Authors: G.K. Chesterton
The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] (86 page)
“
I’m
afraid,” said the American, in tones that were still doubtful, and keeping his eye
on the priest rather as if he were a wild animal, “that you’d have to explain a
lot to me before I knew what you were talking about. The science of detection —
—”
Father
Brown snapped his fingers with the same animated annoyance. “That’s it,” he cried;
“that’s just where we part company. Science is a grand thing when you can get
it; in its real sense one of the grandest words in the world. But what do these
men mean, nine times out of ten, when they use it nowadays? When they say
detection is a science? When they say criminology is a science? They mean getting
outside a man and studying him as if he were a gigantic insect: in what they
would call a dry impartial light, in what I should call a dead and dehumanized
light. They mean getting a long way off him, as if he were a distant
prehistoric monster; staring at the shape of his ‘criminal skull’ as if it were
a sort of eerie growth, like the horn on a rhinoceros’s nose. When the scientist
talks about a type, he never means himself, but always his neighbour; probably
his poorer neighbour. I don’t deny the dry light may sometimes do good; though
in one sense it’s the very reverse of science. So far from being knowledge,
it’s actually suppression of what we know. It’s treating a friend as a
stranger, and pretending that something familiar is really remote and mysterious.
It’s like saying that a man has a proboscis between the eyes, or that he falls
down in a fit of insensibility once every twenty-four hours. Well, what you
call ‘the secret’ is exactly the opposite. I don’t try to get outside the man.
I try to get inside the murderer. . . . Indeed it’s much more than that, don’t
you see? I am inside a man. I am always inside a man, moving his arms and legs;
but I wait till I know I am inside a murderer, thinking his thoughts, wrestling
with his passions; till I have bent myself into the posture of his hunched and
peering hatred; till I see the world with his bloodshot and squinting eyes,
looking between the blinkers of his half-witted concentration; looking up the
short and sharp perspective of a straight road to a pool of blood. Till I am
really a murderer.”
“
Oh,”
said Mr. Chace, regarding him with a long, grim face, and added: “And that is what
you call a religious exercise.”
“
Yes,”
said Father Brown; “that is what I call a religious exercise.”
After
an instant’s silence he resumed: “It’s so real a religious exercise that I’d rather
not have said anything about it. But I simply couldn’t have you going off and
telling all your countrymen that I had a secret magic connected with Thought-Forms,
could I? I’ve put it badly, but it’s true. No man’s really any good till he
knows how bad he is, or might be; till he’s realized exactly how much right he
has to all this snobbery, and sneering, and talking about ‘criminals,’ as if
they were apes in a forest ten thousand miles away; till he’s got rid of all
the dirty self-deception of talking about low types and deficient skulls; till
he’s squeezed out of his soul the last drop of the oil of the Pharisees; till
his only hope is somehow or other to have captured one criminal, and kept him
safe and sane under his own hat.”
Flambeau
came forward and filled a great goblet with Spanish wine and set it before his friend,
as he had already set one before his fellow guest. Then he himself spoke for
the first time:
“
I
believe Father Brown has had a new batch of mysteries. We were talking about them
the other day, I fancy. He has been dealing with some queer people since we
last met.”
“
Yes;
I know the stories more or less — but not the application,” said Chace, lifting
his glass thoughtfully. “Can you give me any examples, I wonder. ... I mean, did
you deal with this last batch in that introspective style?”
Father
Brown also lifted his glass, and the glow of the fire turned the red wine transparent,
like the glorious blood-red glass of a martyr’s window. The red flame seemed to
hold his eyes and absorb his gaze that sank deeper and deeper into it, as if
that single cup held a red sea of the blood of all men, and his soul were a
diver, ever plunging in dark humility and inverted imagination, lower than its
lowest monsters and its most ancient slime. In that cup, as in a red mirror, he
saw many things; the doings of his last days moved in crimson shadows; the
examples that his companions demanded danced in symbolic shapes; and there passed
before him all the stories that are told here. Now, the luminous wine was like
a vast red sunset upon dark red sands, where stood dark figures of men; one was
fallen and another running towards him. Then the sunset seemed to break up into
patches: red lanterns swinging from garden trees and a pond gleaming red with
reflection; and then all the colour seemed to cluster again into a great rose
of red crystal, a jewel that irradiated the world like a red sun, save for the
shadow of a tall figure with a high head-dress as of some prehistoric priest;
and then faded again till nothing was left but a flame of wild red beard
blowing in the wind upon a wild grey moor. All these things, which may be seen
later from other angles and in other moods than his own, rose up in his memory
at the challenge and began to form themselves into anecdotes and arguments.
“
Yes,”
he said, as he raised the wine cup slowly to his lips, “I can remember pretty well
— —”
Mirror of the Magistrate
JAMES
BAGSHAW and Wilfred Underhill were old friends, and were fond of rambling through
the streets at night, talking interminably as they turned corner after corner
in the silent and seemingly lifeless labyrinth of the large suburb in which
they lived. The former, a big, dark, good-humoured man with a strip of black
moustache, was a professional police detective; the latter, a sharp-faced,
sensitive-looking gentleman with light hair, was an amateur interested in
detection. It will come as a shock to the readers of the best scientific romance
to learn that it was the policeman who was talking and the amateur who was
listening, even with a certain respect.
“
Ours
is the only trade,” said Bagshaw, “in which the professional is always supposed
to be wrong. After all, people don’t write stories in which hairdressers can’t cut
hair and have to be helped by a customer; or in which a cabman can’t drive a
cab until his fare explains to him the philosophy of cab-driving. For all that,
I’d never deny that we often tend to get into a rut: or, in other words, have
the disadvantages of going by a rule. Where the romancers are wrong is, that
they don’t allow us even the advantages of going by a rule.”
“
Surely,”
said Underhill, “Sherlock Holmes would say that he went by a logical rule.”
“
He
may be right,” answered the other; “but I mean a collective rule. It’s like the
staff work of an army. We pool our information.”
“
And
you don’t think detective stories allow for that?” asked his friend.
“
Well,
let’s take any imaginary case of Sherlock Holmes, and Lestrade, the official detective.
Sherlock Holmes, let us say, can guess that a total stranger crossing the
street is a foreigner, merely because he seems to look for the traffic to go to
the right instead of the left. I’m quite ready to admit Holmes might guess
that. I’m quite sure Lestrade wouldn’t guess anything of the kind. But what
they leave out is the fact that the policeman, who couldn’t guess, might very
probably know. Lestrade might know the man was a foreigner merely because his
department has to keep an eye on all foreigners; some would say on all natives,
too. As a policeman I’m glad the police know so much; for every man wants to do
his own job well. But as a citizen, I sometimes wonder whether they don’t know
too much.”
“
You
don’t seriously mean to say,” cried Underhill incredulously, “that you know anything
about strange people in a strange street. That if a man walked out of that
house over there, you would know anything about him?”
“
I
should if he was the householder,” answered Bagshaw. “That house is rented by a
literary man of Anglo-Roumanian extraction, who generally lives in Paris, but is
over here in connexion with some poetical play of his. His name’s Osric Orm, one
of the new poets, and pretty steep to read, I believe.”
“
But
I mean all the people down the road,” said his companion. “I was thinking how strange
and new and nameless everything looks, with these high blank walls and these
houses lost in large gardens. You can’t know all of them.”
“
I
know a few,” answered Bagshaw. “This garden wall we’re walking under is at the end
of the grounds of Sir Humphrey Gwynne, better known as Mr. Justice Gwynne, the
old judge who made such a row about spying during the war. The house next door
to it belongs to a wealthy cigar merchant. He comes from Spanish-America and
looks very swarthy and Spanish himself; but he bears the very English name of
Buller. The house beyond that — did you hear that noise?”
“
I
heard something,” said Underhill, “but I really don’t know what it was.”
“
I
know what it was,” replied the detective, “it was a rather heavy revolver, fired
twice, followed by a cry for help. And it came straight out of the back garden
of Mr. Justice Gwynne, that paradise of peace and legality.”
He
looked up and down the street sharply and then added:
“
And
the only gate of the back garden is half a mile round on the other side. I wish
this wall were a little lower, or I were a little lighter; but it’s got to be tried.”
“
It
is lower a little farther on,” said Underhill, “and there seems to be a tree that
looks helpful.”
They
moved hastily along and found a place where the wall seemed to stoop abruptly, almost
as if it had half-sunk into the earth; and a garden tree, flamboyant with the
gayest garden blossom, straggled out of the dark enclosure and was gilded by
the gleam of a solitary street-lamp. Bagshaw caught the crooked branch and
threw one leg over the low wall; and the next moment they stood knee-deep amid
the snapping plants of a garden border.
The
garden of Mr. Justice Gwynne by night was rather a singular spectacle. It was large
and lay on the empty edge of the suburb, in the shadow of a tall, dark house
that was the last in its line of houses. The house was literally dark, being
shuttered and unlighted, at least on the side overlooking the garden. But the
garden itself, which lay in its shadow, and should have been a tract of absolute
darkness, showed a random glitter, like that of fading fireworks; as if a giant
rocket had fallen in fire among the trees. As they advanced they were able to
locate it as the light of several coloured lamps, entangled in the trees like
the jewel fruits of Aladdin, and especially as the light from a small, round
lake or pond, which gleamed, with pale colours as if a lamp were kindled under
it.
“
Is
he having a party?” asked Underhill. “The garden seems to be illuminated.”
“
No,”
answered Bagshaw. “It’s a hobby of his, and I believe he prefers to do it when he’s
alone. He likes playing with a little plant of electricity that he works from
that bungalow or hut over there, where he does his work and keeps his papers.
Buller, who knows him very well, says the coloured lamps are rather more often
a sign he’s not to be disturbed.”
“
Sort
of red danger signals,” suggested the other.
“
Good
Lord! I’m afraid they are danger signals!” and he began suddenly to run.
A
moment after Underhill saw what he had seen. The opalescent ring of light, like
the halo of the moon, round the sloping sides of the pond, was broken by two black
stripes or streaks which soon proved themselves to be the long, black legs of a
figure fallen head downwards into the hollow, with the head in the pond.
“
Come
on,” cried the detective sharply, “that looks to me like — —”
His
voice was lost, as he ran on across the wide lawn, faintly luminous in the artificial
light, making a bee-line across the big garden for the pool and the fallen
figure. Underhill was trotting steadily in that straight track, when something
happened that startled him for the moment. Bagshaw, who was travelling as
steadily as a bullet towards the black figure by the luminous pool, suddenly
turned at a sharp angle and began to run even more rapidly towards the shadow
of the house. Underhill could not imagine what he meant by the altered
direction. The next moment, when the detective had vanished into the shadow of
the house, there came out of that obscurity the sound of a scuffle and a curse;
and Bagshaw returned lugging with him a little struggling man with red hair.
The captive had evidently been escaping under the shelter of the building, when
the quicker ears of the detective had heard him rustling like a bird among the
bushes.
“
Underhill,”
said the detective, “I wish you’d run on and see what’s up by the pool. And now,
who are you?” he asked, coming to a halt. “What’s your name?”
“
Michael
Flood,” said the stranger in a snappy fashion. He was an unnaturally lean little
man, with a hooked nose too large for his face, which was colourless, like
parchment, in contrast with the ginger colour of his hair. “I’ve got nothing to
do with this. I found him lying dead and I was scared; but I only came to
interview him for a paper.”
“
When
you interview celebrities for the Press,” said Bagshaw, “do you generally climb
over the garden wall?”
And
he pointed grimly to a trail of footprints coming and going along the path towards
the flower bed.
The
man calling himself Flood wore an expression equally grim.
“
An
interviewer might very well get over the wall,” he said, “for I couldn’t make anybody
hear at the front door. The servant had gone out.”
“
How
do you know he’d gone out?” asked the detective suspiciously.
“
Because,”
said Flood, with an almost unnatural calm, “I’m not the only person who gets over
garden walls. It seems just possible that you did it yourself. But, anyhow, the
servant did; for I’ve just this moment seen him drop over the wall, away on the
other side of the garden, just by the garden door.”
“
Then
why didn’t he use the garden door?” demanded the cross-examiner.
“
How
should I know?” retorted Flood. “Because it was shut, I suppose. But you’d better
ask him, not me; he’s coming towards the house at this minute.”
There
was, indeed, another shadowy figure beginning to be visible through the fire-shot
gloaming, a squat, square-headed figure, wearing a red waistcoat as the most
conspicuous part of a rather shabby livery. He appeared to be making with
unobtrusive haste towards a side-door in the house, until Bagshaw halloed to
him to halt. He drew nearer to them very reluctantly, revealing a heavy, yellow
face, with a touch of something Asiatic which was consonant with his flat,
blue-black hair.
Bagshaw
turned abruptly to the man called Flood. “Is there anybody in this place,” he said,
“who can testify to your identity?”
“
Not
many, even in this country,” growled Flood. “I’ve only just come from Ireland; the
only man I know round here is the priest at St. Dominic’s Church — Father Brown.”
“
Neither
of you must leave this place,” said Bagshaw, and then added to the servant: “But
you can go into the house and ring up St. Dominic’s Presbytery and ask Father
Brown if he would mind coming round here at once. No tricks, mind.”
While
the energetic detective was securing the potential fugitives, his companion, at
his direction, had hastened on to the actual scene of the tragedy. It was a strange
enough scene; and, indeed, if the tragedy had not been tragic it would have
been highly fantastic. The dead man (for the briefest examination proved him to
be dead) lay with his head in the pond, where the glow of the artificial illumination
encircled the head with something of the appearance of an unholy halo. The face
was gaunt and rather sinister, the brow bald, and the scanty curls dark grey,
like iron rings; and, despite the damage done by the bullet wound in the
temple, Underhill had no difficulty in recognizing the features he had seen in
the many portraits of Sir Humphrey Gwynne. The dead man was in evening-dress,
and his long, black legs, so thin as to be almost spidery, were sprawling at
different angles up the steep bank from which he had fallen. As by some weird
whim of diabolical arabesque, blood was eddying out, very slowly, into the
luminous water in snaky rings, like the transparent crimson of sunset clouds.
Underhill
did not know how long he stood staring down at this macabre figure, when he looked
up and saw a group of four figures standing above him on the bank. He was
prepared for Bagshaw and his Irish captive, and he had no difficulty in guessing
the status of the servant in the red waistcoat. But the fourth figure had a
sort of grotesque solemnity that seemed strangely congruous to that incongruity.
It was a stumpy figure with a round face and a hat like a black halo. He
realized that it was, in fact, a priest; but there was something about it that
reminded him of some quaint old black woodcut at the end of a Dance of Death.
Then
he heard Bagshaw saying to the priest:
“
I’m
glad you can identify this man; but you must realize that he’s to some extent under
suspicion. Of course, he may be innocent; but he did enter the garden in an
irregular fashion.”
“
Well,
I think he’s innocent myself,” said the little priest in a colourless voice. “But,
of course, I may be wrong.”
“
Why
do you think he is innocent?”
“
Because
he entered the garden in an irregular fashion,” answered the cleric. “You see, I
entered it in a regular fashion myself. But I seem to be almost the only person
who did. All the best people seem to get over garden walls nowadays.”
“
What
do you mean by a regular fashion?” asked the detective.
“
Well,”
said Father Brown, looking at him with limpid gravity, “I came in by the front door.
I often come into houses that way.”
“
Excuse
me,” said Bagshaw, “but does it matter very much how you came in, unless you propose
to confess to the murder?”
“
Yes,
I think it does,” said the priest mildly. “The truth is, that when I came in at
the front door I saw something I don’t think any of the rest of you have seen. It
seems to me it might have something to do with it.”
“
What
did you see?”
“
I
saw a sort of general smash-up,” said Father Brown in his mild voice. “A big looking-glass
broken, and a small palm tree knocked over, and the pot smashed all over the
floor. Somehow, it looked to me as if something had happened.”