The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] (111 page)

‘
He
was wearing a sort of Inverness cape,’ said Father Brown, ‘and he told the boy outside
he must reach Edinburgh by next morning. That’s all the boy outside remembers.
But I know your organization has got on to people with less clue than that.’

‘
You
seem very keen on this,’ said the Inspector, a little puzzled.

The
priest looked puzzled also, as if at his own thoughts; he sat with knotted brow
and then said abruptly: ‘You see, it’s so easy to be misunderstood. All men matter.
You matter. I matter. It’s the hardest thing in theology to believe.’

The
Inspector stared at him without comprehension; but he proceeded.

‘
We
matter to God — God only knows why. But that’s the only possible justification of
the existence of policemen.’ The policeman did not seem enlightened as to his
own cosmic justification. ‘Don’t you see, the law really is right in a way, after
all. If all men matter, all murders matter. That which He has so mysteriously created,
we must not suffer to be mysteriously destroyed. But — ’

He
said the last word sharply, like one taking a new step in decision.

‘
But,
when once I step off that mystical level of equality, I don’t see that most of your
important murders are particularly important. You are always telling me that
this case and that is important. As a plain, practical man of the world, I must
realize that it is the Prime Minister who has been murdered. As a plain, practical
man of the world, I don’t think that the Prime Minister matters at all. As a
mere matter of human importance, I should say he hardly exists at all. Do you
suppose if he and the other public men were shot dead tomorrow, there wouldn’t
be other people to stand up and say that every avenue was being explored, or
that the Government had the matter under the gravest consideration? The masters
of the modern world don’t matter. Even the real masters don’t matter much.
Hardly anybody you ever read about in a newspaper matters at all.’

He
stood up, giving the table a small rap: one of his rare gestures; and his voice
changed again. ‘But Raggley did matter. He was one of a great line of some half
a dozen men who might have saved England. They stand up stark and dark like disregarded
sign-posts, down all that smooth descending road which has ended in this swamp
of merely commercial collapse. Dean Swift and Dr Johnson and old William
Cobbett; they had all without exception the name of being surly or savage, and
they were all loved by their friends, and they all deserved to be. Didn’t you
see how that old man, with the heart of a lion, stood up and forgave his enemy
as only fighters can forgive? He jolly well did do what that temperance
lecturer talked about; he set an example to us Christians and was a model of
Christianity. And when there is foul and secret murder of a man like that —
then I do think it matters, matters so much that even the modern machinery of
police will be a thing that any respectable person may make use of ... Oh,
don’t mention it. And so, for once in a way, I really do want to make use of
you.’

And
so, for some stretch of those strange days and nights, we might almost say that
the little figure of Father Brown drove before him into action all the armies and
engines of the police forces of the Crown, as the little figure of Napoleon drove
the batteries and the battle-lines of the vast strategy that covered Europe.
Police stations and post offices worked all night; traffic was stopped, correspondence
was intercepted, inquiries were made in a hundred places, in order to track the
flying trail of that ghostly figure, without face or name, with an Inverness
cape and an Edinburgh ticket.

Meanwhile,
of course, the other lines of investigation were not neglected. The full report
of the post-mortem had not yet come in; but everybody seemed certain that it was
a case of poisoning. This naturally threw the primary suspicion upon the cherry
brandy; and this again naturally threw the primary suspicion on the hotel.

‘
Most
probably on the manager of the hotel,’ said Greenwood gruffly. ‘He looks a nasty
little worm to me. Of course it might be something to do with some servant,
like the barman; he seems rather a sulky specimen, and Raggley might have
cursed him a bit, having a flaming temper, though he was generally generous
enough afterwards. But, after all, as I say, the primary responsibility, and
therefore the primary suspicion, rests on the manager.’

‘
Oh,
I knew the primary suspicion would rest on the manager,’ said Father Brown. ‘That
was why I didn’t suspect him. You see, I rather fancied somebody else must have
known that the primary suspicion would rest on the manager; or the servants of
the hotel. That is why I said it would be easy to kill anybody in the hotel . .
. But you’d better go and have it out with him, I suppose.’

The
Inspector went; but came back again after a surprisingly short interview, and found
his clerical friend turning over some papers that seemed to be a sort of dossier
of the stormy career of John Raggley.

‘
This
is a rum go,’ said the Inspector. ‘I thought I should spend hours cross-examining
that slippery little toad there, for we haven’t legally got a thing against
him. And instead of that, he went to pieces all at once, and I really think
he’s told me all he knows in sheer funk.’

‘
I
know,’ said Father Brown. ‘That’s the way he went to pieces when he found Raggley’s
corpse apparently poisoned in his hotel. That’s why he lost his head enough to
do such a clumsy thing as decorate the corpse with a Turkish knife, to put the
blame on the nigger, as he would say. There never is anything the matter with
him but funk; he’s the very last man that ever would really stick a knife into
a live person. I bet he had to nerve himself to stick it into a dead one. But
he’s the very first person to be frightened of being charged with what he
didn’t do; and to make a fool of himself, as he did.’

‘
I
suppose I must see the barman too,’ observed Greenwood.

‘
I
suppose so,’ answered the other. ‘I don’t believe myself it was any of the hotel
people — well, because it was made to look as if it must be the hotel people .
. . But look here, have you seen any of this stuff they’ve got together about
Raggley? He had a jolly interesting life; I wonder whether anyone will write
his biography.’

‘
I
took a note of everything likely to affect an affair like this,’ answered the official.
‘He was a widower; but he did once have a row with a man about his wife; a
Scotch land-agent then in these parts; and Raggley seems to have been pretty
violent. They say he hated Scotchmen; perhaps that’s the reason . . . Oh, I
know what you are smiling grimly about. A Scotchman . . . Perhaps an Edinburgh
man.’

‘
Perhaps,’
said Father Brown. ‘It’s quite likely, though, that he did dislike Scotchmen, apart
from private reasons. It’s an odd thing, but all that tribe of Tory Radicals,
or whatever you call them, who resisted the Whig mercantile movement, all of
them did dislike Scotchmen. Cobbett did; Dr Johnson did; Swift described their
accent in one of his deadliest passages; even Shakespeare has been accused of
the prejudice. But the prejudices of great men generally have something to do
with principles. And there was a reason, I fancy. The Scot came from a poor
agricultural land, that became a rich industrial land. He was able and active;
he thought he was bringing industrial civilization from the north; he simply
didn’t know that there had been for centuries a rural civilization in the
south. His own grandfather’s land was highly rural but not civilized . . . Well,
well, I suppose we can only wait for more news.’

‘
I
hardly think you’ll get the latest news out of Shakespeare and Dr Johnson,’ grinned
the police officer. ‘What Shakespeare thought of Scotchmen isn’t exactly
evidence.’

Father
Brown cocked an eyebrow, as if a new thought had surprised him. ‘Why, now I come
to think of it,’ he said, ‘there might be better evidence, even out of Shakespeare.
He doesn’t often mention Scotchmen. But he was rather fond of making fun of
Welshmen.’

The
Inspector was searching his friend’s face; for he fancied he recognized an alertness
behind its demure expression. ‘By Jove,’ he said. ‘Nobody thought of turning
the suspicions that way, anyhow.’

‘
Well,’
said Father Brown, with broad-minded calm, ‘you started by talking about fanatics;
and how a fanatic could do anything. Well, I suppose we had the honour of
entertaining in this bar-parlour yesterday, about the biggest and loudest and
most fat-headed fanatic in the modern world. If being a pig-headed idiot with
one idea is the way to murder, I put in a claim for my reverend brother
Pryce-Jones, the Prohibitionist, in preference to all the fakirs in Asia, and
it’s perfectly true, as I told you, that his horrible glass of milk was
standing side by side on the counter with the mysterious glass of whisky.’

‘
Which
you think was mixed up with the murder,’ said Greenwood, staring. ‘Look here, I
don’t know whether you’re really serious or not.’

Even
as he was looking steadily in his friend’s face, finding something still inscrutable
in its expression, the telephone rang stridently behind the bar. Lifting the
flap in the counter Inspector Greenwood passed rapidly inside, unhooked the
receiver, listened for an instant, and then uttered a shout; not addressed to
his interlocutor, but to the universe in general. Then he listened still more
attentively and said explosively at intervals, ‘Yes, yes . . . Come round at
once; bring him round if possible . . . Good piece of work . . . Congratulate
you.’

Then
Inspector Greenwood came back into the outer lounge, like a man who has renewed
his youth, sat down squarely on his seat, with his hands planted on his knees, stared
at his friend, and said:

‘
Father
Brown, I don’t know how you do it. You seem to have known he was a murderer before
anybody else knew he was a man. He was nobody; he was nothing; he was a slight
confusion in the evidence; nobody in the hotel saw him; the boy on the steps
could hardly swear to him; he was just a fine shade of doubt founded on an
extra dirty glass. But we’ve got him, and he’s the man we want.’

Father
Brown had risen with the sense of the crisis, mechanically clutching the papers
destined to be so valuable to the biographer of Mr Raggley; and stood staring at
his friend. Perhaps this gesture jerked his friend’s mind to fresh confirmations.

‘
Yes,
we’ve got The Quick One. And very quick he was, like quicksilver, in making his
get-away; we only just stopped him — off on a fishing trip to Orkney, he said. But
he’s the man, all right; he’s the Scotch land-agent who made love to Raggley’s
wife; he’s the man who drank Scotch whisky in this bar and then took a train to
Edinburgh. And nobody would have known it but for you.’

‘
Well,
what I meant,’ began Father Brown, in a rather dazed tone; and at that instant there
was a rattle and rumble of heavy vehicles outside the hotel; and two or three
other and subordinate policemen blocked the bar with their presence. One of
them, invited by his superior to sit down, did so in an expansive manner, like
one at once happy and fatigued; and he also regarded Father Brown with admiring
eyes.

‘
Got
the murderer. Sir, oh yes,’ he said: ‘I know he’s a murderer, ‘cause he bally nearly
murdered me. I’ve captured some tough characters before now; but never one like
this — hit me in the stomach like the kick of a horse and nearly got away from
five men. Oh, you’ve got a real killer this time. Inspector.’

‘
Where
is he?’ asked Father Brown, staring.

‘
Outside
in the van, in handcuffs,’ replied the policeman, ‘and, if you’re wise, you’ll leave
him there — for the present.’

Father
Brown sank into a chair in a sort of soft collapse; and the papers he had been nervously
clutching were shed around him, shooting and sliding about the floor like
sheets of breaking snow. Not only his face, but his whole body, conveyed the
impression of a punctured balloon.

‘
Oh
. . . Oh,’ he repeated, as if any further oath would be inadequate. ‘Oh . . .I’ve
done it again.’

‘
If
you mean you’ve caught the criminal again,’ began Greenwood. But his friend stopped
him with a feeble explosion, like that of expiring soda-water.

‘
I
mean,’ said Father Brown, ‘that it’s always happening; and really, I don’t know
why. I always try to say what I mean. But everybody else means such a lot by what
I say.’

‘
What
in the world is the matter now?’ cried Greenwood, suddenly exasperated.

‘
Well,
I say things,’ said Father Brown in a weak voice, which could alone convey the weakness
of the words. ‘I say things, but everybody seems to know they mean more than
they say. Once I saw a broken mirror and said “Something has happened” and they
all answered, “Yes, yes, as you truly say, two men wrestled and one ran into
the garden,” and so on. I don’t understand it, “Something happened,” and “Two
men wrestled,” don’t seem to me at all the same; but I dare say I read old
books of logic. Well, it’s like that here. You seem to be all certain this man
is a murderer. But I never said he was a murderer. I said he was the man we
wanted. He is. I want him very much. I want him frightfully. I want him as the one
thing we haven’t got in the whole of this horrible case — a witness!’