzier; they were upon ascending spirals, as they say in the
modern religions. For, indeed, they were cresting a corner of London which is almost as
precipitous as Edinburgh, if not quite so picturesque. Terrace rose above terrace, and the
special tower of flats they sought, rose above them all to almost Egyptian height, gilt by
the level sunset. The change, as they turned the corner and entered the crescent known
as Himylaya Mansions, was as abrupt as the opening of a window; for they found that
pile of flats sitting above London as above a green sea of slate. Opposite to the
mansions, on the other side of the gravel crescent, was a bushy enclosure more like a
steep hedge or dyke than a garden, and some way below that ran a strip of artificial
water, a sort of canal, like the moat of that embowered fortress. As the car swept round
the crescent it passed, at one corner, the stray stall of a man selling chestnuts; and right
away at the other end of the curve, Angus could see a dim blue policeman walking
slowly. These were the only human shapes in that high suburban solitude; but he had an
irrational sense that they expressed the speechless poetry of London. He felt as if they
were figures in a story.
The little car shot up to the right house like a bullet, and shot out its owner like a bomb
shell. He was immediately inquiring of a tall commissionaire in shining braid, and a
short porter in shirt sleeves, whether anybody or anything had been seeking his
apartments. He was assured that nobody and nothing had passed these officials since his
last inquiries; whereupon he and the slightly bewildered Angus were shot up in the lift
like a rocket, till they reached the top floor.
“Just come in for a minute,” said the breathless Smythe. “I want to show you those
Welkin letters. Then you might run round the corner and fetch your friend.” He pressed
a button concealed in the wall, and the door opened of itself.
It opened on a long, commodious ante-room, of which the only arresting features,
ordinarily speaking, were the rows of tall half-human mechanical figures that stood up
on both sides like tailors’ dummies. Like tailors’ dummies they were headless; and like
tailors’ dummies they had a handsome unnecessary humpiness in the shoulders, and a
pigeon-breasted protuberance of chest; but barring this, they were not much more like a
human figure than any automatic machine at a station that is about the human height.
They had two great hooks like arms, for carrying trays; and they were painted peagreen, or vermilion, or black for convenience of distinction; in every other way they
were only automatic machines and nobody would have looked twice at them. On this
occasion, at least, nobody did. For between the two rows of these domestic dummies lay
something more interesting than most of the mechanics of the world. It was a white,
tattered scrap of paper scrawled with red ink; and the agile inventor had snatched it up
almost as soon as the door flew open. He handed it to Angus without a word. The red
ink on it actually was not dry, and the message ran, “If you have been to see her today, I
shall kill you.”
There was a short silence, and then Isidore Smythe said quietly, “Would you like a little
whiskey? I rather feel as if I should.”
“Thank you; I should like a little Flambeau,” said Angus, gloomily. “This business
seems to me to be getting rather grave. I’m going round at once to fetch him.”
“Right you are,” said the other, with admirable cheerfulness. “Bring him round here as
quick as you can.”
But as Angus closed the front door behind him he saw Smythe push back a button, and
one of the clockwork images glided from its place and slid along a groove in the floor
carrying a tray with syphon and decanter. There did seem something a trifle weird about
leaving the little man alone among those dead servants, who were coming to life as the
door closed.
Six steps down from Smythe’s landing the man in shirt sleeves was doing something
with a pail. Angus stopped to extract a promise, fortified with a prospective bribe, that
he would remain in that place until the return with the detective, and would keep count
of any kind of stranger coming up those stairs. Dashing down to the front hall he then
laid similar charges of vigilance on the commissionaire at the front door, from whom he
learned the simplifying circumstances that there was no back door. Not content with
this, he captured the floating policeman and induced him to stand opposite the entrance
and watch it; and finally paused an instant for a pennyworth of chestnuts, and an inquiry
as to the probable length of the merchant’s stay in the neighbourhood.
The chestnut seller, turning up the collar of his coat, told him he should probably be
moving shortly, as he thought it was going to snow. Indeed, the evening was growing
grey and bitter, but Angus, with all his eloquence, proceeded to nail the chestnut man to
his post.
“Keep yourself warm on your own chestnuts,” he said earnestly. “Eat up your whole
stock; I’ll make it worth your while. I’ll give you a sovereign if you’ll wait here till I
come back, and then tell me whether any man, woman, or child has gone into that house
where the commissionaire is standing.”
He then walked away smartly, with a last look at the besieged tower.
“I’ve made a ring round that room, anyhow,” he said. “They can’t all four of them be
Mr. Welkin’s accomplices.”
Lucknow Mansions were, so to speak, on a lower platform of that hill of houses, of
which Himylaya Mansions might be called the peak. Mr. Flambeau’s semi-official flat
was on the ground floor, and presented in every way a marked contrast to the American
machinery and cold hotel-like luxury of the flat of the Silent Service. Flambeau, who
was a friend of Angus, received him in a rococo artistic den behind his office, of which
the ornaments were sabres, harquebuses, Eastern curiosities, flasks of Italian wine,
savage cooking-pots, a plumy Persian cat, and a small dusty-looking Roman Catholic
priest, who looked particularly out of place.
“This is my friend Father Brown,” said Flambeau. “I’ve often wanted you to meet him.
Splendid weather, this; a little cold for Southerners like me.”
“Yes, I think it will keep clear,” said Angus, sitting down on a violet-striped Eastern
ottoman.
“No,” said the priest quietly, “it has begun to snow.”
And, indeed, as he spoke, the first few flakes, foreseen by the man of chestnuts, began
to drift across the darkening windowpane.
“Well,” said Angus heavily. “I’m afraid I’ve come on business, and rather jumpy
business at that. The fact is, Flambeau, within a stone’s throw of your house is a fellow
who badly wants your help; he’s perpetually being haunted and threatened by an
invisible enemy — a scoundrel whom nobody has even seen.” As Angus proceeded to
tell the whole tale of Smythe and Welkin, beginning with Laura’s story, and going on
with his own, the supernatural laugh at the corner of two empty streets, the strange
distinct words spoken in an empty room, Flambeau grew more and more vividly
concerned, and the little priest seemed to be left out of it, like a piece of furniture. When
it came to the scribbled stamp-paper pasted on the window, Flambeau rose, seeming to
fill the room with his huge shoulders.
“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I think you had better tell me the rest on the nearest road
to this man’s house. It strikes me, somehow, that there is no time to be lost.”
“Delighted,” said Angus, rising also, “though he’s safe enough for the present, for I’ve
set four men to watch the only hole to his burrow.”
They turned out into the street, the small priest trundling after them with the docility of
a small dog. He merely said, in a cheerful way, like one making conversation, “How
quick the snow gets thick on the ground.”
As they threaded the steep side streets already powdered with silver, Angus finished his
story; and by the time they reached the crescent with the towering flats, he had leisure to
turn his attention to the four sentinels. The chestnut seller, both before and after
receiving a sovereign, swore stubbornly that he had watched the door and seen no
visitor enter. The policeman was even more emphatic. He said he had had experience of
crooks of all kinds, in top hats and in rags; he wasn’t so green as to expect suspicious
characters to look suspicious; he looked out for anybody, and, so help him, there had
been nobody. And when all three men gathered round the gilded commissionaire, who
still stood smiling astride of the porch, the verdict was more final still.
“I’ve got a right to ask any man, duke or dustman, what he wants in these flats,” said the
genial and gold-laced giant, “and I’ll swear there’s been nobody to ask since this
gentleman went away.”
The unimportant Father Brown, who stood back, looking modestly at the pavement,
here ventured to say meekly, “Has nobody been up and down stairs, then, since the
snow began to fall? It began while we were all round at Flambeau’s.”
“Nobody’s been in here, sir, you can take it from me,” said the official, with beaming
authority.
“Then I wonder what that is?” said the priest, and stared at the ground blankly like a
fish.
The others all looked down also; and Flambeau used a fierce exclamation and a French
gesture. For it was unquestionably true that down the middle of the entrance guarded by
the man in gold lace, actually between the arrogant, stretched legs of that colossus, ran a
stringy pattern of grey footprints stamped upon the white snow.
“God!” cried Angus involuntarily, “the Invisible Man!”
Without another word he turned and dashed up the stairs, with Flambeau following; but
Father Brown still stood looking about him in the snow-clad street as if he had lost
interest in his query.
Flambeau was plainly in a mood to break down the door with his big shoulders; but the
Scotchman, with more reason, if less intuition, fumbled about on the frame of the door
till he found the invisible button; and the door swung slowly open.
It showed substantially the same serried interior; the hall had grown darker, though it
was still struck here and there with the last crimson shafts of sunset, and one or two of
the headless machines had been moved from their places for this or that purpose, and
stood here and there about the twilit place. The green and red of their coats were all
darkened in the dusk; and their likeness to human shapes slightly increased by their very
shapelessness. But in the middle of them all, exactly where the paper with the red ink
had lain, there lay something that looked like red ink spilt out of its bottle. But it was
not red ink.
With a French combination of reason and violence Flambeau simply said “Murder!”
and, plunging into the flat, had explored, every corner and cupboard of it in five
minutes. But if he expected to find a corpse he found none. Isidore Smythe was not in
the place, either dead or alive. After the most tearing search the two men met each other
in the outer hall, with streaming faces and staring eyes. “My friend,” said Flambeau,
talking French in his excitement, “not only is your murderer invisible, but he makes
invisible also the murdered man.”
Angus looked round at the dim room full of dummies, and in some Celtic corner of his
Scotch soul a shudder started. One of the life-size dolls stood immediately
overshadowing the blood stain, summoned, perhaps, by the slain man an instant before
he fell. One of the high-shouldered hooks that served the thing for arms, was a little
lifted, and Angus had suddenly the horrid fancy that poor Smythe’s own iron child had
struck him down. Matter had rebelled, and these machines had killed their master. But
even so, what had they done with him?
“Eaten him?” said the nightmare at his ear; and he sickened for an instant at the idea of
rent, human remains absorbed and crushed into all that acephalous clockwork.
He recovered his mental health by an emphatic effort, and said to Flambeau, “Well,
there it is. The poor fellow has evaporated like a cloud and left a red streak on the floor.
The tale does not belong to this world.”
“There is only one thing to be done,” said Flambeau, “whether it belongs to this world
or the other. I must go down and talk to my friend.”
They descended, passing the man with the pail, who again asseverated that he had let no
intruder pass, down to the commissionaire and the hovering chestnut man, who rigidly
reasserted their own watchfulness. But when Angus looked round for his fourth
confirmation he could not see it, and called out with some nervousness, “Where is the
policeman?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Father Brown; “that is my fault. I just sent him down the road
to investigate something — that I just thought worth investigating.”
“Well, we want him back pretty soon,” said Angus abruptly, “for the wretched man
upstairs has not only been murdered, but wiped out.”
“How?” asked the priest.
“Father,” said Flambeau, after a pause, “upon my soul I believe it is more in your
department than mine. No friend or foe has entered the house, but Smythe is gone, as if
stolen by the fairies. If that is not supernatural, I — ”
As he spoke they were all checked by an unusual sight; the big blue policeman came
round the corner of the crescent, running. He came straight up to Brown.
“You’re right, sir,” he panted, “they’ve just found poor Mr. Smythe’s body in the canal
down below.”
Angus put his hand wildly to his head. “Did he run down and drown himself?” he
asked.
“He never came down, I’ll swear,” said the constable, “and he wasn’t drowned either,
for he died of a great stab over the heart.”
“And yet you saw no one enter?” said Flambeau in a grave voice.
“Let us walk down the road a little,” said the priest.
As they reached the other end of the crescent he observed abruptly, “Stupid of me! I
forgot to ask the policeman something. I wonder if they found a light brown sack.”
“Why a light brown sack?” asked Angus, astonished.
“Because if it was any other coloured sack, the case must begin over again,” said Father
Brown; “but if it was a light brown sack, why, the case is finished.”
“I am pleased to hear it,” said Angus with hearty irony. “It hasn’t begun, so far as I am
concerned.”
“You must tell us all about it,” said Flambeau with a strange heavy simplicity, like a
child.
Unconsciously they were walking with quickening steps down the long sweep of road
on the other side of the high crescent, Father Brown leading briskly, though in silence.
At last he said with an almost touching vagueness, “Well, I’m afraid you’ll think it so
prosy. We always begin at the abstract end of things, and you can’t begin this story
anywhere else.
“Have you ever noticed this — that people never answer what you say? They answer
what you mean — or what they think you mean. Suppose one lady says to another in a
country house, ‘Is anybody staying with you?’ the lady doesn’t answer ‘Yes; the butler,
the three footmen, the parlourmaid, and so on,’ though the parlourmaid may be in the
room, or the butler behind her chair. She says ‘There is nobody staying with us,’
meaning nobody of the sort you mean. But suppose a doctor inquiring into an epidemic
asks, ‘Who is staying in the house?’ then the lady will remember the butler, the
parlourmaid, and the rest. All language is used like that; you never get a question
answered literally, even when you get it answered truly. When those four quite honest
men said that no man had gone into the Mansions, they did not really mean that no man
had gone into them. They meant no man whom they could suspect of being your man. A
man did go into the house, and did come out of it, but they never noticed him.”
“An invisible man?” inquired Angus, raising his red eyebrows. “A mentally invisible
man,” said Father Brown.
A minute or two after he resumed in the same unassuming voice, like a man thinking his
way. “Of course you can’t think of such a man, until you do think of him. That’s where
his cleverness comes in. But I came to think of him through two or three little things in
the tale Mr. Angus told us. First, there was the fact that this Welkin went for long walks.
And then there was the vast lot of stamp paper on the window. And then, most of all,
there were the two things the young lady said — things that couldn’t be true. Don’t get
annoyed,” he added hastily, noting a sudden movement of the Scotchman’s head; “she
thought they were true. A person can’t be quite alone in a street a second before she
receives a letter. She can’t be quite alone in a street when she starts reading a letter just
received. There must be somebody pretty near her; he must be mentally invisible.”
“Why must there be somebody near her?” asked Angus.
“Because,” said Father Brown, “barring carrier-pigeons, somebody must have brought
her the letter.”
“Do you really mean to say,” asked Flambeau, with energy, “that Welkin carried his
rival’s letters to his lady?”
“Yes,” said the priest. “Welkin carried his rival’s letters to his lady. You see, he had to.”
“Oh, I can’t stand much more of this,” exploded Flambeau. “Who is this fellow? What
does he look like? What is the usual get-up of a mentally invisible man?”
“He is dressed rather handsomely in red, blue and gold,” replied the priest promptly
with precision, “and in this striking, and even showy, costume he entered Himylaya
Mansions under eight human eyes; he killed Smythe in cold blood, and came down into
the street again carrying the dead body in his arms — ”
“Reverend sir,” cried Angus, standing still, “are you raving mad, or am I?”
“You are not mad,” said Brown, “only a little unobservant. You have not noticed such a
man as this, for example.”
He took three quick strides forward, and put his hand on the shoulder of an ordinary
passing postman who had bustled by them unnoticed under the shade of the trees.
“Nobody ever notices postmen somehow,” he said thoughtfully; “yet they have passions
like other men, and even carry large bags where a small corpse can be stowed quite
easily.”
The postman, instead of turning naturally, had ducked and tumbled against the garden
fence. He was a lean fair-bearded man of very ordinary appearance, but as he turned an
alarmed face over his shoulder, all three men were fixed with an almost fiendish squint.
*
Flambeau went back to his sabres, purple rugs and Persian cat, having many things to
attend to. John Turnbull Angus went back to the lady at the shop, with whom that
imprudent young man contrives to be extremely comfortable. But Father Brown walked
those snow-covered hills under the stars for many hours with a murderer, and what they
said to each other will never be known.
The Honour of Israel Gow
A stormy evening of olive and silver was closing in, as Father Brown, wrapped in a
grey Scotch plaid, came to the end of a grey Scotch valley and beheld the strange castle
of Glengyle. It stopped one end of the glen or hollow like a blind alley; and it looked
like the end of the world. Rising in steep roofs and spires of seagreen slate in the
manner of the old French-Scotch chateaux, it reminded an Englishman of the sinister
steeple-hats of witches in fairy tales; and the pine woods that rocked round the green
turrets looked, by comparison, as black as numberless flocks of ravens. This note of a
dreamy, almost a sleepy devilry, was no mere fancy from the landscape. For there did
rest on the place one of those clouds of pride and madness and mysterious sorrow which
lie more heavily on the noble houses of Scotland than on any other of the children of
men. For Scotland has a double dose of the poison called heredity; the sense of blood in
the aristocrat, and the sense of doom in the Calvinist.
The priest had snatched a day from his business at Glasgow to meet his friend
Flambeau, the amateur detective, who was at Glengyle Castle with another more formal
officer investigating the life and death of the late Earl of Glengyle. That mysterious
person was the last representative of a race whose valour, insanity, and violent cunning
had made them terrible even among the sinister nobility of their nation in the sixteenth
century. None were deeper in that labyrinthine ambition, in chamber within chamber of
that palace of lies that was built up around Mary Queen of Scots.
The rhyme in the country-side attested the motive and the result of their machinations
candidly:
As green sap to the simmer trees
Is red gold to the Ogilvies.
For many centuries there had never been a decent lord in Glengyle Castle; and with the
Victorian era one would have thought that all eccentricities were exhausted. The last
Glengyle, however, satisfied his tribal tradition by doing the only thing that was left for
him to do; he disappeared. I do not mean that he went abroad; by all accounts he was
still in the castle, if he was anywhere. But though his name was in the church register
and the big red Peerage, nobody ever saw him under the sun.
If anyone saw him it was a solitary man-servant, something between a groom and a
gardener. He was so deaf that the more business-like assumed him to be dumb; while
the more penetrating declared him to be half-witted. A gaunt, red-haired labourer, with a
dogged jaw and chin, but quite blank blue eyes, he went by the name of Israel Gow, and
was the one silent servant on that deserted estate. But the energy with which he dug
potatoes, and the regularity with which he disappeared into the kitchen gave people an
impression that he was providing for the meals of a superior, and that the strange earl
was still concealed in the castle. If society needed any further proof that he was there,
the servant persistently asserted that he was not at home. One morning the provost and
the minister (for the Glengyles were Presbyterian) were summoned to the castle. There
they found that the gardener, groom and cook had added to his many professions that of
an undertaker, and had nailed up his noble master in a coffin. With how much or how
little further inquiry this odd fact was passed, did not as yet very plainly appear; for the
thing had never been legally investigated till Flambeau had gone north two or three days
before. By then the body of Lord Glengyle (if it was the body) had lain for some time in
the little churchyard on the hill.
As Father Brown passed through the dim garden and came under the shadow of the
chateau, the clouds were thick and the whole air damp and thundery. Against the last
stripe of the green-gold sunset he saw a black human silhouette; a man in a chimney-pot
hat, with a big spade over his shoulder. The combination was queerly suggestive of a
sexton; but when Brown remembered the deaf servant who dug potatoes, he thought it
natural enough. He knew something of the Scotch peasant; he knew the respectability
which might well feel it necessary to wear “blacks” for an official inquiry; he knew also
the economy that would not lose an hour’s digging for that. Even the man’s start and
suspicious stare as the priest went by were consonant enough with the vigilance and
jealousy of such a type.
The great door was opened by Flambeau himself, who had with him a lean man with
iron-grey hair and papers in his hand: Inspector Craven from Scotland Yard. The
entrance hall was mostly stripped and empty; but the pale, sneering faces of one or two
of the wicked Ogilvies looked down out of black periwigs and blackening canvas.
Following them into an inner room, Father Brown found that the allies had been seated
at a long oak table, of which their end was covered with scribbled papers, flanked with
whisky and cigars. Through the whole of its remaining length it was occupied by
detached objects arranged at intervals; objects about as inexplicable as any objects could
be. One looked like a small heap of glittering broken glass. Another looked like a high
heap of brown dust. A third appeared to be a plain stick of wood.
“You seem to have a sort of geological museum here,” he said, as he sat down, jerking
his head briefly in the direction of the brown dust and the crystalline fragments.
“Not a geological museum,” replied Flambeau; “say a psychological museum.”
“Oh, for the Lord’s sake,” cried the police detective laughing, “don’t let’s begin with
such long words.”
“Don’t you know what psychology means?” asked Flambeau with friendly surprise.
“Psychology means being off your chump.”
“Still I hardly follow,” replied the official.
“Well,” said Flambeau, with decision, “I mean that we’ve only found out one thing
about Lord Glengyle. He was a maniac.”
The black silhouette of Gow with his top hat and spade passed the window, dimly
outlined against the darkening sky. Father Brown stared passively at it and answered:
“I can understand there must have been something odd about the man, or he wouldn’t
have buried himself alive — nor been in such a hurry to bury himself dead. But what
makes you think it was lunacy?”
“Well,” said Flambeau, “you just listen to the list of things Mr. Craven has found in the
house.”
“We must get a candle,” said Craven, suddenly. “A storm is getting up, and it’s too dark
to read.”
“Have you found any candles,” asked Brown smiling, “among your oddities?”
Flambeau raised a grave face, and fixed his dark eyes on his friend.
“That is curious, too,” he said. “Twenty-five candles, and not a trace of a candlestick.”
In the rapidly darkening room and rapidly rising wind, Brown went along the table to
where a bundle of wax candles lay among the other scrappy exhibits. As he did so he
bent accidentally over the heap of red-brown dust; and a sharp sneeze cracked the
silence.
“Hullo!” he said, “snuff!”
He took one of the candles, lit it carefully, came back and stuck it in the neck of the
whisky bottle. The unrestful night air, blowing through the crazy window, waved the
long flame like a banner. And on every side of the castle they could hear the miles and
miles of black pine wood seething like a black sea around a rock.
“I will read the inventory,” began Craven gravely, picking up one of the papers, “the
inventory of what we found loose and unexplained in the castle. You are to understand
that the place generally was dismantled and neglected; but one or two rooms had plainly
been inhabited in a simple but not squalid style by somebody; somebody who was not
the servant Gow. The list is as follows:
“First item. A very considerable hoard of precious stones, nearly all diamonds, and all
of them loose, without any setting whatever. Of course, it is natural that the Ogilvies
should have family jewels; but those are exactly the jewels that are almost always set in
particular articles of ornament. The Ogilvies would seem to have kept theirs loose in
their pockets, like coppers.
“Second item. Heaps and heaps of loose snuff, not kept in a horn, or even a pouch, but
lying in heaps on the mantelpieces, on the sideboard, on the piano, anywhere. It looks as
if the old gentleman would not take the trouble to look in a pocket or lift a lid.
“Third item. Here and there about the house curious little heaps of minute pieces of
metal, some like steel springs and some in the form of microscopic wheels. As if they
had gutted some mechanical toy.
“Fourth item. The wax candles, which have to be stuck in bottle necks because there is
nothing else to stick them in. Now I wish you to note how very much queerer all this is
than anything we anticipated. For the central riddle we are prepared; we have all seen at
a glance that there was something wrong about the last earl. We have come here to find
out whether he really lived here, whether he really died here, whether that red-haired
scarecrow who did his burying had anything to do with his dying. But suppose the worst
in all this, the most lurid or melodramatic solution you like. Suppose the servant really
killed the master, or suppose the master isn’t really dead, or suppose the master is
dressed up as the servant, or suppose the servant is buried for the master; invent what
Wilkie Collins’ tragedy you like, and you still have not explained a candle without a
candlestick, or why an elderly gentleman of good family should habitually spill snuff on
the piano. The core of the tale we could imagine; it is the fringes that are mysterious. By
no stretch of fancy can the human mind connect together snuff and diamonds and wax
and loose clockwork.”
“I think I see the connection,” said the priest. “This Glengyle was mad against the
French Revolution. He was an enthusiast for the ancien regime, and was trying to reenact literally the family life of the last Bourbons. He had snuff because it was the
eighteenth century luxury; wax candles, because they were the eighteenth century
lighting; the mechanical bits of iron represent the locksmith hobby of Louis XVI; the
diamonds are for the Diamond Necklace of Marie Antoinette.”
Both the other men were staring at him with round eyes. “What a perfectly
extraordinary notion!” cried Flambeau. “Do you really think that is the truth?”
“I am perfectly sure it isn’t,” answered Father Brown, “only you said that nobody could
connect snuff and diamonds and clockwork and candles. I give you that connection offhand. The real truth, I am very sure, lies deeper.”
He paused a moment and listened to the wailing of the wind in the turrets. Then he said,
“The late Earl of Glengyle was a thief. He lived a second and darker life as a desperate
housebreaker. He did not have any candlesticks because he only used these candles cut
short in the little lantern he carried. The snuff he employed as the fiercest French
criminals have used pepper: to fling it suddenly in dense masses in the face of a captor
or pursuer. But the final proof is in the curious coincidence of the diamonds and the
small steel wheels. Surely that makes everything plain to you? Diamonds and small
steel wheels are the only two instruments with which you can cut out a pane of glass.”
The bough of a broken pine tree lashed heavily in the blast against the windowpane
behind them, as if in parody of a burglar, but they did not turn round. Their eyes were
fastened on Father Brown.
“Diamonds and small wheels,” repeated Craven ruminating. “Is that all that makes you
think it the true explanation?”
“I don’t think it the true explanation,” replied the priest placidly; “but you said that
nobody could connect the four things. The true tale, of course, is something much more
humdrum. Glengyle had found, or thought he had found, precious stones on his estate.
Somebody had bamboozled him with those loose brilliants, saying they were found in
the castle caverns. The little wheels are some diamond-cutting affair. He had to do the
thing very roughly and in a small way, with the help of a few shepherds or rude fellows
on these hills. Snuff is the one great luxury of such Scotch shepherds; it’s the one thing
with which you can bribe them. They didn’t have candlesticks because they didn’t want
them; they held the candles in their hands when they explored the caves.”
“Is that all?” asked Flambeau after a long pause. “Have we got to the dull truth at last?”
“Oh, no,” said Father Brown.
As the wind died in the most distant pine woods with a long hoot as of mockery Father
Brown, with an utterly impassive face, went on:
“I only suggested that because you said one could not plausibly connect snuff with
clockwork or candles with bright stones. Ten false philosophies will fit the universe; ten
false theories will fit Glengyle Castle. But we want the real explanation of the castle and
the universe. But are there no other exhibits?”
Craven laughed, and Flambeau rose smiling to his feet and strolled down the long table.
“Items five, six, seven, etc.,” he said, “and certainly more varied than instructive. A
curious collection, not of lead pencils, but of the lead out of lead pencils. A senseless
stick of bamboo, with the top rather splintered. It might be the instrument of the crime.
Only, there isn’t any crime. The only other things are a few old missals and little
Catholic pictures, which the Ogilvies kept, I suppose, from the Middle Ages — their
family pride being stronger than their Puritanism. We only put them in the museum
because they seem curiously cut about and defaced.”
The heady tempest without drove a dreadful wrack of clouds across Glengyle and threw
the long room into darkness as Father Brown picked up the little illuminated pages to
examine them. He spoke before the drift of darkness had passed; but it was the voice of
an utterly new man.
“Mr. Craven,” said he, talking like a man ten years younger, “you have got a legal
warrant, haven’t you, to go up and examine that grave? The sooner we do it the better,
and get to the bottom of this horrible affair. If I were you I should start now.”
“Now,” repeated the astonished detective, “and why now?”
“Because this is serious,” answered Brown; “this is not spilt snuff or loose pebbles, that
might be there for a hundred reasons. There is only one reason I know of for this being
done; and the reason goes down to the roots of the world. These religious pictures are
not just dirtied or torn or scrawled over, which might be done in idleness or bigotry, by
children or by Protestants. These have been treated very carefully — and very queerly.
In every place where the great ornamented name of God comes in the old illuminations
it has been elaborately taken out. The only other thing that has been removed is the halo
round the head of the Child Jesus. Therefore, I say, let us get our warrant and our spade
and our hatchet, and go up and break open that coffin.”
“What do you mean?” demanded the London officer.
“I mean,” answered the little priest, and his voice seemed to rise slightly in the roar of
the gale. “I mean that the great devil of the universe may be sitting on the top tower of
this castle at this moment, as big as a hundred elephants, and roaring like the
Apocalypse. There is black magic somewhere at the bottom of this.”
“Black magic,” repeated Flambeau in a low voice, for he was too enlightened a man not
to know of such things; “but what can these other things mean?”
“Oh, something damnable, I suppose,” replied Brown impatiently. “How should I
know? How can I guess all their mazes down below? Perhaps you can make a torture
out of snuff and bamboo. Perhaps lunatics lust after wax and steel filings. Perhaps there
is a maddening drug made of lead pencils! Our shortest cut to the mystery is up the hill
to the grave.”
His comrades hardly knew that they had obeyed and followed him till a blast of the
night wind nearly flung them on their faces in the garden. Nevertheless they had obeyed
him like automata; for Craven found a hatchet in his hand, and the warrant in his
pocket; Flambeau was carrying the heavy spade of the strange gardener; Father Brown
was carrying the little gilt book from which had been torn the name of God.
The path up the hill to the churchyard was crooked but short; only under that stress of
wind it seemed laborious and long. Far as the eye could see, farther and farther as they
mounted the slope, were seas beyond seas of pines, now all aslope one way under the
wind. And that universal gesture seemed as vain as it was vast, as vain as if that wind
were whistling about some unpeopled and purposeless planet. Through all that infinite
growth of grey-blue forests sang, shrill and high, that ancient sorrow that is in the heart
of all heathen things. One could fancy that the voices from the under world of
unfathomable foliage were cries of the lost and wandering pagan gods: gods who had
gone roaming in that irrational forest, and who will never find their way back to heaven.
“You see,” said Father Brown in low but easy tone, “Scotch people before Scotland
existed were a curious lot. In fact, they’re a curious lot still. But in the prehistoric times
I fancy they really worshipped demons. That,” he added genially, “is why they jumped
at the Puritan theology.”
“My friend,” said Flambeau, turning in a kind of fury, “what does all that snuff mean?”
“My friend,” replied Brown, with equal seriousness, “there is one mark of all genuine
religions: materialism. Now, devil-worship is a perfectly genuine religion.”
They had come up on the grassy scalp of the hill, one of the few bald spots that stood
clear of the crashing and roaring pine forest. A mean enclosure, partly timber and partly
wire, rattled in the tempest to tell them the border of the graveyard. But by the time
Inspector Craven had come to the corner of the grave, and Flambeau had planted his
spade point downwards and leaned on it, they were both almost as shaken as the shaky
wood and wire. At the foot of the grave grew great tall thistles, grey and silver in their
decay. Once or twice, when a ball of thistledown broke under the breeze and flew past
him, Craven jumped slightly as if it had been an arrow.
Flambeau drove the blade of his spade through the whistling grass into the wet clay
below. Then he seemed to stop and lean on it as on a staff.
“Go on,” said the priest very gently. “We are only trying to find the truth. What are you
afraid of?”
“I am afraid of finding it,” said Flambeau.
The London detective spoke suddenly in a high crowing voice that was meant to be
conversational and cheery. “I wonder why he really did hide himself like that.
Something nasty, I suppose; was he a leper?”
“Something worse than that,” said Flambeau.
“And what do you imagine,” asked the other, “would be worse than a leper?”
“I don’t imagine it,” said Flambeau.
He dug for some dreadful minutes in silence, and then said in a choked voice, “I’m
afraid of his not being the right shape.”
“Nor was that piece of paper, you know,” said Father Brown quietly, “and we survived
even that piece of paper.”
Flambeau dug on with a blind energy. But the tempest had shouldered away the choking
grey clouds that clung to the hills like smoke and revealed grey fields of faint starlight
before he cleared the shape of a rude timber coffin, and somehow tipped it up upon the
turf. Craven stepped forward with his axe; a thistle-top touched him, and he flinched.
Then he took a firmer stride, and hacked and wrenched with an energy like Flambeau’s
till the lid was torn off, and all that was there lay glimmering in the grey starlight.
“Bones,” said Craven; and then he added, “but it is a man,” as if that were something
unexpected.
“Is he,” asked Flambeau in a voice that went oddly up and down, “is he all right?”
“Seems so,” said the officer huskily, bending over the obscure and decaying skeleton in
the box. “Wait a minute.”
A vast heave went over Flambeau’s huge figure. “And now I come to think of it,” he
cried, “why in the name of madness shouldn’t he be all right? What is it gets hold of a
man on these cursed cold mountains? I think it’s the black, brainless repetition; all these
forests, and over all an ancient horror of unconsciousness. It’s like the dream of an
atheist. Pine-trees and more pine-trees and millions more pine-trees — ”
“God!” cried the man by the coffin, “but he hasn’t got a head.”
While the others stood rigid the priest, for the first time, showed a leap of startled
concern.
“No head!” he repeated. “No head?” as if he had almost expected some other
deficiency.
Half-witted visions of a headless baby born to Glengyle, of a headless youth hiding
himself in the castle, of a headless man pacing those ancient halls or that gorgeous
garden, passed in panorama through their minds. But even in that stiffened instant the
tale took no root in them and seemed to have no reason in it. They stood listening to the
loud woods and the shrieking sky quite foolishly, like exhausted animals. Thought
seemed to be something enormous that had suddenly slipped out of their grasp.
“There are three headless men,” said Father Brown, “standing round this open grave.”
The pale detective from London opened his mouth to speak, and left it open like a
yokel, while a long scream of wind tore the sky; then he looked at the axe in his hands
as if it did not belong to him, and dropped it.
“Father,” said Flambeau in that infantile and heavy voice he used very seldom, “what
are we to do?”
His friend’s reply came with the pent promptitude of a gun going off.
“Sleep!” cried Father Brown. “Sleep. We have come to the end of the ways. Do you
know what sleep is? Do you know that every man who sleeps believes in God? It is a
sacrament; for it is an act of faith and it is a food. And we need a sacrament, if only a
natural one. Something has fallen on us that falls very seldom on men; perhaps the
worst thing that can fall on them.”
Craven’s parted lips came together to say, “What do you mean?”
The priest had turned his face to the castle as he answered: “We have found the truth;
and the truth makes no sense.”
He went down the path in front of them with a plunging and reckless step very rare with
him, and when they reached the castle again he threw himself upon sleep with the
simplicity of a dog.
Despite his mystic praise of slumber, Father Brown was up earlier than anyone else
except the silent gardener; and was found smoking a big pipe and watching that expert
at his speechless labours in the kitchen garden. Towards daybreak the rocking storm had
ended in roaring rains, and the day came with a curious freshness. The gardener seemed
even to have been conversing, but at sight of the detectives he planted his spade sullenly
in a bed and, saying something about his breakfast, shifted along the lines of cabbages
and shut himself in the kitchen. “He’s a valuable man, that,” said Father Brown. “He
does the potatoes amazingly. Still,” he added, with a dispassionate charity, “he has his
faults; which of us hasn’t? He doesn’t dig this bank quite regularly. There, for instance,”
and he stamped suddenly on one spot. “I’m really very doubtful about that potato.”
“And why?” asked Craven, amused with the little man’s hobby.
“I’m doubtful about it,” said the other, “because old Gow was doubtful about it himself.
He put his spade in methodically in every place but just this. There must be a mighty
fine potato just here.”
Flambeau pulled up the spade and impetuously drove it into the place. He turned up,
under a load of soil, something that did not look like a potato, but rather like a
monstrous, over-domed mushroom. But it struck the spade with a cold click; it rolled
over like a ball, and grinned up at them.
“The Earl of Glengyle,” said Brown sadly, and looked down heavily at the skull.
Then, after a momentary meditation, he plucked the spade from Flambeau, and, saying
“We must hide it again,” clamped the skull down in the earth. Then he leaned his little
body and huge head on the great handle of the spade, that stood up stiffly in the earth,
and his eyes were empty and his forehead full of wrinkles. “If one could only conceive,”
he muttered, “the meaning of this last monstrosity.” And leaning on the large spade
handle, he buried his brows in his hands, as men do in church.
All the corners of the sky were brightening into blue and silver; the birds were
chattering in the tiny garden trees; so loud it seemed as if the trees themselves were
talking. But the three men were silent enough.
“Well, I give it all up,” said Flambeau at last boisterously. “My brain and this world
don’t fit each other; and there’s an end of it. Snuff, spoilt Prayer Books, and the insides
of musical boxes — what — ”
Brown threw up his bothered brow and rapped on the spade handle with an intolerance
quite unusual with him. “Oh, tut, tut, tut, tut!” he cried. “All that is as plain as a
pikestaff. I understood the snuff and clockwork, and so on, when I first opened my eyes
this morning. And since then I’ve had it out with old Gow, the gardener, who is neither
so deaf nor so stupid as he pretends. There’s nothing amiss about the loose items. I was
wrong about the torn mass-book, too; there’s no harm in that. But it’s this last business.
Desecrating graves and stealing dead men’s heads — surely there’s harm in that? Surely
there’s black magic still in that? That doesn’t fit in to the quite simple story of the snuff
and the candles.” And, striding about again, he smoked moodily.
“My friend,” said Flambeau, with a grim humour, “you must be careful with me and
remember I was once a criminal. The great advantage of that estate was that I always
made up the story myself, and acted it as quick as I chose. This detective business of
waiting about is too much for my French impatience. All my life, for good or evil, I
have done things at the instant; I always fought duels the next morning; I always paid
bills on the nail; I never even put off a visit to the dentist — ”
Father Brown’s pipe fell out of his mouth and broke into three pieces on the gravel path.
He stood rolling his eyes, the exact picture of an idiot. “Lord, what a turnip I am!” he
kept saying. “Lord, what a turnip!” Then, in a somewhat groggy kind of way, he began
to laugh.
“The dentist!” he repeated. “Six hours in the spiritual abyss, and all because I never
thought of the dentist! Such a simple, such a beautiful and peaceful thought! Friends,
we have passed a night in hell; but now the sun is risen, the birds are singing, and the
radiant form of the dentist consoles the world.”
“I will get some sense out of this,” cried Flambeau, striding forward, “if I use the
tortures of the Inquisition.”
Father Brown repressed what appeared to be a momentary disposition to dance on the
now sunlit lawn and cried quite piteously, like a child, “Oh, let me be silly a little. You
don’t know how unhappy I have been. And now I know that there has been no deep sin
in this business at all. Only a little lunacy, perhaps — and who minds that?”
He spun round once more, then faced them with gravity.
“This is not a story of crime,” he said; “rather it is the story of a strange and crooked
honesty. We are dealing with the one man on earth, perhaps, who has taken no more
than his due. It is a study in the savage living logic that has been the religion of this
race.
“That old local rhyme about the house of Glengyle —
As green sap to the simmer trees
Is red gold to the Ogilvies —
was literal as well as metaphorical. It did not merely mean that the Glengyles sought for
wealth; it was also true that they literally gathered gold; they had a huge collection of
ornaments and utensils in that metal. They were, in fact, misers whose mania took that
turn. In the light of that fact, run through all the things we found in the castle. Diamonds
without their gold rings; candles without their gold candlesticks; snuff without the gold
snuff-boxes; pencil-leads without the gold pencil-cases; a walking stick without its gold
top; clockwork without the gold clocks — or rather watches. And, mad as it sounds,
because the halos and the name of God in the old missals were of real gold; these also
were taken away.”
The garden seemed to brighten, the grass to grow gayer in the strengthening sun, as the
crazy truth was told. Flambeau lit a cigarette as his friend went on.
“Were taken away,” continued Father Brown; “were taken away — but not stolen.
Thieves would never have left this mystery. Thieves would have taken the gold snuffboxes, snuff and all; the gold pencil-cases, lead and all. We have to deal with a man
with a peculiar conscience, but certainly a conscience. I found that mad moralist this
morning in the kitchen garden yonder, and I heard the whole story.
“The late Archibald Ogilvie was the nearest approach to a good man ever born at
Glengyle. But his bitter virtue took the turn of the misanthrope; he moped over the
dishonesty of his ancestors, from which, somehow, he generalised a dishonesty of all
men. More especially he distrusted philanthropy or free-giving; and he swore if he
could find one man who took his exact rights he should have all the gold of Glengyle.
Having delivered this defiance to humanity he shut himself up, without the smallest
expectation of its being answered. One day, however, a deaf and seemingly senseless
lad from a distant village brought him a belated telegram; and Glengyle, in his acrid
pleasantry, gave him a new farthing. At least he thought he had done so, but when he
turned over his change he found the new farthing still there and a sovereign gone. The
accident offered him vistas of sneering speculation. Either way, the boy would show the
greasy greed of the species. Either he would vanish, a thief stealing a coin; or he would
sneak back with it virtuously, a snob seeking a reward. In the middle of that night Lord
Glengyle was knocked up out of his bed — for he lived alone — and forced to open the
door to the deaf idiot. The idiot brought with him, not the sovereign, but exactly
nineteen shillings and eleven-pence three-farthings in change.
“Then the wild exactitude of this action took hold of the mad lord’s brain like fire. He
swore he was Diogenes, that had long sought an honest man, and at last had found one.
He made a new will, which I have seen. He took the literal youth into his huge,
neglected house, and trained him up as his solitary servant and — after an odd manner
— his heir. And whatever that queer creature understands, he understood absolutely his
lord’s two fixed ideas: first, that the letter of right is everything; and second, that he
himself was to have the gold of Glengyle. So far, that is all; and that is simple. He has
stripped the house of gold, and taken not a grain that was not gold; not so much as a
grain of snuff. He lifted the gold leaf off an old illumination, fully satisfied that he left
the rest unspoilt. All that I understood; but I could not understand this skull business. I
was really uneasy about that human head buried among the potatoes. It distressed me —
till Flambeau said the word.
“It will be all right. He will put the skull back in the grave, when he has taken the gold
out of the tooth.”
And, indeed, when Flambeau crossed the hill that morning, he saw that strange being,
the just miser, digging at the desecrated grave, the plaid round his throat thrashing out in
the mountain wind; the sober top hat on his head.
The Wrong Shape
Certain of the great roads going north out of London continue far into the country a sort
of attenuated and interrupted spectre of a street, with great gaps in the building, but
preserving the line. Here will be a group of shops, followed by a fenced field or
paddock, and then a famous public-house, and then perhaps a market garden or a
nursery garden, and then one large private house, and then another field and another inn,
and so on. If anyone walks along one of these roads he will pass a house which will
probably catch his eye, though he may not be able to explain its attraction. It is a long,
low house, running parallel with the road, painted mostly white and pale green, with a
veranda and sun-blinds, and porches capped with those quaint sort of cupolas like
wooden umbrellas that one sees in some old-fashioned houses. In fact, it is an oldfashioned house, very English and very suburban in the good old wealthy Clapham
sense. And yet the house has a look of having been built chiefly for the hot weather.
Looking at its white paint and sun-blinds one thinks vaguely of pugarees and even of
palm trees. I cannot trace the feeling to its root; perhaps the place was built by an
Anglo-Indian.
Anyone passing this house, I say, would be namelessly fascinated by it; would feel that
it was a place about which some story was to be told. And he would have been right, as
you shall shortly hear. For this is the story — the story of the strange things that did
really happen in it in the Whitsuntide of the year 18 — :
Anyone passing the house on the Thursday before WhitSunday at about half-past four
p.m. would have seen the front door open, and Father Brown, of the small church of St.
Mungo, come out smoking a large pipe in company with a very tall French friend of his
called Flambeau, who was smoking a very small cigarette. These persons may or may
not be of interest to the reader, but the truth is that they were not the only interesting
things that were displayed when the front door of the white-and-green house was
opened. There are further peculiarities about this house, which must be described to
start with, not only that the reader may understand this tragic tale, but also that he may
realise what it was that the opening of the door revealed.
The whole house was built upon the plan of a T, but a T with a very long cross piece
and a very short tail piece. The long cross piece was the frontage that ran along in face
of the street, with the front door in the middle; it was two stories high, and contained
nearly all the important rooms. The short tail piece, which ran out at the back
immediately opposite the front door, was one story high, and consisted only of two long
rooms, the one leading into the other. The first of these two rooms was the study in
which the celebrated Mr. Quinton wrote his wild Oriental poems and romances. The
farther room was a glass conservatory full of tropical blossoms of quite unique and
almost monstrous beauty, and on such afternoons as these glowing with gorgeous
sunlight. Thus when the hall door was open, many a passer-by literally stopped to stare
and gasp; for he looked down a perspective of rich apartments to something really like a
transformation scene in a fairy play: purple clouds and golden suns and crimson stars
that were at once scorchingly vivid and yet transparent and far away.
Leonard Quinton, the poet, had himself most carefully arranged this effect; and it is
doubtful whether he so perfectly expressed his personality in any of his poems. For he
was a man who drank and bathed in colours, who indulged his lust for colour somewhat
to the neglect of form — even of good form. This it was that had turned his genius so
wholly to eastern art and imagery; to those bewildering carpets or blinding embroideries
in which all the colours seem fallen into a fortunate chaos, having nothing to typify or to
teach. He had attempted, not perhaps with complete artistic success, but with
acknowledged imagination and invention, to compose epics and love stories reflecting
the riot of violent and even cruel colour; tales of tropical heavens of burning gold or
blood-red copper; of eastern heroes who rode with twelve-turbaned mitres upon
elephants painted purple or peacock green; of gigantic jewels that a hundred negroes
could not carry, but which burned with ancient and strange-hued fires.
In short (to put the matter from the more common point of view), he dealt much in
eastern heavens, rather worse than most western hells; in eastern monarchs, whom we
might possibly call maniacs; and in eastern jewels which a Bond Street jeweller (if the
hundred staggering negroes brought them into his shop) might possibly not regard as
genuine. Quinton was a genius, if a morbid one; and even his morbidity appeared more
in his life than in his work. In temperament he was weak and waspish, and his health
had suffered heavily from oriental experiments with opium. His wife — a handsome,
hard-working, and, indeed, over-worked woman objected to the opium, but objected
much more to a live Indian hermit in white and yellow robes, whom her husband
insisted on entertaining for months together, a Virgil to guide his spirit through the
heavens and the hells of the east.
It was out of this artistic household that Father Brown and his friend stepped on to the
door-step; and to judge from their faces, they stepped out of it with much relief.
Flambeau had known Quinton in wild student days in Paris, and they had renewed the
acquaintance for a week-end; but apart from Flambeau’s more responsible
developments of late, he did not get on well with the poet now. Choking oneself with
opium and writing little erotic verses on vellum was not his notion of how a gentleman
should go to the devil. As the two paused on the door-step, before taking a turn in the
garden, the front garden gate was thrown open with violence, and a young man with a
billycock hat on the back of his head tumbled up the steps in his eagerness. He was a
dissipated-looking youth with a gorgeous red necktie all awry, as if he had slept in it,
and he kept fidgeting and lashing about with one of those little jointed canes.
“I say,” he said breathlessly, “I want to see old Quinton. I must see him. Has he gone?”
“Mr. Quinton is in, I believe,” said Father Brown, cleaning his pipe, “but I do not know
if you can see him. The doctor is with him at present.”
The young man, who seemed not to be perfectly sober, stumbled into the hall; and at the
same moment the doctor came out of Quinton’s study, shutting the door and beginning
to put on his gloves.
“See Mr. Quinton?” said the doctor coolly. “No, I’m afraid you can’t. In fact, you
mustn’t on any account. Nobody must see him; I’ve just given him his sleeping
draught.”
“No, but look here, old chap,” said the youth in the red tie, trying affectionately to
capture the doctor by the lapels of his coat. “Look here. I’m simply sewn up, I tell you. I
—”
“It’s no good, Mr. Atkinson,” said the doctor, forcing him to fall back; “when you can
alter the effects of a drug I’ll alter my decision,” and, settling on his hat, he stepped out
into the sunlight with the other two. He was a bull-necked, good-tempered little man
with a small moustache, inexpressibly ordinary, yet giving an impression of capacity.
The young man in the billycock, who did not seem to be gifted with any tact in dealing
with people beyond the general idea of clutching hold of their coats, stood outside the
door, as dazed as if he had been thrown out bodily, and silently watched the other three
walk away together through the garden.
“That was a sound, spanking lie I told just now,” remarked the medical man, laughing.
“In point of fact, poor Quinton doesn’t have his sleeping draught for nearly half an hour.
But I’m not going to have him bothered with that little beast, who only wants to borrow
money that he wouldn’t pay back if he could. He’s a dirty little scamp, though he is
Mrs. Quinton’s brother, and she’s as fine a woman as ever walked.”
“Yes,” said Father Brown. “She’s a good woman.”
“So I propose to hang about the garden till the creature has cleared off,” went on the
doctor, “and then I’ll go in to Quinton with the medicine. Atkinson can’t get in, because
I locked the door.”
“In that case, Dr. Harris,” said Flambeau, “we might as well walk round at the back by
the end of the conservatory. There’s no entrance to it that way, but it’s worth seeing,
even from the outside.”
“Yes, and I might get a squint at my patient,” laughed the doctor, “for he prefers to lie
on an ottoman right at the end of the conservatory amid all those blood-red poinsettias;
it would give me the creeps. But what are you doing?”
Father Brown had stopped for a moment, and picked up out of the long grass, where it
had almost been wholly hidden, a queer, crooked Oriental knife, inlaid exquisitely in
coloured stones and metals.
“What is this?” asked Father Brown, regarding it with some disfavour.
“Oh, Quinton’s, I suppose,” said Dr. Harris carelessly; “he has all sorts of Chinese
knickknacks about the place. Or perhaps it belongs to that mild Hindoo of his whom he
keeps on a string.”
“What Hindoo?” asked Father Brown, still staring at the dagger in his hand.
“Oh, some Indian conjuror,” said the doctor lightly; “a fraud, of course.”
“You don’t believe in magic?” asked Father Brown, without looking up.
“O crickey! magic!” said the doctor.
“It’s very beautiful,” said the priest in a low, dreaming voice; “the colours are very
beautiful. But it’s the wrong shape.”
“What for?” asked Flambeau, staring.
“For anything. It’s the wrong shape in the abstract. Don’t you ever feel that about
Eastern art? The colours are intoxicatingly lovely; but the shapes are mean and bad —
deliberately mean and bad. I have seen wicked things in a Turkey carpet.”
“Mon Dieu!” cried Flambeau, laughing.
“They are letters and symbols in a language I don’t know; but I know they stand for evil
words,” went on the priest, his voice growing lower and lower. “The lines go wrong on
purpose — like serpents doubling to escape.”
“What the devil are you talking about?” said the doctor with a loud laugh.
Flambeau spoke quietly to him in answer. “The Father sometimes gets this mystic’s
cloud on him,” he said; “but I give you fair warning that I have never known him to
have it except when there was some evil quite near.”
“Oh, rats!” said the scientist.
“Why, look at it,” cried Father Brown, holding out the crooked knife at arm’s length, as
if it were some glittering snake. “Don’t you see it is the wrong shape? Don’t you see
that it has no hearty and plain purpose? It does not point like a spear. It does not sweep
like a scythe. It does not look like a weapon. It looks like an instrument of torture.”
“Well, as you don’t seem to like it,” said the jolly Harris, “it had better be taken back to
its owner. Haven’t we come to the end of this confounded conservatory yet? This house
is the wrong shape, if you like.”
“You don’t understand,” said Father Brown, shaking his head. “The shape of this house
is quaint — it is even laughable. But there is nothing wrong about it.”
As they spoke they came round the curve of glass that ended the conservatory, an
uninterrupted curve, for there was neither door nor window by which to enter at that
end. The glass, however, was clear, and the sun still bright, though beginning to set; and
they could see not only the flamboyant blossoms inside, but the frail figure of the poet
in a brown velvet coat lying languidly on the sofa, having, apparently, fallen half asleep
over a book. He was a pale, slight man, with loose, chestnut hair and a fringe of beard
that was the paradox of his face, for the beard made him look less manly. These traits
were well known to all three of them; but even had it not been so, it may be doubted
whether they would have looked at Quinton just then. Their eyes were riveted on
another object.
Exactly in their path, immediately outside the round end of the glass building, was
standing a tall man, whose drapery fell to his feet in faultless white, and whose bare,
brown skull, face, and neck gleamed in the setting sun like splendid bronze. He was
looking through the glass at the sleeper, and he was more motionless than a mountain.
“Who is that?” cried Father Brown, stepping back with a hissing intake of his breath.
“Oh, it is only that Hindoo humbug,” growled Harris; “but I don’t know what the deuce
he’s doing here.”
“It looks like hypnotism,” said Flambeau, biting his black moustache.
“Why are you unmedical fellows always talking bosh about hypnotism?” cried the
doctor. “It looks a deal more like burglary.”
“Well, we will speak to it, at any rate,” said Flambeau, who was always for action. One
long stride took him to the place where the Indian stood. Bowing from his great height,
which overtopped even the Oriental’s, he said with placid impudence:
“Good evening, sir. Do you want anything?”
Quite slowly, like a great ship turning into a harbour, the great yellow face turned, and
looked at last over its white shoulder. They were startled to see that its yellow eyelids
were quite sealed, as in sleep. “Thank you,” said the face in excellent English. “I want
nothing.” Then, half opening the lids, so as to show a slit of opalescent eyeball, he
repeated, “I want nothing.” Then he opened his eyes wide with a startling stare, said, “I
want nothing,” and went rustling away into the rapidly darkening garden.
“The Christian is more modest,” muttered Father Brown; “he wants something.”
“What on earth was he doing?” asked Flambeau, knitting his black brows and lowering
his voice.
“I should like to talk to you later,” said Father Brown.
The sunlight was still a reality, but it was the red light of evening, and the bulk of the
garden trees and bushes grew blacker and blacker against it. They turned round the end
of the conservatory, and walked in silence down the other side to get round to the front
door. As they went they seemed to wake something, as one startles a bird, in the deeper
corner between the study and the main building; and again they saw the white-robed
fakir slide out of the shadow, and slip round towards the front door. To their surprise,
however, he had not been alone. They found themselves abruptly pulled up and forced
to banish their bewilderment by the appearance of Mrs. Quinton, with her heavy golden
hair and square pale face, advancing on them out of the twilight. She looked a little
stern, but was entirely courteous.
“Good evening, Dr. Harris,” was all she said.
“Good evening, Mrs. Quinton,” said the little doctor heartily. “I am just going to give
your husband his sleeping draught.”
“Yes,” she said in a clear voice. “I think it is quite time.” And she smiled at them, and
went sweeping into the house.
“That woman’s over-driven,” said Father Brown; “that’s the kind of woman that does
her duty for twenty years, and then does something dreadful.”
The little doctor looked at him for the first time with an eye of interest. “Did you ever
study medicine?” he asked.
“You have to know something of the mind as well as the body,” answered the priest;
“we have to know something of the body as well as the mind.”
“Well,” said the doctor, “I think I’ll go and give Quinton his stuff.”
They had turned the corner of the front facade, and were approaching the front doorway.
As they turned into it they saw the man in the white robe for the third time. He came so
straight towards the front door that it seemed quite incredible that he had not just come
out of the study opposite to it. Yet they knew that the study door was locked.
Father Brown and Flambeau, however, kept this weird contradiction to themselves, and
Dr. Harris was not a man to waste his thoughts on the impossible. He permitted the
omnipresent Asiatic to make his exit, and then stepped briskly into the hall. There he
found a figure which he had already forgotten. The inane Atkinson was still hanging
about, humming and poking things with his knobby cane. The doctor’s face had a spasm
of disgust and decision, and he whispered rapidly to his companion: “I must lock the
door again, or this rat will get in. But I shall be out again in two minutes.”
He rapidly unlocked the door and locked it again behind him, just balking a blundering
charge from the young man in the billycock. The young man threw himself impatiently
on a hall chair. Flambeau looked at a Persian illumination on the wall; Father Brown,
who seemed in a sort of daze, dully eyed the door. In about four minutes the door was
opened again. Atkinson was quicker this time. He sprang forward, held the door open
for an instant, and called out: “Oh, I say, Quinton, I want — ”
From the other end of the study came the clear voice of Quinton, in something between
a yawn and a yell of weary laughter.
“Oh, I know what you want. Take it, and leave me in peace. I’m writing a song about
peacocks.”
Before the door closed half a sovereign came flying through the aperture; and Atkinson,
stumbling forward, caught it with singular dexterity.
“So that’s settled,” said the doctor, and, locking the door savagely, he led the way out
into the garden.
“Poor Leonard can get a little peace now,” he added to Father Brown; “he’s locked in
all by himself for an hour or two.”
“Yes,” answered the priest; “and his voice sounded jolly enough when we left him.”
Then he looked gravely round the garden, and saw the loose figure of Atkinson standing
and jingling the half-sovereign in his pocket, and beyond, in the purple twilight, the
figure of the Indian sitting bolt upright upon a bank of grass with his face turned
towards the setting sun. Then he said abruptly: “Where is Mrs. Quinton!”
“She has gone up to her room,” said the doctor. “That is her shadow on the blind.”
Father Brown looked up, and frowningly scrutinised a dark outline at the gas-lit
window.
“Yes,” he said, “that is her shadow,” and he walked a yard or two and threw himself
upon a garden seat.
Flambeau sat down beside him; but the doctor was one of those energetic people who
live naturally on their legs. He walked away, smoking, into the twilight, and the two
friends were left together.
“My father,” said Flambeau in French, “what is the matter with you?”
Father Brown was silent and motionless for half a minute, then he said: “Superstition is
irreligious, but there is something in the air of this place. I think it’s that Indian — at
least, partly.”
He sank into silence, and watched the distant outline of the Indian, who still sat rigid as
if in prayer. At first sight he seemed motionless, but as Father Brown watched him he
saw that the man swayed ever so slightly with a rhythmic movement, just as the dark
tree-tops swayed ever so slightly in the wind that was creeping up the dim garden paths
and shuffling the fallen leaves a little.
The landscape was growing rapidly dark, as if for a storm, but they could still see all the
figures in their various places. Atkinson was leaning against a tree with a listless face;
Quinton’s wife was still at her window; the doctor had gone strolling round the end of
the conservatory; they could see his cigar like a will-o’-the-wisp; and the fakir still sat
rigid and yet rocking, while the trees above him began to rock and almost to roar. Storm
was certainly coming.
“When that Indian spoke to us,” went on Brown in a conversational undertone, “I had a
sort of vision, a vision of him and all his universe. Yet he only said the same thing three
times. When first he said ‘I want nothing,’ it meant only that he was impenetrable, that
Asia does not give itself away. Then he said again, ‘I want nothing,’ and I knew that he
meant that he was sufficient to himself, like a cosmos, that he needed no God, neither
admitted any sins. And when he said the third time, ‘I want nothing,’ he said it with
blazing eyes. And I knew that he meant literally what he said; that nothing was his
desire and his home; that he was weary for nothing as for wine; that annihilation, the
mere destruction of everything or anything — ”
Two drops of rain fell; and for some reason Flambeau started and looked up, as if they
had stung him. And the same instant the doctor down by the end of the conservatory
began running towards them, calling out something as he ran.
As he came among them like a bombshell the restless Atkinson happened to be taking a
turn nearer to the house front; and the doctor clutched him by the collar in a convulsive
grip. “Foul play!” he cried; “what have you been doing to him, you dog?”
The priest had sprung erect, and had the voice of steel of a soldier in command.
“No fighting,” he cried coolly; “we are enough to hold anyone we want to. What is the
matter, doctor?”
“Things are not right with Quinton,” said the doctor, quite white. “I could just see him
through the glass, and I don’t like the way he’s lying. It’s not as I left him, anyhow.”
“Let us go in to him,” said Father Brown shortly. “You can leave Mr. Atkinson alone. I
have had him in sight since we heard Quinton’s voice.”
“I will stop here and watch him,” said Flambeau hurriedly. “You go in and see.”
The doctor and the priest flew to the study door, unlocked it, and fell into the room. In
doing so they nearly fell over the large mahogany table in the centre at which the poet
usually wrote; for the place was lit only by a small fire kept for the invalid. In the
middle of this table lay a single sheet of paper, evidently left there on purpose. The
doctor snatched it up, glanced at it, handed it to Father Brown, and crying, “Good God,
look at that!” plunged toward the glass room beyond, where the terrible tropic flowers
still seemed to keep a crimson memory of the sunset.
Father Brown read the words three times before he put down the paper. The words
were: “I die by my own hand; yet I die murdered!” They were in the quite inimitable,
not to say illegible, handwriting of Leonard Quinton.
Then Father Brown, still keeping the paper in his hand, strode towards the conservatory,
only to meet his medical friend coming back with a face of assurance and collapse.
“He’s done it,” said Harris.
They went together through the gorgeous unnatural beauty of cactus and azalea and
found Leonard Quinton, poet and romancer, with his head hanging downward off his
ottoman and his red curls sweeping the ground. Into his left side was thrust the queer
dagger that they had picked up in the garden, and his limp hand still rested on the hilt.
Outside the storm had come at one stride, like the night in Coleridge, and garden and
glass roof were darkened with driving rain. Father Brown seemed to be studying the
paper more than the corpse; he held it close to his eyes; and seemed trying to read it in
the twilight. Then he held it up against the faint light, and, as he did so, lightning stared
at them for an instant so white that the paper looked black against it.
Darkness full of thunder followed, and after the thunder Father Brown’s voice said out
of the dark: “Doctor, this paper is the wrong shape.”
“What do you mean?” asked Doctor Harris, with a frowning stare.
“It isn’t square,” answered Brown. “It has a sort of edge snipped off at the corner. What
does it mean?”
“How the deuce should I know?” growled the doctor. “Shall we move this poor chap, do
you think? He’s quite dead.”
“No,” answered the priest; “we must leave him as he lies and send for the police.” But
he was still scrutinising the paper.
As they went back through the study he stopped by the table and picked up a small pair
of nail scissors. “Ah,” he said, with a sort of relief, “this is what he did it with. But yet
— ” And he knitted his brows.
“Oh, stop fooling with that scrap of paper,” said the doctor emphatically. “It was a fad
of his. He had hundreds of them. He cut all his paper like that,” as he pointed to a stack
of sermon paper still unused on another and smaller table. Father Brown went up to it
and held up a sheet. It was the same irregular shape.
“Quite so,” he said. “And here I see the corners that were snipped off.” And to the
indignation of his colleague he began to count them.
“That’s all right,” he said, with an apologetic smile. “Twenty-three sheets cut and
twenty-two corners cut off them. And as I see you are impatient we will rejoin the
others.”
“Who is to tell his wife?” asked Dr. Harris. “Will you go and tell her now, while I send
a servant for the police?”
“As you will,” said Father Brown indifferently. And he went out to the hall door.
Here also he found a drama, though of a more grotesque sort. It showed nothing less
than his big friend Flambeau in an attitude to which he had long been unaccustomed,
while upon the pathway at the bottom of the steps was sprawling with his boots in the
air the amiable Atkinson, his billycock hat and walking cane sent flying in opposite
directions along the path. Atkinson had at length wearied of Flambeau’s almost paternal
custody, and had endeavoured to knock him down, which was by no means a smooth
game to play with the Roi des Apaches, even after that monarch’s abdication.
Flambeau was about to leap upon his enemy and secure him once more, when the priest
patted him easily on the shoulder.
“Make it up with Mr. Atkinson, my friend,” he said. “Beg a mutual pardon and say
‘Good night.’ We need not detain him any longer.” Then, as Atkinson rose somewhat
doubtfully and gathered his hat and stick and went towards the garden gate, Father
Brown said in a more serious voice: “Where is that Indian?”
They all three (for the doctor had joined them) turned involuntarily towards the dim
grassy bank amid the tossing trees purple with twilight, where they had last seen the
brown man swaying in his strange prayers. The Indian was gone.
“Confound him,” cried the doctor, stamping furiously. “Now I know that it was that
nigger that did it.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in magic,” said Father Brown quietly.
“No more I did,” said the doctor, rolling his eyes. “I only know that I loathed that
yellow devil when I thought he was a sham wizard. And I shall loathe him more if I
come to think he was a real one.”
“Well, his having escaped is nothing,” said Flambeau. “For we could have proved
nothing and done nothing against him. One hardly goes to the parish constable with a
story of suicide imposed by witchcraft or auto-suggestion.”
Meanwhile Father Brown had made his way into the house, and now went to break the
news to the wife of the dead man.
When he came out again he looked a little pale and tragic, but what passed between
them in that interview was never known, even when all was known.
Flambeau, who was talking quietly with the doctor, was surprised to see his friend
reappear so soon at his elbow; but Brown took no notice, and merely drew the doctor
apart. “You have sent for the police, haven’t you?” he asked.
“Yes,” answered Harris. “They ought to be here in ten minutes.”
“Will you do me a favour?” said the priest quietly. “The truth is, I make a collection of
these curious stories, which often contain, as in the case of our Hindoo friend, elements
which can hardly be put into a police report. Now, I want you to write out a report of
this case for my private use. Yours is a clever trade,” he said, looking the doctor gravely
and steadily in the face. “I sometimes think that you know some details of this matter
which you have not thought fit to mention. Mine is a confidential trade like yours, and I
will treat anything you write for me in strict confidence. But write the whole.”
The doctor, who had been listening thoughtfully with his head a little on one side,
looked the priest in the face for an instant, and said: “All right,” and went into the study,
closing the door behind him.
“Flambeau,” said Father Brown, “there is a long seat there under the veranda, where we
can smoke out of the rain. You are my only friend in the world, and I want to talk to
you. Or, perhaps, be silent with you.”
They established themselves comfortably in the veranda seat; Father Brown, against his
common habit, accepted a good cigar and smoked it steadily in silence, while the rain
shrieked and rattled on the roof of the veranda.
“My friend,” he said at length, “this is a very queer case. A very queer case.”
“I should think it was,” said Flambeau, with something like a shudder.
“You call it queer, and I call it queer,” said the other, “and yet we mean quite opposite
things. The modern mind always mixes up two different ideas: mystery in the sense of
what is marvellous, and mystery in the sense of what is complicated. That is half its
difficulty about miracles. A miracle is startling; but it is simple. It is simple because it is
a miracle. It is power coming directly from God (or the devil) instead of indirectly
through nature or human wills. Now, you mean that this business is marvellous because
it is miraculous, because it is witchcraft worked by a wicked Indian. Understand, I do
not say that it was not spiritual or diabolic. Heaven and hell only know by what
surrounding influences strange sins come into the lives of men. But for the present my
point is this: If it was pure magic, as you think, then it is marvellous; but it is not
mysterious — that is, it is not complicated. The quality of a miracle is mysterious, but
its manner is simple. Now, the manner of this business has been the reverse of simple.”
The storm that had slackened for a little seemed to be swelling again, and there came
heavy movements as of faint thunder. Father Brown let fall the ash of his cigar and went
on:
“There has been in this incident,” he said, “a twisted, ugly, complex quality that does
not belong to the straight bolts either of heaven or hell. As one knows the crooked track
of a snail, I know the crooked track of a man.”
The white lightning opened its enormous eye in one wink, the sky shut up again, and the
priest went on:
“Of all these crooked things, the crookedest was the shape of that piece of paper. It was
crookeder than the dagger that killed him.”
“You mean the paper on which Quinton confessed his suicide,” said Flambeau.
“I mean the paper on which Quinton wrote, ‘I die by my own hand,’” answered Father
Brown. “The shape of that paper, my friend, was the wrong shape; the wrong shape, if
ever I have seen it in this wicked world.”
“It only had a corner snipped off,” said Flambeau, “and I understand that all Quinton’s
paper was cut that way.”
“It was a very odd way,” said the other, “and a very bad way, to my taste and fancy.
Look here, Flambeau, this Quinton — God receive his soul! — was perhaps a bit of a
cur in some ways, but he really was an artist, with the pencil as well as the pen. His
handwriting, though hard to read, was bold and beautiful. I can’t prove what I say; I
can’t prove anything. But I tell you with the full force of conviction that he could never
have cut that mean little piece off a sheet of paper. If he had wanted to cut down paper
for some purpose of fitting in, or binding up, or what not, he would have made quite a
different slash with the scissors. Do you remember the shape? It was a mean shape. It
was a wrong shape. Like this. Don’t you remember?”
And he waved his burning cigar before him in the darkness, making irregular squares so
rapidly that Flambeau really seemed to see them as fiery hieroglyphics upon the
darkness — hieroglyphics such as his friend had spoken of, which are undecipherable,
yet can have no good meaning.
“But,” said Flambeau, as the priest put his cigar in his mouth again and leaned back,
staring at the roof, “suppose somebody else did use the scissors. Why should somebody
else, cutting pieces off his sermon paper, make Quinton commit suicide?”
Father Brown was still leaning back and staring at the roof, but he took his cigar out of
his mouth and said: “Quinton never did commit suicide.”
Flambeau stared at him. “Why, confound it all,” he cried, “then why did he confess to
suicide?”
The priest leant forward again, settled his elbows on his knees, looked at the ground,
and said, in a low, distinct voice: “He never did confess to suicide.”
Flambeau laid his cigar down. “You mean,” he said, “that the writing was forged?”
“No,” said Father Brown. “Quinton wrote it all right.”
“Well, there you are,” said the aggravated Flambeau; “Quinton wrote, ‘I die by my own
hand,’ with his own hand on a plain piece of paper.”
“Of the wrong shape,” said the priest calmly.
“Oh, the shape be damned!” cried Flambeau. “What has the shape to do with it?”
“There were twenty-three snipped papers,” resumed Brown unmoved, “and only
twenty-two pieces snipped off. Therefore one of the pieces had been destroyed,
probably that from the written paper. Does that suggest anything to you?”
A light dawned on Flambeau’s face, and he said: “There was something else written by
Quinton, some other words. ‘They will tell you I die by my own hand,’ or ‘Do not
believe that — ’”
“Hotter, as the children say,” said his friend. “But the piece was hardly half an inch
across; there was no room for one word, let alone five. Can you think of anything hardly
bigger than a comma which the man with hell in his heart had to tear away as a
testimony against him?”
“I can think of nothing,” said Flambeau at last.
“What about quotation marks?” said the priest, and flung his cigar far into the darkness
like a shooting star.
All words had left the other man’s mouth, and Father Brown said, like one going back
to fundamentals:
“Leonard Quinton was a romancer, and was writing an Oriental romance about wizardry
and hypnotism. He — ”
At this moment the door opened briskly behind them, and the doctor came out with his
hat on. He put a long envelope into the priest’s hands.
“That’s the document you wanted,” he said, “and I must be getting home. Good night.”
“Good night,” said Father Brown, as the doctor walked briskly to the gate. He had left
the front door open, so that a shaft of gaslight fell upon them. In the light of this Brown
opened the envelope and read the following words:
DEAR FATHER BROWN, — Vicisti Galilee. Otherwise, damn your eyes, which are
very penetrating ones. Can it be possible that there is something in all that stuff of yours
after all?
I am a man who has ever since boyhood believed in Nature and in all natural functions
and instincts, whether men called them moral or immoral. Long before I became a
doctor, when I was a schoolboy keeping mice and spiders, I believed that to be a good
animal is the best thing in the world. But just now I am shaken; I have believed in
Nature; but it seems as if Nature could betray a man. Can there be anything in your
bosh? I am really getting morbid.
I loved Quinton’s wife. What was there wrong in that? Nature told me to, and it’s love
that makes the world go round. I also thought quite sincerely that she would be happier
with a clean animal like me than with that tormenting little lunatic. What was there
wrong in that? I was only facing facts, like a man of science. She would have been
happier.
According to my own creed I was quite free to kill Quinton, which was the best thing
for everybody, even himself. But as a healthy animal I had no notion of killing myself. I
resolved, therefore, that I would never do it until I saw a chance that would leave me
scot free. I saw that chance this morning.
I have been three times, all told, into Quinton’s study today. The first time I went in he
would talk about nothing but the weird tale, called “The Cure of a Saint,” which he was
writing, which was all about how some Indian hermit made an English colonel kill
himself by thinking about him. He showed me the last sheets, and even read me the last
paragraph, which was something like this:
“The conqueror of the Punjab, a mere yellow skeleton, but still gigantic, managed to lift
himself on his elbow and gasp in his nephew’s ear: ‘I die by my own hand, yet I die
murdered!’” It so happened by one chance out of a hundred, that those last words were
written at the top of a new sheet of paper. I left the room, and went out into the garden
intoxicated with a frightful opportunity.
We walked round the house; and two more things happened in my favour. You
suspected an Indian, and you found a dagger which the Indian might most probably use.
Taking the opportunity to stuff it in my pocket I went back to Quinton’s study, locked
the door, and gave him his sleeping draught. He was against answering Atkinson at all,
but I urged him to call out and quiet the fellow, because I wanted a clear proof that
Quinton was alive when I left the room for the second time. Quinton lay down in the
conservatory, and I came through the study. I am a quick man with my hands, and in a
minute and a half I had done what I wanted to do. I had emptied all the first part of
Quinton’s romance into the fireplace, where it burnt to ashes. Then I saw that the
quotation marks wouldn’t do, so I snipped them off, and to make it seem likelier,
snipped the whole quire to match. Then I came out with the knowledge that Quinton’s
confession of suicide lay on the front table, while Quinton lay alive but asleep in the
conservatory beyond.
The last act was a desperate one; you can guess it: I pretended to have seen Quinton
dead and rushed to his room. I delayed you with the paper, and, being a quick man with
my hands, killed Quinton while you were looking at his confession of suicide. He was
half-asleep, being drugged, and I put his own hand on the knife and drove it into his
body. The knife was of so queer a shape that no one but an operator could have
calculated the angle that would reach his heart. I wonder if you noticed this.
When I had done it, the extraordinary thing happened. Nature deserted me. I felt ill. I
felt just as if I had done something wrong. I think my brain is breaking up; I feel some
sort of desperate pleasure in thinking I have told the thing to somebody; that I shall not
have to be alone with it if I marry and have children. What is the matter with me? . . .
Madness . . . or can one have remorse, just as if one were in Byron’s poems! I cannot
write any more.
James Erskine Harris.
Father Brown carefully folded up the letter, and put it in his breast pocket just as there
came a loud peal at the gate bell, and the wet waterproofs of several policemen gleamed
in the road outside.
The Sins of Prince Saradine
When Flambeau took his month’s holiday from his office in Westminster he took it in a
small sailing-boat, so small that it passed much of its time as a rowing-boat. He took it,
moreover, in little rivers in the Eastern counties, rivers so small that the boat looked like
a magic boat, sailing on land through meadows and cornfields. The vessel was just
comfortable for two people; there was room only for necessities, and Flambeau had
stocked it with such things as his special philosophy considered necessary. They
reduced themselves, apparently, to four essentials: tins of salmon, if he should want to
eat; loaded revolvers, if he should want to fight; a bottle of brandy, presumably in case
he should faint; and a priest, presumably in case he should die. With this light luggage
he crawled down the little Norfolk rivers, intending to reach the Broads at last, but
meanwhile delighting in the overhanging gardens and meadows, the mirrored mansions
or villages, lingering to fish in the pools and corners, and in some sense hugging the
shore.
Like a true philosopher, Flambeau had no aim in his holiday; but, like a true
philosopher, he had an excuse. He had a sort of half purpose, which he took just so
seriously that its success would crown the holiday, but just so lightly that its failure
would not spoil it. Years ago, when he had been a king of thieves and the most famous
figure in Paris, he had often received wild communications of approval, denunciation,
or even love; but one had, somehow, stuck in his memory. It consisted simply of a
visiting-card, in an envelope with an English postmark. On the back of the card was
written in French and in green ink: “If you ever retire and become respectable, come
and see me. I want to meet you, for I have met all the other great men of my time. That
trick of yours of getting one detective to arrest the other was the most splendid scene in
French history.” On the front of the card was engraved in the formal fashion, “Prince
Saradine, Reed House, Reed Island, Norfolk.”
He had not troubled much about the prince then, beyond ascertaining that he had been a
brilliant and fashionable figure in southern Italy. In his youth, it was said, he had eloped
with a married woman of high rank; the escapade was scarcely startling in his social
world, but it had clung to men’s minds because of an additional tragedy: the alleged
suicide of the insulted husband, who appeared to have flung himself over a precipice in
Sicily. The prince then lived in Vienna for a time, but his more recent years seemed to
have been passed in perpetual and restless travel. But when Flambeau, like the prince
himself, had left European celebrity and settled in England, it occurred to him that he
might pay a surprise visit to this eminent exile in the Norfolk Broads. Whether he
should find the place he had no idea; and, indeed, it was sufficiently small and
forgotten. But, as things fell out, he found it much sooner than he expected.
They had moored their boat one night under a bank veiled in high grasses and short
pollarded trees. Sleep, after heavy sculling, had come to them early, and by a
corresponding accident they awoke before it was light. To speak more strictly, they
awoke before it was daylight; for a large lemon moon was only just setting in the forest
of high grass above their heads, and the sky was of a vivid violet-blue, nocturnal but
bright. Both men had simultaneously a reminiscence of childhood, of the elfin and
adventurous time when tall weeds close over us like woods. Standing up thus against
the large low moon, the daisies really seemed to be giant daisies, the dandelions to be
giant dandelions. Somehow it reminded them of the dado of a nursery wall-paper. The
drop of the river-bed sufficed to sink them under the roots of all shrubs and flowers and
make them gaze upwards at the grass. “By Jove!” said Flambeau, “it’s like being in
fairyland.”
Father Brown sat bolt upright in the boat and crossed himself. His movement was so
abrupt that his friend asked him, with a mild stare, what was the matter.
“The people who wrote the mediaeval ballads,” answered the priest, “knew more about
fairies than you do. It isn’t only nice things that happen in fairyland.”
“Oh, bosh!” said Flambeau. “Only nice things could happen under such an innocent
moon. I am for pushing on now and seeing what does really come. We may die and rot
before we ever see again such a moon or such a mood.”
“All right,” said Father Brown. “I never said it was always wrong to enter fairyland. I
only said it was always dangerous.”
They pushed slowly up the brightening river; the glowing violet of the sky and the pale
gold of the moon grew fainter and fainter, and faded into that vast colourless cosmos
that precedes the colours of the dawn. When the first faint stripes of red and gold and
grey split the horizon from end to end they were broken by the black bulk of a town or
village which sat on the river just ahead of them. It was already an easy twilight, in
which all things were visible, when they came under the hanging roofs and bridges of
this riverside hamlet. The houses, with their long, low, stooping roofs, seemed to come
down to drink at the river, like huge grey and red cattle. The broadening and whitening
dawn had already turned to working daylight before they saw any living creature on the
wharves and bridges of that silent town. Eventually they saw a very placid and
prosperous man in his shirt sleeves, with a face as round as the recently sunken moon,
and rays of red whisker around the low arc of it, who was leaning on a post above the
sluggish tide. By an impulse not to be analysed, Flambeau rose to his full height in the
swaying boat and shouted at the man to ask if he knew Reed Island or Reed House. The
prosperous man’s smile grew slightly more expansive, and he simply pointed up the
river towards the next bend of it. Flambeau went ahead without further speech.
The boat took many such grassy corners and followed many such reedy and silent
reaches of river; but before the search had become monotonous they had swung round a
specially sharp angle and come into the silence of a sort of pool or lake, the sight of
which instinctively arrested them. For in the middle of this wider piece of water, fringed
on every side with rushes, lay a long, low islet, along which ran a long, low house or
bungalow built of bamboo or some kind of tough tropic cane. The upstanding rods of
bamboo which made the walls were pale yellow, the sloping rods that made the roof
were of darker red or brown, otherwise the long house was a thing of repetition and
monotony. The early morning breeze rustled the reeds round the island and sang in the
strange ribbed house as in a giant pan-pipe.
“By George!” cried Flambeau; “here is the place, after all! Here is Reed Island, if ever
there was one. Here is Reed House, if it is anywhere. I believe that fat man with
whiskers was a fairy.”
“Perhaps,” remarked Father Brown impartially. “If he was, he was a bad fairy.”
But even as he spoke the impetuous Flambeau had run his boat ashore in the rattling
reeds, and they stood in the long, quaint islet beside the odd and silent house.
The house stood with its back, as it were, to the river and the only landing-stage; the
main entrance was on the other side, and looked down the long island garden. The
visitors approached it, therefore, by a small path running round nearly three sides of the
house, close under the low eaves. Through three different windows on three different
sides they looked in on the same long, well-lit room, panelled in light wood, with a
large number of looking-glasses, and laid out as for an elegant lunch. The front door,
when they came round to it at last, was flanked by two turquoise-blue flower pots. It
was opened by a butler of the drearier type — long, lean, grey and listless — who
murmured that Prince Saradine was from home at present, but was expected hourly; the
house being kept ready for him and his guests. The exhibition of the card with the
scrawl of green ink awoke a flicker of life in the parchment face of the depressed
retainer, and it was with a certain shaky courtesy that he suggested that the strangers
should remain. “His Highness may be here any minute,” he said, “and would be
distressed to have just missed any gentleman he had invited. We have orders always to
keep a little cold lunch for him and his friends, and I am sure he would wish it to be
offered.”
Moved with curiosity to this minor adventure, Flambeau assented gracefully, and
followed the old man, who ushered him ceremoniously into the long, lightly panelled
room. There was nothing very notable about it, except the rather unusual alternation of
many long, low windows with many long, low oblongs of looking-glass, which gave a
singular air of lightness and unsubstantialness to the place. It was somehow like
lunching out of doors. One or two pictures of a quiet kind hung in the corners, one a
large grey photograph of a very young man in uniform, another a red chalk sketch of
two long-haired boys. Asked by Flambeau whether the soldierly person was the prince,
the butler answered shortly in the negative; it was the prince’s younger brother, Captain
Stephen Saradine, he said. And with that the old man seemed to dry up suddenly and
lose all taste for conversation.
After lunch had tailed off with exquisite coffee and liqueurs, the guests were introduced
to the garden, the library, and the housekeeper — a dark, handsome lady, of no little
majesty, and rather like a plutonic Madonna. It appeared that she and the butler were the
only survivors of the prince’s original foreign menage the other servants now in the
house being new and collected in Norfolk by the housekeeper. This latter lady went by
the name of Mrs. Anthony, but she spoke with a slight Italian accent, and Flambeau did
not doubt that Anthony was a Norfolk version of some more Latin name. Mr. Paul, the
butler, also had a faintly foreign air, but he was in tongue and training English, as are
many of the most polished men-servants of the cosmopolitan nobility.
Pretty and unique as it was, the place had about it a curious luminous sadness. Hours
passed in it like days. The long, well-windowed rooms were full of daylight, but it
seemed a dead daylight. And through all other incidental noises, the sound of talk, the
clink of glasses, or the passing feet of servants, they could hear on all sides of the house
the melancholy noise of the river.
“We have taken a wrong turning, and come to a wrong place,” said Father Brown,
looking out of the window at the grey-green sedges and the silver flood. “Never mind;
one can sometimes do good by being the right person in the wrong place.”
Father Brown, though commonly a silent, was an oddly sympathetic little man, and in
those few but endless hours he unconsciously sank deeper into the secrets of Reed
House than his professional friend. He had that knack of friendly silence which is so
essential to gossip; and saying scarcely a word, he probably obtained from his new
acquaintances all that in any case they would have told. The butler indeed was naturally
uncommunicative. He betrayed a sullen and almost animal affection for his master;
who, he said, had been very badly treated. The chief offender seemed to be his
highness’s brother, whose name alone would lengthen the old man’s lantern jaws and
pucker his parrot nose into a sneer. Captain Stephen was a ne’er-do-weel, apparently,
and had drained his benevolent brother of hundreds and thousands; forced him to fly
from fashionable life and live quietly in this retreat. That was all Paul, the butler, would
say, and Paul was obviously a partisan.
The Italian housekeeper was somewhat more communicative, being, as Brown fancied,
somewhat less content. Her tone about her master was faintly acid; though not without a
certain awe. Flambeau and his friend were standing in the room of the looking-glasses
examining the red sketch of the two boys, when the housekeeper swept in swiftly on
some domestic errand. It was a peculiarity of this glittering, glass-panelled place that
anyone entering was reflected in four or five mirrors at once; and Father Brown, without
turning round, stopped in the middle of a sentence of family criticism. But Flambeau,
who had his face close up to the picture, was already saying in a loud voice, “The
brothers Saradine, I suppose. They both look innocent enough. It would be hard to say
which is the good brother and which the bad.” Then, realising the lady’s presence, he
turned the conversation with some triviality, and strolled out into the garden. But Father
Brown still gazed steadily at the red crayon sketch; and Mrs. Anthony still gazed
steadily at Father Brown.
She had large and tragic brown eyes, and her olive face glowed darkly with a curious
and painful wonder — as of one doubtful of a stranger’s identity or purpose. Whether
the little priest’s coat and creed touched some southern memories of confession, or
whether she fancied he knew more than he did, she said to him in a low voice as to a
fellow plotter, “He is right enough in one way, your friend. He says it would be hard to
pick out the good and bad brothers. Oh, it would be hard, it would be mighty hard, to
pick out the good one.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Father Brown, and began to move away.
The woman took a step nearer to him, with thunderous brows and a sort of savage
stoop, like a bull lowering his horns.
“There isn’t a good one,” she hissed. “There was badness enough in the captain taking
all that money, but I don’t think there was much goodness in the prince giving it. The
captain’s not the only one with something against him.”
A light dawned on the cleric’s averted face, and his mouth formed silently the word
“blackmail.” Even as he did so the woman turned an abrupt white face over her shoulder
and almost fell. The door had opened soundlessly and the pale Paul stood like a ghost in
the doorway. By the weird trick of the reflecting walls, it seemed as if five Pauls had
entered by five doors simultaneously.
“His Highness,” he said, “has just arrived.”
In the same flash the figure of a man had passed outside the first window, crossing the
sunlit pane like a lighted stage. An instant later he passed at the second window and the
many mirrors repainted in successive frames the same eagle profile and marching
figure. He was erect and alert, but his hair was white and his complexion of an odd
ivory yellow. He had that short, curved Roman nose which generally goes with long,
lean cheeks and chin, but these were partly masked by moustache and imperial. The
moustache was much darker than the beard, giving an effect slightly theatrical, and he
was dressed up to the same dashing part, having a white top hat, an orchid in his coat, a
yellow waistcoat and yellow gloves which he flapped and swung as he walked. When
he came round to the front door they heard the stiff Paul open it, and heard the new
arrival say cheerfully, “Well, you see I have come.” The stiff Mr. Paul bowed and
answered in his inaudible manner; for a few minutes their conversation could not be
heard. Then the butler said, “Everything is at your disposal”; and the glove-flapping
Prince Saradine came gaily into the room to greet them. They beheld once more that
spectral scene — five princes entering a room with five doors.
The prince put the white hat and yellow gloves on the table and offered his hand quite
cordially.
“Delighted to see you here, Mr. Flambeau,” he said. “Knowing you very well by
reputation, if that’s not an indiscreet remark.”
“Not at all,” answered Flambeau, laughing. “I am not sensitive. Very few reputations
are gained by unsullied virtue.”
The prince flashed a sharp look at him to see if the retort had any personal point; then he
laughed also and offered chairs to everyone, including himself.
“Pleasant little place, this, I think,” he said with a detached air. “Not much to do, I fear;
but the fishing is really good.”
The priest, who was staring at him with the grave stare of a baby, was haunted by some
fancy that escaped definition. He looked at the grey, carefully curled hair, yellow white
visage, and slim, somewhat foppish figure. These were not unnatural, though perhaps a
shade prononce, like the outfit of a figure behind the footlights. The nameless interest
lay in something else, in the very framework of the face; Brown was tormented with a
half memory of having seen it somewhere before. The man looked like some old friend
of his dressed up. Then he suddenly remembered the mirrors, and put his fancy down to
some psychological effect of that multiplication of human masks.
Prince Saradine distributed his social attentions between his guests with great gaiety and
tact. Finding the detective of a sporting turn and eager to employ his holiday, he guided
Flambeau and Flambeau’s boat down to the best fishing spot in the stream, and was
back in his own canoe in twenty minutes to join Father Brown in the library and plunge
equally politely into the priest’s more philosophic pleasures. He seemed to know a great
deal both about the fishing and the books, though of these not the most edifying; he
spoke five or six languages, though chiefly the slang of each. He had evidently lived in
varied cities and very motley societies, for some of his cheerfullest stories were about
gambling hells and opium dens, Australian bushrangers or Italian brigands. Father
Brown knew that the once-celebrated Saradine had spent his last few years in almost
ceaseless travel, but he had not guessed that the travels were so disreputable or so
amusing.
Indeed, with all his dignity of a man of the world, Prince Saradine radiated to such
sensitive observers as the priest, a certain atmosphere of the restless and even the
unreliable. His face was fastidious, but his eye was wild; he had little nervous tricks,
like a man shaken by drink or drugs, and he neither had, nor professed to have, his hand
on the helm of household affairs. All these were left to the two old servants, especially
to the butler, who was plainly the central pillar of the house. Mr. Paul, indeed, was not
so much a butler as a sort of steward or, even, chamberlain; he dined privately, but with
almost as much pomp as his master; he was feared by all the servants; and he consulted
with the prince decorously, but somewhat unbendingly — rather as if he were the
prince’s solicitor. The sombre housekeeper was a mere shadow in comparison; indeed,
she seemed to efface herself and wait only on the butler, and Brown heard no more of
those volcanic whispers which had half told him of the younger brother who
blackmailed the elder. Whether the prince was really being thus bled by the absent
captain, he could not be certain, but there was something insecure and secretive about
Saradine that made the tale by no means incredible.
When they went once more into the long hall with the windows and the mirrors, yellow
evening was dropping over the waters and the willowy banks; and a bittern sounded in
the distance like an elf upon his dwarfish drum. The same singular sentiment of some
sad and evil fairyland crossed the priest’s mind again like a little grey cloud. “I wish
Flambeau were back,” he muttered.
“Do you believe in doom?” asked the restless Prince Saradine suddenly.
“No,” answered his guest. “I believe in Doomsday.”
The prince turned from the window and stared at him in a singular manner, his face in
shadow against the sunset. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean that we here are on the wrong side of the tapestry,” answered Father Brown.
“The things that happen here do not seem to mean anything; they mean something
somewhere else. Somewhere else retribution will come on the real offender. Here it
often seems to fall on the wrong person.”
The prince made an inexplicable noise like an animal; in his shadowed face the eyes
were shining queerly. A new and shrewd thought exploded silently in the other’s mind.
Was there another meaning in Saradine’s blend of brilliancy and abruptness? Was the
prince — Was he perfectly sane? He was repeating, “The wrong person — the wrong
person,” many more times than was natural in a social exclamation.
Then Father Brown awoke tardily to a second truth. In the mirrors before him he could
see the silent door standing open, and the silent Mr. Paul standing in it, with his usual
pallid impassiveness.
“I thought it better to announce at once,” he said, with the same stiff respectfulness as of
an old family lawyer, “a boat rowed by six men has come to the landing-stage, and
there’s a gentleman sitting in the stern.”
“A boat!” repeated the prince; “a gentleman?” and he rose to his feet.
There was a startled silence punctuated only by the odd noise of the bird in the sedge;
and then, before anyone could speak again, a new face and figure passed in profile
round the three sunlit windows, as the prince had passed an hour or two before. But
except for the accident that both outlines were aquiline, they had little in common.
Instead of the new white topper of Saradine, was a black one of antiquated or foreign
shape; under it was a young and very solemn face, clean shaven, blue about its resolute
chin, and carrying a faint suggestion of the young Napoleon. The association was
assisted by something old and odd about the whole get-up, as of a man who had never
troubled to change the fashions of his fathers. He had a shabby blue frock coat, a red,
soldierly looking waistcoat, and a kind of coarse white trousers common among the
early Victorians, but strangely incongruous today. From all this old clothes-shop his
olive face stood out strangely young and monstrously sincere.
“The deuce!” said Prince Saradine, and clapping on his white hat he went to the front
door himself, flinging it open on the sunset garden.
By that time the new-comer and his followers were drawn up on the lawn like a small
stage army. The six boatmen had pulled the boat well up on shore, and were guarding it
almost menacingly, holding their oars erect like spears. They were swarthy men, and
some of them wore earrings. But one of them stood forward beside the olive-faced
young man in the red waistcoat, and carried a large black case of unfamiliar form.
“Your name,” said the young man, “is Saradine?”
Saradine assented rather negligently.
The new-comer had dull, dog-like brown eyes, as different as possible from the restless
and glittering grey eyes of the prince. But once again Father Brown was tortured with a
sense of having seen somewhere a replica of the face; and once again he remembered
the repetitions of the glass-panelled room, and put down the coincidence to that.
“Confound this crystal palace!” he muttered. “One sees everything too many times. It’s
like a dream.”
“If you are Prince Saradine,” said the young man, “I may tell you that my name is
Antonelli.”
“Antonelli,” repeated the prince languidly. “Somehow I remember the name.”
“Permit me to present myself,” said the young Italian.
With his left hand he politely took off his old-fashioned top-hat; with his right he caught
Prince Saradine so ringing a crack across the face that the white top hat rolled down the
steps and one of the blue flower-pots rocked upon its pedestal.
The prince, whatever he was, was evidently not a coward; he sprang at his enemy’s
throat and almost bore him backwards to the grass. But his enemy extricated himself
with a singularly inappropriate air of hurried politeness.
“That is all right,” he said, panting and in halting English. “I have insulted. I will give
satisfaction. Marco, open the case.”
The man beside him with the earrings and the big black case proceeded to unlock it. He
took out of it two long Italian rapiers, with splendid steel hilts and blades, which he
planted point downwards in the lawn. The strange young man standing facing the
entrance with his yellow and vindictive face, the two swords standing up in the turf like
two crosses in a cemetery, and the line of the ranked towers behind, gave it all an odd
appearance of being some barbaric court of justice. But everything else was unchanged,
so sudden had been the interruption. The sunset gold still glowed on the lawn, and the
bittern still boomed as announcing some small but dreadful destiny.
“Prince Saradine,” said the man called Antonelli, “when I was an infant in the cradle
you killed my father and stole my mother; my father was the more fortunate. You did
not kill him fairly, as I am going to kill you. You and my wicked mother took him
driving to a lonely pass in Sicily, flung him down a cliff, and went on your way. I could
imitate you if I chose, but imitating you is too vile. I have followed you all over the
world, and you have always fled from me. But this is the end of the world — and of
you. I have you now, and I give you the chance you never gave my father. Choose one
of those swords.”
Prince Saradine, with contracted brows, seemed to hesitate a moment, but his ears were
still singing with the blow, and he sprang forward and snatched at one of the hilts.
Father Brown had also sprung forward, striving to compose the dispute; but he soon
found his personal presence made matters worse. Saradine was a French freemason and
a fierce atheist, and a priest moved him by the law of contraries. And for the other man
neither priest nor layman moved him at all. This young man with the Bonaparte face
and the brown eyes was something far sterner than a puritan — a pagan. He was a
simple slayer from the morning of the earth; a man of the stone age — a man of stone.
One hope remained, the summoning of the household; and Father Brown ran back into
the house. He found, however, that all the under servants had been given a holiday
ashore by the autocrat Paul, and that only the sombre Mrs. Anthony moved uneasily
about the long rooms. But the moment she turned a ghastly face upon him, he resolved
one of the riddles of the house of mirrors. The heavy brown eyes of Antonelli were the
heavy brown eyes of Mrs. Anthony; and in a flash he saw half the story.
“Your son is outside,” he said without wasting words; “either he or the prince will be
killed. Where is Mr. Paul?”
“He is at the landing-stage,” said the woman faintly. “He is — he is — signalling for
help.”
“Mrs. Anthony,” said Father Brown seriously, “there is no time for nonsense. My friend
has his boat down the river fishing. Your son’s boat is guarded by your son’s men.
There is only this one canoe; what is Mr. Paul doing with it?”
“Santa Maria! I do not know,” she said; and swooned all her length on the matted floor.
Father Brown lifted her to a sofa, flung a pot of water over her, shouted for help, and
then rushed down to the landing-stage of the little island. But the canoe was already in
mid-stream, and old Paul was pulling and pushing it up the river with an energy
incredible at his years.
“I will save my master,” he cried, his eyes blazing maniacally. “I will save him yet!”
Father Brown could do nothing but gaze after the boat as it struggled up-stream and
pray that the old man might waken the little town in time.
“A duel is bad enough,” he muttered, rubbing up his rough dust-coloured hair, “but
there’s something wrong about this duel, even as a duel. I feel it in my bones. But what
can it be?”
As he stood staring at the water, a wavering mirror of sunset, he heard from the other
end of the island garden a small but unmistakable sound — the cold concussion of steel.
He turned his head.
Away on the farthest cape or headland of the long islet, on a strip of turf beyond the last
rank of roses, the duellists had already crossed swords. Evening above them was a dome
of virgin gold, and, distant as they were, every detail was picked out. They had cast off
their coats, but the yellow waistcoat and white hair of Saradine, the red waistcoat and
white trousers of Antonelli, glittered in the level light like the colours of the dancing
clockwork dolls. The two swords sparkled from point to pommel like two diamond pins.
There was something frightful in the two figures appearing so little and so gay. They
looked like two butterflies trying to pin each other to a cork.
Father Brown ran as hard as he could, his little legs going like a wheel. But when he
came to the field of combat he found he was born too late and too early — too late to
stop the strife, under the shadow of the grim Sicilians leaning on their oars, and too
early to anticipate any disastrous issue of it. For the two men were singularly well
matched, the prince using his skill with a sort of cynical confidence, the Sicilian using
his with a murderous care. Few finer fencing matches can ever have been seen in
crowded amphitheatres than that which tinkled and sparkled on that forgotten island in
the reedy river. The dizzy fight was balanced so long that hope began to revive in the
protesting priest; by all common probability Paul must soon come back with the police.
It would be some comfort even if Flambeau came back from his fishing, for Flambeau,
physically speaking, was worth four other men. But there was no sign of Flambeau, and,
what was much queerer, no sign of Paul or the police. No other raft or stick was left to
float on; in that lost island in that vast nameless pool, they were cut off as on a rock in
the Pacific.
Almost as he had the thought the ringing of the rapiers quickened to a rattle, the prince’s
arms flew up, and the point shot out behind between his shoulder-blades. He went over
with a great whirling movement, almost like one throwing the half of a boy’s cartwheel. The sword flew from his hand like a shooting star, and dived into the distant
river. And he himself sank with so earth-shaking a subsidence that he broke a big rosetree with his body and shook up into the sky a cloud of red earth — like the smoke of
some heathen sacrifice. The Sicilian had made blood-offering to the ghost of his father.
The priest was instantly on his knees by the corpse; but only to make too sure that it was
a corpse. As he was still trying some last hopeless tests he heard for the first time voices
from farther up the river, and saw a police boat shoot up to the landing-stage, with
constables and other important people, including the excited Paul. The little priest rose
with a distinctly dubious grimace.
“Now, why on earth,” he muttered, “why on earth couldn’t he have come before?”
Some seven minutes later the island was occupied by an invasion of townsfolk and
police, and the latter had put their hands on the victorious duellist, ritually reminding
him that anything he said might be used against him.
“I shall not say anything,” said the monomaniac, with a wonderful and peaceful face. “I
shall never say anything more. I am very happy, and I only want to be hanged.”
Then he shut his mouth as they led him away, and it is the strange but certain truth that
he never opened it again in this world, except to say “Guilty” at his trial.
Father Brown had stared at the suddenly crowded garden, the arrest of the man of blood,
the carrying away of the corpse after its examination by the doctor, rather as one
watches the break-up of some ugly dream; he was motionless, like a man in a
nightmare. He gave his name and address as a witness, but declined their offer of a boat
to the shore, and remained alone in the island garden, gazing at the broken rose bush
and the whole green theatre of that swift and inexplicable tragedy. The light died along
the river; mist rose in the marshy banks; a few belated birds flitted fitfully across.
Stuck stubbornly in his sub-consciousness (which was an unusually lively one) was an
unspeakable certainty that there was something still unexplained. This sense that had
clung to him all day could not be fully explained by his fancy about “looking-glass
land.” Somehow he had not seen the real story, but some game or masque. And yet
people do not get hanged or run through the body for the sake of a charade.
As he sat on the steps of the landing-stage ruminating he grew conscious of the tall,
dark streak of a sail coming silently down the shining river, and sprang to his feet with
such a backrush of feeling that he almost wept.
“Flambeau!” he cried, and shook his friend by both hands again and again, much to the
astonishment of that sportsman, as he came on shore with his fishing tackle.
“Flambeau,” he said, “so you’re not killed?”
“Killed!” repeated the angler in great astonishment. “And why should I be killed?”
“Oh, because nearly everybody else is,” said his companion rather wildly. “Saradine got
murdered, and Antonelli wants to be hanged, and his mother’s fainted, and I, for one,
don’t know whether I’m in this world or the next. But, thank God, you’re in the same
one.” And he took the bewildered Flambeau’s arm.
As they turned from the landing-stage they came under the eaves of the low bamboo
house, and looked in through one of the windows, as they had done on their first arrival.
They beheld a lamp-lit interior well calculated to arrest their eyes. The table in the long
dining-room had been laid for dinner when Saradine’s destroyer had fallen like a
stormbolt on the island. And the dinner was now in placid progress, for Mrs. Anthony
sat somewhat sullenly at the foot of the table, while at the head of it was Mr. Paul, the
major domo, eating and drinking of the best, his bleared, bluish eyes standing queerly
out of his face, his gaunt countenance inscrutable, but by no means devoid of
satisfaction.
With a gesture of powerful impatience, Flambeau rattled at the window, wrenched it
open, and put an indignant head into the lamp-lit room.
“Well,” he cried. “I can understand you may need some refreshment, but really to steal
your master’s dinner while he lies murdered in the garden — ”
“I have stolen a great many things in a long and pleasant life,” replied the strange old
gentleman placidly; “this dinner is one of the few things I have not stolen. This dinner
and this house and garden happen to belong to me.”
A thought flashed across Flambeau’s face. “You mean to say,” he began, “that the will
of Prince Saradine — ”
“I am Prince Saradine,” said the old man, munching a salted almond.
Father Brown, who was looking at the birds outside, jumped as if he were shot, and put
in at the window a pale face like a turnip.
“You are what?” he repeated in a shrill voice.
“Paul, Prince Saradine, A vos ordres,” said the venerable person politely, lifting a glass
of sherry. “I live here very quietly, being a domestic kind of fellow; and for the sake of
modesty I am called Mr. Paul, to distinguish me from my unfortunate brother Mr.
Stephen. He died, I hear, recently — in the garden. Of course, it is not my fault if
enemies pursue him to this place. It is owing to the regrettable irregularity of his life. He
was not a domestic character.”
He relapsed into silence, and continued to gaze at the opposite wall just above the
bowed and sombre head of the woman. They saw plainly the family likeness that had
haunted them in the dead man. Then his old shoulders began to heave and shake a little,
as if he were choking, but his face did not alter.
“My God!” cried Flambeau after a pause, “he’s laughing!”
“Come away,” said Father Brown, who was quite white. “Come away from this house
of hell. Let us get into an honest boat again.”
Night had sunk on rushes and river by the time they had pushed off from the island, and
they went down-stream in the dark, warming themselves with two big cigars that
glowed like crimson ships’ lanterns. Father Brown took his cigar out of his mouth and
said:
“I suppose you can guess the whole story now? After all, it’s a primitive story. A man
had two enemies. He was a wise man. And so he discovered that two enemies are better
than one.”
“I do not follow that,” answered Flambeau.
“Oh, it’s really simple,” rejoined his friend. “Simple, though anything but innocent.
Both the Saradines were scamps, but the prince, the elder, was the sort of scamp that
gets to the top, and the younger, the captain, was the sort that sinks to the bottom. This
squalid officer fell from beggar to blackmailer, and one ugly day he got his hold upon
his brother, the prince. Obviously it was for no light matter, for Prince Paul Saradine
was frankly ‘fast,’ and had no reputation to lose as to the mere sins of society. In plain
fact, it was a hanging matter, and Stephen literally had a rope round his brother’s neck.
He had somehow discovered the truth about the Sicilian affair, and could prove that
Paul murdered old Antonelli in the mountains. The captain raked in the hush money
heavily for ten years, until even the prince’s splendid fortune began to look a little
foolish.
“But Prince Saradine bore another burden besides his blood-sucking brother. He knew
that the son of Antonelli, a mere child at the time of the murder, had been trained in
savage Sicilian loyalty, and lived only to avenge his father, not with the gibbet (for he
lacked Stephen’s legal proof), but with the old weapons of vendetta. The boy had
practised arms with a deadly perfection, and about the time that he was old enough to
use them Prince Saradine began, as the society papers said, to travel. The fact is that he
began to flee for his life, passing from place to place like a hunted criminal; but with
one relentless man upon his trail. That was Prince Paul’s position, and by no means a
pretty one. The more money he spent on eluding Antonelli the less he had to silence
Stephen. The more he gave to silence Stephen the less chance there was of finally
escaping Antonelli. Then it was that he showed himself a great man — a genius like
Napoleon.
“Instead of resisting his two antagonists, he surrendered suddenly to both of them. He
gave way like a Japanese wrestler, and his foes fell prostrate before him. He gave up the
race round the world, and he gave up his address to young Antonelli; then he gave up
everything to his brother. He sent Stephen money enough for smart clothes and easy
travel, with a letter saying roughly: ‘This is all I have left. You have cleaned me out. I
still have a little house in Norfolk, with servants and a cellar, and if you want more from
me you must take that. Come and take possession if you like, and I will live there
quietly as your friend or agent or anything.’ He knew that the Sicilian had never seen
the Saradine brothers save, perhaps, in pictures; he knew they were somewhat alike,
both having grey, pointed beards. Then he shaved his own face and waited. The trap
worked. The unhappy captain, in his new clothes, entered the house in triumph as a
prince, and walked upon the Sicilian’s sword.
“There was one hitch, and it is to the honour of human nature. Evil spirits like Saradine
often blunder by never expecting the virtues of mankind. He took it for granted that the
Italian’s blow, when it came, would be dark, violent and nameless, like the blow it
avenged; that the victim would be knifed at night, or shot from behind a hedge, and so
die without speech. It was a bad minute for Prince Paul when Antonelli’s chivalry
proposed a formal duel, with all its possible explanations. It was then that I found him
putting off in his boat with wild eyes. He was fleeing, bareheaded, in an open boat
before Antonelli should learn who he was.
“But, however agitated, he was not hopeless. He knew the adventurer and he knew the
fanatic. It was quite probable that Stephen, the adventurer, would hold his tongue,
through his mere histrionic pleasure in playing a part, his lust for clinging to his new
cosy quarters, his rascal’s trust in luck, and his fine fencing. It was certain that
Antonelli, the fanatic, would hold his tongue, and be hanged without telling tales of his
family. Paul hung about on the river till he knew the fight was over. Then he roused the
town, brought the police, saw his two vanquished enemies taken away forever, and sat
down smiling to his dinner.”
“Laughing, God help us!” said Flambeau with a strong shudder. “Do they get such ideas
from Satan?”
“He got that idea from you,” answered the priest.
“God forbid!” ejaculated Flambeau. “From me! What do you mean!”
The priest pulled a visiting-card from his pocket and held it up in the faint glow of his
cigar; it was scrawled with green ink.
“Don’t you remember his original invitation to you?” he asked, “and the compliment to
your criminal exploit? ‘That trick of yours,’ he says, ‘of getting one detective to arrest
the other’? He has just copied your trick. With an enemy on each side of him, he slipped
swiftly out of the way and let them collide and kill each other.”
Flambeau tore Prince Saradine’s card from the priest’s hands and rent it savagely in
small pieces.
“There’s the last of that old skull and crossbones,” he said as he scattered the pieces
upon the dark and disappearing waves of the stream; “but I should think it would poison
the fishes.”
The last gleam of white card and green ink was drowned and darkened; a faint and
vibrant colour as of morning changed the sky, and the moon behind the grasses grew
paler. They drifted in silence.
“Father,” said Flambeau suddenly, “do you think it was all a dream?”
The priest shook his head, whether in dissent or agnosticism, but remained mute. A
smell of hawthorn and of orchards came to them through the darkness, telling them that
a wind was awake; the next moment it swayed their little boat and swelled their sail, and
carried them onward down the winding river to happier places and the homes of
harmless men.
The Hammer of God
The little village of Bohun Beacon was perched on a hill so steep that the tall spire of its
church seemed only like the peak of a small mountain. At the foot of the church stood a
smithy, generally red with fires and always littered with hammers and scraps of iron;
opposite to this, over a rude cross of cobbled paths, was “The Blue Boar,” the only inn
of the place. It was upon this crossway, in the lifting of a leaden and silver daybreak,
that two brothers met in the street and spoke; though one was beginning the day and the
other finishing it. The Rev. and Hon. Wilfred Bohun was very devout, and was making
his way to some austere exercises of prayer or contemplation at dawn. Colonel the Hon.
Norman Bohun, his elder brother, was by no means devout, and was sitting in evening
dress on the bench outside “The Blue Boar,” drinking what the philosophic observer
was free to regard either as his last glass on Tuesday or his first on Wednesday. The
colonel was not particular.
The Bohuns were one of the very few aristocratic families really dating from the Middle
Ages, and their pennon had actually seen Palestine. But it is a great mistake to suppose
that such houses stand high in chivalric tradition. Few except the poor preserve
traditions. Aristocrats live not in traditions but in fashions. The Bohuns had been
Mohocks under Queen Anne and Mashers under Queen Victoria. But like more than
one of the really ancient houses, they had rotted in the last two centuries into mere
drunkards and dandy degenerates, till there had even come a whisper of insanity.
Certainly there was something hardly human about the colonel’s wolfish pursuit of
pleasure, and his chronic resolution not to go home till morning had a touch of the
hideous clarity of insomnia. He was a tall, fine animal, elderly, but with hair still
startlingly yellow. He would have looked merely blonde and leonine, but his blue eyes
were sunk so deep in his face that they looked black. They were a little too close
together. He had very long yellow moustaches; on each side of them a fold or furrow
from nostril to jaw, so that a sneer seemed cut into his face. Over his evening clothes he
wore a curious pale yellow coat that looked more like a very light dressing gown than
an overcoat, and on the back of his head was stuck an extraordinary broad-brimmed hat
of a bright green colour, evidently some oriental curiosity caught up at random. He was
proud of appearing in such incongruous attires — proud of the fact that he always made
them look congruous.
His brother the curate had also the yellow hair and the elegance, but he was buttoned up
to the chin in black, and his face was clean-shaven, cultivated, and a little nervous. He
seemed to live for nothing but his religion; but there were some who said (notably the
blacksmith, who was a Presbyterian) that it was a love of Gothic architecture rather than
of God, and that his haunting of the church like a ghost was only another and purer turn
of the almost morbid thirst for beauty which sent his brother raging after women and
wine. This charge was doubtful, while the man’s practical piety was indubitable.
Indeed, the charge was mostly an ignorant misunderstanding of the love of solitude and
secret prayer, and was founded on his being often found kneeling, not before the altar,
but in peculiar places, in the crypts or gallery, or even in the belfry. He was at the
moment about to enter the church through the yard of the smithy, but stopped and
frowned a little as he saw his brother’s cavernous eyes staring in the same direction. On
the hypothesis that the colonel was interested in the church he did not waste any
speculations. There only remained the blacksmith’s shop, and though the blacksmith
was a Puritan and none of his people, Wilfred Bohun had heard some scandals about a
beautiful and rather celebrated wife. He flung a suspicious look across the shed, and the
colonel stood up laughing to speak to him.
“Good morning, Wilfred,” he said. “Like a good landlord I am watching sleeplessly
over my people. I am going to call on the blacksmith.”
Wilfred looked at the ground, and said: “The blacksmith is out. He is over at
Greenford.”
“I know,” answered the other with silent laughter; “that is why I am calling on him.”
“Norman,” said the cleric, with his eye on a pebble in the road, “are you ever afraid of
thunderbolts?”
“What do you mean?” asked the colonel. “Is your hobby meteorology?”
“I mean,” said Wilfred, without looking up, “do you ever think that God might strike
you in the street?”
“I beg your pardon,” said the colonel; “I see your hobby is folk-lore.”
“I know your hobby is blasphemy,” retorted the religious man, stung in the one live
place of his nature. “But if you do not fear God, you have good reason to fear man.”
The elder raised his eyebrows politely. “Fear man?” he said.
“Barnes the blacksmith is the biggest and strongest man for forty miles round,” said the
clergyman sternly. “I know you are no coward or weakling, but he could throw you over
the wall.”
This struck home, being true, and the lowering line by mouth and nostril darkened and
deepened. For a moment he stood with the heavy sneer on his face. But in an instant
Colonel Bohun had recovered his own cruel good humour and laughed, showing two
dog-like front teeth under his yellow moustache. “In that case, my dear Wilfred,” he
said quite carelessly, “it was wise for the last of the Bohuns to come out partially in
armour.”
And he took off the queer round hat covered with green, showing that it was lined
within with steel. Wilfred recognised it indeed as a light Japanese or Chinese helmet
torn down from a trophy that hung in the old family hall.
“It was the first hat to hand,” explained his brother airily; “always the nearest hat — and
the nearest woman.”
“The blacksmith is away at Greenford,” said Wilfred quietly; “the time of his return is
unsettled.”
And with that he turned and went into the church with bowed head, crossing himself
like one who wishes to be quit of an unclean spirit. He was anxious to forget such
grossness in the cool twilight of his tall Gothic cloisters; but on that morning it was
fated that his still round of religious exercises should be everywhere arrested by small
shocks. As he entered the church, hitherto always empty at that hour, a kneeling figure
rose hastily to its feet and came towards the full daylight of the doorway. When the
curate saw it he stood still with surprise. For the early worshipper was none other than
the village idiot, a nephew of the blacksmith, one who neither would nor could care for
the church or for anything else. He was always called “Mad Joe,” and seemed to have
no other name; he was a dark, strong, slouching lad, with a heavy white face, dark
straight hair, and a mouth always open. As he passed the priest, his moon-calf
countenance gave no hint of what he had been doing or thinking of. He had never been
known to pray before. What sort of prayers was he saying now? Extraordinary prayers
surely.
Wilfred Bohun stood rooted to the spot long enough to see the idiot go out into the
sunshine, and even to see his dissolute brother hail him with a sort of avuncular
jocularity. The last thing he saw was the colonel throwing pennies at the open mouth of
Joe, with the serious appearance of trying to hit it.
This ugly sunlit picture of the stupidity and cruelty of the earth sent the ascetic finally to
his prayers for purification and new thoughts. He went up to a pew in the gallery, which
brought him under a coloured window which he loved and always quieted his spirit; a
blue window with an angel carrying lilies. There he began to think less about the halfwit, with his livid face and mouth like a fish. He began to think less of his evil brother,
pacing like a lean lion in his horrible hunger. He sank deeper and deeper into those cold
and sweet colours of silver blossoms and sapphire sky.
In this place half an hour afterwards he was found by Gibbs, the village cobbler, who
had been sent for him in some haste. He got to his feet with promptitude, for he knew
that no small matter would have brought Gibbs into such a place at all. The cobbler was,
as in many villages, an atheist, and his appearance in church was a shade more
extraordinary than Mad Joe’s. It was a morning of theological enigmas.
“What is it?” asked Wilfred Bohun rather stiffly, but putting out a trembling hand for
his hat.
The atheist spoke in a tone that, coming from him, was quite startlingly respectful, and
even, as it were, huskily sympathetic.
“You must excuse me, sir,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “but we didn’t think it right not
to let you know at once. I’m afraid a rather dreadful thing has happened, sir. I’m afraid
your brother — ”
Wilfred clenched his frail hands. “What devilry has he done now?” he cried in voluntary
passion.
“Why, sir,” said the cobbler, coughing, “I’m afraid he’s done nothing, and won’t do
anything. I’m afraid he’s done for. You had really better come down, sir.”
The curate followed the cobbler down a short winding stair which brought them out at
an entrance rather higher than the street. Bohun saw the tragedy in one glance, flat
underneath him like a plan. In the yard of the smithy were standing five or six men
mostly in black, one in an inspector’s uniform. They included the doctor, the
Presbyterian minister, and the priest from the Roman Catholic chapel, to which the
blacksmith’s wife belonged. The latter was speaking to her, indeed, very rapidly, in an
undertone, as she, a magnificent woman with red-gold hair, was sobbing blindly on a
bench. Between these two groups, and just clear of the main heap of hammers, lay a
man in evening dress, spread-eagled and flat on his face. From the height above Wilfred
could have sworn to every item of his costume and appearance, down to the Bohun
rings upon his fingers; but the skull was only a hideous splash, like a star of blackness
and blood.
Wilfred Bohun gave but one glance, and ran down the steps into the yard. The doctor,
who was the family physician, saluted him, but he scarcely took any notice. He could
only stammer out: “My brother is dead. What does it mean? What is this horrible
mystery?” There was an unhappy silence; and then the cobbler, the most outspoken man
present, answered: “Plenty of horror, sir,” he said; “but not much mystery.”
“What do you mean?” asked Wilfred, with a white face.
“It’s plain enough,” answered Gibbs. “There is only one man for forty miles round that
could have struck such a blow as that, and he’s the man that had most reason to.”
“We must not prejudge anything,” put in the doctor, a tall, black-bearded man, rather
nervously; “but it is competent for me to corroborate what Mr. Gibbs says about the
nature of the blow, sir; it is an incredible blow. Mr. Gibbs says that only one man in this
district could have done it. I should have said myself that nobody could have done it.”
A shudder of superstition went through the slight figure of the curate. “I can hardly
understand,” he said.
“Mr. Bohun,” said the doctor in a low voice, “metaphors literally fail me. It is
inadequate to say that the skull was smashed to bits like an eggshell. Fragments of bone
were driven into the body and the ground like bullets into a mud wall. It was the hand of
a giant.”
He was silent a moment, looking grimly through his glasses; then he added: “The thing
has one advantage — that it clears most people of suspicion at one stroke. If you or I or
any normally made man in the country were accused of this crime, we should be
acquitted as an infant would be acquitted of stealing the Nelson column.”
“That’s what I say,” repeated the cobbler obstinately; “there’s only one man that could
have done it, and he’s the man that would have done it. Where’s Simeon Barnes, the
blacksmith?”
“He’s over at Greenford,” faltered the curate.
“More likely over in France,” muttered the cobbler.
“No; he is in neither of those places,” said a small and colourless voice, which came
from the little Roman priest who had joined the group. “As a matter of fact, he is
coming up the road at this moment.”
The little priest was not an interesting man to look at, having stubbly brown hair and a
round and stolid face. But if he had been as splendid as Apollo no one would have
looked at him at that moment. Everyone turned round and peered at the pathway which
wound across the plain below, along which was indeed walking, at his own huge stride
and with a hammer on his shoulder, Simeon the smith. He was a bony and gigantic man,
with deep, dark, sinister eyes and a dark chin beard. He was walking and talking quietly
with two other men; and though he was never specially cheerful, he seemed quite at his
ease.
“My God!” cried the atheistic cobbler, “and there’s the hammer he did it with.”
“No,” said the inspector, a sensible-looking man with a sandy moustache, speaking for
the first time. “There’s the hammer he did it with over there by the church wall. We
have left it and the body exactly as they are.”
All glanced round and the short priest went across and looked down in silence at the
tool where it lay. It was one of the smallest and the lightest of the hammers, and would
not have caught the eye among the rest; but on the iron edge of it were blood and yellow
hair.
After a silence the short priest spoke without looking up, and there was a new note in
his dull voice. “Mr. Gibbs was hardly right,” he said, “in saying that there is no mystery.
There is at least the mystery of why so big a man should attempt so big a blow with so
little a hammer.”
“Oh, never mind that,” cried Gibbs, in a fever. “What are we to do with Simeon
Barnes?”
“Leave him alone,” said the priest quietly. “He is coming here of himself. I know those
two men with him. They are very good fellows from Greenford, and they have come
over about the Presbyterian chapel.”
Even as he spoke the tall smith swung round the corner of the church, and strode into
his own yard. Then he stood there quite still, and the hammer fell from his hand. The
inspector, who had preserved impenetrable propriety, immediately went up to him.
“I won’t ask you, Mr. Barnes,” he said, “whether you know anything about what has
happened here. You are not bound to say. I hope you don’t know, and that you will be
able to prove it. But I must go through the form of arresting you in the King’s name for
the murder of Colonel Norman Bohun.”
“You are not bound to say anything,” said the cobbler in officious excitement. “They’ve
got to prove everything. They haven’t proved yet that it is Colonel Bohun, with the head
all smashed up like that.”
“That won’t wash,” said the doctor aside to the priest. “That’s out of the detective
stories. I was the colonel’s medical man, and I knew his body better than he did. He had
very fine hands, but quite peculiar ones. The second and third fingers were the same
length. Oh, that’s the colonel right enough.”
As he glanced at the brained corpse upon the ground the iron eyes of the motionless
blacksmith followed them and rested there also.
“Is Colonel Bohun dead?” said the smith quite calmly. “Then he’s damned.”
“Don’t say anything! Oh, don’t say anything,” cried the atheist cobbler, dancing about
in an ecstasy of admiration of the English legal system. For no man is such a legalist as
the good Secularist.
The blacksmith turned on him over his shoulder the august face of a fanatic.
“It’s well for you infidels to dodge like foxes because the world’s law favours you,” he
said; “but God guards His own in His pocket, as you shall see this day.”
Then he pointed to the colonel and said: “When did this dog die in his sins?”
“Moderate your language,” said the doctor.
“Moderate the Bible’s language, and I’ll moderate mine. When did he die?”
“I saw him alive at six o’clock this morning,” stammered Wilfred Bohun.
“God is good,” said the smith. “Mr. Inspector, I have not the slightest objection to being
arrested. It is you who may object to arresting me. I don’t mind leaving the court
without a stain on my character. You do mind perhaps leaving the court with a bad setback in your career.”
The solid inspector for the first time looked at the blacksmith with a lively eye; as did
everybody else, except the short, strange priest, who was still looking down at the little
hammer that had dealt the dreadful blow.
“There are two men standing outside this shop,” went on the blacksmith with ponderous
lucidity, “good tradesmen in Greenford whom you all know, who will swear that they
saw me from before midnight till daybreak and long after in the committee room of our
Revival Mission, which sits all night, we save souls so fast. In Greenford itself twenty
people could swear to me for all that time. If I were a heathen, Mr. Inspector, I would let
you walk on to your downfall. But as a Christian man I feel bound to give you your
chance, and ask you whether you will hear my alibi now or in court.”
The inspector seemed for the first time disturbed, and said, “Of course I should be glad
to clear you altogether now.”
The smith walked out of his yard with the same long and easy stride, and returned to his
two friends from Greenford, who were indeed friends of nearly everyone present. Each
of them said a few words which no one ever thought of disbelieving. When they had
spoken, the innocence of Simeon stood up as solid as the great church above them.
One of those silences struck the group which are more strange and insufferable than any
speech. Madly, in order to make conversation, the curate said to the Catholic priest:
“You seem very much interested in that hammer, Father Brown.”
“Yes, I am,” said Father Brown; “why is it such a small hammer?”
The doctor swung round on him.
“By George, that’s true,” he cried; “who would use a little hammer with ten larger
hammers lying about?”
Then he lowered his voice in the curate’s ear and said: “Only the kind of person that
can’t lift a large hammer. It is not a question of force or courage between the sexes. It’s
a question of lifting power in the shoulders. A bold woman could commit ten murders
with a light hammer and never turn a hair. She could not kill a beetle with a heavy one.”
Wilfred Bohun was staring at him with a sort of hypnotised horror, while Father Brown
listened with his head a little on one side, really interested and attentive. The doctor
went on with more hissing emphasis:
“Why do these idiots always assume that the only person who hates the wife’s lover is
the wife’s husband? Nine times out of ten the person who most hates the wife’s lover is
the wife. Who knows what insolence or treachery he had shown her — look there!”
He made a momentary gesture towards the red-haired woman on the bench. She had
lifted her head at last and the tears were drying on her splendid face. But the eyes were
fixed on the corpse with an electric glare that had in it something of idiocy.
The Rev. Wilfred Bohun made a limp gesture as if waving away all desire to know; but
Father Brown, dusting off his sleeve some ashes blown from the furnace, spoke in his
indifferent way.
“You are like so many doctors,” he said; “your mental science is really suggestive. It is
your physical science that is utterly impossible. I agree that the woman wants to kill the
co-respondent much more than the petitioner does. And I agree that a woman will
always pick up a small hammer instead of a big one. But the difficulty is one of physical
impossibility. No woman ever born could have smashed a man’s skull out flat like that.”
Then he added reflectively, after a pause: “These people haven’t grasped the whole of it.
The man was actually wearing an iron helmet, and the blow scattered it like broken
glass. Look at that woman. Look at her arms.”
Silence held them all up again, and then the doctor said rather sulkily: “Well, I may be
wrong; there are objections to everything. But I stick to the main point. No man but an
idiot would pick up that little hammer if he could use a big hammer.”
With that the lean and quivering hands of Wilfred Bohun went up to his head and
seemed to clutch his scanty yellow hair. After an instant they dropped, and he cried:
“That was the word I wanted; you have said the word.”
Then he continued, mastering his discomposure: “The words you said were, ‘No man
but an idiot would pick up the small hammer.’”
“Yes,” said the doctor. “Well?”
“Well,” said the curate, “no man but an idiot did.” The rest stared at him with eyes
arrested and riveted, and he went on in a febrile and feminine agitation.
“I am a priest,” he cried unsteadily, “and a priest should be no shedder of blood. I — I
mean that he should bring no one to the gallows. And I thank God that I see the criminal
clearly now — because he is a criminal who cannot be brought to the gallows.”
“You will not denounce him?” inquired the doctor.
“He would not be hanged if I did denounce him,” answered Wilfred with a wild but
curiously happy smile. “When I went into the church this morning I found a madman
praying there — that poor Joe, who has been wrong all his life. God knows what he
prayed; but with such strange folk it is not incredible to suppose that their prayers are all
upside down. Very likely a lunatic would pray before killing a man. When I last saw
poor Joe he was with my brother. My brother was mocking him.”
“By Jove!” cried the doctor, “this is talking at last. But how do you explain — ”
The Rev. Wilfred was almost trembling with the excitement of his own glimpse of the
truth. “Don’t you see; don’t you see,” he cried feverishly; “that is the only theory that
covers both the queer things, that answers both the riddles. The two riddles are the little
hammer and the big blow. The smith might have struck the big blow, but would not
have chosen the little hammer. His wife would have chosen the little hammer, but she
could not have struck the big blow. But the madman might have done both. As for the
little hammer — why, he was mad and might have picked up anything. And for the big
blow, have you never heard, doctor, that a maniac in his paroxysm may have the
strength of ten men?”
The doctor drew a deep breath and then said, “By golly, I believe you’ve got it.”
Father Brown had fixed his eyes on the speaker so long and steadily as to prove that his
large grey, ox-like eyes were not quite so insignificant as the rest of his face. When
silence had fallen he said with marked respect: “Mr. Bohun, yours is the only theory yet
propounded which holds water every way and is essentially unassailable. I think,
therefore, that you deserve to be told, on my positive knowledge, that it is not the true
one.” And with that the old little man walked away and stared again at the hammer.
“That fellow seems to know more than he ought to,” whispered the doctor peevishly to
Wilfred. “Those popish priests are deucedly sly.”
“No, no,” said Bohun, with a sort of wild fatigue. “It was the lunatic. It was the lunatic.”
The group of the two clerics and the doctor had fallen away from the more official
group containing the inspector and the man he had arrested. Now, however, that their
own party had broken up, they heard voices from the others. The priest looked up
quietly and then looked down again as he heard the blacksmith say in a loud voice:
“I hope I’ve convinced you, Mr. Inspector. I’m a strong man, as you say, but I couldn’t
have flung my hammer bang here from Greenford. My hammer hasn’t got wings that it
should come flying half a mile over hedges and fields.”
The inspector laughed amicably and said: “No, I think you can be considered out of it,
though it’s one of the rummiest coincidences I ever saw. I can only ask you to give us
all the assistance you can in finding a man as big and strong as yourself. By George!
you might be useful, if only to hold him! I suppose you yourself have no guess at the
man?”
“I may have a guess,” said the pale smith, “but it is not at a man.” Then, seeing the
scared eyes turn towards his wife on the bench, he put his huge hand on her shoulder
and said: “Nor a woman either.”
“What do you mean?” asked the inspector jocularly. “You don’t think cows use
hammers, do you?”
“I think no thing of flesh held that hammer,” said the blacksmith in a stifled voice;
“mortally speaking, I think the man died alone.”
Wilfred made a sudden forward movement and peered at him with burning eyes.
“Do you mean to say, Barnes,” came the sharp voice of the cobbler, “that the hammer
jumped up of itself and knocked the man down?”
“Oh, you gentlemen may stare and snigger,” cried Simeon; “you clergymen who tell us
on Sunday in what a stillness the Lord smote Sennacherib. I believe that One who walks
invisible in every house defended the honour of mine, and laid the defiler dead before
the door of it. I believe the force in that blow was just the force there is in earthquakes,
and no force less.”
Wilfred said, with a voice utterly undescribable: “I told Norman myself to beware of the
thunderbolt.”
“That agent is outside my jurisdiction,” said the inspector with a slight smile.
“You are not outside His,” answered the smith; “see you to it,” and, turning his broad
back, he went into the house.
The shaken Wilfred was led away by Father Brown, who had an easy and friendly way
with him. “Let us get out of this horrid place, Mr. Bohun,” he said. “May I look inside
your church? I hear it’s one of the oldest in England. We take some interest, you know,”
he added with a comical grimace, “in old English churches.”
Wilfred Bohun did not smile, for humour was never his strong point. But he nodded
rather eagerly, being only too ready to explain the Gothic splendours to someone more
likely to be sympathetic than the Presbyterian blacksmith or the atheist cobbler.
“By all means,” he said; “let us go in at this side.” And he led the way into the high side
entrance at the top of the flight of steps. Father Brown was mounting the first step to
follow him when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to behold the dark, thin
figure of the doctor, his face darker yet with suspicion.
“Sir,” said the physician harshly, “you appear to know some secrets in this black
business. May I ask if you are going to keep them to yourself?”
“Why, doctor,” answered the priest, smiling quite pleasantly, “there is one very good
reason why a man of my trade should keep things to himself when he is not sure of
them, and that is that it is so constantly his duty to keep them to himself when he is sure
of them. But if you think I have been discourteously reticent with you or anyone, I will
go to the extreme limit of my custom. I will give you two very large hints.”
“Well, sir?” said the doctor gloomily.
“First,” said Father Brown quietly, “the thing is quite in your own province. It is a
matter of physical science. The blacksmith is mistaken, not perhaps in saying that the
blow was divine, but certainly in saying that it came by a miracle. It was no miracle,
doctor, except in so far as man is himself a miracle, with his strange and wicked and yet
half-heroic heart. The force that smashed that skull was a force well known to scientists
— one of the most frequently debated of the laws of nature.”
The doctor, who was looking at him with frowning intentness, only said: “And the other
hint?”
“The other hint is this,” said the priest. “Do you remember the blacksmith, though he
believes in miracles, talking scornfully of the impossible fairy tale that his hammer had
wings and flew half a mile across country?”
“Yes,” said the doctor, “I remember that.”
“Well,” added Father Brown, with a broad smile, “that fairy tale was the nearest thing to
the real truth that has been said today.” And with that he turned his back and stumped
up the steps after the curate.
The Reverend Wilfred, who had been waiting for him, pale and impatient, as if this little
delay were the last straw for his nerves, led him immediately to his favourite corner of
the church, that part of the gallery closest to the carved roof and lit by the wonderful
window with the angel. The little Latin priest explored and admired everything
exhaustively, talking cheerfully but in a low voice all the time. When in the course of
his investigation he found the side exit and the winding stair down which Wilfred had
rushed to find his brother dead, Father Brown ran not down but up, with the agility of a
monkey, and his clear voice came from an outer platform above.
“Come up here, Mr. Bohun,” he called. “The air will do you good.”
Bohun followed him, and came out on a kind of stone gallery or balcony outside the
building, from which one could see the illimitable plain in which their small hill stood,
wooded away to the purple horizon and dotted with villages and farms. Clear and
square, but quite small beneath them, was the blacksmith’s yard, where the inspector
still stood taking notes and the corpse still lay like a smashed fly.
“Might be the map of the world, mightn’t it?” said Father Brown.
“Yes,” said Bohun very gravely, and nodded his head.
Immediately beneath and about them the lines of the Gothic building plunged outwards
into the void with a sickening swiftness akin to suicide. There is that element of Titan
energy in the architecture of the Middle Ages that, from whatever aspect it be seen, it
always seems to be rushing away, like the strong back of some maddened horse. This
church was hewn out of ancient and silent stone, bearded with old fungoids and stained
with the nests of birds. And yet, when they saw it from below, it sprang like a fountain
at the stars; and when they saw it, as now, from above, it poured like a cataract into a
voiceless pit. For these two men on the tower were left alone with the most terrible
aspect of Gothic; the monstrous foreshortening and disproportion, the dizzy
perspectives, the glimpses of great things small and small things great; a topsyturvydom of stone in the mid-air. Details of stone, enormous by their proximity, were
relieved against a pattern of fields and farms, pygmy in their distance. A carved bird or
beast at a corner seemed like some vast walking or flying dragon wasting the pastures
and villages below. The whole atmosphere was dizzy and dangerous, as if men were
upheld in air amid the gyrating wings of colossal genii; and the whole of that old
church, as tall and rich as a cathedral, seemed to sit upon the sunlit country like a
cloudburst.
“I think there is something rather dangerous about standing on these high places even to
pray,” said Father Brown. “Heights were made to be looked at, not to be looked from.”
“Do you mean that one may fall over,” asked Wilfred.
“I mean that one’s soul may fall if one’s body doesn’t,” said the other priest.
“I scarcely understand you,” remarked Bohun indistinctly.
“Look at that blacksmith, for instance,” went on Father Brown calmly; “a good man, but
not a Christian — hard, imperious, unforgiving. Well, his Scotch religion was made up
by men who prayed on hills and high crags, and learnt to look down on the world more
than to look up at heaven. Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from
the valley; only small things from the peak.”
“But he — he didn’t do it,” said Bohun tremulously.
“No,” said the other in an odd voice; “we know he didn’t do it.”
After a moment he resumed, looking tranquilly out over the plain with his pale grey
eyes. “I knew a man,” he said, “who began by worshipping with others before the altar,
but who grew fond of high and lonely places to pray from, corners or niches in the
belfry or the spire. And once in one of those dizzy places, where the whole world
seemed to turn under him like a wheel, his brain turned also, and he fancied he was
God. So that, though he was a good man, he committed a great crime.”
Wilfred’s face was turned away, but his bony hands turned blue and white as they
tightened on the parapet of stone.
“He thought it was given to him to judge the world and strike down the sinner. He
would never have had such a thought if he had been kneeling with other men upon a
floor. But he saw all men walking about like insects. He saw one especially strutting
just below him, insolent and evident by a bright green hat — a poisonous insect.”
Rooks cawed round the corners of the belfry; but there was no other sound till Father
Brown went on.
“This also tempted him, that he had in his hand one of the most awful engines of nature;
I mean gravitation, that mad and quickening rush by which all earth’s creatures fly back
to her heart when released. See, the inspector is strutting just below us in the smithy. If I
were to toss a pebble over this parapet it would be something like a bullet by the time it
struck him. If I were to drop a hammer — even a small hammer — ”
Wilfred Bohun threw one leg over the parapet, and Father Brown had him in a minute
by the collar.
“Not by that door,” he said quite gently; “that door leads to hell.”
Bohun staggered back against the wall, and stared at him with frightful eyes.
“How do you know all this?” he cried. “Are you a devil?”
“I am a man,” answered Father Brown gravely; “and therefore have all devils in my
heart. Listen to me,” he said after a short pause. “I know what you did — at least, I can
guess the great part of it. When you left your brother you were racked with no
unrighteous rage, to the extent even that you snatched up a small hammer, half inclined
to kill him with his foulness on his mouth. Recoiling, you thrust it under your buttoned
coat instead, and rushed into the church. You pray wildly in many places, under the
angel window, upon the platform above, and a higher platform still, from which you
could see the colonel’s Eastern hat like the back of a green beetle crawling about. Then
something snapped in your soul, and you let God’s thunderbolt fall.”
Wilfred put a weak hand to his head, and asked in a low voice: “How did you know that
his hat looked like a green beetle?”
“Oh, that,” said the other with the shadow of a smile, “that was common sense. But hear
me further. I say I know all this; but no one else shall know it. The next step is for you; I
shall take no more steps; I will seal this with the seal of confession. If you ask me why,
there are many reasons, and only one that concerns you. I leave things to you because
you have not yet gone very far wrong, as assassins go. You did not help to fix the crime
on the smith when it was easy; or on his wife, when that was easy. You tried to fix it on
the imbecile because you knew that he could not suffer. That was one of the gleams that
it is my business to find in assassins. And now come down into the village, and go your
own way as free as the wind; for I have said my last word.”
They went down the winding stairs in utter silence, and came out into the sunlight by
the smithy. Wilfred Bohun carefully unlatched the wooden gate of the yard, and going
up to the inspector, said: “I wish to give myself up; I have killed my brother.”
The Eye of Apollo
That singular smoky sparkle, at once a confusion and a transparency, which is the
strange secret of the Thames, was changing more and more from its grey to its glittering
extreme as the sun climbed to the zenith over Westminster, and two men crossed
Westminster Bridge. One man was very tall and the other very short; they might even
have been fantastically compared to the arrogant clock-tower of Parliament and the
humbler humped shoulders of the Abbey, for the short man was in clerical dress. The
official description of the tall man was M. Hercule Flambeau, private detective, and he
was going to his new offices in a new pile of flats facing the Abbey entrance. The
official description of the short man was the Reverend J. Brown, attached to St. Francis
Xavier’s Church, Camberwell, and he was coming from a Camberwell deathbed to see
the new offices of his friend.
The building was American in its sky-scraping altitude, and American also in the oiled
elaboration of its machinery of telephones and lifts. But it was barely finished and still
understaffed; only three tenants had moved in; the office just above Flambeau was
occupied, as also was the office just below him; the two floors above that and the three
floors below were entirely bare. But the first glance at the new tower of flats caught
something much more arresting. Save for a few relics of scaffolding, the one glaring
object was erected outside the office just above Flambeau’s. It was an enormous gilt
effigy of the human eye, surrounded with rays of gold, and taking up as much room as
two or three of the office windows.
“What on earth is that?” asked Father Brown, and stood still. “Oh, a new religion,” said
Flambeau, laughing; “one of those new religions that forgive your sins by saying you
never had any. Rather like Christian Science, I should think. The fact is that a fellow
calling himself Kalon (I don’t know what his name is, except that it can’t be that) has
taken the flat just above me. I have two lady typewriters underneath me, and this
enthusiastic old humbug on top. He calls himself the New Priest of Apollo, and he
worships the sun.”
“Let him look out,” said Father Brown. “The sun was the cruellest of all the gods. But
what does that monstrous eye mean?”
“As I understand it, it is a theory of theirs,” answered Flambeau, “that a man can endure
anything if his mind is quite steady. Their two great symbols are the sun and the open
eye; for they say that if a man were really healthy he could stare at the sun.”
“If a man were really healthy,” said Father Brown, “he would not bother to stare at it.”
“Well, that’s all I can tell you about the new religion,” went on Flambeau carelessly. “It
claims, of course, that it can cure all physical diseases.”
“Can it cure the one spiritual disease?” asked Father Brown, with a serious curiosity.
“And what is the one spiritual disease?” asked Flambeau, smiling.
“Oh, thinking one is quite well,” said his friend.
Flambeau was more interested in the quiet little office below him than in the flamboyant
temple above. He was a lucid Southerner, incapable of conceiving himself as anything
but a Catholic or an atheist; and new religions of a bright and pallid sort were not much
in his line. But humanity was always in his line, especially when it was good-looking;
moreover, the ladies downstairs were characters in their way. The office was kept by
two sisters, both slight and dark, one of them tall and striking. She had a dark, eager and
aquiline profile, and was one of those women whom one always thinks of in profile, as
of the clean-cut edge of some weapon. She seemed to cleave her way through life. She
had eyes of startling brilliancy, but it was the brilliancy of steel rather than of diamonds;
and her straight, slim figure was a shade too stiff for its grace. Her younger sister was
like her shortened shadow, a little greyer, paler, and more insignificant. They both wore
a business-like black, with little masculine cuffs and collars. There are thousands of
such curt, strenuous ladies in the offices of London, but the interest of these lay rather in
their real than their apparent position.
For Pauline Stacey, the elder, was actually the heiress of a crest and half a county, as
well as great wealth; she had been brought up in castles and gardens, before a frigid
fierceness (peculiar to the modern woman) had driven her to what she considered a
harsher and a higher existence. She had not, indeed, surrendered her money; in that
there would have been a romantic or monkish abandon quite alien to her masterful
utilitarianism. She held her wealth, she would say, for use upon practical social objects.
Part of it she had put into her business, the nucleus of a model typewriting emporium;
part of it was distributed in various leagues and causes for the advancement of such
work among women. How far Joan, her sister and partner, shared this slightly prosaic
idealism no one could be very sure. But she followed her leader with a dog-like
affection which was somehow more attractive, with its touch of tragedy, than the hard,
high spirits of the elder. For Pauline Stacey had nothing to say to tragedy; she was
understood to deny its existence.
Her rigid rapidity and cold impatience had amused Flambeau very much on the first
occasion of his entering the flats. He had lingered outside the lift in the entrance hall
waiting for the lift-boy, who generally conducts strangers to the various floors. But this
bright-eyed falcon of a girl had openly refused to endure such official delay. She said
sharply that she knew all about the lift, and was not dependent on boys — or men either.
Though her flat was only three floors above, she managed in the few seconds of ascent
to give Flambeau a great many of her fundamental views in an off-hand manner; they
were to the general effect that she was a modern working woman and loved modern
working machinery. Her bright black eyes blazed with abstract anger against those who
rebuke mechanic science and ask for the return of romance. Everyone, she said, ought to
be able to manage machines, just as she could manage the lift. She seemed almost to
resent the fact of Flambeau opening the lift-door for her; and that gentleman went up to
his own apartments smiling with somewhat mingled feelings at the memory of such
spit-fire self-dependence.
She certainly had a temper, of a snappy, practical sort; the gestures of her thin, elegant
hands were abrupt or even destructive. Once Flambeau entered her office on some
typewriting business, and found she had just flung a pair of spectacles belonging to her
sister into the middle of the floor and stamped on them. She was already in the rapids of
an ethical tirade about the “sickly medical notions” and the morbid admission of
weakness implied in such an apparatus. She dared her sister to bring such artificial,
unhealthy rubbish into the place again. She asked if she was expected to wear wooden
legs or false hair or glass eyes; and as she spoke her eyes sparkled like the terrible
crystal.
Flambeau, quite bewildered with this fanaticism, could not refrain from asking Miss
Pauline (with direct French logic) why a pair of spectacles was a more morbid sign of
weakness than a lift, and why, if science might help us in the one effort, it might not
help us in the other.
“That is so different,” said Pauline Stacey, loftily. “Batteries and motors and all those
things are marks of the force of man — yes, Mr. Flambeau, and the force of woman,
too! We shall take our turn at these great engines that devour distance and defy time.
That is high and splendid — that is really science. But these nasty props and plasters the
doctors sell — why, they are just badges of poltroonery. Doctors stick on legs and arms
as if we were born cripples and sick slaves. But I was free-born, Mr. Flambeau! People
only think they need these things because they have been trained in fear instead of being
trained in power and courage, just as the silly nurses tell children not to stare at the sun,
and so they can’t do it without blinking. But why among the stars should there be one
star I may not see? The sun is not my master, and I will open my eyes and stare at him
whenever I choose.”
“Your eyes,” said Flambeau, with a foreign bow, “will dazzle the sun.” He took
pleasure in complimenting this strange stiff beauty, partly because it threw her a little
off her balance. But as he went upstairs to his floor he drew a deep breath and whistled,
saying to himself: “So she has got into the hands of that conjurer upstairs with his
golden eye.” For, little as he knew or cared about the new religion of Kalon, he had
heard of his special notion about sun-gazing.
He soon discovered that the spiritual bond between the floors above and below him was
close and increasing. The man who called himself Kalon was a magnificent creature,
worthy, in a physical sense, to be the pontiff of Apollo. He was nearly as tall even as
Flambeau, and very much better looking, with a golden beard, strong blue eyes, and a
mane flung back like a lion’s. In structure he was the blonde beast of Nietzsche, but all
this animal beauty was heightened, brightened and softened by genuine intellect and
spirituality. If he looked like one of the great Saxon kings, he looked like one of the
kings that were also saints. And this despite the cockney incongruity of his
surroundings; the fact that he had an office half-way up a building in Victoria Street;
that the clerk (a commonplace youth in cuffs and collars) sat in the outer room, between
him and the corridor; that his name was on a brass plate, and the gilt emblem of his
creed hung above his street, like the advertisement of an oculist. All this vulgarity could
not take away from the man called Kalon the vivid oppression and inspiration that came
from his soul and body. When all was said, a man in the presence of this quack did feel
in the presence of a great man. Even in the loose jacket-suit of linen that he wore as a
workshop dress in his office he was a fascinating and formidable figure; and when
robed in the white vestments and crowned with the golden circlet, in which he daily
saluted the sun, he really looked so splendid that the laughter of the street people
sometimes died suddenly on their lips. For three times in the day the new sunworshipper went out on his little balcony, in the face of all Westminster, to say some
litany to his shining lord: once at daybreak, once at sunset, and once at the shock of
noon. And it was while the shock of noon still shook faintly from the towers of
Parliament and parish church that Father Brown, the friend of Flambeau, first looked up
and saw the white priest of Apollo.
Flambeau had seen quite enough of these daily salutations of Phoebus, and plunged into
the porch of the tall building without even looking for his clerical friend to follow. But
Father Brown, whether from a professional interest in ritual or a strong individual
interest in tomfoolery, stopped and stared up at the balcony of the sun-worshipper, just
as he might have stopped and stared up at a Punch and Judy. Kalon the Prophet was
already erect, with argent garments and uplifted hands, and the sound of his strangely
penetrating voice could be heard all the way down the busy street uttering his solar
litany. He was already in the middle of it; his eyes were fixed upon the flaming disc. It
is doubtful if he saw anything or anyone on this earth; it is substantially certain that he
did not see a stunted, round-faced priest who, in the crowd below, looked up at him with
blinking eyes. That was perhaps the most startling difference between even these two
far divided men. Father Brown could not look at anything without blinking; but the
priest of Apollo could look on the blaze at noon without a quiver of the eyelid.
“O sun,” cried the prophet, “O star that art too great to be allowed among the stars! O
fountain that flowest quietly in that secret spot that is called space. White Father of all
white unwearied things, white flames and white flowers and white peaks. Father, who
art more innocent than all thy most innocent and quiet children; primal purity, into the
peace of which — ”
A rush and crash like the reversed rush of a rocket was cloven with a strident and
incessant yelling. Five people rushed into the gate of the mansions as three people
rushed out, and for an instant they all deafened each other. The sense of some utterly
abrupt horror seemed for a moment to fill half the street with bad news — bad news that
was all the worse because no one knew what it was. Two figures remained still after the
crash of commotion: the fair priest of Apollo on the balcony above, and the ugly priest
of Christ below him.
At last the tall figure and titanic energy of Flambeau appeared in the doorway of the
mansions and dominated the little mob. Talking at the top of his voice like a fog-horn,
he told somebody or anybody to go for a surgeon; and as he turned back into the dark
and thronged entrance his friend Father Brown dipped in insignificantly after him. Even
as he ducked and dived through the crowd he could still hear the magnificent melody
and monotony of the solar priest still calling on the happy god who is the friend of
fountains and flowers.
Father Brown found Flambeau and some six other people standing round the enclosed
space into which the lift commonly descended. But the lift had not descended.
Something else had descended; something that ought to have come by a lift.
For the last four minutes Flambeau had looked down on it; had seen the brained and
bleeding figure of that beautiful woman who denied the existence of tragedy. He had
never had the slightest doubt that it was Pauline Stacey; and, though he had sent for a
doctor, he had not the slightest doubt that she was dead.
He could not remember for certain whether he had liked her or disliked her; there was
so much both to like and dislike. But she had been a person to him, and the unbearable
pathos of details and habit stabbed him with all the small daggers of bereavement. He
remembered her pretty face and priggish speeches with a sudden secret vividness which
is all the bitterness of death. In an instant like a bolt from the blue, like a thunderbolt
from nowhere, that beautiful and defiant body had been dashed down the open well of
the lift to death at the bottom. Was it suicide? With so insolent an optimist it seemed
impossible. Was it murder? But who was there in those hardly inhabited flats to murder
anybody? In a rush of raucous words, which he meant to be strong and suddenly found
weak, he asked where was that fellow Kalon. A voice, habitually heavy, quiet and full,
assured him that Kalon for the last fifteen minutes had been away up on his balcony
worshipping his god. When Flambeau heard the voice, and felt the hand of Father
Brown, he turned his swarthy face and said abruptly:
“Then, if he has been up there all the time, who can have done it?”
“Perhaps,” said the other, “we might go upstairs and find out. We have half an hour
before the police will move.”
Leaving the body of the slain heiress in charge of the surgeons, Flambeau dashed up the
stairs to the typewriting office, found it utterly empty, and then dashed up to his own.
Having entered that, he abruptly returned with a new and white face to his friend.
“Her sister,” he said, with an unpleasant seriousness, “her sister seems to have gone out
for a walk.”
Father Brown nodded. “Or, she may have gone up to the office of that sun man,” he
said. “If I were you I should just verify that, and then let us all talk it over in your office.
No,” he added suddenly, as if remembering something, “shall I ever get over that
stupidity of mine? Of course, in their office downstairs.”
Flambeau stared; but he followed the little father downstairs to the empty flat of the
Staceys, where that impenetrable pastor took a large red-leather chair in the very
entrance, from which he could see the stairs and landings, and waited. He did not wait
very long. In about four minutes three figures descended the stairs, alike only in their
solemnity. The first was Joan Stacey, the sister of the dead woman — evidently she had
been upstairs in the temporary temple of Apollo; the second was the priest of Apollo
himself, his litany finished, sweeping down the empty stairs in utter magnificence —
something in his white robes, beard and parted hair had the look of Dore’s Christ
leaving the Pretorium; the third was Flambeau, black browed and somewhat bewildered.
Miss Joan Stacey, dark, with a drawn face and hair prematurely touched with grey,
walked straight to her own desk and set out her papers with a practical flap. The mere
action rallied everyone else to sanity. If Miss Joan Stacey was a criminal, she was a cool
one. Father Brown regarded her for some time with an odd little smile, and then,
without taking his eyes off her, addressed himself to somebody else.
“Prophet,” he said, presumably addressing Kalon, “I wish you would tell me a lot about
your religion.”
“I shall be proud to do it,” said Kalon, inclining his still crowned head, “but I am not
sure that I understand.”
“Why, it’s like this,” said Father Brown, in his frankly doubtful way: “We are taught
that if a man has really bad first principles, that must be partly his fault. But, for all that,
we can make some difference between a man who insults his quite clear conscience and
a man with a conscience more or less clouded with sophistries. Now, do you really think
that murder is wrong at all?”
“Is this an accusation?” asked Kalon very quietly.
“No,” answered Brown, equally gently, “it is the speech for the defence.”
In the long and startled stillness of the room the prophet of Apollo slowly rose; and
really it was like the rising of the sun. He filled that room with his light and life in such
a manner that a man felt he could as easily have filled Salisbury Plain. His robed form
seemed to hang the whole room with classic draperies; his epic gesture seemed to
extend it into grander perspectives, till the little black figure of the modern cleric
seemed to be a fault and an intrusion, a round, black blot upon some splendour of
Hellas.
“We meet at last, Caiaphas,” said the prophet. “Your church and mine are the only
realities on this earth. I adore the sun, and you the darkening of the sun; you are the
priest of the dying and I of the living God. Your present work of suspicion and slander
is worthy of your coat and creed. All your church is but a black police; you are only
spies and detectives seeking to tear from men confessions of guilt, whether by treachery
or torture. You would convict men of crime, I would convict them of innocence. You
would convince them of sin, I would convince them of virtue.
“Reader of the books of evil, one more word before I blow away your baseless
nightmares for ever. Not even faintly could you understand how little I care whether
you can convict me or no. The things you call disgrace and horrible hanging are to me
no more than an ogre in a child’s toy-book to a man once grown up. You said you were
offering the speech for the defence. I care so little for the cloudland of this life that I
will offer you the speech for the prosecution. There is but one thing that can be said
against me in this matter, and I will say it myself. The woman that is dead was my love
and my bride; not after such manner as your tin chapels call lawful, but by a law purer
and sterner than you will ever understand. She and I walked another world from yours,
and trod palaces of crystal while you were plodding through tunnels and corridors of
brick. Well, I know that policemen, theological and otherwise, always fancy that where
there has been love there must soon be hatred; so there you have the first point made for
the prosecution. But the second point is stronger; I do not grudge it you. Not only is it
true that Pauline loved me, but it is also true that this very morning, before she died, she
wrote at that table a will leaving me and my new church half a million. Come, where are
the handcuffs? Do you suppose I care what foolish things you do with me? Penal
servitude will only be like waiting for her at a wayside station. The gallows will only be
going to her in a headlong car.”
He spoke with the brain-shaking authority of an orator, and Flambeau and Joan Stacey
stared at him in amazed admiration. Father Brown’s face seemed to express nothing but
extreme distress; he looked at the ground with one wrinkle of pain across his forehead.
The prophet of the sun leaned easily against the mantelpiece and resumed:
“In a few words I have put before you the whole case against me — the only possible
case against me. In fewer words still I will blow it to pieces, so that not a trace of it
remains. As to whether I have committed this crime, the truth is in one sentence: I could
not have committed this crime. Pauline Stacey fell from this floor to the ground at five
minutes past twelve. A hundred people will go into the witness-box and say that I was
standing out upon the balcony of my own rooms above from just before the stroke of
noon to a quarter-past — the usual period of my public prayers. My clerk (a respectable
youth from Clapham, with no sort of connection with me) will swear that he sat in my
outer office all the morning, and that no communication passed through. He will swear
that I arrived a full ten minutes before the hour, fifteen minutes before any whisper of
the accident, and that I did not leave the office or the balcony all that time. No one ever
had so complete an alibi; I could subpoena half Westminster. I think you had better put
the handcuffs away again. The case is at an end.
“But last of all, that no breath of this idiotic suspicion remain in the air, I will tell you
all you want to know. I believe I do know how my unhappy friend came by her death.
You can, if you choose, blame me for it, or my faith and philosophy at least; but you
certainly cannot lock me up. It is well known to all students of the higher truths that
certain adepts and illuminati have in history attained the power of levitation — that is,
of being self-sustained upon the empty air. It is but a part of that general conquest of
matter which is the main element in our occult wisdom. Poor Pauline was of an
impulsive and ambitious temper. I think, to tell the truth, she thought herself somewhat
deeper in the mysteries than she was; and she has often said to me, as we went down in
the lift together, that if one’s will were strong enough, one could float down as
harmlessly as a feather. I solemnly believe that in some ecstasy of noble thoughts she
attempted the miracle. Her will, or faith, must have failed her at the crucial instant, and
the lower law of matter had its horrible revenge. There is the whole story, gentlemen,
very sad and, as you think, very presumptuous and wicked, but certainly not criminal or
in any way connected with me. In the short-hand of the police-courts, you had better
call it suicide. I shall always call it heroic failure for the advance of science and the slow
scaling of heaven.”
It was the first time Flambeau had ever seen Father Brown vanquished. He still sat
looking at the ground, with a painful and corrugated brow, as if in shame. It was
impossible to avoid the feeling which the prophet’s winged words had fanned, that here
was a sullen, professional suspecter of men overwhelmed by a prouder and purer spirit
of natural liberty and health. At last he said, blinking as if in bodily distress: “Well, if
that is so, sir, you need do no more than take the testamentary paper you spoke of and
go. I wonder where the poor lady left it.”
“It will be over there on her desk by the door, I think,” said Kalon, with that massive
innocence of manner that seemed to acquit him wholly. “She told me specially she
would write it this morning, and I actually saw her writing as I went up in the lift to my
own room.”
“Was her door open then?” asked the priest, with his eye on the corner of the matting.
“Yes,” said Kalon calmly.
“Ah! it has been open ever since,” said the other, and resumed his silent study of the
mat.
“There is a paper over here,” said the grim Miss Joan, in a somewhat singular voice.
She had passed over to her sister’s desk by the doorway, and was holding a sheet of
blue foolscap in her hand. There was a sour smile on her face that seemed unfit for such
a scene or occasion, and Flambeau looked at her with a darkening brow.
Kalon the prophet stood away from the paper with that loyal unconsciousness that had
carried him through. But Flambeau took it out of the lady’s hand, and read it with the
utmost amazement. It did, indeed, begin in the formal manner of a will, but after the
words “I give and bequeath all of which I die possessed” the writing abruptly stopped
with a set of scratches, and there was no trace of the name of any legatee. Flambeau, in
wonder, handed this truncated testament to his clerical friend, who glanced at it and
silently gave it to the priest of the sun.
An instant afterwards that pontiff, in his splendid sweeping draperies, had crossed the
room in two great strides, and was towering over Joan Stacey, his blue eyes standing
from his head.
“What monkey tricks have you been playing here?” he cried. “That’s not all Pauline
wrote.”
They were startled to hear him speak in quite a new voice, with a Yankee shrillness in
it; all his grandeur and good English had fallen from him like a cloak.
“That is the only thing on her desk,” said Joan, and confronted him steadily with the
same smile of evil favour.
Of a sudden the man broke out into blasphemies and cataracts of incredulous words.
There was something shocking about the dropping of his mask; it was like a man’s real
face falling off.
“See here!” he cried in broad American, when he was breathless with cursing, “I may be
an adventurer, but I guess you’re a murderess. Yes, gentlemen, here’s your death
explained, and without any levitation. The poor girl is writing a will in my favour; her
cursed sister comes in, struggles for the pen, drags her to the well, and throws her down
before she can finish it. Sakes! I reckon we want the handcuffs after all.”
“As you have truly remarked,” replied Joan, with ugly calm, “your clerk is a very
respectable young man, who knows the nature of an oath; and he will swear in any court
that I was up in your office arranging some typewriting work for five minutes before
and five minutes after my sister fell. Mr. Flambeau will tell you that he found me there.”
There was a silence.
“Why, then,” cried Flambeau, “Pauline was alone when she fell, and it was suicide!”
“She was alone when she fell,” said Father Brown, “but it was not suicide.”
“Then how did she die?” asked Flambeau impatiently.
“She was murdered.”
“But she was alone,” objected the detective.
“She was murdered when she was all alone,” answered the priest.
All the rest stared at him, but he remained sitting in the same old dejected attitude, with
a wrinkle in his round forehead and an appearance of impersonal shame and sorrow; his
voice was colourless and sad.
“What I want to know,” cried Kalon, with an oath, “is when the police are coming for
this bloody and wicked sister. She’s killed her flesh and blood; she’s robbed me of half
a million that was just as sacredly mine as — ”
“Come, come, prophet,” interrupted Flambeau, with a kind of sneer; “remember that all
this world is a cloudland.”
The hierophant of the sun-god made an effort to climb back on his pedestal. “It is not
the mere money,” he cried, “though that would equip the cause throughout the world. It
is also my beloved one’s wishes. To Pauline all this was holy. In Pauline’s eyes — ”
Father Brown suddenly sprang erect, so that his chair fell over flat behind him. He was
deathly pale, yet he seemed fired with a hope; his eyes shone.
“That’s it!” he cried in a clear voice. “That’s the way to begin. In Pauline’s eyes — ”
The tall prophet retreated before the tiny priest in an almost mad disorder. “What do you
mean? How dare you?” he cried repeatedly.
“In Pauline’s eyes,” repeated the priest, his own shining more and more. “Go on — in
God’s name, go on. The foulest crime the fiends ever prompted feels lighter after
confession; and I implore you to confess. Go on, go on — in Pauline’s eyes — ”
“Let me go, you devil!” thundered Kalon, struggling like a giant in bonds. “Who are
you, you cursed spy, to weave your spiders’ webs round me, and peep and peer? Let me
go.”
“Shall I stop him?” asked Flambeau, bounding towards the exit, for Kalon had already
thrown the door wide open.
“No; let him pass,” said Father Brown, with a strange deep sigh that seemed to come
from the depths of the universe. “Let Cain pass by, for he belongs to God.”
There was a long-drawn silence in the room when he had left it, which was to
Flambeau’s fierce wits one long agony of interrogation. Miss Joan Stacey very coolly
tidied up the papers on her desk.
“Father,” said Flambeau at last, “it is my duty, not my curiosity only — it is my duty to
find out, if I can, who committed the crime.”
“Which crime?” asked Father Brown.
“The one we are dealing with, of course,” replied his impatient friend.
“We are dealing with two crimes,” said Brown, “crimes of very different weight — and
by very different criminals.”
Miss Joan Stacey, having collected and put away her papers, proceeded to lock up her
drawer. Father Brown went on, noticing her as little as she noticed him.
“The two crimes,” he observed, “were committed against the same weakness of the
same person, in a struggle for her money. The author of the larger crime found himself
thwarted by the smaller crime; the author of the smaller crime got the money.”
“Oh, don’t go on like a lecturer,” groaned Flambeau; “put it in a few words.”
“I can put it in one word,” answered his friend.
Miss Joan Stacey skewered her business-like black hat on to her head with a businesslike black frown before a little mirror, and, as the conversation proceeded, took her
handbag and umbrella in an unhurried style, and left the room.
“The truth is one word, and a short one,” said Father Brown. “Pauline Stacey was
blind.”
“Blind!” repeated Flambeau, and rose slowly to his whole huge stature.
“She was subject to it by blood,” Brown proceeded. “Her sister would have started
eyeglasses if Pauline would have let her; but it was her special philosophy or fad that
one must not encourage such diseases by yielding to them. She would not admit the
cloud; or she tried to dispel it by will. So her eyes got worse and worse with straining;
but the worst strain was to come. It came with this precious prophet, or whatever he
calls himself, who taught her to stare at the hot sun with the naked eye. It was called
accepting Apollo. Oh, if these new pagans would only be old pagans, they would be a
little wiser! The old pagans knew that mere naked Nature-worship must have a cruel
side. They knew that the eye of Apollo can blast and blind.”
There was a pause, and the priest went on in a gentle and even broken voice. “Whether
or no that devil deliberately made her blind, there is no doubt that he deliberately killed
her through her blindness. The very simplicity of the crime is sickening. You know he
and she went up and down in those lifts without official help; you know also how
smoothly and silently the lifts slide. Kalon brought the lift to the girl’s landing, and saw
her, through the open door, writing in her slow, sightless way the will she had promised
him. He called out to her cheerily that he had the lift ready for her, and she was to come
out when she was ready. Then he pressed a button and shot soundlessly up to his own
floor, walked through his own office, out on to his own balcony, and was safely praying
before the crowded street when the poor girl, having finished her work, ran gaily out to
where lover and lift were to receive her, and stepped — ”
“Don’t!” cried Flambeau.
“He ought to have got half a million by pressing that button,” continued the little father,
in the colourless voice in which he talked of such horrors. “But that went smash. It went
smash because there happened to be another person who also wanted the money, and
who also knew the secret about poor Pauline’s sight. There was one thing about that
will that I think nobody noticed: although it was unfinished and without signature, the
other Miss Stacey and some servant of hers had already signed it as witnesses. Joan had
signed first, saying Pauline could finish it later, with a typical feminine contempt for
legal forms. Therefore, Joan wanted her sister to sign the will without real witnesses.
Why? I thought of the blindness, and felt sure she had wanted Pauline to sign in solitude
because she had wanted her not to sign at all.
“People like the Staceys always use fountain pens; but this was specially natural to
Pauline. By habit and her strong will and memory she could still write almost as well as
if she saw; but she could not tell when her pen needed dipping. Therefore, her fountain
pens were carefully filled by her sister — all except this fountain pen. This was
carefully not filled by her sister; the remains of the ink held out for a few lines and then
failed altogether. And the prophet lost five hundred thousand pounds and committed
one of the most brutal and brilliant murders in human history for nothing.”
Flambeau went to the open door and heard the official police ascending the stairs. He
turned and said: “You must have followed everything devilish close to have traced the
crime to Kalon in ten minutes.”
Father Brown gave a sort of start.
“Oh! to him,” he said. “No; I had to follow rather close to find out about Miss Joan and
the fountain pen. But I knew Kalon was the criminal before I came into the front door.”
“You must be joking!” cried Flambeau.
“I’m quite serious,” answered the priest. “I tell you I knew he had done it, even before I
knew what he had done.”
“But why?”
“These pagan stoics,” said Brown reflectively, “always fail by their strength. There
came a crash and a scream down the street, and the priest of Apollo did not start or look
round. I did not know what it was. But I knew that he was expecting it.”
The Sign of the Broken Sword
The thousand arms of the forest were grey, and its million fingers silver. In a sky of
dark green-blue-like slate the stars were bleak and brilliant like splintered ice. All that
thickly wooded and sparsely tenanted countryside was stiff with a bitter and brittle frost.
The black hollows between the trunks of the trees looked like bottomless, black caverns
of that Scandinavian hell, a hell of incalculable cold. Even the square stone tower of the
church looked northern to the point of heathenry, as if it were some barbaric tower
among the sea rocks of Iceland. It was a queer night for anyone to explore a churchyard.
But, on the other hand, perhaps it was worth exploring.
It rose abruptly out of the ashen wastes of forest in a sort of hump or shoulder of green
turf that looked grey in the starlight. Most of the graves were on a slant, and the path
leading up to the church was as steep as a staircase. On the top of the hill, in the one flat
and prominent place, was the monument for which the place was famous. It contrasted
strangely with the featureless graves all round, for it was the work of one of the greatest
sculptors of modern Europe; and yet his fame was at once forgotten in the fame of the
man whose image he had made. It showed, by touches of the small silver pencil of
starlight, the massive metal figure of a soldier recumbent, the strong hands sealed in an
everlasting worship, the great head pillowed upon a gun. The venerable face was
bearded, or rather whiskered, in the old, heavy Colonel Newcome fashion. The uniform,
though suggested with the few strokes of simplicity, was that of modern war. By his
right side lay a sword, of which the tip was broken off; on the left side lay a Bible. On
glowing summer afternoons wagonettes came full of Americans and cultured suburbans
to see the sepulchre; but even then they felt the vast forest land with its one dumpy
dome of churchyard and church as a place oddly dumb and neglected. In this freezing
darkness of mid-winter one would think he might be left alone with the stars.
Nevertheless, in the stillness of those stiff woods a wooden gate creaked, and two dim
figures dressed in black climbed up the little path to the tomb.
So faint was that frigid starlight that nothing could have been traced about them except
that while they both wore black, one man was enormously big, and the other (perhaps
by contrast) almost startlingly small. They went up to the great graven tomb of the
historic warrior, and stood for a few minutes staring at it. There was no human, perhaps
no living, thing for a wide circle; and a morbid fancy might well have wondered if they
were human themselves. In any case, the beginning of their conversation might have
seemed strange. After the first silence the small man said to the other:
“Where does a wise man hide a pebble?”
And the tall man answered in a low voice: “On the beach.”
The small man nodded, and after a short silence said: “Where does a wise man hide a
leaf?”
And the other answered: “In the forest.”
There was another stillness, and then the tall man resumed: “Do you mean that when a
wise man has to hide a real diamond he has been known to hide it among sham ones?”
“No, no,” said the little man with a laugh, “we will let bygones be bygones.”
He stamped his cold feet for a second or two, and then said: “I’m not thinking of that at
all, but of something else; something rather peculiar. Just strike a match, will you?”
The big man fumbled in his pocket, and soon a scratch and a flare painted gold the
whole flat side of the monument. On it was cut in black letters the well-known words
which so many Americans had reverently read: “Sacred to the Memory of General Sir
Arthur St. Clare, Hero and Martyr, who Always Vanquished his Enemies and Always
Spared Them, and Was Treacherously Slain by Them At Last. May God in Whom he
Trusted both Reward and Revenge him.”
The match burnt the big man’s fingers, blackened, and dropped. He was about to strike
another, but his small companion stopped him. “That’s all right, Flambeau, old man; I
saw what I wanted. Or, rather, I didn’t see what I didn’t want. And now we must walk a
mile and a half along the road to the next inn, and I will try to tell you all about it. For
Heaven knows a man should have a fire and ale when he dares tell such a story.”
They descended the precipitous path, they relatched the rusty gate, and set off at a
stamping, ringing walk down the frozen forest road. They had gone a full quarter of a
mile before the smaller man spoke again. He said: “Yes; the wise man hides a pebble on
the beach. But what does he do if there is no beach? Do you know anything of that great
St. Clare trouble?”
“I know nothing about English generals, Father Brown,” answered the large man,
laughing, “though a little about English policemen. I only know that you have dragged
me a precious long dance to all the shrines of this fellow, whoever he is. One would
think he got buried in six different places. I’ve seen a memorial to General St. Clare in
Westminster Abbey. I’ve seen a ramping equestrian statue of General St. Clare on the
Embankment. I’ve seen a medallion of St. Clare in the street he was born in, and
another in the street he lived in; and now you drag me after dark to his coffin in the
village churchyard. I am beginning to be a bit tired of his magnificent personality,
especially as I don’t in the least know who he was. What are you hunting for in all these
crypts and effigies?”
“I am only looking for one word,” said Father Brown. “A word that isn’t there.”
“Well,” asked Flambeau; “are you going to tell me anything about it?”
“I must divide it into two parts,” remarked the priest. “First there is what everybody
knows; and then there is what I know. Now, what everybody knows is short and plain
enough. It is also entirely wrong.”
“Right you are,” said the big man called Flambeau cheerfully. “Let’s begin at the wrong
end. Let’s begin with what everybody knows, which isn’t true.”
“If not wholly untrue, it is at least very inadequate,” continued Brown; “for in point of
fact, all that the public knows amounts precisely to this: The public knows that Arthur
St. Clare was a great and successful English general. It knows that after splendid yet
careful campaigns both in India and Africa he was in command against Brazil when the
great Brazilian patriot Olivier issued his ultimatum. It knows that on that occasion St.
Clare with a very small force attacked Olivier with a very large one, and was captured
after heroic resistance. And it knows that after his capture, and to the abhorrence of the
civilised world, St. Clare was hanged on the nearest tree. He was found swinging there
after the Brazilians had retired, with his broken sword hung round his neck.”
“And that popular story is untrue?” suggested Flambeau.
“No,” said his friend quietly, “that story is quite true, so far as it goes.”
“Well, I think it goes far enough!” said Flambeau; “but if the popular story is true, what
is the mystery?”
They had passed many hundreds of grey and ghostly trees before the little priest
answered. Then he bit his finger reflectively and said: “Why, the mystery is a mystery
of psychology. Or, rather, it is a mystery of two psychologies. In that Brazilian business
two of the most famous men of modern history acted flat against their characters. Mind
you, Olivier and St. Clare were both heroes — the old thing, and no mistake; it was like
the fight between Hector and Achilles. Now, what would you say to an affair in which
Achilles was timid and Hector was treacherous?”
“Go on,” said the large man impatiently as the other bit his finger again.
“Sir Arthur St. Clare was a soldier of the old religious type — the type that saved us
during the Mutiny,” continued Brown. “He was always more for duty than for dash; and
with all his personal courage was decidedly a prudent commander, particularly
indignant at any needless waste of soldiers. Yet in this last battle he attempted
something that a baby could see was absurd. One need not be a strategist to see it was as
wild as wind; just as one need not be a strategist to keep out of the way of a motor-bus.
Well, that is the first mystery; what had become of the English general’s head? The
second riddle is, what had become of the Brazilian general’s heart? President Olivier
might be called a visionary or a nuisance; but even his enemies admitted that he was
magnanimous to the point of knight errantry. Almost every other prisoner he had ever
captured had been set free or even loaded with benefits. Men who had really wronged
him came away touched by his simplicity and sweetness. Why the deuce should he
diabolically revenge himself only once in his life; and that for the one particular blow
that could not have hurt him? Well, there you have it. One of the wisest men in the
world acted like an idiot for no reason. One of the best men in the world acted like a
fiend for no reason. That’s the long and the short of it; and I leave it to you, my boy.”
“No, you don’t,” said the other with a snort. “I leave it to you; and you jolly well tell me
all about it.”
“Well,” resumed Father Brown, “it’s not fair to say that the public impression is just
what I’ve said, without adding that two things have happened since. I can’t say they
threw a new light; for nobody can make sense of them. But they threw a new kind of
darkness; they threw the darkness in new directions. The first was this. The family
physician of the St. Clares quarrelled with that family, and began publishing a violent
series of articles, in which he said that the late general was a religious maniac; but as far
as the tale went, this seemed to mean little more than a religious man. Anyhow, the
story fizzled out. Everyone knew, of course, that St. Clare had some of the eccentricities
of puritan piety. The second incident was much more arresting. In the luckless and
unsupported regiment which made that rash attempt at the Black River there was a
certain Captain Keith, who was at that time engaged to St. Clare’s daughter, and who
afterwards married her. He was one of those who were captured by Olivier, and, like all
the rest except the general, appears to have been bounteously treated and promptly set
free. Some twenty years afterwards this man, then Lieutenant-Colonel Keith, published
a sort of autobiography called ‘A British Officer in Burmah and Brazil.’ In the place
where the reader looks eagerly for some account of the mystery of St. Clare’s disaster
may be found the following words: ‘Everywhere else in this book I have narrated things
exactly as they occurred, holding as I do the old-fashioned opinion that the glory of
England is old enough to take care of itself. The exception I shall make is in this matter
of the defeat by the Black River; and my reasons, though private, are honourable and
compelling. I will, however, add this in justice to the memories of two distinguished
men. General St. Clare has been accused of incapacity on this occasion; I can at least
testify that this action, properly understood, was one of the most brilliant and sagacious
of his life. President Olivier by similar report is charged with savage injustice. I think it
due to the honour of an enemy to say that he acted on this occasion with even more than
his characteristic good feeling. To put the matter popularly, I can assure my countrymen
that St. Clare was by no means such a fool nor Olivier such a brute as he looked. This is
all I have to say; nor shall any earthly consideration induce me to add a word to it.’”
A large frozen moon like a lustrous snowball began to show through the tangle of twigs
in front of them, and by its light the narrator had been able to refresh his memory of
Captain Keith’s text from a scrap of printed paper. As he folded it up and put it back in
his pocket Flambeau threw up his hand with a French gesture.
“Wait a bit, wait a bit,” he cried excitedly. “I believe I can guess it at the first go.”
He strode on, breathing hard, his black head and bull neck forward, like a man winning
a walking race. The little priest, amused and interested, had some trouble in trotting
beside him. Just before them the trees fell back a little to left and right, and the road
swept downwards across a clear, moonlit valley, till it dived again like a rabbit into the
wall of another wood. The entrance to the farther forest looked small and round, like the
black hole of a remote railway tunnel. But it was within some hundred yards, and gaped
like a cavern before Flambeau spoke again.
“I’ve got it,” he cried at last, slapping his thigh with his great hand. “Four minutes’
thinking, and I can tell your whole story myself.”
“All right,” assented his friend. “You tell it.”
Flambeau lifted his head, but lowered his voice. “General Sir Arthur St. Clare,” he said,
“came of a family in which madness was hereditary; and his whole aim was to keep this
from his daughter, and even, if possible, from his future son-in-law. Rightly or wrongly,
he thought the final collapse was close, and resolved on suicide. Yet ordinary suicide
would blazon the very idea he dreaded. As the campaign approached the clouds came
thicker on his brain; and at last in a mad moment he sacrificed his public duty to his
private. He rushed rashly into battle, hoping to fall by the first shot. When he found that
he had only attained capture and discredit, the sealed bomb in his brain burst, and he
broke his own sword and hanged himself.”
He stared firmly at the grey facade of forest in front of him, with the one black gap in it,
like the mouth of the grave, into which their path plunged. Perhaps something menacing
in the road thus suddenly swallowed reinforced his vivid vision of the tragedy, for he
shuddered.
“A horrid story,” he said.
“A horrid story,” repeated the priest with bent head. “But not the real story.”
Then he threw back his head with a sort of despair and cried: “Oh, I wish it had been.”
The tall Flambeau faced round and stared at him.
“Yours is a clean story,” cried Father Brown, deeply moved. “A sweet, pure, honest
story, as open and white as that moon. Madness and despair are innocent enough. There
are worse things, Flambeau.”
Flambeau looked up wildly at the moon thus invoked; and from where he stood one
black tree-bough curved across it exactly like a devil’s horn.
“Father — father,” cried Flambeau with the French gesture and stepping yet more
rapidly forward, “do you mean it was worse than that?”
“Worse than that,” said Paul like a grave echo. And they plunged into the black cloister
of the woodland, which ran by them in a dim tapestry of trunks, like one of the dark
corridors in a dream.
They were soon in the most secret entrails of the wood, and felt close about them
foliage that they could not see, when the priest said again:
“Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. But what does he do if there is no
forest?”
“Well, well,” cried Flambeau irritably, “what does he do?”
“He grows a forest to hide it in,” said the priest in an obscure voice. “A fearful sin.”
“Look here,” cried his friend impatiently, for the dark wood and the dark saying got a
little on his nerves; will you tell me this story or not? What other evidence is there to go
on?”
“There are three more bits of evidence,” said the other, “that I have dug up in holes and
corners; and I will give them in logical rather than chronological order. First of all, of
course, our authority for the issue and event of the battle is in Olivier’s own dispatches,
which are lucid enough. He was entrenched with two or three regiments on the heights
that swept down to the Black River, on the other side of which was lower and more
marshy ground. Beyond this again was gently rising country, on which was the first
English outpost, supported by others which lay, however, considerably in its rear. The
British forces as a whole were greatly superior in numbers; but this particular regiment
was just far enough from its base to make Olivier consider the project of crossing the
river to cut it off. By sunset, however, he had decided to retain his own position, which
was a specially strong one. At daybreak next morning he was thunderstruck to see that
this stray handful of English, entirely unsupported from their rear, had flung themselves
across the river, half by a bridge to the right, and the other half by a ford higher up, and
were massed upon the marshy bank below him.
“That they should attempt an attack with such numbers against such a position was
incredible enough; but Olivier noticed something yet more extraordinary. For instead of
attempting to seize more solid ground, this mad regiment, having put the river in its rear
by one wild charge, did nothing more, but stuck there in the mire like flies in treacle.
Needless to say, the Brazilians blew great gaps in them with artillery, which they could
only return with spirited but lessening rifle fire. Yet they never broke; and Olivier’s curt
account ends with a strong tribute of admiration for the mystic valour of these
imbeciles. ‘Our line then advanced finally,’ writes Olivier, ‘and drove them into the
river; we captured General St. Clare himself and several other officers. The colonel and
the major had both fallen in the battle. I cannot resist saying that few finer sights can
have been seen in history than the last stand of this extraordinary regiment; wounded
officers picking up the rifles of dead soldiers, and the general himself facing us on
horseback bareheaded and with a broken sword.’ On what happened to the general
afterwards Olivier is as silent as Captain Keith.”
“Well,” grunted Flambeau, “get on to the next bit of evidence.”
“The next evidence,” said Father Brown, “took some time to find, but it will not take
long to tell. I found at last in an almshouse down in the Lincolnshire Fens an old soldier
who not only was wounded at the Black River, but had actually knelt beside the colonel
of the regiment when he died. This latter was a certain Colonel Clancy, a big bull of an
Irishman; and it would seem that he died almost as much of rage as of bullets. He, at
any rate, was not responsible for that ridiculous raid; it must have been imposed on him
by the general. His last edifying words, according to my informant, were these: ‘And
there goes the damned old donkey with the end of his sword knocked off. I wish it was
his head.’ You will remark that everyone seems to have noticed this detail about the
broken sword blade, though most people regard it somewhat more reverently than did
the late Colonel Clancy. And now for the third fragment.”
Their path through the woodland began to go upward, and the speaker paused a little for
breath before he went on. Then he continued in the same business-like tone:
“Only a month or two ago a certain Brazilian official died in England, having quarrelled
with Olivier and left his country. He was a well-known figure both here and on the
Continent, a Spaniard named Espado; I knew him myself, a yellow-faced old dandy,
with a hooked nose. For various private reasons I had permission to see the documents
he had left; he was a Catholic, of course, and I had been with him towards the end.
There was nothing of his that lit up any corner of the black St. Clare business, except
five or six common exercise books filled with the diary of some English soldier. I can
only suppose that it was found by the Brazilians on one of those that fell. Anyhow, it
stopped abruptly the night before the battle.
“But the account of that last day in the poor fellow’s life was certainly worth reading. I
have it on me; but it’s too dark to read it here, and I will give you a resume. The first
part of that entry is full of jokes, evidently flung about among the men, about somebody
called the Vulture. It does not seem as if this person, whoever he was, was one of
themselves, nor even an Englishman; neither is he exactly spoken of as one of the
enemy. It sounds rather as if he were some local go-between and non-combatant;
perhaps a guide or a journalist. He has been closeted with old Colonel Clancy; but is
more often seen talking to the major. Indeed, the major is somewhat prominent in this
soldier’s narrative; a lean, dark-haired man, apparently, of the name of Murray — a
north of Ireland man and a Puritan. There are continual jests about the contrast between
this Ulsterman’s austerity and the conviviality of Colonel Clancy. There is also some
joke about the Vulture wearing bright-coloured clothes.
“But all these levities are scattered by what may well be called the note of a bugle.
Behind the English camp and almost parallel to the river ran one of the few great roads
of that district. Westward the road curved round towards the river, which it crossed by
the bridge before mentioned. To the east the road swept backwards into the wilds, and
some two miles along it was the next English outpost. From this direction there came
along the road that evening a glitter and clatter of light cavalry, in which even the
simple diarist could recognise with astonishment the general with his staff. He rode the
great white horse which you have seen so often in illustrated papers and Academy
pictures; and you may be sure that the salute they gave him was not merely ceremonial.
He, at least, wasted no time on ceremony, but, springing from the saddle immediately,
mixed with the group of officers, and fell into emphatic though confidential speech.
What struck our friend the diarist most was his special disposition to discuss matters
with Major Murray; but, indeed, such a selection, so long as it was not marked, was in
no way unnatural. The two men were made for sympathy; they were men who ‘read
their Bibles’; they were both the old Evangelical type of officer. However this may be,
it is certain that when the general mounted again he was still talking earnestly to
Murray; and that as he walked his horse slowly down the road towards the river, the tall
Ulsterman still walked by his bridle rein in earnest debate. The soldiers watched the two
until they vanished behind a clump of trees where the road turned towards the river. The
colonel had gone back to his tent, and the men to their pickets; the man with the diary
lingered for another four minutes, and saw a marvellous sight.
“The great white horse which had marched slowly down the road, as it had marched in
so many processions, flew back, galloping up the road towards them as if it were mad to
win a race. At first they thought it had run away with the man on its back; but they soon
saw that the general, a fine rider, was himself urging it to full speed. Horse and man
swept up to them like a whirlwind; and then, reining up the reeling charger, the general
turned on them a face like flame, and called for the colonel like the trumpet that wakes
the dead.
“I conceive that all the earthquake events of that catastrophe tumbled on top of each
other rather like lumber in the minds of men such as our friend with the diary. With the
dazed excitement of a dream, they found themselves falling — literally falling — into
their ranks, and learned that an attack was to be led at once across the river. The general
and the major, it was said, had found out something at the bridge, and there was only
just time to strike for life. The major had gone back at once to call up the reserve along
the road behind; it was doubtful if even with that prompt appeal help could reach them
in time. But they must pass the stream that night, and seize the heights by morning. It is
with the very stir and throb of that romantic nocturnal march that the diary suddenly
ends.”
Father Brown had mounted ahead; for the woodland path grew smaller, steeper, and
more twisted, till they felt as if they were ascending a winding staircase. The priest’s
voice came from above out of the darkness.
“There was one other little and enormous thing. When the general urged them to their
chivalric charge he half drew his sword from the scabbard; and then, as if ashamed of
such melodrama, thrust it back again. The sword again, you see.”
A half-light broke through the network of boughs above them, flinging the ghost of a
net about their feet; for they were mounting again to the faint luminosity of the naked
night. Flambeau felt truth all round him as an atmosphere, but not as an idea. He
answered with bewildered brain: “Well, what’s the matter with the sword? Officers
generally have swords, don’t they?”
“They are not often mentioned in modern war,” said the other dispassionately; “but in
this affair one falls over the blessed sword everywhere.”
“Well, what is there in that?” growled Flambeau; “it was a twopence coloured sort of
incident; the old man’s blade breaking in his last battle. Anyone might bet the papers
would get hold of it, as they have. On all these tombs and things it’s shown broken at
the point. I hope you haven’t dragged me through this Polar expedition merely because
two men with an eye for a picture saw St. Clare’s broken sword.”
“No,” cried Father Brown, with a sharp voice like a pistol shot; “but who saw his
unbroken sword?”
“What do you mean?” cried the other, and stood still under the stars. They had come
abruptly out of the grey gates of the wood.
“I say, who saw his unbroken sword?” repeated Father Brown obstinately. “Not the
writer of the diary, anyhow; the general sheathed it in time.”
Flambeau looked about him in the moonlight, as a man struck blind might look in the
sun; and his friend went on, for the first time with eagerness:
“Flambeau,” he cried, “I cannot prove it, even after hunting through the tombs. But I am
sure of it. Let me add just one more tiny fact that tips the whole thing over. The colonel,
by a strange chance, was one of the first struck by a bullet. He was struck long before
the troops came to close quarters. But he saw St. Clare’s sword broken. Why was it
broken? How was it broken? My friend, it was broken before the battle.”
“Oh!” said his friend, with a sort of forlorn jocularity; “and pray where is the other
piece?”
“I can tell you,” said the priest promptly. “In the northeast corner of the cemetery of the
Protestant Cathedral at Belfast.”
“Indeed?” inquired the other. “Have you looked for it?”
“I couldn’t,” replied Brown, with frank regret. “There’s a great marble monument on
top of it; a monument to the heroic Major Murray, who fell fighting gloriously at the
famous Battle of the Black River.”
Flambeau seemed suddenly galvanised into existence. “You mean,” he cried hoarsely,
“that General St. Clare hated Murray, and murdered him on the field of battle because
—”
“You are still full of good and pure thoughts,” said the other. “It was worse than that.”
“Well,” said the large man, “my stock of evil imagination is used up.”
The priest seemed really doubtful where to begin, and at last he said again:
“Where would a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest.”
The other did not answer.
“If there were no forest, he would make a forest. And if he wished to hide a dead leaf,
he would make a dead forest.”
There was still no reply, and the priest added still more mildly and quietly:
“And if a man had to hide a dead body, he would make a field of dead bodies to hide it
in.”
Flambeau began to stamp forward with an intolerance of delay in time or space; but
Father Brown went on as if he were continuing the last sentence:
“Sir Arthur St. Clare, as I have already said, was a man who read his Bible. That was
what was the matter with him. When will people understand that it is useless for a man
to read his Bible unless he also reads everybody else’s Bible? A printer reads a Bible for
misprints. A Mormon reads his Bible, and finds polygamy; a Christian Scientist reads
his, and finds we have no arms and legs. St. Clare was an old Anglo-Indian Protestant
soldier. Now, just think what that might mean; and, for Heaven’s sake, don’t cant about
it. It might mean a man physically formidable living under a tropic sun in an Oriental
society, and soaking himself without sense or guidance in an Oriental Book. Of course,
he read the Old Testament rather than the New. Of course, he found in the Old
Testament anything that he wanted — lust, tyranny, treason. Oh, I dare say he was
honest, as you call it. But what is the good of a man being honest in his worship of
dishonesty?
“In each of the hot and secret countries to which the man went he kept a harem, he
tortured witnesses, he amassed shameful gold; but certainly he would have said with
steady eyes that he did it to the glory of the Lord. My own theology is sufficiently
expressed by asking which Lord? Anyhow, there is this about such evil, that it opens
door after door in hell, and always into smaller and smaller chambers. This is the real
case against crime, that a man does not become wilder and wilder, but only meaner and
meaner. St. Clare was soon suffocated by difficulties of bribery and blackmail; and
needed more and more cash. And by the time of the Battle of the Black River he had
fallen from world to world to that place which Dante makes the lowest floor of the
universe.”
“What do you mean?” asked his friend again.
“I mean that,” retorted the cleric, and suddenly pointed at a puddle sealed with ice that
shone in the moon. “Do you remember whom Dante put in the last circle of ice?”
“The traitors,” said Flambeau, and shuddered. As he looked around at the inhuman
landscape of trees, with taunting and almost obscene outlines, he could almost fancy he
was Dante, and the priest with the rivulet of a voice was, indeed, a Virgil leading him
through a land of eternal sins.
The voice went on: “Olivier, as you know, was quixotic, and would not permit a secret
service and spies. The thing, however, was done, like many other things, behind his
back. It was managed by my old friend Espado; he was the bright-clad fop, whose hook
nose got him called the Vulture. Posing as a sort of philanthropist at the front, he felt his
way through the English Army, and at last got his fingers on its one corrupt man —
please God! — and that man at the top. St. Clare was in foul need of money, and
mountains of it. The discredited family doctor was threatening those extraordinary
exposures that afterwards began and were broken off; tales of monstrous and prehistoric
things in Park Lane; things done by an English Evangelist that smelt like human
sacrifice and hordes of slaves. Money was wanted, too, for his daughter’s dowry; for to
him the fame of wealth was as sweet as wealth itself. He snapped the last thread,
whispered the word to Brazil, and wealth poured in from the enemies of England. But
another man had talked to Espado the Vulture as well as he. Somehow the dark, grim
young major from Ulster had guessed the hideous truth; and when they walked slowly
together down that road towards the bridge Murray was telling the general that he must
resign instantly, or be court-martialled and shot. The general temporised with him till
they came to the fringe of tropic trees by the bridge; and there by the singing river and
the sunlit palms (for I can see the picture) the general drew his sabre and plunged it
through the body of the major.”
The wintry road curved over a ridge in cutting frost, with cruel black shapes of bush and
thicket; but Flambeau fancied that he saw beyond it faintly the edge of an aureole that
was not starlight and moonlight, but some fire such as is made by men. He watched it as
the tale drew to its close.
“St. Clare was a hell-hound, but he was a hound of breed. Never, I’ll swear, was he so
lucid and so strong as when poor Murray lay a cold lump at his feet. Never in all his
triumphs, as Captain Keith said truly, was the great man so great as he was in this last
world-despised defeat. He looked coolly at his weapon to wipe off the blood; he saw the
point he had planted between his victim’s shoulders had broken off in the body. He saw
quite calmly, as through a club windowpane, all that must follow. He saw that men must
find the unaccountable corpse; must extract the unaccountable sword-point; must notice
the unaccountable broken sword — or absence of sword. He had killed, but not
silenced. But his imperious intellect rose against the facer; there was one way yet. He
could make the corpse less unaccountable. He could create a hill of corpses to cover this
one. In twenty minutes eight hundred English soldiers were marching down to their
death.”
The warmer glow behind the black winter wood grew richer and brighter, and Flambeau
strode on to reach it. Father Brown also quickened his stride; but he seemed merely
absorbed in his tale.
“Such was the valour of that English thousand, and such the genius of their commander,
that if they had at once attacked the hill, even their mad march might have met some
luck. But the evil mind that played with them like pawns had other aims and reasons.
They must remain in the marshes by the bridge at least till British corpses should be a
common sight there. Then for the last grand scene; the silver-haired soldier-saint would
give up his shattered sword to save further slaughter. Oh, it was well organised for an
impromptu. But I think (I cannot prove), I think that it was while they stuck there in the
bloody mire that someone doubted — and someone guessed.”
He was mute a moment, and then said: “There is a voice from nowhere that tells me the
man who guessed was the lover . . . the man to wed the old man’s child.”
“But what about Olivier and the hanging?” asked Flambeau.
“Olivier, partly from chivalry, partly from policy, seldom encumbered his march with
captives,” explained the narrator. “He released everybody in most cases. He released
everybody in this case.
“Everybody but the general,” said the tall man.
“Everybody,” said the priest.
Flambeau knit his black brows. “I don’t grasp it all yet,” he said.
“There is another picture, Flambeau,” said Brown in his more mystical undertone. “I
can’t prove it; but I can do more — I can see it. There is a camp breaking up on the
bare, torrid hills at morning, and Brazilian uniforms massed in blocks and columns to
march. There is the red shirt and long black beard of Olivier, which blows as he stands,
his broad-brimmed hat in his hand. He is saying farewell to the great enemy he is setting
free — the simple, snow-headed English veteran, who thanks him in the name of his
men. The English remnant stand behind at attention; beside them are stores and vehicles
for the retreat. The drums roll; the Brazilians are moving; the English are still like
statues. So they abide till the last hum and flash of the enemy have faded from the tropic
horizon. Then they alter their postures all at once, like dead men coming to life; they
turn their fifty faces upon the general — faces not to be forgotten.”
Flambeau gave a great jump. “Ah,” he cried, “you don’t mean — ”
“Yes,” said Father Brown in a deep, moving voice. “It was an English hand that put the
rope round St. Clare’s neck; I believe the hand that put the ring on his daughter’s finger.
They were English hands that dragged him up to the tree of shame; the hands of men
that had adored him and followed him to victory. And they were English souls (God
pardon and endure us all!) who stared at him swinging in that foreign sun on the green
gallows of palm, and prayed in their hatred that he might drop off it into hell.”
As the two topped the ridge there burst on them the strong scarlet light of a redcurtained English inn. It stood sideways in the road, as if standing aside in the amplitude
of hospitality. Its three doors stood open with invitation; and even where they stood they
could hear the hum and laughter of humanity happy for a night.
“I need not tell you more,” said Father Brown. “They tried him in the wilderness and
destroyed him; and then, for the honour of England and of his daughter, they took an
oath to seal up for ever the story of the traitor’s purse and the assassin’s sword blade.
Perhaps — Heaven help them — they tried to forget it. Let us try to forget it, anyhow;
here is our inn.”
“With all my heart,” said Flambeau, and was just striding into the bright, noisy bar
when he stepped back and almost fell on the road.
“Look there, in the devil’s name!” he cried, and pointed rigidly at the square wooden
sign that overhung the road. It showed dimly the crude shape of a sabre hilt and a
shortened blade; and was inscribed in false archaic lettering, “The Sign of the Broken
Sword.”
“Were you not prepared?” asked Father Brown gently. “He is the god of this country;
half the inns and parks and streets are named after him and his story.”
“I thought we had done with the leper,” cried Flambeau, and spat on the road.
“You will never have done with him in England,” said the priest, looking down, “while
brass is strong and stone abides. His marble statues will erect the souls of proud,
innocent boys for centuries, his village tomb will smell of loyalty as of lilies. Millions
who never knew him shall love him like a father — this man whom the last few that
knew him dealt with like dung. He shall be a saint; and the truth shall never be told of
him, because I have made up my mind at last. There is so much good and evil in
breaking secrets, that I put my conduct to a test. All these newspapers will perish; the
anti-Brazil boom is already over; Olivier is already honoured everywhere. But I told
myself that if anywhere, by name, in metal or marble that will endure like the pyramids,
Colonel Clancy, or Captain Keith, or President Olivier, or any innocent man was
wrongly blamed, then I would speak. If it were only that St. Clare was wrongly praised,
I would be silent. And I will.”
They plunged into the red-curtained tavern, which was not only cosy, but even
luxurious inside. On a table stood a silver model of the tomb of St. Clare, the silver head
bowed, the silver sword broken. On the walls were coloured photographs of the same
scene, and of the system of wagonettes that took tourists to see it. They sat down on the
comfortable padded benches.
“Come, it’s cold,” cried Father Brown; “let’s have some wine or beer.”
“Or brandy,” said Flambeau.
The Three Tools of Death
Both by calling and conviction Father Brown knew better than most of us, that every
man is dignified when he is dead. But even he felt a pang of incongruity when he was
knocked up at daybreak and told that Sir Aaron Armstrong had been murdered. There
was something absurd and unseemly about secret violence in connection with so
entirely entertaining and popular a figure. For Sir Aaron Armstrong was entertaining to
the point of being comic; and popular in such a manner as to be almost legendary. It
was like hearing that Sunny Jim had hanged himself; or that Mr. Pickwick had died in
Hanwell. For though Sir Aaron was a philanthropist, and thus dealt with the darker side
of our society, he prided himself on dealing with it in the brightest possible style. His
political and social speeches were cataracts of anecdotes and “loud laughter”; his bodily
health was of a bursting sort; his ethics were all optimism; and he dealt with the Drink
problem (his favourite topic) with that immortal or even monotonous gaiety which is so
often a mark of the prosperous total abstainer.
The established story of his conversion was familiar on the more puritanic platforms
and pulpits, how he had been, when only a boy, drawn away from Scotch theology to
Scotch whisky, and how he had risen out of both and become (as he modestly put it)
what he was. Yet his wide white beard, cherubic face, and sparkling spectacles, at the
numberless dinners and congresses where they appeared, made it hard to believe,
somehow, that he had ever been anything so morbid as either a dram-drinker or a
Calvinist. He was, one felt, the most seriously merry of all the sons of men.
He had lived on the rural skirt of Hampstead in a handsome house, high but not broad, a
modern and prosaic tower. The narrowest of its narrow sides overhung the steep green
bank of a railway, and was shaken by passing trains. Sir Aaron Armstrong, as he
boisterously explained, had no nerves. But if the train had often given a shock to the
house, that morning the tables were turned, and it was the house that gave a shock to the
train.
The engine slowed down and stopped just beyond that point where an angle of the
house impinged upon the sharp slope of turf. The arrest of most mechanical things must
be slow; but the living cause of this had been very rapid. A man clad completely in
black, even (it was remembered) to the dreadful detail of black gloves, appeared on the
ridge above the engine, and waved his black hands like some sable windmill. This in
itself would hardly have stopped even a lingering train. But there came out of him a cry
which was talked of afterwards as something utterly unnatural and new. It was one of
those shouts that are horridly distinct even when we cannot hear what is shouted. The
word in this case was “Murder!”
But the engine-driver swears he would have pulled up just the same if he had heard only
the dreadful and definite accent and not the word.
The train once arrested, the most superficial stare could take in many features of the
tragedy. The man in black on the green bank was Sir Aaron Armstrong’s man-servant
Magnus. The baronet in his optimism had often laughed at the black gloves of this
dismal attendant; but no one was likely to laugh at him just now.
So soon as an inquirer or two had stepped off the line and across the smoky hedge, they
saw, rolled down almost to the bottom of the bank, the body of an old man in a yellow
dressing-gown with a very vivid scarlet lining. A scrap of rope seemed caught about his
leg, entangled presumably in a struggle. There was a smear or so of blood, though very
little; but the body was bent or broken into a posture impossible to any living thing. It
was Sir Aaron Armstrong. A few more bewildered moments brought out a big fairbearded man, whom some travellers could salute as the dead man’s secretary, Patrick
Royce, once well known in Bohemian society and even famous in the Bohemian arts. In
a manner more vague, but even more convincing, he echoed the agony of the servant.
By the time the third figure of that household, Alice Armstrong, daughter of the dead
man, had come already tottering and waving into the garden, the engine-driver had put a
stop to his stoppage. The whistle had blown and the train had panted on to get help from
the next station.
Father Brown had been thus rapidly summoned at the request of Patrick Royce, the big
ex-Bohemian secretary. Royce was an Irishman by birth; and that casual kind of
Catholic that never remembers his religion until he is really in a hole. But Royce’s
request might have been less promptly complied with if one of the official detectives
had not been a friend and admirer of the unofficial Flambeau; and it was impossible to
be a friend of Flambeau without hearing numberless stories about Father Brown. Hence,
while the young detective (whose name was Merton) led the little priest across the fields
to the railway, their talk was more confidential than could be expected between two
total strangers.
“As far as I can see,” said Mr. Merton candidly, “there is no sense to be made of it at all.
There is nobody one can suspect. Magnus is a solemn old fool; far too much of a fool to
be an assassin. Royce has been the baronet’s best friend for years; and his daughter
undoubtedly adored him. Besides, it’s all too absurd. Who would kill such a cheery old
chap as Armstrong? Who could dip his hands in the gore of an after-dinner speaker? It
would be like killing Father Christmas.”
“Yes, it was a cheery house,” assented Father Brown. “It was a cheery house while he
was alive. Do you think it will be cheery now he is dead?”
Merton started a little and regarded his companion with an enlivened eye. “Now he is
dead?” he repeated.
“Yes,” continued the priest stolidly, “he was cheerful. But did he communicate his
cheerfulness? Frankly, was anyone else in the house cheerful but he?”
A window in Merton’s mind let in that strange light of surprise in which we see for the
first time things we have known all along. He had often been to the Armstrongs’, on
little police jobs of the philanthropist; and, now he came to think of it, it was in itself a
depressing house. The rooms were very high and very cold; the decoration mean and
provincial; the draughty corridors were lit by electricity that was bleaker than
moonlight. And though the old man’s scarlet face and silver beard had blazed like a
bonfire in each room or passage in turn, it did not leave any warmth behind it.
Doubtless this spectral discomfort in the place was partly due to the very vitality and
exuberance of its owner; he needed no stoves or lamps, he would say, but carried his
own warmth with him. But when Merton recalled the other inmates, he was compelled
to confess that they also were as shadows of their lord. The moody man-servant, with
his monstrous black gloves, was almost a nightmare; Royce, the secretary, was solid
enough, a big bull of a man, in tweeds, with a short beard; but the straw-coloured beard
was startlingly salted with grey like the tweeds, and the broad forehead was barred with
premature wrinkles. He was good-natured enough also, but it was a sad sort of goodnature, almost a heart-broken sort — he had the general air of being some sort of failure
in life. As for Armstrong’s daughter, it was almost incredible that she was his daughter;
she was so pallid in colour and sensitive in outline. She was graceful, but there was a
quiver in the very shape of her that was like the lines of an aspen. Merton had
sometimes wondered if she had learnt to quail at the crash of the passing trains.
“You see,” said Father Brown, blinking modestly, “I’m not sure that the Armstrong
cheerfulness is so very cheerful — for other people. You say that nobody could kill
such a happy old man, but I’m not sure; ne nos inducas in tentationem. If ever I
murdered somebody,” he added quite simply, “I dare say it might be an Optimist.”
“Why?” cried Merton amused. “Do you think people dislike cheerfulness?”
“People like frequent laughter,” answered Father Brown, “but I don’t think they like a
permanent smile. Cheerfulness without humour is a very trying thing.”
They walked some way in silence along the windy grassy bank by the rail, and just as
they came under the far-flung shadow of the tall Armstrong house, Father Brown said
suddenly, like a man throwing away a troublesome thought rather than offering it
seriously: “Of course, drink is neither good nor bad in itself. But I can’t help sometimes
feeling that men like Armstrong want an occasional glass of wine to sadden them.”
Merton’s official superior, a grizzled and capable detective named Gilder, was standing
on the green bank waiting for the coroner, talking to Patrick Royce, whose big
shoulders and bristly beard and hair towered above him. This was the more noticeable
because Royce walked always with a sort of powerful stoop, and seemed to be going
about his small clerical and domestic duties in a heavy and humbled style, like a buffalo
drawing a go-cart.
He raised his head with unusual pleasure at the sight of the priest, and took him a few
paces apart. Meanwhile Merton was addressing the older detective respectfully indeed,
but not without a certain boyish impatience.
“Well, Mr. Gilder, have you got much farther with the mystery?”
“There is no mystery,” replied Gilder, as he looked under dreamy eyelids at the rooks.
“Well, there is for me, at any rate,” said Merton, smiling.
“It is simple enough, my boy,” observed the senior investigator, stroking his grey,
pointed beard. “Three minutes after you’d gone for Mr. Royce’s parson the whole thing
came out. You know that pasty-faced servant in the black gloves who stopped the
train?”
“I should know him anywhere. Somehow he rather gave me the creeps.”
“Well,” drawled Gilder, “when the train had gone on again, that man had gone too.
Rather a cool criminal, don’t you think, to escape by the very train that went off for the
police?”
“You’re pretty sure, I suppose,” remarked the young man, “that he really did kill his
master?”
“Yes, my son, I’m pretty sure,” replied Gilder drily, “for the trifling reason that he has
gone off with twenty thousand pounds in papers that were in his master’s desk. No, the
only thing worth calling a difficulty is how he killed him. The skull seems broken as
with some big weapon, but there’s no weapon at all lying about, and the murderer
would have found it awkward to carry it away, unless the weapon was too small to be
noticed.”
“Perhaps the weapon was too big to be noticed,” said the priest, with an odd little
giggle.
Gilder looked round at this wild remark, and rather sternly asked Brown what he meant.
“Silly way of putting it, I know,” said Father Brown apologetically. “Sounds like a fairy
tale. But poor Armstrong was killed with a giant’s club, a great green club, too big to be
seen, and which we call the earth. He was broken against this green bank we are
standing on.”
“How do you mean?” asked the detective quickly.
Father Brown turned his moon face up to the narrow facade of the house and blinked
hopelessly up. Following his eyes, they saw that right at the top of this otherwise blind
back quarter of the building, an attic window stood open.
“Don’t you see,” he explained, pointing a little awkwardly like a child, “he was thrown
down from there?”
Gilder frowningly scrutinised the window, and then said: “Well, it is certainly possible.
But I don’t see why you are so sure about it.”
Brown opened his grey eyes wide. “Why,” he said, “there’s a bit of rope round the dead
man’s leg. Don’t you see that other bit of rope up there caught at the corner of the
window?”
At that height the thing looked like the faintest particle of dust or hair, but the shrewd
old investigator was satisfied. “You’re quite right, sir,” he said to Father Brown; “that is
certainly one to you.”
Almost as he spoke a special train with one carriage took the curve of the line on their
left, and, stopping, disgorged another group of policemen, in whose midst was the
hangdog visage of Magnus, the absconded servant.
“By Jove! they’ve got him,” cried Gilder, and stepped forward with quite a new
alertness.
“Have you got the money!” he cried to the first policeman.
The man looked him in the face with a rather curious expression and said: “No.” Then
he added: “At least, not here.”
“Which is the inspector, please?” asked the man called Magnus.
When he spoke everyone instantly understood how this voice had stopped a train. He
was a dull-looking man with flat black hair, a colourless face, and a faint suggestion of
the East in the level slits in his eyes and mouth. His blood and name, indeed, had
remained dubious, ever since Sir Aaron had “rescued” him from a waitership in a
London restaurant, and (as some said) from more infamous things. But his voice was as
vivid as his face was dead. Whether through exactitude in a foreign language, or in
deference to his master (who had been somewhat deaf), Magnus’s tones had a peculiarly
ringing and piercing quality, and the whole group quite jumped when he spoke.
“I always knew this would happen,” he said aloud with brazen blandness. “My poor old
master made game of me for wearing black; but I always said I should be ready for his
funeral.”
And he made a momentary movement with his two dark-gloved hands.
“Sergeant,” said Inspector Gilder, eyeing the black hands with wrath, “aren’t you
putting the bracelets on this fellow; he looks pretty dangerous.”
“Well, sir,” said the sergeant, with the same odd look of wonder, “I don’t know that we
can.”
“What do you mean?” asked the other sharply. “Haven’t you arrested him?”
A faint scorn widened the slit-like mouth, and the whistle of an approaching train
seemed oddly to echo the mockery.
“We arrested him,” replied the sergeant gravely, “just as he was coming out of the
police station at Highgate, where he had deposited all his master’s money in the care of
Inspector Robinson.”
Gilder looked at the man-servant in utter amazement. “Why on earth did you do that?”
he asked of Magnus.
“To keep it safe from the criminal, of course,” replied that person placidly.
“Surely,” said Gilder, “Sir Aaron’s money might have been safely left with Sir Aaron’s
family.”
The tail of his sentence was drowned in the roar of the train as it went rocking and
clanking; but through all the hell of noises to which that unhappy house was
periodically subject, they could hear the syllables of Magnus’s answer, in all their belllike distinctness: “I have no reason to feel confidence in Sir Aaron’s family.”
All the motionless men had the ghostly sensation of the presence of some new person;
and Merton was scarcely surprised when he looked up and saw the pale face of
Armstrong’s daughter over Father Brown’s shoulder. She was still young and beautiful
in a silvery style, but her hair was of so dusty and hueless a brown that in some shadows
it seemed to have turned totally grey.
“Be careful what you say,” said Royce gruffly, “you’ll frighten Miss Armstrong.”
“I hope so,” said the man with the clear voice.
As the woman winced and everyone else wondered, he went on: “I am somewhat used
to Miss Armstrong’s tremors. I have seen her trembling off and on for years. And some
said she was shaking with cold and some she was shaking with fear, but I know she was
shaking with hate and wicked anger — fiends that have had their feast this morning.
She would have been away by now with her lover and all the money but for me. Ever
since my poor old master prevented her from marrying that tipsy blackguard — ”
“Stop,” said Gilder very sternly. “We have nothing to do with your family fancies or
suspicions. Unless you have some practical evidence, your mere opinions — ”
“Oh! I’ll give you practical evidence,” cut in Magnus, in his hacking accent. “You’ll
have to subpoena me, Mr. Inspector, and I shall have to tell the truth. And the truth is
this: An instant after the old man was pitched bleeding out of the window, I ran into the
attic, and found his daughter swooning on the floor with a red dagger still in her hand.
Allow me to hand that also to the proper authorities.” He took from his tail-pocket a
long horn-hilted knife with a red smear on it, and handed it politely to the sergeant.
Then he stood back again, and his slits of eyes almost faded from his face in one fat
Chinese sneer.
Merton felt an almost bodily sickness at the sight of him; and he muttered to Gilder:
“Surely you would take Miss Armstrong’s word against his?”
Father Brown suddenly lifted a face so absurdly fresh that it looked somehow as if he
had just washed it. “Yes,” he said, radiating innocence, “but is Miss Armstrong’s word
against his?”
The girl uttered a startled, singular little cry; everyone looked at her. Her figure was
rigid as if paralysed; only her face within its frame of faint brown hair was alive with an
appalling surprise. She stood like one of a sudden lassooed and throttled.
“This man,” said Mr. Gilder gravely, “actually says that you were found grasping a
knife, insensible, after the murder.”
“He says the truth,” answered Alice.
The next fact of which they were conscious was that Patrick Royce strode with his great
stooping head into their ring and uttered the singular words: “Well, if I’ve got to go, I’ll
have a bit of pleasure first.”
His huge shoulder heaved and he sent an iron fist smash into Magnus’s bland
Mongolian visage, laying him on the lawn as flat as a starfish. Two or three of the
police instantly put their hands on Royce; but to the rest it seemed as if all reason had
broken up and the universe were turning into a brainless harlequinade.
“None of that, Mr. Royce,” Gilder had called out authoritatively. “I shall arrest you for
assault.”
“No, you won’t,” answered the secretary in a voice like an iron gong, “you will arrest
me for murder.”
Gilder threw an alarmed glance at the man knocked down; but since that outraged
person was already sitting up and wiping a little blood off a substantially uninjured face,
he only said shortly: “What do you mean?”
“It is quite true, as this fellow says,” explained Royce, “that Miss Armstrong fainted
with a knife in her hand. But she had not snatched the knife to attack her father, but to
defend him.”
“To defend him,” repeated Gilder gravely. “Against whom?”
“Against me,” answered the secretary.
Alice looked at him with a complex and baffling face; then she said in a low voice:
“After it all, I am still glad you are brave.”
“Come upstairs,” said Patrick Royce heavily, “and I will show you the whole cursed
thing.”
The attic, which was the secretary’s private place (and rather a small cell for so large a
hermit), had indeed all the vestiges of a violent drama. Near the centre of the floor lay a
large revolver as if flung away; nearer to the left was rolled a whisky bottle, open but
not quite empty. The cloth of the little table lay dragged and trampled, and a length of
cord, like that found on the corpse, was cast wildly across the windowsill. Two vases
were smashed on the mantelpiece and one on the carpet.
“I was drunk,” said Royce; and this simplicity in the prematurely battered man
somehow had the pathos of the first sin of a baby.
“You all know about me,” he continued huskily; “everybody knows how my story
began, and it may as well end like that too. I was called a clever man once, and might
have been a happy one; Armstrong saved the remains of a brain and body from the
taverns, and was always kind to me in his own way, poor fellow! Only he wouldn’t let
me marry Alice here; and it will always be said that he was right enough. Well, you can
form your own conclusions, and you won’t want me to go into details. That is my
whisky bottle half emptied in the corner; that is my revolver quite emptied on the
carpet. It was the rope from my box that was found on the corpse, and it was from my
window the corpse was thrown. You need not set detectives to grub up my tragedy; it is
a common enough weed in this world. I give myself to the gallows; and, by God, that is
enough!”
At a sufficiently delicate sign, the police gathered round the large man to lead him
away; but their unobtrusiveness was somewhat staggered by the remarkable appearance
of Father Brown, who was on his hands and knees on the carpet in the doorway, as if
engaged in some kind of undignified prayers. Being a person utterly insensible to the
social figure he cut, he remained in this posture, but turned a bright round face up at the
company, presenting the appearance of a quadruped with a very comic human head.
“I say,” he said good-naturedly, “this really won’t do at all, you know. At the beginning
you said we’d found no weapon. But now we’re finding too many; there’s the knife to
stab, and the rope to strangle, and the pistol to shoot; and after all he broke his neck by
falling out of a window! It won’t do. It’s not economical.” And he shook his head at the
ground as a horse does grazing.
Inspector Gilder had opened his mouth with serious intentions, but before he could
speak the grotesque figure on the floor had gone on quite volubly.
“And now three quite impossible things. First, these holes in the carpet, where the six
bullets have gone in. Why on earth should anybody fire at the carpet? A drunken man
lets fly at his enemy’s head, the thing that’s grinning at him. He doesn’t pick a quarrel
with his feet, or lay siege to his slippers. And then there’s the rope” — and having done
with the carpet the speaker lifted his hands and put them in his pocket, but continued
unaffectedly on his knees — “in what conceivable intoxication would anybody try to
put a rope round a man’s neck and finally put it round his leg? Royce, anyhow, was not
so drunk as that, or he would be sleeping like a log by now. And, plainest of all, the
whisky bottle. You suggest a dipsomaniac fought for the whisky bottle, and then having
won, rolled it away in a corner, spilling one half and leaving the other. That is the very
last thing a dipsomaniac would do.”
He scrambled awkwardly to his feet, and said to the self-accused murderer in tones of
limpid penitence: “I’m awfully sorry, my dear sir, but your tale is really rubbish.”
“Sir,” said Alice Armstrong in a low tone to the priest, “can I speak to you alone for a
moment?”
This request forced the communicative cleric out of the gangway, and before he could
speak in the next room, the girl was talking with strange incisiveness.
“You are a clever man,” she said, “and you are trying to save Patrick, I know. But it’s
no use. The core of all this is black, and the more things you find out the more there will
be against the miserable man I love.”
“Why?” asked Brown, looking at her steadily.
“Because,” she answered equally steadily, “I saw him commit the crime myself.”
“Ah!” said the unmoved Brown, “and what did he do?”
“I was in this room next to them,” she explained; “both doors were closed, but I
suddenly heard a voice, such as I had never heard on earth, roaring ‘Hell, hell, hell,’
again and again, and then the two doors shook with the first explosion of the revolver.
Thrice again the thing banged before I got the two doors open and found the room full
of smoke; but the pistol was smoking in my poor, mad Patrick’s hand; and I saw him
fire the last murderous volley with my own eyes. Then he leapt on my father, who was
clinging in terror to the window-sill, and, grappling, tried to strangle him with the rope,
which he threw over his head, but which slipped over his struggling shoulders to his
feet. Then it tightened round one leg and Patrick dragged him along like a maniac. I
snatched a knife from the mat, and, rushing between them, managed to cut the rope
before I fainted.”
“I see,” said Father Brown, with the same wooden civility. “Thank you.”
As the girl collapsed under her memories, the priest passed stiffly into the next room,
where he found Gilder and Merton alone with Patrick Royce, who sat in a chair,
handcuffed. There he said to the Inspector submissively:
“Might I say a word to the prisoner in your presence; and might he take off those funny
cuffs for a minute?”
“He is a very powerful man,” said Merton in an undertone. “Why do you want them
taken off?”
“Why, I thought,” replied the priest humbly, “that perhaps I might have the very great
honour of shaking hands with him.”
Both detectives stared, and Father Brown added: “Won’t you tell them about it, sir?”
The man on the chair shook his tousled head, and the priest turned impatiently.
“Then I will,” he said. “Private lives are more important than public reputations. I am
going to save the living, and let the dead bury their dead.”
He went to the fatal window, and blinked out of it as he went on talking.
“I told you that in this case there were too many weapons and only one death. I tell you
now that they were not weapons, and were not used to cause death. All those grisly
tools, the noose, the bloody knife, the exploding pistol, were instruments of a curious
mercy. They were not used to kill Sir Aaron, but to save him.”
“To save him!” repeated Gilder. “And from what?”
“From himself,” said Father Brown. “He was a suicidal maniac.”
“What?” cried Merton in an incredulous tone. “And the Religion of Cheerfulness — ”
“It is a cruel religion,” said the priest, looking out of the window. “Why couldn’t they
let him weep a little, like his fathers before him? His plans stiffened, his views grew
cold; behind that merry mask was the empty mind of the atheist. At last, to keep up his
hilarious public level, he fell back on that dram-drinking he had abandoned long ago.
But there is this horror about alcoholism in a sincere teetotaler: that he pictures and
expects that psychological inferno from which he has warned others. It leapt upon poor
Armstrong prematurely, and by this morning he was in such a case that he sat here and
cried he was in hell, in so crazy a voice that his daughter did not know it. He was mad
for death, and with the monkey tricks of the mad he had scattered round him death in
many shapes — a running noose and his friend’s revolver and a knife. Royce entered
accidentally and acted in a flash. He flung the knife on the mat behind him, snatched up
the revolver, and having no time to unload it, emptied it shot after shot all over the
floor. The suicide saw a fourth shape of death, and made a dash for the window. The
rescuer did the only thing he could — ran after him with the rope and tried to tie him
hand and foot. Then it was that the unlucky girl ran in, and misunderstanding the
struggle, strove to slash her father free. At first she only slashed poor Royce’s knuckles,
from which has come all the little blood in this affair. But, of course, you noticed that he
left blood, but no wound, on that servant’s face? Only before the poor woman swooned,
she did hack her father loose, so that he went crashing through that window into
eternity.”
There was a long stillness slowly broken by the metallic noises of Gilder unlocking the
handcuffs of Patrick Royce, to whom he said: “I think I should have told the truth, sir.
You and the young lady are worth more than Armstrong’s obituary notices.”
“Confound Armstrong’s notices,” cried Royce roughly. “Don’t you see it was because
she mustn’t know?”
“Mustn’t know what?” asked Merton.
“Why, that she killed her father, you fool!” roared the other. “He’d have been alive now
but for her. It might craze her to know that.”
“No, I don’t think it would,” remarked Father Brown, as he picked up his hat. “I rather
think I should tell her. Even the most murderous blunders don’t poison life like sins;
anyhow, I think you may both be the happier now. I’ve got to go back to the Deaf
School.”
As he went out on to the gusty grass an acquaintance from Highgate stopped him and
said:
“The Coroner has arrived. The inquiry is just going to begin.”
“I’ve got to get back to the Deaf School,” said Father Brown. “I’m sorry I can’t stop for
the inquiry.”
The Wisdom of Father Brown
To
Lucian Oldershaw
The Absence of Mr Glass
THE consulting-rooms of Dr Orion Hood, the eminent criminologist and specialist in
certain moral disorders, lay along the sea-front at Scarborough, in a series of very large
and well-lighted french windows, which showed the North Sea like one endless outer
wall of blue-green marble. In such a place the sea had something of the monotony of a
blue-green dado: for the chambers themselves were ruled throughout by a terrible
tidiness not unlike the terrible tidiness of the sea. It must not be supposed that Dr
Hood’s apartments excluded luxury, or even poetry. These things were there, in their
place; but one felt that they were never allowed out of their place. Luxury was there:
there stood upon a special table eight or ten boxes of the best cigars; but they were built
upon a plan so that the strongest were always nearest the wall and the mildest nearest
the window. A tantalus containing three kinds of spirit, all of a liqueur excellence, stood
always on this table of luxury; but the fanciful have asserted that the whisky, brandy,
and rum seemed always to stand at the same level. Poetry was there: the left-hand
corner of the room was lined with as complete a set of English classics as the right hand
could show of English and foreign physiologists. But if one took a volume of Chaucer
or Shelley from that rank, its absence irritated the mind like a gap in a man’s front teeth.
One could not say the books were never read; probably they were, but there was a sense
of their being chained to their places, like the Bibles in the old churches. Dr Hood
treated his private book-shelf as if it were a public library. And if this strict scientific
intangibility steeped even the shelves laden with lyrics and ballads and the tables laden
with drink and tobacco, it goes without saying that yet more of such heathen holiness
protected the other shelves that held the specialist’s library, and the other tables that
sustained the frail and even fairylike instruments of chemistry or mechanics.
Dr Hood paced the length of his string of apartments, bounded — as the boys’
geographies say — on the east by the North Sea and on the west by the serried ranks of
his sociological and criminologist library. He was clad in an artist’s velvet, but with
none of an artist’s negligence; his hair was heavily shot with grey, but growing thick
and healthy; his face was lean, but sanguine and expectant. Everything about him and
his room indicated something at once rigid and restless, like that great northern sea by
which (on pure principles of hygiene) he had built his home.
Fate, being in a funny mood, pushed the door open and introduced into those long,
strict, sea-flanked apartments one who was perhaps the most startling opposite of them
and their master. In answer to a curt but civil summons, the door opened inwards and
there shambled into the room a shapeless little figure, which seemed to find its own hat
and umbrella as unmanageable as a mass of luggage. The umbrella was a black and
prosaic bundle long past repair; the hat was a broad-curved black hat, clerical but not
common in England; the man was the very embodiment of all that is homely and
helpless.
The doctor regarded the new-comer with a restrained astonishment, not unlike that he
would have shown if some huge but obviously harmless sea-beast had crawled into his
room. The new-comer regarded the doctor with that beaming but breathless geniality
which characterizes a corpulent charwoman who has just managed to stuff herself into
an omnibus. It is a rich confusion of social self-congratulation and bodily disarray. His
hat tumbled to the carpet, his heavy umbrella slipped between his knees with a thud; he
reached after the one and ducked after the other, but with an unimpaired smile on his
round face spoke simultaneously as follows:
“My name is Brown. Pray excuse me. I’ve come about that business of the MacNabs. I
have heard, you often help people out of such troubles. Pray excuse me if I am wrong.”
By this time he had sprawlingly recovered the hat, and made an odd little bobbing bow
over it, as if setting everything quite right.
“I hardly understand you,” replied the scientist, with a cold intensity of manner. “I fear
you have mistaken the chambers. I am Dr Hood, and my work is almost entirely literary
and educational. It is true that I have sometimes been consulted by the police in cases of
peculiar difficulty and importance, but — ”
“Oh, this is of the greatest importance,” broke in the little man called Brown. “Why, her
mother won’t let them get engaged.” And he leaned back in his chair in radiant
rationality.
The brows of Dr Hood were drawn down darkly, but the eyes under them were bright
with something that might be anger or might be amusement. “And still,” he said, “I do
not quite understand.”
“You see, they want to get married,” said the man with the clerical hat. “Maggie
MacNab and young Todhunter want to get married. Now, what can be more important
than that?”
The great Orion Hood’s scientific triumphs had deprived him of many things — some
said of his health, others of his God; but they had not wholly despoiled him of his sense
of the absurd. At the last plea of the ingenuous priest a chuckle broke out of him from
inside, and he threw himself into an arm-chair in an ironical attitude of the consulting
physician.
“Mr Brown,” he said gravely, “it is quite fourteen and a half years since I was
personally asked to test a personal problem: then it was the case of an attempt to poison
the French President at a Lord Mayor’s Banquet. It is now, I understand, a question of
whether some friend of yours called Maggie is a suitable fiancee for some friend of hers
called Todhunter. Well, Mr Brown, I am a sportsman. I will take it on. I will give the
MacNab family my best advice, as good as I gave the French Republic and the King of
England — no, better: fourteen years better. I have nothing else to do this afternoon.
Tell me your story.”
The little clergyman called Brown thanked him with unquestionable warmth, but still
with a queer kind of simplicity. It was rather as if he were thanking a stranger in a
smoking-room for some trouble in passing the matches, than as if he were (as he was)
practically thanking the Curator of Kew Gardens for coming with him into a field to
find a four-leaved clover. With scarcely a semi-colon after his hearty thanks, the little
man began his recital:
“I told you my name was Brown; well, that’s the fact, and I’m the priest of the little
Catholic Church I dare say you’ve seen beyond those straggly streets, where the town
ends towards the north. In the last and straggliest of those streets which runs along the
sea like a sea-wall there is a very honest but rather sharp-tempered member of my flock,
a widow called MacNab. She has one daughter, and she lets lodgings, and between her
and the daughter, and between her and the lodgers — well, I dare say there is a great
deal to be said on both sides. At present she has only one lodger, the young man called
Todhunter; but he has given more trouble than all the rest, for he wants to marry the
young woman of the house.”
“And the young woman of the house,” asked Dr Hood, with huge and silent amusement,
“what does she want?”
“Why, she wants to marry him,” cried Father Brown, sitting up eagerly. “That is just the
awful complication.”
“It is indeed a hideous enigma,” said Dr Hood.
“This young James Todhunter,” continued the cleric, “is a very decent man so far as I
know; but then nobody knows very much. He is a bright, brownish little fellow, agile
like a monkey, clean-shaven like an actor, and obliging like a born courtier. He seems to
have quite a pocketful of money, but nobody knows what his trade is. Mrs MacNab,
therefore (being of a pessimistic turn), is quite sure it is something dreadful, and
probably connected with dynamite. The dynamite must be of a shy and noiseless sort,
for the poor fellow only shuts himself up for several hours of the day and studies
something behind a locked door. He declares his privacy is temporary and justified, and
promises to explain before the wedding. That is all that anyone knows for certain, but
Mrs MacNab will tell you a great deal more than even she is certain of. You know how
the tales grow like grass on such a patch of ignorance as that. There are tales of two
voices heard talking in the room; though, when the door is opened, Todhunter is always
found alone. There are tales of a mysterious tall man in a silk hat, who once came out of
the sea-mists and apparently out of the sea, stepping softly across the sandy fields and
through the small back garden at twilight, till he was heard talking to the lodger at his
open window. The colloquy seemed to end in a quarrel. Todhunter dashed down his
window with violence, and the man in the high hat melted into the sea-fog again. This
story is told by the family with the fiercest mystification; but I really think Mrs MacNab
prefers her own original tale: that the Other Man (or whatever it is) crawls out every
night from the big box in the corner, which is kept locked all day. You see, therefore,
how this sealed door of Todhunter’s is treated as the gate of all the fancies and
monstrosities of the ‘Thousand and One Nights’. And yet there is the little fellow in his
respectable black jacket, as punctual and innocent as a parlour clock. He pays his rent to
the tick; he is practically a teetotaller; he is tirelessly kind with the younger children,
and can keep them amused for a day on end; and, last and most urgent of all, he has
made himself equally popular with the eldest daughter, who is ready to go to church
with him tomorrow.”
A man warmly concerned with any large theories has always a relish for applying them
to any triviality. The great specialist having condescended to the priest’s simplicity,
condescended expansively. He settled himself with comfort in his arm-chair and began
to talk in the tone of a somewhat absent-minded lecturer:
“Even in a minute instance, it is best to look first to the main tendencies of Nature. A
particular flower may not be dead in early winter, but the flowers are dying; a particular
pebble may never be wetted with the tide, but the tide is coming in. To the scientific eye
all human history is a series of collective movements, destructions or migrations, like
the massacre of flies in winter or the return of birds in spring. Now the root fact in all
history is Race. Race produces religion; Race produces legal and ethical wars. There is
no stronger case than that of the wild, unworldly and perishing stock which we
commonly call the Celts, of whom your friends the MacNabs are specimens. Small,
swarthy, and of this dreamy and drifting blood, they accept easily the superstitious
explanation of any incidents, just as they still accept (you will excuse me for saying)
that superstitious explanation of all incidents which you and your Church represent. It is
not remarkable that such people, with the sea moaning behind them and the Church
(excuse me again) droning in front of them, should put fantastic features into what are
probably plain events. You, with your small parochial responsibilities, see only this
particular Mrs MacNab, terrified with this particular tale of two voices and a tall man
out of the sea. But the man with the scientific imagination sees, as it were, the whole
clans of MacNab scattered over the whole world, in its ultimate average as uniform as a
tribe of birds. He sees thousands of Mrs MacNabs, in thousands of houses, dropping
their little drop of morbidity in the tea-cups of their friends; he sees — ”
Before the scientist could conclude his sentence, another and more impatient summons
sounded from without; someone with swishing skirts was marshalled hurriedly down
the corridor, and the door opened on a young girl, decently dressed but disordered and
red-hot with haste. She had sea-blown blonde hair, and would have been entirely
beautiful if her cheek-bones had not been, in the Scotch manner, a little high in relief as
well as in colour. Her apology was almost as abrupt as a command.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you, sir,” she said, “but I had to follow Father Brown at once; it’s
nothing less than life or death.”
Father Brown began to get to his feet in some disorder. “Why, what has happened,
Maggie?” he said.
“James has been murdered, for all I can make out,” answered the girl, still breathing
hard from her rush. “That man Glass has been with him again; I heard them talking
through the door quite plain. Two separate voices: for James speaks low, with a burr,
and the other voice was high and quavery.”
“That man Glass?” repeated the priest in some perplexity.
“I know his name is Glass,” answered the girl, in great impatience. “I heard it through
the door. They were quarrelling — about money, I think — for I heard James say again
and again, ‘That’s right, Mr Glass,’ or ‘No, Mr Glass,’ and then, ‘Two or three, Mr
Glass.’ But we’re talking too much; you must come at once, and there may be time yet.”
“But time for what?” asked Dr Hood, who had been studying the young lady with
marked interest. “What is there about Mr Glass and his money troubles that should
impel such urgency?”
“I tried to break down the door and couldn’t,” answered the girl shortly, “Then I ran to
the back-yard, and managed to climb on to the window-sill that looks into the room. It
was all dim, and seemed to be empty, but I swear I saw James lying huddled up in a
corner, as if he were drugged or strangled.”
“This is very serious,” said Father Brown, gathering his errant hat and umbrella and
standing up; “in point of fact I was just putting your case before this gentleman, and his
view — ”
“Has been largely altered,” said the scientist gravely. “I do not think this young lady is
so Celtic as I had supposed. As I have nothing else to do, I will put on my hat and stroll
down town with you.”
In a few minutes all three were approaching the dreary tail of the MacNabs’ street: the
girl with the stern and breathless stride of the mountaineer, the criminologist with a
lounging grace (which was not without a certain leopard-like swiftness), and the priest
at an energetic trot entirely devoid of distinction. The aspect of this edge of the town
was not entirely without justification for the doctor’s hints about desolate moods and
environments. The scattered houses stood farther and farther apart in a broken string
along the seashore; the afternoon was closing with a premature and partly lurid twilight;
the sea was of an inky purple and murmuring ominously. In the scrappy back garden of
the MacNabs which ran down towards the sand, two black, barren-looking trees stood
up like demon hands held up in astonishment, and as Mrs MacNab ran down the street
to meet them with lean hands similarly spread, and her fierce face in shadow, she was a
little like a demon herself. The doctor and the priest made scant reply to her shrill
reiterations of her daughter’s story, with more disturbing details of her own, to the
divided vows of vengeance against Mr Glass for murdering, and against Mr Todhunter
for being murdered, or against the latter for having dared to want to marry her daughter,
and for not having lived to do it. They passed through the narrow passage in the front of
the house until they came to the lodger’s door at the back, and there Dr Hood, with the
trick of an old detective, put his shoulder sharply to the panel and burst in the door.
It opened on a scene of silent catastrophe. No one seeing it, even for a flash, could doubt
that the room had been the theatre of some thrilling collision between two, or perhaps
more, persons. Playing-cards lay littered across the table or fluttered about the floor as if
a game had been interrupted. Two wine glasses stood ready for wine on a side-table, but
a third lay smashed in a star of crystal upon the carpet. A few feet from it lay what
looked like a long knife or short sword, straight, but with an ornamental and pictured
handle, its dull blade just caught a grey glint from the dreary window behind, which
showed the black trees against the leaden level of the sea. Towards the opposite corner
of the room was rolled a gentleman’s silk top hat, as if it had just been knocked off his
head; so much so, indeed, that one almost looked to see it still rolling. And in the corner
behind it, thrown like a sack of potatoes, but corded like a railway trunk, lay Mr James
Todhunter, with a scarf across his mouth, and six or seven ropes knotted round his
elbows and ankles. His brown eyes were alive and shifted alertly.
Dr Orion Hood paused for one instant on the doormat and drank in the whole scene of
voiceless violence. Then he stepped swiftly across the carpet, picked up the tall silk hat,
and gravely put it upon the head of the yet pinioned Todhunter. It was so much too large
for him that it almost slipped down on to his shoulders.
“Mr Glass’s hat,” said the doctor, returning with it and peering into the inside with a
pocket lens. “How to explain the absence of Mr Glass and the presence of Mr Glass’s
hat? For Mr Glass is not a careless man with his clothes. That hat is of a stylish shape
and systematically brushed and burnished, though not very new. An old dandy, I should
think.”
“But, good heavens!” called out Miss MacNab, “aren’t you going to untie the man
first?”
“I say ‘old’ with intention, though not with certainty” continued the expositor; “my
reason for it might seem a little far-fetched. The hair of human beings falls out in very
varying degrees, but almost always falls out slightly, and with the lens I should see the
tiny hairs in a hat recently worn. It has none, which leads me to guess that Mr Glass is
bald. Now when this is taken with the high-pitched and querulous voice which Miss
MacNab described so vividly (patience, my dear lady, patience), when we take the
hairless head together with the tone common in senile anger, I should think we may
deduce some advance in years. Nevertheless, he was probably vigorous, and he was
almost certainly tall. I might rely in some degree on the story of his previous appearance
at the window, as a tall man in a silk hat, but I think I have more exact indication. This
wineglass has been smashed all over the place, but one of its splinters lies on the high
bracket beside the mantelpiece. No such fragment could have fallen there if the vessel
had been smashed in the hand of a comparatively short man like Mr Todhunter.”
“By the way,” said Father Brown, “might it not be as well to untie Mr Todhunter?”
“Our lesson from the drinking-vessels does not end here,” proceeded the specialist. “I
may say at once that it is possible that the man Glass was bald or nervous through
dissipation rather than age. Mr Todhunter, as has been remarked, is a quiet thrifty
gentleman, essentially an abstainer. These cards and wine-cups are no part of his normal
habit; they have been produced for a particular companion. But, as it happens, we may
go farther. Mr Todhunter may or may not possess this wine-service, but there is no
appearance of his possessing any wine. What, then, were these vessels to contain? I
would at once suggest some brandy or whisky, perhaps of a luxurious sort, from a flask
in the pocket of Mr Glass. We have thus something like a picture of the man, or at least
of the type: tall, elderly, fashionable, but somewhat frayed, certainly fond of play and
strong waters, perhaps rather too fond of them. Mr Glass is a gentleman not unknown
on the fringes of society.”
“Look here,” cried the young woman, “if you don’t let me pass to untie him I’ll run
outside and scream for the police.”
“I should not advise you, Miss MacNab,” said Dr Hood gravely, “to be in any hurry to
fetch the police. Father Brown, I seriously ask you to compose your flock, for their
sakes, not for mine. Well, we have seen something of the figure and quality of Mr
Glass; what are the chief facts known of Mr Todhunter? They are substantially three:
that he is economical, that he is more or less wealthy, and that he has a secret. Now,
surely it is obvious that there are the three chief marks of the kind of man who is
blackmailed. And surely it is equally obvious that the faded finery, the profligate habits,
and the shrill irritation of Mr Glass are the unmistakable marks of the kind of man who
blackmails him. We have the two typical figures of a tragedy of hush money: on the one
hand, the respectable man with a mystery; on the other, the West-end vulture with a
scent for a mystery. These two men have met here today and have quarrelled, using
blows and a bare weapon.”
“Are you going to take those ropes off?” asked the girl stubbornly.
Dr Hood replaced the silk hat carefully on the side table, and went across to the captive.
He studied him intently, even moving him a little and half-turning him round by the
shoulders, but he only answered:
“No; I think these ropes will do very well till your friends the police bring the
handcuffs.”
Father Brown, who had been looking dully at the carpet, lifted his round face and said:
“What do you mean?”
The man of science had picked up the peculiar dagger-sword from the carpet and was
examining it intently as he answered:
“Because you find Mr Todhunter tied up,” he said, “you all jump to the conclusion that
Mr Glass had tied him up; and then, I suppose, escaped. There are four objections to
this: First, why should a gentleman so dressy as our friend Glass leave his hat behind
him, if he left of his own free will? Second,” he continued, moving towards the window,
“this is the only exit, and it is locked on the inside. Third, this blade here has a tiny
touch of blood at the point, but there is no wound on Mr Todhunter. Mr Glass took that
wound away with him, dead or alive. Add to all this primary probability. It is much
more likely that the blackmailed person would try to kill his incubus, rather than that the
blackmailer would try to kill the goose that lays his golden egg. There, I think, we have
a pretty complete story.”
“But the ropes?” inquired the priest, whose eyes had remained open with a rather vacant
admiration.
“Ah, the ropes,” said the expert with a singular intonation. “Miss MacNab very much
wanted to know why I did not set Mr Todhunter free from his ropes. Well, I will tell
her. I did not do it because Mr Todhunter can set himself free from them at any minute
he chooses.”
“What?” cried the audience on quite different notes of astonishment.
“I have looked at all the knots on Mr Todhunter,” reiterated Hood quietly. “I happen to
know something about knots; they are quite a branch of criminal science. Every one of
those knots he has made himself and could loosen himself; not one of them would have
been made by an enemy really trying to pinion him. The whole of this affair of the ropes
is a clever fake, to make us think him the victim of the struggle instead of the wretched
Glass, whose corpse may be hidden in the garden or stuffed up the chimney.”
There was a rather depressed silence; the room was darkening, the sea-blighted boughs
of the garden trees looked leaner and blacker than ever, yet they seemed to have come
nearer to the window. One could almost fancy they were sea-monsters like krakens or
cuttlefish, writhing polypi who had crawled up from the sea to see the end of this
tragedy, even as he, the villain and victim of it, the terrible man in the tall hat, had once
crawled up from the sea. For the whole air was dense with the morbidity of blackmail,
which is the most morbid of human things, because it is a crime concealing a crime; a
black plaster on a blacker wound.
The face of the little Catholic priest, which was commonly complacent and even comic,
had suddenly become knotted with a curious frown. It was not the blank curiosity of his
first innocence. It was rather that creative curiosity which comes when a man has the
beginnings of an idea. “Say it again, please,” he said in a simple, bothered manner; “do
you mean that Todhunter can tie himself up all alone and untie himself all alone?”
“That is what I mean,” said the doctor.
“Jerusalem!” ejaculated Brown suddenly, “I wonder if it could possibly be that!”
He scuttled across the room rather like a rabbit, and peered with quite a new
impulsiveness into the partially-covered face of the captive. Then he turned his own
rather fatuous face to the company. “Yes, that’s it!” he cried in a certain excitement.
“Can’t you see it in the man’s face? Why, look at his eyes!”
Both the Professor and the girl followed the direction of his glance. And though the
broad black scarf completely masked the lower half of Todhunter’s visage, they did
grow conscious of something struggling and intense about the upper part of it.
“His eyes do look queer,” cried the young woman, strongly moved. “You brutes; I
believe it’s hurting him!”
“Not that, I think,” said Dr Hood; “the eyes have certainly a singular expression. But I
should interpret those transverse wrinkles as expressing rather such slight psychological
abnormality — ”
“Oh, bosh!” cried Father Brown: “can’t you see he’s laughing?”
“Laughing!” repeated the doctor, with a start; “but what on earth can he be laughing
at?”
“Well,” replied the Reverend Brown apologetically, “not to put too fine a point on it, I
think he is laughing at you. And indeed, I’m a little inclined to laugh at myself, now I
know about it.”
“Now you know about what?” asked Hood, in some exasperation.
“Now I know,” replied the priest, “the profession of Mr Todhunter.”
He shuffled about the room, looking at one object after another with what seemed to be
a vacant stare, and then invariably bursting into an equally vacant laugh, a highly
irritating process for those who had to watch it. He laughed very much over the hat, still
more uproariously over the broken glass, but the blood on the sword point sent him into
mortal convulsions of amusement. Then he turned to the fuming specialist.
“Dr Hood,” he cried enthusiastically, “you are a great poet! You have called an
uncreated being out of the void. How much more godlike that is than if you had only
ferreted out the mere facts! Indeed, the mere facts are rather commonplace and comic
by comparison.”
“I have no notion what you are talking about,” said Dr Hood rather haughtily; “my facts
are all inevitable, though necessarily incomplete. A place may be permitted to intuition,
perhaps (or poetry if you prefer the term), but only because the corresponding details
cannot as yet be ascertained. In the absence of Mr Glass — ”
“That’s it, that’s it,” said the little priest, nodding quite eagerly, “that’s the first idea to
get fixed; the absence of Mr Glass. He is so extremely absent. I suppose,” he added
reflectively, “that there was never anybody so absent as Mr Glass.”
“Do you mean he is absent from the town?” demanded the doctor.
“I mean he is absent from everywhere,” answered Father Brown; “he is absent from the
Nature of Things, so to speak.”
“Do you seriously mean,” said the specialist with a smile, “that there is no such
person?”
The priest made a sign of assent. “It does seem a pity,” he said.
Orion Hood broke into a contemptuous laugh. “Well,” he said, “before we go on to the
hundred and one other evidences, let us take the first proof we found; the first fact we
fell over when we fell into this room. If there is no Mr Glass, whose hat is this?”
“It is Mr Todhunter’s,” replied Father Brown.
“But it doesn’t fit him,” cried Hood impatiently. “He couldn’t possibly wear it!”
Father Brown shook his head with ineffable mildness. “I never said he could wear it,”
he answered. “I said it was his hat. Or, if you insist on a shade of difference, a hat that is
his.”
“And what is the shade of difference?” asked the criminologist with a slight sneer.
“My good sir,” cried the mild little man, with his first movement akin to impatience, “if
you will walk down the street to the nearest hatter’s shop, you will see that there is, in
common speech, a difference between a man’s hat and the hats that are his.”
“But a hatter,” protested Hood, “can get money out of his stock of new hats. What could
Todhunter get out of this one old hat?”
“Rabbits,” replied Father Brown promptly.
“What?” cried Dr Hood.
“Rabbits, ribbons, sweetmeats, goldfish, rolls of coloured paper,” said the reverend
gentleman with rapidity. “Didn’t you see it all when you found out the faked ropes? It’s
just the same with the sword. Mr Todhunter hasn’t got a scratch on him, as you say; but
he’s got a scratch in him, if you follow me.”
“Do you mean inside Mr Todhunter’s clothes?” inquired Mrs MacNab sternly.
“I do not mean inside Mr Todhunter’s clothes,” said Father Brown. “I mean inside Mr
Todhunter.”
“Well, what in the name of Bedlam do you mean?”
“Mr Todhunter,” explained Father Brown placidly, “is learning to be a professional
conjurer, as well as juggler, ventriloquist, and expert in the rope trick. The conjuring
explains the hat. It is without traces of hair, not because it is worn by the prematurely
bald Mr Glass, but because it has never been worn by anybody. The juggling explains
the three glasses, which Todhunter was teaching himself to throw up and catch in
rotation. But, being only at the stage of practice, he smashed one glass against the
ceiling. And the juggling also explains the sword, which it was Mr Todhunter’s
professional pride and duty to swallow. But, again, being at the stage of practice, he
very slightly grazed the inside of his throat with the weapon. Hence he has a wound
inside him, which I am sure (from the expression on his face) is not a serious one. He
was also practising the trick of a release from ropes, like the Davenport Brothers, and he
was just about to free himself when we all burst into the room. The cards, of course, are
for card tricks, and they are scattered on the floor because he had just been practising
one of those dodges of sending them flying through the air. He merely kept his trade
secret, because he had to keep his tricks secret, like any other conjurer. But the mere
fact of an idler in a top hat having once looked in at his back window, and been driven
away by him with great indignation, was enough to set us all on a wrong track of
romance, and make us imagine his whole life overshadowed by the silk-hatted spectre
of Mr Glass.”
“But what about the two voices?” asked Maggie, staring.
“Have you never heard a ventriloquist?” asked Father Brown. “Don’t you know they
speak first in their natural voice, and then answer themselves in just that shrill, squeaky,
unnatural voice that you heard?”
There was a long silence, and Dr Hood regarded the little man who had spoken with a
dark and attentive smile. “You are certainly a very ingenious person,” he said; “it could
not have been done better in a book. But there is just one part of Mr Glass you have not
succeeded in explaining away, and that is his name. Miss MacNab distinctly heard him
so addressed by Mr Todhunter.”
The Rev. Mr Brown broke into a rather childish giggle. “Well, that,” he said, “that’s the
silliest part of the whole silly story. When our juggling friend here threw up the three
glasses in turn, he counted them aloud as he caught them, and also commented aloud
when he failed to catch them. What he really said was: ‘One, two and three — missed a
glass one, two — missed a glass.’ And so on.”
There was a second of stillness in the room, and then everyone with one accord burst
out laughing. As they did so the figure in the corner complacently uncoiled all the ropes
and let them fall with a flourish. Then, advancing into the middle of the room with a
bow, he produced from his pocket a big bill printed in blue and red, which announced
that ZALADIN, the World’s Greatest Conjurer, Contortionist, Ventriloquist and Human
Kangaroo would be ready with an entirely new series of Tricks at the Empire Pavilion,
Scarborough, on Monday next at eight o’clock precisely.
The Paradise of Thieves
THE great Muscari, most original of the young Tuscan poets, walked swiftly into his
favourite restaurant, which overlooked the Mediterranean, was covered by an awning
and fenced by little lemon and orange trees. Waiters in white aprons were already laying
out on white tables the insignia of an early and elegant lunch; and this seemed to
increase a satisfaction that already touched the top of swagger. Muscari had an eagle
nose like Dante; his hair and neckerchief were dark and flowing; he carried a black
cloak, and might almost have carried a black mask, so much did he bear with him a sort
of Venetian melodrama. He acted as if a troubadour had still a definite social office, like
a bishop. He went as near as his century permitted to walking the world literally like
Don Juan, with rapier and guitar.
For he never travelled without a case of swords, with which he had fought many
brilliant duels, or without a corresponding case for his mandolin, with which he had
actually serenaded Miss Ethel Harrogate, the highly conventional daughter of a
Yorkshire banker on a holiday. Yet he was neither a charlatan nor a child; but a hot,
logical Latin who liked a certain thing and was it. His poetry was as straightforward as
anyone else’s prose. He desired fame or wine or the beauty of women with a torrid
directness inconceivable among the cloudy ideals or cloudy compromises of the north;
to vaguer races his intensity smelt of danger or even crime. Like fire or the sea, he was
too simple to be trusted.
The banker and his beautiful English daughter were staying at the hotel attached to
Muscari’s restaurant; that was why it was his favourite restaurant. A glance flashed
around the room told him at once, however, that the English party had not descended.
The restaurant was glittering, but still comparatively empty. Two priests were talking at
a table in a corner, but Muscari (an ardent Catholic) took no more notice of them than of
a couple of crows. But from a yet farther seat, partly concealed behind a dwarf tree
golden with oranges, there rose and advanced towards the poet a person whose costume
was the most aggressively opposite to his own.
This figure was clad in tweeds of a piebald check, with a pink tie, a sharp collar and
protuberant yellow boots. He contrived, in the true tradition of ‘Arry at Margate, to look
at once startling and commonplace. But as the Cockney apparition drew nearer, Muscari
was astounded to observe that the head was distinctly different from the body. It was an
Italian head: fuzzy, swarthy and very vivacious, that rose abruptly out of the standing
collar like cardboard and the comic pink tie. In fact it was a head he knew. He
recognized it, above all the dire erection of English holiday array, as the face of an old
but forgotten friend name Ezza. This youth had been a prodigy at college, and European
fame was promised him when he was barely fifteen; but when he appeared in the world
he failed, first publicly as a dramatist and a demagogue, and then privately for years on
end as an actor, a traveller, a commission agent or a journalist. Muscari had known him
last behind the footlights; he was but too well attuned to the excitements of that
profession, and it was believed that some moral calamity had swallowed him up.
“Ezza!” cried the poet, rising and shaking hands in a pleasant astonishment. “Well, I’ve
seen you in many costumes in the green room; but I never expected to see you dressed
up as an Englishman.”
“This,” answered Ezza gravely, “is not the costume of an Englishman, but of the Italian
of the future.”
“In that case,” remarked Muscari, “I confess I prefer the Italian of the past.”
“That is your old mistake, Muscari,” said the man in tweeds, shaking his head; “and the
mistake of Italy. In the sixteenth century we Tuscans made the morning: we had the
newest steel, the newest carving, the newest chemistry. Why should we not now have
the newest factories, the newest motors, the newest finance — the newest clothes?”
“Because they are not worth having,” answered Muscari. “You cannot make Italians
really progressive; they are too intelligent. Men who see the short cut to good living will
never go by the new elaborate roads.”
“Well, to me Marconi, or D’Annunzio, is the star of Italy” said the other. “That is why I
have become a Futurist — and a courier.”
“A courier!” cried Muscari, laughing. “Is that the last of your list of trades? And whom
are you conducting?”
“Oh, a man of the name of Harrogate, and his family, I believe.”
“Not the banker in this hotel?” inquired the poet, with some eagerness.
“That’s the man,” answered the courier.
“Does it pay well?” asked the troubadour innocently.
“It will pay me,” said Ezza, with a very enigmatic smile. “But I am a rather curious sort
of courier.” Then, as if changing the subject, he said abruptly: “He has a daughter —
and a son.”
“The daughter is divine,” affirmed Muscari, “the father and son are, I suppose, human.
But granted his harmless qualities doesn’t that banker strike you as a splendid instance
of my argument? Harrogate has millions in his safes, and I have — the hole in my
pocket. But you daren’t say — you can’t say — that he’s cleverer than I, or bolder than
I, or even more energetic. He’s not clever, he’s got eyes like blue buttons; he’s not
energetic, he moves from chair to chair like a paralytic. He’s a conscientious, kindly old
blockhead; but he’s got money simply because he collects money, as a boy collects
stamps. You’re too strong-minded for business, Ezza. You won’t get on. To be clever
enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.”
“I’m stupid enough for that,” said Ezza gloomily. “But I should suggest a suspension of
your critique of the banker, for here he comes.”
Mr Harrogate, the great financier, did indeed enter the room, but nobody looked at him.
He was a massive elderly man with a boiled blue eye and faded grey-sandy moustaches;
but for his heavy stoop he might have been a colonel. He carried several unopened
letters in his hand. His son Frank was a really fine lad, curly-haired, sun-burnt and
strenuous; but nobody looked at him either. All eyes, as usual, were riveted, for the
moment at least, upon Ethel Harrogate, whose golden Greek head and colour of the
dawn seemed set purposely above that sapphire sea, like a goddess’s. The poet Muscari
drew a deep breath as if he were drinking something, as indeed he was. He was drinking
the Classic; which his fathers made. Ezza studied her with a gaze equally intense and far
more baffling.
Miss Harrogate was specially radiant and ready for conversation on this occasion; and
her family had fallen into the easier Continental habit, allowing the stranger Muscari
and even the courier Ezza to share their table and their talk. In Ethel Harrogate
conventionality crowned itself with a perfection and splendour of its own. Proud of her
father’s prosperity, fond of fashionable pleasures, a fond daughter but an arrant flirt, she
was all these things with a sort of golden good-nature that made her very pride pleasing
and her worldly respectability a fresh and hearty thing.
They were in an eddy of excitement about some alleged peril in the mountain path they
were to attempt that week. The danger was not from rock and avalanche, but from
something yet more romantic. Ethel had been earnestly assured that brigands, the true
cut-throats of the modern legend, still haunted that ridge and held that pass of the
Apennines.
“They say,” she cried, with the awful relish of a schoolgirl, “that all that country isn’t
ruled by the King of Italy, but by the King of Thieves. Who is the King of Thieves?”
“A great man,” replied Muscari, “worthy to rank with your own Robin Hood, signorina.
Montano, the King of Thieves, was first heard of in the mountains some ten years ago,
when people said brigands were extinct. But his wild authority spread with the swiftness
of a silent revolution. Men found his fierce proclamations nailed in every mountain
village; his sentinels, gun in hand, in every mountain ravine. Six times the Italian
Government tried to dislodge him, and was defeated in six pitched battles as if by
Napoleon.”
“Now that sort of thing,” observed the banker weightily, “would never be allowed in
England; perhaps, after all, we had better choose another route. But the courier thought
it perfectly safe.”
“It is perfectly safe,” said the courier contemptuously. “I have been over it twenty times.
There may have been some old jailbird called a King in the time of our grandmothers;
but he belongs to history if not to fable. Brigandage is utterly stamped out.”
“It can never be utterly stamped out,” Muscari answered; “because armed revolt is a
recreation natural to southerners. Our peasants are like their mountains, rich in grace
and green gaiety, but with the fires beneath. There is a point of human despair where the
northern poor take to drink — and our own poor take to daggers.”
“A poet is privileged,” replied Ezza, with a sneer. “If Signor Muscari were English he
would still be looking for highwaymen in Wandsworth. Believe me, there is no more
danger of being captured in Italy than of being scalped in Boston.”
“Then you propose to attempt it?” asked Mr Harrogate, frowning.
“Oh, it sounds rather dreadful,” cried the girl, turning her glorious eyes on Muscari. “Do
you really think the pass is dangerous?”
Muscari threw back his black mane. “I know it is dangerous:” he said. “I am crossing it
tomorrow.”
The young Harrogate was left behind for a moment emptying a glass of white wine and
lighting a cigarette, as the beauty retired with the banker, the courier and the poet,
distributing peals of silvery satire. At about the same instant the two priests in the
corner rose; the taller, a white-haired Italian, taking his leave. The shorter priest turned
and walked towards the banker’s son, and the latter was astonished to realize that
though a Roman priest the man was an Englishman. He vaguely remembered meeting
him at the social crushes of some of his Catholic friends. But the man spoke before his
memories could collect themselves.
“Mr Frank Harrogate, I think,” he said. “I have had an introduction, but I do not mean to
presume on it. The odd thing I have to say will come far better from a stranger. Mr
Harrogate, I say one word and go: take care of your sister in her great sorrow.”
Even for Frank’s truly fraternal indifference the radiance and derision of his sister still
seemed to sparkle and ring; he could hear her laughter still from the garden of the hotel,
and he stared at his sombre adviser in puzzledom.
“Do you mean the brigands?” he asked; and then, remembering a vague fear of his own,
“or can you be thinking of Muscari?”
“One is never thinking of the real sorrow,” said the strange priest. “One can only be
kind when it comes.”
And he passed promptly from the room, leaving the other almost with his mouth open.
A day or two afterwards a coach containing the company was really crawling and
staggering up the spurs of the menacing mountain range. Between Ezza’s cheery denial
of the danger and Muscari’s boisterous defiance of it, the financial family were firm in
their original purpose; and Muscari made his mountain journey coincide with theirs. A
more surprising feature was the appearance at the coast-town station of the little priest
of the restaurant; he alleged merely that business led him also to cross the mountains of
the midland. But young Harrogate could not but connect his presence with the mystical
fears and warnings of yesterday.
The coach was a kind of commodious wagonette, invented by the modernist talent of
the courier, who dominated the expedition with his scientific activity and breezy wit.
The theory of danger from thieves was banished from thought and speech; though so far
conceded in formal act that some slight protection was employed. The courier and the
young banker carried loaded revolvers, and Muscari (with much boyish gratification)
buckled on a kind of cutlass under his black cloak.
He had planted his person at a flying leap next to the lovely Englishwoman; on the other
side of her sat the priest, whose name was Brown and who was fortunately a silent
individual; the courier and the father and son were on the banc behind. Muscari was in
towering spirits, seriously believing in the peril, and his talk to Ethel might well have
made her think him a maniac. But there was something in the crazy and gorgeous
ascent, amid crags like peaks loaded with woods like orchards, that dragged her spirit
up along with his into purple preposterous heavens with wheeling suns. The white road
climbed like a white cat; it spanned sunless chasms like a tight-rope; it was flung round
far-off headlands like a lasso.
And yet, however high they went, the desert still blossomed like the rose. The fields
were burnished in sun and wind with the colour of kingfisher and parrot and hummingbird, the hues of a hundred flowering flowers. There are no lovelier meadows and
woodlands than the English, no nobler crests or chasms than those of Snowdon and
Glencoe. But Ethel Harrogate had never before seen the southern parks tilted on the
splintered northern peaks; the gorge of Glencoe laden with the fruits of Kent. There was
nothing here of that chill and desolation that in Britain one associates with high and
wild scenery. It was rather like a mosaic palace, rent with earthquakes; or like a Dutch
tulip garden blown to the stars with dynamite.
“It’s like Kew Gardens on Beachy Head,” said Ethel.
“It is our secret,” answered he, “the secret of the volcano; that is also the secret of the
revolution — that a thing can be violent and yet fruitful.”
“You are rather violent yourself,” and she smiled at him.
“And yet rather fruitless,” he admitted; “if I die tonight I die unmarried and a fool.”
“It is not my fault if you have come,” she said after a difficult silence.
“It is never your fault,” answered Muscari; “it was not your fault that Troy fell.”
As they spoke they came under overwhelming cliffs that spread almost like wings above
a corner of peculiar peril. Shocked by the big shadow on the narrow ledge, the horses
stirred doubtfully. The driver leapt to the earth to hold their heads, and they became
ungovernable. One horse reared up to his full height — the titanic and terrifying height
of a horse when he becomes a biped. It was just enough to alter the equilibrium; the
whole coach heeled over like a ship and crashed through the fringe of bushes over the
cliff. Muscari threw an arm round Ethel, who clung to him, and shouted aloud. It was
for such moments that he lived.
At the moment when the gorgeous mountain walls went round the poet’s head like a
purple windmill a thing happened which was superficially even more startling. The
elderly and lethargic banker sprang erect in the coach and leapt over the precipice
before the tilted vehicle could take him there. In the first flash it looked as wild as
suicide; but in the second it was as sensible as a safe investment. The Yorkshireman had
evidently more promptitude, as well as more sagacity, than Muscari had given him
credit for; for he landed in a lap of land which might have been specially padded with
turf and clover to receive him. As it happened, indeed, the whole company were equally
lucky, if less dignified in their form of ejection. Immediately under this abrupt turn of
the road was a grassy and flowery hollow like a sunken meadow; a sort of green velvet
pocket in the long, green, trailing garments of the hills. Into this they were all tipped or
tumbled with little damage, save that their smallest baggage and even the contents of
their pockets were scattered in the grass around them. The wrecked coach still hung
above, entangled in the tough hedge, and the horses plunged painfully down the slope.
The first to sit up was the little priest, who scratched his head with a face of foolish
wonder. Frank Harrogate heard him say to himself: “Now why on earth have we fallen
just here?”
He blinked at the litter around him, and recovered his own very clumsy umbrella.
Beyond it lay the broad sombrero fallen from the head of Muscari, and beside it a sealed
business letter which, after a glance at the address, he returned to the elder Harrogate.
On the other side of him the grass partly hid Miss Ethel’s sunshade, and just beyond it
lay a curious little glass bottle hardly two inches long. The priest picked it up; in a
quick, unobtrusive manner he uncorked and sniffed it, and his heavy face turned the
colour of clay.
“Heaven deliver us!” he muttered; “it can’t be hers! Has her sorrow come on her
already?” He slipped it into his own waistcoat pocket. “I think I’m justified,” he said,
“till I know a little more.”
He gazed painfully at the girl, at that moment being raised out of the flowers by
Muscari, who was saying: “We have fallen into heaven; it is a sign. Mortals climb up
and they fall down; but it is only gods and goddesses who can fall upwards.”
And indeed she rose out of the sea of colours so beautiful and happy a vision that the
priest felt his suspicion shaken and shifted. “After all,” he thought, “perhaps the poison
isn’t hers; perhaps it’s one of Muscari’s melodramatic tricks.”
Muscari set the lady lightly on her feet, made her an absurdly theatrical bow, and then,
drawing his cutlass, hacked hard at the taut reins of the horses, so that they scrambled to
their feet and stood in the grass trembling. When he had done so, a most remarkable
thing occurred. A very quiet man, very poorly dressed and extremely sunburnt, came
out of the bushes and took hold of the horses’ heads. He had a queer-shaped knife, very
broad and crooked, buckled on his belt; there was nothing else remarkable about him,
except his sudden and silent appearance. The poet asked him who he was, and he did
not answer.
Looking around him at the confused and startled group in the hollow, Muscari then
perceived that another tanned and tattered man, with a short gun under his arm, was
looking at them from the ledge just below, leaning his elbows on the edge of the turf.
Then he looked up at the road from which they had fallen and saw, looking down on
them, the muzzles of four other carbines and four other brown faces with bright but
quite motionless eyes.
“The brigands!” cried Muscari, with a kind of monstrous gaiety. “This was a trap. Ezza,
if you will oblige me by shooting the coachman first, we can cut our way out yet. There
are only six of them.”
“The coachman,” said Ezza, who was standing grimly with his hands in his pockets,
“happens to be a servant of Mr Harrogate’s.”
“Then shoot him all the more,” cried the poet impatiently; “he was bribed to upset his
master. Then put the lady in the middle, and we will break the line up there — with a
rush.”
And, wading in wild grass and flowers, he advanced fearlessly on the four carbines; but
finding that no one followed except young Harrogate, he turned, brandishing his cutlass
to wave the others on. He beheld the courier still standing slightly astride in the centre
of the grassy ring, his hands in his pockets; and his lean, ironical Italian face seemed to
grow longer and longer in the evening light.
“You thought, Muscari, I was the failure among our schoolfellows,” he said, “and you
thought you were the success. But I have succeeded more than you and fill a bigger
place in history. I have been acting epics while you have been writing them.”
“Come on, I tell you!” thundered Muscari from above. “Will you stand there talking
nonsense about yourself with a woman to save and three strong men to help you? What
do you call yourself?”
“I call myself Montano,” cried the strange courier in a voice equally loud and full. “I am
the King of Thieves, and I welcome you all to my summer palace.”
And even as he spoke five more silent men with weapons ready came out of the bushes,
and looked towards him for their orders. One of them held a large paper in his hand.
“This pretty little nest where we are all picnicking,” went on the courier-brigand, with
the same easy yet sinister smile, “is, together with some caves underneath it, known by
the name of the Paradise of Thieves. It is my principal stronghold on these hills; for (as
you have doubtless noticed) the eyrie is invisible both from the road above and from the
valley below. It is something better than impregnable; it is unnoticeable. Here I mostly
live, and here I shall certainly die, if the gendarmes ever track me here. I am not the
kind of criminal that ‘reserves his defence,’ but the better kind that reserves his last
bullet.”
All were staring at him thunderstruck and still, except Father Brown, who heaved a
huge sigh as of relief and fingered the little phial in his pocket. “Thank God!” he
muttered; “that’s much more probable. The poison belongs to this robber-chief, of
course. He carries it so that he may never be captured, like Cato.”
The King of Thieves was, however, continuing his address with the same kind of
dangerous politeness. “It only remains for me,” he said, “to explain to my guests the
social conditions upon which I have the pleasure of entertaining them. I need not
expound the quaint old ritual of ransom, which it is incumbent upon me to keep up; and
even this only applies to a part of the company. The Reverend Father Brown and the
celebrated Signor Muscari I shall release tomorrow at dawn and escort to my outposts.
Poets and priests, if you will pardon my simplicity of speech, never have any money.
And so (since it is impossible to get anything out of them), let us, seize the opportunity
to show our admiration for classic literature and our reverence for Holy Church.”
He paused with an unpleasing smile; and Father Brown blinked repeatedly at him, and
seemed suddenly to be listening with great attention. The brigand captain took the large
paper from the attendant brigand and, glancing over it, continued: “My other intentions
are clearly set forth in this public document, which I will hand round in a moment; and
which after that will be posted on a tree by every village in the valley, and every crossroad in the hills. I will not weary you with the verbalism, since you will be able to check
it; the substance of my proclamation is this: I announce first that I have captured the
English millionaire, the colossus of finance, Mr Samuel Harrogate. I next announce that
I have found on his person notes and bonds for two thousand pounds, which he has
given up to me. Now since it would be really immoral to announce such a thing to a
credulous public if it had not occurred, I suggest it should occur without further delay. I
suggest that Mr Harrogate senior should now give me the two thousand pounds in his
pocket.”
The banker looked at him under lowering brows, red-faced and sulky, but seemingly
cowed. That leap from the failing carriage seemed to have used up his last virility. He
had held back in a hang-dog style when his son and Muscari had made a bold
movement to break out of the brigand trap. And now his red and trembling hand went
reluctantly to his breast-pocket, and passed a bundle of papers and envelopes to the
brigand.
“Excellent!” cried that outlaw gaily; “so far we are all cosy. I resume the points of my
proclamation, so soon to be published to all Italy. The third item is that of ransom. I am
asking from the friends of the Harrogate family a ransom of three thousand pounds,
which I am sure is almost insulting to that family in its moderate estimate of their
importance. Who would not pay triple this sum for another day’s association with such
a domestic circle? I will not conceal from you that the document ends with certain legal
phrases about the unpleasant things that may happen if the money is not paid; but
meanwhile, ladies and gentlemen, let me assure you that I am comfortably off here for
accommodation, wine and cigars, and bid you for the present a sportsman-like welcome
to the luxuries of the Paradise of Thieves.”
All the time that he had been speaking, the dubious-looking men with carbines and dirty
slouch hats had been gathering silently in such preponderating numbers that even
Muscari was compelled to recognize his sally with the sword as hopeless. He glanced
around him; but the girl had already gone over to soothe and comfort her father, for her
natural affection for his person was as strong or stronger than her somewhat snobbish
pride in his success. Muscari, with the illogicality of a lover, admired this filial
devotion, and yet was irritated by it. He slapped his sword back in the scabbard and
went and flung himself somewhat sulkily on one of the green banks. The priest sat
down within a yard or two, and Muscari turned his aquiline nose on him in an
instantaneous irritation.
“Well,” said the poet tartly, “do people still think me too romantic? Are there, I wonder,
any brigands left in the mountains?”
“There may be,” said Father Brown agnostically.
“What do you mean?” asked the other sharply.
“I mean I am puzzled,” replied the priest. “I am puzzled about Ezza or Montano, or
whatever his name is. He seems to me much more inexplicable as a brigand even than
he was as a courier.”
“But in what way?” persisted his companion. “Santa Maria! I should have thought the
brigand was plain enough.”
“I find three curious difficulties,” said the priest in a quiet voice. “I should like to have
your opinion on them. First of all I must tell you I was lunching in that restaurant at the
seaside. As four of you left the room, you and Miss Harrogate went ahead, talking and
laughing; the banker and the courier came behind, speaking sparely and rather low. But
I could not help hearing Ezza say these words — ‘Well, let her have a little fun; you
know the blow may smash her any minute.’ Mr Harrogate answered nothing; so the
words must have had some meaning. On the impulse of the moment I warned her
brother that she might be in peril; I said nothing of its nature, for I did not know. But if
it meant this capture in the hills, the thing is nonsense. Why should the brigand-courier
warn his patron, even by a hint, when it was his whole purpose to lure him into the
mountain-mousetrap? It could not have meant that. But if not, what is this disaster,
known both to courier and banker, which hangs over Miss Harrogate’s head?”
“Disaster to Miss Harrogate!” ejaculated the poet, sitting up with some ferocity.
“Explain yourself; go on.”
“All my riddles, however, revolve round our bandit chief,” resumed the priest
reflectively. “And here is the second of them. Why did he put so prominently in his
demand for ransom the fact that he had taken two thousand pounds from his victim on
the spot? It had no faintest tendency to evoke the ransom. Quite the other way, in fact.
Harrogate’s friends would be far likelier to fear for his fate if they thought the thieves
were poor and desperate. Yet the spoliation on the spot was emphasized and even put
first in the demand. Why should Ezza Montano want so specially to tell all Europe that
he had picked the pocket before he levied the blackmail?”
“I cannot imagine,” said Muscari, rubbing up his black hair for once with an unaffected
gesture. “You may think you enlighten me, but you are leading me deeper in the dark.
What may be the third objection to the King of the Thieves?” “The third objection,” said
Father Brown, still in meditation, “is this bank we are sitting on. Why does our brigandcourier call this his chief fortress and the Paradise of Thieves? It is certainly a soft spot
to fall on and a sweet spot to look at. It is also quite true, as he says, that it is invisible
from valley and peak, and is therefore a hiding-place. But it is not a fortress. It never
could be a fortress. I think it would be the worst fortress in the world. For it is actually
commanded from above by the common high-road across the mountains — the very
place where the police would most probably pass. Why, five shabby short guns held us
helpless here about half an hour ago. The quarter of a company of any kind of soldiers
could have blown us over the precipice. Whatever is the meaning of this odd little nook
of grass and flowers, it is not an entrenched position. It is something else; it has some
other strange sort of importance; some value that I do not understand. It is more like an
accidental theatre or a natural green-room; it is like the scene for some romantic
comedy; it is like . . .”
As the little priest’s words lengthened and lost themselves in a dull and dreamy
sincerity, Muscari, whose animal senses were alert and impatient, heard a new noise in
the mountains. Even for him the sound was as yet very small and faint; but he could
have sworn the evening breeze bore with it something like the pulsation of horses’
hoofs and a distant hallooing.
At the same moment, and long before the vibration had touched the less-experienced
English ears, Montano the brigand ran up the bank above them and stood in the broken
hedge, steadying himself against a tree and peering down the road. He was a strange
figure as he stood there, for he had assumed a flapped fantastic hat and swinging baldric
and cutlass in his capacity of bandit king, but the bright prosaic tweed of the courier
showed through in patches all over him.
The next moment he turned his olive, sneering face and made a movement with his
hand. The brigands scattered at the signal, not in confusion, but in what was evidently a
kind of guerrilla discipline. Instead of occupying the road along the ridge, they
sprinkled themselves along the side of it behind the trees and the hedge, as if watching
unseen for an enemy. The noise beyond grew stronger, beginning to shake the mountain
road, and a voice could be clearly heard calling out orders. The brigands swayed and
huddled, cursing and whispering, and the evening air was full of little metallic noises as
they cocked their pistols, or loosened their knives, or trailed their scabbards over the
stones. Then the noises from both quarters seemed to meet on the road above; branches
broke, horses neighed, men cried out.
“A rescue!” cried Muscari, springing to his feet and waving his hat; “the gendarmes are
on them! Now for freedom and a blow for it! Now to be rebels against robbers! Come,
don’t let us leave everything to the police; that is so dreadfully modern. Fall on the rear
of these ruffians. The gendarmes are rescuing us; come, friends, let us rescue the
gendarmes!”
And throwing his hat over the trees, he drew his cutlass once more and began to
escalade the slope up to the road. Frank Harrogate jumped up and ran across to help
him, revolver in hand, but was astounded to hear himself imperatively recalled by the
raucous voice of his father, who seemed to be in great agitation.
“I won’t have it,” said the banker in a choking voice; “I command you not to interfere.”
“But, father,” said Frank very warmly, “an Italian gentleman has led the way. You
wouldn’t have it said that the English hung back.”
“It is useless,” said the older man, who was trembling violently, “it is useless. We must
submit to our lot.”
Father Brown looked at the banker; then he put his hand instinctively as if on his heart,
but really on the little bottle of poison; and a great light came into his face like the light
of the revelation of death.
Muscari meanwhile, without waiting for support, had crested the bank up to the road,
and struck the brigand king heavily on the shoulder, causing him to stagger and swing
round. Montano also had his cutlass unsheathed, and Muscari, without further speech,
sent a slash at his head which he was compelled to catch and parry. But even as the two
short blades crossed and clashed the King of Thieves deliberately dropped his point and
laughed.
“What’s the good, old man?” he said in spirited Italian slang; “this damned farce will
soon be over.”
“What do you mean, you shuffler?” panted the fire-eating poet. “Is your courage a sham
as well as your honesty?”
“Everything about me is a sham,” responded the ex-courier in complete good humour.
“I am an actor; and if I ever had a private character, I have forgotten it. I am no more a
genuine brigand than I am a genuine courier. I am only a bundle of masks, and you
can’t fight a duel with that.” And he laughed with boyish pleasure and fell into his old
straddling attitude, with his back to the skirmish up the road.
Darkness was deepening under the mountain walls, and it was not easy to discern much
of the progress of the struggle, save that tall men were pushing their horses’ muzzles
through a clinging crowd of brigands, who seemed more inclined to harass and hustle
the invaders than to kill them. It was more like a town crowd preventing the passage of
the police than anything the poet had ever pictured as the last stand of doomed and
outlawed men of blood. Just as he was rolling his eyes in bewilderment he felt a touch
on his elbow, and found the odd little priest standing there like a small Noah with a
large hat, and requesting the favour of a word or two.
“Signor Muscari,” said the cleric, “in this queer crisis personalities may be pardoned. I
may tell you without offence of a way in which you will do more good than by helping
the gendarmes, who are bound to break through in any case. You will permit me the
impertinent intimacy, but do you care about that girl? Care enough to marry her and
make her a good husband, I mean?”
“Yes,” said the poet quite simply.
“Does she care about you?”
“I think so,” was the equally grave reply.
“Then go over there and offer yourself,” said the priest: “offer her everything you can;
offer her heaven and earth if you’ve got them. The time is short.”
“Why?” asked the astonished man of letters.
“Because,” said Father Brown, “her Doom is coming up the road.”
“Nothing is coming up the road,” argued Muscari, “except the rescue.”
“Well, you go over there,” said his adviser, “and be ready to rescue her from the
rescue.”
Almost as he spoke the hedges were broken all along the ridge by a rush of the escaping
brigands. They dived into bushes and thick grass like defeated men pursued; and the
great cocked hats of the mounted gendarmerie were seen passing along above the
broken hedge. Another order was given; there was a noise of dismounting, and a tall
officer with cocked hat, a grey imperial, and a paper in his hand appeared in the gap that
was the gate of the Paradise of Thieves. There was a momentary silence, broken in an
extraordinary way by the banker, who cried out in a hoarse and strangled voice:
“Robbed! I’ve been robbed!”
“Why, that was hours ago,” cried his son in astonishment: “when you were robbed of
two thousand pounds.”
“Not of two thousand pounds,” said the financier, with an abrupt and terrible
composure, “only of a small bottle.”
The policeman with the grey imperial was striding across the green hollow.
Encountering the King of the Thieves in his path, he clapped him on the shoulder with
something between a caress and a buffet and gave him a push that sent him staggering
away. “You’ll get into trouble, too,” he said, “if you play these tricks.”
Again to Muscari’s artistic eye it seemed scarcely like the capture of a great outlaw at
bay. Passing on, the policeman halted before the Harrogate group and said: “Samuel
Harrogate, I arrest you in the name of the law for embezzlement of the funds of the Hull
and Huddersfield Bank.”
The great banker nodded with an odd air of business assent, seemed to reflect a
moment, and before they could interpose took a half turn and a step that brought him to
the edge of the outer mountain wall. Then, flinging up his hands, he leapt exactly as he
leapt out of the coach. But this time he did not fall into a little meadow just beneath; he
fell a thousand feet below, to become a wreck of bones in the valley.
The anger of the Italian policeman, which he expressed volubly to Father Brown, was
largely mixed with admiration. “It was like him to escape us at last,” he said. “He was a
great brigand if you like. This last trick of his I believe to be absolutely unprecedented.
He fled with the company’s money to Italy, and actually got himself captured by sham
brigands in his own pay, so as to explain both the disappearance of the money and the
disappearance of himself. That demand for ransom was really taken seriously by most
of the police. But for years he’s been doing things as good as that, quite as good as that.
He will be a serious loss to his family.”
Muscari was leading away the unhappy daughter, who held hard to him, as she did for
many a year after. But even in that tragic wreck he could not help having a smile and a
hand of half-mocking friendship for the indefensible Ezza Montano. “And where are
you going next?” he asked him over his shoulder.
“Birmingham,” answered the actor, puffing a cigarette. “Didn’t I tell you I was a
Futurist? I really do believe in those things if I believe in anything. Change, bustle and
new things every morning. I am going to Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Hull,
Huddersfield, Glasgow, Chicago — in short, to enlightened, energetic, civilized
society!”
“In short,” said Muscari, “to the real Paradise of Thieves.”
The Duel of Dr Hirsch
M. MAURICE BRUN and M. Armand Armagnac were crossing the sunlit Champs
Elysee with a kind of vivacious respectability. They were both short, brisk and bold.
They both had black beards that did not seem to belong to their faces, after the strange
French fashion which makes real hair look like artificial. M. Brun had a dark wedge of
beard apparently affixed under his lower lip. M. Armagnac, by way of a change, had
two beards; one sticking out from each corner of his emphatic chin. They were both
young. They were both atheists, with a depressing fixity of outlook but great mobility of
exposition. They were both pupils of the great Dr Hirsch, scientist, publicist and
moralist.
M. Brun had become prominent by his proposal that the common expression “Adieu”
should be obliterated from all the French classics, and a slight fine imposed for its use in
private life. “Then,” he said, “the very name of your imagined God will have echoed for
the last time in the ear of man.” M. Armagnac specialized rather in a resistance to
militarism, and wished the chorus of the Marseillaise altered from “Aux armes,
citoyens” to “Aux greves, citoyens”. But his antimilitarism was of a peculiar and Gallic
sort. An eminent and very wealthy English Quaker, who had come to see him to arrange
for the disarmament of the whole planet, was rather distressed by Armagnac’s proposal
that (by way of beginning) the soldiers should shoot their officers.
And indeed it was in this regard that the two men differed most from their leader and
father in philosophy. Dr Hirsch, though born in France and covered with the most
triumphant favours of French education, was temperamentally of another type — mild,
dreamy, humane; and, despite his sceptical system, not devoid of transcendentalism. He
was, in short, more like a German than a Frenchman; and much as they admired him,
something in the subconsciousness of these Gauls was irritated at his pleading for peace
in so peaceful a manner. To their party throughout Europe, however, Paul Hirsch was a
saint of science. His large and daring cosmic theories advertised his austere life and
innocent, if somewhat frigid, morality; he held something of the position of Darwin
doubled with the position of Tolstoy. But he was neither an anarchist nor an antipatriot;
his views on disarmament were moderate and evolutionary — the Republican
Government put considerable confidence in him as to various chemical improvements.
He had lately even discovered a noiseless explosive, the secret of which the
Government was carefully guarding.
His house stood in a handsome street near the Elysee — a street which in that strong
summer seemed almost as full of foliage as the park itself; a row of chestnuts shattered
the sunshine, interrupted only in one place where a large cafe ran out into the street.
Almost opposite to this were the white and green blinds of the great scientist’s house, an
iron balcony, also painted green, running along in front of the first-floor windows.
Beneath this was the entrance into a kind of court, gay with shrubs and tiles, into which
the two Frenchmen passed in animated talk.
The door was opened to them by the doctor’s old servant, Simon, who might very well
have passed for a doctor himself, having a strict suit of black, spectacles, grey hair, and
a confidential manner. In fact, he was a far more presentable man of science than his
master, Dr Hirsch, who was a forked radish of a fellow, with just enough bulb of a head
to make his body insignificant. With all the gravity of a great physician handling a
prescription, Simon handed a letter to M. Armagnac. That gentleman ripped it up with a
racial impatience, and rapidly read the following:
I cannot come down to speak to you. There is a man in this house whom I refuse to
meet. He is a Chauvinist officer, Dubosc. He is sitting on the stairs. He has been kicking
the furniture about in all the other rooms; I have locked myself in my study, opposite
that cafe. If you love me, go over to the cafe and wait at one of the tables outside. I will
try to send him over to you. I want you to answer him and deal with him. I cannot meet
him myself. I cannot: I will not.
There is going to be another Dreyfus case.
P. HIRSCH
M. Armagnac looked at M. Brun. M. Brun borrowed the letter, read it, and looked at M.
Armagnac. Then both betook themselves briskly to one of the little tables under the
chestnuts opposite, where they procured two tall glasses of horrible green absinthe,
which they could drink apparently in any weather and at any time. Otherwise the cafe
seemed empty, except for one soldier drinking coffee at one table, and at another a large
man drinking a small syrup and a priest drinking nothing.
Maurice Brun cleared his throat and said: “Of course we must help the master in every
way, but — ”
There was an abrupt silence, and Armagnac said: “He may have excellent reasons for
not meeting the man himself, but — ”
Before either could complete a sentence, it was evident that the invader had been
expelled from the house opposite. The shrubs under the archway swayed and burst
apart, as that unwelcome guest was shot out of them like a cannon-ball.
He was a sturdy figure in a small and tilted Tyrolean felt hat, a figure that had indeed
something generally Tyrolean about it. The man’s shoulders were big and broad, but his
legs were neat and active in knee-breeches and knitted stockings. His face was brown
like a nut; he had very bright and restless brown eyes; his dark hair was brushed back
stiffly in front and cropped close behind, outlining a square and powerful skull; and he
had a huge black moustache like the horns of a bison. Such a substantial head is
generally based on a bull neck; but this was hidden by a big coloured scarf, swathed
round up the man’s ears and falling in front inside his jacket like a sort of fancy
waistcoat. It was a scarf of strong dead colours, dark red and old gold and purple,
probably of Oriental fabrication. Altogether the man had something a shade barbaric
about him; more like a Hungarian squire than an ordinary French officer. His French,
however, was obviously that of a native; and his French patriotism was so impulsive as
to be slightly absurd. His first act when he burst out of the archway was to call in a
clarion voice down the street: “Are there any Frenchmen here?” as if he were calling for
Christians in Mecca.
Armagnac and Brun instantly stood up; but they were too late. Men were already
running from the street corners; there was a small but ever-clustering crowd. With the
prompt French instinct for the politics of the street, the man with the black moustache
had already run across to a corner of the cafe, sprung on one of the tables, and seizing a
branch of chestnut to steady himself, shouted as Camille Desmoulins once shouted
when he scattered the oak-leaves among the populace.
“Frenchmen!” he volleyed; “I cannot speak! God help me, that is why I am speaking!
The fellows in their filthy parliaments who learn to speak also learn to be silent — silent
as that spy cowering in the house opposite! Silent as he is when I beat on his bedroom
door! Silent as he is now, though he hears my voice across this street and shakes where
he sits! Oh, they can be silent eloquently — the politicians! But the time has come when
we that cannot speak must speak. You are betrayed to the Prussians. Betrayed at this
moment. Betrayed by that man. I am Jules Dubosc, Colonel of Artillery, Belfort. We
caught a German spy in the Vosges yesterday, and a paper was found on him — a paper
I hold in my hand. Oh, they tried to hush it up; but I took it direct to the man who wrote
it — the man in that house! It is in his hand. It is signed with his initials. It is a direction
for finding the secret of this new Noiseless Powder. Hirsch invented it; Hirsch wrote
this note about it. This note is in German, and was found in a German’s pocket. ‘Tell
the man the formula for powder is in grey envelope in first drawer to the left of
Secretary’s desk, War Office, in red ink. He must be careful. P.H.’”
He rattled short sentences like a quick-firing gun, but he was plainly the sort of man
who is either mad or right. The mass of the crowd was Nationalist, and already in
threatening uproar; and a minority of equally angry Intellectuals, led by Armagnac and
Brun, only made the majority more militant.
“If this is a military secret,” shouted Brun, “why do you yell about it in the street?”
“I will tell you why I do!” roared Dubosc above the roaring crowd. “I went to this man
in straight and civil style. If he had any explanation it could have been given in
complete confidence. He refuses to explain. He refers me to two strangers in a cafe as to
two flunkeys. He has thrown me out of the house, but I am going back into it, with the
people of Paris behind me!”
A shout seemed to shake the very facade of mansions and two stones flew, one breaking
a window above the balcony. The indignant Colonel plunged once more under the
archway and was heard crying and thundering inside. Every instant the human sea grew
wider and wider; it surged up against the rails and steps of the traitor’s house; it was
already certain that the place would be burst into like the Bastille, when the broken
french window opened and Dr Hirsch came out on the balcony. For an instant the fury
half turned to laughter; for he was an absurd figure in such a scene. His long bare neck
and sloping shoulders were the shape of a champagne bottle, but that was the only
festive thing about him. His coat hung on him as on a peg; he wore his carrot-coloured
hair long and weedy; his cheeks and chin were fully fringed with one of those irritating
beards that begin far from the mouth. He was very pale, and he wore blue spectacles.
Livid as he was, he spoke with a sort of prim decision, so that the mob fell silent in the
middle of his third sentence.
“. . . only two things to say to you now. The first is to my foes, the second to my friends.
To my foes I say: It is true I will not meet M. Dubosc, though he is storming outside this
very room. It is true I have asked two other men to confront him for me. And I will tell
you why! Because I will not and must not see him — because it would be against all
rules of dignity and honour to see him. Before I am triumphantly cleared before a court,
there is another arbitration this gentleman owes me as a gentleman, and in referring him
to my seconds I am strictly — ”
Armagnac and Brun were waving their hats wildly, and even the Doctor’s enemies
roared applause at this unexpected defiance. Once more a few sentences were inaudible,
but they could hear him say: “To my friends — I myself should always prefer weapons
purely intellectual, and to these an evolved humanity will certainly confine itself. But
our own most precious truth is the fundamental force of matter and heredity. My books
are successful; my theories are unrefuted; but I suffer in politics from a prejudice almost
physical in the French. I cannot speak like Clemenceau and Deroulede, for their words
are like echoes of their pistols. The French ask for a duellist as the English ask for a
sportsman. Well, I give my proofs: I will pay this barbaric bribe, and then go back to
reason for the rest of my life.”
Two men were instantly found in the crowd itself to offer their services to Colonel
Dubosc, who came out presently, satisfied. One was the common soldier with the
coffee, who said simply: “I will act for you, sir. I am the Duc de Valognes.” The other
was the big man, whom his friend the priest sought at first to dissuade; and then walked
away alone.
In the early evening a light dinner was spread at the back of the Cafe Charlemagne.
Though unroofed by any glass or gilt plaster, the guests were nearly all under a delicate
and irregular roof of leaves; for the ornamental trees stood so thick around and among
the tables as to give something of the dimness and the dazzle of a small orchard. At one
of the central tables a very stumpy little priest sat in complete solitude, and applied
himself to a pile of whitebait with the gravest sort of enjoyment. His daily living being
very plain, he had a peculiar taste for sudden and isolated luxuries; he was an
abstemious epicure. He did not lift his eyes from his plate, round which red pepper,
lemons, brown bread and butter, etc., were rigidly ranked, until a tall shadow fell across
the table, and his friend Flambeau sat down opposite. Flambeau was gloomy.
“I’m afraid I must chuck this business,” said he heavily. “I’m all on the side of the
French soldiers like Dubosc, and I’m all against the French atheists like Hirsch; but it
seems to me in this case we’ve made a mistake. The Duke and I thought it as well to
investigate the charge, and I must say I’m glad we did.”
“Is the paper a forgery, then?” asked the priest
“That’s just the odd thing,” replied Flambeau. “It’s exactly like Hirsch’s writing, and
nobody can point out any mistake in it. But it wasn’t written by Hirsch. If he’s a French
patriot he didn’t write it, because it gives information to Germany. And if he’s a
German spy he didn’t write it, well — because it doesn’t give information to Germany.”
“You mean the information is wrong?” asked Father Brown.
“Wrong,” replied the other, “and wrong exactly where Dr Hirsch would have been right
— about the hiding-place of his own secret formula in his own official department. By
favour of Hirsch and the authorities, the Duke and I have actually been allowed to
inspect the secret drawer at the War Office where the Hirsch formula is kept. We are the
only people who have ever known it, except the inventor himself and the Minister for
War; but the Minister permitted it to save Hirsch from fighting. After that we really
can’t support Dubosc if his revelation is a mare’s nest.”
“And it is?” asked Father Brown.
“It is,” said his friend gloomily. “It is a clumsy forgery by somebody who knew nothing
of the real hiding-place. It says the paper is in the cupboard on the right of the
Secretary’s desk. As a fact the cupboard with the secret drawer is some way to the left
of the desk. It says the grey envelope contains a long document written in red ink. It
isn’t written in red ink, but in ordinary black ink. It’s manifestly absurd to say that
Hirsch can have made a mistake about a paper that nobody knew of but himself; or can
have tried to help a foreign thief by telling him to fumble in the wrong drawer. I think
we must chuck it up and apologize to old Carrots.”
Father Brown seemed to cogitate; he lifted a little whitebait on his fork. “You are sure
the grey envelope was in the left cupboard?” he asked.
“Positive,” replied Flambeau. “The grey envelope — it was a white envelope really —
was — ”
Father Brown put down the small silver fish and the fork and stared across at his
companion. “What?” he asked, in an altered voice.
“Well, what?” repeated Flambeau, eating heartily.
“It was not grey,” said the priest. “Flambeau, you frighten me.”
“What the deuce are you frightened of?”
“I’m frightened of a white envelope,” said the other seriously, “If it had only just been
grey! Hang it all, it might as well have been grey. But if it was white, the whole
business is black. The Doctor has been dabbling in some of the old brimstone after all.”
“But I tell you he couldn’t have written such a note!” cried Flambeau. “The note is
utterly wrong about the facts. And innocent or guilty, Dr Hirsch knew all about the
facts.”
“The man who wrote that note knew all about the facts,” said his clerical companion
soberly. “He could never have got ’em so wrong without knowing about ’em. You have
to know an awful lot to be wrong on every subject — like the devil.”
“Do you mean — ?”
“I mean a man telling lies on chance would have told some of the truth,” said his friend
firmly. “Suppose someone sent you to find a house with a green door and a blue blind,
with a front garden but no back garden, with a dog but no cat, and where they drank
coffee but not tea. You would say if you found no such house that it was all made up.
But I say no. I say if you found a house where the door was blue and the blind green,
where there was a back garden and no front garden, where cats were common and dogs
instantly shot, where tea was drunk in quarts and coffee forbidden — then you would
know you had found the house. The man must have known that particular house to be so
accurately inaccurate.”
“But what could it mean?” demanded the diner opposite.
“I can’t conceive,” said Brown; “I don’t understand this Hirsch affair at all. As long as it
was only the left drawer instead of the right, and red ink instead of black, I thought it
must be the chance blunders of a forger, as you say. But three is a mystical number; it
finishes things. It finishes this. That the direction about the drawer, the colour of ink, the
colour of envelope, should none of them be right by accident, that can’t be a
coincidence. It wasn’t.”
“What was it, then? Treason?” asked Flambeau, resuming his dinner.
“I don’t know that either,” answered Brown, with a face of blank bewilderment. “The
only thing I can think of . . . Well, I never understood that Dreyfus case. I can always
grasp moral evidence easier than the other sorts. I go by a man’s eyes and voice, don’t
you know, and whether his family seems happy, and by what subjects he chooses —
and avoids. Well, I was puzzled in the Dreyfus case. Not by the horrible things imputed
both ways; I know (though it’s not modern to say so) that human nature in the highest
places is still capable of being Cenci or Borgia. No — what puzzled me was the
sincerity of both parties. I don’t mean the political parties; the rank and file are always
roughly honest, and often duped. I mean the persons of the play. I mean the
conspirators, if they were conspirators. I mean the traitor, if he was a traitor. I mean the
men who must have known the truth. Now Dreyfus went on like a man who knew he
was a wronged man. And yet the French statesmen and soldiers went on as if they knew
he wasn’t a wronged man but simply a wrong ’un. I don’t mean they behaved well; I
mean they behaved as if they were sure. I can’t describe these things; I know what I
mean.”
“I wish I did,” said his friend. “And what has it to do with old Hirsch?”
“Suppose a person in a position of trust,” went on the priest, “began to give the enemy
information because it was false information. Suppose he even thought he was saving
his country by misleading the foreigner. Suppose this brought him into spy circles, and
little loans were made to him, and little ties tied on to him. Suppose he kept up his
contradictory position in a confused way by never telling the foreign spies the truth, but
letting it more and more be guessed. The better part of him (what was left of it) would
still say: ‘I have not helped the enemy; I said it was the left drawer.’ The meaner part of
him would already be saying: ‘But they may have the sense to see that means the right.’
I think it is psychologically possible — in an enlightened age, you know.”
“It may be psychologically possible,” answered Flambeau, “and it certainly would
explain Dreyfus being certain he was wronged and his judges being sure he was guilty.
But it won’t wash historically, because Dreyfus’s document (if it was his document)
was literally correct.”
“I wasn’t thinking of Dreyfus,” said Father Brown.
Silence had sunk around them with the emptying of the tables; it was already late,
though the sunlight still clung to everything, as if accidentally entangled in the trees. In
the stillness Flambeau shifted his seat sharply — making an isolated and echoing noise
— and threw his elbow over the angle of it. “Well,” he said, rather harshly, “if Hirsch is
not better than a timid treason-monger . . .”
“You mustn’t be too hard on them,” said Father Brown gently. “It’s not entirely their
fault; but they have no instincts. I mean those things that make a woman refuse to dance
with a man or a man to touch an investment. They’ve been taught that it’s all a matter of
degree.”
“Anyhow,” cried Flambeau impatiently, “he’s not a patch on my principal; and I shall
go through with it. Old Dubosc may be a bit mad, but he’s a sort of patriot after all.”
Father Brown continued to consume whitebait.
Something in the stolid way he did so caused Flambeau’s fierce black eyes to ramble
over his companion afresh. “What’s the matter with you?” Flambeau demanded.
“Dubosc’s all right in that way. You don’t doubt him?”
“My friend,” said the small priest, laying down his knife and fork in a kind of cold
despair, “I doubt everything. Everything, I mean, that has happened today. I doubt the
whole story, though it has been acted before my face. I doubt every sight that my eyes
have seen since morning. There is something in this business quite different from the
ordinary police mystery where one man is more or less lying and the other man more or
less telling the truth. Here both men . . . Well! I’ve told you the only theory I can think
of that could satisfy anybody. It doesn’t satisfy me.”
“Nor me either,” replied Flambeau frowning, while the other went on eating fish with
an air of entire resignation. “If all you can suggest is that notion of a message conveyed
by contraries, I call it uncommonly clever, but . . . well, what would you call it?”
“I should call it thin,” said the priest promptly. “I should call it uncommonly thin. But
that’s the queer thing about the whole business. The lie is like a schoolboy’s. There are
only three versions, Dubosc’s and Hirsch’s and that fancy of mine. Either that note was
written by a French officer to ruin a French official; or it was written by the French
official to help German officers; or it was written by the French official to mislead
German officers. Very well. You’d expect a secret paper passing between such people,
officials or officers, to look quite different from that. You’d expect, probably a cipher,
certainly abbreviations; most certainly scientific and strictly professional terms. But this
thing’s elaborately simple, like a penny dreadful: ‘In the purple grotto you will find the
golden casket.’ It looks as if . . . as if it were meant to be seen through at once.”
Almost before they could take it in a short figure in French uniform had walked up to
their table like the wind, and sat down with a sort of thump.
“I have extraordinary news,” said the Duc de Valognes. “I have just come from this
Colonel of ours. He is packing up to leave the country, and he asks us to make his
excuses sur le terrain.”
“What?” cried Flambeau, with an incredulity quite frightful — “apologize?”
“Yes,” said the Duke gruffly; “then and there — before everybody — when the swords
are drawn. And you and I have to do it while he is leaving the country.”
“But what can this mean?” cried Flambeau. “He can’t be afraid of that little Hirsch!
Confound it!” he cried, in a kind of rational rage; “nobody could be afraid of Hirsch!”
“I believe it’s some plot!” snapped Valognes — “some plot of the Jews and
Freemasons. It’s meant to work up glory for Hirsch . . .”
The face of Father Brown was commonplace, but curiously contented; it could shine
with ignorance as well as with knowledge. But there was always one flash when the
foolish mask fell, and the wise mask fitted itself in its place; and Flambeau, who knew
his friend, knew that his friend had suddenly understood. Brown said nothing, but
finished his plate of fish.
“Where did you last see our precious Colonel?” asked Flambeau, irritably.
“He’s round at the Hotel Saint Louis by the Elysee, where we drove with him. He’s
packing up, I tell you.”
“Will he be there still, do you think?” asked Flambeau, frowning at the table.
“I don’t think he can get away yet,” replied the Duke; “he’s packing to go a long
journey . . .”
“No,” said Father Brown, quite simply, but suddenly standing up, “for a very short
journey. For one of the shortest, in fact. But we may still be in time to catch him if we
go there in a motor-cab.”
Nothing more could be got out of him until the cab swept round the corner by the Hotel
Saint Louis, where they got out, and he led the party up a side lane already in deep
shadow with the growing dusk. Once, when the Duke impatiently asked whether Hirsch
was guilty of treason or not, he answered rather absently: “No; only of ambition — like
Caesar.” Then he somewhat inconsequently added: “He lives a very lonely life; he has
had to do everything for himself.”
“Well, if he’s ambitious, he ought to be satisfied now,” said Flambeau rather bitterly.
“All Paris will cheer him now our cursed Colonel has turned tail.”
“Don’t talk so loud,” said Father Brown, lowering his voice, “your cursed Colonel is
just in front.”
The other two started and shrank farther back into the shadow of the wall, for the sturdy
figure of their runaway principal could indeed be seen shuffling along in the twilight in
front, a bag in each hand. He looked much the same as when they first saw him, except
that he had changed his picturesque mountaineering knickers for a conventional pair of
trousers. It was clear he was already escaping from the hotel.
The lane down which they followed him was one of those that seem to be at the back of
things, and look like the wrong side of the stage scenery. A colourless, continuous wall
ran down one flank of it, interrupted at intervals by dull-hued and dirt-stained doors, all
shut fast and featureless save for the chalk scribbles of some passing gamin. The tops of
trees, mostly rather depressing evergreens, showed at intervals over the top of the wall,
and beyond them in the grey and purple gloaming could be seen the back of some long
terrace of tall Parisian houses, really comparatively close, but somehow looking as
inaccessible as a range of marble mountains. On the other side of the lane ran the high
gilt railings of a gloomy park.
Flambeau was looking round him in rather a weird way. “Do you know,” he said, “there
is something about this place that — ”
“Hullo!” called out the Duke sharply; “that fellow’s disappeared. Vanished, like a
blasted fairy!”
“He has a key,” explained their clerical friend. “He’s only gone into one of these garden
doors,” and as he spoke they heard one of the dull wooden doors close again with a
click in front of them.
Flambeau strode up to the door thus shut almost in his face, and stood in front of it for a
moment, biting his black moustache in a fury of curiosity. Then he threw up his long
arms and swung himself aloft like a monkey and stood on the top of the wall, his
enormous figure dark against the purple sky, like the dark tree-tops.
The Duke looked at the priest. “Dubosc’s escape is more elaborate than we thought,” he
said; “but I suppose he is escaping from France.”
“He is escaping from everywhere,” answered Father Brown.
Valognes’s eyes brightened, but his voice sank. “Do you mean suicide?” he asked.
“You will not find his body,” replied the other.
A kind of cry came from Flambeau on the wall above. “My God,” he exclaimed in
French, “I know what this place is now! Why, it’s the back of the street where old
Hirsch lives. I thought I could recognize the back of a house as well as the back of a
man.”
“And Dubosc’s gone in there!” cried the Duke, smiting his hip. “Why, they’ll meet after
all!” And with sudden Gallic vivacity he hopped up on the wall beside Flambeau and sat
there positively kicking his legs with excitement. The priest alone remained below,
leaning against the wall, with his back to the whole theatre of events, and looking
wistfully across to the park palings and the twinkling, twilit trees.
The Duke, however stimulated, had the instincts of an aristocrat, and desired rather to
stare at the house than to spy on it; but Flambeau, who had the instincts of a burglar
(and a detective), had already swung himself from the wall into the fork of a straggling
tree from which he could crawl quite close to the only illuminated window in the back
of the high dark house. A red blind had been pulled down over the light, but pulled
crookedly, so that it gaped on one side, and by risking his neck along a branch that
looked as treacherous as a twig, Flambeau could just see Colonel Dubosc walking about
in a brilliantly-lighted and luxurious bedroom. But close as Flambeau was to the house,
he heard the words of his colleagues by the wall, and repeated them in a low voice.
“Yes, they will meet now after all!”
“They will never meet,” said Father Brown. “Hirsch was right when he said that in such
an affair the principals must not meet. Have you read a queer psychological story by
Henry James, of two persons who so perpetually missed meeting each other by accident
that they began to feel quite frightened of each other, and to think it was fate? This is
something of the kind, but more curious.”
“There are people in Paris who will cure them of such morbid fancies,” said Valognes
vindictively. “They will jolly well have to meet if we capture them and force them to
fight.”
“They will not meet on the Day of Judgement,” said the priest. “If God Almighty held
the truncheon of the lists, if St Michael blew the trumpet for the swords to cross — even
then, if one of them stood ready, the other would not come.”
“Oh, what does all this mysticism mean?” cried the Duc de Valognes, impatiently; “why
on earth shouldn’t they meet like other people?”
“They are the opposite of each other,” said Father Brown, with a queer kind of smile.
“They contradict each other. They cancel out, so to speak.”
He continued to gaze at the darkening trees opposite, but Valognes turned his head
sharply at a suppressed exclamation from Flambeau. That investigator, peering into the
lighted room, had just seen the Colonel, after a pace or two, proceed to take his coat off.
Flambeau’s first thought was that this really looked like a fight; but he soon dropped the
thought for another. The solidity and squareness of Dubosc’s chest and shoulders was
all a powerful piece of padding and came off with his coat. In his shirt and trousers he
was a comparatively slim gentleman, who walked across the bedroom to the bathroom
with no more pugnacious purpose than that of washing himself. He bent over a basin,
dried his dripping hands and face on a towel, and turned again so that the strong light
fell on his face. His brown complexion had gone, his big black moustache had gone; he
— was clean-shaven and very pale. Nothing remained of the Colonel but his bright,
hawk-like, brown eyes. Under the wall Father Brown was going on in heavy meditation,
as if to himself.
“It is all just like what I was saying to Flambeau. These opposites won’t do. They don’t
work. They don’t fight. If it’s white instead of black, and solid instead of liquid, and so
on all along the line — then there’s something wrong, Monsieur, there’s something
wrong. One of these men is fair and the other dark, one stout and the other slim, one
strong and the other weak. One has a moustache and no beard, so you can’t see his
mouth; the other has a beard and no moustache, so you can’t see his chin. One has hair
cropped to his skull, but a scarf to hide his neck; the other has low shirt-collars, but long
hair to hide his skull. It’s all too neat and correct, Monsieur, and there’s something
wrong. Things made so opposite are things that cannot quarrel. Wherever the one sticks
out the other sinks in. Like a face and a mask, like a lock and a key . . .”
Flambeau was peering into the house with a visage as white as a sheet. The occupant of
the room was standing with his back to him, but in front of a looking-glass, and had
already fitted round his face a sort of framework of rank red hair, hanging disordered
from the head and clinging round the jaws and chin while leaving the mocking mouth
uncovered. Seen thus in the glass the white face looked like the face of Judas laughing
horribly and surrounded by capering flames of hell. For a spasm Flambeau saw the
fierce, red-brown eyes dancing, then they were covered with a pair of blue spectacles.
Slipping on a loose black coat, the figure vanished towards the front of the house. A few
moments later a roar of popular applause from the street beyond announced that Dr
Hirsch had once more appeared upon the balcony.
The Man in the Passage
TWO men appeared simultaneously at the two ends of a sort of passage running along
the side of the Apollo Theatre in the Adelphi. The evening daylight in the streets was
large and luminous, opalescent and empty. The passage was comparatively long and
dark, so each man could see the other as a mere black silhouette at the other end.
Nevertheless, each man knew the other, even in that inky outline; for they were both
men of striking appearance and they hated each other.
The covered passage opened at one end on one of the steep streets of the Adelphi, and at
the other on a terrace overlooking the sunset-coloured river. One side of the passage
was a blank wall, for the building it supported was an old unsuccessful theatre
restaurant, now shut up. The other side of the passage contained two doors, one at each
end. Neither was what was commonly called the stage door; they were a sort of special
and private stage doors used by very special performers, and in this case by the star
actor and actress in the Shakespearean performance of the day. Persons of that eminence
often like to have such private exits and entrances, for meeting friends or avoiding them.
The two men in question were certainly two such friends, men who evidently knew the
doors and counted on their opening, for each approached the door at the upper end with
equal coolness and confidence. Not, however, with equal speed; but the man who
walked fast was the man from the other end of the tunnel, so they both arrived before
the secret stage door almost at the same instant. They saluted each other with civility,
and waited a moment before one of them, the sharper walker who seemed to have the
shorter patience, knocked at the door.
In this and everything else each man was opposite and neither could be called inferior.
As private persons both were handsome, capable and popular. As public persons, both
were in the first public rank. But everything about them, from their glory to their good
looks, was of a diverse and incomparable kind. Sir Wilson Seymour was the kind of
man whose importance is known to everybody who knows. The more you mixed with
the innermost ring in every polity or profession, the more often you met Sir Wilson
Seymour. He was the one intelligent man on twenty unintelligent committees — on
every sort of subject, from the reform of the Royal Academy to the project of
bimetallism for Greater Britain. In the Arts especially he was omnipotent. He was so
unique that nobody could quite decide whether he was a great aristocrat who had taken
up Art, or a great artist whom the aristocrats had taken up. But you could not meet him
for five minutes without realizing that you had really been ruled by him all your life.
His appearance was “distinguished” in exactly the same sense; it was at once
conventional and unique. Fashion could have found no fault with his high silk hat — yet
it was unlike anyone else’s hat — a little higher, perhaps, and adding something to his
natural height. His tall, slender figure had a slight stoop yet it looked the reverse of
feeble. His hair was silver-grey, but he did not look old; it was worn longer than the
common yet he did not look effeminate; it was curly but it did not look curled. His
carefully pointed beard made him look more manly and militant than otherwise, as it
does in those old admirals of Velazquez with whose dark portraits his house was hung.
His grey gloves were a shade bluer, his silver-knobbed cane a shade longer than scores
of such gloves and canes flapped and flourished about the theatres and the restaurants.
The other man was not so tall, yet would have struck nobody as short, but merely as
strong and handsome. His hair also was curly, but fair and cropped close to a strong,
massive head — the sort of head you break a door with, as Chaucer said of the Miller’s.
His military moustache and the carriage of his shoulders showed him a soldier, but he
had a pair of those peculiar frank and piercing blue eyes which are more common in
sailors. His face was somewhat square, his jaw was square, his shoulders were square,
even his jacket was square. Indeed, in the wild school of caricature then current, Mr
Max Beerbohm had represented him as a proposition in the fourth book of Euclid.
For he also was a public man, though with quite another sort of success. You did not
have to be in the best society to have heard of Captain Cutler, of the siege of HongKong, and the great march across China. You could not get away from hearing of him
wherever you were; his portrait was on every other postcard; his maps and battles in
every other illustrated paper; songs in his honour in every other music-hall turn or on
every other barrel-organ. His fame, though probably more temporary, was ten times
more wide, popular and spontaneous than the other man’s. In thousands of English
homes he appeared enormous above England, like Nelson. Yet he had infinitely less
power in England than Sir Wilson Seymour.
The door was opened to them by an aged servant or “dresser”, whose broken-down face
and figure and black shabby coat and trousers contrasted queerly with the glittering
interior of the great actress’s dressing-room. It was fitted and filled with looking-glasses
at every angle of refraction, so that they looked like the hundred facets of one huge
diamond — if one could get inside a diamond. The other features of luxury, a few
flowers, a few coloured cushions, a few scraps of stage costume, were multiplied by all
the mirrors into the madness of the Arabian Nights, and danced and changed places
perpetually as the shuffling attendant shifted a mirror outwards or shot one back against
the wall.
They both spoke to the dingy dresser by name, calling him Parkinson, and asking for the
lady as Miss Aurora Rome. Parkinson said she was in the other room, but he would go
and tell her. A shade crossed the brow of both visitors; for the other room was the
private room of the great actor with whom Miss Aurora was performing, and she was of
the kind that does not inflame admiration without inflaming jealousy. In about half a
minute, however, the inner door opened, and she entered as she always did, even in
private life, so that the very silence seemed to be a roar of applause, and one welldeserved. She was clad in a somewhat strange garb of peacock green and peacock blue
satins, that gleamed like blue and green metals, such as delight children and aesthetes,
and her heavy, hot brown hair framed one of those magic faces which are dangerous to
all men, but especially to boys and to men growing grey. In company with her male
colleague, the great American actor, Isidore Bruno, she was producing a particularly
poetical and fantastic interpretation of Midsummer Night’s Dream: in which the artistic
prominence was given to Oberon and Titania, or in other words to Bruno and herself.
Set in dreamy and exquisite scenery, and moving in mystical dances, the green costume,
like burnished beetle-wings, expressed all the elusive individuality of an elfin queen.
But when personally confronted in what was still broad daylight, a man looked only at
the woman’s face.
She greeted both men with the beaming and baffling smile which kept so many males at
the same just dangerous distance from her. She accepted some flowers from Cutler,
which were as tropical and expensive as his victories; and another sort of present from
Sir Wilson Seymour, offered later on and more nonchalantly by that gentleman. For it
was against his breeding to show eagerness, and against his conventional
unconventionality to give anything so obvious as flowers. He had picked up a trifle, he
said, which was rather a curiosity, it was an ancient Greek dagger of the Mycenaean
Epoch, and might well have been worn in the time of Theseus and Hippolyta. It was
made of brass like all the Heroic weapons, but, oddly enough, sharp enough to prick
anyone still. He had really been attracted to it by the leaf-like shape; it was as perfect as
a Greek vase. If it was of any interest to Miss Rome or could come in anywhere in the
play, he hoped she would —
The inner door burst open and a big figure appeared, who was more of a contrast to the
explanatory Seymour than even Captain Cutler. Nearly six-foot-six, and of more than
theatrical thews and muscles, Isidore Bruno, in the gorgeous leopard skin and goldenbrown garments of Oberon, looked like a barbaric god. He leaned on a sort of huntingspear, which across a theatre looked a slight, silvery wand, but which in the small and
comparatively crowded room looked as plain as a pike-staff — and as menacing. His
vivid black eyes rolled volcanically, his bronzed face, handsome as it was, showed at
that moment a combination of high cheekbones with set white teeth, which recalled
certain American conjectures about his origin in the Southern plantations.
“Aurora,” he began, in that deep voice like a drum of passion that had moved so many
audiences, “will you — ”
He stopped indecisively because a sixth figure had suddenly presented itself just inside
the doorway — a figure so incongruous in the scene as to be almost comic. It was a very
short man in the black uniform of the Roman secular clergy, and looking (especially in
such a presence as Bruno’s and Aurora’s) rather like the wooden Noah out of an ark. He
did not, however, seem conscious of any contrast, but said with dull civility: “I believe
Miss Rome sent for me.”
A shrewd observer might have remarked that the emotional temperature rather rose at so
unemotional an interruption. The detachment of a professional celibate seemed to reveal
to the others that they stood round the woman as a ring of amorous rivals; just as a
stranger coming in with frost on his coat will reveal that a room is like a furnace. The
presence of the one man who did not care about her increased Miss Rome’s sense that
everybody else was in love with her, and each in a somewhat dangerous way: the actor
with all the appetite of a savage and a spoilt child; the soldier with all the simple
selfishness of a man of will rather than mind; Sir Wilson with that daily hardening
concentration with which old Hedonists take to a hobby; nay, even the abject Parkinson,
who had known her before her triumphs, and who followed her about the room with
eyes or feet, with the dumb fascination of a dog.
A shrewd person might also have noted a yet odder thing. The man like a black wooden
Noah (who was not wholly without shrewdness) noted it with a considerable but
contained amusement. It was evident that the great Aurora, though by no means
indifferent to the admiration of the other sex, wanted at this moment to get rid of all the
men who admired her and be left alone with the man who did not — did not admire her
in that sense at least; for the little priest did admire and even enjoy the firm feminine
diplomacy with which she set about her task. There was, perhaps, only one thing that
Aurora Rome was clever about, and that was one half of humanity — the other half. The
little priest watched, like a Napoleonic campaign, the swift precision of her policy for
expelling all while banishing none. Bruno, the big actor, was so babyish that it was easy
to send him off in brute sulks, banging the door. Cutler, the British officer, was
pachydermatous to ideas, but punctilious about behaviour. He would ignore all hints,
but he would die rather than ignore a definite commission from a lady. As to old
Seymour, he had to be treated differently; he had to be left to the last. The only way to
move him was to appeal to him in confidence as an old friend, to let him into the secret
of the clearance. The priest did really admire Miss Rome as she achieved all these three
objects in one selected action.
She went across to Captain Cutler and said in her sweetest manner: “I shall value all
these flowers, because they must be your favourite flowers. But they won’t be complete,
you know, without my favourite flower. Do go over to that shop round the corner and
get me some lilies-of-the-valley, and then it will be quite lovely.”
The first object of her diplomacy, the exit of the enraged Bruno, was at once achieved.
He had already handed his spear in a lordly style, like a sceptre, to the piteous
Parkinson, and was about to assume one of the cushioned seats like a throne. But at this
open appeal to his rival there glowed in his opal eyeballs all the sensitive insolence of
the slave; he knotted his enormous brown fists for an instant, and then, dashing open the
door, disappeared into his own apartments beyond. But meanwhile Miss Rome’s
experiment in mobilizing the British Army had not succeeded so simply as seemed
probable. Cutler had indeed risen stiffly and suddenly, and walked towards the door,
hatless, as if at a word of command. But perhaps there was something ostentatiously
elegant about the languid figure of Seymour leaning against one of the looking-glasses
that brought him up short at the entrance, turning his head this way and that like a
bewildered bulldog.
“I must show this stupid man where to go,” said Aurora in a whisper to Seymour, and
ran out to the threshold to speed the parting guest.
Seymour seemed to be listening, elegant and unconscious as was his posture, and he
seemed relieved when he heard the lady call out some last instructions to the Captain,
and then turn sharply and run laughing down the passage towards the other end, the end
on the terrace above the Thames. Yet a second or two after Seymour’s brow darkened
again. A man in his position has so many rivals, and he remembered that at the other
end of the passage was the corresponding entrance to Bruno’s private room. He did not
lose his dignity; he said some civil words to Father Brown about the revival of
Byzantine architecture in the Westminster Cathedral, and then, quite naturally, strolled
out himself into the upper end of the passage. Father Brown and Parkinson were left
alone, and they were neither of them men with a taste for superfluous conversation. The
dresser went round the room, pulling out looking-glasses and pushing them in again, his
dingy dark coat and trousers looking all the more dismal since he was still holding the
festive fairy spear of King Oberon. Every time he pulled out the frame of a new glass, a
new black figure of Father Brown appeared; the absurd glass chamber was full of Father
Browns, upside down in the air like angels, turning somersaults like acrobats, turning
their backs to everybody like very rude persons.
Father Brown seemed quite unconscious of this cloud of witnesses, but followed
Parkinson with an idly attentive eye till he took himself and his absurd spear into the
farther room of Bruno. Then he abandoned himself to such abstract meditations as
always amused him — calculating the angles of the mirrors, the angles of each
refraction, the angle at which each must fit into the wall . . . when he heard a strong but
strangled cry.
He sprang to his feet and stood rigidly listening. At the same instant Sir Wilson
Seymour burst back into the room, white as ivory. “Who’s that man in the passage?” he
cried. “Where’s that dagger of mine?”
Before Father Brown could turn in his heavy boots Seymour was plunging about the
room looking for the weapon. And before he could possibly find that weapon or any
other, a brisk running of feet broke upon the pavement outside, and the square face of
Cutler was thrust into the same doorway. He was still grotesquely grasping a bunch of
lilies-of-the-valley. “What’s this?” he cried. “What’s that creature down the passage? Is
this some of your tricks?”
“My tricks!” hissed his pale rival, and made a stride towards him.
In the instant of time in which all this happened Father Brown stepped out into the top
of the passage, looked down it, and at once walked briskly towards what he saw.
At this the other two men dropped their quarrel and darted after him, Cutler calling out:
“What are you doing? Who are you?”
“My name is Brown,” said the priest sadly, as he bent over something and straightened
himself again. “Miss Rome sent for me, and I came as quickly as I could. I have come
too late.”
The three men looked down, and in one of them at least the life died in that late light of
afternoon. It ran along the passage like a path of gold, and in the midst of it Aurora
Rome lay lustrous in her robes of green and gold, with her dead face turned upwards.
Her dress was torn away as in a struggle, leaving the right shoulder bare, but the wound
from which the blood was welling was on the other side. The brass dagger lay flat and
gleaming a yard or so away.
There was a blank stillness for a measurable time, so that they could hear far off a
flower-girl’s laugh outside Charing Cross, and someone whistling furiously for a
taxicab in one of the streets off the Strand. Then the Captain, with a movement so
sudden that it might have been passion or play-acting, took Sir Wilson Seymour by the
throat.
Seymour looked at him steadily without either fight or fear. “You need not kill me,” he
said in a voice quite cold; “I shall do that on my own account.”
The Captain’s hand hesitated and dropped; and the other added with the same icy
candour: “If I find I haven’t the nerve to do it with that dagger I can do it in a month
with drink.”
“Drink isn’t good enough for me,” replied Cutler, “but I’ll have blood for this before I
die. Not yours — but I think I know whose.”
And before the others could appreciate his intention he snatched up the dagger, sprang
at the other door at the lower end of the passage, burst it open, bolt and all, and
confronted Bruno in his dressing-room. As he did so, old Parkinson tottered in his
wavering way out of the door and caught sight of the corpse lying in the passage. He
moved shakily towards it; looked at it weakly with a working face; then moved shakily
back into the dressing-room again, and sat down suddenly on one of the richly
cushioned chairs. Father Brown instantly ran across to him, taking no notice of Cutler
and the colossal actor, though the room already rang with their blows and they began to
struggle for the dagger. Seymour, who retained some practical sense, was whistling for
the police at the end of the passage.
When the police arrived it was to tear the two men from an almost ape-like grapple;
and, after a few formal inquiries, to arrest Isidore Bruno upon a charge of murder,
brought against him by his furious opponent. The idea that the great national hero of the
hour had arrested a wrongdoer with his own hand doubtless had its weight with the
police, who are not without elements of the journalist. They treated Cutler with a certain
solemn attention, and pointed out that he had got a slight slash on the hand. Even as
Cutler bore him back across tilted chair and table, Bruno had twisted the dagger out of
his grasp and disabled him just below the wrist. The injury was really slight, but till he
was removed from the room the half-savage prisoner stared at the running blood with a
steady smile.
“Looks a cannibal sort of chap, don’t he?” said the constable confidentially to Cutler.
Cutler made no answer, but said sharply a moment after: “We must attend to the . . . the
death . . .” and his voice escaped from articulation.
“The two deaths,” came in the voice of the priest from the farther side of the room.
“This poor fellow was gone when I got across to him.” And he stood looking down at
old Parkinson, who sat in a black huddle on the gorgeous chair. He also had paid his
tribute, not without eloquence, to the woman who had died.
The silence was first broken by Cutler, who seemed not untouched by a rough
tenderness. “I wish I was him,” he said huskily. “I remember he used to watch her
wherever she walked more than — anybody. She was his air, and he’s dried up. He’s
just dead.”
“We are all dead,” said Seymour in a strange voice, looking down the road.
They took leave of Father Brown at the corner of the road, with some random apologies
for any rudeness they might have shown. Both their faces were tragic, but also cryptic.
The mind of the little priest was always a rabbit-warren of wild thoughts that jumped
too quickly for him to catch them. Like the white tail of a rabbit he had the vanishing
thought that he was certain of their grief, but not so certain of their innocence.
“We had better all be going,” said Seymour heavily; “we have done all we can to help.”
“Will you understand my motives,” asked Father Brown quietly, “if I say you have done
all you can to hurt?”
They both started as if guiltily, and Cutler said sharply: “To hurt whom?”
“To hurt yourselves,” answered the priest. “I would not add to your troubles if it weren’t
common justice to warn you. You’ve done nearly everything you could do to hang
yourselves, if this actor should be acquitted. They’ll be sure to subpoena me; I shall be
bound to say that after the cry was heard each of you rushed into the room in a wild
state and began quarrelling about a dagger. As far as my words on oath can go, you
might either of you have done it. You hurt yourselves with that; and then Captain Cutler
must have hurt himself with the dagger.”
“Hurt myself!” exclaimed the Captain, with contempt. “A silly little scratch.”
“Which drew blood,” replied the priest, nodding. “We know there’s blood on the brass
now. And so we shall never know whether there was blood on it before.”
There was a silence; and then Seymour said, with an emphasis quite alien to his daily
accent: “But I saw a man in the passage.”
“I know you did,” answered the cleric Brown with a face of wood, “so did Captain
Cutler. That’s what seems so improbable.”
Before either could make sufficient sense of it even to answer, Father Brown had
politely excused himself and gone stumping up the road with his stumpy old umbrella.
As modern newspapers are conducted, the most honest and most important news is the
police news. If it be true that in the twentieth century more space is given to murder
than to politics, it is for the excellent reason that murder is a more serious subject. But
even this would hardly explain the enormous omnipresence and widely distributed
detail of “The Bruno Case,” or “The Passage Mystery,” in the Press of London and the
provinces. So vast was the excitement that for some weeks the Press really told the
truth; and the reports of examination and cross-examination, if interminable, even if
intolerable are at least reliable. The true reason, of course, was the coincidence of
persons. The victim was a popular actress; the accused was a popular actor; and the
accused had been caught red-handed, as it were, by the most popular soldier of the
patriotic season. In those extraordinary circumstances the Press was paralysed into
probity and accuracy; and the rest of this somewhat singular business can practically be
recorded from reports of Bruno’s trial.
The trial was presided over by Mr Justice Monkhouse, one of those who are jeered at as
humorous judges, but who are generally much more serious than the serious judges, for
their levity comes from a living impatience of professional solemnity; while the serious
judge is really filled with frivolity, because he is filled with vanity. All the chief actors
being of a worldly importance, the barristers were well balanced; the prosecutor for the
Crown was Sir Walter Cowdray, a heavy, but weighty advocate of the sort that knows
how to seem English and trustworthy, and how to be rhetorical with reluctance. The
prisoner was defended by Mr Patrick Butler, K.C., who was mistaken for a mere flaneur
by those who misunderstood the Irish character — and those who had not been
examined by him. The medical evidence involved no contradictions, the doctor, whom
Seymour had summoned on the spot, agreeing with the eminent surgeon who had later
examined the body. Aurora Rome had been stabbed with some sharp instrument such as
a knife or dagger; some instrument, at least, of which the blade was short. The wound
was just over the heart, and she had died instantly. When the doctor first saw her she
could hardly have been dead for twenty minutes. Therefore when Father Brown found
her she could hardly have been dead for three.
Some official detective evidence followed, chiefly concerned with the presence or
absence of any proof of a struggle; the only suggestion of this was the tearing of the
dress at the shoulder, and this did not seem to fit in particularly well with the direction
and finality of the blow. When these details had been supplied, though not explained,
the first of the important witnesses was called.
Sir Wilson Seymour gave evidence as he did everything else that he did at all — not
only well, but perfectly. Though himself much more of a public man than the judge, he
conveyed exactly the fine shade of self-effacement before the King’s justice; and though
everyone looked at him as they would at the Prime Minister or the Archbishop of
Canterbury, they could have said nothing of his part in it but that it was that of a private
gentleman, with an accent on the noun. He was also refreshingly lucid, as he was on the
committees. He had been calling on Miss Rome at the theatre; he had met Captain
Cutler there; they had been joined for a short time by the accused, who had then
returned to his own dressing-room; they had then been joined by a Roman Catholic
priest, who asked for the deceased lady and said his name was Brown. Miss Rome had
then gone just outside the theatre to the entrance of the passage, in order to point out to
Captain Cutler a flower-shop at which he was to buy her some more flowers; and the
witness had remained in the room, exchanging a few words with the priest. He had then
distinctly heard the deceased, having sent the Captain on his errand, turn round laughing
and run down the passage towards its other end, where was the prisoner’s dressingroom. In idle curiosity as to the rapid movement of his friends, he had strolled out to the
head of the passage himself and looked down it towards the prisoner’s door. Did he see
anything in the passage? Yes; he saw something in the passage.
Sir Walter Cowdray allowed an impressive interval, during which the witness looked
down, and for all his usual composure seemed to have more than his usual pallor. Then
the barrister said in a lower voice, which seemed at once sympathetic and creepy: “Did
you see it distinctly?”
Sir Wilson Seymour, however moved, had his excellent brains in full working-order.
“Very distinctly as regards its outline, but quite indistinctly, indeed not at all, as regards
the details inside the outline. The passage is of such length that anyone in the middle of
it appears quite black against the light at the other end.” The witness lowered his steady
eyes once more and added: “I had noticed the fact before, when Captain Cutler first
entered it.” There was another silence, and the judge leaned forward and made a note.
“Well,” said Sir Walter patiently, “what was the outline like? Was it, for instance, like
the figure of the murdered woman?”
“Not in the least,” answered Seymour quietly.
“What did it look like to you?”
“It looked to me,” replied the witness, “like a tall man.”
Everyone in court kept his eyes riveted on his pen, or his umbrella-handle, or his book,
or his boots or whatever he happened to be looking at. They seemed to be holding their
eyes away from the prisoner by main force; but they felt his figure in the dock, and they
felt it as gigantic. Tall as Bruno was to the eye, he seemed to swell taller and taller when
all eyes had been torn away from him.
Cowdray was resuming his seat with his solemn face, smoothing his black silk robes,
and white silk whiskers. Sir Wilson was leaving the witness-box, after a few final
particulars to which there were many other witnesses, when the counsel for the defence
sprang up and stopped him.
“I shall only detain you a moment,” said Mr Butler, who was a rustic-looking person
with red eyebrows and an expression of partial slumber. “Will you tell his lordship how
you knew it was a man?”
A faint, refined smile seemed to pass over Seymour’s features. “I’m afraid it is the
vulgar test of trousers,” he said. “When I saw daylight between the long legs I was sure
it was a man, after all.”
Butler’s sleepy eyes opened as suddenly as some silent explosion. “After all!” he
repeated slowly. “So you did think at first it was a woman?”
Seymour looked troubled for the first time. “It is hardly a point of fact,” he said, “but if
his lordship would like me to answer for my impression, of course I shall do so. There
was something about the thing that was not exactly a woman and yet was not quite a
man; somehow the curves were different. And it had something that looked like long
hair.”
“Thank you,” said Mr Butler, K.C., and sat down suddenly, as if he had got what he
wanted.
Captain Cutler was a far less plausible and composed witness than Sir Wilson, but his
account of the opening incidents was solidly the same. He described the return of Bruno
to his dressing-room, the dispatching of himself to buy a bunch of lilies-of-the-valley,
his return to the upper end of the passage, the thing he saw in the passage, his suspicion
of Seymour, and his struggle with Bruno. But he could give little artistic assistance
about the black figure that he and Seymour had seen. Asked about its outline, he said he
was no art critic — with a somewhat too obvious sneer at Seymour. Asked if it was a
man or a woman, he said it looked more like a beast — with a too obvious snarl at the
prisoner. But the man was plainly shaken with sorrow and sincere anger, and Cowdray
quickly excused him from confirming facts that were already fairly clear.
The defending counsel also was again brief in his cross-examination; although (as was
his custom) even in being brief, he seemed to take a long time about it. “You used a
rather remarkable expression,” he said, looking at Cutler sleepily. “What do you mean
by saying that it looked more like a beast than a man or a woman?”
Cutler seemed seriously agitated. “Perhaps I oughtn’t to have said that,” he said; “but
when the brute has huge humped shoulders like a chimpanzee, and bristles sticking out
of its head like a pig — ”
Mr Butler cut short his curious impatience in the middle. “Never mind whether its hair
was like a pig’s,” he said, “was it like a woman’s?”
“A woman’s!” cried the soldier. “Great Scott, no!”
“The last witness said it was,” commented the counsel, with unscrupulous swiftness.
“And did the figure have any of those serpentine and semi-feminine curves to which
eloquent allusion has been made? No? No feminine curves? The figure, if I understand
you, was rather heavy and square than otherwise?”
“He may have been bending forward,” said Cutler, in a hoarse and rather faint voice.
“Or again, he may not,” said Mr Butler, and sat down suddenly for the second time.
The third, witness called by Sir Walter Cowdray was the little Catholic clergyman, so
little, compared with the others, that his head seemed hardly to come above the box, so
that it was like cross-examining a child. But unfortunately Sir Walter had somehow got
it into his head (mostly by some ramifications of his family’s religion) that Father
Brown was on the side of the prisoner, because the prisoner was wicked and foreign and
even partly black. Therefore he took Father Brown up sharply whenever that proud
pontiff tried to explain anything; and told him to answer yes or no, and tell the plain
facts without any jesuitry. When Father Brown began, in his simplicity, to say who he
thought the man in the passage was, the barrister told him that he did not want his
theories.
“A black shape was seen in the passage. And you say you saw the black shape. Well,
what shape was it?”
Father Brown blinked as under rebuke; but he had long known the literal nature of
obedience. “The shape,” he said, “was short and thick, but had two sharp, black
projections curved upwards on each side of the head or top, rather like horns, and — ”
“Oh! the devil with horns, no doubt,” ejaculated Cowdray, sitting down in triumphant
jocularity. “It was the devil come to eat Protestants.”
“No,” said the priest dispassionately; “I know who it was.”
Those in court had been wrought up to an irrational, but real sense of some monstrosity.
They had forgotten the figure in the dock and thought only of the figure in the passage.
And the figure in the passage, described by three capable and respectable men who had
all seen it, was a shifting nightmare: one called it a woman, and the other a beast, and
the other a devil . . .
The judge was looking at Father Brown with level and piercing eyes. “You are a most
extraordinary witness,” he said; “but there is something about you that makes me think
you are trying to tell the truth. Well, who was the man you saw in the passage?”
“He was myself,” said Father Brown.
Butler, K.C., sprang to his feet in an extraordinary stillness, and said quite calmly:
“Your lordship will allow me to cross-examine?” And then, without stopping, he shot at
Brown the apparently disconnected question: “You have heard about this dagger; you
know the experts say the crime was committed with a short blade?”
“A short blade,” assented Brown, nodding solemnly like an owl, “but a very long hilt.”
Before the audience could quite dismiss the idea that the priest had really seen himself
doing murder with a short dagger with a long hilt (which seemed somehow to make it
more horrible), he had himself hurried on to explain.
“I mean daggers aren’t the only things with short blades. Spears have short blades. And
spears catch at the end of the steel just like daggers, if they’re that sort of fancy spear
they had in theatres; like the spear poor old Parkinson killed his wife with, just when
she’d sent for me to settle their family troubles — and I came just too late, God forgive
me! But he died penitent — he just died of being penitent. He couldn’t bear what he’d
done.”
The general impression in court was that the little priest, who was gobbling away, had
literally gone mad in the box. But the judge still looked at him with bright and steady
eyes of interest; and the counsel for the defence went on with his questions unperturbed.
“If Parkinson did it with that pantomime spear,” said Butler, “he must have thrust from
four yards away. How do you account for signs of struggle, like the dress dragged off
the shoulder?” He had slipped into treating his mere witness as an expert; but no one
noticed it now.
“The poor lady’s dress was torn,” said the witness, “because it was caught in a panel
that slid to just behind her. She struggled to free herself, and as she did so Parkinson
came out of the prisoner’s room and lunged with the spear.”
“A panel?” repeated the barrister in a curious voice.
“It was a looking-glass on the other side,” explained Father Brown. “When I was in the
dressing-room I noticed that some of them could probably be slid out into the passage.”
There was another vast and unnatural silence, and this time it was the judge who spoke.
“So you really mean that when you looked down that passage, the man you saw was
yourself — in a mirror?”
“Yes, my lord; that was what I was trying to say,” said Brown, “but they asked me for
the shape; and our hats have corners just like horns, and so I — ”
The judge leaned forward, his old eyes yet more brilliant, and said in specially distinct
tones: “Do you really mean to say that when Sir Wilson Seymour saw that wild whatyou-call-him with curves and a woman’s hair and a man’s trousers, what he saw was Sir
Wilson Seymour?”
“Yes, my lord,” said Father Brown.
“And you mean to say that when Captain Cutler saw that chimpanzee with humped
shoulders and hog’s bristles, he simply saw himself?”
“Yes, my lord.”
The judge leaned back in his chair with a luxuriance in which it was hard to separate the
cynicism and the admiration. “And can you tell us why,” he asked, “you should know
your own figure in a looking-glass, when two such distinguished men don’t?”
Father Brown blinked even more painfully than before; then he stammered: “Really, my
lord, I don’t know unless it’s because I don’t look at it so often.”
The Mistake of the Machine
FLAMBEAU and his friend the priest were sitting in the Temple Gardens about sunset;
and their neighbourhood or some such accidental influence had turned their talk to
matters of legal process. From the problem of the licence in cross-examination, their
talk strayed to Roman and mediaeval torture, to the examining magistrate in France and
the Third Degree in America.
“I’ve been reading,” said Flambeau, “of this new psychometric method they talk about
so much, especially in America. You know what I mean; they put a pulsometer on a
man’s wrist and judge by how his heart goes at the pronunciation of certain words.
What do you think of it?”
“I think it very interesting,” replied Father Brown; “it reminds me of that interesting
idea in the Dark Ages that blood would flow from a corpse if the murderer touched it.”
“Do you really mean,” demanded his friend, “that you think the two methods equally
valuable?”
“I think them equally valueless,” replied Brown. “Blood flows, fast or slow, in dead
folk or living, for so many more million reasons than we can ever know. Blood will
have to flow very funnily; blood will have to flow up the Matterhorn, before I will take
it as a sign that I am to shed it.”
“The method,” remarked the other, “has been guaranteed by some of the greatest
American men of science.”
“What sentimentalists men of science are!” exclaimed Father Brown, “and how much
more sentimental must American men of science be! Who but a Yankee would think of
proving anything from heart-throbs? Why, they must be as sentimental as a man who
thinks a woman is in love with him if she blushes. That’s a test from the circulation of
the blood, discovered by the immortal Harvey; and a jolly rotten test, too.”
“But surely,” insisted Flambeau, “it might point pretty straight at something or other.”
“There’s a disadvantage in a stick pointing straight,” answered the other. “What is it?
Why, the other end of the stick always points the opposite way. It depends whether you
get hold of the stick by the right end. I saw the thing done once and I’ve never believed
in it since.” And he proceeded to tell the story of his disillusionment.
It happened nearly twenty years before, when he was chaplain to his co-religionists in a
prison in Chicago — where the Irish population displayed a capacity both for crime and
penitence which kept him tolerably busy. The official second-in-command under the
Governor was an ex-detective named Greywood Usher, a cadaverous, careful-spoken
Yankee philosopher, occasionally varying a very rigid visage with an odd apologetic
grimace. He liked Father Brown in a slightly patronizing way; and Father Brown liked
him, though he heartily disliked his theories. His theories were extremely complicated
and were held with extreme simplicity.
One evening he had sent for the priest, who, according to his custom, took a seat in
silence at a table piled and littered with papers, and waited. The official selected from
the papers a scrap of newspaper cutting, which he handed across to the cleric, who read
it gravely. It appeared to be an extract from one of the pinkest of American Society
papers, and ran as follows:
“Society’s brightest widower is once more on the Freak Dinner stunt. All our exclusive
citizens will recall the Perambulator Parade Dinner, in which Last-Trick Todd, at his
palatial home at Pilgrim’s Pond, caused so many of our prominent debutantes to look
even younger than their years. Equally elegant and more miscellaneous and largehearted in social outlook was Last-Trick’s show the year previous, the popular Cannibal
Crush Lunch, at which the confections handed round were sarcastically moulded in the
forms of human arms and legs, and during which more than one of our gayest mental
gymnasts was heard offering to eat his partner. The witticism which will inspire this
evening is as yet in Mr Todd’s pretty reticent intellect, or locked in the jewelled bosoms
of our city’s gayest leaders; but there is talk of a pretty parody of the simple manners
and customs at the other end of Society’s scale. This would be all the more telling, as
hospitable Todd is entertaining in Lord Falconroy, the famous traveller, a true-blooded
aristocrat fresh from England’s oak-groves. Lord Falconroy’s travels began before his
ancient feudal title was resurrected, he was in the Republic in his youth, and fashion
murmurs a sly reason for his return. Miss Etta Todd is one of our deep-souled New
Yorkers, and comes into an income of nearly twelve hundred million dollars.”
“Well,” asked Usher, “does that interest you?”
“Why, words rather fail me,” answered Father Brown. “I cannot think at this moment of
anything in this world that would interest me less. And, unless the just anger of the
Republic is at last going to electrocute journalists for writing like that, I don’t quite see
why it should interest you either.”
“Ah!” said Mr Usher dryly, and handing across another scrap of newspaper. “Well, does
that interest you?”
The paragraph was headed “Savage Murder of a Warder. Convict Escapes,” and ran:
“Just before dawn this morning a shout for help was heard in the Convict Settlement at
Sequah in this State. The authorities, hurrying in the direction of the cry, found the
corpse of the warder who patrols the top of the north wall of the prison, the steepest and
most difficult exit, for which one man has always been found sufficient. The
unfortunate officer had, however, been hurled from the high wall, his brains beaten out
as with a club, and his gun was missing. Further inquiries showed that one of the cells
was empty; it had been occupied by a rather sullen ruffian giving his name as Oscar
Rian. He was only temporarily detained for some comparatively trivial assault; but he
gave everyone the impression of a man with a black past and a dangerous future.
Finally, when daylight had fully revealed the scene of murder, it was found that he had
written on the wall above the body a fragmentary sentence, apparently with a finger
dipped in blood: ‘This was self-defence and he had the gun. I meant no harm to him or
any man but one. I am keeping the bullet for Pilgrim’s Pond — O.R.’ A man must have
used most fiendish treachery or most savage and amazing bodily daring to have stormed
such a wall in spite of an armed man.”
“Well, the literary style is somewhat improved,” admitted the priest cheerfully, “but still
I don’t see what I can do for you. I should cut a poor figure, with my short legs, running
about this State after an athletic assassin of that sort. I doubt whether anybody could
find him. The convict settlement at Sequah is thirty miles from here; the country
between is wild and tangled enough, and the country beyond, where he will surely have
the sense to go, is a perfect no-man’s land tumbling away to the prairies. He may be in
any hole or up any tree.”
“He isn’t in any hole,” said the governor; “he isn’t up any tree.”
“Why, how do you know?” asked Father Brown, blinking.
“Would you like to speak to him?” inquired Usher.
Father Brown opened his innocent eyes wide. “He is here?” he exclaimed. “Why, how
did your men get hold of him?”
“I got hold of him myself,” drawled the American, rising and lazily stretching his lanky
legs before the fire. “I got hold of him with the crooked end of a walking-stick. Don’t
look so surprised. I really did. You know I sometimes take a turn in the country lanes
outside this dismal place; well, I was walking early this evening up a steep lane with
dark hedges and grey-looking ploughed fields on both sides; and a young moon was up
and silvering the road. By the light of it I saw a man running across the field towards the
road; running with his body bent and at a good mile-race trot. He appeared to be much
exhausted; but when he came to the thick black hedge he went through it as if it were
made of spiders’ webs; — or rather (for I heard the strong branches breaking and
snapping like bayonets) as if he himself were made of stone. In the instant in which he
appeared up against the moon, crossing the road, I slung my hooked cane at his legs,
tripping him and bringing him down. Then I blew my whistle long and loud, and our
fellows came running up to secure him.”
“It would have been rather awkward,” remarked Brown, “if you had found he was a
popular athlete practising a mile race.”
“He was not,” said Usher grimly. “We soon found out who he was; but I had guessed it
with the first glint of the moon on him.”
“You thought it was the runaway convict,” observed the priest simply, “because you
had read in the newspaper cutting that morning that a convict had run away.”
“I had somewhat better grounds,” replied the governor coolly. “I pass over the first as
too simple to be emphasized — I mean that fashionable athletes do not run across
ploughed fields or scratch their eyes out in bramble hedges. Nor do they run all doubled
up like a crouching dog. There were more decisive details to a fairly well-trained eye.
The man was clad in coarse and ragged clothes, but they were something more than
merely coarse and ragged. They were so ill-fitting as to be quite grotesque; even as he
appeared in black outline against the moonrise, the coat-collar in which his head was
buried made him look like a hunchback, and the long loose sleeves looked as if he had
no hands. It at once occurred to me that he had somehow managed to change his convict
clothes for some confederate’s clothes which did not fit him. Second, there was a pretty
stiff wind against which he was running; so that I must have seen the streaky look of
blowing hair, if the hair had not been very short. Then I remembered that beyond these
ploughed fields he was crossing lay Pilgrim’s Pond, for which (you will remember) the
convict was keeping his bullet; and I sent my walking-stick flying.”
“A brilliant piece of rapid deduction,” said Father Brown; “but had he got a gun?”
As Usher stopped abruptly in his walk the priest added apologetically: “I’ve been told a
bullet is not half so useful without it.”
“He had no gun,” said the other gravely; “but that was doubtless due to some very
natural mischance or change of plans. Probably the same policy that made him change
the clothes made him drop the gun; he began to repent the coat he had left behind him in
the blood of his victim.”
“Well, that is possible enough,” answered the priest.
“And it’s hardly worth speculating on,” said Usher, turning to some other papers, “for
we know it’s the man by this time.”
His clerical friend asked faintly: “But how?” And Greywood Usher threw down the
newspapers and took up the two press-cuttings again.
“Well, since you are so obstinate,” he said, “let’s begin at the beginning. You will
notice that these two cuttings have only one thing in common, which is the mention of
Pilgrim’s Pond, the estate, as you know, of the millionaire Ireton Todd. You also know
that he is a remarkable character; one of those that rose on stepping-stones — ”
“Of our dead selves to higher things,” assented his companion. “Yes; I know that.
Petroleum, I think.”
“Anyhow,” said Usher, “Last-Trick Todd counts for a great deal in this rum affair.”
He stretched himself once more before the fire and continued talking in his expansive,
radiantly explanatory style.
“To begin with, on the face of it, there is no mystery here at all. It is not mysterious, it is
not even odd, that a jailbird should take his gun to Pilgrim’s Pond. Our people aren’t
like the English, who will forgive a man for being rich if he throws away money on
hospitals or horses. Last-Trick Todd has made himself big by his own considerable
abilities; and there’s no doubt that many of those on whom he has shown his abilities
would like to show theirs on him with a shot-gun. Todd might easily get dropped by
some man he’d never even heard of; some labourer he’d locked out, or some clerk in a
business he’d busted. Last-Trick is a man of mental endowments and a high public
character; but in this country the relations of employers and employed are considerably
strained.
“That’s how the whole thing looks supposing this Rian made for Pilgrim’s Pond to kill
Todd. So it looked to me, till another little discovery woke up what I have of the
detective in me. When I had my prisoner safe, I picked up my cane again and strolled
down the two or three turns of country road that brought me to one of the side entrances
of Todd’s grounds, the one nearest to the pool or lake after which the place is named. It
was some two hours ago, about seven by this time; the moonlight was more luminous,
and I could see the long white streaks of it lying on the mysterious mere with its grey,
greasy, half-liquid shores in which they say our fathers used to make witches walk until
they sank. I’d forgotten the exact tale; but you know the place I mean; it lies north of
Todd’s house towards the wilderness, and has two queer wrinkled trees, so dismal that
they look more like huge fungoids than decent foliage. As I stood peering at this misty
pool, I fancied I saw the faint figure of a man moving from the house towards it, but it
was all too dim and distant for one to be certain of the fact, and still less of the details.
Besides, my attention was very sharply arrested by something much closer. I crouched
behind the fence which ran not more than two hundred yards from one wing of the great
mansion, and which was fortunately split in places, as if specially for the application of
a cautious eye. A door had opened in the dark bulk of the left wing, and a figure
appeared black against the illuminated interior — a muffled figure bending forward,
evidently peering out into the night. It closed the door behind it, and I saw it was
carrying a lantern, which threw a patch of imperfect light on the dress and figure of the
wearer. It seemed to be the figure of a woman, wrapped up in a ragged cloak and
evidently disguised to avoid notice; there was something very strange both about the
rags and the furtiveness in a person coming out of those rooms lined with gold. She took
cautiously the curved garden path which brought her within half a hundred yards of me
— then she stood up for an instant on the terrace of turf that looks towards the slimy
lake, and holding her flaming lantern above her head she deliberately swung it three
times to and fro as for a signal. As she swung it the second time a flicker of its light fell
for a moment on her own face, a face that I knew. She was unnaturally pale, and her
head was bundled in her borrowed plebeian shawl; but I am certain it was Etta Todd, the
millionaire’s daughter.
“She retraced her steps in equal secrecy and the door closed behind her again. I was
about to climb the fence and follow, when I realized that the detective fever that had
lured me into the adventure was rather undignified; and that in a more authoritative
capacity I already held all the cards in my hand. I was just turning away when a new
noise broke on the night. A window was thrown up in one of the upper floors, but just
round the corner of the house so that I could not see it; and a voice of terrible
distinctness was heard shouting across the dark garden to know where Lord Falconroy
was, for he was missing from every room in the house. There was no mistaking that
voice. I have heard it on many a political platform or meeting of directors; it was Ireton
Todd himself. Some of the others seemed to have gone to the lower windows or on to
the steps, and were calling up to him that Falconroy had gone for a stroll down to the
Pilgrim’s Pond an hour before, and could not be traced since. Then Todd cried ‘Mighty
Murder!’ and shut down the window violently; and I could hear him plunging down the
stairs inside. Repossessing myself of my former and wiser purpose, I whipped out of the
way of the general search that must follow; and returned here not later than eight
o’clock.
“I now ask you to recall that little Society paragraph which seemed to you so painfully
lacking in interest. If the convict was not keeping the shot for Todd, as he evidently
wasn’t, it is most likely that he was keeping it for Lord Falconroy; and it looks as if he
had delivered the goods. No more handy place to shoot a man than in the curious
geological surroundings of that pool, where a body thrown down would sink through
thick slime to a depth practically unknown. Let us suppose, then, that our friend with
the cropped hair came to kill Falconroy and not Todd. But, as I have pointed out, there
are many reasons why people in America might want to kill Todd. There is no reason
why anybody in America should want to kill an English lord newly landed, except for
the one reason mentioned in the pink paper — that the lord is paying his attentions to
the millionaire’s daughter. Our crop-haired friend, despite his ill-fitting clothes, must be
an aspiring lover.
“I know the notion will seem to you jarring and even comic; but that’s because you are
English. It sounds to you like saying the Archbishop of Canterbury’s daughter will be
married in St George’s, Hanover Square, to a crossing-sweeper on ticket-of-leave. You
don’t do justice to the climbing and aspiring power of our more remarkable citizens.
You see a good-looking grey-haired man in evening-dress with a sort of authority about
him, you know he is a pillar of the State, and you fancy he had a father. You are in
error. You do not realize that a comparatively few years ago he may have been in a
tenement or (quite likely) in a jail. You don’t allow for our national buoyancy and
uplift. Many of our most influential citizens have not only risen recently, but risen
comparatively late in life. Todd’s daughter was fully eighteen when her father first
made his pile; so there isn’t really anything impossible in her having a hanger-on in low
life; or even in her hanging on to him, as I think she must be doing, to judge by the
lantern business. If so, the hand that held the lantern may not be unconnected with the
hand that held the gun. This case, sir, will make a noise.”
“Well,” said the priest patiently, “and what did you do next?”
“I reckon you’ll be shocked,” replied Greywood Usher, “as I know you don’t cotton to
the march of science in these matters. I am given a good deal of discretion here, and
perhaps take a little more than I’m given; and I thought it was an excellent opportunity
to test that Psychometric Machine I told you about. Now, in my opinion, that machine
can’t lie.”
“No machine can lie,” said Father Brown; “nor can it tell the truth.”
“It did in this case, as I’ll show you,” went on Usher positively. “I sat the man in the illfitting clothes in a comfortable chair, and simply wrote words on a blackboard; and the
machine simply recorded the variations of his pulse; and I simply observed his manner.
The trick is to introduce some word connected with the supposed crime in a list of
words connected with something quite different, yet a list in which it occurs quite
naturally. Thus I wrote ‘heron’ and ‘eagle’ and ‘owl’, and when I wrote ‘falcon’ he was
tremendously agitated; and when I began to make an ‘r’ at the end of the word, that
machine just bounded. Who else in this republic has any reason to jump at the name of a
newly-arrived Englishman like Falconroy except the man who’s shot him? Isn’t that
better evidence than a lot of gabble from witnesses — if the evidence of a reliable
machine?”
“You always forget,” observed his companion, “that the reliable machine always has to
be worked by an unreliable machine.”
“Why, what do you mean?” asked the detective.
“I mean Man,” said Father Brown, “the most unreliable machine I know of. I don’t want
to be rude; and I don’t think you will consider Man to be an offensive or inaccurate
description of yourself. You say you observed his manner; but how do you know you
observed it right? You say the words have to come in a natural way; but how do you
know that you did it naturally? How do you know, if you come to that, that he did not
observe your manner? Who is to prove that you were not tremendously agitated? There
was no machine tied on to your pulse.”
“I tell you,” cried the American in the utmost excitement, “I was as cool as a
cucumber.”
“Criminals also can be as cool as cucumbers,” said Brown with a smile. “And almost as
cool as you.”
“Well, this one wasn’t,” said Usher, throwing the papers about. “Oh, you make me
tired!”
“I’m sorry,” said the other. “I only point out what seems a reasonable possibility. If you
could tell by his manner when the word that might hang him had come, why shouldn’t
he tell from your manner that the word that might hang him was coming? I should ask
for more than words myself before I hanged anybody.”
Usher smote the table and rose in a sort of angry triumph.
“And that,” he cried, “is just what I’m going to give you. I tried the machine first just in
order to test the thing in other ways afterwards and the machine, sir, is right.”
He paused a moment and resumed with less excitement. “I rather want to insist, if it
comes to that, that so far I had very little to go on except the scientific experiment.
There was really nothing against the man at all. His clothes were ill-fitting, as I’ve said,
but they were rather better, if anything, than those of the submerged class to which he
evidently belonged. Moreover, under all the stains of his plunging through ploughed
fields or bursting through dusty hedges, the man was comparatively clean. This might
mean, of course, that he had only just broken prison; but it reminded me more of the
desperate decency of the comparatively respectable poor. His demeanour was, I am
bound to confess, quite in accordance with theirs. He was silent and dignified as they
are; he seemed to have a big, but buried, grievance, as they do. He professed total
ignorance of the crime and the whole question; and showed nothing but a sullen
impatience for something sensible that might come to take him out of his meaningless
scrape. He asked me more than once if he could telephone for a lawyer who had helped
him a long time ago in a trade dispute, and in every sense acted as you would expect an
innocent man to act. There was nothing against him in the world except that little finger
on the dial that pointed to the change of his pulse.
“Then, sir, the machine was on its trial; and the machine was right. By the time I came
with him out of the private room into the vestibule where all sorts of other people were
awaiting examination, I think he had already more or less made up his mind to clear
things up by something like a confession. He turned to me and began to say in a low
voice: ‘Oh, I can’t stick this any more. If you must know all about me — ’
“At the same instant one of the poor women sitting on the long bench stood up,
screaming aloud and pointing at him with her finger. I have never in my life heard
anything more demoniacally distinct. Her lean finger seemed to pick him out as if it
were a pea-shooter. Though the word was a mere howl, every syllable was as clear as a
separate stroke on the clock.
“‘Drugger Davis!’ she shouted. ‘They’ve got Drugger Davis!’
“Among the wretched women, mostly thieves and streetwalkers, twenty faces were
turned, gaping with glee and hate. If I had never heard the words, I should have known
by the very shock upon his features that the so-called Oscar Rian had heard his real
name. But I’m not quite so ignorant, you may be surprised to hear. Drugger Davis was
one of the most terrible and depraved criminals that ever baffled our police. It is certain
he had done murder more than once long before his last exploit with the warder. But he
was never entirely fixed for it, curiously enough because he did it in the same manner as
those milder — or meaner — crimes for which he was fixed pretty often. He was a
handsome, well-bred-looking brute, as he still is, to some extent; and he used mostly to
go about with barmaids or shop-girls and do them out of their money. Very often,
though, he went a good deal farther; and they were found drugged with cigarettes or
chocolates and their whole property missing. Then came one case where the girl was
found dead; but deliberation could not quite be proved, and, what was more practical
still, the criminal could not be found. I heard a rumour of his having reappeared
somewhere in the opposite character this time, lending money instead of borrowing it;
but still to such poor widows as he might personally fascinate, but still with the same
bad result for them. Well, there is your innocent man, and there is his innocent record.
Even, since then, four criminals and three warders have identified him and confirmed
the story. Now what have you got to say to my poor little machine after that? Hasn’t the
machine done for him? Or do you prefer to say that the woman and I have done for
him?”
“As to what you’ve done for him,” replied Father Brown, rising and shaking himself in
a floppy way, “you’ve saved him from the electrical chair. I don’t think they can kill
Drugger Davis on that old vague story of the poison; and as for the convict who killed
the warder, I suppose it’s obvious that you haven’t got him. Mr Davis is innocent of that
crime, at any rate.”
“What do you mean?” demanded the other. “Why should he be innocent of that crime?”
“Why, bless us all!” cried the small man in one of his rare moments of animation, “why,
because he’s guilty of the other crimes! I don’t know what you people are made of. You
seem to think that all sins are kept together in a bag. You talk as if a miser on Monday
were always a spendthrift on Tuesday. You tell me this man you have here spent weeks
and months wheedling needy women out of small sums of money; that he used a drug at
the best, and a poison at the worst; that he turned up afterwards as the lowest kind of
moneylender, and cheated most poor people in the same patient and pacific style. Let it
be granted — let us admit, for the sake of argument, that he did all this. If that is so, I
will tell you what he didn’t do. He didn’t storm a spiked wall against a man with a
loaded gun. He didn’t write on the wall with his own hand, to say he had done it. He
didn’t stop to state that his justification was self-defence. He didn’t explain that he had
no quarrel with the poor warder. He didn’t name the house of the rich man to which he
was going with the gun. He didn’t write his own, initials in a man’s blood. Saints alive!
Can’t you see the whole character is different, in good and evil? Why, you don’t seem
to be like I am a bit. One would think you’d never had any vices of your own.”
The amazed American had already parted his lips in protest when the door of his private
and official room was hammered and rattled in an unceremonious way to which he was
totally unaccustomed.
The door flew open. The moment before Greywood Usher had been coming to the
conclusion that Father Brown might possibly be mad. The moment after he began to
think he was mad himself. There burst and fell into his private room a man in the
filthiest rags, with a greasy squash hat still askew on his head, and a shabby green shade
shoved up from one of his eyes, both of which were glaring like a tiger’s. The rest of his
face was almost undiscoverable, being masked with a matted beard and whiskers
through which the nose could barely thrust itself, and further buried in a squalid red
scarf or handkerchief. Mr Usher prided himself on having seen most of the roughest
specimens in the State, but he thought he had never seen such a baboon dressed as a
scarecrow as this. But, above all, he had never in all his placid scientific existence heard
a man like that speak to him first.
“See here, old man Usher,” shouted the being in the red handkerchief, “I’m getting
tired. Don’t you try any of your hide-and-seek on me; I don’t get fooled any. Leave go
of my guests, and I’ll let up on the fancy clockwork. Keep him here for a split instant
and you’ll feel pretty mean. I reckon I’m not a man with no pull.”
The eminent Usher was regarding the bellowing monster with an amazement which had
dried up all other sentiments. The mere shock to his eyes had rendered his ears, almost
useless. At last he rang a bell with a hand of violence. While the bell was still strong
and pealing, the voice of Father Brown fell soft but distinct.
“I have a suggestion to make,” he said, “but it seems a little confusing. I don’t know this
gentleman — but — but I think I know him. Now, you know him — you know him
quite well — but you don’t know him — naturally. Sounds paradoxical, I know.”
“I reckon the Cosmos is cracked,” said Usher, and fell asprawl in his round office chair.
“Now, see here,” vociferated the stranger, striking the table, but speaking in a voice that
was all the more mysterious because it was comparatively mild and rational though still
resounding. “I won’t let you in. I want — ”
“Who in hell are you?” yelled Usher, suddenly sitting up straight.
“I think the gentleman’s name is Todd,” said the priest.
Then he picked up the pink slip of newspaper.
“I fear you don’t read the Society papers properly,” he said, and began to read out in a
monotonous voice, “‘Or locked in the jewelled bosoms of our city’s gayest leaders; but
there is talk of a pretty parody of the manners and customs of the other end of Society’s
scale.’ There’s been a big Slum Dinner up at Pilgrim’s Pond tonight; and a man, one of
the guests, disappeared. Mr Ireton Todd is a good host, and has tracked him here,
without even waiting to take off his fancy-dress.”
“What man do you mean?”
“I mean the man with comically ill-fitting clothes you saw running across the ploughed
field. Hadn’t you better go and investigate him? He will be rather impatient to get back
to his champagne, from which he ran away in such a hurry, when the convict with the
gun hove in sight.”
“Do you seriously mean — ” began the official.
“Why, look here, Mr Usher,” said Father Brown quietly, “you said the machine couldn’t
make a mistake; and in one sense it didn’t. But the other machine did; the machine that
worked it. You assumed that the man in rags jumped at the name of Lord Falconroy,
because he was Lord Falconroy’s murderer. He jumped at the name of Lord Falconroy
because he is Lord Falconroy.”
“Then why the blazes didn’t he say so?” demanded the staring Usher.
“He felt his plight and recent panic were hardly patrician,” replied the priest, “so he
tried to keep the name back at first. But he was just going to tell it you, when” — and
Father Brown looked down at his boots — “when a woman found another name for
him.”
“But you can’t be so mad as to say,” said Greywood Usher, very white, “that Lord
Falconroy was Drugger Davis.”
The priest looked at him very earnestly, but with a baffling and undecipherable face.
“I am not saying anything about it,” he said. “I leave all the rest to you. Your pink paper
says that the title was recently revived for him; but those papers are very unreliable. It
says he was in the States in youth; but the whole story seems very strange. Davis and
Falconroy are both pretty considerable cowards, but so are lots of other men. I would
not hang a dog on my own opinion about this. But I think,” he went on softly and
reflectively, “I think you Americans are too modest. I think you idealize the English
aristocracy — even in assuming it to be so aristocratic. You see a good-looking
Englishman in evening-dress; you know he’s in the House of Lords; and you fancy he
has a father. You don’t allow for our national buoyancy and uplift. Many of our most
influential noblemen have not only risen recently, but — ”
“Oh, stop it!” cried Greywood Usher, wringing one lean hand in impatience against a
shade of irony in the other’s face.
“Don’t stay talking to this lunatic!” cried Todd brutally. “Take me to my friend.”
Next morning Father Brown appeared with the same demure expression, carrying yet
another piece of pink newspaper.
“I’m afraid you neglect the fashionable press rather,” he said, “but this cutting may
interest you.”
Usher read the headlines, “Last-Trick’s Strayed Revellers: Mirthful Incident near
Pilgrim’s Pond.” The paragraph went on: “A laughable occurrence took place outside
Wilkinson’s Motor Garage last night. A policeman on duty had his attention drawn by
larrikins to a man in prison dress who was stepping with considerable coolness into the
steering-seat of a pretty high-toned Panhard; he was accompanied by a girl wrapped in a
ragged shawl. On the police interfering, the young woman threw back the shawl, and all
recognized Millionaire Todd’s daughter, who had just come from the Slum Freak
Dinner at the Pond, where all the choicest guests were in a similar deshabille. She and
the gentleman who had donned prison uniform were going for the customary joy-ride.”
Under the pink slip Mr Usher found a strip of a later paper, headed, “Astounding Escape
of Millionaire’s Daughter with Convict. She had Arranged Freak Dinner. Now Safe in
—”
Mr Greenwood Usher lifted his eyes, but Father Brown was gone.
The Head of Caesar
THERE is somewhere in Brompton or Kensington an interminable avenue of tall
houses, rich but largely empty, that looks like a terrace of tombs. The very steps up to
the dark front doors seem as steep as the side of pyramids; one would hesitate to knock
at the door, lest it should be opened by a mummy. But a yet more depressing feature in
the grey facade is its telescopic length and changeless continuity. The pilgrim walking
down it begins to think he will never come to a break or a corner; but there is one
exception — a very small one, but hailed by the pilgrim almost with a shout. There is a
sort of mews between two of the tall mansions, a mere slit like the crack of a door by
comparison with the street, but just large enough to permit a pigmy ale-house or eatinghouse, still allowed by the rich to their stable-servants, to stand in the angle. There is
something cheery in its very dinginess, and something free and elfin in its very
insignificance. At the feet of those grey stone giants it looks like a lighted house of
dwarfs.
Anyone passing the place during a certain autumn evening, itself almost fairylike, might
have seen a hand pull aside the red half-blind which (along with some large white
lettering) half hid the interior from the street, and a face peer out not unlike a rather
innocent goblin’s. It was, in fact, the face of one with the harmless human name of
Brown, formerly priest of Cobhole in Essex, and now working in London. His friend,
Flambeau, a semi-official investigator, was sitting opposite him, making his last notes
of a case he had cleared up in the neighbourhood. They were sitting at a small table,
close up to the window, when the priest pulled the curtain back and looked out. He
waited till a stranger in the street had passed the window, to let the curtain fall into its
place again. Then his round eyes rolled to the large white lettering on the window above
his head, and then strayed to the next table, at which sat only a navvy with beer and
cheese, and a young girl with red hair and a glass of milk. Then (seeing his friend put
away the pocket-book), he said softly:
“If you’ve got ten minutes, I wish you’d follow that man with the false nose.”
Flambeau looked up in surprise; but the girl with the red hair also looked up, and with
something that was stronger than astonishment. She was simply and even loosely
dressed in light brown sacking stuff; but she was a lady, and even, on a second glance, a
rather needlessly haughty one. “The man with the false nose!” repeated Flambeau.
“Who’s he?”
“I haven’t a notion,” answered Father Brown. “I want you to find out; I ask it as a
favour. He went down there” — and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder in one of his
undistinguished gestures — “and can’t have passed three lamp-posts yet. I only want to
know the direction.”
Flambeau gazed at his friend for some time, with an expression between perplexity and
amusement; and then, rising from the table; squeezed his huge form out of the little door
of the dwarf tavern, and melted into the twilight.
Father Brown took a small book out of his pocket and began to read steadily; he
betrayed no consciousness of the fact that the red-haired lady had left her own table and
sat down opposite him. At last she leaned over and said in a low, strong voice: “Why do
you say that? How do you know it’s false?”
He lifted his rather heavy eyelids, which fluttered in considerable embarrassment. Then
his dubious eye roamed again to the white lettering on the glass front of the publichouse. The young woman’s eyes followed his, and rested there also, but in pure
puzzledom.
“No,” said Father Brown, answering her thoughts. “It doesn’t say ‘Sela’, like the thing
in the Psalms; I read it like that myself when I was wool-gathering just now; it says
‘Ales.’”
“Well?” inquired the staring young lady. “What does it matter what it says?”
His ruminating eye roved to the girl’s light canvas sleeve, round the wrist of which ran a
very slight thread of artistic pattern, just enough to distinguish it from a working-dress
of a common woman and make it more like the working-dress of a lady art-student. He
seemed to find much food for thought in this; but his reply was very slow and hesitant.
“You see, madam,” he said, “from outside the place looks — well, it is a perfectly
decent place — but ladies like you don’t — don’t generally think so. They never go into
such places from choice, except — ”
“Well?” she repeated.
“Except an unfortunate few who don’t go in to drink milk.”
“You are a most singular person,” said the young lady. “What is your object in all this?”
“Not to trouble you about it,” he replied, very gently. “Only to arm myself with
knowledge enough to help you, if ever you freely ask my help.”
“But why should I need help?”
He continued his dreamy monologue. “You couldn’t have come in to see protegees,
humble friends, that sort of thing, or you’d have gone through into the parlour . . . and
you couldn’t have come in because you were ill, or you’d have spoken to the woman of
the place, who’s obviously respectable . . . besides, you don’t look ill in that way, but
only unhappy . . . This street is the only original long lane that has no turning; and the
houses on both sides are shut up . . . I could only suppose that you’d seen somebody
coming whom you didn’t want to meet; and found the public-house was the only shelter
in this wilderness of stone . . . I don’t think I went beyond the licence of a stranger in
glancing at the only man who passed immediately after . . . And as I thought he looked
like the wrong sort . . . and you looked like the right sort. . . . I held myself ready to help
if he annoyed you; that is all. As for my friend, he’ll be back soon; and he certainly
can’t find out anything by stumping down a road like this. . . . I didn’t think he could.”
“Then why did you send him out?” she cried, leaning forward with yet warmer
curiosity. She had the proud, impetuous face that goes with reddish colouring, and a
Roman nose, as it did in Marie Antoinette.
He looked at her steadily for the first time, and said: “Because I hoped you would speak
to me.”
She looked back at him for some time with a heated face, in which there hung a red
shadow of anger; then, despite her anxieties, humour broke out of her eyes and the
corners of her mouth, and she answered almost grimly: “Well, if you’re so keen on my
conversation, perhaps you’ll answer my question.” After a pause she added: “I had the
honour to ask you why you thought the man’s nose was false.”
“The wax always spots like that just a little in this weather,” answered Father Brown
with entire simplicity,
“But it’s such a crooked nose,” remonstrated the red-haired girl.
The priest smiled in his turn. “I don’t say it’s the sort of nose one would wear out of
mere foppery,” he admitted. “This man, I think, wears it because his real nose is so
much nicer.”
“But why?” she insisted.
“What is the nursery-rhyme?” observed Brown absent-mindedly. “There was a crooked
man and he went a crooked mile. . . . That man, I fancy, has gone a very crooked road
— by following his nose.”
“Why, what’s he done?” she demanded, rather shakily.
“I don’t want to force your confidence by a hair,” said Father Brown, very quietly. “But
I think you could tell me more about that than I can tell you.”
The girl sprang to her feet and stood quite quietly, but with clenched hands, like one
about to stride away; then her hands loosened slowly, and she sat down again. “You are
more of a mystery than all the others,” she said desperately, “but I feel there might be a
heart in your mystery.”
“What we all dread most,” said the priest in a low voice, “is a maze with no centre. That
is why atheism is only a nightmare.” “I will tell you everything,” said the red-haired girl
doggedly, “except why I am telling you; and that I don’t know.”
She picked at the darned table-cloth and went on: “You look as if you knew what isn’t
snobbery as well as what is; and when I say that ours is a good old family, you’ll
understand it is a necessary part of the story; indeed, my chief danger is in my brother’s
high-and-dry notions, noblesse oblige and all that. Well, my name is Christabel
Carstairs; and my father was that Colonel Carstairs you’ve probably heard of, who
made the famous Carstairs Collection of Roman coins. I could never describe my father
to you; the nearest I can say is that he was very like a Roman coin himself. He was as
handsome and as genuine and as valuable and as metallic and as out-of-date. He was
prouder of his Collection than of his coat-of-arms — nobody could say more than that.
His extraordinary character came out most in his will. He had two sons and one
daughter. He quarrelled with one son, my brother Giles, and sent him to Australia on a
small allowance. He then made a will leaving the Carstairs Collection, actually with a
yet smaller allowance, to my brother Arthur. He meant it as a reward, as the highest
honour he could offer, in acknowledgement of Arthur’s loyalty and rectitude and the
distinctions he had already gained in mathematics and economics at Cambridge. He left
me practically all his pretty large fortune; and I am sure he meant it in contempt.
“Arthur, you may say, might well complain of this; but Arthur is my father over again.
Though he had some differences with my father in early youth, no sooner had he taken
over the Collection than he became like a pagan priest dedicated to a temple. He mixed
up these Roman halfpence with the honour of the Carstairs family in the same stiff,
idolatrous way as his father before him. He acted as if Roman money must be guarded
by all the Roman virtues. He took no pleasures; he spent nothing on himself; he lived
for the Collection. Often he would not trouble to dress for his simple meals; but pattered
about among the corded brown-paper parcels (which no one else was allowed to touch)
in an old brown dressing-gown. With its rope and tassel and his pale, thin, refined face,
it made him look like an old ascetic monk. Every now and then, though, he would
appear dressed like a decidedly fashionable gentleman; but that was only when he went
up to the London sales or shops to make an addition to the Carstairs Collection.
“Now, if you’ve known any young people, you won’t be shocked if I say that I got into
rather a low frame of mind with all this; the frame of mind in which one begins to say
that the Ancient Romans were all very well in their way. I’m not like my brother
Arthur; I can’t help enjoying enjoyment. I got a lot of romance and rubbish where I got
my red hair, from the other side of the family. Poor Giles was the same; and I think the
atmosphere of coins might count in excuse for him; though he really did wrong and
nearly went to prison. But he didn’t behave any worse than I did; as you shall hear.
“I come now to the silly part of the story. I think a man as clever as you can guess the
sort of thing that would begin to relieve the monotony for an unruly girl of seventeen
placed in such a position. But I am so rattled with more dreadful things that I can hardly
read my own feeling; and don’t know whether I despise it now as a flirtation or bear it
as a broken heart. We lived then at a little seaside watering-place in South Wales, and a
retired sea-captain living a few doors off had a son about five years older than myself,
who had been a friend of Giles before he went to the Colonies. His name does not affect
my tale; but I tell you it was Philip Hawker, because I am telling you everything. We
used to go shrimping together, and said and thought we were in love with each other; at
least he certainly said he was, and I certainly thought I was. If I tell you he had bronzed
curly hair and a falconish sort of face, bronzed by the sea also, it’s not for his sake, I
assure you, but for the story; for it was the cause of a very curious coincidence.
“One summer afternoon, when I had promised to go shrimping along the sands with
Philip, I was waiting rather impatiently in the front drawing-room, watching Arthur
handle some packets of coins he had just purchased and slowly shunt them, one or two
at a time, into his own dark study and museum which was at the back of the house. As
soon as I heard the heavy door close on him finally, I made a bolt for my shrimping-net
and tam-o’-shanter and was just going to slip out, when I saw that my brother had left
behind him one coin that lay gleaming on the long bench by the window. It was a
bronze coin, and the colour, combined with the exact curve of the Roman nose and
something in the very lift of the long, wiry neck, made the head of Caesar on it the
almost precise portrait of Philip Hawker. Then I suddenly remembered Giles telling
Philip of a coin that was like him, and Philip wishing he had it. Perhaps you can fancy
the wild, foolish thoughts with which my head went round; I felt as if I had had a gift
from the fairies. It seemed to me that if I could only run away with this, and give it to
Philip like a wild sort of wedding-ring, it would be a bond between us for ever; I felt a
thousand such things at once. Then there yawned under me, like the pit, the enormous,
awful notion of what I was doing; above all, the unbearable thought, which was like
touching hot iron, of what Arthur would think of it. A Carstairs a thief; and a thief of the
Carstairs treasure! I believe my brother could see me burned like a witch for such a
thing, But then, the very thought of such fanatical cruelty heightened my old hatred of
his dingy old antiquarian fussiness and my longing for the youth and liberty that called
to me from the sea. Outside was strong sunlight with a wind; and a yellow head of some
broom or gorse in the garden rapped against the glass of the window. I thought of that
living and growing gold calling to me from all the heaths of the world — and then of
that dead, dull gold and bronze and brass of my brother’s growing dustier and dustier as
life went by. Nature and the Carstairs Collection had come to grips at last.
“Nature is older than the Carstairs Collection. As I ran down the streets to the sea, the
coin clenched tight in my fist, I felt all the Roman Empire on my back as well as the
Carstairs pedigree. It was not only the old lion argent that was roaring in my ear, but all
the eagles of the Caesars seemed flapping and screaming in pursuit of me. And yet my
heart rose higher and higher like a child’s kite, until I came over the loose, dry sandhills and to the flat, wet sands, where Philip stood already up to his ankles in the
shallow shining water, some hundred yards out to sea. There was a great red sunset; and
the long stretch of low water, hardly rising over the ankle for half a mile, was like a lake
of ruby flame. It was not till I had torn off my shoes and stockings and waded to where
he stood, which was well away from the dry land, that I turned and looked round. We
were quite alone in a circle of sea-water and wet sand, and I gave him the head of
Caesar.
“At the very instant I had a shock of fancy: that a man far away on the sand-hills was
looking at me intently. I must have felt immediately after that it was a mere leap of
unreasonable nerves; for the man was only a dark dot in the distance, and I could only
just see that he was standing quite still and gazing, with his head a little on one side.
There was no earthly logical evidence that he was looking at me; he might have been
looking at a ship, or the sunset, or the sea-gulls, or at any of the people who still strayed
here and there on the shore between us. Nevertheless, whatever my start sprang from
was prophetic; for, as I gazed, he started walking briskly in a bee-line towards us across
the wide wet sands. As he drew nearer and nearer I saw that he was dark and bearded,
and that his eyes were marked with dark spectacles. He was dressed poorly but
respectably in black, from the old black top hat on his head to the solid black boots on
his feet. In spite of these he walked straight into the sea without a flash of hesitation,
and came on at me with the steadiness of a travelling bullet.
“I can’t tell you the sense of monstrosity and miracle I had when he thus silently burst
the barrier between land and water. It was as if he had walked straight off a cliff and
still marched steadily in mid-air. It was as if a house had flown up into the sky or a
man’s head had fallen off. He was only wetting his boots; but he seemed to be a demon
disregarding a law of Nature. If he had hesitated an instant at the water’s edge it would
have been nothing. As it was, he seemed to look so much at me alone as not to notice
the ocean. Philip was some yards away with his back to me, bending over his net. The
stranger came on till he stood within two yards of me, the water washing half-way up to
his knees. Then he said, with a clearly modulated and rather mincing articulation:
‘Would it discommode you to contribute elsewhere a coin with a somewhat different
superscription?’
“With one exception there was nothing definably abnormal about him. His tinted
glasses were not really opaque, but of a blue kind common enough, nor were the eyes
behind them shifty, but regarded me steadily. His dark beard was not really long or wild
— but he looked rather hairy, because the beard began very high up in his face, just
under the cheek-bones. His complexion was neither sallow nor livid, but on the contrary
rather clear and youthful; yet this gave a pink-and-white wax look which somehow (I
don’t know why) rather increased the horror. The only oddity one could fix was that his
nose, which was otherwise of a good shape, was just slightly turned sideways at the tip;
as if, when it was soft, it had been tapped on one side with a toy hammer. The thing was
hardly a deformity; yet I cannot tell you what a living nightmare it was to me. As he
stood there in the sunset-stained water he affected me as some hellish sea-monster just
risen roaring out of a sea like blood. I don’t know why a touch on the nose should affect
my imagination so much. I think it seemed as if he could move his nose like a finger.
And as if he had just that moment moved it.
“‘Any little assistance,’ he continued with the same queer, priggish accent, ‘that may
obviate the necessity of my communicating with the family.’
“Then it rushed over me that I was being blackmailed for the theft of the bronze piece;
and all my merely superstitious fears and doubts were swallowed up in one
overpowering, practical question. How could he have found out? I had stolen the thing
suddenly and on impulse; I was certainly alone; for I always made sure of being
unobserved when I slipped out to see Philip in this way. I had not, to all appearance,
been followed in the street; and if I had, they could not ‘X-ray’ the coin in my closed
hand. The man standing on the sand-hills could no more have seen what I gave Philip
than shoot a fly in one eye, like the man in the fairy-tale.
“‘Philip,’ I cried helplessly, ‘ask this man what he wants.’
“When Philip lifted his head at last from mending his net he looked rather red, as if
sulky or ashamed; but it may have been only the exertion of stooping and the red
evening light; I may have only had another of the morbid fancies that seemed to be
dancing about me. He merely said gruffly to the man: ‘You clear out of this.’ And,
motioning me to follow, set off wading shoreward without paying further attention to
him. He stepped on to a stone breakwater that ran out from among the roots of the sandhills, and so struck homeward, perhaps thinking our incubus would find it less easy to
walk on such rough stones, green and slippery with seaweed, than we, who were young
and used to it. But my persecutor walked as daintily as he talked; and he still followed
me, picking his way and picking his phrases. I heard his delicate, detestable voice
appealing to me over my shoulder, until at last, when we had crested the sand-hills,
Philip’s patience (which was by no means so conspicuous on most occasions) seemed to
snap. He turned suddenly, saying, ‘Go back. I can’t talk to you now.’ And as the man
hovered and opened his mouth, Philip struck him a buffet on it that sent him flying from
the top of the tallest sand-hill to the bottom. I saw him crawling out below, covered with
sand.
“This stroke comforted me somehow, though it might well increase my peril; but Philip
showed none of his usual elation at his own prowess. Though as affectionate as ever, he
still seemed cast down; and before I could ask him anything fully, he parted with me at
his own gate, with two remarks that struck me as strange. He said that, all things
considered, I ought to put the coin back in the Collection; but that he himself would
keep it ‘for the present’. And then he added quite suddenly and irrelevantly:, ‘You know
Giles is back from Australia?’”
The door of the tavern opened and the gigantic shadow of the investigator Flambeau fell
across the table. Father Brown presented him to the lady in his own slight, persuasive
style of speech, mentioning his knowledge and sympathy in such cases; and almost
without knowing, the girl was soon reiterating her story to two listeners. But Flambeau,
as he bowed and sat down, handed the priest a small slip of paper. Brown accepted it
with some surprise and read on it: “Cab to Wagga Wagga, 379, Mafeking Avenue,
Putney.” The girl was going on with her story.
“I went up the steep street to my own house with my head in a whirl; it had not begun to
clear when I came to the doorstep, on which I found a milk-can — and the man with the
twisted nose. The milk-can told me the servants were all out; for, of course, Arthur,
browsing about in his brown dressing-gown in a brown study, would not hear or answer
a bell. Thus there was no one to help me in the house, except my brother, whose help
must be my ruin. In desperation I thrust two shillings into the horrid thing’s hand, and
told him to call again in a few days, when I had thought it out. He went off sulking, but
more sheepishly than I had expected — perhaps he had been shaken by his fall — and I
watched the star of sand splashed on his back receding down the road with a horrid
vindictive pleasure. He turned a corner some six houses down.
“Then I let myself in, made myself some tea, and tried to think it out. I sat at the
drawing-room window looking on to the garden, which still glowed with the last full
evening light. But I was too distracted and dreamy to look at the lawns and flower-pots
and flower-beds with any concentration. So I took the shock the more sharply because
I’d seen it so slowly.
“The man or monster I’d sent away was standing quite still in the middle of the garden.
Oh, we’ve all read a lot about pale-faced phantoms in the dark; but this was more
dreadful than anything of that kind could ever be. Because, though he cast a long
evening shadow, he still stood in warm sunlight. And because his face was not pale, but
had that waxen bloom still upon it that belongs to a barber’s dummy. He stood quite
still, with his face towards me; and I can’t tell you how horrid he looked among the
tulips and all those tall, gaudy, almost hothouse-looking flowers. It looked as if we’d
stuck up a waxwork instead of a statue in the centre of our garden.
“Yet almost the instant he saw me move in the window he turned and ran out of the
garden by the back gate, which stood open and by which he had undoubtedly entered.
This renewed timidity on his part was so different from the impudence with which he
had walked into the sea, that I felt vaguely comforted. I fancied, perhaps, that he feared
confronting Arthur more than I knew. Anyhow, I settled down at last, and had a quiet
dinner alone (for it was against the rules to disturb Arthur when he was rearranging the
museum), and, my thoughts, a little released, fled to Philip and lost themselves, I
suppose. Anyhow, I was looking blankly, but rather pleasantly than otherwise, at
another window, uncurtained, but by this time black as a slate with the final night-fall. It
seemed to me that something like a snail was on the outside of the window-pane. But
when I stared harder, it was more like a man’s thumb pressed on the pane; it had that
curled look that a thumb has. With my fear and courage re-awakened together, I rushed
at the window and then recoiled with a strangled scream that any man but Arthur must
have heard.
“For it was not a thumb, any more than it was a snail. It was the tip of a crooked nose,
crushed against the glass; it looked white with the pressure; and the staring face and
eyes behind it were at first invisible and afterwards grey like a ghost. I slammed the
shutters together somehow, rushed up to my room and locked myself in. But, even as I
passed, I could swear I saw a second black window with something on it that was like a
snail.
“It might be best to go to Arthur after all. If the thing was crawling close all around the
house like a cat, it might have purposes worse even than blackmail. My brother might
cast me out and curse me for ever, but he was a gentleman, and would defend me on the
spot. After ten minutes’ curious thinking, I went down, knocked on the door and then
went in: to see the last and worst sight.
“My brother’s chair was empty, and he was obviously out. But the man with the
crooked nose was sitting waiting for his return, with his hat still insolently on his head,
and actually reading one of my brother’s books under my brother’s lamp. His face was
composed and occupied, but his nose-tip still had the air of being the most mobile part
of his face, as if it had just turned from left to right like an elephant’s proboscis. I had
thought him poisonous enough while he was pursuing and watching me; but I think his
unconsciousness of my presence was more frightful still.
“I think I screamed loud and long; but that doesn’t matter. What I did next does matter:
I gave him all the money I had, including a good deal in paper which, though it was
mine, I dare say I had no right to touch. He went off at last, with hateful, tactful regrets
all in long words; and I sat down, feeling ruined in every sense. And yet I was saved
that very night by a pure accident. Arthur had gone off suddenly to London, as he so
often did, for bargains; and returned, late but radiant, having nearly secured a treasure
that was an added splendour even to the family Collection. He was so resplendent that I
was almost emboldened to confess the abstraction of the lesser gem — but he bore
down all other topics with his over-powering projects. Because the bargain might still
misfire any moment, he insisted on my packing at once and going up with him to
lodgings he had already taken in Fulham, to be near the curio-shop in question. Thus in
spite of myself, I fled from my foe almost in the dead of night — but from Philip also. .
. . My brother was often at the South Kensington Museum, and, in order to make some
sort of secondary life for myself, I paid for a few lessons at the Art Schools. I was
coming back from them this evening, when I saw the abomination of desolation walking
alive down the long straight street and the rest is as this gentleman has said.
“I’ve got only one thing to say. I don’t deserve to be helped; and I don’t question or
complain of my punishment; it is just, it ought to have happened. But I still question,
with bursting brains, how it can have happened. Am I punished by miracle? or how can
anyone but Philip and myself know I gave him a tiny coin in the middle of the sea?”
“It is an extraordinary problem,” admitted Flambeau.
“Not so extraordinary as the answer,” remarked Father Brown rather gloomily. “Miss
Carstairs, will you be at home if we call at your Fulham place in an hour and a half
hence?”
The girl looked at him, and then rose and put her gloves on. “Yes,” she said, “I’ll be
there”; and almost instantly left the place.
That night the detective and the priest were still talking of the matter as they drew near
the Fulham house, a tenement strangely mean even for a temporary residence of the
Carstairs family.
“Of course the superficial, on reflection,” said Flambeau, “would think first of this
Australian brother who’s been in trouble before, who’s come back so suddenly and
who’s just the man to have shabby confederates. But I can’t see how he can come into
the thing by any process of thought, unless . . .”
“Well?” asked his companion patiently.
Flambeau lowered his voice. “Unless the girl’s lover comes in, too, and he would be the
blacker villain. The Australian chap did know that Hawker wanted the coin. But I can’t
see how on earth he could know that Hawker had got it, unless Hawker signalled to him
or his representative across the shore.”
“That is true,” assented the priest, with respect.
“Have you noted another thing?” went on Flambeau eagerly. “this Hawker hears his
love insulted, but doesn’t strike till he’s got to the soft sand-hills, where he can be victor
in a mere sham-fight. If he’d struck amid rocks and sea, he might have hurt his ally.”
“That is true again,” said Father Brown, nodding.
“And now, take it from the start. It lies between few people, but at least three. You want
one person for suicide; two people for murder; but at least three people for blackmail”
“Why?” asked the priest softly.
“Well, obviously,” cried his friend, “there must be one to be exposed; one to threaten
exposure; and one at least whom exposure would horrify.”
After a long ruminant pause, the priest said: “You miss a logical step. Three persons are
needed as ideas. Only two are needed as agents.”
“What can you mean?” asked the other.
“Why shouldn’t a blackmailer,” asked Brown, in a low voice, “threaten his victim with
himself? Suppose a wife became a rigid teetotaller in order to frighten her husband into
concealing his pub-frequenting, and then wrote him blackmailing letters in another
hand, threatening to tell his wife! Why shouldn’t it work? Suppose a father forbade a
son to gamble and then, following him in a good disguise, threatened the boy with his
own sham paternal strictness! Suppose — but, here we are, my friend.”
“My God!” cried Flambeau; “you don’t mean — ”
An active figure ran down the steps of the house and showed under the golden lamplight
the unmistakable head that resembled the Roman coin. “Miss Carstairs,” said Hawker
without ceremony, “wouldn’t go in till you came.”
“Well,” observed Brown confidently, “don’t you think it’s the best thing she can do to
stop outside — with you to look after her? You see, I rather guess you have guessed it
all yourself.”
“Yes,” said the young man, in an undertone, “I guessed on the sands and now I know;
that was why I let him fall soft.”
Taking a latchkey from the girl and the coin from Hawker, Flambeau let himself and his
friend into the empty house and passed into the outer parlour. It was empty of all
occupants but one. The man whom Father Brown had seen pass the tavern was standing
against the wall as if at bay; unchanged, save that he had taken off his black coat and
was wearing a brown dressing-gown.
“We have come,” said Father Brown politely, “to give back this coin to its owner.” And
he handed it to the man with the nose.
Flambeau’s eyes rolled. “Is this man a coin-collector?” he asked.
“This man is Mr Arthur Carstairs,” said the priest positively, “and he is a coin-collector
of a somewhat singular kind.”
The man changed colour so horribly that the crooked nose stood out on his face like a
separate and comic thing. He spoke, nevertheless, with a sort of despairing dignity.
“You shall see, then,” he said, “that I have not lost all the family qualities.” And he
turned suddenly and strode into an inner room, slamming the door.
“Stop him!” shouted Father Brown, bounding and half falling over a chair; and, after a
wrench or two, Flambeau had the door open. But it was too late. In dead silence
Flambeau strode across and telephoned for doctor and police.
An empty medicine bottle lay on the floor. Across the table the body of the man in the
brown dressing-gown lay amid his burst and gaping brown-paper parcels; out of which
poured and rolled, not Roman, but very modern English coins.
The priest held up the bronze head of Caesar. “This,” he said, “was all that was left of
the Carstairs Collection.”
After a silence he went on, with more than common gentleness: “It was a cruel will his
wicked father made, and you see he did resent it a little. He hated the Roman money he
had, and grew fonder of the real money denied him. He not only sold the Collection bit
by bit, but sank bit by bit to the basest ways of making money — even to blackmailing
his own family in a disguise. He blackmailed his brother from Australia for his little
forgotten crime (that is why he took the cab to Wagga Wagga in Putney), he
blackmailed his sister for the theft he alone could have noticed. And that, by the way, is
why she had that supernatural guess when he was away on the sand-dunes. Mere figure
and gait, however distant, are more likely to remind us of somebody than a well-madeup face quite close.”
There was another silence. “Well,” growled the detective, “and so this great
numismatist and coin-collector was nothing but a vulgar miser.”
“Is there so great a difference?” asked Father Brown, in the same strange, indulgent
tone. “What is there wrong about a miser that is not often as wrong about a collector?
What is wrong, except . . . thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image; thou shalt
not bow down to them nor serve them, for I . . . but we must go and see how the poor
young people are getting on.”
“I think,” said Flambeau, “that in spite of everything, they are probably getting on very
well.”
The Purple Wig
MR EDWARD NUTT, the industrious editor of the Daily Reformer, sat at his desk,
opening letters and marking proofs to the merry tune of a typewriter, worked by a
vigorous young lady.
He was a stoutish, fair man, in his shirt-sleeves; his movements were resolute, his
mouth firm and his tones final; but his round, rather babyish blue eyes had a bewildered
and even wistful look that rather contradicted all this. Nor indeed was the expression
altogether misleading. It might truly be said of him, as for many journalists in authority,
that his most familiar emotion was one of continuous fear; fear of libel actions, fear of
lost advertisements, fear of misprints, fear of the sack.
His life was a series of distracted compromises between the proprietor of the paper (and
of him), who was a senile soap-boiler with three ineradicable mistakes in his mind, and
the very able staff he had collected to run the paper; some of whom were brilliant and
experienced men and (what was even worse) sincere enthusiasts for the political policy
of the paper.
A letter from one of these lay immediately before him, and rapid and resolute as he was,
he seemed almost to hesitate before opening it. He took up a strip of proof instead, ran
down it with a blue eye, and a blue pencil, altered the word “adultery” to the word
“impropriety,” and the word “Jew” to the word “Alien,” rang a bell and sent it flying
upstairs.
Then, with a more thoughtful eye, he ripped open the letter from his more distinguished
contributor, which bore a postmark of Devonshire, and read as follows:
DEAR NUTT, — As I see you’re working Spooks and Dooks at the same time, what
about an article on that rum business of the Eyres of Exmoor; or as the old women call
it down here, the Devil’s Ear of Eyre? The head of the family, you know, is the Duke of
Exmoor; he is one of the few really stiff old Tory aristocrats left, a sound old crusted
tyrant it is quite in our line to make trouble about. And I think I’m on the track of a
story that will make trouble.
Of course I don’t believe in the old legend about James I; and as for you, you don’t
believe in anything, not even in journalism. The legend, you’ll probably remember, was
about the blackest business in English history — the poisoning of Overbury by that
witch’s cat Frances Howard, and the quite mysterious terror which forced the King to
pardon the murderers. There was a lot of alleged witchcraft mixed up with it; and the
story goes that a man-servant listening at the keyhole heard the truth in a talk between
the King and Carr; and the bodily ear with which he heard grew large and monstrous as
by magic, so awful was the secret. And though he had to be loaded with lands and gold
and made an ancestor of dukes, the elf-shaped ear is still recurrent in the family. Well,
you don’t believe in black magic; and if you did, you couldn’t use it for copy. If a
miracle happened in your office, you’d have to hush it up, now so many bishops are
agnostics. But that is not the point The point is that there really is something queer
about Exmoor and his family; something quite natural, I dare say, but quite abnormal.
And the Ear is in it somehow, I fancy; either a symbol or a delusion or disease or
something. Another tradition says that Cavaliers just after James I began to wear their
hair long only to cover the ear of the first Lord Exmoor. This also is no doubt fanciful.
The reason I point it out to you is this: It seems to me that we make a mistake in
attacking aristocracy entirely for its champagne and diamonds. Most men rather admire
the nobs for having a good time, but I think we surrender too much when we admit that
aristocracy has made even the aristocrats happy. I suggest a series of articles pointing
out how dreary, how inhuman, how downright diabolist, is the very smell and
atmosphere of some of these great houses. There are plenty of instances; but you
couldn’t begin with a better one than the Ear of the Eyres. By the end of the week I
think I can get you the truth about it. — Yours ever, FRANCIS FINN.
Mr Nutt reflected a moment, staring at his left boot; then he called out in a strong, loud
and entirely lifeless voice, in which every syllable sounded alike: “Miss Barlow, take
down a letter to Mr Finn, please.”
DEAR FINN, — I think it would do; copy should reach us second post Saturday. —
Yours, E. NUTT.
This elaborate epistle he articulated as if it were all one word; and Miss Barlow rattled it
down as if it were all one word. Then he took up another strip of proof and a blue
pencil, and altered the word “supernatural” to the word “marvellous”, and the
expression “shoot down” to the expression “repress”.
In such happy, healthful activities did Mr Nutt disport himself, until the ensuing
Saturday found him at the same desk, dictating to the same typist, and using the same
blue pencil on the first instalment of Mr Finn’s revelations. The opening was a sound
piece of slashing invective about the evil secrets of princes, and despair in the high
places of the earth. Though written violently, it was in excellent English; but the editor,
as usual, had given to somebody else the task of breaking it up into sub-headings, which
were of a spicier sort, as “Peeress and Poisons”, and “The Eerie Ear”, “The Eyres in
their Eyrie”, and so on through a hundred happy changes. Then followed the legend of
the Ear, amplified from Finn’s first letter, and then the substance of his later discoveries,
as follows:
I know it is the practice of journalists to put the end of the story at the beginning and
call it a headline. I know that journalism largely consists in saying “Lord Jones Dead”
to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive. Your present correspondent thinks
that this, like many other journalistic customs, is bad journalism; and that the Daily
Reformer has to set a better example in such things. He proposes to tell his story as it
occurred, step by step. He will use the real names of the parties, who in most cases are
ready to confirm his testimony. As for the headlines, the sensational proclamations —
they will come at the end.
I was walking along a public path that threads through a private Devonshire orchard and
seems to point towards Devonshire cider, when I came suddenly upon just such a place
as the path suggested. It was a long, low inn, consisting really of a cottage and two
barns; thatched all over with the thatch that looks like brown and grey hair grown before
history. But outside the door was a sign which called it the Blue Dragon; and under the
sign was one of those long rustic tables that used to stand outside most of the free
English inns, before teetotallers and brewers between them destroyed freedom. And at
this table sat three gentlemen, who might have lived a hundred years ago.
Now that I know them all better, there is no difficulty about disentangling the
impressions; but just then they looked like three very solid ghosts. The dominant figure,
both because he was bigger in all three dimensions, and because he sat centrally in the
length of the table, facing me, was a tall, fat man dressed completely in black, with a
rubicund, even apoplectic visage, but a rather bald and rather bothered brow. Looking at
him again, more strictly, I could not exactly say what it was that gave me the sense of
antiquity, except the antique cut of his white clerical necktie and the barred wrinkles
across his brow.
It was even less easy to fix the impression in the case of the man at the right end of the
table, who, to say truth, was as commonplace a person as could be seen anywhere, with
a round, brown-haired head and a round snub nose, but also clad in clerical black, of a
stricter cut. It was only when I saw his broad curved hat lying on the table beside him
that I realized why I connected him with anything ancient. He was a Roman Catholic
priest.
Perhaps the third man, at the other end of the table, had really more to do with it than
the rest, though he was both slighter in physical presence and more inconsiderate in his
dress. His lank limbs were clad, I might also say clutched, in very tight grey sleeves and
pantaloons; he had a long, sallow, aquiline face which seemed somehow all the more
saturnine because his lantern jaws were imprisoned in his collar and neck-cloth more in
the style of the old stock; and his hair (which ought to have been dark brown) was of an
odd dim, russet colour which, in conjunction with his yellow face, looked rather purple
than red. The unobtrusive yet unusual colour was all the more notable because his hair
was almost unnaturally healthy and curling, and he wore it full. But, after all analysis, I
incline to think that what gave me my first old-fashioned impression was simply a set of
tall, old-fashioned wine-glasses, one or two lemons and two churchwarden pipes. And
also, perhaps, the old-world errand on which I had come.
Being a hardened reporter, and it being apparently a public inn, I did not need to
summon much of my impudence to sit down at the long table and order some cider. The
big man in black seemed very learned, especially about local antiquities; the small man
in black, though he talked much less, surprised me with a yet wider culture. So we got
on very well together; but the third man, the old gentleman in the tight pantaloons,
seemed rather distant and haughty, until I slid into the subject of the Duke of Exmoor
and his ancestry.
I thought the subject seemed to embarrass the other two a little; but it broke the spell of
the third man’s silence most successfully. Speaking with restraint and with the accent of
a highly educated gentleman, and puffing at intervals at his long churchwarden pipe, he
proceeded to tell me some of the most horrible stories I have ever heard in my life: how
one of the Eyres in the former ages had hanged his own father; and another had his wife
scourged at the cart tail through the village; and another had set fire to a church full of
children, and so on.
Some of the tales, indeed, are not fit for public print — such as the story of the Scarlet
Nuns, the abominable story of the Spotted Dog, or the thing that was done in the quarry.
And all this red roll of impieties came from his thin, genteel lips rather primly than
otherwise, as he sat sipping the wine out of his tall, thin glass.
I could see that the big man opposite me was trying, if anything, to stop him; but he
evidently held the old gentleman in considerable respect, and could not venture to do so
at all abruptly. And the little priest at the other end of the table, though free from any
such air of embarrassment, looked steadily at the table, and seemed to listen to the
recital with great pain — as well as he might.
“You don’t seem,” I said to the narrator, “to be very fond of the Exmoor pedigree.”
He looked at me a moment, his lips still prim, but whitening and tightening; then he
deliberately broke his long pipe and glass on the table and stood up, the very picture of
a perfect gentleman with the framing temper of a fiend.
“These gentlemen,” he said, “will tell you whether I have cause to like it. The curse of
the Eyres of old has lain heavy on this country, and many have suffered from it. They
know there are none who have suffered from it as I have.” And with that he crushed a
piece of the fallen glass under his heel, and strode away among the green twilight of the
twinkling apple-trees.
“That is an extraordinary old gentleman,” I said to the other two; “do you happen to
know what the Exmoor family has done to him? Who is he?”
The big man in black was staring at me with the wild air of a baffled bull; he did not at
first seem to take it in. Then he said at last, “Don’t you know who he is?”
I reaffirmed my ignorance, and there was another silence; then the little priest said, still
looking at the table, “That is the Duke of Exmoor.”
Then, before I could collect my scattered senses, he added equally quietly, but with an
air of regularizing things: “My friend here is Doctor Mull, the Duke’s librarian. My
name is Brown.”
“But,” I stammered, “if that is the Duke, why does he damn all the old dukes like that?”
“He seems really to believe,” answered the priest called Brown, “that they have left a
curse on him.” Then he added, with some irrelevance, “That’s why he wears a wig.”
It was a few moments before his meaning dawned on me. “You don’t mean that fable
about the fantastic ear?” I demanded. “I’ve heard of it, of course, but surely it must be a
superstitious yarn spun out of something much simpler. I’ve sometimes thought it was a
wild version of one of those mutilation stories. They used to crop criminals’ ears in the
sixteenth century.”
“I hardly think it was that,” answered the little man thoughtfully, “but it is not outside
ordinary science or natural law for a family to have some deformity frequently
reappearing — such as one ear bigger than the other.”
The big librarian had buried his big bald brow in his big red hands, like a man trying to
think out his duty. “No,” he groaned. “You do the man a wrong after all. Understand,
I’ve no reason to defend him, or even keep faith with him. He has been a tyrant to me as
to everybody else. Don’t fancy because you see him sitting here that he isn’t a great lord
in the worst sense of the word. He would fetch a man a mile to ring a bell a yard off —
if it would summon another man three miles to fetch a matchbox three yards off. He
must have a footman to carry his walking-stick; a body servant to hold up his operaglasses — ”
“But not a valet to brush his clothes,” cut in the priest, with a curious dryness, “for the
valet would want to brush his wig, too.”
The librarian turned to him and seemed to forget my presence; he was strongly moved
and, I think, a little heated with wine. “I don’t know how you know it, Father Brown,”
he said, “but you are right. He lets the whole world do everything for him — except
dress him. And that he insists on doing in a literal solitude like a desert. Anybody is
kicked out of the house without a character who is so much as found near his dressingroom door.
“He seems a pleasant old party,” I remarked.
“No,” replied Dr Mull quite simply; “and yet that is just what I mean by saying you are
unjust to him after all. Gentlemen, the Duke does really feel the bitterness about the
curse that he uttered just now. He does, with sincere shame and terror, hide under that
purple wig something he thinks it would blast the sons of man to see. I know it is so;
and I know it is not a mere natural disfigurement, like a criminal mutilation, or a
hereditary disproportion in the features. I know it is worse than that; because a man told
me who was present at a scene that no man could invent, where a stronger man than any
of us tried to defy the secret, and was scared away from it.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Mull went on in oblivion of me, speaking out of the
cavern of his hands. “I don’t mind telling you, Father, because it’s really more
defending the poor Duke than giving him away. Didn’t you ever hear of the time when
he very nearly lost all the estates?”
The priest shook his head; and the librarian proceeded to tell the tale as he had heard it
from his predecessor in the same post, who had been his patron and instructor, and
whom he seemed to trust implicitly. Up to a certain point it was a common enough tale
of the decline of a great family’s fortunes — the tale of a family lawyer. His lawyer,
however, had the sense to cheat honestly, if the expression explains itself. Instead of
using funds he held in trust, he took advantage of the Duke’s carelessness to put the
family in a financial hole, in which it might be necessary for the Duke to let him hold
them in reality.
The lawyer’s name was Isaac Green, but the Duke always called him Elisha;
presumably in reference to the fact that he was quite bald, though certainly not more
than thirty. He had risen very rapidly, but from very dirty beginnings; being first a
“nark” or informer, and then a money-lender: but as solicitor to the Eyres he had the
sense, as I say, to keep technically straight until he was ready to deal the final blow. The
blow fell at dinner; and the old librarian said he should never forget the very look of the
lampshades and the decanters, as the little lawyer, with a steady smile, proposed to the
great landlord that they should halve the estates between them. The sequel certainly
could not be overlooked; for the Duke, in dead silence, smashed a decanter on the man’s
bald head as suddenly as I had seen him smash the glass that day in the orchard. It left a
red triangular scar on the scalp, and the lawyer’s eyes altered, but not his smile.
He rose tottering to his feet, and struck back as such men do strike. “I am glad of that,”
he said, “for now I can take the whole estate. The law will give it to me.”
Exmoor, it seems, was white as ashes, but his eyes still blazed. “The law will give it
you,” he said; “but you will not take it. . . . Why not? Why? because it would mean the
crack of doom for me, and if you take it I shall take off my wig. . . . Why, you pitiful
plucked fowl, anyone can see your bare head. But no man shall see mine and live.”
Well, you may say what you like and make it mean what you like. But Mull swears it is
the solemn fact that the lawyer, after shaking his knotted fists in the air for an instant,
simply ran from the room and never reappeared in the countryside; and since then
Exmoor has been feared more for a warlock than even for a landlord and a magistrate.
Now Dr Mull told his story with rather wild theatrical gestures, and with a passion I
think at least partisan. I was quite conscious of the possibility that the whole was the
extravagance of an old braggart and gossip. But before I end this half of my discoveries,
I think it due to Dr Mull to record that my two first inquiries have confirmed his story. I
learned from an old apothecary in the village that there was a bald man in evening dress,
giving the name of Green, who came to him one night to have a three-cornered cut on
his forehead plastered. And I learnt from the legal records and old newspapers that there
was a lawsuit threatened, and at least begun, by one Green against the Duke of Exmoor.
Mr Nutt, of the Daily Reformer, wrote some highly incongruous words across the top of
the copy, made some highly mysterious marks down the side of it, and called to Miss
Barlow in the same loud, monotonous voice: “Take down a letter to Mr Finn.”
DEAR FINN, — Your copy will do, but I have had to headline it a bit; and our public
would never stand a Romanist priest in the story — you must keep your eye on the
suburbs. I’ve altered him to Mr Brown, a Spiritualist.
Yours,
E. NUTT.
A day or two afterward found the active and judicious editor examining, with blue eyes
that seemed to grow rounder and rounder, the second instalment of Mr Finn’s tale of
mysteries in high life. It began with the words:
I have made an astounding discovery. I freely confess it is quite different from anything
I expected to discover, and will give a much more practical shock to the public. I
venture to say, without any vanity, that the words I now write will be read all over
Europe, and certainly all over America and the Colonies. And yet I heard all I have to
tell before I left this same little wooden table in this same little wood of apple-trees.
I owe it all to the small priest Brown; he is an extraordinary man. The big librarian had
left the table, perhaps ashamed of his long tongue, perhaps anxious about the storm in
which his mysterious master had vanished: anyway, he betook himself heavily in the
Duke’s tracks through the trees. Father Brown had picked up one of the lemons and was
eyeing it with an odd pleasure.
“What a lovely colour a lemon is!” he said. “There’s one thing I don’t like about the
Duke’s wig — the colour.”
“I don’t think I understand,” I answered.
“I dare say he’s got good reason to cover his ears, like King Midas,” went on the priest,
with a cheerful simplicity which somehow seemed rather flippant under the
circumstances. “I can quite understand that it’s nicer to cover them with hair than with
brass plates or leather flaps. But if he wants to use hair, why doesn’t he make it look
like hair? There never was hair of that colour in this world. It looks more like a sunsetcloud coming through the wood. Why doesn’t he conceal the family curse better, if he’s
really so ashamed of it? Shall I tell you? It’s because he isn’t ashamed of it. He’s proud
of it”
“It’s an ugly wig to be proud of — and an ugly story,” I said.
“Consider,” replied this curious little man, “how you yourself really feel about such
things. I don’t suggest you’re either more snobbish or more morbid than the rest of us:
but don’t you feel in a vague way that a genuine old family curse is rather a fine thing to
have? Would you be ashamed, wouldn’t you be a little proud, if the heir of the Glamis
horror called you his friend? or if Byron’s family had confided, to you only, the evil
adventures of their race? Don’t be too hard on the aristocrats themselves if their heads
are as weak as ours would be, and they are snobs about their own sorrows.”
“By Jove!” I cried; “and that’s true enough. My own mother’s family had a banshee;
and, now I come to think of it, it has comforted me in many a cold hour.”
“And think,” he went on, “of that stream of blood and poison that spurted from his thin
lips the instant you so much as mentioned his ancestors. Why should he show every
stranger over such a Chamber of Horrors unless he is proud of it? He doesn’t conceal
his wig, he doesn’t conceal his blood, he doesn’t conceal his family curse, he doesn’t
conceal the family crimes — but — ”
The little man’s voice changed so suddenly, he shut his hand so sharply, and his eyes so
rapidly grew rounder and brighter like a waking owl’s, that it had all the abruptness of a
small explosion on the table.
“But,” he ended, “he does really conceal his toilet.”
It somehow completed the thrill of my fanciful nerves that at that instant the Duke
appeared again silently among the glimmering trees, with his soft foot and sunset-hued
hair, coming round the corner of the house in company with his librarian. Before he
came within earshot, Father Brown had added quite composedly, “Why does he really
hide the secret of what he does with the purple wig? Because it isn’t the sort of secret
we suppose.”
The Duke came round the corner and resumed his seat at the head of the table with all
his native dignity. The embarrassment of the librarian left him hovering on his hind
legs, like a huge bear. The Duke addressed the priest with great seriousness. “Father
Brown,” he said, “Doctor Mull informs me that you have come here to make a request. I
no longer profess an observance of the religion of my fathers; but for their sakes, and
for the sake of the days when we met before, I am very willing to hear you. But I
presume you would rather be heard in private.”
Whatever I retain of the gentleman made me stand up. Whatever I have attained of the
journalist made me stand still. Before this paralysis could pass, the priest had made a
momentarily detaining motion. “If,” he said, “your Grace will permit me my real
petition, or if I retain any right to advise you, I would urge that as many people as
possible should be present. All over this country I have found hundreds, even of my
own faith and flock, whose imaginations are poisoned by the spell which I implore you
to break. I wish we could have all Devonshire here to see you do it.”
“To see me do what?” asked the Duke, arching his eyebrows.
“To see you take off your wig,” said Father Brown.
The Duke’s face did not move; but he looked at his petitioner with a glassy stare which
was the most awful expression I have ever seen on a human face. I could see the
librarian’s great legs wavering under him like the shadows of stems in a pool; and I
could not banish from my own brain the fancy that the trees all around us were filling
softly in the silence with devils instead of birds.
“I spare you,” said the Duke in a voice of inhuman pity. “I refuse. If I gave you the
faintest hint of the load of horror I have to bear alone, you would lie shrieking at these
feet of mine and begging to know no more. I will spare you the hint. You shall not spell
the first letter of what is written on the altar of the Unknown God.”
“I know the Unknown God,” said the little priest, with an unconscious grandeur of
certitude that stood up like a granite tower. “I know his name; it is Satan. The true God
was made flesh and dwelt among us. And I say to you, wherever you find men ruled
merely by mystery, it is the mystery of iniquity. If the devil tells you something is too
fearful to look at, look at it. If he says something is too terrible to hear, hear it. If you
think some truth unbearable, bear it. I entreat your Grace to end this nightmare now and
here at this table.”
“If I did,” said the Duke in a low voice, “you and all you believe, and all by which alone
you live, would be the first to shrivel and perish. You would have an instant to know the
great Nothing before you died.”
“The Cross of Christ be between me and harm,” said Father Brown. “Take off your
wig.”
I was leaning over the table in ungovernable excitement; in listening to this
extraordinary duel half a thought had come into my head. “Your Grace,” I cried, “I call
your bluff. Take off that wig or I will knock it off.”
I suppose I can be prosecuted for assault, but I am very glad I did it. When he said, in
the same voice of stone, “I refuse,” I simply sprang on him. For three long instants he
strained against me as if he had all hell to help him; but I forced his head until the hairy
cap fell off it. I admit that, whilst wrestling, I shut my eyes as it fell.
I was awakened by a cry from Mull, who was also by this time at the Duke’s side. His
head and mine were both bending over the bald head of the wigless Duke. Then the
silence was snapped by the librarian exclaiming: “What can it mean? Why, the man had
nothing to hide. His ears are just like everybody else’s.”
“Yes,” said Father Brown, “that is what he had to hide.”
The priest walked straight up to him, but strangely enough did not even glance at his
ears. He stared with an almost comical seriousness at his bald forehead, and pointed to a
three-cornered cicatrice, long healed, but still discernible. “Mr Green, I think.” he said
politely, “and he did get the whole estate after all.”
And now let me tell the readers of the Daily Reformer what I think the most remarkable
thing in the whole affair. This transformation scene, which will seem to you as wild and
purple as a Persian fairy-tale, has been (except for my technical assault) strictly legal
and constitutional from its first beginnings. This man with the odd scar and the ordinary
ears is not an impostor. Though (in one sense) he wears another man’s wig and claims
another man’s ear, he has not stolen another man’s coronet. He really is the one and
only Duke of Exmoor. What happened was this. The old Duke really had a slight
malformation of the ear, which really was more or less hereditary. He really was morbid
about it; and it is likely enough that he did invoke it as a kind of curse in the violent
scene (which undoubtedly happened) in which he struck Green with the decanter. But
the contest ended very differently. Green pressed his claim and got the estates; the
dispossessed nobleman shot himself and died without issue. After a decent interval the
beautiful English Government revived the “extinct” peerage of Exmoor, and bestowed
it, as is usual, on the most important person, the person who had got the property.
This man used the old feudal fables — properly, in his snobbish soul, really envied and
admired them. So that thousands of poor English people trembled before a mysterious
chieftain with an ancient destiny and a diadem of evil stars — when they are really
trembling before a guttersnipe who was a pettifogger and a pawnbroker not twelve years
ago. I think it very typical of the real case against our aristocracy as it is, and as it will
be till God sends us braver men.
Mr Nutt put down the manuscript and called out with unusual sharpness: “Miss Barlow,
please take down a letter to Mr Finn.”
DEAR FINN, — You must be mad; we can’t touch this. I wanted vampires and the bad
old days and aristocracy hand-in-hand with superstition. They like that. But you must
know the Exmoors would never forgive this. And what would our people say then, I
should like to know! Why, Sir Simon is one of Exmoor’s greatest pals; and it would
ruin that cousin of the Eyres that’s standing for us at Bradford. Besides, old Soap-Suds
was sick enough at not getting his peerage last year; he’d sack me by wire if I lost him it
with such lunacy as this. And what about Duffey? He’s doing us some rattling articles
on “The Heel of the Norman.” And how can he write about Normans if the man’s only a
solicitor? Do be reasonable. — Yours, E. NUTT.
As Miss Barlow rattled away cheerfully, he crumpled up the copy and tossed it into the
waste-paper basket; but not before he had, automatically and by force of habit, altered
the word “God” to the word “circumstances.”
The Perishing of the Pendragons
FATHER BROWN was in no mood for adventures. He had lately fallen ill with overwork, and when he began to recover, his friend Flambeau had taken him on a cruise in a
small yacht with Sir Cecil Fanshaw, a young Cornish squire and an enthusiast for
Cornish coast scenery. But Brown was still rather weak; he was no very happy sailor;
and though he was never of the sort that either grumbles or breaks down, his spirits did
not rise above patience and civility. When the other two men praised the ragged violet
sunset or the ragged volcanic crags, he agreed with them. When Flambeau pointed out a
rock shaped like a dragon, he looked at it and thought it very like a dragon. When
Fanshaw more excitedly indicated a rock that was like Merlin, he looked at it, and
signified assent. When Flambeau asked whether this rocky gate of the twisted river was
not the gate of Fairyland, he said “Yes.” He heard the most important things and the
most trivial with the same tasteless absorption. He heard that the coast was death to all
but careful seamen; he also heard that the ship’s cat was asleep. He heard that Fanshaw
couldn’t find his cigar-holder anywhere; he also heard the pilot deliver the oracle “Both
eyes bright, she’s all right; one eye winks, down she sinks.” He heard Flambeau say to
Fanshaw that no doubt this meant the pilot must keep both eyes open and be spry. And
he heard Fanshaw say to Flambeau that, oddly enough, it didn’t mean this: it meant that
while they saw two of the coast lights, one near and the other distant, exactly side by
side, they were in the right river-channel; but that if one light was hidden behind the
other, they were going on the rocks. He heard Fanshaw add that his country was full of
such quaint fables and idioms; it was the very home of romance; he even pitted this part
of Cornwall against Devonshire, as a claimant to the laurels of Elizabethan seamanship.
According to him there had been captains among these coves and islets compared with
whom Drake was practically a landsman. He heard Flambeau laugh, and ask if, perhaps,
the adventurous title of “Westward Ho!” only meant that all Devonshire men wished
they were living in Cornwall. He heard Fanshaw say there was no need to be silly; that
not only had Cornish captains been heroes, but that they were heroes still: that near that
very spot there was an old admiral, now retired, who was scarred by thrilling voyages
full of adventures; and who had in his youth found the last group of eight Pacific Islands
that was added to the chart of the world. This Cecil Fanshaw was, in person, of the kind
that commonly urges such crude but pleasing enthusiasms; a very young man, lighthaired, high-coloured, with an eager profile; with a boyish bravado of spirits, but an
almost girlish delicacy of tint and type. The big shoulders, black brows and black
mousquetaire swagger of Flambeau were a great contrast.
All these trivialities Brown heard and saw; but heard them as a tired man hears a tune in
the railway wheels, or saw them as a sick man sees the pattern of his wall-paper. No one
can calculate the turns of mood in convalescence: but Father Brown’s depression must
have had a great deal to do with his mere unfamiliarity with the sea. For as the river
mouth narrowed like the neck of a bottle, and the water grew calmer and the air warmer
and more earthly, he seemed to wake up and take notice like a baby. They had reached
that phase just after sunset when air and water both look bright, but earth and all its
growing things look almost black by comparison. About this particular evening,
however, there was something exceptional. It was one of those rare atmospheres in
which a smoked-glass slide seems to have been slid away from between us and Nature;
so that even dark colours on that day look more gorgeous than bright colours on
cloudier days. The trampled earth of the river-banks and the peaty stain in the pools did
not look drab but glowing umber, and the dark woods astir in the breeze did not look, as
usual, dim blue with mere depth of distance, but more like wind-tumbled masses of
some vivid violet blossom. This magic clearness and intensity in the colours was further
forced on Brown’s slowly reviving senses by something romantic and even secret in the
very form of the landscape.
The river was still well wide and deep enough for a pleasure boat so small as theirs; but
the curves of the country-side suggested that it was closing in on either hand; the woods
seemed to be making broken and flying attempts at bridge-building — as if the boat
were passing from the romance of a valley to the romance of a hollow and so to the
supreme romance of a tunnel. Beyond this mere look of things there was little for
Brown’s freshening fancy to feed on; he saw no human beings, except some gipsies
trailing along the river bank, with faggots and osiers cut in the forest; and one sight no
longer unconventional, but in such remote parts still uncommon: a dark-haired lady,
bare-headed, and paddling her own canoe. If Father Brown ever attached any
importance to either of these, he certainly forgot them at the next turn of the river which
brought in sight a singular object.
The water seemed to widen and split, being cloven by the dark wedge of a fish-shaped
and wooded islet. With the rate at which they went, the islet seemed to swim towards
them like a ship; a ship with a very high prow — or, to speak more strictly, a very high
funnel. For at the extreme point nearest them stood up an odd-looking building, unlike
anything they could remember or connect with any purpose. It was not specially high,
but it was too high for its breadth to be called anything but a tower. Yet it appeared to
be built entirely of wood, and that in a most unequal and eccentric way. Some of the
planks and beams were of good, seasoned oak; some of such wood cut raw and recent;
some again of white pinewood, and a great deal more of the same sort of wood painted
black with tar. These black beams were set crooked or crisscross at all kinds of angles,
giving the whole a most patchy and puzzling appearance. There were one or two
windows, which appeared to be coloured and leaded in an old-fashioned but more
elaborate style. The travellers looked at it with that paradoxical feeling we have when
something reminds us of something, and yet we are certain it is something very
different.
Father Brown, even when he was mystified, was clever in analysing his own
mystification. And he found himself reflecting that the oddity seemed to consist in a
particular shape cut out in an incongruous material; as if one saw a top-hat made of tin,
or a frock-coat cut out of tartan. He was sure he had seen timbers of different tints
arranged like that somewhere, but never in such architectural proportions. The next
moment a glimpse through the dark trees told him all he wanted to know and he
laughed. Through a gap in the foliage there appeared for a moment one of those old
wooden houses, faced with black beams, which are still to be found here and there in
England, but which most of us see imitated in some show called “Old London” or
“Shakespeare’s England’. It was in view only long enough for the priest to see that,
however old-fashioned, it was a comfortable and well-kept country-house, with flowerbeds in front of it. It had none of the piebald and crazy look of the tower that seemed
made out of its refuse.
“What on earth’s this?” said Flambeau, who was still staring at the tower.
Fanshaw’s eyes were shining, and he spoke triumphantly. “Aha! you’ve not seen a place
quite like this before, I fancy; that’s why I’ve brought you here, my friend. Now you
shall see whether I exaggerate about the mariners of Cornwall. This place belongs to
Old Pendragon, whom we call the Admiral; though he retired before getting the rank.
The spirit of Raleigh and Hawkins is a memory with the Devon folk; it’s a modern fact
with the Pendragons. If Queen Elizabeth were to rise from the grave and come up this
river in a gilded barge, she would be received by the Admiral in a house exactly such as
she was accustomed to, in every corner and casement, in every panel on the wall or
plate on the table. And she would find an English Captain still talking fiercely of fresh
lands to be found in little ships, as much as if she had dined with Drake.”
“She’d find a rum sort of thing in the garden,” said Father Brown, “which would not
please her Renaissance eye. That Elizabethan domestic architecture is charming in its
way; but it’s against the very nature of it to break out into turrets.”
“And yet,” answered Fanshaw, “that’s the most romantic and Elizabethan part of the
business. It was built by the Pendragons in the very days of the Spanish wars; and
though it’s needed patching and even rebuilding for another reason, it’s always been
rebuilt in the old way. The story goes that the lady of Sir Peter Pendragon built it in this
place and to this height, because from the top you can just see the corner where vessels
turn into the river mouth; and she wished to be the first to see her husband’s ship, as he
sailed home from the Spanish Main.”
“For what other reason,” asked Father Brown, “do you mean that it has been rebuilt?”
“Oh, there’s a strange story about that, too,” said the young squire with relish. “You are
really in a land of strange stories. King Arthur was here and Merlin and the fairies
before him. The story goes that Sir Peter Pendragon, who (I fear) had some of the faults
of the pirates as well as the virtues of the sailor, was bringing home three Spanish
gentlemen in honourable captivity, intending to escort them to Elizabeth’s court. But he
was a man of flaming and tigerish temper, and coming to high words with one of them,
he caught him by the throat and flung him by accident or design, into the sea. A second
Spaniard, who was the brother of the first, instantly drew his sword and flew at
Pendragon, and after a short but furious combat in which both got three wounds in as
many minutes, Pendragon drove his blade through the other’s body and the second
Spaniard was accounted for. As it happened the ship had already turned into the river
mouth and was close to comparatively shallow water. The third Spaniard sprang over
the side of the ship, struck out for the shore, and was soon near enough to it to stand up
to his waist in water. And turning again to face the ship, and holding up both arms to
Heaven — like a prophet calling plagues upon a wicked city — he called out to
Pendragon in a piercing and terrible voice, that he at least was yet living, that he would
go on living, that he would live for ever; and that generation after generation the house
of Pendragon should never see him or his, but should know by very certain signs that he
and his vengeance were alive. With that he dived under the wave, and was either
drowned or swam so long under water that no hair of his head was seen afterwards.”
“There’s that girl in the canoe again,” said Flambeau irrelevantly, for good-looking
young women would call him off any topic. “She seems bothered by the queer tower
just as we were.”
Indeed, the black-haired young lady was letting her canoe float slowly and silently past
the strange islet; and was looking intently up at the strange tower, with a strong glow of
curiosity on her oval and olive face.
“Never mind girls,” said Fanshaw impatiently, “there are plenty of them in the world,
but not many things like the Pendragon Tower. As you may easily suppose, plenty of
superstitions and scandals have followed in the track of the Spaniard’s curse; and no
doubt, as you would put it, any accident happening to this Cornish family would be
connected with it by rural credulity. But it is perfectly true that this tower has been burnt
down two or three times; and the family can’t be called lucky, for more than two, I
think, of the Admiral’s near kin have perished by shipwreck; and one at least, to my
own knowledge, on practically the same spot where Sir Peter threw the Spaniard
overboard.”
“What a pity!” exclaimed Flambeau. “She’s going.”
“When did your friend the Admiral tell you this family history?” asked Father Brown,
as the girl in the canoe paddled off, without showing the least intention of extending her
interest from the tower to the yacht, which Fanshaw had already caused to lie alongside
the island.
“Many years ago,” replied Fanshaw; “he hasn’t been to sea for some time now, though
he is as keen on it as ever. I believe there’s a family compact or something. Well, here’s
the landing stage; let’s come ashore and see the old boy.”
They followed him on to the island, just under the tower, and Father Brown, whether
from the mere touch of dry land, or the interest of something on the other bank of the
river (which he stared at very hard for some seconds), seemed singularly improved in
briskness. They entered a wooded avenue between two fences of thin greyish wood,
such as often enclose parks or gardens, and over the top of which the dark trees tossed
to and fro like black and purple plumes upon the hearse of a giant. The tower, as they
left it behind, looked all the quainter, because such entrances are usually flanked by two
towers; and this one looked lopsided. But for this, the avenue had the usual appearance
of the entrance to a gentleman’s grounds; and, being so curved that the house was now
out of sight, somehow looked a much larger park than any plantation on such an island
could really be. Father Brown was, perhaps, a little fanciful in his fatigue, but he almost
thought the whole place must be growing larger, as things do in a nightmare. Anyhow, a
mystical monotony was the only character of their march, until Fanshaw suddenly
stopped, and pointed to something sticking out through the grey fence — something that
looked at first rather like the imprisoned horn of some beast. Closer observation showed
that it was a slightly curved blade of metal that shone faintly in the fading light.
Flambeau, who like all Frenchmen had been a soldier, bent over it and said in a startled
voice: “Why, it’s a sabre! I believe I know the sort, heavy and curved, but shorter than
the cavalry; they used to have them in artillery and the — ”
As he spoke the blade plucked itself out of the crack it had made and came down again
with a more ponderous slash, splitting the fissiparous fence to the bottom with a rending
noise. Then it was pulled out again, flashed above the fence some feet further along, and
again split it halfway down with the first stroke; and after waggling a little to extricate
itself (accompanied with curses in the darkness) split it down to the ground with a
second. Then a kick of devilish energy sent the whole loosened square of thin wood
flying into the pathway, and a great gap of dark coppice gaped in the paling.
Fanshaw peered into the dark opening and uttered an exclamation of astonishment. “My
dear Admiral!” he exclaimed, “do you — er — do you generally cut out a new front
door whenever you want to go for a walk?”
The voice in the gloom swore again, and then broke into a jolly laugh. “No,” it said;
“I’ve really got to cut down this fence somehow; it’s spoiling all the plants, and no one
else here can do it. But I’ll only carve another bit off the front door, and then come out
and welcome you.”
And sure enough, he heaved up his weapon once more, and, hacking twice, brought
down another and similar strip of fence, making the opening about fourteen feet wide in
all. Then through this larger forest gateway he came out into the evening light, with a
chip of grey wood sticking to his sword-blade.
He momentarily fulfilled all Fanshaw’s fable of an old piratical Admiral; though the
details seemed afterwards to decompose into accidents. For instance, he wore a broadbrimmed hat as protection against the sun; but the front flap of it was turned up straight
to the sky, and the two corners pulled down lower than the ears, so that it stood across
his forehead in a crescent like the old cocked hat worn by Nelson. He wore an ordinary
dark-blue jacket, with nothing special about the buttons, but the combination of it with
white linen trousers somehow had a sailorish look. He was tall and loose, and walked
with a sort of swagger, which was not a sailor’s roll, and yet somehow suggested it; and
he held in his hand a short sabre which was like a navy cutlass, but about twice as big.
Under the bridge of the hat his eagle face looked eager, all the more because it was not
only clean-shaven, but without eyebrows. It seemed almost as if all the hair had come
off his face from his thrusting it through a throng of elements. His eyes were prominent
and piercing. His colour was curiously attractive, while partly tropical; it reminded one
vaguely of a blood-orange. That is, that while it was ruddy and sanguine, there was a
yellow in it that was in no way sickly, but seemed rather to glow like gold apples of the
Hesperides — Father Brown thought he had never seen a figure so expressive of all the
romances about the countries of the Sun.
When Fanshaw had presented his two friends to their host he fell again into a tone of
rallying the latter about his wreckage of the fence and his apparent rage of profanity.
The Admiral pooh-poohed it at first as a piece of necessary but annoying garden work;
but at length the ring of real energy came back into his laughter, and he cried with a
mixture of impatience and good humour:
“Well, perhaps I do go at it a bit rabidly, and feel a kind of pleasure in smashing
anything. So would you if your only pleasure was in cruising about to find some new
Cannibal Islands, and you had to stick on this muddy little rockery in a sort of rustic
pond. When I remember how I’ve cut down a mile and a half of green poisonous jungle
with an old cutlass half as sharp as this; and then remember I must stop here and chop
this matchwood, because of some confounded old bargain scribbled in a family Bible,
why, I — ”
He swung up the heavy steel again; and this time sundered the wall of wood from top to
bottom at one stroke.
“I feel like that,” he said laughing, but furiously flinging the sword some yards down
the path, “and now let’s go up to the house; you must have some dinner.”
The semicircle of lawn in front of the house was varied by three circular garden beds,
one of red tulips, a second of yellow tulips, and the third of some white, waxen-looking
blossoms that the visitors did not know and presumed to be exotic. A heavy, hairy and
rather sullen-looking gardener was hanging up a heavy coil of garden hose. The corners
of the expiring sunset which seemed to cling about the corners of the house gave
glimpses here and there of the colours of remoter flowerbeds; and in a treeless space on
one side of the house opening upon the river stood a tall brass tripod on which was tilted
a big brass telescope. Just outside the steps of the porch stood a little painted green
garden table, as if someone had just had tea there. The entrance was flanked with two of
those half-featured lumps of stone with holes for eyes that are said to be South Sea
idols; and on the brown oak beam across the doorway were some confused carvings that
looked almost as barbaric.
As they passed indoors, the little cleric hopped suddenly on to the table, and standing on
it peered unaffectedly through his spectacles at the mouldings in the oak. Admiral
Pendragon looked very much astonished, though not particularly annoyed; while
Fanshaw was so amused with what looked like a performing pigmy on his little stand,
that he could not control his laughter. But Father Brown was not likely to notice either
the laughter or the astonishment.
He was gazing at three carved symbols, which, though very worn and obscure, seemed
still to convey some sense to him. The first seemed to be the outline of some tower or
other building, crowned with what looked like curly-pointed ribbons. The second was
clearer: an old Elizabethan galley with decorative waves beneath it, but interrupted in
the middle by a curious jagged rock, which was either a fault in the wood or some
conventional representation of the water coming in. The third represented the upper half
of a human figure, ending in an escalloped line like the waves; the face was rubbed and
featureless, and both arms were held very stiffly up in the air.
“Well,” muttered Father Brown, blinking, “here is the legend of the Spaniard plain
enough. Here he is holding up his arms and cursing in the sea; and here are the two
curses: the wrecked ship and the burning of Pendragon Tower.”
Pendragon shook his head with a kind of venerable amusement. “And how many other
things might it not be?” he said. “Don’t you know that that sort of half-man, like a halflion or half-stag, is quite common in heraldry? Might not that line through the ship be
one of those parti-per-pale lines, indented, I think they call it? And though the third
thing isn’t so very heraldic, it would be more heraldic to suppose it a tower crowned
with laurel than with fire; and it looks just as like it.”
“But it seems rather odd,” said Flambeau, “that it should exactly confirm the old
legend.”
“Ah,” replied the sceptical traveller, “but you don’t know how much of the old legend
may have been made up from the old figures. Besides, it isn’t the only old legend.
Fanshaw, here, who is fond of such things, will tell you there are other versions of the
tale, and much more horrible ones. One story credits my unfortunate ancestor with
having had the Spaniard cut in two; and that will fit the pretty picture also. Another
obligingly credits our family with the possession of a tower full of snakes and explains
those little, wriggly things in that way. And a third theory supposes the crooked line on
the ship to be a conventionalized thunderbolt; but that alone, if seriously examined,
would show what a very little way these unhappy coincidences really go.”
“Why, how do you mean?” asked Fanshaw.
“It so happens,” replied his host coolly, “that there was no thunder and lightning at all in
the two or three shipwrecks I know of in our family.”
“Oh!” said Father Brown, and jumped down from the little table.
There was another silence in which they heard the continuous murmur of the river; then
Fanshaw said, in a doubtful and perhaps disappointed tone: “Then you don’t think there
is anything in the tales of the tower in flames?”
“There are the tales, of course,” said the Admiral, shrugging his shoulders; “and some
of them, I don’t deny, on evidence as decent as one ever gets for such things. Someone
saw a blaze hereabout, don’t you know, as he walked home through a wood; someone
keeping sheep on the uplands inland thought he saw a flame hovering over Pendragon
Tower. Well, a damp dab of mud like this confounded island seems the last place where
one would think of fires.”
“What is that fire over there?” asked Father Brown with a gentle suddenness, pointing
to the woods on the left river-bank. They were all thrown a little off their balance, and
the more fanciful Fanshaw had even some difficulty in recovering his, as they saw a
long, thin stream of blue smoke ascending silently into the end of the evening light.
Then Pendragon broke into a scornful laugh again. “Gipsies!” he said; “they’ve been
camping about here for about a week. Gentlemen, you want your dinner,” and he turned
as if to enter the house.
But the antiquarian superstition in Fanshaw was still quivering, and he said hastily:
“But, Admiral, what’s that hissing noise quite near the island? It’s very like fire.”
“It’s more like what it is,” said the Admiral, laughing as he led the way; “it’s only some
canoe going by.”
Almost as he spoke, the butler, a lean man in black, with very black hair and a very
long, yellow face, appeared in the doorway and told him that dinner was served.
The dining-room was as nautical as the cabin of a ship; but its note was rather that of
the modern than the Elizabethan captain. There were, indeed, three antiquated cutlasses
in a trophy over the fireplace, and one brown sixteenth-century map with Tritons and
little ships dotted about a curly sea. But such things were less prominent on the white
panelling than some cases of quaint-coloured South American birds, very scientifically
stuffed, fantastic shells from the Pacific, and several instruments so rude and queer in
shape that savages might have used them either to kill their enemies or to cook them.
But the alien colour culminated in the fact that, besides the butler, the Admiral’s only
servants were two negroes, somewhat quaintly clad in tight uniforms of yellow. The
priest’s instinctive trick of analysing his own impressions told him that the colour and
the little neat coat-tails of these bipeds had suggested the word “Canary,” and so by a
mere pun connected them with southward travel. Towards the end of the dinner they
took their yellow clothes and black faces out of the room, leaving only the black clothes
and yellow face of the butler.
“I’m rather sorry you take this so lightly,” said Fanshaw to the host; “for the truth is,
I’ve brought these friends of mine with the idea of their helping you, as they know a
good deal of these things. Don’t you really believe in the family story at all?”
“I don’t believe in anything,” answered Pendragon very briskly, with a bright eye
cocked at a red tropical bird. “I’m a man of science.”
Rather to Flambeau’s surprise, his clerical friend, who seemed to have entirely woken
up, took up the digression and talked natural history with his host with a flow of words
and much unexpected information, until the dessert and decanters were set down and the
last of the servants vanished. Then he said, without altering his tone.
“Please don’t think me impertinent, Admiral Pendragon. I don’t ask for curiosity, but
really for my guidance and your convenience. Have I made a bad shot if I guess you
don’t want these old things talked of before your butler?”
The Admiral lifted the hairless arches over his eyes and exclaimed: “Well, I don’t know
where you got it, but the truth is I can’t stand the fellow, though I’ve no excuse for
discharging a family servant. Fanshaw, with his fairy tales, would say my blood moved
against men with that black, Spanish-looking hair.”
Flambeau struck the table with his heavy fist. “By Jove!” he cried; “and so had that
girl!”
“I hope it’ll all end tonight,” continued the Admiral, “when my nephew comes back safe
from his ship. You looked surprised. You won’t understand, I suppose, unless I tell you
the story. You see, my father had two sons; I remained a bachelor, but my elder brother
married, and had a son who became a sailor like all the rest of us, and will inherit the
proper estate. Well, my father was a strange man; he somehow combined Fanshaw’s
superstition with a good deal of my scepticism — they were always fighting in him; and
after my first voyages, he developed a notion which he thought somehow would settle
finally whether the curse was truth or trash. If all the Pendragons sailed about anyhow,
he thought there would be too much chance of natural catastrophes to prove anything.
But if we went to sea one at a time in strict order of succession to the property, he
thought it might show whether any connected fate followed the family as a family. It
was a silly notion, I think, and I quarrelled with my father pretty heartily; for I was an
ambitious man and was left to the last, coming, by succession, after my own nephew.”
“And your father and brother,” said the priest, very gently, “died at sea, I fear.”
“Yes,” groaned the Admiral; “by one of those brutal accidents on which are built all the
lying mythologies of mankind, they were both shipwrecked. My father, coming up this
coast out of the Atlantic, was washed up on these Cornish rocks. My brother’s ship was
sunk, no one knows where, on the voyage home from Tasmania. His body was never
found. I tell you it was from perfectly natural mishap; lots of other people besides
Pendragons were drowned; and both disasters are discussed in a normal way by
navigators. But, of course, it set this forest of superstition on fire; and men saw the
flaming tower everywhere. That’s why I say it will be all right when Walter returns. The
girl he’s engaged to was coming today; but I was so afraid of some chance delay
frightening her that I wired her not to come till she heard from me. But he’s practically
sure to be here some time tonight, and then it’ll all end in smoke — tobacco smoke.
We’ll crack that old lie when we crack a bottle of this wine.”
“Very good wine,” said Father Brown, gravely lifting his glass, “but, as you see, a very
bad wine-bibber. I most sincerely beg your pardon”: for he had spilt a small spot of
wine on the table-cloth. He drank and put down the glass with a composed face; but his
hand had started at the exact moment when he became conscious of a face looking in
through the garden window just behind the Admiral — the face of a woman, swarthy,
with southern hair and eyes, and young, but like a mask of tragedy.
After a pause the priest spoke again in his mild manner. “Admiral,” he said, “will you
do me a favour? Let me, and my friends if they like, stop in that tower of yours just for
tonight? Do you know that in my business you’re an exorcist almost before anything
else?”
Pendragon sprang to his feet and paced swiftly to and fro across the window, from
which the face had instantly vanished. “I tell you there is nothing in it,” he cried, with
ringing violence. “There is one thing I know about this matter. You may call me an
atheist. I am an atheist.” Here he swung round and fixed Father Brown with a face of
frightful concentration. “This business is perfectly natural. There is no curse in it at all.”
Father Brown smiled. “In that case,” he said, “there can’t be any objection to my
sleeping in your delightful summer-house.”
“The idea is utterly ridiculous,” replied the Admiral, beating a tattoo on the back of his
chair.
“Please forgive me for everything,” said Brown in his most sympathetic tone,
“including spilling the wine. But it seems to me you are not quite so easy about the
flaming tower as you try to be.”
Admiral Pendragon sat down again as abruptly as he had risen; but he sat quite still, and
when he spoke again it was in a lower voice. “You do it at your own peril,” he said;
“but wouldn’t you be an atheist to keep sane in all this devilry?”
Some three hours afterwards Fanshaw, Flambeau and the priest were still dawdling
about the garden in the dark; and it began to dawn on the other two that Father Brown
had no intention of going to bed either in the tower or the house.
“I think the lawn wants weeding,” said he dreamily. “If I could find a spud or something
I’d do it myself.”
They followed him, laughing and half remonstrating; but he replied with the utmost
solemnity, explaining to them, in a maddening little sermon, that one can always find
some small occupation that is helpful to others. He did not find a spud; but he found an
old broom made of twigs, with which he began energetically to brush the fallen leaves
off the grass.
“Always some little thing to be done,” he said with idiotic cheerfulness; “as George
Herbert says: ‘Who sweeps an Admiral’s garden in Cornwall as for Thy laws makes
that and the action fine.’ And now,” he added, suddenly slinging the broom away,
“Let’s go and water the flowers.”
With the same mixed emotions they watched him uncoil some considerable lengths of
the large garden hose, saying with an air of wistful discrimination: “The red tulips
before the yellow, I think. Look a bit dry, don’t you think?”
He turned the little tap on the instrument, and the water shot out straight and solid as a
long rod of steel.
“Look out, Samson,” cried Flambeau; “why, you’ve cut off the tulip’s head.”
Father Brown stood ruefully contemplating the decapitated plant.
“Mine does seem to be a rather kill or cure sort of watering,” he admitted, scratching his
head. “I suppose it’s a pity I didn’t find the spud. You should have seen me with the
spud! Talking of tools, you’ve got that swordstick, Flambeau, you always carry? That’s
right; and Sir Cecil could have that sword the Admiral threw away by the fence here.
How grey everything looks!”
“The mist’s rising from the river,” said the staring Flambeau.
Almost as he spoke the huge figure of the hairy gardener appeared on a higher ridge of
the trenched and terraced lawn, hailing them with a brandished rake and a horribly
bellowing voice. “Put down that hose,” he shouted; “put down that hose and go to your
—”
“I am fearfully clumsy,” replied the reverend gentleman weakly; “do you know, I upset
some wine at dinner.” He made a wavering half-turn of apology towards the gardener,
with the hose still spouting in his hand. The gardener caught the cold crash of the water
full in his face like the crash of a cannon-ball; staggered, slipped and went sprawling
with his boots in the air.
“How very dreadful!” said Father Brown, looking round in a sort of wonder. “Why, I’ve
hit a man!”
He stood with his head forward for a moment as if looking or listening; and then set off
at a trot towards the tower, still trailing the hose behind him. The tower was quite close,
but its outline was curiously dim.
“Your river mist,” he said, “has a rum smell.”
“By the Lord it has,” cried Fanshaw, who was very white. “But you can’t mean — ”
“I mean,” said Father Brown, “that one of the Admiral’s scientific predictions is coming
true tonight. This story is going to end in smoke.”
As he spoke a most beautiful rose-red light seemed to burst into blossom like a gigantic
rose; but accompanied with a crackling and rattling noise that was like the laughter of
devils.
“My God! what is this?” cried Sir Cecil Fanshaw.
“The sign of the flaming tower,” said Father Brown, and sent the driving water from his
hose into the heart of the red patch.
“Lucky we hadn’t gone to bed!” ejaculated Fanshaw. “I suppose it can’t spread to the
house.”
“You may remember,” said the priest quietly, “that the wooden fence that might have
carried it was cut away.”
Flambeau turned electrified eyes upon his friend, but Fanshaw only said rather absently:
“Well, nobody can be killed, anyhow.”
“This is rather a curious kind of tower,” observed Father Brown, “when it takes to
killing people, it always kills people who are somewhere else.”
At the same instant the monstrous figure of the gardener with the streaming beard stood
again on the green ridge against the sky, waving others to come on; but now waving not
a rake but a cutlass. Behind him came the two negroes, also with the old crooked
cutlasses out of the trophy. But in the blood-red glare, with their black faces and yellow
figures, they looked like devils carrying instruments of torture. In the dim garden behind
them a distant voice was heard calling out brief directions. When the priest heard the
voice, a terrible change came over his countenance.
But he remained composed; and never took his eye off the patch of flame which had
begun by spreading, but now seemed to shrink a little as it hissed under the torch of the
long silver spear of water. He kept his finger along the nozzle of the pipe to ensure the
aim, and attended to no other business, knowing only by the noise and that semiconscious corner of the eye, the exciting incidents that began to tumble themselves
about the island garden. He gave two brief directions to his friends. One was: “Knock
these fellows down somehow and tie them up, whoever they are; there’s rope down by
those faggots. They want to take away my nice hose.” The other was: “As soon as you
get a chance, call out to that canoeing girl; she’s over on the bank with the gipsies. Ask
her if they could get some buckets across and fill them from the river.” Then he closed
his mouth and continued to water the new red flower as ruthlessly as he had watered the
red tulip.
He never turned his head to look at the strange fight that followed between the foes and
friends of the mysterious fire. He almost felt the island shake when Flambeau collided
with the huge gardener; he merely imagined how it would whirl round them as they
wrestled. He heard the crashing fall; and his friend’s gasp of triumph as he dashed on to
the first negro; and the cries of both the blacks as Flambeau and Fanshaw bound them.
Flambeau’s enormous strength more than redressed the odds in the fight, especially as
the fourth man still hovered near the house, only a shadow and a voice. He heard also
the water broken by the paddles of a canoe; the girl’s voice giving orders, the voices of
gipsies answering and coming nearer, the plumping and sucking noise of empty buckets
plunged into a full stream; and finally the sound of many feet around the fire. But all
this was less to him than the fact that the red rent, which had lately once more increased,
had once more slightly diminished.
Then came a cry that very nearly made him turn his head. Flambeau and Fanshaw, now
reinforced by some of the gipsies, had rushed after the mysterious man by the house;
and he heard from the other end of the garden the Frenchman’s cry of horror and
astonishment. It was echoed by a howl not to be called human, as the being broke from
their hold and ran along the garden. Three times at least it raced round the whole island,
in a way that was as horrible as the chase of a lunatic, both in the cries of the pursued
and the ropes carried by the pursuers; but was more horrible still, because it somehow
suggested one of the chasing games of children in a garden. Then, finding them closing
in on every side, the figure sprang upon one of the higher river banks and disappeared
with a splash into the dark and driving river.
“You can do no more, I fear,” said Brown in a voice cold with pain. “He has been
washed down to the rocks by now, where he has sent so many others. He knew the use
of a family legend.”
“Oh, don’t talk in these parables,” cried Flambeau impatiently. “Can’t you put it simply
in words of one syllable?”
“Yes,” answered Brown, with his eye on the hose. “‘Both eyes bright, she’s all right;
one eye blinks, down she sinks.’”
The fire hissed and shrieked more and more, like a strangled thing, as it grew narrower
and narrower under the flood from the pipe and buckets, but Father Brown still kept his
eye on it as he went on speaking:
“I thought of asking this young lady, if it were morning yet, to look through that
telescope at the river mouth and the river. She might have seen something to interest
her: the sign of the ship, or Mr Walter Pendragon coming home, and perhaps even the
sign of the half-man, for though he is certainly safe by now, he may very well have
waded ashore. He has been within a shave of another shipwreck; and would never have
escaped it, if the lady hadn’t had the sense to suspect the old Admiral’s telegram and
come down to watch him. Don’t let’s talk about the old Admiral. Don’t let’s talk about
anything. It’s enough to say that whenever this tower, with its pitch and resin-wood,
really caught fire, the spark on the horizon always looked like the twin light to the coast
light-house.”
“And that,” said Flambeau, “is how the father and brother died. The wicked uncle of the
legends very nearly got his estate after all.”
Father Brown did not answer; indeed, he did not speak again, save for civilities, till they
were all safe round a cigar-box in the cabin of the yacht. He saw that the frustrated fire
was extinguished; and then refused to linger, though he actually heard young
Pendragon, escorted by an enthusiastic crowd, come tramping up the river bank; and
might (had he been moved by romantic curiosities) have received the combined thanks
of the man from the ship and the girl from the canoe. But his fatigue had fallen on him
once more, and he only started once, when Flambeau abruptly told him he had dropped
cigar-ash on his trousers.
“That’s no cigar-ash,” he said rather wearily. “That’s from the fire, but you don’t think
so because you’re all smoking cigars. That’s just the way I got my first faint suspicion
about the chart.”
“Do you mean Pendragon’s chart of his Pacific Islands?” asked Fanshaw.
“You thought it was a chart of the Pacific Islands,” answered Brown. “Put a feather with
a fossil and a bit of coral and everyone will think it’s a specimen. Put the same feather
with a ribbon and an artificial flower and everyone will think it’s for a lady’s hat. Put
the same feather with an ink-bottle, a book and a stack of writing-paper, and most men
will swear they’ve seen a quill pen. So you saw that map among tropic birds and shells
and thought it was a map of Pacific Islands. It was the map of this river.”
“But how do you know?” asked Fanshaw.
“I saw the rock you thought was like a dragon, and the one like Merlin, and — ”
“You seem to have noticed a lot as we came in,” cried Fanshaw. “We thought you were
rather abstracted.”
“I was sea-sick,” said Father Brown simply. “I felt simply horrible. But feeling horrible
has nothing to do with not seeing things.” And he closed his eyes.
“Do you think most men would have seen that?” asked Flambeau. He received no
answer: Father Brown was asleep.
The God of the Gongs
IT was one of those chilly and empty afternoons in early winter, when the daylight is
silver rather than gold and pewter rather than silver. If it was dreary in a hundred bleak
offices and yawning drawing-rooms, it was drearier still along the edges of the flat
Essex coast, where the monotony was the more inhuman for being broken at very long
intervals by a lamp-post that looked less civilized than a tree, or a tree that looked more
ugly than a lamp-post. A light fall of snow had half-melted into a few strips, also
looking leaden rather than silver, when it had been fixed again by the seal of frost; no
fresh snow had fallen, but a ribbon of the old snow ran along the very margin of the
coast, so as to parallel the pale ribbon of the foam.
The line of the sea looked frozen in the very vividness of its violet-blue, like the vein of
a frozen finger. For miles and miles, forward and back, there was no breathing soul,
save two pedestrians, walking at a brisk pace, though one had much longer legs and
took much longer strides than the other.
It did not seem a very appropriate place or time for a holiday, but Father Brown had few
holidays, and had to take them when he could, and he always preferred, if possible, to
take them in company with his old friend Flambeau, ex-criminal and ex-detective. The
priest had had a fancy for visiting his old parish at Cobhole, and was going northeastward along the coast.
After walking a mile or two farther, they found that the shore was beginning to be
formally embanked, so as to form something like a parade; the ugly lamp-posts became
less few and far between and more ornamental, though quite equally ugly. Half a mile
farther on Father Brown was puzzled first by little labyrinths of flowerless flower-pots,
covered with the low, flat, quiet-coloured plants that look less like a garden than a
tessellated pavement, between weak curly paths studded with seats with curly backs. He
faintly sniffed the atmosphere of a certain sort of seaside town that he did not specially
care about, and, looking ahead along the parade by the sea, he saw something that put
the matter beyond a doubt. In the grey distance the big bandstand of a watering-place
stood up like a giant mushroom with six legs.
“I suppose,” said Father Brown, turning up his coat-collar and drawing a woollen scarf
rather closer round his neck, “that we are approaching a pleasure resort.”
“I fear,” answered Flambeau, “a pleasure resort to which few people just now have the
pleasure of resorting. They try to revive these places in the winter, but it never succeeds
except with Brighton and the old ones. This must be Seawood, I think — Lord Pooley’s
experiment; he had the Sicilian Singers down at Christmas, and there’s talk about
holding one of the great glove-fights here. But they’ll have to chuck the rotten place
into the sea; it’s as dreary as a lost railway-carriage.”
They had come under the big bandstand, and the priest was looking up at it with a
curiosity that had something rather odd about it, his head a little on one side, like a
bird’s. It was the conventional, rather tawdry kind of erection for its purpose: a flattened
dome or canopy, gilt here and there, and lifted on six slender pillars of painted wood,
the whole being raised about five feet above the parade on a round wooden platform
like a drum. But there was something fantastic about the snow combined with
something artificial about the gold that haunted Flambeau as well as his friend with
some association he could not capture, but which he knew was at once artistic and alien.
“I’ve got it,” he said at last. “It’s Japanese. It’s like those fanciful Japanese prints, where
the snow on the mountain looks like sugar, and the gilt on the pagodas is like gilt on
gingerbread. It looks just like a little pagan temple.”
“Yes,” said Father Brown. “Let’s have a look at the god.” And with an agility hardly to
be expected of him, he hopped up on to the raised platform.
“Oh, very well,” said Flambeau, laughing; and the next instant his own towering figure
was visible on that quaint elevation.
Slight as was the difference of height, it gave in those level wastes a sense of seeing yet
farther and farther across land and sea. Inland the little wintry gardens faded into a
confused grey copse; beyond that, in the distance, were long low barns of a lonely
farmhouse, and beyond that nothing but the long East Anglian plains. Seawards there
was no sail or sign of life save a few seagulls: and even they looked like the last
snowflakes, and seemed to float rather than fly.
Flambeau turned abruptly at an exclamation behind him. It seemed to come from lower
down than might have been expected, and to be addressed to his heels rather than his
head. He instantly held out his hand, but he could hardly help laughing at what he saw.
For some reason or other the platform had given way under Father Brown, and the
unfortunate little man had dropped through to the level of the parade. He was just tall
enough, or short enough, for his head alone to stick out of the hole in the broken wood,
looking like St John the Baptist’s head on a charger. The face wore a disconcerted
expression, as did, perhaps, that of St John the Baptist.
In a moment he began to laugh a little. “This wood must be rotten,” said Flambeau.
“Though it seems odd it should bear me, and you go through the weak place. Let me
help you out.”
But the little priest was looking rather curiously at the corners and edges of the wood
alleged to be rotten, and there was a sort of trouble on his brow.
“Come along,” cried Flambeau impatiently, still with his big brown hand extended.
“Don’t you want to get out?”
The priest was holding a splinter of the broken wood between his finger and thumb, and
did not immediately reply. At last he said thoughtfully: “Want to get out? Why, no. I
rather think I want to get in.” And he dived into the darkness under the wooden floor so
abruptly as to knock off his big curved clerical hat and leave it lying on the boards
above, without any clerical head in it.
Flambeau looked once more inland and out to sea, and once more could see nothing but
seas as wintry as the snow, and snows as level as the sea.
There came a scurrying noise behind him, and the little priest came scrambling out of
the hole faster than he had fallen in. His face was no longer disconcerted, but rather
resolute, and, perhaps only through the reflections of the snow, a trifle paler than usual.
“Well?” asked his tall friend. “Have you found the god of the temple?”
“No,” answered Father Brown. “I have found what was sometimes more important. The
Sacrifice.”
“What the devil do you mean?” cried Flambeau, quite alarmed.
Father Brown did not answer. He was staring, with a knot in his forehead, at the
landscape; and he suddenly pointed at it. “What’s that house over there?” he asked.
Following his finger, Flambeau saw for the first time the corners of a building nearer
than the farmhouse, but screened for the most part with a fringe of trees. It was not a
large building, and stood well back from the shore — but a glint of ornament on it
suggested that it was part of the same watering-place scheme of decoration as the
bandstand, the little gardens and the curly-backed iron seats.
Father Brown jumped off the bandstand, his friend following; and as they walked in the
direction indicated the trees fell away to right and left, and they saw a small, rather
flashy hotel, such as is common in resorts — the hotel of the Saloon Bar rather than the
Bar Parlour. Almost the whole frontage was of gilt plaster and figured glass, and
between that grey seascape and the grey, witch-like trees, its gimcrack quality had
something spectral in its melancholy. They both felt vaguely that if any food or drink
were offered at such a hostelry, it would be the paste-board ham and empty mug of the
pantomime.
In this, however, they were not altogether confirmed. As they drew nearer and nearer to
the place they saw in front of the buffet, which was apparently closed, one of the iron
garden-seats with curly backs that had adorned the gardens, but much longer, running
almost the whole length of the frontage. Presumably, it was placed so that visitors might
sit there and look at the sea, but one hardly expected to find anyone doing it in such
weather.
Nevertheless, just in front of the extreme end of the iron seat stood a small round
restaurant table, and on this stood a small bottle of Chablis and a plate of almonds and
raisins. Behind the table and on the seat sat a dark-haired young man, bareheaded, and
gazing at the sea in a state of almost astonishing immobility.
But though he might have been a waxwork when they were within four yards of him, he
jumped up like a jack-in-the-box when they came within three, and said in a deferential,
though not undignified, manner: “Will you step inside, gentlemen? I have no staff at
present, but I can get you anything simple myself.”
“Much obliged,” said Flambeau. “So you are the proprietor?”
“Yes,” said the dark man, dropping back a little into his motionless manner. “My
waiters are all Italians, you see, and I thought it only fair they should see their
countryman beat the black, if he really can do it. You know the great fight between
Malvoli and Nigger Ned is coming off after all?”
“I’m afraid we can’t wait to trouble your hospitality seriously,” said Father Brown. “But
my friend would be glad of a glass of sherry, I’m sure, to keep out the cold and drink
success to the Latin champion.”
Flambeau did not understand the sherry, but he did not object to it in the least. He could
only say amiably: “Oh, thank you very much.”
“Sherry, sir — certainly,” said their host, turning to his hostel. “Excuse me if I detain
you a few minutes. As I told you, I have no staff — ” And he went towards the black
windows of his shuttered and unlighted inn.
“Oh, it doesn’t really matter,” began Flambeau, but the man turned to reassure him.
“I have the keys,” he said. “I could find my way in the dark.”
“I didn’t mean — ” began Father Brown.
He was interrupted by a bellowing human voice that came out of the bowels of the
uninhabited hotel. It thundered some foreign name loudly but inaudibly, and the hotel
proprietor moved more sharply towards it than he had done for Flambeau’s sherry. As
instant evidence proved, the proprietor had told, then and after, nothing but the literal
truth. But both Flambeau and Father Brown have often confessed that, in all their (often
outrageous) adventures, nothing had so chilled their blood as that voice of an ogre,
sounding suddenly out of a silent and empty inn.
“My cook!” cried the proprietor hastily. “I had forgotten my cook. He will be starting
presently. Sherry, sir?”
And, sure enough, there appeared in the doorway a big white bulk with white cap and
white apron, as befits a cook, but with the needless emphasis of a black face. Flambeau
had often heard that negroes made good cooks. But somehow something in the contrast
of colour and caste increased his surprise that the hotel proprietor should answer the call
of the cook, and not the cook the call of the proprietor. But he reflected that head cooks
are proverbially arrogant; and, besides, the host had come back with the sherry, and that
was the great thing.
“I rather wonder,” said Father Brown, “that there are so few people about the beach,
when this big fight is coming on after all. We only met one man for miles.”
The hotel proprietor shrugged his shoulders. “They come from the other end of the
town, you see — from the station, three miles from here. They are only interested in the
sport, and will stop in hotels for the night only. After all, it is hardly weather for basking
on the shore.”
“Or on the seat,” said Flambeau, and pointed to the little table.
“I have to keep a look-out,” said the man with the motionless face. He was a quiet, wellfeatured fellow, rather sallow; his dark clothes had nothing distinctive about them,
except that his black necktie was worn rather high, like a stock, and secured by a gold
pin with some grotesque head to it. Nor was there anything notable in the face, except
something that was probably a mere nervous trick — a habit of opening one eye more
narrowly than the other, giving the impression that the other was larger, or was,
perhaps, artificial.
The silence that ensued was broken by their host saying quietly: “Whereabouts did you
meet the one man on your march?”
“Curiously enough,” answered the priest, “close by here — just by that bandstand.”
Flambeau, who had sat on the long iron seat to finish his sherry, put it down and rose to
his feet, staring at his friend in amazement. He opened his mouth to speak, and then shut
it again.
“Curious,” said the dark-haired man thoughtfully. “What was he like?”
“It was rather dark when I saw him,” began Father Brown, “but he was — ”
As has been said, the hotel-keeper can be proved to have told the precise truth. His
phrase that the cook was starting presently was fulfilled to the letter, for the cook came
out, pulling his gloves on, even as they spoke.
But he was a very different figure from the confused mass of white and black that had
appeared for an instant in the doorway. He was buttoned and buckled up to his bursting
eyeballs in the most brilliant fashion. A tall black hat was tilted on his broad black head
— a hat of the sort that the French wit has compared to eight mirrors. But somehow the
black man was like the black hat. He also was black, and yet his glossy skin flung back
the light at eight angles or more. It is needless to say that he wore white spats and a
white slip inside his waistcoat. The red flower stood up in his buttonhole aggressively,
as if it had suddenly grown there. And in the way he carried his cane in one hand and
his cigar in the other there was a certain attitude — an attitude we must always
remember when we talk of racial prejudices: something innocent and insolent — the
cake walk.
“Sometimes,” said Flambeau, looking after him, “I’m not surprised that they lynch
them.”
“I am never surprised,” said Father Brown, “at any work of hell. But as I was saying,”
he resumed, as the negro, still ostentatiously pulling on his yellow gloves, betook
himself briskly towards the watering-place, a queer music-hall figure against that grey
and frosty scene — “as I was saying, I couldn’t describe the man very minutely, but he
had a flourish and old-fashioned whiskers and moustachios, dark or dyed, as in the
pictures of foreign financiers, round his neck was wrapped a long purple scarf that
thrashed out in the wind as he walked. It was fixed at the throat rather in the way that
nurses fix children’s comforters with a safety-pin. Only this,” added the priest, gazing
placidly out to sea, “was not a safety-pin.”
The man sitting on the long iron bench was also gazing placidly out to sea. Now he was
once more in repose. Flambeau felt quite certain that one of his eyes was naturally
larger than the other. Both were now well opened, and he could almost fancy the left
eye grew larger as he gazed.
“It was a very long gold pin, and had the carved head of a monkey or some such thing,”
continued the cleric; “and it was fixed in a rather odd way — he wore pince-nez and a
broad black — ”
The motionless man continued to gaze at the sea, and the eyes in his head might have
belonged to two different men. Then he made a movement of blinding swiftness.
Father Brown had his back to him, and in that flash might have fallen dead on his face.
Flambeau had no weapon, but his large brown hands were resting on the end of the long
iron seat. His shoulders abruptly altered their shape, and he heaved the whole huge
thing high over his head, like a headsman’s axe about to fall. The mere height of the
thing, as he held it vertical, looked like a long iron ladder by which he was inviting men
to climb towards the stars. But the long shadow, in the level evening light, looked like a
giant brandishing the Eiffel Tower. It was the shock of that shadow, before the shock of
the iron crash, that made the stranger quail and dodge, and then dart into his inn, leaving
the flat and shining dagger he had dropped exactly where it had fallen.
“We must get away from here instantly,” cried Flambeau, flinging the huge seat away
with furious indifference on the beach. He caught the little priest by the elbow and ran
him down a grey perspective of barren back garden, at the end of which there was a
closed back garden door. Flambeau bent over it an instant in violent silence, and then
said: “The door is locked.”
As he spoke a black feather from one of the ornamental firs fell, brushing the brim of
his hat. It startled him more than the small and distant detonation that had come just
before. Then came another distant detonation, and the door he was trying to open shook
under the bullet buried in it. Flambeau’s shoulders again filled out and altered suddenly.
Three hinges and a lock burst at the same instant, and he went out into the empty path
behind, carrying the great garden door with him, as Samson carried the gates of Gaza.
Then he flung the garden door over the garden wall, just as a third shot picked up a
spurt of snow and dust behind his heel. Without ceremony he snatched up the little
priest, slung him astraddle on his shoulders, and went racing towards Seawood as fast as
his long legs could carry him. It was not until nearly two miles farther on that he set his
small companion down. It had hardly been a dignified escape, in spite of the classic
model of Anchises, but Father Brown’s face only wore a broad grin.
“Well,” said Flambeau, after an impatient silence, as they resumed their more
conventional tramp through the streets on the edge of the town, where no outrage need
be feared, “I don’t know what all this means, but I take it I may trust my own eyes that
you never met the man you have so accurately described.”
“I did meet him in a way,” Brown said, biting his finger rather nervously — “I did
really. And it was too dark to see him properly, because it was under that bandstand
affair. But I’m afraid I didn’t describe him so very accurately after all, for his pince-nez
was broken under him, and the long gold pin wasn’t stuck through his purple scarf but
through his heart.”
“And I suppose,” said the other in a lower voice, “that glass-eyed guy had something to
do with it.”
“I had hoped he had only a little,” answered Brown in a rather troubled voice, “and I
may have been wrong in what I did. I acted on impulse. But I fear this business has deep
roots and dark.”
They walked on through some streets in silence. The yellow lamps were beginning to be
lit in the cold blue twilight, and they were evidently approaching the more central parts
of the town. Highly coloured bills announcing the glove-fight between Nigger Ned and
Malvoli were slapped about the walls.
“Well,” said Flambeau, “I never murdered anyone, even in my criminal days, but I can
almost sympathize with anyone doing it in such a dreary place. Of all God-forsaken
dustbins of Nature, I think the most heart-breaking are places like that bandstand, that
were meant to be festive and are forlorn. I can fancy a morbid man feeling he must kill
his rival in the solitude and irony of such a scene. I remember once taking a tramp in
your glorious Surrey hills, thinking of nothing but gorse and skylarks, when I came out
on a vast circle of land, and over me lifted a vast, voiceless structure, tier above tier of
seats, as huge as a Roman amphitheatre and as empty as a new letter-rack. A bird sailed
in heaven over it. It was the Grand Stand at Epsom. And I felt that no one would ever be
happy there again.”
“It’s odd you should mention Epsom,” said the priest. “Do you remember what was
called the Sutton Mystery, because two suspected men — ice-cream men, I think —
happened to live at Sutton? They were eventually released. A man was found strangled,
it was said, on the Downs round that part. As a fact, I know (from an Irish policeman
who is a friend of mine) that he was found close up to the Epsom Grand Stand — in
fact, only hidden by one of the lower doors being pushed back.”
“That is queer,” assented Flambeau. “But it rather confirms my view that such pleasure
places look awfully lonely out of season, or the man wouldn’t have been murdered
there.”
“I’m not so sure he — ” began Brown, and stopped.
“Not so sure he was murdered?” queried his companion.
“Not so sure he was murdered out of the season,” answered the little priest, with
simplicity. “Don’t you think there’s something rather tricky about this solitude,
Flambeau? Do you feel sure a wise murderer would always want the spot to be lonely?
It’s very, very seldom a man is quite alone. And, short of that, the more alone he is, the
more certain he is to be seen. No; I think there must be some other — Why, here we are
at the Pavilion or Palace, or whatever they call it.”
They had emerged on a small square, brilliantly lighted, of which the principal building
was gay with gilding, gaudy with posters, and flanked with two giant photographs of
Malvoli and Nigger Ned.
“Hallo!” cried Flambeau in great surprise, as his clerical friend stumped straight up the
broad steps. “I didn’t know pugilism was your latest hobby. Are you going to see the
fight?”
“I don’t think there will be any fight,” replied Father Brown.
They passed rapidly through ante-rooms and inner rooms; they passed through the hall
of combat itself, raised, roped, and padded with innumerable seats and boxes, and still
the cleric did not look round or pause till he came to a clerk at a desk outside a door
marked “Committee”. There he stopped and asked to see Lord Pooley.
The attendant observed that his lordship was very busy, as the fight was coming on
soon, but Father Brown had a good-tempered tedium of reiteration for which the official
mind is generally not prepared. In a few moments the rather baffled Flambeau found
himself in the presence of a man who was still shouting directions to another man going
out of the room. “Be careful, you know, about the ropes after the fourth — Well, and
what do you want, I wonder!”
Lord Pooley was a gentleman, and, like most of the few remaining to our race, was
worried — especially about money. He was half grey and half flaxen, and he had the
eyes of fever and a high-bridged, frost-bitten nose.
“Only a word,” said Father Brown. “I have come to prevent a man being killed.”
Lord Pooley bounded off his chair as if a spring had flung him from it. “I’m damned if
I’ll stand any more of this!” he cried. “You and your committees and parsons and
petitions! Weren’t there parsons in the old days, when they fought without gloves? Now
they’re fighting with the regulation gloves, and there’s not the rag of a possibility of
either of the boxers being killed.”
“I didn’t mean either of the boxers,” said the little priest.
“Well, well, well!” said the nobleman, with a touch of frosty humour. “Who’s going to
be killed? The referee?”
“I don’t know who’s going to be killed,” replied Father Brown, with a reflective stare.
“If I did I shouldn’t have to spoil your pleasure. I could simply get him to escape. I
never could see anything wrong about prize-fights. As it is, I must ask you to announce
that the fight is off for the present.”
“Anything else?” jeered the gentleman with feverish eyes. “And what do you say to the
two thousand people who have come to see it?”
“I say there will be one thousand nine-hundred and ninety-nine of them left alive when
they have seen it,” said Father Brown.
Lord Pooley looked at Flambeau. “Is your friend mad?” he asked.
“Far from it,” was the reply.
“And look here,” resumed Pooley in his restless way, “it’s worse than that. A whole
pack of Italians have turned up to back Malvoli — swarthy, savage fellows of some
country, anyhow. You know what these Mediterranean races are like. If I send out word
that it’s off we shall have Malvoli storming in here at the head of a whole Corsican
clan.”
“My lord, it is a matter of life and death,” said the priest. “Ring your bell. Give your
message. And see whether it is Malvoli who answers.”
The nobleman struck the bell on the table with an odd air of new curiosity. He said to
the clerk who appeared almost instantly in the doorway: “I have a serious
announcement to make to the audience shortly. Meanwhile, would you kindly tell the
two champions that the fight will have to be put off.”
The clerk stared for some seconds as if at a demon and vanished.
“What authority have you for what you say?” asked Lord Pooley abruptly. “Whom did
you consult?”
“I consulted a bandstand,” said Father Brown, scratching his head. “But, no, I’m wrong;
I consulted a book, too. I picked it up on a bookstall in London — very cheap, too.”
He had taken out of his pocket a small, stout, leather-bound volume, and Flambeau,
looking over his shoulder, could see that it was some book of old travels, and had a leaf
turned down for reference.
“‘The only form in which Voodoo — ’” began Father Brown, reading aloud.
“In which what?” inquired his lordship.
“‘In which Voodoo,’” repeated the reader, almost with relish, “‘is widely organized
outside Jamaica itself is in the form known as the Monkey, or the God of the Gongs,
which is powerful in many parts of the two American continents, especially among halfbreeds, many of whom look exactly like white men. It differs from most other forms of
devil-worship and human sacrifice in the fact that the blood is not shed formally on the
altar, but by a sort of assassination among the crowd. The gongs beat with a deafening
din as the doors of the shrine open and the monkey-god is revealed; almost the whole
congregation rivet ecstatic eyes on him. But after — ’”
The door of the room was flung open, and the fashionable negro stood framed in it, his
eyeballs rolling, his silk hat still insolently tilted on his head. “Huh!” he cried, showing
his apish teeth. “What this? Huh! Huh! You steal a coloured gentleman’s prize — prize
his already — yo’ think yo’ jes’ save that white ‘Talian trash — ”
“The matter is only deferred,” said the nobleman quietly. “I will be with you to explain
in a minute or two.”
“Who you to — ” shouted Nigger Ned, beginning to storm.
“My name is Pooley,” replied the other, with a creditable coolness. “I am the organizing
secretary, and I advise you just now to leave the room.”
“Who this fellow?” demanded the dark champion, pointing to the priest disdainfully.
“My name is Brown,” was the reply. “And I advise you just now to leave the country.”
The prize-fighter stood glaring for a few seconds, and then, rather to the surprise of
Flambeau and the others, strode out, sending the door to with a crash behind him.
“Well,” asked Father Brown rubbing his dusty hair up, “what do you think of Leonardo
da Vinci? A beautiful Italian head.”
“Look here,” said Lord Pooley, “I’ve taken a considerable responsibility, on your bare
word. I think you ought to tell me more about this.”
“You are quite right, my lord,” answered Brown. “And it won’t take long to tell.” He
put the little leather book in his overcoat pocket. “I think we know all that this can tell
us, but you shall look at it to see if I’m right. That negro who has just swaggered out is
one of the most dangerous men on earth, for he has the brains of a European, with the
instincts of a cannibal. He has turned what was clean, common-sense butchery among
his fellow-barbarians into a very modern and scientific secret society of assassins. He
doesn’t know I know it, nor, for the matter of that, that I can’t prove it.”
There was a silence, and the little man went on.
“But if I want to murder somebody, will it really be the best plan to make sure I’m alone
with him?”
Lord Pooley’s eyes recovered their frosty twinkle as he looked at the little clergyman.
He only said: “If you want to murder somebody, I should advise it.”
Father Brown shook his head, like a murderer of much riper experience. “So Flambeau
said,” he replied, with a sigh. “But consider. The more a man feels lonely the less he can
be sure he is alone. It must mean empty spaces round him, and they are just what make
him obvious. Have you never seen one ploughman from the heights, or one shepherd
from the valleys? Have you never walked along a cliff, and seen one man walking along
the sands? Didn’t you know when he’s killed a crab, and wouldn’t you have known if it
had been a creditor? No! No! No! For an intelligent murderer, such as you or I might be,
it is an impossible plan to make sure that nobody is looking at you.”
“But what other plan is there?”
“There is only one,” said the priest. “To make sure that everybody is looking at
something else. A man is throttled close by the big stand at Epsom. Anybody might
have seen it done while the stand stood empty — any tramp under the hedges or
motorist among the hills. But nobody would have seen it when the stand was crowded
and the whole ring roaring, when the favourite was coming in first — or wasn’t. The
twisting of a neck-cloth, the thrusting of a body behind a door could be done in an
instant — so long as it was that instant. It was the same, of course,” he continued
turning to Flambeau, “with that poor fellow under the bandstand. He was dropped
through the hole (it wasn’t an accidental hole) just at some very dramatic moment of the
entertainment, when the bow of some great violinist or the voice of some great singer
opened or came to its climax. And here, of course, when the knock-out blow came — it
would not be the only one. That is the little trick Nigger Ned has adopted from his old
God of Gongs.”
“By the way, Malvoli — ” Pooley began.
“Malvoli,” said the priest, “has nothing to do with it. I dare say he has some Italians
with him, but our amiable friends are not Italians. They are octoroons and African halfbloods of various shades, but I fear we English think all foreigners are much the same
so long as they are dark and dirty. Also,” he added, with a smile, “I fear the English
decline to draw any fine distinction between the moral character produced by my
religion and that which blooms out of Voodoo.”
The blaze of the spring season had burst upon Seawood, littering its foreshore with
famines and bathing-machines, with nomadic preachers and nigger minstrels, before the
two friends saw it again, and long before the storm of pursuit after the strange secret
society had died away. Almost on every hand the secret of their purpose perished with
them. The man of the hotel was found drifting dead on the sea like so much seaweed;
his right eye was closed in peace, but his left eye was wide open, and glistened like
glass in the moon. Nigger Ned had been overtaken a mile or two away, and murdered
three policemen with his closed left hand. The remaining officer was surprised — nay,
pained — and the negro got away. But this was enough to set all the English papers in a
flame, and for a month or two the main purpose of the British Empire was to prevent the
buck nigger (who was so in both senses) escaping by any English port. Persons of a
figure remotely reconcilable with his were subjected to quite extraordinary inquisitions,
made to scrub their faces before going on board ship, as if each white complexion were
made up like a mask, of greasepaint. Every negro in England was put under special
regulations and made to report himself; the outgoing ships would no more have taken a
nigger than a basilisk. For people had found out how fearful and vast and silent was the
force of the savage secret society, and by the time Flambeau and Father Brown were
leaning on the parade parapet in April, the Black Man meant in England almost what he
once meant in Scotland.
“He must be still in England,” observed Flambeau, “and horridly well hidden, too. They
must have found him at the ports if he had only whitened his face.”
“You see, he is really a clever man,” said Father Brown apologetically. “And I’m sure
he wouldn’t whiten his face.”
“Well, but what would he do?”
“I think,” said Father Brown, “he would blacken his face.”
Flambeau, leaning motionless on the parapet, laughed and said: “My dear fellow!”
Father Brown, also leaning motionless on the parapet, moved one finger for an instant
into the direction of the soot-masked niggers singing on the sands.
The Salad of Colonel Cray
FATHER BROWN was walking home from Mass on a white weird morning when the
mists were slowly lifting — one of those mornings when the very element of light
appears as something mysterious and new. The scattered trees outlined themselves more
and more out of the vapour, as if they were first drawn in grey chalk and then in
charcoal. At yet more distant intervals appeared the houses upon the broken fringe of
the suburb; their outlines became clearer and clearer until he recognized many in which
he had chance acquaintances, and many more the names of whose owners he knew. But
all the windows and doors were sealed; none of the people were of the sort that would
be up at such a time, or still less on such an errand. But as he passed under the shadow
of one handsome villa with verandas and wide ornate gardens, he heard a noise that
made him almost involuntarily stop. It was the unmistakable noise of a pistol or carbine
or some light firearm discharged; but it was not this that puzzled him most. The first full
noise was immediately followed by a series of fainter noises — as he counted them,
about six. He supposed it must be the echo; but the odd thing was that the echo was not
in the least like the original sound. It was not like anything else that he could think of;
the three things nearest to it seemed to be the noise made by siphons of soda-water, one
of the many noises made by an animal, and the noise made by a person attempting to
conceal laughter. None of which seemed to make much sense.
Father Brown was made of two men. There was a man of action, who was as modest as
a primrose and as punctual as a clock; who went his small round of duties and never
dreamed of altering it. There was also a man of reflection, who was much simpler but
much stronger, who could not easily be stopped; whose thought was always (in the only
intelligent sense of the words) free thought. He could not help, even unconsciously,
asking himself all the questions that there were to be asked, and answering as many of
them as he could; all that went on like his breathing or circulation. But he never
consciously carried his actions outside the sphere of his own duty; and in this case the
two attitudes were aptly tested. He was just about to resume his trudge in the twilight,
telling himself it was no affair of his, but instinctively twisting and untwisting twenty
theories about what the odd noises might mean. Then the grey sky-line brightened into
silver, and in the broadening light he realized that he had been to the house which
belonged to an Anglo-Indian Major named Putnam; and that the Major had a native
cook from Malta who was of his communion. He also began to remember that pistolshots are sometimes serious things; accompanied with consequences with which he was
legitimately concerned. He turned back and went in at the garden gate, making for the
front door.
Half-way down one side of the house stood out a projection like a very low shed; it was,
as he afterwards discovered, a large dustbin. Round the corner of this came a figure, at
first a mere shadow in the haze, apparently bending and peering about. Then, coming
nearer, it solidified into a figure that was, indeed, rather unusually solid. Major Putnam
was a bald-headed, bull-necked man, short and very broad, with one of those rather
apoplectic faces that are produced by a prolonged attempt to combine the oriental
climate with the occidental luxuries. But the face was a good-humoured one, and even
now, though evidently puzzled and inquisitive, wore a kind of innocent grin. He had a
large palm-leaf hat on the back of his head (suggesting a halo that was by no means
appropriate to the face), but otherwise he was clad only in a very vivid suit of striped
scarlet and yellow pyjamas; which, though glowing enough to behold, must have been,
on a fresh morning, pretty chilly to wear. He had evidently come out of his house in a
hurry, and the priest was not surprised when he called out without further ceremony:
“Did you hear that noise?”
“Yes,” answered Father Brown; “I thought I had better look in, in case anything was the
matter.”
The Major looked at him rather queerly with his good-humoured gooseberry eyes.
“What do you think the noise was?” he asked.
“It sounded like a gun or something,” replied the other, with some hesitation; “but it
seemed to have a singular sort of echo.”
The Major was still looking at him quietly, but with protruding eyes, when the front
door was flung open, releasing a flood of gaslight on the face of the fading mist; and
another figure in pyjamas sprang or tumbled out into the garden. The figure was much
longer, leaner, and more athletic; the pyjamas, though equally tropical, were
comparatively tasteful, being of white with a light lemon-yellow stripe. The man was
haggard, but handsome, more sunburned than the other; he had an aquiline profile and
rather deep-sunken eyes, and a slight air of oddity arising from the combination of coalblack hair with a much lighter moustache. All this Father Brown absorbed in detail
more at leisure. For the moment he only saw one thing about the man; which was the
revolver in his hand.
“Cray!” exclaimed the Major, staring at him; “did you fire that shot?”
“Yes, I did,” retorted the black-haired gentleman hotly; “and so would you in my place.
If you were chased everywhere by devils and nearly — ”
The Major seemed to intervene rather hurriedly. “This is my friend Father Brown,” he
said. And then to Brown: “I don’t know whether you’ve met Colonel Cray of the Royal
Artillery.”
“I have heard of him, of course,” said the priest innocently. “Did you — did you hit
anything?”
“I thought so,” answered Cray with gravity.
“Did he — ” asked Major Putnam in a lowered voice, “did he fall or cry out, or
anything?”
Colonel Cray was regarding his host with a strange and steady stare. “I’ll tell you
exactly what he did,” he said. “He sneezed.”
Father Brown’s hand went half-way to his head, with the gesture of a man remembering
somebody’s name. He knew now what it was that was neither soda-water nor the
snorting of a dog.
“Well,” ejaculated the staring Major, “I never heard before that a service revolver was a
thing to be sneezed at.”
“Nor I,” said Father Brown faintly. “It’s lucky you didn’t turn your artillery on him or
you might have given him quite a bad cold.” Then, after a bewildered pause, he said:
“Was it a burglar?”
“Let us go inside,” said Major Putnam, rather sharply, and led the way into his house.
The interior exhibited a paradox often to be marked in such morning hours: that the
rooms seemed brighter than the sky outside; even after the Major had turned out the one
gaslight in the front hall. Father Brown was surprised to see the whole dining-table set
out as for a festive meal, with napkins in their rings, and wine-glasses of some six
unnecessary shapes set beside every plate. It was common enough, at that time of the
morning, to find the remains of a banquet over-night; but to find it freshly spread so
early was unusual.
While he stood wavering in the hall Major Putnam rushed past him and sent a raging
eye over the whole oblong of the tablecloth. At last he spoke, spluttering: “All the silver
gone!” he gasped. “Fish-knives and forks gone. Old cruet-stand gone. Even the old
silver cream-jug gone. And now, Father Brown, I am ready to answer your question of
whether it was a burglar.”
“They’re simply a blind,” said Cray stubbornly. “I know better than you why people
persecute this house; I know better than you why — ”
The Major patted him on the shoulder with a gesture almost peculiar to the soothing of a
sick child, and said: “It was a burglar. Obviously it was a burglar.”
“A burglar with a bad cold,” observed Father Brown, “that might assist you to trace him
in the neighbourhood.”
The Major shook his head in a sombre manner. “He must be far beyond trace now, I
fear,” he said.
Then, as the restless man with the revolver turned again towards the door in the garden,
he added in a husky, confidential voice: “I doubt whether I should send for the police,
for fear my friend here has been a little too free with his bullets, and got on the wrong
side of the law. He’s lived in very wild places; and, to be frank with you, I think he
sometimes fancies things.”
“I think you once told me,” said Brown, “that he believes some Indian secret society is
pursuing him.”
Major Putnam nodded, but at the same time shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose we’d
better follow him outside,” he said. “I don’t want any more — shall we say, sneezing?”
They passed out into the morning light, which was now even tinged with sunshine, and
saw Colonel Cray’s tall figure bent almost double, minutely examining the condition of
gravel and grass. While the Major strolled unobtrusively towards him, the priest took an
equally indolent turn, which took him round the next corner of the house to within a
yard or two of the projecting dustbin.
He stood regarding this dismal object for some minute and a half — then he stepped
towards it, lifted the lid and put his head inside. Dust and other discolouring matter
shook upwards as he did so; but Father Brown never observed his own appearance,
whatever else he observed. He remained thus for a measurable period, as if engaged in
some mysterious prayers. Then he came out again, with some ashes on his hair, and
walked unconcernedly away.
By the time he came round to the garden door again he found a group there which
seemed to roll away morbidities as the sunlight had already rolled away the mists. It
was in no way rationally reassuring; it was simply broadly comic, like a cluster of
Dickens’s characters. Major Putnam had managed to slip inside and plunge into a
proper shirt and trousers, with a crimson cummerbund, and a light square jacket over
all; thus normally set off, his red festive face seemed bursting with a commonplace
cordiality. He was indeed emphatic, but then he was talking to his cook — the swarthy
son of Malta, whose lean, yellow and rather careworn face contrasted quaintly with his
snow-white cap and costume. The cook might well be careworn, for cookery was the
Major’s hobby. He was one of those amateurs who always know more than the
professional. The only other person he even admitted to be a judge of an omelette was
his friend Cray — and as Brown remembered this, he turned to look for the other
officer. In the new presence of daylight and people clothed and in their right mind, the
sight of him was rather a shock. The taller and more elegant man was still in his nightgarb, with tousled black hair, and now crawling about the garden on his hands and
knees, still looking for traces of the burglar; and now and again, to all appearance,
striking the ground with his hand in anger at not finding him. Seeing him thus
quadrupedal in the grass, the priest raised his eyebrows rather sadly; and for the first
time guessed that “fancies things” might be an euphemism.
The third item in the group of the cook and the epicure was also known to Father
Brown; it was Audrey Watson, the Major’s ward and housekeeper; and at this moment,
to judge by her apron, tucked-up sleeves and resolute manner, much more the
housekeeper than the ward.
“It serves you right,” she was saying: “I always told you not to have that old-fashioned
cruet-stand.”
“I prefer it,” said Putnam, placably. “I’m old-fashioned myself; and the things keep
together.”
“And vanish together, as you see,” she retorted. “Well, if you are not going to bother
about the burglar, I shouldn’t bother about the lunch. It’s Sunday, and we can’t send for
vinegar and all that in the town; and you Indian gentlemen can’t enjoy what you call a
dinner without a lot of hot things. I wish to goodness now you hadn’t asked Cousin
Oliver to take me to the musical service. It isn’t over till half-past twelve, and the
Colonel has to leave by then. I don’t believe you men can manage alone.”
“Oh yes, we can, my dear,” said the Major, looking at her very amiably. “Marco has all
the sauces, and we’ve often done ourselves well in very rough places, as you might
know by now. And it’s time you had a treat, Audrey; you mustn’t be a housekeeper
every hour of the day; and I know you want to hear the music.”
“I want to go to church,” she said, with rather severe eyes.
She was one of those handsome women who will always be handsome, because the
beauty is not in an air or a tint, but in the very structure of the head and features. But
though she was not yet middle-aged and her auburn hair was of a Titianesque fullness in
form and colour, there was a look in her mouth and around her eyes which suggested
that some sorrows wasted her, as winds waste at last the edges of a Greek temple. For
indeed the little domestic difficulty of which she was now speaking so decisively was
rather comic than tragic. Father Brown gathered, from the course of the conversation,
that Cray, the other gourmet, had to leave before the usual lunch-time; but that Putnam,
his host, not to be done out of a final feast with an old crony, had arranged for a special
dejeuner to be set out and consumed in the course of the morning, while Audrey and
other graver persons were at morning service. She was going there under the escort of a
relative and old friend of hers, Dr Oliver Oman, who, though a scientific man of a
somewhat bitter type, was enthusiastic for music, and would go even to church to get it.
There was nothing in all this that could conceivably concern the tragedy in Miss
Watson’s face; and by a half conscious instinct, Father Brown turned again to the
seeming lunatic grubbing about in the grass.
When he strolled across to him, the black, unbrushed head was lifted abruptly, as if in
some surprise at his continued presence. And indeed, Father Brown, for reasons best
known to himself, had lingered much longer than politeness required; or even, in the
ordinary sense, permitted.
“Well!” cried Cray, with wild eyes. “I suppose you think I’m mad, like the rest?”
“I have considered the thesis,” answered the little man, composedly. “And I incline to
think you are not.”
“What do you mean?” snapped Cray quite savagely.
“Real madmen,” explained Father Brown, “always encourage their own morbidity.
They never strive against it. But you are trying to find traces of the burglar; even when
there aren’t any. You are struggling against it. You want what no madman ever wants.”
“And what is that?”
“You want to be proved wrong,” said Brown.
During the last words Cray had sprung or staggered to his feet and was regarding the
cleric with agitated eyes. “By hell, but that is a true word!” he cried. “They are all at me
here that the fellow was only after the silver — as if I shouldn’t be only too pleased to
think so! She’s been at me,” and he tossed his tousled black head towards Audrey, but
the other had no need of the direction, “she’s been at me today about how cruel I was to
shoot a poor harmless house-breaker, and how I have the devil in me against poor
harmless natives. But I was a good-natured man once — as good-natured as Putnam.”
After a pause he said: “Look here, I’ve never seen you before; but you shall judge of the
whole story. Old Putnam and I were friends in the same mess; but, owing to some
accidents on the Afghan border, I got my command much sooner than most men; only
we were both invalided home for a bit. I was engaged to Audrey out there; and we all
travelled back together. But on the journey back things happened. Curious things. The
result of them was that Putnam wants it broken off, and even Audrey keeps it hanging
on — and I know what they mean. I know what they think I am. So do you.
“Well, these are the facts. The last day we were in an Indian city I asked Putnam if I
could get some Trichinopoli cigars, he directed me to a little place opposite his
lodgings. I have since found he was quite right; but ‘opposite’ is a dangerous word
when one decent house stands opposite five or six squalid ones; and I must have
mistaken the door. It opened with difficulty, and then only on darkness; but as I turned
back, the door behind me sank back and settled into its place with a noise as of
innumerable bolts. There was nothing to do but to walk forward; which I did through
passage after passage, pitch-dark. Then I came to a flight of steps, and then to a blind
door, secured by a latch of elaborate Eastern ironwork, which I could only trace by
touch, but which I loosened at last. I came out again upon gloom, which was half turned
into a greenish twilight by a multitude of small but steady lamps below. They showed
merely the feet or fringes of some huge and empty architecture. Just in front of me was
something that looked like a mountain. I confess I nearly fell on the great stone platform
on which I had emerged, to realize that it was an idol. And worst of all, an idol with its
back to me.
“It was hardly half human, I guessed; to judge by the small squat head, and still more by
a thing like a tail or extra limb turned up behind and pointing, like a loathsome large
finger, at some symbol graven in the centre of the vast stone back. I had begun, in the
dim light, to guess at the hieroglyphic, not without horror, when a more horrible thing
happened. A door opened silently in the temple wall behind me and a man came out,
with a brown face and a black coat. He had a carved smile on his face, of copper flesh
and ivory teeth; but I think the most hateful thing about him was that he was in
European dress. I was prepared, I think, for shrouded priests or naked fakirs. But this
seemed to say that the devilry was over all the earth. As indeed I found it to be.
“‘If you had only seen the Monkey’s Feet,’ he said, smiling steadily, and without other
preface, ‘we should have been very gentle — you would only be tortured and die. If you
had seen the Monkey’s Face, still we should be very moderate, very tolerant — you
would only be tortured and live. But as you have seen the Monkey’s Tail, we must
pronounce the worst sentence, which is — Go Free.’
“When he said the words I heard the elaborate iron latch with which I had struggled,
automatically unlock itself: and then, far down the dark passages I had passed, I heard
the heavy street-door shifting its own bolts backwards.
“‘It is vain to ask for mercy; you must go free,’ said the smiling man. ‘Henceforth a hair
shall slay you like a sword, and a breath shall bite you like an adder; weapons shall
come against you out of nowhere; and you shall die many times.’ And with that he was
swallowed once more in the wall behind; and I went out into the street.”
Cray paused; and Father Brown unaffectedly sat down on the lawn and began to pick
daisies.
Then the soldier continued: “Putnam, of course, with his jolly common sense, poohpoohed all my fears; and from that time dates his doubt of my mental balance. Well, I’ll
simply tell you, in the fewest words, the three things that have happened since; and you
shall judge which of us is right.
“The first happened in an Indian village on the edge of the jungle, but hundreds of miles
from the temple, or town, or type of tribes and customs where the curse had been put on
me. I woke in black midnight, and lay thinking of nothing in particular, when I felt a
faint tickling thing, like a thread or a hair, trailed across my throat. I shrank back out of
its way, and could not help thinking of the words in the temple. But when I got up and
sought lights and a mirror, the line across my neck was a line of blood.
“The second happened in a lodging in Port Said, later, on our journey home together. It
was a jumble of tavern and curiosity-shop; and though there was nothing there remotely
suggesting the cult of the Monkey, it is, of course, possible that some of its images or
talismans were in such a place. Its curse was there, anyhow. I woke again in the dark
with a sensation that could not be put in colder or more literal words than that a breath
bit like an adder. Existence was an agony of extinction; I dashed my head against walls
until I dashed it against a window; and fell rather than jumped into the garden below.
Putnam, poor fellow, who had called the other thing a chance scratch, was bound to take
seriously the fact of finding me half insensible on the grass at dawn. But I fear it was
my mental state he took seriously; and not my story.
“The third happened in Malta. We were in a fortress there; and as it happened our
bedrooms overlooked the open sea, which almost came up to our window-sills, save for
a flat white outer wall as bare as the sea. I woke up again; but it was not dark. There was
a full moon, as I walked to the window; I could have seen a bird on the bare battlement,
or a sail on the horizon. What I did see was a sort of stick or branch circling, selfsupported, in the empty sky. It flew straight in at my window and smashed the lamp
beside the pillow I had just quitted. It was one of those queer-shaped war-clubs some
Eastern tribes use. But it had come from no human hand.”
Father Brown threw away a daisy-chain he was making, and rose with a wistful look.
“Has Major Putnam,” he asked, “got any Eastern curios, idols, weapons and so on, from
which one might get a hint?”
“Plenty of those, though not much use, I fear,” replied Cray; “but by all means come
into his study.”
As they entered they passed Miss Watson buttoning her gloves for church, and heard the
voice of Putnam downstairs still giving a lecture on cookery to the cook. In the Major’s
study and den of curios they came suddenly on a third party, silk-hatted and dressed for
the street, who was poring over an open book on the smoking-table — a book which he
dropped rather guiltily, and turned.
Cray introduced him civilly enough, as Dr Oman, but he showed such disfavour in his
very face that Brown guessed the two men, whether Audrey knew it or not, were rivals.
Nor was the priest wholly unsympathetic with the prejudice. Dr Oman was a very welldressed gentleman indeed; well-featured, though almost dark enough for an Asiatic. But
Father Brown had to tell himself sharply that one should be in charity even with those
who wax their pointed beards, who have small gloved hands, and who speak with
perfectly modulated voices.
Cray seemed to find something specially irritating in the small prayer-book in Oman’s
dark-gloved hand. “I didn’t know that was in your line,” he said rather rudely.
Oman laughed mildly, but without offence. “This is more so, I know,” he said, laying
his hand on the big book he had dropped, “a dictionary of drugs and such things. But
it’s rather too large to take to church.” Then he closed the larger book, and there seemed
again the faintest touch of hurry and embarrassment.
“I suppose,” said the priest, who seemed anxious to change the subject, “all these spears
and things are from India?”
“From everywhere,” answered the doctor. “Putnam is an old soldier, and has been in
Mexico and Australia, and the Cannibal Islands for all I know.”
“I hope it was not in the Cannibal Islands,” said Brown, “that he learnt the art of
cookery.” And he ran his eyes over the stew-pots or other strange utensils on the wall.
At this moment the jolly subject of their conversation thrust his laughing, lobsterish face
into the room. “Come along, Cray,” he cried. “Your lunch is just coming in. And the
bells are ringing for those who want to go to church.”
Cray slipped upstairs to change; Dr Oman and Miss Watson betook themselves
solemnly down the street, with a string of other churchgoers; but Father Brown noticed
that the doctor twice looked back and scrutinized the house; and even came back to the
corner of the street to look at it again.
The priest looked puzzled. “He can’t have been at the dustbin,” he muttered. “Not in
those clothes. Or was he there earlier today?”
Father Brown, touching other people, was as sensitive as a barometer; but today he
seemed about as sensitive as a rhinoceros. By no social law, rigid or implied, could he
be supposed to linger round the lunch of the Anglo-Indian friends; but he lingered,
covering his position with torrents of amusing but quite needless conversation. He was
the more puzzling because he did not seem to want any lunch. As one after another of
the most exquisitely balanced kedgerees of curries, accompanied with their appropriate
vintages, were laid before the other two, he only repeated that it was one of his fastdays, and munched a piece of bread and sipped and then left untasted a tumbler of cold
water. His talk, however, was exuberant.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you,” he cried — “I’ll mix you a salad! I can’t eat it, but
I’ll mix it like an angel! You’ve got a lettuce there.”
“Unfortunately it’s the only thing we have got,” answered the good-humoured Major.
“You must remember that mustard, vinegar, oil and so on vanished with the cruet and
the burglar.”
“I know,” replied Brown, rather vaguely. “That’s what I’ve always been afraid would
happen. That’s why I always carry a cruet-stand about with me. I’m so fond of salads.”
And to the amazement of the two men he took a pepper-pot out of his waistcoat pocket
and put it on the table.
“I wonder why the burglar wanted mustard, too,” he went on, taking a mustard-pot from
another pocket. “A mustard plaster, I suppose. And vinegar” — and producing that
condiment — “haven’t I heard something about vinegar and brown paper? As for oil,
which I think I put in my left — ”
His garrulity was an instant arrested; for lifting his eyes, he saw what no one else saw
— the black figure of Dr Oman standing on the sunlit lawn and looking steadily into the
room. Before he could quite recover himself Cray had cloven in.
“You’re an astounding card,” he said, staring. “I shall come and hear your sermons, if
they’re as amusing as your manners.” His voice changed a little, and he leaned back in
his chair.
“Oh, there are sermons in a cruet-stand, too,” said Father Brown, quite gravely. “Have
you heard of faith like a grain of mustard-seed; or charity that anoints with oil? And as
for vinegar, can any soldiers forget that solitary soldier, who, when the sun was
darkened — ”
Colonel Cray leaned forward a little and clutched the tablecloth.
Father Brown, who was making the salad, tipped two spoonfuls of the mustard into the
tumbler of water beside him; stood up and said in a new, loud and sudden voice —
“Drink that!”
At the same moment the motionless doctor in the garden came running, and bursting
open a window cried: “Am I wanted? Has he been poisoned?”
“Pretty near,” said Brown, with the shadow of a smile; for the emetic had very suddenly
taken effect. And Cray lay in a deck-chair, gasping as for life, but alive.
Major Putnam had sprung up, his purple face mottled. “A crime!” he cried hoarsely. “I
will go for the police!”
The priest could hear him dragging down his palm-leaf hat from the peg and tumbling
out of the front door; he heard the garden gate slam. But he only stood looking at Cray;
and after a silence said quietly:
“I shall not talk to you much; but I will tell you what you want to know. There is no
curse on you. The Temple of the Monkey was either a coincidence or a part of the trick;
the trick was the trick of a white man. There is only one weapon that will bring blood
with that mere feathery touch: a razor held by a white man. There is one way of making
a common room full of invisible, overpowering poison: turning on the gas — the crime
of a white man. And there is only one kind of club that can be thrown out of a window,
turn in mid-air and come back to the window next to it: the Australian boomerang.
You’ll see some of them in the Major’s study.”
With that he went outside and spoke for a moment to the doctor. The moment after,
Audrey Watson came rushing into the house and fell on her knees beside Cray’s chair.
He could not hear what they said to each other; but their faces moved with amazement,
not unhappiness. The doctor and the priest walked slowly towards the garden gate.
“I suppose the Major was in love with her, too,” he said with a sigh; and when the other
nodded, observed: “You were very generous, doctor. You did a fine thing. But what
made you suspect?”
“A very small thing,” said Oman; “but it kept me restless in church till I came back to
see that all was well. That book on his table was a work on poisons; and was put down
open at the place where it stated that a certain Indian poison, though deadly and difficult
to trace, was particularly easily reversible by the use of the commonest emetics. I
suppose he read that at the last moment — ”
“And remembered that there were emetics in the cruet-stand,” said Father Brown.
“Exactly. He threw the cruet in the dustbin — where I found it, along with other silver
— for the sake of a burglary blind. But if you look at that pepper-pot I put on the table,
you’ll see a small hole. That’s where Cray’s bullet struck, shaking up the pepper and
making the criminal sneeze.”
There was a silence. Then Dr Oman said grimly: “The Major is a long time looking for
the police.”
“Or the police in looking for the Major?” said the priest. “Well, good-bye.”
The Strange Crime of John Boulnois
MR CALHOUN KIDD was a very young gentleman with a very old face, a face dried
up with its own eagerness, framed in blue-black hair and a black butterfly tie. He was
the emissary in England of the colossal American daily called the Western Sun — also
humorously described as the “Rising Sunset”. This was in allusion to a great journalistic
declaration (attributed to Mr Kidd himself) that “he guessed the sun would rise in the
west yet, if American citizens did a bit more hustling.” Those, however, who mock
American journalism from the standpoint of somewhat mellower traditions forget a
certain paradox which partly redeems it. For while the journalism of the States permits a
pantomimic vulgarity long past anything English, it also shows a real excitement about
the most earnest mental problems, of which English papers are innocent, or rather
incapable. The Sun was full of the most solemn matters treated in the most farcical way.
William James figured there as well as “Weary Willie,” and pragmatists alternated with
pugilists in the long procession of its portraits.
Thus, when a very unobtrusive Oxford man named John Boulnois wrote in a very
unreadable review called the Natural Philosophy Quarterly a series of articles on alleged
weak points in Darwinian evolution, it fluttered no corner of the English papers; though
Boulnois’s theory (which was that of a comparatively stationary universe visited
occasionally by convulsions of change) had some rather faddy fashionableness at
Oxford, and got so far as to be named “Catastrophism”. But many American papers
seized on the challenge as a great event; and the Sun threw the shadow of Mr Boulnois
quite gigantically across its pages. By the paradox already noted, articles of valuable
intelligence and enthusiasm were presented with headlines apparently written by an
illiterate maniac, headlines such as “Darwin Chews Dirt; Critic Boulnois says He Jumps
the Shocks” — or “Keep Catastrophic, says Thinker Boulnois.” And Mr Calhoun Kidd,
of the Western Sun, was bidden to take his butterfly tie and lugubrious visage down to
the little house outside Oxford where Thinker Boulnois lived in happy ignorance of
such a title.
That fated philosopher had consented, in a somewhat dazed manner, to receive the
interviewer, and had named the hour of nine that evening. The last of a summer sunset
clung about Cumnor and the low wooded hills; the romantic Yankee was both doubtful
of his road and inquisitive about his surroundings; and seeing the door of a genuine
feudal old-country inn, The Champion Arms, standing open, he went in to make
inquiries.
In the bar parlour he rang the bell, and had to wait some little time for a reply to it. The
only other person present was a lean man with close red hair and loose, horsey-looking
clothes, who was drinking very bad whisky, but smoking a very good cigar. The
whisky, of course, was the choice brand of The Champion Arms; the cigar he had
probably brought with him from London. Nothing could be more different than his
cynical negligence from the dapper dryness of the young American; but something in
his pencil and open notebook, and perhaps in the expression of his alert blue eye, caused
Kidd to guess, correctly, that he was a brother journalist.
“Could you do me the favour,” asked Kidd, with the courtesy of his nation, “of directing
me to the Grey Cottage, where Mr Boulnois lives, as I understand?”
“It’s a few yards down the road,” said the red-haired man, removing his cigar; “I shall
be passing it myself in a minute, but I’m going on to Pendragon Park to try and see the
fun.”
“What is Pendragon Park?” asked Calhoun Kidd.
“Sir Claude Champion’s place — haven’t you come down for that, too?” asked the
other pressman, looking up. “You’re a journalist, aren’t you?”
“I have come to see Mr Boulnois,” said Kidd.
“I’ve come to see Mrs Boulnois,” replied the other. “But I shan’t catch her at home.”
And he laughed rather unpleasantly.
“Are you interested in Catastrophism?” asked the wondering Yankee.
“I’m interested in catastrophes; and there are going to be some,” replied his companion
gloomily. “Mine’s a filthy trade, and I never pretend it isn’t.”
With that he spat on the floor; yet somehow in the very act and instant one could realize
that the man had been brought up as a gentleman.
The American pressman considered him with more attention. His face was pale and
dissipated, with the promise of formidable passions yet to be loosed; but it was a clever
and sensitive face; his clothes were coarse and careless, but he had a good seal ring on
one of his long, thin fingers. His name, which came out in the course of talk, was James
Dalroy; he was the son of a bankrupt Irish landlord, and attached to a pink paper which
he heartily despised, called Smart Society, in the capacity of reporter and of something
painfully like a spy.
Smart Society, I regret to say, felt none of that interest in Boulnois on Darwin which
was such a credit to the head and hearts of the Western Sun. Dalroy had come down, it
seemed, to snuff up the scent of a scandal which might very well end in the Divorce
Court, but which was at present hovering between Grey Cottage and Pendragon Park.
Sir Claude Champion was known to the readers of the Western Sun as well as Mr
Boulnois. So were the Pope and the Derby Winner; but the idea of their intimate
acquaintanceship would have struck Kidd as equally incongruous. He had heard of (and
written about, nay, falsely pretended to know) Sir Claude Champion, as “one of the
brightest and wealthiest of England’s Upper Ten”; as the great sportsman who raced
yachts round the world; as the great traveller who wrote books about the Himalayas, as
the politician who swept constituencies with a startling sort of Tory Democracy, and as
the great dabbler in art, music, literature, and, above all, acting. Sir Claude was really
rather magnificent in other than American eyes. There was something of the
Renascence Prince about his omnivorous culture and restless publicity — he was not
only a great amateur, but an ardent one. There was in him none of that antiquarian
frivolity that we convey by the word “dilettante”.
That faultless falcon profile with purple-black Italian eye, which had been snap-shotted
so often both for Smart Society and the Western Sun, gave everyone the impression of a
man eaten by ambition as by a fire, or even a disease. But though Kidd knew a great
deal about Sir Claude — a great deal more, in fact, than there was to know — it would
never have crossed his wildest dreams to connect so showy an aristocrat with the newlyunearthed founder of Catastrophism, or to guess that Sir Claude Champion and John
Boulnois could be intimate friends. Such, according to Dalroy’s account, was
nevertheless the fact. The two had hunted in couples at school and college, and, though
their social destinies had been very different (for Champion was a great landlord and
almost a millionaire, while Boulnois was a poor scholar and, until just lately, an
unknown one), they still kept in very close touch with each other. Indeed, Boulnois’s
cottage stood just outside the gates of Pendragon Park.
But whether the two men could be friends much longer was becoming a dark and ugly
question. A year or two before, Boulnois had married a beautiful and not unsuccessful
actress, to whom he was devoted in his own shy and ponderous style; and the proximity
of the household to Champion’s had given that flighty celebrity opportunities for
behaving in a way that could not but cause painful and rather base excitement. Sir
Claude had carried the arts of publicity to perfection; and he seemed to take a crazy
pleasure in being equally ostentatious in an intrigue that could do him no sort of honour.
Footmen from Pendragon were perpetually leaving bouquets for Mrs Boulnois;
carriages and motor-cars were perpetually calling at the cottage for Mrs Boulnois; balls
and masquerades perpetually filled the grounds in which the baronet paraded Mrs
Boulnois, like the Queen of Love and Beauty at a tournament. That very evening,
marked by Mr Kidd for the exposition of Catastrophism, had been marked by Sir
Claude Champion for an open-air rendering of Romeo and Juliet, in which he was to
play Romeo to a Juliet it was needless to name.
“I don’t think it can go on without a smash,” said the young man with red hair, getting
up and shaking himself. “Old Boulnois may be squared — or he may be square. But if
he’s square he’s thick — what you might call cubic. But I don’t believe it’s possible.”
“He is a man of grand intellectual powers,” said Calhoun Kidd in a deep voice.
“Yes,” answered Dalroy; “but even a man of grand intellectual powers can’t be such a
blighted fool as all that. Must you be going on? I shall be following myself in a minute
or two.”
But Calhoun Kidd, having finished a milk and soda, betook himself smartly up the road
towards the Grey Cottage, leaving his cynical informant to his whisky and tobacco. The
last of the daylight had faded; the skies were of a dark, green-grey, like slate, studded
here and there with a star, but lighter on the left side of the sky, with the promise of a
rising moon.
The Grey Cottage, which stood entrenched, as it were, in a square of stiff, high thornhedges, was so close under the pines and palisades of the Park that Kidd at first mistook
it for the Park Lodge. Finding the name on the narrow wooden gate, however, and
seeing by his watch that the hour of the “Thinker’s” appointment had just struck, he
went in and knocked at the front door. Inside the garden hedge, he could see that the
house, though unpretentious enough, was larger and more luxurious than it looked at
first, and was quite a different kind of place from a porter’s lodge. A dog-kennel and a
beehive stood outside, like symbols of old English country-life; the moon was rising
behind a plantation of prosperous pear trees, the dog that came out of the kennel was
reverend-looking and reluctant to bark; and the plain, elderly man-servant who opened
the door was brief but dignified.
“Mr Boulnois asked me to offer his apologies, sir,” he said, “but he has been obliged to
go out suddenly.”
“But see here, I had an appointment,” said the interviewer, with a rising voice. “Do you
know where he went to?”
“To Pendragon Park, sir,” said the servant, rather sombrely, and began to close the door.
Kidd started a little.
“Did he go with Mrs — with the rest of the party?” he asked rather vaguely.
“No, sir,” said the man shortly; “he stayed behind, and then went out alone.” And he
shut the door, brutally, but with an air of duty not done.
The American, that curious compound of impudence and sensitiveness, was annoyed.
He felt a strong desire to hustle them all along a bit and teach them business habits; the
hoary old dog and the grizzled, heavy-faced old butler with his prehistoric shirt-front,
and the drowsy old moon, and above all the scatter-brained old philosopher who
couldn’t keep an appointment.
“If that’s the way he goes on he deserves to lose his wife’s purest devotion,” said Mr
Calhoun Kidd. “But perhaps he’s gone over to make a row. In that case I reckon a man
from the Western Sun will be on the spot.”
And turning the corner by the open lodge-gates, he set off, stumping up the long avenue
of black pine-woods that pointed in abrupt perspective towards the inner gardens of
Pendragon Park. The trees were as black and orderly as plumes upon a hearse; there
were still a few stars. He was a man with more literary than direct natural associations;
the word “Ravenswood” came into his head repeatedly. It was partly the raven colour of
the pine-woods; but partly also an indescribable atmosphere almost described in Scott’s
great tragedy; the smell of something that died in the eighteenth century; the smell of
dank gardens and broken urns, of wrongs that will never now be righted; of something
that is none the less incurably sad because it is strangely unreal.
More than once, as he went up that strange, black road of tragic artifice, he stopped,
startled, thinking he heard steps in front of him. He could see nothing in front but the
twin sombre walls of pine and the wedge of starlit sky above them. At first he thought
he must have fancied it or been mocked by a mere echo of his own tramp. But as he
went on he was more and more inclined to conclude, with the remains of his reason, that
there really were other feet upon the road. He thought hazily of ghosts; and was
surprised how swiftly he could see the image of an appropriate and local ghost, one with
a face as white as Pierrot’s, but patched with black. The apex of the triangle of darkblue sky was growing brighter and bluer, but he did not realize as yet that this was
because he was coming nearer to the lights of the great house and garden. He only felt
that the atmosphere was growing more intense, there was in the sadness more violence
and secrecy — more — he hesitated for the word, and then said it with a jerk of laughter
— Catastrophism.
More pines, more pathway slid past him, and then he stood rooted as by a blast of
magic. It is vain to say that he felt as if he had got into a dream; but this time he felt
quite certain that he had got into a book. For we human beings are used to inappropriate
things; we are accustomed to the clatter of the incongruous; it is a tune to which we can
go to sleep. If one appropriate thing happens, it wakes us up like the pang of a perfect
chord. Something happened such as would have happened in such a place in a forgotten
tale.
Over the black pine-wood came flying and flashing in the moon a naked sword — such
a slender and sparkling rapier as may have fought many an unjust duel in that ancient
park. It fell on the pathway far in front of him and lay there glistening like a large
needle. He ran like a hare and bent to look at it. Seen at close quarters it had rather a
showy look: the big red jewels in the hilt and guard were a little dubious. But there were
other red drops upon the blade which were not dubious.
He looked round wildly in the direction from which the dazzling missile had come, and
saw that at this point the sable facade of fir and pine was interrupted by a smaller road at
right angles; which, when he turned it, brought him in full view of the long, lighted
house, with a lake and fountains in front of it. Nevertheless, he did not look at this,
having something more interesting to look at.
Above him, at the angle of the steep green bank of the terraced garden, was one of those
small picturesque surprises common in the old landscape gardening; a kind of small
round hill or dome of grass, like a giant mole-hill, ringed and crowned with three
concentric fences of roses, and having a sundial in the highest point in the centre. Kidd
could see the finger of the dial stand up dark against the sky like the dorsal fin of a
shark and the vain moonlight clinging to that idle clock. But he saw something else
clinging to it also, for one wild moment — the figure of a man.
Though he saw it there only for a moment, though it was outlandish and incredible in
costume, being clad from neck to heel in tight crimson, with glints of gold, yet he knew
in one flash of moonlight who it was. That white face flung up to heaven, clean-shaven
and so unnaturally young, like Byron with a Roman nose, those black curls already
grizzled — he had seen the thousand public portraits of Sir Claude Champion. The wild
red figure reeled an instant against the sundial; the next it had rolled down the steep
bank and lay at the American’s feet, faintly moving one arm. A gaudy, unnatural gold
ornament on the arm suddenly reminded Kidd of Romeo and Juliet; of course the tight
crimson suit was part of the play. But there was a long red stain down the bank from
which the man had rolled — that was no part of the play. He had been run through the
body.
Mr Calhoun Kidd shouted and shouted again. Once more he seemed to hear phantasmal
footsteps, and started to find another figure already near him. He knew the figure, and
yet it terrified him. The dissipated youth who had called himself Dalroy had a horribly
quiet way with him; if Boulnois failed to keep appointments that had been made, Dalroy
had a sinister air of keeping appointments that hadn’t. The moonlight discoloured
everything, against Dalroy’s red hair his wan face looked not so much white as pale
green.
All this morbid impressionism must be Kidd’s excuse for having cried out, brutally and
beyond all reason: “Did you do this, you devil?”
James Dalroy smiled his unpleasing smile; but before he could speak, the fallen figure
made another movement of the arm, waving vaguely towards the place where the sword
fell; then came a moan, and then it managed to speak.
“Boulnois . . . Boulnois, I say . . . Boulnois did it . . . jealous of me . . . he was jealous,
he was, he was . . .”
Kidd bent his head down to hear more, and just managed to catch the words:
“Boulnois . . . with my own sword . . . he threw it . . .”
Again the failing hand waved towards the sword, and then fell rigid with a thud. In Kidd
rose from its depth all that acrid humour that is the strange salt of the seriousness of his
race.
“See here,” he said sharply and with command, “you must fetch a doctor. This man’s
dead.”
“And a priest, too, I suppose,” said Dalroy in an undecipherable manner. “All these
Champions are papists.”
The American knelt down by the body, felt the heart, propped up the head and used
some last efforts at restoration; but before the other journalist reappeared, followed by a
doctor and a priest, he was already prepared to assert they were too late.
“Were you too late also?” asked the doctor, a solid prosperous-looking man, with
conventional moustache and whiskers, but a lively eye, which darted over Kidd
dubiously.
“In one sense,” drawled the representative of the Sun. “I was too late to save the man,
but I guess I was in time to hear something of importance. I heard the dead man
denounce his assassin.”
“And who was the assassin?” asked the doctor, drawing his eyebrows together.
“Boulnois,” said Calhoun Kidd, and whistled softly.
The doctor stared at him gloomily with a reddening brow — but he did not contradict.
Then the priest, a shorter figure in the background, said mildly: “I understood that Mr
Boulnois was not coming to Pendragon Park this evening.”
“There again,” said the Yankee grimly, “I may be in a position to give the old country a
fact or two. Yes, sir, John Boulnois was going to stay in all this evening; he fixed up a
real good appointment there with me. But John Boulnois changed his mind; John
Boulnois left his home abruptly and all alone, and came over to this darned Park an hour
or so ago. His butler told me so. I think we hold what the all-wise police call a clue —
have you sent for them?”
“Yes,” said the doctor, “but we haven’t alarmed anyone else yet.”
“Does Mrs Boulnois know?” asked James Dalroy, and again Kidd was conscious of an
irrational desire to hit him on his curling mouth.
“I have not told her,” said the doctor gruffly — “but here come the police.”
The little priest had stepped out into the main avenue, and now returned with the fallen
sword, which looked ludicrously large and theatrical when attached to his dumpy figure,
at once clerical and commonplace. “Just before the police come,” he said apologetically,
“has anyone got a light?”
The Yankee journalist took an electric torch from his pocket, and the priest held it close
to the middle part of the blade, which he examined with blinking care. Then, without
glancing at the point or pommel, he handed the long weapon to the doctor.
“I fear I’m no use here,” he said, with a brief sigh. “I’ll say good night to you,
gentlemen.” And he walked away up the dark avenue towards the house, his hands
clasped behind him and his big head bent in cogitation.
The rest of the group made increased haste towards the lodge-gates, where an inspector
and two constables could already be seen in consultation with the lodge-keeper. But the
little priest only walked slower and slower in the dim cloister of pine, and at last
stopped dead, on the steps of the house. It was his silent way of acknowledging an
equally silent approach; for there came towards him a presence that might have satisfied
even Calhoun Kidd’s demands for a lovely and aristocratic ghost. It was a young
woman in silvery satins of a Renascence design; she had golden hair in two long shining
ropes, and a face so startingly pale between them that she might have been
chryselephantine — made, that is, like some old Greek statues, out of ivory and gold.
But her eyes were very bright, and her voice, though low, was confident.
“Father Brown?” she said.
“Mrs Boulnois?” he replied gravely. Then he looked at her and immediately said: “I see
you know about Sir Claude.”
“How do you know I know?” she asked steadily.
He did not answer the question, but asked another: “Have you seen your husband?”
“My husband is at home,” she said. “He has nothing to do with this.”
Again he did not answer; and the woman drew nearer to him, with a curiously intense
expression on her face.
“Shall I tell you something more?” she said, with a rather fearful smile. “I don’t think
he did it, and you don’t either.” Father Brown returned her gaze with a long, grave stare,
and then nodded, yet more gravely.
“Father Brown,” said the lady, “I am going to tell you all I know, but I want you to do
me a favour first. Will you tell me why you haven’t jumped to the conclusion of poor
John’s guilt, as all the rest have done? Don’t mind what you say: I — I know about the
gossip and the appearances that are against me.”
Father Brown looked honestly embarrassed, and passed his hand across his forehead.
“Two very little things,” he said. “At least, one’s very trivial and the other very vague.
But such as they are, they don’t fit in with Mr Boulnois being the murderer.”
He turned his blank, round face up to the stars and continued absentmindedly: “To take
the vague idea first. I attach a good deal of importance to vague ideas. All those things
that ‘aren’t evidence’ are what convince me. I think a moral impossibility the biggest of
all impossibilities. I know your husband only slightly, but I think this crime of his, as
generally conceived, something very like a moral impossibility. Please do not think I
mean that Boulnois could not be so wicked. Anybody can be wicked — as wicked as he
chooses. We can direct our moral wills; but we can’t generally change our instinctive
tastes and ways of doing things. Boulnois might commit a murder, but not this murder.
He would not snatch Romeo’s sword from its romantic scabbard; or slay his foe on the
sundial as on a kind of altar; or leave his body among the roses, or fling the sword away
among the pines. If Boulnois killed anyone he’d do it quietly and heavily, as he’d do
any other doubtful thing — take a tenth glass of port, or read a loose Greek poet. No,
the romantic setting is not like Boulnois. It’s more like Champion.”
“Ah!” she said, and looked at him with eyes like diamonds.
“And the trivial thing was this,” said Brown. “There were finger-prints on that sword;
finger-prints can be detected quite a time after they are made if they’re on some
polished surface like glass or steel. These were on a polished surface. They were half-
way down the blade of the sword. Whose prints they were I have no earthly clue; but
why should anybody hold a sword half-way down? It was a long sword, but length is an
advantage in lunging at an enemy. At least, at most enemies. At all enemies except
one.”
“Except one,” she repeated.
“There is only one enemy,” said Father Brown, “whom it is easier to kill with a dagger
than a sword.”
“I know,” said the woman. “Oneself.”
There was a long silence, and then the priest said quietly but abruptly: “Am I right,
then? Did Sir Claude kill himself?”
“Yes” she said, with a face like marble. “I saw him do it.”
“He died,” said Father Brown, “for love of you?”
An extraordinary expression flashed across her face, very different from pity, modesty,
remorse, or anything her companion had expected: her voice became suddenly strong
and full. “I don’t believe,” she said, “he ever cared about me a rap. He hated my
husband.”
“Why?” asked the other, and turned his round face from the sky to the lady.
“He hated my husband because . . . it is so strange I hardly know how to say it . . .
because . . .”
“Yes?” said Brown patiently.
“Because my husband wouldn’t hate him.”
Father Brown only nodded, and seemed still to be listening; he differed from most
detectives in fact and fiction in a small point — he never pretended not to understand
when he understood perfectly well.
Mrs Boulnois drew near once more with the same contained glow of certainty. “My
husband,” she said, “is a great man. Sir Claude Champion was not a great man: he was a
celebrated and successful man. My husband has never been celebrated or successful;
and it is the solemn truth that he has never dreamed of being so. He no more expects to
be famous for thinking than for smoking cigars. On all that side he has a sort of splendid
stupidity. He has never grown up. He still liked Champion exactly as he liked him at
school; he admired him as he would admire a conjuring trick done at the dinner-table.
But he couldn’t be got to conceive the notion of envying Champion. And Champion
wanted to be envied. He went mad and killed himself for that.”
“Yes,” said Father Brown; “I think I begin to understand.”
“Oh, don’t you see?” she cried; “the whole picture is made for that — the place is
planned for it. Champion put John in a little house at his very door, like a dependant —
to make him feel a failure. He never felt it. He thinks no more about such things than —
than an absent-minded lion. Champion would burst in on John’s shabbiest hours or
homeliest meals with some dazzling present or announcement or expedition that made it
like the visit of Haroun Alraschid, and John would accept or refuse amiably with one
eye off, so to speak, like one lazy schoolboy agreeing or disagreeing with another. After
five years of it John had not turned a hair; and Sir Claude Champion was a
monomaniac.”
“And Haman began to tell them,” said Father Brown, “of all the things wherein the king
had honoured him; and he said: ‘All these things profit me nothing while I see Mordecai
the Jew sitting in the gate.’”
“The crisis came,” Mrs Boulnois continued, “when I persuaded John to let me take
down some of his speculations and send them to a magazine. They began to attract
attention, especially in America, and one paper wanted to interview him. When
Champion (who was interviewed nearly every day) heard of this late little crumb of
success falling to his unconscious rival, the last link snapped that held back his devilish
hatred. Then he began to lay that insane siege to my own love and honour which has
been the talk of the shire. You will ask me why I allowed such atrocious attentions. I
answer that I could not have declined them except by explaining to my husband, and
there are some things the soul cannot do, as the body cannot fly. Nobody could have
explained to my husband. Nobody could do it now. If you said to him in so many
words, ‘Champion is stealing your wife,’ he would think the joke a little vulgar: that it
could be anything but a joke — that notion could find no crack in his great skull to get
in by. Well, John was to come and see us act this evening, but just as we were starting
he said he wouldn’t; he had got an interesting book and a cigar. I told this to Sir Claude,
and it was his death-blow. The monomaniac suddenly saw despair. He stabbed himself,
crying out like a devil that Boulnois was slaying him; he lies there in the garden dead of
his own jealousy to produce jealousy, and John is sitting in the dining-room reading a
book.”
There was another silence, and then the little priest said: “There is only one weak point,
Mrs Boulnois, in all your very vivid account. Your husband is not sitting in the diningroom reading a book. That American reporter told me he had been to your house, and
your butler told him Mr Boulnois had gone to Pendragon Park after all.”
Her bright eyes widened to an almost electric glare; and yet it seemed rather
bewilderment than confusion or fear. “Why, what can you mean?” she cried. “All the
servants were out of the house, seeing the theatricals. And we don’t keep a butler, thank
goodness!”
Father Brown started and spun half round like an absurd teetotum. “What, what?” he
cried seeming galvanized into sudden life. “Look here — I say — can I make your
husband hear if I go to the house?”
“Oh, the servants will be back by now,” she said, wondering.
“Right, right!” rejoined the cleric energetically, and set off scuttling up the path towards
the Park gates. He turned once to say: “Better get hold of that Yankee, or ‘Crime of
John Boulnois’ will be all over the Republic in large letters.”
“You don’t understand,” said Mrs Boulnois. “He wouldn’t mind. I don’t think he
imagines that America really is a place.”
When Father Brown reached the house with the beehive and the drowsy dog, a small
and neat maid-servant showed him into the dining-room, where Boulnois sat reading by
a shaded lamp, exactly as his wife described him. A decanter of port and a wineglass
were at his elbow; and the instant the priest entered he noted the long ash stand out
unbroken on his cigar.
“He has been here for half an hour at least,” thought Father Brown. In fact, he had the
air of sitting where he had sat when his dinner was cleared away.
“Don’t get up, Mr Boulnois,” said the priest in his pleasant, prosaic way. “I shan’t
interrupt you a moment. I fear I break in on some of your scientific studies.”
“No,” said Boulnois; “I was reading ‘The Bloody Thumb.’” He said it with neither
frown nor smile, and his visitor was conscious of a certain deep and virile indifference
in the man which his wife had called greatness. He laid down a gory yellow “shocker”
without even feeling its incongruity enough to comment on it humorously. John
Boulnois was a big, slow-moving man with a massive head, partly grey and partly bald,
and blunt, burly features. He was in shabby and very old-fashioned evening-dress, with
a narrow triangular opening of shirt-front: he had assumed it that evening in his original
purpose of going to see his wife act Juliet.
“I won’t keep you long from ‘The Bloody Thumb’ or any other catastrophic affairs,”
said Father Brown, smiling. “I only came to ask you about the crime you committed this
evening.”
Boulnois looked at him steadily, but a red bar began to show across his broad brow; and
he seemed like one discovering embarrassment for the first time.
“I know it was a strange crime,” assented Brown in a low voice. “Stranger than murder
perhaps — to you. The little sins are sometimes harder to confess than the big ones —
but that’s why it’s so important to confess them. Your crime is committed by every
fashionable hostess six times a week: and yet you find it sticks to your tongue like a
nameless atrocity.”
“It makes one feel,” said the philosopher slowly, “such a damned fool.”
“I know,” assented the other, “but one often has to choose between feeling a damned
fool and being one.”
“I can’t analyse myself well,” went on Boulnois; “but sitting in that chair with that story
I was as happy as a schoolboy on a half-holiday. It was security, eternity — I can’t
convey it . . . the cigars were within reach . . . the matches were within reach . . . the
Thumb had four more appearances to . . . it was not only a peace, but a plenitude. Then
that bell rang, and I thought for one long, mortal minute that I couldn’t get out of that
chair — literally, physically, muscularly couldn’t. Then I did it like a man lifting the
world, because I knew all the servants were out. I opened the front door, and there was a
little man with his mouth open to speak and his notebook open to write in. I
remembered the Yankee interviewer I had forgotten. His hair was parted in the middle,
and I tell you that murder — ”
“I understand,” said Father Brown. “I’ve seen him.”
“I didn’t commit murder,” continued the Catastrophist mildly, “but only perjury. I said I
had gone across to Pendragon Park and shut the door in his face. That is my crime,
Father Brown, and I don’t know what penance you would inflict for it.”
“I shan’t inflict any penance,” said the clerical gentleman, collecting his heavy hat and
umbrella with an air of some amusement; “quite the contrary. I came here specially to
let you off the little penance which would otherwise have followed your little offence.”
“And what,” asked Boulnois, smiling, “is the little penance I have so luckily been let
off?”
“Being hanged,” said Father Brown.
The Fairy Tale of Father Brown
THE picturesque city and state of Heiligwaldenstein was one of those toy kingdoms of
which certain parts of the German Empire still consist. It had come under the Prussian
hegemony quite late in history — hardly fifty years before the fine summer day when
Flambeau and Father Brown found themselves sitting in its gardens and drinking its
beer. There had been not a little of war and wild justice there within living memory, as
soon will be shown. But in merely looking at it one could not dismiss that impression of
childishness which is the most charming side of Germany — those little pantomime,
paternal monarchies in which a king seems as domestic as a cook. The German soldiers
by the innumerable sentry-boxes looked strangely like German toys, and the clean-cut
battlements of the castle, gilded by the sunshine, looked the more like the gilt
gingerbread. For it was brilliant weather. The sky was as Prussian a blue as Potsdam
itself could require, but it was yet more like that lavish and glowing use of the colour
which a child extracts from a shilling paint-box. Even the grey-ribbed trees looked
young, for the pointed buds on them were still pink, and in a pattern against the strong
blue looked like innumerable childish figures.
Despite his prosaic appearance and generally practical walk of life, Father Brown was
not without a certain streak of romance in his composition, though he generally kept his
daydreams to himself, as many children do. Amid the brisk, bright colours of such a
day, and in the heraldic framework of such a town, he did feel rather as if he had entered
a fairy tale. He took a childish pleasure, as a younger brother might, in the formidable
sword-stick which Flambeau always flung as he walked, and which now stood upright
beside his tall mug of Munich. Nay, in his sleepy irresponsibility, he even found himself
eyeing the knobbed and clumsy head of his own shabby umbrella, with some faint
memories of the ogre’s club in a coloured toy-book. But he never composed anything in
the form of fiction, unless it be the tale that follows:
“I wonder,” he said, “whether one would have real adventures in a place like this, if one
put oneself in the way? It’s a splendid back-scene for them, but I always have a kind of
feeling that they would fight you with pasteboard sabres more than real, horrible
swords.”
“You are mistaken,” said his friend. “In this place they not only fight with swords, but
kill without swords. And there’s worse than that.”
“Why, what do you mean?” asked Father Brown.
“Why,” replied the other, “I should say this was the only place in Europe where a man
was ever shot without firearms.”
“Do you mean a bow and arrow?” asked Brown in some wonder.
“I mean a bullet in the brain,” replied Flambeau. “Don’t you know the story of the late
Prince of this place? It was one of the great police mysteries about twenty years ago.
You remember, of course, that this place was forcibly annexed at the time of Bismarck’s
very earliest schemes of consolidation — forcibly, that is, but not at all easily. The
empire (or what wanted to be one) sent Prince Otto of Grossenmark to rule the place in
the Imperial interests. We saw his portrait in the gallery there — a handsome old
gentleman if he’d had any hair or eyebrows, and hadn’t been wrinkled all over like a
vulture; but he had things to harass him, as I’ll explain in a minute. He was a soldier of
distinguished skill and success, but he didn’t have altogether an easy job with this little
place. He was defeated in several battles by the celebrated Arnhold brothers — the three
guerrilla patriots to whom Swinburne wrote a poem, you remember:
Wolves with the hair of the ermine,
Crows that are crowned and kings —
These things be many as vermin,
Yet Three shall abide these things.
Or something of that kind. Indeed, it is by no means certain that the occupation would
ever have been successful had not one of the three brothers, Paul, despicably, but very
decisively declined to abide these things any longer, and, by surrendering all the secrets
of the insurrection, ensured its overthrow and his own ultimate promotion to the post of
chamberlain to Prince Otto. After this, Ludwig, the one genuine hero among Mr
Swinburne’s heroes, was killed, sword in hand, in the capture of the city; and the third,
Heinrich, who, though not a traitor, had always been tame and even timid compared
with his active brothers, retired into something like a hermitage, became converted to a
Christian quietism which was almost Quakerish, and never mixed with men except to
give nearly all he had to the poor. They tell me that not long ago he could still be seen
about the neighbourhood occasionally, a man in a black cloak, nearly blind, with very
wild, white hair, but a face of astonishing softness.”
“I know,” said Father Brown. “I saw him once.”
His friend looked at him in some surprise. “I didn’t know you’d been here before,” he
said. “Perhaps you know as much about it as I do. Anyhow, that’s the story of the
Arnholds, and he was the last survivor of them. Yes, and of all the men who played
parts in that drama.”
“You mean that the Prince, too, died long before?”
“Died,” repeated Flambeau, “and that’s about as much as we can say. You must
understand that towards the end of his life he began to have those tricks of the nerves
not uncommon with tyrants. He multiplied the ordinary daily and nightly guard round
his castle till there seemed to be more sentry-boxes than houses in the town, and
doubtful characters were shot without mercy. He lived almost entirely in a little room
that was in the very centre of the enormous labyrinth of all the other rooms, and even in
this he erected another sort of central cabin or cupboard, lined with steel, like a safe or a
battleship. Some say that under the floor of this again was a secret hole in the earth, no
more than large enough to hold him, so that, in his anxiety to avoid the grave, he was
willing to go into a place pretty much like it. But he went further yet. The populace had
been supposed to be disarmed ever since the suppression of the revolt, but Otto now
insisted, as governments very seldom insist, on an absolute and literal disarmament. It
was carried out, with extraordinary thoroughness and severity, by very well-organized
officials over a small and familiar area, and, so far as human strength and science can be
absolutely certain of anything, Prince Otto was absolutely certain that nobody could
introduce so much as a toy pistol into Heiligwaldenstein.”
“Human science can never be quite certain of things like that,” said Father Brown, still
looking at the red budding of the branches over his head, “if only because of the
difficulty about definition and connotation. What is a weapon? People have been
murdered with the mildest domestic comforts; certainly with tea-kettles, probably with
tea-cosies. On the other hand, if you showed an Ancient Briton a revolver, I doubt if he
would know it was a weapon — until it was fired into him, of course. Perhaps
somebody introduced a firearm so new that it didn’t even look like a firearm. Perhaps it
looked like a thimble or something. Was the bullet at all peculiar?”
“Not that I ever heard of,” answered Flambeau; “but my information is fragmentary,
and only comes from my old friend Grimm. He was a very able detective in the German
service, and he tried to arrest me; I arrested him instead, and we had many interesting
chats. He was in charge here of the inquiry about Prince Otto, but I forgot to ask him
anything about the bullet. According to Grimm, what happened was this.” He paused a
moment to drain the greater part of his dark lager at a draught, and then resumed:
“On the evening in question, it seems, the Prince was expected to appear in one of the
outer rooms, because he had to receive certain visitors whom he really wished to meet.
They were geological experts sent to investigate the old question of the alleged supply
of gold from the rocks round here, upon which (as it was said) the small city-state had
so long maintained its credit and been able to negotiate with its neighbours even under
the ceaseless bombardment of bigger armies. Hitherto it had never been found by the
most exacting inquiry which could — ”
“Which could be quite certain of discovering a toy pistol,” said Father Brown with a
smile. “But what about the brother who ratted? Hadn’t he anything to tell the Prince?”
“He always asseverated that he did not know,” replied Flambeau; “that this was the one
secret his brothers had not told him. It is only right to say that it received some support
from fragmentary words — spoken by the great Ludwig in the hour of death, when he
looked at Heinrich but pointed at Paul, and said, ‘You have not told him . . .’ and was
soon afterwards incapable of speech. Anyhow, the deputation of distinguished
geologists and mineralogists from Paris and Berlin were there in the most magnificent
and appropriate dress, for there are no men who like wearing their decorations so much
as the men of science — as anybody knows who has ever been to a soiree of the Royal
Society. It was a brilliant gathering, but very late, and gradually the Chamberlain — you
saw his portrait, too: a man with black eyebrows, serious eyes, and a meaningless sort
of smile underneath — the Chamberlain, I say, discovered there was everything there
except the Prince himself. He searched all the outer salons; then, remembering the
man’s mad fits of fear, hurried to the inmost chamber. That also was empty, but the
steel turret or cabin erected in the middle of it took some time to open. When it did open
it was empty, too. He went and looked into the hole in the ground, which seemed deeper
and somehow all the more like a grave — that is his account, of course. And even as he
did so he heard a burst of cries and tumult in the long rooms and corridors without.
“First it was a distant din and thrill of something unthinkable on the horizon of the
crowd, even beyond the castle. Next it was a wordless clamour startlingly close, and
loud enough to be distinct if each word had not killed the other. Next came words of a
terrible clearness, coming nearer, and next one man, rushing into the room and telling
the news as briefly as such news is told.
“Otto, Prince of Heiligwaldenstein and Grossenmark, was lying in the dews of the
darkening twilight in the woods beyond the castle, with his arms flung out and his face
flung up to the moon. The blood still pulsed from his shattered temple and jaw, but it
was the only part of him that moved like a living thing. He was clad in his full white
and yellow uniform, as to receive his guests within, except that the sash or scarf had
been unbound and lay rather crumpled by his side. Before he could be lifted he was
dead. But, dead or alive, he was a riddle — he who had always hidden in the inmost
chamber out there in the wet woods, unarmed and alone.”
“Who found his body?” asked Father Brown.
“Some girl attached to the Court named Hedwig von something or other,” replied his
friend, “who had been out in the wood picking wild flowers.”
“Had she picked any?” asked the priest, staring rather vacantly at the veil of the
branches above him.
“Yes,” replied Flambeau. “I particularly remember that the Chamberlain, or old Grimm
or somebody, said how horrible it was, when they came up at her call, to see a girl
holding spring flowers and bending over that — that bloody collapse. However, the
main point is that before help arrived he was dead, and the news, of course, had to be
carried back to the castle. The consternation it created was something beyond even that
natural in a Court at the fall of a potentate. The foreign visitors, especially the mining
experts, were in the wildest doubt and excitement, as well as many important Prussian
officials, and it soon began to be clear that the scheme for finding the treasure bulked
much bigger in the business than people had supposed. Experts and officials had been
promised great prizes or international advantages, and some even said that the Prince’s
secret apartments and strong military protection were due less to fear of the populace
than to the pursuit of some private investigation of — ”
“Had the flowers got long stalks?” asked Father Brown.
Flambeau stared at him. “What an odd person you are!” he said. “That’s exactly what
old Grimm said. He said the ugliest part of it, he thought — uglier than the blood and
bullet — was that the flowers were quite short, plucked close under the head.”
“Of course,” said the priest, “when a grown up girl is really picking flowers, she picks
them with plenty of stalk. If she just pulled their heads off, as a child does, it looks as if
— ” And he hesitated.
“Well?” inquired the other.
“Well, it looks rather as if she had snatched them nervously, to make an excuse for
being there after — well, after she was there.”
“I know what you’re driving at,” said Flambeau rather gloomily. “But that and every
other suspicion breaks down on the one point — the want of a weapon. He could have
been killed, as you say, with lots of other things — even with his own military sash; but
we have to explain not how he was killed, but how he was shot. And the fact is we
can’t. They had the girl most ruthlessly searched; for, to tell the truth, she was a little
suspect, though the niece and ward of the wicked old Chamberlain, Paul Arnhold. But
she was very romantic, and was suspected of sympathy with the old revolutionary
enthusiasm in her family. All the same, however romantic you are, you can’t imagine a
big bullet into a man’s jaw or brain without using a gun or pistol. And there was no
pistol, though there were two pistol shots. I leave it to you, my friend.”
“How do you know there were two shots?” asked the little priest.
“There was only one in his head,” said his companion, “but there was another bullethole in the sash.”
Father Brown’s smooth brow became suddenly constricted. “Was the other bullet
found?” he demanded.
Flambeau started a little. “I don’t think I remember,” he said.
“Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!” cried Brown, frowning more and more, with a quite
unusual concentration of curiosity. “Don’t think me rude. Let me think this out for a
moment.”
“All right,” said Flambeau, laughing, and finished his beer. A slight breeze stirred the
budding trees and blew up into the sky cloudlets of white and pink that seemed to make
the sky bluer and the whole coloured scene more quaint. They might have been cherubs
flying home to the casements of a sort of celestial nursery. The oldest tower of the
castle, the Dragon Tower, stood up as grotesque as the ale-mug, but as homely. Only
beyond the tower glimmered the wood in which the man had lain dead.
“What became of this Hedwig eventually?” asked the priest at last.
“She is married to General Schwartz,” said Flambeau. “No doubt you’ve heard of his
career, which was rather romantic. He had distinguished himself even, before his
exploits at Sadowa and Gravelotte; in fact, he rose from the ranks, which is very
unusual even in the smallest of the German . . .”
Father Brown sat up suddenly.
“Rose from the ranks!” he cried, and made a mouth as if to whistle. “Well, well, what a
queer story! What a queer way of killing a man; but I suppose it was the only one
possible. But to think of hate so patient — ”
“What do you mean?” demanded the other. “In what way did they kill the man?”
“They killed him with the sash,” said Brown carefully; and then, as Flambeau protested:
“Yes, yes, I know about the bullet. Perhaps I ought to say he died of having a sash. I
know it doesn’t sound like having a disease.”
“I suppose,” said Flambeau, “that you’ve got some notion in your head, but it won’t
easily get the bullet out of his. As I explained before, he might easily have been
strangled. But he was shot. By whom? By what?”
“He was shot by his own orders,” said the priest.
“You mean he committed suicide?”
“I didn’t say by his own wish,” replied Father Brown. “I said by his own orders.”
“Well, anyhow, what is your theory?”
Father Brown laughed. “I am only on my holiday,” he said. “I haven’t got any theories.
Only this place reminds me of fairy stories, and, if you like, I’ll tell you a story.”
The little pink clouds, that looked rather like sweet-stuff, had floated up to crown the
turrets of the gilt gingerbread castle, and the pink baby fingers of the budding trees
seemed spreading and stretching to reach them; the blue sky began to take a bright
violet of evening, when Father Brown suddenly spoke again:
“It was on a dismal night, with rain still dropping from the trees and dew already
clustering, that Prince Otto of Grossenmark stepped hurriedly out of a side door of the
castle and walked swiftly into the wood. One of the innumerable sentries saluted him,
but he did not notice it. He had no wish to be specially noticed himself. He was glad
when the great trees, grey and already greasy with rain, swallowed him up like a
swamp. He had deliberately chosen the least frequented side of his palace, but even that
was more frequented than he liked. But there was no particular chance of officious or
diplomatic pursuit, for his exit had been a sudden impulse. All the full-dressed
diplomatists he left behind were unimportant. He had realized suddenly that he could do
without them.
“His great passion was not the much nobler dread of death, but the strange desire of
gold. For this legend of the gold he had left Grossenmark and invaded
Heiligwaldenstein. For this and only this he had bought the traitor and butchered the
hero, for this he had long questioned and cross-questioned the false Chamberlain, until
he had come to the conclusion that, touching his ignorance, the renegade really told the
truth. For this he had, somewhat reluctantly, paid and promised money on the chance of
gaining the larger amount; and for this he had stolen out of his palace like a thief in the
rain, for he had thought of another way to get the desire of his eyes, and to get it cheap.
“Away at the upper end of a rambling mountain path to which he was making his way,
among the pillared rocks along the ridge that hangs above the town, stood the
hermitage, hardly more than a cavern fenced with thorn, in which the third of the great
brethren had long hidden himself from the world. He, thought Prince Otto, could have
no real reason for refusing to give up the gold. He had known its place for years, and
made no effort to find it, even before his new ascetic creed had cut him off from
property or pleasures. True, he had been an enemy, but he now professed a duty of
having no enemies. Some concession to his cause, some appeal to his principles, would
probably get the mere money secret out of him. Otto was no coward, in spite of his
network of military precautions, and, in any case, his avarice was stronger than his
fears. Nor was there much cause for fear. Since he was certain there were no private
arms in the whole principality, he was a hundred times more certain there were none in
the Quaker’s little hermitage on the hill, where he lived on herbs, with two old rustic
servants, and with no other voice of man for year after year. Prince Otto looked down
with something of a grim smile at the bright, square labyrinths of the lamp-lit city below
him. For as far as the eye could see there ran the rifles of his friends, and not one pinch
of powder for his enemies. Rifles ranked so close even to that mountain path that a cry
from him would bring the soldiers rushing up the hill, to say nothing of the fact that the
wood and ridge were patrolled at regular intervals; rifles so far away, in the dim woods,
dwarfed by distance, beyond the river, that an enemy could not slink into the town by
any detour. And round the palace rifles at the west door and the east door, at the north
door and the south, and all along the four facades linking them. He was safe.
“It was all the more clear when he had crested the ridge and found how naked was the
nest of his old enemy. He found himself on a small platform of rock, broken abruptly by
the three corners of precipice. Behind was the black cave, masked with green thorn, so
low that it was hard to believe that a man could enter it. In front was the fall of the cliffs
and the vast but cloudy vision of the valley. On the small rock platform stood an old
bronze lectern or reading-stand, groaning under a great German Bible. The bronze or
copper of it had grown green with the eating airs of that exalted place, and Otto had
instantly the thought, “Even if they had arms, they must be rusted by now.” Moonrise
had already made a deathly dawn behind the crests and crags, and the rain had ceased.
“Behind the lectern, and looking across the valley, stood a very old man in a black robe
that fell as straight as the cliffs around him, but whose white hair and weak voice
seemed alike to waver in the wind. He was evidently reading some daily lesson as part
of his religious exercises. “They trust in their horses . . .”
“‘Sir,’ said the Prince of Heiligwaldenstein, with quite unusual courtesy, ‘I should like
only one word with you.’
“‘ . . . and in their chariots,’ went on the old man weakly, ‘but we will trust in the name
of the Lord of Hosts . . . .’ His last words were inaudible, but he closed the book
reverently and, being nearly blind, made a groping movement and gripped the readingstand. Instantly his two servants slipped out of the low-browed cavern and supported
him. They wore dull-black gowns like his own, but they had not the frosty silver on the
hair, nor the frost-bitten refinement of the features. They were peasants, Croat or
Magyar, with broad, blunt visages and blinking eyes. For the first time something
troubled the Prince, but his courage and diplomatic sense stood firm.
“‘I fear we have not met,’ he said, ‘since that awful cannonade in which your poor
brother died.’
“‘All my brothers died,’ said the old man, still looking across the valley. Then, for one
instant turning on Otto his drooping, delicate features, and the wintry hair that seemed
to drip over his eyebrows like icicles, he added: ‘You see, I am dead, too.’
“‘I hope you’ll understand,’ said the Prince, controlling himself almost to a point of
conciliation, ‘that I do not come here to haunt you, as a mere ghost of those great
quarrels. We will not talk about who was right or wrong in that, but at least there was
one point on which we were never wrong, because you were always right. Whatever is
to be said of the policy of your family, no one for one moment imagines that you were
moved by the mere gold; you have proved yourself above the suspicion that . . .’
“The old man in the black gown had hitherto continued to gaze at him with watery blue
eyes and a sort of weak wisdom in his face. But when the word ‘gold’ was said he held
out his hand as if in arrest of something, and turned away his face to the mountains.
“‘He has spoken of gold,’ he said. ‘He has spoken of things not lawful. Let him cease to
speak.’
“Otto had the vice of his Prussian type and tradition, which is to regard success not as
an incident but as a quality. He conceived himself and his like as perpetually conquering
peoples who were perpetually being conquered. Consequently, he was ill acquainted
with the emotion of surprise, and ill prepared for the next movement, which startled and
stiffened him. He had opened his mouth to answer the hermit, when the mouth was
stopped and the voice strangled by a strong, soft gag suddenly twisted round his head
like a tourniquet. It was fully forty seconds before he even realized that the two
Hungarian servants had done it, and that they had done it with his own military scarf.
“The old man went again weakly to his great brazen-supported Bible, turned over the
leaves, with a patience that had something horrible about it, till he came to the Epistle of
St James, and then began to read: ‘The tongue is a little member, but — ’
“Something in the very voice made the Prince turn suddenly and plunge down the
mountain-path he had climbed. He was half-way towards the gardens of the palace
before he even tried to tear the strangling scarf from his neck and jaws. He tried again
and again, and it was impossible; the men who had knotted that gag knew the difference
between what a man can do with his hands in front of him and what he can do with his
hands behind his head. His legs were free to leap like an antelope on the mountains, his
arms were free to use any gesture or wave any signal, but he could not speak. A dumb
devil was in him.
“He had come close to the woods that walled in the castle before he had quite realized
what his wordless state meant and was meant to mean. Once more he looked down
grimly at the bright, square labyrinths of the lamp-lit city below him, and he smiled no
more. He felt himself repeating the phrases of his former mood with a murderous irony.
Far as the eye could see ran the rifles of his friends, every one of whom would shoot
him dead if he could not answer the challenge. Rifles were so near that the wood and
ridge could be patrolled at regular intervals; therefore it was useless to hide in the wood
till morning. Rifles were ranked so far away that an enemy could not slink into the town
by any detour; therefore it was vain to return to the city by any remote course. A cry
from him would bring his soldiers rushing up the hill. But from him no cry would come.
“The moon had risen in strengthening silver, and the sky showed in stripes of bright,
nocturnal blue between the black stripes of the pines about the castle. Flowers of some
wide and feathery sort — for he had never noticed such things before — were at once
luminous and discoloured by the moonshine, and seemed indescribably fantastic as they
clustered, as if crawling about the roots of the trees. Perhaps his reason had been
suddenly unseated by the unnatural captivity he carried with him, but in that wood he
felt something unfathomably German — the fairy tale. He knew with half his mind that
he was drawing near to the castle of an ogre — he had forgotten that he was the ogre.
He remembered asking his mother if bears lived in the old park at home. He stooped to
pick a flower, as if it were a charm against enchantment. The stalk was stronger than he
expected, and broke with a slight snap. Carefully trying to place it in his scarf, he heard
the halloo, ‘Who goes there?’ Then he remembered the scarf was not in its usual place.
“He tried to scream and was silent. The second challenge came; and then a shot that
shrieked as it came and then was stilled suddenly by impact. Otto of Grossenmark lay
very peacefully among the fairy trees, and would do no more harm either with gold or
steel; only the silver pencil of the moon would pick out and trace here and there the
intricate ornament of his uniform, or the old wrinkles on his brow. May God have
mercy on his soul.
“The sentry who had fired, according to the strict orders of the garrison, naturally ran
forward to find some trace of his quarry. He was a private named Schwartz, since not
unknown in his profession, and what he found was a bald man in uniform, but with his
face so bandaged by a kind of mask made of his own military scarf that nothing but
open, dead eyes could be seen, glittering stonily in the moonlight. The bullet had gone
through the gag into the jaw; that is why there was a shot-hole in the scarf, but only one
shot. Naturally, if not correctly, young Schwartz tore off the mysterious silken mask and
cast it on the grass; and then he saw whom he had slain.
“We cannot be certain of the next phase. But I incline to believe that there was a fairy
tale, after all, in that little wood, horrible as was its occasion. Whether the young lady
named Hedwig had any previous knowledge of the soldier she saved and eventually
married, or whether she came accidentally upon the accident and their intimacy began
that night, we shall probably never know. But we can know, I fancy, that this Hedwig
was a heroine, and deserved to marry a man who became something of a hero. She did
the bold and the wise thing. She persuaded the sentry to go back to his post, in which
place there was nothing to connect him with the disaster; he was but one of the most
loyal and orderly of fifty such sentries within call. She remained by the body and gave
the alarm; and there was nothing to connect her with the disaster either, since she had
not got, and could not have, any firearms.
“Well,” said Father Brown rising cheerfully “I hope they’re happy.”
“Where are you going?” asked his friend.
“I’m going to have another look at that portrait of the Chamberlain, the Arnhold who
betrayed his brethren,” answered the priest. “I wonder what part — I wonder if a man is
less a traitor when he is twice a traitor?”
And he ruminated long before the portrait of a white-haired man with black eyebrows
and a pink, painted sort of smile that seemed to contradict the black warning in his eyes.
The Incredulity of Father Brown
The Resurrection of Father Brown
THERE was a brief period during which Father Brown enjoyed, or rather did not enjoy,
something like fame. He was a nine days’ wonder in the newspapers; he was even a
common topic of controversy in the weekly reviews; his exploits were narrated eagerly
and inaccurately in any number of clubs and drawing-rooms, especially in America.
Incongruous and indeed incredible as it may seem to any one who knew him, his
adventures as a detective were even made the subject of short stories appearing in
magazines.
Strangely enough, this wandering limelight struck him in the most obscure, or at least
the most remote, of his many places of residence. He had been sent out to officiate, as
something between a missionary and a parish priest, in one of those sections of the
northern coast of South America, where strips of country still cling insecurely to
European powers, or are continually threatening to become independent republics,
under the gigantic shadow of President Monroe. The population was red and brown
with pink spots; that is, it was Spanish-American, and largely Spanish-American-Indian,
but there was a considerable and increasing infiltration of Americans of the northern
sort — Englishmen, Germans, and the rest. And the trouble seems to have begun when
one of these visitors, very recently landed and very much annoyed at having lost one of
his bags, approached the first building of which he came in sight — which happened to
be the mission-house and chapel attached to it, in front of which ran a long veranda and
a long row of stakes, up which were trained the black twisted vines, their square leaves
red with autumn. Behind them, also in a row, a number of human beings sat almost as
rigid as the stakes, and coloured in some fashion like the vines. For while their broadbrimmed hats were as black as their unblinking eyes, the complexions of many of them
might have been made out of the dark red timber of those transatlantic forests. Many of
them were smoking very long, thin black cigars; and in all that group the smoke was
almost the only moving thing. The visitor would probably have described them as
natives, though some of them were very proud of Spanish blood. But he was not one to
draw any fine distinction between Spaniards and Red Indians, being rather disposed to
dismiss people from the scene when once he had convicted them of being native to it.
He was a newspaper man from Kansas City, a lean, light-haired man with what
Meredith called an adventurous nose; one could almost fancy it found its way by feeling
its way and moved like the proboscis of an ant-eater. His name was Snaith, and his
parents, after some obscure meditation, had called him Saul, a fact which he had the
good feeling to conceal as far as possible. Indeed, he had ultimately compromised by
calling himself Paul, though by no means for the same reason that had affected the
Apostle of the Gentiles. On the contrary, so far as he had any views on such things, the
name of the persecutor would have been more appropriate; for he regarded organized
religion with the conventional contempt which can be learnt more easily from Ingersoll
than from Voltaire. And this was, as it happened, the not very important side of his
character which he turned towards the mission-station and the groups in front of the
veranda. Something in their shameless repose and indifference inflamed his own fury of
efficiency; and, as he could get no particular answer to his first questions, he began to
do all the talking himself.
Standing out there in the strong sunshine, a spick-and-span figure in his Panama hat and
neat clothes, his grip-sack held in a steely grip, he began to shout at the people in the
shadow. He began to explain to them very loudly why they were lazy and filthy, and
bestially ignorant and lower than the beasts that perish, in case this problem should have
previously exercised their minds. In his opinion it was the deleterious influence of
priests that had made them so miserably poor and so hopelessly oppressed that they
were able to sit in the shade and smoke and do nothing.
‘And a mighty soft crowd you must be at that,’ he said, ‘to be bullied by these stuck-up
josses because they walk about in their mitres and their tiaras and their gold copes and
other glad rags, looking down on everybody else like dirt — being bamboozled by
crowns and canopies and sacred umbrellas like a kid at a pantomime; just because a
pompous old High Priest of Mumbo-Jumbo looks as if he was the lord of the earth.
What about you? What do you look like, you poor simps? I tell you, that’s why you’re
way-back in barbarism and can’t read or write and — ’
At this point the High Priest of Mumbo-Jumbo came in an undignified hurry out of the
door of the mission-house, not looking very like a lord of the earth, but rather like a
bundle of black second-hand clothes buttoned round a short bolster in the semblance of
a guy. He was not wearing his tiara, supposing him to possess one, but a shabby broad
hat not very dissimilar from those of the Spanish Indians, and it was thrust to the back
of his head with a gesture of botheration. He seemed just about to speak to the
motionless natives when he caught sight of the stranger and said quickly:
‘Oh, can I be of any assistance? Would you like to come inside?’
Mr Paul Snaith came inside; and it was the beginning of a considerable increase of that
journalist’s information on many things. Presumably his journalistic instinct was
stronger than his prejudices, as, indeed, it often is in clever journalists; and he asked a
good many questions, the answers to which interested and surprised him. He discovered
that the Indians could read and write, for the simple reason that the priest had taught
them; but that they did not read or write any more than they could help, from a natural
preference for more direct communications. He learned that these strange people, who
sat about in heaps on the veranda without stirring a hair, could work quite hard on their
own patches of land; especially those of them who were more than half Spanish; and he
learned with still more astonishment that they all had patches of land that were really
their own. That much was part of a stubborn tradition that seemed quite native to
natives. But in that also the priest had played a certain part, and by doing so had taken
perhaps what was his first and last part in politics, if it was only local politics.
There had recently swept through that region one of those fevers of atheist and almost
anarchist Radicalism which break out periodically in countries of the Latin culture,
generally beginning in a secret society and generally ending in a civil war and in very
little else. The local leader of the iconoclastic party was a certain Alvarez, a rather
picturesque adventurer of Portuguese nationality but, as his enemies said, of partly
Negro origin, the head of any number of lodges and temples of initiation of the sort that
in such places clothe even atheism with something mystical. The leader on the more
conservative side was a much more commonplace person, a very wealthy man named
Mendoza, the owner of many factories and quite respectable, but not very exciting. It
was the general opinion that the cause of law and order would have been entirely lost if
it had not adopted a more popular policy of its own, in the form of securing land for the
peasants; and this movement had mainly originated from the little mission-station of
Father Brown.
While he was talking to the journalist, Mendoza, the Conservative leader, came in. He
was a stout, dark man, with a bald head like a pear and a round body also like a pear; he
was smoking a very fragrant cigar, but he threw it away, perhaps a little theatrically,
when he came into the presence of the priest, as if he had been entering church; and
bowed with a curve that in so corpulent a gentleman seemed quite improbable. He was
always exceedingly serious in his social gestures, especially towards religious
institutions. He was one of those laymen who are much more ecclesiastical than
ecclesiastics. It embarrassed Father Brown a good deal, especially when carried thus
into private life.
‘I think I am an anti-clerical,’ Father Brown would say with a faint smile; ‘but there
wouldn’t be half so much clericalism if they would only leave things to the clerics.’
‘Why Mr Mendoza,’ exclaimed the journalist with a new animation, ‘I think we have
met before. Weren’t you at the Trade Congress in Mexico last year?’
The heavy eyelids of Mr Mendoza showed a flutter of recognition, and he smiled in his
slow way. ‘I remember.’
‘Pretty big business done there in an hour or two,’ said Snaith with relish. ‘Made a good
deal of difference to you, too, I guess.’
‘I have been very fortunate,’ said Mendoza modestly.
‘Don’t you believe it!’ cried the enthusiastic Snaith. ‘Good fortune comes to the people
who know when to catch hold; and you caught hold good and sure. But I hope I’m not
interrupting your business?’
‘Not at all,’ said the other. ‘I often have the honour of calling on the padre for a little
talk. Merely for a little talk.’
It seemed as if this familiarity between Father Brown and a successful and even famous
man of business completed the reconciliation between the priest and the practical Mr
Snaith. He felt, it might be supposed, a new respectability clothe the station and the
mission, and was ready to overlook such occasional reminders of the existence of
religion as a chapel and a presbytery can seldom wholly avoid. He became quite
enthusiastic about the priest’s programme — at least on its secular and social side —
and announced himself ready at any moment to act in the capacity of a live wire for its
communication to the world at large. And it was at this point that Father Brown began
to find the journalist rather more troublesome in his sympathy than in his hostility.
Mr Paul Snaith set out vigorously to feature Father Brown. He sent long and loud
eulogies on him across the continent to his newspaper in the Middle West. He took
snapshots of the unfortunate cleric in the most commonplace occupations, and exhibited
them in gigantic photographs in the gigantic Sunday papers of the United States. He
turned his sayings into slogans, and was continually presenting the world with ‘A
message’ from the reverend gentleman in South America. Any stock less strong and
strenuously receptive than the American race would have become very much bored with
Father Brown. As it was, he received handsome and eager offers to go on a lecturing
tour in the States; and when he declined, the terms were raised with expressions of
respectful wonder. A series of stories about him, like the stories of Sherlock Holmes,
were, by the instrumentality of Mr Snaith, planned out and put before the hero with
requests for his assistance and encouragement. As the priest found they had started, he
could offer no suggestion except that they should stop. And this in turn was taken by Mr
Snaith as the text for a discussion on whether Father Brown should disappear
temporarily over a cliff, in the manner of Dr Watson’s hero. To all these demands the
priest had patiently to reply in writing, saying that he would consent on such terms to
the temporary cessation of the stories and begging that a considerable interval might
occur before they began again. The notes he wrote grew shorter and shorter; and as he
wrote the last of them, he sighed.
Needless to say, this strange boom in the North reacted on the little outpost in the South
where he had expected to live in so lonely an exile. The considerable English and
American population already on the spot began to be proud of possessing so widely
advertised a person. American tourists, of the sort who land with a loud demand for
Westminster Abbey, landed on that distant coast with a loud demand for Father Brown.
They were within measurable distance of running excursion trains named after him, and
bringing crowds to see him as if he were a public monument. He was especially
troubled by the active and ambitious new traders and shopkeepers of the place, who
were perpetually pestering him to try their wares and to give them testimonials. Even if
the testimonials were not forthcoming, they would prolong the correspondence for the
purpose of collecting autographs. As he was a good-natured person they got a good deal
of what they wanted out of him; and it was in answer to a particular request from a
Frankfort wine-merchant named Eckstein that he wrote hastily a few words on a card,
which were to prove a terrible turning-point in his life.
Eckstein was a fussy little man with fuzzy hair and pince-nez, who was wildly anxious
that the priest should not only try some of his celebrated medicinal port, but should let
him know where and when he would drink it, in acknowledging its receipt. The priest
was not particularly surprised at the request, for he was long past surprise at the lunacies
of advertisement. So he scribbled something down and turned to other business which
seemed a little more sensible. He was again interrupted, by a note from no less a person
than his political enemy Alvarez, asking him to come to a conference at which it was
hoped that a compromise on an outstanding question might be reached; and suggesting
an appointment that evening at a cafe just outside the walls of the little town. To this
also he sent a message of acceptance by the rather florid and military messenger who
was waiting for it; and then, having an hour or two before him, sat down to attempt to
get through a little of his own legitimate business. At the end of the time he poured
himself out a glass of Mr Eckstein’s remarkable wine and, glancing at the clock with a
humorous expression, drank it and went out into the night.
Strong moonlight lay on the little Spanish town, so that when he came to the
picturesque gateway, with its rather rococo arch and the fantastic fringe of palms
beyond it, it looked rather like a scene in a Spanish opera. One long leaf of palm with
jagged edges, black against the moon, hung down on the other side of the arch, visible
through the archway, and had something of the look of the jaw of a black crocodile. The
fancy would not have lingered in his imagination but for something else that caught his
naturally alert eye. The air was deathly still, and there was not a stir of wind; but he
distinctly saw the pendent palm-leaf move.
He looked around him and realized that he was alone. He had left behind the last
houses, which were mostly closed and shuttered, and was walking between two long
blank walls built of large and shapeless but flattened stones, tufted here and there with
the queer prickly weeds of that region — walls which ran parallel all the way to the
gateway. He could not see the lights of the cafe outside the gate; probably it was too far
away. Nothing could be seen under the arch but a wider expanse of large-flagged
pavement, pale in the moon, with the straggling prickly pear here and there. He had a
strong sense of the smell of evil; he felt queer physical oppression; but he did not think
of stopping. His courage, which was considerable, was perhaps even less strong a part
of him than his curiosity. All his life he had been led by an intellectual hunger for the
truth, even of trifles. He often controlled it in the name of proportion; but it was always
there. He walked straight through the gateway, and on the other side a man sprang like a
monkey out of the tree-top and struck at him with a knife. At the same moment another
man came crawling swiftly along the wall and, whirling a cudgel round his head,
brought it down. Father Brown turned, staggered, and sank in a heap, but as he sank
there dawned on his round face an expression of mild and immense surprise.
There was living in the same little town at this time another young American,
particularly different from Mr Paul Snaith. His name was John Adams Race, and he was
an electrical engineer, employed by Mendoza to fit out the old town with all the new
conveniences. He was a figure far less familiar in satire and international gossip than
that of the American journalist. Yet, as a matter of fact, America contains a million men
of the moral type of Race to one of the moral type of Snaith. He was exceptional in
being exceptionally good at his job, but in every other way he was very simple. He had
begun life as a druggist’s assistant in a Western village, and risen by sheer work and
merit; but he still regarded his home town as the natural heart of the habitable world. He
had been taught a very Puritan, or purely Evangelical, sort of Christianity from the
Family Bible at his mother’s knee; and in so far as he had time to have any religion, that
was still his religion. Amid all the dazzling lights of the latest and even wildest
discoveries, when he was at the very edge and extreme of experiment, working miracles
of light and sound like a god creating new stars and solar systems, he never for a
moment doubted that the things ‘back home’ were the best things in the world; his
mother and the Family Bible and the quiet and quaint morality of his village. He had as
serious and noble a sense of the sacredness of his mother as if he had been a frivolous
Frenchman. He was quite sure the Bible religion was really the right thing; only he
vaguely missed it wherever he went in the modern world. He could hardly be expected
to sympathize with the religious externals of Catholic countries; and in a dislike of
mitres and croziers he sympathized with Mr Snaith, though not in so cocksure a fashion.
He had no liking for the public bowings and scrapings of Mendoza and certainly no
temptation to the masonic mysticism of the atheist Alvarez. Perhaps all that semitropical life was too coloured for him, shot with Indian red and Spanish gold. Anyhow,
when he said there was nothing to touch his home town, he was not boasting. He really
meant that there was somewhere something plain and unpretentious and touching,
which he really respected more than anything else in the world. Such being the mental
attitude of John Adams Race in a South American station, there had been growing on
him for some time a curious feeling, which contradicted all his prejudices and for which
he could not account. For the truth was this: that the only thing he had ever met in his
travels that in the least reminded him of the old wood-pile and the provincial proprieties
and the Bible on his mother’s knee was (for some inscrutable reason) the round face and
black clumsy umbrella of Father Brown.
He found himself insensibly watching that commonplace and even comic black figure
as it went bustling about; watching it with an almost morbid fascination, as if it were a
walking riddle or contradiction. He had found something he could not help liking in the
heart of everything he hated; it was as if he had been horribly tormented by lesser
demons and then found that the Devil was quite an ordinary person.
Thus it happened that, looking out of his window on that moonlit night, he saw the
Devil go by, the demon of unaccountable blamelessness, in his broad black hat and long
black coat, shuffling along the street towards the gateway, and saw it with an interest
which he could not himself understand. He wondered where the priest was going, and
what he was really up to; and remained gazing out into the moonlit street long after the
little black figure had passed. And then he saw something else that intrigued him
further. Two other men whom he recognized passed across his window as across a
lighted stage. A sort of blue limelight of the moon ran in a spectral halo round the big
bush of hair that stood erect on the head of little Eckstein, the wine-seller, and it
outlined a taller and darker figure with an eagle profile and a queer old-fashioned and
very top-heavy black hat, which seemed to make the whole outline still more bizarre,
like a shape in a shadow pantomime. Race rebuked himself for allowing the moon to
play such tricks with his fancy; for on a second glance he recognized the black Spanish
sidewhiskers and high-featured face of Dr Calderon, a worthy medical man of the town,
whom he had once found attending professionally on Mendoza. Still, there was
something in the way the men were whispering to each other and peering up the street
that struck him as peculiar. On a sudden impulse he leapt over the low window-sill and
himself went bareheaded up the road, following their trail. He saw them disappear under
the dark archway, and a moment after there came a dreadful cry from beyond; curiously
loud and piercing, and all the more blood-curdling to Race because it said something
very distinctly in some tongue that he did not know.
The next moment there was a rushing of feet, more cries, and then a confused roar of
rage or grief that shook the turrets and tall palm trees of the place; there was a
movement in the mob that had gathered, as if they were sweeping backwards through
the gateway. And then the dark archway resounded with a new voice, this time
intelligible to him and falling with the note of doom, as someone shouted through the
gateway:
‘Father Brown is dead!’
He never knew what prop gave way in his mind, or why something on which he had
been counting suddenly failed him; but he ran towards the gateway and was just in time
to meet his countryman, the journalist Snaith, coming out of the dark entrance, deadly
pale and snapping his fingers nervously.
‘It’s quite true,’ said Snaith, with something which for him approached to reverence.
‘He’s a goner. The doctor’s been looking at him, and there’s no hope. Some of these
damned Dagos clubbed him as he came through the gate — God knows why. It’ll be a
great loss to the place.’
Race did not or perhaps could not reply, but ran on under the arch to the scene beyond.
The small black figure lay where it had fallen on the wilderness of wide stones starred
here and there with green thorn; and the great crowd was being kept back, chiefly by the
mere gestures of one gigantic figure in the foreground. For there were many there who
swayed hither and thither at the mere movement of his hand, as if he had been a
magician.
Alvarez, the dictator and demagogue, was a tall, swaggering figure, always rather
flamboyantly clad, and on this occasion he wore a green uniform with embroideries like
silver snakes crawling all over it, with an order round his neck hung on a very vivid
maroon ribbon. His close curling hair was already grey, and in contrast his complexion,
which his friends called olive and his foes octoroon, looked almost literally golden, as if
it were a mask moulded in gold. But his large-featured face, which was powerful and
humorous, was at this moment properly grave and grim. He had been waiting, he
explained, for Father Brown at the cafe when he had heard a rustle and a fall and,
coming out, had found the corpse lying on the flagstones.
‘I know what some of you are thinking,’ he said, looking round proudly, ‘and if you are
afraid of me — as you are — I will say it for you. I am an atheist; I have no god to call
on for those who will not take my word. But I tell you in the name of every root of
honour that may be left to a soldier and a man, that I had no part in this. If I had the men
here that did it, I would rejoice to hang them on that tree.’
‘Naturally we are glad to hear you say so,’ said old Mendoza stiffly and solemnly,
standing by the body of his fallen coadjutor. ‘This blow has been too appalling for us to
say what else we feel at present. I suggest that it will be more decent and proper if we
remove my friend’s body and break up this irregular meeting. I understand,’ he added
gravely to the doctor, ‘that there is unfortunately no doubt.’
‘There is no doubt,’ said Dr Calderon.
John Race went back to his lodgings sad and with a singular sense of emptiness. It
seemed impossible that he should miss a man whom he never knew. He learned that the
funeral was to take place next day; for all felt that the crisis should be past as quickly as
possible, for fear of riots that were hourly growing more probable. When Snaith had
seen the row of Red Indians sitting on the veranda, they might have been a row of
ancient Aztec images carved in red wood. But he had not seen them as they were when
they heard that the priest was dead.
Indeed they would certainly have risen in revolution and lynched the republican leader,
if they had not been immediately blocked by the direct necessity of behaving
respectfully to the coffin of their own religious leader. The actual assassins, whom it
would have been most natural to lynch, seemed to have vanished into thin air. Nobody
knew their names; and nobody would ever know whether the dying man had even seen
their faces. That strange look of surprise that was apparently his last look on earth might
have been the recognition of their faces. Alvarez repeated violently that it was no work
of his, and attended the funeral, walking behind the coffin in his splendid silver and
green uniform with a sort of bravado of reverence.
Behind the veranda a flight of stone steps scaled a very steep green bank, fenced by a
cactus-hedge, and up this the coffin was laboriously lifted to the ground above, and
placed temporarily at the foot of the great gaunt crucifix that dominated the road and
guarded the consecrated ground. Below in the road were great seas of people lamenting
and telling their beads — an orphan population that had lost a father. Despite all these
symbols that were provocative enough to him, Alvarez behaved with restraint and
respect; and all would have gone well — as Race told himself — had the others only let
him alone.
Race told himself bitterly that old Mendoza had always looked like an old fool and had
now very conspicuously and completely behaved like an old fool. By a custom common
in simpler societies, the coffin was left open and the face uncovered, bringing the pathos
to the point of agony for all those simple people. This, being consonant to tradition,
need have done no harm; but some officious person had added to it the custom of the
French freethinkers, of having speeches by the graveside. Mendoza proceeded to make a
speech — a rather long speech, and the longer it was, the longer and lower sank John
Race’s spirits and sympathies with the religious ritual involved. A list of saintly
attributes, apparently of the most antiquated sort, was rolled out with the dilatory
dullness of an after-dinner speaker who does not know how to sit down. That was bad
enough; but Mendoza had also the ineffable stupidity to start reproaching and even
taunting his political opponents. In three minutes he had succeeded in making a scene,
and a very extraordinary scene it was.
‘We may well ask,’ he said, looking around him pompously; ‘we may well ask where
such virtues can be found among those who have madly abandoned the creed of their
fathers. It is when we have atheists among us, atheist leaders, nay sometimes even
atheist rulers, that we find their infamous philosophy bearing fruit in crimes like this. If
we ask who murdered this holy man, we shall assuredly find — ’
Africa of the forests looked out of the eyes of Alvarez the hybrid adventurer; and Race
fancied he could see suddenly that the man was after all a barbarian, who could not
control himself to the end; one might guess that all his ‘illuminated’ transcendentalism
had a touch of Voodoo. Anyhow, Mendoza could not continue, for Alvarez had sprung
up and was shouting back at him and shouting him down, with infinitely superior lungs.
‘Who murdered him?’ he roared. ‘Your God murdered him! His own God murdered
him! According to you, he murders all his faithful and foolish servants — as he
murdered that one,’ and he made a violent gesture, not towards the coffin but the
crucifix. Seeming to control himself a little, he went on in a tone still angry but more
argumentative: ‘I don’t believe it, but you do. Isn’t it better to have no God than one
that robs you in this fashion? I, at least, am not afraid to say that there is none. There is
no power in all this blind and brainless universe that can hear your prayer or return your
friend. Though you beg Heaven to raise him, he will not rise. Though I dare Heaven to
raise him, he will not rise. Here and now I will put it to the test — I defy the God who is
not there to waken the man who sleeps for ever.’
There was a shock of silence, and the demagogue had made his sensation.
‘We might have known,’ cried Mendoza in a thick gobbling voice, ‘when we allowed
such men as you — ’
A new voice cut into his speech; a high and shrill voice with a Yankee accent.
‘Stop! Stop!’ cried Snaith the journalist; ‘something’s up! I swear I saw him move.’
He went racing up the steps and rushed to the coffin, while the mob below swayed with
indescribable frenzies. The next moment he had turned a face of amazement over his
shoulder and made a signal with his finger to Dr Calderon, who hastened forward to
confer with him. When the two men stepped away again from the coffin, all could see
that the position of the head had altered. A roar of excitement rose from the crowd and
seemed to stop suddenly, as if cut off in mid-air; for the priest in the coffin gave a groan
and raised himself on one elbow, looking with bleared and blinking eyes at the crowd.
John Adams Race, who had hitherto known only miracles of science, never found
himself able in after-years to describe the topsy-turvydom of the next few days. He
seemed to have burst out of the world of time and space, and to be living in the
impossible. In half an hour the whole of that town and district had been transformed
into something never known for a thousand years; a medieval people turned to a mob of
monks by a staggering miracle; a Greek city where the god had descended among men.
Thousands prostrated themselves in the road; hundreds took vows on the spot; and even
the outsiders, like the two Americans, were able to think and speak of nothing but the
prodigy. Alvarez himself was shaken, as well he might be; and sat down, with his head
upon his hands.
And in the midst of all this tornado of beatitude was a little man struggling to be heard.
His voice was small and faint, and the noise was deafening. He made weak little
gestures that seemed more those of irritation than anything else. He came to the edge of
the parapet above the crowd, waving it to be quiet, with movements rather like the flap
of the short wings of a penguin. There was something a little more like a lull in the
noise; and then Father Brown for the first time reached the utmost stretch of the
indignation that he could launch against his children.
‘Oh, you silly people,’ he said in a high and quavering voice; ‘Oh, you silly, silly
people.’
Then he suddenly seemed to pull himself together, made a bolt for the steps with his
more normal gait, and began hurriedly to descend.
‘Where are you going, Father?’ said Mendoza, with more than his usual veneration.
‘To the telegraph office,’ said Father Brown hastily. ‘What? No; of course it’s not a
miracle. Why should there be a miracle? Miracles are not so cheap as all that.’
And he came tumbling down the steps, the people flinging themselves before him to
implore his blessing.
‘Bless you, bless you,’ said Father Brown hastily. ‘God bless you all and give you more
sense.’
And he scuttled away with extraordinary rapidity to the telegraph office, where he wired
to his Bishop’s secretary: ‘There is some mad story about a miracle here; hope his
lordship not give authority. Nothing in it.’
As he turned away from his effort, he tottered a little with the reaction, and John Race
caught him by the arm.
‘Let me see you home,’ he said; ‘you deserve more than these people are giving you.’
John Race and the priest were seated in the presbytery; the table was still piled up with
the papers with which the latter had been wrestling the day before; the bottle of wine
and the emptied wine-glass still stood where he had left them.
‘And now,’ said Father Brown almost grimly, ‘I can begin to think.’
‘I shouldn’t think too hard just yet,’ said the American. ‘You must be wanting a rest.
Besides, what are you going to think about?’
‘I have pretty often had the task of investigating murders, as it happens,’ said Father
Brown. ‘Now I have got to investigate my own murder.’
‘If I were you,’ said Race, ‘I should take a little wine first.’
Father Brown stood up and filled himself another glass, lifted it, looked thoughtfully
into vacancy, and put it down again. Then he sat down once more and said:
‘Do you know what I felt like when I died? You may not believe it, but my feeling was
one of overwhelming astonishment.’
‘Well,’ answered Race, ‘I suppose you were astonished at being knocked on the head.’
Father Brown leaned over to him and said in a low voice, ‘I was astonished at not being
knocked on the head.’
Race looked at him for a moment as if he thought the knock on the head had been only
too effective; but he only said: ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that when that man brought his bludgeon down with a great swipe, it stopped at
my head and did not even touch it. In the same way, the other fellow made as if to strike
me with a knife, but he never gave me a scratch. It was just like play-acting. I think it
was. But then followed the extraordinary thing.’
He looked thoughtfully at the papers on the table for a moment and then went on:
‘Though I had not even been touched with knife or stick, I began to feel my legs
doubling up under me and my very life failing. I knew I was being struck down by
something, but it was not by those weapons. Do you know what I think it was?’ And he
pointed to the wine on the table.
Race picked up the wine-glass and looked at it and smelt it.
‘I think you are right,’ he said. ‘I began as a druggist and studied chemistry. I couldn’t
say for certain without an analysis; but I think there’s something very unusual in this
stuff. There are drugs by which the Asiatics produce a temporary sleep that looks like
death.’
‘Quite so,’ said the priest calmly.’ The whole of this miracle was faked, for some reason
or other. That funeral scene was staged — and timed. I think it is part of that raving
madness of publicity that has got hold of Snaith; but I can hardly believe he would go
quite so far, merely for that. After all, it’s one thing to make copy out of me and run me
as a sort of sham Sherlock Holmes, and — ’
Even as the priest spoke his face altered. His blinking eyelids shut suddenly and he
stood up as if he were choking. Then he put one wavering hand as if groping his way
towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’ asked the other in some wonder.
‘If you ask me,’ said Father Brown, who was quite white, ‘I was going to pray. Or
rather, to praise.’
‘I’m not sure I understand. What is the matter with you?’
‘I was going to praise God for having so strangely and so incredibly saved me — saved
me by an inch.’
‘Of course,’ said Race, ‘I am not of your religion; but believe me, I have religion
enough to understand that. Of course, you would thank God for saving you from death.’
‘No,’ said the priest. ‘Not from death. From disgrace.’
The other sat staring; and the priest’s next words broke out of him with a sort of cry.
‘And if it had only been my disgrace! But it was the disgrace of all I stand for; the
disgrace of the Faith that they went about to encompass. What it might have been! The
most huge and horrible scandal ever launched against us since the last lie was choked in
the throat of Titus Oates.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ demanded his companion.
‘Well, I had better tell you at once,’ said the priest; and sitting down, he went on more
composedly: ‘It came to me in a flash when I happened to mention Snaith and Sherlock
Holmes. Now I happen to remember what I wrote about his absurd scheme; it was the
natural thing to write, and yet I think they had ingeniously manoeuvred me into writing
just those words. They were something like ‘I am ready to die and come to life again
like Sherlock Holmes, if that is the best way.’ And the moment I thought of that, I
realized that I had been made to write all sorts of things of that kind, all pointing to the
same idea. I wrote, as if to an accomplice, saying that I would drink the drugged wine at
a particular time. Now, don’t you see?’
Race sprang to his feet still staring: ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I think I began to see.’
‘They would have boomed the miracle. Then they would have bust up the miracle. And
what is the worst, they would have proved that I was in the conspiracy. It would have
been our sham miracle. That’s all there is to it; and about as near hell as you and I will
ever be, I hope.’
Then he said, after a pause, in quite a mild voice: ‘They certainly would have got quite a
lot of good copy out of me.’
Race looked at the table and said darkly: ‘How many of these brutes were in it?’
Father Brown shook his head. ‘More than I like to think of,’ he said; ‘but I hope some
of them were only tools. Alvarez might think that all’s fair in war, perhaps; he has a
queer mind. I’m very much afraid that Mendoza is an old hypocrite; I never trusted him,
and he hated my action in an industrial matter. But all that will wait; I have only got to
thank God for the escape. And especially that I wired at once to the Bishop.’
John Race appeared to be very thoughtful. ‘You’ve told me a lot I didn’t know,’ he said
at last, ‘and I feel inclined to tell you the only thing you don’t know. I can imagine how
those fellows calculated well enough. They thought any man alive, waking up in a
coffin to find himself canonized like a saint, and made into a walking miracle for
everyone to admire, would be swept along with his worshippers and accept the crown of
glory that fell on him out the sky. And I reckon their calculation was pretty practical
psychology, as men go. I’ve seen all sorts of men in all sorts of places; and I tell you
frankly I don’t believe there’s one man in a thousand who could wake up like that with
all his wits about him; and while he was still almost talking in his sleep, would have the
sanity and the simplicity and the humility to — ’ He was much surprised to find himself
moved, and his level voice wavering.
Father Brown was gazing abstractedly, and in a rather cockeyed fashion, at the bottle on
the table. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘what about a bottle of real wine?’
The Arrow of Heaven
IT is to be feared that about a hundred detective stories have begun with the discovery
that an American millionaire has been murdered; an event which is, for some reason,
treated as a sort of calamity. This story, I am happy to say, has to begin with a murdered
millionaire; in one sense, indeed, it has to begin with three murdered millionaires,
which some may regard as an embarras de richesse. But it was chiefly this coincidence
or continuity of criminal policy that took the whole affair out of the ordinary run of
criminal cases and made it the extraordinary problem that it was.
It was very generally said that they had all fallen victims to some vendetta or curse
attaching to the possession of a relic of great value both intrinsically and historically: a
sort of chalice inlaid with precious stones and commonly called the Coptic Cup. Its
origin was obscure, but its use was conjectured to be religious; and some attributed the
fate that followed its possessors to the fanaticism of some Oriental Christian horrified at
its passing through such materialistic hands. But the mysterious slayer, whether or no he
was such a fanatic, was already a figure of lurid and sensational interest in the world of
journalism and gossip. The nameless being was provided with a name, or a nickname.
But it is only with the story of the third victim that we are now concerned; for it was
only in this case that a certain Father Brown, who is the subject of these sketches, had
an opportunity of making his presence felt.
When Father Brown first stepped off an Atlantic liner on to American soil, he
discovered as many other Englishman has done, that he was a much more important
person than he had ever supposed. His short figure, his short-sighted and
undistinguished countenance, his rather rusty-black clerical clothes, could pass through
any crowd in his own country without being noticed as anything unusual, except
perhaps unusually insignificant. But America has a genius for the encouragement of
fame; and his appearance in one or two curious criminal problems, together with his
long association with Flambeau, the ex-criminal and detective, had consolidated a
reputation in America out of what was little more than a rumour in England. His round
face was blank with surprise when he found himself held up on the quay by a group of
journalists, as by a gang of brigands, who asked him questions about all the subjects on
which he was least likely to regard himself as an authority, such as the details of female
dress and the criminal statistics of the country that he had only that moment clapped his
eyes on. Perhaps it was the contrast with the black embattled solidarity of this group
that made more vivid another figure that stood apart from it, equally black against the
burning white daylight of that brilliant place and season, but entirely solitary; a tall,
rather yellow-faced man in great goggles, who arrested him with a gesture when the
journalists had finished and said: ‘Excuse me, but maybe you are looking for Captain
Wain.’
Some apology may be made for Father Brown; for he himself would have been
sincerely apologetic. It must be remembered that he had never seen America before, and
more especially that he had never seen that sort of tortoise-shell spectacles before; for
the fashion at this time had not spread to England. His first sensation was that of gazing
at some goggling sea-monster with a faint suggestion of a diver’s helmet. Otherwise the
man was exquisitely dressed; and to Brown, in his innocence, the spectacles seemed the
queerest disfigurement for a dandy. It was as if a dandy had adorned himself with a
wooden leg as an extra touch of elegance. The question also embarrassed him. An
American aviator of the name of Wain, a friend of some friends of his own in France,
was indeed one of a long list of people he had some hope of seeing during his American
visit; but he had never expected to hear of him so soon.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said doubtfully, ‘are you Captain Wain? Do you — do you
know him?’
‘Well, I’m pretty confident I’m not Captain Wain,’ said the man in goggles, with a face
of wood. ‘I was pretty clear about that when I saw him waiting for you over there in the
car. But the other question’s a bit more problematical. I reckon I know Wain and his
uncle, and old man Merton, too. I know old man Merton, but old man Merton don’t
know me. And he thinks he has the advantage, and I think I have the advantage. See?’
Father Brown did not quite see. He blinked at the glittering seascape and the pinnacles
of the city, and then at the man in goggles. It was not only the masking of the man’s
eyes that produced the impression of something impenetrable. Something in his yellow
face was almost Asiatic, even Chinese; and his conversation seemed to consist of
stratified layers of irony. He was a type to be found here and there in that hearty and
sociable population; he was the inscrutable American.
‘My name’s Drage,’ he said, ‘Norman Drage, and I’m an American citizen, which
explains everything. At least I imagine your friend Wain would like to explain the rest;
so we’ll postpone The Fourth of July till another date.’
Father Brown was dragged in a somewhat dazed condition towards a car at some little
distance, in which a young man with tufts of untidy yellow hair and a rather harassed
and haggard expression, hailed him from afar, and presented himself as Peter Wain.
Before he knew where he was he was stowed in the car and travelling with considerable
speed through and beyond the city. He was unused to the impetuous practicality of such
American action, and felt about as bewildered as if a chariot drawn by dragons had
carried him away into fairyland. It was under these disconcerting conditions that he
heard for the first time, in long monologues from Wain, and short sentences from
Drage, the story of the Coptic Cup and the two crimes already connected with it.
It seemed that Wain had an uncle named Crake who had a partner named Merton, who
was number three in the series of rich business men to whom the cup had belonged. The
first of them, Titus P. Trant, the Copper King, had received threatening letters from
somebody signing himself Daniel Doom. The name was presumably a pseudonym, but
it had come to stand for a very public if not a very popular character; for somebody as
well known as Robin Hood and Jack the Ripper combined. For it soon became clear that
the writer of the threatening letter did not confine himself to threatening. Anyhow, the
upshot was that old Trant was found one morning with his head in his own lily-pond,
and there was not the shadow of a clue. The cup was, fortunately, safe in the bank; and
it passed with the rest of Trant’s property to his cousin, Brian Horder, who was also a
man of great wealth and who was also threatened by the nameless enemy. Brian Horder
was picked up dead at the foot of a cliff outside his seaside residence, at which there
was a burglary, this time on a large scale. For though the cup apparently again escaped,
enough bonds and securities were stolen to leave Horder’s financial affairs in confusion.
‘Brian Horder’s widow,’ explained Wain, ‘had to sell most of his valuables, I believe,
and Brander Merton must have purchased the cup at that time, for he had it when I first
knew him. But you can guess for yourself that it’s not a very comfortable thing to have.’
‘Has Mr Merton ever had any of the threatening letters?’ asked Father Brown, after a
pause.
‘I imagine he has,’ said Mr Drage; and something in his voice made the priest look at
him curiously, until he realized that the man in goggles was laughing silently, in a
fashion that gave the newcomer something of a chill.
‘I’m pretty sure he has,’ said Peter Wain, frowning. ‘I’ve not seen the letters, only his
secretary sees any of his letters, for he is pretty reticent about business matters, as big
business men have to be. But I’ve seen him real upset and annoyed with letters; and
letters that he tore up, too, before even his secretary saw them. The secretary himself is
getting nervous and says he is sure somebody is laying for the old man; and the long
and the short of it is, that we’d be very grateful for a little advice in the matter.
Everybody knows your great reputation, Father Brown, and the secretary asked me to
see if you’d mind coming straight out to the Merton house at once.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Father Brown, on whom the meaning of this apparent kidnapping began
to dawn at last. ‘But, really, I don’t see that I can do any more than you can. You’re on
the spot, and must have a hundred times more data for a scientific conclusion than a
chance visitor.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Drage dryly; ‘our conclusions are much too scientific to be true. I reckon
if anything hit a man like Titus P. Trant, it just came out of the sky without waiting for
any scientific explanation. What they call a bolt from the blue.’
‘You can’t possibly mean,’ cried Wain, ‘that it was supernatural!’
But it was by no means easy at any time to discover what Mr Drage could possibly
mean; except that if he said somebody was a real smart man, he very probably meant he
was a fool. Mr Drage maintained an Oriental immobility until the car stopped, a little
while after, at what was obviously their destination. It was rather a singular place. They
had been driving through a thinly-wooded country that opened into a wide plain, and
just in front of them was a building consisting of a single wall or very high fence, round,
like a Roman camp, and having rather the appearance of an aerodrome. The barrier did
not look like wood or stone, and closer inspection proved it to be of metal.
They all alighted from the car, and one small door in the wall was slid open with
considerable caution, after manipulations resembling the opening of a safe. But, much
to Father Brown’s surprise, the man called Norman Drage showed no disposition to
enter, but took leave of them with sinister gaiety.
‘I won’t come in,’ he said. ‘It ‘ud be too much pleasurable excitement for old man
Merton, I reckon. He loves the sight of me so much that he’d die of joy.’
And he strode away, while Father Brown, with increasing wonder, was admitted
through the steel door which instantly clicked behind him. Inside was a large and
elaborate garden of gay and varied colours, but entirely without any trees or tall shrubs
or flowers. In the centre of it rose a house of handsome and even striking architecture,
but so high and narrow as rather to resemble a tower. The burning sunlight gleamed on
glass roofing here and there at the top, but there seemed to be no windows at all in the
lower part of it. Over everything was that spotless and sparkling cleanliness that seemed
so native to the clear American air. When they came inside the portal, they stood amid
resplendent marble and metals and enamels of brilliant colours, but there was no
staircase. Nothing but a single shaft for a lift went up the centre between the solid walls,
and the approach to it was guarded by heavy, powerful men like plain-clothes
policemen.
‘Pretty elaborate protection, I know,’ said Wain. ‘Maybe it makes you smile a little,
Father Brown, to find Merton has to live in a fortress like this without even a tree in the
garden for anyone to hide behind. But you don’t know what sort of proposition we’re up
against in this country. And perhaps you don’t know just what the name of Brander
Merton means. He’s a quiet-looking man enough, and anybody might pass him in the
street; not that they get much chance nowadays, for he can only go out now and then in
a closed car. But if anything happened to Brander Merton there’d be earthquakes from
Alaska to the Cannibal Islands. I fancy there was never a king or emperor who had such
power over the nations as he has. After all, I suppose if you’d been asked to visit the
tsar, or the king of England, you’d have had the curiosity to go. You mayn’t care much
for tsars or millionaires; but it just means that power like that is always interesting. And
I hope it’s not against your principles to visit a modern sort of emperor like Merton.’
‘Not at all,’ said Father Brown, quietly. ‘It is my duty to visit prisoners and all
miserable men in captivity.’
There was a silence, and the young man frowned with a strange and almost shifty look
on his lean face. Then he said, abruptly:
‘Well, you’ve got to remember it isn’t only common crooks or the Black Hand that’s
against him. This Daniel Doom is pretty much like the devil. Look how he dropped
Trant in his own gardens and Horder outside his house, and got away with it.’
The top floor of the mansion, inside the enormously thick walls, consisted of two
rooms; an outer room which they entered, and an inner room that was the great
millionaire’s sanctum. They entered the outer room just as two other visitors were
coming out of the inner one. One was hailed by Peter Wain as his uncle — a small but
very stalwart and active man with a shaven head that looked bald, and a brown face that
looked almost too brown to have ever been white. This was old Crake, commonly called
Hickory Crake in reminiscence of the more famous Old Hickory, because of his fame in
the last Red Indian wars. His companion was a singular contrast — a very dapper
gentleman with dark hair like a black varnish and a broad, black ribbon to his monocle:
Barnard Blake, who was old Merton’s lawyer and had been discussing with the partners
the business of the firm. The four men met in the middle of the outer room and paused
for a little polite conversation, in the act of respectively going and coming. And through
all goings and comings another figure sat at the back of the room near the inner door,
massive and motionless in the half-light from the inner window; a man with a Negro
face and enormous shoulders. This was what the humorous self-criticism of America
playfully calls the Bad Man; whom his friends might call a bodyguard and his enemies a
bravo.
This man never moved or stirred to greet anybody; but the sight of him in the outer
room seemed to move Peter Wain to his first nervous query.
‘Is anybody with the chief?’ he asked.
‘Don’t get rattled, Peter,’ chuckled his uncle. ‘Wilton the secretary is with him, and I
hope that’s enough for anybody. I don’t believe Wilton ever sleeps for watching
Merton. He is better than twenty bodyguards. And he’s quick and quiet as an Indian.’
‘Well, you ought to know,’ said his nephew, laughing. ‘I remember the Red Indian
tricks you used to teach me when I was a boy and liked to read Red Indian stories. But
in my Red Indian stories Red Indians seemed always to have the worst of it.’
‘They didn’t in real life,’ said the old frontiersman grimly.
‘Indeed?’ inquired the bland Mr Blake. ‘I should have thought they could do very little
against our firearms.’
‘I’ve seen an Indian stand under a hundred guns with nothing but a little scalping-knife
and kill a white man standing on the top of a fort,’ said Crake.
‘Why, what did he do with it?’ asked the other.
‘Threw it,’ replied Crake, ‘threw it in a flash before a shot could be fired. I don’t know
where he learnt the trick.’
‘Well, I hope you didn’t learn it,’ said his nephew, laughing.
‘It seems to me,’ said Father Brown, thoughtfully, ‘that the story might have a moral.’
While they were speaking Mr Wilton, the secretary, had come out of the inner room and
stood waiting; a pale, fair-haired man with a square chin and steady eyes with a look
like a dog’s; it was not difficult to believe that he had the single — eye of a watchdog.
He only said, ‘Mr Merton can see you in about ten minutes,’ but it served for a signal to
break up the gossiping group. Old Crake said he must be off, and his nephew went out
with him and his legal companion, leaving Father Brown for the moment alone with his
secretary; for the negroid giant at the other end of the room could hardly be felt as if he
were human or alive; he sat so motionless with his broad back to them, staring towards
the inner room.
‘Arrangements rather elaborate here, I’m afraid,’ said the secretary. ‘You’ve probably
heard all about this Daniel Doom, and why it isn’t safe to leave the boss very much
alone.’
‘But he is alone just now, isn’t he?’ said Father Brown.
The secretary looked at him with grave, grey eyes. ‘For fifteen minutes,’ he said. ‘For
fifteen minutes out of the twenty-four hours. That is all the real solitude he has; and that
he insists on, for a pretty remarkable reason.’
‘And what is the reason?’ inquired the visitor. Wilton, the secretary, continued his
steady gaze, but his mouth, that had been merely grave, became grim.
‘The Coptic Cup,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’ve forgotten the Coptic Cup; but he hasn’t
forgotten that or anything else. He doesn’t trust any of us about the Coptic Cup. It’s
locked up somewhere and somehow in that room so that only he can find it; and he
won’t take it out till we’re all out of the way. So we have to risk that quarter of an hour
while he sits and worships it; I reckon it’s the only worshipping he does. Not that
there’s any risk really; for I’ve turned all this place into a trap I don’t believe the devil
himself could get into — or at any rate, get out of. If this infernal Daniel Doom pays us
a visit, he’ll stay to dinner and a good bit later, by God! I sit here on hot bricks for the
fifteen minutes, and the instant I heard a shot or a sound of struggle I’d press this button
and an electrocuting current would run in a ring round that garden wall, so that it ‘ud be
death to cross or climb it. Of course, there couldn’t be a shot, for this is the only way in;
and the only window he sits at is away up on the top of a tower as smooth as a greasy
pole. But, anyhow, we’re all armed here, of course; and if Doom did get into that room
he’d be dead before he got out.’
Father Brown was blinking at the carpet in a brown study. Then he said suddenly, with
something like a jerk: ‘I hope you won’t mind my mentioning it, but a kind of a notion
came into my head just this minute. It’s about you.’
‘Indeed,’ remarked Wilton, ‘and what about me?’
‘I think you are a man of one idea,’ said Father Brown, ‘and you will forgive me for
saying that it seems to be even more the idea of catching Daniel Doom than of
defending Brander Merton.’
Wilton started a little and continued to stare at his companion; then very slowly his grim
mouth took on a rather curious smile. ‘How did you — what makes you think that?’ he
asked.
‘You said that if you heard a shot you could instantly electrocute the escaping enemy,’
remarked the priest. ‘I suppose it occurred to you that the shot might be fatal to your
employer before the shock was fatal to his foe. I don’t mean that you wouldn’t protect
Mr Merton if you could, but it seems to come rather second in your thoughts. The
arrangements are very elaborate, as you say, and you seem to have elaborated them. But
they seem even more designed to catch a murderer than to save a man.’
‘Father Brown,’ said the secretary, who had recovered his quiet tone, ‘you’re very
smart, but there’s something more to you than smartness. Somehow you’re the sort of
man to whom one wants to tell the truth; and besides, you’ll probably hear it, anyhow,
for in one way it’s a joke against me already. They all say I’m a monomaniac about
running down this big crook, and perhaps I am. But I’ll tell you one thing that none of
them know. My full name is John Wilton Border.’ Father Brown nodded as if he were
completely enlightened, but the other went on.
‘This fellow who calls himself Doom killed my father and uncle and ruined my mother.
When Merton wanted a secretary I took the job, because I thought that where the cup
was the criminal might sooner or later be. But I didn’t know who the criminal was and
could only wait for him; and I meant to serve Merton faithfully.’
‘I understand,’ said Father Brown gently; ‘and, by the way, isn’t it time that we attended
on him?’
‘Why, yes,’ answered Wilton, again starting a little out of his brooding so that the priest
concluded that his vindictive mania had again absorbed him for a moment. ‘Go in now
by all means.’
Father Brown walked straight into the inner room. No sound of greetings followed, but
only a dead silence; and a moment after the priest reappeared in the doorway.
At the same moment the silent bodyguard sitting near the door moved suddenly; and it
was as if a huge piece of furniture had come to life. It seemed as though something in
the very attitude of the priest had been a signal; for his head was against the light from
the inner window and his face was in shadow.
‘I suppose you will press that button,’ he said with a sort of sigh.
Wilton seemed to awake from his savage brooding with a bound and leapt up with a
catch in his voice.
‘There was no shot,’ he cried.
‘Well,’ said Father Brown, ‘it depends what you mean by a shot.’
Wilton rushed forward, and they plunged into the inner room together. It was a
comparatively small room and simply though elegantly furnished. Opposite to them one
wide window stood open, over-looking the garden and the wooded plain. Close up
against the window stood a chair and a small table, as if the captive desired as much air
and light as was allowed him during his brief luxury of loneliness.
On the little table under the window stood the Coptic Cup; its owner had evidently been
looking at it in the best light. It was well worth looking at, for that white and brilliant
daylight turned its precious stones to many-coloured flames so that it might have been a
model of the Holy Grail. It was well worth looking at; but Brander Merton was not
looking at it. For his head had fallen back over his chair, his mane of white hair hanging
towards the floor, and his spike of grizzled beard thrust up towards the ceiling, and out
of his throat stood a long, brown painted arrow with red feathers at the other end.
‘A silent shot,’ said Father Brown, in a low voice; ‘I was just wondering about those
new inventions for silencing firearms. But this is a very old invention, and quite as
silent.’
Then, after a moment, he added: ‘I’m afraid he is dead. What are you going to do?’
The pale secretary roused himself with abrupt resolution. ‘I’m going to press that
button, of course,’ he said, ‘and if that doesn’t do for Daniel Doom, I’m going to hunt
him through the world till I find him.’
‘Take care it doesn’t do for any of our friends,’ observed Father Brown; ‘they can
hardly be far off; we’d better call them.’
‘That lot know all about the wall,’ answered Wilton. ‘None of them will try to climb it,
unless one of them ... is in a great hurry.’
Father Brown went to the window by which the arrow had evidently entered and looked
out. The garden, with its flat flower-beds, lay far below like a delicately coloured map
of the world. The whole vista seemed so vast and empty, the tower seemed set so far up
in the sky that as he stared out a strange phrase came back to his memory.
‘A bolt from the blue,’ he said. ‘What was that somebody said about a bolt from the
blue and death coming out of the sky? Look how far away everything looks; it seems
extraordinary that an arrow could come so far, unless it were an arrow from heaven.’
Wilton had returned, but did not reply, and the priest went on as in soliloquy. ‘One
thinks of aviation. We must ask young Wain ... about aviation.’
‘There’s a lot of it round here,’ said the secretary.
‘Case of very old or very new weapons,’ observed Father Brown. ‘Some would be quite
familiar to his old uncle, I suppose; we must ask him about arrows. This looks rather
like a Red Indian arrow. I don’t know where the Red Indian shot it from; but you
remember the story the old man told. I said it had a moral.’
‘If it had a moral,’ said Wilton warmly, ‘it was only that a real Red Indian might shoot a
thing farther than you’d fancy. It’s nonsense your suggesting a parallel.’
‘I don’t think you’ve got the moral quite right,’ said Father Brown.
Although the little priest appeared to melt into the millions of New York next day,
without any apparent attempt to be anything but a number in a numbered street, he was,
in fact, unobtrusively busy for the next fortnight with the commission that had been
given him, for he was filled with profound fear about a possible miscarriage of justice.
Without having any particular air of singling them out from his other new
acquaintances, he found it easy to fall into talk with the two or three men recently
involved in the mystery; and with old Hickory Crake especially he had a curious and
interesting conversation. It took place on a seat in Central Park, where the veteran sat
with his bony hands and hatchet face resting on the oddly-shaped head of a walkingstick of dark red wood, possibly modelled on a tomahawk.
‘Well, it may be a long shot,’ he said, wagging his head, ‘but I wouldn’t advise you to
be too positive about how far an Indian arrow could go. I’ve known some bow-shots
that seemed to go straighter than any bullets, and hit the mark to amazement,
considering how long they had been travelling. Of course, you practically never hear
now of a Red Indian with a bow and arrows, still less of a Red Indian hanging about
here. But if by any chance there were one of the old Indian marksmen, with one of the
old Indian bows, hiding in those trees hundreds of yards beyond the Merton outer wall
— why, then I wouldn’t put it past the noble savage to be able to send an arrow over the
wall and into the top window of Merton’s house; no, nor into Merton, either. I’ve seen
things quite as wonderful as that done in the old days.’
‘No doubt,’ said the priest, ‘you have done things quite as wonderful, as well as seen
them.’
Old Crake chuckled, and then said gruffly: ‘Oh, that’s all ancient history.’
‘Some people have a way of studying ancient history,’ the priest said. ‘I suppose we
may take it there is nothing in your old record to make people talk unpleasantly about
this affair.’
‘What do you mean?’ demanded Crake, his eyes shifting sharply for the first time, in his
red, wooden face, that was rather like the head of a tomahawk.
‘Well, since you were so well acquainted with all the arts and crafts of the Redskin — ’
began Father Brown slowly.
Crake had had a hunched and almost shrunken appearance as he sat with his chin
propped on its queer-shaped crutch. But the next instant he stood erect in the path like a
fighting bravo with the crutch clutched like a cudgel.
‘What?’ he cried — in something like a raucous screech — ‘what the hell! Are you
standing up to me to tell me I might happen to have murdered my own brother-in-law?’
From a dozen seats dotted about the path people looked to-wards the disputants, as they
stood facing each other in the middle of the path, the bald-headed energetic little man
brandishing his outlandish stick like a club, and the black, dumpy figure of the little
cleric looking at him without moving a muscle, save for his hinging eyelids. For a
moment it looked as if the black, dumpy figure would be knocked on the head, and laid
out with true Red Indian promptitude and dispatch; and the large form of an Irish
policeman could be seen heaving up in the distance and bearing down on the group. But
the priest only said, quite placidly, like one answering an ordinary query:
‘I have formed certain conclusions about it, but I do not think I will mention them till I
make my report.’
Whether under the influence of the footsteps of the policeman or of the eyes of the
priest, old Hickory tucked his stick under his arm and put his hat on again, grunting.
The priest bade him a placid good morning, and passed in an unhurried fashion out of
the park, making his way to the lounge of the hotel where he knew that young Wain was
to be found. The young man sprang up with a greeting; he looked even more haggard
and harassed than before, as if some worry were eating him away; and the priest had a
suspicion that his young friend had recently been engaged, with only too conspicuous
success, in evading the last Amendment to the American Constitution. But at the first
word about his hobby or favourite science he was vigilant and concentrated enough. For
Father Brown had asked, in an idle and conversational fashion, whether much flying
was done in that district, and had told how he had at first mistaken Mr Merton’s circular
wall for an aerodrome.
‘It’s a wonder you didn’t see any while we were there,’ answered Captain Wain.
‘Sometimes they’re as thick as flies; that open plain is a great place for them, and I
shouldn’t wonder if it were the chief breeding-ground, so to speak, for my sort of birds
in the future. I’ve flown a good deal there myself, of course, and I know most of the
fellows about here who flew in the war; but there are a whole lot of people taking to it
out there now whom I never heard of in my life. I suppose it will be like motoring soon,
and every man in the States will have one.’
‘Being endowed by his Creator,’ said Father Brown with a smile, ’with the right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of motoring — not to mention aviation. So I suppose we may
take it that one strange aeroplane passing over that house, at certain times, wouldn’t be
noticed much.’
‘No,’ replied the young man; ‘I don’t suppose it would.’
‘Or even if the man were known,’ went on the other, ‘I suppose he might get hold of a
machine that wouldn’t be recognized as his. If you, for instance, flew in the ordinary
way, Mr Merton and his friends might recognize the rig-out, perhaps; but you might
pass pretty near that window on a different pattern of plane, or whatever you call it; near
enough for practical purposes.’
‘Well, yes,’ began the young man, almost automatically, and then ceased, and remained
staring at the cleric with an open mouth and eyes standing out of his head.
‘My God!’ he said, in a low voice; ‘my God!’
Then he rose from the lounge seat, pale and shaking from head to foot and still staring
at the priest.
‘Are you mad?’ he said; ‘are you raving mad?’
There was a silence and then he spoke again in a swift hissing fashion. ‘You positively
come here to suggest — ’
‘No; only to collect suggestions,’ said Father Brown, rising. ‘I may have formed some
conclusions provisionally, but I had better reserve them for the present.’
And then saluting the other with the same stiff civility, he passed out of the hotel to
continue his curious peregrinations.
By the dusk of that day they had led him down the dingy streets and steps that straggled
and tumbled towards the river in the oldest and most irregular part of the city.
Immediately under the coloured lantern that marked the entrance to a rather low
Chinese restaurant he encountered a figure he had seen before, though by no means
presenting itself to the eye as he had seen it.
Mr Norman Drage still confronted the world grimly behind his great goggles, which
seemed somehow to cover his face like a dark musk of glass. But except for the
goggles, his appearance had undergone a strange transformation in the month that had
elapsed since the murder. He had then, as Father Brown had noted, been dressed up to
the nines — up to that point, indeed, where there begins to be too fine a distinction
between the dandy and the dummy outside a tailor’s shop. But now all those externals
were mysteriously altered for the worse; as if the tailor’s dummy had been turned into a
scarecrow. His top hat still existed, but it was battered and shabby; his clothes were
dilapidated; his watch-chain and minor ornaments were gone. Father Brown, however,
addressed him as if they had met yesterday, and made no demur to sitting down with
him on a bench in the cheap eating-house whither he was bound. It was not he,
however, who began the conversation.
‘Well?’ growled Drage, ‘and have you succeeded in avenging your holy and sainted
millionaire? We know all millionaires are holy and sainted; you can find it all in the
papers next day, about how they lived by the light of the Family Bible they read at their
mother’s knee. Gee! if they’d only read out some of the things there are in the Family
Bible, the mother might have been startled some. And the millionaire, too, I reckon. The
old Book’s full of a lot of grand fierce old notions they don’t grow nowadays; sort of
wisdom of the Stone Age and buried under the Pyramids. Suppose somebody had flung
old man Merton from the top of that tower of his, and let him be eaten by dogs at the
bottom, it would be no worse than what happened to Jezebel. Wasn’t Agag hacked into
little pieces, for all he went walking delicately? Merton walked delicately all his life,
damn him — until he got too delicate to walk at all. But the shaft of the Lord found him
out, as it might have done in the old Book, and struck him dead on the top of his tower
to be a spectacle to the people.
‘The shaft was material, at least,’ said his companion.
‘The Pyramids are mighty material, and they hold down the dead kings all right,’
grinned the man in the goggles. ‘I think there’s a lot to be said for these old material
religions. There’s old carvings that have lasted for thousands of years, showing their
gods and emperors with bended bows; with hands that look as if they could really bend
bows of stone. Material, perhaps — but what materials! Don’t you sometimes stand
staring at those old Eastern patterns and things, till you have a hunch that old Lord God
is still driving like a dark Apollo, and shooting black rays of death?’
‘If he is,’ replied Father Brown, ‘I might call him by another name. But I doubt whether
Merton died by a dark ray or even a stone arrow.’
‘I guess you think he’s St Sebastian,’ sneered Drage, ‘killed with an arrow. A
millionaire must be a martyr. How do you know he didn’t deserve it? You don’t know
much about your millionaire, I fancy. Well, let me tell you he deserved it a hundred
times over.’
‘Well,’ asked Father Brown gently, ‘why didn’t you murder him?’
‘You want to know why I didn’t?’ said the other, staring. ‘Well, you’re a nice sort of
clergyman.’
‘Not at all,’ said the other, as if waving away a compliment.
‘I suppose it’s your way of saying I did,’ snarled Drage. ‘Well, prove it, that’s all. As
for him, I reckon he was no loss.’
‘Yes, he was,’ said Father Brown, sharply. ‘He was a loss to you. That’s why you didn’t
kill him.’
And he walked out of the room, leaving the man in goggles gaping after him.
It was nearly a month later that Father Brown revisited the house where the third
millionaire had suffered from the vendetta of Daniel Doom. A sort of council was held
of the persons most interested. Old Crake sat at the head of the table with his nephew at
his right hand, the lawyer on his left; the big man with the African features, whose name
appeared to be Harris, was ponderously present, if only as a material witness; a redhaired, sharp-nosed individual addressed as Dixon seemed to be the representative of
Pinkerton’s or some such private agency; and Father Brown slipped unobtrusively into
an empty seat beside him.
Every newspaper in the world was full of the catastrophe of the colossus of finance, of
the great organizer of the Big Business that bestrides the modern world; but from the
tiny group that had been nearest to him at the very instant of his death very little could
be learned. The uncle, nephew, and attendant solicitor declared they were well outside
the outer wall before the alarm was raised; and inquiries of the official guardians at both
barriers brought answers that were rather confused, but on the whole confirmatory. Only
one other complication seemed to call for consideration. It seemed that round about the
time of the death, before or after, a stranger had been found hanging mysteriously round
the entrance and asking to see Mr Merton. The servants had some difficulty in
understanding what he meant, for his language was very obscure; but it was afterwards
considered to be also very suspicious, since he had said something about a wicked man
being destroyed by a word out of the sky.
Peter Wain leaned forward, the eyes bright in his haggard face, and said:
‘I’ll bet on that, anyhow. Norman Drage.’
‘And who in the world is Norman Drage?’ asked his uncle.
‘That’s what I want to know,’ replied the young man. ‘I practically asked him, but he
has got a wonderful trick of twisting every straight question crooked; it’s like lunging at
a fencer. He hooked on to me with hints about the flying-ship of the future; but I never
trusted him much.’
‘But what sort of a man is he?’ asked Crake.
‘He’s a mystagogue,’ said Father Brown, with innocent promptitude. ‘There are quite a
lot of them about; the sort of men about town who hint to you in Paris cafes and
cabarets that they’ve lifted the veil of Isis or know the secret of Stonehenge. In a case
like this they’re sure to have some sort of mystical explanations.’
The smooth, dark head of Mr Barnard Blake, the lawyer, was inclined politely towards
the speaker, but his smile was faintly hostile.
‘I should hardly have thought, sir,’ he said, ‘that you had any quarrel with mystical
explanations.’
‘On the contrary,’ replied Father Brown, blinking amiably at him. ‘That’s just why I can
quarrel with ’em. Any sham lawyer could bamboozle me, but he couldn’t bamboozle
you; because you’re a lawyer yourself. Any fool could dress up as a Red Indian and I’d
swallow him whole as the only original Hiawatha; but Mr Crake would see through him
at once. A swindler could pretend to me that he knew all about aeroplanes, but not to
Captain Wain. And it’s just the same with the other, don’t you see? It’s just because I
have picked up a little about mystics that I have no use for mystagogues. Real mystics
don’t hide mysteries, they reveal them. They set a thing up in broad daylight, and when
you’ve seen it it’s still a mystery. But the mystagogues hide a thing in darkness and
secrecy, and when you find it, it’s a platitude. But in the case of Drage, I admit he had
also another and more practical notion in talking about fire from heaven or bolts from
the blue.’
‘And what was his notion?’ asked Wain. ‘I think it wants watching whatever it is.’
‘Well,’ replied the priest, slowly, ‘he wanted us to think the murders were miracles
because . . . well, because he knew they weren’t.’
‘Ah,’ said Wain, with a sort of hiss, ‘I was waiting for that. In plain words, he is the
criminal.’
‘In plain words, he is the criminal who didn’t commit the crime,’ answered Father
Brown calmly.
‘Is that your conception of plain words?’ inquired Blake politely.
‘You’ll be saying I’m the mystagogue now,’ said Father Brown somewhat abashed, but
with a broad smile, ‘but it was really quite accidental. Drage didn’t commit the crime —
I mean this crime. His only crime was blackmailing somebody, and he hung about here
to do it; but he wasn’t likely to want the secret to be public property or the whole
business to be cut short by death. We can talk about him afterwards. Just at the moment,
I only want him cleared out of the way.’
‘Out of the way of what?’ asked the other.
‘Out of the way of the truth,’ replied the priest, looking at him tranquilly, with level
eyelids.
‘Do you mean,’ faltered the other, ‘that you know the truth?’
‘I rather think so,’ said Father Brown modestly.
There was an abrupt silence, after which Crake cried out suddenly and irrelevantly in a
rasping voice:
‘Why, where is that secretary fellow? Wilton! He ought to be here.’
‘I am in communication with Mr Wilton,’ said Father Brown gravely; ‘in fact, I asked
him to ring me up here in a few minutes from now. I may say that we’ve worked the
thing out together, in a manner of speaking.’
‘If you’re working together, I suppose it’s all right,’ grumbled Crake. ‘I know he was
always a sort of bloodhound on the trail of his vanishing crook, so perhaps it was well
to hunt in couples with him. But if you know the truth about this, where the devil did
you get it from?’
‘I got it from you,’ answered the priest, quietly, and continued to gaze mildly at the
glaring veteran.’ I mean I made the first guess from a hint in a story of yours about an
Indian who threw a knife and hit a man on the top of a fortress.’
‘You’ve said that several times,’ said Wain, with a puzzled air; ‘but I can’t see any
inference, except that this murderer threw an arrow and hit a man on the top of a house
very like a fortress. But of course the arrow wasn’t thrown but shot, and would go much
further. Certainly it went uncommonly far; but I don’t see how it brings us any farther.’
‘I’m afraid you missed the point of the story,’ said Father Brown. ‘It isn’t that if one
thing can go far another can go farther. It is that the wrong use of a tool can cut both
ways. The men on Crake’s fort thought of a knife as a thing for a hand-to-hand fight and
forgot that it could be a missile like a javelin. Some other people I know thought of a
thing as a missile like a javelin and forgot that, after all, it could be used hand-to-hand
as a spear. In short, the moral of the story is that since a dagger can be turned into an
arrow, so can an arrow be turned into a dagger.’
They were all looking at him now; but he continued in the same casual and unconscious
tone: ‘Naturally we wondered and worried a good deal about who shot that arrow
through the window and whether it came from far away, and so on. But the truth is that
nobody shot the arrow at all. It never came in at the window at all.’
‘Then how did it come there?’ asked the swarthy lawyer, with a rather lowering face.
‘Somebody brought it with him, I suppose,’ said Father Brown; ‘it wouldn’t be hard to
carry or conceal. Somebody had it in his hand as he stood with Merton in Merton’s own
room. Somebody thrust it into Merton’s throat like a poignard, and then had the highly
intelligent idea of placing the whole thing at such a place and angle that we all assumed
in a flash that it had flown in at the window like a bird.’
‘Somebody,’ said old Crake, in a voice as heavy as stone.
The telephone bell rang with a strident and horrible clamour of insistence. It was in the
adjoining room, and Father Brown had darted there before anybody else could move.
‘What the devil is it all about?’ cried Peter Wain, who seemed all shaken and distracted.
‘He said he expected to be rung up by Wilton, the secretary,’ replied his uncle in the
same dead voice.
‘I suppose it is Wilton?’ observed the lawyer, like one speaking to fill up a silence. But
nobody answered the question until Father Brown reappeared suddenly and silently in
the room, bringing the answer.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, when he had resumed his seat, ‘it was you who asked me to look
into the truth about this puzzle; and having found the truth, I must tell it, without any
pretence of softening the shock. I’m afraid anybody who pokes his nose into things like
this can’t afford to be a respecter of persons.’
‘I suppose,’ said Crake, breaking the silence that followed, ‘that means that some of us
are accused, or suspected.’
‘All of us are suspected,’ answered Father Brown. ‘I may be suspected myself, for I
found the body.’
‘Of course we’re suspected,’ snapped Wain. ‘Father Brown kindly explained to me how
I could have besieged the tower in a flying-machine.’
‘No,’ replied the priest, with a smile; ‘you described to me how you could have done it.
That was just the interesting part of it.’
‘He seemed to think it likely,’ growled Crake, ‘that I killed him myself with a Red
Indian arrow.’
‘I thought it most unlikely,’ said Father Brown, making rather a wry face. I’m sorry if I
did wrong, but I couldn’t think of any other way of testing the matter. I can hardly think
of anything more improbable than the notion that Captain Wain went careering in a
huge machine past the window, at the very moment of the murder, and nobody noticed
it; unless, perhaps, it were the notion that a respectable old gentleman should play at
Red Indians with a bow and arrow behind the bushes, to kill somebody he could have
killed in twenty much simpler ways. But I had to find out if they had had anything to do
with it; and so I had to accuse them in order to prove their innocence.’
‘And how have you proved their innocence?’ asked Blake the lawyer, leaning forward
eagerly.
‘Only by the agitation they showed when they were accused,’ answered the other.
‘What do you mean, exactly?’
‘If you will permit me to say so,’ remarked Father Brown, composedly enough, ‘I did
undoubtedly think it my duty to suspect them and everybody else. I did suspect Mr
Crake and I did suspect Captain Wain, in the sense that I considered the possibility or
probability of their guilt. I told them I had formed conclusions about it; and I will now
tell them what those conclusions were. I was sure they were innocent, because of the
manner and the moment in which they passed from unconsciousness to indignation. So
long as they never thought they were accused, they went on giving me materials to
support the accusation. They practically explained to me how they might have
committed the crime. Then they suddenly realized with a shock and a shout of rage that
they were accused; they realized it long after they might well have expected to be
accused, but long before I had accused them. Now no guilty person could possibly do
that. He might be snappy and suspicious from the first; or he might simulate
unconsciousness and innocence up to the end. But he wouldn’t begin by making things
worse for himself and then give a great jump and begin furiously denying the notion he
had himself helped to suggest. That could only come by his having really failed to
realize what he was suggesting. The self-consciousness of a murderer would always be
at least morbidly vivid enough to prevent him first forgetting his relation with the thing
and then remembering to deny it. So I ruled you both out and others for other reasons I
needn’t discuss now. For instance, there was the secretary —
‘But I’m not talking about that just now. Look here, I’ve just heard from Wilton on the
phone, and he’s given me permission to tell you some rather serious news. Now I
suppose you all know by this time who Wilton was, and what he was after.’
‘I know he was after Daniel Doom and wouldn’t be happy till he got him,’ answered
Peter Wain; ‘and I’ve heard the story that he’s the son of old Horder, and that’s why
he’s the avenger of blood. Anyhow, he’s certainly looking for the man called Doom.’
‘Well,’ said Father Brown, ‘he has found him.’
Peter Wain sprang to his feet in excitement.
‘The murderer!’ he cried. ‘Is the murderer in the lock-up already?’
‘No,’ said Father Brown, gravely; ‘I said the news was serious, and it’s more serious
than that. I’m afraid poor Wilton has taken a terrible responsibility. I’m afraid he’s
going to put a terrible responsibility on us. He hunted the criminal down, and just when
he had him cornered at last — well, he has taken the law into his own hands.’
‘You mean that Daniel Doom — ’ began the lawyer.
‘I mean that Daniel Doom is dead,’ said the priest. ‘There was some sort of wild
struggle, and Wilton killed him.’
‘Serve him right,’ growled Mr Hickory Crake.
‘Can’t blame Wilton for downing a crook like that, especially considering the feud,’
assented Wain; ‘it was like stepping on a viper.’
‘I don’t agree with you,’ said Father Brown. ‘I suppose we all talk romantic stuff at
random in defence of lynching and lawlessness; but I have a suspicion that if we lose
our laws and liberties we shall regret it. Besides, it seems to me illogical to say there is
something to be said for Wilton committing murder, without even inquiring whether
there was anything to be said for Doom committing it. I rather doubt whether Doom
was merely a vulgar assassin; he may have been a sort of outlaw with a mania about the
cup, demanding it with threats and only killing after a struggle; both victims were
thrown down just outside their houses. The objection to Wilton’s way of doing it is that
we shall never hear Doom’s side of the case.’
‘Oh, I’ve no patience with all this sentimental whitewashing of worthless, murderous
blackguards,’ cried Wain, heatedly. ‘If Wilton croaked the criminal he did a jolly good
day’s work, and there’s an end of it.’
‘Quite so, quite so,’ said his uncle, nodding vigorously.
Father Brown’s face had a yet heavier gravity as he looked slowly round the semicircle
of faces. ‘Is that really what you all think?’ he asked. Even as he did so he realized that
he was an Englishman and an exile. He realized that he was among foreigners, even if
he was among friends. Around that ring of foreigners ran a restless fire that was not
native to his own breed; the fiercer spirit of the western nation that can rebel and lynch,
and above all, combine. He knew that they had already combined.
‘Well,’ said Father Brown, with a sigh, ‘I am to understand, then, that you do definitely
condone this unfortunate man’s crime, or act of private justice, or whatever you call it.
In that case it will not hurt him if I tell you a little more about it.’
He rose suddenly to his feet; and though they saw no meaning in his movement, it
seemed in some way to change or chill the very air in the room.
‘Wilton killed Doom in a rather curious way,’ he began.
‘How did Wilton kill him?’ asked Crake, abruptly.
‘With an arrow,’ said Father Brown.
Twilight was gathering in the long room, and daylight dwindling to a gleam from the
great window in the inner room, where the great millionaire had died. Almost
automatically the eyes of the group turned slowly towards it, but as yet there was no
sound. Then the voice of Crake came cracked and high and senile in a sort of crowing
gabble.
‘What you mean? What you mean? Brander Merton killed by an arrow. This crook
killed by an arrow — ’
‘By the same arrow,’ said the priest, ‘and at the same moment.’
Again there was a sort of strangled and yet swollen and bursting silence, and young
Wain began: ‘You mean — ’
‘I mean that your friend Merton was Daniel Doom,’ said Father Brown firmly;’ and the
only Daniel Doom you’ll ever find. Your friend Merton was always crazy after that
Coptic Cup that he used to worship like an idol every day; and in his wild youth he had
really killed two men to get it, though I still think the deaths may have been in a sense
accidents of the robbery. Anyhow, he had it; and that man Drage knew the story and
was blackmailing him. But Wilton was after him for a very different purpose; I fancy he
only discovered the truth when he’d got into this house. But anyhow, it was in this
house, and in that room, that this hunt ended, and he slew the slayer of his father.’
For a long time nobody answered. Then old Crake could be heard drumming with his
fingers on the table and muttering:
‘Brander must have been mad. He must have been mad.’
‘But, good Lord!’ burst out Peter Wain; ‘what are we to do? What are we to say? Oh,
it’s all quite different! What about the papers and the big business people? Brander
Merton is a thing like the President or the Pope of Rome.’
‘I certainly think it is rather different,’ began Barnard Blake, the lawyer, in a low voice.
‘The difference involves a whole — ’
Father Brown struck the table so that the glasses on it rang; and they could almost fancy
a ghostly echo from the mysterious chalice that still stood in the room beyond.
‘No!’ he cried, in a voice like a pistol-shot. ‘There shall be no difference. I gave you
your chance of pitying the poor devil when you thought he was a common criminal.
You wouldn’t listen then; you were all for private vengeance then. You were all for
letting him be butchered like a wild beast without a hearing or a public trial, and said he
had only got his deserts. Very well then, if Daniel Doom has got his deserts, Brander
Merton has got his deserts. If that was good enough for Doom, by all that is holy it is
good enough for Merton. Take your wild justice or our dull legality; but in the name of
Almighty God, let there be an equal lawlessness or an equal law.’
Nobody answered except the lawyer, and he answered with something like a snarl:
‘What will the police say if we tell them we mean to condone a crime?’
‘What will they say if I tell them you did condone it?’ replied Father Brown. ‘Your
respect for the law comes rather late, Mr Barnard Blake.’
After a pause he resumed in a milder tone: ’I, for one, am ready to tell the truth if the
proper authorities ask me; and the rest of you can do as you like. But as a fact, it will
make very little difference. Wilton only rang me up to tell me that I was now free to lay
his confession before you; for when you heard it, he would be beyond pursuit.’
He walked slowly into the inner room and stood there by the little table beside which
the millionaire had died. The Coptic Cup still stood in the same place, and he remained
there for a space staring at its cluster of all the colours of the rainbow, and beyond it
into a blue abyss of sky.
The Oracle of the Dog
‘YES,’ said Father Brown, ‘I always like a dog, so long as he isn’t spelt backwards.’
Those who are quick in talking are not always quick in listening. Sometimes even their
brilliancy produces a sort of stupidity. Father Brown’s friend and companion was a
young man with a stream of ideas and stories, an enthusiastic young man named
Fiennes, with eager blue eyes and blond hair that seemed to be brushed back, not merely
with a hair-brush but with the wind of the world as he rushed through it. But he stopped
in the torrent of his talk in a momentary bewilderment before he saw the priest’s very
simple meaning.
‘You mean that people make too much of them?’ he said. ‘Well, I don’t know. They’re
marvellous creatures. Sometimes I think they know a lot more than we do.’
Father Brown said nothing, but continued to stroke the head of the big retriever in a
half-abstracted but apparently soothing fashion.
‘Why,’ said Fiennes, warming again to his monologue, ‘there was a dog in the case I’ve
come to see you about: what they call the ‘Invisible Murder Case’, you know. It’s a
strange story, but from my point of view the dog is about the strangest thing in it. Of
course, there’s the mystery of the crime itself, and how old Druce can have been killed
by somebody else when he was all alone in the summer-house — ’
The hand stroking the dog stopped for a moment in its rhythmic movement, and Father
Brown said calmly: ‘Oh, it was a summer-house, was it?’
‘I thought you’d read all about it in the papers,’ answered Fiennes.’ Stop a minute; I
believe I’ve got a cutting that will give you all the particulars.’ He produced a strip of
newspaper from his pocket and handed it to the priest, who began to read it, holding it
close to his blinking eyes with one hand while the other continued its half-conscious
caresses of the dog. It looked like the parable of a man not letting his right hand know
what his left hand did.
*
Many mystery stories, about men murdered behind locked doors and windows, and
murderers escaping without means of entrance and exit, have come true in the course of
the extraordinary events at Cranston on the coast of Yorkshire, where Colonel Druce
was found stabbed from behind by a dagger that has entirely disappeared from the
scene, and apparently even from the neighbourhood.
The summer-house in which he died was indeed accessible at one entrance, the ordinary
doorway which looked down the central walk of the garden towards the house. But, by a
combination of events almost to be called a coincidence, it appears that both the path
and the entrance were watched during the crucial time, and there is a chain of witnesses
who confirm each other. The summer-house stands at the extreme end of the garden,
where there is no exit or entrance of any kind. The central garden path is a lane between
two ranks of tall delphiniums, planted so close that any stray step off the path would
leave its traces; and both path and plants run right up to the very mouth of the summerhouse, so that no straying from that straight path could fail to be observed, and no other
mode of entrance can be imagined.
Patrick Floyd, secretary of the murdered man, testified that he had been in a position to
overlook the whole garden from the time when Colonel Druce last appeared alive in the
doorway to the time when he was found dead; as he, Floyd, had been on the top of a
step-ladder clipping the garden hedge. Janet Druce, the dead man’s daughter, confirmed
this, saying that she had sat on the terrace of the house throughout that time and had
seen Floyd at his work. Touching some part of the time, this is again supported by
Donald Druce, her brother — who overlooked the garden — standing at his bedroom
window in his dressing-gown, for he had risen late. Lastly, the account is consistent
with that given by Dr Valentine, a neighbour, who called for a time to talk with Miss
Druce on the terrace, and by the Colonel’s solicitor, Mr Aubrey Traill, who was
apparently the last to see the murdered man alive — presumably with the exception of
the murderer.
All are agreed that the course of events was as follows: About half past three in the
afternoon, Miss Druce went down the path to ask her father when he would like tea; but
he said he did not want any and was waiting to see Traill, his lawyer, who was to be
sent to him in the summer-house. The girl then came away and met Traill coming down
the path; she directed him to her father and he went in as directed. About half an hour
afterwards he came out again, the Colonel coming with him to the door and showing
himself to all appearance in health and even high spirits. He had been somewhat
annoyed earlier in the day by his son’s irregular hours, but seemed to recover his temper
in a perfectly normal fashion, and had been rather markedly genial in receiving other
visitors, including two of his nephews, who came over for the day. But as these were
out walking during the whole period of the tragedy, they had no evidence to give. It is
said, indeed, that the Colonel was not on very good terms with Dr Valentine, but that
gentleman only had a brief interview with the daughter of the house, to whom he is
supposed to be paying serious attentions.
Traill, the solicitor, says he left the Colonel entirely alone in the summer-house, and this
is confirmed by Floyd’s bird’s-eye view of the garden, which showed nobody else
passing the only entrance. Ten minutes later, Miss Druce again went down the garden
and had not reached the end of the path when she saw her father, who was conspicuous
by his white linen coat, lying in a heap on the floor. She uttered a scream which brought
others to the spot, and on entering the place they found the Colonel lying dead beside
his basket-chair, which was also upset. Dr Valentine, who was still in the immediate
neighbourhood, testified that the wound was made by some sort of stiletto, entering
under the shoulder-blade and piercing the heart. The police have searched the
neighbourhood for such a weapon, but no trace of it can be found.
‘So Colonel Druce wore a white coat, did he?’ said Father Brown as he put down the
paper.
‘Trick he learnt in the tropics,’ replied Fiennes, with some wonder. ‘He’d had some
queer adventures there, by his own account; and I fancy his dislike of Valentine was
connected with the doctor coming from the tropics, too. But it’s all an infernal puzzle.
The account there is pretty accurate. I didn’t see the tragedy, in the sense of the
discovery; I was out walking with the young nephews and the dog — the dog I wanted
to tell you about. But I saw the stage set for it as described; the straight lane between the
blue flowers right up to the dark entrance, and the lawyer going down it in his blacks
and his silk hat, and the red head of the secretary showing high above the green hedge
as he worked on it with his shears. Nobody could have mistaken that red head at any
distance; and if people say they saw it there all the time, you may be sure they did.
This red-haired secretary, Floyd, is quite a character; a breathless bounding sort of
fellow, always doing everybody’s work as he was doing the gardener’s. I think he is an
American; he’s certainly got the American view of life — what they call the view-point,
bless ’em.’
‘What about the lawyer?’ asked Father Brown. There was a silence and then Fiennes
spoke quite slowly for him. ‘Traill struck me as a singular man. In his fine black clothes
he was almost foppish, yet you can hardly call him fashionable. For he wore a pair of
long, luxuriant black whiskers such as haven’t been seen since Victorian times. He had
rather a fine grave face and a fine grave manner, but every now and then he seemed to
remember to smile. And when he showed his white teeth he seemed to lose a little of his
dignity, and there was something faintly fawning about him. It may have been only
embarrassment, for he would also fidget with his cravat and his tie-pin, which were at
once handsome and unusual, like himself. If I could think of anybody — but what’s the
good, when the whole thing’s impossible? Nobody knows who did it. Nobody knows
how it could be done. At least there’s only one exception I’d make, and that’s why I
really mentioned the whole thing. The dog knows.’
Father Brown sighed and then said absently: ‘You were there as a friend of young
Donald, weren’t you? He didn’t go on your walk with you?’
‘No,’ replied Fiennes smiling. ‘The young scoundrel had gone to bed that morning and
got up that afternoon. I went with his cousins, two young officers from India, and our
conversation was trivial enough. I remember the elder, whose name I think is Herbert
Druce and who is an authority on horse-breeding, talked about nothing but a mare he
had bought and the moral character of the man who sold her; while his brother Harry
seemed to be brooding on his bad luck at Monte Carlo. I only mention it to show you, in
the light of what happened on our walk, that there was nothing psychic about us. The
dog was the only mystic in our company.’
‘What sort of a dog was he?’ asked the priest.
‘Same breed as that one,’ answered Fiennes. ‘That’s what started me off on the story,
your saying you didn’t believe in believing in a dog. He’s a big black retriever, named
Nox, and a suggestive name, too; for I think what he did a darker mystery than the
murder. You know Druce’s house and garden are by the sea; we walked about a mile
from it along the sands and then turned back, going the other way. We passed a rather
curious rock called the Rock of Fortune, famous in the neighbourhood because it’s one
of those examples of one stone barely balanced on another, so that a touch would knock
it over. It is not really very high but the hanging outline of it makes it look a little wild
and sinister; at least it made it look so to me, for I don’t imagine my jolly young
companions were afflicted with the picturesque. But it may be that I was beginning to
feel an atmosphere; for just then the question arose of whether it was time to go back to
tea, and even then I think I had a premonition that time counted for a good deal in the
business. Neither Herbert Druce nor I had a watch, so we called out to his brother, who
was some paces behind, having stopped to light his pipe under the hedge. Hence it
happened that he shouted out the hour, which was twenty past four, in his big voice
through the growing twilight; and somehow the loudness of it made it sound like the
proclamation of something tremendous. His unconsciousness seemed to make it all the
more so; but that was always the way with omens; and particular ticks of the clock were
really very ominous things that afternoon. According to Dr Valentine’s testimony, poor
Druce had actually died just about half past four.
‘Well, they said we needn’t go home for ten minutes, and we walked a little farther
along the sands, doing nothing in particular — throwing stones for the dog and throwing
sticks into the sea for him to swim after. But to me the twilight seemed to grow oddly
oppressive, and the very shadow of the top-heavy Rock of Fortune lay on me like a
load. And then the curious thing happened. Nox had just brought back Herbert’s
walking-stick out of the sea and his brother had thrown his in also. The dog swam out
again, but just about what must have been the stroke of the half-hour, he stopped
swimming. He came back again on to the shore and stood in front of us. Then he
suddenly threw up his head and sent up a howl or wail of woe — if ever I heard one in
the world.
‘‘What the devil’s the matter with the dog?’ asked Herbert; but none of us could answer.
There was a long silence after the brute’s wailing and whining died away on the
desolate shore; and then the silence was broken. As I live, it was broken by a faint and
far-off shriek, like the shriek of a woman from beyond the hedges inland. We didn’t
know what it was then; but we knew afterwards. It was the cry the girl gave when she
first saw the body of her father.’
‘You went back, I suppose,’ said Father Brown patiently. ‘What happened then?’
‘I’ll tell you what happened then,’ said Fiennes with a grim emphasis. ‘When we got
back into that garden the first thing we saw was Traill, the lawyer; I can see him now
with his black hat and black whiskers relieved against the perspective of the blue
flowers stretching down to the summer-house, with the sunset and the strange outline of
the Rock of Fortune in the distance. His face and figure were in shadow against the
sunset; but I swear the white teeth were showing in his head and he was smiling. The
moment Nox saw that man the dog dashed forward and stood in the middle of the path
barking at him madly, murderously, volleying out curses that were almost verbal in their
dreadful distinctness of hatred. And the man doubled up and fled, along the path
between the flowers.’
Father Brown sprang to his feet with a startling impatience. ‘So the dog denounced him,
did he?’ he cried. ‘The oracle of the dog condemned him. Did you see what birds were
flying, and are you sure whether they were on the right hand or the left? Did you consult
the augurs about the sacrifices? Surely you didn’t omit to cut open the dog and examine
his entrails. That is the sort of scientific test you heathen humanitarians seem to trust
when you are thinking of taking away the life and honour of a man.’
Fiennes sat gaping for an instant before he found breath to say: ‘Why, what’s the matter
with you? What have I done now?’ A sort of anxiety came back into the priest’s eyes —
the anxiety of a man who has run against a post in the dark and wonders for a moment
whether he has hurt it.
‘I’m most awfully sorry,’ he said with sincere distress. ‘I beg your pardon for being so
rude; pray forgive me.’
Fiennes looked at him curiously. ‘I sometimes think you are more of a mystery than any
of the mysteries,’ he said. ‘But anyhow, if you don’t believe in the mystery of the dog,
at least you can’t get over the mystery of the man. You can’t deny that at the very
moment when the beast came back from the sea and bellowed, his master’s soul was
driven out of his body by the blow of some unseen power that no mortal man can trace
or even imagine. And as for the lawyer — I don’t go only by the dog — there are other
curious details, too. He struck me as a smooth, smiling, equivocal sort of person; and
one of his tricks seemed like a sort of hint. You know the doctor and the police were on
the spot very quickly; Valentine was brought back when walking away from the house,
and he telephoned instantly. That, with the secluded house, small numbers, and
enclosed space, made it pretty possible to search everybody who could have been near;
and everybody was thoroughly searched — for a weapon. The whole house, garden, and
shore were combed for a weapon. The disappearance of the dagger is almost as crazy as
the disappearance of the man.’
‘The disappearance of the dagger,’ said Father Brown, nodding. He seemed to have
become suddenly attentive.
‘Well,’ continued Fiennes, ‘I told you that man Traill had a trick of fidgeting with his
tie and tie-pin — especially his tie-pin. His pin, like himself, was at once showy and
old-fashioned. It had one of those stones with concentric coloured rings that look like an
eye; and his own concentration on it got on my nerves, as if he had been a Cyclops with
one eye in the middle of his body. But the pin was not only large but long; and it
occurred to me that his anxiety about its adjustment was because it was even longer than
it looked; as long as a stiletto in fact.’
Father Brown nodded thoughtfully. ‘Was any other instrument ever suggested?’ he
asked.
‘There was another suggestion,’ answered Fiennes, ‘from one of the young Druces —
the cousins, I mean. Neither Herbert nor Harry Druce would have struck one at first as
likely to be of assistance in scientific detection; but while Herbert was really the
traditional type of heavy Dragoon, caring for nothing but horses and being an ornament
to the Horse Guards, his younger brother Harry had been in the Indian Police and knew
something about such things. Indeed, in his own way he was quite clever; and I rather
fancy he had been too clever; I mean he had left the police through breaking some redtape regulations and taking some sort of risk and responsibility of his own. Anyhow, he
was in some sense a detective out of work, and threw himself into this business with
more than the ardour of an amateur. And it was with him that I had an argument about
the weapon — an argument that led — to something new. It began by his countering my
description of the dog barking at Traill; and he said that a dog at his worst didn’t bark,
but growled.’
‘He was quite right there,’ observed the priest.
‘This young fellow went on to say that, if it came to that, he’d heard Nox growling at
other people before then; and among others at Floyd, the secretary. I retorted that his
own argument answered itself; for the crime couldn’t be brought home to two or three
people, and least of all to Floyd, who was as innocent as a harum-scarum schoolboy,
and had been seen by everybody all the time perched above the garden hedge with his
fan of red hair as conspicuous as a scarlet cockatoo.
‘I know there’s difficulties anyhow,’ said my colleague, ‘but I wish you’d come with
me down the garden a minute. I want to show you something I don’t think any one else
has seen.’ This was on the very day of the discovery, and the garden was just as it had
been. The step-ladder was still standing by the hedge, and just under the hedge my
guide stopped and disentangled something from the deep grass. It was the sheers used
for clipping the hedge, and on the point of one of them was a smear of blood.
There was a short silence, and then Father Brown said suddenly; ‘What was the lawyer
there for?’
‘He told us the Colonel sent for him to alter his will,’ answered Fiennes. ‘And, by the
way, there was another thing about the business of the will that I ought to mention. You
see, the will wasn’t actually signed in the summer-house that afternoon.’
‘I suppose not,’ said Father Brown; ‘there would have to be two witnesses.’
‘The lawyer actually came down the day before and it was signed then; but he was sent
for again next day because the old man had a doubt about one of the witnesses and had
to be reassured.’
‘Who were the witnesses?’ asked Father Brown.
‘That’s just the point,’ replied his informant eagerly, ‘the witnesses were Floyd, the
secretary, and this Dr Valentine, the foreign sort of surgeon or whatever he is; and the
two had a quarrel. Now I’m bound to say that the secretary is something of a busybody.
He’s one of those hot and headlong people whose warmth of temperament has
unfortunately turned mostly to pugnacity and bristling suspicion; to distrusting people
instead of to trusting them. That sort of red-haired red-hot fellow is always either
universally credulous or universally incredulous; and sometimes both. He was not only
a Jack-of-all-trades, but he knew better than all tradesmen. He not only knew
everything, but he warned everybody against everybody. All that must be taken into
account in his suspicions about Valentine; but in that particular case there seems to have
been something behind it. He said the name of Valentine was not really Valentine. He
said he had seen him elsewhere known by the name of De Villon. He said it would
invalidate the will; of course he was kind enough to explain to the lawyer what the law
was on that point. They were both in a frightful wax.’
Father Brown laughed. ‘People often are when they are to witness a will,’ he said; ‘for
one thing, it means that they can’t have any legacy under it. But what did Dr Valentine
say? No doubt the universal secretary knew more about the doctor’s name than the
doctor did. But even the doctor might have some information about his own name.’
Fiennes paused a moment before he replied. ‘Dr Valentine took it in a curious way. Dr
Valentine is a curious man. His appearance is rather striking but very foreign. He is
young but wears a beard cut square; and his face is very pale, dreadfully pale — and
dreadfully serious. His eyes have a sort of ache in them, as if he ought to wear glasses,
or had given himself a headache with thinking; but he is quite handsome and always
very formally dressed, with a top hat and a dark coat and a little red rosette. His manner
is rather cold and haughty, and he has a way of staring at you which is very
disconcerting. When thus charged with having changed his name, he merely stared like
a sphinx and then said with a little laugh that he supposed Americans had no names to
change. At that I think the Colonel also got into a fuss and said all sorts of angry things
to the doctor; all the more angry because of the doctor’s pretensions to a future place in
his family. But I shouldn’t have thought much of that but for a few words that I
happened to hear later, early in the afternoon of the tragedy. I don’t want to make a lot
of them, for they weren’t the sort of words on which one would like, in the ordinary
way, to play the eavesdropper. As I was passing out towards the front gate with my two
companions and the dog, I heard voices which told me that Dr Valentine and Miss
Druce had withdrawn for a moment in the shadow of the house, in an angle behind a
row of flowering plants, and were talking to each other in passionate whisperings —
sometimes almost like hissings; for it was something of a lovers’ quarrel as well as a
lovers’ tryst. Nobody repeats the sort of things they said for the most part; but in an
unfortunate business like this I’m bound to say that there was repeated more than once a
phrase about killing somebody. In fact, the girl seemed to be begging him not to kill
somebody, or saying that no provocation could justify killing anybody; which seems an
unusual sort of talk to address to a gentleman who has dropped in to tea.’
‘Do you know,’ asked the priest, ‘whether Dr Valentine seemed to be very angry after
the scene with the secretary and the Colonel — I mean about witnessing the will?’
‘By all accounts,’ replied the other, ‘he wasn’t half so angry as the secretary was. It was
the secretary who went away raging after witnessing the will.’
‘And now,’ said Father Brown, ‘what about the will itself?’
‘The Colonel was a very wealthy man, and his will was important. Traill wouldn’t tell
us the alteration at that stage, but I have since heard only this morning in fact — that
most of the money was transferred from the son to the daughter. I told you that Druce
was wild with my friend Donald over his dissipated hours.’
‘The question of motive has been rather over-shadowed by the question of method,’
observed Father Brown thoughtfully. ‘At that moment, apparently, Miss Druce was the
immediate gainer by the death.’
‘Good God! What a cold-blooded way of talking,’ cried Fiennes, staring at him. ‘You
don’t really mean to hint that she — ’
‘Is she going to marry that Dr Valentine?’ asked the other.
‘Some people are against it,’ answered his friend. ‘But he is liked and respected in the
place and is a skilled and devoted surgeon.’
‘So devoted a surgeon,’ said Father Brown, ‘that he had surgical instruments with him
when he went to call on the young lady at teatime. For he must have used a lancet or
something, and he never seems to have gone home.’
Fiennes sprang to his feet and looked at him in a heat of inquiry. ’You suggest he might
have used the very same lancet — ’
Father Brown shook his head. ‘All these suggestions are fancies just now,’ he said. ‘The
problem is not who did it or what did it, but how it was done. We might find many men
and even many tools — pins and shears and lancets. But how did a man get into the
room? How did even a pin get into it?’
He was staring reflectively at the ceiling as he spoke, but as he said the last words his
eye cocked in an alert fashion as if he had suddenly seen a curious fly on the ceiling.
‘Well, what would you do about it?’ asked the young man. ‘You have a lot of
experience; what would you advise now?’
‘I’m afraid I’m not much use,’ said Father Brown with a sigh. ‘I can’t suggest very
much without having ever been near the place or the people. For the moment you can
only go on with local inquiries. I gather that your friend from the Indian Police is more
or less in charge of your inquiry down there. I should run down and see how he is
getting on. See what he’s been doing in the way of amateur detection. There may be
news already.’
As his guests, the biped and the quadruped, disappeared, Father Brown took up his pen
and went back to his interrupted occupation of planning a course of lectures on the
Encyclical Rerum Novarum. The subject was a large one and he had to recast it more
than once, so that he was somewhat similarly employed some two days later when the
big black dog again came bounding into the room and sprawled all over him with
enthusiasm and excitement. The master who followed the dog shared the excitement if
not the enthusiasm. He had been excited in a less pleasant fashion, for his blue eyes
seemed to start from his head and his eager face was even a little pale.
‘You told me,’ he said abruptly and without preface, ‘to find out what Harry Druce was
doing. Do you know what he’s done?’ The priest did not reply, and the young man went
on in jerky tones: I’ll tell you what he’s done. He’s killed himself.’
Father Brown’s lips moved only faintly, and there was nothing practical about what he
was saying — nothing that has anything to do with this story or this world.
‘You give me the creeps sometimes,’ said Fiennes. ‘Did you — did you expect this?’
‘I thought it possible,’ said Father Brown; ‘that was why I asked you to go and see what
he was doing. I hoped you might not be too late.’
‘It was I who found him,’ said Fiennes rather huskily. ‘It was the ugliest and most
uncanny thing I ever knew. I went down that old garden again, and I knew there was
something new and unnatural about it besides the murder. The flowers still tossed about
in blue masses on each side of the black entrance into the old grey summer-house; but
to me the blue flowers looked like blue devils dancing before some dark cavern of the
underworld. I looked all round, everything seemed to be in its ordinary place. But the
queer notion grew on me that there was something wrong with the very shape of the
sky. And then I saw what it was. The Rock of Fortune always rose in the background
beyond the garden hedge and against the sea. The Rock of Fortune was gone.’
Father Brown had lifted his head and was listening intently.
‘It was as if a mountain had walked away out of a landscape or a moon fallen from the
sky; though I knew, of course, that a touch at any time would have tipped the thing
over. Something possessed me and I rushed down that garden path like the wind and
went crashing through that hedge as if it were a spider’s web. It was a thin hedge really,
though its undisturbed trimness had made it serve all the purposes of a wall. On the
shore I found the loose rock fallen from its pedestal; and poor Harry Druce lay like a
wreck underneath it. One arm was thrown round it in a sort of embrace as if he had
pulled it down on himself; and on the broad brown sands beside it, in large crazy
lettering, he had scrawled the words: ‘The Rock of Fortune falls on the Fool’.’ —
‘It was the Colonel’s will that did that,’ observed Father Brown. ‘The young man had
staked everything on profiting himself by Donald’s disgrace, especially when his uncle
sent for him on the same day as the lawyer, and welcomed him with so much warmth.
Otherwise he was done; he’d lost his police job; he was beggared at Monte Carlo. And
he killed himself when he found he’d killed his kinsman for nothing.’
‘Here, stop a minute!’ cried the staring Fiennes. ‘You’re going too fast for me.’
‘Talking about the will, by the way,’ continued Father Brown calmly, ‘before I forget it,
or we go on to bigger things, there was a simple explanation, I think, of all that business
about the doctor’s name. I rather fancy I have heard both names before somewhere. The
doctor is really a French nobleman with the title of the Marquis de Villon. But he is also
an ardent Republican and has abandoned his title and fallen back on the forgotten family
surname. With your Citizen Riquetti you have puzzled Europe for ten days.’
‘What is that?’ asked the young man blankly.
‘Never mind,’ said the priest. ‘Nine times out of ten it is a rascally thing to change one’s
name; but this was a piece of fine fanaticism. That’s the point of his sarcasm about
Americans having no names — that is, no titles. Now in England the Marquis of
Hartington is never called Mr Hartington; but in France the Marquis de Villon is called
M. de Villon. So it might well look like a change of name. As for the talk about killing,
I fancy that also was a point of French etiquette. The doctor was talking about
challenging Floyd to a duel, and the girl was trying to dissuade him.’
‘Oh, I see,’ cried Fiennes slowly. ‘Now I understand what she meant.’
‘And what is that about?’ asked his companion, smiling.
‘Well,’ said the young man, ‘it was something that happened to me just before I found
that poor fellow’s body; only the catastrophe drove it out of my head. I suppose it’s hard
to remember a little romantic idyll when you’ve just come on top of a tragedy. But as I
went down the lanes leading to the Colonel’s old place I met his daughter walking with
Dr Valentine. She was in mourning, of course, and he always wore black as if he were
going to a funeral; but I can’t say that their faces were very funereal. Never have I seen
two people looking in their own way more respectably radiant and cheerful. They
stopped and saluted me, and then she told me they were married and living in a little
house on the outskirts of the town, where the doctor was continuing his practice. This
rather surprised me, because I knew that her old father’s will had left her his property;
and I hinted at it delicately by saying I was going along to her father’s old place and had
half expected to meet her there. But she only laughed and said: ‘Oh, we’ve given up all
that. My husband doesn’t like heiresses.’ And I discovered with some astonishment they
really had insisted on restoring the property to poor Donald; so I hope he’s had a
healthy shock and will treat it sensibly. There was never much really the matter with
him; he was very young and his father was not very wise. But it was in connexion with
that that she said something I didn’t understand at the time; but now I’m sure it must be
as you say. She said with a sort of sudden and splendid arrogance that was entirely
altruistic:
‘‘I hope it’ll stop that red-haired fool from fussing any more about the will. Does he
think my husband, who has given up a crest and a coronet as old as the Crusades for his
principles, would kill an old man in a summer-house for a legacy like that?’ Then she
laughed again and said, ‘My husband isn’t killing anybody except in the way of
business. Why, he didn’t even ask his friends to call on the secretary.’ Now, of course, I
see what she meant.’
‘I see part of what she meant, of course,’ said Father Brown. ‘What did she mean
exactly by the secretary fussing about the will?’
Fiennes smiled as he answered, ‘I wish you knew the secretary, Father Brown. It would
be a joy to you to watch him make things hum, as he calls it. He made the house of
mourning hum. He filled the funeral with all the snap and zip of the brightest sporting
event. There was no holding him, after something had really happened. I’ve told you
how he used to oversee the gardener as he did the garden, and how he instructed the
lawyer in the law. Needless to say, he also instructed the surgeon in the practice of
surgery; and as the surgeon was Dr Valentine, you may be sure it ended in accusing him
of something worse than bad surgery. The secretary got it fixed in his red head that the
doctor had committed the crime, and when the police arrived he was perfectly sublime.
Need I say that he became, on the spot, the greatest of all amateur detectives? Sherlock
Holmes never towered over Scotland Yard with more Titanic intellectual pride and
scorn than Colonel Druce’s private secretary over the police investigating Colonel
Druce’s death. I tell you it was a joy to see him. He strode about with an abstracted air,
tossing his scarlet crest of hair and giving curt impatient replies. Of course it was his
demeanour during these days that made Druce’s daughter so wild with him. Of course
he had a theory. It’s just the sort of theory a man would have in a book; and Floyd is the
sort of man who ought to be in a book. He’d be better fun and less bother in a book.’
‘What was his theory?’ asked the other.
‘Oh, it was full of pep,’ replied Fiennes gloomily. ‘It would have been glorious copy if
it could have held together for ten minutes longer. He said the Colonel was still alive
when they found him in the summer-house, and the doctor killed him with the surgical
instrument on pretence of cutting the clothes.’
‘I see,’ said the priest. ‘I suppose he was lying flat on his face on the mud floor as a
form of siesta.’
‘It’s wonderful what hustle will do,’ continued his informant. ‘I believe Floyd would
have got his great theory into the papers at any rate, and perhaps had the doctor attested,
when all these things were blown sky high as if by dynamite by the discovery of that
dead body lying under the Rock of Fortune. And that’s what we come back to after all. I
suppose the suicide is almost a confession. But nobody will ever know the whole story.’
There was a silence, and then the priest said modestly: ‘I rather think I know the whole
story.’
Fiennes stared. ‘But look here,’ he cried; ‘how do you come to know the whole story, or
to be sure it’s the true story? You’ve been sitting here a hundred miles away writing a
sermon; do you mean to tell me you really know what happened already? If you’ve
really come to the end, where in the world do you begin? What started you off with
your own story?’
Father Brown jumped up with a very unusual excitement and his first exclamation was
like an explosion.
‘The dog!’ he cried. ‘The dog, of course! You had the whole story in your hands in the
business of the dog on the beach, if you’d only noticed the dog properly.’
Fiennes stared still more. ‘But you told me before that my feelings about the dog were
all nonsense, and the dog had nothing to do with it.’
‘The dog had everything to do with it,’ said Father Brown, ‘as you’d have found out if
you’d only treated the dog as a dog, and not as God Almighty judging the souls of men.’
He paused in an embarrassed way for a moment, and then said, with a rather pathetic air
of apology: ‘The truth is, I happen to be awfully fond of dogs. And it seemed to me that
in all this lurid halo of dog superstitions nobody was really thinking about the poor dog
at all. To begin with a small point, about his barking at the lawyer or growling at the
secretary. You asked how I could guess things a hundred miles away; but honestly it’s
mostly to your credit, for you described people so well that I know the types. A man
like Traill, who frowns usually and smiles suddenly, a man who fiddles with things,
especially at his throat, is a nervous, easily embarrassed man. I shouldn’t wonder if
Floyd, the efficient secretary, is nervy and jumpy, too; those Yankee hustlers often are.
Otherwise he wouldn’t have cut his fingers on the shears and dropped them when he
heard Janet Druce scream.
‘Now dogs hate nervous people. I don’t know whether they make the dog nervous, too;
or whether, being after all a brute, he is a bit of a bully; or whether his canine vanity
(which is colossal) is simply offended at not being liked. But anyhow there was nothing
in poor Nox protesting against those people, except that he disliked them for being
afraid of him. Now I know you’re awfully clever, and nobody of sense sneers at
cleverness. But I sometimes fancy, for instance, that you are too clever to understand
animals. Sometimes you are too clever to understand men, especially when they act
almost as simply as animals. Animals are very literal; they live in a world of truisms.
Take this case: a dog barks at a man and a man runs away from a dog. Now you do not
seem to be quite simple enough to see the fact: that the dog barked because he disliked
the man and the man fled because he was frightened of the dog. They had no other
motives and they needed none; but you must read psychological mysteries into it and
suppose the dog had super-normal vision, and was a mysterious mouthpiece of doom.
You must suppose the man was running away, not from the dog but from the hangman.
And yet, if you come to think if it, all this deeper psychology is exceedingly
improbable. If the dog really could completely and consciously realize the murderer of
his master he wouldn’t stand yapping as he might at a curate at a tea-party; he’s much
more likely to fly at his throat. And on the other hand, do you really think a man who
had hardened his heart to murder an old friend and then walk about smiling at the old
friend’s family, under the eyes of his old friend’s daughter and post-mortem doctor —
do you think a man like that would be doubled up by mere remorse because a dog
barked? He might feel the tragic irony of it; it might shake his soul, like any other tragic
trifle. But he wouldn’t rush madly the length of a garden to escape from the only
witness whom he knew to be unable to talk. People have a panic like that when they are
frightened, not of tragic ironies, but of teeth. The whole thing is simpler than you can
understand.
‘But when we come to that business by the seashore, things are much more interesting.
As you stated them, they were much more puzzling. I didn’t understand that tale of the
dog going in and out of the water; it didn’t seem to me a doggy thing to do. If Nox had
been very much upset about something else, he might possibly have refused to go after
the stick at all. He’d probably go off nosing in whatever direction he suspected the
mischief. But when once a dog is actually chasing a thing, a stone or a stick or a rabbit,
my experience is that he won’t stop for anything but the most peremptory command,
and not always for that. That he should turn round because his mood changed seems to
me unthinkable.’
‘But he did turn round,’ insisted Fiennes; ‘and came back without the stick.’
‘He came back without the stick for the best reason in the world,’ replied the priest. ‘He
came back because he couldn’t find it. He whined because be couldn’t find it. That’s the
sort of thing a dog really does whine about. A dog is a devil of a ritualist. He is as
particular about the precise routine of a game as a child about the precise repetition of a
fairy-tale. In this case something had gone wrong with the game. He came back to
complain seriously of the conduct of the stick. Never had such a thing happened before.
Never had an eminent and distinguished dog been so treated by a rotten old walkingstick.’
‘Why, what had the walking-stick done?’ inquired the young man.
‘It had sunk,’ said Father Brown.
Fiennes said nothing, but continued to stare; and it was the priest who continued: ‘It had
sunk because it was not really a stick, but a rod of steel with a very thin shell of cane
and a sharp point. In other words, it was a sword stick. I suppose a murderer never gets
rid of a bloody weapon so oddly and yet so naturally as by throwing it into the sea for a
retriever.’
‘I begin to see what you mean,’ admitted Fiennes, ‘but even if a sword-stick was used, I
have no guess of how it was used.’
‘I had a sort of guess,’ said Father Brown, ‘right at the beginning when you said the
word summer-house. And another when you said that Druce wore a white coat. As long
as everybody was looking for a short dagger, nobody thought of it; but if we admit a
rather long blade like a rapier, it’s not so impossible.’
He was leaning back, looking at the ceiling, and began like one going back to his own
first thoughts and fundamentals.
‘All that discussion about detective stories like the Yellow Room, about a man found
dead in sealed chambers which no one could enter, does not apply to the present case,
because it is a summer-house. When we talk of a Yellow Room, or any room, we imply
walls that are really homogeneous and impenetrable. But a summer-house is not made
like that; it is often made, as it was in this case, of closely interlaced but separate boughs
and strips of wood, in which there are chinks here and there. There was one of them just
behind Druce’s back as he sat in his chair up against the wall. But just as the room was
a summer-house, so the chair was a basket-chair. That also was a lattice of loopholes.
Lastly, the summer-house was close up under the hedge; and you have just told me that
it was really a thin hedge. A man standing outside it could easily see, amid a network of
twigs and branches and canes, one white spot of the Colonel’s coat as plain as the white
of a target.
‘Now, you left the geography a little vague; but it was possible to put two and two
together. You said the Rock of Fortune was not really high; but you also said it could be
seen dominating the garden like a mountain-peak. In other words, it was very near the
end of the garden, though your walk had taken you a long way round to it. Also, it isn’t
likely the young lady really howled so as to be heard half a mile. She gave an ordinary
involuntary cry, and yet you heard it on the shore. And among other interesting things
that you told me, may I remind you that you said Harry Druce had fallen behind to light
his pipe under a hedge.’
Fiennes shuddered slightly. ‘You mean he drew his blade there and sent it through the
hedge at the white spot. But surely it was a very odd chance and a very sudden choice.
Besides, he couldn’t be certain the old man’s money had passed to him, and as a fact it
hadn’t.’
Father Brown’s face became animated. ‘You misunderstand the man’s character,’ he
said, as if he himself had known the man all his life. ‘A curious but not unknown type
of character. If he had really known the money would come to him, I seriously believe
he wouldn’t have done it. He would have seen it as the dirty thing it was.’
‘Isn’t that rather paradoxical?’ asked the other.
‘This man was a gambler,’ said the priest, ‘and a man in disgrace for having taken risks
and anticipated orders. It was probably for something pretty unscrupulous, for every
imperial police is more like a Russian secret police than we like to think. But he had
gone beyond the line and failed. Now, the temptation of that type of man is to do a mad
thing precisely because the risk will be wonderful in retrospect. He wants to say,
‘Nobody but I could have seized that chance or seen that it was then or never. What a
wild and wonderful guess it was, when I put all those things together; Donald in
disgrace; and the lawyer being sent for; and Herbert and I sent for at the same time —
and then nothing more but the way the old man grinned at me and shook hands.
Anybody would say I was mad to risk it; but that is how fortunes are made, by the man
mad enough to have a little foresight.’ In short, it is the vanity of guessing. It is the
megalomania of the gambler. The more incongruous the coincidence, the more
instantaneous the decision, the more likely he is to snatch the chance. The accident, the
very triviality of the white speck and the hole in the hedge intoxicated him like a vision
of the world’s desire. Nobody clever enough to see such a combination of accidents
could be cowardly enough not to use them! That is how the devil talks to the gambler.
But the devil himself would hardly have induced that unhappy man to go down in a
dull, deliberate way and kill an old uncle from whom he’d always had expectations. It
would be too respectable.’
He paused a moment, and then went on with a certain quiet emphasis.
‘And now try to call up the scene, even as you saw it yourself. As he stood there, dizzy
with his diabolical opportunity, he looked up and saw that strange outline that might
have been the image of his own tottering soul; the one great crag poised perilously on
the other like a pyramid on its point, and remembered that it was called the Rock of
Fortune. Can you guess how such a man at such a moment would read such a signal? I
think it strung him up to action and even to vigilance. He who would be a tower must
not fear to be a toppling tower. Anyhow, he acted; his next difficulty was to cover his
tracks. To be found with a sword-stick, let alone a blood-stained sword-stick, would be
fatal in the search that was certain to follow. If he left it anywhere, it would be found
and probably traced. Even if he threw it into the sea the action might be noticed, and
thought noticeable — unless indeed he could think of some more natural way of
covering the action. As you know, he did think of one, and a very good one. Being the
only one of you with a watch, he told you it was not yet time to return, strolled a little
farther, and started the game of throwing in sticks for the retriever. But how his eyes
must have rolled darkly over all that desolate sea-shore before they alighted on the dog!’
Fiennes nodded, gazing thoughtfully into space. His mind seemed to have drifted back
to a less practical part of the narrative.
‘It’s queer,’ he said, ‘that the dog really was in the story after all.’
‘The dog could almost have told you the story, if he could talk,’ said the priest. ‘All I
complain of is that because he couldn’t talk you made up his story for him, and made
him talk with the tongues of men and angels. It’s part of something I’ve noticed more
and more in the modern world, appearing in all sorts of newspaper rumours and
conversational catchwords; something that’s arbitrary without being authoritative.
People readily swallow the untested claims of this, that, or the other. It’s drowning all
your old rationalism and scepticism, it’s coming in like a sea; and the name of it is
superstition.’ He stood up abruptly, his face heavy with a sort of frown, and went on
talking almost as if he were alone. ‘It’s the first effect of not believing in God that you
lose your common sense and can’t see things as they are. Anything that anybody talks
about, and says there’s a good deal in it, extends itself indefinitely like a vista in a
nightmare. And a dog is an omen, and a cat is a mystery, and a pig is a mascot, and a
beetle is a scarab, calling up all the menagerie of polytheism from Egypt and old India;
Dog Anubis and great green-eyed Pasht and all the holy howling Bulls of Bashan;
reeling back to the bestial gods of the beginning, escaping into elephants and snakes and
crocodiles; and all because you are frightened of four words:
‘He was made Man’.’
The young man got up with a little embarrassment, almost as if he had overheard a
soliloquy. He called to the dog and left the room with vague but breezy farewells. But
he had to call the dog twice, for the dog had remained behind quite motionless for a
moment, looking up steadily at Father Brown as the wolf looked at St Francis.
The Miracle of Moon Crescent
MOON CRESCENT was meant in a sense to be as romantic as its name; and the things
that happened there were romantic enough in their way. At least it had been an
expression of that genuine element of sentiment — historic and almost heroic — which
manages to remain side by side with commercialism in the elder cities on the eastern
coast of America. It was originally a curve of classical architecture really recalling that
eighteenth-century atmosphere in which men like Washington and Jefferson had seemed
to be all the more republicans for being aristocrats. Travellers faced with the recurrent
query of what they thought of our city were understood to be specially answerable for
what they thought of our Moon Crescent. The very contrasts that confuse its original
harmony were characteristic of its survival. At one extremity or horn of the crescent its
last windows looked over an enclosure like a strip of a gentleman’s park, with trees and
hedges as formal as a Queen Anne garden. But immediately round the corner, the other
windows, even of the same rooms, or rather ‘apartments’, looked out on the blank,
unsightly wall of a huge warehouse attached to some ugly industry. The apartments of
Moon Crescent itself were at that end remodelled on the monotonous pattern of an
American hotel, and rose to a height, which, though lower than the colossal warehouse,
would have been called a skyscraper in London. But the colonnade that ran round the
whole frontage upon the street had a grey and weather-stained stateliness suggesting
that the ghosts of the Fathers of the Republic might still be walking to and fro in it. The
insides of the rooms, however, were as neat and new as the last New York fittings could
make them, especially at the northern end between the neat garden and the blank
warehouse wall. They were a system of very small flats, as we should say in England,
each consisting of a sitting-room, bedroom, and bathroom, as identical as the hundred
cells of a hive. In one of these the celebrated Warren Wynd sat at his desk sorting letters
and scattering orders with wonderful rapidity and exactitude. He could only be
compared to a tidy whirlwind.
Warren Wynd was a very little man with loose grey hair and a pointed beard, seemingly
frail but fierily active. He had very wonderful eyes, brighter than stars and stronger than
magnets, which nobody who had ever seen them could easily forget. And indeed in his
work as a reformer and regulator of many good works he had shown at least that he had
a pair of eyes in his head. All sorts of stories and even legends were told of the
miraculous rapidity with which he could form a sound judgement, especially of human
character. It was said that he selected the wife who worked with him so long in so
charitable a fashion, by picking her out of a whole regiment of women in uniform
marching past at some official celebration, some said of the Girl Guides and some of the
Women Police. Another story was told of how three tramps, indistinguishable from
each other in their community of filth and rags, had presented themselves before him
asking for charity. Without a moment’s hesitation he had sent one of them to a
particular hospital devoted to a certain nervous disorder, had recommended the second
to an inebriates’ home, and had engaged the third at a handsome salary as his own
private servant, a position which he filled successfully for years afterwards. There were,
of course, the inevitable anecdotes of his prompt criticisms and curt repartees when
brought in contact with Roosevelt, with Henry Ford, and with Mrs Asquith and all other
persons with whom an American public man ought to have a historic interview, if only
in the newspapers. Certainly he was not likely to be overawed by such personages; and
at the moment here in question he continued very calmly his centrifugal whirl of papers,
though the man confronting him was a personage of almost equal importance.
Silas T. Vandam, the millionaire and oil magnate, was a lean man with a long, yellow
face and blue-black hair, colours which were the less conspicuous yet somehow the
more sinister because his face and figure showed dark against the window and the white
warehouse wall outside it; he was buttoned up tight in an elegant overcoat with strips of
astrakhan. The eager face and brilliant eyes of Wynd, on the other hand, were in the full
light from the other window over-looking the little garden, for his chair and desk stood
facing it; and though the face was preoccupied, it did not seem unduly preoccupied
about the millionaire. Wynd’s valet or personal servant, a big, powerful man with flat
fair hair, was standing behind his master’s desk holding a sheaf of letters; and Wynd’s
private secretary, a neat, red-haired youth with a sharp face, had his hand already on the
door handle, as if guessing some purpose or obeying some gesture of his employer. The
room was not only neat, but austere to the point of emptiness; for Wynd, with
characteristic thoroughness, had rented the whole floor above, and turned it into a loft or
storeroom, where all his other papers and possessions were stacked in boxes and corded
bales.
‘Give these to the floor-clerk, Wilson,’ said Wynd to the servant holding the letters,
‘and then get me the pamphlet on the Minneapolis Night Clubs; you’ll find it in the
bundle marked ‘G’. I shall want it in half an hour, but don’t disturb me till then. Well,
Mr Vandam, I think your proposition sounds very promising; but I can’t give a final
answer till I’ve seen the report. It ought to reach me to-morrow afternoon, and I’ll
phone you at once. I’m sorry I can’t say anything more definite just now.’
Mr Vandam seemed to feel that this was something like a polite dismissal; and his
sallow, saturnine face suggested that he found a certain irony in the fact.
‘Well, I suppose I must be going,’ he said.
‘Very good of you to call, Mr Vandam,’ said Wynd, politely; ‘you will excuse my not
coming out, as I’ve something here I must fix at once. Fenner,’ he added to the
secretary,’ show Mr Vandam to his car, and don’t come back again for half an hour.
I’ve something here I want to work out by myself; after that I shall want you.’
The three men went out into the hallway together, closing the door behind them. The
big servant, Wilson, was turning down the hallway in the direction of the floor-clerk,
and the other two moving in the opposite direction towards the lift; for Wynd’s
apartment was high up on the fourteenth floor. They had hardly gone a yard from the
closed door when they became conscious that the corridor was filled with a marching
and even magnificent figure. The man was very tall and broad-shouldered, his bulk
being the more conspicuous for being clad in white, or a light grey that looked like it,
with a very wide white panama hat and an almost equally wide fringe or halo of almost
equally white hair. Set in this aureole his face was strong and handsome, like that of a
Roman emperor, save that there was something more than boyish, something a little
childish, about the brightness of his eyes and the beatitude of his smile. ‘Mr Warren
Wynd in?’ he asked, in hearty tones.
‘Mr Warren Wynd is engaged,’ said Fenner; ‘he must not be disturbed on any account. I
may say I am his secretary and can take any message.’
‘Mr Warren Wynd is not at home to the Pope or the Crowned Heads,’ said Vandam, the
oil magnate, with sour satire. ‘Mr Warren Wynd is mighty particular. I went in there to
hand him over a trifle of twenty thousand dollars on certain conditions, and, he told me
to call again like as if I was a call-boy.’
‘It’s a fine thing to be a boy,’ said the stranger, ‘and a finer to have a call; and I’ve got a
call he’s just got to listen to. It’s a call of the great good country out West, where the
real American is being made while you’re all snoring. Just tell him that Art Alboin of
Oklahoma City has come to convert him.’
‘I tell you nobody can see him,’ said the red-haired secretary sharply. ‘He has given
orders that he is not to be disturbed for half an hour.’
‘You folks down East are all against being disturbed,’ said the breezy Mr Alboin, ‘but I
calculate there’s a big breeze getting up in the West that will have to disturb you. He’s
been figuring out how much money must go to this and that stuffy old religion; but I tell
you any scheme that leaves out the new Great Spirit movement in Texas and Oklahoma,
is leaving out the religion of the future.’
‘Oh; I’ve sized up those religions of the future,’ said the millionaire, contemptuously.
‘I’ve been through them with a tooth-comb and they’re as mangy as yellow dogs. There
was that woman called herself Sophia: ought to have called herself Sapphira, I reckon.
Just a plum fraud. Strings tied to all the tables and tambourines. Then there were the
Invisible Life bunch; said they could vanish when they liked, and they did vanish, too,
and a hundred thousand of my dollars vanished with them. I knew Jupiter Jesus out in
Denver; saw him for weeks on end; and he was just a common crook. So was the
Patagonian Prophet; you bet he’s made a bolt for Patagonia. No, I’m through with all
that; from now on I only believe what I see. I believe they call it being an atheist.’
‘I guess you got me wrong,’ said the man from Oklahoma, almost eagerly. ‘I guess I’m
as much of an atheist as you are. No supernatural or superstitious stuff in our
movement; just plain science. The only real right science is just health, and the only real
right health is just breathing. Fill your lungs with the wide air of the prairie and you
could blow all your old eastern cities into the sea. You could just puff away their
biggest men like thistledown. That’s what we do in the new movement out home: we
breathe. We don’t pray; we breathe.’
‘Well, I suppose you do,’ said the secretary, wearily. He had a keen, intelligent face
which could hardly conceal the weariness; but he had listened to the two monologues
with the admirable patience and politeness (so much in contrast with the legends of
impatience and insolence) with which such monologues are listened to in America.
‘Nothing supernatural,’ continued Alboin, ‘just the great natural fact behind all the
supernatural fancies. What did the Jews want with a God except to breathe into man’s
nostrils the breath of life? We do the breathing into our own nostrils out in Oklahoma.
What’s the meaning of the very word Spirit? It’s just the Greek for breathing exercises.
Life, progress, prophecy; it’s all breath.’
‘Some would allow it’s all wind,’ said Vandam; ‘but I’m glad you’ve got rid of the
divinity stunt, anyhow.’
The keen face of the secretary, rather pale against his red hair, showed a flicker of some
odd feeling suggestive of a secret bitterness.
‘I’m not glad,’ he said, ‘I’m just sure. You seem to like being atheists; so you may be
just believing what you like to believe. But. I wish to God there were a God; and there
ain’t. It’s just my luck.’
Without a sound or stir they all became almost creepily conscious at this moment that
the group, halted outside Wynd’s door, had silently grown from three figures to four.
How long the fourth figure had stood there none of the earnest disputants could tell, but
he had every appearance of waiting respectfully and even timidly for the opportunity to
say something urgent. But to their nervous sensibility he seemed to have sprung up
suddenly and silently like a mushroom. And indeed, he looked rather like a big, black
mushroom, for he was quite short and his small, stumpy figure was eclipsed by his big,
black clerical hat; the resemblance might have been more complete if mushrooms were
in the habit of carrying umbrellas, even of a shabby and shapeless sort.
Fenner, the secretary, was conscious of a curious additional surprise at recognizing the
figure of a priest; but when the priest turned up a round face under the round hat and
innocently asked for Mr Warren Wynd, he gave the regular negative answer rather more
curtly than before. But the priest stood his ground.
‘I do really want to see Mr Wynd,’ he said. ‘It seems odd, but that’s exactly what I do
want to do. I don’t want to speak to him. I just want to see him. I just want to see if he’s
there to be seen.’
‘Well, I tell you he’s there and can’t be seen,’ said Fenner, with increasing annoyance.
‘What do you mean by saying you want to see if he’s there to be seen? Of course he’s
there. We all left him there five minutes ago, and we’ve stood outside this door ever
since.’
‘Well, I want to see if he’s all right,’ said the priest.
‘Why?’ demanded the secretary, in exasperation. ‘Because I have a serious, I might say
solemn, reason,’ said the cleric, gravely, ’for doubting whether he is all right.’
‘Oh, Lord!’ cried Vandam, in a sort of fury; ‘not more superstitions.’
‘I see I shall have to give my reasons,’ observed the little cleric, gravely. ‘I suppose I
can’t expect you even to let me look through the crack of a door till I tell you the whole
story.’ He was silent a moment as in reflection, and then went on without noticing the
wondering faces around him. ‘I was walking outside along the front of the colonnade
when I saw a very ragged man running hard round the corner at the end of the crescent.
He came pounding along the pavement towards me, revealing a great raw-boned figure
and a face I knew. It was the face of a wild Irish fellow I once helped a little; I will not
tell you his name. When he saw me he staggered, calling me by mine and saying,
‘Saints alive, it’s Father Brown; you’re the only man whose face could frighten me today.’
‘I knew he meant he’d been doing some wild thing or other, and I don’t think my face
frightened him much, for he was soon telling me about it. And a very strange thing it
was. He asked me if I knew Warren Wynd, and I said no, though I knew he lived near
the top of these flats. He said, ‘That’s a man who thinks he’s a saint of God; but if he
knew what I was saying of him he should be ready to hang himself.’ And he repeated
hysterically more than once, ‘Yes, ready to hang himself.’ I asked him if he’d done any
harm to Wynd, and his answer was rather a queer one. He said: ‘I took a pistol and I
loaded it with neither shot nor slug, but only with a curse.’ As far as I could make out,
all he had done was to go down that little alley between this building and the big
warehouse, with an old pistol loaded with a blank charge, and merely fire it against the
wall, as if that would bring down the building. ‘But as I did it,’ he said, ‘I cursed him
with the great curse, that the justice of God should take him by the hair and the
vengeance of hell by the heels, and he should be torn asunder like Judas and the world
know him no more.’
‘Well, it doesn’t matter now what else I said to the poor, crazy fellow; he went away
quieted down a little, and I went round to the back of the building to inspect. And sure
enough, in the little alley at the foot of this wall there lay a rusty antiquated pistol; I
know enough about pistols to know it had been loaded only with a little powder, there
were the black marks of powder and smoke on the wall, and even the mark of the
muzzle, but not even a dent of any bullet. He had left no trace of destruction; he had left
no trace of anything, except those black marks and that black curse he had hurled into
heaven. So I came back here to ask for this Warren Wynd and find out if he’s all right.’
Fenner the secretary laughed. ‘I can soon settle that difficulty for you. I assure you he’s
quite all right; we left him writing at his desk only a few minutes ago. He was alone in
his flat; it’s a hundred feet up from the street, and so placed that no shot could have
reached him, even if your friend hadn’t fired blank. There’s no other entrance to this
place but this door, and we’ve been standing outside it ever since.’
‘All the same,’ said Father Brown, gravely, ‘I should like to look in and see.’
‘Well, you can’t,’ retorted the other. ‘Good Lord, you don’t tell me you think anything
of the curse.’
‘You forget,’ said the millionaire, with a slight sneer, ‘the reverend gentleman’s whole
business is blessings and cursings. Come, sir, if he’s been cursed to hell, why don’t you
bless him back again? What’s the good of your blessings if they can’t beat an Irish
larrykin’s curse?’
‘Does anybody believe such things now?’ protested the Westerner.
‘Father Brown believes a good number of things, I take it,’ said Vandam, whose temper
was suffering from the past snub and the present bickering. ’Father Brown believes a
hermit crossed a river on a crocodile conjured out of nowhere, and then he told the
crocodile to die, and it sure did. Father Brown believes that some blessed saint or other
died, and had his dead body turned into three dead bodies, to be served out to three
parishes that were all intent on figuring as his home-town. Father Brown believes that a
saint hung his cloak on a sunbeam, and another used his for a boat to cross the Atlantic.
Father Brown believes the holy donkey had six legs and the house of Loretto flew
through the air. He believes in hundreds of stone virgins winking and weeping all day
long. It’s nothing to him to believe that a man might escape through the keyhole or
vanish out of a locked room. I reckon he doesn’t take much stock of the laws of nature.’
‘Anyhow, I have to take stock in the laws of Warren Wynd,’ said the secretary, wearily,
‘and it’s his rule that he’s to be left alone when he says so. Wilson will tell you just the
same,’ for the large servant who had been sent for the pamphlet, passed placidly down
the corridor even as he spoke, carrying the pamphlet, but serenely passing the door.
‘He’ll go and sit on the bench by the floor-clerk and twiddle his thumbs till he’s wanted;
but he won’t go in before then; and nor will I. I reckon we both know which side our
bread is buttered, and it’d take a good many of Father Brown’s saints and angels to
make us forget it.’
‘As for saints and angels — ’ began the priest.
‘It’s all nonsense,’ repeated Fenner. ‘I don’t want to say anything offensive, but that sort
of thing may be very well for crypts and cloisters and all sorts of moonshiny places. But
ghosts can’t get through a closed door in an American hotel.’
‘But men can open a door, even in an American hotel,’ replied Father Brown, patiently.
‘And it seems to me the simplest thing would be to open it.’
‘It would be simple enough to lose me my job,’ answered the secretary, ‘and Warren
Wynd doesn’t like his secretaries so simple as that. Not simple enough to believe in the
sort of fairy tales you seem to believe in.’
‘Well,’ said the priest gravely, ‘it is true enough that I believe in a good many things
that you probably don’t. But it would take a considerable time to explain all the things I
believe in, and all the reasons I have for thinking I’m right. It would take about two
seconds to open that door and prove I am wrong.’
Something in the phrase seemed to please the more wild and restless spirit of the man
from the West.
‘I’ll allow I’d love to prove you wrong,’ said Alboin, striding suddenly past them, ‘and I
will.’
He threw open the door of the flat and looked in. The first glimpse showed that Warren
Wynd’s chair was empty. The second glance showed that his room was empty also.
Fenner, electrified with energy in his turn, dashed past the other into the apartment.
‘He’s in his bedroom,’ he said curtly, ‘he must be.’
As he disappeared into the inner chamber the other men stood in the empty outer room
staring about them. The severity and simplicity of its fittings, which had already been
noted, returned on them with a rigid challenge. Certainly in this room there was no
question of hiding a mouse, let alone a man. There were no curtains and, what is rare in
American arrangements, no cupboards. Even the desk was no more than a plain table
with a shallow drawer and a tilted lid. The chairs were hard and high-backed skeletons.
A moment after the secretary reappeared at the inner door, having searched the two
inner rooms. A staring negation stood in his eyes, and his mouth seemed to move in a
mechanical detachment from it as he said sharply: ‘He didn’t come out through here?’
Somehow the others did not even think it necessary to answer that negation in the
negative. Their minds had come up against something like the blank wall of the
warehouse that stared in at the opposite window, gradually turning from white to grey
as dusk slowly descended with the advancing afternoon. Vandam walked over to the
window-sill against which he had leant half an hour before and looked out of the open
window. There was no pipe or fire-escape, no shelf or foothold of any kind on the sheer
fall to the little by-street below, there was nothing on the similar expanse of wall that
rose many stories above. There was even less variation on the other side of the street;
there was nothing whatever but the wearisome expanse of whitewashed wall. He peered
downwards, as if expecting to see the vanished philanthropist lying in a suicidal wreck
on the path. He could see nothing but one small dark object which, though diminished
by distance, might well be the pistol that the priest had found lying there. Meanwhile,
Fenner had walked to the other window, which looked out from a wall equally blank
and inaccessible, but looking out over a small ornamental park instead of a side street.
Here a clump of trees interrupted the actual view of the ground; but they reached but a
little way up the huge human cliff. Both turned back into the room and faced each other
in the gathering twilight where the last silver gleams of daylight on the shiny tops of
desks and tables were rapidly turning grey. As if the twilight itself irritated him, Fenner
touched the switch and the scene sprang into the startling distinctness of electric light.
‘As you said just now,’ said Vandam grimly, ‘there’s no shot from down there could hit
him, even if there was a shot in the gun. But even if he was hit with a bullet he wouldn’t
have just burst like a bubble.’
The secretary, who was paler than ever, glanced irritably at the bilious visage of the
millionaire. ‘What’s got you started on those morbid notions? Who’s talking about
bullets and bubbles? Why shouldn’t he be alive?’
‘Why not indeed?’ replied Vandam smoothly. ‘If you’ll tell me where he is, I’ll tell you
how he got there.’
After a pause the secretary muttered, rather sulkily: ‘I suppose you’re right. We’re right
up against the very thing we were talking about. It’d be a queer thing if you or I ever
came to think there was anything in cursing. But who could have harmed Wynd shut up
in here?’
Mr Alboin, of Oklahoma, had been standing rather astraddle in the middle of the room,
his white, hairy halo as well as his round eyes seeming to radiate astonishment. At this
point he said, abstractedly, with something of the irrelevant impudence of an enfant
terrible: ‘You didn’t cotton to him much, did you, Mr Vandam?’
Mr Vandam’s long yellow face seemed to grow longer as it grew more sinister, while he
smiled and answered quietly: ‘If it comes to these coincidences, it was you, I think, who
said that a wind from the West would blow away our big men like thistledown.’
‘I know I said it would,’ said the Westerner, with candour; ’but all the same, how the
devil could it?’
The silence was broken by Fenner saying with an abruptness amounting to violence:
‘There’s only one thing to say about this affair. It simply hasn’t happened. It can’t have
happened.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Father Brown out of the corner; ‘it has happened all right.’
They all jumped; for the truth was they had all forgotten the insignificant little man who
had originally induced them to open the door. And the recovery of memory went with a
sharp reversal of mood; it came back to them with a rush that they had all dismissed him
as a superstitious dreamer for even hinting at the very thing that had since happened
before their eyes.
‘Snakes!’ cried the impetuous Westerner, like one speaking before he could stop
himself; ’suppose there were something in it, after all!’
‘I must confess,’ said Fenner, frowning at the table, ‘that his reverence’s anticipations
were apparently well founded. I don’t know whether he has anything else to tell us.’
‘He might possibly tell us,’ said Vandam, sardonically, ‘what the devil we are to do
now.’
The little priest seemed to accept the position in a modest, but matter-of-fact manner.
‘The only thing I can think of,’ he said, ‘is first to tell the authorities of this place, and
then to see if there were any more traces of my man who let off the pistol. He vanished
round the other end of the Crescent where the little garden is. There are seats there, and
it’s a favourite place for tramps.’
Direct consultations with the headquarters of the hotel, leading to indirect consultations
with the authorities of the police, occupied them for a considerable time; and it was
already nightfall when they went out under the long, classical curve of the colonnade.
The crescent looked as cold and hollow as the moon after which it was named, and the
moon itself was rising luminous but spectral behind the black tree-tops when they
turned the corner by the little public garden. Night veiled much of what was merely
urban and artificial about the place, and as they melted into the shadows of the trees
they had a strange feeling of having suddenly travelled many hundred miles from their
homes. When they had walked in silence for a little, Alboin, who had something
elemental about him, suddenly exploded.
‘I give up,’ he cried; ‘I hand in my checks. I never thought I should come to such
things; but what happens when the things come to you? I beg your pardon, Father
Brown; I reckon I’ll just come across, so far as you and your fairy-tales are concerned.
After this, it’s me for the fairy-tales. Why, you said yourself, Mr Vandam, that you’re
an atheist and only believe what you see. Well, what was it you did see? Or rather, what
was it you didn’t see?’
‘I know,’ said Vandam and nodded in a gloomy fashion.
‘Oh, it’s partly all this moon and trees that get on one’s nerves,’ said Fenner obstinately.
‘Trees always look queer by moonlight, with their branches crawling about. Look at that
—’
‘Yes,’ said Father Brown, standing still and peering at the moon through a tangle of
trees. ‘That’s a very queer branch up there.’
When he spoke again he only said: ‘I thought it was a broken branch.’
But this time there was a catch in his voice that unaccountably turned his hearers cold.
Something that looked rather like a dead branch was certainly dependent in a limp
fashion from the tree that showed dark against the moon; but it was not a dead branch.
When they came close to it to see what it was Fenner sprang away again with a ringing
oath. Then he ran in again and loosened a rope from the neck of the dingy little body
dangling with drooping plumes of grey hair. Somehow he knew that the body was a
dead body before he managed to take it down from the tree. A very long coil of rope
was wrapped round and round the branches, and a comparatively short length of it hung
from the fork of the branch to the body. A long garden tub was rolled a yard or so from
under the feet, like the stool kicked away from the feet of a suicide.
‘Oh, my God!’ said Alboin, so that it seemed as much a prayer as an oath. ‘What was it
that man said about him? — “If he knew, he would be ready to hang himself.” Wasn’t
that what he said, Father Brown?’
‘Yes,’ said Father Brown.
‘Well,’ said Vandam in a hollow voice, ‘I never thought to see or say such a thing. But
what can one say except that the curse has worked?’
Fenner was standing with hands covering his face; and the priest laid a hand on his arm
and said, gently, ’Were you very fond of him?’
The secretary dropped his hands and his white face was ghastly under the moon.
‘I hated him like hell,’ he said; ‘and if he died by a curse it might have been mine.’
The pressure of the priest’s hand on his arm tightened; and the priest said, with an
earnestness he had hardly yet shown: ‘It wasn’t your curse; pray be comforted.’
The police of the district had considerable difficulty in dealing with the four witnesses
who were involved in the case. All of them were reputable, and even reliable people in
the ordinary sense; and one of them was a person of considerable power and
importance: Silas Vandam of the Oil Trust. The first police-officer who tried to express
scepticism about his story struck sparks from the steel of that magnate’s mind very
rapidly indeed.
‘Don’t you talk to me about sticking to the facts,’ said the millionaire with asperity.
‘I’ve stuck to a good many facts before you were born and a few of the facts have stuck
to me. I’ll give you the facts all right if you’ve got the sense to take ’em down
correctly.’
The policeman in question was youthful and subordinate, and had a hazy idea that the
millionaire was too political to be treated as an ordinary citizen; so he passed him and
his companions on to a more stolid superior, one Inspector Collins, a grizzled man with
a grimly comfortable way of talking; as one who was genial but would stand no
nonsense.
‘Well, well,’ he said, looking at the three figures before him with twinkling eyes, ‘this
seems to be a funny sort of a tale.’
Father Brown had already gone about his daily business; but Silas Vandam had
suspended even the gigantic business of the markets for an hour or so to testify to his
remarkable experience. Fenner’s business as secretary had ceased in a sense with his
employer’s life; and the great Art Alboin, having no business in New York or anywhere
else, except the spreading of the Breath of Life religion or the Great Spirit, had nothing
to draw him away at the moment from the immediate affair. So they stood in a row in
the inspector’s office, prepared to corroborate each other.
‘Now I’d better tell you to start with,’ said the inspector cheerfully, ‘that it’s no good
for anybody to come to me with any miraculous stuff. I’m a practical man and a
policeman, and that sort of thing is all very well for priests and parsons. This priest of
yours seems to have got you all worked up about some story of a dreadful death and
judgement; but I’m going to leave him and his religion out of it altogether. If Wynd
came out of that room, somebody let him out. And if Wynd was found hanging on that
tree, somebody hung him there.’
‘Quite so,’ said Fenner; ‘but as our evidence is that nobody let him out, the question is
how could anybody have hung him there?’
‘How could anybody have a nose on his face?’ asked the inspector. ‘He had a nose on
his face, and he had a noose round his neck. Those are facts; and, as I say, I’m a
practical man and go by the facts. It can’t have been done by a miracle, so it must have
been done by a man.’
Alboin had been standing rather in the background; and indeed his broad figure seemed
to form a natural background to the leaner and more vivacious men in front of him. His
white head was bowed with a certain abstraction; but as the inspector said the last
sentence, he lifted it, shaking his hoary mane in a leonine fashion, and looking dazed
but awakened. He moved forward into the centre of the group, and they had a vague
feeling that he was even vaster than before. They had been only too prone to take him
for a fool or a mountebank; but he was not altogether wrong when he said that there was
in him a certain depth of lungs and life, like a west wind stored up in its strength, which
might some day puff lighter things away.
‘So you’re a practical man, Mr Collins,’ he said, in a voice at once soft and heavy. ‘It
must be the second or third time you’ve mentioned in this little conversation that you
are a practical man; so I can’t be mistaken about that. And a very interesting little fact it
is for anybody engaged in writing your life, letters, and table-talk, with portrait at the
age of five, daguerreotype of your grandmother and views of the old home-town; and
I’m sure your biographer won’t forget to mention it along with the fact that you had a
pug nose with a pimple on it, and were nearly too fat to walk. And as you’re a practical
man, perhaps you would just go on practising till you’ve brought Warren Wynd to life
again, and found out exactly how a practical man gets through a steel door. But I think
you’ve got it wrong. You’re not a practical man. You’re a practical joke; that’s what
you are. The Almighty was having a bit of fun with us when he thought of you.’
With a characteristic sense of drama he went sailing towards the door before the
astonished inspector could reply; and no after-recriminations could rob him of a certain
appearance of triumph.
‘I think you were perfectly right,’ said Fenner. ‘If those are practical men, give me
priests.’
Another attempt was made to reach an official version of the event when the authorities
fully realized who were the backers of the story, and what were the implications of it.
Already it had broken out in the Press in its most sensationally and even shamelessly
psychic form. Interviews with Vandam on his marvellous adventure, articles about
Father Brown and his mystical intuitions, soon led those who feel responsible for
guiding the public, to wish to guide it into a wiser channel. Next time the inconvenient
witnesses were approached in a more indirect and tactful manner. They were told,
almost in an airy fashion, that Professor Vair was very much interested in such
abnormal experiences; was especially interested in their own astonishing case. Professor
Vair was a psychologist of great distinction; he had been known to take a detached
interest in criminology; it was only some little time afterwards that they discovered that
he was in any way connected with the police.
Professor Vair was a courteous gentleman, quietly dressed in pale grey clothes, with an
artistic tie and a fair, pointed beard; he looked more like a landscape painter to anyone
not acquainted with a certain special type of don. He had an air not only of courtesy, but
of frankness.
‘Yes, yes, I know,’ he said smiling; ‘I can guess what you must have gone through. The
police do not shine in inquiries of a psychic sort, do they? Of course, dear old Collins
said he only wanted the facts. What an absurd blunder! In a case of this kind we
emphatically do not only want the facts. It is even more essential to have the fancies.’
‘Do you mean,’ asked Vandam gravely, ‘that all that we thought facts were merely
fancies?’
‘Not at all,’ said the professor; ‘I only mean that the police are stupid in thinking they
can leave out the psychological element in these things. Well, of course, the
psychological element is everything in everything, though it is only just beginning to be
understood. To begin with, take the element called personality. Now I have heard of this
priest, Father Brown, before; and he is one of the most remarkable men of our time.
Men of that sort carry a sort of atmosphere with them; and nobody knows how much his
nerves and even his very senses are affected by it for the time being. People are
hypnotized — yes, hypnotized; for hypnotism, like everything else, is a matter of
degree; it enters slightly into all daily conversation: it is not necessarily conducted by a
man in evening-dress on a platform in a public hall. Father Brown’s religion has always
understood the psychology of atmospheres, and knows how to appeal to everything
simultaneously; even, for instance, to the sense of smell. It understands those curious
effects produced by music on animals and human beings; it can — ’
‘Hang it,’ protested Fenner, ‘you don’t think he walked down the corridor carrying a
church organ?’
‘He knows better than to do that,’ said Professor Vair laughing. ‘He knows how to
concentrate the essence of all these spiritual sounds and sights, and even smells, in a
few restrained gestures; in an art or school of manners. He could contrive so to
concentrate your minds on the supernatural by his mere presence, that natural things
slipped off your minds to left and right unnoticed. Now you know,’ he proceeded with a
return to cheerful good sense, ‘that the more we study it the more queer the whole
question of human evidence becomes. There is not one man in twenty who really
observes things at all. There is not one man in a hundred who observes them with real
precision; certainly not one in a hundred who can first observe, then remember, and
finally describe. Scientific experiments have been made again and again showing that
men under strain have thought a door was shut when it was open, or open when it was
shut. Men have differed about the number of doors or windows in a wall just in front of
them. They have suffered optical illusions in broad daylight. They have done this even
without the hypnotic effect of personality; but here we have a very powerful and
persuasive personality bent upon fixing only one picture on your minds; the picture of
the wild Irish rebel shaking his pistol at the sky and firing that vain volley, whose
echoes were the thunders of heaven.’
‘Professor,’ cried Fenner, ‘I’d swear on my deathbed that door never opened.’
‘Recent experiments,’ went on the professor, quietly, ‘have suggested that our
consciousness is not continuous, but is a succession of very rapid impressions like a
cinema; it is possible that somebody or something may, so to speak, slip in or out
between the scenes. It acts only in the instant while the curtain is down. Probably the
patter of conjurors and all forms of sleight of hand depend on what we may call these
black flashes of blindness between the flashes of sight. Now this priest and preacher of
transcendental notions had filled you with a transcendental imagery; the image of the
Celt like a Titan shaking the tower with his curse. Probably he accompanied it with
some slight but compelling gesture, pointing your eyes and minds in the direction of the
unknown destroyer below. Or perhaps something else happened, or somebody else
passed by.’
‘Wilson, the servant,’ grunted Alboin, ‘went down the hallway to wait on the bench, but
I guess he didn’t distract us much.’
‘You never know how much,’ replied Vair; ‘it might have been that or more likely your
eyes following some gesture of the priest as he told his tale of magic. It was in one of
those black flashes that Mr Warren Wynd slipped out of his door and went to his death.
That is the most probable explanation. It is an illustration of the new discovery. The
mind is not a continuous line, but rather a dotted line.’
‘Very dotted,’ said Fenner feebly. ‘Not to say dotty.’
‘You don’t really believe,’ asked Vair, ’that your employer was shut up in a room like a
box?’
‘It’s better than believing that I ought to be shut up in a room like a padded cell,’
answered Fenner. ‘That’s what I complain of in your suggestions, professor. I’d as soon
believe in a priest who believes in a miracle, as disbelieve in any man having any right
to believe in a fact. The priest tells me that a man can appeal to a God I know nothing
about to avenge him by the laws of some higher justice that I know nothing about.
There’s nothing for me to say except that I know nothing about it. But, at least, if the
poor Paddy’s prayer and pistol could be heard in a higher world, that higher world
might act in some way that seems odd to us. But you ask me to disbelieve the facts of
this world as they appear to my own five wits. According to you, a whole procession of
Irishmen carrying blunderbusses may have walked through this room while we were
talking, so long as they took care to tread on the blind spots in our minds. Miracles of
the monkish sort, like materializing a crocodile or hanging a cloak on a sunbeam, seem
quite sane compared to you.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Professor Vair, rather curtly, ‘if you are resolved to believe in your
priest and his miraculous Irishman I can say no more. I’m afraid you have not had an
opportunity of studying psychology.’
‘No,’ said Fenner dryly; ‘but I’ve had an opportunity of studying psychologists.’
And, bowing politely, he led his deputation out of the room and did not speak till he got
into the street; then he addressed them rather explosively.
‘Raving lunatics!’ cried Fenner in a fume. ‘What the devil do they think is to happen to
the world if nobody knows whether he’s seen anything or not? I wish I’d blown his silly
head off with a blank charge, and then explained that I did it in a blind flash. Father
Brown’s miracle may be miraculous or no, but he said it would happen and it did
happen. All these blasted cranks can do is to see a thing happen and then say it didn’t.
Look here, I think we owe it to the padre to testify to his little demonstration. We’re all
sane, solid men who never believed in anything. We weren’t drunk. We weren’t devout.
It simply happened just as he said it would.’
‘I quite agree,’ said the millionaire. ‘It may be the beginning of mighty big things in the
spiritual line; but anyhow, the man who’s in the spiritual line himself, Father Brown,
has certainly scored over this business.’
A few days afterwards Father Brown received a very polite note signed Silas T.
Vandam, and asking him if he would attend at a stated hour at the apartment which was
the scene of the disappearance, in order to take steps for the establishment of that
marvellous occurrence. The occurrence itself had already begun to break out in the
newspapers, and was being taken up everywhere by the enthusiasts of occultism. Father
Brown saw the flaring posters inscribed ‘Suicide of Vanishing Man’, and ‘Man’s Curse
Hangs Philanthropist’, as he passed towards Moon Crescent and mounted the steps on
the way to the elevator. He found the little group much as he left it, Vandam, Alboin,
and the secretary; but there was an entirely new respectfulness and even reverence in
their tone towards himself. They were standing by Wynd’s desk, on which lay a large
paper and writing materials; they turned to greet him.
‘Father Brown,’ said the spokesman, who was the white-haired Westerner, somewhat
sobered with his responsibility, ‘we asked you here in the first place to offer our
apologies and our thanks. We recognize that it was you that spotted the spiritual
manifestation from the first. We were hard-shell sceptics, all of us; but we realize now
that a man must break that shell to get at the great things behind the world. You stand
for those things; you stand for the super-normal explanation of things; and we have to
hand it to you. And in the second place, we feel that this document would not be
complete without your signature. We are notifying the exact facts to the Psychical
Research Society, because the newspaper accounts are not what you might call exact.
We’ve stated how the curse was spoken out in the street; how the man was sealed up
here in a room like a box; how the curse dissolved him straight into thin air, and in some
unthinkable way materialized him as a suicide hoisted on a gallows. That’s all we can
say about it; but all that we know, and have seen with our own eyes. And as you were
the first to believe in the miracle, we all feel that you ought to be the first to sign.’
‘No, really,’ said Father Brown, in embarrassment. ‘I don’t think I should like to do
that.’
‘You mean you’d rather not sign first?’
‘I mean I’d rather not sign at all,’ said Father Brown, modestly. ‘You see, it doesn’t
quite do for a man in my position to joke about miracles.’
‘But it was you who said it was a miracle,’ said Alboin, staring.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Father Brown; ‘I’m afraid there’s some mistake. I don’t think I ever
said it was a miracle. All I said was that it might happen. What you said was that it
couldn’t happen, because it would be a miracle if it did. And then it did. And so you
said it was a miracle. But I never said a word about miracles or magic, or anything of
the sort from beginning to end.’
‘But I thought you believed in miracles,’ broke out the secretary.
‘Yes,’ answered Father Brown, ‘I believe in miracles. I believe in man-eating tigers, but
I don’t see them running about everywhere. If I want any miracles, I know where to get
them.’
‘I can’t understand your taking this line, Father Brown,’ said Vandam, earnestly. ‘It
seems so narrow; and you don’t look narrow to me, though you are a parson. Don’t you
see, a miracle like this will knock all materialism endways? It will just tell the whole
world in big print that spiritual powers can work and do work. You’ll be serving
religion as no parson ever served it yet.’
The priest had stiffened a little and seemed in some strange way clothed with
unconscious and impersonal dignity, for all his stumpy figure. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you
wouldn’t suggest I should serve religion by what I know to be a lie? I don’t know
precisely what you mean by the phrase; and, to be quite candid, I’m not sure you do.
Lying may be serving religion; I’m sure it’s not serving God. And since you are harping
so insistently on what I believe, wouldn’t it be as well if you had some sort of notion of
what it is?’
‘I don’t think I quite understand,’ observed the millionaire, curiously.
‘I don’t think you do,’ said Father Brown, with simplicity. ‘You say this thing was done
by spiritual powers. What spiritual powers? You don’t think the holy angels took him
and hung him on a garden tree, do you? And as for the unholy angels — no, no, no. The
men who did this did a wicked thing, but they went no further than their own
wickedness; they weren’t wicked enough to be dealing with spiritual powers. I know
something about Satanism, for my sins; I’ve been forced to know. I know what it is,
what it practically always is. It’s proud and it’s sly. It likes to be superior; it loves to
horrify the innocent with things half understood, to make children’s flesh creep. That’s
why it’s so fond of mysteries and initiations and secret societies and all the rest of it. Its
eyes are turned inwards, and however grand and grave it may look, it’s always hiding a
small, mad smile.’ He shuddered suddenly, as if caught in an icy draught of air. ‘Never
mind about them; they’ve got nothing to do with this, believe me. Do you think that
poor, wild Irishman of mine, who ran raving down the street, who blurted out half of it
when he first saw my face, and ran away for fear he should blurt out more, do you think
Satan confides any secrets to him? I admit he joined in a plot, probably in a plot with
two other men worse than himself; but for all that, he was just in an everlasting rage
when he rushed down the lane and let off his pistol and his curse.’
‘But what on earth does all this mean?’ demanded Vandam. ‘Letting off a toy pistol and
a twopenny curse wouldn’t do what was done, except by a miracle. It wouldn’t make
Wynd disappear like a fairy. It wouldn’t make him reappear a quarter of a mile away
with a rope round his neck.’
‘No,’ said Father Brown sharply; ‘but what would it do?’
‘And still I don’t follow you,’ said the millionaire gravely.
‘I say, what would it do?’ repeated the priest; showing, for the first time, a sort of
animation verging on annoyance. ‘You keep on repeating that a blank pistol-shot
wouldn’t do this and wouldn’t do that; that if that was all, the murder wouldn’t happen
or the miracle wouldn’t happen. It doesn’t seem to occur to you to ask what would
happen. What would happen to you if a lunatic let off a firearm without rhyme or reason
right under your window? What’s the very first thing that would happen?’
Vandam looked thoughtful. ‘I guess I should look out of the window,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Father Brown, ‘you’d look out of the window. That’s the whole story. It’s a
sad story, but it’s finished now; and there were extenuating circumstances.’
‘Why should looking out of the window hurt him?’ asked Alboin. ‘He didn’t fall out, or
he’d have been found in the lane.’
‘No,’ said Father Brown, in a low voice. ‘He didn’t fall. He rose.’
There was something in his voice like the groan of a gong, a note of doom, but
otherwise he went on steadily: ‘He rose, but not on wings; not on the wings of any holy
or unholy angels. He rose at the end of a rope, exactly as you saw him in the garden; a
noose dropped over his head the moment it was poked out of the window. Don’t you
remember Wilson, that big servant of his, a man of huge strength, while Wynd was the
lightest of little shrimps? Didn’t Wilson go to the floor above to get a pamphlet, to a
room full of luggage corded in coils and coils of rope? Has Wilson been seen since that
day? I fancy not.’
‘Do you mean,’ asked the secretary, ‘that Wilson whisked him clean out of his own
window like a trout on a line?’
‘Yes,’ said the other, ‘and let him down again out of the other window into the park,
where the third accomplice hooked him on to a tree. Remember the lane was always
empty; remember the wall opposite was quite blank; remember it was all over in five
minutes after the Irishman gave the signal with the pistol. There were three of them in it
of course; and I wonder whether you can all guess who they were.’
They were all three staring at the plain, square window and the blank, white wall
beyond; and nobody answered.
‘By the way,’ went on Father Brown, ‘don’t think I blame you for jumping to
preternatural conclusions. The reason’s very simple, really. You all swore you were
hard-shelled materialists; and as a matter of fact you were all balanced on the very edge
of belief — of belief in almost anything. There are thousands balanced on it today; but
it’s a sharp, uncomfortable edge to sit on. You won’t rest till you believe something;
that’s why Mr Vandam went through new religions with a tooth-comb, and Mr Alboin
quotes Scripture for his religion of breathing exercises, and Mr Fenner grumbles at the
very God he denies. That’s where you all split; it’s natural to believe in the supernatural.
It never feels natural to accept only natural things. But though it wanted only a touch to
tip you into preternaturalism about these things, these things really were only natural
things. They were not only natural, they were almost unnaturally simple. I suppose there
never was quite so simple a story as this.’
Fenner laughed and then looked puzzled. ‘I don’t understand one thing,’ he said. ‘If it
was Wilson, how did Wynd come to have a man like that on such intimate terms? How
did he come to be killed by a man he’d seen every day for years? He was famous as
being a judge of men.’
Father Brown thumped his umbrella on the ground with an emphasis he rarely showed.
‘Yes,’ he said, almost fiercely; ‘that was how he came to be killed. He was killed for
just that. He was killed for being a judge of men.’
They all stared at him, but he went on, almost as if they were not there.
‘What is any man that he should be a judge of men?’ he demanded. ‘These three were
the tramps that once stood before him and were dismissed rapidly right and left to one
place or another; as if for them there were no cloak of courtesy, no stages of intimacy,
no free-will in friendship. And twenty years has not exhausted the indignation born of
that unfathomable insult in that moment when he dared to know them at a glance.’
‘Yes,’ said the secretary; ‘I understand ... and I understand how it is that you understand
— all sorts of things.’
‘Well, I’m blamed if I understand,’ cried the breezy Western gentleman boisterously.
‘Your Wilson and your Irishman seem to be just a couple of cut-throat murderers who
killed their benefactor. I’ve no use for a black and bloody assassin of that sort, in my
morality, whether it’s religion or not.’
‘He was a black and bloody assassin, no doubt,’ said Fenner quietly. ‘I’m not defending
him; but I suppose it’s Father Brown’s business to pray for all men, even for a man like
—’
‘Yes,’ assented Father Brown, ‘it’s my business to pray for all men, even for a man like
Warren Wynd.’
The Curse of the Golden Cross
Six people sat around a small table, seeming almost as incongruous and accidental as if
they had been shipwrecked separately on the same small desert island. At least the sea
surrounded them; for in one sense their island was enclosed in another island, a large
and flying island like Laputa. For the little table was one of many little tables dotted
about in the dining saloon of that monstrous ship the Moravia, speeding through the
night and the everlasting emptiness of the Atlantic. The little company had nothing in
common except that all were travelling from America to England. Two of them at least
might be called celebrities; others might be called obscure, and in one or two cases even
dubious.
The first was the famous Professor Smaill, an authority on certain archaeological studies
touching the later Byzantine Empire. His lectures, delivered in an American University,
were accepted as of the first authority even in the most authoritative seats of learning in
Europe. His literary works were so steeped in a mellow and imaginative sympathy with
the European past, that it often gave strangers a start to hear him speak with an
American accent. Yet he was, in his way, very American; he had long fair hair brushed
back from a big square forehead, long straight features and a curious mixture of
preoccupation with a poise of potential swiftness, like a lion pondering absent-mindedly
on his next leap.
There was only one lady in the group; and she was (as the journalists often said of her) a
host in herself; being quite prepared to play hostess, not to say empress, at that or any
other table. She was Lady Diana Wales, the celebrated lady traveller in tropical and
other countries; but there was nothing rugged or masculine about her appearance at
dinner. She was herself handsome in an almost tropical fashion, with a mass of hot and
heavy red hair; she was dressed in what the journalists call a daring fashion, but her face
was intelligent and her eyes had that bright and rather prominent appearance which
belongs to the eyes of ladies who ask questions at political meetings.
The other four figures seemed at first like shadows in this shining presence; but they
showed differences on a close view. One of them was a young man entered on the
ship’s register as Paul T. Tarrant. He was an American type which might be more truly
called an American antitype. Every nation probably has an antitype; a sort of extreme
exception that proves the national rule. Americans really respect work, rather as
Europeans respect war. There is a halo of heroism about it; and he who shrinks from it
is less than a man. The antitype is evident through being exceedingly rare. He is the
dandy or dude: the wealthy waster who makes a weak villain for so many American
novels. Paul Tarrant seemed to have nothing whatever to do but change his clothes,
which he did about six times a day; passing into paler or richer shades of his suit of
exquisite light grey, like the delicate silver changes of the twilight. Unlike most
Americans, he cultivated very carefully a short, curly beard; and unlike most dandies,
even of his own type, he seemed rather sulky than showy. Perhaps there was something
almost Byronic about his silence and his gloom.
The next two travellers were naturally classed together; merely because they were both
English lecturers returning from an American tour. One of them was described as
Leonard Smyth, apparently a minor poet, but something of a major journalist; longheaded, light-haired, perfectly dressed, and perfectly capable of looking after himself.
The other was a rather comic contrast, being short and broad, with a black, walrus
moustache, and as taciturn as the other was talkative. But as he had been both charged
with robbing and praised for rescuing a Roumanian Princess threatened by a jaguar in
his travelling menagerie, and had thus figured in a fashionable case, it was naturally felt
that his views on God, progress, his own early life, and the future of Anglo-American
relations would be of great interest and value to the inhabitants of Minneapolis and
Omaha. The sixth and most insignificant figure was that of a little English priest going
by the name of Brown. He listened to the conversation with respectful attention, and he
was at that moment forming the impression that there was one rather curious thing
about it.
‘I suppose those Byzantine studies of yours, Professor,’ Leonard Smyth was saying,
‘would throw some light on this story of a tomb found somewhere on the south coast;
near Brighton, isn’t it? Brighton’s a long way from Byzantium, of course. But I read
something about the style of burying or embalming or something being supposed to be
Byzantine.’
‘Byzantine studies certainly have to reach a long way,’ replied the Professor dryly.
‘They talk about specialists; but I think the hardest thing on earth is to specialize. In this
case, for instance: how can a man know anything about Byzantium till he knows
everything about Rome before it and about Islam after it? Most Arab arts were old
Byzantine arts. Why, take algebra — ’
‘But I won’t take algebra,’ cried the lady decisively. ‘I never did, and I never do. But
I’m awfully interested in embalming. I was with Gatton, you know, when he opened the
Babylonian tombs. Ever since then I found mummies and preserved bodies and all that
perfectly thrilling. Do tell us about this one.’
‘Gatton was an interesting man,’ said the Professor. ‘They were an interesting family.
That brother of his who went into Parliament was much more than an ordinary
politician. I never understood the Fascisti till he made that speech about Italy.’
‘Well, we’re not going to Italy on this trip,’ said Lady Diana persistently, ‘and I believe
you’re going to that little place where they’ve found the tomb. In Sussex, isn’t it?’
‘Sussex is pretty large, as these little English sections go,’ replied the Professor. ‘One
might wander about in it for a goodish time; and it’s a good place to wander in. It’s
wonderful how large those low hills seem when you’re on them.’
There was an abrupt accidental silence; and then the lady said, ‘Oh, I’m going on deck,’
and rose, the men rising with her. But the Professor lingered and the little priest was the
last to leave the table, carefully folding up his napkin. And as they were thus left alone
together the Professor said suddenly to his companion:
‘What would you say was the point of that little talk?’
‘Well,’ said Father Brown, smiling, ‘since you ask me, there was something that
amused me a little. I may be wrong; but it seemed to me that the company made three
attempts to get you to talk about an embalmed body said to be found in Sussex. And
you, on your side, very courteously offered to talk — first about algebra, and then about
the Fascisti, and then about the landscape of the Downs.’
‘In short,’ replied the Professor, ‘you thought I was ready to talk about any subject but
that one. You were quite right.’
The Professor was silent for a little time, looking down at the tablecloth; then he looked
up and spoke with that swift impulsiveness that suggested the lion’s leap.
‘See here. Father Brown,’ he said, ‘I consider you about the wisest and whitest man I
ever met.’
Father Brown was very English. He had all the normal national helplessness about what
to do with a serious and sincere compliment suddenly handed to him to his face in the
American manner. His reply was a meaningless murmur; and it was the Professor who
proceeded, with the same staccato earnestness: ‘You see, up to a point it’s all simple
enough. A Christian tomb of the Dark Ages, apparently that of a bishop, has been found
under a little church at Dulham on the Sussex coast. The Vicar happens to be a good bit
of an archaeologist himself and has been able to find a good deal more than I know yet.
There was a rumour of the corpse being embalmed in a way peculiar to Greeks and
Egyptians but unknown in the West, especially at that date. So Mr Walters (that is the
Vicar) naturally wonders about Byzantine influences. But he also mentions something
else, that is of even more personal interest to me.’
His long grave face seemed to grow even longer and graver as he frowned down at the
tablecloth. His long finger seemed to be tracing patterns on it like the plans of dead
cities and their temples and tombs.
‘So I’m going to tell you, and nobody else, why it is I have to be careful about
mentioning that matter in mixed company; and why, the more eager they are to talk
about it, the more cautious I have to be. It is also stated that in the coffin is a chain with
a cross, common enough to look at, but with a certain secret symbol on the back found
on only one other cross in the world. It is from the arcana of the very earliest Church,
and is supposed to indicate St Peter setting up his See at Antioch before he came to
Rome. Anyhow, I believe there is but one other like it, and it belongs to me. I hear there
is some story about a curse on it; but I take no notice of that. But whether or no there is
a curse, there really is, in one sense, a conspiracy; though the conspiracy should only
consist of one man.’
‘Of one man?’ repeated Father Brown almost mechanically.
‘Of one madman, for all I know,’ said Professor Smaill. ‘It’s a long story and in some
ways a silly one.’
He paused again, tracing plans like architectural drawings with his finger on the cloth,
and then resumed: ‘Perhaps I had better tell you about it from the beginning, in case you
see some little point in the story that is meaningless to me. It began years and years ago,
when I was conducting some investigations on my own account in the antiquities of
Crete and the Greek islands. I did a great deal of it practically single-handed; sometimes
with the most rude and temporary help from the inhabitants of the place, and sometimes
literally alone. It was under the latter circumstances that I found a maze of subterranean
passages which led at last to a heap of rich refuse, broken ornaments and scattered gems
which I took to be the ruins of some sunken altar, and in which I found the curious gold
cross. I turned it over, and on the back of it I saw the Ichthus or fish, which was an early
Christian symbol, but of a shape and pattern rather different from that commonly found;
and, as it seemed to me, more realistic — more as if the archaic designer had meant it to
be not merely a conventional enclosure or nimbus, but to look a little more like a real
fish. It seemed to me that there was a flattening towards one end of it that was not like
mere mathematical decoration, but rather like a sort of rude or even savage zoology.
‘In order to explain very briefly why I thought this find important, I must tell you the
point of the excavation. For one thing, it had something of the nature of an excavation
of an excavation. We were on the track not only of antiquities, but of the antiquarians of
antiquity. We had reason to believe, or some of us thought we had reason to believe,
that these underground passages, mostly of the Minoan period, like that famous one
which is actually identified with the labyrinth of the Minotaur, had not really been lost
and left undisturbed for all the ages between the Minotaur and the modern explorer. We
believed that these underground places, I might almost say these underground towns
and villages, had already been penetrated during the intervening period by some persons
prompted by some motive. About the motive there were different schools of thought:
some holding that the Emperors had ordered an official exploration out of mere
scientific curiosity; others that the furious fashion in the later Roman Empire for all
sorts of lurid Asiatic superstitions had started some nameless Manichaean sect or other
rioting in the caverns in orgies that had to be hidden from the face of the sun. I belong
to the group which believed that these caverns had been used in the same way as the
catacombs. That is, we believed that, during some of the persecutions which spread like
a fire over the whole Empire, the Christians had concealed themselves in these ancient
pagan labyrinths of stone. It was therefore with a thrill as sharp as a thunderclap that I
found and picked up the fallen golden cross and saw the design upon it; and it was with
still more of a shock of felicity that, on turning to make my way once more outwards
and upwards into the light of day, I looked up at the walls of bare rock that extended
endlessly along the low passages, and saw scratched in yet ruder outline, but if possible
more unmistakable, the shape of the Fish.
‘Something about it made it seem as if it might be a fossil fish or some rudimentary
organism fixed for ever in a frozen sea. I could not analyse this analogy, otherwise
unconnected with a mere drawing scratched upon the stone, till I realized that I was
saying in my sub-conscious mind that the first Christians must have seemed something
like fish, dumb and dwelling in a fallen world of twilight and silence, dropped far below
the feet of men and moving in dark and twilight and a soundless world.
‘Everyone walking along stone passages knows what it is to be followed by phantom
feet. The echo follows flapping or clapping behind or in front, so that it is almost
impossible for the man who is really lonely to believe in his loneliness. I had got used to
the effects of this echo and had not noticed it much for some time past, when I caught
sight of the symbolical shape scrawled on the wall of rock. I stopped, and at the same
instant it seemed as if my heart stopped, too; for my own feet had halted, but the echo
went marching on.
‘I ran forward, and it seemed as if the ghostly footsteps ran also, but not with that exact
imitation which marks the material reverberation of a sound. I stopped again, and the
steps stopped also; but I could have sworn they stopped an instant too late; I called out a
question; and my cry was answered; but the voice was not my own.
‘It came round the corner of a rock just in front of me; and throughout that uncanny
chase I noticed that it was always at some such angle of the crooked path that it paused
and spoke. The little space in front of me that could be illuminated by my small electric
torch was always as empty as an empty room. Under these conditions I had a
conversation with I know not whom, which lasted all the way to the first white gleam of
daylight, and even there I could not see in what fashion he vanished into the light of
day. But the mouth of the labyrinth was full of many openings and cracks and chasms,
and it would not have been difficult for him to have somehow darted back and
disappeared again into the underworld of the caves. I only know that I came out on the
lonely steps of a great mountain like a marble terrace, varied only with a green
vegetation that seemed somehow more tropical than the purity of the rock, like the
Oriental invasion that has spread sporadically over the fall of classic Hellas. I looked
out on a sea of stainless blue, and the sun shone steadily on utter loneliness and silence;
and there was not a blade of grass stirred with a whisper of flight nor the shadow of a
shadow of man.
‘It had been a terrible conversation; so intimate and so individual and in a sense so
casual. This being, bodiless, faceless, nameless and yet calling me by my name, had
talked to me in those crypts and cracks where we were buried alive with no more
passion or melodrama than if we had been sitting in two armchairs at a club. But he had
told me also that he would unquestionably kill me or any other man who came into the
possession of the cross with the mark of the fish. He told me frankly he was not fool
enough to attack me there in the labyrinth, knowing I had a loaded revolver, and that he
ran as much risk as I. But he told me, equally calmly, that he would plan my murder
with the certainty of success, with every detail developed and every danger warded off,
with the sort of artistic perfection that a Chinese craftsman or an Indian embroiderer
gives to the artistic work of a life-time. Yet he was no Oriental; I am certain he was a
white man. I suspect that he was a countryman of my own.
‘Since then I have received from time to time signs and symbols and queer impersonal
messages that have made me certain, at least, that if the man is a maniac he is a
monomaniac. He is always telling me, in this airy and detached way, that the
preparations for my death and burial are proceeding satisfactorily; and that the only way
in which I can prevent their being crowned with a comfortable success is to give up the
relic in my possession — the unique cross that I found in the cavern. He does not seem
to have any religious sentiment or fanaticism on the point; he seems to have no passion
but the passion of a collector of curiosities. That is one of the things that makes me feel
sure he is a man of the West and not of the East. But this particular curiosity seems to
have driven him quite crazy.
‘And then came this report, as yet unsubstantiated, about the duplicate relic found on an
embalmed body in a Sussex tomb. If he had been a maniac before, this news turned him
into a demoniac possessed of seven devils. That there should be one of them belonging
to another man was bad enough, but that there should be two of them and neither
belonging to him was a torture not to be borne. His mad messages began to come thick
and fast like showers of poisoned arrows, and each cried out more confidently than the
last that death would strike me at the moment when I stretched out my unworthy hand
towards the cross in the tomb.
‘‘You will never know me,’ he wrote, ‘you will never say my name; you will never see
my face; you will die, and never know who has killed you. I may be in any form among
those about you; but I shall be in that alone at which you have forgotten to look.’
‘From those threats I deduce that he is quite likely to shadow me on this expedition; and
try to steal the relic or do me some mischief for possessing it. But as I never saw the
man in my life, he may be almost any man I meet. Logically speaking, he may be any of
the waiters who wait on me at table. He may be any of the passengers who sit with me
at table.’
‘He may be me,’ said Father Brown, with cheerful contempt for grammar.
‘He may be anybody else,’ answered Smaill seriously. ‘That is what I meant by what I
said just now. You are the only man I feel sure is not the enemy.’
Father Brown again looked embarrassed; then he smiled and said: ‘Well, oddly enough,
I’m not. What we have to consider is any chance of finding out if he really is here
before he — before he makes himself unpleasant.’
‘There is one chance of finding out, I think,’ remarked the Professor rather grimly.
‘When we get to Southampton I shall take a car at once along the coast; I should be glad
if you would come with me, but in the ordinary sense, of course, our little party will
break up. If any one of them turns up again in that little c