The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] (96 page)

He
looked around him in the vestibule to see that they were alone and then added, lowering
his voice:

“
I
don’t mind telling you, because I know you are a tower of silence where secrets
are concerned. But I had a curious shock the other day; and it has been repeated
several times since. You know that Mandeville always works in that little room
at the end of the passage, just under the stage. Well, twice over I happened to
pass by there when everyone thought he was alone; and what’s more, when I
myself happened to be able to account for all the women in the company, and all
the women likely to have to do with him, being absent or at their usual posts.”

“
All
the women?” remarked Father Brown inquiringly.

“
There
was a woman with him,” said Jarvis almost in a whisper. “There is some woman who
is always visiting him; somebody that none of us knows. I don’t even know how
she comes there, since it isn’t down the passage to the door; but I think I once
saw a veiled or cloaked figure passing out into the twilight at the back of the
theatre, like a ghost. But she can’t be a ghost. And I don’t believe she’s even
an ordinary ‘affair’. I don’t think it’s love-making. I think it’s blackmail.”

“
What
makes you think that?” asked the other.

“
Because,”
said Jarvis, his face turning from grave to grim, “I once heard sounds like a quarrel;
and then the strange woman said in a metallic, menacing voice, four words: ‘I
am your wife.’”

“
You
think he’s a bigamist,” said Father Brown reflectively. “Well, bigamy and
blackmail often go together, of course. But she may be bluffing as well as
blackmailing. She may be mad. These theatrical people often have monomaniacs
running after them. You may be right, but I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. . .
. And talking about theatrical people, isn’t the rehearsal going to begin, and
aren’t you a theatrical person?”

“
I’m
not on in this scene,” said Jarvis with a smile. “They’re only doing one act, you
know, until your Italian friend comes to her senses.”

“
Talking
about my Italian friend,” observed the priest, “I should rather like to know whether
she has come to her senses.”

“
We
can go back and see, if you like,” said Jarvis; and they descended again to the
basement and the long passage, at one end of which was Mandeville’s study and at
the other the closed door of Signora Maroni. The door seemed to be still closed;
and Mrs. Sands sat grimly outside it, as motionless as a wooden idol.

Near
the other end of the passage they caught a glimpse of some of the other actors in
the scene mounting the stairs to the stage just above. Vernon and old Randall
went ahead, running rapidly up the stairs; but Mrs. Mandeville went more
slowly, in her quietly dignified fashion, and Norman Knight seemed to linger a
little to speak to her. A few words fell on the ears of the unintentional
eavesdroppers as they passed.

“
I
tell you a woman visits him,” Knight was saying violently.

“
Hush!”
said the lady in her voice of silver that still had in it something of steel. “You
must not talk like this. Remember, he is my husband.”

“
I
wish to God I could forget it,” said Knight, and rushed up the stairs to the stage.

The
lady followed him, still pale and calm, to take up her own position there.

“
Somebody
else knows it,” said the priest quietly; “but I doubt whether it is any business
of ours.”

“
Yes,”
muttered Jarvis; “it seems as if everybody knows it and nobody knows anything about
it.”

They
proceeded along the passage to the other end, where the rigid attendant sat outside
the Italian’s door.

“
No;
she ain’t come out yet,” said the woman in her sullen way; “and she ain’t dead,
for I heard her moving about now and then. I dunno what tricks she’s up to.”

“
Do
you happen to know, ma’am,” said Father Brown with abrupt politeness, “where Mr.
Mandeville is just now?”

“
Yes,”
she replied promptly. “Saw him go into his little room at the end of the passage
a minute or two ago; just before the prompter called and the curtain went up —
Must be there still, for I ain’t seen him come out.”

“
There’s
no other door to his office, you mean,” said Father Brown in an off-hand way. “Well,
I suppose the rehearsal’s going in full swing now, for all the Signora’s sulking.”

“
Yes,”
said Jarvis after a moment’s silence; “I can just hear the voices on the stage from
here. Old Randall has a splendid carrying voice.”

They
both remained for an instant in a listening attitude, so that the booming voice
of the actor on the stage could indeed be heard rolling faintly down the stairs
and along the passage. Before they had spoken again or resumed their normal
poise, their ears were filled with another sound. It was a dull but heavy crash
and it came from behind the closed door of Mundon Mandeville’s private room.

Father
Brown went racing along the passage like an arrow from the bow and was struggling
with the door-handle before Jarvis had wakened with a start and begun to follow
him.

“
The
door is locked,” said the priest, turning a face that was a little pale. “And I
am all in favour of breaking down this door.”

“
Do
you mean,” asked Jarvis with a rather ghastly look, “that the unknown visitor has
got in here again? Do you think it’s anything serious?” After a moment he added:
“I may be able to push back the bolt; I know the fastening on these doors.”

He
knelt down and pulled out a pocket-knife with a long steel implement, manipulated
it for a moment, and the door swung open on the manager’s study. Almost the
first thing they noticed was that there was no other door and even no window,
but a great electric lamp stood on the table. But it was not quite the first
thing that they noticed; for even before that they had seen that Mandeville was
lying flat on his face in the middle of the room and the blood was crawling out
from under his fallen face like a pattern of scarlet snakes that glittered
evilly in that unnatural subterranean light.

They
did not know how long they had been staring at each other when Jarvis said, like
one letting loose something that he had held back with his breath:

“
If
the stranger got in somehow, she has gone somehow.”

“
Perhaps
we think too much about the stranger,” said Father Brown. “There are so many strange
things in this strange theatre that you rather tend to forget some of them.”

“
Why,
which things do you mean?” asked his friend quickly.

“
There
are many,” said the priest. “There is the other locked door, for instance.”

“
But
the other door is locked,” cried Jarvis staring.

“
But
you forgot it all the same,” said Father Brown. A few moments afterwards he said
thoughtfully: “That Mrs. Sands is a grumpy and gloomy sort of card.”

“
Do
you mean,” asked the other in a lowered voice, “that she’s lying and the Italian
did come out?”

“
No,”
said the priest calmly; “I think I meant it more or less as a detached study of
character.”

“
You
can’t mean,” cried the actor, “that Mrs. Sands did it herself?”

“
I
didn’t mean a study of her character,” said Father Brown.

While
they had been exchanging these abrupt reflections, Father Brown had knelt down by
the body and ascertained that it was beyond any hope or question a dead body.
Lying beside it, though not immediately visible from the doorway, was a dagger
of the theatrical sort; lying as if it had fallen from the wound or from the
hand of the assassin. According to Jarvis, who recognized the instrument, there
was not very much to be learned from it, unless the experts could find some
finger-prints. It was a property dagger; that is, it was nobody’s property; it
had been kicking about the theatre for a long time, and anybody might have
picked it up. Then the priest rose and looked gravely round the room.

“
We
must send for the police,” he said; “and for a doctor, though the doctor comes too
late. Looking at this room, by the way, I don’t see how our Italian friend could
manage it.”

“
The
Italian!” cried his friend; “I should think not. I should have thought she had an
alibi, if anybody had. Two separate rooms, both locked, at opposite ends of a
long passage, with a fixed witness watching it.”

“
No,”
said Father Brown. “Not quite. The difficulty is how she could have got in this
end. I think she might have got out the other end.”

“
And
why?” asked the other.

“
I
told you,” said Father Brown, “that it sounded as if she was breaking glass — mirrors
or windows. Stupidly enough I forgot something I knew quite well; that she is
pretty superstitious. She wouldn’t be likely to break a mirror; so I suspect
she broke a window. It’s true that all this is under the ground floor; but it
might be a skylight or a window opening on an area. But there don’t seem to be
any skylights or areas here.” And he stared at the ceiling very intently for a
considerable time.

Suddenly
he came back to conscious life again with a start. “We must go upstairs and telephone
and tell everybody. It is pretty painful ... My God, can you hear those actors
still shouting and ranting upstairs? The play is still going on. I suppose
that’s what they mean by tragic irony.”

When
it was fated that the theatre should be turned into a house of mourning, an opportunity
was given to the actors to show many of the real virtues of their type and
trade. They did, as the phrase goes, behave like gentlemen; and not only like
first walking gentlemen. They had not all of them liked or trusted Mandeville,
but they knew exactly the right things to say about him; they showed not only
sympathy but delicacy in their attitude to his widow. She had become, in a new
and very different sense, a tragedy queen — her lightest word was law and while
she moved about slowly and sadly, they ran her many errands.

“
She
was always a strong character,” said old Randall rather huskily; “and had the best
brains of any of us. Of course poor Mandeville was never on her level in education
and so on; but she always did her duty splendidly. It was quite pathetic the
way she would sometimes say she wished she had more intellectual life; but
Mandeville — well, nil nisi bonum, as they say.” And the old gentleman went
away wagging his head sadly.

“
Nil
nisi bonum indeed,” said Jarvis grimly. “I don’t think Randall at any rate has heard
of the story of the strange lady visitor. By the way, don’t you think it probably
was the strange woman?”

“
It
depends,” said the priest, “whom you mean by the strange woman.”

“
Oh!
I don’t mean the Italian woman,” said Jarvis hastily. “Though, as a matter of fact,
you were quite right about her, too. When they went in the skylight was smashed
and the room was empty; but so far as the police can discover, she simply went
home in the most harmless fashion. No, I mean the woman who was heard
threatening him at that secret meeting; the woman who said she was his wife. Do
you think she really was his wife?”

“
It
is possible,” said Father Brown, staring blankly into the void, “that she really
was his wife.”

“
That
would give us the motive of jealousy over his bigamous remarriage,” reflected Jarvis,
“for the body was not robbed in any way. No need to poke about for thieving
servants or even impecunious actors. But as for that, of course, you’ve noticed
the outstanding and peculiar thing about the case?”

“
I
have noticed several peculiar things,” said Father Brown. “Which one do you mean?”

“
I
mean the corporate alibi,” said Jarvis gravely. “It’s not often that practically
a whole company has a public alibi like that; an alibi on a lighted stage and
all witnessing to each other. As it turns out it is jolly lucky for our friends
here that poor Mandeville did put those two silly society women in the box to
watch the rehearsal. They can bear witness that the whole act was performed
without a hitch, with the characters on the stage all the time. They began long
before Mandeville was last seen going into his room. They went on at least five
or ten minutes after you and I found his dead body. And, by a lucky coincidence,
the moment we actually heard him fall was during the time when all the
characters were on the stage together.”

“
Yes,
that is certainly very important and simplifies everything,” agreed Father Brown.
“Let us count the people covered by the alibi. There was Randall: I rather
fancy Randall practically hated the manager, though he is very properly covering
his feelings just now. But he is ruled out; it was his voice we heard thundering
over our heads from the stage. There is our jeune premier, Mr. Knight: I have
rather good reason to suppose he was in love with Mandeville’s wife and not
concealing that sentiment so much as he might; but he is out of it, for he was
on the stage at the same time, being thundered at. There was that amiable Jew
who calls himself Aubrey Vernon, he’s out of it; and there’s Mrs. Mandeville,
she’s out of it. Their corporate alibi, as you say, depends chiefly on Lady
Miriam and her friend in the box; though there is the general common-sense
corroboration that the act had to be gone through and the routine of the
theatre seems to have suffered no interruption. The legal witnesses, however,
are Lady Miriam and her friend, Miss Talbot. I suppose you feel sure they are
all right?”