The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] (42 page)

“
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 know 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 without 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 does, 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, speaking out of the
cavern of his hands. “I don’t mind telling you, Father, because it’s really more
defending the poor Duke than giving him away. Didn’t you ever hear of the time
when he very nearly lost all the estates?”

The
priest shook his head; and the librarian proceeded to tell the tale as he had heard
it from his predecessor in the same post, who had been his patron and instructor,
and whom he seemed to trust implicitly. Up to a certain point 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 honestly, 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 Elisha; 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-lender: but as solicitor to the Eyres he
had the sense, as I say, to keep technically 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 lampshades and the decanters, as the
little lawyer, with a steady smile, proposed to the 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 glass that day in the orchard. It
left a red triangular scar on the scalp, and the 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 can 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 fists 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 possibility that the whole
was the extravagance of an old braggart and gossip. But before 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 apothecary 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 forehead 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, made 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 grow 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 astounding 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 venture 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 all I have to tell before I left this same little wooden table in this
same little 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 flaps. But if he wants to use hair, why doesn’t
he make it look like hair? There never was hair of that colour in this world.
It looks more like a sunset-cloud coming 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 said.

“
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 comforted 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 sharply, 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 instant 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 the 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 the 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 informs me that you have come here to
make a request. I no longer profess an observance 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, whose 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 have to bear alone, you would lie shrieking
at these feet of mine and begging to know 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 mystery of iniquity. If the devil tells you
something is too fearful to look at, look 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 and 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 listening to this extraordinary
duel half a thought had come into my head. “Your Grace,” 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 that, 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 even glance at his
ears. He stared with an almost comical seriousness at his bald forehead, and
pointed to a three-cornered cicatrice, long healed, but still discernible. “Mr
Green, I think.” he said politely, “and he did get the whole estate after all.”

And
now let me tell the readers of the Daily Reformer what I think the 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 for my technical
assault) strictly legal and constitutional from its first beginnings. 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 it; and it
is likely enough that he did invoke it as a kind of curse in the violent scene
(which undoubtedly happened) in which he struck Green with the decanter. But
the contest ended very differently. Green pressed his claim and got the estates;
the dispossessed nobleman shot himself and died without issue. After 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.