The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] (100 page)

The
impatient Granby, dancing upon the bank, called out to his companion:

“
Oh,
I can’t stand these stick-in-the-mud ways! Why, it’d be less trouble to jump.”

And
with characteristic impetuosity he did jump, landing with a slight stagger in safety
on the inner shore. Father Brown’s short legs were not adapted to jumping. But
his temper was more adapted than most people’s to falling with a splash into
very muddy water. By the promptitude of his companion he escaped falling in
very far. But as he was being hauled up the green, slimy bank, he stopped with
bent head, peering at a particular point upon the grassy slope.

“
Are
you botanizing?” asked Granby irritably. “We’ve got no time for you to collect rare
plants after your last attempt as a diver among the wonders of the deep. Come
on, muddy or no, we’ve got to present ourselves before the baronet.”

When
they had penetrated into the castle, they were received courteously enough by an
old servant, the only one in sight, and after indicating their business were shown
into a long oak-panelled room with latticed windows of antiquated pattern.
Weapons of many different centuries hung in balanced patterns on the dark
walls, and a complete suit of fourteenth-century armour stood like a sentinel
beside the large fireplace. In another long room beyond could be seen, through
the half-open door, the dark colours of the rows of family portraits.

“
I
feel as if I’d got into a novel instead of a house,” said the lawyer. “I’d no idea
anybody did really keep up the ‘Mysteries of Udolpho’ in this fashion.”

“
Yes;
the old gentleman certainly carries out his historical craze consistently,” answered
the priest; “and these things are not fakes, either. It’s not done by somebody
who thinks all mediaeval people lived at the same time. Sometimes they make up
suits of armour out of different bits; but that suit all covered one man, and
covered him very completely. You, see it’s the late sort of tilting-armour.”

“
I
think he’s a late sort of host, if it comes to that,” grumbled Granby. “He’s keeping
us waiting the devil of a time.”

“
You
must expect everything to go slowly in a place like this,” said Father Brown. “I
think it’s very decent of him to see us at all: two total strangers come to ask
him highly personal questions.”

And,
indeed, when the master of the house appeared they had no reason to complain of
their reception; but rather became conscious of something genuine in the traditions
of breeding and behaviour that could retain their native dignity without
difficulty in that barbarous solitude, and after those long years of rustication
and moping. The baronet did not seem either surprised or embarrassed at the
rare visitation; though they suspected that he had not had a stranger in his
house for a quarter of a life-time, he behaved as if he had been bowing out
duchesses a moment before. He showed neither shyness nor impatience when they
touched on the very private matter of their errand; after a little leisurely
reflection he seemed to recognize their curiosity as justified under the
circumstances. He was a thin, keen-looking old gentleman, with black eyebrows
and a long chin, and though the carefully-curled hair he wore was undoubtedly a
wig, he had the wisdom to wear the grey wig of an elderly man.

“
As
regards the question that immediately concerns you,” he said, “the answer is very
simple indeed. I do most certainly propose to hand on the whole of my property
to my son, as my father handed it on to me; and nothing — I say advisedly,
nothing — would induce me to take any other course.”

“
I
am most profoundly grateful for the information,” answered the lawyer. “But your
kindness encourages me to say that you are putting it very strongly. I would
not suggest that it is in the least likely that your son would do anything to
make you doubt his fitness for the charge. Still, he might — —”

“
Exactly,”
said Sir John Musgrave dryly, “he might. It is rather an under-statement to say
that he might. Will you be good enough to step into the next room with me for a
moment.”

He
led them into the further gallery, of which they had already caught a glimpse, and
gravely paused before a row of the blackened and lowering portraits.

“
This
is Sir Roger Musgrave,” he said, pointing to a long-faced person in a black periwig.
“He was one of the lowest liars and rascals in the rascally time of William of
Orange, a traitor to two kings and something like the murderer of two wives.
That is his father, Sir Robert, a perfectly honest old cavalier. That is his
son, Sir James, one of the noblest of the Jacobite martyrs and one of the first
men to attempt some reparation to the Church and the poor. Does it matter that
the House of Musgrave, the power, the honour, the authority, descended from one
good man to another good man through the interval of a bad one? Edward I
governed England well. Edward III covered England with glory. And yet the
second glory came from the first glory through the infamy and imbecility of
Edward II, who fawned upon Gaveston and ran away from Bruce. Believe me, Mr.
Granby, the greatness of a great house and history is something more than these
accidental individuals who carry it on, even though they do not grace it. From
father to son our heritage has come down, and from father to son it shall
continue. You may assure yourselves, gentlemen, and you may assure my son, that
I shall not leave my money to a home for lost cats. Musgrave shall leave it to
Musgrave till the heavens fall.”

“
Yes,”
said Father Brown thoughtfully; “I see what you mean.”

“
And
we shall be only too glad,” said the solicitor, “to convey such a happy assurance
to your son.”

“
You
may convey the assurance,” said their host gravely, “He is secure in any event of
having the castle, the title, the land and the money. There is only a small and
merely private addition to that arrangement. Under no circumstances whatever
will I ever speak to him as long as I live.”

The
lawyer remained in the same respectful attitude, but he was now respectfully staring.

“
Why,
what on earth has he — —”

“
I
am a private gentleman,” said Musgrave, “as well as the custodian of a great inheritance.
And my son did something so horrible that he has ceased to be — I will not say
a gentleman — but even a human being. It is the worst crime in the world. Do
you remember what Douglas said when Marmion, his guest, offered to shake hands
with him?”

“
Yes,”
said Father Brown.

“‘
My
castles are my king’s alone, from turret to foundation stone,’” said Musgrave. “‘The
hand of Douglas is his own.’”

He
turned towards the other room and showed his rather dazed visitors back into it.

“
I
hope you will take some refreshment,” he said, in the same equable fashion. “If
you have any doubt about your movements, I should be delighted to offer you the
hospitality of the castle for the night.”

“
Thank
you, Sir John,” said the priest in a dull voice, “but I think we had better go.”

“
I
will have the bridge lowered at once,” said their host; and in a few moments the
creaking of that huge and absurdly antiquated apparatus filled the castle like
the grinding of a mill. Rusty as it was, however, it worked successfully this
time, and they found themselves standing once more on the grassy bank beyond
the moat.

Granby
was suddenly shaken by a shudder.

“
What
in hell was it that his son did?” he cried.

Father
Brown made no answer. But when they had driven off again in their car and pursued
their journey to a village not far off, called Graystones, where they alighted
at the inn of the Seven Stars, the lawyer learned with a little mild surprise
that the priest did not propose to travel much farther; in other words, that he
had apparently every intention of remaining in the neighbourhood.

“
I
cannot bring myself to leave it like this,” he said gravely. “I will send back the
car, and you, of course, may very naturally want to go with it. Your question
is answered; it is simply whether your firm can afford to lend money on young
Musgrave’s prospects. But my question isn’t answered; it is whether he is a fit
husband for Betty. I must try to discover whether he’s really done something
dreadful, or whether it’s the delusion of an old lunatic.”

“
But,”
objected the lawyer, “if you want to find out about him, why don’t you go after
him? Why should you hang about in this desolate hole where he hardly ever comes?”

“
What
would be the use of my going after him?” asked the other. There’s no sense in going
up to a fashionable young man in Bond Street and saying: ‘Excuse me, but have
you committed a crime too horrible for a human being?’ If he’s bad enough to do
it, he’s certainly bad enough to deny it. And we don’t even know what it is.
No, there’s only one man that knows, and may tell, in some further outburst of
dignified eccentricity. I’m going to keep near him for the present.”

And
in truth Father Brown did keep near the eccentric baronet, and did actually meet
him on more than one occasion, with the utmost politeness on both sides. For
the baronet, in spite of his years, was very vigorous and a great walker, and
could often be seen stumping through the village, and along the country lanes.
Only the day after their arrival, Father Brown, coming out of the inn on to the
cobbled market-place, saw the dark and distinguished figure stride past in the
direction of the post office. He was very quietly dressed in black, but his
strong face was even more arresting in the strong sunlight; with his silvery
hair, swarthy eyebrows and long chin, he had something of a reminiscence of
Henry Irving, or some other famous actor. In spite of his hoary hair, his
figure as well as his face suggested strength, and he carried his stick more
like a cudgel than a crutch. He saluted the priest, and spoke with the same air
of coming fearlessly to the point which had marked his revelations of
yesterday.

“
If
you are still interested in my son,” he said, using the term with an icy indifference,
“you will not see very much of him. He has just left the country. Between
ourselves, I might say fled the country.”

“
Indeed,”
said Father Brown with a grave stare.

“
Some
people I never heard of, called Grunov, have been pestering me, of all people, about
his whereabouts,” said Sir John; “and I’ve just come in to send off a wire to
tell them that, so far as I know, he’s living in the Poste Restante, Riga. Even
that has been a nuisance. I came in yesterday to do it, but was five minutes
too late for the post office. Are you staying long? I hope you will pay me
another visit.”

When
the priest recounted to the lawyer his little interview with old Musgrave in the
village, the lawyer was both puzzled and interested. “Why has the Captain bolted?”
he asked. “Who are the other people who want him? Who on earth are the Grunovs?”

“
For
the first, I don’t know,” replied Father Brown. “Possibly his mysterious sin has
come to light. I should rather guess that the other people are blackmailing him
about it. For the third, I think I do know. That horrible fat woman with yellow
hair is called Madame Grunov, and that little man passes as her husband.”

The
next day Father Brown came in rather wearily, and threw down his black bundle of
an umbrella with the air of a pilgrim laying down his staff. He had an air of
some depression. But it was as it was so often in his criminal investigations.
It was not the depression of failure, but the depression of success.

“
It’s
rather a shock,” he said in a dull voice; “but I ought to have guessed it. I ought
to have guessed it when I first went in and saw the thing standing there.”

“
When
you saw what?” asked Granby impatiently.

“
When
I saw there was only one suit of armour,” answered Father Brown. There was a silence
during which the lawyer only stared at his friend, and then the friend resumed.

“
Only
the other day I was just going to tell my niece that there are two types of men
who can laugh when they are alone. One might almost say the man who does it is either
very good or very bad. You see, he is either confiding the joke to God or
confiding it to the Devil. But anyhow he has an inner life. Well, there really
is a kind of man who confides the joke to the Devil. He does not mind if nobody
sees the joke; if nobody can safely be allowed even to know the joke. The joke
is enough in itself, if it is sufficiently sinister and malignant.”

“
But
what are you talking about?” demanded Granby. “Whom are you talking about? Which
of them, I mean? Who is this person who is having a sinister joke with his
Satanic Majesty?”

Father
Brown looked across at him with a ghastly smile.

“
Ah,”
he said, “that’s the joke.”

There
was another silence, but this time the silence seemed to be rather full and oppressive
than merely empty; it seemed to settle down on them like the twilight that was
gradually turning from dusk to dark. Father Brown went on speaking in a level
voice, sitting stolidly with his elbows on the table.

“
I’ve
been looking up the Musgrave family,” he said. “They are vigorous and long-lived
stock, and even in the ordinary way I should think you would wait a good time
for your money.”