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The Innocence Of Father Brown
By
G. K. Chesterton
Contents
Between the silver ribbon of morning and the g=
reen
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 seriousn=
ess
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, fr=
om
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, t=
hen 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 co=
uld
be certain about Flambeau.
It is many years now since this colossus of cr=
ime
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 statuesqu=
e and
international as the Kaiser. Almost every morning the daily paper announced
that he had escaped the consequences of one extraordinary crime by committi=
ng
another. He was a Gascon of gigantic stature and bodily daring; and the wil=
dest
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 a=
rm.
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 wa=
s almost
a new sin, and would make a story by itself. It was he who ran the great Ty=
rolean
Dairy Company in London, with no dairies, no cows, no carts, no milk, but w=
ith
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 custome=
rs.
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 tri=
ck
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 n=
ight
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 know=
n 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 h=
is
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 ev=
en a
tolerably tall duchess, he might have arrested them on the spot. But all al=
ong
his train there was nobody that could be a disguised Flambeau, any more tha=
n a
cat could be a disguised giraffe. About the people on the boat he had alrea=
dy
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 Es=
sex
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 laug=
hed.
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 collect=
ing.
The Eucharistic Congress had doubtless sucked out of their local stagnation
many such creatures, blind and helpless, like moles disinterred. Valentin w=
as 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 anybo=
dy.
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 wit=
h 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 (someh=
ow)
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 k=
ept
his eye open for someone else; he looked out steadily for anyone, rich or p=
oor,
male or female, who was well up to six feet; for Flambeau was four inches a=
bove
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 stree=
ts
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 th=
an
the rest, like a dais; and the line of this side was broken by one of Londo=
n's
admirable accidents--a restaurant that looked as if it had strayed from Soh=
o.
It was an unreasonably attractive object, with dwarf plants in pots and lon=
g,
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 t=
o 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 th=
at
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 lif=
e an
element of elfin coincidence which people reckoning on the prosaic may perp=
etually
miss. As it has been well expressed in the paradox of Poe, wisdom should re=
ckon
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 a=
nd
materialism. A machine only is a machine because it cannot think. But he wa=
s 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 re=
ason
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 t=
o a
tall toast-master at the Hotel Metropole. In such a naked state of nescienc=
e, 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 r=
ight
places--banks, police stations, rendezvous--he systematically went to the w=
rong
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, someth=
ing
about the quietude and quaintness of the restaurant, roused all the detecti=
ve's
rare romantic fancy and made him resolve to strike at random. He went up th=
e 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 t=
able
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 n=
ail
scissors, and once by a house on fire; once by having to pay for an unstamp=
ed
letter, and once by getting people to look through a telescope at a comet t=
hat
might destroy the world. He thought his detective brain as good as the
criminal's, which was true. But he fully realised the disadvantage. "T=
he
criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic," he sa=
id
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 i=
n the
condiment in the salt-cellars. He tasted it; it was sugar. Then he looked r=
ound
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 s=
ome
dark fluid on one of the white-papered 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 a=
nd
see if it was up to the high reputation of the hotel. The result was that t=
he waiter
yawned suddenly and woke up.
"Do you play this delicate joke on your
customers every morning?" inquired Valentin. "Does changing the s=
alt
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 gro=
wing
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, &quo=
t;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, w=
ho
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 w=
ere
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 ba=
ck
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, bu=
t 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 Carstai=
rs
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 mom=
ents
his eye was cool and quick. Something in a shop-front went by him like a me=
re
flash; yet he went back to look at it. The shop was a popular greengrocer a=
nd fruiterer's,
an array of goods set out in the open air and plainly ticketed with their n=
ames
and prices. In the two most prominent compartments were two heaps, of orang=
es
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, a=
nd
that somewhat recently. He drew the attention of the red-faced fruiterer, w=
ho
was looking rather sullenly up and down the street, to this inaccuracy in h=
is advertisements.
The fruiterer said nothing, but sharply put each card into its proper place.
The detective, leaning elegantly on his walking-cane, continued to scrutini=
se
the shop. At last he said, "Pray excuse my apparent irrelevance, my go=
od
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 purs=
ued,
"why are two tickets wrongly placed in a greengrocer's shop like a sho=
vel
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 'av=
e to
do with it, but if you're one of their friends, you can tell 'em from me th=
at
I'll knock their silly 'eads off, parsons or no parsons, if they upset my a=
pples
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?" as=
ked
Valentin.
"Up that second road on the left-hand sid=
e,
and then across the square," said the other promptly.
"Thanks," replied Valentin, and vani=
shed
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 v=
ery
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 w=
as
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 clot=
hes.
"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 dart=
ing
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 t=
he
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 skin=
ned
for a queer thing."
"What sort of queer thing do you mean?&qu=
ot;
asked the inspector.
"Any sort of queer thing," answered
Valentin, and relapsed into obstinate silence.
The yellow omnibus crawled up the northern roa=
ds
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 N=
orth
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 th=
at
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 separ=
ate
vulgar cities all just touching each other. But though the winter twilight =
was
already threatening the road ahead of them, the Parisian detective still sa=
t silent
and watchful, eyeing the frontage of the streets that slid by on either sid=
e.
By the time they had left Camden Town behind, the policemen were nearly asl=
eep;
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 with=
out
realising why they had been dislodged; when they looked round for enlighten=
ment
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 faca=
de
of a gilt and palatial public-house; it was the part reserved for respectab=
le
dining, and labelled "Restaurant." This window, like all the rest
along the frontage of the hotel, was of frosted and figured glass; but in t=
he
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 ra=
ge.
"Proof!" he cried. "Good God! t=
he
man is looking for proof! Why, of course, the chances are twenty to one tha=
t 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 sea=
ted
at a late luncheon at a little table, and looked at the star of smashed gla=
ss 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.<= o:p>
"Ah, yes, sir," he said. "Very =
odd
thing, that, sir."
"Indeed?" Tell us about it," sa=
id
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. T=
he
other was just going out to join him when I looked at my change again and f=
ound
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.&qu=
ot;
"Well?" cried Valentin, moving slowl=
y,
but with burning eyes, "and then?"
"The parson at the door he says all seren=
e,
'Sorry to confuse your accounts, but it'll pay for the window.' 'What windo=
w?'
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 t=
he
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.<= o:p>
Their journey now took them through bare brick
ways like tunnels; streets with few lights and even with few windows; stree=
ts
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 wh=
at
exact direction they were treading. The inspector, however, was pretty cert=
ain
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; a=
nd
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 s=
he
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 Heav=
en'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 s=
ome
peppermints and talked a bit, and then went off towards the Heath. But a se=
cond
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; bu=
t if
it should turn up, please post it to this address,' and he left me the addr=
ess
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 p=
lace
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 abo=
ut
it."
"So they have," said Valentin shortl=
y.
"Is Hampstead Heath near here?"
"Straight on for fifteen minutes," s=
aid
the woman, "and you'll come right out on the open." Valentin spra=
ng
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 shu=
t in
by shadows that when they came out unexpectedly into the void common and va=
st
sky they were startled to find the evening still so light and clear. A perf=
ect
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 point=
s 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 deepe=
ned
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 figur=
es
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 stum=
py
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 pries=
ts
at the congress. This undoubtedly was the "silver with blue stones&quo=
t;;
and Father Brown undoubtedly was the little greenhorn in the train. Now the=
re 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 wonde=
rful
in the fact that when Flambeau heard of a sapphire cross he should try to s=
teal
it; that was the most natural thing in all natural history. And most certai=
nly
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 parcel=
s.
He was the sort of man whom anybody could lead on a string to the North Pol=
e;
it was not surprising that an actor like Flambeau, dressed as another pries=
t,
could lead him to Hampstead Heath. So far the crime seemed clear enough; an=
d while
the detective pitied the priest for his helplessness, he almost despised
Flambeau for condescending to so gullible a victim. But when Valentin thoug=
ht
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 stea=
ling
of a blue-and-silver cross from a priest from Essex to do with chucking sou=
p 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 wa=
s 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 crawli=
ng
like black flies across the huge green contour of a hill. They were evident=
ly
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 Heat=
h. As
their pursuers gained on them, the latter had to use the undignified attitu=
des
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 frequen=
tly
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 minu=
tes,
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 se=
at
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, Valenti=
n 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 see=
king
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 c=
ould
have been heard in any white Italian cloister or black Spanish cathedral.
The first he heard was the tail of one of Fath=
er
Brown's sentences, which ended: "... what they really meant in the Mid=
dle
Ages by the heavens being incorruptible."
The taller priest nodded his bowed head and sa=
id:
"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 reas=
on
really supreme. Alone on earth, the Church affirms that God himself is boun=
d 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 finge=
rnails
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 mo=
on 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 just=
ice
of conduct. On plains of opal, under cliffs cut out of pearl, you would sti=
ll
find a notice-board, '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, felle=
d by
the one great folly of his life. But something in the very silence of the t=
all 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 perh=
aps
rise higher than our reason. The mystery of heaven is unfathomable, and I f=
or
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 yo=
urs,
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 terro=
r.
"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 l=
ong.
"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 se=
nse
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 p=
aper
parcels. And so, you see, when I began to suspect you, I thought of this po=
or
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?&qu=
ot;
"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 curat=
e in
Hartlepool, there were three of them with spiked bracelets. So, as I suspec=
ted
you from the first, don't you see, I made sure that the cross should go saf=
e,
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 o=
ne
behind."
"Left it behind?" repeated Flambeau,= and for the first time there was another note in his voice beside his triumph.<= o:p>
"Well, it was like this," said the
little priest, speaking in the same unaffected way. "I went back to th=
at
sweet-shop and asked if I'd left a parcel, and gave them a particular addre=
ss
if it turned up. Well, I knew I hadn't; but when I went away again I did. S=
o,
instead of running after me with that valuable parcel, they have sent it fl=
ying
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 a=
nd
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 stuf=
f 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 Brow=
n,
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 wer=
e a
thief, and it would never do to make a scandal against one of our own clerg=
y.
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 ke=
pt
quiet. A man generally objects if his bill is three times too big. If he pa=
ys
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 someth=
ing
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?&quo=
t;
asked the other.
"Well, I did think you'd know the
Spots," said Father Brown, agreeably surprised. "Oh, you can't ha=
ve
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 n=
ext
to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of h=
uman
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 gapi=
ng.
"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. Flamb=
eau
was an artist and a sportsman. He stepped back and swept Valentin a great b=
ow.
"Do not bow to me, mon ami," said Valentin with silver clearness. "Let us both bow to our master."<= o:p>
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 h=
is
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 g=
rey
as his moustaches, who always sat at a table in the entrance hall--a hall h=
ung
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 gard=
en.
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 gard=
en, 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 s=
ome
last arrangements about executions and such ugly things; and though these d=
uties
were rootedly repulsive to him, he always performed them with precision.
Ruthless in the pursuit of criminals, he was very mild about their punishme=
nt.
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 humanita=
rian
French freethinkers; and the only thing wrong with them is that they make m=
ercy
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 w=
hen
he entered it was enough to make certain that his principal guest was not t=
here,
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 lik=
e 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, w=
ho
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 Comman=
dant
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 f=
rom
British etiquette by swinging about in uniform, sabre and spurs. When he bo=
wed
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 intere=
sted
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, whos=
e friendship
he had secured during some of his great detective tours and triumphs in the
United States. He was expecting Julius K. Brayne, that multi-millionaire wh=
ose
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 o=
r 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 tho=
ught
"progressive." He thought Valentin "progressive," there=
by
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 m=
uch
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 sal=
on
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 advent= urer 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 rest= less 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 appea= l to him. After a time this "progressive" logomachy had reached a cris= is of tedium; Lord Galloway got up also and sought the drawing-room. He lost h= is 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, w= ere 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.<= o:p>
Rising impatiently from the drawing-room, as he
had from the dining-room, he stamped along the passage once more. His notio=
n of
protecting his daughter from the Irish-Algerian n'er-do-weel had become som=
ething
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 ha=
d she
been? With a sort of senile and passionate suspicion he groped his way to t=
he
dark back parts of the mansion, and eventually found a servants' entrance t=
hat
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 Comm=
andant
O'Brien.
He vanished through the French windows into the
house, leaving Lord Galloway in an indescribable temper, at once virulent a=
nd
vague. The blue-and-silver garden, like a scene in a theatre, seemed to tau=
nt
him with all that tyrannic tenderness against which his worldly authority w=
as
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 s=
tudy
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 t=
he
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 amus=
ing
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 w=
as told
the gory fact, he turned with all his gravity instantly bright and business=
like;
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 back-yard. 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 fou=
nd
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 w=
ere
clad in black cloth, and that his big head was bald, except for a wisp or t=
wo
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 co=
ld,
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 gro=
und,
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 bod=
y;
whoever had cut his throat had managed to sever the neck as well. Even Vale=
ntin
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 ab=
out
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 i=
gnorance.
Nothing else could be noted about the man except that, as they had lifted h=
is
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 pa=
rty.
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 s=
ome
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; "twig=
s,
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 gobl=
in,
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 somew=
hat
crossly, as they did on principle at the sight of the cassock. But he was f=
ar
too just a man to deny the relevance of the remark. "You are right,&qu=
ot;
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 ther=
e 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 l=
ook
for anybody else. Gentlemen, upon your honour, you will none of you leave t=
he
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 ma=
n.
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 Valen=
tin
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 ti=
me
the company assembled there the ladies were already startled and already so=
othed.
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 t=
he
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 liv=
ely 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 d=
rop.
"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 m=
ade
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 do=
wn
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 g=
reat
force? Or, perhaps, only a very sharp knife?"
"I should say that it could not be done w=
ith
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 cu=
t.
It could be done with a battle-axe or an old headsman's axe, or an old
two-handed sword."
"But, good heavens!" cried the Duche=
ss,
almost in hysterics, "there aren't any two-handed swords and battle-ax=
es
round here."
Valentin was still busy with the paper in fron=
t of
him. "Tell me," he said, still writing rapidly, "could it ha=
ve
been done with a long French cavalry sabre?"
A low knocking came at the door, which, for so=
me
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. "Co=
me
in, Ivan."
The confidential Ivan opened the door and ushe=
red
in Commandant Neil O'Brien, whom he had found at last pacing the garden aga=
in.
The Irish officer stood up disordered and defi=
ant
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," sa=
id
O'Brien, his brogue deepening in his disturbed mood. "It was a nuisanc=
e,
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 befor=
e 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 e=
nd
of it came again that trivial and terrible knocking. Ivan reappeared, carry=
ing
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 spea=
ks
publicly. "I can tell you what Mr. O'Brien was doing in the garden, si=
nce
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 litt=
le 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. Fo=
r 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 vo=
ice
without pretence of piety, "what do you suppose you are trying to prov=
e? 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 ting=
ling
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 paramour=
s.
In the centre of this morbid silence an innoce=
nt
voice said: "Was it a very long cigar?"
The change of thought was so sharp that they h=
ad
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 we=
ll
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 a=
ll
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 hi=
m,
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 scar=
red
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.<= o:p>
"I'll show you," said his servant, a=
nd
reappeared with a flashing naked cavalry sabre, streaked with blood about t=
he
point and edge. Everyone in the room eyed it as if it were a thunderbolt; b=
ut
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 concentrati=
on
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, s=
lapping
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 ordin=
ary
mien had fallen from him; he was a man with many reasons for happiness. Lor=
d 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 t=
he
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 t=
hrew
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 we=
re
on pleasanter things.
"I can't say it interests me much," =
said
the Irishman frankly, "especially as it seems pretty plain now. Appare=
ntly
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,&qu=
ot;
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 g=
reat
hulking sabre, when he can almost kill him with a pocket knife and put it b=
ack 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 can=
not
get into Valentin's garden anywhere. How did the dead man get into the gard=
en?
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 examinat=
ion
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 shudde=
red.
The little priest, Brown, had arrived while th=
ey
were talking, and had waited, with characteristic shyness, till they had fi=
nished.
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," contin=
ued
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 libra=
ry
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 Valen=
tin
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 rol=
ling
eyes and writhing features just after execution; for Valentin was an anti-c=
lerical
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 belo=
ngs
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 giga=
ntic
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 a=
nd
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 e=
nd
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 t=
he
garden confronted them essentially unchanged. The second head, which had be=
en
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 se=
cond
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 wh=
ite
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 batte=
red 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 w=
ith
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 B=
rown
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, loo=
king
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 prie=
st
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 o=
ur
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 stolidl=
y;
"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 a=
rm.
"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 a=
nd
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 docto=
r,
"and who is he?"
"His name was Arnold Becker," said t=
he
under-detective, "though he went by many aliases. He was a wandering s=
ort
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 wo=
rked
mostly in Germany. We've communicated, of course, with the German police. B=
ut, 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 fl=
at
on the lawn I had the greatest jump of my life. If I hadn't seen Louis Beck=
er
guillotined with my own eyes, I'd have sworn it was Louis Becker lying ther=
e 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 think=
ing.
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 onl=
y go
on staring at this last prodigy of their wild twelve hours.
When Father Brown's hands fell they showed a f=
ace
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 tu=
rned
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, a=
nd
turned to the window which looked on the scene of death. "No one saw t=
he
point of the twigs. Why should they lie on that lawn (look at it) so far fr=
om
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 cu=
t 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 answe=
red:
"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 rema=
rk
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 Br=
ayne
get out of the garden?"
"He didn't get out of the garden," s=
aid
the priest, still looking out of the window.
"Didn't get out of the garden?" expl=
oded
Simon.
"Not completely," said Father Brown.=
Simon shook his fists in a frenzy of French lo=
gic.
"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. &quo=
t;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 gentl=
y,
"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 d=
oor
and said briefly: "The head and shoulders were cut about in a queer wa=
y.
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 fru=
it. Avoid
the evil garden where died the man with two heads." Yet, while these s=
hameful
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 sto=
od
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 bul=
k 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 quietl=
y,
"hacked off his enemy's head and flung the sword far over the wall. Bu=
t he
was too clever to fling the sword only. He flung the head over the wall als=
o.
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 g=
row
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 bei=
ng 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 cal=
ls
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 alre=
ady 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 la=
st
argument with Brayne, that Lord Galloway did not hear the end of; that fail=
ing,
he led him out into the sealed garden, talked about swordsmanship, used twi=
gs
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 bo=
x 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.
=
If you
meet a member of that select club, "The Twelve True Fishermen," e=
ntering
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 t=
hat
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, hard-working little priest, named Fath=
er
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, mere=
ly 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 exi=
st
in an oligarchical society which has almost gone mad on good manners. It was
that topsy-turvy product--an "exclusive" commercial enterprise. T=
hat
is, it was a thing which paid not by attracting people, but actually by tur=
ning
people away. In the heart of a plutocracy tradesmen become cunning enough t=
o 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 c=
ould
enter who was under six foot, society would meekly make up parties of six-f=
oot
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 t=
o 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 ter=
race
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 exist=
ing
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 Engl=
ish
upper class. The proprietor knew all his waiters like the fingers on his ha=
nd;
there were only fifteen of them all told. It was much easier to become a Me=
mber
of Parliament than to become a waiter in that hotel. Each waiter was traine=
d 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 dine=
d.
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 treasur=
es, as
if they were in a private house, especially the celebrated set of fish kniv=
es
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 hist=
ory
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 alrea=
dy a
certain sort of person, you never even heard of them. It had been in existe=
nce
twelve years. Its president was Mr. Audley. Its vice-president was the Duke=
of
Chester.
If I have in any degree conveyed the atmospher=
e 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 pers=
on
as my friend Father Brown came to find himself in that golden galley. As fa=
r as
that is concerned, my story is simple, or even vulgar. There is in the worl=
d a
very aged rioter and demagogue who breaks into the most refined retreats wi=
th
the dreadful information that all men are brothers, and wherever this level=
ler
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 th=
at
that cleric kept it to himself; but apparently it involved him in writing o=
ut 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 s=
peck
of dirt on something just cleaned. There was never any borderland or antero=
om
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 a=
s 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 w=
ill)
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. Immediat=
ely 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 on=
ce
occupied its place.
In this office sat the representative of the
proprietor (nobody in this place ever appeared in person if he could help i=
t),
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 be=
tween
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 t=
he
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 the=
se
that the priest began a little to allow his thoughts to wander and his anim=
al
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 perh=
aps
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 ca=
ught
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 stare=
d 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 he=
ad 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 al=
ways
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 u=
ntil
they were wanted. One could not conceive any place where there was less rea=
son
to apprehend anything irregular. But these footsteps were so odd that one c=
ould
not decide to call them regular or irregular. Father Brown followed them wi=
th
his finger on the edge of the table, like a man trying to learn a tune on t=
he
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 certa=
in
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 l=
ast echoing
stamp had died away would come again the run or ripple of light, hurrying f=
eet,
and then again the thud of the heavier walking. It was certainly the same p=
air
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 o=
rder
to jump. He had seen men run in order to slide. But why on earth should a m=
an
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. Th=
e 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 ha=
ve
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 s=
ee
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: i=
t certainly
was not the step of the proprietor. Men of his type walk with a rapid waddl=
e,
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) s=
ometimes
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 eart=
h.
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 s=
tep
changed to the quicker one, and ran past the door as feverishly as a rat. T=
he
listener remarked that though this step was much swifter it was also much m=
ore
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 tha=
t he
could not remember. He was maddened by one of those half-memories 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 f=
or
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 t=
o finish
his own proper work. Bringing his paper to the window so as to catch the la=
st
stormy evening light, he resolutely plunged once more into the almost compl=
eted
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 co=
ming
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 whirlwi=
nd,
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 thr=
ew
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 dr=
ess;
tall, but with an air of not taking up much room; one felt that he could ha=
ve
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 s=
hade
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 h=
ad
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 laughi=
ng: "I
haven't got any silver; you can keep this." And he threw down half a s=
overeign,
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 a= nd made four million. Often the Catholic Church (which is wedded to common sen= se) did not approve of it. Often he did not approve of it himself. But it was r= eal inspiration--important at rare crises--when whosoever shall lose his head the same shall save it.<= o:p>
"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 after-glow 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 h=
is
collar.
"Stand still," he said, in a hacking
whisper. "I don't want to threaten you, but--"
"I do want to threaten you," said Fa=
ther
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,&q=
uot;
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 Twe=
lve
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 writ=
ten
in a sort of super-French employed by cooks, but quite unintelligible to Fr=
enchmen.
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 we=
re
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 s=
ort
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 gover=
ns
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 t=
he
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 t=
hat
politicians were very important. And yet, anything seemed important about t=
hem
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 phant=
asmal
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 Chest=
er,
the vice-president, was a young and rising politician. That is to say, he w=
as 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 c=
lub
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 sugges=
ting
that there was some difference between a Liberal and a Conservative. He him=
self
was a Conservative, even in private life. He had a roll of grey hair over t=
he
back of his collar, like certain old-fashioned statesmen, and seen from beh=
ind
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 s=
eats
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 t=
he
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 cl=
osing
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 be=
fore
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 sha=
ll 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 vul=
gar)
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 e=
very
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 sile=
nce;
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 ruthles=
sly,
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 ca=
n'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 machine=
ry which
surrounded and supported their lives, that a waiter doing anything unexpect=
ed
was a start and a jar. They felt as you and I would feel if the inanimate w=
orld
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 t=
he
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 woul=
d have
asked him, with comrade-like clearness of speech, what the devil he was doi=
ng.
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, li=
ke a
cataleptic, turned round and ran madly out of the room.
When he reappeared in the room, or rather in t=
he doorway,
it was in company with another waiter, with whom he whispered and gesticula=
ted 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 silenc=
e 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 ar=
row,
and was whispering in his ear: "So sorry. Important! Might the proprie=
tor
speak to you?"
The chairman turned in disorder, and with a da=
zed
stare saw Mr. Lever coming towards them with his lumbering quickness. The g=
ait
of the good proprietor was indeed his usual gait, but his face was by no me=
ans 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 ho=
tel
keeper; "you see the waiter who took them away? You know him?"
"Know the waiter?" answered Mr. Audl=
ey
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 unnatu=
ral
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-f=
orgotten
how to speak. "Do you mean," he said, "that somebody has sto=
len
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," cr=
ied
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 k=
ind
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 deepen=
ing
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 t=
heir
own position. For a few weird seconds they had really felt as if the fiftee=
nth
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. Bu=
t the
remembrance of the silver broke the spell of the miraculous; broke it abrup=
tly
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 Fishe=
rmen
followed the proprietor to the front room to demand news of any exit. Colon=
el
Pound, with the chairman, the vice-president, 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 ro=
om,
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 fo=
r,
gentlemen."
They paused, wavering and wondering, while he
quietly went to the back of the cloak room, and came back with both hands f=
ull
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 clergy=
man;
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 r=
oom,
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 pleasant=
ly,
"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 t=
he
priest placidly, "but I know something of his fighting weight, and a g=
reat
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 f=
ace.
"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 wo=
rld,
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-f=
aced
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 t=
he
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 f=
ell
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 saturni=
ne
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 f=
acts
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 i=
t 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 wa=
ger;
then came slow, careless, creaking steps, as of a big man walking about wit=
h 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 gentle=
man
waiting for something, who strolls about rather because he is physically al=
ert
than because he is mentally impatient. I knew that I knew the other walk, t=
oo,
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 loo=
king
down, the ball of the toe spurning away the ground, the coat tails and napk=
in
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, di=
vine
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, le=
t us
say, the grotesqueness of the grave-digger, the flowers of the mad girl, th=
e 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 wi=
th 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 the=
re
when he could not be there. There is the invisible hand that swept your tab=
le
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) m=
ost
profitable crime, was built on the plain fact that a gentleman's evening dr=
ess
is the same as a waiter's. All the rest was acting, and thundering good act=
ing,
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 h=
ave
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 ther=
e,
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 am=
ong 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 sho=
uld
pace all parts of the house like an animal at the Zoo; they know that nothi=
ng
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 t=
he
Twelve Fishermen, an obsequious attendant. Why should the gentlemen look at=
a
chance waiter? Why should the waiters suspect a first-rate walking gentlema=
n?
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 st=
ood
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 hi=
m 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 do=
wn
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 ro=
om.
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 do=
n'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 Chest=
er,
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 we=
ar
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 ma=
n,
"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 f=
ace.
"Reverend sir, your friend must have been very smart to act the
gentleman."
Father Brown buttoned up his commonplace overc=
oat
to the neck, for the night was stormy, and took his commonplace umbrella fr=
om
the stand.
"Yes," he said; "it must be very
hard work to be a gentleman; but, do you know, I have sometimes thought tha=
t 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
most beautiful crime I ever committed," Flambeau would say in his high=
ly moral
old age, "was also, by a singular coincidence, my last. It was committ=
ed
at Christmas. As an artist I had always attempted to provide crimes suitabl=
e 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 squir=
es
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 h=
im,
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 crim=
e, 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 n=
ame on
the two outer gates, a house with a monkey tree. Enough, you know the speci=
es.
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 w=
as
perfectly incomprehensible, and it is from the outside that the stranger mu=
st 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 tre=
e,
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, filli=
ng
them, as it were, with the ghosts of the dead roses. On one side of the hou=
se
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 unobtrus=
ively
down the lane of laurels and into a glimmering plantation of evergreens beh=
ind.
Here she gave an exclamation of wonder, real or ritual, and looking up at t=
he
high garden wall above her, beheld it fantastically bestridden by a somewhat
fantastic figure.
"Oh, don't jump, Mr. Crook," she cal=
led
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 ag=
gressive
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,&quo=
t;
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 i=
t,
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 c=
limb
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 towa=
rds
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 w=
ith
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 unconscio=
usly
betrayed some lack of enthusiasm, Ruby Adams added:
"He is very kind."
John Crook, journalist, had heard of that emin=
ent
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 b=
egan
to unpack him, like some very carefully protected parcel. Rugs enough to st=
ock
a bazaar, furs of all the beasts of the forest, and scarves of all the colo=
urs
of the rainbow were unwrapped one by one, till they revealed something rese=
mbling
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 t=
wo
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 insi=
de.
He was a tall, sunburnt, and very silent man, who wore a red smoking-cap li=
ke a
fez, making him look like one of the English Sirdars or Pashas in Egypt. Wi=
th
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 Bloun=
t.
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 a=
bout
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 th=
e 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 leng=
th
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 s=
et 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 admirat=
ion
and gruff thanks of the colonel, the wonder of the whole group.
"I'll put 'em back now, my dear," sa=
id
Fischer, returning the case to the tails of his coat. "I had to be car=
eful
of 'em coming down. They're the three great African diamonds called 'The Fl=
ying
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," growl=
ed
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 th=
at
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 Conservat=
ive
does not mean a man who preserves jam. Neither, I assure you, does a Social=
ist
mean a man who desires a social evening with the chimney-sweep. A Socialist
means a man who wants all the chimneys swept and all the chimney-sweeps 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 lifti=
ng
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, m=
onkey-tree
and all, now gathering gloom against a gorgeous violet sunset. The scene th=
us
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
dusty-looking and in a frayed coat, evidently a common messenger. "Any=
of
you gentlemen Mr. Blount?" he asked, and held forward a letter doubtfu=
lly.
Mr. Blount started, and stopped in his shout of assent. Ripping up the enve=
lope
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 wou=
ld
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 k=
new
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 wi=
ll
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 Leop=
old
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 Fisch=
er
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?&quo=
t;
"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 even=
ing.
What I say is, let's do something for the company tonight. Not blacking fac=
es
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 o=
n. 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, a=
nd I
find the thing's extinct. Nothing but a lot of snivelling fairy plays. I wa=
nt 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 l=
ike
that."
"That's true," admitted Crook, noddi=
ng
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 bri=
ng a
police dress when he comes." And he went bounding away to the telephon=
e.
"Oh, it's glorious, godfather," cried
Ruby, almost dancing. "I'll be columbine and you shall be pantaloon.&q=
uot;
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 t=
he 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 gar=
den.
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 wa=
s in
that house that night, though not all may have isolated the two faces and h=
earts
from which it flamed. As always happens, the invention grew wilder and wild=
er
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) anonymou=
s.
The harlequin, already clad in silver paper out of cigar boxes, was, with
difficulty, prevented from smashing the old Victorian lustre chandeliers, t=
hat
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, Ja=
mes
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 b=
ore
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 strin=
g 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. T=
he 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 obscu=
ring
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 express=
ion
on a particular face. He was supposed to be the clown, but he was really al=
most
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 costu=
me
at the piano and bang out some popular music equally absurd and appropriate=
.
The climax of this, as of all else, was the mo=
ment
when the two front doors at the back of the scene flew open, showing the lo=
vely
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 drow=
ned 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 polic=
e.
The harlequin leapt upon him and hit him over the helmet; the pianist playi=
ng
"Where did you get that hat?" he faced about in admirably simulat=
ed
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 hi=
m,
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 appe=
ar
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 c=
omic
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 lette=
r 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 t=
he
room.
The priest had only watched for a few more min=
utes
the absurd but not inelegant dance of the amateur harlequin over his splend=
idly
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 t=
he
footlights, looked more and more magical and silvery as it danced away unde=
r a
brilliant moon. The audience was closing in with a cataract of applause, wh=
en
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. T=
here
sat Colonel Adams, still unaffectedly dressed as a pantaloon, with the knob=
bed whalebone
nodding above his brow, but with his poor old eyes sad enough to have sober=
ed a
Saturnalia. Sir Leopold Fischer was leaning against the mantelpiece and hea=
ving
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, w=
ith
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 rat=
her
implied that some such thing had been suggested. "I only ask you to gi=
ve
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 retu=
rn
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 t=
he
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 Fisc=
her,
"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 l=
ess.
That Socialist would no more steal a diamond than a Pyramid. We ought to lo=
ok
at once to the one man we don't know. The fellow acting the policeman--Flor=
ian.
Where is he exactly at this minute, I wonder."
The pantaloon sprang erect and strode out of t=
he
room. An interlude ensued, during which the millionaire stared at the pries=
t,
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 g=
one
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! W=
e'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."<= o:p>
Father Brown suddenly shouted with laughter, t=
hen
stopped, and only struggled with it for instants during the rest of his spe=
ech.
"Gentlemen," he gasped, "there's not much time to talk. I mu=
st
run after the criminal. But this great French actor who played the
policeman--this clever corpse the harlequin waltzed with and dandled and th=
rew
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 Brow=
n,
and ran away into the dark.
There were hollows and bowers at the extreme e=
nd
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 indig=
o 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 sparkl=
es
from head to heel, as if clad in ten million moons; the real moon catches h=
im
at every movement and sets a new inch of him on fire. But he swings, flashi=
ng
and successful, from the short tree in this garden to the tall, rambling tr=
ee
in the other, and only stops there because a shade has slid under the small=
er
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 S=
tar
at last."
The silver, sparkling figure above seems to le=
an
forward in the laurels and, confident of escape, listens to the little figu=
re
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. Steal=
ing 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 donke=
y's
tail to Fischer's coat. But in the rest you eclipsed yourself."
The silvery figure among the green leaves seem=
s to
linger as if hypnotised, though his escape is easy behind him; he is starin=
g 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 thank=
ful
for the warning and fled; but you are a poet. You already had the clever no=
tion
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 w=
ill
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 kill=
s and
lies about it. Many a man I've known started like you to be an honest outla=
w, 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 s=
py
and tale-bearer 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. Capta=
in
Barillon was the great gentleman-apache before your time; he died in a
madhouse, screaming with fear of the "narks" and receivers that h=
ad
betrayed him and hunted him down. I know the woods look very free behind yo=
u, 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 c=
old
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 pick=
ed
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.
=
In the
cool blue twilight of two steep streets in Camden Town, the shop at the cor=
ner,
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 tho=
se
red and gold and green metallic colours which are almost better than chocol=
ate
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. Su=
ch
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 t=
he
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, wi=
th 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 w=
ant,
please," he said with precision, "one halfpenny bun and a small c=
up
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, "i=
t'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 e=
yes
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 s=
at
down in a chair.
"Don't you think," observed Angus,
absently, "that it's rather cruel to eat these halfpenny buns? They mi=
ght
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 wa=
lked
to the window, evidently in a state of strong but not unsympathetic cogitat=
ion.
When at last she swung round again with an air of resolution she was bewild=
ered
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 middl=
e 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, wh=
at
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 s=
aid.
The girl marched to that article, removed it w=
ith
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,&quo=
t;
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 someth=
ing
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 someth=
ing
that is no business of mine and yet is my nightmare?"
"In that case," said the man serious=
ly,
"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 awf=
ul
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 bar-room=
s 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 tw=
o of
them that were a lot too common--common in every sort of way. They both liv=
ed
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 th=
at
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, o=
r 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 tur=
ned
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 thin=
gs
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, ma=
king
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 w=
as
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 o=
f the
most appalling squints I have ever seen or heard of. When he looked straigh=
t 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 w=
hile
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, tho=
ugh
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 wa= y; and I had a horror of their thinking I refused them for the real reason, wh= ich was that they were so impossibly ugly. So I made up some gas of another sor= t, 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 sor= t 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.<= o:p>
"Well, I've never seen either of them from
that day to this. But I've had two letters from the little man called Smyth=
e,
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 li=
ttle
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 a=
bout
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 Butl=
er
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 cou=
ld
not have been, and I have heard his voice when he could not have spoken.&qu=
ot;
"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 od=
d as
his squint. I had not thought of him for nearly a year. But it's a solemn t=
ruth
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 lett=
er
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 y=
oung
man, "you would think you must be sane. But certainly there seems to m=
e 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 sma=
ll
man in a shiny top hat stood stamping in the outer room.
Angus, who had hitherto maintained hilarious e=
ase
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 h=
im
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, coul=
d be
none other than the man just described to him: Isidore Smythe, who made dol=
ls
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 tomfoo=
lery
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 thr=
ough
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 al=
ong
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 alo=
ne
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 pu=
blic
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 c=
an
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 fif=
teen
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 fr=
om
here in your car. His name's Flambeau, and though his youth was a bit storm=
y,
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, rou=
nd
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 fri=
end
the detective."
"You are very good," said Angus
politely. "Well, the sooner we act the better."
Both men, with a queer kind of impromptu fairn=
ess,
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 corn=
er
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 sauc=
epan
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 pa= rtly for real convenience. Honestly, and all above board, those big clockwork do= lls 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 d= eny, between ourselves, that such servants have their disadvantages, too."<= o:p>
"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 himse=
lf;
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 curve=
s 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 ro=
se
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 tu=
rned
the corner and entered the crescent known as Himylaya Mansions, was as abru=
pt
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 r=
ound
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 inquir=
ing
of a tall commissionaire in shining braid, and a short porter in shirt slee=
ves,
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 lik=
e 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 ta=
ll
half-human mechanical figures that stood up on both sides like tailors'
dummies. Like tailors' dummies they were headless; and like tailors' dummie=
s 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 hum=
an
figure than any automatic machine at a station that is about the human heig=
ht.
They had two great hooks like arms, for carrying trays; and they were paint=
ed
pea-green, or vermilion, or black for convenience of distinction; in every
other way they were only automatic machines and nobody would have looked tw=
ice
at them. On this occasion, at least, nobody did. For between the two rows o=
f 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; a=
nd
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 Sm=
ythe
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.&quo=
t;
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 p=
lace
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 lai=
d 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 cont=
ent
with this, he captured the floating policeman and induced him to stand oppo=
site
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 g=
oing
to snow. Indeed, the evening was growing grey and bitter, but Angus, with a=
ll
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 mak=
e 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 Ang=
us,
received him in a rococo artistic den behind his office, of which the ornam=
ents
were sabres, harquebuses, Eastern curiosities, flasks of Italian wine, sava=
ge
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," sa=
id
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," s=
aid
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 windo=
wpane.
"Well," said Angus heavily. "I'm
afraid I've come on business, and rather jumpy business at that. The fact i=
s,
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, seem=
ing
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 hou=
se.
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 wat=
ch
the only hole to his burrow."
They turned out into the street, the small pri=
est
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 t=
hick
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 suspici=
ous
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 w=
as
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 no=
body
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 t=
he
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 t=
hat
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 patter=
n of
grey footprints stamped upon the white snow.
"God!" cried Angus involuntarily,
"the Invisible Man!"
Without another word he turned and dashed up t=
he
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 t=
he
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 invisib=
le button;
and the door swung slowly open.
It showed substantially the same serried inter=
ior;
the hall had grown darker, though it was still struck here and there with t=
he
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 violen=
ce
Flambeau simply said "Murder!" and, plunging into the flat, had
explored, every corner and cupboard of it in five minutes. But if he expect=
ed
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," s=
aid
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. On=
e of
the life-size dolls stood immediately overshadowing the blood stain, summon=
ed,
perhaps, by the slain man an instant before he fell. One of the high-should=
ered
hooks that served the thing for arms, was a little lifted, and Angus had su=
ddenly
the horrid fancy that poor Smythe's own iron child had struck him down. Mat=
ter
had rebelled, and these machines had killed their master. But even so, what=
had
they done with him?
"Eaten him?" said the nightmare at h=
is
ear; and he sickened for an instant at the idea of rent, human remains abso=
rbed
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 n=
ot
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 commissiona=
ire
and the hovering chestnut man, who rigidly reasserted their own watchfulnes=
s. 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 Bro=
wn;
"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 pau=
se,
"upon my soul I believe it is more in your department than mine. No fr=
iend
or foe has entered the house, but Smythe is gone, as if stolen by the fairi=
es.
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, runnin=
g.
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.&qu=
ot;
Angus put his hand wildly to his head. "D=
id
he run down and drown himself?" he asked.
"He never came down, I'll swear," sa=
id
the constable, "and he wasn't drowned either, for he died of a great s=
tab
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 someth=
ing.
I wonder if they found a light brown sack."
"Why a light brown sack?" asked Angu=
s,
astonished.
"Because if it was any other coloured sac=
k,
the case must begin over again," said Father Brown; "but if it wa=
s 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 al=
most
touching vagueness, "Well, I'm afraid you'll think it so prosy. We alw=
ays
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 stay=
ing
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 thos=
e 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 cou=
ld
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 th=
ink
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 M=
r.
Angus told us. First, there was the fact that this Welkin went for long wal=
ks. 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 q=
uite
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 mus=
t be
somebody pretty near her; he must be mentally invisible."
"Why must there be somebody near her?&quo=
t;
asked Angus.
"Because," said Father Brown,
"barring carrier-pigeons, somebody must have brought her the letter.&q=
uot;
"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,&quo=
t;
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 th=
is
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 a=
gain
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, f=
or
example."
He took three quick strides forward, and put h=
is
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,&quo=
t;
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 shoulde=
r, 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 und=
er
the stars for many hours with a murderer, and what they said to each other =
will
never be known.
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 tal=
es;
and the pine woods that rocked round the green turrets looked, by compariso=
n,
as black as numberless flocks of ravens. This note of a dreamy, almost a sl=
eepy
devilry, was no mere fancy from the landscape. For there did rest on the pl=
ace
one of those clouds of pride and madness and mysterious sorrow which lie mo=
re
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 sens=
e of
blood in the aristocrat, and the sense of doom in the Calvinist.
The priest had snatched a day from his busines=
s at
Glasgow to meet his friend Flambeau, the amateur detective, who was at Glen=
gyle
Castle with another more formal officer investigating the life and death of=
the
late Earl of Glengyle. That mysterious person was the last representative o=
f 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 pal=
ace
of lies that was built up around Mary Queen of Scots.
The rhyme in the country-side attested the mot=
ive
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 dece=
nt
lord in Glengyle Castle; and with the Victorian era one would have thought =
that
all eccentricities were exhausted. The last Glengyle, however, satisfied hi=
s tribal
tradition by doing the only thing that was left for him to do; he disappear=
ed.
I do not mean that he went abroad; by all accounts he was still in the cast=
le,
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-servan=
t,
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 h=
im
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 we=
re
Presbyterian) were summoned to the castle. There they found that the garden=
er,
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 t=
he
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) h=
ad
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 a=
ir
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 h=
is
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: Inspect=
or
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 o=
ut
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 e=
nd
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 sm=
all
heap of glittering broken glass. Another looked like a high heap of brown d=
ust.
A third appeared to be a plain stick of wood.
"You seem to have a sort of geological mu=
seum
here," he said, as he sat down, jerking his head briefly in the direct=
ion
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.&qu=
ot;
"Don't you know what psychology means?&qu=
ot;
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 wa=
s a
maniac."
The black silhouette of Gow with his top hat a=
nd
spade passed the window, dimly outlined against the darkening sky. Father B=
rown
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 da=
rk
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 risi=
ng
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 p=
lace
generally was dismantled and neglected; but one or two rooms had plainly be=
en
inhabited in a simple but not squalid style by somebody; somebody who was n=
ot
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 fa=
mily
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 sn=
uff,
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 wou=
ld
not take the trouble to look in a pocket or lift a lid.
"Third item. Here and there about the hou=
se
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 mechanic=
al
toy.
"Fourth item. The wax candles, which have=
to
be stuck in bottle necks because there is nothing else to stick them in. No=
w 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 her=
e 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 d=
ying.
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 i=
sn'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 l=
ike,
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 mysteriou=
s.
By no stretch of fancy can the human mind connect together snuff and diamon=
ds 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 re-enact 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 light=
ing;
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 ro=
und
eyes. "What a perfectly extraordinary notion!" cried Flambeau.
"Do you really think that is the truth?"
"I am perfectly sure it isn't," answ=
ered
Father Brown, "only you said that nobody could connect snuff and diamo=
nds
and clockwork and candles. I give you that connection off-hand. The real tr=
uth,
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 t=
he 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 expla=
nation?"
"I don't think it the true explanation,&q=
uot;
replied the priest placidly; "but you said that nobody could connect t=
he
four things. The true tale, of course, is something much more humdrum. Glen=
gyle
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 t=
o 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 ha=
ve
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 o=
ne
could not plausibly connect snuff with clockwork or candles with bright sto=
nes.
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 h=
is
feet and strolled down the long table.
"Items five, six, seven, etc.," he s=
aid,
"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 bam=
boo,
with the top rather splintered. It might be the instrument of the crime. On=
ly,
there isn't any crime. The only other things are a few old missals and litt=
le 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 wra=
ck
of clouds across Glengyle and threw the long room into darkness as Father B=
rown
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 o=
nly
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 hatch=
et,
and go up and break open that coffin."
"What do you mean?" demanded the Lon=
don
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 the=
ir
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 madde=
ning
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 face=
s in
the garden. Nevertheless they had obeyed him like automata; for Craven foun=
d a
hatchet in his hand, and the warrant in his pocket; Flambeau was carrying t=
he
heavy spade of the strange gardener; Father Brown was carrying the little g=
ilt
book from which had been torn the name of God.
The path up the hill to the churchyard was cro=
oked
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 unive=
rsal
gesture seemed as vain as it was vast, as vain as if that wind were whistli=
ng
about some unpeopled and purposeless planet. Through all that infinite grow=
th
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 go=
ds:
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 equ=
al
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 hi=
ll,
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 tem=
pest
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 downwa=
rds
and leaned on it, they were both almost as shaken as the shaky wood and wir=
e.
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 h=
e 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, a=
nd
then said in a choked voice, "I'm afraid of his not being the right
shape."
"Nor was that piece of paper, you know,&q=
uot;
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. Crav=
en
stepped forward with his axe; a thistle-top touched him, and he flinched. T=
hen 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 ad=
ded,
"but it is a man," as if that were something unexpected.
"Is he," asked Flambeau in a voice t=
hat
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 th=
ese
forests, and over all an ancient horror of unconsciousness. It's like the d=
ream
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 t=
he
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 m=
an
pacing those ancient halls or that gorgeous garden, passed in panorama thro=
ugh
their minds. But even in that stiffened instant the tale took no root in th=
em 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 mout=
h 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?&quo=
t;
His friend's reply came with the pent promptit=
ude
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 nat=
ural
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 a=
s 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 ca=
stle
again he threw himself upon sleep with the simplicity of a dog.
Despite his mystic praise of slumber, Father B=
rown
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 rai=
ns, 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 fault=
s;
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 ot=
her,
"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 pota=
to
just here."
Flambeau pulled up the spade and impetuously d=
rove
it into the place. He turned up, under a load of soil, something that did n=
ot
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.&qu=
ot;
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 in=
to
blue and silver; the birds were chattering in the tiny garden trees; so lou=
d it
seemed as if the trees themselves were talking. But the three men were sile=
nt
enough.
"Well, I give it all up," said Flamb=
eau
at last boisterously. "My brain and this world don't fit each other; a=
nd
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 t=
he
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 tha=
t?
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 g=
rim
humour, "you must be careful with me and remember I was once a crimina=
l.
The great advantage of that estate was that I always made up the story myse=
lf,
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 do=
ne
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 dentis=
t!
Such a simple, such a beautiful and peaceful thought! Friends, we have pass=
ed a
night in hell; but now the sun is risen, the birds are singing, and the rad=
iant
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 s=
aid;
"rather it is the story of a strange and crooked honesty. We are deali=
ng
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 utensi=
ls
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. Diam=
onds
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 Go=
d in
the old missals were of real gold; these also were taken away."
The garden seemed to brighten, the grass to gr=
ow
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 snuff-boxes, 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 morn=
ing
in the kitchen garden yonder, and I heard the whole story.
"The late Archibald Ogilvie was the neare=
st
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 fr=
om 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 t=
hief
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 a=
nd
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 tr=
ained
him up as his solitary servant and--after an odd manner--his heir. And what=
ever
that queer creature understands, he understood absolutely his lord's two fi=
xed
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 n=
ot
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 un=
easy
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 sk=
ull
back in the grave, when he has taken the gold out of the tooth."
And, indeed, when Flambeau crossed the hill th=
at
morning, he saw that strange being, the just miser, digging at the desecrat=
ed
grave, the plaid round his throat thrashing out in the mountain wind; the s=
ober
top hat on his head.
=
=
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 th=
en
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 old=
-fashioned
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 weath=
er.
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 pla=
ce
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 he=
ar.
For this is the story--the story of the strange things that did really happ=
en
in it in the Whitsuntide of the year 18--:
Anyone passing the house on the Thursday before
Whit-Sunday at about half-past four p.m. would have seen the front door ope=
n,
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 blosso=
ms
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 perspec=
tive
of rich apartments to something really like a transformation scene in a fai=
ry play:
purple clouds and golden suns and crimson stars that were at once scorching=
ly
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 a=
nd
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 embroider=
ies
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 comm=
on
point of view), he dealt much in eastern heavens, rather worse than most
western hells; in eastern monarchs, whom we might possibly call maniacs; an=
d in
eastern jewels which a Bond Street jeweller (if the hundred staggering negr=
oes brought
them into his shop) might possibly not regard as genuine. Quinton was a gen=
ius,
if a morbid one; and even his morbidity appeared more in his life than in h=
is
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 Fat=
her
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 writi=
ng 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 gard=
en,
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 la=
pels
of his coat. "Look here. I'm simply sewn up, I tell you. I--"
"It's no good, Mr. Atkinson," said t=
he
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 se=
em
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 toge=
ther
through the garden.
"That was a sound, spanking lie I told ju=
st
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, tho=
ugh
he is Mrs. Quinton's brother, and she's as fine a woman as ever walked.&quo=
t;
"Yes," said Father Brown. "She'=
s a
good woman."
"So I propose to hang about the garden ti=
ll
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, ev=
en
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 pic=
ked
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, s=
till
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 prie=
st
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 a=
nd
bad. I have seen wicked things in a Turkey carpet."
"Mon Dieu!" cried Flambeau, laughing=
.
"They are letters and symbols in a langua=
ge 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?&qu=
ot;
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 th=
ere
was some evil quite near."
"Oh, rats!" said the scientist.
"Why, look at it," cried Father Brow=
n,
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. Have=
n't
we come to the end of this confounded conservatory yet? This house is the w=
rong
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 gla=
ss
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, an=
d 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 vel=
vet
coat lying languidly on the sofa, having, apparently, fallen half asleep ov=
er 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 ma=
nly.
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 fel=
l 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 tal=
king
bosh about hypnotism?" cried the doctor. "It looks a deal more li=
ke
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 seal=
ed,
as in sleep. "Thank you," said the face in excellent English. &qu=
ot;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," mutt=
ered
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 t=
he
red light of evening, and the bulk of the garden trees and bushes grew blac=
ker
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 th=
ey
went they seemed to wake something, as one startles a bird, in the deeper c=
orner
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 th=
eir
surprise, however, he had not been alone. They found themselves abruptly pu=
lled
up and forced to banish their bewilderment by the appearance of Mrs. Quinto=
n,
with her heavy golden hair and square pale face, advancing on them out of t=
he
twilight. She looked a little stern, but was entirely courteous.
"Good evening, Dr. Harris," was all =
she
said.
"Good evening, Mrs. Quinton," said t=
he
little doctor heartily. "I am just going to give your husband his slee=
ping
draught."
"Yes," she said in a clear voice.
"I think it is quite time." And she smiled at them, and went swee=
ping
into the house.
"That woman's over-driven," said Fat=
her
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 somethin=
g of
the body as well as the mind."
"Well," said the doctor, "I thi=
nk
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 s=
tudy
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 aga=
in
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 opene=
d 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 l=
eave
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 fo=
r an
hour or two."
"Yes," answered the priest; "and
his voice sounded jolly enough when we left him." Then he looked grave=
ly
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 scrutin=
ised
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 s=
eat.
Flambeau sat down beside him; but the doctor w=
as
one of those energetic people who live naturally on their legs. He walked a=
way,
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 hal=
f a
minute, then he said: "Superstition is irreligious, but there is somet=
hing
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 sway=
ed
ever so slightly with a rhythmic movement, just as the dark tree-tops swaye=
d ever
so slightly in the wind that was creeping up the dim garden paths and shuff=
ling
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 con=
servatory;
they could see his cigar like a will-o'-the-wisp; and the fakir still sat r=
igid
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 liter=
ally
what he said; that nothing was his desire and his home; that he was weary f=
or
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 inst=
ant
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; a=
nd
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; &quo=
t;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 B=
rown
shortly. "You can leave Mr. Atkinson alone. I have had him in sight si=
nce
we heard Quinton's voice."
"I will stop here and watch him," sa=
id
Flambeau hurriedly. "You go in and see."
The doctor and the priest flew to the study do=
or,
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 t=
his 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, w=
here
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 comi=
ng
back with a face of assurance and collapse. "He's done it," said
Harris.
They went together through the gorgeous unnatu=
ral
beauty of cactus and azalea and found Leonard Quinton, poet and romancer, w=
ith
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 ra=
in.
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 he=
ld 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 t=
he
thunder Father Brown's voice said out of the dark: "Doctor, this paper=
is
the wrong shape."
"What do you mean?" asked Doctor Har=
ris,
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?&q=
uot;
"How the deuce should I know?" growl=
ed
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 s=
aid,
with a sort of relief, "this is what he did it with. But yet--" A=
nd
he knitted his brows.
"Oh, stop fooling with that scrap of
paper," said the doctor emphatically. "It was a fad of his. He ha=
d 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 u=
p 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 direct=
ions
along the path. Atkinson had at length wearied of Flambeau's almost paterna=
l 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 n=
eed
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 s=
aid
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 pur=
ple
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.&q=
uot;
"I thought you didn't believe in magic,&q=
uot;
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 thin=
k he
was a real one."
"Well, his having escaped is nothing,&quo=
t;
said Flambeau. "For we could have proved nothing and done nothing agai=
nst
him. One hardly goes to the parish constable with a story of suicide impose=
d by
witchcraft or auto-suggestion."
Meanwhile Father Brown had made his way into t=
he
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 doc=
tor,
was surprised to see his friend reappear so soon at his elbow; but Brown to=
ok
no notice, and merely drew the doctor apart. "You have sent for the
police, haven't you?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Harris. "They o=
ught
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 s=
aid,
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. O=
r,
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 r=
oof
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 Flambe=
au,
with something like a shudder.
"You call it queer, and I call it
queer," said the other, "and yet we mean quite opposite things. T=
he
modern mind always mixes up two different ideas: mystery in the sense of wh=
at
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 t=
hat 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 spiritu=
al
or diabolic. Heaven and hell only know by what surrounding influences stran=
ge
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 seem=
ed
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 crooked=
est
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 ot=
her,
"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, bu=
t 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 ca=
n't
prove anything. But I tell you with the full force of conviction that he co=
uld never
have cut that mean little piece off a sheet of paper. If he had wanted to c=
ut
down paper for some purpose of fitting in, or binding up, or what not, he w=
ould
have made quite a different slash with the scissors. Do you remember the sh=
ape?
It was a mean shape. It was a wrong shape. Like this. Don't you remember?&q=
uot;
And he waved his burning cigar before him in t=
he
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 meanin=
g.
"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 starin=
g at
the roof, but he took his cigar out of his mouth and said: "Quinton ne=
ver
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 el=
bows
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. "Quint=
on
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 snipp=
ed
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 ro=
om
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 Flamb=
eau
at last.
"What about quotation marks?" said t=
he
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:
&=
nbsp;
DEAR FATHER BROWN,--Vicisti Galilee. Otherwise, damn your eyes, which are v=
ery
penetrating ones. Can it be possible that there is somethin=
g 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 i=
t's
love that makes the world go round. I also thought quite sin=
cerely
that she would be happier with a clean animal like me th=
an
with that tormenting little lunatic. What was there wrong in th=
at? I
was only facing facts, like a man of science. She woul=
d have
been happier.
=
According to my own cr=
eed 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 sc=
ot
free. I saw that chance this morning.
=
I have been three time=
s, all
told, into Quinton's study today. The first time I =
went
in he would talk about nothing but the weird tale, called &quo=
t;The
Cure of a Saint," which he was writing, which was all about how=
some
Indian hermit made an English colonel kill himself by thinki=
ng
about him. He showed me the last sheets, and even read me the =
last
paragraph, which was something like this: "The conquer=
or 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 c=
hance
out of a hundred, that those last words were written at t=
he 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 ho=
use;
and two more things happened in my favour. You suspe=
cted
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 throug=
h 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 f=
irst
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 Quin=
ton
lay alive but asleep in the conservatory beyond.
=
The last act was a des=
perate
one; you can guess it: I pretended to have seen Quin=
ton
dead and rushed to his room. I delayed you with the paper, a=
nd,
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 i=
t 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 fe=
lt
ill. I felt just as if I had done something wrong. I think my=
brain
is breaking up; I feel some sort of desperate pleasur=
e 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, jus=
t 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.
=
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 thr=
ough
meadows and cornfields. The vessel was just comfortable for two people; the=
re
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, presumabl=
y 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 o=
ne
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, c=
ome
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 Isl=
and,
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 wom=
an
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 suic=
ide
of the insulted husband, who appeared to have flung himself over a precipic=
e in
Sicily. The prince then lived in Vienna for a time, but his more recent yea=
rs
seemed to have been passed in perpetual and restless travel. But when Flamb=
eau,
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, indee=
d,
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 b=
ank
veiled in high grasses and short pollarded trees. Sleep, after heavy sculli=
ng,
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 th=
eir 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 ti=
me
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-pa=
per.
The drop of the river-bed sufficed to sink them under the roots of all shru=
bs 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 n=
ow
and seeing what does really come. We may die and rot before we ever see aga=
in
such a moon or such a mood."
"All right," said Father Brown. &quo=
t;I
never said it was always wrong to enter fairyland. I only said it was always
dangerous."
They pushed slowly up the brightening river; t=
he
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 colou=
rs
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 vil=
lage
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 sh=
irt
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 slugg=
ish
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 simp=
ly
pointed up the river towards the next bend of it. Flambeau went ahead witho=
ut
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 e=
very
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 t=
he
island and sang in the strange ribbed house as in a giant pan-pipe.
"By George!" cried Flambeau; "h=
ere
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, quai=
nt
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 l=
ow
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 numbe=
r 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 pot=
s.
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 w=
as
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 sha=
ky
courtesy that he suggested that the strangers should remain. "His High=
ness
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 t=
o 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 lunchi=
ng
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 per=
son
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 coff=
ee
and liqueurs, the guests were introduced to the garden, the library, and th=
e housekeeper--a
dark, handsome lady, of no little majesty, and rather like a plutonic Madon=
na.
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 abo=
ut
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. A=
nd
through all other incidental noises, the sound of talk, the clink of glasse=
s,
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 professio=
nal
friend. He had that knack of friendly silence which is so essential to goss=
ip;
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 unco=
mmunicative.
He betrayed a sullen and almost animal affection for his master; who, he sa=
id,
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 puc=
ker
his parrot nose into a sneer. Captain Stephen was a ne'er-do-weel, apparent=
ly,
and had drained his benevolent brother of hundreds and thousands; forced hi=
m to
fly from fashionable life and live quietly in this retreat. That was all Pa=
ul, 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 abo=
ut
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 domes=
tic 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 critic=
ism.
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 g=
azed
steadily at the red crayon sketch; and Mrs. Anthony still gazed steadily at
Father Brown.
She had large and tragic brown eyes, and her o=
live
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 kne=
w more
than he did, she said to him in a low voice as to a fellow plotter, "H=
e 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 pi=
ck
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, a=
nd
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 do=
or
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 j=
ust
arrived."
In the same flash the figure of a man had pass=
ed
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 succ=
essive
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 ch=
in,
but these were partly masked by moustache and imperial. The moustache was m=
uch
darker than the beard, giving an effect slightly theatrical, and he was dre=
ssed
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, "Everythi=
ng
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,&qu=
ot;
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 gr=
ave
stare of a baby, was haunted by some fancy that escaped definition. He look=
ed
at the grey, carefully curled hair, yellow white visage, and slim, somewhat
foppish figure. These were not unnatural, though perhaps a shade
prononcé, 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 attenti=
ons
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 plu=
nge
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 ha=
nd 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 a=
nd
secretive about Saradine that made the tale by no means incredible.
When they went once more into the long hall wi=
th
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 h=
is 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 sid=
e of
the tapestry," answered Father Brown. "The things that happen her=
e do
not seem to mean anything; they mean something somewhere else. Somewhere el=
se
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 perfe=
ctly
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 tr=
uth.
In the mirrors before him he could see the silent door standing open, and t=
he
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 windo=
ws,
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; u=
nder
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 w=
ho
had never troubled to change the fashions of his fathers. He had a shabby b=
lue
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, a=
nd
clapping on his white hat he went to the front door himself, flinging it op=
en
on the sunset garden.
By that time the new-comer and his followers w=
ere
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 earrin=
gs.
But one of them stood forward beside the olive-faced young man in the red w=
aistcoat,
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 pri=
nce.
But once again Father Brown was tortured with a sense of having seen somewh=
ere
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 t=
his
crystal palace!" he muttered. "One sees everything too many times=
. It's
like a dream."
"If you are Prince Saradine," said t=
he
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. Ma=
rco,
open the case."
The man beside him with the earrings and the b=
ig
black case proceeded to unlock it. He took out of it two long Italian rapie=
rs,
with splendid steel hilts and blades, which he planted point downwards in t=
he
lawn. The strange young man standing facing the entrance with his yellow an=
d 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 call=
ed
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 fai=
rly,
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 sp=
rang
forward and snatched at one of the hilts. Father Brown had also sprung forw=
ard,
striving to compose the dispute; but he soon found his personal presence ma=
de
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 pr=
iest
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 simp=
le
slayer from the morning of the earth; a man of the stone age--a man of ston=
e.
One hope remained, the summoning of the househ=
old;
and Father Brown ran back into the house. He found, however, that all the u=
nder
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 witho=
ut
wasting words; "either he or the prince will be killed. Where is Mr.
Paul?"
"He is at the landing-stage," said t=
he
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 sa=
id;
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, h=
is
eyes blazing maniacally. "I will save him yet!"
Father Brown could do nothing but gaze after t=
he
boat as it struggled up-stream and pray that the old man might waken the li=
ttle
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 l=
ong
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 waistco=
at 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 l=
ike
two diamond pins. There was something frightful in the two figures appearin=
g so
little and so gay. They looked like two butterflies trying to pin each othe=
r to
a cork.
Father Brown ran as hard as he could, his litt=
le
legs going like a wheel. But when he came to the field of combat he found h=
e 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 d=
isastrous
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 re=
vive
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 h=
is
fishing, for Flambeau, physically speaking, was worth four other men. But t=
here
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 va=
st
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 cart-wheel. 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 rose-tr=
ee
with his body and shook up into the sky a cloud of red earth--like the smok=
e 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 try=
ing
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 occupi=
ed
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, a=
nd
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 aft=
er
its examination by the doctor, rather as one watches the break-up of some u=
gly
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 gr=
een
theatre of that swift and inexplicable tragedy. The light died along the ri=
ver;
mist rose in the marshy banks; a few belated birds flitted fitfully across.=
Stuck stubbornly in his sub-consciousness (whi=
ch
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." Someh=
ow
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 sile=
ntly
down the shining river, and sprang to his feet with such a backrush of feel=
ing
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,&quo=
t;
he said, "so you're not killed?"
"Killed!" repeated the angler in gre=
at
astonishment. "And why should I be killed?"
"Oh, because nearly everybody else is,&qu=
ot;
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 l=
ike
a stormbolt on the island. And the dinner was now in placid progress, for M=
rs.
Anthony sat somewhat sullenly at the foot of the table, while at the head o=
f 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 unders=
tand
you may need some refreshment, but really to steal your master's dinner whi=
le
he lies murdered in the garden--"
"I have stolen a great many things in a l=
ong
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 hou=
se
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 li=
ke a
turnip.
"You are what?" he repeated in a shr=
ill
voice.
"Paul, Prince Saradine, A vos ordres,&quo=
t;
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 mod=
esty
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 i=
rregularity
of his life. He was not a domestic character."
He relapsed into silence, and continued to gaz=
e at
the opposite wall just above the bowed and sombre head of the woman. They s=
aw
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 pau=
se,
"he's laughing!"
"Come away," said Father Brown, who =
was
quite white. "Come away from this house of hell. Let us get into an ho=
nest
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 h=
is
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 t=
op,
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, fo=
r Prince
Paul Saradine was frankly 'fast,' and had no reputation to lose as to the m=
ere
sins of society. In plain fact, it was a hanging matter, and Stephen litera=
lly
had a rope round his brother's neck. He had somehow discovered the truth ab=
out
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 li=
ved
only to avenge his father, not with the gibbet (for he lacked Stephen's leg=
al proof),
but with the old weapons of vendetta. The boy had practised arms with a dea=
dly
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 crimi=
nal;
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, an=
d he
gave up his address to young Antonelli; then he gave up everything to his b=
rother.
He sent Stephen money enough for smart clothes and easy travel, with a lett=
er 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 f=
rom
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 Sicili=
an
had never seen the Saradine brothers save, perhaps, in pictures; he knew th=
ey
were somewhat alike, both having grey, pointed beards. Then he shaved his o=
wn
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 ho=
nour
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, whe=
n it
came, would be dark, violent and nameless, like the blow it avenged; that t=
he 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 propo=
sed
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 o=
pen
boat before Antonelli should learn who he was.
"But, however agitated, he was not hopele=
ss.
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 a=
way
forever, and sat down smiling to his dinner."
"Laughing, God help us!" said Flambe=
au
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 poc=
ket
and held it up in the faint glow of his cigar; it was scrawled with green i=
nk.
"Don't you remember his original invitati=
on
to you?" he asked, "and the compliment to your criminal exploit?
'That trick of yours,' he says, 'of getting one detective to arrest the oth=
er'?
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 mom=
ent
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 Hamm=
er
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 f=
oot
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, a=
nd
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 o=
n Tuesday
or his first on Wednesday. The colonel was not particular.
The Bohuns were one of the very few aristocrat=
ic
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 l=
ive
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 anci=
ent
houses, they had rotted in the last two centuries into mere drunkards and d=
andy
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 hideo=
us 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 look=
ed
more like a very light dressing gown than an overcoat, and on the back of h=
is
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 s=
uch
incongruous attires--proud of the fact that he always made them look congru=
ous.
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 nothi=
ng
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 Go=
d,
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 a=
fter
women and wine. This charge was doubtful, while the man's practical piety w=
as
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 chu=
rch
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 t=
hat
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 beaut=
iful
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 g=
oing
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 si=
lent
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 colone=
l.
"Is your hobby meteorology?"
"I mean," said Wilfred, without look= ing up, "do you ever think that God might strike you in the street?"<= o:p>
"I beg your pardon," said the colone=
l;
"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. &quo=
t;I
know you are no coward or weakling, but he could throw you over the wall.&q=
uot;
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 partia=
lly
in armour."
And he took off the queer round hat covered wi=
th
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 h=
ung
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,&quo=
t;
said Wilfred quietly; "the time of his return is unsettled."
And with that he turned and went into the chur=
ch
with bowed head, crossing himself like one who wishes to be quit of an uncl=
ean
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 roun=
d of
religious exercises should be everywhere arrested by small shocks. As he
entered the church, hitherto always empty at that hour, a kneeling figure r=
ose
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 no=
ne
other than the village idiot, a nephew of the blacksmith, one who neither w=
ould
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, stron=
g,
slouching lad, with a heavy white face, dark straight hair, and a mouth alw=
ays
open. As he passed the priest, his moon-calf countenance gave no hint of wh=
at
he had been doing or thinking of. He had never been known to pray before. W=
hat
sort of prayers was he saying now? Extraordinary prayers surely.
Wilfred Bohun stood rooted to the spot long en=
ough
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 app=
earance
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 purificati=
on
and new thoughts. He went up to a pew in the gallery, which brought him und=
er 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 half-wit, =
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 sk=
y.
In this place half an hour afterwards he was f=
ound
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 village=
s, an
atheist, and his appearance in church was a shade more extraordinary than M=
ad
Joe's. It was a morning of theological enigmas.
"What is it?" asked Wilfred Bohun ra=
ther
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 i=
n a
hoarse whisper, "but we didn't think it right not to let you know at o=
nce.
I'm afraid a rather dreadful thing has happened, sir. I'm afraid your broth=
er--"
Wilfred clenched his frail hands. "What
devilry has he done now?" he cried in voluntary passion.
"Why, sir," said the cobbler, coughi=
ng,
"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 pla=
n.
In the yard of the smithy were standing five or six men mostly in black, on=
e 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 wi=
fe
belonged. The latter was speaking to her, indeed, very rapidly, in an
undertone, as she, a magnificent woman with red-gold hair, was sobbing blin=
dly
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. Fr=
om
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 onl=
y 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 brothe=
r 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, w=
ith
a white face.
"It's plain enough," answered Gibbs.
"There is only one man for forty miles round that could have struck su=
ch 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 th=
is
district could have done it. I should have said myself that nobody could ha=
ve done
it."
A shudder of superstition went through the sli=
ght
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 i=
nto
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 m=
ost
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 t=
he
curate.
"More likely over in France," mutter=
ed
the cobbler.
"No; he is in neither of those places,&qu=
ot;
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 h=
ad
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 plai=
n 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 cobble=
r,
"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 h=
ave
left it and the body exactly as they are."
All glanced round and the short priest went ac=
ross
and looked down in silence at the tool where it lay. It was one of the smal=
lest
and the lightest of the hammers, and would not have caught the eye among th=
e 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. Ther=
e 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 qui=
te
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 sa=
id,
"whether you know anything about what has happened here. You are not b=
ound
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 a=
side
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 sm=
ith
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 gua=
rds
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 set-back 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 de=
alt
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 al=
ibi
now or in court."
The inspector seemed for the first time distur=
bed,
and said, "Of course I should be glad to clear you altogether now.&quo=
t;
The smith walked out of his yard with the same
long and easy stride, and returned to his two friends from Greenford, who w=
ere
indeed friends of nearly everyone present. Each of them said a few words wh=
ich
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 a=
re
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?&qu=
ot;
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 n=
ot 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 t=
he
only person who hates the wife's lover is the wife's husband? Nine times ou=
t 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-ha=
ired
woman on the bench. She had lifted her head at last and the tears were dryi=
ng
on her splendid face. But the eyes were fixed on the corpse with an electri=
c 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 so=
me
ashes blown from the furnace, spoke in his indifferent way.
"You are like so many doctors," he s=
aid;
"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-responde=
nt
much more than the petitioner does. And I agree that a woman will always pi=
ck
up a small hammer instead of a big one. But the difficulty is one of physic=
al impossibility.
No woman ever born could have smashed a man's skull out flat like that.&quo=
t;
Then he added reflectively, after a pause: "These people haven't grasp=
ed
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 objection=
s 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 Wilf=
red
Bohun went up to his head and seemed to clutch his scanty yellow hair. Afte=
r an
instant they dropped, and he cried: "That was the word I wanted; you h=
ave
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 rivet=
ed,
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. "Wh=
en 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 su=
ch
strange folk it is not incredible to suppose that their prayers are all ups=
ide
down. Very likely a lunatic would pray before killing a man. When I last sa=
w poor
Joe he was with my brother. My brother was mocking him."
"By Jove!" cried the doctor, "t=
his
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 b=
oth
the queer things, that answers both the riddles. The two riddles are the li=
ttle
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 ha=
mmer,
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 qu=
ite
so insignificant as the rest of his face. When silence had fallen he said w=
ith
marked respect: "Mr. Bohun, yours is the only theory yet propounded wh=
ich
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 o=
ught
to," whispered the doctor peevishly to Wilfred. "Those popish pri=
ests
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 m=
an
he had arrested. Now, however, that their own party had broken up, they hea=
rd 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 y=
ou
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 sai=
d:
"Nor a woman either."
"What do you mean?" asked the inspec=
tor
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 speaki=
ng,
I think the man died alone."
Wilfred made a sudden forward movement and pee=
red
at him with burning eyes.
"Do you mean to say, Barnes," came t=
he
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 w=
hat
a stillness the Lord smote Sennacherib. I believe that One who walks invisi=
ble
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 i=
s in
earthquakes, and no force less."
Wilfred said, with a voice utterly undescribab=
le:
"I told Norman myself to beware of the thunderbolt."
"That agent is outside my jurisdiction,&q=
uot;
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 Brow=
n,
who had an easy and friendly way with him. "Let us get out of this hor=
rid
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 ne=
ver
his strong point. But he nodded rather eagerly, being only too ready to exp=
lain
the Gothic splendours to someone more likely to be sympathetic than the Pre=
sbyterian
blacksmith or the atheist cobbler.
"By all means," he said; "let u=
s 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 fol=
low
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 anyo=
ne,
I will go to the extreme limit of my custom. I will give you two very large
hints."
"Well, sir?" said the doctor gloomil=
y.
"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 miracl=
e,
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 f=
orce
well known to scientists--one of the most frequently debated of the laws of
nature."
The doctor, who was looking at him with frowni=
ng
intentness, only said: "And the other hint?"
"The other hint is this," said the
priest. "Do you remember the blacksmith, though he believes in miracle=
s,
talking scornfully of the impossible fairy tale that his hammer had wings a=
nd
flew half a mile across country?"
"Yes," said the doctor, "I reme=
mber
that."
"Well," added Father Brown, with a b=
road
smile, "that fairy tale was the nearest thing to the real truth that h=
as
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 par=
t 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 h=
is
investigation he found the side exit and the winding stair down which Wilfr=
ed
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 sma=
ll beneath
them, was the blacksmith's yard, where the inspector still stood taking not=
es
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 swiftne=
ss
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 foun=
tain
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 alo=
ne
with the most terrible aspect of Gothic; the monstrous foreshortening and
disproportion, the dizzy perspectives, the glimpses of great things small a=
nd
small things great; a topsy-turvydom of stone in the mid-air. Details of st=
one,
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 l=
ike
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 cloudburs=
t.
"I think there is something rather danger=
ous
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,&q=
uot;
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 pr=
ayed
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 f=
ond
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 G=
od.
So that, though he was a good man, he committed a great crime."
Wilfred's face was turned away, but his bony h=
ands
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 a=
bout
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; b=
ut
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--&q=
uot;
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 sta=
red
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,&quo=
t;
he said after a short pause. "I know what you did--at least, I can gue=
ss
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, h=
alf
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 wild=
ly
in many places, under the angel window, upon the platform above, and a high=
er 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 l=
et
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 s=
hall
take no more steps; I will seal this with the seal of confession. If you as=
k 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 t=
hat
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 carefu=
lly
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."
=
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 i=
ts
glittering extreme as the sun climbed to the zenith over Westminster, and t=
wo
men crossed Westminster Bridge. One man was very tall and the other very sh=
ort;
they might even have been fantastically compared to the arrogant clock-towe=
r 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 p=
ile
of flats facing the Abbey entrance. The official description of the short m=
an
was the Reverend J. Brown, attached to St. Francis Xavier's Church, Camberw=
ell,
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; on=
ly
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 ca=
ught
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 ta=
king
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 t=
hat
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 Brow=
n.
"The sun was the cruellest of all the gods. But what does that monstro=
us
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?&q=
uot;
asked Father Brown, with a serious curiosity.
"And what is the one spiritual disease?&q=
uot;
asked Flambeau, smiling.
"Oh, thinking one is quite well," sa=
id
his friend.
Flambeau was more interested in the quiet litt=
le
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-look=
ing;
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. S=
he
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 straigh=
t,
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 empori=
um;
part of it was distributed in various leagues and causes for the advancemen=
t 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 it=
s 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 amu=
sed
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 fa=
lcon
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 eit=
her.
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 s=
he could
manage the lift. She seemed almost to resent the fact of Flambeau opening t=
he
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-depende=
nce.
She certainly had a temper, of a snappy, pract=
ical
sort; the gestures of her thin, elegant hands were abrupt or even destructi=
ve.
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. S=
he
was already in the rapids of an ethical tirade about the "sickly medic=
al
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 terri=
ble
crystal.
Flambeau, quite bewildered with this fanaticis=
m,
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 plaste=
rs
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-b=
orn,
Mr. Flambeau! People only think they need these things because they have be=
en
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 f=
oreign
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 bet=
ween
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 bac=
k 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 a=
nd
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, l=
ike
the advertisement of an oculist. All this vulgarity could not take away fro=
m the
man called Kalon the vivid oppression and inspiration that came from his so=
ul
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 th=
at
the laughter of the street people sometimes died suddenly on their lips. For
three times in the day the new sun-worshipper went out on his little balcon=
y,
in the face of all Westminster, to say some litany to his shining lord: onc=
e at
daybreak, once at sunset, and once at the shock of noon. And it was while t=
he
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 t=
he
white priest of Apollo.
Flambeau had seen quite enough of these daily
salutations of Phoebus, and plunged into the porch of the tall building wit=
hout
even looking for his clerical friend to follow. But Father Brown, whether f=
rom
a professional interest in ritual or a strong individual interest in tomfoo=
lery,
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 alrea=
dy
erect, with argent garments and uplifted hands, and the sound of his strang=
ely
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 c=
ould
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, w=
ho
art more innocent than all thy most innocent and quiet children; primal pur=
ity,
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 t=
he
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 m=
ob. 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 fr=
iend
Father Brown dipped in insignificantly after him. Even as he ducked and div=
ed
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 founta=
ins
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 sl=
ightest
doubt that she was dead.
He could not remember for certain whether he h=
ad
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 pr=
etty
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 d=
own
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 K=
alon
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 t=
urned
his swarthy face and said abruptly:
"Then, if he has been up there all the ti=
me,
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 charg=
e of
the surgeons, Flambeau dashed up the stairs to the typewriting office, foun=
d it
utterly empty, and then dashed up to his own. Having entered that, he abrup=
tly
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 go=
ne
up to the office of that sun man," he said. "If I were you I shou=
ld
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 th=
at
stupidity of mine? Of course, in their office downstairs."
Flambeau stared; but he followed the little fa=
ther
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 fo=
ur
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 Ap=
ollo
himself, his litany finished, sweeping down the empty stairs in utter magni=
ficence--something
in his white robes, beard and parted hair had the look of Dore's Christ lea=
ving
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 sani=
ty.
If Miss Joan Stacey was a criminal, she was a cool one. Father Brown regard=
ed her
for some time with an odd little smile, and then, without taking his eyes o=
ff
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 Ka=
lon,
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 th=
at,
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 sophistrie=
s.
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 h= e could as easily have filled Salisbury Plain. His robed form seemed to hang the wh= ole room with classic draperies; his epic gesture seemed to extend it into gran= der perspectives, till the little black figure of the modern cleric seemed to b= e a fault and an intrusion, a round, black blot upon some splendour of Hellas.<= o:p>
"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 a=
re
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 wo=
rd
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 thin=
gs
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 aga=
inst
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 anoth=
er
world from yours, and trod palaces of crystal while you were plodding throu=
gh tunnels
and corridors of brick. Well, I know that policemen, theological and otherw=
ise,
always fancy that where there has been love there must soon be hatred; so t=
here
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 t=
hat
table a will leaving me and my new church half a million. Come, where are t=
he
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 gallo=
ws
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. Fa=
ther
Brown's face seemed to express nothing but extreme distress; he looked at t=
he
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 st=
ill
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 c=
ommitted
this crime. Pauline Stacey fell from this floor to the ground at five minut=
es
past twelve. A hundred people will go into the witness-box and say that I w=
as
standing out upon the balcony of my own rooms above from just before the st=
roke
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 sw=
ear
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 ali=
bi;
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 certa=
inly
cannot lock me up. It is well known to all students of the higher truths th=
at 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 trut=
h,
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. H=
er
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 h=
ad
better call it suicide. I shall always call it heroic failure for the advan=
ce
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 whi=
ch
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 liber=
ty
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," s=
aid
the other, and resumed his silent study of the mat.
"There is a paper over here," said t=
he
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 h=
er
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 wi=
th
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 wi=
th a
set of scratches, and there was no trace of the name of any legatee. Flambe=
au,
in wonder, handed this truncated testament to his clerical friend, who glan=
ced
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.<= o:p>
Of a sudden the man broke out into blasphemies=
and
cataracts of incredulous words. There was something shocking about the drop=
ping
of his mask; it was like a man's real face falling off.
"See here!" he cried in broad Americ=
an,
when he was breathless with cursing, "I may be an adventurer, but I gu=
ess
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 si=
ster
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 Flambe=
au
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 fore=
head
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 sis=
ter.
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 w=
ith
a hope; his eyes shone.
"That's it!" he cried in a clear voi=
ce.
"That's the way to begin. In Pauline's eyes--"
The tall prophet retreated before the tiny pri=
est
in an almost mad disorder. "What do you mean? How dare you?" he c=
ried
repeatedly.
"In Pauline's eyes," repeated the
priest, his own shining more and more. "Go on--in God's name, go on. T=
he
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 Ka=
lon,
struggling like a giant in bonds. "Who are you, you cursed spy, to wea=
ve
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 Brow=
n,
with a strange deep sigh that seemed to come from the depths of the univers=
e.
"Let Cain pass by, for he belongs to God."
There was a long-drawn silence in the room whe=
n 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 des=
k.
"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," sa=
id
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 thwart= ed by the smaller crime; the author of the smaller crime got the money."<= o:p>
"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 bl=
ack
hat on to her head with a business-like 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," Br=
own
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 encoura=
ge
such diseases by yielding to them. She would not admit the cloud; or she tr=
ied
to dispel it by will. So her eyes got worse and worse with straining; but t=
he 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 m=
ade
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 s=
he
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 re=
ady
for her, and she was to come out when she was ready. Then he pressed a butt=
on
and shot soundlessly up to his own floor, walked through his own office, ou=
t on
to his own balcony, and was safely praying before the crowded street when t=
he
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 alrea=
dy signed
it as witnesses. Joan had signed first, saying Pauline could finish it late=
r,
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 fount=
ain
pens; but this was specially natural to Pauline. By habit and her strong wi=
ll
and memory she could still write almost as well as if she saw; but she coul=
d not
tell when her pen needed dipping. Therefore, her fountain pens were careful=
ly
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 t=
hen
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 ha=
ve 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 h=
ad
to follow rather close to find out about Miss Joan and the fountain pen. Bu=
t 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 roun=
d. I
did not know what it was. But I knew that he was expecting it."
=
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 w=
as
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 churchya=
rd.
But, on the other hand, perhaps it was worth exploring.
It rose abruptly out of the ashen wastes of fo=
rest
in a sort of hump or shoulder of green turf that looked grey in the starlig=
ht.
Most of the graves were on a slant, and the path leading up to the church w=
as 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 stran=
gely
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 s=
mall
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, hea=
vy 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 afterno=
ons
wagonettes came full of Americans and cultured suburbans to see the sepulch=
re;
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 star=
s.
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, o=
ne
man was enormously big, and the other (perhaps by contrast) almost startlin=
gly small.
They went up to the great graven tomb of the historic warrior, and stood fo=
r 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 see=
med
strange. After the first silence the small man said to the other:
"Where does a wise man hide a pebble?&quo=
t;
And the tall man answered in a low voice: &quo=
t;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.&q=
uot;
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, blacken=
ed,
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. Fo=
r Heaven
knows a man should have a fire and ale when he dares tell such a story.&quo=
t;
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 small=
er
man spoke again. He said: "Yes; the wise man hides a pebble on the bea=
ch.
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 lo=
ng
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 i=
n 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," sa=
id
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 th=
ere
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 ca=
lled
Flambeau cheerfully. "Let's begin at the wrong end. Let's begin with w=
hat
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. Cl=
are
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 tha=
t on
that occasion St. Clare with a very small force attacked Olivier with a ver=
y 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 reti=
red,
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 ghos=
tly
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 f=
amous
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 impatien=
tly
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," continu=
ed
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 someth=
ing
that a baby could see was absurd. One need not be a strategist to see it wa=
s as
wild as wind; just as one need not be a strategist to keep out of the way o=
f 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 nuisanc=
e;
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 fre=
e 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 co=
uld
not have hurt him? Well, there you have it. One of the wisest men in the wo=
rld
acted like an idiot for no reason. One of the best men in the world acted l=
ike
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.&qu=
ot;
"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 li=
ght;
for nobody can make sense of them. But they threw a new kind of darkness; t=
hey
threw the darkness in new directions. The first was this. The family physic=
ian 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 daught=
er,
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 calle=
d '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, th=
ough
private, are honourable and compelling. I will, however, add this in justic=
e 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, prope=
rly
understood, was one of the most brilliant and sagacious of his life. Presid=
ent
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 as=
sure
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 b=
egan
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 a=
nd
bull neck forward, like a man winning a walking race. The little priest, am=
used
and interested, had some trouble in trotting beside him. Just before them t=
he
trees fell back a little to left and right, and the road swept downwards ac=
ross
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, li=
ke
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 voic=
e.
"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 momen=
t he
sacrificed his public duty to his private. He rushed rashly into battle, ho=
ping
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, in=
to
which their path plunged. Perhaps something menacing in the road thus sudde=
nly
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 des=
pair
and cried: "Oh, I wish it had been."
The tall Flambeau faced round and stared at hi=
m.
"Yours is a clean story," cried Fath=
er
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 exac=
tly
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 dr=
eam.
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 irritab=
ly,
"what does he do?"
"He grows a forest to hide it in," s=
aid
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 nerv=
es;
"will you tell me this story or not? What other evidence is there to go
on?"
"There are three more bits of evidence,&q=
uot;
said the other, "that I have dug up in holes and corners; and I will g=
ive
them in logical rather than chronological order. First of all, of course, o=
ur
authority for the issue and event of the battle is in Olivier's own dispatc=
hes,
which are lucid enough. He was entrenched with two or three regiments on th=
e 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 w=
as
the first English outpost, supported by others which lay, however, consider=
ably
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 Oliv=
ier
consider the project of crossing the river to cut it off. By sunset, howeve=
r,
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 o=
f 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 s=
olid
ground, this mad regiment, having put the river in its rear by one wild cha=
rge,
did nothing more, but stuck there in the mire like flies in treacle. Needle=
ss
to say, the Brazilians blew great gaps in them with artillery, which they c=
ould
only return with spirited but lessening rifle fire. Yet they never broke; a=
nd
Olivier's curt account ends with a strong tribute of admiration for the mys=
tic
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 gene=
ral afterwards
Olivier is as silent as Captain Keith."
"Well," grunted Flambeau, "get =
on
to the next bit of evidence."
"The next evidence," said Father Bro=
wn,
"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 o=
nly
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 everyo=
ne
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 Brazil=
ian
official died in England, having quarrelled with Olivier and left his count=
ry.
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, exce=
pt
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 t=
hose
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 da=
rk
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 t=
he 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; perhap=
s 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 promine=
nt
in this soldier's narrative; a lean, dark-haired man, apparently, of the na=
me
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. West=
ward
the road curved round towards the river, which it crossed by the bridge bef=
ore mentioned.
To the east the road swept backwards into the wilds, and some two miles alo=
ng
it was the next English outpost. From this direction there came along the r=
oad
that evening a glitter and clatter of light cavalry, in which even the simp=
le
diarist could recognise with astonishment the general with his staff. He ro=
de
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, inde=
ed,
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 ri=
ver,
the tall Ulsterman still walked by his bridle rein in earnest debate. The s=
oldiers
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 me=
n 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 firs=
t 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 s=
wept
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 trump=
et
that wakes the dead.
"I conceive that all the earthquake event=
s of
that catastrophe tumbled on top of each other rather like lumber in the min=
ds
of men such as our friend with the diary. With the dazed excitement of a dr=
eam,
they found themselves falling--literally falling--into their ranks, and lea=
rned
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 on=
ly
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 app=
eal
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 woodla=
nd
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 th=
e darkness.
"There was one other little and enormous
thing. When the general urged them to their chivalric charge he half drew h=
is
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 boug=
hs
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 tr=
uth
all round him as an atmosphere, but not as an idea. He answered with bewild=
ered
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 fal=
ls
over the blessed sword everywhere."
"Well, what is there in that?" growl=
ed
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 ho=
ld
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.&quo=
t;
"No," cried Father Brown, with a sha=
rp
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, anyho=
w;
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 fir=
st
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 brok=
en.
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 fr=
ank
regret. "There's a great marble monument on top of it; a monument to t=
he
heroic Major Murray, who fell fighting gloriously at the famous Battle of t=
he
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 beg=
in,
and at last he said again:
"Where would a wise man hide a leaf? In t=
he
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 we=
re 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 unles=
s 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 f=
inds
we have no arms and legs. St. Clare was an old Anglo-Indian Protestant sold=
ier.
Now, just think what that might mean; and, for Heaven's sake, don't cant ab=
out
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 Orien=
tal
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 shame=
ful
gold; but certainly he would have said with steady eyes that he did it to t=
he
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 mak=
es
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 taun=
ting
and almost obscene outlines, he could almost fancy he was Dante, and the pr=
iest
with the rivulet of a voice was, indeed, a Virgil leading him through a lan=
d of
eternal sins.
The voice went on: "Olivier, as you know,=
was
quixotic, and would not permit a secret service and spies. The thing, howev=
er,
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 t=
he 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 h=
ad
talked to Espado the Vulture as well as he. Somehow the dark, grim young ma=
jor
from Ulster had guessed the hideous truth; and when they walked slowly toge=
ther
down that road towards the bridge Murray was telling the general that he mu=
st
resign instantly, or be court-martialled and shot. The general temporised w=
ith 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 th=
at
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 po=
or
Murray lay a cold lump at his feet. Never in all his triumphs, as Captain K=
eith
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 po=
int
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 swor=
d.
He had killed, but not silenced. But his imperious intellect rose against t=
he
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 g=
rew
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 e=
vil
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 w=
as
while they stuck there in the bloody mire that someone doubted--and someone
guessed."
He was mute a moment, and then said: "The=
re
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 fr=
om
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 g=
rasp
it all yet," he said.
"There is another picture, Flambeau,"
said Brown in his more mystical undertone. "I can't prove it; but I ca=
n 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. Ther=
e is
the red shirt and long black beard of Olivier, which blows as he stands, hi=
s 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 sto=
res
and vehicles for the retreat. The drums roll; the Brazilians are moving; th=
e English
are still like statues. So they abide till the last hum and flash of the en=
emy
have faded from the tropic horizon. Then they alter their postures all at o=
nce,
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. Clar=
e's
neck; I believe the hand that put the ring on his daughter's finger. They w=
ere
English hands that dragged him up to the tree of shame; the hands of men th=
at
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 o=
n 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 red-curtained English inn. It stood sideways =
in
the road, as if standing aside in the amplitude of hospitality. Its three d=
oors
stood open with invitation; and even where they stood they could hear the h=
um and
laughter of humanity happy for a night.
"I need not tell you more," said Fat=
her
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.&q=
uot;
"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,&qu=
ot;
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 a=
nd
stone abides. His marble statues will erect the souls of proud, innocent bo=
ys
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 m=
uch
good and evil in breaking secrets, that I put my conduct to a test. All the=
se newspapers
will perish; the anti-Brazil boom is already over; Olivier is already honou=
red
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 spe=
ak.
If it were only that St. Clare was wrongly praised, I would be silent. And I
will."
They plunged into the red-curtained tavern, wh=
ich
was not only cosy, but even luxurious inside. On a table stood a silver mod=
el
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 Brow=
n;
"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 ev=
ery
man is dignified when he is dead. But even he felt a pang of incongruity wh=
en
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 ha=
nged
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 prid=
ed
himself on dealing with it in the brightest possible style. His political a=
nd social
speeches were cataracts of anecdotes and "loud laughter"; his bod=
ily
health was of a bursting sort; his ethics were all optimism; and he dealt w=
ith
the Drink problem (his favourite topic) with that immortal or even monotono=
us
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 w=
ide white
beard, cherubic face, and sparkling spectacles, at the numberless dinners a=
nd
congresses where they appeared, made it hard to believe, somehow, that he h=
ad
ever been anything so morbid as either a dram-drinker or a Calvinist. He wa=
s,
one felt, the most seriously merry of all the sons of men.
He had lived on the rural skirt of Hampstead i=
n a
handsome house, high but not broad, a modern and prosaic tower. The narrowe=
st
of its narrow sides overhung the steep green bank of a railway, and was sha=
ken
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 tur=
f.
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 remembere=
d) 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 ha=
rdly
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 pul=
led
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 g=
reen
bank was Sir Aaron Armstrong's man-servant Magnus. The baronet in his optim=
ism
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 vivi=
d scarlet
lining. A scrap of rope seemed caught about his leg, entangled presumably i=
n 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 fair-beard=
ed
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 Armstron=
g,
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 b=
lown
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 Irish=
man
by birth; and that casual kind of Catholic that never remembers his religio=
n 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 expec=
ted
between two total strangers.
"As far as I can see," said Mr. Mert=
on
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 daugh=
ter
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 aft=
er-dinner
speaker? It would be like killing Father Christmas."
"Yes, it was a cheery house," assent=
ed
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 compa=
nion
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 a=
ll
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 depress=
ing
house. The rooms were very high and very cold; the decoration mean and prov=
incial;
the draughty corridors were lit by electricity that was bleaker than moonli=
ght.
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, wit=
h 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 w=
as
good-natured enough also, but it was a sad sort of good-nature, 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, blinki=
ng
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 so=
mebody,"
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 a=
way
a troublesome thought rather than offering it seriously: "Of course, d=
rink
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 cap=
able
detective named Gilder, was standing on the green bank waiting for the coro=
ner,
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 a=
nd
domestic duties in a heavy and humbled style, like a buffalo drawing a go-c=
art.
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 certa=
in
boyish impatience.
"Well, Mr. Gilder, have you got much fart=
her
with the mystery?"
"There is no mystery," replied Gilde=
r,
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," obser=
ved
the senior investigator, stroking his grey, pointed beard. "Three minu=
tes
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 t= he 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?"<= o:p>
"You're pretty sure, I suppose,"
remarked the young man, "that he really did kill his master?"
"Yes, my son, I'm pretty sure," repl=
ied
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," s=
aid
Father Brown apologetically. "Sounds like a fairy tale. But poor Armst=
rong
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 stand=
ing
on."
"How do you mean?" asked the detecti=
ve
quickly.
Father Brown turned his moon face up to the na=
rrow
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, point=
ing
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,&qu=
ot;
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 faint=
est
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?" as=
ked
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 h=
air,
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 sinc=
e 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 w=
hen
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 serge=
ant
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 Aar=
on's
money might have been safely left with Sir Aaron's family."
The tail of his sentence was drowned in the ro=
ar
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 bell-like distinctness: &quo=
t;I
have no reason to feel confidence in Sir Aaron's family."
All the motionless men had the ghostly sensati=
on
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 c=
lear
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 wi=
cked
anger--fiends that have had their feast this morning. She would have been a=
way
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,&qu=
ot;
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 s=
till
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 s=
ight
of him; and he muttered to Gilder: "Surely you would take Miss Armstro=
ng'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 c=
ry;
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 f=
ist
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; bu=
t to
the rest it seemed as if all reason had broken up and the universe were tur=
ning
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 secret=
ary
in a voice like an iron gong, "you will arrest me for murder."
Gilder threw an alarmed glance at the man knoc=
ked
down; but since that outraged person was already sitting up and wiping a li=
ttle
blood off a substantially uninjured face, he only said shortly: "What =
do
you mean?"
"It is quite true, as this fellow says,&q=
uot;
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 p=
lace
(and rather a small cell for so large a hermit), had indeed all the vestige=
s of
a violent drama. Near the centre of the floor lay a large revolver as if fl=
ung 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, l=
ike
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 fi=
rst
sin of a baby.
"You all know about me," he continued
huskily; "everybody knows how my story began, and it may as well end l=
ike
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 i=
s 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 gr=
ub
up my tragedy; it is a common enough weed in this world. I give myself to t=
he
gallows; and, by God, that is enough!"
At a sufficiently delicate sign, the police ga=
thered
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 undig=
nified
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 n=
eck
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 ser=
ious
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 enem=
y'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 ha=
ving
done with the carpet the speaker lifted his hands and put them in his pocke=
t,
but continued unaffectedly on his knees--"in what conceivable intoxica=
tion
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 dipsoman=
iac
fought for the whisky bottle, and then having won, rolled it away in a corn=
er,
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 o=
ut
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," s=
he
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 a=
gain
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 fi=
re
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 hi=
m with
the rope, which he threw over his head, but which slipped over his struggli=
ng
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 yo=
ur
presence; and might he take off those funny cuffs for a minute?"
"He is a very powerful man," said Me=
rton
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 ha=
nds
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, a=
nd
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 o=
f 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 incredulo=
us
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 co=
ld;
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 aband=
oned
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 mornin=
g 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 accident=
ally
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 o=
ver
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 i=
n,
and misunderstanding the struggle, strove to slash her father free. At firs=
t she
only slashed poor Royce's knuckles, from which has come all the little bloo=
d 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.&q=
uot;
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 la=
dy
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," remark=
ed
Father Brown, as he picked up his hat. "I rather think I should tell h=
er.
Even the most murderous blunders don't poison life like sins; anyhow, I thi=
nk
you may both be the happier now. I've got to go back to the Deaf School.&qu=
ot;
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."