The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] (62 page)

This
man never moved or stirred to greet anybody; but the sight of him in the outer room
seemed to move Peter Wain to his first nervous query.

‘
Is
anybody with the chief?’ he asked.

‘
Don’t
get rattled, Peter,’ chuckled his uncle. ‘Wilton the secretary is with him, and
I hope that’s enough for anybody. I don’t believe Wilton ever sleeps for watching
Merton. He is better than twenty bodyguards. And he’s quick and quiet as an
Indian.’

‘
Well,
you ought to know,’ said his nephew, laughing. ‘I remember the Red Indian tricks
you used to teach me when I was a boy and liked to read Red Indian stories. But
in my Red Indian stories Red Indians seemed always to have the worst of it.’

‘
They
didn’t in real life,’ said the old frontiersman grimly.

‘
Indeed?’
inquired the bland Mr Blake. ‘I should have thought they could do very little against
our firearms.’

‘
I’ve
seen an Indian stand under a hundred guns with nothing but a little scalping-knife
and kill a white man standing on the top of a fort,’ said Crake.

‘
Why,
what did he do with it?’ asked the other.

‘
Threw
it,’ replied Crake, ‘threw it in a flash before a shot could be fired. I don’t know
where he learnt the trick.’

‘
Well,
I hope you didn’t learn it,’ said his nephew, laughing.

‘
It
seems to me,’ said Father Brown, thoughtfully, ‘that the story might have a moral.’

While
they were speaking Mr Wilton, the secretary, had come out of the inner room and
stood waiting; a pale, fair-haired man with a square chin and steady eyes with a
look like a dog’s; it was not difficult to believe that he had the single — eye
of a watchdog.

He
only said, ‘Mr Merton can see you in about ten minutes,’ but it served for a signal
to break up the gossiping group. Old Crake said he must be off, and his nephew
went out with him and his legal companion, leaving Father Brown for the moment
alone with his secretary; for the negroid giant at the other end of the room
could hardly be felt as if he were human or alive; he sat so motionless with
his broad back to them, staring towards the inner room.

‘
Arrangements
rather elaborate here, I’m afraid,’ said the secretary. ‘You’ve probably heard all
about this Daniel Doom, and why it isn’t safe to leave the boss very much alone.’

‘
But
he is alone just now, isn’t he?’ said Father Brown.

The
secretary looked at him with grave, grey eyes. ‘For fifteen minutes,’ he said. ‘For
fifteen minutes out of the twenty-four hours. That is all the real solitude he
has; and that he insists on, for a pretty remarkable reason.’

‘
And
what is the reason?’ inquired the visitor. Wilton, the secretary, continued his
steady gaze, but his mouth, that had been merely grave, became grim.

‘
The
Coptic Cup,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’ve forgotten the Coptic Cup; but he hasn’t forgotten
that or anything else. He doesn’t trust any of us about the Coptic Cup. It’s
locked up somewhere and somehow in that room so that only he can find it; and
he won’t take it out till we’re all out of the way. So we have to risk that
quarter of an hour while he sits and worships it; I reckon it’s the only worshipping
he does. Not that there’s any risk really; for I’ve turned all this place into
a trap I don’t believe the devil himself could get into — or at any rate, get
out of. If this infernal Daniel Doom pays us a visit, he’ll stay to dinner and
a good bit later, by God! I sit here on hot bricks for the fifteen minutes, and
the instant I heard a shot or a sound of struggle I’d press this button and an
electrocuting current would run in a ring round that garden wall, so that it
‘ud be death to cross or climb it. Of course, there couldn’t be a shot, for
this is the only way in; and the only window he sits at is away up on the top
of a tower as smooth as a greasy pole. But, anyhow, we’re all armed here, of
course; and if Doom did get into that room he’d be dead before he got out.’

Father
Brown was blinking at the carpet in a brown study. Then he said suddenly, with something
like a jerk: ‘I hope you won’t mind my mentioning it, but a kind of a notion
came into my head just this minute. It’s about you.’

‘
Indeed,’
remarked Wilton, ‘and what about me?’

‘
I
think you are a man of one idea,’ said Father Brown, ‘and you will forgive me for
saying that it seems to be even more the idea of catching Daniel Doom than of
defending Brander Merton.’

Wilton
started a little and continued to stare at his companion; then very slowly his grim
mouth took on a rather curious smile. ‘How did you — what makes you think that?’
he asked.

‘
You
said that if you heard a shot you could instantly electrocute the escaping enemy,’
remarked the priest. ‘I suppose it occurred to you that the shot might be fatal
to your employer before the shock was fatal to his foe. I don’t mean that you
wouldn’t protect Mr Merton if you could, but it seems to come rather second in
your thoughts. The arrangements are very elaborate, as you say, and you seem to
have elaborated them. But they seem even more designed to catch a murderer than
to save a man.’

‘
Father
Brown,’ said the secretary, who had recovered his quiet tone, ‘you’re very smart,
but there’s something more to you than smartness. Somehow you’re the sort of
man to whom one wants to tell the truth; and besides, you’ll probably hear it,
anyhow, for in one way it’s a joke against me already. They all say I’m a
monomaniac about running down this big crook, and perhaps I am. But I’ll tell
you one thing that none of them know. My full name is John Wilton Border.’ Father
Brown nodded as if he were completely enlightened, but the other went on.

‘
This
fellow who calls himself Doom killed my father and uncle and ruined my mother. When
Merton wanted a secretary I took the job, because I thought that where the cup
was the criminal might sooner or later be. But I didn’t know who the criminal
was and could only wait for him; and I meant to serve Merton faithfully.’

‘
I
understand,’ said Father Brown gently; ‘and, by the way, isn’t it time that we attended
on him?’

‘
Why,
yes,’ answered Wilton, again starting a little out of his brooding so that the priest
concluded that his vindictive mania had again absorbed him for a moment. ‘Go in
now by all means.’

Father
Brown walked straight into the inner room. No sound of greetings followed, but only
a dead silence; and a moment after the priest reappeared in the doorway.

At
the same moment the silent bodyguard sitting near the door moved suddenly; and it
was as if a huge piece of furniture had come to life. It seemed as though something
in the very attitude of the priest had been a signal; for his head was against
the light from the inner window and his face was in shadow.

‘
I
suppose you will press that button,’ he said with a sort of sigh.

Wilton
seemed to awake from his savage brooding with a bound and leapt up with a catch
in his voice.

‘
There
was no shot,’ he cried.

‘
Well,’
said Father Brown, ‘it depends what you mean by a shot.’

Wilton
rushed forward, and they plunged into the inner room together. It was a comparatively
small room and simply though elegantly furnished. Opposite to them one wide
window stood open, over-looking the garden and the wooded plain. Close up
against the window stood a chair and a small table, as if the captive desired
as much air and light as was allowed him during his brief luxury of loneliness.

On
the little table under the window stood the Coptic Cup; its owner had evidently
been looking at it in the best light. It was well worth looking at, for that white
and brilliant daylight turned its precious stones to many-coloured flames so
that it might have been a model of the Holy Grail. It was well worth looking at;
but Brander Merton was not looking at it. For his head had fallen back over his
chair, his mane of white hair hanging towards the floor, and his spike of grizzled
beard thrust up towards the ceiling, and out of his throat stood a long, brown
painted arrow with red feathers at the other end.

‘
A
silent shot,’ said Father Brown, in a low voice; ‘I was just wondering about those
new inventions for silencing firearms. But this is a very old invention, and
quite as silent.’

Then,
after a moment, he added: ‘I’m afraid he is dead. What are you going to do?’

The
pale secretary roused himself with abrupt resolution. ‘I’m going to press that button,
of course,’ he said, ‘and if that doesn’t do for Daniel Doom, I’m going to hunt
him through the world till I find him.’

‘
Take
care it doesn’t do for any of our friends,’ observed Father Brown; ‘they can hardly
be far off; we’d better call them.’

‘
That
lot know all about the wall,’ answered Wilton. ‘None of them will try to climb it,
unless one of them ... is in a great hurry.’

Father
Brown went to the window by which the arrow had evidently entered and looked out.
The garden, with its flat flower-beds, lay far below like a delicately coloured
map of the world. The whole vista seemed so vast and empty, the tower seemed
set so far up in the sky that as he stared out a strange phrase came back to
his memory.

‘
A
bolt from the blue,’ he said. ‘What was that somebody said about a bolt from the
blue and death coming out of the sky? Look how far away everything looks; it
seems extraordinary that an arrow could come so far, unless it were an arrow from
heaven.’

Wilton
had returned, but did not reply, and the priest went on as in soliloquy. ‘One thinks
of aviation. We must ask young Wain ... about aviation.’

‘
There’s
a lot of it round here,’ said the secretary.

‘
Case
of very old or very new weapons,’ observed Father Brown. ‘Some would be quite familiar
to his old uncle, I suppose; we must ask him about arrows. This looks rather
like a Red Indian arrow. I don’t know where the Red Indian shot it from; but
you remember the story the old man told. I said it had a moral.’

‘
If
it had a moral,’ said Wilton warmly, ‘it was only that a real Red Indian might shoot
a thing farther than you’d fancy. It’s nonsense your suggesting a parallel.’

‘
I
don’t think you’ve got the moral quite right,’ said Father Brown.

Although
the little priest appeared to melt into the millions of New York next day, without
any apparent attempt to be anything but a number in a numbered street, he was,
in fact, unobtrusively busy for the next fortnight with the commission that had
been given him, for he was filled with profound fear about a possible miscarriage
of justice. Without having any particular air of singling them out from his
other new acquaintances, he found it easy to fall into talk with the two or
three men recently involved in the mystery; and with old Hickory Crake especially
he had a curious and interesting conversation. It took place on a seat in
Central Park, where the veteran sat with his bony hands and hatchet face
resting on the oddly-shaped head of a walking-stick of dark red wood, possibly
modelled on a tomahawk.

‘
Well,
it may be a long shot,’ he said, wagging his head, ‘but I wouldn’t advise you to
be too positive about how far an Indian arrow could go. I’ve known some bow-shots
that seemed to go straighter than any bullets, and hit the mark to amazement,
considering how long they had been travelling. Of course, you practically never
hear now of a Red Indian with a bow and arrows, still less of a Red Indian
hanging about here. But if by any chance there were one of the old Indian
marksmen, with one of the old Indian bows, hiding in those trees hundreds of
yards beyond the Merton outer wall — why, then I wouldn’t put it past the noble
savage to be able to send an arrow over the wall and into the top window of
Merton’s house; no, nor into Merton, either. I’ve seen things quite as
wonderful as that done in the old days.’

‘
No
doubt,’ said the priest, ‘you have done things quite as wonderful, as well as seen
them.’

Old
Crake chuckled, and then said gruffly: ‘Oh, that’s all ancient history.’

‘
Some
people have a way of studying ancient history,’ the priest said. ‘I suppose we may
take it there is nothing in your old record to make people talk unpleasantly
about this affair.’

‘
What
do you mean?’ demanded Crake, his eyes shifting sharply for the first time, in his
red, wooden face, that was rather like the head of a tomahawk.

‘
Well,
since you were so well acquainted with all the arts and crafts of the Redskin —
’ began Father Brown slowly.

Crake
had had a hunched and almost shrunken appearance as he sat with his chin propped
on its queer-shaped crutch. But the next instant he stood erect in the path
like a fighting bravo with the crutch clutched like a cudgel.

‘
What?’
he cried — in something like a raucous screech — ‘what the hell! Are you standing
up to me to tell me I might happen to have murdered my own brother-in-law?’

From
a dozen seats dotted about the path people looked to-wards the disputants, as they
stood facing each other in the middle of the path, the bald-headed energetic
little man brandishing his outlandish stick like a club, and the black, dumpy
figure of the little cleric looking at him without moving a muscle, save for
his hinging eyelids. For a moment it looked as if the black, dumpy figure would
be knocked on the head, and laid out with true Red Indian promptitude and dispatch;
and the large form of an Irish policeman could be seen heaving up in the
distance and bearing down on the group. But the priest only said, quite placidly,
like one answering an ordinary query: