The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] (108 page)

‘
As
a matter of fact,’ said the debased type, removing his black cigar, ‘I’m
English and my name is Brown. But pray let me leave you if you wish to be
private.’

‘
If
you’re English,’ said Rock warmly, ‘you ought to have some normal Nordic instinct
for protesting against all this nonsense. Well, it’s enough to say now that I’m
in a position to testify that there’s a pretty dangerous fellow hanging round
this place; a tall fellow in a cloak, like those pictures of crazy poets.’

‘
Well,
you can’t go much by that,’ said the priest mildly; ‘a lot of people round here
use those cloaks, because the chill strikes very suddenly after sunset.’

Rock
darted a dark and doubtful glance at him; as if suspecting some evasion in the interests
of all that was symbolized to him by mushroom hats and moonshine. ‘It wasn’t
only the cloak,’ he growled, ‘though it was partly the way he wore it. The
whole look of the fellow was theatrical, down to his damned theatrical good looks.
And if you’ll forgive me, Madam, I strongly advise you to have nothing to do
with him, if he comes bothering here. Your husband has already told the hotel
people to keep him out — ’

Hypatia
sprang to her feet and, with a very unusual gesture, covered her face, thrusting
her fingers into her hair. She seemed to be shaken, possibly with sobs, but by
the time she had recovered they had turned into a sort of wild laughter.

‘
Oh,
you are all too funny,’ she said, and, in a way very unusual with her, ducked and
darted to the door and disappeared.

‘
Bit
hysterical when they laugh like that,’ said Rock uncomfortably; then, rather at
a loss, and turning to the little priest: ‘as I say, if you’re English, you ought
really to be on my side against these Dagos, anyhow. Oh, I’m not one of those
who talk tosh about Anglo-Saxons; but there is such a thing as history. You can
always claim that America got her civilization from England.’

‘
Also,
to temper our pride,’ said Father Brown, ‘we must always admit that England got
her civilization from Dagos.’

Again
there glowed in the other’s mind the exasperated sense that his interlocutor was
fencing with him, and fencing on the wrong side, in some secret and evasive way;
and he curtly professed a failure to comprehend.

‘
Well,
there was a Dago, or possibly a Wop, called Julius Caesar,’ said Father Brown; ‘he
was afterwards killed in a stabbing match; you know these Dagos always use knives.
And there was another one called Augustine, who brought Christianity to our
little island; and really, I don’t think we should have had much civilization
without those two.’

‘
Anyhow,
that’s all ancient history,’ said the somewhat irritated journalist, ‘and I’m very
much interested in modern history. What I see is that these scoundrels are bringing
Paganism to our country, and destroying all the Christianity there is. Also
destroying all the common sense there is. All settled habits, all solid social
order, all the way in which the farmers who were our fathers and grandfathers
did manage to live in the world, melted into a hot mush by sensations and
sensualities about filmstars who divorced every month or so, and make every
silly girl think that marriage is only a way of getting divorced.’

‘
You
are quite right,’ said Father Brown. ‘Of course I quite agree with you there. But
you must make some allowances. Perhaps these Southern people are a little prone
to that sort of fault. You must remember that Northern people have other kinds
of faults. Perhaps these surroundings do encourage people to give too rich an
importance to mere romance.’

The
whole integral indignation of Agar Rock’s life rose up within him at the word.

‘
I
hate Romance,’ he said, hitting the little table before him. ‘I’ve fought the papers
I worked for for forty years about the infernal trash. Every blackguard bolting
with a barmaid is called a romantic elopement or something; and now our own
Hypatia Hard, a daughter of a decent people, may get dragged into some rotten
romantic divorce case, that will be trumpeted to the whole world as happily as
a royal wedding. This mad poet Romanes is hanging round her; and you bet the
spotlight will follow him, as if he were any rotten little Dago who is called
the Great Lover on the films. I saw him outside; and he’s got the regular
spotlight face. Now my sympathies are with decency and common sense. My sympathies
are with poor Potter, a plain straightforward broker from Pittsburgh, who
thinks he has a right to his own home. And he’s making a fight for it, too. I
heard him hollering at the management, telling them to keep that rascal out;
and quite right too. The people here seem a sly and slinky lot; but I rather
fancy he’s put the fear of God into them already.’

‘
As
a matter of fact,’ said Father Brown, ‘I rather agree with you about the manager
and the men in this hotel; but you mustn’t judge all Mexicans by them. Also I
fancy the gentleman you speak of has not only hollered, but handed round dollars
enough to get the whole staff on his side. I saw them locking doors and whispering
most excitedly. By the way, your plain straightforward friend seems to have a
lot of money.’

‘
I’ve
no doubt his business does well,’ said Rock. ‘He’s quite the best type of sound
business man. What do you mean?’

‘
I
fancied it might suggest another thought to you,’ said Father Brown; and, rising
with rather heavy civility, he left the room.

Rock
watched the Potters very carefully that evening at dinner; and gained some new impressions,
though none that disturbed his deep sense of the wrong that probably threatened
the peace of the Potter home. Potter himself proved worthy of somewhat closer study;
though the journalist had at first accepted him as prosaic and unpretentious,
there was a pleasure in recognizing finer lines in what he considered the hero
or victim of a tragedy. Potter had really rather a thoughtful and distinguished
face, though worried and occasionally petulant. Rock got an impression that the
man was recovering from an illness; his faded hair was thin but rather long, as
if it had been lately neglected, and his rather unusual beard gave the onlooker
the same notion. Certainly he spoke once or twice to his wife in a rather sharp
and acid manner, fussing about tablets or some detail of digestive science; but
his real worry was doubtless concerned with the danger from without. His wife
played up to him in the splendid if somewhat condescending manner of a Patient
Griselda; but her eyes also roamed continually to the doors and shutters, as if
in half-hearted fear of an invasion. Rock had only too good reason to dread,
after her curious outbreak, the fact that her fear might turn out to be only
half-hearted.

It
was in the middle of the night that the extraordinary event occurred. Rock, imagining
himself to be the last to go up to bed, was surprised to find Father Brown
still tucked obscurely under an orange-tree in the hall, and placidly reading a
book. He returned the other’s farewell without further words, and the journalist
had his foot on the lowest step of the stair, when suddenly the outer door
sprang on its hinges and shook and rattled under the shock of blows planted
from without; and a great voice louder than the blows was heard violently
demanding admission. Somehow the journalist was certain that the blows had been
struck with a pointed stick like an alpenstock. He looked back at the darkened
lower floor, and saw the servants of the hotel sliding here and there to see
that the doors were locked; and not unlocking them. Then he slowly mounted to
his room, and sat down furiously to write his report.

He
described the siege of the hotel; the evil atmosphere; the shabby luxury of the
place; the shifty evasions of the priest; above all, that terrible voice crying
without, like a wolf prowling round the house. Then, as he wrote, he heard a new
sound and sat up suddenly. It was a long repeated whistle, and in his mood he
hated it doubly, because it was like the signal of a conspirator and like the
love-call of a bird. There followed an utter silence, in which he sat rigid;
then he rose abruptly; for he had heard yet another noise. It was a faint swish
followed by a sharp rap or rattle; and he was almost certain that somebody was
throwing something at the window. He walked stiffly downstairs, to the floor
which was now dark and deserted; or nearly deserted. For the little priest was
still sitting under the orange shrub, lit by a low lamp; and still reading his
book.

‘
You
seem to be sitting up late,’ he said harshly.

‘
Quite
a dissipated character,’ said Father Brown, looking up with a broad smile, ‘reading
Economics of Usury at all wild hours of the night.’

‘
The
place is locked up,’ said Rock.

‘
Very
thoroughly locked up,’ replied the other. ‘Your friend with the beard seems to have
taken every precaution. By the way, your friend with the beard is a little rattled;
I thought he was rather cross at dinner.’

‘
Natural
enough,’ growled the other, ‘if he thinks savages in this savage place are out to
wreck his home life.’

‘
Wouldn’t
it be better,’ said Father Brown, ‘if a man tried to make his home life nice inside,
while he was protecting it from the things outside.’

‘
Oh,
I know you will work up all the casuistical excuses,’ said the other; ‘perhaps he
was rather snappy with his wife; but he’s got the right on his side. Look here,
you seem to me to be rather a deep dog. I believe you know more about this than
you say. What the devil is going on in this infernal place? Why are you sitting
up all night to see it through?’

‘
Well,’
said Father Brown patiently, ‘I rather thought my bedroom might be wanted.’

‘
Wanted
by whom?’

‘
As
a matter of fact, Mrs Potter wanted another room,’ explained Father Brown with limpid
clearness. ‘I gave her mine, because I could open the window. Go and see, if
you like.’

‘
I’ll
see to something else first,’ said Rock grinding his teeth. ’You can play your monkey
tricks in this Spanish monkey-house, but I’m still in touch with civilization.’
He strode into the telephone-booth and rang up his paper; pouring out the whole
tale of the wicked priest who helped the wicked poet. Then he ran upstairs into
the priest’s room, in which the priest had just lit a short candle, showing the
windows beyond wide open.

He
was just in time to see a sort of rude ladder unhooked from the window-sill and
rolled up by a laughing gentleman on the lawn below. The laughing gentleman was
a tall and swarthy gentleman, and was accompanied by a blonde but equally laughing
lady. This time, Mr Rock could not even comfort himself by calling her laughter
hysterical. It was too horribly genuine; and rang down the rambling garden-paths
as she and her troubadour disappeared into the dark thickets.

Agar
Rock turned on his companion a face of final and awful justice; like the Day of
Judgement.

‘
Well,
all America is going to hear of this,’ he said. ‘In plain words, you helped her
to bolt with that curly-haired lover.’

‘
Yes,’
said Father Brown, ‘I helped her to bolt with that curly-haired lover.’

‘
You
call yourself a minister of Jesus Christ,’ cried Rock, ‘and you boast of a crime.’

‘
I
have been mixed up with several crimes,’ said the priest gently. ‘Happily for once
this is a story without a crime. This is a simple fire-side idyll; that ends
with a glow of domesticity.’

‘
And
ends with a rope-ladder instead of a rope,’ said Rock. ’Isn’t she a married woman?’

‘
Oh,
yes,’ said Father Brown.

‘
Well,
oughtn’t she to be with her husband?’ demanded Rock.

‘
She
is with her husband,’ said Father Brown.

The
other was startled into anger. ‘You lie,’ he said. ‘The poor little man is still
snoring in bed.’

‘
You
seem to know a lot about his private affairs,’ said Father Brown plaintively. ‘You
could almost write a life of the Man with a Beard. The only thing you don’t
seem ever to have found out about him is his name.’

‘
Nonsense,’
said Rock. ‘His name is in the hotel book.’

‘
I
know it is,’ answered the priest, nodding gravely, ‘in very large letters; the name
of Rudel Romanes. Hypatia Potter, who met him here, put her name boldly under
his, when she meant to elope with him; and her husband put his name under that,
when he pursued them to this place. He put it very close under hers, by way of
protest. The Romanes (who has pots of money, as a popular misanthrope despising
men) bribed the brutes in this hotel to bar and bolt it and keep the lawful
husband out. And I, as you truly say, helped him to get in.’

When
a man is told something that turns things upside-down; that the tail wags the dog;
that the fish has caught the fisherman; that the earth goes round the moon; he
takes some little time before he even asks seriously if it is true. He is still
content with the consciousness that it is the opposite of the obvious truth.
Rock said at last: ‘You don’t mean that little fellow is the romantic Rudel
we’re always reading about; and that curly haired fellow is Mr Potter of Pittsburgh.’

‘
Yes,’
said Father Brown. ‘I knew it the moment I clapped eyes on both of them. But I verified
it afterwards.’