The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] (89 page)

“
I’m
glad to hear it,” said Bagshaw with grim good-nature. “what was it?”

“
You
said,” observed the priest, “that Sir Arthur must have some good reason for wanting
to get Orm hanged.”

A
week later the priest met the police detective once more, and learned that the authorities
had already been moving on the new lines of inquiry when they were interrupted
by a sensational event.

“
Sir
Arthur Travers,” began Father Brown.

“
Sir
Arthur Travers is dead,” said Bagshaw, briefly.

“
Ah!”
said the other, with a little catch in his voice; “you mean that he —”

“
Yes,”
said Bagshaw, “he shot at the same man again, but not in a mirror.”

THIS
tale was told by Father Brown to Professor Crake, the celebrated criminologist,
after dinner at a club, where the two were introduced to each other as sharing a
harmless hobby of murder and robbery. But, as Father Brown’s version rather minimized
his own part in the matter, it is here re-told in a more impartial style. It
arose out of a playful passage of arms, in which the professor was very scientific
and the priest rather sceptical.

“
My
good sir,” said the professor in remonstrance, “don’t you believe that criminology
is a science?”

“
I’m
not sure,” replied Father Brown. “Do you believe that hagiology is a science?”

“
What’s
that?” asked the specialist sharply.

“
No;
it’s not the study of hags, and has nothing to do with burning witches,” said the
priest, smiling. “It’s the study of holy things, saints and so on. You see, the
Dark Ages tried to make a science about good people. But our own humane and enlightened
age is only interested in a science about bad ones. Yet I think our general
experience is that every conceivable sort of man has been a saint. And I
suspect you will find, too, that every conceivable sort of man has been a murderer.”

“
Well,
we believe murderers can be pretty well classified,” observed Crake. “The list sounds
rather long and dull; but I think it’s exhaustive. First, all killing can be
divided into rational and irrational, and we’ll take the last first, because
they are much fewer. There is such a thing as homicidal mania, or love of
butchery in the abstract. There is such a thing as irrational antipathy, though
it’s very seldom homicidal. Then we come to the true motives: of these, some
are less rational in the sense of being merely romantic and retrospective. Acts
of pure revenge are acts of hopeless revenge. Thus a lover will sometimes kill
a rival he could never supplant, or a rebel assassinate a tyrant after the conquest
is complete. But, more often, even these acts have a rational explanation. They
are hopeful murders. They fall into the larger section of the second division,
of what we may call prudential crimes. These, again, fall chiefly under two
descriptions. A man kills either in order to obtain what the other man
possesses, either by theft or inheritance, or to stop the other man from acting
in some way: as in the case of killing a blackmailer or a political opponent;
or, in the case of a rather more passive obstacle, a husband or wife whose
continued functioning, as such, interferes with other things. We believe that
classification is pretty thoroughly thought out and, properly applied, covers
the whole ground — But I’m afraid that it perhaps sounds rather dull; I hope
I’m not boring you.”

“
Not
at all,” said Father Brown. “If I seemed a little absent-minded I must apologize;
the truth is, I was thinking of a man I once knew. He was a murderer; but I
can’t see where he fits into your museum of murderers. He was not mad, nor did
he like killing. He did not hate the man he killed; he hardly knew him, and
certainly had nothing to avenge on him. The other man did not possess anything
that he could possibly want. The other man was not behaving in any way which
the murderer wanted to stop. The murdered man was not in a position to hurt, or
hinder, or even affect the murderer in any way. There was no woman in the case.
There were no politics in the case. This man killed a fellow-creature who was
practically a stranger, and that for a very strange reason; which is possibly
unique in human history.”

And
so, in his own more conversational fashion, he told the story. The story may well
begin in a sufficiently respectable setting, at the breakfast table of a worthy
though wealthy suburban family named Bankes, where the normal discussion of the
newspaper had, for once, been silenced by the discussion about a mystery nearer
home. Such people are sometimes accused of gossip about their neighbours, but
they are in that matter almost inhumanly innocent. Rustic villagers tell tales
about their neighbours, true and false; but the curious culture of the modern
suburb will believe anything it is told in the papers about the wickedness of
the Pope, or the martyrdom of the King of the Cannibal Islands, and, in the
excitement of these topics, never knows what is happening next door. In this
case, however, the two forms of interest actually coincided in a coincidence of
thrilling intensity. Their own suburb had actually been mentioned in their
favourite newspaper. It seemed to them like a new proof of their own existence
when they saw the name in print. It was almost as if they had been unconscious
and invisible before; and now they were as real as the King of the Cannibal
Islands.

It
was stated in the paper that a once famous criminal, known as Michael Moonshine,
and many other names that were presumably not his own, had recently been
released after a long term of imprisonment for his numerous burglaries; that
his whereabouts was being kept quiet, but that he was believed to have settled
down in the suburb in question, which we will call for convenience Chisham. A
resume of some of his famous and daring exploits and escapes was given in the
same issue. For it is a character of that kind of press, intended for that kind
of public, that it assumes that its reader have no memories. While the peasant
will remember an outlaw like Robin Hood or Rob Roy for centuries, the clerk
will hardly remember the name of the criminal about whom he argued in trams and
tubes two years before. Yet, Michael Moonshine had really shown some of the
heroic rascality of Rob Roy or Robin Hood. He was worthy to be turned into
legend and not merely into news. He was far too capable a burglar to be a
murderer. But his terrific strength and the ease with which he knocked
policemen over like ninepins, stunned people, and bound and gagged them, gave
something almost like a final touch of fear or mystery to the fact that he
never killed them. People almost felt that he would have been more human if he
had.

Mr.
Simon Bankes, the father of the family, was at once better read and more old-fashioned
than the rest. He was a sturdy man, with a short grey beard and a brow barred
with wrinkles. He had a turn for anecdotes and reminiscence, and he distinctly
remembered the days when Londoners had lain awake listening for Mike Moonshine
as they did for Spring-heeled Jack. Then there was his wife, a thin, dark lady.
There was a sort of acid elegance about her, for her family had much more money
than her husband’s, if rather less education; and she even possessed a very
valuable emerald necklace upstairs, that gave her a right to prominence in a
discussion about thieves. There was his daughter, Opal, who was also thin and
dark and supposed to be psychic — at any rate, by herself; for she had little domestic
encouragement. Spirits of an ardently astral turn will be well advised not to
materialize as members of a large family. There was her brother John, a burly
youth, particularly boisterous in his indifference to her spiritual development;
and otherwise distinguishable only by his interest in motor-cars. He seemed to
be always in the act of selling one car and buying another; and by some
process, hard for the economic theorist to follow, it was always possible to
buy a much better article by selling the one that was damaged or discredited.
There was his brother Philip, a young man with dark curly hair, distinguished
by his attention to dress; which is doubtless part of the duty of a
stockbroker’s clerk, but, as the stockbroker was prone to hint, hardly the whole
of it. Finally, there was present at this family scene his friend, Daniel Devine,
who was also dark and exquisitely dressed, but bearded in a fashion that was
somewhat foreign, and therefore, for many, slightly menacing.

It
was Devine who had introduced the topic of the newspaper paragraph, tactfully insinuating
so effective an instrument of distraction at what looked like the beginning of
a small family quarrel; for the psychic lady had begun the description of a
vision she had had of pale faces floating in empty night outside her window,
and John Bankes was trying to roar down this revelation of a higher state with
more than his usual heartiness.

But
the newspaper reference to their new and possibly alarming neighbour soon put both
controversialists out of court.

“
How
frightful,” cried Mrs. Bankes. “He must be quite a new-comer; but who can he possibly
be?”

“
I
don’t know any particularly new-comers,” said her husband, “except Sir Leopold Pulman,
at Beechwood House.”

“
My
dear,” said the lady, “how absurd you are — Sir Leopold!” Then, after a pause, she
added: “If anybody suggested his secretary now — that man with the whiskers;
I’ve always said, ever since he got the place Philip ought to have had — —”

“
Nothing
doing,” said Philip languidly, making his sole contribution to the conversation.
“Not good enough.”

“
The
only one I know,” observed Devine, “is that man called Carver, who is stopping at
Smith’s Farm. He lives a very quiet life, but he’s quite interesting to talk to.
I think John has had some business with him.”

“
Knows
a bit about cars,” conceded the monomaniac John. “He’ll know a bit more when he’s
been in my new car.”

Devine
smiled slightly; everybody had been threatened with the hospitality of John’s new
car. Then he added reflectively:

“
That’s
a little what I feel about him. He knows a lot about motoring and travelling, and
the active ways of the world, and yet he always stays at home pottering about
round old Smith’s beehives. Says he’s only interested in bee culture, and that’s
why he’s staying with Smith. It seems a very quiet hobby for a man of his sort.
However, I’ve no doubt John’s car will shake him up a bit.”

As
Devine walked away from the house that evening his dark face wore an expression
of concentrated thought. His thoughts would, perhaps, have been worthy of our attention,
even at this stage; but it is enough to say that their practical upshot was a
resolution to pay an immediate visit to Mr. Carver at the house of Mr. Smith.
As he was making his way thither he encountered Barnard, the secretary at
Beechwood House, conspicuous by his lanky figure and the large side whiskers
which Mrs. Bankes counted among her private wrongs. Their acquaintance was
slight, and their conversation brief and casual; but Devine seemed to find in
it food for further cogitation.

“
Look
here,” he said abruptly, “excuse my asking, but is it true that Lady Pulman has
some very famous jewellery up at the House? I’m not a professional thief, but I’ve
just heard there’s one hanging about.”

“
I’ll
get her to give an eye to them,” answered the secretary. “To tell the truth, I’ve
ventured to warn her about them already myself. I hope she has attended to it.”

As
they spoke, there came the hideous cry of a motor-horn just behind, and John Bankes
came to a stop beside them, radiant at his own steering-wheel. When he heard of
Devine’s destination he claimed it as his own, though his tone suggested rather
an abstract relish for offering people a ride. The ride was consumed in
continuous praises of the car, now mostly in the matter of its adaptability to
weather.

“
Shuts
up as tight as a box,” he said, “and opens as easy — as easy as opening your mouth.”

Devine’s
mouth, at the moment, did not seem so easy to open, and they arrived at Smith’s
farm to the sound of a soliloquy. Passing the outer gate, Devine found the man he
was looking for without going into the house. The man was walking about in the
garden, with his hands in his pockets, wearing a large, limp straw hat; a man
with a long face and a large chin. The wide brim cut off the upper part of his
face with a shadow that looked a little like a mask. In the background was a
row of sunny beehives, along which an elderly man, presumably Mr. Smith, was moving
accompanied by a short, commonplace-looking companion in black clerical costume.

“
I
say,” burst in the irrepressible John, before Devine could offer any polite greeting,
“I’ve brought her round to give you a little run. You see if she isn’t better
than a ‘Thunderbolt.’”

Mr
Carver’s mouth set into a smile that may have been meant to be gracious, but looked
rather grim. “I’m afraid I shall be too busy for pleasure this evening,” he
said.

“
How
doth the little busy bee,” observed Devine, equally enigmatically. “Your bees must
be very busy if they keep you at it all night. I was wondering if — —”

“
Well,”
demanded Carver, with a certain cool defiance.

“
Well,
they say we should make hay while the sun shines,” said Devine. “Perhaps you make
honey while the moon shines.”

There
came a flash from the shadow of the broad-brimmed hat, as the whites of the man’s
eyes shifted and shone.

“
Perhaps
there is a good deal of moonshine in the business,” he said: “but I warn you my
bees do not only make honey. They sting.”

“
Are
you coming along in the car?” insisted the staring John. But Carver, though he threw
off the momentary air of sinister significance with which he had been answering
Devine, was still positive in his polite refusal.

“
I
can’t possibly go,” he said. “Got a lot of writing to do. Perhaps you’d be kind
enough to give some of my friends a run, if you want a companion. This is my friend,
Mr. Smith, Father Brown —”