The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] (65 page)

‘
YES,’
said Father Brown, ‘I always like a dog, so long as he isn’t spelt backwards.’

Those
who are quick in talking are not always quick in listening. Sometimes even their
brilliancy produces a sort of stupidity. Father Brown’s friend and companion
was a young man with a stream of ideas and stories, an enthusiastic young man
named Fiennes, with eager blue eyes and blond hair that seemed to be brushed
back, not merely with a hair-brush but with the wind of the world as he rushed
through it. But he stopped in the torrent of his talk in a momentary bewilderment
before he saw the priest’s very simple meaning.

‘
You
mean that people make too much of them?’ he said. ‘Well, I don’t know. They’re marvellous
creatures. Sometimes I think they know a lot more than we do.’

Father
Brown said nothing, but continued to stroke the head of the big retriever in a half-abstracted
but apparently soothing fashion.

‘
Why,’
said Fiennes, warming again to his monologue, ‘there was a dog in the case I’ve
come to see you about: what they call the ‘Invisible Murder Case’, you know. It’s
a strange story, but from my point of view the dog is about the strangest thing
in it. Of course, there’s the mystery of the crime itself, and how old Druce
can have been killed by somebody else when he was all alone in the summer-house
— ’

The
hand stroking the dog stopped for a moment in its rhythmic movement, and Father
Brown said calmly: ‘Oh, it was a summer-house, was it?’

‘
I
thought you’d read all about it in the papers,’ answered Fiennes.’ Stop a minute;
I believe I’ve got a cutting that will give you all the particulars.’ He
produced a strip of newspaper from his pocket and handed it to the priest, who
began to read it, holding it close to his blinking eyes with one hand while the
other continued its half-conscious caresses of the dog. It looked like the
parable of a man not letting his right hand know what his left hand did.

*

Many
mystery stories, about men murdered behind locked doors and windows, and murderers
escaping without means of entrance and exit, have come true in the course of
the extraordinary events at Cranston on the coast of Yorkshire, where Colonel
Druce was found stabbed from behind by a dagger that has entirely disappeared
from the scene, and apparently even from the neighbourhood.

The
summer-house in which he died was indeed accessible at one entrance, the ordinary
doorway which looked down the central walk of the garden towards the house.
But, by a combination of events almost to be called a coincidence, it appears
that both the path and the entrance were watched during the crucial time, and
there is a chain of witnesses who confirm each other. The summer-house stands
at the extreme end of the garden, where there is no exit or entrance of any
kind. The central garden path is a lane between two ranks of tall delphiniums,
planted so close that any stray step off the path would leave its traces; and
both path and plants run right up to the very mouth of the summer-house, so
that no straying from that straight path could fail to be observed, and no
other mode of entrance can be imagined.

Patrick
Floyd, secretary of the murdered man, testified that he had been in a position to
overlook the whole garden from the time when Colonel Druce last appeared alive
in the doorway to the time when he was found dead; as he, Floyd, had been on
the top of a step-ladder clipping the garden hedge. Janet Druce, the dead man’s
daughter, confirmed this, saying that she had sat on the terrace of the house
throughout that time and had seen Floyd at his work. Touching some part of the
time, this is again supported by Donald Druce, her brother — who overlooked the
garden — standing at his bedroom window in his dressing-gown, for he had risen
late. Lastly, the account is consistent with that given by Dr Valentine, a
neighbour, who called for a time to talk with Miss Druce on the terrace, and by
the Colonel’s solicitor, Mr Aubrey Traill, who was apparently the last to see
the murdered man alive — presumably with the exception of the murderer.

All
are agreed that the course of events was as follows: About half past three in
the afternoon, Miss Druce went down the path to ask her father when he would
like tea; but he said he did not want any and was waiting to see Traill, his
lawyer, who was to be sent to him in the summer-house. The girl then came away
and met Traill coming down the path; she directed him to her father and he went
in as directed. About half an hour afterwards he came out again, the Colonel
coming with him to the door and showing himself to all appearance in health and
even high spirits. He had been somewhat annoyed earlier in the day by his son’s
irregular hours, but seemed to recover his temper in a perfectly normal fashion,
and had been rather markedly genial in receiving other visitors, including two
of his nephews, who came over for the day. But as these were out walking during
the whole period of the tragedy, they had no evidence to give. It is said,
indeed, that the Colonel was not on very good terms with Dr Valentine, but that
gentleman only had a brief interview with the daughter of the house, to whom he
is supposed to be paying serious attentions.

Traill,
the solicitor, says he left the Colonel entirely alone in the summer-house, and
this is confirmed by Floyd’s bird’s-eye view of the garden, which showed nobody
else passing the only entrance. Ten minutes later, Miss Druce again went down the
garden and had not reached the end of the path when she saw her father, who was
conspicuous by his white linen coat, lying in a heap on the floor. She uttered
a scream which brought others to the spot, and on entering the place they found
the Colonel lying dead beside his basket-chair, which was also upset. Dr
Valentine, who was still in the immediate neighbourhood, testified that the
wound was made by some sort of stiletto, entering under the shoulder-blade and
piercing the heart. The police have searched the neighbourhood for such a
weapon, but no trace of it can be found.

‘
So
Colonel Druce wore a white coat, did he?’ said Father Brown as he put down the paper.

‘
Trick
he learnt in the tropics,’ replied Fiennes, with some wonder. ‘He’d had some queer
adventures there, by his own account; and I fancy his dislike of Valentine was
connected with the doctor coming from the tropics, too. But it’s all an
infernal puzzle. The account there is pretty accurate. I didn’t see the
tragedy, in the sense of the discovery; I was out walking with the young
nephews and the dog — the dog I wanted to tell you about. But I saw the stage
set for it as described; the straight lane between the blue flowers right up to
the dark entrance, and the lawyer going down it in his blacks and his silk hat,
and the red head of the secretary showing high above the green hedge as he
worked on it with his shears. Nobody could have mistaken that red head at any
distance; and if people say they saw it there all the time, you may be sure
they did.

This
red-haired secretary, Floyd, is quite a character; a breathless bounding sort of
fellow, always doing everybody’s work as he was doing the gardener’s. I think
he is an American; he’s certainly got the American view of life — what they
call the view-point, bless ’em.’

‘
What
about the lawyer?’ asked Father Brown. There was a silence and then Fiennes spoke
quite slowly for him. ‘Traill struck me as a singular man. In his fine black
clothes he was almost foppish, yet you can hardly call him fashionable. For he
wore a pair of long, luxuriant black whiskers such as haven’t been seen since
Victorian times. He had rather a fine grave face and a fine grave manner, but
every now and then he seemed to remember to smile. And when he showed his white
teeth he seemed to lose a little of his dignity, and there was something faintly
fawning about him. It may have been only embarrassment, for he would also
fidget with his cravat and his tie-pin, which were at once handsome and unusual,
like himself. If I could think of anybody — but what’s the good, when the whole
thing’s impossible? Nobody knows who did it. Nobody knows how it could be done.
At least there’s only one exception I’d make, and that’s why I really mentioned
the whole thing. The dog knows.’

Father
Brown sighed and then said absently: ‘You were there as a friend of young Donald,
weren’t you? He didn’t go on your walk with you?’

‘
No,’
replied Fiennes smiling. ‘The young scoundrel had gone to bed that morning and got
up that afternoon. I went with his cousins, two young officers from India, and
our conversation was trivial enough. I remember the elder, whose name I think
is Herbert Druce and who is an authority on horse-breeding, talked about nothing
but a mare he had bought and the moral character of the man who sold her; while
his brother Harry seemed to be brooding on his bad luck at Monte Carlo. I only
mention it to show you, in the light of what happened on our walk, that there
was nothing psychic about us. The dog was the only mystic in our company.’

‘
What
sort of a dog was he?’ asked the priest.

‘
Same
breed as that one,’ answered Fiennes. ‘That’s what started me off on the story,
your saying you didn’t believe in believing in a dog. He’s a big black retriever,
named Nox, and a suggestive name, too; for I think what he did a darker mystery
than the murder. You know Druce’s house and garden are by the sea; we walked
about a mile from it along the sands and then turned back, going the other way.
We passed a rather curious rock called the Rock of Fortune, famous in the
neighbourhood because it’s one of those examples of one stone barely balanced
on another, so that a touch would knock it over. It is not really very high but
the hanging outline of it makes it look a little wild and sinister; at least it
made it look so to me, for I don’t imagine my jolly young companions were
afflicted with the picturesque. But it may be that I was beginning to feel an
atmosphere; for just then the question arose of whether it was time to go back
to tea, and even then I think I had a premonition that time counted for a good
deal in the business. Neither Herbert Druce nor I had a watch, so we called out
to his brother, who was some paces behind, having stopped to light his pipe
under the hedge. Hence it happened that he shouted out the hour, which was
twenty past four, in his big voice through the growing twilight; and somehow
the loudness of it made it sound like the proclamation of something tremendous.
His unconsciousness seemed to make it all the more so; but that was always the
way with omens; and particular ticks of the clock were really very ominous
things that afternoon. According to Dr Valentine’s testimony, poor Druce had
actually died just about half past four.

‘
Well,
they said we needn’t go home for ten minutes, and we walked a little farther along
the sands, doing nothing in particular — throwing stones for the dog and throwing
sticks into the sea for him to swim after. But to me the twilight seemed to
grow oddly oppressive, and the very shadow of the top-heavy Rock of Fortune lay
on me like a load. And then the curious thing happened. Nox had just brought
back Herbert’s walking-stick out of the sea and his brother had thrown his in
also. The dog swam out again, but just about what must have been the stroke of
the half-hour, he stopped swimming. He came back again on to the shore and
stood in front of us. Then he suddenly threw up his head and sent up a howl or
wail of woe — if ever I heard one in the world.

‘‘
What
the devil’s the matter with the dog?’ asked Herbert; but none of us could answer.
There was a long silence after the brute’s wailing and whining died away on the
desolate shore; and then the silence was broken. As I live, it was broken by a
faint and far-off shriek, like the shriek of a woman from beyond the hedges
inland. We didn’t know what it was then; but we knew afterwards. It was the cry
the girl gave when she first saw the body of her father.’

‘
You
went back, I suppose,’ said Father Brown patiently. ‘What happened then?’

‘
I’ll
tell you what happened then,’ said Fiennes with a grim emphasis. ‘When we got back
into that garden the first thing we saw was Traill, the lawyer; I can see him
now with his black hat and black whiskers relieved against the perspective of
the blue flowers stretching down to the summer-house, with the sunset and the
strange outline of the Rock of Fortune in the distance. His face and figure were
in shadow against the sunset; but I swear the white teeth were showing in his
head and he was smiling. The moment Nox saw that man the dog dashed forward and
stood in the middle of the path barking at him madly, murderously, volleying
out curses that were almost verbal in their dreadful distinctness of hatred.
And the man doubled up and fled, along the path between the flowers.’

Father
Brown sprang to his feet with a startling impatience. ‘So the dog denounced him,
did he?’ he cried. ‘The oracle of the dog condemned him. Did you see what birds
were flying, and are you sure whether they were on the right hand or the left? Did
you consult the augurs about the sacrifices? Surely you didn’t omit to cut open
the dog and examine his entrails. That is the sort of scientific test you heathen
humanitarians seem to trust when you are thinking of taking away the life and
honour of a man.’

Fiennes
sat gaping for an instant before he found breath to say: ‘Why, what’s the matter
with you? What have I done now?’ A sort of anxiety came back into the priest’s
eyes — the anxiety of a man who has run against a post in the dark and wonders
for a moment whether he has hurt it.