The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] (97 page)

“
Lady
Miriam?” said Jarvis in surprise. “Oh, yes. ... I suppose you mean that she looks
a queer sort of vamp. But you’ve no notion what even the ladies of the best families
are looking like nowadays. Besides, is there any particular reason for doubting
their evidence?”

“
Only
that it brings us up against a blank wall,” said Father Brown. “Don’t you see that
this collective alibi practically covers everybody? Those four were the only
performers in the theatre at the time; and there were scarcely any servants in
the theatre; none indeed, except old Sam, who guards the only regular entrance,
and the woman who guarded Miss Maroni’s door. There is nobody else left
available but you and me. We certainly might be accused of the crime, especially
as we found the body. There seems nobody else who can be accused. You didn’t
happen to kill him when I wasn’t looking, I suppose?”

Jarvis
looked up with a slight start and stared a moment, then the broad grin returned
to his swarthy face. He shook his head.

“
You
didn’t do it,” said Father Brown; “and we will assume for the moment, merely for
the sake of argument, that I didn’t do it. The people on the stage being out of
it, it really leaves the Signora behind her locked door, the sentinel in front
of her door, and old Sam. Or are you thinking of the two ladies in the box? Of
course they might have slipped out of the box.”

“
No,”
said Jarvis; “I am thinking of the unknown woman who came and told Mandeville she
was his wife.”

“
Perhaps
she was,” said the priest; and this time there was a note in his steady voice that
made his companion start to his feet once more and lean across the table.

“
We
said,” he observed in a low, eager voice, “that this first wife might have been
jealous of the other wife.”

“
No,”
said Father Brown; “she might have been jealous of the Italian girl, perhaps, or
of Lady Miriam Marden. But she was not jealous of the other wife.”

“
And
why not?”

“
Because
there was no other wife,” said Father Brown. “So far from being a bigamist, Mr.
Mandeville seems to me to have been a highly monogamous person. His wife was almost
too much with him; so much with him that you all charitably suppose that she
must be somebody else. But I don’t see how she could have been with him when he
was killed, for we agree that she was acting all the time in front of the footlights.
Acting an important part, too. ...”

“
Do
you really mean,” cried Jarvis, “that the strange woman who haunted him like a ghost
was only the Mrs. Mandeville we know?” But he received no answer; for Father
Brown was staring into vacancy with a blank expression almost like an idiot’s.
He always did look most idiotic at the instant when he was most intelligent.

The
next moment he scrambled to his feet, looking very harassed and distressed. “This
is awful,” he said. “I’m not sure it isn’t the worst business I ever had; but
I’ve got to go through with it. Would you go and ask Mrs. Mandeville if I may
speak to her in private?”

“
Oh,
certainly,” said Jarvis, as he turned towards the door. “But what’s the matter with
you?”

“
Only
being a born fool,” said Father Brown; “a very common complaint in this vale of
tears. I was fool enough to forget altogether that the play was The School For Scandal.”

He
walked restlessly up and down the room until Jarvis re-appeared at the door with
an altered and even alarmed face.

“
I
can’t find her anywhere,” he said. “Nobody seems to have seen her.”

“
They
haven’t seen Norman Knight either, have they?” asked Father Brown dryly. “Well,
it saves me the most painful interview of my life. Saving the grace of God, I was
very nearly frightened of that woman. But she was frightened of me, too; frightened
of something I’d seen or said. Knight was always begging her to bolt with him.
Now she’s done it; and I’m devilish sorry for him.”

“
For
him?” inquired Jarvis.

“
Well,
it can’t be very nice to elope with a murderess,” said the other dispassionately.
“But as a matter of fact she was something very much worse than a murderess.”

“
And
what is that?”

“
An
egoist,” said Father Brown. “She was the sort of person who had looked in the mirror
before looking out of the window, and it is the worst calamity of mortal life.
The looking-glass was unlucky for her, all right; but rather because it wasn’t
broken.”

“
I
can’t understand what all this means,” said Jarvis. “Everybody regarded her as a
person of the most exalted ideals, almost moving on a higher spiritual plane than
the rest of us. ...”

“
She
regarded herself in that light,” said the other; “and she knew how to hypnotize
everybody else into it. Perhaps I hadn’t known her long enough to be wrong about
her. But I knew the sort of person she was five minutes after I clapped eyes on
her.”

“
Oh,
come.” cried Jarvis; “I’m sure her behaviour about the Italian was beautiful.”

“
Her
behaviour always was beautiful,” said the other. “I’ve heard from everybody here
all about her refinements and subtleties and spiritual soarings above poor Mandeville’s
head. But all these spiritualities and subtleties seem to me to boil themselves
down to the simple fact that she certainly was a lady and he most certainly was
not a gentleman. But, do you know, I have never felt quite sure that St. Peter
will make that the only test at the gate of heaven.

“
As
for the rest,” he went on with increasing animation, “I knew from the very first
words she said that she was not really being fair to the poor Italian, with all
her fine airs of frigid magnanimity. And again, I realized it when I knew that
the play was The School for Scandal.’

“
You
are going rather too fast for me,” said Jarvis in some bewilderment. “What does
it matter what the play was?”

“
Well,”
said the priest, “she said she had given the girl the part of the beautiful heroine
and had retired into the background herself with the older part of a matron.
Now that might have applied to almost any play; but it falsifies the facts
about that particular play. She can only have meant that she gave the other
actress the part of Maria, which is hardly a part at all. And the part of the
obscure and self-effacing married woman, if you please, must have been the part
of Lady Teazle, which is the only part any actress wants to act. If the Italian
was a first-rate actress who had been promised a first-rate part, there was
really some excuse, or at least some cause, for her mad Italian rage. There generally
is for mad Italian rages: Latins are logical and have a reason for going mad.
But that one little thing let in daylight for me on the meaning of her
magnanimity. And there was another thing, even then. You laughed when I said
that the sulky look of Mrs. Sands was a study in character; but not in the character
of Mrs. Sands. But it was true. If you want to know what a lady is really like,
don’t look at her; for she may be too clever for you. Don’t look at the men
round her, for they may be too silly about her. But look at some other woman
who is always near to her, and especially one who is under her. You will see in
that mirror her real face, and the face mirrored in Mrs. Sands was very ugly.

“
And
as for all the other impressions, what were they? I heard a lot about the unworthiness
of poor old Mandeville; but it was all about his being unworthy other, and I am
pretty certain it came indirectly from her. And, even so, it betrayed itself.
Obviously, from what every man said, she had confided in every man about her
confounded intellectual loneliness. You yourself said she never complained; and
then quoted her about how her uncomplaining silence strengthened her soul. And
that is just the note; that’s the unmistakable style. People who complain are
just jolly, human Christian nuisances; I don’t mind them. But people who
complain that they never complain are the devil. They are really the devil;
isn’t that swagger of stoicism the whole point of the Byronic cult of Satan? I
heard all this; but for the life of me I couldn’t hear of anything tangible she
had to complain of. Nobody pretended that her husband drank, or beat her, or
left her without money, or even was unfaithful, until the rumour about the
secret meetings, which were simply her own melodramatic habit of pestering him
with curtain-lectures in his own business office. And when one looked at the
facts, apart from the atmospheric impression of martyrdom she contrived to
spread, the facts were really quite the other way. Mandeville left off making
money on pantomimes to please her; he started losing money on classical drama
to please her. She arranged the scenery and furniture as she liked. She wanted
Sheridan’s play and she had it; she wanted the part of Lady Teazle and she had
it; she wanted a rehearsal without costume at that particular hour and she had
it. It may be worth remarking on the curious fact that she wanted that.”

“
But
what is the use of all this tirade?” asked the actor, who had hardly ever heard
his clerical friend, make so long a speech before. “We seem to have got a long way
from the murder in all this psychological business. She may have eloped with
Knight; she may have bamboozled Randall; she may have bamboozled me. But she
can’t have murdered her husband — for everyone agrees she was on the stage through
the whole scene. She may be wicked; but she isn’t a witch.”

“
Well,
I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Father Brown, with a smile. “But she didn’t need to
use any witchcraft in this case. I know now that she did it, and very simply indeed.”

“
Why
are you so sure of that?” asked Jarvis, looking at him in a puzzled way.

“
Because
the play was The School for Scandal,” replied Father Brown, “and that particular
act of The School for Scandal. I should like to remind you, as I said just now,
that she always arranged the furniture how she liked. I should also like to
remind you that this stage was built and used for pantomimes; it would
naturally have trap-doors and trick exits of that sort. And when you say that
witnesses could attest to having seen all the performers on the stage, I should
like to remind you that in the principal scene of The School for Scandal one of
the principal performers remains for a considerable time on the stage, but is
not seen. She is technically ‘on,’ but she might practically be very much
‘off.’ That is the Screen of Lady Teazle and the Alibi of Mrs. Mandeville.”

There
was a silence and then the actor said: “You think she slipped through a trap-door
behind a screen down to the floor below, where the manager’s room was?”

“
She
certainly slipped away in some fashion; and that is the most probable fashion,”
said the other. “I think it all the more probable because she took the opportunity
of an undress rehearsal, and even indeed arranged for one. It is a guess; but I
fancy if it had been a dress rehearsal it might have been more difficult to get
through a trap-door in the hoops of the eighteenth century. There are many
little difficulties, of course, but I think they could all be met in time and
in turn.”

“
What
I can’t meet is the big difficulty,” said Jarvis, putting his head on his hand with
a sort of groan. “I simply can’t bring myself to believe that a radiant and
serene creature like that could so lose, so to speak, her bodily balance, to
say nothing of her moral balance. Was any motive strong enough? Was she very much
in love with Knight?”

“
I
hope so,” replied his companion; “for really it would be the most human excuse.
But I’m sorry to say that I have my doubts. She wanted to get rid of her
husband, who was an old-fashioned, provincial hack, not even making much money.
She wanted to have a career as the brilliant wife of a brilliant and
rapidly-rising actor. But she didn’t want in that sense to act in The School
for Scandal. She wouldn’t have run away with a man except in the last resort.
It wasn’t a human passion with her, but a sort of hellish respectability. She
was always dogging her husband in secret and badgering him to divorce himself
or otherwise get out of the way; and as he refused he paid at last for his
refusal. There’s another thing you’ve got to remember. You talk about these
highbrows having a higher art and a more philosophical drama. But remember what
a lot of the philosophy is! Remember what sort of conduct those highbrows often
present to the highest! All about the Will to Power and the Right to Live and
the Right to Experience — damned nonsense and more than damned nonsense —
nonsense that can damn.”

Father
Brown frowned, which he did very rarely; and there was still a cloud on his brow
as he put on his hat and went out into the night.

SIR
ARTHUR VAUDREY, in his light-grey summer suit, and wearing on his grey head the
white hat which he so boldly affected, went walking briskly up the road by the river
from his own house to the little group of houses that were almost like outhouses
to his own, entered that little hamlet, and then vanished completely as if he
had been carried away by the fairies.

The
disappearance seemed the more absolute and abrupt because of the familiarity of
the scene and the extreme simplicity of the conditions of the problem. The hamlet
could not be called a village; indeed, it was little more than a small and
strangely-isolated street. It stood in the middle of wide and open fields and
plains, a mere string of the four or five shops absolutely needed by the neighbours;
that is, by a few farmers and the family at the great house. There was a
butcher’s at the corner, at which, it appeared, Sir Arthur had last been seen.
He was seen by two young men staying at his house — Evan Smith, who was acting
as his secretary, and John Dalmon, who was generally supposed to be engaged to
his ward. There was next to the butcher’s a small shop combining a large number
of functions, such as is found in villages, in which a little old woman sold
sweets, walking-sticks, golf-balls, gum, balls of string and a very faded sort
of stationery. Beyond this was the tobacconist, to which the two young men were
betaking themselves when they last caught a glimpse of their host standing in
front of the butcher’s shop; and beyond that was a dingy little dressmaker’s,
kept by two ladies. A pale and shiny shop, offering to the passer-by great
goblets of very wan, green lemonade, completed the block of buildings; for the
only real and Christian inn in the neighbourhood stood by itself some way, down
the main road. Between the inn and the hamlet was a cross-roads, at which stood
a policeman and a uniformed official of a motoring club; and both agreed that
Sir Arthur had never passed that point on the road.

It
had been at an early hour of a very brilliant summer day that the old gentleman
had gone gaily striding up the road, swinging his walking-stick and flapping his
yellow gloves. He was a good deal of a dandy, but one of a vigorous and virile
sort, especially for his age. His bodily strength and activity were still very
remarkable, and his curly hair might have been a yellow so pale as to look
white instead of a white that was a faded yellow. His clean-shaven face was
handsome, with a high-bridged nose like the Duke of Wellington’s; but the most
outstanding features were his eyes. They were not merely metaphorically outstanding;
something prominent and almost bulging about them was perhaps the only
disproportion in his features; but his lips were sensitive and set a little
tightly, as if by an act of will. He was the squire of all that country and the
owner of the little hamlet. In that sort of place everybody not only knows
everybody else, but generally knows where anybody is at any given moment. The
normal course would have been for Sir Arthur to walk to the village, to say whatever
he wanted to say to the butcher or anybody else, and then walk back to his
house again, all in the course of about half an hour: as the two young men did
when they had bought their cigarettes. But they saw nobody on the road returning;
indeed, there was nobody in sight except the one other guest at the house, a
certain Dr. Abbott, who was sitting with his broad back to them on the river
bank, very patiently fishing.

When
all the three guests returned to breakfast, they seemed to think little or nothing
of the continued absence of the squire; but when the day wore on and he missed
one meal after another, they naturally began to be puzzled, and Sybil Rye, the
lady of the household, began to be seriously alarmed. Expeditions of discovery
were dispatched to the village again and again without finding any trace; and
eventually, when darkness fell, the house was full of a definite fear. Sybil
had sent for Father Brown, who was a friend of hers and had helped her out of a
difficulty in the past; and under the pressure of the apparent peril he had
consented to remain at the house and see it through.

Thus
it happened that when the new day’s dawn broke without news, Father Brown was early
afoot and on the look-out for anything; his black, stumpy figure could be seen
pacing the garden path where the garden was embanked along the river, as he
scanned the landscape up and down with his short-sighted and rather misty gaze.

He
realized that another figure was moving even more restlessly along the embankment,
and saluted Evan Smith, the secretary, by name.

Evan
Smith was a tall, fair-haired young man, looking rather harassed, as was perhaps
natural in that hour of distraction. But something of the sort hung about him
at all times. Perhaps it was more marked because he had the sort of athletic
reach and poise and the sort of leonine yellow hair and moustache which
accompany (always in fiction and sometimes in fact) a frank and cheerful demeanour
of “English youth.” As in his case they accompanied deep and cavernous eyes and
a rather haggard look, the contrast with the conventional tall figure and fair
hair of romance may have had a touch of something sinister. But Father Brown
smiled at him amiably enough and then said more seriously:

“
This
is a trying business.”

“
It’s
a very trying business for Miss Rye,” answered the young man gloomily; “and I don’t
see why I should disguise what’s the worst part of it for me, even if she is
engaged to Dalmon. Shocked, I suppose?”

Father
Brown did not look very much shocked, but his face was often rather expressionless;
he merely said, mildly:

“
Naturally,
we all sympathize with her anxiety. I suppose you haven’t any news or views in the
matter?”

“
I
haven’t any news exactly.” answered Smith; “no news from outside at least. As for
views. ...” And he relapsed into moody silence.

“
I
should be very glad to hear your views,” said the little priest pleasantly. “I hope
you don’t mind my saying that you seem to have something on your mind.”

The
young man stirred rather than started and looked at the priest steadily, with a
frown that threw his hollow eyes into dense shadow.

“
Well,
you’re right enough,” he said at last. “I suppose I shall have to tell
somebody. And you seem a safe sort of person to tell.”

“
Do
you know what has happened to Sir Arthur?” asked Father Brown calmly, as if it were
the most casual matter in the world.

“
Yes,”
said the secretary harshly, “I think I know what has happened to Sir Arthur.”

“
A
beautiful morning,” said a bland voice in his ear; “a beautiful morning for a rather
melancholy meeting.”

This
time the secretary jumped as if he had been shot, as the large shadow of Dr. Abbott
fell across his path in the already strong sunshine. Dr. Abbott was still in
his dressing-gown — a sumptuous oriental dressing-gown covered with coloured
flowers and dragons, looking rather like one of the most brilliant flower-beds
that were growing under the glowing sun. He also wore large, flat slippers,
which was doubtless why he had come so close to the others without being heard.
He would normally have seemed the last person for such a light and airy
approach, for he was a very big, broad and heavy man, with a powerful benevolent
face very much sunburnt, in a frame of old-fashioned grey whiskers and chin
beard, which hung about him luxuriantly, like the long, grey curls of his
venerable head. His long slits of eyes were rather sleepy and, indeed, he was
an elderly gentleman to be up so early; but he had a look at once robust and
weatherbeaten, as of an old farmer or sea captain who had once been out in all
weathers. He was the only old comrade and contemporary of the squire in the company
that met at the house.

“
It
seems truly extraordinary,” he said, shaking his head. “Those little houses are
like dolls’ houses, always open front and back, and there’s hardly room to hide
anybody, even if they wanted to hide him. And I’m sure they don’t. Dalmon and I
cross-examined them all yesterday; they’re mostly little old women that couldn’t
hurt a fly. The men are nearly all away harvesting, except the butcher; and
Arthur was seen coming out of the butcher’s. And nothing could have happened
along that stretch by the river, for I was fishing there all day.”

Then
he looked at Smith and the look in his long eyes seemed for the moment not only
sleepy, but a little sly.

“
I
think you and Dalmon can testify,” he said, “that you saw me sitting there through
your whole journey there and back.”

“
Yes,”
said Evan Smith shortly, and seemed rather impatient at the long interruption.

“
The
only thing I can think of,” went on Dr. Abbott slowly; and then the interruption
was itself interrupted. A figure at once light and sturdy strode very rapidly
across the green lawn between the gay flowerbeds, and John Dalmon appeared
among them, holding a paper in his hand. He was neatly dressed and rather
swarthy, with a very fine square Napoleonic face and very sad eyes — eyes so
sad that they looked almost dead. He seemed to be still young, but his black
hair had gone prematurely grey about the temples.

“
I’ve
just had this telegram from the police,” he said “I wired to them last night and
they say they’re sending down a man at once. Do you know, Dr. Abbott, of anybody
else we ought to send for? Relations, I mean, and that sort of thing.”

“
There
is his nephew, Vernon Vaudrey, of course,” said the old man. “If you will come with
me, I think I can give you his address and — and tell you something rather special
about him.”

Dr.
Abbott and Dalmon moved away in the direction of the house and, when they had gone
a certain distance, Father Brown said simply, as if there had been no interruption:

“
You
were saying?”

“
You’re
a cool hand,” said the secretary. “I suppose it comes of hearing confessions. I
feel rather as if I were going to make a confession. Some people would feel a bit
jolted out of the mood of confidence by that queer old elephant creeping up like
a snake. But I suppose I’d better stick to it, though it really isn’t my confession,
but somebody else’s.” He stopped a moment, frowning and pulling his moustache; then
he said, abruptly:

“
I
believe Sir Arthur has bolted, and I believe I know why.”

There
was a silence and then he exploded again.

“
I’m
in a damnable position, and most people would say I was doing a damnable thing.
I am now going to appear in the character of a sneak and a skunk and I believe I
am doing my duty.”

“
You
must be the judge,” said Father Brown gravely. “What is the matter with your duty?”

“
I’m
in the perfectly foul position of telling tales against a rival, and a successful
rival, too,” said the young man bitterly; “and I don’t know what else in the
world I can do. You were asking what was the explanation of Vaudrey’s
disappearance. I am absolutely convinced that Dalmon is the explanation.”

“
You
mean,” said the priest, with composure, “that Dalmon has killed Sir Arthur?”

“
No!”
exploded Smith, with startling violence. “No, a hundred times! He hasn’t done that,
whatever else he’s done. He isn’t a murderer, whatever else he is. He has the
best of all alibis; the evidence of a man who hates him. I’m not likely to perjure
myself for love of Dalmon; and I could swear in any court he did nothing to the
old man yesterday. Dalmon and I were together all day, or all that part of the
day, and he did nothing in the village except buy cigarettes, and nothing here
except smoke them and read in the library. No; I believe he is a criminal, but
he did not kill Vaudrey. I might even say more; because he is a criminal he did
not kill Vaudrey.”

“
Yes,”
said the other patiently, “and what does that mean?”

“
It
means,” replied the secretary, “that he is a criminal committing another crime:
and his crime depends on keeping Vaudrey alive.”

“
Oh,
I see,” said Father Brown.

“
I
know Sybil Rye pretty well, and her character is a great part of this story. It
is a very fine character in both senses: that is, it is of a noble quality and only
too delicate a texture. She is one of those people who are terribly conscientious,
without any of that armour of habit and hard common sense that many
conscientious people get. She is almost insanely sensitive and at the same time
quite unselfish. Her history is curious: she was left literally penniless like
a foundling and Sir Arthur took her into his house and treated her with
consideration, which puzzled many; for, without being hard on the old man, it
was not much in his line. But, when she was about seventeen, the explanation
came to her with a shock; for her guardian asked her to marry him. Now I come
to the curious part of the story. Somehow or other, Sybil had heard from
somebody (I rather suspect from old Abbott) that Sir Arthur Vaudrey, in his
wilder youth, had committed some crime or, at least, done some great wrong to
somebody, which had got him into serious trouble. I don’t know what it was. But
it was a sort of nightmare to the girl at her crude sentimental age, and made
him seem like a monster, at least too much so for the close relation of
marriage. What she did was incredibly typical of her. With helpless terror and
with heroic courage she told him the truth with her own trembling lips. She
admitted that her repulsion might be morbid; she confessed it like a secret
madness. To her relief and surprise he took it quietly and courteously, and
apparently said no more on the subject; and her sense of his generosity was
greatly increased by the next stage of the story. There came into her lonely
life the influence of an equally lonely man. He was camping-out like a sort of
hermit on one of the islands in the river; and I suppose the mystery made him
attractive, though I admit he is attractive enough; a gentleman, and quite
witty, though very melancholy — which, I suppose, increased the romance. It was
this man, Dalmon, of course; and to this day I’m not sure how far she really
accepted him; but it got as far as his getting permission to see her guardian.
I can fancy her awaiting that interview in an agony of terror and wondering how
the old beau would take the appearance of a rival. But here, again, she found
she had apparently done him an injustice. He received the younger man with
hearty hospitality and seemed to be delighted with the prospects of the young
couple. He and Dalmon went shooting and fishing together and were the best of
friends, when one day she had another shock. Dalmon let slip in conversation
some chance phrase that the old man ‘had not changed much in thirty years,’ and
the truth about the odd intimacy burst upon her. All that introduction and
hospitality had been a masquerade; the men had obviously known each other
before. That was why the younger man had come down rather covertly to that
district. That was why the elder man was lending himself so readily to promote
the match. I wonder what you are thinking?”