The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] (48 page)

“
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.”

“
Look
here,” said Lord Pooley, “I’ve taken a considerable 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 overcoat 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 can’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 plan to make sure I’m alone
with him?”

Lord
Pooley’s eyes recovered their frosty twinkle as he looked at the little clergyman.
He only said: “If you want to murder somebody, I should advise it.”

Father
Brown shook his head, like a murderer of much riper experience. “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 creditor? 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 that 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 would 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 voice 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 trick 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 it. 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 decline 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 minstrels, before
the two friends saw it again, and long before the storm of pursuit after 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 dead 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 closed 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 each
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 the
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 finger for an instant into
the direction of the soot-masked niggers singing on the sands.

FATHER
BROWN was walking 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 out of the vapour, as if they were first drawn in grey chalk and then in
charcoal. 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 knew. But all the windows and doors were sealed; none of the people
were of the sort 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 the 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 could think of; the three things nearest to it seemed to be the
noise made by siphons 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; whose thought was always
(in the only intelligent sense of the words) free thought. 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 attitudes were aptly tested. He was
just about to resume his trudge in the twilight, telling 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 also began to remember that pistol-shots
are sometimes serious things; accompanied with consequences with which he was
legitimately concerned. He turned back and went in at the garden gate, making
for the front door.

Half-way
down one side of the house stood out a projection like a very low shed; it was,
as he afterwards discovered, a large dustbin. Round the corner 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 are 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, though evidently puzzled and
inquisitive, wore a kind of innocent grin. He had a large palm-leaf hat on the
back of his head (suggesting a halo that was by no means 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 have 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 gooseberry eyes.
“What do you think the noise was?” he asked.

“
It
sounded like a gun or something,” replied the other, with 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 friend 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 innocently. “Did you — did you hit
anything?”

“
I
thought so,” answered Cray with gravity.

“
Did
he —” asked Major Putnam in a lowered voice, “did 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 had 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 their rings, and wine-glasses
of some six unnecessary shapes set beside every plate. 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, Father Brown, I am ready to answer
your question of whether it was a burglar.”

“
They’re
simply a blind,” said Cray stubbornly. “I know 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 was 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 beyond 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 whether I should send for the
police, for fear my friend here has been a little too free 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.”

“
I
think you once told me,” said Brown, “that he believes 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 with 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 other discolouring
matter shook upwards as he did so; but Father Brown never observed his own appearance,
whatever else he observed. He remained thus for a measurable period, as if
engaged in some mysterious prayers. Then he came out 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 away the mists. It
was in no way rationally reassuring; it was simply broadly comic, like a cluster
of Dickens’s characters. Major Putnam had managed to slip inside 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 costume. 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 — and as Brown
remembered this, he turned to look for the other officer. In the new 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 his 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 him. Seeing
him thus quadrupedal in the grass, the priest raised his eyebrows rather 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 known 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-fashioned myself; and the things keep
together.”

“
And
vanish together, as you see,” she retorted. “Well, 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 well 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 eyes.

She
was one of those handsome women who will always be handsome, because 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 was 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 waste 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. Father 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 host, 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, while 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 music, and would go even to church to get it. There
was nothing in all this that could conceivably concern the tragedy in Miss
Watson’s face; and by a half conscious instinct, Father Brown turned again to
the seeming lunatic grubbing about in the grass.