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The Wisdom Of Father Brown
By
G. K. Chesterton
Contents
ONE
-- The Absence of Mr Glass
TWO.
-- The Paradise of Thieves
THREE
-- The Duel of Dr Hirsch
FOUR
-- The Man in the Passage
FIVE
-- The Mistake of the Machine
EIGHT
-- The Perishing of the Pendragons.
TEN
-- The Salad of Colonel Cray
ELEVEN
-- The Strange Crime of John Boulnois.
TWELVE
-- The Fairy Tale of Father Brown.
ONE -- The Absence of Mr
Glass
THE consulting-rooms o=
f Dr
Orion Hood, the eminent criminologist and specialist in certain moral
disorders, lay along the sea-front at Scarborough, in a series of very large
and well-lighted french windows, which showed the North Sea like one endless
outer wall of blue-green marble. In such a place the sea had something of t=
he
monotony of a blue-green dado: for the chambers themselves were ruled
throughout by a terrible tidiness not unlike the terrible tidiness of the s=
ea.
It must not be supposed that Dr Hood's apartments excluded luxury, or even =
poetry.
These things were there, in their place; but one felt that they were never =
allowed
out of their place. Luxury was there: there stood upon a special table eigh=
t or
ten boxes of the best cigars; but they were built upon a plan so that the
strongest were always nearest the wall and the mildest nearest the window. A
tantalus containing three kinds of spirit, all of a liqueur excellence, sto=
od
always on this table of luxury; but the fanciful have asserted that the whi=
sky,
brandy, and rum seemed always to stand at the same level. Poetry was there:=
the
left-hand corner of the room was lined with as complete a set of English
classics as the right hand could show of English and foreign physiologists.=
But
if one took a volume of Chaucer or Shelley from that rank, its absence
irritated the mind like a gap in a man's front teeth. One could not say the
books were never read; probably they were, but there was a sense of their b=
eing
chained to their places, like the Bibles in the old churches. Dr Hood treat=
ed
his private book-shelf as if it were a public library. And if this strict
scientific intangibility steeped even the shelves laden with lyrics and bal=
lads
and the tables laden with drink and tobacco, it goes without saying that yet
more of such heathen holiness protected the other shelves that held the spe=
cialist's
library, and the other tables that sustained the frail and even fairylike
instruments of chemistry or mechanics.
Dr Hood paced the length of his string of apartments, bounded--as th=
e boys'
geographies say--on the east by the North Sea and on the west by the serried
ranks of his sociological and criminologist library. He was clad in an arti=
st's
velvet, but with none of an artist's negligence; his hair was heavily shot =
with
grey, but growing thick and healthy; his face was lean, but sanguine and
expectant. Everything about him and his room indicated something at once ri=
gid
and restless, like that great northern sea by which (on pure principles of
hygiene) he had built his home.
Fate, being in a funny mood, pushed the door open and introduced int=
o those
long, strict, sea-flanked apartments one who was perhaps the most startling
opposite of them and their master. In answer to a curt but civil summons, t=
he
door opened inwards and there shambled into the room a shapeless little fig=
ure,
which seemed to find its own hat and umbrella as unmanageable as a mass of
luggage. The umbrella was a black and prosaic bundle long past repair; the =
hat
was a broad-curved black hat, clerical but not common in England; the man w=
as
the very embodiment of all that is homely and helpless.
The doctor regarded the new-comer with a restrained astonishment, no=
t unlike
that he would have shown if some huge but obviously harmless sea-beast had
crawled into his room. The new-comer regarded the doctor with that beaming =
but
breathless geniality which characterizes a corpulent charwoman who has just
managed to stuff herself into an omnibus. It is a rich confusion of social
self-congratulation and bodily disarray. His hat tumbled to the carpet, his
heavy umbrella slipped between his knees with a thud; he reached after the =
one
and ducked after the other, but with an unimpaired smile on his round face
spoke simultaneously as follows:
"My name is Brown. Pray excuse me. I've come about that busines=
s of
the MacNabs. I have heard, you often help people out of such troubles. Pray=
excuse
me if I am wrong."
By this time he had sprawlingly recovered the hat, and made an odd l=
ittle
bobbing bow over it, as if setting everything quite right.
"I hardly understand you," replied the scientist, with a c=
old
intensity of manner. "I fear you have mistaken the chambers. I am Dr H=
ood,
and my work is almost entirely literary and educational. It is true that I =
have
sometimes been consulted by the police in cases of peculiar difficulty and
importance, but--"
"Oh, this is of the greatest importance," broke in the lit=
tle
man called Brown. "Why, her mother won't let them get engaged." A=
nd
he leaned back in his chair in radiant rationality.
The brows of Dr Hood were drawn down darkly, but the eyes under them=
were
bright with something that might be anger or might be amusement. "And
still," he said, "I do not quite understand."
"You see, they want to get married," said the man with the
clerical hat. "Maggie MacNab and young Todhunter want to get married. =
Now,
what can be more important than that?"
The great Orion Hood's scientific triumphs had deprived him of many =
things--some
said of his health, others of his God; but they had not wholly despoiled hi=
m of
his sense of the absurd. At the last plea of the ingenuous priest a chuckle
broke out of him from inside, and he threw himself into an arm-chair in an
ironical attitude of the consulting physician.
"Mr Brown," he said gravely, "it is quite fourteen an=
d a
half years since I was personally asked to test a personal problem: then it=
was
the case of an attempt to poison the French President at a Lord Mayor's Ban=
quet.
It is now, I understand, a question of whether some friend of yours called
Maggie is a suitable fiancee for some friend of hers called Todhunter. Well=
, Mr
Brown, I am a sportsman. I will take it on. I will give the MacNab family my
best advice, as good as I gave the French Republic and the King of England-=
-no,
better: fourteen years better. I have nothing else to do this afternoon. Te=
ll
me your story."
The little clergyman called Brown thanked him with unquestionable wa=
rmth,
but still with a queer kind of simplicity. It was rather as if he were than=
king
a stranger in a smoking-room for some trouble in passing the matches, than =
as
if he were (as he was) practically thanking the Curator of Kew Gardens for
coming with him into a field to find a four-leaved clover. With scarcely a
semi-colon after his hearty thanks, the little man began his recital:
"I told you my name was Brown; well, that's the fact, and I'm t=
he priest
of the little Catholic Church I dare say you've seen beyond those straggly
streets, where the town ends towards the north. In the last and straggliest=
of
those streets which runs along the sea like a sea-wall there is a very hone=
st
but rather sharp-tempered member of my flock, a widow called MacNab. She has
one daughter, and she lets lodgings, and between her and the daughter, and
between her and the lodgers--well, I dare say there is a great deal to be s=
aid
on both sides. At present she has only one lodger, the young man called
Todhunter; but he has given more trouble than all the rest, for he wants to
marry the young woman of the house."
"And the young woman of the house," asked Dr Hood, with hu=
ge
and silent amusement, "what does she want?"
"Why, she wants to marry him," cried Father Brown, sitting=
up
eagerly. "That is just the awful complication."
"It is indeed a hideous enigma," said Dr Hood.
"This young James Todhunter," continued the cleric, "=
is a
very decent man so far as I know; but then nobody knows very much. He is a
bright, brownish little fellow, agile like a monkey, clean-shaven like an
actor, and obliging like a born courtier. He seems to have quite a pocketfu=
l of
money, but nobody knows what his trade is. Mrs MacNab, therefore (being of a
pessimistic turn), is quite sure it is something dreadful, and probably
connected with dynamite. The dynamite must be of a shy and noiseless sort, =
for
the poor fellow only shuts himself up for several hours of the day and stud=
ies
something behind a locked door. He declares his privacy is temporary and
justified, and promises to explain before the wedding. That is all that any=
one
knows for certain, but Mrs MacNab will tell you a great deal more than even=
she
is certain of. You know how the tales grow like grass on such a patch of
ignorance as that. There are tales of two voices heard talking in the room;
though, when the door is opened, Todhunter is always found alone. There are
tales of a mysterious tall man in a silk hat, who once came out of the
sea-mists and apparently out of the sea, stepping softly across the sandy
fields and through the small back garden at twilight, till he was heard tal=
king
to the lodger at his open window. The colloquy seemed to end in a quarrel.
Todhunter dashed down his window with violence, and the man in the high hat
melted into the sea-fog again. This story is told by the family with the
fiercest mystification; but I really think Mrs MacNab prefers her own origi=
nal
tale: that the Other Man (or whatever it is) crawls out every night from the
big box in the corner, which is kept locked all day. You see, therefore, how
this sealed door of Todhunter's is treated as the gate of all the fancies a=
nd
monstrosities of the 'Thousand and One Nights'. And yet there is the little
fellow in his respectable black jacket, as punctual and innocent as a parlo=
ur
clock. He pays his rent to the tick; he is practically a teetotaller; he is=
tirelessly
kind with the younger children, and can keep them amused for a day on end; =
and,
last and most urgent of all, he has made himself equally popular with the
eldest daughter, who is ready to go to church with him tomorrow."
A man warmly concerned with any large theories has always a relish f=
or
applying them to any triviality. The great specialist having condescended to
the priest's simplicity, condescended expansively. He settled himself with
comfort in his arm-chair and began to talk in the tone of a somewhat
absent-minded lecturer:
"Even in a minute instance, it is best to look first to the mai=
n tendencies
of Nature. A particular flower may not be dead in early winter, but the flo=
wers
are dying; a particular pebble may never be wetted with the tide, but the t=
ide
is coming in. To the scientific eye all human history is a series of collec=
tive
movements, destructions or migrations, like the massacre of flies in winter=
or
the return of birds in spring. Now the root fact in all history is Race. Ra=
ce
produces religion; Race produces legal and ethical wars. There is no strong=
er case
than that of the wild, unworldly and perishing stock which we commonly call=
the
Celts, of whom your friends the MacNabs are specimens. Small, swarthy, and =
of
this dreamy and drifting blood, they accept easily the superstitious
explanation of any incidents, just as they still accept (you will excuse me=
for
saying) that superstitious explanation of all incidents which you and your
Church represent. It is not remarkable that such people, with the sea moani=
ng
behind them and the Church (excuse me again) droning in front of them, shou=
ld
put fantastic features into what are probably plain events. You, with your =
small
parochial responsibilities, see only this particular Mrs MacNab, terrified =
with
this particular tale of two voices and a tall man out of the sea. But the m=
an
with the scientific imagination sees, as it were, the whole clans of MacNab
scattered over the whole world, in its ultimate average as uniform as a tri=
be
of birds. He sees thousands of Mrs MacNabs, in thousands of houses, dropping
their little drop of morbidity in the tea-cups of their friends; he
sees--"
Before the scientist could conclude his sentence, another and more i=
mpatient
summons sounded from without; someone with swishing skirts was marshalled
hurriedly down the corridor, and the door opened on a young girl, decently
dressed but disordered and red-hot with haste. She had sea-blown blonde hai=
r,
and would have been entirely beautiful if her cheek-bones had not been, in =
the
Scotch manner, a little high in relief as well as in colour. Her apology was
almost as abrupt as a command.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you, sir," she said, "but I h=
ad
to follow Father Brown at once; it's nothing less than life or death."=
Father Brown began to get to his feet in some disorder. "Why, w=
hat
has happened, Maggie?" he said.
"James has been murdered, for all I can make out," answered
the girl, still breathing hard from her rush. "That man Glass has been
with him again; I heard them talking through the door quite plain. Two sepa=
rate
voices: for James speaks low, with a burr, and the other voice was high and
quavery."
"That man Glass?" repeated the priest in some perplexity.<= o:p>
"I know his name is Glass," answered the girl, in great
impatience. "I heard it through the door. They were quarrelling--about
money, I think--for I heard James say again and again, 'That's right, Mr
Glass,' or 'No, Mr Glass,' and then, 'Two or three, Mr Glass.' But we're
talking too much; you must come at once, and there may be time yet."
"But time for what?" asked Dr Hood, who had been studying =
the
young lady with marked interest. "What is there about Mr Glass and his
money troubles that should impel such urgency?"
"I tried to break down the door and couldn't," answered the
girl shortly, "Then I ran to the back-yard, and managed to climb on to=
the
window-sill that looks into the room. It was an dim, and seemed to be empty,
but I swear I saw James lying huddled up in a corner, as if he were drugged=
or
strangled."
"This is very serious," said Father Brown, gathering his
errant hat and umbrella and standing up; "in point of fact I was just
putting your case before this gentleman, and his view--"
"Has been largely altered," said the scientist gravely.
"I do not think this young lady is so Celtic as I had supposed. As I h=
ave
nothing else to do, I will put on my hat and stroll down town with you.&quo=
t;
In a few minutes all three were approaching the dreary tail of the M=
acNabs'
street: the girl with the stern and breathless stride of the mountaineer, t=
he
criminologist with a lounging grace (which was not without a certain
leopard-like swiftness), and the priest at an energetic trot entirely devoi=
d of
distinction. The aspect of this edge of the town was not entirely without
justification for the doctor's hints about desolate moods and environments.=
The
scattered houses stood farther and farther apart in a broken string along t=
he
seashore; the afternoon was closing with a premature and partly lurid twili=
ght;
the sea was of an inky purple and murmuring ominously. In the scrappy back
garden of the MacNabs which ran down towards the sand, two black, barren-lo=
oking
trees stood up like demon hands held up in astonishment, and as Mrs MacNab =
ran
down the street to meet them with lean hands similarly spread, and her fier=
ce
face in shadow, she was a little like a demon herself. The doctor and the
priest made scant reply to her shrill reiterations of her daughter's story,
with more disturbing details of her own, to the divided vows of vengeance
against Mr Glass for murdering, and against Mr Todhunter for being murdered=
, or
against the latter for having dared to want to marry her daughter, and for =
not having
lived to do it. They passed through the narrow passage in the front of the
house until they came to the lodger's door at the back, and there Dr Hood, =
with
the trick of an old detective, put his shoulder sharply to the panel and bu=
rst
in the door.
It opened on a scene of silent catastrophe. No one seeing it, even f=
or a
flash, could doubt that the room had been the theatre of some thrilling col=
lision
between two, or perhaps more, persons. Playing-cards lay littered across the
table or fluttered about the floor as if a game had been interrupted. Two w=
ine
glasses stood ready for wine on a side-table, but a third lay smashed in a =
star
of crystal upon the carpet. A few feet from it lay what looked like a long
knife or short sword, straight, but with an ornamental and pictured handle,=
its
dull blade just caught a grey glint from the dreary window behind, which sh=
owed
the black trees against the leaden level of the sea. Towards the opposite
corner of the room was rolled a gentleman's silk top hat, as if it had just
been knocked off his head; so much so, indeed, that one almost looked to se=
e it
still rolling. And in the corner behind it, thrown like a sack of potatoes,=
but
corded like a railway trunk, lay Mr James Todhunter, with a scarf across his
mouth, and six or seven ropes knotted round his elbows and ankles. His brown
eyes were alive and shifted alertly.
Dr Orion Hood paused for one instant on the doormat and drank in the=
whole
scene of voiceless violence. Then he stepped swiftly across the carpet, pic=
ked
up the tall silk hat, and gravely put it upon the head of the yet pinioned
Todhunter. It was so much too large for him that it almost slipped down on =
to
his shoulders.
"Mr Glass's hat," said the doctor, returning with it and
peering into the inside with a pocket lens. "How to explain the absenc=
e of
Mr Glass and the presence of Mr Glass's hat? For Mr Glass is not a careless=
man
with his clothes. That hat is of a stylish shape and systematically brushed=
and
burnished, though not very new. An old dandy, I should think."
"But, good heavens!" called out Miss MacNab, "aren't =
you
going to untie the man first?"
"I say 'old' with intention, though not with certainty"
continued the expositor; "my reason for it might seem a little
far-fetched. The hair of human beings falls out in very varying degrees, but
almost always falls out slightly, and with the lens I should see the tiny h=
airs
in a hat recently worn. It has none, which leads me to guess that Mr Glass =
is bald.
Now when this is taken with the high-pitched and querulous voice which Miss
MacNab described so vividly (patience, my dear lady, patience), when we take
the hairless head together with the tone common in senile anger, I should t=
hink
we may deduce some advance in years. Nevertheless, he was probably vigorous,
and he was almost certainly tall. I might rely in some degree on the story =
of
his previous appearance at the window, as a tall man in a silk hat, but I t=
hink
I have more exact indication. This wineglass has been smashed all over the =
place,
but one of its splinters lies on the high bracket beside the mantelpiece. No
such fragment could have fallen there if the vessel had been smashed in the
hand of a comparatively short man like Mr Todhunter."
"By the way," said Father Brown, "might it not be as =
well
to untie Mr Todhunter?"
"Our lesson from the drinking-vessels does not end here,"
proceeded the specialist. "I may say at once that it is possible that =
the
man Glass was bald or nervous through dissipation rather than age. Mr
Todhunter, as has been remarked, is a quiet thrifty gentleman, essentially =
an abstainer.
These cards and wine-cups are no part of his normal habit; they have been
produced for a particular companion. But, as it happens, we may go farther.=
Mr
Todhunter may or may not possess this wine-service, but there is no appeara=
nce
of his possessing any wine. What, then, were these vessels to contain? I wo=
uld
at once suggest some brandy or whisky, perhaps of a luxurious sort, from a
flask in the pocket of Mr Glass. We have thus something like a picture of t=
he
man, or at least of the type: tall, elderly, fashionable, but somewhat fray=
ed, certainly
fond of play and strong waters, perhaps rather too fond of them. Mr Glass i=
s a
gentleman not unknown on the fringes of society."
"Look here," cried the young woman, "if you don't let=
me
pass to untie him I'll run outside and scream for the police."
"I should not advise you, Miss MacNab," said Dr Hood grave=
ly,
"to be in any hurry to fetch the police. Father Brown, I seriously ask=
you
to compose your flock, for their sakes, not for mine. Well, we have seen so=
mething
of the figure and quality of Mr Glass; what are the chief facts known of Mr
Todhunter? They are substantially three: that he is economical, that he is =
more
or less wealthy, and that he has a secret. Now, surely it is obvious that t=
here
are the three chief marks of the kind of man who is blackmailed. And surely=
it
is equally obvious that the faded finery, the profligate habits, and the sh=
rill
irritation of Mr Glass are the unmistakable marks of the kind of man who
blackmails him. We have the two typical figures of a tragedy of hush money:=
on
the one hand, the respectable man with a mystery; on the other, the West-en=
d vulture
with a scent for a mystery. These two men have met here today and have
quarrelled, using blows and a bare weapon."
"Are you going to take those ropes off?" asked the girl
stubbornly.
Dr Hood replaced the silk hat carefully on the side table, and went =
across
to the captive. He studied him intently, even moving him a little and
half-turning him round by the shoulders, but he only answered:
"No; I think these ropes will do very well till your friends the
police bring the handcuffs."
Father Brown, who had been looking dully at the carpet, lifted his r=
ound
face and said: "What do you mean?"
The man of science had picked up the peculiar dagger-sword from the =
carpet
and was examining it intently as he answered:
"Because you find Mr Todhunter tied up," he said, "you
all jump to the conclusion that Mr Glass had tied him up; and then, I suppo=
se,
escaped. There are four objections to this: First, why should a gentleman s=
o dressy
as our friend Glass leave his hat behind him, if he left of his own free wi=
ll?
Second," he continued, moving towards the window, "this is the on=
ly
exit, and it is locked on the inside. Third, this blade here has a tiny tou=
ch
of blood at the point, but there is no wound on Mr Todhunter. Mr Glass took
that wound away with him, dead or alive. Add to all this primary probabilit=
y.
It is much more likely that the blackmailed person would try to kill his
incubus, rather than that the blackmailer would try to kill the goose that =
lays
his golden egg. There, I think, we have a pretty complete story."
"But the ropes?" inquired the priest, whose eyes had remai=
ned open
with a rather vacant admiration.
"Ah, the ropes," said the expert with a singular intonatio=
n.
"Miss MacNab very much wanted to know why I did not set Mr Todhunter f=
ree
from his ropes. Well, I will tell her. I did not do it because Mr Todhunter=
can
set himself free from them at any minute he chooses."
"What?" cried the audience on quite different notes of
astonishment.
"I have looked at all the knots on Mr Todhunter," reiterat=
ed
Hood quietly. "I happen to know something about knots; they are quite =
a branch
of criminal science. Every one of those knots he has made himself and could
loosen himself; not one of them would have been made by an enemy really try=
ing
to pinion him. The whole of this affair of the ropes is a clever fake, to m=
ake
us think him the victim of the struggle instead of the wretched Glass, whose
corpse may be hidden in the garden or stuffed up the chimney."
There was a rather depressed silence; the room was darkening, the se=
a-blighted
boughs of the garden trees looked leaner and blacker than ever, yet they se=
emed
to have come nearer to the window. One could almost fancy they were
sea-monsters like krakens or cuttlefish, writhing polypi who had crawled up
from the sea to see the end of this tragedy, even as he, the villain and vi=
ctim
of it, the terrible man in the tall hat, had once crawled up from the sea. =
For
the whole air was dense with the morbidity of blackmail, which is the most
morbid of human things, because it is a crime concealing a crime; a black
plaster on a blacker wound.
The face of the little Catholic priest, which was commonly complacen=
t and
even comic, had suddenly become knotted with a curious frown. It was not the
blank curiosity of his first innocence. It was rather that creative curiosi=
ty
which comes when a man has the beginnings of an idea. "Say it again,
please," he said in a simple, bothered manner; "do you mean that
Todhunter can tie himself up all alone and untie himself all alone?"
"That is what I mean," said the doctor.
"Jerusalem!" ejaculated Brown suddenly, "I wonder if =
it
could possibly be that!"
He scuttled across the room rather like a rabbit, and peered with qu=
ite a
new impulsiveness into the partially-covered face of the captive. Then he
turned his own rather fatuous face to the company. "Yes, that's it!&qu=
ot; he
cried in a certain excitement. "Can't you see it in the man's face? Wh=
y,
look at his eyes!"
Both the Professor and the girl followed the direction of his glance=
. And
though the broad black scarf completely masked the lower half of Todhunter's
visage, they did grow conscious of something struggling and intense about t=
he
upper part of it.
"His eyes do look queer," cried the young woman, strongly
moved. "You brutes; I believe it's hurting him!"
"Not that, I think," said Dr Hood; "the eyes have cer=
tainly
a singular expression. But I should interpret those transverse wrinkles as =
expressing
rather such slight psychological abnormality--"
"Oh, bosh!" cried Father Brown: "can't you see he's
laughing?"
"Laughing!" repeated the doctor, with a start; "but w=
hat
on earth can he be laughing at?"
"Well," replied the Reverend Brown apologetically, "n=
ot
to put too fine a point on it, I think he is laughing at you. And indeed, I=
'm a
little inclined to laugh at myself, now I know about it."
"Now you know about what?" asked Hood, in some exasperatio=
n.
"Now I know," replied the priest, "the profession of =
Mr
Todhunter."
He shuffled about the room, looking at one object after another with=
what
seemed to be a vacant stare, and then invariably bursting into an equally v=
acant
laugh, a highly irritating process for those who had to watch it. He laughed
very much over the hat, still more uproariously over the broken glass, but =
the
blood on the sword point sent him into mortal convulsions of amusement. The=
n he
turned to the fuming specialist.
"Dr Hood," he cried enthusiastically, "you are a great
poet! You have called an uncreated being out of the void. How much more god=
like
that is than if you had only ferreted out the mere facts! Indeed, the mere
facts are rather commonplace and comic by comparison."
"I have no notion what you are talking about," said Dr Hood
rather haughtily; "my facts are all inevitable, though necessarily
incomplete. A place may be permitted to intuition, perhaps (or poetry if you
prefer the term), but only because the corresponding details cannot as yet =
be ascertained.
In the absence of Mr Glass--"
"That's it, that's it," said the little priest, nodding qu=
ite
eagerly, "that's the first idea to get fixed; the absence of Mr Glass.=
He
is so extremely absent. I suppose," he added reflectively, "that
there was never anybody so absent as Mr Glass."
"Do you mean he is absent from the town?" demanded the doc=
tor.
"I mean he is absent from everywhere," answered Father Bro=
wn;
"he is absent from the Nature of Things, so to speak."
"Do you seriously mean," said the specialist with a smile,
"that there is no such person?"
The priest made a sign of assent. "It does seem a pity," he
said.
Orion Hood broke into a contemptuous laugh. "Well," he sai=
d,
"before we go on to the hundred and one other evidences, let us take t=
he
first proof we found; the first fact we fell over when we fell into this ro=
om. If
there is no Mr Glass, whose hat is this?"
"It is Mr Todhunter's," replied Father Brown.
"But it doesn't fit him," cried Hood impatiently. "He
couldn't possibly wear it!"
Father Brown shook his head with ineffable mildness. "I never s=
aid
he could wear it," he answered. "I said it was his hat. Or, if you
insist on a shade of difference, a hat that is his."
"And what is the shade of difference?" asked the criminolo=
gist
with a slight sneer.
"My good sir," cried the mild little man, with his first
movement akin to impatience, "if you will walk down the street to the
nearest hatter's shop, you will see that there is, in common speech, a
difference between a man's hat and the hats that are his."
"But a hatter," protested Hood, "can get money out of= his stock of new hats. What could Todhunter get out of this one old hat?"<= o:p>
"Rabbits," replied Father Brown promptly.
"What?" cried Dr Hood.
"Rabbits, ribbons, sweetmeats, goldfish, rolls of coloured
paper," said the reverend gentleman with rapidity. "Didn't you se=
e it
all when you found out the faked ropes? It's just the same with the sword. =
Mr
Todhunter hasn't got a scratch on him, as you say; but he's got a scratch in
him, if you follow me."
"Do you mean inside Mr Todhunter's clothes?" inquired Mrs
MacNab sternly.
"I do not mean inside Mr Todhunter's clothes," said Father
Brown. "I mean inside Mr Todhunter."
"Well, what in the name of Bedlam do you mean?"
"Mr Todhunter," explained Father Brown placidly, "is
learning to be a professional conjurer, as well as juggler, ventriloquist, =
and
expert in the rope trick. The conjuring explains the hat. It is without tra=
ces of
hair, not because it is worn by the prematurely bald Mr Glass, but because =
it
has never been worn by anybody. The juggling explains the three glasses, wh=
ich
Todhunter was teaching himself to throw up and catch in rotation. But, being
only at the stage of practice, he smashed one glass against the ceiling. And
the juggling also explains the sword, which it was Mr Todhunter's professio=
nal
pride and duty to swallow. But, again, being at the stage of practice, he v=
ery
slightly grazed the inside of his throat with the weapon. Hence he has a wo=
und
inside him, which I am sure (from the expression on his face) is not a seri=
ous one.
He was also practising the trick of a release from ropes, like the Davenport
Brothers, and he was just about to free himself when we all burst into the
room. The cards, of course, are for card tricks, and they are scattered on =
the
floor because he had just been practising one of those dodges of sending th=
em
flying through the air. He merely kept his trade secret, because he had to =
keep
his tricks secret, like any other conjurer. But the mere fact of an idler i=
n a
top hat having once looked in at his back window, and been driven away by h=
im
with great indignation, was enough to set us all on a wrong track of romanc=
e,
and make us imagine his whole life overshadowed by the silk-hatted spectre =
of
Mr Glass."
"But What about the two voices?" asked Maggie, staring.
"Have you never heard a ventriloquist?" asked Father Brown.
"Don't you know they speak first in their natural voice, and then answ=
er
themselves in just that shrill, squeaky, unnatural voice that you heard?&qu=
ot;
There was a long silence, and Dr Hood regarded the little man who had
spoken with a dark and attentive smile. "You are certainly a very inge=
nious
person," he said; "it could not have been done better in a book. =
But
there is just one part of Mr Glass you have not succeeded in explaining awa=
y,
and that is his name. Miss MacNab distinctly heard him so addressed by Mr
Todhunter."
The Rev. Mr Brown broke into a rather childish giggle. "Well, t=
hat,"
he said, "that's the silliest part of the whole silly story. When our =
juggling
friend here threw up the three glasses in turn, he counted them aloud as he
caught them, and also commented aloud when he failed to catch them. What he
really said was: 'One, two and three--missed a glass one, two--missed a gla=
ss.'
And so on."
There was a second of stillness in the room, and then everyone with =
one
accord burst out laughing. As they did so the figure in the corner complace=
ntly
uncoiled all the ropes and let them fall with a flourish. Then, advancing i=
nto
the middle of the room with a bow, he produced from his pocket a big bill
printed in blue and red, which announced that ZALADIN, the World's Greatest
Conjurer, Contortionist, Ventriloquist and Human Kangaroo would be ready wi=
th
an entirely new series of Tricks at the Empire Pavilion, Scarborough, on Mo=
nday
next at eight o'clock precisely.
TWO. -- The Paradise of
Thieves=
THE great Muscari, most
original of the young Tuscan poets, walked swiftly into his favourite
restaurant, which overlooked the Mediterranean, was covered by an awning and
fenced by little lemon and orange trees. Waiters in white aprons were alrea=
dy
laying out on white tables the insignia of an early and elegant lunch; and =
this
seemed to increase a satisfaction that already touched the top of swagger.
Muscari had an eagle nose like Dante; his hair and neckerchief were dark an=
d flowing;
he carried a black cloak, and might almost have carried a black mask, so mu=
ch
did he bear with him a sort of Venetian melodrama. He acted as if a troubad=
our
had still a definite social office, like a bishop. He went as near as his
century permitted to walking the world literally like Don Juan, with rapier=
and
guitar.
For he never travelled without a case of swords, with which he had f=
ought
many brilliant duels, or without a corresponding case for his mandolin, with
which he had actually serenaded Miss Ethel Harrogate, the highly convention=
al
daughter of a Yorkshire banker on a holiday. Yet he was neither a charlatan=
nor
a child; but a hot, logical Latin who liked a certain thing and was it. His
poetry was as straightforward as anyone else's prose. He desired fame or wi=
ne
or the beauty of women with a torrid directness inconceivable among the clo=
udy
ideals or cloudy compromises of the north; to vaguer races his intensity sm=
elt
of danger or even crime. Like fire or the sea, he was too simple to be trus=
ted.
The banker and his beautiful English daughter were staying at the ho=
tel attached
to Muscari's restaurant; that was why it was his favourite restaurant. A gl=
ance
flashed around the room told him at once, however, that the English party h=
ad
not descended. The restaurant was glittering, but still comparatively empty.
Two priests were talking at a table in a corner, but Muscari (an ardent
Catholic) took no more notice of them than of a couple of crows. But from a=
yet
farther seat, partly concealed behind a dwarf tree golden with oranges, the=
re
rose and advanced towards the poet a person whose costume was the most aggr=
essively
opposite to his own.
This figure was clad in tweeds of a piebald check, with a pink tie, =
a sharp
collar and protuberant yellow boots. He contrived, in the true tradition of
'Arry at Margate, to look at once startling and commonplace. But as the Coc=
kney
apparition drew nearer, Muscari was astounded to observe that the head was
distinctly different from the body. It was an Italian head: fuzzy, swarthy =
and
very vivacious, that rose abruptly out of the standing collar like cardboard
and the comic pink tie. In fact it was a head he knew. He recognized it, ab=
ove
all the dire erection of English holiday array, as the face of an old but f=
orgotten
friend name Ezza. This youth had been a prodigy at college, and European fa=
me
was promised him when he was barely fifteen; but when he appeared in the wo=
rld
he failed, first publicly as a dramatist and a demagogue, and then privately
for years on end as an actor, a traveller, a commission agent or a journali=
st.
Muscari had known him last behind the footlights; he was but too well attun=
ed
to the excitements of that profession, and it was believed that some moral
calamity had swallowed him up.
"Ezza!" cried the poet, rising and shaking hands in a plea=
sant
astonishment. "Well, I've seen you in many costumes in the green room;=
but
I never expected to see you dressed up as an Englishman."
"This," answered Ezza gravely, "is not the costume of=
an
Englishman, but of the Italian of the future."
"In that case," remarked Muscari, "I confess I prefer=
the
Italian of the past."
"That is your old mistake, Muscari," said the man in tweed=
s,
shaking his head; "and the mistake of Italy. In the sixteenth century =
we
Tuscans made the morning: we had the newest steel, the newest carving, the =
newest
chemistry. Why should we not now have the newest factories, the newest moto=
rs,
the newest finance--the newest clothes?"
"Because they are not worth having," answered Muscari.
"You cannot make Italians really progressive; they are too intelligent.
Men who see the short cut to good living will never go by the new elaborate
roads."
"Well, to me Marconi, or D'Annunzio, is the star of Italy"
said the other. "That is why I have become a Futurist--and a
courier."
"A courier!" cried Muscari, laughing. "Is that the la=
st
of your list of trades? And whom are you conducting?"
"Oh, a man of the name of Harrogate, and his family, I
believe."
"Not the banker in this hotel?" inquired the poet, with so=
me
eagerness.
"That's the man," answered the courier.
"Does it pay well?" asked the troubadour innocently.
"It will pay me," said Ezza, with a very enigmatic smile.
"But I am a rather curious sort of courier." Then, as if changing=
the
subject, he said abruptly: "He has a daughter--and a son."
"The daughter is divine," affirmed Muscari, "the fath=
er
and son are, I suppose, human. But granted his harmless qualities doesn't t=
hat
banker strike you as a splendid instance of my argument? Harrogate has mill=
ions
in his safes, and I have--the hole in my pocket. But you daren't say--you c=
an't
say--that he's cleverer than I, or bolder than I, or even more energetic. H=
e's
not clever, he's got eyes like blue buttons; he's not energetic, he moves f=
rom
chair to chair like a paralytic. He's a conscientious, kindly old blockhead;
but he's got money simply because he collects money, as a boy collects stam=
ps.
You're too strong-minded for business, Ezza. You won't get on. To be clever
enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it."
"I'm stupid enough for that," said Ezza gloomily. "Bu=
t I
should suggest a suspension of your critique of the banker, for here he
comes."
Mr Harrogate, the great financier, did indeed enter the room, but no=
body
looked at him. He was a massive elderly man with a boiled blue eye and faded
grey-sandy moustaches; but for his heavy stoop he might have been a colonel=
. He
carried several unopened letters in his hand. His son Frank was a really fi=
ne
lad, curly-haired, sun-burnt and strenuous; but nobody looked at him either.
All eyes, as usual, were riveted, for the moment at least, upon Ethel Harro=
gate,
whose golden Greek head and colour of the dawn seemed set purposely above t=
hat
sapphire sea, like a goddess's. The poet Muscari drew a deep breath as if he
were drinking something, as indeed he was. He was drinking the Classic; whi=
ch
his fathers made. Ezza studied her with a gaze equally intense and far more=
baffling.
Miss Harrogate was specially radiant and ready for conversation on t=
his occasion;
and her family had fallen into the easier Continental habit, allowing the
stranger Muscari and even the courier Ezza to share their table and their t=
alk.
In Ethel Harrogate conventionality crowned itself with a perfection and
splendour of its own. Proud of her father's prosperity, fond of fashionable
pleasures, a fond daughter but an arrant flirt, she was all these things wi=
th a
sort of golden good-nature that made her very pride pleasing and her worldly
respectability a fresh and hearty thing.
They were in an eddy of excitement about some alleged peril in the m=
ountain
path they were to attempt that week. The danger was not from rock and
avalanche, but from something yet more romantic. Ethel had been earnestly
assured that brigands, the true cut-throats of the modern legend, still hau=
nted
that ridge and held that pass of the Apennines.
"They say," she cried, with the awful relish of a schoolgi=
rl,
"that all that country isn't ruled by the King of Italy, but by the Ki=
ng
of Thieves. Who is the King of Thieves?"
"A great man," replied Muscari, "worthy to rank with =
your
own Robin Hood, signorina. Montano, the King of Thieves, was first heard of=
in
the mountains some ten years ago, when people said brigands were extinct. B=
ut
his wild authority spread with the swiftness of a silent revolution. Men fo=
und
his fierce proclamations nailed in every mountain village; his sentinels, g=
un
in hand, in every mountain ravine. Six times the Italian Government tried to
dislodge him, and was defeated in six pitched battles as if by Napoleon.&qu=
ot;
"Now that sort of thing," observed the banker weightily,
"would never be allowed in England; perhaps, after all, we had better
choose another route. But the courier thought it perfectly safe."
"It is perfectly safe," said the courier contemptuously.
"I have been over it twenty times. There may have been some old jailbi=
rd
called a King in the time of our grandmothers; but he belongs to history if=
not
to fable. Brigandage is utterly stamped out."
"It can never be utterly stamped out," Muscari answered;
"because armed revolt is a recreation natural to southerners. Our peas=
ants
are like their mountains, rich in grace and green gaiety, but with the fire=
s beneath.
There is a point of human despair where the northern poor take to drink--and
our own poor take to daggers."
"A poet is privileged," replied Ezza, with a sneer. "=
If
Signor Muscari were English he would still be looking for highwaymen in
Wandsworth. Believe me, there is no more danger of being captured in Italy =
than
of being scalped in Boston."
"Then you propose to attempt it?" asked Mr Harrogate,
frowning.
"Oh, it sounds rather dreadful," cried the girl, turning h=
er
glorious eyes on Muscari. "Do you really think the pass is
dangerous?"
Muscari threw back his black mane. "I know it is dangerous:&quo=
t;
he said. "I am crossing it tomorrow."
The young Harrogate was left behind for a moment emptying a glass of=
white
wine and lighting a cigarette, as the beauty retired with the banker, the
courier and the poet, distributing peals of silvery satire. At about the sa=
me
instant the two priests in the corner rose; the taller, a white-haired Ital=
ian,
taking his leave. The shorter priest turned and walked towards the banker's
son, and the latter was astonished to realize that though a Roman priest the
man was an Englishman. He vaguely remembered meeting him at the social crus=
hes of
some of his Catholic friends. But the man spoke before his memories could
collect themselves.
"Mr Frank Harrogate, I think," he said. "I have had an
introduction, but I do not mean to presume on it. The odd thing I have to s=
ay
will come far better from a stranger. Mr Harrogate, I say one word and go: =
take
care of your sister in her great sorrow."
Even for Frank's truly fraternal indifference the radiance and deris=
ion of
his sister still seemed to sparkle and ring; he could hear her laughter sti=
ll
from the garden of the hotel, and he stared at his sombre adviser in puzzle=
dom.
"Do you mean the brigands?" he asked; and then, rememberin=
g a
vague fear of his own, "or can you be thinking of Muscari?"
"One is never thinking of the real sorrow," said the stran=
ge
priest. "One can only be kind when it comes."
And he passed promptly from the room, leaving the other almost with =
his mouth
open.
A day or two afterwards a coach containing the company was really cr=
awling
and staggering up the spurs of the menacing mountain range. Between Ezza's
cheery denial of the danger and Muscari's boisterous defiance of it, the
financial family were firm in their original purpose; and Muscari made his
mountain journey coincide with theirs. A more surprising feature was the
appearance at the coast-town station of the little priest of the restaurant=
; he
alleged merely that business led him also to cross the mountains of the
midland. But young Harrogate could not but connect his presence with the
mystical fears and warnings of yesterday.
The coach was a kind of commodious wagonette, invented by the modern=
ist talent
of the courier, who dominated the expedition with his scientific activity a=
nd
breezy wit. The theory of danger from thieves was banished from thought and
speech; though so far conceded in formal act that some slight protection was
employed. The courier and the young banker carried loaded revolvers, and
Muscari (with much boyish gratification) buckled on a kind of cutlass under=
his
black cloak.
He had planted his person at a flying leap next to the lovely Englis=
hwoman;
on the other side of her sat the priest, whose name was Brown and who was
fortunately a silent individual; the courier and the father and son were on=
the
banc behind. Muscari was in towering spirits, seriously believing in the pe=
ril,
and his talk to Ethel might well have made her think him a maniac. But there
was something in the crazy and gorgeous ascent, amid crags like peaks loaded
with woods like orchards, that dragged her spirit up alone with his into pu=
rple
preposterous heavens with wheeling suns. The white road climbed like a white
cat; it spanned sunless chasms like a tight-rope; it was flung round far-of=
f headlands
like a lasso.
And yet, however high they went, the desert still blossomed like the=
rose.
The fields were burnished in sun and wind with the colour of kingfisher and
parrot and humming-bird, the hues of a hundred flowering flowers. There are=
no
lovelier meadows and woodlands than the English, no nobler crests or chasms
than those of Snowdon and Glencoe. But Ethel Harrogate had never before seen
the southern parks tilted on the splintered northern peaks; the gorge of
Glencoe laden with the fruits of Kent. There was nothing here of that chill=
and
desolation that in Britain one associates with high and wild scenery. It was
rather like a mosaic palace, rent with earthquakes; or like a Dutch tulip
garden blown to the stars with dynamite.
"It's like Kew Gardens on Beachy Head," said Ethel.
"It is our secret," answered he, "the secret of the
volcano; that is also the secret of the revolution--that a thing can be vio=
lent
and yet fruitful."
"You are rather violent yourself," and she smiled at him.<= o:p>
"And yet rather fruitless," he admitted; "if I die
tonight I die unmarried and a fool."
"It is not my fault if you have come," she said after a
difficult silence.
"It is never your fault," answered Muscari; "it was n=
ot
your fault that Troy fell."
As they spoke they came under overwhelming cliffs that spread almost=
like
wings above a corner of peculiar peril. Shocked by the big shadow on the na=
rrow
ledge, the horses stirred doubtfully. The driver leapt to the earth to hold
their heads, and they became ungovernable. One horse reared up to his full
height--the titanic and terrifying height of a horse when he becomes a bipe=
d.
It was just enough to alter the equilibrium; the whole coach heeled over li=
ke a
ship and crashed through the fringe of bushes over the cliff. Muscari threw=
an
arm round Ethel, who clung to him, and shouted aloud. It was for such momen=
ts
that he lived.
At the moment when the gorgeous mountain walls went round the poet's=
head
like a purple windmill a thing happened which was superficially even more
startling. The elderly and lethargic banker sprang erect in the coach and l=
eapt
over the precipice before the tilted vehicle could take him there. In the f=
irst
flash it looked as wild as suicide; but in the second it was as sensible as=
a
safe investment. The Yorkshireman had evidently more promptitude, as well as
more sagacity, than Muscari had given him credit for; for he landed in a la=
p of
land which might have been specially padded with turf and clover to receive
him. As it happened, indeed, the whole company were equally lucky, if less =
dignified
in their form of ejection. Immediately under this abrupt turn of the road w=
as a
grassy and flowery hollow like a sunken meadow; a sort of green velvet pock=
et
in the long, green, trailing garments of the hills. Into this they were all
tipped or tumbled with little damage, save that their smallest baggage and =
even
the contents of their pockets were scattered in the grass around them. The
wrecked coach still hung above, entangled in the tough hedge, and the horses
plunged painfully down the slope. The first to sit up was the little priest,
who scratched his head with a face of foolish wonder. Frank Harrogate heard=
him
say to himself: "Now why on earth have we fallen just here?"
He blinked at the litter around him, and recovered his own very clum=
sy umbrella.
Beyond it lay the broad sombrero fallen from the head of Muscari, and besid=
e it
a sealed business letter which, after a glance at the address, he returned =
to
the elder Harrogate. On the other side of him the grass partly hid Miss Eth=
el's
sunshade, and just beyond it lay a curious little glass bottle hardly two
inches long. The priest picked it up; in a quick, unobtrusive manner he
uncorked and sniffed it, and his heavy face turned the colour of clay.
"Heaven deliver us!" he muttered; "it can't be hers! =
Has
her sorrow come on her already?" He slipped it into his own waistcoat =
pocket.
"I think I'm justified," he said, "till I know a little
more."
He gazed painfully at the girl, at that moment being raised out of t=
he flowers
by Muscari, who was saying: "We have fallen into heaven; it is a sign.
Mortals climb up and they fall down; but it is only gods and goddesses who =
can
fall upwards."
And indeed she rose out of the sea of colours so beautiful and happy=
a
vision that the priest felt his suspicion shaken and shifted. "After a=
ll,"
he thought, "perhaps the poison isn't hers; perhaps it's one of Muscar=
i's
melodramatic tricks."
Muscari set the lady lightly on her feet, made her an absurdly theat=
rical
bow, and then, drawing his cutlass, hacked hard at the taut reins of the
horses, so that they scrambled to their feet and stood in the grass trembli=
ng.
When he had done so, a most remarkable thing occurred. A very quiet man, ve=
ry
poorly dressed and extremely sunburnt, came out of the bushes and took hold=
of
the horses' heads. He had a queer-shaped knife, very broad and crooked, buc=
kled
on his belt; there was nothing else remarkable about him, except his sudden=
and
silent appearance. The poet asked him who he was, and he did not answer.
Looking around him at the confused and startled group in the hollow,=
Muscari
then perceived that another tanned and tattered man, with a short gun under=
his
arm, was looking at them from the ledge just below, leaning his elbows on t=
he
edge of the turf. Then he looked up at the road from which they had fallen =
and
saw, looking down on them, the muzzles of four other carbines and four other
brown faces with bright but quite motionless eyes.
"The brigands!" cried Muscari, with a kind of monstrous
gaiety. "This was a trap. Ezza, if you will oblige me by shooting the
coachman first, we can cut our way out yet. There are only six of them.&quo=
t;
"The coachman," said Ezza, who was standing grimly with his
hands in his pockets, "happens to be a servant of Mr Harrogate's."=
;
"Then shoot him all the more," cried the poet impatiently;
"he was bribed to upset his master. Then put the lady in the middle, a=
nd
we will break the line up there--with a rush."
And, wading in wild grass and flowers, he advanced fearlessly on the=
four
carbines; but finding that no one followed except young Harrogate, he turne=
d,
brandishing his cutlass to wave the others on. He beheld the courier still
standing slightly astride in the centre of the grassy ring, his hands in his
pockets; and his lean, ironical Italian face seemed to grow longer and long=
er
in the evening light.
"You thought, Muscari, I was the failure among our
schoolfellows," he said, "and you thought you were the success. B=
ut I
have succeeded more than you and fill a bigger place in history. I have been
acting epics while you have been writing them."
"Come on, I tell you!" thundered Muscari from above.
"Will you stand there talking nonsense about yourself with a woman to =
save
and three strong men to help you? What do you call yourself?"
"I call myself Montano," cried the strange courier in a vo=
ice
equally loud and full. "I am the King of Thieves, and I welcome you al=
l to
my summer palace."
And even as he spoke five more silent men with weapons ready came ou=
t of
the bushes, and looked towards him for their orders. One of them held a lar=
ge
paper in his hand.
"This pretty little nest where we are all picnicking," wen=
t on
the courier-brigand, with the same easy yet sinister smile, "is, toget=
her with
some caves underneath it, known by the name of the Paradise of Thieves. It =
is
my principal stronghold on these hills; for (as you have doubtless noticed)=
the
eyrie is invisible both from the road above and from the valley below. It is
something better than impregnable; it is unnoticeable. Here I mostly live, =
and
here I shall certainly die, if the gendarmes ever track me here. I am not t=
he
kind of criminal that 'reserves his defence,' but the better kind that rese=
rves
his last bullet."
All were staring at him thunderstruck and still, except Father Brown=
, who
heaved a huge sigh as of relief and fingered the little phial in his pocket.
"Thank God!" he muttered; "that's much more probable. The po=
ison
belongs to this robber-chief, of course. He carries it so that he may never=
be
captured, like Cato."
The King of Thieves was, however, continuing his address with the sa=
me kind
of dangerous politeness. "It only remains for me," he said, "=
;to
explain to my guests the social conditions upon which I have the pleasure of
entertaining them. I need not expound the quaint old ritual of ransom, whic=
h it
is incumbent upon me to keep up; and even this only applies to a part of the
company. The Reverend Father Brown and the celebrated Signor Muscari I shall
release tomorrow at dawn and escort to my outposts. Poets and priests, if y=
ou
will pardon my simplicity of speech, never have any money. And so (since it=
is
impossible to get anything out of them), let us, seize the opportunity to s=
how
our admiration for classic literature and our reverence for Holy Church.&qu=
ot;
He paused with an unpleasing smile; and Father Brown blinked repeate=
dly at
him, and seemed suddenly to be listening with great attention. The brigand
captain took the large paper from the attendant brigand and, glancing over =
it,
continued: "My other intentions are clearly set forth in this public
document, which I will hand round in a moment; and which after that will be
posted on a tree by every village in the valley, and every cross-road in the
hills. I will not weary you with the verbalism, since you will be able to c=
heck
it; the substance of my proclamation is this: I announce first that I have
captured the English millionaire, the colossus of finance, Mr Samuel Harrog=
ate.
I next announce that I have found on his person notes and bonds for two
thousand pounds, which he has given up to me. Now since it would be really
immoral to announce such a thing to a credulous public if it had not occurr=
ed,
I suggest it should occur without further delay. I suggest that Mr Harrogate
senior should now give me the two thousand pounds in his pocket."
The banker looked at him under lowering brows, red-faced and sulky, =
but seemingly
cowed. That leap from the failing carriage seemed to have used up his last
virility. He had held back in a hang-dog style when his son and Muscari had
made a bold movement to break out of the brigand trap. And now his red and
trembling hand went reluctantly to his breast-pocket, and passed a bundle of
papers and envelopes to the brigand.
"Excellent!" cried that outlaw gaily; "so far we are =
all
cosy. I resume the points of my proclamation, so soon to be published to all
Italy. The third item is that of ransom. I am asking from the friends of th=
e Harrogate
family a ransom of three thousand pounds, which I am sure is almost insulti=
ng
to that family in its moderate estimate of their importance. Who would not =
pay
triple this sum for another day's association with such a domestic circle? I
will not conceal from you that the document ends with certain legal phrases
about the unpleasant things that may happen if the money is not paid; but
meanwhile, ladies and gentlemen, let me assure you that I am comfortably off
here for accommodation, wine and cigars, and bid you for the present a spor=
tsman-like
welcome to the luxuries of the Paradise of Thieves."
All the time that he had been speaking, the dubious-looking men with=
carbines
and dirty slouch hats had been gathering silently in such preponderating
numbers that even Muscari was compelled to recognize his sally with the swo=
rd
as hopeless. He glanced around him; but the girl had already gone over to
soothe and comfort her father, for her natural affection for his person was=
as
strong or stronger than her somewhat snobbish pride in his success. Muscari,
with the illogicality of a lover, admired this filial devotion, and yet was
irritated by it. He slapped his sword back in the scabbard and went and flu=
ng
himself somewhat sulkily on one of the green banks. The priest sat down wit=
hin a
yard or two, and Muscari turned his aquiline nose on him in an instantaneous
irritation.
"Well," said the poet tartly, "do people still think =
me
too romantic? Are there, I wonder, any brigands left in the mountains?"=
;
"There may be," said Father Brown agnostically.
"What do you mean?" asked the other sharply.
"I mean I am puzzled," replied the priest. "I am puzz=
led
about Ezza or Montano, or whatever his name is. He seems to me much more in=
explicable
as a brigand even than he was as a courier."
"But in what way?" persisted his companion. "Santa Ma=
ria!
I should have thought the brigand was plain enough."
"I find three curious difficulties," said the priest in a
quiet voice. "I should like to have your opinion on them. First of all=
I
must tell you I was lunching in that restaurant at the seaside. As four of =
you left
the room, you and Miss Harrogate went ahead, talking and laughing; the bank=
er
and the courier came behind, speaking sparely and rather low. But I could n=
ot
help hearing Ezza say these words--'Well, let her have a little fun; you kn=
ow
the blow may smash her any minute.' Mr Harrogate answered nothing; so the w=
ords
must have had some meaning. On the impulse of the moment I warned her broth=
er
that she might be in peril; I said nothing of its nature, for I did not kno=
w.
But if it meant this capture in the hills, the thing is nonsense. Why should
the brigand-courier warn his patron, even by a hint, when it was his whole =
purpose
to lure him into the mountain-mousetrap? It could not have meant that. But =
if
not, what is this disaster, known both to courier and banker, which hangs o=
ver
Miss Harrogate's head?"
"Disaster to Miss Harrogate!" ejaculated the poet, sitting=
up
with some ferocity. "Explain yourself; go on."
"All my riddles, however, revolve round our bandit chief,"
resumed the priest reflectively. "And here is the second of them. Why =
did
he put so prominently in his demand for ransom the fact that he had taken t=
wo thousand
pounds from his victim on the spot? It had no faintest tendency to evoke the
ransom. Quite the other way, in fact. Harrogate's friends would be far like=
lier
to fear for his fate if they thought the thieves were poor and desperate. Y=
et
the spoliation on the spot was emphasized and even put first in the demand.=
Why
should Ezza Montano want so specially to tell all Europe that he had picked=
the
pocket before he levied the blackmail?"
"I cannot imagine," said Muscari, rubbing up his black hair
for once with an unaffected gesture. "You may think you enlighten me, =
but
you are leading me deeper in the dark. What may be the third objection to t=
he King
of the Thieves?" "The third objection," said Father Brown, s=
till
in meditation, "is this bank we are sitting on. Why does our brigand-c=
ourier
call this his chief fortress and the Paradise of Thieves? It is certainly a
soft spot to fall on and a sweet spot to look at. It is also quite true, as=
he
says, that it is invisible from valley and peak, and is therefore a
hiding-place. But it is not a fortress. It never could be a fortress. I thi=
nk
it would be the worst fortress in the world. For it is actually commanded f=
rom
above by the common high-road across the mountains--the very place where the
police would most probably pass. Why, five shabby short guns held us helple=
ss
here about half an hour ago. The quarter of a company of any kind of soldie=
rs
could have blown us over the precipice. Whatever is the meaning of this odd=
little
nook of grass and flowers, it is not an entrenched position. It is something
else; it has some other strange sort of importance; some value that I do not
understand. It is more like an accidental theatre or a natural green-room; =
it
is like the scene for some romantic comedy; it is like...."
As the little priest's words lengthened and lost themselves in a dul=
l and
dreamy sincerity, Muscari, whose animal senses were alert and impatient, he=
ard
a new noise in the mountains. Even for him the sound was as yet very small =
and
faint; but he could have sworn the evening breeze bore with it something li=
ke
the pulsation of horses' hoofs and a distant hallooing.
At the same moment, and long before the vibration had touched the le=
ss-experienced
English ears, Montano the brigand ran up the bank above them and stood in t=
he broken
hedge, steadying himself against a tree and peering down the road. He was a
strange figure as he stood there, for he had assumed a flapped fantastic hat
and swinging baldric and cutlass in his capacity of bandit king, but the br=
ight
prosaic tweed of the courier showed through in patches all over him.
The next moment he turned his olive, sneering face and made a moveme=
nt with
his hand. The brigands scattered at the signal, not in confusion, but in wh=
at
was evidently a kind of guerrilla discipline. Instead of occupying the road
along the ridge, they sprinkled themselves along the side of it behind the
trees and the hedge, as if watching unseen for an enemy. The noise beyond g=
rew
stronger, beginning to shake the mountain road, and a voice could be clearly
heard calling out orders. The brigands swayed and huddled, cursing and
whispering, and the evening air was full of little metallic noises as they
cocked their pistols, or loosened their knives, or trailed their scabbards =
over
the stones. Then the noises from both quarters seemed to meet on the road
above; branches broke, horses neighed, men cried out.
"A rescue!" cried Muscari, springing to his feet and waving
his hat; "the gendarmes are on them! Now for freedom and a blow for it!
Now to be rebels against robbers! Come, don't let us leave everything to the
police; that is so dreadfully modern. Fall on the rear of these ruffians. T=
he
gendarmes are rescuing us; come, friends, let us rescue the gendarmes!"=
;
And throwing his hat over the trees, he drew his cutlass once more a=
nd began
to escalade the slope up to the road. Frank Harrogate jumped up and ran acr=
oss
to help him, revolver in hand, but was astounded to hear himself imperative=
ly
recalled by the raucous voice of his father, who seemed to be in great agit=
ation.
"I won't have it," said the banker in a choking voice; &qu=
ot;I
command you not to interfere."
"But, father," said Frank very warmly, "an Italian
gentleman has led the way. You wouldn't have it said that the English hung
back."
"It is useless," said the older man, who was trembling
violently, "it is useless. We must submit to our lot."
Father Brown looked at the banker; then he put his hand instinctivel=
y as
if on his heart, but really on the little bottle of poison; and a great lig=
ht
came into his face like the light of the revelation of death.
Muscari meanwhile, without waiting for support, had crested the bank=
up
to the road, and struck the brigand king heavily on the shoulder, causing h=
im
to stagger and swing round. Montano also had his cutlass unsheathed, and
Muscari, without further speech, sent a slash at his head which he was
compelled to catch and parry. But even as the two short blades crossed and
clashed the King of Thieves deliberately dropped his point and laughed.
"What's the good, old man?" he said in spirited Italian sl=
ang;
"this damned farce will soon be over."
"What do you mean, you shuffler?" panted the fire-eating p=
oet.
"Is your courage a sham as well as your honesty?"
"Everything about me is a sham," responded the ex-courier =
in complete
good humour. "I am an actor; and if I ever had a private character, I =
have
forgotten it. I am no more a genuine brigand than I am a genuine courier. I=
am
only a bundle of masks, and you can't fight a duel with that." And he
laughed with boyish pleasure and fell into his old straddling attitude, with
his back to the skirmish up the road.
Darkness was deepening under the mountain walls, and it was not easy=
to discern
much of the progress of the struggle, save that tall men were pushing their
horses' muzzles through a clinging crowd of brigands, who seemed more incli=
ned
to harass and hustle the invaders than to kill them. It was more like a town
crowd preventing the passage of the police than anything the poet had ever
pictured as the last stand of doomed and outlawed men of blood. Just as he =
was
rolling his eyes in bewilderment he felt a touch on his elbow, and found the
odd little priest standing there like a small Noah with a large hat, and
requesting the favour of a word or two.
"Signor Muscari," said the cleric, "in this queer cri=
sis
personalities may be pardoned. I may tell you without offence of a way in w=
hich
you will do more good than by helping the gendarmes, who are bound to break=
through
in any case. You will permit me the impertinent intimacy, but do you care a=
bout
that girl? Care enough to marry her and make her a good husband, I mean?&qu=
ot;
"Yes," said the poet quite simply.
"Does she care about you?"
"I think so," was the equally grave reply.
"Then go over there and offer yourself," said the priest:
"offer her everything you can; offer her heaven and earth if you've got
them. The time is short."
"Why?" asked the astonished man of letters.
"Because," said Father Brown, "her Doom is coming up =
the
road."
"Nothing is coming up the road," argued Muscari, "exc=
ept
the rescue."
"Well, you go over there," said his adviser, "and be
ready to rescue her from the rescue."
Almost as he spoke the hedges were broken all along the ridge by a r=
ush of
the escaping brigands. They dived into bushes and thick grass like defeated=
men
pursued; and the great cocked hats of the mounted gendarmerie were seen pas=
sing
along above the broken hedge. Another order was given; there was a noise of
dismounting, and a tall officer with cocked hat, a grey imperial, and a pap=
er
in his hand appeared in the gap that was the gate of the Paradise of Thieve=
s.
There was a momentary silence, broken in an extraordinary way by the banker,
who cried out in a hoarse and strangled voice: "Robbed! I've been
robbed!"
"Why, that was hours ago," cried his son in astonishment:
"when you were robbed of two thousand pounds."
"Not of two thousand pounds," said the financier, with an
abrupt and terrible composure, "only of a small bottle."
The policeman with the grey imperial was striding across the green h=
ollow.
Encountering the King of the Thieves in his path, he clapped him on the
shoulder with something between a caress and a buffet and gave him a push t=
hat
sent him staggering away. "You'll get into trouble, too," he said,
"if you play these tricks."
Again to Muscari's artistic eye it seemed scarcely like the capture =
of a
great outlaw at bay. Passing on, the policeman halted before the Harrogate
group and said: "Samuel Harrogate, I arrest you in the name of the law=
for
embezzlement of the funds of the Hull and Huddersfield Bank."
The great banker nodded with an odd air of business assent, seemed t=
o reflect
a moment, and before they could interpose took a half turn and a step that
brought him to the edge of the outer mountain wall. Then, flinging up his
hands, he leapt exactly as he leapt out of the coach. But this time he did =
not
fall into a little meadow just beneath; he fell a thousand feet below, to
become a wreck of bones in the valley.
The anger of the Italian policeman, which he expressed volubly to Fa=
ther
Brown, was largely mixed with admiration. "It was like him to escape u=
s at
last," he said. "He was a great brigand if you like. This last tr=
ick
of his I believe to be absolutely unprecedented. He fled with the company's
money to Italy, and actually got himself captured by sham brigands in his o=
wn
pay, so as to explain both the disappearance of the money and the disappear=
ance
of himself. That demand for ransom was really taken seriously by most of the
police. But for years he's been doing things as good as that, quite as good=
as
that. He will be a serious loss to his family."
Muscari was leading away the unhappy daughter, who held hard to him,=
as she
did for many a year after. But even in that tragic wreck he could not help
having a smile and a hand of half-mocking friendship for the indefensible E=
zza
Montano. "And where are you going next?" he asked him over his
shoulder.
"Birmingham," answered the actor, puffing a cigarette.
"Didn't I tell you I was a Futurist? I really do believe in those thin=
gs
if I believe in anything. Change, bustle and new things every morning. I am
going to Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Hull, Huddersfield, Glasgow, Chicago=
--in
short, to enlightened, energetic, civilized society!"
"In short," said Muscari, "to the real Paradise of
Thieves."
THREE -- The Duel of Dr
Hirsch
M. MAURICE BRUN and M.
Armand Armagnac were crossing the sunlit Champs Elysee with a kind of vivac=
ious
respectability. They were both short, brisk and bold. They both had black
beards that did not seem to belong to their faces, after the strange French
fashion which makes real hair look like artificial. M. Brun had a dark wedg=
e of
beard apparently affixed under his lower lip. M. Armagnac, by way of a chan=
ge,
had two beards; one sticking out from each corner of his emphatic chin. The=
y were
both young. They were both atheists, with a depressing fixity of outlook but
great mobility of exposition. They were both pupils of the great Dr Hirsch,
scientist, publicist and moralist.
M. Brun had become prominent by his proposal that the common express=
ion "Adieu"
should be obliterated from all the French classics, and a slight fine impos=
ed
for its use in private life. "Then," he said, "the very name=
of
your imagined God will have echoed for the last time in the ear of man.&quo=
t;
M. Armagnac specialized rather in a resistance to militarism, and wished the
chorus of the Marseillaise altered from "Aux armes, citoyens" to
"Aux greves, citoyens". But his antimilitarism was of a peculiar =
and
Gallic sort. An eminent and very wealthy English Quaker, who had come to see
him to arrange for the disarmament of the whole planet, was rather distress=
ed
by Armagnac's proposal that (by way of beginning) the soldiers should shoot
their officers.
And indeed it was in this regard that the two men differed most from=
their
leader and father in philosophy. Dr Hirsch, though born in France and cover=
ed
with the most triumphant favours of French education, was temperamentally of
another type--mild, dreamy, humane; and, despite his sceptical system, not
devoid of transcendentalism. He was, in short, more like a German than a
Frenchman; and much as they admired him, something in the subconsciousness =
of
these Gauls was irritated at his pleading for peace in so peaceful a manner=
. To
their party throughout Europe, however, Paul Hirsch was a saint of science.=
His
large and daring cosmic theories advertised his austere life and innocent, =
if somewhat
frigid, morality; he held something of the position of Darwin doubled with =
the
position of Tolstoy. But he was neither an anarchist nor an antipatriot; his
views on disarmament were moderate and evolutionary--the Republican Governm=
ent
put considerable confidence in him as to various chemical improvements. He =
had
lately even discovered a noiseless explosive, the secret of which the
Government was carefully guarding.
His house stood in a handsome street near the Elysee--a street which=
in that
strong summer seemed almost as full of foliage as the park itself; a row of
chestnuts shattered the sunshine, interrupted only in one place where a lar=
ge
cafe ran out into the street. Almost opposite to this were the white and gr=
een
blinds of the great scientist's house, an iron balcony, also painted green,
running along in front of the first-floor windows. Beneath this was the
entrance into a kind of court, gay with shrubs and tiles, into which the two
Frenchmen passed in animated talk.
The door was opened to them by the doctor's old servant, Simon, who =
might
very well have passed for a doctor himself, having a strict suit of black,
spectacles, grey hair, and a confidential manner. In fact, he was a far more
presentable man of science than his master, Dr Hirsch, who was a forked rad=
ish
of a fellow, with just enough bulb of a head to make his body insignificant.
With all the gravity of a great physician handling a prescription, Simon ha=
nded
a letter to M. Armagnac. That gentleman ripped it up with a racial impatien=
ce,
and rapidly read the following:
I cannot come down to speak to you. There is a man in this house who=
m I refuse
to meet. He is a Chauvinist officer, Dubosc. He is sitting on the stairs. He
has been kicking the furniture about in all the other rooms; I have locked
myself in my study, opposite that cafe. If you love me, go over to the cafe=
and
wait at one of the tables outside. I will try to send him over to you. I wa=
nt
you to answer him and deal with him. I cannot meet him myself. I cannot: I =
will
not.
There is going to be another Dreyfus case.
P. HIRSCH
M. Armagnac looked at M. Brun. M. Brun borrowed the letter, read it,=
and
looked at M. Armagnac. Then both betook themselves briskly to one of the li=
ttle
tables under the chestnuts opposite, where they procured two tall glasses of
horrible green absinthe, which they could drink apparently in any weather a=
nd
at any time. Otherwise the cafe seemed empty, except for one soldier drinki=
ng
coffee at one table, and at another a large man drinking a small syrup and a
priest drinking nothing.
Maurice Brun cleared his throat and said: "Of course we must he=
lp
the master in every way, but--"
There was an abrupt silence, and Armagnac said: "He may have
excellent reasons for not meeting the man himself, but--"
Before either could complete a sentence, it was evident that the inv=
ader
had been expelled from the house opposite. The shrubs under the archway swa=
yed
and burst apart, as that unwelcome guest was shot out of them like a
cannon-ball.
He was a sturdy figure in a small and tilted Tyrolean felt hat, a fi=
gure
that had indeed something generally Tyrolean about it. The man's shoulders =
were
big and broad, but his legs were neat and active in knee-breeches and knitt=
ed
stockings. His face was brown like a nut; he had very bright and restless b=
rown
eyes; his dark hair was brushed back stiffly in front and cropped close beh=
ind,
outlining a square and powerful skull; and he had a huge black moustache li=
ke
the horns of a bison. Such a substantial head is generally based on a bull
neck; but this was hidden by a big coloured scarf, swathed round up the man=
's
ears and falling in front inside his jacket like a sort of fancy waistcoat.=
It
was a scarf of strong dead colours, dark red and old gold and purple, proba=
bly
of Oriental fabrication. Altogether the man had something a shade barbaric
about him; more like a Hungarian squire than an ordinary French officer. His
French, however, was obviously that of a native; and his French patriotism =
was
so impulsive as to be slightly absurd. His first act when he burst out of t=
he
archway was to call in a clarion voice down the street: "Are there any
Frenchmen here?" as if he were calling for Christians in Mecca.
Armagnac and Brun instantly stood up; but they were too late. Men we=
re
already running from the street corners; there was a small but ever-cluster=
ing
crowd. With the prompt French instinct for the politics of the street, the =
man
with the black moustache had already run across to a corner of the cafe, sp=
rung
on one of the tables, and seizing a branch of chestnut to steady himself,
shouted as Camille Desmoulins once shouted when he scattered the oak-leaves
among the populace.
"Frenchmen!" he volleyed; "I cannot speak! God help m=
e,
that is why I am speaking! The fellows in their filthy parliaments who lear=
n to
speak also learn to be silent--silent as that spy cowering in the house opp=
osite!
Silent as he is when I beat on his bedroom door! Silent as he is now, thoug=
h he
hears my voice across this street and shakes where he sits! Oh, they can be
silent eloquently--the politicians! But the time has come when we that cann=
ot
speak must speak. You are betrayed to the Prussians. Betrayed at this momen=
t.
Betrayed by that man. I am Jules Dubosc, Colonel of Artillery, Belfort. We
caught a German spy in the Vosges yesterday, and a paper was found on him--a
paper I hold in my hand. Oh, they tried to hush it up; but I took it direct=
to
the man who wrote it--the man in that house! It is in his hand. It is signed
with his initials. It is a direction for finding the secret of this new Noi=
seless
Powder. Hirsch invented it; Hirsch wrote this note about it. This note is in
German, and was found in a German's pocket. 'Tell the man the formula for
powder is in grey envelope in first drawer to the left of Secretary's desk,=
War
Office, in red ink. He must be careful. P.H.'"
He rattled short sentences like a quick-firing gun, but he was plain=
ly the
sort of man who is either mad or right. The mass of the crowd was Nationali=
st,
and already in threatening uproar; and a minority of equally angry
Intellectuals, led by Armagnac and Brun, only made the majority more milita=
nt.
"If this is a military secret," shouted Brun, "why do=
you
yell about it in the street?"
"I will tell you why I do!" roared Dubosc above the roaring
crowd. "I went to this man in straight and civil style. If he had any
explanation it could have been given in complete confidence. He refuses to
explain. He refers me to two strangers in a cafe as to two flunkeys. He has=
thrown
me out of the house, but I am going back into it, with the people of Paris
behind me!"
A shout seemed to shake the very facade of mansions and two stones f=
lew,
one breaking a window above the balcony. The indignant Colonel plunged once
more under the archway and was heard crying and thundering inside. Every
instant the human sea grew wider and wider; it surged up against the rails =
and
steps of the traitor's house; it was already certain that the place would be
burst into like the Bastille, when the broken french window opened and Dr
Hirsch came out on the balcony. For an instant the fury half turned to
laughter; for he was an absurd figure in such a scene. His long bare neck a=
nd
sloping shoulders were the shape of a champagne bottle, but that was the on=
ly
festive thing about him. His coat hung on him as on a peg; he wore his
carrot-coloured hair long and weedy; his cheeks and chin were fully fringed
with one of those irritating beards that begin far from the mouth. He was v=
ery
pale, and he wore blue spectacles.
Livid as he was, he spoke with a sort of prim decision, so that the =
mob fell
silent in the middle of his third sentence.
"...only two things to say to you now. The first is to my foes,=
the
second to my friends. To my foes I say: It is true I will not meet M. Dubos=
c,
though he is storming outside this very room. It is true I have asked two o=
ther
men to confront him for me. And I will tell you why! Because I will not and
must not see him--because it would be against all rules of dignity and hono=
ur
to see him. Before I am triumphantly cleared before a court, there is anoth=
er
arbitration this gentleman owes me as a gentleman, and in referring him to =
my
seconds I am strictly--"
Armagnac and Brun were waving their hats wildly, and even the Doctor=
's enemies
roared applause at this unexpected defiance. Once more a few sentences were
inaudible, but they could hear him say: "To my friends--I myself should
always prefer weapons purely intellectual, and to these an evolved humanity
will certainly confine itself. But our own most precious truth is the
fundamental force of matter and heredity. My books are successful; my theor=
ies
are unrefuted; but I suffer in politics from a prejudice almost physical in=
the
French. I cannot speak like Clemenceau and Deroulede, for their words are l=
ike
echoes of their pistols. The French ask for a duellist as the English ask f=
or a
sportsman. Well, I give my proofs: I will pay this barbaric bribe, and then=
go
back to reason for the rest of my life."
Two men were instantly found in the crowd itself to offer their serv=
ices
to Colonel Dubosc, who came out presently, satisfied. One was the common so=
ldier
with the coffee, who said simply: "I will act for you, sir. I am the D=
uc
de Valognes." The other was the big man, whom his friend the priest so=
ught
at first to dissuade; and then walked away alone.
In the early evening a light dinner was spread at the back of the Ca=
fe Charlemagne.
Though unroofed by any glass or gilt plaster, the guests were nearly all un=
der
a delicate and irregular roof of leaves; for the ornamental trees stood so
thick around and among the tables as to give something of the dimness and t=
he
dazzle of a small orchard. At one of the central tables a very stumpy little
priest sat in complete solitude, and applied himself to a pile of whitebait
with the gravest sort of enjoyment. His daily living being very plain, he h=
ad a
peculiar taste for sudden and isolated luxuries; he was an abstemious epicu=
re.
He did not lift his eyes from his plate, round which red pepper, lemons, br=
own bread
and butter, etc., were rigidly ranked, until a tall shadow fell across the
table, and his friend Flambeau sat down opposite. Flambeau was gloomy.
"I'm afraid I must chuck this business," said he heavily.
"I'm all on the side of the French soldiers like Dubosc, and I'm all
against the French atheists like Hirsch; but it seems to me in this case we=
've
made a mistake. The Duke and I thought it as well to investigate the charge=
, and
I must say I'm glad we did."
"Is the paper a forgery, then?" asked the priest
"That's just the odd thing," replied Flambeau. "It's
exactly like Hirsch's writing, and nobody can point out any mistake in it. =
But
it wasn't written by Hirsch. If he's a French patriot he didn't write it, b=
ecause
it gives information to Germany. And if he's a German spy he didn't write i=
t,
well--because it doesn't give information to Germany."
"You mean the information is wrong?" asked Father Brown.
"Wrong," replied the other, "and wrong exactly where =
Dr
Hirsch would have been right--about the hiding-place of his own secret form=
ula
in his own official department. By favour of Hirsch and the authorities, th=
e Duke
and I have actually been allowed to inspect the secret drawer at the War Of=
fice
where the Hirsch formula is kept. We are the only people who have ever known
it, except the inventor himself and the Minister for War; but the Minister
permitted it to save Hirsch from fighting. After that we really can't suppo=
rt
Dubosc if his revelation is a mare's nest."
"And it is?" asked Father Brown.
"It is," said his friend gloomily. "It is a clumsy
forgery by somebody who knew nothing of the real hiding-place. It says the
paper is in the cupboard on the right of the Secretary's desk. As a fact the
cupboard with the secret drawer is some way to the left of the desk. It say=
s the
grey envelope contains a long document written in red ink. It isn't written=
in
red ink, but in ordinary black ink. It's manifestly absurd to say that Hirs=
ch
can have made a mistake about a paper that nobody knew of but himself; or c=
an
have tried to help a foreign thief by telling him to fumble in the wrong
drawer. I think we must chuck it up and apologize to old Carrots."
Father Brown seemed to cogitate; he lifted a little whitebait on his=
fork.
"You are sure the grey envelope was in the left cupboard?" he ask=
ed.
"Positive," replied Flambeau. "The grey envelope--it =
was
a white envelope really--was--"
Father Brown put down the small silver fish and the fork and stared =
across
at his companion. "What?" he asked, in an altered voice.
"Well, what?" repeated Flambeau, eating heartily.
"It was not grey," said the priest. "Flambeau, you
frighten me."
"What the deuce are you frightened of?"
"I'm frightened of a white envelope," said the other
seriously, "If it had only just been grey! Hang it all, it might as we=
ll
have been grey. But if it was white, the whole business is black. The Doctor
has been dabbling in some of the old brimstone after all."
"But I tell you he couldn't have written such a note!" cri=
ed
Flambeau. "The note is utterly wrong about the facts. And innocent or
guilty, Dr Hirsch knew all about the facts."
"The man who wrote that note knew all about the facts," sa=
id
his clerical companion soberly. "He could never have got 'em so wrong =
without
knowing about 'em. You have to know an awful lot to be wrong on every
subject--like the devil."
"Do you mean--?"
"I mean a man telling lies on chance would have told some of the
truth," said his friend firmly. "Suppose someone sent you to find=
a
house with a green door and a blue blind, with a front garden but no back
garden, with a dog but no cat, and where they drank coffee but not tea. You=
would
say if you found no such house that it was all made up. But I say no. I say=
if
you found a house where the door was blue and the blind green, where there =
was
a back garden and no front garden, where cats were common and dogs instantly
shot, where tea was drunk in quarts and coffee forbidden--then you would kn=
ow
you had found the house. The man must have known that particular house to b=
e so
accurately inaccurate."
"But what could it mean?" demanded the diner opposite.
"I can't conceive," said Brown; "I don't understand t=
his
Hirsch affair at all. As long as it was only the left drawer instead of the
right, and red ink instead of black, I thought it must be the chance blunde=
rs
of a forger, as you say. But three is a mystical number; it finishes things=
. It
finishes this. That the direction about the drawer, the colour of ink, the
colour of envelope, should none of them be right by accident, that can't be=
a
coincidence. It wasn't."
"What was it, then? Treason?" asked Flambeau, resuming his
dinner.
"I don't know that either," answered Brown, with a face of
blank bewilderment. "The only thing I can think of.... Well, I never u=
nderstood
that Dreyfus case. I can always grasp moral evidence easier than the other
sorts. I go by a man's eyes and voice, don't you know, and whether his fami=
ly
seems happy, and by what subjects he chooses--and avoids. Well, I was puzzl=
ed
in the Dreyfus case. Not by the horrible things imputed both ways; I know
(though it's not modern to say so) that human nature in the highest places =
is
still capable of being Cenci or Borgia. No--, what puzzled me was the since=
rity
of both parties. I don't mean the political parties; the rank and file are
always roughly honest, and often duped. I mean the persons of the play. I m=
ean
the conspirators, if they were conspirators. I mean the traitor, if he was =
a traitor.
I mean the men who must have known the truth. Now Dreyfus went on like a man
who knew he was a wronged man. And yet the French statesmen and soldiers we=
nt
on as if they knew he wasn't a wronged man but simply a wrong 'un. I don't =
mean
they behaved well; I mean they behaved as if they were sure. I can't descri=
be
these things; I know what I mean."
"I wish I did," said his friend. "And what has it to =
do
with old Hirsch?"
"Suppose a person in a position of trust," went on the pri=
est,
"began to give the enemy information because it was false information.
Suppose he even thought he was saving his country by misleading the foreign=
er. Suppose
this brought him into spy circles, and little loans were made to him, and l=
ittle
ties tied on to him. Suppose he kept up his contradictory position in a
confused way by never telling the foreign spies the truth, but letting it m=
ore
and more be guessed. The better part of him (what was left of it) would sti=
ll
say: 'I have not helped the enemy; I said it was the left drawer.' The mean=
er
part of him would already be saying: 'But they may have the sense to see th=
at
means the right.' I think it is psychologically possible--in an enlightened
age, you know."
"It may be psychologically possible," answered Flambeau,
"and it certainly would explain Dreyfus being certain he was wronged a=
nd
his judges being sure he was guilty. But it won't wash historically, becaus=
e Dreyfus's
document (if it was his document) was literally correct."
"I wasn't thinking of Dreyfus," said Father Brown.
Silence had sunk around them with the emptying of the tables; it was=
already
late, though the sunlight still clung to everything, as if accidentally
entangled in the trees. In the stillness Flambeau shifted his seat
sharply--making an isolated and echoing noise--and threw his elbow over the
angle of it. "Well," he said, rather harshly, "if Hirsch is =
not
better than a timid treason-monger..."
"You mustn't be too hard on them," said Father Brown gentl=
y.
"It's not entirely their fault; but they have no instincts. I mean tho=
se
things that make a woman refuse to dance with a man or a man to touch an in=
vestment.
They've been taught that it's all a matter of degree."
"Anyhow," cried Flambeau impatiently, "he's not a pat=
ch
on my principal; and I shall go through with it. Old Dubosc may be a bit ma=
d,
but he's a sort of patriot after all."
Father Brown continued to consume whitebait.
Something in the stolid way he did so caused Flambeau's fierce black= eyes to ramble over his companion afresh. "What's the matter with you?"= ; Flambeau demanded. "Dubosc's all right in that way. You don't doubt him?"<= o:p>
"My friend," said the small priest, laying down his knife =
and
fork in a kind of cold despair, "I doubt everything. Everything, I mea=
n,
that has happened today. I doubt the whole story, though it has been acted
before my face. I doubt every sight that my eyes have seen since morning. T=
here
is something in this business quite different from the ordinary police myst=
ery
where one man is more or less lying and the other man more or less telling =
the
truth. Here both men.... Well! I've told you the only theory I can think of
that could satisfy anybody. It doesn't satisfy me."
"Nor me either," replied Flambeau frowning, while the other
went on eating fish with an air of entire resignation. "If all you can
suggest is that notion of a message conveyed by contraries, I call it
uncommonly clever, but...well, what would you call it?"
"I should call it thin," said the priest promptly. "I
should call it uncommonly thin. But that's the queer thing about the whole
business. The lie is like a schoolboy's. There are only three versions,
Dubosc's and Hirsch's and that fancy of mine. Either that note was written =
by a
French officer to ruin a French official; or it was written by the French
official to help German officers; or it was written by the French official =
to
mislead German officers. Very well. You'd expect a secret paper passing bet=
ween
such people, officials or officers, to look quite different from that. You'd
expect, probably a cipher, certainly abbreviations; most certainly scientif=
ic
and strictly professional terms. But this thing's elaborately simple, like a
penny dreadful: 'In the purple grotto you will find the golden casket.' It
looks as if... as if it were meant to be seen through at once."
Almost before they could take it in a short figure in French uniform= had walked up to their table like the wind, and sat down with a sort of thump.<= o:p>
"I have extraordinary news," said the Duc de Valognes. &qu=
ot;I
have just come from this Colonel of ours. He is packing up to leave the
country, and he asks us to make his excuses sur le terrain."
"What?" cried Flambeau, with an incredulity quite frightfu=
l--"apologize?"
"Yes," said the Duke gruffly; "then and there--before
everybody--when the swords are drawn. And you and I have to do it while he =
is
leaving the country."
"But what can this mean?" cried Flambeau. "He can't be
afraid of that little Hirsch! Confound it!" he cried, in a kind of
rational rage; "nobody could be afraid of Hirsch!"
"I believe it's some plot!" snapped Valognes--"some p=
lot
of the Jews and Freemasons. It's meant to work up glory for Hirsch..."=
The face of Father Brown was commonplace, but curiously contented; i=
t could
shine with ignorance as well as with knowledge. But there was always one fl=
ash
when the foolish mask fell, and the wise mask fitted itself in its place; a=
nd
Flambeau, who knew his friend, knew that his friend had suddenly understood.
Brown said nothing, but finished his plate of fish.
"Where did you last see our precious Colonel?" asked Flamb=
eau,
irritably.
"He's round at the Hotel Saint Louis by the Elysee, where we dr=
ove
with him. He's packing up, I tell you."
"Will he be there still, do you think?" asked Flambeau,
frowning at the table.
"I don't think he can get away yet," replied the Duke;
"he's packing to go a long journey..."
"No," said Father Brown, quite simply, but suddenly standi=
ng
up, "for a very short journey. For one of the shortest, in fact. But we
may still be in time to catch him if we go there in a motor-cab."
Nothing more could be got out of him until the cab swept round the c=
orner
by the Hotel Saint Louis, where they got out, and he led the party up a side
lane already in deep shadow with the growing dusk. Once, when the Duke
impatiently asked whether Hirsch was guilty of treason or not, he answered
rather absently: "No; only of ambition--like Caesar." Then he
somewhat inconsequently added: "He lives a very lonely life; he has ha=
d to
do everything for himself."
"Well, if he's ambitious, he ought to be satisfied now," s=
aid
Flambeau rather bitterly. "All Paris will cheer him now our cursed Col=
onel
has turned tail."
"Don't talk so loud," said Father Brown, lowering his voic=
e,
"your cursed Colonel is just in front."
The other two started and shrank farther back into the shadow of the=
wall,
for the sturdy figure of their runaway principal could indeed be seen shuff=
ling
along in the twilight in front, a bag in each hand. He looked much the same=
as
when they first saw him, except that he had changed his picturesque
mountaineering knickers for a conventional pair of trousers. It was clear he
was already escaping from the hotel.
The lane down which they followed him was one of those that seem to =
be
at the back of things, and look like the wrong side of the stage scenery. A
colourless, continuous wall ran down one flank of it, interrupted at interv=
als
by dull-hued and dirt-stained doors, all shut fast and featureless save for=
the
chalk scribbles of some passing gamin. The tops of trees, mostly rather
depressing evergreens, showed at intervals over the top of the wall, and be=
yond
them in the grey and purple gloaming could be seen the back of some long
terrace of tall Parisian houses, really comparatively close, but somehow
looking as inaccessible as a range of marble mountains. On the other side of
the lane ran the high gilt railings of a gloomy park.
Flambeau was looking round him in rather a weird way. "Do you
know," he said, "there is something about this place that--"=
"Hullo!" called out the Duke sharply; "that fellow's
disappeared. Vanished, like a blasted fairy!"
"He has a key," explained their clerical friend. "He's
only gone into one of these garden doors," and as he spoke they heard =
one
of the dull wooden doors close again with a click in front of them.
Flambeau strode up to the door thus shut almost in his face, and sto=
od in
front of it for a moment, biting his black moustache in a fury of curiosity.
Then he threw up his long arms and swung himself aloft like a monkey and st=
ood
on the top of the wall, his enormous figure dark against the purple sky, li=
ke
the dark tree-tops.
The Duke looked at the priest. "Dubosc's escape is more elabora=
te
than we thought," he said; "but I suppose he is escaping from Fra=
nce."
"He is escaping from everywhere," answered Father Brown.
Valognes's eyes brightened, but his voice sank. "Do you mean
suicide?" he asked.
"You will not find his body," replied the other.
A kind of cry came from Flambeau on the wall above. "My God,&qu=
ot;
he exclaimed in French, "I know what this place is now! Why, it's the =
back
of the street where old Hirsch lives. I thought I could recognize the back =
of a
house as well as the back of a man."
"And Dubosc's gone in there!" cried the Duke, smiting his =
hip.
"Why, they'll meet after all!" And with sudden Gallic vivacity he
hopped up on the wall beside Flambeau and sat there positively kicking his =
legs
with excitement. The priest alone remained below, leaning against the wall,=
with
his back to the whole theatre of events, and looking wistfully across to the
park palings and the twinkling, twilit trees.
The Duke, however stimulated, had the instincts of an aristocrat, an=
d desired
rather to stare at the house than to spy on it; but Flambeau, who had the
instincts of a burglar (and a detective), had already swung himself from the
wall into the fork of a straggling tree from which he could crawl quite clo=
se
to the only illuminated window in the back of the high dark house. A red bl=
ind
had been pulled down over the light, but pulled crookedly, so that it gaped=
on
one side, and by risking his neck along a branch that looked as treacherous=
as
a twig, Flambeau could just see Colonel Dubosc walking about in a
brilliantly-lighted and luxurious bedroom. But close as Flambeau was to the
house, he heard the words of his colleagues by the wall, and repeated them =
in a
low voice.
"Yes, they will meet now after all!"
"They will never meet," said Father Brown. "Hirsch was
right when he said that in such an affair the principals must not meet. Have
you read a queer psychological story by Henry James, of two persons who so =
perpetually
missed meeting each other by accident that they began to feel quite frighte=
ned
of each other, and to think it was fate? This is something of the kind, but
more curious."
"There are people in Paris who will cure them of such morbid
fancies," said Valognes vindictively. "They will jolly well have =
to
meet if we capture them and force them to fight."
"They will not meet on the Day of Judgement," said the pri=
est.
"If God Almighty held the truncheon of the lists, if St Michael blew t=
he
trumpet for the swords to cross--even then, if one of them stood ready, the=
other
would not come."
"Oh, what does all this mysticism mean?" cried the Duc de
Valognes, impatiently; "why on earth shouldn't they meet like other
people?"
"They are the opposite of each other," said Father Brown, =
with
a queer kind of smile. "They contradict each other. They cancel out, s=
o to
speak."
He continued to gaze at the darkening trees opposite, but Valognes t=
urned
his head sharply at a suppressed exclamation from Flambeau. That investigat=
or,
peering into the lighted room, had just seen the Colonel, after a pace or t=
wo,
proceed to take his coat off. Flambeau's first thought was that this really
looked like a fight; but he soon dropped the thought for another. The solid=
ity
and squareness of Dubosc's chest and shoulders was all a powerful piece of
padding and came off with his coat. In his shirt and trousers he was a
comparatively slim gentleman, who walked across the bedroom to the bathroom
with no more pugnacious purpose than that of washing himself. He bent over a
basin, dried his dripping hands and face on a towel, and turned again so th=
at
the strong light fell on his face. His brown complexion had gone, his big b=
lack
moustache had gone; he--was clean-shaven and very pate. Nothing remained of=
the
Colonel but his bright, hawk-like, brown eyes. Under the wall Father Brown =
was
going on in heavy meditation, as if to himself.
"It is all just like what I was saying to Flambeau. These oppos=
ites
won't do. They don't work. They don't fight. If it's white instead of black,
and solid instead of liquid, and so on all along the line--then there's
something wrong, Monsieur, there's something wrong. One of these men is fair
and the other dark, one stout and the other slim, one strong and the other
weak. One has a moustache and no beard, so you can't see his mouth; the oth=
er
has a beard and no moustache, so you can't see his chin. One has hair cropp=
ed
to his skull, but a scarf to hide his neck; the other has low shirt-collars,
but long hair to bide his skull. It's all too neat and correct, Monsieur, a=
nd
there's something wrong. Things made so opposite are things that cannot
quarrel. Wherever the one sticks out the other sinks in. Like a face and a
mask, like a lock and a key..."
Flambeau was peering into the house with a visage as white as a shee=
t. The
occupant of the room was standing with his back to him, but in front of a
looking-glass, and had already fitted round his face a sort of framework of
rank red hair, hanging disordered from the head and clinging round the jaws=
and
chin while leaving the mocking mouth uncovered. Seen thus in the glass the
white face looked like the face of Judas laughing horribly and surrounded by
capering flames of hell. For a spasm Flambeau saw the fierce, red-brown eyes
dancing, then they were covered with a pair of blue spectacles. Slipping on=
a
loose black coat, the figure vanished towards the front of the house. A few
moments later a roar of popular applause from the street beyond announced t=
hat
Dr Hirsch had once more appeared upon the balcony.
FOUR -- The Man in the
Passage=
TWO men appeared
simultaneously at the two ends of a sort of passage running along the side =
of
the Apollo Theatre in the Adelphi. The evening daylight in the streets was
large and luminous, opalescent and empty. The passage was comparatively long
and dark, so each man could see the other as a mere black silhouette at the
other end. Nevertheless, each man knew the other, even in that inky outline;
for they were both men of striking appearance and they hated each other.
The covered passage opened at one end on one of the steep streets of=
the
Adelphi, and at the other on a terrace overlooking the sunset-coloured rive=
r.
One side of the passage was a blank wall, for the building it supported was=
an
old unsuccessful theatre restaurant, now shut up. The other side of the pas=
sage
contained two doors, one at each end. Neither was what was commonly called =
the
stage door; they were a sort of special and private stage doors used by very
special performers, and in this case by the star actor and actress in the
Shakespearean performance of the day. Persons of that eminence often like to
have such private exits and entrances, for meeting friends or avoiding them=
.
The two men in question were certainly two such friends, men who evi=
dently
knew the doors and counted on their opening, for each approached the door at
the upper end with equal coolness and confidence. Not, however, with equal
speed; but the man who walked fast was the man from the other end of the
tunnel, so they both arrived before the secret stage door almost at the same
instant. They saluted each other with civility, and waited a moment before =
one
of them, the sharper walker who seemed to have the shorter patience, knocke=
d at
the door.
In this and everything else each man was opposite and neither could =
be
called inferior. As private persons both were handsome, capable and popular=
. As
public persons, both were in the first public rank. But everything about th=
em,
from their glory to their good looks, was of a diverse and incomparable kin=
d.
Sir Wilson Seymour was the kind of man whose importance is known to everybo=
dy
who knows. The more you mixed with the innermost ring in every polity or
profession, the more often you met Sir Wilson Seymour. He was the one
intelligent man on twenty unintelligent committees--on every sort of subjec=
t,
from the reform of the Royal Academy to the project of bimetallism for Grea=
ter
Britain. In the Arts especially he was omnipotent. He was so unique that no=
body
could quite decide whether he was a great aristocrat who had taken up Art, =
or a
great artist whom the aristocrats had taken up. But you could not meet him =
for
five minutes without realizing that you had really been ruled by him all yo=
ur
life.
His appearance was "distinguished" in exactly the same sen=
se;
it was at once conventional and unique. Fashion could have found no fault w=
ith
his high silk hat--, yet it was unlike anyone else's hat--a little higher, =
perhaps,
and adding something to his natural height. His tall, slender figure had a
slight stoop yet it looked the reverse of feeble. His hair was silver-grey,=
but
he did not look old; it was worn longer than the common yet he did not look
effeminate; it was curly but it did not look curled. His carefully pointed
beard made him look more manly and militant than otherwise, as it does in t=
hose
old admirals of Velazquez with whose dark portraits his house was hung. His
grey gloves were a shade bluer, his silver-knobbed cane a shade longer than
scores of such gloves and canes flapped and flourished about the theatres a=
nd
the restaurants.
The other man was not so tall, yet would have struck nobody as short=
, but
merely as strong and handsome. His hair also was curly, but fair and cropped
close to a strong, massive head--the sort of head you break a door with, as
Chaucer said of the Miller's. His military moustache and the carriage of his
shoulders showed him a soldier, but he had a pair of those peculiar frank a=
nd
piercing blue eyes which are more common in sailors. His face was somewhat
square, his jaw was square, his shoulders were square, even his jacket was
square. Indeed, in the wild school of caricature then current, Mr Max Beerb=
ohm had
represented him as a proposition in the fourth book of Euclid.
For he also was a public man, though with quite another sort of succ=
ess.
You did not have to be in the best society to have heard of Captain Cutler,=
of
the siege of Hong-Kong, and the great march across China. You could not get
away from hearing of him wherever you were; his portrait was on every other
postcard; his maps and battles in every other illustrated paper; songs in h=
is
honour in every other music-hall turn or on every other barrel-organ. His f=
ame,
though probably more temporary, was ten times more wide, popular and
spontaneous than the other man's. In thousands of English homes he appeared
enormous above England, like Nelson. Yet he had infinitely less power in
England than Sir Wilson Seymour.
The door was opened to them by an aged servant or "dresser"=
;,
whose broken-down face and figure and black shabby coat and trousers contra=
sted
queerly with the glittering interior of the great actress's dressing-room. =
It
was fitted and filled with looking-glasses at every angle of refraction, so
that they looked like the hundred facets of one huge diamond--if one could =
get
inside a diamond. The other features of luxury, a few flowers, a few colour=
ed
cushions, a few scraps of stage costume, were multiplied by all the mirrors
into the madness of the Arabian Nights, and danced and changed places
perpetually as the shuffling attendant shifted a mirror outwards or shot one
back against the wall.
They both spoke to the dingy dresser by name, calling him Parkinson,=
and
asking for the lady as Miss Aurora Rome. Parkinson said she was in the other
room, but he would go and tell her. A shade crossed the brow of both visito=
rs;
for the other room was the private room of the great actor with whom Miss
Aurora was performing, and she was of the kind that does not inflame admira=
tion
without inflaming jealousy. In about half a minute, however, the inner door
opened, and she entered as she always did, even in private life, so that the
very silence seemed to be a roar of applause, and one well-deserved. She was
clad in a somewhat strange garb of peacock green and peacock blue satins, t=
hat
gleamed like blue and green metals, such as delight children and aesthetes,=
and
her heavy, hot brown hair framed one of those magic faces which are dangero=
us
to all men, but especially to boys and to men growing grey. In company with=
her
male colleague, the great American actor, Isidore Bruno, she was producing a
particularly poetical and fantastic interpretation of Midsummer Night's Dre=
am:
in which the artistic prominence was given to Oberon and Titania, or in oth=
er
words to Bruno and herself. Set in dreamy and exquisite scenery, and moving=
in
mystical dances, the green costume, like burnished beetle-wings, expressed =
all
the elusive individuality of an elfin queen. But when personally confronted=
in
what was still broad daylight, a man looked only at the woman's face.
She greeted both men with the beaming and baffling smile which kept =
so many
males at the same just dangerous distance from her. She accepted some flowe=
rs
from Cutler, which were as tropical and expensive as his victories; and ano=
ther
sort of present from Sir Wilson Seymour, offered later on and more nonchala=
ntly
by that gentleman. For it was against his breeding to show eagerness, and
against his conventional unconventionality to give anything so obvious as
flowers. He had picked up a trifle, he said, which was rather a curiosity, =
it
was an ancient Greek dagger of the Mycenaean Epoch, and might well have been
worn in the time of Theseus and Hippolyta. It was made of brass like all th=
e Heroic
weapons, but, oddly enough, sharp enough to prick anyone still. He had real=
ly
been attracted to it by the leaf-like shape; it was as perfect as a Greek v=
ase.
If it was of any interest to Miss Rome or could come in anywhere in the pla=
y,
he hoped she would--
The inner door burst open and a big figure appeared, who was more of=
a
contrast to the explanatory Seymour than even Captain Cutler. Nearly six-fo=
ot-six,
and of more than theatrical thews and muscles, Isidore Bruno, in the gorgeo=
us
leopard skin and golden-brown garments of Oberon, looked like a barbaric go=
d.
He leaned on a sort of hunting-spear, which across a theatre looked a sligh=
t,
silvery wand, but which in the small and comparatively crowded room looked =
as
plain as a pike-staff--and as menacing. His vivid black eyes rolled
volcanically, his bronzed face, handsome as it was, showed at that moment a
combination of high cheekbones with set white teeth, which recalled certain
American conjectures about his origin in the Southern plantations.
"Aurora," he began, in that deep voice like a drum of pass=
ion
that had moved so many audiences, "will you--"
He stopped indecisively because a sixth figure had suddenly presente=
d itself
just inside the doorway--a figure so incongruous in the scene as to be almo=
st
comic. It was a very short man in the black uniform of the Roman secular
clergy, and looking (especially in such a presence as Bruno's and Aurora's)
rather like the wooden Noah out of an ark. He did not, however, seem consci=
ous
of any contrast, but said with dull civility: "I believe Miss Rome sent
for me."
A shrewd observer might have remarked that the emotional temperature=
rather
rose at so unemotional an interruption. The detachment of a professional
celibate seemed to reveal to the others that they stood round the woman as a
ring of amorous rivals; just as a stranger coming in with frost on his coat
will reveal that a room is like a furnace. The presence of the one man who =
did
not care about her increased Miss Rome's sense that everybody else was in l=
ove
with her, and each in a somewhat dangerous way: the actor with all the appe=
tite
of a savage and a spoilt child; the soldier with all the simple selfishness=
of
a man of will rather than mind; Sir Wilson with that daily hardening
concentration with which old Hedonists take to a hobby; nay, even the abjec=
t Parkinson,
who had known her before her triumphs, and who followed her about the room =
with
eyes or feet, with the dumb fascination of a dog.
A shrewd person might also have noted a yet odder thing. The man lik=
e a black
wooden Noah (who was not wholly without shrewdness) noted it with a
considerable but contained amusement. It was evident that the great Aurora,
though by no means indifferent to the admiration of the other sex, wanted at
this moment to get rid of all the men who admired her and be left alone with
the man who did not--did not admire her in that sense at least; for the lit=
tle
priest did admire and even enjoy the firm feminine diplomacy with which she=
set
about her task. There was, perhaps, only one thing that Aurora Rome was cle=
ver
about, and that was one half of humanity--the other half. The little priest
watched, like a Napoleonic campaign, the swift precision of her policy for
expelling all while banishing none. Bruno, the big actor, was so babyish th=
at
it was easy to send him off in brute sulks, banging the door. Cutler, the B=
ritish
officer, was pachydermatous to ideas, but punctilious about behaviour. He w=
ould
ignore all hints, but he would die rather than ignore a definite commission
from a lady. As to old Seymour, he had to be treated differently; he had to=
be
left to the last. The only way to move him was to appeal to him in confiden=
ce
as an old friend, to let him into the secret of the clearance. The priest d=
id
really admire Miss Rome as she achieved all these three objects in one sele=
cted
action.
She went across to Captain Cutler and said in her sweetest manner: &=
quot;I
shall value all these flowers, because they must be your favourite flowers.=
But
they won't be complete, you know, without my favourite flower. Do go over to
that shop round the corner and get me some lilies-of-the-valley, and then it
will be quite lovely."
The first object of her diplomacy, the exit of the enraged Bruno, wa=
s at
once achieved. He had already handed his spear in a lordly style, like a
sceptre, to the piteous Parkinson, and was about to assume one of the cushi=
oned
seats like a throne. But at this open appeal to his rival there glowed in h=
is
opal eyeballs all the sensitive insolence of the slave; he knotted his enor=
mous
brown fists for an instant, and then, dashing open the door, disappeared in=
to
his own apartments beyond. But meanwhile Miss Rome's experiment in mobilizi=
ng
the British Army had not succeeded so simply as seemed probable. Cutler had
indeed risen stiffly and suddenly, and walked towards the door, hatless, as=
if
at a word of command. But perhaps there was something ostentatiously elegant
about the languid figure of Seymour leaning against one of the looking-glas=
ses that
brought him up short at the entrance, turning his head this way and that li=
ke a
bewildered bulldog.
"I must show this stupid man where to go," said Aurora in a
whisper to Seymour, and ran out to the threshold to speed the parting guest=
.
Seymour seemed to be listening, elegant and unconscious as was his p=
osture,
and he seemed relieved when he heard the lady call out some last instructio=
ns
to the Captain, and then turn sharply and run laughing down the passage tow=
ards
the other end, the end on the terrace above the Thames. Yet a second or two
after Seymour's brow darkened again. A man in his position has so many riva=
ls,
and he remembered that at the other end of the passage was the corresponding
entrance to Bruno's private room. He did not lose his dignity; he said some
civil words to Father Brown about the revival of Byzantine architecture in =
the
Westminster Cathedral, and then, quite naturally, strolled out himself into=
the
upper end of the passage. Father Brown and Parkinson were left alone, and t=
hey
were neither of them men with a taste for superfluous conversation. The dre=
sser
went round the room, pulling out looking-glasses and pushing them in again,=
his
dingy dark coat and trousers looking all the more dismal since he was still
holding the festive fairy spear of King Oberon. Every time he pulled out the
frame of a new glass, a new black figure of Father Brown appeared; the absu=
rd glass
chamber was full of Father Browns, upside down in the air like angels, turn=
ing
somersaults like acrobats, turning their backs to everybody like very rude
persons.
Father Brown seemed quite unconscious of this cloud of witnesses, bu=
t followed
Parkinson with an idly attentive eye till he took himself and his absurd sp=
ear
into the farther room of Bruno. Then he abandoned himself to such abstract
meditations as always amused him--calculating the angles of the mirrors, the
angles of each refraction, the angle at which each must fit into the
wall...when he heard a strong but strangled cry.
He sprang to his feet and stood rigidly listening. At the same insta=
nt Sir
Wilson Seymour burst back into the room, white as ivory. "Who's that m=
an
in the passage?" he cried. "Where's that dagger of mine?"
Before Father Brown could turn in his heavy boots Seymour was plungi=
ng about
the room looking for the weapon. And before he could possibly find that wea=
pon
or any other, a brisk running of feet broke upon the pavement outside, and =
the
square face of Cutler was thrust into the same doorway. He was still grotes=
quely
grasping a bunch of lilies-of-the-valley. "What's this?" he cried.
"What's that creature down the passage? Is this some of your tricks?&q=
uot;
"My tricks!" hissed his pale rival, and made a stride towa=
rds
him.
In the instant of time in which all this happened Father Brown stepp=
ed out
into the top of the passage, looked down it, and at once walked briskly tow=
ards
what he saw.
At this the other two men dropped their quarrel and darted after him=
, Cutler
calling out: "What are you doing? Who are you?"
"My name is Brown," said the priest sadly, as he bent over
something and straightened himself again. "Miss Rome sent for me, and I
came as quickly as I could. I have come too late."
The three men looked down, and in one of them at least the life died=
in that
late light of afternoon. It ran along the passage like a path of gold, and =
in
the midst of it Aurora Rome lay lustrous in her robes of green and gold, wi=
th
her dead face turned upwards. Her dress was torn away as in a struggle, lea=
ving
the right shoulder bare, but the wound from which the blood was welling was=
on
the other side. The brass dagger lay flat and gleaming a yard or so away.
There was a blank stillness for a measurable time, so that they coul=
d hear
far off a flower-girl's laugh outside Charing Cross, and someone whistling
furiously for a taxicab in one of the streets off the Strand. Then the Capt=
ain,
with a movement so sudden that it might have been passion or play-acting, t=
ook
Sir Wilson Seymour by the throat.
Seymour looked at him steadily without either fight or fear. "Y=
ou
need not kill me," he said in a voice quite cold; "I shall do tha=
t on
my own account."
The Captain's hand hesitated and dropped; and the other added with t=
he same
icy candour: "If I find I haven't the nerve to do it with that dagger I
can do it in a month with drink."
"Drink isn't good enough for me," replied Cutler, "but
I'll have blood for this before I die. Not yours--but I think I know
whose."
And before the others could appreciate his intention he snatched up =
the dagger,
sprang at the other door at the lower end of the passage, burst it open, bo=
lt
and all, and confronted Bruno in his dressing-room. As he did so, old Parki=
nson
tottered in his wavering way out of the door and caught sight of the corpse
lying in the passage. He moved shakily towards it; looked at it weakly with=
a
working face; then moved shakily back into the dressing-room again, and sat
down suddenly on one of the richly cushioned chairs. Father Brown instantly=
ran
across to him, taking no notice of Cutler and the colossal actor, though the
room already rang with their blows and they began to struggle for the dagge=
r. Seymour,
who retained some practical sense, was whistling for the police at the end =
of
the passage.
When the police arrived it was to tear the two men from an almost ap=
e-like
grapple; and, after a few formal inquiries, to arrest Isidore Bruno upon a
charge of murder, brought against him by his furious opponent. The idea that
the great national hero of the hour had arrested a wrongdoer with his own h=
and
doubtless had its weight with the police, who are not without elements of t=
he
journalist. They treated Cutler with a certain solemn attention, and pointed
out that he had got a slight slash on the hand. Even as Cutler bore him back
across tilted chair and table, Bruno had twisted the dagger out of his grasp
and disabled him just below the wrist. The injury was really slight, but ti=
ll
he was removed from the room the half-savage prisoner stared at the running=
blood
with a steady smile.
"Looks a cannibal sort of chap, don't he?" said the consta=
ble confidentially
to Cutler.
Cutler made no answer, but said sharply a moment after: "We must
attend to the...the death..." and his voice escaped from articulation.=
"The two deaths," came in the voice of the priest from the
farther side of the room. "This poor fellow was gone when I got across=
to
him." And he stood looking down at old Parkinson, who sat in a black
huddle on the gorgeous chair. He also had paid his tribute, not without
eloquence, to the woman who had died.
The silence was first broken by Cutler, who seemed not untouched by =
a rough
tenderness. "I wish I was him," he said huskily. "I remember=
he used
to watch her wherever she walked more than--anybody. She was his air, and h=
e's
dried up. He's just dead."
"We are all dead," said Seymour in a strange voice, looking
down the road.
They took leave of Father Brown at the corner of the road, with some=
random
apologies for any rudeness they might have shown. Both their faces were tra=
gic,
but also cryptic.
The mind of the little priest was always a rabbit-warren of wild tho=
ughts
that jumped too quickly for him to catch them. Like the white tail of a rab=
bit
he had the vanishing thought that he was certain of their grief, but not so
certain of their innocence.
"We had better all be going," said Seymour heavily; "=
we
have done all we can to help."
"Will you understand my motives," asked Father Brown quiet=
ly,
"if I say you have done all you can to hurt?"
They both started as if guiltily, and Cutler said sharply: "To =
hurt
whom?"
"To hurt yourselves," answered the priest. "I would n=
ot
add to your troubles if it weren't common justice to warn you. You've done
nearly everything you could do to hang yourselves, if this actor should be =
acquitted.
They'll be sure to subpoena me; I shall be bound to say that after the cry =
was
heard each of you rushed into the room in a wild state and began quarrelling
about a dagger. As far as my words on oath can go, you might either of you =
have
done it. You hurt yourselves with that; and then Captain Cutler must have h=
urt
himself with the dagger."
"Hurt myself!" exclaimed the Captain, with contempt. "=
;A
silly little scratch."
"Which drew blood," replied the priest, nodding. "We =
know
there's blood on the brass now. And so we shall never know whether there was
blood on it before."
There was a silence; and then Seymour said, with an emphasis quite a=
lien
to his daily accent: "But I saw a man in the passage."
"I know you did," answered the cleric Brown with a face of
wood, "so did Captain Cutler. That's what seems so improbable."
Before either could make sufficient sense of it even to answer, Fath=
er Brown
had politely excused himself and gone stumping up the road with his stumpy =
old
umbrella.
As modern newspapers are conducted, the most honest and most importa=
nt news
is the police news. If it be true that in the twentieth century more space =
is
given to murder than to politics, it is for the excellent reason that murde=
r is
a more serious subject. But even this would hardly explain the enormous
omnipresence and widely distributed detail of "The Bruno Case," or
"The Passage Mystery," in the Press of London and the provinces. =
So
vast was the excitement that for some weeks the Press really told the truth;
and the reports of examination and cross-examination, if interminable, even=
if
intolerable are at least reliable. The true reason, of course, was the
coincidence of persons. The victim was a popular actress; the accused was a
popular actor; and the accused had been caught red-handed, as it were, by t=
he
most popular soldier of the patriotic season. In those extraordinary
circumstances the Press was paralysed into probity and accuracy; and the re=
st
of this somewhat singular business can practically be recorded from reports=
of Bruno's
trial.
The trial was presided over by Mr Justice Monkhouse, one of those who
are jeered at as humorous judges, but who are generally much more serious t=
han
the serious judges, for their levity comes from a living impatience of
professional solemnity; while the serious judge is really filled with
frivolity, because he is filled with vanity. All the chief actors being of a
worldly importance, the barristers were well balanced; the prosecutor for t=
he
Crown was Sir Walter Cowdray, a heavy, but weighty advocate of the sort that
knows how to seem English and trustworthy, and how to be rhetorical with
reluctance. The prisoner was defended by Mr Patrick Butler, K.C., who was
mistaken for a mere flaneur by those who misunderstood the Irish character-=
-and
those who had not been examined by him. The medical evidence involved no
contradictions, the doctor, whom Seymour had summoned on the spot, agreeing
with the eminent surgeon who had later examined the body. Aurora Rome had b=
een stabbed
with some sharp instrument such as a knife or dagger; some instrument, at
least, of which the blade was short. The wound was just over the heart, and=
she
had died instantly. When the doctor first saw her she could hardly have been
dead for twenty minutes. Therefore when Father Brown found her she could ha=
rdly
have been dead for three.
Some official detective evidence followed, chiefly concerned with th=
e presence
or absence of any proof of a struggle; the only suggestion of this was the
tearing of the dress at the shoulder, and this did not seem to fit in
particularly well with the direction and finality of the blow. When these
details had been supplied, though not explained, the first of the important
witnesses was called.
Sir Wilson Seymour gave evidence as he did everything else that he d=
id at
all--not only well, but perfectly. Though himself much more of a public man
than the judge, he conveyed exactly the fine shade of self-effacement before
the King's justice; and though everyone looked at him as they would at the
Prime Minister or the Archbishop of Canterbury, they could have said nothin=
g of
his part in it but that it was that of a private gentleman, with an accent =
on
the noun. He was also refreshingly lucid, as he was on the committees. He h=
ad
been calling on Miss Rome at the theatre; he had met Captain Cutler there; =
they
had been joined for a short time by the accused, who had then returned to h=
is
own dressing-room; they had then been joined by a Roman Catholic priest, wh=
o asked
for the deceased lady and said his name was Brown. Miss Rome had then gone =
just
outside the theatre to the entrance of the passage, in order to point out to
Captain Cutler a flower-shop at which he was to buy her some more flowers; =
and
the witness had remained in the room, exchanging a few words with the pries=
t.
He had then distinctly heard the deceased, having sent the Captain on his
errand, turn round laughing and run down the passage towards its other end,
where was the prisoner's dressing-room. In idle curiosity as to the rapid
movement of his friends, he had strolled out to the head of the passage him=
self
and looked down it towards the prisoner's door. Did he see anything in the =
passage?
Yes; he saw something in the passage.
Sir Walter Cowdray allowed an impressive interval, during which the =
witness
looked down, and for all his usual composure seemed to have more than his u=
sual
pallor. Then the barrister said in a lower voice, which seemed at once
sympathetic and creepy: "Did you see it distinctly?"
Sir Wilson Seymour, however moved, had his excellent brains in full =
working-order.
"Very distinctly as regards its outline, but quite indistinctly, indeed
not at all, as regards the details inside the outline. The passage is of su=
ch
length that anyone in the middle of it appears quite black against the ligh=
t at
the other end." The witness lowered his steady eyes once more and adde=
d:
"I had noticed the fact before, when Captain Cutler first entered
it." There was another silence, and the judge leaned forward and made a
note.
"Well," said Sir Walter patiently, "what was the outl=
ine
like? Was it, for instance, like the figure of the murdered woman?"
"Not in the least," answered Seymour quietly.
"What did it look like to you?"
"It looked to me," replied the witness, "like a tall
man."
Everyone in court kept his eyes riveted on his pen, or his umbrella-=
handle,
or his book, or his boots or whatever he happened to be looking at. They se=
emed
to be holding their eyes away from the prisoner by main force; but they felt
his figure in the dock, and they felt it as gigantic. Tall as Bruno was to =
the
eye, he seemed to swell taller and taller when an eyes had been torn away f=
rom
him.
Cowdray was resuming his seat with his solemn face, smoothing his bl=
ack
silk robes, and white silk whiskers. Sir Wilson was leaving the witness-box=
, after
a few final particulars to which there were many other witnesses, when the
counsel for the defence sprang up and stopped him.
"I shall only detain you a moment," said Mr Butler, who wa=
s a rustic-looking
person with red eyebrows and an expression of partial slumber. "Will y=
ou
tell his lordship how you knew it was a man?"
A faint, refined smile seemed to pass over Seymour's features. "=
;I'm
afraid it is the vulgar test of trousers," he said. "When I saw
daylight between the long legs I was sure it was a man, after all."
Butler's sleepy eyes opened as suddenly as some silent explosion.
"After all!" he repeated slowly. "So you did think at first =
it
was a woman?"
Seymour looked troubled for the first time. "It is hardly a poi=
nt
of fact," he said, "but if his lordship would like me to answer f=
or
my impression, of course I shall do so. There was something about the thing=
that
was not exactly a woman and yet was not quite a man; somehow the curves were
different. And it had something that looked like long hair."
"Thank you," said Mr Butler, K.C., and sat down suddenly, =
as
if he had got what he wanted.
Captain Cutler was a far less plausible and composed witness than Si=
r Wilson,
but his account of the opening incidents was solidly the same. He described=
the
return of Bruno to his dressing-room, the dispatching of himself to buy a b=
unch
of lilies-of-the-valley, his return to the upper end of the passage, the th=
ing
he saw in the passage, his suspicion of Seymour, and his struggle with Brun=
o.
But he could give little artistic assistance about the black figure that he=
and
Seymour had seen. Asked about its outline, he said he was no art critic--wi=
th a
somewhat too obvious sneer at Seymour. Asked if it was a man or a woman, he
said it looked more like a beast--with a too obvious snarl at the prisoner.=
But
the man was plainly shaken with sorrow and sincere anger, and Cowdray quick=
ly
excused him from confirming facts that were already fairly clear.
The defending counsel also was again brief in his cross-examination;=
although
(as was his custom) even in being brief, he seemed to take a long time about
it. "You used a rather remarkable expression," he said, looking at
Cutler sleepily. "What do you mean by saying that it looked more like a
beast than a man or a woman?"
Cutler seemed seriously agitated. "Perhaps I oughtn't to have s=
aid that,"
he said; "but when the brute has huge humped shoulders like a chimpanz=
ee,
and bristles sticking out of its head like a pig--"
Mr Butler cut short his curious impatience in the middle. "Never
mind whether its hair was like a pig's," he said, "was it like a
woman's?"
"A woman's!" cried the soldier. "Great Scott, no!&quo=
t;
"The last witness said it was," commented the counsel, with
unscrupulous swiftness. "And did the figure have any of those serpenti=
ne
and semi-feminine curves to which eloquent allusion has been made? No? No f=
eminine
curves? The figure, if I understand you, was rather heavy and square than
otherwise?"
"He may have been bending forward," said Cutler, in a hoar=
se
and rather faint voice.
"Or again, he may not," said Mr Butler, and sat down sudde=
nly
for the second time.
The third, witness called by Sir Walter Cowdray was the little Catho=
lic clergyman,
so little, compared with the others, that his head seemed hardly to come ab=
ove
the box, so that it was like cross-examining a child. But unfortunately Sir
Walter had somehow got it into his head (mostly by some ramifications of his
family's religion) that Father Brown was on the side of the prisoner, becau=
se
the prisoner was wicked and foreign and even partly black. Therefore he took
Father Brown up sharply whenever that proud pontiff tried to explain anythi=
ng;
and told him to answer yes or no, and tell the plain facts without any
jesuitry. When Father Brown began, in his simplicity, to say who he thought=
the
man in the passage was, the barrister told him that he did not want his the=
ories.
"A black shape was seen in the passage. And you say you saw the
black shape. Well, what shape was it?"
Father Brown blinked as under rebuke; but he had long known the lite=
ral nature
of obedience. "The shape," he said, "was short and thick, but
had two sharp, black projections curved upwards on each side of the head or=
top,
rather like horns, and--"
"Oh! the devil with horns, no doubt," ejaculated Cowdray,
sitting down in triumphant jocularity. "It was the devil come to eat
Protestants."
"No," said the priest dispassionately; "I know who it
was."
Those in court had been wrought up to an irrational, but real sense =
of some
monstrosity. They had forgotten the figure in the dock and thought only of =
the
figure in the passage. And the figure in the passage, described by three
capable and respectable men who had all seen it, was a shifting nightmare: =
one
called it a woman, and the other a beast, and the other a devil....
The judge was looking at Father Brown with level and piercing eyes. =
"You
are a most extraordinary witness," he said; "but there is somethi=
ng about
you that makes me think you are trying to tell the truth. Well, who was the=
man
you saw in the passage?"
"He was myself," said Father Brown.
Butler, K.C., sprang to his feet in an extraordinary stillness, and =
said
quite calmly: "Your lordship will allow me to cross-examine?" And
then, without stopping, he shot at Brown the apparently disconnected questi=
on: "You
have heard about this dagger; you know the experts say the crime was commit=
ted
with a short blade?"
"A short blade," assented Brown, nodding solemnly like an =
owl,
"but a very long hilt."
Before the audience could quite dismiss the idea that the priest had=
really
seen himself doing murder with a short dagger with a long hilt (which seemed
somehow to make it more horrible), he had himself hurried on to explain.
"I mean daggers aren't the only things with short blades. Spear=
s have
short blades. And spears catch at the end of the steel just like daggers, if
they're that sort of fancy spear they had in theatres; like the spear poor =
old
Parkinson killed his wife with, just when she'd sent for me to settle their
family troubles--and I came just too late, God forgive me! But he died
penitent--he just died of being penitent. He couldn't bear what he'd
done."
The general impression in court was that the little priest, who was =
gobbling
away, had literally gone mad in the box. But the judge still looked at him =
with
bright and steady eyes of interest; and the counsel for the defence went on
with his questions unperturbed.
"If Parkinson did it with that pantomime spear," said Butl=
er,
"he must have thrust from four yards away. How do you account for sign=
s of
struggle, like the dress dragged off the shoulder?" He had slipped int=
o treating
his mere witness as an expert; but no one noticed it now.
"The poor lady's dress was torn," said the witness,
"because it was caught in a panel that slid to just behind her. She
struggled to free herself, and as she did so Parkinson came out of the
prisoner's room and lunged with the spear."
"A panel?" repeated the barrister in a curious voice.
"It was a looking-glass on the other side," explained Fath=
er
Brown. "When I was in the dressing-room I noticed that some of them co=
uld probably
be slid out into the passage."
There was another vast and unnatural silence, and this time it was t=
he judge
who spoke. "So you really mean that when you looked down that passage,=
the
man you saw was yourself--in a mirror?"
"Yes, my lord; that was what I was trying to say," said Br=
own,
"but they asked me for the shape; and our hats have corners just like
horns, and so I--"
The judge leaned forward, his old eyes yet more brilliant, and said =
in
specially distinct tones: "Do you really mean to say that when Sir Wil=
son
Seymour saw that wild what-you-call-him with curves and a woman's hair and a
man's trousers, what he saw was Sir Wilson Seymour?"
"Yes, my lord," said Father Brown.
"And you mean to say that when Captain Cutler saw that chimpanz=
ee
with humped shoulders and hog's bristles, he simply saw himself?"
"Yes, my lord."
The judge leaned back in his chair with a luxuriance in which it was=
hard
to separate the cynicism and the admiration. "And can you tell us why,=
"
he asked, "you should know your own figure in a looking-glass, when two
such distinguished men don't?"
Father Brown blinked even more painfully than before; then he stamme=
red:
"Really, my lord, I don't know unless it's because I don't look at it =
so often."
FIVE -- The Mistake of the
Machine=
FLAMBEAU and his frien=
d the
priest were sitting in the Temple Gardens about sunset; and their neighbour=
hood
or some such accidental influence had turned their talk to matters of legal
process. From the problem of the licence in cross-examination, their talk
strayed to Roman and mediaeval torture, to the examining magistrate in Fran=
ce
and the Third Degree in America.
"I've been reading," said Flambeau, "of this new psychometric method they talk about so much, especially in America. You know what I mean; they put a pulsometer on a man's wrist and judge by how his he= art goes at the pronunciation of certain words. What do you think of it?"<= o:p>
"I think it very interesting," replied Father Brown; "=
;it
reminds me of that interesting idea in the Dark Ages that blood would flow =
from
a corpse if the murderer touched it."
"Do you really mean," demanded his friend, "that you
think the two methods equally valuable?"
"I think them equally valueless," replied Brown. "Blo=
od
flows, fast or slow, in dead folk or living, for so many more million reaso=
ns
than we can ever know. Blood will have to flow very funnily; blood will hav=
e to
flow up the Matterhorn, before I will take it as a sign that I am to shed
it."
"The method," remarked the other, "has been guarantee=
d by
some of the greatest American men of science."
"What sentimentalists men of science are!" exclaimed Father
Brown, "and how much more sentimental must American men of science be!=
Who
but a Yankee would think of proving anything from heart-throbs? Why, they m=
ust be
as sentimental as a man who thinks a woman is in love with him if she blush=
es.
That's a test from the circulation of the blood, discovered by the immortal
Harvey; and a jolly rotten test, too."
"But surely," insisted Flambeau, "it might point pret=
ty
straight at something or other."
"There's a disadvantage in a stick pointing straight,"
answered the other. "What is it? Why, the other end of the stick always
points the opposite way. It depends whether you get hold of the stick by the
right
end. I saw the thing done once and I've never believed in it
since." And he proceeded to tell the story of his disillusionment.
It happened nearly twenty years before, when he was chaplain to his =
co-religionists
in a prison in Chicago--where the Irish population displayed a capacity both
for crime and penitence which kept him tolerably busy. The official
second-in-command under the Governor was an ex-detective named Greywood Ush=
er,
a cadaverous, careful-spoken Yankee philosopher, occasionally varying a very
rigid visage with an odd apologetic grimace. He liked Father Brown in a
slightly patronizing way; and Father Brown liked him, though he heartily
disliked his theories. His theories were extremely complicated and were held
with extreme simplicity.
One evening he had sent for the priest, who, according to his custom=
, took
a seat in silence at a table piled and littered with papers, and waited. The
official selected from the papers a scrap of newspaper cutting, which he ha=
nded
across to the cleric, who read it gravely. It appeared to be an extract from
one of the pinkest of American Society papers, and ran as follows:
"Society's brightest widower is once more on the Freak Dinner
stunt. All our exclusive citizens will recall the Perambulator Parade Dinne=
r,
in which Last-Trick Todd, at his palatial home at Pilgrim's Pond, caused so=
many
of our prominent debutantes to look even younger than their years. Equally
elegant and more miscellaneous and large-hearted in social outlook was
Last-Trick's show the year previous, the popular Cannibal Crush Lunch, at w=
hich
the confections handed round were sarcastically moulded in the forms of hum=
an
arms and legs, and during which more than one of our gayest mental gymnasts=
was
heard offering to eat his partner. The witticism which will inspire this
evening is as yet in Mr Todd's pretty reticent intellect, or locked in the
jewelled bosoms of our city's gayest leaders; but there is talk of a pretty
parody of the simple manners and customs at the other end of Society's scal=
e.
This would be all the more telling, as hospitable Todd is entertaining in L=
ord
Falconroy, the famous traveller, a true-blooded aristocrat fresh from Engla=
nd's
oak-groves. Lord Falconroy's travels began before his ancient feudal title =
was
resurrected, he was in the Republic in his youth, and fashion murmurs a sly
reason for his return. Miss Etta Todd is one of our deep-souled New Yorkers,
and comes into an income of nearly twelve hundred million dollars."
"Well," asked Usher, "does that interest you?"
"Why, words rather fail me," answered Father Brown. "I
cannot think at this moment of anything in this world that would interest me
less. And, unless the just anger of the Republic is at last going to electr=
ocute
journalists for writing like that, I don't quite see why it should interest=
you
either."
"Ah!" said Mr Usher dryly, and handing across another scra=
p of
newspaper. "Well, does that interest you?"
The paragraph was headed "Savage Murder of a Warder. Convict
Escapes," and ran: "Just before dawn this morning a shout for help
was heard in the Convict Settlement at Sequah in this State. The authoritie=
s, hurrying
in the direction of the cry, found the corpse of the warder who patrols the=
top
of the north wall of the prison, the steepest and most difficult exit, for
which one man has always been found sufficient. The unfortunate officer had,
however, been hurled from the high wall, his brains beaten out as with a cl=
ub,
and his gun was missing. Further inquiries showed that one of the cells was
empty; it had been occupied by a rather sullen ruffian giving his name as O=
scar
Rian. He was only temporarily detained for some comparatively trivial assau=
lt;
but he gave everyone the impression of a man with a black past and a danger=
ous future.
Finally, when daylight had fully revealed the scene of murder, it was found
that he had written on the wall above the body a fragmentary sentence,
apparently with a finger dipped in blood: 'This was self-defence and he had=
the
gun. I meant no harm to him or any man but one. I am keeping the bullet for
Pilgrim's Pond--O.R.' A man must have used most fiendish treachery or most
savage and amazing bodily daring to have stormed such a wall in spite of an
armed man."
"Well, the literary style is somewhat improved," admitted =
the
priest cheerfully, "but still I don't see what I can do for you. I sho=
uld
cut a poor figure, with my short legs, running about this State after an at=
hletic
assassin of that sort. I doubt whether anybody could find him. The convict
settlement at Sequah is thirty miles from here; the country between is wild=
and
tangled enough, and the country beyond, where he will surely have the sense=
to
go, is a perfect no-man's land tumbling away to the prairies. He may be in =
any
hole or up any tree."
"He isn't in any hole," said the governor; "he isn't =
up
any tree."
"Why, how do you know?" asked Father Brown, blinking.
"Would you like to speak to him?" inquired Usher.
Father Brown opened his innocent eyes wide. "He is here?" =
he
exclaimed. "Why, how did your men get hold of him?"
"I got hold of him myself," drawled the American, rising a=
nd
lazily stretching his lanky legs before the fire. "I got hold of him w=
ith
the crooked end of a walking-stick. Don't look so surprised. I really did. =
You
know I sometimes take a turn in the country lanes outside this dismal place;
well, I was walking early this evening up a steep lane with dark hedges and
grey-looking ploughed fields on both sides; and a young moon was up and
silvering the road. By the light of it I saw a man running across the field
towards the road; running with his body bent and at a good mile-race trot. =
He
appeared to be much exhausted; but when he came to the thick black hedge he
went through it as if it were made of spiders' webs;--or rather (for I heard
the strong branches breaking and snapping like bayonets) as if he himself w=
ere
made of stone. In the instant in which he appeared up against the moon,
crossing the road, I slung my hooked cane at his legs, tripping him and
bringing him down. Then I blew my whistle long and loud, and our fellows ca=
me
running up to secure him."
"It would have been rather awkward," remarked Brown, "=
;if
you had found he was a popular athlete practising a mile race."
"He was not," said Usher grimly. "We soon found out w=
ho
he was; but I had guessed it with the first glint of the moon on him."=
"You thought it was the runaway convict," observed the pri=
est
simply, "because you had read in the newspaper cutting that morning th=
at a
convict had run away."
"I had somewhat better grounds," replied the governor cool=
ly.
"I pass over the first as too simple to be emphasized--I mean that
fashionable athletes do not run across ploughed fields or scratch their eyes
out in bramble hedges. Nor do they run all doubled up like a crouching dog.=
There
were more decisive details to a fairly well-trained eye. The man was clad in
coarse and ragged clothes, but they were something more than merely coarse =
and
ragged. They were so ill-fitting as to be quite grotesque; even as he appea=
red
in black outline against the moonrise, the coat-collar in which his head was
buried made him look like a hunchback, and the long loose sleeves looked as=
if
he had no hands. It at once occurred to me that he had somehow managed to
change his convict clothes for some confederate's clothes which did not fit
him. Second, there was a pretty stiff wind against which he was running; so
that I must have seen the streaky look of blowing hair, if the hair had not=
been
very short. Then I remembered that beyond these ploughed fields he was cros=
sing
lay Pilgrim's Pond, for which (you will remember) the convict was keeping h=
is
bullet; and I sent my walking-stick flying."
"A brilliant piece of rapid deduction," said Father Brown;
"but had he got a gun?"
As Usher stopped abruptly in his walk the priest added apologeticall=
y: "I've
been told a bullet is not half so useful without it."
"He had no gun," said the other gravely; "but that was
doubtless due to some very natural mischance or change of plans. Probably t=
he
same policy that made him change the clothes made him drop the gun; he bega=
n to
repent the coat he had left behind him in the blood of his victim."
"Well, that is possible enough," answered the priest.
"And it's hardly worth speculating on," said Usher, turnin=
g to
some other papers, "for we know it's the man by this time."
His clerical friend asked faintly: "But how?" And Greywood
Usher threw down the newspapers and took up the two press-cuttings again.
"Well, since you are so obstinate," he said, "let's b=
egin
at the beginning. You will notice that these two cuttings have only one thi=
ng in
common, which is the mention of Pilgrim's Pond, the estate, as you know, of=
the
millionaire Ireton Todd. You also know that he is a remarkable character; o=
ne
of those that rose on stepping-stones--"
"Of our dead selves to higher things," assented his compan=
ion.
"Yes; I know that. Petroleum, I think."
"Anyhow," said Usher, "Last-Trick Todd counts for a g=
reat
deal in this rum affair."
He stretched himself once more before the fire and continued talking=
in his
expansive, radiantly explanatory style.
"To begin with, on the face of it, there is no mystery here at =
all.
It is not mysterious, it is not even odd, that a jailbird should take his g=
un
to Pilgrim's Pond. Our people aren't like the English, who will forgive a m=
an
for being rich if he throws away money on hospitals or horses. Last-Trick T=
odd
has made himself big by his own considerable abilities; and there's no doubt
that many of those on whom he has shown his abilities would like to show th=
eirs
on him with a shot-gun. Todd might easily get dropped by some man he'd never
even heard of; some labourer he'd locked out, or some clerk in a business h=
e'd
busted. Last-Trick is a man of mental endowments and a high public characte=
r; but
in this country the relations of employers and employed are considerably
strained.
"That's how the whole thing looks supposing this Rian made for
Pilgrim's Pond to kill Todd. So it looked to me, till another little discov=
ery woke
up what I have of the detective in me. When I had my prisoner safe, I picke=
d up
my cane again and strolled down the two or three turns of country road that
brought me to one of the side entrances of Todd's grounds, the one nearest =
to
the pool or lake after which the place is named. It was some two hours ago,
about seven by this time; the moonlight was more luminous, and I could see =
the
long white streaks of it lying on the mysterious mere with its grey, greasy,
half-liquid shores in which they say our fathers used to make witches walk
until they sank. I'd forgotten the exact tale; but you know the place I mea=
n; it
lies north of Todd's house towards the wilderness, and has two queer wrinkl=
ed
trees, so dismal that they look more like huge fungoids than decent foliage=
. As
I stood peering at this misty pool, I fancied I saw the faint figure of a m=
an
moving from the house towards it, but it was all too dim and distant for on=
e to
be certain of the fact, and still less of the details. Besides, my attention
was very sharply arrested by something much closer. I crouched behind the f=
ence
which ran not more than two hundred yards from one wing of the great mansio=
n,
and which was fortunately split in places, as if specially for the applicat=
ion
of a cautious eye. A door had opened in the dark bulk of the left wing, and=
a figure
appeared black against the illuminated interior--a muffled figure bending
forward, evidently peering out into the night. It closed the door behind it,
and I saw it was carrying a lantern, which threw a patch of imperfect light=
on
the dress and figure of the wearer. It seemed to be the figure of a woman,
wrapped up in a ragged cloak and evidently disguised to avoid notice; there=
was
something very strange both about the rags and the furtiveness in a person
coming out of those rooms lined with gold. She took cautiously the curved
garden path which brought her within half a hundred yards of me--, then she
stood up for an instant on the terrace of turf that looks towards the slimy
lake, and holding her flaming lantern above her head she deliberately swung=
it
three times to and fro as for a signal. As she swung it the second time a
flicker of its light fell for a moment on her own face, a face that I knew.=
She
was unnaturally pale, and her head was bundled in her borrowed plebeian sha=
wl;
but I am certain it was Etta Todd, the millionaire's daughter.
"She retraced her steps in equal secrecy and the door closed be=
hind
her again. I was about to climb the fence and follow, when I realized that =
the
detective fever that had lured me into the adventure was rather undignified;
and that in a more authoritative capacity I already held all the cards in my
hand. I was just turning away when a new noise broke on the night. A window=
was
thrown up in one of the upper floors, but just round the corner of the hous=
e so
that I could not see it; and a voice of terrible distinctness was heard
shouting across the dark garden to know where Lord Falconroy was, for he was
missing from every room in the house. There was no mistaking that voice. I =
have
heard it on many a political platform or meeting of directors; it was Ireton
Todd himself. Some of the others seemed to have gone to the lower windows o=
r on
to the steps, and were calling up to him that Falconroy had gone for a stro=
ll down
to the Pilgrim's Pond an hour before, and could not be traced since. Then T=
odd
cried 'Mighty Murder!' and shut down the window violently; and I could hear=
him
plunging down the stairs inside. Repossessing myself of my former and wiser
purpose, I whipped out of the way of the general search that must follow; a=
nd
returned here not later than eight o'clock.
"I now ask you to recall that little Society paragraph which se=
emed
to you so painfully lacking in interest. If the convict was not keeping the
shot for Todd, as he evidently wasn't, it is most likely that he was keepin=
g it
for Lord Falconroy; and it looks as if he had delivered the goods. No more
handy place to shoot a man than in the curious geological surroundings of t=
hat
pool, where a body thrown down would sink through thick slime to a depth
practically unknown. Let us suppose, then, that our friend with the cropped
hair came to kill Falconroy and not Todd. But, as I have pointed out, there=
are
many reasons why people in America might want to kill Todd. There is no rea=
son
why anybody in America should want to kill an English lord newly landed, ex=
cept
for the one reason mentioned in the pink paper--that the lord is paying his=
attentions
to the millionaire's daughter. Our crop-haired friend, despite his ill-fitt=
ing
clothes, must be an aspiring lover.
"I know the notion will seem to you jarring and even comic; but
that's because you are English. It sounds to you like saying the Archbishop=
of Canterbury's
daughter will be married in St George's, Hanover Square, to a crossing-swee=
per
on ticket-of-leave. You don't do justice to the climbing and aspiring power=
of
our more remarkable citizens. You see a good-looking grey-haired man in
evening-dress with a sort of authority about him, you know he is a pillar o=
f the
State, and you fancy he had a father. You are in error. You do not realize =
that
a comparatively few years ago he may have been in a tenement or (quite like=
ly)
in a jail. You don't allow for our national buoyancy and uplift. Many of ou=
r most
influential citizens have not only risen recently, but risen comparatively =
late
in life. Todd's daughter was fully eighteen when her father first made his
pile; so there isn't really anything impossible in her having a hanger-on in
low life; or even in her hanging on to him, as I think she must be doing, to
judge by the lantern business. If so, the hand that held the lantern may no=
t be
unconnected with the hand that held the gun. This case, sir, will make a
noise."
"Well," said the priest patiently, "and what did you =
do
next?"
"I reckon you'll be shocked," replied Greywood Usher, &quo=
t;as
I know you don't cotton to the march of science in these matters. I am give=
n a
good deal of discretion here, and perhaps take a little more than I'm given=
; and
I thought it was an excellent opportunity to test that Psychometric Machine=
I
told you about. Now, in my opinion, that machine can't lie."
"No machine can lie," said Father Brown; "nor can it =
tell
the truth."
"It did in this case, as I'll show you," went on Usher
positively. "I sat the man in the ill-fitting clothes in a comfortable
chair, and simply wrote words on a blackboard; and the machine simply recor=
ded
the variations of his pulse; and I simply observed his manner. The trick is=
to
introduce some word connected with the supposed crime in a list of words
connected with something quite different, yet a list in which it occurs qui=
te
naturally. Thus I wrote 'heron' and 'eagle' and 'owl', and when I wrote
'falcon' he was tremendously agitated; and when I began to make an 'r' at t=
he
end of the word, that machine just bounded. Who else in this republic has a=
ny
reason to jump at the name of a newly-arrived Englishman like Falconroy exc=
ept
the man who's shot him? Isn't that better evidence than a lot of gabble from
witnesses--if the evidence of a reliable machine?"
"You always forget," observed his companion, "that the
reliable machine always has to be worked by an unreliable machine."
"Why, what do you mean?" asked the detective.
"I mean Man," said Father Brown, "the most unreliable=
machine
I know of. I don't want to be rude; and I don't think you will consider Man=
to
be an offensive or inaccurate description of yourself. You say you observed=
his
manner; but how do you know you observed it right? You say the words have to
come in a natural way; but how do you know that you did it naturally? How do
you know, if you come to that, that he did not observe your manner? Who is =
to
prove that you were not tremendously agitated? There was no machine tied on=
to
your pulse."
"I tell you," cried the American in the utmost excitement,
"I was as cool as a cucumber."
"Criminals also can be as cool as cucumbers," said Brown w=
ith
a smile. "And almost as cool as you."
"Well, this one wasn't," said Usher, throwing the papers
about. "Oh, you make me tired!"
"I'm sorry," said the other. "I only point out what s=
eems
a reasonable possibility. If you could tell by his manner when the word that
might hang him had come, why shouldn't he tell from your manner that the wo=
rd that
might hang him was coming? I should ask for more than words myself before I
hanged anybody."
Usher smote the table and rose in a sort of angry triumph.
"And that," he cried, "is just what I'm going to give
you. I tried the machine first just in order to test the thing in other ways
afterwards and the machine, sir, is right."
He paused a moment and resumed with less excitement. "I rather =
want
to insist, if it comes to that, that so far I had very little to go on exce=
pt
the scientific experiment. There was really nothing against the man at all.=
His
clothes were ill-fitting, as I've said, but they were rather better, if
anything, than those of the submerged class to which he evidently belonged.
Moreover, under all the stains of his plunging through ploughed fields or
bursting through dusty hedges, the man was comparatively clean. This might
mean, of course, that he had only just broken prison; but it reminded me mo=
re
of the desperate decency of the comparatively respectable poor. His demeano=
ur
was, I am bound to confess, quite in accordance with theirs. He was silent =
and
dignified as they are; he seemed to have a big, but buried, grievance, as t=
hey
do. He professed total ignorance of the crime and the whole question; and s=
howed
nothing but a sullen impatience for something sensible that might come to t=
ake
him out of his meaningless scrape. He asked me more than once if he could
telephone for a lawyer who had helped him a long time ago in a trade disput=
e,
and in every sense acted as you would expect an innocent man to act. There =
was
nothing against him in the world except that little finger on the dial that
pointed to the change of his pulse.
"Then, sir, the machine was on its trial; and the machine was
right. By the time I came with him out of the private room into the vestibu=
le where
all sorts of other people were awaiting examination, I think he had already
more or less made up his mind to clear things up by something like a
confession. He turned to me and began to say in a low voice: 'Oh, I can't s=
tick
this any more. If you must know all about me--'
"At the same instant one of the poor women sitting on the long
bench stood up, screaming aloud and pointing at him with her finger. I have=
never
in my life heard anything more demoniacally distinct. Her lean finger seeme=
d to
pick him out as if it were a pea-shooter. Though the word was a mere howl,
every syllable was as clear as a separate stroke on the clock.
"'Drugger Davis!' she shouted. 'They've got Drugger Davis!'
"Among the wretched women, mostly thieves and streetwalkers, tw=
enty
faces were turned, gaping with glee and hate. If I had never heard the word=
s, I
should have known by the very shock upon his features that the so-called Os=
car
Rian had heard his real name. But I'm not quite so ignorant, you may be
surprised to hear. Drugger Davis was one of the most terrible and depraved
criminals that ever baffled our police. It is certain he had done murder mo=
re
than once long before his last exploit with the warder. But he was never
entirely fixed for it, curiously enough because he did it in the same manne=
r as
those milder--or meaner--crimes for which he was fixed pretty often. He was=
a
handsome, well-bred-looking brute, as he still is, to some extent; and he u=
sed mostly
to go about with barmaids or shop-girls and do them out of their money. Very
often, though, he went a good deal farther; and they were found drugged with
cigarettes or chocolates and their whole property missing. Then came one ca=
se
where the girl was found dead; but deliberation could not quite be proved, =
and,
what was more practical still, the criminal could not be found. I heard a
rumour of his having reappeared somewhere in the opposite character this ti=
me,
lending money instead of borrowing it; but still to such poor widows as he
might personally fascinate, but still with the same bad result for them. We=
ll, there
is your innocent man, and there is his innocent record. Even, since then, f=
our
criminals and three warders have identified him and confirmed the story. Now
what have you got to say to my poor little machine after that? Hasn't the
machine done for him? Or do you prefer to say that the woman and I have done
for him?"
"As to what you've done for him," replied Father Brown, ri=
sing
and shaking himself in a floppy way, "you've saved him from the electr=
ical
chair. I don't think they can kill Drugger Davis on that old vague story of=
the
poison; and as for the convict who killed the warder, I suppose it's obvious
that you haven't got him. Mr Davis is innocent of that crime, at any
rate."
"What do you mean?" demanded the other. "Why should h=
e be
innocent of that crime?"
"Why, bless us all!" cried the small man in one of his rare
moments of animation, "why, because he's guilty of the other crimes! I
don't know what you people are made of. You seem to think that all sins are
kept together in a bag. You talk as if a miser on Monday were always a spen=
dthrift
on Tuesday. You tell me this man you have here spent weeks and months wheed=
ling
needy women out of small sums of money; that he used a drug at the best, an=
d a
poison at the worst; that he turned up afterwards as the lowest kind of
moneylender, and cheated most poor people in the same patient and pacific
style. Let it be granted--let us admit, for the sake of argument, that he d=
id
all this. If that is so, I will tell you what he didn't do. He didn't storm=
a
spiked wall against a man with a loaded gun. He didn't write on the wall wi=
th
his own hand, to say he had done it. He didn't stop to state that his
justification was self-defence. He didn't explain that he had no quarrel wi=
th
the poor warder. He didn't name the house of the rich man to which he was g=
oing
with the gun. He didn't write his own, initials in a man's blood. Saints al=
ive!
Can't you see the whole character is different, in good and evil? Why, you
don't seem to be like I am a bit. One would think you'd never had any vices=
of
your own."
The amazed American had already parted his lips in protest when the =
door
of his private and official room was hammered and rattled in an unceremonio=
us
way to which he was totally unaccustomed.
The door flew open. The moment before Greywood Usher had been coming=
to the
conclusion that Father Brown might possibly be mad. The moment after he beg=
an
to think he was mad himself. There burst and fell into his private room a m=
an
in the filthiest rags, with a greasy squash hat still askew on his head, an=
d a
shabby green shade shoved up from one of his eyes, both of which were glari=
ng
like a tiger's. The rest of his face was almost undiscoverable, being masked
with a matted beard and whiskers through which the nose could barely thrust
itself, and further buried in a squalid red scarf or handkerchief. Mr Usher
prided himself on having seen most of the roughest specimens in the State, =
but
he thought he had never seen such a baboon dressed as a scarecrow as this. =
But,
above all, he had never in all his placid scientific existence heard a man =
like
that speak to him first.
"See here, old man Usher," shouted the being in the red
handkerchief, "I'm getting tired. Don't you try any of your hide-and-s=
eek
on me; I don't get fooled any. Leave go of my guests, and I'll let up on th=
e fancy
clockwork. Keep him here for a split instant and you'll feel pretty mean. I
reckon I'm not a man with no pull."
The eminent Usher was regarding the bellowing monster with an amazem=
ent which
had dried up all other sentiments. The mere shock to his eyes had rendered =
his
ears, almost useless. At last he rang a bell with a hand of violence. While=
the
bell was still strong and pealing, the voice of Father Brown fell soft but
distinct.
"I have a suggestion to make," he said, "but it seems=
a
little confusing. I don't know this gentleman--but--but I think I know him.
Now, you know him--you know him quite well--but you don't know him--natural=
ly.
Sounds paradoxical, I know."
"I reckon the Cosmos is cracked," said Usher, and fell asp=
rawl
in his round office chair.
"Now, see here," vociferated the stranger, striking the ta=
ble,
but speaking in a voice that was all the more mysterious because it was com=
paratively
mild and rational though still resounding. "I won't let you in. I
want--"
"Who in hell are you?" yelled Usher, suddenly sitting up
straight.
"I think the gentleman's name is Todd," said the priest.
Then he picked up the pink slip of newspaper.
"I fear you don't read the Society papers properly," he sa=
id,
and began to read out in a monotonous voice, "'Or locked in the jewell=
ed
bosoms of our city's gayest leaders; but there is talk of a pretty parody of
the manners and customs of the other end of Society's scale.' There's been a
big Slum Dinner up at Pilgrim's Pond tonight; and a man, one of the guests,
disappeared. Mr Ireton Todd is a good host, and has tracked him here, witho=
ut
even waiting to take off his fancy-dress."
"What man do you mean?"
"I mean the man with comically ill-fitting clothes you saw runn=
ing across
the ploughed field. Hadn't you better go and investigate him? He will be ra=
ther
impatient to get back to his champagne, from which he ran away in such a hu=
rry,
when the convict with the gun hove in sight."
"Do you seriously mean--" began the official.
"Why, look here, Mr Usher," said Father Brown quietly,
"you said the machine couldn't make a mistake; and in one sense it did=
n't.
But the other machine did; the machine that worked it. You assumed that the=
man
in rags jumped at the name of Lord Falconroy, because he was Lord Falconroy=
's
murderer. He jumped at the name of Lord Falconroy because he is Lord
Falconroy."
"Then why the blazes didn't he say so?" demanded the stari=
ng
Usher.
"He felt his plight and recent panic were hardly patrician,&quo=
t;
replied the priest, "so he tried to keep the name back at first. But he
was just going to tell it you, when"--and Father Brown looked down at =
his boots--"when
a woman found another name for him."
"But you can't be so mad as to say," said Greywood Usher, =
very
white, "that Lord Falconroy was Drugger Davis."
The priest looked at him very earnestly, but with a baffling and und=
ecipherable
face.
"I am not saying anything about it," he said. "I leave
all the rest to you. Your pink paper says that the title was recently reviv=
ed
for him; but those papers are very unreliable. It says he was in the States=
in youth;
but the whole story seems very strange. Davis and Falconroy are both pretty
considerable cowards, but so are lots of other men. I would not hang a dog =
on
my own opinion about this. But I think," he went on softly and
reflectively, "I think you Americans are too modest. I think you ideal=
ize
the English aristocracy--even in assuming it to be so aristocratic. You see=
a
good-looking Englishman in evening-dress; you know he's in the House of Lor=
ds;
and you fancy he has a father. You don't allow for our national buoyancy and
uplift. Many of our most influential noblemen have not only risen recently,
but--"
"Oh, stop it!" cried Greywood Usher, wringing one lean han=
d in
impatience against a shade of irony in the other's face.
"Don't stay talking to this lunatic!" cried Todd brutally.
"Take me to my friend."
Next morning Father Brown appeared with the same demure expression, =
carrying
yet another piece of pink newspaper.
"I'm afraid you neglect the fashionable press rather," he
said, "but this cutting may interest you."
Usher read the headlines, "Last-Trick's Strayed Revellers: Mirt=
hful
Incident near Pilgrim's Pond." The paragraph went on: "A laughabl=
e occurrence
took place outside Wilkinson's Motor Garage last night. A policeman on duty=
had
his attention drawn by larrikins to a man in prison dress who was stepping =
with
considerable coolness into the steering-seat of a pretty high-toned Panhard=
; he
was accompanied by a girl wrapped in a ragged shawl. On the police interfer=
ing,
the young woman threw back the shawl, and all recognized Millionaire Todd's=
daughter,
who had just come from the Slum Freak Dinner at the Pond, where all the
choicest guests were in a similar deshabille. She and the gentleman who had
donned prison uniform were going for the customary joy-ride."
Under the pink slip Mr Usher found a strip of a later paper, headed,=
"Astounding
Escape of Millionaire's Daughter with Convict. She had Arranged Freak Dinne=
r.
Now Safe in--"
Mr Greenwood Usher lifted his eyes, but Father Brown was gone.
THERE is somewhere in
Brompton or Kensington an interminable avenue of tall houses, rich but larg=
ely
empty, that looks like a terrace of tombs. The very steps up to the dark fr=
ont
doors seem as steep as the side of pyramids; one would hesitate to knock at=
the
door, lest it should be opened by a mummy. But a yet more depressing featur=
e in
the grey facade is its telescopic length and changeless continuity. The pil=
grim
walking down it begins to think he will never come to a break or a corner; =
but there
is one exception--a very small one, but hailed by the pilgrim almost with a
shout. There is a sort of mews between two of the tall mansions, a mere slit
like the crack of a door by comparison with the street, but just large enou=
gh
to permit a pigmy ale-house or eating-house, still allowed by the rich to t=
heir
stable-servants, to stand in the angle. There is something cheery in its ve=
ry
dinginess, and something free and elfin in its very insignificance. At the =
feet
of those grey stone giants it looks like a lighted house of dwarfs.
Anyone passing the place during a certain autumn evening, itself alm=
ost fairylike,
might have seen a hand pull aside the red half-blind which (along with some
large white lettering) half hid the interior from the street, and a face pe=
er
out not unlike a rather innocent goblin's. It was, in fact, the face of one
with the harmless human name of Brown, formerly priest of Cobhole in Essex,=
and
now working in London. His friend, Flambeau, a semi-official investigator, =
was
sitting opposite him, making his last notes of a case he had cleared up in =
the neighbourhood.
They were sitting at a small table, close up to the window, when the priest
pulled the curtain back and looked out. He waited till a stranger in the st=
reet
had passed the window, to let the curtain fall into its place again. Then h=
is
round eyes rolled to the large white lettering on the window above his head,
and then strayed to the next table, at which sat only a navvy with beer and
cheese, and a young girl with red hair and a glass of milk. Then (seeing his
friend put away the pocket-book), he said softly:
"If you've got ten minutes, I wish you'd follow that man with t=
he
false nose."
Flambeau looked up in surprise; but the girl with the red hair also =
looked
up, and with something that was stronger than astonishment. She was simply =
and
even loosely dressed in light brown sacking stuff; but she was a lady, and
even, on a second glance, a rather needlessly haughty one. "The man wi=
th
the false nose!" repeated Flambeau. "Who's he?"
"I haven't a notion," answered Father Brown. "I want = you to find out; I ask it as a favour. He went down there"--and he jerked = his thumb over his shoulder in one of his undistinguished gestures--"and c= an't have passed three lamp-posts yet. I only want to know the direction."<= o:p>
Flambeau gazed at his friend for some time, with an expression betwe=
en perplexity
and amusement; and then, rising from the table; squeezed his huge form out =
of
the little door of the dwarf tavern, and melted into the twilight.
Father Brown took a small book out of his pocket and began to read s= teadily; he betrayed no consciousness of the fact that the red-haired lady had left = her own table and sat down opposite him. At last she leaned over and said in a = low, strong voice: "Why do you say that? How do you know it's false?"<= o:p>
He lifted his rather heavy eyelids, which fluttered in considerable =
embarrassment.
Then his dubious eye roamed again to the white lettering on the glass front=
of
the public-house. The young woman's eyes followed his, and rested there als=
o,
but in pure puzzledom.
"No," said Father Brown, answering her thoughts. "It
doesn't say 'Sela', like the thing in the Psalms; I read it like that myself
when I was wool-gathering just now; it says 'Ales.'"
"Well?" inquired the staring young lady. "What does it
matter what it says?"
His ruminating eye roved to the girl's light canvas sleeve, round th=
e wrist
of which ran a very slight thread of artistic pattern, just enough to
distinguish it from a working-dress of a common woman and make it more like=
the
working-dress of a lady art-student. He seemed to find much food for though=
t in
this; but his reply was very slow and hesitant. "You see, madam,"=
he
said, "from outside the place looks--well, it is a perfectly decent
place--but ladies like you don't--don't generally think so. They never go i=
nto
such places from choice, except--"
"Well?" she repeated.
"Except an unfortunate few who don't go in to drink milk."=
"You are a most singular person," said the young lady.
"What is your object in all this?"
"Not to trouble you about it," he replied, very gently.
"Only to arm myself with knowledge enough to help you, if ever you fre=
ely
ask my help."
"But why should I need help?"
He continued his dreamy monologue. "You couldn't have come in to
see protegees, humble friends, that sort of thing, or you'd have gone throu=
gh
into the parlour...and you couldn't have come in because you were ill, or y=
ou'd
have spoken to the woman of the place, who's obviously respectable...beside=
s,
you don't look ill in that way, but only unhappy.... This street is the only
original long lane that has no turning; and the houses on both sides are sh=
ut
up.... I could only suppose that you'd seen somebody coming whom you didn't
want to meet; and found the public-house was the only shelter in this
wilderness of stone.... I don't think I went beyond the licence of a strang=
er in
glancing at the only man who passed immediately after.... And as I thought =
he
looked like the wrong sort...and you looked like the right sort.... I held
myself ready to help if he annoyed you; that is all. As for my friend, he'l=
l be
back soon; and he certainly can't find out anything by stumping down a road
like this.... I didn't think he could."
"Then why did you send him out?" she cried, leaning forward
with yet warmer curiosity. She had the proud, impetuous face that goes with=
reddish
colouring, and a Roman nose, as it did in Marie Antoinette.
He looked at her steadily for the first time, and said: "Becaus=
e I
hoped you would speak to me."
She looked back at him for some time with a heated face, in which th=
ere hung
a red shadow of anger; then, despite her anxieties, humour broke out of her
eyes and the corners of her mouth, and she answered almost grimly: "We=
ll,
if you're so keen on my conversation, perhaps you'll answer my question.&qu=
ot;
After a pause she added: "I had the honour to ask you why you thought =
the
man's nose was false."
"The wax always spots like that just a little in this
weather," answered Father Brown with entire simplicity.
"But it's such a crooked nose," remonstrated the red-haired
girl.
The priest smiled in his turn. "I don't say it's the sort of no=
se
one would wear out of mere foppery," he admitted. "This man, I th=
ink,
wears it because his real nose is so much nicer."
"But why?" she insisted.
"What is the nursery-rhyme?" observed Brown absent-mindedl=
y.
"There was a crooked man and he went a crooked mile.... That man, I fa=
ncy,
has gone a very crooked road--by following his nose."
"Why, what's he done?" she demanded, rather shakily.
"I don't want to force your confidence by a hair," said Fa=
ther
Brown, very quietly. "But I think you could tell me more about that th=
an I
can tell you."
The girl sprang to her feet and stood quite quietly, but with clench=
ed hands,
like one about to stride away; then her hands loosened slowly, and she sat =
down
again. "You are more of a mystery than all the others," she said
desperately, "but I feel there might be a heart in your mystery."=
"What we all dread most," said the priest in a low voice,
"is a maze with no centre. That is why atheism is only a nightmare.&qu=
ot;
"I will tell you everything," said the red-haired girl doggedly,
"except why I am telling you; and that I don't know."
She picked at the darned table-cloth and went on: "You look as =
if
you knew what isn't snobbery as well as what is; and when I say that ours i=
s a
good old family, you'll understand it is a necessary part of the story; ind=
eed,
my chief danger is in my brother's high-and-dry notions, noblesse oblige and
all that. Well, my name is Christabel Carstairs; and my father was that Col=
onel
Carstairs you've probably heard of, who made the famous Carstairs Collectio=
n of
Roman coins. I could never describe my father to you; the nearest I can say=
is
that he was very like a Roman coin himself. He was as handsome and as genui=
ne
and as valuable and as metallic and as out-of-date. He was prouder of his
Collection than of his coat-of-arms--nobody could say more than that. His
extraordinary character came out most in his will. He had two sons and one
daughter. He quarrelled with one son, my brother Giles, and sent him to
Australia on a small allowance. He then made a will leaving the Carstairs C=
ollection,
actually with a yet smaller allowance, to my brother Arthur. He meant it as=
a
reward, as the highest honour he could offer, in acknowledgement of Arthur's
loyalty and rectitude and the distinctions he had already gained in mathema=
tics
and economics at Cambridge. He left me practically all his pretty large
fortune; and I am sure he meant it in contempt.
"Arthur, you may say, might well complain of this; but Arthur i=
s my
father over again. Though he had some differences with my father in early
youth, no sooner had he taken over the Collection than he became like a pag=
an
priest dedicated to a temple. He mixed up these Roman halfpence with the ho=
nour
of the Carstairs family in the same stiff, idolatrous way as his father bef=
ore
him. He acted as if Roman money must be guarded by all the Roman virtues. He
took no pleasures; he spent nothing on himself; he lived for the Collection.
Often he would not trouble to dress for his simple meals; but pattered about
among the corded brown-paper parcels (which no one else was allowed to touc=
h)
in an old brown dressing-gown. With its rope and tassel and his pale, thin,=
refined
face, it made him look like an old ascetic monk. Every now and then, though=
, he
would appear dressed like a decidedly fashionable gentleman; but that was o=
nly
when he went up to the London sales or shops to make an addition to the
Carstairs Collection.
"Now, if you've known any young people, you won't be shocked if=
I
say that I got into rather a low frame of mind with all this; the frame of =
mind
in which one begins to say that the Ancient Romans were all very well in th=
eir
way. I'm not like my brother Arthur; I can't help enjoying enjoyment. I got=
a
lot of romance and rubbish where I got my red hair, from the other side of =
the
family. Poor Giles was the same; and I think the atmosphere of coins might
count in excuse for him; though he really did wrong and nearly went to pris=
on.
But he didn't behave any worse than I did; as you shall hear.
"I come now to the silly part of the story. I think a man as cl=
ever
as you can guess the sort of thing that would begin to relieve the monotony=
for
an unruly girl of seventeen placed in such a position. But I am so rattled =
with
more dreadful things that I can hardly read my own feeling; and don't know
whether I despise it now as a flirtation or bear it as a broken heart. We l=
ived
then at a little seaside watering-place in South Wales, and a retired
sea-captain living a few doors off had a son about five years older than
myself, who had been a friend of Giles before he went to the Colonies. His =
name
does not affect my tale; but I tell you it was Philip Hawker, because I am
telling you everything. We used to go shrimping together, and said and thou=
ght
we were in love with each other; at least he certainly said he was, and I
certainly thought I was. If I tell you he had bronzed curly hair and a
falconish sort of face, bronzed by the sea also, it's not for his sake, I
assure you, but for the story; for it was the cause of a very curious coinc=
idence.
"One summer afternoon, when I had promised to go shrimping alon=
g the
sands with Philip, I was waiting rather impatiently in the front drawing-ro=
om,
watching Arthur handle some packets of coins he had just purchased and slow=
ly
shunt them, one or two at a time, into his own dark study and museum which =
was
at the back of the house. As soon as I heard the heavy door close on him
finally, I made a bolt for my shrimping-net and tam-o'-shanter and was just
going to slip out, when I saw that my brother had left behind him one coin =
that
lay gleaming on the long bench by the window. It was a bronze coin, and the
colour, combined with the exact curve of the Roman nose and something in the
very lift of the long, wiry neck, made the head of Caesar on it the almost
precise portrait of Philip Hawker. Then I suddenly remembered Giles telling=
Philip
of a coin that was like him, and Philip wishing he had it. Perhaps you can
fancy the wild, foolish thoughts with which my head went round; I felt as i=
f I
had had a gift from the fairies. It seemed to me that if I could only run a=
way
with this, and give it to Philip like a wild sort of wedding-ring, it would=
be
a bond between us for ever; I felt a thousand such things at once. Then the=
re
yawned under me, like the pit, the enormous, awful notion of what I was doi=
ng;
above all, the unbearable thought, which was like touching hot iron, of what
Arthur would think of it. A Carstairs a thief; and a thief of the Carstairs=
treasure!
I believe my brother could see me burned like a witch for such a thing, But
then, the very thought of such fanatical cruelty heightened my old hatred of
his dingy old antiquarian fussiness and my longing for the youth and liberty
that called to me from the sea. Outside was strong sunlight with a wind; an=
d a
yellow head of some broom or gorse in the garden rapped against the glass of
the window. I thought of that living and growing gold calling to me from all
the heaths of the world--and then of that dead, dull gold and bronze and br=
ass
of my brother's growing dustier and dustier as life went by. Nature and the
Carstairs Collection had come to grips at last.
"Nature is older than the Carstairs Collection. As I ran down t=
he streets
to the sea, the coin clenched tight in my fist, I felt all the Roman Empire=
on
my back as well as the Carstairs pedigree. It was not only the old lion arg=
ent
that was roaring in my ear, but all the eagles of the Caesars seemed flappi=
ng
and screaming in pursuit of me. And yet my heart rose higher and higher lik=
e a
child's kite, until I came over the loose, dry sand-hills and to the flat, =
wet
sands, where Philip stood already up to his ankles in the shallow shining
water, some hundred yards out to sea. There was a great red sunset; and the
long stretch of low water, hardly rising over the ankle for half a mile, was
like a lake of ruby flame. It was not till I had torn off my shoes and
stockings and waded to where he stood, which was well away from the dry lan=
d,
that I turned and looked round. We were quite alone in a circle of sea-wate=
r and
wet sand, and I gave him the head of Caesar.
"At the very instant I had a shock of fancy: that a man far awa=
y on
the sand-hills was looking at me intently. I must have felt immediately aft=
er
that it was a mere leap of unreasonable nerves; for the man was only a dark=
dot
in the distance, and I could only just see that he was standing quite still=
and
gazing, with his head a little on one side. There was no earthly logical
evidence that he was looking at me; he might have been looking at a ship, or
the sunset, or the sea-gulls, or at any of the people who still strayed here
and there on the shore between us. Nevertheless, whatever my start sprang f=
rom
was prophetic; for, as I gazed, he started walking briskly in a bee-line
towards us across the wide wet sands. As he drew nearer and nearer I saw th=
at he
was dark and bearded, and that his eyes were marked with dark spectacles. He
was dressed poorly but respectably in black, from the old black top hat on =
his
head to the solid black boots on his feet. In spite of these he walked stra=
ight
into the sea without a flash of hesitation, and came on at me with the
steadiness of a travelling bullet.
"I can't tell you the sense of monstrosity and miracle I had wh=
en
he thus silently burst the barrier between land and water. It was as if he =
had
walked straight off a cliff and still marched steadily in mid-air. It was a=
s if
a house had flown up into the sky or a man's head had fallen off. He was on=
ly
wetting his boots; but he seemed to be a demon disregarding a law of Nature=
. If
he had hesitated an instant at the water's edge it would have been nothing.=
As
it was, he seemed to look so much at me alone as not to notice the ocean.
Philip was some yards away with his back to me, bending over his net. The
stranger came on till he stood within two yards of me, the water washing
half-way up to his knees. Then he said, with a clearly modulated and rather
mincing articulation: 'Would it discommode you to contribute elsewhere a co=
in with
a somewhat different superscription?'
"With one exception there was nothing definably abnormal about =
him.
His tinted glasses were not really opaque, but of a blue kind common enough=
, nor
were the eyes behind them shifty, but regarded me steadily. His dark beard =
was
not really long or wild--, but he looked rather hairy, because the beard be=
gan
very high up in his face, just under the cheek-bones. His complexion was
neither sallow nor livid, but on the contrary rather clear and youthful; yet
this gave a pink-and-white wax look which somehow (I don't know why) rather
increased the horror. The only oddity one could fix was that his nose, which
was otherwise of a good shape, was just slightly turned sideways at the tip=
; as
if, when it was soft, it had been tapped on one side with a toy hammer. The
thing was hardly a deformity; yet I cannot tell you what a living nightmare=
it
was to me. As he stood there in the sunset-stained water he affected me as =
some
hellish sea-monster just risen roaring out of a sea like blood. I don't know
why a touch on the nose should affect my imagination so much. I think it se=
emed
as if he could move his nose like a finger. And as if he had just that mome=
nt
moved it.
"'Any little assistance,' he continued with the same queer,
priggish accent, 'that may obviate the necessity of my communicating with t=
he family.'
"Then it rushed over me that I was being blackmailed for the th=
eft
of the bronze piece; and all my merely superstitious fears and doubts were =
swallowed
up in one overpowering, practical question. How could he have found out? I =
had
stolen the thing suddenly and on impulse; I was certainly alone; for I alwa=
ys
made sure of being unobserved when I slipped out to see Philip in this way.=
I
had not, to all appearance, been followed in the street; and if I had, they
could not 'X-ray' the coin in my closed hand. The man standing on the
sand-hills could no more have seen what I gave Philip than shoot a fly in o=
ne
eye, like the man in the fairy-tale.
"'Philip,' I cried helplessly, 'ask this man what he wants.'
"When Philip lifted his head at last from mending his net he lo=
oked
rather red, as if sulky or ashamed; but it may have been only the exertion =
of
stooping and the red evening light; I may have only had another of the morb=
id
fancies that seemed to be dancing about me. He merely said gruffly to the m=
an:
'You clear out of this.' And, motioning me to follow, set off wading shorew=
ard
without paying further attention to him. He stepped on to a stone breakwater
that ran out from among the roots of the sand-hills, and so struck homeward=
, perhaps
thinking our incubus would find it less easy to walk on such rough stones,
green and slippery with seaweed, than we, who were young and used to it. Bu=
t my
persecutor walked as daintily as he talked; and he still followed me, picki=
ng
his way and picking his phrases. I heard his delicate, detestable voice
appealing to me over my shoulder, until at last, when we had crested the
sand-hills, Philip's patience (which was by no means so conspicuous on most
occasions) seemed to snap. He turned suddenly, saying, 'Go back. I can't ta=
lk
to you now.' And as the man hovered and opened his mouth, Philip struck him=
a
buffet on it that sent him flying from the top of the tallest sand-hill to =
the
bottom. I saw him crawling out below, covered with sand.
"This stroke comforted me somehow, though it might well increas=
e my
peril; but Philip showed none of his usual elation at his own prowess. Thou=
gh
as affectionate as ever, he still seemed cast down; and before I could ask =
him
anything fully, he parted with me at his own gate, with two remarks that st=
ruck
me as strange. He said that, all things considered, I ought to put the coin
back in the Collection; but that he himself would keep it 'for the present'.
And then he added quite suddenly and irrelevantly: 'You know Giles is back =
from
Australia?'"
The door of the tavern opened and the gigantic shadow of the investi=
gator
Flambeau fell across the table. Father Brown presented him to the lady in h=
is
own slight, persuasive style of speech, mentioning his knowledge and sympat=
hy
in such cases; and almost without knowing, the girl was soon reiterating her
story to two listeners. But Flambeau, as he bowed and sat down, handed the
priest a small slip of paper. Brown accepted it with some surprise and read=
on
it: "Cab to Wagga Wagga, 379, Mafeking Avenue, Putney." The girl =
was
going on with her story.
"I went up the steep street to my own house with my head in a
whirl; it had not begun to clear when I came to the doorstep, on which I fo=
und
a milk-can--and the man with the twisted nose. The milk-can told me the ser=
vants
were all out; for, of course, Arthur, browsing about in his brown dressing-=
gown
in a brown study, would not hear or answer a bell. Thus there was no one to
help me in the house, except my brother, whose help must be my ruin. In
desperation I thrust two shillings into the horrid thing's hand, and told h=
im
to call again in a few days, when I had thought it out. He went off sulking,
but more sheepishly than I had expected--perhaps he had been shaken by his
fall--and I watched the star of sand splashed on his back receding down the
road with a horrid vindictive pleasure. He turned a corner some six houses
down.
"Then I let myself in, made myself some tea, and tried to think=
it
out. I sat at the drawing-room window looking on to the garden, which still=
glowed
with the last full evening light. But I was too distracted and dreamy to lo=
ok
at the lawns and flower-pots and flower-beds with any concentration. So I t=
ook
the shock the more sharply because I'd seen it so slowly.
"The man or monster I'd sent away was standing quite still in t=
he
middle of the garden. Oh, we've all read a lot about pale-faced phantoms in=
the
dark; but this was more dreadful than anything of that kind could ever be.
Because, though he cast a long evening shadow, he still stood in warm sunli=
ght.
And because his face was not pale, but had that waxen bloom still upon it t=
hat
belongs to a barber's dummy. He stood quite still, with his face towards me;
and I can't tell you how horrid he looked among the tulips and all those ta=
ll,
gaudy, almost hothouse-looking flowers. It looked as if we'd stuck up a wax=
work
instead of a statue in the centre of our garden.
"Yet almost the instant he saw me move in the window he turned =
and
ran out of the garden by the back gate, which stood open and by which he ha=
d undoubtedly
entered. This renewed timidity on his part was so different from the impude=
nce
with which he had walked into the sea, that I felt vaguely comforted. I
fancied, perhaps, that he feared confronting Arthur more than I knew. Anyho=
w, I
settled down at last, and had a quiet dinner alone (for it was against the
rules to disturb Arthur when he was rearranging the museum), and, my though=
ts,
a little released, fled to Philip and lost themselves, I suppose. Anyhow, I=
was
looking blankly, but rather pleasantly than otherwise, at another window,
uncurtained, but by this time black as a slate with the final night-fall. It
seemed to me that something like a snail was on the outside of the window-p=
ane.
But when I stared harder, it was more like a man's thumb pressed on the pan=
e;
it had that curled look that a thumb has. With my fear and courage re-awake=
ned
together, I rushed at the window and then recoiled with a strangled scream =
that
any man but Arthur must have heard.
"For it was not a thumb, any more than it was a snail. It was t=
he
tip of a crooked nose, crushed against the glass; it looked white with the
pressure; and the staring face and eyes behind it were at first invisible a=
nd
afterwards grey like a ghost. I slammed the shutters together somehow, rush=
ed
up to my room and locked myself in. But, even as I passed, I could swear I =
saw
a second black window with something on it that was like a snail.
"It might be best to go to Arthur after all. If the thing was
crawling close all around the house like a cat, it might have purposes worse
even than blackmail. My brother might cast me out and curse me for ever, bu=
t he
was a gentleman, and would defend me on the spot. After ten minutes' curious
thinking, I went down, knocked on the door and then went in: to see the last
and worst sight.
"My brother's chair was empty, and he was obviously out. But the
man with the crooked nose was sitting waiting for his return, with his hat =
still
insolently on his head, and actually reading one of my brother's books unde=
r my
brother's lamp. His face was composed and occupied, but his nose-tip still =
had
the air of being the most mobile part of his face, as if it had just turned
from left to right like an elephant's proboscis. I had thought him poisonous
enough while he was pursuing and watching me; but I think his unconsciousne=
ss
of my presence was more frightful still.
"I think I screamed loud and long; but that doesn't matter. Wha=
t I
did next does matter: I gave him all the money I had, including a good deal=
in
paper which, though it was mine, I dare say I had no right to touch. He went
off at last, with hateful, tactful regrets all in long words; and I sat dow=
n,
feeling ruined in every sense. And yet I was saved that very night by a pure
accident. Arthur had gone off suddenly to London, as he so often did, for
bargains; and returned, late but radiant, having nearly secured a treasure =
that
was an added splendour even to the family Collection. He was so resplendent
that I was almost emboldened to confess the abstraction of the lesser gem--,
but he bore down all other topics with his over-powering projects. Because =
the
bargain might still misfire any moment, he insisted on my packing at once a=
nd
going up with him to lodgings he had already taken in Fulham, to be near th=
e curio-shop
in question. Thus in spite of myself, I fled from my foe almost in the dead=
of
night--but from Philip also.... My brother was often at the South Kensington
Museum, and, in order to make some sort of secondary life for myself, I paid
for a few lessons at the Art Schools. I was coming back from them this even=
ing,
when I saw the abomination of desolation walking alive down the long straig=
ht
street and the rest is as this gentleman has said.
"I've got only one thing to say. I don't deserve to be helped; =
and
I don't question or complain of my punishment; it is just, it ought to have
happened. But I still question, with bursting brains, how it can have happe=
ned.
Am I punished by miracle? or how can anyone but Philip and myself know I ga=
ve
him a tiny coin in the middle of the sea?"
"It is an extraordinary problem," admitted Flambeau.
"Not so extraordinary as the answer," remarked Father Brown
rather gloomily. "Miss Carstairs, will you be at home if we call at yo=
ur
Fulham place in an hour and a half hence?"
The girl looked at him, and then rose and put her gloves on.
"Yes," she said, "I'll be there"; and almost instantly =
left
the place.
That night the detective and the priest were still talking of the ma=
tter
as they drew near the Fulham house, a tenement strangely mean even for a te=
mporary
residence of the Carstairs family.
"Of course the superficial, on reflection," said Flambeau,
"would think first of this Australian brother who's been in trouble
before, who's come back so suddenly and who's just the man to have shabby c=
onfederates.
But I can't see how he can come into the thing by any process of thought,
unless..."
"Well?" asked his companion patiently.
Flambeau lowered his voice. "Unless the girl's lover comes in, =
too,
and he would be the blacker villain. The Australian chap did know that Hawk=
er
wanted the coin. But I can't see how on earth he could know that Hawker had=
got
it, unless Hawker signalled to him or his representative across the
shore."
"That is true," assented the priest, with respect.
"Have you noted another thing?" went on Flambeau eagerly,
"this Hawker hears his love insulted, but doesn't strike till he's got=
to
the soft sand-hills, where he can be victor in a mere sham-fight. If he'd
struck amid rocks and sea, he might have hurt his ally."
"That is true again," said Father Brown, nodding.
"And now, take it from the start. It lies between few people, b=
ut
at least three. You want one person for suicide; two people for murder; but=
at
least three people for blackmail"
"Why?" asked the priest softly.
"Well, obviously," cried his friend, "there must be o=
ne
to be exposed; one to threaten exposure; and one at least whom exposure wou=
ld
horrify."
After a long ruminant pause, the priest said: "You miss a logic=
al
step. Three persons are needed as ideas. Only two are needed as agents.&quo=
t;
"What can you mean?" asked the other.
"Why shouldn't a blackmailer," asked Brown, in a low voice,
"threaten his victim with himself? Suppose a wife became a rigid
teetotaller in order to frighten her husband into concealing his
pub-frequenting, and then wrote him blackmailing letters in another hand,
threatening to tell his wife! Why shouldn't it work? Suppose a father forba=
de a
son to gamble and then, following him in a good disguise, threatened the bo=
y with
his own sham paternal strictness! Suppose--but, here we are, my friend.&quo=
t;
"My God!" cried Flambeau; "you don't mean--"
An active figure ran down the steps of the house and showed under th=
e golden
lamplight the unmistakable head that resembled the Roman coin. "Miss
Carstairs," said Hawker without ceremony, "wouldn't go in till yo=
u came."
"Well," observed Brown confidently, "don't you think =
it's
the best
thing she can do to stop outside--with you to look after her? You se=
e, I
rather guess you have guessed it all yourself."
"Yes," said the young man, in an undertone, "I guesse=
d on
the sands and now I know; that was why I let him fall soft."
Taking a latchkey from the girl and the coin from Hawker, Flambeau l=
et himself
and his friend into the empty house and passed into the outer parlour. It w=
as
empty of all occupants but one. The man whom Father Brown had seen pass the
tavern was standing against the wall as if at bay; unchanged, save that he =
had
taken off his black coat and was wearing a brown dressing-gown.
"We have come," said Father Brown politely, "to give =
back
this coin to its owner." And he handed it to the man with the nose.
Flambeau's eyes rolled. "Is this man a coin-collector?" he
asked.
"This man is Mr Arthur Carstairs," said the priest positiv=
ely,
"and he is a coin-collector of a somewhat singular kind."
The man changed colour so horribly that the crooked nose stood out o=
n his
face like a separate and comic thing. He spoke, nevertheless, with a sort of
despairing dignity. "You shall see, then," he said, "that I =
have
not lost all the family qualities." And he turned suddenly and strode =
into
an inner room, slamming the door.
"Stop him!" shouted Father Brown, bounding and half falling
over a chair; and, after a wrench or two, Flambeau had the door open. But i=
t was
too late. In dead silence Flambeau strode across and telephoned for doctor =
and
police.
An empty medicine bottle lay on the floor. Across the table the body=
of
the man in the brown dressing-gown lay amid his burst and gaping brown-paper
parcels; out of which poured and rolled, not Roman, but very modern English
coins.
The priest held up the bronze head of Caesar. "This," he s=
aid,
"was all that was left of the Carstairs Collection."
After a silence he went on, with more than common gentleness: "=
It
was a cruel will his wicked father made, and you see he did resent it a lit=
tle.
He hated the Roman money he had, and grew fonder of the real money denied h=
im.
He not only sold the Collection bit by bit, but sank bit by bit to the base=
st
ways of making money--even to blackmailing his own family in a disguise. He
blackmailed his brother from Australia for his little forgotten crime (that=
is
why he took the cab to Wagga Wagga in Putney), he blackmailed his sister for
the theft he alone could have noticed. And that, by the way, is why she had
that supernatural guess when he was away on the sand-dunes. Mere figure and
gait, however distant, are more likely to remind us of somebody than a
well-made-up face quite close."
There was another silence. "Well," growled the detective,
"and so this great numismatist and coin-collector was nothing but a vu=
lgar
miser."
"Is there so great a difference?" asked Father Brown, in t=
he
same strange, indulgent tone. "What is there wrong about a miser that =
is
not often as wrong about a collector? What is wrong, except... thou shalt n=
ot
make to thyself any graven image; thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve
them, for I...but we must go and see how the poor young people are getting
on."
"I think," said Flambeau, "that in spite of everythin=
g,
they are probably getting on very well."
SEVEN -- The Purple Wig=
span>
MR EDWARD NUTT, the
industrious editor of the Daily Reformer, sat at his desk, opening letters =
and
marking proofs to the merry tune of a typewriter, worked by a vigorous young
lady.
He was a stoutish, fair man, in his shirt-sleeves; his movements wer=
e resolute,
his mouth firm and his tones final; but his round, rather babyish blue eyes=
had
a bewildered and even wistful look that rather contradicted all this. Nor
indeed was the expression altogether misleading. It might truly be said of =
him,
as for many journalists in authority, that his most familiar emotion was on=
e of
continuous fear; fear of libel actions, fear of lost advertisements, fear of
misprints, fear of the sack.
His life was a series of distracted compromises between the propriet=
or of
the paper (and of him), who was a senile soap-boiler with three ineradicable
mistakes in his mind, and the very able staff he had collected to run the p=
aper;
some of whom were brilliant and experienced men and (what was even worse)
sincere enthusiasts for the political policy of the paper.
A letter from one of these lay immediately before him, and rapid and=
resolute
as he was, he seemed almost to hesitate before opening it. He took up a str=
ip
of proof instead, ran down it with a blue eye, and a blue pencil, altered t=
he
word "adultery" to the word "impropriety," and the word
"Jew" to the word "Alien," rang a bell and sent it flyi=
ng upstairs.
Then, with a more thoughtful eye, he ripped open the letter from his=
more
distinguished contributor, which bore a postmark of Devonshire, and read as
follows:
DEAR NUTT,--As I see you're working Spooks and Dooks at the same tim=
e, what
about an article on that rum business of the Eyres of Exmoor; or as the old
women call it down here, the Devil's Ear of Eyre? The head of the family, y=
ou
know, is the Duke of Exmoor; he is one of the few really stiff old Tory
aristocrats left, a sound old crusted tyrant it is quite in our line to make
trouble about. And I think I'm on the track of a story that will make troub=
le.
Of course I don't believe in the old legend about James I; and as fo=
r you,
you don't believe in anything, not even in journalism. The legend, you'll
probably remember, was about the blackest business in English history--the
poisoning of Overbury by that witch's cat Frances Howard, and the quite
mysterious terror which forced the King to pardon the murderers. There was a
lot of alleged witchcraft mixed up with it; and the story goes that a
man-servant listening at the keyhole heard the truth in a talk between the =
King
and Carr; and the bodily ear with which he heard grew large and monstrous a=
s by
magic, so awful was the secret. And though he had to be loaded with lands a=
nd
gold and made an ancestor of dukes, the elf-shaped ear is still recurrent in
the family. Well, you don't believe in black magic; and if you did, you
couldn't use it for copy. If a miracle happened in your office, you'd have =
to
hush it up, now so many bishops are agnostics. But that is not the point The
point is that there really is something queer about Exmoor and his family; =
something
quite natural, I dare say, but quite abnormal. And the Ear is in it somehow=
, I
fancy; either a symbol or a delusion or disease or something. Another tradi=
tion
says that Cavaliers just after James I began to wear their hair long only to
cover the ear of the first Lord Exmoor. This also is no doubt fanciful.
The reason I point it out to you is this: It seems to me that we mak=
e a
mistake in attacking aristocracy entirely for its champagne and diamonds. M=
ost
men rather admire the nobs for having a good time, but I think we surrender=
too
much when we admit that aristocracy has made even the aristocrats happy. I
suggest a series of articles pointing out how dreary, how inhuman, how
downright diabolist, is the very smell and atmosphere of some of these great
houses. There are plenty of instances; but you couldn't begin with a better=
one
than the Ear of the Eyres. By the end of the week I think I can get you the
truth about it.--Yours ever, FRANCIS FINN.
Mr Nutt reflected a moment, staring at his left boot; then he called=
out
in a strong, loud and entirely lifeless voice, in which every syllable soun=
ded
alike: "Miss Barlow, take down a letter to Mr Finn, please."
DEAR FINN,--I think it would do; copy should reach us second post Sa=
turday.--Yours,
E. NUTT.
This elaborate epistle he articulated as if it were all one word; an=
d Miss
Barlow rattled it down as if it were all one word. Then he took up another
strip of proof and a blue pencil, and altered the word "supernatural&q=
uot;
to the word "marvellous", and the expression "shoot down&quo=
t; to
the expression "repress".
In such happy, healthful activities did Mr Nutt disport himself, unt=
il the
ensuing Saturday found him at the same desk, dictating to the same typist, =
and
using the same blue pencil on the first instalment of Mr Finn's revelations.
The opening was a sound piece of slashing invective about the evil secrets =
of
princes, and despair in the high places of the earth. Though written violen=
tly,
it was in excellent English; but the editor, as usual, had given to somebody
else the task of breaking it up into sub-headings, which were of a spicier
sort, as "Peeress and Poisons", and "The Eerie Ear",
"The Eyres in their Eyrie", and so on through a hundred happy
changes. Then followed the legend of the Ear, amplified from Finn's first
letter, and then the substance of his later discoveries, as follows:
I know it is the pract=
ice of
journalists to put the end of the story at the beginning and call it a
headline. I know that journalism largely consists in saying "Lord Jones
Dead" to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive. Your present
correspondent thinks that this, like many other journalistic customs, is bad
journalism; and that the Daily Reformer has to set a better example in such
things. He proposes to tell his story as it occurred, step by step. He will=
use
the real names of the parties, who in most cases are ready to confirm his t=
estimony.
As for the headlines, the sensational proclamations--they will come at the =
end.
I was walking along a public path that threads through a private Dev=
onshire
orchard and seems to point towards Devonshire cider, when I came suddenly u=
pon
just such a place as the path suggested. It was a long, low inn, consisting
really of a cottage and two barns; thatched all over with the thatch that l=
ooks
like brown and grey hair grown before history. But outside the door was a s=
ign
which called it the Blue Dragon; and under the sign was one of those long
rustic tables that used to stand outside most of the free English inns, bef=
ore
teetotallers and brewers between them destroyed freedom. And at this table =
sat
three gentlemen, who might have lived a hundred years ago.
Now that I know them all better, there is no difficulty about disent=
angling
the impressions; but just then they looked like three very solid ghosts. The
dominant figure, both because he was bigger in all three dimensions, and
because he sat centrally in the length of the table, facing me, was a tall,=
fat
man dressed completely in black, with a rubicund, even apoplectic visage, b=
ut a
rather bald and rather bothered brow. Looking at him again, more strictly, I
could not exactly say what it was that gave me the sense of antiquity, exce=
pt
the antique cut of his white clerical necktie and the barred wrinkles across
his brow.
It was even less easy to fix the impression in the case of the man a=
t the
right end of the table, who, to say truth, was as commonplace a person as c=
ould
be seen anywhere, with a round, brown-haired head and a round snub nose, but
also clad in clerical black, of a stricter cut. It was only when I saw his
broad curved hat lying on the table beside him that I realized why I connec=
ted
him with anything ancient. He was a Roman Catholic priest.
Perhaps the third man, at the other end of the table, had really mor=
e to
do with it than the rest, though he was both slighter in physical presence =
and
more inconsiderate in his dress. His lank limbs were clad, I might also say
clutched, in very tight grey sleeves and pantaloons; he had a long, sallow,
aquiline face which seemed somehow all the more saturnine because his lante=
rn
jaws were imprisoned in his collar and neck-cloth more in the style of the =
old
stock; and his hair (which ought to have been dark brown) was of an odd dim,
russet colour which, in conjunction with his yellow face, looked rather pur=
ple
than red. The unobtrusive yet unusual colour was all the more notable becau=
se
his hair was almost unnaturally healthy and curling, and he wore it full. B=
ut, after
all analysis, I incline to think that what gave me my first old-fashioned
impression was simply a set of tall, old-fashioned wine-glasses, one or two
lemons and two churchwarden pipes. And also, perhaps, the old-world errand =
on
which I had come.
Being a hardened reporter, and it being apparently a public inn, I d=
id not
need to summon much of my impudence to sit down at the long table and order
some cider. The big man in black seemed very learned, especially about local
antiquities; the small man in black, though he talked much less, surprised =
me
with a yet wider culture. So we got on very well together; but the third ma=
n,
the old gentleman in the tight pantaloons, seemed rather distant and haught=
y,
until I slid into the subject of the Duke of Exmoor and his ancestry.
I thought the subject seemed to embarrass the other two a little; bu=
t it
broke the spell of the third man's silence most successfully. Speaking with
restraint and with the accent of a highly educated gentleman, and puffing at
intervals at his long churchwarden pipe, he proceeded to tell me some of the
most horrible stories I have ever heard in my life: how one of the Eyres in=
the
former ages had hanged his own father; and another had his wife scourged at=
the
cart tail through the village; and another had set fire to a church full of
children, and so on.
Some of the tales, indeed, are not fit for public print--, such as t=
he story
of the Scarlet Nuns, the abominable story of the Spotted Dog, or the thing =
that
was done in the quarry. And all this red roll of impieties came from his th=
in,
genteel lips rather primly than otherwise, as he sat sipping the wine out of
his tall, thin glass.
I could see that the big man opposite me was trying, if anything, to
stop him; but he evidently held the old gentleman in considerable respect, =
and
could not venture to do so at all abruptly. And the little priest at the ot=
her
end of the-table, though free from any such air of embarrassment, looked st=
eadily
at the table, and seemed to listen to the recital with great pain--as well =
as
he might.
"You don't seem," I said to the narrator, "to be very
fond of the Exmoor pedigree."
He looked at me a moment, his lips still prim, but whitening and tig=
htening;
then he deliberately broke his long pipe and glass on the table and stood u=
p,
the very picture of a perfect gentleman with the framing temper of a fiend.=
"These gentlemen," he said, "will tell you whether I =
have
cause to like it. The curse of the Eyres of old has lain heavy on this coun=
try,
and many have suffered from it. They know there are none who have suffered =
from
it as I have." And with that he crushed a piece of the fallen glass un=
der
his heel, and strode away among the green twilight of the twinkling
apple-trees.
"That is an extraordinary old gentleman," I said to the ot=
her
two; "do you happen to know what the Exmoor family has done to him? Wh=
o is
he?"
The big man in black was staring at me with the wild air of a baffle=
d bull;
he did not at first seem to take it in. Then he said at last, "Don't y=
ou
know who he is?"
I reaffirmed my ignorance, and there was another silence; then the l=
ittle
priest said, still looking at the table, "That is the Duke of Exmoor.&=
quot;
Then, before I could collect my scattered senses, he added equally q=
uietly,
but with an air of regularizing things: "My friend here is Doctor Mull,
the Duke's librarian. My name is Brown."
"But," I stammered, "if that is the Duke, why does he
damn all the old dukes like that?"
"He seems really to believe," answered the priest called
Brown, "that they have left a curse on him." Then he added, with =
some
irrelevance, "That's why he wears a wig."
It was a few moments before his meaning dawned on me. "You don't
mean that fable about the fantastic ear?" I demanded. "I've heard=
of
it, of course, but surely it must be a superstitious yarn spun out of somet=
hing
much simpler. I've sometimes thought it was a wild version of one of those
mutilation stories. They used to crop criminals' ears in the sixteenth
century."
"I hardly think it was that," answered the little man
thoughtfully, "but it is not outside ordinary science or natural law f=
or a
family to have some deformity frequently reappearing--such as one ear bigger
than the other."
The big librarian had buried his big bald brow in his big red hands,=
like
a man trying to think out his duty. "No," he groaned. "You do
the man a wrong after all. Understand, I've no reason to defend him, or eve=
n keep
faith with him. He has been a tyrant to me as to everybody else. Don't fancy
because you see him sitting here that he isn't a great lord in the worst se=
nse
of the word. He would fetch a man a mile to ring a bell a yard off--if it w=
ould
summon another man three miles to fetch a matchbox three yards off. He must=
have
a footman to carry his walking-stick; a body servant to hold up his
opera-glasses--"
"But not a valet to brush his clothes," cut in the priest,
with a curious dryness, "for the valet would want to brush his wig,
too."
The librarian turned to him and seemed to forget my presence; he was=
strongly
moved and, I think, a little heated with wine. "I don't know how you k=
now
it, Father Brown," he said, "but you are right. He lets the whole
world do everything for him--except dress him. And that he insists on doing=
in
a literal solitude like a desert. Anybody is kicked out of the house withou=
t a
character who is so much as found near his dressing-room door.
"He seems a pleasant old party," I remarked.
"No," replied Dr Mull quite simply; "and yet that is =
just
what I mean by saying you are unjust to him after all. Gentlemen, the Duke =
does
really feel the bitterness about the curse that he uttered just now. He doe=
s, with
sincere shame and terror, hide under that purple wig something he thinks it
would blast the sons of man to see. I know it is so; and I know it is not a
mere natural disfigurement, like a criminal mutilation, or a hereditary
disproportion in the features. I know it is worse than that; because a man =
told
me who was present at a scene that no man could invent, where a stronger man
than any of us tried to defy the secret, and was scared away from it."=
I opened my mouth to speak, but Mull went on in oblivion of me, spea=
king
out of the cavern of his hands. "I don't mind telling you, Father, bec=
ause
it's really more defending the poor Duke than giving him away. Didn't you e=
ver
hear of the time when he very nearly lost all the estates?"
The priest shook his head; and the librarian proceeded to tell the t=
ale as
he had heard it from his predecessor in the same post, who had been his pat=
ron
and instructor, and whom he seemed to trust implicitly. Up to a certain poi=
nt
it was a common enough tale of the decline of a great family's fortunes--the
tale of a family lawyer. His lawyer, however, had the sense to cheat honest=
ly,
if the expression explains itself. Instead of using funds he held in trust,=
he
took advantage of the Duke's carelessness to put the family in a financial
hole, in which it might be necessary for the Duke to let him hold them in
reality.
The lawyer's name was Isaac Green, but the Duke always called him El=
isha;
presumably in reference to the fact that he was quite bald, though certainly
not more than thirty. He had risen very rapidly, but from very dirty
beginnings; being first a "nark" or informer, and then a money-le=
nder:
but as solicitor to the Eyres he had the sense, as I say, to keep technical=
ly
straight until he was ready to deal the final blow. The blow fell at dinner;
and the old librarian said he should never forget the very look of the lamp=
shades
and the decanters, as the little lawyer, with a steady smile, proposed to t=
he
great landlord that they should halve the estates between them. The sequel
certainly could not be overlooked; for the Duke, in dead silence, smashed a
decanter on the man's bald head as suddenly as I had seen him smash the gla=
ss
that day in the orchard. It left a red triangular scar on the scalp, and th=
e lawyer's
eyes altered, but not his smile.
He rose tottering to his feet, and struck back as such men do strike.
"I am glad of that," he said, "for now I can take the whole
estate. The law will give it to me."
Exmoor, it seems, was white as ashes, but his eyes still blazed.
"The law will give it you," he said; "but you will not take
it.... Why not? Why? because it would mean the crack of doom for me, and if=
you
take it I shall take off my wig.... Why, you pitiful plucked fowl, anyone c=
an see
your bare head. But no man shall see mine and live."
Well, you may say what you like and make it mean what you like. But =
Mull
swears it is the solemn fact that the lawyer, after shaking his knotted fis=
ts
in the air for an instant, simply ran from the room and never reappeared in=
the
countryside; and since then Exmoor has been feared more for a warlock than =
even
for a landlord and a magistrate.
Now Dr Mull told his story with rather wild theatrical gestures, and=
with
a passion I think at least partisan. I was quite conscious of the possibili=
ty
that the whole was the extravagance of an old braggart and gossip. But befo=
re I
end this half of my discoveries, I think it due to Dr Mull to record that my
two first inquiries have confirmed his story. I learned from an old apothec=
ary
in the village that there was a bald man in evening dress, giving the name =
of
Green, who came to him one night to have a three-cornered cut on his forehe=
ad
plastered. And I learnt from the legal records and old newspapers that there
was a lawsuit threatened, and at least begun, by one Green against the Duke=
of Exmoor.
Mr Nutt, of the Daily
Reformer, wrote some highly incongruous words across the top of the copy, m=
ade
some highly mysterious marks down the side of it, and called to Miss Barlow=
in
the same loud, monotonous voice: "Take down a letter to Mr Finn."=
DEAR FINN,--Your copy will do, but I have had to headline it a bit; =
and our
public would never stand a Romanist priest in the story--you must keep your=
eye
on the suburbs. I've altered him to Mr Brown, a Spiritualist.
Yours,
E. NUTT.
A day or two afterward=
found
the active and judicious editor examining, with blue eyes that seemed to gr=
ow
rounder and rounder, the second instalment of Mr Finn's tale of mysteries in
high life. It began with the words:
I have made an astound=
ing
discovery. I freely confess it is quite different from anything I expected =
to
discover, and will give a much more practical shock to the public. I ventur=
e to
say, without any vanity, that the words I now write will be read all over
Europe, and certainly all over America and the Colonies. And yet I heard al=
l I
have to tell before I left this same little wooden table in this same littl=
e wood
of apple-trees.
I owe it all to the small priest Brown; he is an extraordinary man. =
The big
librarian had left the table, perhaps ashamed of his long tongue, perhaps
anxious about the storm in which his mysterious master had vanished: anyway=
, he
betook himself heavily in the Duke's tracks through the trees. Father Brown=
had
picked up one of the lemons and was eyeing it with an odd pleasure.
"What a lovely colour a lemon is!" he said. "There's =
one
thing I don't like about the Duke's wig--the colour."
"I don't think I understand," I answered.
"I dare say he's got good reason to cover his ears, like King
Midas," went on the priest, with a cheerful simplicity which somehow
seemed rather flippant under the circumstances. "I can quite understand
that it's nicer to cover them with hair than with brass plates or leather f=
laps.
But if he wants to use hair, why doesn't he make it look like hair? There n=
ever
was hair of that colour in this world. It looks more like a sunset-cloud co=
ming
through the wood. Why doesn't he conceal the family curse better, if he's
really so ashamed of it? Shall I tell you? It's because he isn't ashamed of=
it.
He's proud of it"
"It's an ugly wig to be proud of--and an ugly story," I sa=
id.
"Consider," replied this curious little man, "how you
yourself really feel about such things. I don't suggest you're either more
snobbish or more morbid than the rest of us: but don't you feel in a vague =
way
that a genuine old family curse is rather a fine thing to have? Would you be
ashamed, wouldn't you be a little proud, if the heir of the Glamis horror
called you his friend? or if Byron's family had confided, to you only, the =
evil
adventures of their race? Don't be too hard on the aristocrats themselves if
their heads are as weak as ours would be, and they are snobs about their own
sorrows."
"By Jove!" I cried; "and that's true enough. My own
mother's family had a banshee; and, now I come to think of it, it has comfo=
rted
me in many a cold hour."
"And think," he went on, "of that stream of blood and
poison that spurted from his thin lips the instant you so much as mentioned=
his
ancestors. Why should he show every stranger over such a Chamber of Horrors
unless he is proud of it? He doesn't conceal his wig, he doesn't conceal his
blood, he doesn't conceal his family curse, he doesn't conceal the family
crimes--but--"
The little man's voice changed so suddenly, he shut his hand so shar=
ply,
and his eyes so rapidly grew rounder and brighter like a waking owl's, that=
it
had all the abruptness of a small explosion on the table.
"But," he ended, "he does really conceal his
toilet."
It somehow completed the thrill of my fanciful nerves that at that i=
nstant
the Duke appeared again silently among the glimmering trees, with his soft =
foot
and sunset-hued hair, coming round the corner of the house in company with =
his
librarian. Before he came within earshot, Father Brown had added quite
composedly, "Why does he really hide the secret of what he does with t=
he
purple wig? Because it isn't the sort of secret we suppose."
The Duke came round the corner and resumed his seat at the head of t=
he table
with all his native dignity. The embarrassment of the librarian left him
hovering on his hind legs, like a huge bear. The Duke addressed the priest =
with
great seriousness. "Father Brown," he said, "Doctor Mull inf=
orms
me that you have come here to make a request. I no longer profess an observ=
ance
of the religion of my fathers; but for their sakes, and for the sake of the=
days
when we met before, I am very willing to hear you. But I presume you would
rather be heard in private."
Whatever I retain of the gentleman made me stand up. Whatever I have=
attained
of the journalist made me stand still. Before this paralysis could pass, the
priest had made a momentarily detaining motion. "If," he said,
"your Grace will permit me my real petition, or if I retain any right =
to
advise you, I would urge that as many people as possible should be present.=
All
over this country I have found hundreds, even of my own faith and flock, wh=
ose
imaginations are poisoned by the spell which I implore you to break. I wish=
we
could have all Devonshire here to see you do it."
"To see me do what?" asked the Duke, arching his eyebrows.=
"To see you take off your wig," said Father Brown.
The Duke's face did not move; but he looked at his petitioner with a=
glassy
stare which was the most awful expression I have ever seen on a human face.=
I
could see the librarian's great legs wavering under him like the shadows of
stems in a pool; and I could not banish from my own brain the fancy that the
trees all around us were filling softly in the silence with devils instead =
of
birds.
"I spare you," said the Duke in a voice of inhuman pity.
"I refuse. If I gave you the faintest hint of the load of horror I hav=
e to
bear alone, you would lie shrieking at these feet of mine and begging to kn=
ow
no more. I will spare you the hint. You shall not spell the first letter of=
what
is written on the altar of the Unknown God."
"I know the Unknown God," said the little priest, with an
unconscious grandeur of certitude that stood up like a granite tower. "=
;I
know his name; it is Satan. The true God was made flesh and dwelt among us.=
And
I say to you, wherever you find men ruled merely by mystery, it is the myst=
ery
of iniquity. If the devil tells you something is too fearful to look at, lo=
ok
at it. If he says something is too terrible to hear, hear it. If you think =
some
truth unbearable, bear it. I entreat your Grace to end this nightmare now a=
nd
here at this table."
"If I did," said the Duke in a low voice, "you and all
you believe, and all by which alone you live, would be the first to shrivel=
and
perish. You would have an instant to know the great Nothing before you
died."
"The Cross of Christ be between me and harm," said Father
Brown. "Take off your wig."
I was leaning over the table in ungovernable excitement; in listenin=
g to
this extraordinary duel half a thought had come into my head. "Your Gr=
ace,"
I cried, "I call your bluff. Take off that wig or I will knock it
off."
I suppose I can be prosecuted for assault, but I am very glad I did =
it. When
he said, in the same voice of stone, "I refuse," I simply sprang =
on
him. For three long instants he strained against me as if he had all hell to
help him; but I forced his head until the hairy cap fell off it. I admit th=
at,
whilst wrestling, I shut my eyes as it fell.
I was awakened by a cry from Mull, who was also by this time at the =
Duke's
side. His head and mine were both bending over the bald head of the wigless
Duke. Then the silence was snapped by the librarian exclaiming: "What =
can
it mean? Why, the man had nothing to hide. His ears are just like everybody
else's."
"Yes," said Father Brown, "that is what he had to
hide."
The priest walked straight up to him, but strangely enough did not e=
ven glance
at his ears. He stared with an almost comical seriousness at his bald foreh=
ead,
and pointed to a three-cornered cicatrice, long healed, but still discernib=
le.
"Mr Green, I think." he said politely, "and he did get the w=
hole
estate after all."
And now let me tell the readers of the Daily Reformer what I think t=
he most
remarkable thing in the whole affair. This transformation scene, which will
seem to you as wild and purple as a Persian fairy-tale, has been (except fo=
r my
technical assault) strictly legal and constitutional from its first beginni=
ngs.
This man with the odd scar and the ordinary ears is not an impostor. Though=
(in
one sense) he wears another man's wig and claims another man's ear, he has =
not
stolen another man's coronet. He really is the one and only Duke of Exmoor.
What happened was this. The old Duke really had a slight malformation of the
ear, which really was more or less hereditary. He really was morbid about i=
t;
and it is likely enough that he did invoke it as a kind of curse in the vio=
lent
scene (which undoubtedly happened) in which he struck Green with the decant=
er.
But the contest ended very differently. Green pressed his claim and got the
estates; the dispossessed nobleman shot himself and died without issue. Aft=
er a
decent interval the beautiful English Government revived the
"extinct" peerage of Exmoor, and bestowed it, as is usual, on the
most important person, the person who had got the property.
This man used the old feudal fables--properly, in his snobbish soul,=
really
envied and admired them. So that thousands of poor English people trembled
before a mysterious chieftain with an ancient destiny and a diadem of evil
stars--when they are really trembling before a guttersnipe who was a
pettifogger and a pawnbroker not twelve years ago. I think it very typical =
of
the real case against our aristocracy as it is, and as it will be till God
sends us braver men.
Mr Nutt put down the
manuscript and called out with unusual sharpness: "Miss Barlow, please
take down a letter to Mr Finn."
DEAR FINN,--You must be mad; we can't touch this. I wanted vampires =
and the
bad old days and aristocracy hand-in-hand with superstition. They like that=
But
you must know the Exmoors would never forgive this. And what would our peop=
le
say then, I should like to know! Why, Sir Simon is one of Exmoor's greatest
pals; and it would ruin that cousin of the Eyres that's standing for us at
Bradford. Besides, old Soap-Suds was sick enough at not getting his peerage
last year; he'd sack me by wire if I lost him it with such lunacy as this. =
And
what about Duffey? He's doing us some rattling articles on "The Heel of
the Norman." And how can he write about Normans if the man's only a
solicitor? Do be reasonable.--Yours, E. NUTT.
As Miss Barlow rattled away cheerfully, he crumpled up the copy and
tossed it into the waste-paper basket; but not before he had, automatically=
and
by force of habit, altered the word "God" to the word "circu=
mstances."
EIGHT -- The Perishing of=
the
Pendragons
FATHER BROWN was in no=
mood
for adventures. He had lately fallen ill with over-work, and when he began =
to
recover, his friend Flambeau had taken him on a cruise in a small yacht with
Sir Cecil Fanshaw, a young Cornish squire and an enthusiast for Cornish coa=
st
scenery. But Brown was still rather weak; he was no very happy sailor; and
though he was never of the sort that either grumbles or breaks down, his
spirits did not rise above patience and civility. When the other two men
praised the ragged violet sunset or the ragged volcanic crags, he agreed wi=
th
them. When Flambeau pointed out a rock shaped like a dragon, he looked at i=
t and
thought it very like a dragon. When Fanshaw more excitedly indicated a rock
that was like Merlin, he looked at it, and signified assent. When Flambeau
asked whether this rocky gate of the twisted river was not the gate of
Fairyland, he said "Yes." He heard the most important things and =
the
most trivial with the same tasteless absorption. He heard that the coast was
death to all but careful seamen; he also heard that the ship's cat was asle=
ep.
He heard that Fanshaw couldn't find his cigar-holder anywhere; he also heard
the pilot deliver the oracle "Both eyes bright, she's all right; one e=
ye
winks, down she sinks." He heard Flambeau say to Fanshaw that no doubt
this meant the pilot must keep both eyes open and be spry. And he heard Fan=
shaw
say to Flambeau that, oddly enough, it didn't mean this: it meant that while
they saw two of the coast lights, one near and the other distant, exactly s=
ide
by side, they were in the right river-channel; but that if one light was hi=
dden
behind the other, they were going on the rocks. He heard Fanshaw add that h=
is
country was full of such quaint fables and idioms; it was the very home of
romance; he even pitted this part of Cornwall against Devonshire, as a clai=
mant
to the laurels of Elizabethan seamanship. According to him there had been
captains among these coves and islets compared with whom Drake was practica=
lly
a landsman. He heard Flambeau laugh, and ask if, perhaps, the adventurous t=
itle
of "Westward Ho!" only meant that all Devonshire men wished they =
were
living in Cornwall. He heard Fanshaw say there was no need to be silly; that
not only had Cornish captains been heroes, but that they were heroes still:
that near that very spot there was an old admiral, now retired, who was sca=
rred
by thrilling voyages full of adventures; and who had in his youth found the
last group of eight Pacific Islands that was added to the chart of the worl=
d.
This Cecil Fanshaw was, in person, of the kind that commonly urges such cru=
de
but pleasing enthusiasms; a very young man, light-haired, high-coloured, wi=
th
an eager profile; with a boyish bravado of spirits, but an almost girlish d=
elicacy
of tint and type. The big shoulders, black brows and black mousquetaire swa=
gger
of Flambeau were a great contrast.
All these trivialities Brown heard and saw; but heard them as a tire=
d man
hears a tune in the railway wheels, or saw them as a sick man sees the patt=
ern
of his wall-paper. No one can calculate the turns of mood in convalescence:=
but
Father Brown's depression must have had a great deal to do with his mere
unfamiliarity with the sea. For as the river mouth narrowed like the neck o=
f a
bottle, and the water grew calmer and the air warmer and more earthly, he
seemed to wake up and take notice like a baby. They had reached that phase =
just
after sunset when air and water both look bright, but earth and all its gro=
wing
things look almost black by comparison. About this particular evening, howe=
ver,
there was something exceptional. It was one of those rare atmospheres in wh=
ich a
smoked-glass slide seems to have been slid away from between us and Nature;=
so
that even dark colours on that day look more gorgeous than bright colours on
cloudier days. The trampled earth of the river-banks and the peaty stain in=
the
pools did not look drab but glowing umber, and the dark woods astir in the
breeze did not look, as usual, dim blue with mere depth of distance, but mo=
re
like wind-tumbled masses of some vivid violet blossom. This magic clearness=
and
intensity in the colours was further forced on Brown's slowly reviving sens=
es
by something romantic and even secret in the very form of the landscape.
The river was still well wide and deep enough for a pleasure boat so=
small
as theirs; but the curves of the country-side suggested that it was closing=
in
on either hand; the woods seemed to be making broken and flying attempts at
bridge-building--as if the boat were passing from the romance of a valley to
the romance of a hollow and so to the supreme romance of a tunnel. Beyond t=
his
mere look of things there was little for Brown's freshening fancy to feed o=
n;
he saw no human beings, except some gipsies trailing along the river bank, =
with
faggots and osiers cut in the forest; and one sight no longer unconventiona=
l,
but in such remote parts still uncommon: a dark-haired lady, bare-headed, a=
nd paddling
her own canoe. If Father Brown ever attached any importance to either of th=
ese,
he certainly forgot them at the next turn of the river which brought in sig=
ht a
singular object.
The water seemed to widen and split, being cloven by the dark wedge =
of a
fish-shaped and wooded islet. With the rate at which they went, the islet s=
eemed
to swim towards them like a ship; a ship with a very high prow--or, to speak
more strictly, a very high funnel. For at the extreme point nearest them st=
ood
up an odd-looking building, unlike anything they could remember or connect =
with
any purpose. It was not specially high, but it was too high for its breadth=
to
be called anything but a tower. Yet it appeared to be built entirely of woo=
d,
and that in a most unequal and eccentric way. Some of the planks and beams =
were
of good, seasoned oak; some of such wood cut raw and recent; some again of
white pinewood, and a great deal more of the same sort of wood painted blac=
k with
tar. These black beams were set crooked or crisscross at all kinds of angle=
s,
giving the whole a most patchy and puzzling appearance. There were one or t=
wo
windows, which appeared to be coloured and leaded in an old-fashioned but m=
ore
elaborate style. The travellers looked at it with that paradoxical feeling =
we
have when something reminds us of something, and yet we are certain it is s=
omething
very different.
Father Brown, even when he was mystified, was clever in analysing hi=
s own
mystification. And he found himself reflecting that the oddity seemed to
consist in a particular shape cut out in an incongruous material; as if one=
saw
a top-hat made of tin, or a frock-coat cut out of tartan. He was sure he had
seen timbers of different tints arranged like that somewhere, but never in =
such
architectural proportions. The next moment a glimpse through the dark trees
told him all he wanted to know and he laughed. Through a gap in the foliage
there appeared for a moment one of those old wooden houses, faced with black
beams, which are still to be found here and there in England, but which mos=
t of
us see imitated in some show called "Old London" or "Shakesp=
eare's
England'. It was in view only long enough for the priest to see that, howev=
er old-fashioned,
it was a comfortable and well-kept country-house, with flower-beds in front=
of
it. It had none of the piebald and crazy look of the tower that seemed made=
out
of its refuse.
"What on earth's this?" said Flambeau, who was still stari=
ng
at the tower.
Fanshaw's eyes were shining, and he spoke triumphantly. "Aha!
you've not seen a place quite like this before, I fancy; that's why I've
brought you here, my friend. Now you shall see whether I exaggerate about t=
he mariners
of Cornwall. This place belongs to Old Pendragon, whom we call the Admiral;
though he retired before getting the rank. The spirit of Raleigh and Hawkin=
s is
a memory with the Devon folk; it's a modern fact with the Pendragons. If Qu=
een
Elizabeth were to rise from the grave and come up this river in a gilded ba=
rge,
she would be received by the Admiral in a house exactly such as she was
accustomed to, in every corner and casement, in every panel on the wall or
plate on the table. And she would find an English Captain still talking
fiercely of fresh lands to be found in little ships, as much as if she had
dined with Drake."
"She'd find a rum sort of thing in the garden," said Father
Brown, "which would not please her Renaissance eye. That Elizabethan
domestic architecture is charming in its way; but it's against the very nat=
ure
of it to break out into turrets."
"And yet," answered Fanshaw, "that's the most romantic
and Elizabethan part of the business. It was built by the Pendragons in the
very days of the Spanish wars; and though it's needed patching and even
rebuilding for another reason, it's always been rebuilt in the old way. The
story goes that the lady of Sir Peter Pendragon built it in this place and =
to
this height, because from the top you can just see the corner where vessels
turn into the river mouth; and she wished to be the first to see her husban=
d's
ship, as he sailed home from the Spanish Main."
"For what other reason," asked Father Brown, "do you =
mean
that it has been rebuilt?"
"Oh, there's a strange story about that, too," said the yo=
ung
squire with relish. "You are really in a land of strange stories. King
Arthur was here and Merlin and the fairies before him. The story goes that =
Sir Peter
Pendragon, who (I fear) had some of the faults of the pirates as well as the
virtues of the sailor, was bringing home three Spanish gentlemen in honoura=
ble
captivity, intending to escort them to Elizabeth's court. But he was a man =
of
flaming and tigerish temper, and coming to high words with one of them, he
caught him by the throat and flung him by accident or design, into the sea.=
A
second Spaniard, who was the brother of the first, instantly drew his sword=
and
flew at Pendragon, and after a short but furious combat in which both got t=
hree
wounds in as many minutes, Pendragon drove his blade through the other's bo=
dy
and the second Spaniard was accounted for. As it happened the ship had alre=
ady
turned into the river mouth and was close to comparatively shallow water. T=
he
third Spaniard sprang over the side of the ship, struck out for the shore, =
and
was soon near enough to it to stand up to his waist in water. And turning a=
gain
to face the ship, and holding up both arms to Heaven--like a prophet calling
plagues upon a wicked city--he called out to Pendragon in a piercing and
terrible voice, that he at least was yet living, that he would go on living,
that he would live for ever; and that generation after generation the house=
of Pendragon
should never see him or his, but should know by very certain signs that he =
and
his vengeance were alive. With that he dived under the wave, and was either
drowned or swam so long under water that no hair of his head was seen
afterwards."
"There's that girl in the canoe again," said Flambeau
irrelevantly, for good-looking young women would call him off any topic.
"She seems bothered by the queer tower just as we were."
Indeed, the black-haired young lady was letting her canoe float slow=
ly and
silently past the strange islet; and was looking intently up at the strange
tower, with a strong glow of curiosity on her oval and olive face.
"Never mind girls," said Fanshaw impatiently, "there =
are
plenty of them in the world, but not many things like the Pendragon Tower. =
As you
may easily suppose, plenty of superstitions and scandals have followed in t=
he
track of the Spaniard's curse; and no doubt, as you would put it, any accid=
ent
happening to this Cornish family would be connected with it by rural credul=
ity.
But it is perfectly true that this tower has been burnt down two or three
times; and the family can't be called lucky, for more than two, I think, of=
the
Admiral's near kin have perished by shipwreck; and one at least, to my own
knowledge, on practically the same spot where Sir Peter threw the Spaniard
overboard."
"What a pity!" exclaimed Flambeau. "She's going."=
;
"When did your friend the Admiral tell you this family
history?" asked Father Brown, as the girl in the canoe paddled off,
without showing the least intention of extending her interest from the towe=
r to
the yacht,
which Fanshaw had already caused to lie alongside the island.
"Many years ago," replied Fanshaw; "he hasn't been to=
sea
for some time now, though he is as keen on it as ever. I believe there's a =
family
compact or something. Well, here's the landing stage; let's come ashore and=
see
the old boy."
They followed him on to the island, just under the tower, and Father=
Brown,
whether from the mere touch of dry land, or the interest of something on the
other bank of the river (which he stared at very hard for some seconds), se=
emed
singularly improved in briskness. They entered a wooded avenue between two
fences of thin greyish wood, such as often enclose parks or gardens, and ov=
er
the top of which the dark trees tossed to and fro like black and purple plu=
mes
upon the hearse of a giant. The tower, as they left it behind, looked all t=
he
quainter, because such entrances are usually flanked by two towers; and this
one looked lopsided. But for this, the avenue had the usual appearance of t=
he
entrance to a gentleman's grounds; and, being so curved that the house was =
now
out of sight, somehow looked a much larger park than any plantation on such=
an
island could really be. Father Brown was, perhaps, a little fanciful in his
fatigue, but he almost thought the whole place must be growing larger, as
things do in a nightmare. Anyhow, a mystical monotony was the only characte=
r of
their march, until Fanshaw suddenly stopped, and pointed to something stick=
ing
out through the grey fence--something that looked at first rather like the
imprisoned horn of some beast. Closer observation showed that it was a slig=
htly
curved blade of metal that shone faintly in the fading light.
Flambeau, who like all Frenchmen had been a soldier, bent over it an=
d said
in a startled voice: "Why, it's a sabre! I believe I know the sort, he=
avy
and curved, but shorter than the cavalry; they used to have them in artille=
ry
and the--"
As he spoke the blade plucked itself out of the crack it had made an=
d came
down again with a more ponderous slash, splitting the fissiparous fence to =
the
bottom with a rending noise. Then it was pulled out again, flashed above the
fence some feet further along, and again split it halfway down with the fir=
st
stroke; and after waggling a little to extricate itself (accompanied with
curses in the darkness) split it down to the ground with a second. Then a k=
ick
of devilish energy sent the whole loosened square of thin wood flying into =
the
pathway, and a great gap of dark coppice gaped in the paling.
Fanshaw peered into the dark opening and uttered an exclamation of a=
stonishment.
"My dear Admiral!" he exclaimed, "do you--er--do you general=
ly
cut out a new front door whenever you want to go for a walk?"
The voice in the gloom swore again, and then broke into a jolly laug=
h. "No,"
it said; "I've really got to cut down this fence somehow; it's spoiling
all the plants, and no one else here can do it. But I'll only carve another=
bit
off the front door, and then come out and welcome you."
And sure enough, he heaved up his weapon once more, and, hacking twi=
ce, brought
down another and similar strip of fence, making the opening about fourteen =
feet
wide in all. Then through this larger forest gateway he came out into the
evening light, with a chip of grey wood sticking to his sword-blade.
He momentarily fulfilled all Fanshaw's fable of an old piratical Adm=
iral;
though the details seemed afterwards to decompose into accidents. For insta=
nce,
he wore a broad-brimmed hat as protection against the sun; but the front fl=
ap
of it was turned up straight to the sky, and the two corners pulled down lo=
wer
than the ears, so that it stood across his forehead in a crescent like the =
old
cocked hat worn by Nelson. He wore an ordinary dark-blue jacket, with nothi=
ng
special about the buttons, but the combination of it with white linen trous=
ers
somehow had a sailorish look. He was tall and loose, and walked with a sort=
of swagger,
which was not a sailor's roll, and yet somehow suggested it; and he held in=
his
hand a short sabre which was like a navy cutlass, but about twice as big. U=
nder
the bridge of the hat his eagle face looked eager, all the more because it =
was
not only clean-shaven, but without eyebrows. It seemed almost as if all the
hair had come off his face from his thrusting it through a throng of elemen=
ts.
His eyes were prominent and piercing. His colour was curiously attractive,
while partly tropical; it reminded one vaguely of a blood-orange. That is, =
that
while it was ruddy and sanguine, there was a yellow in it that was in no way
sickly, but seemed rather to glow like gold apples of the Hesperides--Father
Brown thought he had never seen a figure so expressive of all the romances
about the countries of the Sun.
When Fanshaw had presented his two friends to their host he fell aga=
in into
a tone of rallying the latter about his wreckage of the fence and his appar=
ent
rage of profanity. The Admiral pooh-poohed it at first as a piece of necess=
ary
but annoying garden work; but at length the ring of real energy came back i=
nto
his laughter, and he cried with a mixture of impatience and good humour:
"Well, perhaps I do go at it a bit rabidly, and feel a kind of
pleasure in smashing anything. So would you if your only pleasure was in
cruising about to find some new Cannibal Islands, and you had to stick on t=
his muddy
little rockery in a sort of rustic pond. When I remember how I've cut down a
mile and a half of green poisonous jungle with an old cutlass half as sharp=
as
this; and then remember I must stop here and chop this matchwood, because of
some confounded old bargain scribbled in a family Bible, why, I--"
He swung up the heavy steel again; and this time sundered the wall o=
f wood
from top to bottom at one stroke.
"I feel like that," he said laughing, but furiously flingi=
ng
the sword some yards down the path, "and now let's go up to the house;=
you
must have some dinner."
The semicircle of lawn in front of the house was varied by three cir=
cular
garden beds, one of red tulips, a second of yellow tulips, and the third of
some white, waxen-looking blossoms that the visitors did not know and presu=
med
to be exotic. A heavy, hairy and rather sullen-looking gardener was hanging=
up
a heavy coil of garden hose. The corners of the expiring sunset which seeme=
d to
cling about the corners of the house gave glimpses here and there of the
colours of remoter flowerbeds; and in a treeless space on one side of the h=
ouse
opening upon the river stood a tall brass tripod on which was tilted a big
brass telescope. Just outside the steps of the porch stood a little painted=
green
garden table, as if someone had just had tea there. The entrance was flanked
with two of those half-featured lumps of stone with holes for eyes that are
said to be South Sea idols; and on the brown oak beam across the doorway we=
re
some confused carvings that looked almost as barbaric.
As they passed indoors, the little cleric hopped suddenly on to the =
table,
and standing on it peered unaffectedly through his spectacles at the mouldi=
ngs
in the oak. Admiral Pendragon looked very much astonished, though not
particularly annoyed; while Fanshaw was so amused with what looked like a
performing pigmy on his little stand, that he could not control his laughte=
r.
But Father Brown was not likely to notice either the laughter or the
astonishment.
He was gazing at three carved symbols, which, though very worn and o=
bscure,
seemed still to convey some sense to him. The first seemed to be the outlin=
e of
some tower or other building, crowned with what looked like curly-pointed r=
ibbons.
The second was clearer: an old Elizabethan galley with decorative waves ben=
eath
it, but interrupted in the middle by a curious jagged rock, which was eithe=
r a
fault in the wood or some conventional representation of the water coming i=
n.
The third represented the upper half of a human figure, ending in an escall=
oped
line like the waves; the face was rubbed and featureless, and both arms were
held very stiffly up in the air.
"Well," muttered Father Brown, blinking, "here is the
legend of the Spaniard plain enough. Here he is holding up his arms and cur=
sing
in the sea; and here are the two curses: the wrecked ship and the burning o=
f Pendragon
Tower."
Pendragon shook his head with a kind of venerable amusement. "A=
nd
how many other things might it not be?" he said. "Don't you know =
that
that sort of half-man, like a half-lion or half-stag, is quite common in
heraldry? Might not that line through the ship be one of those parti-per-pa=
le
lines, indented, I think they call it? And though the third thing isn't so =
very
heraldic, it would be more heraldic to suppose it a tower crowned with laur=
el
than with fire; and it looks just as like it."
"But it seems rather odd," said Flambeau, "that it sh=
ould
exactly confirm the old legend."
"Ah," replied the sceptical traveller, "but you don't
know how much of the old legend may have been made up from the old figures.
Besides, it isn't the only old legend. Fanshaw, here, who is fond of such
things, will tell you there are other versions of the tale, and much more h=
orrible
ones. One story credits my unfortunate ancestor with having had the Spaniard
cut in two; and that will fit the pretty picture also. Another obligingly
credits our family with the possession of a tower full of snakes and explai=
ns
those little, wriggly things in that way. And a third theory supposes the
crooked line on the ship to be a conventionalized thunderbolt; but that alo=
ne,
if seriously examined, would show what a very little way these unhappy
coincidences really go."
"Why, how do you mean?" asked Fanshaw.
"It so happens," replied his host coolly, "that there=
was
no thunder and lightning at all in the two or three shipwrecks I know of in=
our
family."
"Oh!" said Father Brown, and jumped down from the little
table.
There was another silence in which they heard the continuous murmur =
of the
river; then Fanshaw said, in a doubtful and perhaps disappointed tone:
"Then you don't think there is anything in the tales of the tower in
flames?"
"There are the tales, of course," said the Admiral, shrugg=
ing
his shoulders; "and some of them, I don't deny, on evidence as decent =
as one
ever gets for such things. Someone saw a blaze hereabout, don't you know, a=
s he
walked home through a wood; someone keeping sheep on the uplands inland tho=
ught
he saw a flame hovering over Pendragon Tower. Well, a damp dab of mud like =
this
confounded island seems the last place where one would think of fires."=
;
"What is that fire over there?" asked Father Brown with a
gentle suddenness, pointing to the woods on the left river-bank. They were =
all thrown
a little off their balance, and the more fanciful Fanshaw had even some
difficulty in recovering his, as they saw a long, thin stream of blue smoke
ascending silently into the end of the evening light.
Then Pendragon broke into a scornful laugh again. "Gipsies!&quo=
t;
he said; "they've been camping about here for about a week. Gentlemen,=
you
want your dinner," and he turned as if to enter the house.
But the antiquarian superstition in Fanshaw was still quivering, and=
he said
hastily: "But, Admiral, what's that hissing noise quite near the islan=
d?
It's very like fire."
"It's more like what it is," said the Admiral, laughing as=
he
led the way; "it's only some canoe going by."
Almost as he spoke, the butler, a lean man in black, with very black=
hair
and a very long, yellow face, appeared in the doorway and told him that din=
ner
was served.
The dining-room was as nautical as the cabin of a ship; but its note=
was
rather that of the modern than the Elizabethan captain. There were, indeed,
three antiquated cutlasses in a trophy over the fireplace, and one brown
sixteenth-century map with Tritons and little ships dotted about a curly se=
a.
But such things were less prominent on the white panelling than some cases =
of
quaint-coloured South American birds, very scientifically stuffed, fantastic
shells from the Pacific, and several instruments so rude and queer in shape
that savages might have used them either to kill their enemies or to cook t=
hem.
But the alien colour culminated in the fact that, besides the butler, the
Admiral's only servants were two negroes, somewhat quaintly clad in tight
uniforms of yellow. The priest's instinctive trick of analysing his own
impressions told him that the colour and the little neat coat-tails of these
bipeds had suggested the word "Canary," and so by a mere pun
connected them with southward travel. Towards the end of the dinner they to=
ok
their yellow clothes and black faces out of the room, leaving only the blac=
k clothes
and yellow face of the butler.
"I'm rather sorry you take this so lightly," said Fanshaw =
to
the host; "for the truth is, I've brought these friends of mine with t=
he
idea of their helping you, as they know a good deal of these things. Don't =
you really
believe in the family story at all?"
"I don't believe in anything," answered Pendragon very
briskly, with a bright eye cocked at a red tropical bird. "I'm a man of
science."
Rather to Flambeau's surprise, his clerical friend, who seemed to ha=
ve entirely
woken up, took up the digression and talked natural history with his host w=
ith
a flow of words and much unexpected information, until the dessert and
decanters were set down and the last of the servants vanished. Then he said,
without altering his tone.
"Please don't think me impertinent, Admiral Pendragon. I don't =
ask
for curiosity, but really for my guidance and your convenience. Have I made=
a
bad shot if I guess you don't want these old things talked of before your
butler?"
The Admiral lifted the hairless arches over his eyes and exclaimed: =
"Well,
I don't know where you got it, but the truth is I can't stand the fellow,
though I've no excuse for discharging a family servant. Fanshaw, with his f=
airy
tales, would say my blood moved against men with that black, Spanish-looking
hair."
Flambeau struck the table with his heavy fist. "By Jove!" =
he
cried; "and so had that girl!"
"I hope it'll all end tonight," continued the Admiral,
"when my nephew comes back safe from his ship. You looked surprised. Y=
ou
won't understand, I suppose, unless I tell you the story. You see, my fathe=
r had
two sons; I remained a bachelor, but my elder brother married, and had a son
who became a sailor like all the rest of us, and will inherit the proper
estate. Well, my father was a strange man; he somehow combined Fanshaw's
superstition with a good deal of my scepticism--they were always fighting in
him; and after my first voyages, he developed a notion which he thought som=
ehow
would settle finally whether the curse was truth or trash. If all the
Pendragons sailed about anyhow, he thought there would be too much chance of
natural catastrophes to prove anything. But if we went to sea one at a time=
in
strict order of succession to the property, he thought it might show whether
any connected fate followed the family as a family. It was a silly notion, I
think, and I quarrelled with my father pretty heartily; for I was an ambiti=
ous
man and was left to the last, coming, by succession, after my own nephew.&q=
uot;
"And your father and brother," said the priest, very gentl=
y,
"died at sea, I fear."
"Yes," groaned the Admiral; "by one of those brutal accidents on which are built all the lying mythologies of mankind, they were both shipwrecked. My father, coming up this coast out of the Atlantic, was = washed up on these Cornish rocks. My brother's ship was sunk, no one knows where, = on the voyage home from Tasmania. His body was never found. I tell you it was = from perfectly natural mishap; lots of other people besides Pendragons were drow= ned; and both disasters are discussed in a normal way by navigators. But, of cou= rse, it set this forest of superstition on fire; and men saw the flaming tower everywhere. That's why I say it will be all right when Walter returns. The = girl he's engaged to was coming today; but I was so afraid of some chance delay = frightening her that I wired her not to come till she heard from me. But he's practical= ly sure to be here some time tonight, and then it'll all end in smoke--tobacco smoke. We'll crack that old lie when we crack a bottle of this wine."<= o:p>
"Very good wine," said Father Brown, gravely lifting his
glass, "but, as you see, a very bad wine-bibber. I most sincerely beg =
your
pardon": for he had spilt a small spot of wine on the table-cloth. He
drank and put down the glass with a composed face; but his hand had started=
at
the exact moment when he became conscious of a face looking in through the =
garden
window just behind the Admiral--the face of a woman, swarthy, with southern
hair and eyes, and young, but like a mask of tragedy.
After a pause the priest spoke again in his mild manner.
"Admiral," he said, "will you do me a favour? Let me, and my
friends if they like, stop in that tower of yours just for tonight? Do you =
know
that in my business you're an exorcist almost before anything else?"
Pendragon sprang to his feet and paced swiftly to and fro across the=
window,
from which the face had instantly vanished. "I tell you there is nothi=
ng
in it," he cried, with ringing violence. "There is one thing I kn=
ow
about this matter. You may call me an atheist. I am an atheist." Here =
he
swung round and fixed Father Brown with a face of frightful concentration.
"This business is perfectly natural. There is no curse in it at all.&q=
uot;
Father Brown smiled. "In that case," he said, "there
can't be any objection to my sleeping in your delightful summer-house."=
;
"The idea is utterly ridiculous," replied the Admiral, bea=
ting
a tattoo on the back of his chair.
"Please forgive me for everything," said Brown in his most
sympathetic tone, "including spilling the wine. But it seems to me you=
are
not quite so easy about the flaming tower as you try to be."
Admiral Pendragon sat down again as abruptly as he had risen; but he=
sat
quite still, and when he spoke again it was in a lower voice. "You do =
it
at your own peril," he said; "but wouldn't you be an atheist to k=
eep sane
in all this devilry?"
Some three hours afterwards Fanshaw, Flambeau and the priest were st=
ill dawdling
about the garden in the dark; and it began to dawn on the other two that Fa=
ther
Brown had no intention of going to bed either in the tower or the house.
"I think the lawn wants weeding," said he dreamily. "=
If I
could find a spud or something I'd do it myself."
They followed him, laughing and half remonstrating; but he replied w=
ith the
utmost solemnity, explaining to them, in a maddening little sermon, that one
can always find some small occupation that is helpful to others. He did not
find a spud; but he found an old broom made of twigs, with which he began
energetically to brush the fallen leaves off the grass.
"Always some little thing to be done," he said with idioti=
c cheerfulness;
"as George Herbert says: 'Who sweeps an Admiral's garden in Cornwall as
for Thy laws makes that and the action fine.' And now," he added, sudd=
enly
slinging the broom away, "Let's go and water the flowers."
With the same mixed emotions they watched him uncoil some considerab=
le lengths
of the large garden hose, saying with an air of wistful discrimination:
"The red tulips before the yellow, I think. Look a bit dry, don't you
think?"
He turned the little tap on the instrument, and the water shot out s=
traight
and solid as a long rod of steel.
"Look out, Samson," cried Flambeau; "why, you've cut =
off
the tulip's head."
Father Brown stood ruefully contemplating the decapitated plant.
"Mine does seem to be a rather kill or cure sort of watering,&q=
uot;
he admitted, scratching his head. "I suppose it's a pity I didn't find=
the
spud. You should have seen me with the spud! Talking of tools, you've got t=
hat
swordstick, Flambeau, you always carry? That's right; and Sir Cecil could h=
ave
that sword the Admiral threw away by the fence here. How grey everything
looks!"
"The mist's rising from the river," said the staring Flamb=
eau.
Almost as he spoke the huge figure of the hairy gardener appeared on=
a
higher ridge of the trenched and terraced lawn, hailing them with a brandis=
hed
rake and a horribly bellowing voice. "Put down that hose," he sho=
uted;
"put down that hose and go to your--"
"I am fearfully clumsy," replied the reverend gentleman
weakly; "do you know, I upset some wine at dinner." He made a
wavering half-turn of apology towards the gardener, with the hose still
spouting in his hand. The gardener caught the cold crash of the water full =
in
his face like the crash of a cannon-ball; staggered, slipped and went spraw=
ling
with his boots in the air.
"How very dreadful!" said Father Brown, looking round in a
sort of wonder. "Why, I've hit a man!"
He stood with his head forward for a moment as if looking or listeni=
ng; and
then set off at a trot towards the tower, still trailing the hose behind hi=
m.
The tower was quite close, but its outline was curiously dim.
"Your river mist," he said, "has a rum smell."
"By the Lord it has," cried Fanshaw, who was very white.
"But you can't mean--"
"I mean," said Father Brown, "that one of the Admiral=
's
scientific predictions is coming true tonight. This story is going to end i=
n smoke."
As he spoke a most beautiful rose-red light seemed to burst into blo=
ssom
like a gigantic rose; but accompanied with a crackling and rattling noise t=
hat
was like the laughter of devils.
"My God! what is this?" cried Sir Cecil Fanshaw.
"The sign of the flaming tower," said Father Brown, and se=
nt
the driving water from his hose into the heart of the red patch.
"Lucky we hadn't gone to bed!" ejaculated Fanshaw. "I
suppose it can't spread to the house."
"You may remember," said the priest quietly, "that the
wooden fence that might have carried it was cut away."
Flambeau turned electrified eyes upon his friend, but Fanshaw only s=
aid rather
absently: "Well, nobody can be killed, anyhow."
"This is rather a curious kind of tower," observed Father
Brown, "when it takes to killing people, it always kills people who are
somewhere else."
At the same instant the monstrous figure of the gardener with the st=
reaming
beard stood again on the green ridge against the sky, waving others to come=
on;
but now waving not a rake but a cutlass. Behind him came the two negroes, a=
lso
with the old crooked cutlasses out of the trophy. But in the blood-red glar=
e,
with their black faces and yellow figures, they looked like devils carrying
instruments of torture. In the dim garden behind them a distant voice was h=
eard
calling out brief directions. When the priest heard the voice, a terrible
change came over his countenance.
But he remained composed; and never took his eye off the patch of fl=
ame which
had begun by spreading, but now seemed to shrink a little as it hissed under
the torch of the long silver spear of water. He kept his finger along the
nozzle of the pipe to ensure the aim, and attended to no other business,
knowing only by the noise and that semi-conscious corner of the eye, the
exciting incidents that began to tumble themselves about the island garden.=
He
gave two brief directions to his friends. One was: "Knock these fellows
down somehow and tie them up, whoever they are; there's rope down by those
faggots. They want to take away my nice hose." The other was: "As
soon as you get a chance, call out to that canoeing girl; she's over on the
bank with the gipsies. Ask her if they could get some buckets across and fi=
ll
them from the river." Then he closed his mouth and continued to water =
the
new red flower as ruthlessly as he had watered the red tulip.
He never turned his head to look at the strange fight that followed =
between
the foes and friends of the mysterious fire. He almost felt the island shake
when Flambeau collided with the huge gardener; he merely imagined how it wo=
uld
whirl round them as they wrestled. He heard the crashing fall; and his frie=
nd's
gasp of triumph as he dashed on to the first negro; and the cries of both t=
he
blacks as Flambeau and Fanshaw bound them. Flambeau's enormous strength more
than redressed the odds in the fight, especially as the fourth man still
hovered near the house, only a shadow and a voice. He heard also the water
broken by the paddles of a canoe; the girl's voice giving orders, the voice=
s of
gipsies answering and coming nearer, the plumping and sucking noise of empt=
y buckets
plunged into a full stream; and finally the sound of many feet around the f=
ire.
But all this was less to him than the fact that the red rent, which had lat=
ely
once more increased, had once more slightly diminished.
Then came a cry that very nearly made him turn his head. Flambeau an=
d Fanshaw,
now reinforced by some of the gipsies, had rushed after the mysterious man =
by
the house; and he heard from the other end of the garden the Frenchman's cr=
y of
horror and astonishment. It was echoed by a howl not to be called human, as=
the
being broke from their hold and ran along the garden. Three times at least =
it
raced round the whole island, in a way that was as horrible as the chase of=
a
lunatic, both in the cries of the pursued and the ropes carried by the
pursuers; but was more horrible still, because it somehow suggested one of =
the
chasing games of children in a garden. Then, finding them closing in on eve=
ry
side, the figure sprang upon one of the higher river banks and disappeared =
with
a splash into the dark and driving river.
"You can do no more, I fear," said Brown in a voice cold w=
ith
pain. "He has been washed down to the rocks by now, where he has sent =
so
many others. He knew the use of a family legend."
"Oh, don't talk in these parables," cried Flambeau impatiently. "Can't you put it simply in words of one syllable?"<= o:p>
"Yes," answered Brown, with his eye on the hose. "'Bo=
th
eyes bright, she's all right; one eye blinks, down she sinks.'"
The fire hissed and shrieked more and more, like a strangled thing, =
as it
grew narrower and narrower under the flood from the pipe and buckets, but
Father Brown still kept his eye on it as he went on speaking:
"I thought of asking this young lady, if it were morning yet, to
look through that telescope at the river mouth and the river. She might have
seen something to interest her: the sign of the ship, or Mr Walter Pendragon
coming home, and perhaps even the sign of the half-man, for though he is
certainly safe by now, he may very well have waded ashore. He has been with=
in a
shave of another shipwreck; and would never have escaped it, if the lady ha=
dn't
had the sense to suspect the old Admiral's telegram and come down to watch =
him.
Don't let's talk about the old Admiral. Don't let's talk about anything. It=
's
enough to say that whenever this tower, with its pitch and resin-wood, real=
ly
caught fire, the spark on the horizon always looked like the twin light to =
the coast
light-house."
"And that," said Flambeau, "is how the father and bro=
ther
died. The wicked uncle of the legends very nearly got his estate after
all."
Father Brown did not answer; indeed, he did not speak again, save fo=
r civilities,
till they were all safe round a cigar-box in the cabin of the yacht. He saw
that the frustrated fire was extinguished; and then refused to linger, thou=
gh
he actually heard young Pendragon, escorted by an enthusiastic crowd, come
tramping up the river bank; and might (had he been moved by romantic
curiosities) have received the combined thanks of the man from the ship and=
the
girl from the canoe. But his fatigue had fallen on him once more, and he on=
ly
started once, when Flambeau abruptly told him he had dropped cigar-ash on h=
is
trousers.
"That's no cigar-ash," he said rather wearily. "That's
from the fire, but you don't think so because you're all smoking cigars. Th=
at's
just the way I got my first faint suspicion about the chart."
"Do you mean Pendragon's chart of his Pacific Islands?" as=
ked
Fanshaw.
"You thought it was a chart of the Pacific Islands," answe=
red
Brown. "Put a feather with a fossil and a bit of coral and everyone wi=
ll
think it's a specimen. Put the same feather with a ribbon and an artificial=
flower
and everyone will think it's for a lady's hat. Put the same feather with an
ink-bottle, a book and a stack of writing-paper, and most men will swear
they've seen a quill pen. So you saw that map among tropic birds and shells=
and
thought it was a map of Pacific Islands. It was the map of this river."=
;
"But how do you know?" asked Fanshaw.
"I saw the rock you thought was like a dragon, and the one like
Merlin, and--"
"You seem to have noticed a lot as we came in," cried Fans=
haw.
"We thought you were rather abstracted."
"I was sea-sick," said Father Brown simply. "I felt
simply horrible. But feeling horrible has nothing to do with not seeing
things." And he closed his eyes.
"Do you think most men would have seen that?" asked Flambe=
au.
He received no answer: Father Brown was asleep.
NINE -- The God of the Go=
ngs
IT was one of those ch=
illy
and empty afternoons in early winter, when the daylight is silver rather th=
an
gold and pewter rather than silver. If it was dreary in a hundred bleak off=
ices
and yawning drawing-rooms, it was drearier still along the edges of the flat
Essex coast, where the monotony was the more inhuman for being broken at ve=
ry
long intervals by a lamp-post that looked less civilized than a tree, or a =
tree
that looked more ugly than a lamp-post. A light fall of snow had half-melte=
d into
a few strips, also looking leaden rather than silver, when it had been fixed
again by the seal of frost; no fresh snow had fallen, but a ribbon of the o=
ld
snow ran along the very margin of the coast, so as to parallel the pale rib=
bon
of the foam.
The line of the sea looked frozen in the very vividness of its viole=
t-blue,
like the vein of a frozen finger. For miles and miles, forward and back, th=
ere
was no breathing soul, save two pedestrians, walking at a brisk pace, though
one had much longer legs and took much longer strides than the other.
It did not seem a very appropriate place or time for a holiday, but =
Father
Brown had few holidays, and had to take them when he could, and he always
preferred, if possible, to take them in company with his old friend Flambea=
u,
ex-criminal and ex-detective. The priest had had a fancy for visiting his o=
ld
parish at Cobhole, and was going north-eastward along the coast.
After walking a mile or two farther, they found that the shore was b=
eginning
to be formally embanked, so as to form something like a parade; the ugly
lamp-posts became less few and far between and more ornamental, though quite
equally ugly. Half a mile farther on Father Brown was puzzled first by litt=
le
labyrinths of flowerless flower-pots, covered with the low, flat,
quiet-coloured plants that look less like a garden than a tessellated pavem=
ent,
between weak curly paths studded with seats with curly backs. He faintly
sniffed the atmosphere of a certain sort of seaside town that he did not
specially care about, and, looking ahead along the parade by the sea, he saw
something that put the matter beyond a doubt. In the grey distance the big
bandstand of a watering-place stood up like a giant mushroom with six legs.=
"I suppose," said Father Brown, turning up his coat-collar=
and
drawing a woollen scarf rather closer round his neck, "that we are
approaching a pleasure resort."
"I fear," answered Flambeau, "a pleasure resort to wh=
ich
few people just now have the pleasure of resorting. They try to revive these
places in the winter, but it never succeeds except with Brighton and the old
ones. This must be Seawood, I think--Lord Pooley's experiment; he had the S=
icilian
Singers down at Christmas, and there's talk about holding one of the great
glove-fights here. But they'll have to chuck the rotten place into the sea;
it's as dreary as a lost railway-carriage."
They had come under the big bandstand, and the priest was looking up=
at it
with a curiosity that had something rather odd about it, his head a little =
on
one side, like a bird's. It was the conventional, rather tawdry kind of
erection for its purpose: a flattened dome or canopy, gilt here and there, =
and
lifted on six slender pillars of painted wood, the whole being raised about
five feet above the parade on a round wooden platform like a drum. But there
was something fantastic about the snow combined with something artificial a=
bout
the gold that haunted Flambeau as well as his friend with some association =
he
could not capture, but which he knew was at once artistic and alien.
"I've got it," he said at last. "It's Japanese. It's =
like
those fanciful Japanese prints, where the snow on the mountain looks like
sugar, and the gilt on the pagodas is like gilt on gingerbread. It looks ju=
st
like a little pagan temple."
"Yes," said Father Brown. "Let's have a look at the
god." And with an agility hardly to be expected of him, he hopped up o=
n to
the raised platform.
"Oh, very well," said Flambeau, laughing; and the next ins=
tant
his own towering figure was visible on that quaint elevation.
Slight as was the difference of height, it gave in those level waste=
s a sense
of seeing yet farther and farther across land and sea. Inland the little wi=
ntry
gardens faded into a confused grey copse; beyond that, in the distance, were
long low barns of a lonely farmhouse, and beyond that nothing but the long =
East
Anglian plains. Seawards there was no sail or sign of life save a few seagu=
lls:
and even they looked like the last snowflakes, and seemed to float rather t=
han
fly.
Flambeau turned abruptly at an exclamation behind him. It seemed to =
come
from lower down than might have been expected, and to be addressed to his h=
eels
rather than his head. He instantly held out his hand, but he could hardly h=
elp
laughing at what he saw. For some reason or other the platform had given way
under Father Brown, and the unfortunate little man had dropped through to t=
he
level of the parade. He was just tall enough, or short enough, for his head
alone to stick out of the hole in the broken wood, looking like St John the
Baptist's head on a charger. The face wore a disconcerted expression, as di=
d,
perhaps, that of St John the Baptist.
In a moment he began to laugh a little. "This wood must be
rotten," said Flambeau. "Though it seems odd it should bear me, a=
nd
you go through the weak place. Let me help you out."
But the little priest was looking rather curiously at the corners an=
d edges
of the wood alleged to be rotten, and there was a sort of trouble on his br=
ow.
"Come along," cried Flambeau impatiently, still with his b=
ig
brown hand extended. "Don't you want to get out?"
The priest was holding a splinter of the broken wood between his fin=
ger and
thumb, and did not immediately reply. At last he said thoughtfully: "W=
ant
to get out? Why, no. I rather think I want to get in." And he dived in=
to
the darkness under the wooden floor so abruptly as to knock off his big cur=
ved
clerical hat and leave it lying on the boards above, without any clerical h=
ead
in it.
Flambeau looked once more inland and out to sea, and once more could=
see
nothing but seas as wintry as the snow, and snows as level as the sea.
There came a scurrying noise behind him, and the little priest came =
scrambling
out of the hole faster than he had fallen in. His face was no longer
disconcerted, but rather resolute, and, perhaps only through the reflection=
s of
the snow, a trifle paler than usual.
"Well?" aske=
d his
tall friend. "Have you found the god of the temple?"
"No," answered Father Brown. "I have found what was
sometimes more important. The Sacrifice."
"What the devil do you mean?" cried Flambeau, quite alarme=
d.
Father Brown did not answer. He was staring, with a knot in his fore=
head,
at the landscape; and he suddenly pointed at it. "What's that house ov=
er
there?" he asked.
Following his finger, Flambeau saw for the first time the corners of=
a building
nearer than the farmhouse, but screened for the most part with a fringe of
trees. It was not a large building, and stood well back from the shore--, b=
ut a
glint of ornament on it suggested that it was part of the same watering-pla=
ce
scheme of decoration as the bandstand, the little gardens and the curly-bac=
ked
iron seats.
Father Brown jumped off the bandstand, his friend following; and as =
they
walked in the direction indicated the trees fell away to right and left, and
they saw a small, rather flashy hotel, such as is common in resorts--the ho=
tel
of the Saloon Bar rather than the Bar Parlour. Almost the whole frontage wa=
s of
gilt plaster and figured glass, and between that grey seascape and the grey,
witch-like trees, its gimcrack quality had something spectral in its
melancholy. They both felt vaguely that if any food or drink were offered at
such a hostelry, it would be the paste-board ham and empty mug of the
pantomime.
In this, however, they were not altogether confirmed. As they drew n=
earer
and nearer to the place they saw in front of the buffet, which was apparent=
ly
closed, one of the iron garden-seats with curly backs that had adorned the
gardens, but much longer, running almost the whole length of the frontage.
Presumably, it was placed so that visitors might sit there and look at the =
sea,
but one hardly expected to find anyone doing it in such weather.
Nevertheless, just in front of the extreme end of the iron seat stoo=
d a
small round restaurant table, and on this stood a small bottle of Chablis a=
nd a
plate of almonds and raisins. Behind the table and on the seat sat a dark-h=
aired
young man, bareheaded, and gazing at the sea in a state of almost astonishi=
ng
immobility.
But though he might have been a waxwork when they were within four y=
ards
of him, he jumped up like a jack-in-the-box when they came within three, and
said in a deferential, though not undignified, manner: "Will you step
inside, gentlemen? I have no staff at present, but I can get you anything
simple myself."
"Much obliged," said Flambeau. "So you are the
proprietor?"
"Yes," said the dark man, dropping back a little into his
motionless manner. "My waiters are all Italians, you see, and I though=
t it
only fair they should see their countryman beat the black, if he really can=
do
it. You know the great fight between Malvoli and Nigger Ned is coming off a=
fter
all?"
"I'm afraid we can't wait to trouble your hospitality
seriously," said Father Brown. "But my friend would be glad of a
glass of sherry, I'm sure, to keep out the cold and drink success to the La=
tin
champion."
Flambeau did not understand the sherry, but he did not object to it =
in the
least. He could only say amiably: "Oh, thank you very much."
"Sherry, sir--certainly," said their host, turning to his
hostel. "Excuse me if I detain you a few minutes. As I told you, I hav=
e no
staff--" And he went towards the black windows of his shuttered and un=
lighted
inn.
"Oh, it doesn't really matter," began Flambeau, but the man
turned to reassure him.
"I have the keys," he said. "I could find my way in t=
he
dark."
"I didn't mean--" began Father Brown.
He was interrupted by a bellowing human voice that came out of the b=
owels
of the uninhabited hotel. It thundered some foreign name loudly but inaudib=
ly,
and the hotel proprietor moved more sharply towards it than he had done for
Flambeau's sherry. As instant evidence proved, the proprietor had told, then
and after, nothing but the literal truth. But both Flambeau and Father Brown
have often confessed that, in all their (often outrageous) adventures, noth=
ing
had so chilled their blood as that voice of an ogre, sounding suddenly out =
of a
silent and empty inn.
"My cook!" cried the proprietor hastily. "I had forgo=
tten
my cook. He will be starting presently. Sherry, sir?"
And, sure enough, there appeared in the doorway a big white bulk wit=
h white
cap and white apron, as befits a cook, but with the needless emphasis of a
black face. Flambeau had often heard that negroes made good cooks. But some=
how
something in the contrast of colour and caste increased his surprise that t=
he
hotel proprietor should answer the call of the cook, and not the cook the c=
all
of the proprietor. But he reflected that head cooks are proverbially arroga=
nt;
and, besides, the host had come back with the sherry, and that was the great
thing.
"I rather wonder," said Father Brown, "that there are=
so
few people about the beach, when this big fight is coming on after all. We =
only
met one man for miles."
The hotel proprietor shrugged his shoulders. "They come from the
other end of the town, you see--from the station, three miles from here. Th=
ey are
only interested in the sport, and will stop in hotels for the night only. A=
fter
all, it is hardly weather for basking on the shore."
"Or on the seat," said Flambeau, and pointed to the little
table.
"I have to keep a look-out," said the man with the motionl=
ess
face. He was a quiet, well-featured fellow, rather sallow; his dark clothes=
had
nothing distinctive about them, except that his black necktie was worn rath=
er
high, like a stock, and secured by a gold pin with some grotesque head to i=
t.
Nor was there anything notable in the face, except something that was proba=
bly
a mere nervous trick--a habit of opening one eye more narrowly than the oth=
er,
giving the impression that the other was larger, or was, perhaps, artificia=
l.
The silence that ensued was broken by their host saying quietly: &qu=
ot;Whereabouts
did you meet the one man on your march?"
"Curiously enough," answered the priest, "close by
here--just by that bandstand."
Flambeau, who had sat on the long iron seat to finish his sherry, pu=
t it
down and rose to his feet, staring at his friend in amazement. He opened his
mouth to speak, and then shut it again.
"Curious," said the dark-haired man thoughtfully. "Wh=
at
was he like?"
"It was rather dark when I saw him," began Father Brown,
"but he was--"
As has been said, the hotel-keeper can be proved to have told the pr=
ecise
truth. His phrase that the cook was starting presently was fulfilled to the
letter, for the cook came out, pulling his gloves on, even as they spoke.
But he was a very different figure from the confused mass of white a=
nd black
that had appeared for an instant in the doorway. He was buttoned and buckle=
d up
to his bursting eyeballs in the most brilliant fashion. A tall black hat was
tilted on his broad black head--a hat of the sort that the French wit has c=
ompared
to eight mirrors. But somehow the black man was like the black hat. He also=
was
black, and yet his glossy skin flung back the light at eight angles or more=
. It
is needless to say that he wore white spats and a white slip inside his
waistcoat. The red flower stood up in his buttonhole aggressively, as if it=
had
suddenly grown there. And in the way he carried his cane in one hand and hi=
s cigar
in the other there was a certain attitude--an attitude we must always remem=
ber
when we talk of racial prejudices: something innocent and insolent--the cake
walk.
"Sometimes," said Flambeau, looking after him, "I'm n=
ot
surprised that they lynch them."
"I am never surprised," said Father Brown, "at any wo=
rk
of hell. But as I was saying," he resumed, as the negro, still
ostentatiously pulling on his yellow gloves, betook himself briskly towards=
the
watering-place, a queer music-hall figure against that grey and frosty
scene--"as I was saying, I couldn't describe the man very minutely, bu=
t he
had a flourish and old-fashioned whiskers and moustachios, dark or dyed, as=
in
the pictures of foreign financiers, round his neck was wrapped a long purpl=
e scarf
that thrashed out in the wind as he walked. It was fixed at the throat rath=
er
in the way that nurses fix children's comforters with a safety-pin. Only
this," added the priest, gazing placidly out to sea, "was not a
safety-pin."
The man sitting on the long iron bench was also gazing placidly out =
to sea.
Now he was once more in repose. Flambeau felt quite certain that one of his
eyes was naturally larger than the other. Both were now well opened, and he
could almost fancy the left eye grew larger as he gazed.
"It was a very long gold pin, and had the carved head of a monk=
ey
or some such thing," continued the cleric; "and it was fixed in a
rather odd way--he wore pince-nez and a broad black--"
The motionless man continued to gaze at the sea, and the eyes in his=
head
might have belonged to two different men. Then he made a movement of blindi=
ng
swiftness.
Father Brown had his back to him, and in that flash might have falle=
n dead
on his face. Flambeau had no weapon, but his large brown hands were resting=
on
the end of the long iron seat. His shoulders abruptly altered their shape, =
and
he heaved the whole huge thing high over his head, like a headsman's axe ab=
out
to fall. The mere height of the thing, as he held it vertical, looked like a
long iron ladder by which he was inviting men to climb towards the stars. B=
ut
the long shadow, in the level evening light, looked like a giant brandishing
the Eiffel Tower. It was the shock of that shadow, before the shock of the =
iron
crash, that made the stranger quail and dodge, and then dart into his inn,
leaving the flat and shining dagger he had dropped exactly where it had fal=
len.
"We must get away from here instantly," cried Flambeau,
flinging the huge seat away with furious indifference on the beach. He caug=
ht
the little priest by the elbow and ran him down a grey perspective of barre=
n back
garden, at the end of which there was a closed back garden door. Flambeau b=
ent
over it an instant in violent silence, and then said: "The door is
locked."
As he spoke a black feather from one of the ornamental firs fell, br=
ushing
the brim of his hat. It startled him more than the small and distant detona=
tion
that had come just before. Then came another distant detonation, and the do=
or
he was trying to open shook under the bullet buried in it. Flambeau's shoul=
ders
again filled out and altered suddenly. Three hinges and a lock burst at the
same instant, and he went out into the empty path behind, carrying the great
garden door with him, as Samson carried the gates of Gaza.
Then he flung the garden door over the garden wall, just as a third =
shot
picked up a spurt of snow and dust behind his heel. Without ceremony he sna=
tched
up the little priest, slung him astraddle on his shoulders, and went racing
towards Seawood as fast as his long legs could carry him. It was not until
nearly two miles farther on that he set his small companion down. It had ha=
rdly
been a dignified escape, in spite of the classic model of Anchises, but Fat=
her
Brown's face only wore a broad grin.
"Well," said Flambeau, after an impatient silence, as they
resumed their more conventional tramp through the streets on the edge of the
town, where no outrage need be feared, "I don't know what all this mea=
ns,
but I take it I may trust my own eyes that you never met the man you have s=
o accurately
described."
"I did meet him in a way," Brown said, biting his finger
rather nervously--"I did really. And it was too dark to see him proper=
ly, because
it was under that bandstand affair. But I'm afraid I didn't describe him so
very accurately after all, for his pince-nez was broken under him, and the =
long
gold pin wasn't stuck through his purple scarf but through his heart."=
"And I suppose," said the other in a lower voice, "th=
at
glass-eyed guy had something to do with it."
"I had hoped he had only a little," answered Brown in a ra=
ther
troubled voice, "and I may have been wrong in what I did. I acted on i=
mpulse.
But I fear this business has deep roots and dark."
They walked on through some streets in silence. The yellow lamps wer=
e beginning
to be lit in the cold blue twilight, and they were evidently approaching the
more central parts of the town. Highly coloured bills announcing the
glove-fight between Nigger Ned and Malvoli were slapped about the walls.
"Well," said Flambeau, "I never murdered anyone, even=
in
my criminal days, but I can almost sympathize with anyone doing it in such =
a dreary
place. Of all God-forsaken dustbins of Nature, I think the most heart-break=
ing
are places like that bandstand, that were meant to be festive and are forlo=
rn.
I can fancy a morbid man feeling he must kill his rival in the solitude and
irony of such a scene. I remember once taking a tramp in your glorious Surr=
ey
hills, thinking of nothing but gorse and skylarks, when I came out on a vast
circle of land, and over me lifted a vast, voiceless structure, tier above =
tier
of seats, as huge as a Roman amphitheatre and as empty as a new letter-rack=
. A
bird sailed in heaven over it. It was the Grand Stand at Epsom. And I felt =
that
no one would ever be happy there again."
"It's odd you should mention Epsom," said the priest. &quo=
t;Do
you remember what was called the Sutton Mystery, because two suspected
men--ice-cream men, I think--happened to live at Sutton? They were eventual=
ly
released. A man was found strangled, it was said, on the Downs round that p=
art.
As a fact, I know (from an Irish policeman who is a friend of mine) that he=
was
found close up to the Epsom Grand Stand--in fact, only hidden by one of the
lower doors being pushed back."
"That is queer," assented Flambeau. "But it rather
confirms my view that such pleasure places look awfully lonely out of seaso=
n,
or the man wouldn't have been murdered there."
"I'm not so sure he--" began Brown, and stopped.
"Not so sure he was murdered?" queried his companion.
"Not so sure he was murdered out of the season," answered =
the
little priest, with simplicity. "Don't you think there's something rat=
her tricky
about this solitude, Flambeau? Do you feel sure a wise murderer would always
want the spot to be lonely? It's very, very seldom a man is quite alone. An=
d,
short of that, the more alone he is, the more certain he is to be seen. No;=
I
think there must be some other--Why, here we are at the Pavilion or Palace,=
or
whatever they call it."
They had emerged on a small square, brilliantly lighted, of which th=
e principal
building was gay with gilding, gaudy with posters, and flanked with two gia=
nt
photographs of Malvoli and Nigger Ned.
"Hallo!" cried Flambeau in great surprise, as his clerical
friend stumped straight up the broad steps. "I didn't know pugilism was
your latest hobby. Are you going to see the fight?"
"I don't think there will be any fight," replied Father Br=
own.
They passed rapidly through ante-rooms and inner rooms; they passed =
through
the hall of combat itself, raised, roped, and padded with innumerable seats=
and
boxes, and still the cleric did not look round or pause till he came to a c=
lerk
at a desk outside a door marked "Committee". There he stopped and
asked to see Lord Pooley.
The attendant observed that his lordship was very busy, as the fight=
was
coming on soon, but Father Brown had a good-tempered tedium of reiteration =
for
which the official mind is generally not prepared. In a few moments the rat=
her
baffled Flambeau found himself in the presence of a man who was still shout=
ing
directions to another man going out of the room. "Be careful, you know,
about the ropes after the fourth--Well, and what do you want, I wonder!&quo=
t;
Lord Pooley was a gentleman, and, like most of the few remaining to =
our race,
was worried--especially about money. He was half grey and half flaxen, and =
he
had the eyes of fever and a high-bridged, frost-bitten nose.
"Only a word," said Father Brown. "I have come to pre=
vent
a man being killed."
Lord Pooley bounded off his chair as if a spring had flung him from =
it. "I'm
damned if I'll stand any more of this!" he cried. "You and your c=
ommittees
and parsons and petitions! Weren't there parsons in the old days, when they
fought without gloves? Now they're fighting with the regulation gloves, and
there's not the rag of a possibility of either of the boxers being
killed."
"I didn't mean either of the boxers," said the little prie=
st.
"Well, well, well!" said the nobleman, with a touch of fro=
sty
humour. "Who's going to be killed? The referee?"
"I don't know who's going to be killed," replied Father Br=
own,
with a reflective stare. "If I did I shouldn't have to spoil your
pleasure. I could simply get him to escape. I never could see anything wrong
about prize-fights. As it is, I must ask you to announce that the fight is =
off for
the present."
"Anything else?" jeered the gentleman with feverish eyes.
"And what do you say to the two thousand people who have come to see
it?"
"I say there will be one thousand nine-hundred and ninety-nine =
of
them left alive when they have seen it," said Father Brown.
Lord Pooley looked at Flambeau. "Is your friend mad?" he a=
sked.
"Far from it," was the reply.
"And look here," resumed Pooley in his restless way,
"it's worse than that. A whole pack of Italians have turned up to back
Malvoli--swarthy, savage fellows of some country, anyhow. You know what the=
se Mediterranean
races are like. If I send out word that it's off we shall have Malvoli stor=
ming
in here at the head of a whole Corsican clan."
"My lord, it is a matter of life and death," said the prie=
st.
"Ring your bell. Give your message. And see whether it is Malvoli who =
answers."
The nobleman struck the bell on the table with an odd air of new cur=
iosity.
He said to the clerk who appeared almost instantly in the doorway: "I =
have
a serious announcement to make to the audience shortly. Meanwhile, would you
kindly tell the two champions that the fight will have to be put off."=
The clerk stared for some seconds as if at a demon and vanished.
"What authority have you for what you say?" asked Lord Poo=
ley
abruptly. "Whom did you consult?"
"I consulted a bandstand," said Father Brown, scratching h=
is
head. "But, no, I'm wrong; I consulted a book, too. I picked it up on a
bookstall in London--very cheap, too."
He had taken out of his pocket a small, stout, leather-bound volume,=
and
Flambeau, looking over his shoulder, could see that it was some book of old
travels, and had a leaf turned down for reference.
"'The only form in which Voodoo--'" began Father Brown,
reading aloud.
"In which what?" inquired his lordship.
"'In which Voodoo,'" repeated the reader, almost with reli=
sh,
"'is widely organized outside Jamaica itself is in the form known as t=
he Monkey,
or the God of the Gongs, which is powerful in many parts of the two American
continents, especially among half-breeds, many of whom look exactly like wh=
ite
men. It differs from most other forms of devil-worship and human sacrifice =
in
the fact that the blood is not shed formally on the altar, but by a sort of
assassination among the crowd. The gongs beat with a deafening din as the d=
oors
of the shrine open and the monkey-god is revealed; almost the whole
congregation rivet ecstatic eyes on him. But after--'"
The door of the room was flung open, and the fashionable negro stood=
framed
in it, his eyeballs rolling, his silk hat still insolently tilted on his he=
ad.
"Huh!" he cried, showing his apish teeth. "What this? Huh! H=
uh!
You steal a coloured gentleman's prize--prize his already--yo' think yo' je=
s'
save that white 'Talian trash--"
"The matter is only deferred," said the nobleman quietly.
"I will be with you to explain in a minute or two."
"Who you to--" shouted Nigger Ned, beginning to storm.
"My name is Pooley," replied the other, with a creditable
coolness. "I am the organizing secretary, and I advise you just now to
leave the room."
"Who this fellow?" demanded the dark champion, pointing to=
the
priest disdainfully.
"My name is Brown," was the reply. "And I advise you =
just
now to leave the country."
The prize-fighter stood glaring for a few seconds, and then, rather =
to the
surprise of Flambeau and the others, strode out, sending the door to with a
crash behind him.
"Well," asked Father Brown rubbing his dusty hair up,
"what do you think of Leonardo da Vinci? A beautiful Italian head.&quo=
t;
"Look here," said Lord Pooley, "I've taken a consider=
able
responsibility, on your bare word. I think you ought to tell me more about
this."
"You are quite right, my lord," answered Brown. "And =
it
won't take long to tell." He put the little leather book in his overco=
at
pocket. "I think we know all that this can tell us, but you shall look=
at
it to see if I'm right. That negro who has just swaggered out is one of the
most dangerous men on earth, for he has the brains of a European, with the =
instincts
of a cannibal. He has turned what was clean, common-sense butchery among his
fellow-barbarians into a very modern and scientific secret society of
assassins. He doesn't know I know it, nor, for the matter of that, that I c=
an't
prove it."
There was a silence, and the little man went on.
"But if I want to murder somebody, will it really be the best p=
lan
to make sure I'm alone with him?"
Lord Pooley's eyes recovered their frosty twinkle as he looked at th=
e little
clergyman. He only said: "If you want to murder somebody, I should adv=
ise
it."
Father Brown shook his head, like a murderer of much riper experienc=
e. "So
Flambeau said," he replied, with a sigh. "But consider. The more =
a man
feels lonely the less he can be sure he is alone. It must mean empty spaces
round him, and they are just what make him obvious. Have you never seen one
ploughman from the heights, or one shepherd from the valleys? Have you never
walked along a cliff, and seen one man walking along the sands? Didn't you =
know
when he's killed a crab, and wouldn't you have known if it had been a credi=
tor?
No! No! No! For an intelligent murderer, such as you or I might be, it is an
impossible plan to make sure that nobody is looking at you."
"But what other plan is there?"
"There is only one," said the priest. "To make sure t=
hat
everybody is looking at something else. A man is throttled close by the big
stand at Epsom. Anybody might have seen it done while the stand stood
empty--any tramp under the hedges or motorist among the hills. But nobody w=
ould
have seen it when the stand was crowded and the whole ring roaring, when the
favourite was coming in first--or wasn't. The twisting of a neck-cloth, the
thrusting of a body behind a door could be done in an instant--so long as it
was that instant. It was the same, of course," he continued turning to
Flambeau, "with that poor fellow under the bandstand. He was dropped
through the hole (it wasn't an accidental hole) just at some very dramatic
moment of the entertainment, when the bow of some great violinist or the vo=
ice
of some great singer opened or came to its climax. And here, of course, when
the knock-out blow came--it would not be the only one. That is the little t=
rick
Nigger Ned has adopted from his old God of Gongs."
"By the way, Malvoli--" Pooley began.
"Malvoli," said the priest, "has nothing to do with i=
t. I
dare say he has some Italians with him, but our amiable friends are not
Italians. They are octoroons and African half-bloods of various shades, but=
I
fear we English think all foreigners are much the same so long as they are =
dark
and dirty. Also," he added, with a smile, "I fear the English dec=
line
to draw any fine distinction between the moral character produced by my
religion and that which blooms out of Voodoo."
The blaze of the spring season had burst upon Seawood, littering its=
foreshore
with famines and bathing-machines, with nomadic preachers and nigger minstr=
els,
before the two friends saw it again, and long before the storm of pursuit a=
fter
the strange secret society had died away. Almost on every hand the secret of
their purpose perished with them. The man of the hotel was found drifting d=
ead
on the sea like so much seaweed; his right eye was closed in peace, but his
left eye was wide open, and glistened like glass in the moon. Nigger Ned had
been overtaken a mile or two away, and murdered three policemen with his cl=
osed
left hand. The remaining officer was surprised--nay, pained--and the negro =
got
away. But this was enough to set all the English papers in a flame, and for=
a
month or two the main purpose of the British Empire was to prevent the buck
nigger (who was so in both senses) escaping by any English port. Persons of=
a
figure remotely reconcilable with his were subjected to quite extraordinary
inquisitions, made to scrub their faces before going on board ship, as if e=
ach
white complexion were made up like a mask, of greasepaint. Every negro in
England was put under special regulations and made to report himself; the
outgoing ships would no more have taken a nigger than a basilisk. For people
had found out how fearful and vast and silent was the force of the savage
secret society, and by the time Flambeau and Father Brown were leaning on t=
he parade
parapet in April, the Black Man meant in England almost what he once meant =
in
Scotland.
"He must be still in England," observed Flambeau, "and
horridly well hidden, too. They must have found him at the ports if he had =
only
whitened his face."
"You see, he is really a clever man," said Father Brown
apologetically. "And I'm sure he wouldn't whiten his face."
"Well, but what would he do?"
"I think," said Father Brown, "he would blacken his
face."
Flambeau, leaning motionless on the parapet, laughed and said: "=
;My
dear fellow!"
Father Brown, also leaning motionless on the parapet, moved one fing=
er for
an instant into the direction of the soot-masked niggers singing on the san=
ds.
TEN -- The Salad of Colon=
el
Cray
FATHER BROWN was walki=
ng
home from Mass on a white weird morning when the mists were slowly lifting-=
-one
of those mornings when the very element of light appears as something
mysterious and new. The scattered trees outlined themselves more and more o=
ut
of the vapour, as if they were first drawn in grey chalk and then in charco=
al.
At yet more distant intervals appeared the houses upon the broken fringe of=
the
suburb; their outlines became clearer and clearer until he recognized many =
in which
he had chance acquaintances, and many more the names of whose owners he kne=
w.
But all the windows and doors were sealed; none of the people were of the s=
ort
that would be up at such a time, or still less on such an errand. But as he
passed under the shadow of one handsome villa with verandas and wide ornate
gardens, he heard a noise that made him almost involuntarily stop. It was t=
he
unmistakable noise of a pistol or carbine or some light firearm discharged;=
but
it was not this that puzzled him most. The first full noise was immediately
followed by a series of fainter noises--as he counted them, about six. He
supposed it must be the echo; but the odd thing was that the echo was not in
the least like the original sound. It was not like anything else that he co=
uld
think of; the three things nearest to it seemed to be the noise made by sip=
hons
of soda-water, one of the many noises made by an animal, and the noise made=
by
a person attempting to conceal laughter. None of which seemed to make much =
sense.
Father Brown was made of two men. There was a man of action, who was=
as
modest as a primrose and as punctual as a clock; who went his small round of
duties and never dreamed of altering it. There was also a man of reflection,
who was much simpler but much stronger, who could not easily be stopped; wh=
ose
thought was always (in the only intelligent sense of the words) free though=
t.
He could not help, even unconsciously, asking himself all the questions that
there were to be asked, and answering as many of them as he could; all that
went on like his breathing or circulation. But he never consciously carried=
his
actions outside the sphere of his own duty; and in this case the two attitu=
des were
aptly tested. He was just about to resume his trudge in the twilight, telli=
ng
himself it was no affair of his, but instinctively twisting and untwisting
twenty theories about what the odd noises might mean. Then the grey sky-line
brightened into silver, and in the broadening light he realized that he had
been to the house which belonged to an Anglo-Indian Major named Putnam; and
that the Major had a native cook from Malta who was of his communion. He al=
so
began to remember that pistol-shots are sometimes serious things; accompani=
ed with
consequences with which he was legitimately concerned. He turned back and w=
ent
in at the garden gate, making for the front door.
Half-way down one side of the house stood out a projection like a ve=
ry low
shed; it was, as he afterwards discovered, a large dustbin. Round the corne=
r of
this came a figure, at first a mere shadow in the haze, apparently bending =
and
peering about. Then, coming nearer, it solidified into a figure that was,
indeed, rather unusually solid. Major Putnam was a bald-headed, bull-necked
man, short and very broad, with one of those rather apoplectic faces that a=
re
produced by a prolonged attempt to combine the oriental climate with the
occidental luxuries. But the face was a good-humoured one, and even now, th=
ough
evidently puzzled and inquisitive, wore a kind of innocent grin. He had a l=
arge
palm-leaf hat on the back of his head (suggesting a halo that was by no mea=
ns appropriate
to the face), but otherwise he was clad only in a very vivid suit of striped
scarlet and yellow pyjamas; which, though glowing enough to behold, must ha=
ve
been, on a fresh morning, pretty chilly to wear. He had evidently come out =
of
his house in a hurry, and the priest was not surprised when he called out
without further ceremony: "Did you hear that noise?"
"Yes," answered Father Brown; "I thought I had better
look in, in case anything was the matter."
The Major looked at him rather queerly with his good-humoured gooseb=
erry
eyes. "What do you think the noise was?" he asked.
"It sounded like a gun or something," replied the other, w=
ith
some hesitation; "but it seemed to have a singular sort of echo."=
The Major was still looking at him quietly, but with protruding eyes=
, when
the front door was flung open, releasing a flood of gaslight on the face of=
the
fading mist; and another figure in pyjamas sprang or tumbled out into the
garden. The figure was much longer, leaner, and more athletic; the pyjamas,
though equally tropical, were comparatively tasteful, being of white with a
light lemon-yellow stripe. The man was haggard, but handsome, more sunburned
than the other; he had an aquiline profile and rather deep-sunken eyes, and=
a
slight air of oddity arising from the combination of coal-black hair with a
much lighter moustache. All this Father Brown absorbed in detail more at
leisure. For the moment he only saw one thing about the man; which was the
revolver in his hand.
"Cray!" exclaimed the Major, staring at him; "did you
fire that shot?"
"Yes, I did," retorted the black-haired gentleman hotly;
"and so would you in my place. If you were chased everywhere by devils=
and
nearly--"
The Major seemed to intervene rather hurriedly. "This is my fri=
end Father
Brown," he said. And then to Brown: "I don't know whether you've =
met
Colonel Cray of the Royal Artillery."
"I have heard of him, of course," said the priest innocent=
ly.
"Did you--did you hit anything?"
"I thought so," answered Cray with gravity.
"Did he--" asked Major Putnam in a lowered voice, "di=
d he
fall or cry out, or anything?"
Colonel Cray was regarding his host with a strange and steady stare.=
"I'll
tell you exactly what he did," he said. "He sneezed."
Father Brown's hand went half-way to his head, with the gesture of a=
man
remembering somebody's name. He knew now what it was that was neither soda-=
water
nor the snorting of a dog.
"Well," ejaculated the staring Major, "I never heard
before that a service revolver was a thing to be sneezed at."
"Nor I," said Father Brown faintly. "It's lucky you
didn't turn your artillery on him or you might have given him quite a bad
cold." Then, after a bewildered pause, he said: "Was it a
burglar?"
"Let us go inside," said Major Putnam, rather sharply, and=
led
the way into his house.
The interior exhibited a paradox often to be marked in such morning =
hours:
that the rooms seemed brighter than the sky outside; even after the Major h=
ad
turned out the one gaslight in the front hall. Father Brown was surprised to
see the whole dining-table set out as for a festive meal, with napkins in t=
heir
rings, and wine-glasses of some six unnecessary shapes set beside every pla=
te.
It was common enough, at that time of the morning, to find the remains of a
banquet over-night; but to find it freshly spread so early was unusual.
While he stood wavering in the hall Major Putnam rushed past him and=
sent
a raging eye over the whole oblong of the tablecloth. At last he spoke,
spluttering: "All the silver gone!" he gasped. "Fish-knives =
and forks
gone. Old cruet-stand gone. Even the old silver cream-jug gone. And now, Fa=
ther
Brown, I am ready to answer your question of whether it was a burglar."=
;
"They're simply a blind," said Cray stubbornly. "I kn=
ow
better than you why people persecute this house; I know better than you
why--"
The Major patted him on the shoulder with a gesture almost peculiar =
to the
soothing of a sick child, and said: "It was a burglar. Obviously it wa=
s a
burglar."
"A burglar with a bad cold," observed Father Brown, "=
that
might assist you to trace him in the neighbourhood."
The Major shook his head in a sombre manner. "He must be far be=
yond
trace now, I fear," he said.
Then, as the restless man with the revolver turned again towards the=
door
in the garden, he added in a husky, confidential voice: "I doubt wheth=
er I
should send for the police, for fear my friend here has been a little too f=
ree
with his bullets, and got on the wrong side of the law. He's lived in very =
wild
places; and, to be frank with you, I think he sometimes fancies things.&quo=
t;
"I think you once told me," said Brown, "that he beli=
eves
some Indian secret society is pursuing him."
Major Putnam nodded, but at the same time shrugged his shoulders.
"I suppose we'd better follow him outside," he said. "I don't
want any more--shall we say, sneezing?"
They passed out into the morning light, which was now even tinged wi=
th
sunshine, and saw Colonel Cray's tall figure bent almost double, minutely
examining the condition of gravel and grass. While the Major strolled
unobtrusively towards him, the priest took an equally indolent turn, which =
took
him round the next corner of the house to within a yard or two of the
projecting dustbin.
He stood regarding this dismal object for some minute and a half--, =
then
he stepped towards it, lifted the lid and put his head inside. Dust and oth=
er
discolouring matter shook upwards as he did so; but Father Brown never obse=
rved
his own appearance, whatever else he observed. He remained thus for a
measurable period, as if engaged in some mysterious prayers. Then he came o=
ut
again, with some ashes on his hair, and walked unconcernedly away.
By the time he came round to the garden door again he found a group =
there
which seemed to roll away morbidities as the sunlight had already rolled aw=
ay
the mists. It was in no way rationally reassuring; it was simply broadly co=
mic,
like a cluster of Dickens's characters. Major Putnam had managed to slip in=
side
and plunge into a proper shirt and trousers, with a crimson cummerbund, and=
a
light square jacket over all; thus normally set off, his red festive face
seemed bursting with a commonplace cordiality. He was indeed emphatic, but =
then
he was talking to his cook--the swarthy son of Malta, whose lean, yellow and
rather careworn face contrasted quaintly with his snow-white cap and costum=
e. The
cook might well be careworn, for cookery was the Major's hobby. He was one =
of
those amateurs who always know more than the professional. The only other
person he even admitted to be a judge of an omelette was his friend Cray--a=
nd
as Brown remembered this, he turned to look for the other officer. In the n=
ew
presence of daylight and people clothed and in their right mind, the sight =
of
him was rather a shock. The taller and more elegant man was still in his
night-garb, with tousled black hair, and now crawling about the garden on h=
is
hands and knees, still looking for traces of the burglar; and now and again=
, to
all appearance, striking the ground with his hand in anger at not finding h=
im.
Seeing him thus quadrupedal in the grass, the priest raised his eyebrows ra=
ther
sadly; and for the first time guessed that "fancies things" might=
be
an euphemism.
The third item in the group of the cook and the epicure was also kno=
wn to
Father Brown; it was Audrey Watson, the Major's ward and housekeeper; and at
this moment, to judge by her apron, tucked-up sleeves and resolute manner, =
much
more the housekeeper than the ward.
"It serves you right," she was saying: "I always told=
you
not to have that old-fashioned cruet-stand."
"I prefer it," said Putnam, placably. "I'm old-fashio=
ned
myself; and the things keep together."
"And vanish together, as you see," she retorted. "Wel=
l,
if you are not going to bother about the burglar, I shouldn't bother about =
the
lunch. It's Sunday, and we can't send for vinegar and all that in the town;=
and
you Indian gentlemen can't enjoy what you call a dinner without a lot of hot
things. I wish to goodness now you hadn't asked Cousin Oliver to take me to=
the
musical service. It isn't over till half-past twelve, and the Colonel has to
leave by then. I don't believe you men can manage alone."
"Oh yes, we can, my dear," said the Major, looking at her =
very
amiably. "Marco has all the sauces, and we've often done ourselves wel=
l in
very rough places, as you might know by now. And it's time you had a treat,=
Audrey;
you mustn't be a housekeeper every hour of the day; and I know you want to =
hear
the music."
"I want to go to church," she said, with rather severe eye=
s.
She was one of those handsome women who will always be handsome, bec=
ause
the beauty is not in an air or a tint, but in the very structure of the head
and features. But though she was not yet middle-aged and her auburn hair wa=
s of
a Titianesque fullness in form and colour, there was a look in her mouth and
around her eyes which suggested that some sorrows wasted her, as winds wast=
e at
last the edges of a Greek temple. For indeed the little domestic difficulty=
of
which she was now speaking so decisively was rather comic than tragic. Fath=
er
Brown gathered, from the course of the conversation, that Cray, the other
gourmet, had to leave before the usual lunch-time; but that Putnam, his hos=
t,
not to be done out of a final feast with an old crony, had arranged for a
special dejeuner to be set out and consumed in the course of the morning, w=
hile
Audrey and other graver persons were at morning service. She was going there
under the escort of a relative and old friend of hers, Dr Oliver Oman, who,
though a scientific man of a somewhat bitter type, was enthusiastic for mus=
ic,
and would go even to church to get it. There was nothing in all this that c=
ould
conceivably concern the tragedy in Miss Watson's face; and by a half consci=
ous
instinct, Father Brown turned again to the seeming lunatic grubbing about in
the grass.
When he strolled across to him, the black, unbrushed head was lifted=
abruptly,
as if in some surprise at his continued presence. And indeed, Father Brown,=
for
reasons best known to himself, had lingered much longer than politeness
required; or even, in the ordinary sense, permitted.
"Well!" cried Cray, with wild eyes. "I suppose you th=
ink
I'm mad, like the rest?"
"I have considered the thesis," answered the little man,
composedly. "And I incline to think you are not."
"What do you mean?" snapped Cray quite savagely.
"Real madmen," explained Father Brown, "always encour=
age
their own morbidity. They never strive against it. But you are trying to fi=
nd traces
of the burglar; even when there aren't any. You are struggling against it. =
You
want what no madman ever wants."
"And what is that?"
"You want to be proved wrong," said Brown.
During the last words Cray had sprung or staggered to his feet and w=
as regarding
the cleric with agitated eyes. "By hell, but that is a true word!"=
; he
cried. "They are all at me here that the fellow was only after the
silver--as if I shouldn't be only too pleased to think so! She's been at
me," and he tossed his tousled black head towards Audrey, but the other
had no need of the direction, "she's been at me today about how cruel I
was to shoot a poor harmless house-breaker, and how I have the devil in me
against poor harmless natives. But I was a good-natured man once--as
good-natured as Putnam."
After a pause he said: "Look here, I've never seen you before; =
but
you shall judge of the whole story. Old Putnam and I were friends in the sa=
me
mess; but, owing to some accidents on the Afghan border, I got my command m=
uch
sooner than most men; only we were both invalided home for a bit. I was eng=
aged
to Audrey out there; and we all travelled back together. But on the journey
back things happened. Curious things. The result of them was that Putnam wa=
nts
it broken off, and even Audrey keeps it hanging on--and I know what they me=
an.
I know what they think I am. So do you.
"Well, these are the facts. The last day we were in an Indian c=
ity
I asked Putnam if I could get some Trichinopoli cigars, he directed me to a
little place opposite his lodgings. I have since found he was quite right; =
but
'opposite' is a dangerous word when one decent house stands opposite five or
six squalid ones; and I must have mistaken the door. It opened with difficu=
lty,
and then only on darkness; but as I turned back, the door behind me sank ba=
ck
and settled into its place with a noise as of innumerable bolts. There was
nothing to do but to walk forward; which I did through passage after passag=
e,
pitch-dark. Then I came to a flight of steps, and then to a blind door, sec=
ured
by a latch of elaborate Eastern ironwork, which I could only trace by touch,
but which I loosened at last. I came out again upon gloom, which was half
turned into a greenish twilight by a multitude of small but steady lamps be=
low.
They showed merely the feet or fringes of some huge and empty architecture.
Just in front of me was something that looked like a mountain. I confess I
nearly fell on the great stone platform on which I had emerged, to realize =
that
it was an idol. And worst of all, an idol with its back to me.
"It was hardly half human, I guessed; to judge by the small squ=
at
head, and still more by a thing like a tail or extra limb turned up behind =
and pointing,
like a loathsome large finger, at some symbol graven in the centre of the v=
ast
stone back. I had begun, in the dim light, to guess at the hieroglyphic, not
without horror, when a more horrible thing happened. A door opened silently=
in
the temple wall behind me and a man came out, with a brown face and a black
coat. He had a carved smile on his face, of copper flesh and ivory teeth; b=
ut I
think the most hateful thing about him was that he was in European dress. I=
was
prepared, I think, for shrouded priests or naked fakirs. But this seemed to=
say
that the devilry was over all the earth. As indeed I found it to be.
"'If you had only seen the Monkey's Feet,' he said, smiling
steadily, and without other preface, 'we should have been very gentle--you
would only be tortured and die. If you had seen the Monkey's Face, still we=
should
be very moderate, very tolerant--you would only be tortured and live. But as
you have seen the Monkey's Tail, we must pronounce the worst sentence, which
is--Go Free.'
"When he said the words I heard the elaborate iron latch with w=
hich
I had struggled, automatically unlock itself: and then, far down the dark p=
assages
I had passed, I heard the heavy street-door shifting its own bolts backward=
s.
"'It is vain to ask for mercy; you must go free,' said the smil=
ing
man. 'Henceforth a hair shall slay you like a sword, and a breath shall bit=
e you
like an adder; weapons shall come against you out of nowhere; and you shall=
die
many times.' And with that he was swallowed once more in the wall behind; a=
nd I
went out into the street."
Cray paused; and Father Brown unaffectedly sat down on the lawn and =
began
to pick daisies.
Then the soldier continued: "Putnam, of course, with his jolly common sense, pooh-poohed all my fears; and from that time dates his doubt = of my mental balance. Well, I'll simply tell you, in the fewest words, the three things that have happened since; and you shall judge which of us is right.<= o:p>
"The first happened in an Indian village on the edge of the jun=
gle,
but hundreds of miles from the temple, or town, or type of tribes and custo=
ms
where the curse had been put on me. I woke in black midnight, and lay think=
ing
of nothing in particular, when I felt a faint tickling thing, like a thread=
or
a hair, trailed across my throat. I shrank back out of its way, and could n=
ot
help thinking of the words in the temple. But when I got up and sought ligh=
ts
and a mirror, the line across my neck was a line of blood.
"The second happened in a lodging in Port Said, later, on our
journey home together. It was a jumble of tavern and curiosity-shop; and th=
ough
there was nothing there remotely suggesting the cult of the Monkey, it is, =
of
course, possible that some of its images or talismans were in such a place.=
Its
curse was there, anyhow. I woke again in the dark with a sensation that cou=
ld
not be put in colder or more literal words than that a breath bit like an
adder. Existence was an agony of extinction; I dashed my head against walls
until I dashed it against a window; and fell rather than jumped into the ga=
rden
below. Putnam, poor fellow, who had called the other thing a chance scratch,
was bound to take seriously the fact of finding me half insensible on the g=
rass
at dawn. But I fear it was my mental state he took seriously; and not my st=
ory.
"The third happened in Malta. We were in a fortress there; and =
as
it happened our bedrooms overlooked the open sea, which almost came up to o=
ur
window-sills, save for a flat white outer wall as bare as the sea. I woke up
again; but it was not dark. There was a full moon, as I walked to the windo=
w; I
could have seen a bird on the bare battlement, or a sail on the horizon. Wh=
at I
did see was a sort of stick or branch circling, self-supported, in the empty
sky. It flew straight in at my window and smashed the lamp beside the pillo=
w I
had just quitted. It was one of those queer-shaped war-clubs some Eastern
tribes use. But it had come from no human hand."
Father Brown threw away a daisy-chain he was making, and rose with a=
wistful
look. "Has Major Putnam," he asked, "got any Eastern curios,=
idols,
weapons and so on, from which one might get a hint?"
"Plenty of those, though not much use, I fear," replied Cr=
ay;
"but by all means come into his study."
As they entered they passed Miss Watson buttoning her gloves for chu= rch, and heard the voice of Putnam downstairs still giving a lecture on cookery = to the cook. In the Major's study and den of curios they came suddenly on a th= ird party, silk-hatted and dressed for the street, who was poring over an open = book on the smoking-table--a book which he dropped rather guiltily, and turned.<= o:p>
Cray introduced him civilly enough, as Dr Oman, but he showed such d=
isfavour
in his very face that Brown guessed the two men, whether Audrey knew it or =
not,
were rivals. Nor was the priest wholly unsympathetic with the prejudice. Dr
Oman was a very well-dressed gentleman indeed; well-featured, though almost
dark enough for an Asiatic. But Father Brown had to tell himself sharply th=
at
one should be in charity even with those who wax their pointed beards, who =
have
small gloved hands, and who speak with perfectly modulated voices.
Cray seemed to find something specially irritating in the small pray=
er-book
in Oman's dark-gloved hand. "I didn't know that was in your line,"=
; he
said rather rudely.
Oman laughed mildly, but without offence. "This is more so, I k=
now,"
he said, laying his hand on the big book he had dropped, "a dictionary=
of drugs
and such things. But it's rather too large to take to church." Then he
closed the larger book, and there seemed again the faintest touch of hurry =
and
embarrassment.
"I suppose," said the priest, who seemed anxious to change=
the
subject, "all these spears and things are from India?"
"From everywhere," answered the doctor. "Putnam is an=
old
soldier, and has been in Mexico and Australia, and the Cannibal Islands for=
all
I know."
"I hope it was not in the Cannibal Islands," said Brown,
"that he learnt the art of cookery." And he ran his eyes over the
stew-pots or other strange utensils on the wall.
At this moment the jolly subject of their conversation thrust his la=
ughing,
lobsterish face into the room. "Come along, Cray," he cried. &quo=
t;Your
lunch is just coming in. And the bells are ringing for those who want to go=
to
church."
Cray slipped upstairs to change; Dr Oman and Miss Watson betook them=
selves
solemnly down the street, with a string of other churchgoers; but Father Br=
own
noticed that the doctor twice looked back and scrutinized the house; and ev=
en
came back to the corner of the street to look at it again.
The priest looked puzzled. "He can't have been at the
dustbin," he muttered. "Not in those clothes. Or was he there ear=
lier
today?"
Father Brown, touching other people, was as sensitive as a barometer=
; but
today he seemed about as sensitive as a rhinoceros. By no social law, rigid=
or
implied, could he be supposed to linger round the lunch of the Anglo-Indian
friends; but he lingered, covering his position with torrents of amusing but
quite needless conversation. He was the more puzzling because he did not se=
em
to want any lunch. As one after another of the most exquisitely balanced
kedgerees of curries, accompanied with their appropriate vintages, were laid
before the other two, he only repeated that it was one of his fast-days, and
munched a piece of bread and sipped and then left untasted a tumbler of cold
water. His talk, however, was exuberant.
"I'll tell you what I'll do for you," he cried--, "I'=
ll
mix you a salad! I can't eat it, but I'll mix it like an angel! You've got a
lettuce there."
"Unfortunately it's the only thing we have got," answered =
the good-humoured
Major. "You must remember that mustard, vinegar, oil and so on vanished
with the cruet and the burglar."
"I know," replied Brown, rather vaguely. "That's what
I've always been afraid would happen. That's why I always carry a cruet-sta=
nd
about with me. I'm so fond of salads."
And to the amazement of the two men he took a pepper-pot out of his =
waistcoat
pocket and put it on the table.
"I wonder why the burglar wanted mustard, too," he went on,
taking a mustard-pot from another pocket. "A mustard plaster, I suppos=
e.
And vinegar"--and producing that condiment--"haven't I heard
something about vinegar and brown paper? As for oil, which I think I put in=
my
left--"
His garrulity was an instant arrested; for lifting his eyes, he saw =
what
no one else saw--the black figure of Dr Oman standing on the sunlit lawn and
looking steadily into the room. Before he could quite recover himself Cray =
had
cloven in.
"You're an astounding card," he said, staring. "I sha=
ll
come and hear your sermons, if they're as amusing as your manners." His
voice changed a little, and he leaned back in his chair.
"Oh, there are sermons in a cruet-stand, too," said Father
Brown, quite gravely. "Have you heard of faith like a grain of
mustard-seed; or charity that anoints with oil? And as for vinegar, can any
soldiers forget that solitary soldier, who, when the sun was darkened--&quo=
t;
Colonel Cray leaned forward a little and clutched the tablecloth.
Father Brown, who was making the salad, tipped two spoonfuls of the =
mustard
into the tumbler of water beside him; stood up and said in a new, loud and
sudden voice--"Drink that!"
At the same moment the motionless doctor in the garden came running,=
and
bursting open a window cried: "Am I wanted? Has he been poisoned?"=
;
"Pretty near," said Brown, with the shadow of a smile; for=
the
emetic had very suddenly taken effect. And Cray lay in a deck-chair, gaspin=
g as
for life, but alive.
Major Putnam had sprung up, his purple face mottled. "A
crime!" he cried hoarsely. "I will go for the police!"
The priest could hear him dragging down his palm-leaf hat from the p=
eg and
tumbling out of the front door; he heard the garden gate slam. But he only
stood looking at Cray; and after a silence said quietly:
"I shall not talk to you much; but I will tell you what you wan=
t to
know. There is no curse on you. The Temple of the Monkey was either a coinc=
idence
or a part of the trick; the trick was the trick of a white man. There is on=
ly
one weapon that will bring blood with that mere feathery touch: a razor hel=
d by
a white man. There is one way of making a common room full of invisible,
overpowering poison: turning on the gas--the crime of a white man. And ther=
e is
only one kind of club that can be thrown out of a window, turn in mid-air a=
nd
come back to the window next to it: the Australian boomerang. You'll see so=
me
of them in the Major's study."
With that he went outside and spoke for a moment to the doctor. The =
moment
after, Audrey Watson came rushing into the house and fell on her knees besi=
de
Cray's chair. He could not hear what they said to each other; but their fac=
es
moved with amazement, not unhappiness. The doctor and the priest walked slo=
wly
towards the garden gate.
"I suppose the Major was in love with her, too," he said w=
ith
a sigh; and when the other nodded, observed: "You were very generous,
doctor. You did a fine thing. But what made you suspect?"
"A very small thing," said Oman; "but it kept me rest=
less
in church till I came back to see that all was well. That book on his table=
was
a work on poisons; and was put down open at the place where it stated that a
certain Indian poison, though deadly and difficult to trace, was particular=
ly
easily reversible by the use of the commonest emetics. I suppose he read th=
at
at the last moment--"
"And remembered that there were emetics in the cruet-stand,&quo=
t;
said Father Brown. "Exactly. He threw the cruet in the dustbin--where I
found it, along with other silver--for the sake of a burglary blind. But if=
you
look at that pepper-pot I put on the table, you'll see a small hole. That's
where Cray's bullet struck, shaking up the pepper and making the criminal
sneeze."
There was a silence. Then Dr Oman said grimly: "The Major is a =
long
time looking for the police."
"Or the police in looking for the Major?" said the priest.
"Well, good-bye."
ELEVEN -- The Strange Cri=
me
of John Boulnois
MR CALHOUN KIDD was a =
very
young gentleman with a very old face, a face dried up with its own eagernes=
s,
framed in blue-black hair and a black butterfly tie. He was the emissary in
England of the colossal American daily called the Western Sun--also humorou=
sly
described as the "Rising Sunset". This was in allusion to a great
journalistic declaration (attributed to Mr Kidd himself) that "he gues=
sed
the sun would rise in the west yet, if American citizens did a bit more
hustling." Those, however, who mock American journalism from the
standpoint of somewhat mellower traditions forget a certain paradox which
partly redeems it. For while the journalism of the States permits a pantomi=
mic
vulgarity long past anything English, it also shows a real excitement about=
the
most earnest mental problems, of which English papers are innocent, or rath=
er
incapable. The Sun was full of the most solemn matters treated in the most
farcical way. William James figured there as well as "Weary Willie,&qu=
ot;
and pragmatists alternated with pugilists in the long procession of its
portraits.
Thus, when a very unobtrusive Oxford man named John Boulnois wrote i=
n a very
unreadable review called the Natural Philosophy Quarterly a series of artic=
les
on alleged weak points in Darwinian evolution, it fluttered no corner of the
English papers; though Boulnois's theory (which was that of a comparatively
stationary universe visited occasionally by convulsions of change) had some
rather faddy fashionableness at Oxford, and got so far as to be named
"Catastrophism". But many American papers seized on the challenge=
as
a great event; and the Sun threw the shadow of Mr Boulnois quite gigantical=
ly
across its pages. By the paradox already noted, articles of valuable
intelligence and enthusiasm were presented with headlines apparently writte=
n by
an illiterate maniac, headlines such as "Darwin Chews Dirt; Critic
Boulnois says He Jumps the Shocks"--or "Keep Catastrophic, says
Thinker Boulnois." And Mr Calhoun Kidd, of the Western Sun, was bidden=
to
take his butterfly tie and lugubrious visage down to the little house outsi=
de
Oxford where Thinker Boulnois lived in happy ignorance of such a title.
That fated philosopher had consented, in a somewhat dazed manner, to=
receive
the interviewer, and had named the hour of nine that evening. The last of a
summer sunset clung about Cumnor and the low wooded hills; the romantic Yan=
kee
was both doubtful of his road and inquisitive about his surroundings; and
seeing the door of a genuine feudal old-country inn, The Champion Arms,
standing open, he went in to make inquiries.
In the bar parlour he rang the bell, and had to wait some little tim=
e for
a reply to it. The only other person present was a lean man with close red =
hair
and loose, horsey-looking clothes, who was drinking very bad whisky, but
smoking a very good cigar. The whisky, of course, was the choice brand of T=
he
Champion Arms; the cigar he had probably brought with him from London. Noth=
ing
could be more different than his cynical negligence from the dapper dryness=
of
the young American; but something in his pencil and open notebook, and perh=
aps
in the expression of his alert blue eye, caused Kidd to guess, correctly, t=
hat
he was a brother journalist.
"Could you do me the favour," asked Kidd, with the courtes=
y of
his nation, "of directing me to the Grey Cottage, where Mr Boulnois li=
ves,
as I understand?"
"It's a few yards down the road," said the red-haired man,
removing his cigar; "I shall be passing it myself in a minute, but I'm
going on to Pendragon Park to try and see the fun."
"What is Pendragon Park?" asked Calhoun Kidd.
"Sir Claude Champion's place--haven't you come down for that,
too?" asked the other pressman, looking up. "You're a journalist,
aren't you?"
"I have come to see Mr Boulnois," said Kidd.
"I've come to see Mrs Boulnois," replied the other. "=
But
I shan't catch her at home." And he laughed rather unpleasantly.
"Are you interested in Catastrophism?" asked the wondering
Yankee.
"I'm interested in catastrophes; and there are going to be
some," replied his companion gloomily. "Mine's a filthy trade, an=
d I
never pretend it isn't."
With that he spat on the floor; yet somehow in the very act and inst=
ant one
could realize that the man had been brought up as a gentleman.
The American pressman considered him with more attention. His face w=
as pale
and dissipated, with the promise of formidable passions yet to be loosed; b=
ut
it was a clever and sensitive face; his clothes were coarse and careless, b=
ut he
had a good seal ring on one of his long, thin fingers. His name, which came=
out
in the course of talk, was James Dalroy; he was the son of a bankrupt Irish
landlord, and attached to a pink paper which he heartily despised, called S=
mart
Society, in the capacity of reporter and of something painfully like a spy.=
Smart Society, I regret to say, felt none of that interest in Boulno=
is on
Darwin which was such a credit to the head and hearts of the Western Sun.
Dalroy had come down, it seemed, to snuff up the scent of a scandal which m=
ight
very well end in the Divorce Court, but which was at present hovering betwe=
en
Grey Cottage and Pendragon Park.
Sir Claude Champion was known to the readers of the Western Sun as w=
ell as
Mr Boulnois. So were the Pope and the Derby Winner; but the idea of their
intimate acquaintanceship would have struck Kidd as equally incongruous. He=
had
heard of (and written about, nay, falsely pretended to know) Sir Claude
Champion, as "one of the brightest and wealthiest of England's Upper
Ten"; as the great sportsman who raced yachts round the world; as the
great traveller who wrote books about the Himalayas, as the politician who
swept constituencies with a startling sort of Tory Democracy, and as the gr=
eat
dabbler in art, music, literature, and, above all, acting. Sir Claude was
really rather magnificent in other than American eyes. There was something =
of
the Renascence Prince about his omnivorous culture and restless publicity--=
, he
was not only a great amateur, but an ardent one. There was in him none of t=
hat
antiquarian frivolity that we convey by the word "dilettante".
That faultless falcon profile with purple-black Italian eye, which h=
ad been
snap-shotted so often both for Smart Society and the Western Sun, gave ever=
yone
the impression of a man eaten by ambition as by a fire, or even a disease. =
But
though Kidd knew a great deal about Sir Claude--a great deal more, in fact,
than there was to know--it would never have crossed his wildest dreams to
connect so showy an aristocrat with the newly-unearthed founder of
Catastrophism, or to guess that Sir Claude Champion and John Boulnois could=
be
intimate friends. Such, according to Dalroy's account, was nevertheless the
fact. The two had hunted in couples at school and college, and, though their
social destinies had been very different (for Champion was a great landlord=
and
almost a millionaire, while Boulnois was a poor scholar and, until just lat=
ely,
an unknown one), they still kept in very close touch with each other. Indee=
d,
Boulnois's cottage stood just outside the gates of Pendragon Park.
But whether the two men could be friends much longer was becoming a =
dark
and ugly question. A year or two before, Boulnois had married a beautiful a=
nd
not unsuccessful actress, to whom he was devoted in his own shy and pondero=
us
style; and the proximity of the household to Champion's had given that flig=
hty
celebrity opportunities for behaving in a way that could not but cause pain=
ful
and rather base excitement. Sir Claude had carried the arts of publicity to
perfection; and he seemed to take a crazy pleasure in being equally
ostentatious in an intrigue that could do him no sort of honour. Footmen fr=
om
Pendragon were perpetually leaving bouquets for Mrs Boulnois; carriages and=
motor-cars
were perpetually calling at the cottage for Mrs Boulnois; balls and masquer=
ades
perpetually filled the grounds in which the baronet paraded Mrs Boulnois, l=
ike
the Queen of Love and Beauty at a tournament. That very evening, marked by =
Mr
Kidd for the exposition of Catastrophism, had been marked by Sir Claude
Champion for an open-air rendering of Romeo and Juliet, in which he was to =
play
Romeo to a Juliet it was needless to name.
"I don't think it can go on without a smash," said the you=
ng
man with red hair, getting up and shaking himself. "Old Boulnois may b=
e squared--or
he may be square. But if he's square he's thick--what you might call cubic.=
But
I don't believe it's possible."
"He is a man of grand intellectual powers," said Calhoun K=
idd
in a deep voice.
"Yes," answered Dalroy; "but even a man of grand
intellectual powers can't be such a blighted fool as all that. Must you be
going on? I shall be following myself in a minute or two."
But Calhoun Kidd, having finished a milk and soda, betook himself sm=
artly
up the road towards the Grey Cottage, leaving his cynical informant to his
whisky and tobacco. The last of the daylight had faded; the skies were of a
dark, green-grey, like slate, studded here and there with a star, but light=
er
on the left side of the sky, with the promise of a rising moon.
The Grey Cottage, which stood entrenched, as it were, in a square of=
stiff,
high thorn-hedges, was so close under the pines and palisades of the Park t=
hat
Kidd at first mistook it for the Park Lodge. Finding the name on the narrow=
wooden
gate, however, and seeing by his watch that the hour of the
"Thinker's" appointment had just struck, he went in and knocked at
the front door. Inside the garden hedge, he could see that the house, though
unpretentious enough, was larger and more luxurious than it looked at first,
and was quite a different kind of place from a porter's lodge. A dog-kennel=
and
a beehive stood outside, like symbols of old English country-life; the moon=
was
rising behind a plantation of prosperous pear trees, the dog that came out =
of
the kennel was reverend-looking and reluctant to bark; and the plain, elder=
ly man-servant
who opened the door was brief but dignified.
"Mr Boulnois asked me to offer his apologies, sir," he sai=
d,
"but he has been obliged to go out suddenly."
"But see here, I had an appointment," said the interviewer,
with a rising voice. "Do you know where he went to?"
"To Pendragon Park, sir," said the servant, rather sombrel=
y,
and began to close the door.
Kidd started a little.
"Did he go with Mrs--with the rest of the party?" he asked
rather vaguely.
"No, sir," said the man shortly; "he stayed behind, a=
nd
then went out alone." And he shut the door, brutally, but with an air =
of
duty not done.
The American, that curious compound of impudence and sensitiveness, =
was
annoyed. He felt a strong desire to hustle them all along a bit and teach t=
hem
business habits; the hoary old dog and the grizzled, heavy-faced old butler
with his prehistoric shirt-front, and the drowsy old moon, and above all the
scatter-brained old philosopher who couldn't keep an appointment.
"If that's the way he goes on he deserves to lose his wife's pu=
rest
devotion," said Mr Calhoun Kidd. "But perhaps he's gone over to m=
ake a
row. In that case I reckon a man from the Western Sun will be on the spot.&=
quot;
And turning the corner by the open lodge-gates, he set off, stumping=
up the
long avenue of black pine-woods that pointed in abrupt perspective towards =
the
inner gardens of Pendragon Park. The trees were as black and orderly as plu=
mes
upon a hearse; there were still a few stars. He was a man with more literary
than direct natural associations; the word "Ravenswood" came into=
his
head repeatedly. It was partly the raven colour of the pine-woods; but part=
ly
also an indescribable atmosphere almost described in Scott's great tragedy;=
the
smell of something that died in the eighteenth century; the smell of dank
gardens and broken urns, of wrongs that will never now be righted; of somet=
hing
that is none the less incurably sad because it is strangely unreal.
More than once, as he went up that strange, black road of tragic art=
ifice,
he stopped, startled, thinking he heard steps in front of him. He could see
nothing in front but the twin sombre walls of pine and the wedge of starlit=
sky
above them. At first he thought he must have fancied it or been mocked by a
mere echo of his own tramp. But as he went on he was more and more inclined=
to
conclude, with the remains of his reason, that there really were other feet
upon the road. He thought hazily of ghosts; and was surprised how swiftly he
could see the image of an appropriate and local ghost, one with a face as w=
hite
as Pierrot's, but patched with black. The apex of the triangle of dark-blue=
sky
was growing brighter and bluer, but he did not realize as yet that this was
because he was coming nearer to the lights of the great house and garden. He
only felt that the atmosphere was growing more intense, there was in the
sadness more violence and secrecy--more--he hesitated for the word, and then
said it with a jerk of laughter--Catastrophism.
More pines, more pathway slid past him, and then he stood rooted as =
by a
blast of magic. It is vain to say that he felt as if he had got into a drea=
m;
but this time he felt quite certain that he had got into a book. For we hum=
an
beings are used to inappropriate things; we are accustomed to the clatter of
the incongruous; it is a tune to which we can go to sleep. If one appropria=
te
thing happens, it wakes us up like the pang of a perfect chord. Something
happened such as would have happened in such a place in a forgotten tale.
Over the black pine-wood came flying and flashing in the moon a nake=
d sword--such
a slender and sparkling rapier as may have fought many an unjust duel in th=
at
ancient park. It fell on the pathway far in front of him and lay there
glistening like a large needle. He ran like a hare and bent to look at it. =
Seen
at close quarters it had rather a showy look: the big red jewels in the hilt
and guard were a little dubious. But there were other red drops upon the bl=
ade
which were not dubious.
He looked round wildly in the direction from which the dazzling miss=
ile had
come, and saw that at this point the sable facade of fir and pine was
interrupted by a smaller road at right angles; which, when he turned it, br=
ought
him in full view of the long, lighted house, with a lake and fountains in f=
ront
of it. Nevertheless, he did not look at this, having something more interes=
ting
to look at.
Above him, at the angle of the steep green bank of the terraced gard=
en, was
one of those small picturesque surprises common in the old landscape garden=
ing;
a kind of small round hill or dome of grass, like a giant mole-hill, ringed=
and
crowned with three concentric fences of roses, and having a sundial in the
highest point in the centre. Kidd could see the finger of the dial stand up
dark against the sky like the dorsal fin of a shark and the vain moonlight
clinging to that idle clock. But he saw something else clinging to it also,=
for
one wild moment--the figure of a man.
Though he saw it there only for a moment, though it was outlandish a=
nd incredible
in costume, being clad from neck to heel in tight crimson, with glints of g=
old,
yet he knew in one flash of moonlight who it was. That white face flung up =
to
heaven, clean-shaven and so unnaturally young, like Byron with a Roman nose,
those black curls already grizzled--he had seen the thousand public portrai=
ts
of Sir Claude Champion. The wild red figure reeled an instant against the
sundial; the next it had rolled down the steep bank and lay at the American=
's
feet, faintly moving one arm. A gaudy, unnatural gold ornament on the arm s=
uddenly
reminded Kidd of Romeo and Juliet; of course the tight crimson suit was par=
t of
the play. But there was a long red stain down the bank from which the man h=
ad
rolled--that was no part of the play. He had been run through the body.
Mr Calhoun Kidd shouted and shouted again. Once more he seemed to he=
ar phantasmal
footsteps, and started to find another figure already near him. He knew the
figure, and yet it terrified him. The dissipated youth who had called himse=
lf
Dalroy had a horribly quiet way with him; if Boulnois failed to keep
appointments that had been made, Dalroy had a sinister air of keeping
appointments that hadn't. The moonlight discoloured everything, against
Dalroy's red hair his wan face looked not so much white as pale green.
All this morbid impressionism must be Kidd's excuse for having cried=
out,
brutally and beyond all reason: "Did you do this, you devil?"
James Dalroy smiled his unpleasing smile; but before he could speak,=
the
fallen figure made another movement of the arm, waving vaguely towards the
place where the sword fell; then came a moan, and then it managed to speak.=
"Boulnois.... Boulnois, I say.... Boulnois did it... jealous of
me...he was jealous, he was, he was..."
Kidd bent his head down to hear more, and just managed to catch the =
words:
"Boulnois...with my own sword...he threw it..."
Again the failing hand waved towards the sword, and then fell rigid =
with
a thud. In Kidd rose from its depth all that acrid humour that is the stran=
ge
salt of the seriousness of his race.
"See here," he said sharply and with command, "you mu=
st
fetch a doctor. This man's dead."
"And a priest, too, I suppose," said Dalroy in an undeciph=
erable
manner. "All these Champions are papists."
The American knelt down by the body, felt the heart, propped up the =
head
and used some last efforts at restoration; but before the other journalist
reappeared, followed by a doctor and a priest, he was already prepared to
assert they were too late.
"Were you too late also?" asked the doctor, a solid
prosperous-looking man, with conventional moustache and whiskers, but a liv=
ely
eye, which darted over Kidd dubiously.
"In one sense," drawled the representative of the Sun. &qu=
ot;I
was too late to save the man, but I guess I was in time to hear something o=
f importance.
I heard the dead man denounce his assassin."
"And who was the assassin?" asked the doctor, drawing his
eyebrows together.
"Boulnois," said Calhoun Kidd, and whistled softly.
The doctor stared at him gloomily with a reddening brow--, but he di=
d not
contradict. Then the priest, a shorter figure in the background, said mildl=
y:
"I understood that Mr Boulnois was not coming to Pendragon Park this
evening."
"There again," said the Yankee grimly, "I may be in a
position to give the old country a fact or two. Yes, sir, John Boulnois was
going to stay in all this evening; he fixed up a real good appointment there
with me. But John Boulnois changed his mind; John Boulnois left his home
abruptly and all alone, and came over to this darned Park an hour or so ago=
. His
butler told me so. I think we hold what the all-wise police call a clue--ha=
ve
you sent for them?"
"Yes," said the doctor, "but we haven't alarmed anyone
else yet."
"Does Mrs Boulnois know?" asked James Dalroy, and again Ki=
dd
was conscious of an irrational desire to hit him on his curling mouth.
"I have not told her," said the doctor gruffly--, "but
here come the police."
The little priest had stepped out into the main avenue, and now retu=
rned
with the fallen sword, which looked ludicrously large and theatrical when
attached to his dumpy figure, at once clerical and commonplace. "Just
before the police come," he said apologetically, "has anyone got =
a light?"
The Yankee journalist took an electric torch from his pocket, and th=
e priest
held it close to the middle part of the blade, which he examined with blink=
ing
care. Then, without glancing at the point or pommel, he handed the long wea=
pon
to the doctor.
"I fear I'm no use here," he said, with a brief sigh.
"I'll say good night to you, gentlemen." And he walked away up the
dark avenue towards the house, his hands clasped behind him and his big head
bent in cogitation.
The rest of the group made increased haste towards the lodge-gates, =
where
an inspector and two constables could already be seen in consultation with =
the
lodge-keeper. But the little priest only walked slower and slower in the dim
cloister of pine, and at last stopped dead, on the steps of the house. It w=
as
his silent way of acknowledging an equally silent approach; for there came
towards him a presence that might have satisfied even Calhoun Kidd's demands
for a lovely and aristocratic ghost. It was a young woman in silvery satins=
of
a Renascence design; she had golden hair in two long shining ropes, and a f=
ace
so startingly pale between them that she might have been chryselephantine--=
made,
that is, like some old Greek statues, out of ivory and gold. But her eyes w=
ere
very bright, and her voice, though low, was confident.
"Father Brown?" she said.
"Mrs Boulnois?" he replied gravely. Then he looked at her =
and immediately
said: "I see you know about Sir Claude."
"How do you know I know?" she asked steadily.
He did not answer the question, but asked another: "Have you se=
en
your husband?"
"My husband is at home," she said. "He has nothing to=
do
with this."
Again he did not answer; and the woman drew nearer to him, with a cu=
riously
intense expression on her face.
"Shall I tell you something more?" she said, with a rather
fearful smile. "I don't think he did it, and you don't either."
Father Brown returned her gaze with a long, grave stare, and then nodded, y=
et
more gravely.
"Father Brown," said the lady, "I am going to tell you
all I know, but I want you to do me a favour first. Will you tell me why you
haven't jumped to the conclusion of poor John's guilt, as all the rest have=
done?
Don't mind what you say: I--I know about the gossip and the appearances that
are against me."
Father Brown looked honestly embarrassed, and passed his hand across=
his
forehead. "Two very little things," he said. "At least, one's
very trivial and the other very vague. But such as they are, they don't fit=
in
with Mr Boulnois being the murderer."
He turned his blank, round face up to the stars and continued absent=
mindedly:
"To take the vague idea first. I attach a good deal of importance to v=
ague
ideas. All those things that 'aren't evidence' are what convince me. I thin=
k a
moral impossibility the biggest of all impossibilities. I know your husband
only slightly, but I think this crime of his, as generally conceived, somet=
hing
very like a moral impossibility. Please do not think I mean that Boulnois c=
ould
not be so wicked. Anybody can be wicked--as wicked as he chooses. We can di=
rect
our moral wills; but we can't generally change our instinctive tastes and w=
ays
of doing things. Boulnois might commit a murder, but not this murder. He wo=
uld
not snatch Romeo's sword from its romantic scabbard; or slay his foe on the=
sundial
as on a kind of altar; or leave his body among the roses, or fling the sword
away among the pines. If Boulnois killed anyone he'd do it quietly and heav=
ily,
as he'd do any other doubtful thing--take a tenth glass of port, or read a
loose Greek poet. No, the romantic setting is not like Boulnois. It's more =
like
Champion."
"Ah!" she said, and looked at him with eyes like diamonds.=
"And the trivial thing was this," said Brown. "There =
were
finger-prints on that sword; finger-prints can be detected quite a time aft=
er
they are made if they're on some polished surface like glass or steel. These
were on a polished surface. They were half-way down the blade of the sword.=
Whose
prints they were I have no earthly clue; but why should anybody hold a sword
half-way down? It was a long sword, but length is an advantage in lunging a=
t an
enemy. At least, at most enemies. At all enemies except one."
"Except one," she repeated.
"There is only one enemy," said Father Brown, "whom i=
t is
easier to kill with a dagger than a sword."
"I know," said the woman. "Oneself."
There was a long silence, and then the priest said quietly but abrup=
tly:
"Am I right, then? Did Sir Claude kill himself?"
"Yes" she said, with a face like marble. "I saw him do
it."
"He died," said Father Brown, "for love of you?"=
An extraordinary expression flashed across her face, very different =
from
pity, modesty, remorse, or anything her companion had expected: her voice
became suddenly strong and full. "I don't believe," she said,
"he ever cared about me a rap. He hated my husband."
"Why?" asked the other, and turned his round face from the=
sky
to the lady.
"He hated my husband because...it is so strange I hardly know h=
ow
to say it...because..."
"Yes?" said Brown patiently.
"Because my husband wouldn't hate him."
Father Brown only nodded, and seemed still to be listening; he diffe=
red from
most detectives in fact and fiction in a small point--he never pretended no=
t to
understand when he understood perfectly well.
Mrs Boulnois drew near once more with the same contained glow of cer=
tainty.
"My husband," she said, "is a great man. Sir Claude Champion=
was
not a great man: he was a celebrated and successful man. My husband has nev=
er
been celebrated or successful; and it is the solemn truth that he has never
dreamed of being so. He no more expects to be famous for thinking than for
smoking cigars. On all that side he has a sort of splendid stupidity. He has
never grown up. He still liked Champion exactly as he liked him at school; =
he
admired him as he would admire a conjuring trick done at the dinner-table. =
But
he couldn't be got to conceive the notion of envying Champion. And Champion
wanted to be envied. He went mad and killed himself for that."
"Yes," said Father Brown; "I think I begin to underst=
and."
"Oh, don't you see?" she cried; "the whole picture is
made for that--the place is planned for it. Champion put John in a little h=
ouse
at his very door, like a dependant--to make him feel a failure. He never fe=
lt
it. He thinks no more about such things than--than an absent-minded lion. C=
hampion
would burst in on John's shabbiest hours or homeliest meals with some dazzl=
ing
present or announcement or expedition that made it like the visit of Haroun
Alraschid, and John would accept or refuse amiably with one eye off, so to
speak, like one lazy schoolboy agreeing or disagreeing with another. After =
five
years of it John had not turned a hair; and Sir Claude Champion was a
monomaniac."
"And Haman began to tell them," said Father Brown, "of
all the things wherein the king had honoured him; and he said: 'All these
things profit me nothing while I see Mordecai the Jew sitting in the
gate.'"
"The crisis came," Mrs Boulnois continued, "when I
persuaded John to let me take down some of his speculations and send them t=
o a
magazine. They began to attract attention, especially in America, and one p=
aper
wanted to interview him. When Champion (who was interviewed nearly every da=
y) heard
of this late little crumb of success falling to his unconscious rival, the =
last
link snapped that held back his devilish hatred. Then he began to lay that
insane siege to my own love and honour which has been the talk of the shire.
You will ask me why I allowed such atrocious attentions. I answer that I co=
uld
not have declined them except by explaining to my husband, and there are so=
me
things the soul cannot do, as the body cannot fly. Nobody could have explai=
ned
to my husband. Nobody could do it now. If you said to him in so many words,
'Champion is stealing your wife,' he would think the joke a little vulgar: =
that
it could be anything but a joke--that notion could find no crack in his gre=
at
skull to get in by. Well, John was to come and see us act this evening, but
just as we were starting he said he wouldn't; he had got an interesting book
and a cigar. I told this to Sir Claude, and it was his death-blow. The
monomaniac suddenly saw despair. He stabbed himself, crying out like a devil
that Boulnois was slaying him; he lies there in the garden dead of his own
jealousy to produce jealousy, and John is sitting in the dining-room readin=
g a
book."
There was another silence, and then the little priest said: "Th=
ere
is only one weak point, Mrs Boulnois, in all your very vivid account. Your =
husband
is not sitting in the dining-room reading a book. That American reporter to=
ld
me he had been to your house, and your butler told him Mr Boulnois had gone=
to
Pendragon Park after all."
Her bright eyes widened to an almost electric glare; and yet it seem=
ed rather
bewilderment than confusion or fear. "Why, what can you mean?" she
cried. "All the servants were out of the house, seeing the theatricals.
And we don't keep a butler, thank goodness!"
Father Brown started and spun half round like an absurd teetotum.
"What, what?" he cried seeming galvanized into sudden life.
"Look here--I say--can I make your husband hear if I go to the
house?"
"Oh, the servants will be back by now," she said, wonderin=
g.
"Right, right!" rejoined the cleric energetically, and set=
off
scuttling up the path towards the Park gates. He turned once to say:
"Better get hold of that Yankee, or 'Crime of John Boulnois' will be a=
ll
over the Republic in large letters."
"You don't understand," said Mrs Boulnois. "He wouldn=
't
mind. I don't think he imagines that America really is a place."
When Father Brown reached the house with the beehive and the drowsy =
dog,
a small and neat maid-servant showed him into the dining-room, where Boulno=
is
sat reading by a shaded lamp, exactly as his wife described him. A decanter=
of
port and a wineglass were at his elbow; and the instant the priest entered =
he
noted the long ash stand out unbroken on his cigar.
"He has been here for half an hour at least," thought Fath=
er
Brown. In fact, he had the air of sitting where he had sat when his dinner =
was cleared
away.
"Don't get up, Mr Boulnois," said the priest in his pleasa=
nt,
prosaic way. "I shan't interrupt you a moment. I fear I break in on so=
me
of your scientific studies."
"No," said Boulnois; "I was reading 'The Bloody
Thumb.'" He said it with neither frown nor smile, and his visitor was
conscious of a certain deep and virile indifference in the man which his wi=
fe
had called greatness. He laid down a gory yellow "shocker" without
even feeling its incongruity enough to comment on it humorously. John Bouln=
ois
was a big, slow-moving man with a massive head, partly grey and partly bald=
, and
blunt, burly features. He was in shabby and very old-fashioned evening-dres=
s,
with a narrow triangular opening of shirt-front: he had assumed it that eve=
ning
in his original purpose of going to see his wife act Juliet.
"I won't keep you long from 'The Bloody Thumb' or any other
catastrophic affairs," said Father Brown, smiling. "I only came to
ask you about the crime you committed this evening."
Boulnois looked at him steadily, but a red bar began to show across = his broad brow; and he seemed like one discovering embarrassment for the first time.<= o:p>
"I know it was a strange crime," assented Brown in a low
voice. "Stranger than murder perhaps--to you. The little sins are
sometimes harder to confess than the big ones--but that's why it's so impor=
tant
to confess them. Your crime is committed by every fashionable hostess six t=
imes
a week: and yet you find it sticks to your tongue like a nameless atrocity.=
"
"It makes one feel," said the philosopher slowly, "su=
ch a
damned fool."
"I know," assented the other, "but one often has to
choose between feeling a damned fool and being one."
"I can't analyse myself well," went on Boulnois; "but
sitting in that chair with that story I was as happy as a schoolboy on a
half-holiday. It was security, eternity--I can't convey it... the cigars we=
re
within reach...the matches were within reach... the Thumb had four more app=
earances
to...it was not only a peace, but a plenitude. Then that bell rang, and I t=
hought
for one long, mortal minute that I couldn't get out of that chair--literall=
y,
physically, muscularly couldn't. Then I did it like a man lifting the world,
because I knew all the servants were out. I opened the front door, and there
was a little man with his mouth open to speak and his notebook open to write
in. I remembered the Yankee interviewer I had forgotten. His hair was parte=
d in
the middle, and I tell you that murder--"
"I understand," said Father Brown. "I've seen him.&qu=
ot;
"I didn't commit murder," continued the Catastrophist mild=
ly,
"but only perjury. I said I had gone across to Pendragon Park and shut=
the
door in his face. That is my crime, Father Brown, and I don't know what pen=
ance
you would inflict for it."
"I shan't inflict any penance," said the clerical gentlema=
n,
collecting his heavy hat and umbrella with an air of some amusement;
"quite the contrary. I came here specially to let you off the little
penance which would otherwise have followed your little offence."
"And what," asked Boulnois, smiling, "is the little
penance I have so luckily been let off?"
"Being hanged," said Father Brown.
TWELVE -- The Fairy Tale =
of
Father Brown
THE picturesque city a=
nd
state of Heiligwaldenstein was one of those toy kingdoms of which certain p=
arts
of the German Empire still consist. It had come under the Prussian hegemony
quite late in history--hardly fifty years before the fine summer day when
Flambeau and Father Brown found themselves sitting in its gardens and drink=
ing
its beer. There had been not a little of war and wild justice there within
living memory, as soon will be shown. But in merely looking at it one could=
not
dismiss that impression of childishness which is the most charming side of =
Germany--those
little pantomime, paternal monarchies in which a king seems as domestic as a
cook. The German soldiers by the innumerable sentry-boxes looked strangely =
like
German toys, and the clean-cut battlements of the castle, gilded by the
sunshine, looked the more like the gilt gingerbread. For it was brilliant
weather. The sky was as Prussian a blue as Potsdam itself could require, bu=
t it
was yet more like that lavish and glowing use of the colour which a child
extracts from a shilling paint-box. Even the grey-ribbed trees looked young,
for the pointed buds on them were still pink, and in a pattern against the =
strong
blue looked like innumerable childish figures.
Despite his prosaic appearance and generally practical walk of life,=
Father
Brown was not without a certain streak of romance in his composition, thoug=
h he
generally kept his daydreams to himself, as many children do. Amid the bris=
k,
bright colours of such a day, and in the heraldic framework of such a town,=
he
did feel rather as if he had entered a fairy tale. He took a childish pleas=
ure,
as a younger brother might, in the formidable sword-stick which Flambeau al=
ways
flung as he walked, and which now stood upright beside his tall mug of Muni=
ch.
Nay, in his sleepy irresponsibility, he even found himself eyeing the knobb=
ed and
clumsy head of his own shabby umbrella, with some faint memories of the ogr=
e's
club in a coloured toy-book. But he never composed anything in the form of
fiction, unless it be the tale that follows:
"I wonder," he said, "whether one would have real
adventures in a place like this, if one put oneself in the way? It's a sple=
ndid
back-scene for them, but I always have a kind of feeling that they would fi=
ght
you with pasteboard sabres more than real, horrible swords."
"You are mistaken," said his friend. "In this place t=
hey not
only fight with swords, but kill without swords. And there's worse than
that."
"Why, what do you mean?" asked Father Brown.
"Why," replied the other, "I should say this was the =
only
place in Europe where a man was ever shot without firearms."
"Do you mean a bow and arrow?" asked Brown in some wonder.=
"I mean a bullet in the brain," replied Flambeau. "Do=
n't
you know the story of the late Prince of this place? It was one of the great
police mysteries about twenty years ago. You remember, of course, that this=
place
was forcibly annexed at the time of Bismarck's very earliest schemes of
consolidation--forcibly, that is, but not at all easily. The empire (or what
wanted to be one) sent Prince Otto of Grossenmark to rule the place in the
Imperial interests. We saw his portrait in the gallery there--a handsome old
gentleman if he'd had any hair or eyebrows, and hadn't been wrinkled all ov=
er
like a vulture; but he had things to harass him, as I'll explain in a minut=
e.
He was a soldier of distinguished skill and success, but he didn't have
altogether an easy job with this little place. He was defeated in several
battles by the celebrated Arnhold brothers--the three guerrilla patriots to
whom Swinburne wrote a poem, you remember:
Wolves with the hair of the ermine, =
Crows
that are crowned and kings-- =
These
things be many as vermin, =
Yet
Three shall abide these things.
Or something of that kind. Indeed, it is by no means certain that th=
e occupation
would ever have been successful had not one of the three brothers, Paul,
despicably, but very decisively declined to abide these things any longer, =
and,
by surrendering all the secrets of the insurrection, ensured its overthrow =
and
his own ultimate promotion to the post of chamberlain to Prince Otto. After
this, Ludwig, the one genuine hero among Mr Swinburne's heroes, was killed,
sword in hand, in the capture of the city; and the third, Heinrich, who, th=
ough
not a traitor, had always been tame and even timid compared with his active=
brothers,
retired into something like a hermitage, became converted to a Christian
quietism which was almost Quakerish, and never mixed with men except to give
nearly all he had to the poor. They tell me that not long ago he could stil=
l be
seen about the neighbourhood occasionally, a man in a black cloak, nearly
blind, with very wild, white hair, but a face of astonishing softness."=
;
"I know," said Father Brown. "I saw him once."
His friend looked at him in some surprise. "I didn't know you'd
been here before," he said. "Perhaps you know as much about it as=
I
do. Anyhow, that's the story of the Arnholds, and he was the last survivor =
of
them. Yes, and of all the men who played parts in that drama."
"You mean that the Prince, too, died long before?"
"Died," repeated Flambeau, "and that's about as much =
as
we can say. You must understand that towards the end of his life he began to
have those tricks of the nerves not uncommon with tyrants. He multiplied th=
e ordinary
daily and nightly guard round his castle till there seemed to be more
sentry-boxes than houses in the town, and doubtful characters were shot wit=
hout
mercy. He lived almost entirely in a little room that was in the very centr=
e of
the enormous labyrinth of all the other rooms, and even in this he erected
another sort of central cabin or cupboard, lined with steel, like a safe or=
a
battleship. Some say that under the floor of this again was a secret hole in
the earth, no more than large enough to hold him, so that, in his anxiety to
avoid the grave, he was willing to go into a place pretty much like it. But=
he
went further yet. The populace had been supposed to be disarmed ever since =
the
suppression of the revolt, but Otto now insisted, as governments very seldo=
m insist,
on an absolute and literal disarmament. It was carried out, with extraordin=
ary
thoroughness and severity, by very well-organized officials over a small and
familiar area, and, so far as human strength and science can be absolutely
certain of anything, Prince Otto was absolutely certain that nobody could
introduce so much as a toy pistol into Heiligwaldenstein."
"Human science can never be quite certain of things like
that," said Father Brown, still looking at the red budding of the bran=
ches
over his head, "if only because of the difficulty about definition and=
connotation.
What is a weapon? People have been murdered with the mildest domestic comfo=
rts;
certainly with tea-kettles, probably with tea-cosies. On the other hand, if=
you
showed an Ancient Briton a revolver, I doubt if he would know it was a
weapon--until it was fired into him, of course. Perhaps somebody introduced=
a
firearm so new that it didn't even look like a firearm. Perhaps it looked l=
ike
a thimble or something. Was the bullet at all peculiar?"
"Not that I ever heard of," answered Flambeau; "but my
information is fragmentary, and only comes from my old friend Grimm. He was=
a
very able detective in the German service, and he tried to arrest me; I
arrested him instead, and we had many interesting chats. He was in charge h=
ere of
the inquiry about Prince Otto, but I forgot to ask him anything about the
bullet. According to Grimm, what happened was this." He paused a momen=
t to
drain the greater part of his dark lager at a draught, and then resumed:
"On the evening in question, it seems, the Prince was expected =
to
appear in one of the outer rooms, because he had to receive certain visitor=
s whom
he really wished to meet. They were geological experts sent to investigate =
the
old question of the alleged supply of gold from the rocks round here, upon
which (as it was said) the small city-state had so long maintained its cred=
it
and been able to negotiate with its neighbours even under the ceaseless
bombardment of bigger armies. Hitherto it had never been found by the most
exacting inquiry which could--"
"Which could be quite certain of discovering a toy pistol,"
said Father Brown with a smile. "But what about the brother who ratted?
Hadn't he anything to tell the Prince?"
"He always asseverated that he did not know," replied
Flambeau; "that this was the one secret his brothers had not told him.=
It
is only right to say that it received some support from fragmentary
words--spoken by the great Ludwig in the hour of death, when he looked at
Heinrich but pointed at Paul, and said, 'You have not told him...' and was =
soon
afterwards incapable of speech. Anyhow, the deputation of distinguished geo=
logists
and mineralogists from Paris and Berlin were there in the most magnificent =
and
appropriate dress, for there are no men who like wearing their decorations =
so
much as the men of science--as anybody knows who has ever been to a soiree =
of
the Royal Society. It was a brilliant gathering, but very late, and gradual=
ly
the Chamberlain--you saw his portrait, too: a man with black eyebrows, seri=
ous
eyes, and a meaningless sort of smile underneath--the Chamberlain, I say,
discovered there was everything there except the Prince himself. He searched
all the outer salons; then, remembering the man's mad fits of fear, hurried=
to
the inmost chamber. That also was empty, but the steel turret or cabin erec=
ted
in the middle of it took some time to open. When it did open it was empty, =
too.
He went and looked into the hole in the ground, which seemed deeper and som=
ehow
all the more like a grave--that is his account, of course. And even as he d=
id
so he heard a burst of cries and tumult in the long rooms and corridors
without.
"First it was a distant din and thrill of something unthinkable=
on
the horizon of the crowd, even beyond the castle. Next it was a wordless cl=
amour
startlingly close, and loud enough to be distinct if each word had not kill=
ed
the other. Next came words of a terrible clearness, coming nearer, and next=
one
man, rushing into the room and telling the news as briefly as such news is
told.
"Otto, Prince of Heiligwaldenstein and Grossenmark, was lying in
the dews of the darkening twilight in the woods beyond the castle, with his=
arms
flung out and his face flung up to the moon. The blood still pulsed from his
shattered temple and jaw, but it was the only part of him that moved like a
living thing. He was clad in his full white and yellow uniform, as to recei=
ve
his guests within, except that the sash or scarf had been unbound and lay
rather crumpled by his side. Before he could be lifted he was dead. But, de=
ad or
alive, he was a riddle--he who had always hidden in the inmost chamber out
there in the wet woods, unarmed and alone."
"Who found his body?" asked Father Brown.
"Some girl attached to the Court named Hedwig von something or
other," replied his friend, "who had been out in the wood picking
wild flowers."
"Had she picked any?" asked the priest, staring rather
vacantly at the veil of the branches above him.
"Yes," replied Flambeau. "I particularly remember that
the Chamberlain, or old Grimm or somebody, said how horrible it was, when t=
hey
came up at her call, to see a girl holding spring flowers and bending over =
that--that
bloody collapse. However, the main point is that before help arrived he was
dead, and the news, of course, had to be carried back to the castle. The
consternation it created was something beyond even that natural in a Court =
at
the fall of a potentate. The foreign visitors, especially the mining expert=
s,
were in the wildest doubt and excitement, as well as many important Prussian
officials, and it soon began to be clear that the scheme for finding the
treasure bulked much bigger in the business than people had supposed. Exper=
ts
and officials had been promised great prizes or international advantages, a=
nd
some even said that the Prince's secret apartments and strong military
protection were due less to fear of the populace than to the pursuit of some
private investigation of--"
"Had the flowers got long stalks?" asked Father Brown.
Flambeau stared at him. "What an odd person you are!" he s=
aid.
"That's exactly what old Grimm said. He said the ugliest part of it, h=
e thought--uglier
than the blood and bullet--was that the flowers were quite short, plucked c=
lose
under the head."
"Of course," said the priest, "when a grown up girl is really picking flowers, she picks them with plenty of stalk. If she just pu= lled their heads off, as a child does, it looks as if--" And he hesitated.<= o:p>
"Well?" inquired the other.
"Well, it looks rather as if she had snatched them nervously, to
make an excuse for being there after--well, after she was there."
"I know what you're driving at," said Flambeau rather
gloomily. "But that and every other suspicion breaks down on the one
point--the want of a weapon. He could have been killed, as you say, with lo=
ts
of other things--even with his own military sash; but we have to explain not
how he was killed, but how he was shot. And the fact is we can't. They had =
the
girl most ruthlessly searched; for, to tell the truth, she was a little
suspect, though the niece and ward of the wicked old Chamberlain, Paul Arnh=
old.
But she was very romantic, and was suspected of sympathy with the old
revolutionary enthusiasm in her family. All the same, however romantic you =
are,
you can't imagine a big bullet into a man's jaw or brain without using a gu=
n or
pistol. And there was no pistol, though there were two pistol shots. I leav=
e it
to you, my friend."
"How do you know there were two shots?" asked the little
priest.
"There was only one in his head," said his companion,
"but there was another bullet-hole in the sash."
Father Brown's smooth brow became suddenly constricted. "Was the
other bullet found?" he demanded.
Flambeau started a little. "I don't think I remember," he
said.
"Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!" cried Brown, frowning more and
more, with a quite unusual concentration of curiosity. "Don't think me
rude. Let me think this out for a moment."
"All right," said Flambeau, laughing, and finished his bee=
r. A
slight breeze stirred the budding trees and blew up into the sky cloudlets =
of white
and pink that seemed to make the sky bluer and the whole coloured scene more
quaint. They might have been cherubs flying home to the casements of a sort=
of
celestial nursery. The oldest tower of the castle, the Dragon Tower, stood =
up
as grotesque as the ale-mug, but as homely. Only beyond the tower glimmered=
the
wood in which the man had lain dead.
"What became of this Hedwig eventually?" asked the priest =
at
last.
"She is married to General Schwartz," said Flambeau. "=
;No
doubt you've heard of his career, which was rather romantic. He had
distinguished himself even, before his exploits at Sadowa and Gravelotte; in
fact, he rose from the ranks, which is very unusual even in the smallest of=
the
German..."
Father Brown sat up suddenly.
"Rose from the ranks!" he cried, and made a mouth as if to
whistle. "Well, well, what a queer story! What a queer way of killing a
man; but I suppose it was the only one possible. But to think of hate so pa=
tient--"
"What do you mean?" demanded the other. "In what way =
did
they kill the man?"
"They killed him with the sash," said Brown carefully; and
then, as Flambeau protested: "Yes, yes, I know about the bullet. Perha=
ps I
ought to say he died of having a sash. I know it doesn't sound like having =
a disease."
"I suppose," said Flambeau, "that you've got some not=
ion
in your head, but it won't easily get the bullet out of his. As I explained
before, he might easily have been strangled. But he was shot. By whom? By
what?"
"He was shot by his own orders," said the priest.
"You mean he committed suicide?"
"I didn't say by his own wish," replied Father Brown. &quo=
t;I
said by his own orders."
"Well, anyhow, what is your theory?"
Father Brown laughed. "I am only on my holiday," he said.
"I haven't got any theories. Only this place reminds me of fairy stori=
es,
and, if you like, I'll tell you a story."
The little pink clouds, that looked rather like sweet-stuff, had flo=
ated
up to crown the turrets of the gilt gingerbread castle, and the pink baby
fingers of the budding trees seemed spreading and stretching to reach them;=
the
blue sky began to take a bright violet of evening, when Father Brown sudden=
ly
spoke again:
"It was on a dismal night, with rain still dropping from the tr=
ees and
dew already clustering, that Prince Otto of Grossenmark stepped hurriedly o=
ut
of a side door of the castle and walked swiftly into the wood. One of the
innumerable sentries saluted him, but he did not notice it. He had no wish =
to
be specially noticed himself. He was glad when the great trees, grey and al=
ready
greasy with rain, swallowed him up like a swamp. He had deliberately chosen=
the
least frequented side of his palace, but even that was more frequented than=
he
liked. But there was no particular chance of officious or diplomatic pursui=
t,
for his exit had been a sudden impulse. All the full-dressed diplomatists he
left behind were unimportant. He had realized suddenly that he could do wit=
hout
them.
"His great passion was not the much nobler dread of death, but =
the strange
desire of gold. For this legend of the gold he had left Grossenmark and inv=
aded
Heiligwaldenstein. For this and only this he had bought the traitor and
butchered the hero, for this he had long questioned and cross-questioned the
false Chamberlain, until he had come to the conclusion that, touching his
ignorance, the renegade really told the truth. For this he had, somewhat
reluctantly, paid and promised money on the chance of gaining the larger
amount; and for this he had stolen out of his palace like a thief in the ra=
in,
for he had thought of another way to get the desire of his eyes, and to get=
it
cheap.
"Away at the upper end of a rambling mountain path to which he =
was making
his way, among the pillared rocks along the ridge that hangs above the town,
stood the hermitage, hardly more than a cavern fenced with thorn, in which =
the
third of the great brethren had long hidden himself from the world. He, tho=
ught
Prince Otto, could have no real reason for refusing to give up the gold. He=
had
known its place for years, and made no effort to find it, even before his n=
ew
ascetic creed had cut him off from property or pleasures. True, he had been=
an
enemy, but he now professed a duty of having no enemies. Some concession to=
his
cause, some appeal to his principles, would probably get the mere money sec=
ret
out of him. Otto was no coward, in spite of his network of military
precautions, and, in any case, his avarice was stronger than his fears. Nor=
was
there much cause for fear. Since he was certain there were no private arms =
in
the whole principality, he was a hundred times more certain there were none=
in
the Quaker's little hermitage on the hill, where he lived on herbs, with two
old rustic servants, and with no other voice of man for year after year. Pr=
ince
Otto looked down with something of a grim smile at the bright, square
labyrinths of the lamp-lit city below him. For as far as the eye could see
there ran the rifles of his friends, and not one pinch of powder for his
enemies. Rifles ranked so close even to that mountain path that a cry from =
him would
bring the soldiers rushing up the hill, to say nothing of the fact that the
wood and ridge were patrolled at regular intervals; rifles so far away, in =
the
dim woods, dwarfed by distance, beyond the river, that an enemy could not s=
link
into the town by any detour. And round the palace rifles at the west door a=
nd
the east door, at the north door and the south, and all along the four faca=
des
linking them. He was safe.
"It was all the more clear when he had crested the ridge and fo=
und how
naked was the nest of his old enemy. He found himself on a small platform of
rock, broken abruptly by the three corners of precipice. Behind was the bla=
ck
cave, masked with green thorn, so low that it was hard to believe that a man
could enter it. In front was the fall of the cliffs and the vast but cloudy
vision of the valley. On the small rock platform stood an old bronze lecter=
n or
reading-stand, groaning under a great German Bible. The bronze or copper of=
it
had grown green with the eating airs of that exalted place, and Otto had
instantly the thought, 'Even if they had arms, they must be rusted by now.'
Moonrise had already made a deathly dawn behind the crests and crags, and t=
he
rain had ceased.
"Behind the lectern, and looking across the valley, stood a very
old man in a black robe that fell as straight as the cliffs around him, but=
whose
white hair and weak voice seemed alike to waver in the wind. He was evident=
ly
reading some daily lesson as part of his religious exercises. 'They trust in
their horses...'
"'Sir,' said the Prince of Heiligwaldenstein, with quite unusua=
l courtesy,
'I should like only one word with you.'
"'...and in their chariots,' went on the old man weakly, 'but w=
e will
trust in the name of the Lord of Hosts....' His last words were inaudible, =
but
he closed the book reverently and, being nearly blind, made a groping movem=
ent
and gripped the reading-stand. Instantly his two servants slipped out of the
low-browed cavern and supported him. They wore dull-black gowns like his ow=
n,
but they had not the frosty silver on the hair, nor the frost-bitten refine=
ment
of the features. They were peasants, Croat or Magyar, with broad, blunt vis=
ages
and blinking eyes. For the first time something troubled the Prince, but his
courage and diplomatic sense stood firm.
"'I fear we have not met,' he said, 'since that awful cannonade=
in
which your poor brother died.'
"'All my brothers died,' said the old man, still looking across=
the
valley. Then, for one instant turning on Otto his drooping, delicate featur=
es,
and the wintry hair that seemed to drip over his eyebrows like icicles, he
added: 'You see, I am dead, too.'
"'I hope you'll understand,' said the Prince, controlling himse=
lf
almost to a point of conciliation, 'that I do not come here to haunt you, a=
s a mere
ghost of those great quarrels. We will not talk about who was right or wron=
g in
that, but at least there was one point on which we were never wrong, because
you were always right. Whatever is to be said of the policy of your family,=
no
one for one moment imagines that you were moved by the mere gold; you have
proved yourself above the suspicion that...'
"The old man in the black gown had hitherto continued to gaze at
him with watery blue eyes and a sort of weak wisdom in his face. But when t=
he
word 'gold' was said he held out his hand as if in arrest of something, and
turned away his face to the mountains.
"'He has spoken of gold,' he said. 'He has spoken of things not
lawful. Let him cease to speak.'
"Otto had the vice of his Prussian type and tradition, which is=
to regard
success not as an incident but as a quality. He conceived himself and his l=
ike
as perpetually conquering peoples who were perpetually being conquered.
Consequently, he was ill acquainted with the emotion of surprise, and ill
prepared for the next movement, which startled and stiffened him. He had op=
ened
his mouth to answer the hermit, when the mouth was stopped and the voice
strangled by a strong, soft gag suddenly twisted round his head like a
tourniquet. It was fully forty seconds before he even realized that the two
Hungarian servants had done it, and that they had done it with his own mili=
tary
scarf.
"The old man went again weakly to his great brazen-supported Bi=
ble,
turned over the leaves, with a patience that had something horrible about i=
t,
till he came to the Epistle of St James, and then began to read: 'The tongu=
e is
a little member, but--'
"Something in the very voice made the Prince turn suddenly and
plunge down the mountain-path he had climbed. He was half-way towards the g=
ardens
of the palace before he even tried to tear the strangling scarf from his ne=
ck
and jaws. He tried again and again, and it was impossible; the men who had
knotted that gag knew the difference between what a man can do with his han=
ds
in front of him and what he can do with his hands behind his head. His legs
were free to leap like an antelope on the mountains, his arms were free to =
use
any gesture or wave any signal, but he could not speak. A dumb devil was in
him.
"He had come close to the woods that walled in the castle befor=
e he
had quite realized what his wordless state meant and was meant to mean. Once
more he looked down grimly at the bright, square labyrinths of the lamp-lit
city below him, and he smiled no more. He felt himself repeating the phrase=
s of
his former mood with a murderous irony. Far as the eye could see ran the ri=
fles
of his friends, every one of whom would shoot him dead if he could not answ=
er
the challenge. Rifles were so near that the wood and ridge could be patroll=
ed
at regular intervals; therefore it was useless to hide in the wood till
morning. Rifles were ranked so far away that an enemy could not slink into =
the
town by any detour; therefore it was vain to return to the city by any remo=
te course.
A cry from him would bring his soldiers rushing up the hill. But from him no
cry would come.
"The moon had risen in strengthening silver, and the sky showed=
in stripes
of bright, nocturnal blue between the black stripes of the pines about the
castle. Flowers of some wide and feathery sort--for he had never noticed su=
ch
things before--were at once luminous and discoloured by the moonshine, and
seemed indescribably fantastic as they clustered, as if crawling about the
roots of the trees. Perhaps his reason had been suddenly unseated by the un=
natural
captivity he carried with him, but in that wood he felt something unfathoma=
bly
German--the fairy tale. He knew with half his mind that he was drawing near=
to
the castle of an ogre--he had forgotten that he was the ogre. He remembered
asking his mother if bears lived in the old park at home. He stooped to pic=
k a
flower, as if it were a charm against enchantment. The stalk was stronger t=
han
he expected, and broke with a slight snap. Carefully trying to place it in =
his
scarf, he heard the halloo, 'Who goes there?' Then he remembered the scarf =
was
not in its usual place.
"He tried to scream and was silent. The second challenge came; =
and
then a shot that shrieked as it came and then was stilled suddenly by impac=
t. Otto
of Grossenmark lay very peacefully among the fairy trees, and would do no m=
ore
harm either with gold or steel; only the silver pencil of the moon would pi=
ck
out and trace here and there the intricate ornament of his uniform, or the =
old
wrinkles on his brow. May God have mercy on his soul.
"The sentry who had fired, according to the strict orders of th=
e garrison,
naturally ran forward to find some trace of his quarry. He was a private na=
med
Schwartz, since not unknown in his profession, and what
he found was a bald man in uniform, but with his face so bandaged by=
a kind
of mask made of his own military scarf that nothing but open, dead eyes cou=
ld
be seen, glittering stonily in the moonlight. The bullet had gone through t=
he
gag into the jaw; that is why there was a shot-hole in the scarf, but only =
one
shot. Naturally, if not correctly, young Schwartz tore off the mysterious
silken mask and cast it on the grass; and then he saw whom he had slain.
"We cannot be certain of the next phase. But I incline to belie=
ve
that there was a fairy tale, after all, in that little wood, horrible as was
its occasion. Whether the young lady named Hedwig had any previous knowledg=
e of
the soldier she saved and eventually married, or whether she came accidenta=
lly
upon the accident and their intimacy began that night, we shall probably ne=
ver
know. But we can know, I fancy, that this Hedwig was a heroine, and deserve=
d to
marry a man who became something of a hero. She did the bold and the wise
thing. She persuaded the sentry to go back to his post, in which place there
was nothing to connect him with the disaster; he was but one of the most lo=
yal
and orderly of fifty such sentries within call. She remained by the body and
gave the alarm; and there was nothing to connect her with the disaster eith=
er,
since she had not got, and could not have, any firearms.
"Well," said Father Brown rising cheerfully "I hope
they're happy."
"Where are you going?" asked his friend.
"I'm going to have another look at that portrait of the
Chamberlain, the Arnhold who betrayed his brethren," answered the prie=
st.
"I wonder what part--I wonder if a man is less a traitor when he is tw=
ice
a traitor?"
And he ruminated long before the portrait of a white-haired man with
black eyebrows and a pink, painted sort of smile that seemed to contradict =
the
black warning in his eyes.