The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] (83 page)

He
found the group of three augmented to four by the presence of a hatchet-faced person
with very thin straw-coloured hair and a monocle, who appeared to be a sort of
adviser to old Gallup, possibly his solicitor, though he was not definitely so
called. His name was Nares, and the questions which he directed towards Byrne
referred chiefly, for some reason or other, to the number of those probably
enrolled in the revolutionary organization. Of this, as Byrne knew little, he
said less; and the four men eventually rose from their seats, the last word
being with the man who had been most silent.

‘
Thank
you, Mr Byrne,’ said Stein, folding up his eyeglasses. ‘It only remains to say that
everything is ready; on that point I quite agree with Mr Elias. Tomorrow, before
noon, the police will have arrested Mr Elias, on evidence I shall by then have
put before them, and those three at least will be in jail before night. As you
know, I attempted to avoid this course. I think that is all, gentlemen.’

But
Mr Jacob P. Stein did not lay his formal information next day, for a reason that
has often interrupted the activities of such industrious characters. He did not
do it because he happened to be dead; and none of the rest of the programme was
carried out, for a reason which Byrne found displayed in gigantic letters when
he opened his morning paper: ‘Terrific Triple Murder: Three Millionaires Slain
in One Night.’ Other exclamatory phrases followed in smaller letters, only
about four times the size of normal type, which insisted on the special feature
of the mystery: the fact that the three men had been killed not only
simultaneously but in three widely separated places — Stein in his artistic and
luxurious country seat a hundred miles inland, Wise outside the little bungalow
on the coast where he lived on sea breezes and the simple life, and old Gallup
in a thicket just outside the lodge-gates of his great house at the other end
of the county. In all three cases there could be no doubt about the scenes of
violence that had preceded death, though the actual body of Gallup was not
found till the second day, where it hung, huge and horrible, amid the broken
forks and branches of the little wood into which its weight had crashed, like a
bison rushing on the spears: while Wise had clearly been flung over the cliff
into the sea, not without a struggle, for his scraping and slipping footprints could
still be traced upon the very brink. But the first signal of the tragedy had
been the sight of his large limp straw hat, floating far out upon the waves and
conspicuous from the cliffs above. Stein’s body also had at first eluded
search, till a faint trail of blood led the investigators to a bath on the
ancient Roman model he had been constructing in his garden; for he had been a
man of an experimental turn of mind with a taste for antiquities.

Whatever
he might think, Byrne was bound to admit that there was no legal evidence against
anybody as things stood. A motive for murder was not enough. Even a moral
aptitude for murder was not enough. And he could not conceive that pale young
pacifist, Henry Home, butchering another man by brutal violence, though he
might imagine the blaspheming Jake and even the sneering Jew as capable of anything.
The police, and the man who appeared to be assisting them (who was no other
than the rather mysterious man with the monocle, who had been introduced as Mr
Nares), realized the position quite as clearly as the journalist.

They
knew that at the moment the Bolshevist conspirators could not be prosecuted and
convicted, and that it would be a highly sensational failure if they were
prosecuted and acquitted. Nares started with an artful candour by calling them
in some sense to the council, inviting them to a private conclave and asking
them to give their opinions freely in the interests of humanity. He had started
his investigations at the nearest scene of tragedy, the bungalow by the sea;
and Byrne was permitted to be present at a curious scene, which was at once a peaceful
parley of diplomatists and a veiled inquisition or putting of suspects to the
question. Rather to Byrne’s surprise the incongruous company, seated round the
table in the seaside bungalow, included the dumpy figure and owlish head of
Father Brown, though his connexion with the affair did not appear until some
time afterwards. The presence of young Potter, the dead man’s secretary, was
more natural; yet somehow his demeanour was not quite so natural. He alone was
quite familiar with their meeting-place, and was even in some grim sense their
host; yet he offered little assistance or information. His round snub-nosed
face wore an expression more like sulks than sorrow.

Jake
Halket as usual talked most; and a man of his type could not be expected to keep
up the polite fiction that he and his friends were not accused. Young Home, in
his more refined way, tried to restrain him when he began to abuse the men who
had been murdered; but Jake was always quite as ready to roar down his friends
as his foes. In a spout of blasphemies he relieved his soul of a very unofficial
obituary notice of the late Gideon Wise. Elias sat quite still and apparently
indifferent behind those spectacles that masked his eyes.

‘
It
would be useless, I suppose,’ said Nares coldly, ‘to tell you that your remarks
are indecent. It may affect you more if I tell you they are imprudent. You practically
admit that you hated the dead man.’

‘
Going
to put me in quod for that, are you?’ jeered the demagogue. ‘All right. Only you’ll
have to build a prison for a million men if you’re going to jail all the poor
people who had reason to hate Gid Wise. And you know it’s God truth as well as
I do.’

Nares
was silent; and nobody spoke until Elias interposed with his clear though faintly
lisping drawl.

‘
This
appears to me to be a highly unprofitable discussion on both sides,’ he said. ‘You
have summoned us here either to ask us for information or to subject us to cross-examination.
If you trust us, we tell you we have no information. If you distrust us, you
must tell us of what we are accused, or have the politeness to keep the fact to
yourselves. Nobody has been able to suggest the faintest trace of evidence
connecting any one of us with these tragedies any more than with the murder of
Julius Caesar. You dare not arrest us, and you will not believe us. What is the
good of our remaining here?’

And
he rose, calmly buttoning his coat, his friends following his example. As they went
towards the door, young Home turned back and faced the investigators for a moment
with his pale fanatical face.

‘
I
wish to say,’ he said, ‘that I went to a filthy jail during the whole war because
I would not consent to kill a man.’

With
that they passed out, and the members of the group remaining looked grimly at each
other.

‘
I
hardly think,’ said Father Brown, ‘that we remain entirely victorious, in spite
of the retreat.’

‘
I
don’t mind anything,’ said Nares, ‘except being bullyragged by that blasphemous
blackguard Halket. Home is a gentleman, anyhow. But whatever they say, I am dead
certain they know; they are in it, or most of them are. They almost admitted
it. They taunted us with not being able to prove we’re right, much more than
with being wrong. What do you think, Father Brown?’

The
person addressed looked across at Nares with a gaze almost disconcertingly mild
and meditative.

‘
It
is quite true,’ he said, ‘that I have formed an idea that one particular person
knows more than he has told us. But I think it would be well if I did not mention
his name just yet.’

Nares’
eyeglass dropped from his eye, and he looked up sharply. ‘This is unofficial so
far,’ he said. ‘I suppose you know that at a later stage if you withhold information,
your position may be serious.’

‘
My
position is simple,’ replied the priest. ‘I am here to look after the legitimate
interests of my friend Halket. I think it will be in his interest, under the
circumstances, if I tell you I think he will before long sever his connexion
with this organization, and cease to be a Socialist in that sense. I have every
reason to believe he will probably end as a Catholic.’

‘
Halket!’
exploded the other incredulously. ‘Why he curses priests from morning till night!’

‘
I
don’t think you quite understand that kind of man,’ said Father Brown mildly. ’He
curses priests for failing (in his opinion) to defy the whole world for justice.
Why should he expect them to defy the whole world for justice, unless he had
already begun to assume they were — what they are? But we haven’t met here to
discuss the psychology of conversion. I only mention this because it may
simplify your task — perhaps narrow your search.’

‘
If
it is true, it would jolly well narrow it to that narrow-faced rascal Elias — and
I shouldn’t wonder, for a more creepy, coldblooded, sneering devil I never saw.’

Father
Brown sighed. ‘He always reminded me of poor Stein,’ he said, ’in fact I think he
was some relation.’

‘
Oh,
I say,’ began Nares, when his protest was cut short by the door being flung open,
revealing once more the long loose figure and pale face of young Home; but it
seemed as if he had not merely his natural, but a new and unnatural pallor.

‘
Hullo,’
cried Nares, putting up his single eyeglass, ‘why have you come back again?’

Home
crossed the room rather shakily without a word and sat down heavily in a chair.
Then he said, as in a sort of daze: ‘I missed the others ... I lost my way. I thought
I’d better come back.’

The
remains of evening refreshments were on the table, and Henry Home, that lifelong
Prohibitionist, poured himself out a wine-glassful of liqueur brandy and drank
it at a gulp. ‘You seem upset,’ said Father Brown.

Home
had put his hands to his forehead and spoke as from under the shadow of it: he seemed
to be speaking to the priest only, in a low voice.

‘
I
may as well tell you. I have seen a ghost.’

‘
A
ghost!’ repeated Nares in astonishment. ‘Whose ghost?’

‘
The
ghost of Gideon Wise, the master of this house,’ answered Home more firmly, ‘standing
over the abyss into which he fell.’

‘
Oh,
nonsense!’ said Nares; ‘no sensible person believes in ghosts.’

‘
That
is hardly exact,’ said Father Brown, smiling a little. ‘There is really quite as
good evidence for many ghosts as there is for most crimes.’

‘
Well,
it’s my business to run after the criminals,’ said Nares rather roughly, ‘and I
will leave other people to run away from the ghosts. If anybody at this time of
day chooses to be frightened of ghosts it’s his affair.’

‘
I
didn’t say I was frightened of them, though I dare say I might be,’ said Father
Brown. ‘Nobody knows till he tries. I said I believed in them, at any rate, enough
to want to hear more about this one. What, exactly, did you see, Mr Home?’

‘
It
was over there on the brink of those crumbling cliffs; you know there is a sort
of gap or crevice just about the spot where he was thrown over. The others had gone
on ahead, and I was crossing the moor towards the path along the cliff. I often
went that way, for I liked seeing the high seas dash up against the crags. I
thought little of it to-night, beyond wondering that the sea should be so rough
on this sort of clear moonlight night. I could see the pale crests of spray
appear and disappear as the great waves leapt up at the headland. Thrice I saw
the momentary flash of foam in the moonlight and then I saw something inscrutable.
The fourth flash of the silver foam seemed to be fixed in the sky. It did not
fall; I waited with insane intensity for it to fall. I fancied I was mad, and
that time had been for me mysteriously arrested or prolonged. Then I drew
nearer, and then I think I screamed aloud. For that suspended spray, like unfallen
snowflakes, had fitted together into a face and a figure, white as the shining
leper in a legend, and terrible as the fixed lightning.’

‘
And
it was Gideon Wise, you say?’

Home
nodded without speech. There was a silence broken abruptly by Nares rising to his
feet; so abruptly indeed that he knocked a chair over.

‘
Oh,
this is all nonsense,’ he said, ‘but we’d better go out and see.’

‘
I
won’t go,’ said Home with sudden violence. ‘I’ll never walk by that path again.’

‘
I
think we must all walk by that path tonight,’ said the priest gravely; ’though I
will never deny it has been a perilous path ... to more people than one.’

‘
I
will not... God, how you all goad me,’ cried Home, and his eyes began to roll in
a strange fashion. He had risen with the rest, but he made no motion towards the
door.

‘
Mr
Home,’ said Nares firmly, ‘I am a police-officer, and this house, though you may
not know it, is surrounded by the police. I have tried to investigate in a friendly
fashion, but I must investigate everything, even anything so silly as a ghost.
I must ask you to take me to the spot you speak of.’

There
was another silence while Home stood heaving and panting as with indescribable fears.
Then he suddenly sat down on his chair again and said with an entirely new and
much more composed voice:

‘
I
can’t do it. You may just as well know why. You will know it sooner or later. I
killed him.’