CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 Nixon Griff is 
 
ttJJO.WtlO 13 11 
 
 The innocence of father Brown. 
 
 3 1924 013 462 753 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://archive.org/details/cu31924013462753 
 
THE INNOCENCE 
 
 OF 
 FATHER BROWN 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 HERETICS 
 
 ORTHODOXY 
 
 ALL THINGS CONSIDERED 
 
 GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 
 
 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL 
 
■ IN WHAT CONCEIVABLE INTOXICATION WOULD ANYBODY TRY TO 
 
 PUT A ROPE ROUND A MAN'S NECK AND FINALLY 
 
 PUT IT ROUND HIS LEG?" 
 
 —Page $2q 
 
THE INNOCENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 FATHER BROWN 
 
 BY 
 
 G. K. CHESTERTON 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 
 WILL F. FOSTER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 JOHN LANE COMPANY 
 
 MCMXI 
 
Copyright, 1910-19x1, by 
 THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 Copyright, 191 i, by 
 JOHN LANE COMPANY 
 
To 
 WALDO AND MILDRED D'AVIGDOR 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I The Blue Cross ....,,... i 
 
 II The Secret Garden 33 
 
 III The Queer Feet ........ 65 
 
 IV The Flying Stars . 96 
 
 V The Invisible Man 119 
 
 VI The Honour of Israel Gow . . . 147 
 
 VII The Wrong Shape 171 
 
 VIII The Sins of Prince Saradine . . . 201 
 
 IX The Hammer of God 232 
 
 X The Eye of Apollo 259 
 
 XI The Sign of the Broken Sword . . 285 
 
 XII The Three Tools of Death . . .313 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 TAGS 
 
 " In what conceivable intoxication would anybody 
 try to put a rope round a man's neck and 
 finally put it round his leg ? " . Frontispiece 329 
 
 " Paul, Prince Saradine, a vos ordres '' . . . 50 
 
 The clown at the piano played the constabulary 
 chorus from " The Pirates of Penzance " . 109 
 
 " My father owned the inn called the ' Red Fish ' 
 
 and I used to serve people in the bar " . . 122 
 
 " There is black magic somewhere at the bottom 
 
 of this" 158 
 
 He had little nervous tricks, like a man shaken by 
 
 drink or drugs 214 
 
 " You must have followed everything devilish 
 
 close to have traced the crime " . . . . 283 
 
JlF. 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF 
 FATHER BROWN 
 
 I 
 
 THE BLUE CROSS 
 
 Between the silver ribbon of morning and the 
 green glittering ribbon of sea, the boat touched 
 Harwich and let loose a swarm of folk like flies, 
 among whom the man we must follow was by no 
 means conspicuous — nor wished to be. There was 
 nothing notable about him, except a slight contrast 
 between the holiday gaiety of his clothes and the 
 official gravity of his face. His clothes included 
 a slight, pale grey jacket, a white waistcoat, and a 
 silver straw hat with a grey-blue ribbon. His lean 
 face was dark by contrast, and ended in a curt 
 black beard that looked Spanish and suggested an 
 Elizabethan ruff. He was smoking a cigarette 
 with the seriousness of an idler. There was 
 nothing about him to indicate the fact that the grey 
 jacket covered a loaded revolver, that the white 
 waistcoat covered a police card, or that the straw 
 hat covered one of the most powerful intellects in 
 
 i 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 Europe. For this was Valentin himself, the head 
 of the Paris police and the most famous investi- 
 gator of the world; and he was coming from 
 Brussels to London to make the greatest arrest of 
 the century. 
 
 Flambeau was in England. The police of three 
 countries had tracked the great criminal at last from 
 Ghent to Brussels, from Brussels to the Hook 
 of Holland; and it was conjectured that he would 
 take some advantage of the unfamiliarity and con- 
 fusion of the Eucharistic Congress, then taking 
 place in London. Probably he would travel as 
 some minor clerk or secretary connected with it; 
 but, of course, Valentin could not be certain; no- 
 body could be certain about Flambeau. 
 
 It is many years now since this colossus of crime 
 suddenly ceased, keeping the world in a turmoil; 
 and when he ceased, as they said after the death of 
 Roland, there was a great quiet upon the earth. 
 But in his best days (I mean, of course, his worst) 
 Flambeau was a figure as statuesque and inter- 
 national as the Kaiser. Almost every morning the 
 daily paper announced that he had escaped the con- 
 sequences of one extraordinary crime by commit- 
 ting another. He was a Gascon of gigantic stature 
 and bodily daring; and the wildest tales were told 
 of his outbursts of athletic humour ; how he turned 
 the juge d' instruction upside down and stood him 
 on his head, " to clear his mind " ; how he ran down 
 the Rue de Rivoli with a policeman under each arm. 
 
 2 
 
THE BLUE CROSS 
 
 It is due to him to say that his fantastic physical 
 strength was generally employed in such bloodless 
 though undignified scenes; his real crimes were 
 chiefly those of ingenious and wholesale robbery. 
 But each of his thefts was almost a new sin, and 
 would make a story by itself. It was he who ran 
 the great Tyrolean Dairy Company in London, with 
 no dairies, no cows, no carts, no milk, but with 
 some thousand subscribers. These he served by the 
 simple operation of moving the little milk cans out- 
 side people's doors to the doors of his own cus- 
 tomers. It was he who had kept up an unaccount- 
 able and close correspondence with a young lady 
 whose whole letter-bag was intercepted, by the ex- 
 traordinary trick of photographing his messages in- 
 finitesimally small upon the slides of a microscope. 
 A sweeping simplicity, however, marked many of 
 his experiments. It is said that he once repainted 
 all the numbers in a street in the dead of night 
 merely to divert one traveller into a trap. It is 
 quite certain that he invented a portable pillar-box, 
 which he put up at corners in quiet suburbs on the 
 chance of strangers dropping postal orders into it. 
 Lastly, he was known to be a startling acrobat; 
 despite his huge figure, he could leap like a grass- 
 hopper and melt into the tree-tops like a monkey. 
 Hence the great Valentin, when he set out to find 
 Flambeau, was perfectly aware that his adventures 
 would not end when he had found him. 
 
 But how was he to find him? On this the great 
 3 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 Valentin's ideas were still in process of settle- 
 ment. 
 
 There was one thing which Flambeau, with all 
 his dexterity of disguise, could not cover, and that 
 was his singular height. If Valentin's quick eye 
 had caught a tall apple-woman, a tall grenadier, 
 or even a tolerably tall duchess, he might have ar- 
 rested them on the spot. But all along his train 
 there was nobody that could be a disguised Flam- 
 beau, any more than a cat could be a disguised 
 giraffe. About the people on the boat he had al- 
 ready satisfied himself; and the people picked up 
 at Harwich or on the journey limited themselves 
 with certainty to six. There was a short railway 
 official travelling up to the terminus, three fairly 
 short market gardeners picked up two stations after- 
 wards, one very short widow lady going up from 
 a small Essex town, andia very short Roman Catho- 
 lic priest going up from a small Essex village. 
 When it came to the last case, Valentin gave it 
 up and almost laughed. The little priest was so 
 much the essence of those Eastern flats; he had a 
 face as round and dull as a Norfolk dumpling; 
 he had eyes as empty as the North Sea; he had 
 several brown paper parcels, which he was quite 
 incapable of collecting. The Eucharistic Congress 
 had doubtless sucked out of their local stagnation 
 many such creatures, blind and helpless, like moles 
 disinterred. Valentin was a sceptic in the severe 
 style of France, and could have no love for priests. 
 
 4 
 
THE BLUE CROSS 
 
 But he could have pity for them, and this one might 
 have provoked pity in anybody. He had a large, 
 shabby umbrella, which constantly fell on the floor. 
 He did not seem to know which was the right 
 end of his return ticket. He explained with a 
 moon-calf simplicity to everybody in the carriage 
 that he had to be careful, because he had some- 
 thing made of real silver " with blue stones " in 
 one of his brown-paper parcels. His quaint blend- 
 ing of Essex flatness with saintly simplicity con- 
 tinuously amused the Frenchman till the priest ar- 
 rived (somehow) at Tottenham with all his parcels, 
 and came back for his umbrella. When he did the 
 last, Valentin even had the good nature to warn 
 him not to take care of the silver by telling every- 
 body about it. But to whomever he talked, Valen- 
 tin kept his eye open for someone else ; he looked out 
 steadily for anyone, rich or poor, male or female, 
 who was well up to six feet; for Flambeau was 
 four inches above it. 
 
 He alighted at Liverpool Street, however, quite 
 conscientiously secure that he had not missed the 
 criminal so far. He then went to Scotland Yard 
 to regularise his position and arrange for help in 
 case of need ; he then lit another cigarette and went 
 for a long stroll in the streets of London. As he 
 was walking in the streets and squares beyond 
 Victoria, he paused suddenly and stood. It was a 
 quaint, quiet square, very typical of London, full 
 of an accidental stillness. The tall, flat houses 
 
 5 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 round looked at once prosperous and uninhabited; 
 the square of shrubbery in the centre looked as 
 deserted as a green Pacific islet. One of the four 
 sides was much higher than the rest, like a dais; 
 and the line of this side was broken by one of 
 London's admirable accidents — a restaurant that 
 looked as if it had strayed from Soho. It was an 
 unreasonably attractive object, with dwarf plants 
 in pots and long, striped blinds of lemon yellow 
 and white. It stood specially high above the street, 
 and in the usual patchwork way of London, a flight 
 of steps from the street ran up to meet the front 
 door almost as a fire-escape might run up to a first- 
 floor window. Valentin stood and smoked in front 
 of the yellow-white blinds and considered them 
 long. 
 
 The most incredible thing about miracles is that 
 they happen. A few clouds in heaven do come to- 
 gether into the staring shape of one human eye. 
 A tree does stand up in the landscape of a doubtful 
 journey in the exact and elaborate shape of a note 
 of interrogation. I have seen both these things 
 myself within the last few days. Nelson does die 
 in the instant of victory; and a man named Wil- 
 liams does quite accidentally murder a man named 
 Williamson; it sounds like a sort of infanticide. 
 In short, there is in life an element of elfin coin- 
 cidence which people reckoning on the prosaic m; _, 
 perpetually miss. As it has been well expressed 
 
 6 
 
THE BLUE CROSS 
 
 in the paradox of Poe, wisdom should reckon on 
 the unforeseen. 
 
 Aristide Valentin was unfathomably French; and 
 the French intelligence is intelligence specially and 
 solely. He was not " a thinking machine " ; for 
 that is a brainless phrase of modern fatalism and 
 materialism. A machine only is a machine because 
 it cannot think. But he was a thinking man, and 
 a plain man at the same time. All his wonderful 
 successes, that looked like conjuring, had been 
 gained by plodding logic, by clear and common- 
 place French thought. The French electrify the 
 world not by starting any paradox, they electrify 
 it by carrying out a truism. They carry a truism 
 so far — as in the French Revolution. But exactly 
 because Valentin understood reason, he understood 
 the limits of reason. Only a man who knows noth- 
 ing of motors talks of motoring without petrol; 
 only a man who knows nothing of reason talks of 
 reasoning without strong, undisputed first principles. 
 Here he had no strong first principles. Flambeau 
 had been missed at Harwich; and if he was in 
 London at all, he might be anything from a tall 
 tramp on Wimbledon Common to a tall toast- 
 master at the Hotel Metropole. In such a naked 
 state of nescience, Valentin had a view and a method 
 of his own. 
 
 In such cases he reckoned on the unforeseen. In 
 such cases, when he could not follow the train of 
 
 7 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 the reasonable, he coldly and carefully followed 
 the train of the unreasonable. Instead of going 
 to the right places — banks, police stations, rendez- 
 vous — he systematically went to the wrong places; 
 knocked at every empty house, turned down every 
 cul de sac, went up every lane blocked with rub- 
 bish, went round every crescent that led him use- 
 lessly out of the way. He defended this crazy 
 course quite logically. He said that if one had a 
 clue this was the worst way; but if one had no clue 
 at all it was the best, because there was just the 
 chance that any oddity that caught the eye of the 
 pursuer might be the same that had caught the eye 
 of the pursued. Somewhere a man must begin, 
 and it had better be just where another man might 
 stop. Something about that flight of steps up to 
 the shop, something about the quietude and quaint- 
 ness of the restaurant, roused all the detective's rare 
 romantic fancy and made him resolve to strike at 
 random. He went up the steps, and sitting down 
 at a table by the window, asked for a cup of black 
 coffee. 
 
 It was half-way through the morning, and he 
 had not breakfasted ; the slight litter of other break- 
 fasts stood about on the table to remind him of 
 his hunger ; and adding a poached egg to his order, 
 he proceeded musingly to shake some white sugar 
 into his coffee, thinking all the time about Flam- 
 beau. He remembered how Flambeau had escaped, 
 once by a pair of nail scissors, and once by a house 
 
 8 
 
THE BLUE CROSS 
 
 on fire; once by having to pay for an unstamped 
 letter, and once by getting people to look through 
 a telescope at a comet that might destroy the world. 
 He thought his detective brain as good as the crim- 
 inal's, which was true. But he fully realised the 
 disadvantage. " The criminal is the creative artist ; 
 the detective only the critic," he said with a sour 
 smile, and lifted his coffee cup to his lips slowly, 
 and put it down very quickly. He had put salt 
 in it. 
 
 He looked at the vessel from which the silvery 
 powder had come; it was certainly a sugar-basin; 
 as unmistakably meant for sugar as a champagne- 
 bottle for champagne. He wondered why they 
 should keep salt in it. He looked to see if there 
 were any more orthodox vessels. Yes ; there were 
 two salt-cellars quite full. Perhaps there was some 
 speciality in the condiment in the salt-cellars. He 
 tasted it; it was sugar. Then he looked round at 
 the restaurant with a refreshed air of interest, to 
 see if there were any other traces of that singular 
 artistic taste which puts the sugar in the salt-cellars 
 and the salt in the sugar-basin. Except for an odd 
 splash of some dark fluid on one of the white- 
 papered walls, the whole place appeared neat, 
 cheerful and ordinary. He rang the bell for the 
 waiter. 
 
 When that official hurried up, fuzzy-haired and 
 somewhat blear-eyed at that early hour, the detec- 
 tive (who was not without an appreciation of the, 
 
 9 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 simpler forms of humour) asked him to taste the 
 sugar and see if it was up to the high reputation 
 of the hotel. The result was that the waiter 
 yawned suddenly and woke up. 
 
 " Do you play this delicate joke on your cus- 
 tomers every morning ? " inquired Valentin. 
 "Does changing the salt and sugar never pall on 
 you as a jest?" 
 
 The waiter, when this irony grew clearer, stam- 
 meringly assured him that the establishment had cer- 
 tainly no such intention; it must be a most curious 
 mistake. He picked up the sugar-basin and looked 
 at it ; he picked up the salt-cellar and looked at that, 
 his face growing more and more bewildered. At 
 last he abruptly excused himself, and hurrying 
 away, returned in a few seconds with the proprietor. 
 The proprietor also examined the sugar-basin and 
 then the salt-cellar; the proprietor also looked be- 
 wildered. 
 
 Suddenly the waiter seemed to grow inarticulate 
 with a rush of words. 
 
 " I zink," he stuttered eagerly, " I zink it is those 
 two clergymen." 
 
 " What two clergymen? " 
 
 " The two clergymen," said the waiter, " that 
 threw soup at the wall." 
 
 " Threw soup at the wall ? " repeated Valentin, 
 feeling sure this must be some singular Italian 
 metaphor. 
 
 "Yes, yes," said the attendant excitedly, and 
 10 
 
THE BLUE CROSS 
 
 pointing at the dark splash on the white paper; 
 " threw it over there on the wall." 
 
 Valentin looked his query at the proprietor, who 
 came to his rescue with fuller reports. 
 
 " Yes, sir," he said, " it's quite true, though I 
 don't suppose it has anything to do with the sugar 
 and salt. Two clergymen came in and drank soup 
 here very early, as soon as the shutters were taken 
 down. They were both very quiet, respectable 
 people; one of them paid the bill and went out; 
 the other, who seemed a slower coach altogether, 
 was some minutes longer getting his things to- 
 gether. But he went at last. Only, the instant be- 
 fore he stepped into the street he deliberately picked 
 up his cup, which he had only half emptied, and 
 threw the soup slap on the wall. I was in the 
 back room myself, and so was the waiter ; so I could 
 only rush out in time to find the wall splashed and 
 the shop empty. It don't do any particular damage, 
 but it was confounded cheek; and I tried to catch 
 the men in the street. They were too far off 
 though; I only noticed they went round the next 
 corner into Carstairs Street." 
 
 The detective was on his feet, hat settled and 
 stick in hand. He had already decided that in the 
 universal darkness of his mind he could only follow 
 the first odd finger that pointed; and this finger 
 was odd enough. Paying his bill and clashing the 
 glass doors behind him, he was soon swinging 
 round into the other street. 
 
 ii 
 
 i i 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 It was fortunate that even in such fevered mo- 
 ments his eye was cool and quick. Something 
 in a shop-front went by him like a mere flash ; yet 
 he went back to look at it. The shop was a popular 
 greengrocer and fruiterer's, an array of goods set 
 out in the open air and plainly ticketed with their 
 names and prices. In the two most prominent com- 
 partments were two heaps, of oranges and of nuts 
 respectively. On the heap of nuts lay a scrap of 
 cardboard, on which was written in bold, blue chalk, 
 " Best tangerine oranges, two a penny." On the 
 oranges was the equally clear and exact description, 
 " Finest Brazil nuts, 4d. a lb." M. Valentin looked 
 at these two placards and fancied he had met this 
 highly subtle form of humour before, and that some- 
 what recently. He drew the attention of the red- 
 faced fruiterer, who was looking rather sullenly up 
 and down the street, to this inaccuracy in his ad- 
 vertisements. The fruiterer said nothing, but 
 sharply put each card into its proper place. The 
 detective, leaning elegantly on his walking-cane, 
 continued to scrutinise the shop. At last he said, 
 " Pray excuse my apparent irrelevance, my good sir, 
 but I should like to ask you a question in experi- 
 mental psychology and the association of ideas." 
 
 The red-faced shopman regarded him with an 
 eye of menace; but he continued gaily, swinging 
 his cane, " Why," he pursued, " why are two tickets 
 wrongly placed in a greengrocer's shop like a shovel 
 hat that has come to London for a holiday? Or, 
 
 12 
 
THE BLUE CROSS 
 
 in case I do not make myself clear, what is the 
 mystical association which connects the idea of nuts 
 marked as oranges with the idea of two clergymen, 
 one tall and the other short ? " 
 
 The eyes of the tradesman stood out of his head 
 like a snail's ; he really seemed for an instant likely 
 to fling himself upon the stranger. At last he 
 stammered angrily: "-I don't know what you 'ave 
 to do with it, but if you're one of their friends, you 
 can tell 'em from me that I'll knock their silly 'eads 
 off, parsons or no parsons, if they upset my apples 
 again." 
 
 "Indeed?" asked the detective, with great sym- 
 pathy. " Did they upset your apples ? " 
 
 " One of 'em did," said the heated shopman ; 
 " rolled 'em all over the street. I'd 'ave caught the 
 fool but for havin' to pick 'em up." 
 
 " Which way did these parsons go ? " asked 
 Valentin. 
 
 " Up that second road on the left-hand side, and 
 then across the square," said the other promptly. 
 
 "Thanks," replied Valentin, and vanished like 
 a fairy. On the other side of the second square^ 
 he found a policeman, and said : " This is urgent, 
 constable; have you seen two clergymen in shovel 
 hats?" 
 
 The policeman began to chuckle heavily. "I 
 'ave, sir; and if you arst me, one of 'em was drunk. 
 He stood in the middle of the road that bewildered 
 
 that " 
 
 13 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 " Which way did they go ? " snapped Valentin. 
 
 " They took one of them yellow buses over there," 
 answered the man; "them that go to Hampstead." 
 
 Valentin produced his official card and said very 
 rapidly : " Call up two of your men to come with 
 me in pursuit," and crossed the road with such 
 contagious energy that the ponderous policeman was 
 moved to almost agile obedience. In a minute and 
 a half the French detective was joined on the op- 
 posite pavement by an inspector and a man in plain 
 clothes. 
 
 " Well, sir," began the former, with smiling im- 
 portance, " and what may ? " 
 
 Valentin pointed suddenly with his cane. " I'll 
 tell you on the top of that omnibus," he said, and 
 was darting and dodging across the tangle of the 
 traffic. When all three sank panting on the top 
 seats of the yellow vehicle, the inspector said : 
 " We could go four times as quick in a taxi." 
 
 " Quite true," replied their leader placidly, " if 
 we only had an idea of where we were going." 
 
 "Well, where are you going?" asked the other,, 
 staring. 
 
 Valentin smoked frowningly for a few seconds; 
 then, removing his cigarette, he said : " If you 
 know what a man's doing, get in front of him; 
 but if you want to guess what he's doing, keep 
 behind him. Stray when he strays; stop when he 
 stops; travel as slowly as he. Then you may see 
 what he saw and may act as he acted. All we 
 
THE BLUE CROSS 
 
 can do is to keep our eyes skinned for a queer 
 thing." 
 
 "What sort of queer thing do you mean?" 
 asked the inspector. 
 
 " Any sort of queer thing," answered Valentin, 
 and relapsed into obstinate silence. 
 
 The yellow omnibus crawled up the northern 
 roads for what seemed like hours on end ; the great 
 detective would not explain further, and perhaps 
 his assistants felt a silent and growing doubt of 
 his errand. Perhaps, also, they felt a silent and 
 growing desire for lunch, for the hours crept long 
 past the normal luncheon hour, and the long roads 
 of the North London suburbs seemed to shoot out 
 into length after length like an infernal telescope. 
 It was one of those journeys on which a man per- 
 petually feels that now at last he must have come 
 to the end of the universe, and then finds he has 
 only come to the beginning of Tufnell Park. 
 London died away in draggled taverns and dreary 
 scrubs, and then was unaccountably born again in 
 blazing high streets and blatant hotels. It was like 
 passing through thirteen separate vulgar cities all 
 just touching each other. But though the winter 
 twilight was already threatening the road ahead of 
 them, the Parisian detective still sat silent and watch- 
 ful, eyeing the frontage of the streets that slid by 
 on either side. By the time they had left Camden 
 Town behind, the policemen were nearly asleep; 
 at least, they gave something like a jump as Valen- 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 tin leapt erect, struck a hand on each man's shoulder, 
 and shouted to the driver to stop. 
 
 They tumbled down the steps into the road with- 
 out realising why they had been dislodged; when 
 they looked round for enlightenment they found 
 Valentin triumphantly pointing his finger towards 
 a window on the left side of the road. It was a 
 large window, forming part of the long fagade of 
 a gilt and palatial public-house; it was the part 
 reserved for respectable dining, and labelled " Res- 
 taurant." This window, like all the rest along the 
 frontage of the hotel, was of frosted and figured 
 glass ; but in the middle of it was a big, black smash, 
 like a star in the ice. 
 
 " Our cue at last," cried Valentin, waving his 
 stick; "the place with the broken window." 
 
 "What window? What cue?" asked his prin- 
 cipal assistant. " Why, what proof is there that 
 this has anything to do with them ? " 
 
 Valentin almost broke his bamboo stick with rage. 
 
 "Proof!" he cried. "Good God! the man is 
 looking for proof ! Why, of course, the chances are 
 twenty to one that it has nothing to do with them. 
 But what else can we do? Don't you see we must 
 either follow one wild possibility or else go home 
 to bed ? " He banged his way into the restaurant, 
 followed by his companions, and they were soon 
 seated at a late luncheon at a little table, and look- 
 ing at the star of smashed glass from the inside. 
 Not that it was very informative to them even then. 
 
 16 
 
THE BLUE CROSS 
 
 " Got your window broken, I see," said Valentin 
 to the waiter as he paid the bill. 
 
 " Yes, sir," answered the attendant, bending 
 busily over the change, to which Valentin silently 
 added an enormous tip. The waiter straightened 
 himself with mild but unmistakable animation. 
 
 " Ah, yes, sir," he said. " Very odd thing, that 
 sir." 
 
 " Indeed ? Tell us about it," said the detective 
 with careless curiosity. 
 
 " Well, two gents in black came in," said the 
 waiter; " two of those foreign parsons that are run- 
 ning about. They had a cheap and quiet little 
 lunch, and one of them paid for it and went out. 
 The other was just going out to join him when I 
 looked at my change again and found he'd paid me 
 more than three times too much. ' Here,' I says 
 to the chap who was nearly out of the door, ' you've 
 paid too much.' ' Oh,' he says, very cool, ' have 
 we ? ' ' Yes,' I says, and picks up the bill to show 
 him. Well, that was a knock-out." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked his interlocutor. 
 
 " Well, I'd have sworn on seven Bibles that I'd 
 put 4s. on that bill. But now I saw I'd put 14s., 
 as plain as paint." 
 
 " Well ? " cried Valentin, moving slowly, but with 
 burning eyes, " and then ? " 
 
 " The parson at the door he says all serene, 
 ' Sorry to confuse your accounts, but it'll pay for 
 the window.' 'What window?' I says. 'The 
 
 17 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 one I'm going to break,' he says, and smashed that 
 blessed pane with his umbrella." 
 
 All three inquirers made an exclamation; and 
 the inspector said under his breath, " Are we after 
 escaped lunatics ? " The waiter went on with some 
 relish for the ridiculous story: 
 
 " I was so knocked silly for a second, I couldn't 
 do anything. The man marched out of the place 
 and joined his friend just round the corner. Then 
 they went so quick up Bullock Street that I couldn't 
 catch them, though I ran round the bars to do 
 it." 
 
 " Bullock Street," said the detective, and shot 
 up that thoroughfare as quickly as the strange couple 
 he pursued. 
 
 Their journey now took them through bare brick 
 ways like tunnels; streets with few lights and even 
 with few windows; streets that seemed built out 
 of the blank backs of everything and everywhere. 
 Dusk was deepening, and it was not easy even for 
 the London policemen to guess in what exact direc- 
 tion they were treading. The inspector, however, 
 was pretty certain that they would eventually strike 
 some part of Hampstead Heath. Abruptly one 
 bulging gas-lit window broke the blue twilight like 
 a bull's-eye lantern; and Valentin stopped an in- 
 stant before a little garish sweetstuff shop. After 
 an instant's hesitation he went in; he stood amid 
 the gaudy colours of the confectionery with en- 
 tire gravity and bought thirteen chocolate cigars 
 
 18 
 
THE BLUE CROSS 
 
 with a certain care. He was clearly preparing an 
 opening; but he did not need one. 
 
 An angular, elderly young woman in the shop 
 had regarded his elegant appearance with a merely 
 automatic inquiry; but when she saw the door be- 
 hind him blocked with the blue uniform of the in- 
 spector, her eyes seemed to wake up. 
 
 "Oh," she said, "if you've come about that 
 parcel, I've sent it off already." 
 
 " Parcel ! " repeated Valentin ; and it was his turn 
 to look inquiring. 
 
 " I mean the parcel the gentleman left — the 
 clergyman gentleman." 
 
 " For goodness' sake," said Valentin, leaning for- 
 ward with his first real confession of eagerness, 
 " for Heaven's sake tell us what happened exactly." 
 
 " Well," said the woman a little doubtfully, " the 
 clergymen came in about half an hour ago and 
 bought some peppermints and talked a bit, and then 
 went off towards the Heath. But a second after, 
 one of them runs back into the shop and says, ' Have 
 I left a parcel ? ' Well, I looked everywhere and 
 couldn't see one; so he says, 'Never mind; but if 
 it should turn up, please post it to this address,' 
 and he left me the address and a shilling for my 
 trouble. And sure enough, though I thought I'd 
 looked everywhere, I found he'd left a brown paper 
 parcel, so I posted it to the place he said. I can't 
 remember the address now; it was somewhere in 
 Westminster. But as the thing seemed so im- 
 
 19 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 portant, I thought perhaps the police had come about 
 it." 
 
 "So they have," said Valentin shortly. "Is 
 Hampstead Heath near here ? " 
 
 " Straight on for fifteen minutes," said the 
 woman, " and you'll come right out on the open." 
 Valentin sprang out of the shop and began to run. 
 The other detectives followed him at a reluctant 
 trot. 
 
 The street they threaded was so narrow and 
 shut in by shadows that when they came out un- 
 expectedly into the void common and vast sky they 
 were startled to find the evening still so light and 
 clear. A perfect dome of peacock-green sank into 
 gold amid the blackening trees and the dark violet 
 distances. The glowing green tint was just deep 
 enough to pick out in points of crystal one or two 
 stars. All that was left of the daylight lay in a 
 golden glitter across the edge of Hampstead and 
 that popular hollow which is called the Vale of 
 Health. The holiday makers who roam this region 
 had not wholly dispersed; a few couples sat shape- 
 lessly on benches; and here and there a distant girl 
 still shrieked in one of the swings. The glory of 
 heaven deepened and darkened around the sublime 
 vulgarity of man; and standing on the slope and 
 looking across the valley, Valentin beheld the thing 
 which he sought. 
 
 Among the black and breaking groups in that 
 distance was one especially black which did not 
 
 20 
 
THE BLUE CROSS , 
 
 break — a group of two figures clerically clad. 
 Though they seemed as small as insects, Valentin 
 could see that one of them was much smaller than 
 the other. Though the other had a student's stoop 
 and an inconspicuous manner, he could see that 
 the man was well over six feet high. He shut his 
 teeth and went forward, whirling his stick impa- 
 tiently. By the time he had substantially dimin- 
 ished the distance and magnified the two black 
 figures as in a vast microscope, he had perceived 
 something else; something which startled him, and 
 yet which he had somehow expected. Whoever 
 was the tall priest, there could be no doubt about 
 the identity of the short one. It was his friend 
 of the Harwich train, the stumpy little cure of 
 Essex whom he had warned about his brown paper 
 parcels. 
 
 Now, so far as this went, everything fitted in 
 finally and rationally enough. Valentin had learned 
 by his inquiries that morning that a Father Brown 
 from Essex was bringing up a silver cross with 
 sapphires, a relic of considerable value, to show 
 some of the foreign priests at the congress. This 
 undoubtedly was the " silver with blue stones " ; 
 and Father Brown undoubtedly was the little green- 
 horn in the train. Now there was nothing won- 
 derful about the fact that what Valentin had 
 £(Lund out Flambeau had also found out; Flam- 
 fxfcau found out everything. Also there was no- 
 il |iing wonderful in the fact that when Flambeau 
 
 21 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 heard of a sapphire cross he should try to steal it; 
 that was the most natural thing in all natural his- 
 tory. And most certainly there was nothing won- 
 derful about the fact that Flambeau should have 
 it all his own way with such a silly sheep as the 
 man with the umbrella and the parcels. He was 
 the sort of man whom anybody could lead on a 
 string to the North Pole ; it was not surprising that 
 an actor like Flambeau, dressed as another priest, 
 could lead him to Hampstead Heath. So far the 
 crime seemed clear enough ; and while the detective 
 pitied the priest for his helplessness, he almost de- 
 spised Flambeau for condescending to so gullible 
 a victim. But when Valentin thought of all that 
 had happened in between, of all that had led him 
 to his triumph, he racked his brains for the smallest 
 rhyme or reason in it. What had the stealing of 
 a blue-and-silver cross from a priest from Essex 
 to do with chucking soup at wall paper? What 
 had it to do with calling nuts oranges, or with pay- 
 ing for windows first and breaking them after- 
 wards? He had come to the end of his chase; yet 
 somehow he had missed the middle of it. When he 
 failed (which was seldom), he had usually grasped 
 the clue, but nevertheless missed the criminal. 
 Here he had grasped the criminal, but still he could 
 not grasp the clue. 
 
 The two figures that they followed were cravtri- 
 ing like black flies across the huge green contour ! of 
 a hill. They were evidently sunk in conversatio n, 
 
 22 
 
THE BLUE CROSS 
 
 and perhaps did not notice where they were going; 
 but they were certainly going to the wilder and 
 more silent heights of the Heath. As their pur- 
 suers gained on them, the latter had to use the un- 
 dignified attitudes of the deer-stalker, to crouch be- 
 hind clumps of trees and even to crawl prostrate in 
 deep grass. By these ungainly ingenuities the 
 hunters even came close enough to the quarry to 
 hear the murmur of the discussion, but no word 
 could be distinguished except the word " reason " 
 recurring frequently in a high and almost childish 
 voice. Once over an abrupt dip of land and a dense 
 tangle of thickets, the detectives actually lost the 
 two figures they were following. They did not 
 find the trail again for an agonising ten minutes, 
 and then it led round the brow of a great dome of 
 hill overlooking an amphitheatre of rich and deso- 
 late sunset scenery. Under a tree in this com- 
 manding yet neglected spot was an old ramshackle 
 wooden seat. On this seat sat the two priests still 
 in serious speech together. The gorgeous green 
 and gold still clung to the darkening horizon; 
 but the dome above was turning slowly from 
 peacock-green to peacock-blue, and the stars de- 
 tached themselves more and more like solid 
 jewels. Mutely motioning to his followers, Valen- 
 tin contrived to creep up behind the big branch- 
 ing tree, and, standing there in deathly silence, 
 heard the words of the strange priests for the 
 first time. 
 
 23 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 After he had listened for a minute and a half, 
 he was gripped by a devilish doubt. Perhaps he 
 had dragged the two English policemen to the 
 wastes of a nocturnal heath on an errand no saner 
 than seeking figs on its thistles. For the two priests 
 were talking exactly like priests, piously, with 
 learning and leisure, about the most aerial enigmas 
 of theology. The little Essex priest spoke the more 
 simply, with his round face turned to the strength- 
 ening stars; the other talked with his head bowed, 
 as if he were not even worthy to look at them. But 
 no more innocently clerical conversation could have 
 been heard in any white Italian cloister or black 
 Spanish cathedral. 
 
 The first he heard was the tail of one of Father 
 Brown's sentences, which ended: ". . . what 
 they really meant in the Middle Ages by the heavens 
 being incorruptible." 
 
 The taller priest nodded his bowed head and 
 said: 
 
 "Ah, yes, these modern infidels appeal to their 
 reason ; but who can look at those millions of worlds 
 and not feel that there may well be wonderful uni- 
 verses above us where reason is utterly unreason- 
 able?" 
 
 " No," said the other priest ; " reason is always 
 reasonable, even in the last limbo, in the lost bor- 
 derland of things. I know that people charge the 
 Church with lowering reason, but it is just the other 
 way. Alone on earth, the Church makes reason 
 
 24 
 
THE BLUE CROSS 
 
 really supreme. Alone on earth, the Church affirms 
 that God himself is bound by reason." 
 
 The other priest raised his austere face to the 
 spangled sky and said: 
 
 " Yet who knows if in that infinite uni- 
 verse ? " 
 
 " Only infinite physically," said the little priest, 
 turning sharply in his seat, " not infinite in the 
 sense of escaping from the laws of truth." 
 
 Valentin behind his tree was tearing his finger- 
 nails with silent fury. He seemed almost to hear 
 the sniggers of the English detectives whom he 
 had brought so far on a fantastic guess only to 
 listen to the metaphysical gossip of two mild old 
 parsons. In his impatience he lost the equally 
 elaborate answer of the tall cleric, and when he 
 listened again it was again Father Brown who was 
 speaking : 
 
 " Reason and justice grip the remotest and the 
 loneliest star. Look at those stars. Don't they 
 look as if they were single diamonds and sap- 
 phires ? Well, you can imagine any mad botany or 
 geology you please. Think of forests of adamant 
 with leaves of brilliants. Think the moon is a 
 blue moon, a single elephantine sapphire. But 
 don't fancy that all that frantic astronomy would 
 make the smallest difference to the reason and 
 justice of conduct. On plains of opal, under cliffs 
 cut out of pearl, you would still find a notice-board, 
 ' Thou shalt not steal.' " 
 
 25 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 Valentin was just in the act of rising from his 
 rigid and crouching attitude and creeping away; 
 as softly as might be, felled by the one great folly 
 of his life. But something in the very silence of 
 the tall priest made him stop until the latter spoke. 
 When at last he did speak, he said simply, his 
 head bowed and his hands on his knees : 
 
 " Well, I still think that other worlds may per- 
 haps rise higher than our reason. The mystery of 
 heaven is unfathomable, and I for one can only 
 bow my head." 
 
 Then, with brow yet bent and without changing 
 by the faintest shade his attitude or voice, he added : 
 
 " Just hand over that sapphire cross of yours, 
 will you? We're all alone here, and I could pull 
 you to pieces like a straw doll." 
 
 The utterly unaltered voice and attitude added 
 a strange violence to that shocking change of 
 speech. But the guarder of the relic only seemed 
 to turn his head by the smallest section of the com- 
 pass. He seemed still to have a somewhat foolish 
 face turned to the stars. Perhaps he had not under- 
 stood. Or, perhaps, he had understood and sat 
 rigid with terror. 
 
 " Yes," said the tall priest, in the same low voice 
 and in the same still posture, "yes, I am Flam- 
 beau." 
 
 Then, after a pause, he said : 
 
 " Come, will you give me that cross ? " 
 26 
 
THE BLUE CROSS 
 
 " No," said the other, and the monosyllable had 
 an odd sound. 
 
 Flambeau suddenly flung off all his pontifical 
 pretensions. The great robber leaned back in his 
 seat and laughed low but long. 
 
 " No," he cried, " you won't give it me, you 
 proud prelate. You won't give it me, you little 
 celibate simpleton. Shall I tell you. why you won't 
 give it me ? Because I've got it already in my own 
 breast-pocket." 
 
 The small man from Essex turned what seemed 
 to be a dazed face in the dusk, and said, with the 
 timid eagerness of " The Private Secretary " : 
 
 " Are — are you sure ? " 
 
 Flambeau yelled with delight. 
 
 " Really, you're as good as a three-act farce," 
 he cried. " Yes, you turnip, I am quite sure. I 
 had the sense to make a duplicate of the right 
 parcel, and now, my friend, you've got the dupli- 
 cate and I've got the jewels. An old dodge, Father 
 Brown — a very old dodge." 
 
 " Yes," said Father Brown, and passed his hand 
 through his hair with the same strange vagueness 
 of manner. " Yes, I've heard of it before." 
 
 The colossus of crime leaned over to the little 
 rustic priest with a sort of sudden interest. 
 
 "You have heard of it?" he asked. "Where 
 have you heard of it? " 
 
 ".Well, I mustn't tell you his name, of course," 
 27 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 said the little man simply. " He was a penitent, 
 you know. He had lived prosperously for about 
 twenty years entirely on duplicate brown paper par- 
 cels. And so, you see, when I began to suspect you, 
 I thought of this poor chap's way of doing it at 
 once." 
 
 "Began to suspect me?" repeated the outlaw 
 with increased intensity. " Did you really have the 
 ■gumption to suspect me just because I brought you 
 up to this bare part of the heath? " 
 
 " No, no," said Brown with an air of apology. 
 " You see, I suspected you when we first met. It's 
 that little bulge up the sleeve where you people 
 have the spiked bracelet." 
 
 " How in Tartarus," cried Flambeau, " did you 
 ever hear of the spiked bracelet ? " 
 
 " Oh, one's little flock, you know ! " said Father 
 Brown, arching his eyebrows rather blankly. 
 " When I was a curate in Hartlepool, there were 
 three of them with spiked bracelets. So, as I sus- 
 pected you from the first, don't you see, I made 
 sure that the cross should go safe, anyhow. I'm 
 afraid I watched you, you know. So at last I saw 
 you change the parcels. Then, don't you see, I 
 changed them back again. And then I left the 
 right one behind." 
 
 "Left it behind?" repeated Flambeau, and for 
 the first time there was another note in his voice 
 beside his triumph. 
 
 "Well, it was like this," said the little priest, 
 28 
 
THE BLUE CROSS 
 
 speaking in the same unaffected way. " I went 
 back to that sweet-shop and asked if I'd left a par- 
 cel, and gave them a particular address if it turned 
 up. Well, I knew I hadn't ; but when I went away 
 again I did. So, instead of running after me with 
 that valuable parcel, they have sent it flying to a 
 friend of mine in Westminster." Then he added 
 rather sadly : " I learnt that, too, from a poor fel- 
 low in Hartlepool. He used to do it with handbags 
 he stole at railway stations, but he's in a monastery 
 now. Oh, one gets to know, you know," he added, 
 rubbing his head again with the same sort of des- 
 perate apology. " We can't help being priests. 
 People come and tell us these things." 
 
 Flambeau tore a brown-paper parcel out of his 
 inner pocket and rent it in pieces. There was noth- 
 ing but paper and sticks of lead inside it. He 
 sprang to his feet with a gigantic gesture, and 
 cried : 
 
 " I don't believe you. I don't believe a bumpkin 
 like you could manage all that. I believe you've 
 still got the stuff on you, and if you don't give it 
 up — why, we're all alone, and I'll take it by force ! " 
 
 " No," said Father Brown simply, and stood up 
 also, " you won't take it by force. First, because 
 I really haven't still got it. And, second, because 
 we are not alone." 
 
 Flambeau stopped in his stride forward. 
 
 " Behind that tree," said Father Brown, pointing, 
 " are two strong policemen and the greatest de- 
 
 29 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 tective alive. How did they come here, do you 
 ask ? Why, I brought them, of course ! How did 
 I do it ? Why, I'll tell you if you like ! Lord bless 
 you, we have to know twenty such things when we 
 work among the criminal classes! Well, I wasn't 
 sure you were a thief, and it would never do to 
 make a scandal against one of our own clergy. So 
 I just tested you to see if anything would make 
 you show yourself. A man generally makes a small 
 scene if he finds salt in his coffee; if he doesn't, he 
 has some reason for keeping quiet. I changed the 
 salt and sugar, and you kept quiet. A man gener- 
 ally objects if his bill is three times too big. If he 
 pays it, he has some motive for passing unnoticed. 
 I altered your bill, and you paid it." 
 
 The world seemed waiting for Flambeau to leap 
 like a tiger. But he was held back as by a spell; 
 he was stunned with the utmost curiosity. 
 
 " Well," went on Father Brown, with lumbering 
 lucidity, " as you wouldn't leave any tracks for the 
 police, of course somebody had to. At every place 
 we went to, I took care to do something that would 
 get us talked about for the rest of the day. I 
 didn't do much harm — a splashed wall, spilt apples, 
 a broken window ; but I saved the cross, as the cross 
 will always be saved. It is at Westminster by now. 
 I rather wonder you didn't stop it with the Don- 
 key's Whistle." 
 
 "With the what?" asked Flambeau. 
 
 "I'm glad you've never heard of it," said the 
 30 
 
THE BLUE CROSS 
 
 priest, making a face. " It's a foul thing. I'm sure 
 you're too good a man for a Whistler. I couldn't 
 have countered it even with the Spots myself; I'm 
 not strong enough in the legs." 
 
 " What on earth are you talking about ? " asked 
 the other. 
 
 " Well, I did think you'd know the Spots," said 
 Father Brown, agreeably surprised. " Oh, you 
 can't have gone so very wrong yet ! " 
 
 " How in blazes do you know all these horrors ? " 
 cried Flambeau. 
 
 The shadow of a smile crossed the round, simple 
 face of his clerical opponent. 
 
 "Oh, by being a celibate simpleton, I suppose," 
 he said. " Has it never struck you that a man 
 who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins 
 is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil? 
 But, as a matter of fact, another part of my trade, 
 too, made me sure you weren't a priest." 
 
 " What? " asked the thief, almost gaping. 
 
 " You attacked reason," said Father Brown. 
 " It's bad theology." 
 
 And even as he turned away to collect his prop- 
 erty, the three policemen came out from under the 
 twilight trees. Flambeau was an artist and a sports- 
 man. He stepped back and swept Valentin a great 
 bow. 
 
 " Do not bow to me, mon ami," said Valentin 
 with silver clearness. " Let us both bow to our 
 master." 
 
 3i 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 And they both stood an instant uncovered while 
 the little Essex priest blinked about for his um- 
 brella. 
 
 32 
 
II 
 
 THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 Aristide Valentin, Chief of the Paris Police, was 
 late for his dinner, and some of his guests began 
 to arrive before him. These were, however, reas- 
 sured by his confidential servant, Ivan, the old man 
 with a scar, and a face almost as grey as his mous- 
 taches, who always sat at a table in the entrance 
 hall — a hall hung with weapons. Valentin's house 
 was perhaps as peculiar and celebrated as its master. 
 It was an old house, with high walls and tall pop- 
 lars almost overhanging the Seine ; but the oddity — 
 and perhaps the police value — of its architecture was 
 this: that there was no ultimate exit at all except 
 through this front door, which was guarded by 
 Ivan and the armoury. The garden was large and 
 elaborate, and there were many exits from the house 
 into the garden. But there was no exit from 
 the garden into the world outside; all round it 
 ran a tall, smooth, unscalable wall with special spikes 
 at the top; no bad garden, perhaps, for a man to 
 reflect in whom some hundred criminals had sworn 
 to kill. 
 
 As Ivan explained to the guests, their host had 
 telephoned that he was detained for ten minutes. 
 3 33 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 He was, in truth, making some last arrangements 
 about executions and such ugly things ; and though 
 these duties were rootedly repulsive to him, he al- 
 ways performed them with precision. Ruthless in 
 the pursuit of criminals, he was very mild about 
 their punishment. Since he had been supreme over 
 French — and largely over European — policial meth- 
 ods, his great influence had been honourably used 
 for the mitigation of sentences and the purification 
 of prisons. He was one of the great humanitarian 
 French freethinkers; and the only thing wrong 
 with them is that they make mercy even colder than 
 justice. 
 
 When Valentin arrived he was already dressed 
 in black clothes and the red rosette — an elegant 
 figure, his dark beard already streaked with grey. 
 He went straight through his house to his study, 
 which opened on the grounds behind. The garden 
 door of it was open, and after he had carefully 
 locked his box in its official place, he stood for a 
 few seconds at the open door looking out upon the 
 garden. A sharp moon was fighting with the fly- 
 ing rags and tatters of a storm, and Valentin re- 
 garded it with a wistfulness unusual in such scientific 
 natures as his. Perhaps such scientific natures have 
 some psychic prevision of the most tremendous 
 problem of their lives. From any such occult mood, 
 at least, he quickly recovered, for he knew he was 
 late, and that his guests had already begun to arrive. 
 A glance at his drawing-room when he entered it. 
 
 34 
 
THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 was enough to make certain that his principal guest 
 was not there, at any rate. He saw all the other 
 pillars of the little party; he saw Lord Galloway, the 
 English Ambassador — a choleric old man with a 
 russet face like an apple, wearing the blue ribbon 
 of the Garter. He saw Lady Galloway, slim and 
 threadlike, with silver hair and a face sensitive and 
 superior. He saw her daughter, Lady Margaret 
 Graham, a pale and pretty girl with an elfish face 
 and copper-coloured hair. He saw the Duchess of 
 Mont St. Michel, black-eyed and opulent, and with 
 her her two daughters, black-eyed and opulent also. 
 He saw Dr. Simon, a typical French scientist, with 
 glasses, a pointed brown beard, and a forehead 
 barred with those parallel wrinkles which are the 
 penalty of superciliousness, since they come through 
 constantly elevating the eyebrows. He saw Father 
 Brown, of Cobhole, in Essex, whom he had recently 
 met in England. He saw — perhaps with more in- 
 terest than any of these — a tall man in uniform, 
 who had bowed to the Galloways without receiving 
 any very hearty acknowledgment, and who now ad- 
 vanced alone to pay his respects to his host. This 
 was Commandant O'Brien, of the French Foreign 
 Legion. He was a slim yet somewhat swaggering 
 figure, clean-shaven, dark-haired, and blue-eyed, 
 and, as seemed natural in an officer of that famous 
 regiment of victorious failures and successful sui- 
 cides, he had an air at once dashing and melan- 
 choly. He was by birth an Irish gentleman, and 
 
 35 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 in boyhood had known the Galloways — especially 
 Margaret Graham. He had left his country after 
 some crash of debts, and now expressed his com- 
 plete freedom from British etiquette by swinging 
 about in uniform, sabre and spurs. When he 
 bowed to the Ambassador's family, Lord and Lady 
 Galloway bent stiffly, and Lady Margaret looked 
 away. 
 
 But for whatever old causes such people might 
 be interested in each other, their distinguished host 
 was not specially interested in them. No one of 
 them at least was in his eyes the guest of the even- 
 ing. Valentin was expecting, for special reasons, 
 a man of world-wide fame, whose friendship he 
 had secured during some of his great detective tours 
 and triumphs in the United States. He was ex- 
 pecting Julius K. Brayne, that multi-millionaire 
 whose colossal and even crushing endowments of 
 small religions have occasioned so much easy sport 
 and easier solemnity for the American and English 
 papers. Nobody could quite make out whether Mr. 
 Brayne was an atheist or a Mormon or a Christian 
 Scientist; but he was ready to pour money into 
 any intellectual vessel, so long as it was an untried 
 vessel. One of his hobbies was to wait for the 
 American Shakespeare — a hobby more patient than 
 angling. He admired Walt Whitman, but thought 
 that Luke P. Tanner, of Paris, Pa., was more " pro- 
 gressive " than Whitman any day. He liked any- 
 thing that he thought " progressive." He thought 
 
 36 
 
THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 Valentin " progressive," thereby doing him a grave 
 injustice. 
 
 The solid appearance of Julius K. Brayne in the 
 room was as decisive as a dinner bell. He had this 
 great quality, which very few of us can claim, that 
 his presence was as big as his absence. He was 
 a huge fellow, as fat as he was tall, clad in complete 
 evening black, without so much relief as a watch- 
 chain or a ring. His hair was white and well 
 brushed back like a German's; his face was red, 
 fierce and cherubic, with one dark tuft under the 
 lower lip that threw up that otherwise infantile vis- 
 age with an effect theatrical and even Mephisto- 
 phelean. Not long, however, did that salon merely 
 stare at the celebrated American; his lateness had 
 already become a domestic problem, and he was 
 sent with all speed into the dining-room with Lady 
 Galloway on his arm. 
 
 Except on one point the Galloways were genial 
 and casual enough. So long as Lady Margaret did 
 not take the arm of that adventurer O'Brien, her 
 father was quite satisfied; and she had not done 
 so, she had decorously gone in with Dr. Simon. 
 Nevertheless, old Lord Galloway was restless and 
 almost rude. He was diplomatic enough during 
 dinner, but when, over the cigars, three of the 
 younger men — Simon the doctor, Brown the priest, 
 and the detrimental O'Brien, the exile in a foreign 
 uniform — all melted away to mix with the ladies or 
 smoke in the conservatory, then the English diplo- 
 
 37. 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 matist grew very undiplomatic indeed. He was 
 stung every sixty seconds with the thought that 
 the scamp O'Brien might be signalling to Margaret 
 somehow ; he did not attempt to imagine how. He 
 was left over the coffee with Brayne, the hoary 
 Yankee who believed in all religions, and Valentin, 
 the grizzled Frenchman who believed in none. 
 They could argue with each other, but neither could 
 appeal to him. After a time this " progressive " 
 logomachy had reached a crisis of tedium; Lord 
 Galloway got up also and sought the drawing-room. 
 He lost his way in long passages for some six or 
 eight minutes : till he heard the high-pitched, didac- 
 tic voice of the doctor, and then the dull voice of 
 the priest, followed by general laughter. They also, 
 he thought with a curse, were probably arguing 
 about " science and religion." But the instant he 
 opened the salon door he saw only one thing — he 
 saw what was not there. He saw that Commandant 
 O'Brien was absent, and that Lady Margaret was 
 absent too. 
 
 Rising impatiently from the drawing-room, as 
 he had from the dining-room, he stamped along 
 the passage once more. His notion of protecting 
 his daughter from the Irish-Algerian ne'er-do-weel 
 had become something central and even mad in his 
 mind. As he went towards the back of the house, 
 where was Valentin's study, he was surprised to 
 meet his daughter, who swept past with a white, 
 scornful face, which was a second enigma. If she 
 
 38 
 
THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 had been with O'Brien, where was O'Brien? If 
 she had not been with O'Brien, where had she 
 been? With a sort of senile and passionate sus- 
 picion he groped his way to the dark back parts 
 of the mansion, and eventually found a servants' 
 entrance that opened on to the garden. The moon 
 with her scimitar had now ripped up and rolled 
 away all the storm-wrack. The argent light lit up 
 all four corners of the garden. A tall figure in 
 blue was striding across the lawn towards the study 
 door ; a glint of moonlit silver on his facings picked 
 him out as Commandant O'Brien. 
 
 He vanished through the French windows into 
 the house, leaving Lord Galloway in an indescriba- 
 ble temper, at once virulent and vague. The blue- 
 and-silver garden, like a scene in a theatre, seemed 
 to taunt him with all that tyrannic tenderness 
 against which his worldly authority was at war. 
 The length and grace of the Irishman's stride en- 
 raged him as if he were a rival instead of a father; 
 the moonlight maddened him. He was trapped as 
 if by magic into a garden of troubadours, a Watteau 
 fairyland; and, willing to shake off such amorous 
 imbecilities by speech, he stepped briskly after his 
 enemy. As he did so he tripped over some tree or 
 stone in the grass ; looked down at it first with irri- 
 tation and then a second time with curiosity. The 
 next instant the moon and the tall poplars looked 
 at an unusual sight — an elderly English diplomatist 
 running hard and crying or bellowing as he ran. 
 
 39 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 His hoarse shouts brought a pale face to the 
 study door, the beaming glasses and worried brow 
 of Dr. Simon, who heard the nobleman's first clear 
 words. Lord Galloway was crying : " A corpse 
 in the grass — a blood-stained corpse." O'Brien at 
 least had gone utterly out of his mind. 
 
 " We must tell Valentin at once," said the doctor, 
 when the other had brokenly described all that he 
 had dared to examine. " It is fortunate that he is 
 here " ; and even as he spoke the great detective 
 entered the study, attracted by the cry. It was 
 almost amusing to note his typical transformation; 
 he had come with the common concern of a host 
 and a gentleman, fearing that some guest or servant 
 was ill. When he was told the gory fact, he turned 
 with all his gravity instantly bright and business- 
 like; for this, however abrupt and awful, was his 
 business. 
 
 " Strange, gentlemen," he said as they hurried 
 out into the garden, " that I should have hunted 
 mysteries all over the earth, and now one comes 
 and settles in my own back-yard. But where is 
 the place ? " They crossed the lawn less easily, as 
 a slight mist had begun to rise from the river; 
 but under the guidance of the shaken Galloway 
 they found the body sunken in deep grass — the 
 body of a very tall and broad-shouldered man. He 
 lay face downwards, so they could only see that his 
 big shoulders were clad in black cloth, and that 
 his big head was bald, except for a wisp or two 
 
 40 
 
THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 of brown hair that clung to his skull like wet sea- 
 weed. A scarlet serpent of blood crawled from 
 under his fallen face. 
 
 " At least," said Simon, with a deep and singular 
 intonation, " he is none of our party." 
 
 "Examine him, doctor," cried Valentin rather 
 sharply. " He may not be dead." 
 
 The doctor bent down. " He is not quite cold, 
 but I am afraid he is dead enough," he answered. 
 " Just help me to lift him up." 
 
 They lifted him carefully an inch from the 
 ground, and all doubts as to his being really dead 
 were settled at once and frightfully. The head fell 
 away. It had been entirely sundered from the 
 body; whoever had cut his throat had managed to 
 sever the neck as well. Even Valentin was slightly 
 shocked. " He must have been as strong as a 
 gorilla," he muttered. 
 
 Not without a shiver, though he was used to 
 anatomical abortions, Dr. Simon lifted the head. 
 It was slightly slashed about the neck and jaw, 
 but the face was substantially unhurt. It was a 
 ponderous, yellow face, at once sunken and swollen, 
 with a hawk-like nose and heavy lids — the face of 
 a wicked Roman emperor, with, perhaps, a distant 
 touch of a Chinese emperor. All present seemed 
 to look at it with the coldest eye of ignorance. 
 Nothing else could be noted about the man except 
 that, as they had lifted his body, they had seen 
 underneath it the white gleam of a shirt-front de- 
 
 4i 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 faced with a red gleam of blood. As Dr. Simon 
 said, the man had never been of their party. But 
 he might very well have been trying to join it, for 
 he had come dressed for such an occasion. 
 
 Valentin went down on his hands and knees and 
 examined with his closest professional attention the 
 grass and ground for some twenty yards round the 
 body, in which he was assisted less skilfully by the 
 doctor, and quite vaguely by the English lord. 
 Nothing rewarded their grovellings except a few 
 twigs, snapped or chopped into very small lengths, 
 which Valentin lifted for an instant's examination 
 and then tossed away. 
 
 " Twigs," he said gravely ; " twigs, and a total 
 stranger with his head cut off; that is all there is 
 on this lawn." 
 
 There was an almost creepy stillness, and then 
 the unnerved Galloway called out sharply : 
 
 "Who's that? Who's that over there by the 
 garden wall ? " 
 
 A small figure with a foolishly large head drew 
 waveringly near them in the moonlit haze; looked 
 for an instant like a goblin, but turned out to be 
 the harmless little priest whom they had left in 
 the drawing-room. 
 
 " I say," he said meekly, " there are no gates to 
 this garden, do you know." 
 
 Valentin's black brows had come together some- 
 what crossly, as they did on principle at the sight 
 of the cassock. But he was far too just a man 
 
 42 
 
THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 to deny the relevance of the remark. " You are 
 right," he said. " Before we find out how he came 
 to be killed, we may have to find out how he came 
 to be here. Now listen to me, gentlemen. If it 
 can be done without prejudice to my position and 
 duty, we shall all agree that certain distinguished 
 names might well be kept out of this. There are 
 ladies, gentlemen, and there is a foreign ambassa- 
 dor. If we must mark it down as a crime, then it 
 must be followed up as a crime. But till then I 
 can use my own discretion. I am the head of the 
 police; I am so public that I can afford to be pri- 
 vate. Please Heaven, I will clear every one of my 
 own guests before I call in my men to look for 
 anybody else. Gentlemen, upon your honour, you 
 will none of you leave the house till to-morrow at 
 noon; there are bedrooms for all. Simon, I think 
 you know where to find my man, Ivan, in the front 
 hall; he is a confidential man. Tell him to leave 
 another servant on guard and come to me at once. 
 Lord Galloway, you are certainly the best person 
 to tell the ladies what has happened, and prevent a 
 panic. They also must stay. Father Brown and 
 I will remain with the body." 
 
 When this spirit of the captain spoke in Valentin 
 he was obeyed like a bugle. Dr. Simon went 
 through to the armoury and routed out Ivan, the 
 public detective's private detective. Galloway went 
 to the drawing-room and told the terrible news tact- 
 fully enough, so that by the time the company as- 
 
 43 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 sembled there the ladies were already startled and 
 already soothed. Meanwhile the good priest and 
 the good atheist stood at the head and foot of the 
 dead man motionless in the moonlight, like symbolic 
 statues of their two philosophies of death. 
 
 Ivan, the confidential man with the scar and the 
 moustaches, came out of the house like a cannon ball, 
 and came racing across the lawn to Valentin like a 
 dog to his master. His livid face was quite lively 
 with the glow of this domestic detective story, and 
 it was with almost unpleasant eagerness that he 
 asked his master's permission to examine the re- 
 mains. 
 
 "Yes; look, if you like, Ivan," said Valentin, 
 "but don't be long. We must go in and thrash 
 this out in the house." 
 
 Ivan lifted the head, and then almost let it drop. 
 
 "Why," he gasped, "it's — no, it isn't; it can't 
 be. Do you know this man, sir ? " 
 
 " No," said Valentin indifferently ; " we had bet- 
 ter go inside." 
 
 Between them they carried the corpse to a sofa 
 in the study, and then all made their way to the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 The detective sat down at a desk quietly, and 
 even with hesitation; but his eye was the iron eye 
 of a judge at assize. He made a few rapid notes 
 upon paper in front of him, and then said shortly : 
 " Is everybody here? " 
 
 44 
 
THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 " Not Mr. Brayne," said the Duchess of Mont 
 St. Michel, looking round. 
 
 " No," said Lord Galloway in a hoarse, harsh 
 voice. "And not Mr. Neil O'Brien, I fancy. I 
 saw that gentleman walking in the garden when 
 the corpse was still warm." 
 
 "Ivan," said the detective, "go and fetch Com- 
 mandant O'Brien and Mr. Brayne. Mr. Brayne, 
 I know, is finishing a cigar in the dining-room; 
 Commandant O'Brien, I think, is walking up and 
 down the conservatory. I am not sure." 
 
 The faithful attendant flashed from the room, 
 and before anyone could stir or speak Valentin 
 went on with the same soldierly swiftness of expo- 
 sition. 
 
 " Everyone here knows that a dead man has been 
 found in the garden, his head cut clean from his 
 body. Dr. Simon, you have examined it. Do you 
 think that to cut a man's throat like that would need 
 great force? Or, perhaps, only a very sharp 
 knife?" 
 
 " I should say that it could not be done with a 
 knife at all," said the pale doctor. 
 
 " Have you any thought," resumed Valentin, " of 
 a tool with which it could be done ? " 
 
 " Speaking within modern probabilities, I really 
 haven't," said the doctor, arching his painful 
 brows. " It's not easy to hack a neck through even 
 clumsily, and this was a very clean cut. It could 
 
 45 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 be done with a battle-axe or an old headsman's axe, 
 or an old two-handed sword." 
 
 " But, good heavens ! " cried the Duchess, almost 
 in hysterics, " there aren't any two-handed swords 
 and battle-axes round here." 
 
 Valentin was still busy with the paper in front 
 of him. " Tell me," he said, still writing rapidly, 
 " could it have been done with a long French cav- 
 alry sabre?" 
 
 A low knocking came at the door, which, for 
 some unreasonable reason, curdled everyone's blood 
 like the knocking in Macbeth. Amid that frozen 
 silence Dr. Simon managed to say : " A sabre — 
 yes, I suppose it could." 
 
 " Thank you," said Valentin. " Come in, Ivan." 
 
 The confidential Ivan opened the door and ush- 
 ered in Commandant Neil O'Brien, whom he had 
 found at last pacing the garden again. 
 
 The Irish officer stood up disordered and defiant 
 on the threshold. " What do you want with me ? " 
 he cried. 
 
 " Please sit down," said Valentin in pleasant, 
 level tones. " Why, you aren't wearing your 
 sword. Where is it?" 
 
 " I left it on the library table," said O'Brien, his 
 brogue deepening in his disturbed mood. " It was 
 a nuisance, it was getting " 
 
 " Ivan," said Valentin, " please go and get the 
 Commandant's sword from the library." Then, as 
 the servant vanished, " Lord Galloway says he saw 
 
 46 
 
THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 you leaving the garden just before he found the 
 corpse. What were you doing in the garden ? " 
 
 The Commandant flung himself recklessly into 
 a chair. " Oh," he cried in pure Irish, " admirin' 
 the moon. Communing with Nature, me bhoy." 
 
 A heavy silence sank and endured, and at the 
 end of it came again that trivial and terrible knock- 
 ing. Ivan reappeared, carrying an empty steel 
 scabbard. " This is all I can find," he said. 
 
 " Put it on the table," said Valentin, without 
 looking up. 
 
 There was an inhuman silence in the room, like 
 that sea of inhuman silence round the dock of the 
 condemned murderer. The Duchess's weak excla- 
 mations had long ago died away. Lord Galloway's 
 swollen hatred was satisfied and even sobered. The 
 voice that came was quite unexpected. 
 
 " I think I can tell you," cried Lady Margaret, 
 in that clear, quivering voice with which a cour- 
 ageous woman speaks publicly. " I can tell you 
 what Mr. O'Brien was doing in the garden, since 
 he is bound to silence. He was asking me to marry 
 him. I refused; I said in my family circumstances 
 I could give him nothing but my respect. He was 
 a little angry at that; he did not seem to think 
 much of my respect. I wonder," she added, with 
 rather a wan smile, " if he will care at all for it 
 now. For I offer it him now. I will swear any- 
 where that he never did a thing like this." 
 
 Lord Galloway had edged up to his daughter, and 
 47 
 
 I 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 was intimidating her in what he imagined to be an 
 undertone. " Hold your tongue, Maggie," he said 
 in a thunderous whisper. " Why should you shield 
 the fellow? Where's his sword? Where's his 
 confounded cavalry " 
 
 He stopped because of the singular stare with 
 which his daughter was regarding him, a look that 
 was indeed a lurid magnet for the whole group. 
 
 " You old fool ! " she said, in a low voice with- 
 out pretence of piety, " what do you suppose you 
 are trying to prove ? I tell you this man was inno- 
 cent while With me. But if he wasn't innocent, he 
 was still with me. If he murdered a man in the 
 garden, who was it who must have seen — who must 
 at least have known? Do you hate Neil so much 
 as to put your own daughter " 
 
 Lady Galloway screamed. Everyone else sat 
 tingling at the touch of those satanic tragedies that 
 have been between lovers before now. They saw 
 the proud, white face of the Scotch aristocrat and 
 her lover, the Irish adventurer, like old portraits 
 in a dark house. The long silence was full of 
 formless historical memories of murdered husbands 
 and poisonous paramours. 
 
 In the centre of this morbid silence an innocent 
 voice said : " Was it a very long cigar ? " 
 
 The change of thought was so sharp that they 
 had to look round to see who had spoken. 
 
 "I mean," said little Father Brown, from the 
 corner of the room, " I mean that cigar Mr. Brayne 
 
 48 
 
THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 is finishing. It seems nearly as long as a walking- 
 stick." 
 
 Despite the irrelevance there was assent as well 
 as irritation in Valentin's face as he lifted his 
 head. 
 
 " Quite right," he remarked sharply. " Ivan, go 
 and see about Mr. Brayne again, and bring him here 
 at once." 
 
 The instant the factotum had closed the door, 
 Valentin addressed the girl with an entirely new 
 earnestness. 
 
 " Lady Margaret," he said, " we all feel, I am 
 sure, both gratitude and admiration for your act in 
 rising above your lower dignity and explaining the 
 Commandant's conduct. But there is a hiatus still. 
 Lord Galloway, I understand, met you passing from 
 the study to the drawing-room, and it was only 
 some minutes afterwards that he found the garden 
 and the Commandant still walking there." 
 
 " You have to remember," replied Margaret, 
 with a faint irony in her voice, " that I had just 
 refused him, so we should scarcely have come back 
 arm in arm. He is a gentleman, anyhow; and he 
 loitered behind — and so got charged with murder." 
 
 " In those few moments," said Valentin gravely, 
 " he might really " 
 
 The knock came again, and Ivan put in his 
 scarred face. 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir," he said, " but Mr. Brayne has 
 
 left the house." 
 
 4 49 
 
 / 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 " Left ! " cried Valentin, and rose for the first 
 time to his feet. 
 
 " Gone. Scooted. Evaporated," replied Ivan, 
 in humorous French. " His hat and coat are gone, 
 too, and I'll tell you something to cap it all. I 
 ran outside the house to find any traces of him, 
 and I found one, and a big trace, too." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked Valentin. 
 
 " I'll show you," said his servant, and reappeared 
 with a flashing naked cavalry sabre, streaked with 
 blood about the point and edge. Everyone in the 
 room eyed it as if it were a thunderbolt; but the 
 experienced Ivan went on quite quietly: 
 
 " I found this," he said, " flung among the bushes 
 fifty yards up the road to Paris. In other words, 
 I found it just where your respectable Mr. Brayne 
 threw it when he ran away." 
 
 There was again a silence, but of a new sort. 
 Valentin took the sabre, examined it, reflected with 
 unaffected concentration of thought, and then 
 turned a respectful face to O'Brien. " Command- 
 ant," he said, " we trust you will always produce 
 this weapon if it is wanted for police examination. 
 Meanwhile," he added, slapping the steel back in 
 the ringing scabbard, "let me return you your 
 sword." 
 
 At the military symbolism of the action the 
 audience could hardly refrain from applause. 
 
 For Neil O'Brien, indeed, that gesture was the 
 turning-point of existence. By the time he was 
 
 So 
 
THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 wandering in the mysterious garden again in the 
 colours of the morning the tragic futility of his 
 ordinary mien had fallen from him ; he was a man 
 with many reasons for happiness. Lord Galloway 
 was a gentleman, and had offered him an apology. 
 Lady Margaret was something better than a lady, 
 a woman at least, and had perhaps given him some- 
 thing better than an apology, as they drifted among 
 the old flower-beds before breakfast. The whole 
 company was more light-hearted and humane, for 
 though the riddle of the death remained, the load 
 of suspicion was lifted off them all, and sent flying 
 off to Paris with the strange millionaire — a man 
 they hardly knew. The devil was cast out of the 
 house — he had cast himself out. 
 
 Still, the riddle remained; and when O'Brien 
 threw himself on a garden seat beside Dr. Simon, 
 that keenly scientific person at once resumed it. 
 He did not get much talk out of O'Brien, whose 
 thoughts were on pleasanter things. 
 
 " I can't say it interests me much," said the Irish- 
 man frankly, "especially as it seems pretty plain 
 now. Apparently Brayne hated this stranger for 
 some reason; lured him into the garden, and killed 
 him with my sword. Then he fled to the city, 
 tossing the sword away as he went. By the way, 
 Ivan tells me the dead man had a Yankee dollar in 
 his pocket. So he was a countryman of Brayne's, 
 and that seems to clinch it. I don't see any diffi- 
 culties about the business." 
 
 5i 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 " There are five colossal difficulties," said the 
 doctor quietly ; " like high walls within walls. 
 Don't mistake me. I don't doubt that Brayne did 
 it; his flight, I fancy, proves that. But as to how 
 he did it. First difficulty : Why should a man kill 
 another man with a great hulking sabre, when he 
 can almost kill him with a pocket knife and put it 
 back in his pocket? Second difficulty: Why was 
 there no noise or outcry? Does a man commonly 
 see another come up waving a scimitar and offer 
 no remarks ? Third difficulty : A servant watched 
 the front door all the evening ; and a rat cannot get 
 into Valentin's garden anywhere. How did the 
 dead man get into the garden? Fourth difficulty: 
 Given the same conditions, how did Brayne get out 
 of the garden?" 
 
 "And the fifth," said Neil, with eyes fixed on 
 the English priest who was coming slowly up the 
 path. 
 
 " Is a trifle, I suppose," said the doctor, " but 
 I think an odd one. When I first saw how the head 
 had been slashed, I supposed the assassin had struck 
 more than once. But on examination I found 
 many cuts across the truncated section; in other 
 words, they were struck after the head was off. 
 Did Brayne hate his foe so fiendishly that he stood 
 sabring his body in the moonlight ? " 
 
 "Horrible!" said O'Brien, and shuddered. 
 
 The little priest, Brown, had arrived while they 
 were talking, and had waited, with characteristic 
 
 52 
 
THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 shyness, till they had finished. Then he said awk- 
 wardly : 
 
 " I say, I'm sorry to interrupt. But I was sent 
 to tell you the news ! " 
 
 " News ? " repeated Simon, and stared at him 
 rather painfully through his glasses. 
 
 " Yes, I'm sorry," said Father Brown mildly. 
 " There's been another murder, you know." 
 
 Both men on the seat sprang up, leaving it rock- 
 ing. 
 
 " And, what's stranger still," continued the priest, 
 with his dull eye on the rhododendrons, " it's the 
 same disgusting sort ; it's another beheading. They 
 found the second head actually bleeding into the 
 river, a few yards along Brayne's road to Paris; 
 so they suppose that he " 
 
 " Great Heaven ! " cried O'Brien. " Is Brayne 
 a monomaniac ? " 
 
 " There are American vendettas," said the priest 
 impassively. Then he added : " They want you 
 to come to the library and see it." 
 
 Commandant O'Brien followed the others to- 
 wards the inquest, feeling decidedly sick. As a 
 soldier, he loathed all this secretive carnage; where 
 were these extravagant amputations going to stop? 
 First one head was hacked off, and then another; 
 in this case (he told himself bitterly) it was not 
 true that two heads were better than one. As he 
 crossed the study he almost staggered at a shock- 
 ing coincidence. Upon Valentin's table lay the col- 
 
 53 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 oured picture of yet a third bleeding head; and it 
 was the head of Valentin himself. A second glance 
 showed him it was only a Nationalist paper, called 
 The Guillotine, which every week showed one of 
 its political opponents with rolling eyes and writh- 
 ing features just after execution; for Valentin was 
 an anti-clerical of some note. But O'Brien was an 
 Irishman, with a kind of chastity even in his sins; 
 and his gorge rose against that great brutality of 
 the intellect which belongs only to France. He 
 felt Paris as a whole, from the grotesques on the 
 Gothic churches to the gross caricatures in the news- 
 papers. He remembered the gigantic jests of the 
 Revolution. He saw the whole city as one ugly 
 energy, from the sanguinary sketch lying on Val- 
 entin's table up to where, above a mountain and 
 forest of gargoyles, the great devil grins on Notre 
 Dame. 
 
 The library was long, low, and dark; what light 
 entered it shot from under low blinds and had still 
 some of the ruddy tinge of morning. Valentin 
 and his servant Ivan were waiting for them at the 
 upper end of a long, slightly-sloping desk, on which 
 lay the mortal remains, looking enormous in the 
 twilight. The big black figure and yellow face of 
 the man found in the garden confronted them es- 
 sentially unchanged. The second head, which had 
 been fished from among the river reeds that morn- 
 ing, lay streaming and dripping beside it; Valentin's 
 men were still seeking to recover the rest of this 
 
 54 
 
THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 second corpse, which was supposed to be afloat. 
 Father Brown, who did not seem to share O'Brien's 
 sensibilities in the least, went up to the second head 
 and examined it with his blinking care. It was 
 little more than a mop of wet white hair, fringed 
 with silver fire in the red and level morning light; 
 the face, which seemed of an ugly, empurpled and 
 perhaps criminal type, had been much battered 
 against trees or stones as it tossed in the water. 
 
 " Good morning, Commandant O'Brien," said 
 Valentin, with quiet cordiality. " You have heard 
 of Brayne's last experiment in butchery, I sup- 
 pose ? " 
 
 Father Brown was still bending over the head 
 with white hair, and he said, without looking up: 
 
 " I suppose it is quite certain that Brayne cut 
 off this head, too." 
 
 " Well, it seems common sense," said Valentin, 
 with his hands in his pockets. " Killed in the same 
 way as the other. Found within a few yards of 
 the other. And sliced by the same weapon which 
 we know he carried away." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; I know," replied Father Brown sub- 
 missively. " Yet, you know, I doubt whether 
 Brayne could have cut off this head." 
 
 " Why not ? " inquired Dr. Simon, with a rational 
 stare. 
 
 " Well, doctor," said the priest, looking up blink- 
 ing, " can a man cut Off his own head ? I don't 
 know." 
 
 55 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 O'Brien felt an insane universe crashing about 
 his ears; but the doctor sprang forward with im- 
 petuous practicality and pushed back the wet white 
 hair. 
 
 " Oh, there's no doubt it's Brayne," said the priest 
 quietly. " He had exactly that chip in the left 
 ear." 
 
 The detective, who had been regarding the priest 
 with steady and glittering eyes, opened his clenched 
 mouth and said sharply : " You seem to know a 
 lot about him, Father Brown." 
 
 " I do," said the little man simply. " I've been 
 about with him for some weeks. He was thinking 
 of joining our church." 
 
 The star of the fanatic sprang into Valentin's 
 eyes; he strode towards the priest with clenched 
 hands. " And, perhaps," he cried, with a blasting 
 sneer, " perhaps he was also thinking of leaving 
 all his money to your church." 
 
 " Perhaps he was," said Brown stolidly ; " it is 
 possible." 
 
 " In that case," cried Valentin, with a dreadful 
 smile, "you may indeed know a great deal about 
 him. About his life and about his " 
 
 Commandant O'Brien laid a hand on Valentin's 
 arm. " Drop that slanderous rubbish, Valentin," 
 he said, " or there may be more swords yet." 
 
 But Valentin (under the steady, humble gaze of 
 the priest) had already recovered himself. " Well," 
 he said shortly, " people's private opinions can wait 
 
 56 
 
THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 You gentlemen are still bound by your promise 
 to stay; you must enforce it on yourselves — and 
 on each other. Ivan here will tell you anything 
 more you want to know; I must get to business 
 and write to the authorities. We can't keep this 
 quiet any longer. I shall be writing in my study 
 if there is any more news." 
 
 " Is there any more news, Ivan ? " asked Dr. 
 Simon, as the chief of police strode out of the 
 room. 
 
 " Only one more thing, I think, sir," said Ivan, 
 wrinkling up his grey old face, "but that's im- 
 portant, too, in its way. There's that old buffer 
 you found on the lawn," and he pointed without 
 pretence of reverence at the big black body with 
 the yellow head. " We've found out who he is, any- 
 how." 
 
 " Indeed ! " cried the astonished doctor, " and 
 who is he? " 
 
 " His name was Arnold Becker," said the under- 
 detective, " though he went by many aliases. He 
 was a wandering sort of scamp, and is known to 
 have been in America; so that was where Brayne 
 got his knife into him. We didn't have much 
 to do with him ourselves, for he worked mostly in 
 Germany. We've communicated, of course, with 
 the German police. But, oddly enough, there was 
 a twin brother of his, named Louis Becker, whom 
 we had a great deal to do with. In fact, we found 
 it necessary to guillotine him only yesterday. Well, 
 
 57 
 
THE P^NOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 - it's a rum thing, gentlemen, but when I saw that 
 fellow flat on the lawn I had the greatest jump 
 of my life. If I hadn't seen Louis Becker guillo- 
 tined with my own eyes, I'd have sworn it was 
 Louis Becker lying there in the grass. Then, of 
 course, I remembered his twin brother in Germany, 
 and following up the clue " 
 
 The explanatory Ivan stopped, for the excel- 
 lent reason that nobody was listening to him. The 
 Commandant and the doctor were both staring at 
 Father Brown, who had sprung stiffly to his feet, 
 and was holding his temples tight like a man in 
 sudden and violent pain. 
 
 "Stop, stop, stop!" he cried; "stop talking a 
 minute, for I see half. Will God give me strength ? 
 Will my brain make the one jump and see all? 
 Heaven help me ! I used to be fairly good at think- 
 ing. I could paraphrase any page in Aquinas once. 
 Will my head split — or will it see? I see half — 
 I only see half." 
 
 He buried his head in his hands, and stood in 
 a sort of rigid torture of thought or prayer, while 
 the other three could only go on staring at this 
 last prodigy of their wild twelve hours. 
 
 When Father Brown's hands fell they showed 
 a face quite fresh and serious, like a child's. He 
 heaved a huge sigh, and said : " Let us get this 
 said and done with as quickly as possible. Look 
 here, this will be the quickest way to convince you 
 all of the truth." He turned to the doctor. " Dr 
 
 58 
 
THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 Simon," he said, "you have a strong head-piece, 
 and I heard you this morning asking the five hard- 
 est questions about this business. Well, if you will 
 ask them again, I will answer them." 
 
 Simon's pince-nez dropped from his nose in his 
 doubt and wonder, but he answered at once. 
 " Well, the first question, you know, is why a man 
 should kill another with a clumsy sabre at all when 
 a man can kill with a bodkin ? " 
 
 "A man cannot behead with a bodkin," said 
 Brown calmly, " and for this murder beheading was 
 absolutely necessary." 
 
 " Why ? " asked O'Brien, with interest. 
 " And the next question ? " asked Father Brown. 
 " Well, why didn't the man cry out or any- 
 thing ? " asked the doctor ; " sabres in gardens are 
 certainly unusual." 
 
 " Twigs," said the priest gloomily, and turned 
 to the window which looked on the scene of death. 
 " No one saw the point of the twigs. Why should 
 they lie on that lawn (look at it) so far from any 
 tree? They were not snapped off; they were 
 chopped off. The murderer occupied his enemy 
 with some tricks with the sabre, showing how he 
 could cut a branch in mid-air, or whatnot. Then, 
 while his enemy bent down to see the result, a silent 
 slash, and the head fell." 
 
 " Well," said the doctor slowly, " that seems 
 plausible enough. But my next two questions will 
 stump anyone." 
 
 59 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 The priest still stood looking critically out of 
 the window and waited. 
 
 " You know how all the garden was sealed up like 
 an air-tight chamber," went on the doctor. " Well, 
 how did the strange man get into the garden? " 
 
 Without turning round, the little priest an- 
 swered : " There never was any strange man in 
 the garden." 
 
 There was a silence, and then a sudden cackle 
 of almost childish laughter relieved the strain. 
 The absurdity of Brown's remark moved Ivan to 
 open taunts. 
 
 " Oh ! " he cried ; " then we didn't lug a great 
 fat corpse on to a sofa last night? He hadn't 
 got into the garden, I suppose?" 
 
 " Got into the garden ? " repeated Brown re- 
 flectively. " No, not entirely." 
 
 " Hang it all," cried Simon, " a man gets into 
 a garden, or he doesn't." 
 
 " Not necessarily," said the priest, with a faint 
 smile. " What is the next question, doctor ? " 
 
 " I fancy you're ill," exclaimed Dr. Simon 
 sharply ; " but I'll ask the next question if you like. 
 How did Brayne get out of the garden? " 
 
 " He didn't get out of the garden," said the 
 priest, still looking out of the window. 
 
 " Didn't get out of the garden ? " exploded Simon. 
 
 " Not completely," said Father Brown. 
 
 Simon shook his fists in a frenzy of French 
 60 
 
THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 logic. " A man gets out of a garden, or he doesn't," 
 he cried. 
 
 " Not always," said Father Brown. 
 
 Dr. Simon sprang to his- feet impatiently. " I 
 have no time to spare on such senseless talk," he 
 cried angrily. "If you can't understand a man 
 being on one side of a wall or the other, I won't 
 trouble you further." 
 
 " Doctor," said the cleric very gently, " we have 
 always got on very pleasantly together. If only 
 for the sake of old friendship, stop and tell me your 
 fifth question." 
 
 The impatient Simon sank into a chair by the 
 door and said briefly : " The head and shoulders 
 were cut about in a queer way. It seemed to be 
 done after death." 
 
 " Yes," said the motionless priest, " it was done 
 so as to make you assume exactly the one simple 
 falsehood that you did assume. It was done to 
 make you take for granted that the head belonged 
 to the body." 
 
 The borderland of the brain, where all the 
 monsters are made, moved horribly in the Gaelic 
 O'Brien. He felt the chaotic presence of all the 
 horse-men and fish-women that man's unnatural 
 fancy has begotten. A voice older than his first 
 fathers seemed saying in his ear : " Keep out of 
 the monstrous garden where grows the tree with 
 double fruit. Avoid the evil garden where died 
 
 61 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 the man with two heads." Yet, while these shame- 
 ful symbolic shapes passed across the ancient mirror 
 of his Irish soul, his Frenchified intellect was quite 
 alert, and was watching the odd priest as closely 
 and incredulously as all the rest. 
 
 Father Brown had turned round at last, and stood 
 against the window with his face in dense 
 shadow; but even in that shadow they could see 
 it was pale as ashes. Nevertheless, he spoke quite 
 sensibly, as if there were no Gaelic souls on earth. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " you did not find the 
 strange body of Becker in the garden. You did 
 not find any strange body in the garden. In face 
 of Dr. Simon's rationalism, I still affirm that 
 Becker was only partly present. Look here ! " 
 (pointing to the black bulk of the mysterious 
 corpse) " you never saw that man in your lives. 
 Did you ever see this man ? " 
 
 He rapidly rolled away the bald, yellow head 
 of the unknown, and put in its place the white- 
 maned head beside it. And there, complete, unified, 
 unmistakable, lay Julius K. Brayne. 
 
 " The murderer," went on Brown quietly, 
 " hacked off his enemy's head and flung the sword 
 far over the wall. But he was too clever to fling 
 the sword only. He flung the head over the wall 
 also. Then he had only to clap on another head 
 to the corpse, and (as he insisted on a private in- 
 quest) you all imagined a totally new man." 
 
 " Clap on another head ! " said" O'Brien staring. 
 62 
 
THE SECRET GARDEN 
 
 " What other head ? Heads don't grow on garden 
 bushes, do they? " 
 
 " No," said Father Brown huskily, and look- 
 ing at his boots ; " there is only one place where 
 they grow. They grow in the basket of the guillo- 
 tine, beside which the chief of Police, Aristide 
 Valentin, was standing not an hour before the 
 murder. Oh, my friends, hear me a minute more 
 before you tear me in pieces. Valentin is an 
 honest man, if being mad for an arguable cause 
 is honesty. But did you never see in that cold, 
 grey eye of his that he is mad? He would do 
 anything, anything, to break what he calls the 
 superstition of the Cross. He has fought for it 
 and starved for it, and now he has murdered for 
 it. Brayne's crazy millions had hitherto been 
 scattered among so many sects that they did little 
 to alter the balance of things. But Valentin heard 
 a whisper that Brayne, like so many scatter-brained 
 sceptics, was drifting to us; and that was quite a 
 different thing. Brayne would pour supplies into 
 the impoverished and pugnacious Church of France; 
 he would support six Nationalist newspapers like 
 The Guillotine. The battle was already balanced 
 on a point, and the fanatic took flame at the risk. 
 He resolved to destroy the millionaire, and he did 
 it as one would expect the greatest of detectives to 
 commit his only crime. He abstracted the severed 
 head of Becker on some criminological excuse, and 
 took it home in his official box. He had that last 
 
 63 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 argument with Brayne, that Lord Galloway did not 
 hear the end of; that failing, he led him out into 
 the sealed garden, talked about swordsmanship, used 
 twigs and a sabre for illustration, and " 
 
 Ivan of the Scar sprang up. "You lunatic," 
 he yelled ; " you'll go to my master now, if I take 
 you by " 
 
 " Why, I was going there," said Brown heavily ; 
 " I must ask him to confess, and all that." 
 
 Driving the unhappy Brown before them like 
 a hostage or sacrifice, they rushed together into 
 the sudden stillness of Valentin's study. 
 
 The great detective sat at his desk apparently 
 too occupied to hear their turbulent entrance. They 
 paused a moment, and then something in the look 
 of that upright and elegant back made the doctor 
 run forward suddenly. A touch and a glance 
 showed him that there was a small box of pills at 
 Valentin's elbow, and that Valentin was dead in 
 his chair; and on the blind face of the suicide was 
 more than the pride of Cato. 
 
 64 
 
Ill 
 
 THE QUEER FEET 
 
 If you meet a member of that select club, " The 
 Twelve True Fishermen," entering the Vernon 
 Hotel for the annual club dinner, you will observe, 
 as he takes off his overcoat, that his evening coat 
 is green and not black. If (supposing that you 
 ■ have the star-defying audacity to address such a 
 being) you ask him why, he will probably answer 
 that he does it to avoid being mistaken for a waiter. 
 You will then retire crushed. But you will leave 
 behind you a mystery as yet unsolved and a tale 
 worth telling. 
 
 If (to pursue the same vein of improbable con- 
 jecture) you were to meet a mild, hard-working 
 little priest, named Father Brown, and were to ask 
 him what he thought was the most singular luck of 
 his life, he would probably reply that upon the 
 whole his best stroke was at the Vernon Hotel, 
 where he had averted a crime and, perhaps, saved 
 a soul, merely by listening to a few footsteps in a 
 passage. He is perhaps a little proud of this wild 
 and wonderful guess of his, and it is possible that 
 he might refer to it. But since it is immeasurably 
 unlikely that you will ever rise high enough in the 
 s 65 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 social world to find " The Twelve True Fishermen," 
 or that you will ever sink low enough among slums 
 and criminals to find Father Brown, I fear you will 
 never hear the story at all unless you hear it from 
 me. 
 
 The Vernon Hotel at which The Twelve True 
 Fishermen held their annual dinners was an institu- 
 tion such as can only exist in an oligarchical society 
 which has almost gone mad on good manners. It 
 was that topsy-turvy product — an " exclusive " com- 
 mercial enterprise. That is, it was a thing which 
 paid not by attracting people, but actually by turn- 
 ing people away. In the heart of a plutocracy 
 tradesmen become cunning enough to be more fas- 
 tidious than their customers. They positively create 
 difficulties so that their wealthy and weary clients 
 may spend money and diplomacy in overcoming 
 them. If there were a fashionable hotel in London 
 which no man could enter who was under six foot, 
 society would meekly make up parties of six-foot 
 men to dine in it. If there were an expensive 
 restaurant which by a mere caprice of its proprietor 
 was only open on Thursday afternoon, it would be 
 crowded on Thursday afternoon. The Vernon 
 Hotel stood, as if by accident, in the corner of a 
 square in Belgravia. It was a small hotel; and a 
 very inconvenient one. But its very inconveniences 
 were considered as walls protecting a particular 
 class. One inconvenience, in particular, was held 
 to be of vital importance: the fact that practically 
 
 66 
 
THE QUEER FEET 
 
 only twenty-four people could dine in the place at 
 once. The only big dinner table was the celebrated 
 terrace' table, which stood open to the air on a sort 
 of veranda overlooking one of the most exquisite 
 old gardens in London. Thus it happened that 
 even the twenty-four seats at this table could only 
 be enjoyed in warm weather; and this making the 
 enjoyment yet more difficult made it yet more de- 
 sired. The existing owner of the hotel was a Jew 
 named Lever ; and he made nearly a million out of 
 it, by making it difficult to get into. Of course he 
 combined with this limitation in the scope of his 
 enterprise the most careful polish in its perform- 
 ance. The wines and cooking were really as good 
 as any in Europe, and the demeanour of the attend- 
 ants exactly mirrored the fixed mood of the English 
 upper class. The proprietor knew all his waiters 
 like the fingers on his hand ; there were only fifteen 
 of them all told. It was much easier to become a 
 Member of Parliament than to become a waiter in 
 that hotel. Each waiter was trained in terrible 
 silence and smoothness, as if he were a gentleman's 
 servant. And, indeed, there was generally at least 
 one waiter to every gentleman who dined. 
 
 The club of the Twelve True Fishermen would 
 not have consented to dine anywhere but in such a 
 place, for it insisted on a luxurious privacy; and 
 would have been quite upset by the mere thought 
 that any other club was even dining in the same 
 building. On the occasion of their annual dinner 
 
 6* 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 the Fishermen were in the habit of exposing all 
 their treasures, as if they were in a private house, 
 especially the celebrated set of fish knives and forks 
 which were, as it were, the insignia of the society, 
 each being exquisitely wrought in silver in the form 
 of a fish, and each loaded at the hilt with one large 
 pearl. These were always laid out for the fish 
 course, and the fish course was always the most 
 magnificent in that magnificent repast. The society 
 had a vast number of ceremonies and observances, 
 but it had no history and no object; that was where 
 it was so very aristocratic. You did not have to be 
 anything in order to be one of the Twelve Fishers ; 
 unless you were already a certain sort of person, 
 you never even heard of them. It had been in 
 existence twelve years. Its president was Mr. Aud- 
 ley. Its vice-president was the Duke of Chester. 
 
 If I have in any degree conveyed the atmo- 
 sphere of this appalling hotel, the reader may feel 
 a natural wonder as to how I came to know any- 
 thing about it, and may even speculate as to how 
 so ordinary a person as my friend Father Brown 
 came to find himself in that golden galley. As far 
 as that is concerned, my story is simple, or even 
 vulgar. There is in the world a very aged rioter 
 and demagogue who breaks into the most refined 
 retreats with the dreadful information that all men 
 are brothers, and wherever this leveller went on his 
 pale horse it was Father Brown's trade to follow. 
 One of the waiters, an Italian, had been struck 
 
 68 
 
THE QUEER FEET 
 
 down with a paralytic stroke that afternoon; and 
 his Jewish employer, marvelling mildly at such 
 superstitions, had consented to send for the nearest 
 Popish priest. With what the waiter confessed to 
 Father Brown we are not concerned, for the excel- 
 lent reason that that cleric kept it to himself; but 
 apparently it involved him in writing out a note or 
 statement for the conveying of some message or the 
 righting of some wrong. Father Brown, therefore, 
 with a meek impudence which he would have shown 
 equally in Buckingham Palace, asked to be pro- 
 vided with a room and writing materials. Mr. 
 Lever was torn in two. He was a kind man, and 
 had also that bad imitation of kindness, the dislike 
 of any difficulty or scene. At the same time the 
 presence of one unusual stranger in his hotel that 
 evening was like a speck of dirt on something just 
 cleaned. There was never any borderland or ante- 
 room in the Vernon Hotel, no people waiting in the 
 hall, no customers coming in on chance. There 
 were fifteen waiters. There were twelve guests. It 
 would be as startling to find a new guest in the 
 hotel that night as to find a new brother taking 
 breakfast or tea in one's own family. Moreover, the 
 priest's appearance was second-rate and his clothes 
 muddy; a mere glimpse of him afar off might pre- 
 cipitate a crisis in the club. Mr. Lever at last hit 
 on a plan to cover, since he might not obliterate, 
 the disgrace. When you enter (as you never will) 
 the Vernon Hotel, you pass down a short passage 
 
 69 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 decorated with a few dingy but important pictures, 
 and come to the main vestibule and lounge which 
 opens on your right into passages leading to the 
 public rooms, and on your left to a similar passage 
 pointing to the kitchens and offices of the hotel. 
 Immediately on your left hand is the corner of a 
 glass office, which abuts upon the lounge — a house 
 within a house, so to sepak, like the old hotel bar 
 which probably once occupied its place. 
 
 In this office sat the representative of the pro- 
 prietor (nobody in this place ever appeared in per- 
 son if he could help it), and just beyond the office, 
 on the way to the servants' quarters, was the gentle- 
 men's cloak room, the last boundary of the gentle- 
 men's domain. But between the office and the 
 cloak room was a small private room without other 
 outlet, sometimes used by the proprietor for deli- 
 cate and important matters, such as lending a duke 
 a thousand pounds or declining to lend him six- 
 pence. It is a mark of the magnificent tolerance of 
 Mr. Lever that he permitted this holy place to be 
 for about half an hour profaned by a mere priest, 
 scribbling away on a piece of paper. The story 
 which Father Brown was writing down was very 
 likely a much better story than this one, only it will 
 never be known. I can merely state that it was 
 very nearly as long, and that the last two or three 
 paragraphs of it were the least exciting and absorb- 
 ing. 
 
 For it was by the time that he had reached these 
 70 
 
THE QUEER FEET 
 
 that the priest began a little to allow his thoughts 
 to wander and his animal senses, which were com- 
 monly keen, to awaken. The time of darkness and 
 dinner was drawing on; his own forgotten little 
 room was without a light, and perhaps the gather- 
 ing gloom, as occasionally happens, sharpened the 
 sense of sound. As Father Brown wrote the last 
 and least essential part of his document, he caught 
 himself writing to the rhythm of a recurrent noise 
 outside, just as one sometimes thinks to the tune of 
 a railway train. When he became conscious of the 
 thing he found what it was: only the ordinary 
 patter of feet passing the door, which in an hotel 
 was no very unlikely matter. Nevertheless, he 
 stared at the darkened ceiling, and listened to the 
 sound. After he had listened for a few seconds 
 dreamily, he got to his feet and listened intently, 
 with his head a little on one side. Then he sat 
 down again and buried his brow in his hands, now 
 not merely listening, but listening and thinking 
 also. 
 
 The footsteps outside at any given moment were 
 such as one might hear in any hotel ; and yet, taken 
 as a whole, there was something very strange about 
 them. There were no other footsteps. It was al- 
 ways a very silent house, for the few familiar 
 guests went at once to their own apartments, and 
 the well-trained waiters were told to be almost in- 
 visible until they were wanted. One could not con- 
 ceive any place where there was less reason to ap- 
 
 7i 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 prehend anything irregular. But these footsteps 
 were so odd that one could not decide to call them 
 regular or irregular. Father Brown followed them 
 with his finger on the edge of the table, like a man 
 trying to learn a tune on the piano. 
 
 First, there came a long rush of rapid little steps, 
 such as a light man might make in winning a walk- 
 ing race. At a certain point they stopped and 
 changed to a sort of slow, swinging stamp, number- 
 ing not a quarter of the steps, but occupying about 
 the same time. The moment the last echoing stamp 
 had died away would come again the run or ripple 
 of light, hurrying feet, and then again the thud 
 of the heavier walking. It was certainly the same 
 pair of boots, partly because (as has been said) 
 there were no other boots about, and partly because 
 they had a small but unmistakable creak in them. 
 Father Brown had the kind of head that cannot 
 help asking questions ; and on this apparently trivial 
 question his head almost split. He had seen men 
 run in order to jump. He had seen men run in 
 order to slide. But why on earth should a man 
 run in order to walk? Or, again, why should he 
 walk in order to run? Yet no other description 
 would cover the antics of this invisible pair of legs. 
 The man was either walking very fast down one- 
 half of the corridor in order to walk very slow 
 down the other half ; or he was walking very slow 
 at one end to have the rapture of walking fast 
 at the other. Neither suggestion seemed to make 
 
 72 
 
THE QUEER FEET 
 
 much sense. His brain was growing darker and 
 darker, like his room. 
 
 Yet, as he began to think steadily, the very 
 blackness of his cell seemed to make his thoughts 
 more vivid ; he began to see as in a kind of vision 
 the fantastic feet capering along the corridor in un- 
 natural or symbolic attitudes. Was it a heathen 
 religious dance? Or some entirely new kind of 
 scientific exercise? Father Brown began to ask 
 himself with more exactness what the steps sug- 
 gested. Taking the slow step first : it certainly was 
 not the step of the proprietor. Men of his type 
 walk with a rapid waddle, or they sit still. It could 
 not be any servant or messenger waiting for direc- 
 tions. It did not sound like it. The poorer orders 
 (in an oligarchy) sometimes lurch about when they 
 are slightly drunk, but generally, and especially in 
 such gorgeous scenes, they stand or sit in con- 
 strained attitudes. No ; that heavy yet springy step, 
 with a kind of careless emphasis, not specially 
 noisy, yet not caring what noise it made, belonged 
 to only one of the animals of this earth. It was 
 a gentleman of western Europe, and probably one 
 who had never worked for his living. 
 
 Just as he came to this solid certainty, the step 
 changed to the quicker one, and ran past the door 
 as feverishly as a rat. The listener remarked that 
 though this step was much swifter it was also much 
 more noiseless, almost as if the man were walking 
 on tiptoe. Yet it was not associated in his mind 
 
 73 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 with secrecy, but with something else — something 
 that he could not remember. He was maddened by 
 one of those half-memories that make a man feel 
 half-witted. Surely he had heard that strange, 
 swift walking somewhere. Suddenly he sprang to 
 his feet with a new idea in his head, and walked 
 to the door. His room had no direct outlet on the 
 passage, but let on one side into the glass office, 
 and on the other into the cloak room beyond. He 
 tried the door into the office, and found it locked. 
 Then he looked at the window, now a square pane 
 full of purple cloud cleft by livid sunset, and for an 
 instant he smelt evil as a dog smells rats. 
 
 The rational part of him (whether the wiser or 
 not) regained its supremacy. He remembered that 
 the proprietor had told him that he should lock the 
 door, and would come later to release him. He 
 told himself that twenty things he had not thought 
 of might explain the eccentric sounds outside; he 
 reminded himself that there was just enough light 
 left to finish his own proper work. Bringing his 
 paper to the window so as to catch the last stormy 
 evening light, he resolutely plunged once more into 
 the almost completed record. He had written for 
 about twenty minutes, bending closer and closer 
 to his paper in the lessening light; then suddenly 
 he sat upright. He had heard the strange feet once 
 more. 
 
 This time they had a third oddity. Previously 
 the unknown man had walked, with levity indeed 
 
 74 
 
THE QUEER FEET 
 
 and lightning quickness, but he had walked. This 
 time he ran. One could hear the swift, soft, bound- 
 ing steps coming along the corridor, like the pads 
 of a fleeing and leaping panther. Whoever was 
 coming was a very strong, active man, in still yet 
 tearing excitement. Yet, when the sound had 
 swept up to the office like a sort of whispering 
 whirlwind, it suddenly changed again to the old 
 slow, swaggering stamp. 
 
 Father Brown flung down his paper, and, know- 
 ing the office door to be locked, went at once into 
 the cloak room on the other side. The attendant 
 of this place was temporarily absent, probably be- 
 cause the only guests were at dinner and his office 
 was a sinecure. After groping through a grey 
 forest of overcoats, he found that the dim cloak 
 room opened on the lighted corridor in the form 
 of a sort of counter of half-door, like most of 
 the counters across which we have all handed um- 
 brellas and received tickets. There was a light im- 
 mediately above the semicircular arch of this open- 
 ing. It threw little illumination on Father Brown 
 himself, who seemed a mere dark outline against 
 the dim sunset window behind him. But it threw 
 an almost theatrical light on the man who stood 
 outside the cloak room in the corridor. 
 
 He was an elegant man in very plain evening 
 dress ; tall, but with an air of not taking up much 
 room; one felt that he could have slid along like a 
 shadow where many smaller men would have been 
 
 75 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 obvious and obstructive. His face, now flung back 
 in the lamplight, was swarthy and vivacious, the 
 face of a foreigner. His figure was good, his man- 
 ners good humoured and confident; a critic could 
 only say that his black coat was a shade below his 
 figure and manners, and even bulged and bagged 
 in an odd way. The moment he caught sight of 
 Brown's black silhouette against the sunset, he 
 tossed down a scrap of paper with a number and 
 called out with amiable authority : " I want my 
 hat and coat, please; I find I have to go away at 
 once." 
 
 Father Brown took the paper without a word, 
 and obediently went to look for the coat ; it was not 
 the first menial work he had done in his life. He 
 brought it and laid it on the counter; meanwhile, 
 the strange gentleman who had been feeling in his 
 waistcoat pocket, said laughing : " I haven't got 
 any silver; you can keep this." And he threw 
 down half a sovereign, and caught up his coat. 
 
 Father Brown's figure remained quite dark and 
 still ; but in that instant he had lost his head. His 
 head was always most valuable when he had lost 
 it. In such moments he put two and two together 
 and made four million. Often the Catholic Church 
 (which is wedded to common sense) did not ap- 
 prove of it. Often he did not approve of it him- 
 self. But it was real inspiration — important at rare 
 crises — when whosoever shall lose his head the 
 same shall save it. 
 
 76 
 
THE QUEER FEET 
 
 " I think, sir," he said civilly, " that you have 
 some silver in your pocket." 
 
 The tall gentleman stared. "Hang it," he 
 cried, " if I choose to give you gold, why should 
 you complain ? " 
 
 " Because silver is sometimes more valuable than 
 gold," said the priest mildly; "that is, in large 
 quantities." 
 
 The stranger looked at him curiously. Then he 
 looked still more curiously up the passage towards 
 the main entrance. Then he looked back at Brown 
 again, and then he looked very carefully at the 
 window beyond Brown's head, still coloured with 
 the after-glow of the storm. Then he seemed to 
 make up his mind. He put one hand on the counter, 
 vaulted over as easily as an acrobat and towered 
 above the priest, putting one tremendous hand upon 
 his collar. 
 
 " Stand still," he said, in a hacking whisper. " I 
 don't want to threaten you, but " 
 
 " I do want to threaten you," said Father Brown, 
 in a voice like a rolling drum, " I want to threaten 
 you with the worm that dieth not, and the fire that 
 is not quenched." 
 
 " You're a rum sort of cloak-room clerk," said 
 the other. 
 
 "lama priest, Monsieur Flambeau," said Brown, 
 " and I am ready to hear your confession." 
 
 The other stood gasping for a few moments, 
 and then staggered back into a chair. 
 
 77 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 The first two courses of the dinner of the 
 Twelve True Fishermen had proceeded with placid 
 success. I do not possess a copy of the menu; 
 and if I did it would not convey anything to any- 
 body. It was written in a sort of super-French 
 employed by cooks, but quite unintelligible to 
 Frenchmen. There was a tradition in the club that 
 the hors d'ceuvres should be various and manifold 
 to the point of madness. They were taken seri- 
 ously because they were avowedly useless extras, 
 like the whole dinner and the whole club. There 
 was also a tradition that the soup course should be 
 light and unpretending — a sort of simple and 
 austere vigil for the feast of fish that was to come. 
 The talk was that strange, slight talk which governs 
 the British Empire, which governs it in secret, and 
 yet would scarcely enlighten an ordinary English- 
 man even if he could overhear it. Cabinet minis- 
 ters on both sides were alluded to by their Christian 
 names with a sort of bored benignity. The Radical 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, whom the whole 
 Tory party was supposed to be cursing for his ex- 
 tortions, was praised for his minor poetry, or his 
 saddle in the hunting field. The Tory leader, 
 whom all Liberals were supposed to hate as a tyrant, 
 was discussed and, on the whole, praised — as a 
 Liberal. It seemed somehow that politicians were 
 very important. And yet, anything seemed im- 
 portant about them except their politics. Mr. 
 Audley, the chairman, was an amiable, elderly man 
 
 78 
 
THE QUEER FEET 
 
 who still wore Gladstone collars; he was a kind 
 of symbol of all that phantasmal and yet fixed so- 
 ciety. He had never done anything — not even any- 
 thing wrong. He was not fast; he was not even 
 particularly rich. He was simply in the thing; and 
 there was an end of it. No party could ignore 
 him, and if he had wished to be in the Cabinet 
 he certainly would have been put there. The Duke 
 of Chester, the vice-president, was a young and 
 rising politician. That is to say, he was a pleas- 
 ant youth, with flat, fair hair and a freckled face, 
 with moderate intelligence and enormous estates. 
 In public his appearances were always successful 
 and his principle was simple enough. When he 
 thought of a joke he made it, and was called bril- 
 liant. When he could not think of a joke he said 
 that this was no time for trifling, and was called 
 able. In private, in a club of his own class, he was 
 simply quite pleasantly frank and silly, like a school- 
 boy. Mr. Audley, never having been in politics, 
 treated them a little more seriously. Sometimes he 
 even embarrassed the company by phrases suggest- 
 ing that there was some difference between a Liberal 
 and a Conservative. He himself was a Conserva- 
 tive, even in private life. He had a roll of grey 
 hair over the back of his collar, like certain old- 
 fashioned statesmen, and seen from behind he 
 looked like the man the empire wants. Seen from 
 the front he looked like a mild, self-indulgent 
 bachelor, with rooms in the Albany — which he was. 
 
 79 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 As has been remarked, there were twenty-four 
 seats at the terrace table, and only twelve members 
 of the club. Thus they could occupy the terrace in 
 the most luxurious style of all, being ranged along 
 the inner side of the table, with no one opposite, 
 commanding an uninterrupted view of the garden, 
 the colours of which were still vivid, though even- 
 ing was closing in somewhat luridly for the time 
 of year. The chairman sat in the centre of the 
 line, and the vice-president at the right-hand end 
 of it. When the twelve guests first trooped into 
 their seats it was the custom (for some unknown 
 reason) for all the fifteen waiters to stand lining 
 the wall like troops presenting arms to the king, 
 while the fat proprietor stood and bowed to the 
 club with radiant surprise, as if he had never heard 
 of them before. But before the first chink of knife 
 and fork this army of retainers had vanished, only 
 the one or two required to collect and distribute the 
 plates darting about in deathly silence. Mr. Lever, 
 the proprietor, of course had disappeared in con- 
 vulsions of courtesy long before. It would be 
 exaggerative, indeed irreverent, to say that he ever 
 positively appeared again. But when the impor- 
 tant course, the fish course, was being brought on, 
 there was — how shall I put it? — a vivid shadow, a 
 projection of his personality, which told that he 
 was hovering near. The sacred fish course con- 
 sisted (to the eyes of the vulgar) in a sort of mon- 
 strous pudding, about the size and shape of a wed- 
 
 80 
 
THE QUEER FEET 
 
 ding cake, in which some considerable number of 
 interesting fishes had finally lost the shapes which 
 God had given to them. The Twelve True Fisher- 
 men took up their celebrated fish knives and fish 
 forks, and approached it as gravely as if every 
 inch of the pudding cost as much as the silver fork 
 it was eaten with. So it did, for all I know. This 
 course was dealt with in eager and devouring 
 silence; and it was only when his plate was nearly 
 empty that the young duke made the ritual re- 
 mark : " They can't do this anywhere but here." 
 
 " Nowhere," said Mr. Audley, in a deep bass 
 voice, turning to the speaker and nodding his ven- 
 erable head a number of times. " Nowhere, as- 
 suredly, except here. It was represented to me that 
 at the Cafe Anglais " 
 
 Here he was interrupted and even agitated for 
 a moment by the removal of his plate, but he re- 
 captured the valuable thread of his thoughts. " It 
 was represented to me that the same could be done 
 at the Cafe Anglais. Nothing like it, sir," he said, 
 shaking his head ruthlessly, like a hanging judge. 
 " Nothing like it." 
 
 " Overrated place," said a certain Colonel Pound, 
 speaking (by the look of him) for the first time 
 for some months. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," said the Duke of Chester, 
 who was an optimist, " it's jolly good for some 
 things. You can't beat it at " 
 
 A waiter came swiftly along the room, and then 
 e 81 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 stopped dead. His stoppage was as silent as his 
 tread; but all those vague and kindly gentlemen 
 were so used to the utter smoothness of the unseen 
 machinery which surrounded and supported their 
 lives, that a waiter doing anything unexpected was 
 a start and a jar. They felt as you and I would 
 feel if the inanimate world disobeyed — if a chair 
 ran away from us. 
 
 The waiter stood staring a few seconds, while 
 there deepened on every face at table a strange 
 shame which is wholly the product of our time. It 
 is the combination of modern humanitarianism with 
 the horrible modern abyss between the souls of the 
 rich and poor. A genuine historic aristocrat would 
 have thrown things at the Waiter, beginning with 
 empty bottles, and very probably ending with money. 
 A genuine democrat would have asked him, with a 
 comrade-like clearness of speech, what the devil he 
 was doing. But these modern plutocrats could not 
 bear a poor man near to them, either as a slave 
 or as a friend. That something had gone wrong 
 with the servants was merely a dull, hot embar- 
 rassment. They did not want to be brutal, and they 
 dreaded the need to be benevolent. They wanted 
 the thing, whatever it was, to be over. It was 
 over. The waiter, after standing for some seconds 
 rigid, like a cataleptic, turned round and ran madly 
 out of the room. 
 
 When he reappeared in the room, or rather in 
 the doorway, it was in company with another 
 
 82 
 
THE QUEER FEET 
 
 waiter, with whom he whispered and gesticulated 
 with southern fierceness. Then the first waiter 
 went away, leaving the second waiter, and reap- 
 peared with a third waiter. By the time a fourth 
 waiter had joined this hurried synod, Mr. Audley 
 felt it necessary to break the silence in the interests 
 of Tact. He used a very loud cough, instead of a 
 presidential hammer, and said : " Splendid work 
 young Moocher's doing in Burmah. Now, no 
 other nation in the world could have " 
 
 A fifth waiter had sped towards him like an 
 arrow, and was whispering in his ear : " So sorry. 
 Important ! Might the proprietor speak to you ? " 
 
 The chairman turned in disorder, and with a 
 dazed stare saw Mr. Lever coming towards them 
 with his lumbering quickness. The gait of the 
 good proprietor was indeed his usual gait, but his 
 face was by no means usual. Generally it was a 
 genial copper-brown ; now it was a sickly yellow. 
 
 " You will pardon me, Mr. Audley," he said, 
 with asthmatic breathlessness. " I have great ap- 
 prehensions. Your fish-plates, they are cleared 
 away with the knife and fork on them! " 
 
 " Well, I hope so," said the chairman, with some 
 warmth. 
 
 " You see him ? " panted the excited hotel keeper ; 
 " you see the waiter who took them away ? You 
 know him ? " 
 
 " Know the waiter ? " answered Mr. Audley in- 
 dignantly. " Certainly not ! " 
 
 83 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 Mr. Lever opened his hands with a gesture of 
 agony. " I never send him," he said. " I know 
 not when or why he come. I send my waiter to 
 take away the plates, and he find them already 
 away." 
 
 Mr. Audley still looked rather too bewildered to 
 be really the man the empire wants; none of the 
 company could say anything except the man of 
 wood — Colonel Pound — who seemed galvanised 
 into an unnatural life. He rose rigidly from his 
 chair, leaving all the rest sitting, screwed his eye- 
 glass into his eye, and spoke in a raucous under- 
 tone as if he had half -forgotten how to speak. 
 " Do you mean," he said, " that somebody has stolen 
 our silver fish service ? " 
 
 The proprietor repeated the open-handed gesture 
 with even greater helplessness; and in a flash all 
 the men at the table were on their feet. 
 
 " Are all your waiters here ? " demanded the 
 colonel, in his low, harsh accent. 
 
 " Yes ; they're all here. I noticed it myself," 
 cried the young duke, pushing his boyish face into 
 the inmost ring. " Always count 'em as I come 
 in; they look so queer standing up against the 
 wall." 
 
 " But surely one cannot exactly remember," be- 
 gan Mr. Audley, with heavy hesitation. 
 
 " I remember exactly, I tell you," cried the duke 
 excitedly. " There never have been more than fif- 
 teen waiters at this place, and there were no more 
 
 84 
 
THE QUEER FEET 
 
 than fifteen to-night, I'll swear; no more and no 
 less." 
 
 The proprietor turned upon him, quaking in a 
 kind of palsy of surprise. " You say — you say," he 
 stammered, "that you see all my fifteen waiters? " 
 
 " As usual," assented the duke. " What is the 
 matter with that?" 
 
 " Nothing," said Lever, with a deepening accept, 
 " only you did not. For one of zem is dead up- 
 stairs." 
 
 There was a shocking stillness for an instant in 
 that room. It may be (so supernatural is the word 
 death) that each of those idle men looked for a 
 second at his soul, and saw it as a small dried pea. 
 One of them^the duke, I think — even said with 
 the idiotic kindness of wealth : " Is there anything 
 we can do ? " 
 
 " He has had a priest," said the Jew, not un- 
 touched. 
 
 Then, as to the clang of doom, they awoke to 
 their own position. For a few weird seconds they 
 had really felt as if the fifteenth waiter might be 
 the ghost of the dead man upstairs. They had 
 been dumb under that oppression, for ghosts were 
 to them an embarrassment, like beggars. But the 
 remembrance of the silver broke the spell of the 
 miraculous; broke it abruptly and with a brutal 
 reaction. The colonel flung over his chair and 
 strode to the door. "If there was a fifteenth man 
 here, friends," he said, " that fifteenth fellow was 
 
 85 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 a thief. Down at once to the front and back doors 
 and secure everything; then we'll talk. The 
 twenty-four pearls of the club are worth recover- 
 ing." 
 
 Mr. Audley seemed at first to hesitate about 
 whether it was gentlemanly to be in such a hurry 
 about anything; but, seeing the duke dash down 
 the stairs with youthful energy, he followed with a 
 more mature motion. 
 
 At the same instant a sixth waiter ran into the 
 room, and declared that he had found the pile of 
 fish plates on a sideboard, with no trace of the 
 silver. 
 
 The crowd of diners and attendants that 
 tumbled helter-skelter down the passages divided 
 into two groups. Most of the Fishermen followed 
 the proprietor to the front room to demand news 
 of any exit. Colonel Pound, with the chairman, 
 the vice-president, and one or two others darted 
 down the corridor leading to the servants' quarters, 
 as the more likely line of escape. As they did so 
 they passed the dim alcove or cavern of the cloak 
 room, and saw a short, black-coated figure, pre- 
 sumably an attendant, standing a little way back 
 in the shadow of it. 
 
 "Hallo, there!" called out the duke. "Have 
 you seen anyone pass ? " 
 
 The short figure did not answer the question 
 directly, but merely said : " Perhaps I have got 
 what you are looking for, gentlemen." 
 
 86 
 
THE QUEER FEET 
 
 They paused, wavering and wondering, while 
 he quietly went to the back of the cloak room, and 
 came back with both hands full of shining silver, 
 which he laid out on the counter as calmly as a 
 salesman. It took the form of a dozen quaintly 
 shaped forks and knives. 
 
 " You — you " began the colonel, quite 
 
 thrown off his balance at last. Then he peered 
 into the dim little room and saw two things : first, 
 that the short, black-clad man was dressed like a 
 clergyman; and, second, that the window of the 
 room behind him was burst, as if someone had 
 passed violently through. 
 
 " Valuable things to deposit in a cloak room, 
 aren't they ? " remarked the clergyman, with cheer- 
 ful composure. 
 
 " Did — did you steal those things ? " stammered 
 Mr. Audley, with staring eyes. 
 
 " If I did," said the cleric pleasantly, " at least 
 I am bringing them back again." 
 
 " But you didn't," said Colonel Pound, still star- 
 ing at the broken window. 
 
 " To make a clean breast of it, I didn't," said 
 the other, with some humour. And he seated him- 
 self quite gravely on a stool. 
 
 " But you know who did," said the colonel. 
 
 " I don't know his real name," said the priest 
 placidly, "but I know something of his fighting 
 weight, and a great deal about his spiritual diffi- 
 culties. I formed the physical estimate when he 
 
 87 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 was trying to throttle me, and the moral estimate 
 when he repented." 
 
 " Oh, I say — repented ! " cried young Chester, 
 with a sort of crow of laughter. 
 
 Father Brown got to his feet, putting his hands 
 behind him. " Odd, isn't it," he said, " that a thief 
 and a vagabond should repent, when so many who 
 are rich and secure remain hard and frivolous, and 
 without fruit for God or man? But there, if you 
 will excuse me, you trespass a little upon my pro- 
 vince. If you doubt the penitence as a practical 
 fact, there are your knives and forks. You are the 
 Twelve True Fishers, and there are all your silver 
 fish. But He has made me a fisher of men." 
 
 " Did you catch this man ? " asked the colonel, 
 frowning. 
 
 Father Brown looked him full in his frowning 
 face. " Yes," he said, " I caught him, with an 
 unseen hook and an invisible line which is long 
 enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, 
 and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the 
 thread." 
 
 There was a long silence. All the other men 
 present drifted away to carry the recovered silver 
 to their comrades, or to consult the proprietor about 
 the queer condition of affairs. But the grim- 
 faced colonel still sat sideways on the counter, 
 swinging his long, lank legs and biting his dark 
 moustache. 
 
 At last he said quietly to the priest : " He must 
 88 
 
THE QUEER FEET 
 
 have been a clever fellow, but I think I know a 
 cleverer." 
 
 " He was a clever fellow," answered the other, 
 " but I am not quite sure of what other you mean." 
 
 " I mean you," said the colonel, with a short 
 laugh. " I don't want to get the fellow jailed ; 
 make yourself easy about that. But I'd give a 
 good many silver forks to know exactly how you 
 fell into this affair, and how you got the stuff out 
 of him. I reckon you're the most up-to-date devil 
 of the present company." 
 
 Father Brown seemed rather to like the satur- 
 nine candour of the soldier. " Well," he said, 
 smiling, " I mustn't tell you anything of the man's 
 identity, or his own story, of course; but there's 
 no particular reason why I shouldn't tell you of the 
 mere outside facts which I found out for myself." 
 
 He hopped over the barrier with unexpected 
 activity, and sat beside Colonel Pound, kicking his 
 short legs like a little boy on a gate. He began 
 to tell the story as easily as if he were telling it to 
 an old friend by a Christmas fire. 
 
 " You see, colonel," he said, " I was shut up in 
 that small room there doing some writing, when I 
 heard a pair of feet in this passage doing a dance 
 that was as queer as the dance of death. First 
 came quick, funny little steps, like a man walking 
 on tiptoe for a wager; then came slow, careless, 
 creaking steps, as of a big man walking about with 
 a cigar. But they were both made by the same 
 
 89 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 feet, I swear, and they came in rotation; first the 
 run and then the walk, and then the run again. 
 I wondered at first idly and then wildly why a 
 man should act these two parts at once. One walk 
 I knew; it was just like yours, colonel. It was 
 the walk of a well-fed gentleman waiting for some- 
 thing, who strolls about rather because he is phys- 
 ically alert than because he is mentally impatient. 
 I knew that I knew the other walk, too, but I 
 could not remember what it was. What wild crea- 
 ture had I met on my travels that tore along on 
 tiptoe in that extraordinary style? Then I heard 
 a clink of plates somewhere; and the answer stood 
 up as plain as St. Peter's. It was the walk of a 
 waiter — that walk with the body slanted forward, 
 the eyes looking down, the ball of the toe spurn- 
 ing away the ground, the coat tails and napkin 
 flying. Then I thought for a minute and a half 
 more. And I believe I saw the manner of the 
 crime, as clearly as if I were going to commit it." 
 
 Colonel Pound looked at him keenly, but the 
 speaker's mild grey eyes were fixed upon the ceil- 
 ing with almost empty wistfulness. 
 
 " A crime," he said slowly, " is like any other 
 work of art. Don't look surprised; crimes are by 
 no means the only works of art that come from an 
 infernal workshop. But every work of art, divine 
 or diabolic, has one indispensable mark — I mean, 
 that the centre of it is simple, however much the 
 fulfilment may be complicated. Thus, in Hamlet, 
 
 90 
 
THE QUEER FEET 
 
 let us say, the grotesqueness of the grave-digger, 
 the flowers of the mad girl, the fantastic finery of 
 Osric, the pallor of the ghost and the grin of the 
 skull are all oddities in a sort of tangled wreath 
 round one plain tragic figure of a man in black. 
 Well, this also," he said, getting slowly down from 
 his seat with a smile, " this also is the plain tragedy 
 of a man in black. Yes," he went on, seeing the 
 colonel look up in some wonder, " the whole of this 
 tale turns on a black coat. In this, as in Hamlet, 
 there are the rococo excrescences — yourselves, let 
 us say. There is the dead waiter, who was there 
 when he could not be there. There is the invisible 
 hand that swept your table clear of silver and 
 melted into air. But every clever crime is founded 
 ultimately on some one quite simple fact — some fact 
 that is not itself mysterious. The mystification 
 conies in covering it up, in leading men's thoughts 
 away from it. This large and subtle and (in the 
 ordinary course) most profitable crime, was built 
 on the plain fact that a gentleman's evening dress 
 is the same as a waiter's. All the rest was acting, 
 and thundering good acting, too." 
 
 " Still," said the colonel, getting up and frown- 
 ing at his boots, " I am not sure that I under- 
 stand." 
 
 " Colonel," said Father Brown, " I tell you that 
 this archangel of impudence who stole your forks 
 walked up and down this passage twenty times 
 in the blaze of all the lamps, in the glare of all the 
 
 9i 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 eyes. He did not go and hide in dim corners 
 where suspicion might have searched for him. He 
 kept constantly on the move in the lighted corri- 
 dors, and everywhere that he went he seemed to 
 be there by right. Don't ask me what he was like ; 
 you have seen him yourself six or seven times to- 
 night. You were waiting with all the other grand 
 people in the reception room at the end of the 
 passage there, with the terrace just beyond. When- 
 ever he came among you gentlemen, he came in 
 the lightning style of a waiter, with bent head, 
 flapping napkin and flying feet. He shot out on 
 to the terrace, did something to the table cloth, and 
 shot back again towards the office and the waiters' 
 quarters. By the time he had come under the 
 eye of the office clerk and the waiters he had be- 
 come another man in every inch of his body, in 
 every instinctive gesture. He strolled among the 
 servants with the absent-minded insolence which 
 they have all seen in their patrons. It was no new 
 thing to them that a swell from the dinner party 
 should pace all parts of the house like an animal 
 at the Zoo; they know that nothing marks the 
 Smart Set more than a habit of walking where one 
 chooses. When he was magnificently weary of 
 walking down that particular passage he would 
 wheel round and pace back past the office; in the 
 shadow of the arch just beyond he was altered as 
 by a blast of magic, and went hurrying forward 
 
 92 
 
THE QUEER FEET 
 
 again among the Twelve Fishermen, an obsequi- 
 ous attendant. Why should the gentlemen look 
 at a chance waiter? Why should the waiters sus- 
 pect a first-rate walking gentleman ? Once or twice 
 he played the coolest tricks. In the proprietor's 
 private quarters he called out breezily for a syphon 
 of soda water, saying he was thirsty. He said 
 genially that he would carry it himself, and he 
 did; he carried it quickly and correctly through 
 the thick of you, a waiter with an obvious errand. 
 Of course, it could not have been kept up long, 
 but it only had to be kept up till the end of the 
 fish course. 
 
 " His worst moment was when the waiters stood 
 in a row ; but even then he contrived to lean against 
 the wall just round the corner in such a way that 
 for that important instant the waiters thought him 
 a gentleman, while the gentlemen thought him a 
 waiter. The rest went like winking. If any waiter 
 caught him away from the table, that waiter caught 
 a languid aristocrat. He had only to time himself 
 two minutes before the fish was cleared, become 
 a swift servant, and clear it himself. He put the 
 plates down on a sideboard, stuffed the silver in 
 his breast pocket, giving it a bulgy look, and ran 
 like a hare (I heard him coming) till he came to 
 the cloak room. There he had only to be a pluto- 
 crat again — a plutocrat called away suddenly on 
 business. He had only to give his ticket to the 
 
 93 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 cloak-room attendant, and go out again elegantly 
 as he had come in. Only — only I happened to be 
 the cloak-room attendant." 
 
 " What did you do to him ? " cried the colonel, 
 with unusual intensity. " What did he tell you ? " 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said the priest immovably, 
 " that is where the story ends." 
 
 " And the interesting story begins," muttered 
 Pound. " I think I understand his professional 
 trick. But I don't seem to have got hold of yours." 
 
 " I must be going," said Father Brown. 
 
 They walked together along the passage to the 
 entrance hall, where they saw the fresh, freckled 
 face of the Duke of Chester, who was bounding 
 buoyantly along towards them. 
 
 " Come along, Pound," he cried breathlessly. 
 " I've been looking for you everywhere. The din- 
 ner's going again in spanking style, and old Audley 
 has got to make a speech in honour of the forks 
 being saved. We want to start some new cere- 
 mony, don't you know, to commemorate the occa- 
 sion. I say, you really got the goods back, what 
 do you suggest ? " 
 
 " Why," said the colonel, eyeing him with a cer- 
 tain sardonic approval, " I should suggest that 
 henceforward we wear green coats, instead of 
 black. One never knows what mistakes may arise 
 when one looks so like a waiter." 
 
 " Oh, hang it all ! " said the young man, " a gen- 
 tleman never looks like a waiter." 
 
 94 
 
THE QUEER FEET 
 
 " Nor a waiter like a gentleman, I suppose," said 
 Colonel Pound, with the same lowering laughter 
 on his face. " Reverend sir, your friend must 
 have been very smart to act the gentleman." 
 
 Father Brown buttoned up his commonplace over- 
 coat to the neck, for the night was stormy, and took 
 his commonplace umbrella from the stand. 
 
 " Yes," he said ; " it must be very hard work to 
 be a gentleman ; but, do you know, I have sometimes 
 thought that it may be almost as laborious to be 
 a waiter." 
 
 And saying " Good evening," he pushed open the 
 heavy doors of that palace of pleasures. The 
 golden gates closed behind him, and he went at a 
 brisk walk through the damp, dark streets in search 
 of a penny omnibus. 
 
 95 
 
IV 
 
 THE FLYING STARS 
 
 " The most beautiful crime I ever committed," 
 Flambeau would say in his highly moral old age, 
 " was also, by a singular coincidence, my last. It 
 was committed at Christmas. As an artist I had 
 always attempted to provide crimes suitable to the 
 special season or landscapes in which I found my- 
 self, choosing this or that terrace or garden for 
 a catastrophe, as if for a statuary group. Thus 
 squires should be swindled in long rooms panelled 
 with oak; while Jews, on the other hand, should 
 rather find themselves unexpectedly penniless 
 among the lights and screens of the Cafe Riche. 
 Thus, in England, if I wished to relieve a dean 
 of his riches (which is not so easy as you might 
 suppose), I wished to frame him, if I make myself 
 clear, in the green lawns and grey towers of some 
 cathedral town. Similarly, in France, when I had 
 got money out of a rich and wicked peasant (which 
 is almost impossible), it gratified me to get his 
 indignant head relieved against a grey line of 
 clipped poplars, and those solemn plains of Gaul 
 over which broods the mighty spirit of Millet. 
 " Well, my last crime was a Christmas crime, 
 96 
 
THE FLYING STARS 
 
 a cheery, cosy, English middle-class crime; a crime 
 of Charles Dickens. I did it in a good old middle- 
 class house near Putney, a house with a crescent 
 of carriage drive, a house with a stable by the side 
 of it, a house with the name on the two outer gates, 
 a house with a monkey tree. Enough, you know 
 the species. I really think my imitation of Dick- 
 ens's style was dexterous and literary. It seems 
 almost a pity I repented the same evening." 
 
 Flambeau would then proceed to tell the story 
 from the inside; and even from the inside it was 
 odd. Seen from the outside it was perfectly in- 
 comprehensible, and it is from the outside that the 
 stranger must study it. From this standpoint the 
 drama may be said to have begun when the front 
 doors of the house with the stable opened on the 
 garden with the monkey tree, and a young girl 
 came out with bread to feed the birds on the after- 
 noon of Boxing Day. She had a pretty face, with 
 brave brown eyes; but her figure was beyond con- 
 jecture, for she was so wrapped up in brown furs 
 that it was hard to say which was hair and which 
 was fur. But for the attractive face she might 
 have been a small toddling bear. 
 
 The winter afternoon was reddening towards 
 evening, and already a ruby light was rolled over 
 the bloomless beds, filling them, as it were, with 
 the ghosts of the dead roses. On one side of the 
 house stood the stable, on the other an alley or 
 cloister of laurels led to the larger garden behind. 
 r 97 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 The young lady, having scattered bread for the 
 birds (for the fourth or fifth time that day, because 
 the dog ate it), passed unobtrusively down the lane 
 of laurels and into a glimmering plantation of 
 evergreens behind. Here she gave an exclamation 
 of wonder, real or ritual, and looking up at the 
 high garden wall above her, beheld it fantastically 
 bestridden by a somewhat fantastic figure. 
 
 " Oh, don't jump, Mr. Crook," she called out 
 in some alarm; " it's much too high." 
 
 The individual riding the party wall "like an 
 aerial horse was a tall, angular young man, with 
 dark hair sticking up like a hair brush, intelligent 
 and even distinguished lineaments, but a sallow 
 and almost alien complexion. This showed the 
 more plainly because he wore an aggressive red 
 tie, the only part of his costume of which he seemed 
 to take any care. Perhaps it was a symbol. He 
 took no notice of the girl's alarmed adjuration, 
 but leapt like a grasshopper to the ground beside 
 her, where he might very well have broken his 
 legs. 
 
 " I think I was meant to be a burglar," he said 
 placidly, " and I have no doubt I should have been 
 if I hadn't happened to be born in that nice house 
 next door. I can't see any harm in it, anyhow." 
 
 " How can you say such things ? " she remon- 
 strated. 
 
 " Well," said the young man, " if you're born 
 98 
 
THE FLYING STARS 
 
 on the wrong side of the wall, I can't see that it's 
 wrong to climb over it." 
 
 " I never know what you will say or do next," 
 she said. 
 
 " I don't often know myself," replied Mr. Crook; 
 " but then I am on the right side of the wall now." 
 
 " And which is the right side of the wall ? " 
 asked the young lady, smiling. 
 
 " Whichever side you are on," said the young 
 man named Crook. 
 
 As they went together through the laurels to- 
 wards the front garden a motor horn sounded thrice, 
 coming nearer and nearer, and a car of splendid 
 speed, great elegance, and a pale green colour swept 
 up to the front doors like a bird and stood throb- 
 bing. 
 
 " Hullo, hullo ! " said the young man with the 
 red tie, " here's somebody born on the right side, 
 anyhow. I didn't know, Miss Adams, that your 
 Santa Claus was so modern as this." 
 
 " Oh, that's my godfather, Sir Leopold Fischer. 
 He always comes on Boxing Day." 
 
 Then, after an innocent pause, which uncon- 
 sciously betrayed some lack of enthusiasm, Ruby 
 Adams added: 
 
 " He is very kind." 
 
 John Crook, journalist, had heard of that emi- 
 nent City magnate; and it was not his fault if the 
 City magnate had not heard of him; for in certain 
 
 99 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 articles in The Clarion or The New Age Sir Leo- 
 pold had been dealt with austerely. But he said 
 nothing and grimly watched the unloading of the 
 motor-car, which was rather a long process. A 
 large, neat chauffeur in green got out from the 
 front, and a small, neat manservant in grey got 
 out from the back, and between them they depos- 
 ited Sir Leopold on the doorstep and began to 
 unpack him, like some very carefully protected 
 parcel. Rugs enough to stock a bazaar, furs of 
 all the beasts of the forest, and scarves of all the 
 colours of the rainbow were unwrapped one by one, 
 till they revealed something resembling the human 
 form; the form of a friendly, but foreign-looking 
 old gentleman, with a grey goat-like beard and a 
 beaming smile, who rubbed his big fur gloves to- 
 gether. 
 
 Long before this revelation was complete the 
 two big doors of the porch had opened in the mid- 
 dle, and Colonel Adams (father of the furry young 
 lady) had come out himself to invite his eminent 
 guest inside. He was a tall, sunburnt, and very 
 silent man, who wore a red smoking-cap like a 
 fez, making him look like one of the English Sirdars 
 or Pashas in Egypt. With him was his brother- 
 in-law, lately come from Canada, a big and rather 
 boisterous young gentleman-farmer, with a yellow 
 beard, by name James Blount. With him also was 
 the more insignificant figure of the priest from the 
 neighbouring Roman Church; for the colonel's late 
 
 ioo 
 
THE FLYING STARS 
 
 wife had been a Catholic, and the children, as is 
 common in such cases, had been trained to follow 
 her. Everything seemed undistinguished about the 
 priest, even down to his name, which was Brown; 
 yet the colonel had always found something com- 
 panionable about him, and frequently asked him 
 to such family gatherings. 
 
 In the large entrance hall of the house there was 
 ample room even for Sir Leopold and the removal 
 of his wraps. Porch and vestibule, indeed, were 
 unduly large in proportion to the house, and formed, 
 as it were, a big room with the front door at one 
 end, and the bottom of the staircase at the other. 
 In front of the large hall fire, over which hung 
 the colonel's sword, the process was completed and 
 the company, including the saturnine Crook, pre- 
 sented to Sir Leopold Fischer. That venerable 
 financier, however, still seemed struggling with por- 
 tions of his well-lined attire, and at length produced 
 from a very interior tail-coat pocket, a black oval 
 case which he radiantly explained to be his Christ- 
 mas present for his god-daughter. With an un- 
 affected vain-glory that had something disarming 
 about it he held out the case before them all; it 
 flew open at a touch and half-blinded them. It 
 was just as if a crystal fountain had spurted in their 
 eyes. In a nest of orange velvet lay like three 
 eggs, three white and vivid diamonds that seemed 
 to set the very air on fire all round them. Fischer 
 stood beaming benevolently and drinking deep of 
 
 IOI 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 the astonishment and ecstasy of the girl, the grim 
 admiration and gruff thanks of the colonel, the 
 wonder of the whole group. 
 
 " I'll put 'em back now, my dear," said Fischer, 
 returning the case to the tails of his coat. " I had 
 to be careful of 'em coming down. They're the 
 three great African diamonds called ' The Flying 
 Stars,' because they've been stolen so often. All 
 the big criminals are on the track; but even the 
 rough men about in the streets and hotels could 
 hardly have kept their hands off them. I might 
 have lost them on the road here. It was quite 
 possible." 
 
 " Quite natural, I should say," growled the man 
 in the red tie. " I shouldn't blame 'em if they had 
 taken 'em. When they ask for bread, and you 
 don't even give them a stone, I think they might 
 take the stone for themselves." 
 
 " I won't have you talking like that," cried the 
 girl, who was in a curious glow. " You've only 
 talked like that since you became a horrid what's- 
 his-name. You know what I mean. What do you 
 call a man who wants to embrace the chimney- 
 sweep? " 
 
 " A saint," said Father Brown. 
 
 "I think," said Sir Leopold, with a supercilious 
 smile, " that Ruby means a Socialist." 
 
 "A radical does not mean a man who lives on 
 radishes," remarked Crook, with some impatience; 
 " and a Conservative does not mean a man who 
 
 102 
 
THE FLYING STARS 
 
 preserves jam. Neither, I assure you, does a So- 
 cialist mean a man who desires a social evening 
 with the chimney-sweep. A Socialist means a man 
 who wants all the chimneys swept and all the chim- 
 ney-sweeps paid for it." 
 
 " But who won't allow you," put in the priest 
 in a low voice, " to own your own soot." 
 
 Crook looked at him with an eye of interest and 
 even respect. " Does one want to own soot ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " One might," answered Brown, with speculation 
 in his eye. " I've heard that gardeners use it. 
 And I once made six children happy at Christmas 
 when the conjuror didn't come, entirely with soot 
 ■ — applied externally." 
 
 " Oh, splendid," cried Ruby. " Oh, I wish you'd 
 do it to this company." 
 
 The boisterous Canadian, Mr. Blount, was lifting 
 his loud voice in applause, and the astonished finan- 
 cier his (in some considerable deprecation), when a 
 knock sounded at the double front doors. The 
 priest opened them, and they showed again the 
 front garden of evergreens, monkey-tree and all, 
 now gathering gloom against a gorgeous violet 
 sunset. The scene thus framed was so coloured 
 and quaint, like a back scene in a play, that they 
 forgot a moment the insignificant figure standing 
 in the door. He was dusty-looking and in a frayed 
 coat, evidently a common messenger. "Any of 
 you gentlemen Mr. Blount ? " he asked, and held 
 
 103 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 forward a letter doubtfully. Mr. Blount started, 
 and stopped in his shout of assent. Ripping up 
 the envelope with evident astonishment he read it; 
 his face clouded a little, and then cleared, and he 
 turned to his brother-in-law and host. 
 
 " I'm sick at being such a nuisance, colonel," he 
 said, with the cheery colonial convention ; " but 
 would it upset you if an old acquaintance called 
 on me here to-night on business? In point of fact 
 it's Florian, that famous French acrobat and comic 
 actor; I knew him years ago out West (he was a 
 French -Canadian by birth), and he seems to have 
 business for me, though I hardly guess what." 
 
 " Of course, of course," replied the colonel care- 
 lessly. " My dear chap, any friend of yours. No 
 doubt he will prove an acquisition." 
 
 " He'll black his face, if that's what you mean," 
 cried Blount, laughing. " I don't doubt he'd black 
 everyone else's eyes. I don't care ; I'm not refined. 
 I like the jolly old pantomime where a man sits on 
 his top hat." 
 
 " Not on mine, please," said Sir Leopold Fischer, 
 with dignity. 
 
 " Well, well," observed Crook, airily, " don't let's 
 quarrel. There are lower jokes than sitting on a 
 top hat." 
 
 Dislike of the red-tied youth, born of his preda- 
 tory opinions and evident intimacy with the pretty 
 godchild, led Fischer to say, in his most sarcastic, 
 magisterial manner : " No doubt you have found 
 
 104 
 
THE FLYING STARS 
 
 something much lower than sitting on a top hat. 
 What is it, pray ? " 
 
 " Letting a top hat sit on you, for instance," 
 said the Socialist. 
 
 " Now, now, now," cried the Canadian farmer 
 with his barbarian benevolence, " don't let's spoil 
 a jolly evening. What I say is, let's do something 
 for the company to-night. Not blacking faces or 
 sitting on hats, if you don't like those — but some- 
 thing of the sort. Why couldn't we have a proper 
 old English pantomime — clown, columbine, and so 
 on. I saw one when I left England at twelve years 
 old, and it's blazed in my brain like a bonfire ever 
 since. I came back to the old country only last 
 year, and I find the thing's extinct. Nothing but 
 a lot of snivelling fairy plays. I want a hot poker 
 and a policeman made into sausages, and they give 
 me princesses moralising by moonlight, Blue Birds, 
 or something. Blue Beard's more in my line, and 
 him I like best when he turned into the pantaloon." 
 
 " I'm all for making a policeman into sausages," 
 said John Crook. " It's a better definition of So- 
 cialism than some recently given. But surely the 
 get-up would be too big a business." 
 
 " Not a scrap," cried Blount, quite carried away. 
 " A harlequinade's the quickest thing we can do, for 
 two reasons. First, one can gag to any degree; 
 and, second, all the objects are household things — 
 tables and towel-horses and washing baskets, and 
 things like that." 
 
 105 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 " That's true," admitted Crook, nodding eagerly 
 and walking about. " But I'm afraid I can't have 
 my policeman's uniform? Haven't killed a police- 
 man lately." 
 
 Blount frowned thoughtfully a space, and then 
 smote his thigh. " Yes, we can ! " he cried. " I've 
 got Florian's address here, and he knows every 
 costumier in London. I'll 'phone him to bring a 
 police dress when he comes." And he went bound- 
 ing away to the telephone. 
 
 " Oh, it's glorious, godfather," cried Ruby, al- 
 most dancing. " I'll be columbine and you shall 
 be pantaloon." 
 
 The millionaire held himself stiff with a sort of 
 heathen solemnity. " I think, my dear," he said, 
 " you must get someone else for pantaloon." 
 
 " I will be pantaloon, if you like," said Colonel 
 Adams, taking his cigar out of his mouth, and 
 speaking for the first and last time. 
 
 " You ought to have a statue," cried the Cana- 
 dian, as he came back, radiant, from the telephone. 
 "There, we are all fitted. Mr. Crook shall be 
 clown; he's a journalist and knows all the oldest 
 jokes. I can be harlequin, that only wants long 
 legs and jumping about. My friend Florian 
 'phones he's bringing the police costume; he's 
 changing on the way. We can act it in this very 
 hall, the audience sitting on those broad stairs op- 
 posite, one row above another. These front doors 
 can be the back scene, either open or shut. Shut, 
 
 1 06 
 
THE FLYING STARS 
 
 you see an English interior. Open, a moonlit gar- 
 den. It all goes by magic." And snatching a 
 chance piece of billiard chalk from his pocket, he 
 ran it across the hall floor, half-way between the 
 front door and the staircase, to mark the line of the 
 footlights. 
 
 How even such a banquet of bosh was got ready 
 in the time remained a riddle. But they went at 
 it with that mixture of recklessness and industry 
 that lives when youth is in a house ; and youth was 
 in that house that night, though not all may have 
 isolated the two faces and hearts from which it 
 flamed. As always happens, the invention grew 
 wilder and wilder through the very tameness of the 
 bourgeois conventions from which it had to create. 
 The columbine looked charming in an outstanding 
 skirt that strangely resembled the large lamp-shade 
 in the drawing-room. The clown and pantaloon 
 made themselves white with flour from the cook, 
 and red with rouge from some other domestic, who 
 remained (like all true Christian benefactors) anon- 
 ymous. The harlequin, already clad in silver paper 
 out of cigar boxes, was, with difficulty, prevented 
 from smashing the old Victorian lustre chandeliers, 
 that he might cover himself with resplendent crys- 
 tals. In fact he would certainly have done so, had 
 not Ruby unearthed some old pantomime paste 
 jewels she had worn at a fancy dress party as the 
 Queen of Diamonds. Indeed, her uncle, James 
 Blount, was getting almost out of hand in his ex- 
 
 107 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 citement ; he was like a schoolboy. He put a paper 
 donkey's head unexpectedly on Father Brown, who 
 bore it patiently, and even found some private man- 
 ner of moving his ears. He even essayed to put 
 the paper donkey's tail to the coat-tails of Sir Leo- 
 pold Fischer. This, however, was frowned down. 
 " Uncle is too absurd," cried Ruby to Crook, round 
 whose shoulders she had seriously placed a string 
 of sausages. " Why is he so wild ? " 
 
 " He is harlequin to your columbine," said Crook. 
 " I am only the clown who makes the old jokes." 
 
 " I wish you were the harlequin," she said, and 
 left the string of sausages swinging. 
 
 Father Brown, though he knew every detail done 
 behind the scenes, and had even evoked applause 
 by his transformation of a pillow into a pantomime 
 baby, went round to the front and sat among the 
 audience with all the solemn expectation of a child 
 at his first matinee. The spectators were few, re- 
 lations, one or two local friends, and the servants ; 
 Sir Leopold sat in the front seat, his full and still 
 fur-collared figure largely obscuring the view of 
 the little cleric behind him ; but it has never been 
 settled by artistic authorities whether the cleric lost 
 much. The pantomime was utterly chaotic, yet not 
 contemptible ; there ran through it a rage of impro- 
 visation which came chiefly from Crook the clown. 
 Commonly he was a clever man, and he was in- 
 spired to-night with a wild omniscience, a folly 
 wiser than the world, that which comes to a young 
 
 108 
 
THE CLOWN AT THE PIANO PLAYED THE CONSTABULARY CHORUS 
 FROM "THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE - ' 
 
THE FLYING STARS 
 
 man who has seen for an instant a particular ex- 
 pression on a particular face. He was supposed to 
 be the clown, but he was really almost everything 
 else, the author (so far as there was an author), 
 the prompter, the scene-painter, the scene-shifter, 
 and, above all, the orchestra. At abrupt intervals 
 in the outrageous performance he would hurl him- 
 self in full costume at the piano and bang out some 
 popular music equally absurd and appropriate. 
 
 The climax of this, as of all else, was the mo- 
 ment when the two front doors at the back of the 
 scene flew open, showing the lovely moonlit garden, 
 but showing more prominently the famous pro- 
 fessional guest; the great Florian, dressed up as a 
 policeman. The clown at the piano played the 
 constabulary chorus in the " Pirates of Penzance," 
 but it was drowned in the deafening applause, for 
 every gesture of the great comic actor was an ad- 
 mirable though restrained version of the carriage 
 and manner of the police. The harlequin leapt 
 upon him and hit him over the helmet; the pianist 
 playing " Where did you get that hat ? " he faced 
 about in admirably simulated astonishment, and 
 then the leaping harlequin hit him again (the pian- 
 ist suggesting a few bars of " Then we had another 
 one"). Then the harlequin rushed right into the 
 arms of the policeman and fell on top of him, amid 
 a roar of applause. Then it was that the strange 
 actor gave that celebrated imitation of a dead man, 
 of which the fame still lingers round Putney. It 
 
 109 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 was almost impossible to believe that a living person 
 could appear so limp. 
 
 The athletic harlequin swung him about like a 
 sack or twisted or tossed him like an Indian club; 
 all the time to the most maddeningly ludicrous 
 tunes from the piano. When the harlequin heaved 
 the comic constable heavily off the floor the clown 
 played " I arise from dreams of thee." When he 
 shuffled him across his back, " With my bundle on 
 my shoulder," and when the harlequin finally let 
 fall the policeman with a most convincing thud, the 
 lunatic at the instrument struck into a jingling meas- 
 ure with some words which are still believed to 
 have been, " I sent a letter to my love and on the 
 way I dropped it." 
 
 At about this limit of mental anarchy Father 
 Brown's view was obscured altogether; for the 
 City magnate in front of him rose to his full height 
 and thrust his hands savagely into all his pockets. 
 Then he sat down nervously, still fumbling, and 
 then stood up again. For an instant it seemed 
 seriously likely that he would stride across the foot- 
 lights; then he turned a glare at the clown playing 
 the piano; and then he burst in silence out of the 
 room. 
 
 The priest had only watched for a few more 
 minutes the absurd but not inelegant dance of the 
 amateur harlequin over his splendidly unconscious 
 foe. With real though rude art, the harlequin 
 danced slowly backwards out of the door into the 
 
 no 
 
THE FLYING STARS 
 
 garden, which was full of moonlight and stillness. 
 The vamped dress of silver paper and paste, which 
 had been too glaring in the footlights, looked more 
 and more magical and silvery as it danced away 
 under a brilliant moon. The audience was closing 
 in with a cataract of applause, when Brown felt his 
 arm abruptly touched, and he was asked in a whis- 
 per to come into the colonel's study. 
 
 He followed his summoner with increasing doubt, 
 which was not dispelled by a solemn comicality in 
 the scene of the study. There sat Colonel Adams, 
 still unaffectedly dressed as a pantaloon, with the 
 knobbed whalebone nodding above his brow, but 
 with his poor old eyes sad enough to have sobered 
 a Saturnalia. Sir Leopold Fischer was leaning 
 against the mantelpiece and heaving with all the 
 importance of panic. 
 
 " This is a very painful matter, Father Brown," 
 said Adams. " The truth is, those diamonds we 
 all saw this afternoon seem to have vanished from 
 my friend's tail-coat pocket. And as you " 
 
 " As I," supplemented Father Brown, with a 
 broad grin, " was sitting just behind him " 
 
 " Nothing of the sort shall be suggested," said 
 Colonel Adams, with a firm look at Fischer, which 
 rather implied that some such thing had been sug- 
 gested. " I only ask you to give me the assistance 
 that any gentleman might give." 
 
 " Which is turning out his pockets," said Father 
 Brown, and proceeded to do so, displaying seven 
 
 in 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 and sixpence, a return ticket, a small silver crucifix, 
 a small breviary, and a stick of chocolate. 
 
 The colonel looked at him long, and then said, 
 " Do you know, I should like to see the inside of 
 your head more than the inside of your pockets. 
 My daughter is one of your people, I know; well, 
 she has lately " and he stopped. 
 
 " She has lately," cried out old Fischer, " opened 
 her father's house to a cut-throat Socialist, who 
 says openly he would steal anything from a richer 
 man. This is the end of it. Here is the richer 
 man — and none the richer." 
 
 " If you want the inside of my head you can have 
 it," said Brown rather wearily. " What it's worth 
 you can say afterwards. But the first thing I find 
 in that disused pocket is this; that men who mean 
 to steal diamonds don't talk Socialism. They are 
 more likely," he added demurely, " to denounce 
 it." 
 
 Both the others shifted sharply and the priest 
 went on: 
 
 " You see, we know these people, more or less. 
 That Socialist would no more steal a diamond than 
 a Pyramid. We ought to look at once to the one 
 man we don't know. The fellow acting the police- 
 man — Florian. Where is he exactly at this minute, 
 I wonder." 
 
 The pantaloon sprang erect and strode out of 
 the room. An interlude ensued, during which the 
 millionaire stared at the priest, and the priest at 
 
 112 
 
THE FLYING STARS 
 
 his breviary; then the pantaloon returned and said, 
 with staccato gravity, " The policeman is still lying 
 on the stage. The curtain has gone up and down 
 six times; he is still lying there." 
 
 Father Brown dropped his book and stood star- 
 ing with a look of blank mental ruin. Very slowly 
 a light began to creep in his grey eyes, and then he 
 made the scarcely obvious answer. 
 
 "Please forgive me, colonel, but when did your 
 wife die ? " 
 
 " Wife ! " replied the staring soldier, " she died 
 this year two months. Her brother James arrived 
 just a week too late to see her." 
 
 The little priest bounded like a rabbit shot. 
 " Come on! " he cried in quite unusual excitement. 
 " Come on ! We've got to go and look at that 
 policeman ! " 
 
 They rushed on to the now curtained stage, break- 
 ing rudely past the columbine and clown (who 
 seemed whispering quite contentedly), and Father 
 Brown bent over the prostrate comic policeman. 
 
 " Chloroform," he said as he rose ; " I only 
 guessed it just now." 
 
 There was a startled stillness, and then the colo- 
 nel said slowly, " Please say seriously what all this 
 means." 
 
 Father Brown suddenly shouted with laughter, 
 
 then stopped, and only struggled with it for instants 
 
 during the rest of his speech. " Gentlemen," he 
 
 gasped, " there's not much time to talk. I must run 
 
 8 113 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 after the criminal. But this great French actor 
 who played the policeman — this clever corpse the 
 harlequin waltzed with and dandled and threw about 
 
 — he was " His voice again failed him, and he 
 
 turned his back to run. 
 
 " He was ? " called Fischer inquiringly. 
 
 " A rea policeman," said Father Brown, and ran 
 away infe) the dark. 
 
 There were hollows and bowers at the extreme 
 end of that leafy garden, in which the laurels and 
 other immortal shrubs showed against sapphire sky 
 and silver moon, even in that midwinter, warm 
 colours as of the south. The green gaiety of the 
 waving laurels, the rich purple indigo of the night, 
 the moon like a monstrous crystal, make an almost 
 irresponsibly romantic picture; and among the top 
 branches of the garden trees a strange figure is 
 climbing, who looks not so much romantic as im- 
 possible. He sparkles from head to heel, as if clad 
 in ten million moons ; the real moon catches him at 
 every movement and sets a new inch of him on fire. 
 But he swings, flashing and successful, from the 
 short tree in this garden to the tall, rambling tree 
 in the other, and only, stops there because a shade 
 has slid under the smaller tree and has unmistakably 
 called up to him. 
 
 " Well, Flambeau," says the voice, " you really 
 look like a Flying Star; but that always means a 
 Falling Star at last." 
 
 The silver, sparkling figure above seems to lean 
 114 
 
THE FLYING STARS 
 
 forward in the laurels and, confident of escape, lis- 
 tens to the little figure below. 
 
 " You never did anything better, Flambeau. 
 It was clever to come from Canada (with a Paris 
 ticket, I suppose) just a week after Mrs. Adams 
 died, when no one was in a mood to ask questions. 
 It was cleverer to have marked down the Flying 
 Stars and the very day of Fischer's coming. But 
 there's no cleverness, but mere genius, in what fol- 
 lowed. Stealing the stones, I suppose, was nothing 
 to you. You could have done it by sleight of hand 
 in a hundred other ways besides that pretence of 
 putting a paper donkey's tail to Fischer's coat. But 
 in the rest you eclipsed yourself." 
 
 The silvery figure among the green leaves seems 
 to linger as if hypnotised, though his escape is easy 
 behind him; he is staring at the man below. 
 
 " Oh, yes," says the man below, " I know all 
 about it. I know you not only forced the panto- 
 mime, but put it to a double use. You were going 
 to steal the stones quietly; news came by an ac- 
 complice that you were already suspected, and a 
 capable police officer was coming to rout you up 
 that very night. A common thief would have been 
 thankful for the warning and fled; but you are a 
 poet. You already had the clever notion of hiding 
 the jewels in a blaze of false stage jewellery. Now, 
 you saw that if the dress were a harlequin's the 
 appearance of a policeman would be quite in keep- 
 ing. The worthy officer started from Putney police 
 
 "5 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 station to find you, and walked into the queerest 
 trap ever set in this world. When the front door 
 opened he walked straight on to the stage of a 
 Christmas pantomime, where he could be kicked, 
 clubbed, stunned and drugged by the dancing har- 
 lequin, amid roars of laughter from all the most 
 respectable people in Putney. Oh, you will never 
 do anything better. And now, by the way, you 
 might give me back those diamonds." 
 
 The green branch on which the glittering figure 
 swung, rustled as if in astonishment; but the voice 
 went on: 
 
 " I want you to give them back, Flambeau, and 
 I want you to give up this life. There is still 
 youth and honour and humour in you; don't fancy 
 they will last in that trade. Men may keep a sort 
 of level of good, but no man has ever been able to 
 keep on one level of evil. That road goes down 
 and down. The kind man drinks and turns cruel; 
 the frank man kills and lies about it. Many a 
 man I've known started like you to be an honest 
 outlaw, a merry robber of the rich, and ended 
 stamped into slime. Maurice Blum started out as 
 an anarchist of principle, a father of the poor; he 
 ended a greasy spy and tale-bearer that both sides 
 used and despised. Harry Burke started his free 
 money movement sincerely enough; now he's 
 sponging on a half-starved sister for endless bran- 
 dies and sodas. Lord Amber went into wild so- 
 
 116 
 
THE FLYING STARS 
 
 ciety in a sort of chivalry; now he's paying 
 blackmail to the lowest vultures in London. Cap- 
 tain Barillon was the great gentleman-apache before 
 your time ; he died in a madhouse, screaming with 
 fear of the " narks " and receivers that had be- 
 trayed him and hunted him down. I know the 
 woods look very free behind you, Flambeau; I 
 know that in a flash you could melt into them like 
 a monkey. But some day you will be an old grey 
 monkey, Flambeau. You will sit up in your free 
 forest cold at heart and close to death, and the 
 tree-tops will be very bare." 
 
 Everything continued still, as if the small man 
 below held the other in the tree in some long in- 
 visible leash ; and he went on : 
 
 " Your downward steps have begun. You used 
 to boast of doing nothing mean, but you are 
 doing something mean to-night. You are leaving 
 suspicion on an honest boy with a good deal against 
 him already; you are separating him from the 
 woman he loves and who loves him. But you will 
 do meaner things than that before you die." 
 
 Three flashing diamonds fell from the tree to 
 the turf. The small man stooped to pick them up, 
 and when he looked up again the green cage of the 
 tree was emptied of its silver bird. 
 
 The restoration of the gems (accidentally picked 
 up by Father Brown, of all people) ended the 
 evening in uproarious triumph ; and Sir Leopold, in 
 
 117 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 his height of good humour, even told the priest that 
 though he himself had broader views, he could re- 
 spect those whose creed required them to be clois- 
 tered and ignorant of this world. 
 
 118 
 
V 
 
 THE INVISIBLE MAN 
 
 In the cool blue twilight of two steep streets in 
 Camden Town, the shop at the corner, a confec- 
 tioner's, glowed like the butt of a cigar. One 
 should rather say, perhaps, like the butt of a fire- 
 work, for the light was of many colours and some 
 complexity, broken up by many mirrors and danc- 
 ing on many gilt and gaily-coloured cakes and sweet- 
 meats. Against this one fiery glass were glued 
 the noses of many gutter-snipes, for the chocolates 
 were all wrapped in those red and gold and green 
 metallic colours which are almost better than choco- 
 late itself; and the huge white wedding-cake in the 
 window was somehow at once remote and satisfy- 
 ing, just as if the whole North Pole were good 
 to eat. Such rainbow provocations could naturally 
 collect the youth of the neighbourhood up to the 
 ages of ten or twelve. But this corner was also 
 attractive to youth at a later stage; and a young 
 man, not less than twenty-four, was staring into 
 the same shop window. To him, also, the shop 
 was of fiery charm, but this attraction was not 
 wholly to be explained by chocolates; which, how- 
 ever, he was far from despising. 
 
 119 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 He was a tall, burly, red-haired young man, with' 
 a resolute face but a listless manner. He carried 
 under his arm a flat, grey portfolio of black-and- 
 white sketches, which he had sold with more or less 
 success to publishers ever since his uncle (who was 
 an admiral) had disinherited him for Socialism, 
 because of a lecture which he had delivered against 
 that economic theory. His name was John Turn- 
 bull Angus. 
 
 Entering at last, he walked through the confec- 
 tioner's shop to the back room, which was a sort 
 of pastry-cook restaurant, merely raising his hat to 
 the young lady who was serving there. She was 
 a dark, elegant, alert girl in black, with a high 
 colour and very quick, dark eyes; and after the 
 ordinary interval she followed him into the inner 
 room to take his order. 
 
 His order was evidently a usual one. " I want, 
 please," he said with precision, " one halfpenny 
 bun and a small cup of black coffee." An instant 
 before the girl could turn away he added, " Also, 
 I want you to marry me." 
 
 The young lady of the shop stiffened suddenly 
 and said, " Those are jokes I don't allow." 
 
 The red-haired young man lifted grey eyes of 
 an unexpected gravity. 
 
 " Really and truly," he said, " it's as serious — 
 as serious as the half-penny bun. It is expensive, 
 like the bun; one pays for it. It is indigestible, 
 like the bun. It hurts." 
 
 1 20 
 
THE INVISIBLE MAN 
 
 The dark young lady had never taken her dark 
 eyes off him, but seemed to be studying him with 
 almost tragic exactitude. At the end of her 
 scrutiny she had something like the shadow of a 
 smile, and she sat down in a chair. 
 
 " Don't you think," observed Angus, absently, 
 " that it's rather cruel to eat these halfpenny 
 buns ? They might grow up into penny buns. I 
 shall give up these brutal sports when we are 
 married." 
 
 The dark young lady rose from her chair and 
 walked to the window, evidently in a state of strong 
 but not unsympathetic cogitation. When at last 
 she swung round again with an air of resolution she 
 was bewildered to observe that the young man was 
 carefully laying out on the table various objects 
 from the shop-window. They included a pyramid 
 of highly coloured sweets, several plates of sand- 
 wiches, and the two decanters containing that mys- 
 terious port and sherry which are peculiar to 
 pastry-cooks. In the middle of this neat arrange- 
 ment he had carefully let down the enormous load 
 of white sugared cake which had been the huge 
 ornament of the window. 
 
 " What on earth are you doing ? " she asked. 
 
 " Duty, my dear Laura," he began. 
 
 " Oh, for the Lord's sake, stop a minute," she 
 cried, " and don't talk to me in that way. I mean, 
 what is all that?" 
 
 " A ceremonial meal, Miss Hope." 
 121 
 
.0 
 THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 "And what is that?" she asked impatiently, 
 pointing to the mountain of sugar. 
 
 " The wedding-cake, Mrs. Angus," he said. 
 
 The girl marched to that article, removed it with 
 some clatter, and put it back in the shop window; 
 she then returned, and, putting her elegant elbows 
 on the table, regarded the young man not un- 
 favourably but with considerable exasperation. 
 
 " You don't give me any time to think," she said. 
 
 " I'm not such a fool," he answered ; " that's my 
 Christian humility." 
 
 She was still looking at him ; but she had grown 
 considerably graver behind the smile. 
 
 " Mr. Angus," she said steadily, " before there 
 is a minute more of this nonsense I must tell you 
 something about myself as shortly as I can." 
 
 "Delighted," replied Angus gravely. "You 
 might tell me something about myself, too, while 
 you are about it." 
 
 " Oh, do hold your tongue and listen," she said. 
 "It's nothing that I'm ashamed of, and it isn't 
 even anything that I'm specially sorry about. But 
 what would you say if there were something that is 
 no business of mine and yet is my nightmare? " 
 
 " In that case," said the man seriously, " I should 
 suggest that you bring back the cake." 
 
 "Well, you must listen to the story first," said 
 Laura, persistently. "To begin with, I must tell 
 you that my father owned the inn called the ' Red 
 
 122 
 
THE INVISIBLE MAN 
 
 Fish ' at Ludbury, and I used to serve people in 
 the bar." 
 
 " I have often wondered," he said, " why there 
 was a kind of a Christian air about this one confec- 
 tioner's shop." 
 
 " Ludbury is a sleepy, grassy little hole in the 
 Eastern Counties, and the only kind of people 
 who ever came to the ' Red Fish ' were occasional 
 commercial travellers, and for the rest, the most 
 awful people you can see, only you've never seen 
 them. I mean little, loungy men, who had just 
 enough to live on and had nothing to do but lean 
 about in bar-rooms and bet on horses, in bad 
 clothes that were just too good for them. Even 
 these wretched young rotters were not very common 
 at our house ; but there were two of them that were 
 a lot too common — common in every sort of way. 
 They both lived on money of their own, and were 
 wearisomely idle and over-dressed. But yet I was 
 a bit sorry for them, because I half believe they 
 slunk into our little empty bar because each of them 
 had a slight deformity; the sort of thing that some 
 yokels laugh at. It wasn't exactly a deformity 
 either; it was more an oddity. One of them was a 
 surprisingly small man, something like a dwarf, or 
 at least like a jockey. He was not at all jockeyish 
 to look at, though; he had a round black head and 
 a well-trimmed black beard, bright eyes like a 
 bird's; he jingled money in his pockets; he jangled 
 
 123 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 a great gold watch chain; and he never turned up 
 except dressed just too much like a gentleman to 
 be one. He was no fool though, though a futile 
 idler ; he was curiously clever at all kinds of things 
 that couldn't be the slightest use; a sort of im- 
 promptu conjuring; making fifteen matches set 
 fire to each other like a regular firework ; or cutting 
 a banana or some such thing into a dancing doll. 
 His name was Isidore Smythe; and I can see him 
 still, with his little dark face, just coming up to 
 the counter, making a jumping kangaroo out of 
 five cigars. 
 
 " The other fellow was more silent and more 
 ordinary; but somehow he alarmed me much more 
 than poor little Smythe. He was very tall and 
 slight, and light-haired; his nose had a high bridge, 
 and he might almost have been handsome in a 
 spectral sort of way; but he had one of the most 
 appalling squints I have ever seen or heard of. 
 When he looked straight at you, you didn't know 
 where you were yourself, let alone what he was 
 looking at. I fancy this sort of disfigurement em- 
 bittered the poor chap a little; for while Smythe 
 was ready to show off his monkey tricks anywhere, 
 James Welkin (that was the squinting man's name) 
 never did anything except soak in our bar parlour, 
 and go for great walks by himself in the flat, grey 
 country all round. All the same, I think Smythe, 
 too, was a little sensitive about being so small, 
 though he carried it off more smartly. And so it 
 
 124 
 
THE INVISIBLE MAN 
 
 was that I was really puzzled, as well as startled, 
 and very sorry, when they both offered to marry 
 me in the same week. 
 
 " Well, I did what I've since thought was per- 
 haps a silly thing. But, after all, these freaks 
 were my friends in a way; and I had a horror of 
 their thinking I refused them for the real reason, 
 which w^s that they were so impossibly ugly. So 
 I made up some gas of another sort, about never 
 meaning to marry anyone who hadn't carved his 
 way in the world. I s^id it was a point of principle 
 with me not to live on money that was just in- 
 herited like theirs. Two days after I had talked 
 in this well-meaning sort of way, the whole trouble 
 began. The first thing I heard was that both of 
 them had gone off to seek their fortunes, as if they 
 were in some silly fairy tale. 
 
 " Well, I've never seen either of them from that 
 day to this. But I've had two letters from the little 
 man called Smythe, and really they were rather 
 exciting." 
 
 " Ever heard of the other man ? " asked Angus. 
 
 " No, he never wrote," said the girl, after an 
 instant's hesitation. " Smythe's first letter was 
 simply to say that he had started out walking with 
 Welkin to London; but Welkin was such a good 
 walker that the little man dropped out of it, and 
 took a rest by the roadside. He happened to be 
 picked up by some travelling show, and, partly be- 
 cause he was nearly a dwarf, and partly because 
 
 125 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 he was really a clever little wretch, he got on quite 
 well in the show business, and was soon sent up to 
 the Aquarium, to do some tricks that I forget. 
 That was his first letter. His second was much 
 more of a startler, and I only got it last week." 
 
 The man called Angus emptied his coffee-cup and 
 regarded her with mild and patient eyes. Her own 
 mouth took a slight twist of laughter as she re- 
 sumed, " I suppose you've seen on the hoardings 
 all about this ' Smythe's Silent Service ' ? Or you 
 must be the only person that hasn't. Oh, I don't 
 know much about it, it's some clockwork invention 
 for doing all the housework by machinery. You 
 know the sort of thing : ' Press a button — A Butler 
 who Never Drinks.' ' Turn a Handle — Ten 
 Housemaids who Never Flirt.' You must have 
 seen the advertisements. Well, whatever these 
 machines are, they are making pots of money; and 
 they are making it all for that little imp whom I 
 knew down in Ludbury. I can't help feeling 
 pleased the poor little chap has fallen on his feet; 
 but the plain fact is, I'm in terror of his turning 
 up any minute and telling me he's carved his way 
 in the world — as he certainly has." 
 
 " And the other man ? " repeated Angus with a 
 sort of obstinate quietude. 
 
 Laura Hope got to her feet suddenly. " My 
 friend," she said, " I think you are a witch. Yes, 
 you are quite right. I have not seen a line of the 
 
 126 
 
THE INVISIBLE MAN 
 
 other man's writing; and I have no more notion 
 than the dead of what or where he is. But it is 
 of him that I am frightened. It is he who is all 
 about my path. It is he who has half driven me 
 mad. Indeed, I think he has driven me mad; for 
 I have felt him where he could not have been, and 
 I have heard his voice when he could not have 
 spoken." 
 
 " Well, my dear," said the young man, cheer- 
 fully, " if he were Satan himself, he is done for now 
 you have told somebody. One goes mad all alone, 
 old girl. But when was it you fancied you felt and 
 heard our squinting friend ? " 
 
 " I heard James Welkin laugh as plainly as I 
 hear you speak," said the girl, steadily. " There 
 was nobody there, for I stood just outside the shop 
 at the corner, and could see down both streets at 
 once. I had forgotten how he laughed, though his 
 laugh was as odd as his squint. I had not thought 
 of him for nearly a year. But it's a solemn truth 
 that a few seconds later the first letter came from 
 his rival." 
 
 " Did you ever make the spectre speak or 
 squeak, or anything? " asked Angus, with some in- 
 terest. 
 
 Laura suddenly shuddered, and then said, with 
 an unshaken voice, " Yes. Just when I had finished 
 reading the second letter from Isidore Smythe an- 
 nouncing his success, just then, I heard Welkin 
 
 127 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 say, ' He shan't have you, though.' It was quite 
 plain, as if he were in the room. It is awful; I 
 think I must be mad." 
 
 " If you really were mad," said the young man, 
 " you would think you must be sane. But cer- 
 tainly there seems to me to be something a little 
 rum about this unseen gentleman. Two heads are 
 better than one — I spare you allusions to any other 
 organs — and really, if you would allow me, as a 
 sturdy, practical man, to bring back the wedding- 
 cake out of the window " 
 
 Even as he spoke, there was a sort of steely 
 shriek in the street outside, and a small motor, 
 driven at devilish speed, shot up to the door of the 
 shop and stuck there. In the same flash of time a 
 small man in a shiny top hat stood stamping in 
 the outer room. 
 
 Angus, who had hitherto maintained hilarious 
 ease from motives of mental hygiene, revealed the 
 strain of his soul by striding abruptly out of the 
 inner room and confronting the new-comer. A 
 glance at him was quite sufficient to confirm the 
 savage guesswork of a man in love. This very 
 dapper but dwarfish figure, with the spike of black 
 beard carried insolently forward, the clever unrest- 
 ful eyes, the neat but very nervous fingers, could be 
 none other than the man just described to him: 
 Isidore Smythe, who made dolls out of banana 
 skins and match-boxes; Isidore Smythe, who made 
 millions out of undrinking butlers and unflirting 
 
 128 
 
THE INVISIBLE MAN 
 
 housemaids of metal. For a moment the two 
 men, instinctively understanding each other's air of 
 possession, looked at each other with that curious- 
 cold generosity which is the soul of rivalry. 
 
 Mr. Smythe, however, made no allusion to the 
 ultimate ground of their antagonism, but said 
 simply and explosively. " Has Miss Hope seen that 
 thing on the window ? " 
 
 " On the window ? " repeated the staring Angus. 
 
 " There's no time to explain other things," said 
 the small millionaire shortly. " There's some tom- 
 foolery going on here that has to be investigated." 
 
 He pointed his polished walking-stick at the 
 window, recently depleted by the bridal prepara- 
 tions of Mr. Angus ; and that gentleman was aston- 
 ished to see along the front of the glass a long strip 
 of paper pasted, which had certainly not been on 
 the window when he had looked through it some 
 time before. Following the energetic Smythe out- 
 side into the street, he found that some yard and a 
 half of stamp paper had been carefully gummed 
 along the glass outside, and on this was written in 
 straggly characters, " If you marry Smythe, he will 
 die." 
 
 " Laura," said Angus, putting his big red head 
 into the shop, " you're not mad." 
 
 " It's the writing of that fellow Welkin," said 
 
 Smythe gruffly. " I haven't seen him for years, 
 
 but he's always bothering me. Five times in the 
 
 last fortnight he's had threatening letters left at 
 
 9 129 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 my flat, and I can't even find out who leaves them, 
 let alone if it is Welkin himself. The porter of 
 the flats swears that no suspicious characters have 
 been seen, and here he has pasted up a sort of dado 
 on a public shop window, while the people in the 
 shop " 
 
 " Quite so," said Angus modestly, " while the 
 people in the shop were having tea. Well, sir, I 
 can assure you I appreciate your common sense in 
 dealing so directly with the matter. We can talk 
 about other things afterwards. The fellow cannot 
 be very far off yet, for I swear there was no paper 
 there when I went last to the window, ten or fifteen 
 minutes ago. On the other hand, he's too far off 
 to be chased, as we don't even know the direction. 
 If you'll take my advice, Mr. Smythe, you'll put 
 this at once in the hands of some energetic inquiry 
 man, private rather than public. I know an ex- 
 tremely clever fellow, who has set up in business 
 five minutes from here in your car. His name's 
 Flambeau, and though his youth was a bit stormy, 
 he's a strictly honest man now, and his brains are 
 worth money. He lives in Lucknow Mansions, 
 Hampstead." 
 
 " That is odd," said the little man, arching his 
 black eyebrows. "I live, myself, in Himylaya 
 Mansions, round the corner. Perhaps you might 
 care to come with me; I can go to my rooms and 
 sort out these queer Welkin documents, while you 
 run round and get your friend the detective." 
 
 130 
 
THE INVISIBLE MAN 
 
 " You are very good," said Angus politely. 
 " Well, the sooner we act the better." 
 
 Both men, with a queer kind of impromptu 
 fairness, took the same sort of formal farewell of 
 the lady, and both jumped into the brisk little car. 
 As Smythe took the handles and they turned the 
 great corner of the street, Angus was amused to 
 see a gigantesque poster of " Smythe's Silent Ser- 
 vice," with a picture of a huge headless iron doll, 
 carrying a saucepan with the legend, " A Cook 
 Who is Never Cross." 
 
 " I use them in my own flat," said the little 
 black-bearded man, laughing, "partly for adver- 
 tisements, and partly for real convenience. Hon- 
 estly, and all above board, those big clockwork dolls 
 of mine do bring you coals or claret or a time- 
 table quicker than any live servants I've ever known, 
 if you know which knob to press. But I'll never 
 deny, between ourselves, that such servants have 
 their disadvantages, too." 
 
 " Indeed ? " said Angus ; " is there something 
 they can't do?" 
 
 "Yes," replied Smythe coolly; "they can't tell 
 me who left those threatening letters at my flat." 
 
 The man's motor was small and swift like him- 
 self; in fact, like his domestic service, it was of his 
 own invention. If he was an advertising quack, 
 he was one who believed in his own wares. The 
 sense of something tiny and flying was accentuated 
 as they swept up long white curves of road in the 
 
 131 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 dead but open daylight of evening. Soon the 
 white curves came sharper and dizzier; they were 
 upon ascending spirals, as they say in the modern 
 religions. For, indeed, they were cresting a corner 
 of London which is almost as precipitous as Edin- 
 burgh, if not quite so picturesque. Terrace rose 
 above terrace, and the special tower of flats they 
 sought, rose above them all to almost Egyptian 
 height, gilt by the level sunset. The change, as 
 they turned the corner and entered the crescent 
 known as Himylaya Mansions, was as abrupt as 
 the opening of a window; for they found that pile 
 of flats sitting above London as above a green sea 
 of slate. Opposite to the mansions, on the other 
 side of the gravel crescent, was a bushy enclosure 
 more like a steep hedge or dyke than a garden, 
 and some way below that ran a strip of artificial 
 water, a sort of canal, like the moat of that em- 
 bowered fortress. As the car swept round the 
 crescent it passed, at one corner, the stray stall of a 
 man selling chestnuts; and right away at the other 
 end of the curve, Angus could see a dim blue police- 
 man walking slowly. These were the only human 
 shapes in that high suburban solitude; but he had 
 an irrational sense that they expressed the speech- 
 less poetry of London. He felt as if they were 
 figures in a story. 
 
 The little car shot up to the right house like a 
 bullet, and shot out its owner like a bomb shell. 
 He was immediately inquiring of a tall commission- 
 
 132 
 
THE INVISIBLE MAN 
 
 aire in shining braid, and a short porter in shirt 
 sleeves, whether anybody or anything had been 
 seeking his apartments. He was assured that no- 
 body and nothing had passed these officials since 
 his last inquiries; whereupon he and the slightly 
 bewildered Angus were shot up in the lift like a 
 rocket, till they reached the top floor. 
 
 "Just come in for a minute," said the breath- 
 less Smythe. " I want to show you those Welkin 
 letters. Then you might run round the corner and 
 fetch your friend." He pressed a button concealed 
 in the wall, and the door opened of itself. 
 
 It opened on a long, commodious ante-room, of 
 which the only arresting features, ordinarily speak- 
 ing, were the rows of tall half-human mechanical 
 figures that stood up on both sides like tailors' 
 dummies. Like tailors' dummies they were head- 
 less; and like tailors' dummies they had a hand- 
 some unnecessary humpiness in the shoulders, and 
 a pigeon-breasted protuberance of chest; but bar- 
 ring this, they were not much more like a human 
 figure than any automatic machine at a station that 
 is about the human height. They had two great 
 hooks like arms, for carrying trays; and they were 
 painted pea-green, or vermillion, or black for con- 
 venience of distinction; in every other way they 
 were only automatic machines and nobody would 
 have looked twice at them. On this occasion, at 
 least, nobody did. For between the two rows of 
 these domestic dummies lay something more inter- 
 
 133 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 esting than most of the mechanics of the world. It 
 was a white, tattered scrap of paper scrawled with 
 red ink; and the agile inventor had snatched it up 
 almost as soon as the door flew open. He handed 
 it to Angus without a word. The red ink on it 
 actually was not dry, and the message ran, " If you 
 have been to see her to-day, I shall kill you." 
 
 There was a short silence, and then Isidore 
 Smythe said quietly, "Would you like a little 
 whisky? I rather feel as if I should." 
 
 " Thank you ; I should like a little Flambeau," 
 said Angus, gloomily. " This business seems to 
 me to be getting rather grave. I'm going round 
 at once to fetch him." 
 
 " Right you are," said the other, with admirable 
 cheerfulness. " Bring him round here as quick as 
 you can." 
 
 But as Angus closed the front door behind him 
 he saw Smythe push back a button, and one of the 
 clockwork images glided from its place and slid 
 along a groove in the floor carrying a tray with 
 syphon and decanter. There did seem something 
 a trifle weird about leaving the little man alone 
 among those dead servants, who were coming to 
 life as the door closed. 
 
 Six steps down from Smythe's landing the man 
 in shirt sleeves was doing something with a pail. 
 Angus stopped to extract a promise, fortified with 
 a prospective bribe, that he would remain in that 
 place until the return with the detective, and would 
 
 134 
 
THE INVISIBLE MAN 
 
 keep count of any kind of stranger coming up those 
 stairs. Dashing down to the front hall he then laid 
 similar charges of vigilance on the commissionaire 
 at the front door, from whom he learned the simpli- 
 fying circumstances that there was no back door. 
 Not content with this, he captured the floating 
 policeman and induced him to stand opposite the 
 entrance and watch it ; and finally paused an instant 
 for a pennyworth of chestnuts, and an inquiry as 
 to the probable length of the merchant's stay in 
 the neighbourhood. 
 
 The chestnut seller, turning up the collar of his 
 coat, told him he should probably be moving shortly, 
 as he thought it was going to snow. Indeed, the 
 evening was growing grey and bitter, but Angus, 
 with all his eloquence, proceeded to nail the chest- 
 nut man to his post. 
 
 " Keep yourself warm on your own chestnuts," 
 he said earnestly. " Eat up your whole stock ; I'll 
 make it worth your while. I'll give you a sover- 
 eign if you'll wait here till I come back, and then 
 tell me whether any man, woman, or child has gone 
 into that house where the commissionaire is stand- 
 ing." 
 
 He then walked away smartly, with a last look 
 at the besieged tower. 
 
 " I've made a ring round that room, anyhow," 
 he said. " They can't all four of them be Mr. 
 Welkin's accomplices." 
 
 Lucknow Mansions were, so to speak, on a lower 
 135 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 platform of that hill of houses, of which Himylaya 
 Mansions might be called the peak. Mr. Flam- 
 beau's semi-official flat was on the ground floor, 
 and presented in every way a marked contrast to 
 the American machinery and cold hotel-like luxury 
 of the flat of the Silent Service. Flambeau, who 
 was a friend of Angus, received him in a rococo 
 artistic den behind his office, of which the orna- 
 ments were sabres, harquebuses, Eastern curio- 
 sities, flasks of Italian wine, savage cooking-pots, 
 a plumy Persian cat, and a small dusty-looking 
 Roman Catholic priest, who looked particularly out 
 of place. 
 
 " This is my friend Father Brown," said Flam- 
 beau. " I've often wanted you to meet him. 
 Splendid weather, this ; a little cold for Southerners 
 like me." 
 
 " Yes, I think it will keep clear," said Angus, 
 sitting down on a violet-striped Eastern ottoman. 
 
 " No," said the priest quietly, " it has begun to 
 snow." 
 
 And, indeed, as he spoke, the first few flakes, 
 foreseen by the man of chestnuts, began to drift 
 across the darkening window-pane. 
 
 " Well," said Angus heavily. " I'm afraid I've 
 come on business, and rather jumpy business at 
 that. The fact is, Flambeau, within a stone's throw 
 of your house is a fellow who badly wants your 
 help; he's perpetually being haunted and threat- 
 ened by an invisible enemy — a scoundrel whom no- 
 
 136 
 
THE INVISIBLE MAN 
 
 body has even seen." As Angus proceeded to tell 
 the whole tale of Smythe and Welkin, beginning 
 with Laura's story, and going on with his own, 
 the supernatural laugh at the corner of two empty 
 streets, the strange distinct words spoken in an 
 empty room, Flambeau grew more and more vividly 
 concerned, and the little priest seemed to be left 
 out of it, like a piece of furniture. When it came 
 to the scribbled stamp-paper pasted on the window, 
 Flamebau rose, seeming to fill the room with his 
 huge shoulders. 
 
 "If you don't mind," he said, " I think you had 
 better tell me the rest on the nearest road to this 
 man's house. It strikes me, somehow, that there 
 is no time to be lost." 
 
 "Delighted," said Angus, rising also, "though 
 he's safe enough for the present, for I've set four 
 men to watch the only hole to his burrow." 
 
 They turned out into the street, the small priest 
 trundling after them with the docility of a small 
 dog. He merely said, in a cheerful way, like one 
 making conversation, " How quick the snow gets 
 thick on the ground." 
 
 As they threaded the steep side streets already 
 powdered with silver, Angus finished his story ; and 
 by the time they reached the crescent with the 
 towering flats, he had leisure to turn his attention 
 to the four sentinels. The chestnut seller, both be- 
 fore and after receiving a sovereign, swore stub- 
 bornly that he had watched the door and seen no 
 
 137 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 visitor enter. The policeman was even more em- 
 phatic. He said he had had experience of crooks 
 of all kinds, in top hats and in rags; he wasn't 
 so green as to expect suspicious characters to look 
 suspicious; he looked out for anybody, and, so 
 help him, there had been nobody. And when all 
 three men gathered round the gilded commission- 
 aire, who still stood smiling astride of the porch, 
 the verdict was more final still. 
 
 " I've got a right to ask any man, duke or dust- 
 man, what he wants in these flats," said the genial 
 and gold-laced giant, " and I'll swear there's 
 been nobody to ask since this gentleman went 
 away." 
 
 The unimportant Father Brown, who stood back, 
 looking modestly at the pavement, here ventured 
 to say meekly, " Has nobody been up and down 
 stairs, then, since the snow began to fall? It be- 
 gan while we were all round at Flambeau's." 
 
 " Nobody's been in here, sir, you can take it from 
 me," said the official, with beaming authority. 
 
 " Then I wonder what that is ? " said the priest, 
 and stared at the ground blankly like a fish. 
 
 The others all looked down also; and Flambeau 
 used a fierce exclamation and a French gesture. 
 For it was unquestionably true that down the 
 middle of the entrance guarded by the man in gold 
 lace, actually between the arrogant, stretched legs 
 of that colossus, ran a stringy pattern of grey foot- 
 prints stamped upon the white snow. 
 
 138 
 
THE INVISIBLE MAN 
 
 " God ! " cried Angus involuntarily, " the In- 
 visible Man ! " 
 
 Without another word he turned and dashed up 
 the stairs, with Flambeau following; but Father 
 Brown still stood looking about him in the snow- 
 clad street as if he had lost interest in his query. 
 
 Flambeau was plainly in a mood to break down 
 the door with his big shoulders ; but the Scotchman, 
 with more reason, if less intuition, fumbled about 
 on the frame of the door till he found the invisible 
 button; and the door swung slowly open. 
 
 It showed substantially the same serried interior; 
 the hall had grown darker, though it was still 
 struck here and there with the last crimson shafts 
 of sunset, and one or two of the headless machines 
 had been moved from their places for this or that 
 purpose, and stood here and there about the twilit 
 place. The green and red of their coats were all 
 darkened in the dusk; and their likeness to human 
 shapes slightly increased by their very shapeless- 
 ness. But in the middle of them all, exactly where 
 the paper with the red ink had lain, there lay 
 something that looked like red ink spilt out of its 
 bottle. But it was not red ink. 
 
 With a French combination of reason and vio- 
 lence Flambeau simply said " Murder ! " and, plung- 
 ing into the flat, had explored every corner and 
 cupboard of it in five minutes. But if he expected 
 to find a corpse he found none. Isidore Smythe 
 was not in the place, either dead or alive. After 
 
 139 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 the most tearing search the two men met each other 
 in the outer hall, with streaming faces and staring 
 eyes. " My friend," said Flambeau, talking French 
 in his excitement, " not only is your murderer in- 
 visible, but he makes invisible also the murdered 
 man." 
 
 Angus looked round at the dim room full of 
 dummies, and in some Celtic corner of his Scotch 
 soul a shudder started. One of the life-size dolls 
 stood immediately overshadowing the blood stain, 
 summoned, perhaps, by the slain man an instant 
 before he fell. One of the high-shouldered hooks 
 that served the thing for arms, was a little lifted, 
 and Angus had suddenly the horrid fancy that poor 
 Smythe's own iron child had struck him down. 
 Matter had rebelled, and these machines had killed 
 their master. But even so, what had they done with 
 him? 
 
 "Eaten him?" said the nightmare at his ear; 
 and he sickened for an instant at the idea of rent, 
 human remains absorbed and crushed into all that 
 acephalous clockwork. 
 
 He recovered his mental health by an emphatic 
 effort, and said to Flambeau, "Well, there it is. 
 The poor fellow has evaporated like a cloud and 
 left a red streak on the floor. The tale does not 
 belong to this world." 
 
 "There is only one thing to be done," said 
 Flambeau, " whether it belongs to this world or the 
 other, I must go down and talk to my friend." 
 
 140 
 
THE INVISIBLE MAN 
 
 They descended, passing the man with the pail, 
 who again asseverated that he had let no intruder 
 pass, down to the commissionaire and the hovering 
 chestnut man, who rigidly reasserted their own 
 watchfulness. But when Angus looked round for 
 his fourth confirmation he could not see it, and 
 called out with some nervousness, " Where is the 
 policeman ? " 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Father Brown ; " that 
 is my fault. I just sent him down the road to in- 
 vestigate something — that I just thought worth in- 
 vestigating." 
 
 " Well, we want him back pretty soon," said An- 
 gus abruptly, " for the wretched man upstairs has 
 not only been murdered, but wiped out." 
 
 " How ? " asked the priest. 
 
 " Father," said Flambeau, after a pause, " upon 
 my soul I believe it is more in your department 
 than mine. No friend or foe has entered the house, 
 but Smythe is gone, as if stolen by the fairies. If 
 that is not supernatural, I " 
 
 As he spoke they were all checked by an un- 
 usual sight ; the big blue policeman came round the 
 corner of the crescent, running. He came straight 
 up to Brown. 
 
 " You're right, sir," he panted, " they've just 
 found poor Mr. Smythe's body in the canal down 
 below." 
 
 Angus put his hand wildly to his head. " Did 
 he run down and drown himself ? " he asked. 
 
 141 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 " He never came down, I'll swear," said the con- 
 stable, " and he wasn't drowned either, for he died 
 of a great stab over the heart." 
 
 " And yet you saw no one enter ? " said Flam- 
 beau in a grave voice. 
 
 " Let us walk down the road a little," said the 
 priest. 
 
 As they reached the other end of the crescent 
 he observed abruptly, " Stupid of me ! I forgot to 
 ask the policeman something. I wonder if they 
 found a light brown sack." 
 
 "Why a light brown sack?" asked Angus, as- 
 tonished. 
 
 " Because if it was any other coloured sack, the 
 case must begin over again," said Father Brown; 
 " but if it was a light brown sack, why, the case is 
 finished." 
 
 " I am pleased to hear it," said Angus with hearty 
 irony. " It hasn't begun, so far as I am con- 
 cerned." 
 
 " You must tell us all about it," said Flambeau 
 with a strange heavy simplicity, like a child. 
 
 Unconsciously they were walking with quicken- 
 ing steps down the long sweep of road on the other 
 side of the high crescent, Father Brown leading 
 briskly, though in silence. At last he said with an 
 almost touching vagueness, " Well, I'm afraid you'll 
 think it so prosy. We always begin at the ab- 
 stract end of things, and you can't begin this story 
 anywhere else. 
 
 142 
 
THE INVISIBLE MAN 
 
 " Have you ever noticed this — that people never 
 answer what you say? They answer what you 
 mean — or what they think you mean. Suppose 
 one lady says to another in a country house, ' Is 
 anybody staying with you ? ' the lady doesn't an- 
 swer ' Yes ; the butler, the three footmen, the par- 
 lourmaid, and so on,' though the parlourmaid may 
 be in the room, or the butler behind her chair. She 
 says ' There is nobody staying with us,' meaning 
 nobody of the sort you mean. But suppose a doc- 
 tor inquiring into an epidemic asks, ' Who is stay- 
 ing in the house ? ' then the lady will remember 
 the butler, parlourmaid, and the rest. All lan- 
 guage is used like that; you never get a question 
 answered literally, even when you get it answered 
 truly. When those four quite honest men said that 
 no man had gone into the Mansions, they did not 
 really mean that no man had gone into them. They 
 meant no man whom they could suspect of being 
 your man. A man did go into the house, and 
 did come out of it, but they never noticed him." 
 
 " An invisible man ? " inquired Angus, raising 
 his red eyebrows. 
 
 " A mentally invisible man," said Father Brown. 
 
 A minute or two after he resumed in the same 
 unassuming voice, like a man thinking his way. 
 " Of course you can't think of such a man, until 
 you do think of him. That's where his cleverness 
 comes in. But I came to think of him through 
 two or three little things in the tale Mr. Angus 
 
 143 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 told us. First, there was the fact that this Welkin 
 went for long walks. And then there was the vast 
 lot of stamp paper on the window. And then, 
 most of all, there were the two things the young 
 lady said — things that couldn't be true. Don't get 
 annoyed," he added hastily, noting a sudden move- 
 ment of the Scotchman's head ; " she thought they 
 were true. A person can't be quite alone in a street 
 a second before she receives a letter. She can't be 
 quite alone in a street when she starts reading a 
 letter just received. There must be somebody 
 pretty near her; he must be mentally invisible." 
 
 " Why must there be somebody near her ? " 
 asked Angus. 
 
 " Because," said Father Brown, " barring carrier- 
 pigeons, somebody must have brought her the 
 letter." 
 
 " Do you really mean to say," asked Flambeau, 
 with energy, " that Welkin carried his rival's letters 
 to his lady?" 
 
 "Yes," said the priest. "Welkin carried his 
 rival's letters to his lady. You see, he had to." 
 
 " Oh, I can't stand much more of this," ex- 
 ploded Flambeau. "Who is this fellow? What 
 does he look like. What is the usual get-up of a 
 mentally invisible man ? " 
 
 " He is dressed rather handsomely in red, blue 
 and gold," replied the priest promptly with pre- 
 cision, " and in this striking, and even showy, cos- 
 
 144 
 
THE INVISIBLE MAN 
 
 tume he entered Himylaya Mansions under eight 
 human eyes; he killed Smythe in cold blood, and 
 came down into the street again carrying the dead 
 body in his arms " 
 
 " Reverend sir," cried Angus, standing still, " are 
 you raving mad, or am I ? " 
 
 " You are not mad," said Brown, " only a little 
 unobservant. You have not noticed such a man 
 as this, for example." 
 
 He took three quick strides forward, and put 
 his hand on the shoulder of an ordinary passing 
 postman who had bustled by them unnoticed under 
 the shade of the trees. 
 
 " Nobody ever notices postmen somehow," he 
 said thoughtfully ; " yet they have passions like other 
 men, and even carry large bags where a small 
 corpse can be stowed quite easily." 
 
 The postman, instead of turning naturally, had 
 ducked and tumbled against the garden fence. He 
 was a lean fair-bearded man of very ordinary ap- 
 pearance, but as he turned an alarmed face over his 
 shoulder, all three men were fixed with an almost 
 fiendish squint. 
 
 Flambeau went back to his sabres, purple rugs 
 and Persian cat, having many things to attend to. 
 John Turnbull Angus went back to the lady at the 
 shop, with whom that imprudent young man con- 
 trives to be extremely comfortable. But Father 
 
 145 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 Brown walked those snow-covered hills under the 
 stars for many hours with a murderer, and what 
 they said to each other will never be known. 
 
 146 
 
VI 
 
 THE HONOUR OF ISRAEL GOW 
 
 A stormy evening of olive and silver was closing 
 in, as Father Brown, wrapped in a grey Scotch 
 plaid, came to the end of a grey Scotch valley and 
 beheld the strange castle of Glengyle. It stopped 
 one end of the glen or hollow like a blind alley; 
 and it looked like the end of the world. Rising in 
 steep roofs and spires of seagreen slate in the man- 
 ner of the old French-Scotch chateaux, it reminded 
 an Englishman of the sinister steeple-hats of witches 
 in fairy tales ; and the pine woods that rocked round 
 the green turrets looked, by comparison, as black 
 as numberless flocks of ravens. This note of a 
 dreamy, almost a sleepy devilry, was no mere fancy 
 from the landscape. For there did rest on the place, 
 one of those clouds of pride and madness and 
 mysterious sorrow which lie more heavily on the 
 noble houses of Scotland than on any other of the 
 children of men. For Scotland has a double dose 
 of the poison called heredity; the sense of blood 
 in the aristocrat, and the sense of doom in the 
 Calvinist. 
 
 The priest had snatched a day from his business 
 at Glasgow to meet his friend Flambeau, the 
 
 147 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 amateur detective, who was at Glengyle Castle 
 with another more formal officer investigating the 
 life and death of the late Earl of Glengyle. That 
 mysterious person was the last representative of a 
 race whose valour, insanity, and violent cunning 
 had made them terrible even among the sinister 
 nobility of their nation in the sixteenth century. 
 None were deeper in that labyrinthine ambition, in 
 chamber within chamber of that palace of lies that 
 was built up around Mary Queen of Scots. 
 
 The rhyme in the country-side attested the 
 motive and the result of their machinations 
 candidly : 
 
 " As green sap to the simmer trees 
 Is red gold to the Ogilvies." 
 
 For many centuries there had never been a de- 
 cent lord in Glengyle Castle; and with the Vic- 
 torian era one would have thought that all ec- 
 centricities were exhausted. The last Glengyle, 
 however, satisfied his tribal tradition by doing the 
 only thing that was left for him to do; he disap- 
 peared. I do not mean that he went abroad; by 
 all accounts he was still in the castle, if he was any- 
 where. But though his name was in the church 
 register and the big red Peerage, nobody ever saw 
 him under the sun. 
 
 If anyone saw him it was a solitary man-ser- 
 vant, something between a groom and a gardener. 
 
 148 
 
THE HONOUR OF ISRAEL GOW 
 
 He was so deaf that the more business-like assumed 
 him to be dumb; while the more penetrating de- 
 clared him to be half-witted. A gaunt, red-haired 
 labourer, with a dogged jaw and chin, but quite 
 blank blue eyes, he went by the name of Israel 
 Gow, and was the one silent servant on that de- 
 serted estate. But the energy with which he dug 
 potatoes, and the regularity with which he disap- 
 peared into the kitchen gave people an impression 
 that he was providing for the meals of a superior, 
 and that the strange earl was still concealed in the 
 castle. If society needed any further proof that he 
 was there, the servant persistently asserted that he 
 was not at home. One morning the provost and 
 the minister (for the Glengyes were Presbyterian) 
 were summoned to the castle. There they found 
 that the gardener, groom and cook had added to 
 his many professions that of an undertaker, and 
 had nailed up his noble master in a coffin. With 
 how much or how little further inquiry this odd 
 fact was passed, did not as yet very plainly appear ; 
 for the thing had never been legally investigated 
 till Flambeau had gone north two or three days 
 before. By then the body of Lord Glengyle (if 
 it was the body) had lain for some time in the little 
 churchyard on the hill. 
 
 As Father Brown passed through the dim garden 
 and came under the shadow of the chateau, the 
 clouds were thick and the whole air damp and 
 thundery. Against the last stripe of the green- 
 
 149 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 gold sunset he saw a black human silhouette; a 
 man in a chimney-pot hat, with a big spade over 
 his shoulder. The combination was queerly sug- 
 gestive of a sexton; but when Brown remembered 
 the deaf servant who dug potatoes, he thought it 
 natural enough. He knew something of the Scotch 
 peasant; he knew the respectability which might 
 well feel it necessary to wear " blacks " for an 
 official inquiry; he knew also the economy that 
 would not lose an hour's digging for that. Even 
 the man's start and suspicious stare as the priest 
 went by were consonant enough with the vigilance 
 and jealousy of such a type. 
 
 The great door was opened by Flambeau him- 
 self, who had with him a lean man with iron-grey 
 hair and papers in his hand : Inspector Craven 
 from Scotland Yard. The entrance hall was mostly 
 stripped and empty; but the pale, sneering faces 
 of one or two of the wicked Ogilvies looked down 
 out of black periwigs and blackening canvas. 
 
 Following them into an inner room, Father 
 Brown found that the allies had been seated at a 
 long oak table, of which their end was covered with 
 scribbled papers, flanked with whisky and cigars. 
 Through the whole of its remaining length it was 
 occupied by detached objects arranged at intervals; 
 objects about as inexplicable as any objects could 
 be. One looked like a small heap of glittering 
 broken glass. Another looked like a high heap of 
 
 150 
 
THE HONOUR OF ISRAEL GOW 
 
 brown dust. A third appeared to be a plain stick 
 of wood. 
 
 " You seem to have a sort of geological museum 
 here," he said, as he sat down 4 jerking his head 
 briefly in the direction of the brown dust and the 
 crystalline fragments. 
 
 " Not a geological museum," replied Flambeau ; 
 " say a psychological museum." 
 
 " Oh, for the Lord's sake," cried the police de- 
 tective laughing, " don't let's begin with such long 
 words." 
 
 " Don't you know what psychology means ? " 
 asked Flambeau with friendly surprise. " Psycho- 
 logy means being off your chump." 
 
 " Still I hardly follow," replied the official. 
 
 " Well," said Flambeau, with decision, " I mean 
 that we've only found out one thing about Lord 
 Glengyle. He was a maniac." 
 
 The black silhouette of Gow with his top hat and 
 spade passed the window, dimly outlined against 
 the darkening sky. Father Brown stared passively 
 at it and answered: 
 
 " I can understand there must have been some- 
 thing odd about the man, or he wouldn't have 
 buried himself alive — nor been in such a hurry to 
 bury himself dead. But what makes you think it 
 was lunacy ? " 
 
 " Well," said Flambeau, " you just listen to the 
 list of things Mr. Craven has found in the house." 
 
 151 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 " We must get a candle," said Craven, suddenly, 
 " A storm is getting up, and it's too dark to read." 
 
 "Have you found any candles," asked Brown 
 smiling, " among your oddities ? " 
 
 Flambeau raised a grave face, and fixed his dark 
 eyes on his friend. 
 
 "That is curious, too," he said. "Twenty-five 
 candles, and not a trace of a candlestick." 
 
 In the rapidly darkening room and rapidly ris- 
 ing wind, Brown went along the table to where a 
 bundle of wax candles lay among the other scrappy 
 exhibits. As he did so he bent accidentally over 
 the heap of red-brown dust; and a sharp sneeze 
 cracked the silence. 
 
 "Hullo!" he said, "snuff!" 
 
 He took one of the candles, lit it carefully, came 
 back and stuck it in the neck of the whisky bottle. 
 The unrestful night air, blowing through the crazy 
 window, waved the long flame like a banner. And 
 on every side of the castle they could hear the miles 
 and miles of black pine wood seething like a black 
 sea around a rock. 
 
 "I will read the inventory," began Craven 
 gravely, picking up one of the papers, " the inven- 
 tory of what we found loose and unexplained in 
 the castle. You are to understand that the place 
 generally was dismantled and neglected ; but one or 
 two rooms had plainly been inhabited in a simple 
 but not squalid style by somebody; somebody who 
 was not the servant Gow. The list is as follows: 
 
 152 
 
THE HONOUR OF ISRAEL GOW 
 
 " First item. A very considerable hoard of pre- 
 cious stones, nearly all diamonds, and all of them 
 loose, without any setting whatever. Of course, it 
 is natural that the Ogilvies should have family 
 jewels; but those are exactly the jewels that are 
 almost always set in particular articles of ornament. 
 The Ogilvies would seem to have kept theirs loose 
 in their pockets, like coppers. 
 
 " Second item. Heaps and heaps of loose snuff, 
 not kept in a horn, or even a pouch, but lying in 
 heaps on the mantlepieces, on the sideboard, on the 
 piano, anywhere. It looks as if the old gentleman 
 would not take the trouble to look in a pocket or lift 
 a lid. 
 
 " Third item. Here and there about the house 
 curious little heaps of minute pieces of metal, some 
 like steel springs and some in the form of micro- 
 scopic wheels. As if they had gutted some me- 
 chanical toy. 
 
 " Fourth item. The wax candles, which have to 
 be stuck in bottle necks because there is nothing 
 else to stick them in. Now I wish you to note 
 how very much queerer all this is than anything we 
 anticipated. For the central riddle we are pre- 
 pared; we have all seen at a glance that there was 
 something wrong about the last earl. We have 
 come here to find out whether he really lived here, 
 whether he really died here, whether that red- 
 haired scarecrow who did his burying had any- 
 thing to do with his dying. But suppose the worst 
 
 iS3 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 in all this, the most lurid or melodramatic solution 
 you like. Suppose the servant really killed the 
 master, or suppose the master isn't really dead, or 
 suppose the master is dressed up as the servant, or 
 suppose the servant is buried for the master ; invent 
 what Wilkie Collins' tragedy you like, and you still 
 have not explained a candle without a candlestick, 
 or why an elderly gentleman of good family should 
 habitually spill snuff on the piano. The core of 
 the tale we could imagine; it is the fringes that are 
 mysterious. By no stretch of fancy can the human 
 mind connect together snuff and diamonds and wax 
 and loose clockwork." 
 
 " I think I see the connection," said the priest. 
 " This Glengyle was mad against the French Re- 
 volution. He was an enthusiast for the ancien 
 regime, and was trying to re-enact literally the 
 family life of the last Bourbons. He had snuff be- 
 cause it was the eighteenth century luxury; wax 
 candles, because they were the eighteenth century 
 lighting; the mechanical bits of iron represent the 
 locksmith hobby of Louis XVI.; the diamonds are 
 for the Diamond Necklace of Marie Antoinette." 
 
 Both the other men were staring at him with 
 round eyes. "What a perfectly extraordinary 
 notion!" cried Flambeau. "Do you really think 
 that is the truth?" 
 
 " I am perfectly sure it isn't," answered Father 
 Brown, " only you said that nobody could connect 
 snuff and diamonds and clockwork and candles. I 
 
 iS4 
 
THE HONOUR OF ISRAEL GOW 
 
 give you that connection off-hand. The real truth, 
 I am very sure, lies deeper." 
 
 He paused a moment and listened to the wail- 
 ing of the wind in the turrets. Then he said, 
 " The late Earl of Glengyle was a thief. He lived 
 a second and darker life as a desperate house- 
 breaker. He did not have any candlesticks because 
 he only used these candles cut short in the little 
 lantern he carried. The snuff he employed as the 
 fiercest French criminals have used pepper : to fling 
 it suddenly in dense masses in the face of a captor 
 or pursuer. But the final proof is in the curious 
 coincidence of the diamonds and the small steel 
 wheels. Surely that makes everything plain to 
 you? Diamonds and small steel wheels are the 
 only two instruments with which you can cut out 
 a pane of glass." 
 
 The bough of a broken pine tree lashed heavily 
 in the blast against the windowpane behind them, 
 as if in parody of a burglar, but they did not turn 
 round. Their eyes were fastened on Father Brown. 
 
 " Diamonds and small wheels," repeated Craven 
 ruminating. " Is that all that makes you think it 
 the true explanation ? " 
 
 " I don't think it the true explanation," replied 
 the priest placidly; "but you said that nobody 
 could connect the four things. The true tale, of 
 course, is something much more humdrum. Glen- 
 gyle had found, or thought he had found, precious- 
 stones on his estate. Somebody had bamboozled 
 
 155 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 him with those loose brilliants, saying they were 
 found in the castle caverns. The little wheels are 
 some diamond-cutting affair. He had to do the 
 thing very roughly and in a small way, with the 
 help of a few shepherds or rude fellows on these 
 hills. Snuff is the one great luxury of such Scotch 
 shepherds; it's the one thing with which you can 
 bribe them. They didn't have candlesticks because 
 they didn't want them; they held the candles in 
 their hands when they explored .the caves." 
 
 "Is that all?" asked Flambeau after a long 
 pause. " Have we got to the dull truth at last ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," said Father Brown. 
 
 As the wind died in the most distant pine woods 
 with a long hoot as of mockery Father Brown, 
 with an utterly' impassive face, went on : 
 
 " I only suggested that because you said one 
 could not plausibly connect snuff with clockwork 
 or candles with bright stones. Ten false philoso- 
 phies will fit the universe ; ten false theories will fit 
 Glengyle Castle. But we want the real explana- 
 tion of the castle and the universe. But are there 
 no other exhibits ? " 
 
 Craven laughed, and Flambeau rose smiling to 
 his feet and strolled down the long table. 
 
 " Items five, six, seven, etc.," he said, " and cer- 
 tainly more varied than instructive. A curious col- 
 lection, not of lead pencils, but of the lead out of 
 lead pencils. A senseless stick of bamboo, with 
 the top rather splintered. It might be the instru- 
 
 156 
 
THE HONOUR OF ISRAEL GOW 
 
 ment of the crime. Only, there isn't any crime. 
 The only other things are a few old missals and 
 little Catholic pictures, which the Ogilvies kept, 
 I suppose, from the Middle Ages — their family 
 pride being stronger than their Puritanism. We 
 only put them in the museum because they seem 
 curiously cut about and defaced." 
 
 The heady tempest without drove a dreadful 
 wrack of clouds across Glengyle and threw the long 
 room into darkness as Father Brown picked up 
 the little illuminated pages to examine them. He 
 spoke before the drift of darkness had passed; but 
 it was the voice of an utterly new man. 
 
 " Mr. Craven," said he, talking like a man ten 
 years younger, " you have got a legal warrant, 
 haven't you, to go up and examine that grave? 
 The sooner we do it the better, and get to the bot- 
 tom of this horrible affair. If I were you I should 
 start now." 
 
 " Now," repeated the astonished detective, " and 
 why now ? " 
 
 " Because this is serious," answered Brown ; 
 " this is not split snuff or loose pebbles, that might 
 be there for a hundred reasons. There is only one 
 reason I know of for this being done; and the 
 reason goes down to the roots of the world. These 
 religious pictures are not just dirtied or torn or 
 scrawled over, which might be done in idleness or 
 bigotry, by children or by Protestants. These have 
 been treated very carefully — and very queerly. In 
 
 157 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 every place where the great ornamented name of 
 God comes in the old illuminations it has been elab- 
 orately taken out. The only other thing that has 
 been removed is the halo round the head of the Child 
 Jesus. Therefore, I say, let us get our warrant and 
 our spade and our hatchet, and go up and break open 
 that coffin." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " demanded the London 
 officer. 
 
 " I mean," answered the little priest, and his voice 
 seemed to rise slightly in the roar of the gale. " I 
 mean that the great devil of the universe may be 
 sitting on the top tower of this castle at this mo- 
 ment, as big as a hundred elephants, and roaring 
 like the Apocalypse. There is black magic some- 
 where at the bottom of this." 
 
 " Black magic," repeated Flambeau in a low voice, 
 for he was too enlightened a man not to know of 
 such things; "but what can these other things 
 mean ? " 
 
 " Oh, something damnable, I suppose," replied 
 Brown impatiently. " How should I know? How 
 can I guess all their mazes down below? Perhaps 
 you can make a torture out of snuff and bamboo. 
 Perhaps lunatics lust after wax and steel filings. 
 Perhaps there is a maddening drug made of lead 
 pencils! Our shortest cut to the mystery is up 
 the hill to the grave." 
 
 His comrades hardly knew that they had obeyed 
 and followed him till a blast of the night wind 
 
 158 
 
' THERE IS BLACK MAGIC SOMEWHERE AT THE 
 BOTTOM OF THIS" 
 
THE HONOUR OF ISRAEL GOW 
 
 nearly flung them on their faces in the garden. 
 Nevertheless they had obeyed him like automata; 
 for Craven found a hatchet in his hand, and the 
 warrant in his pocket; Flambeau was carrying the 
 heavy spade of the strange gardener ; Father Brown 
 was carrying the little gilt book from which had 
 been torn the name of God. 
 
 The path up the hill to the churchyard was 
 crooked but short; only under that stress of wind 
 it seemed laborious and long. Far as the eye could 
 see, farther and farther as they mounted the slope, 
 were seas beyond seas of pines, now all aslope one 
 way under the wind. And that universal gesture 
 seemed as vain as it was vast, as vain as if that 
 wind were whistling about some unpeopled and 
 purposeless planet. Through all that infinite 
 growth of grey-blue forests sang, shrill and high, 
 that ancient sorrow that is in the heart of all 
 heathen things. One could fancy that the voices 
 from the under world of unfathomable foliage 
 were cries of the lost and wandering pagan gods: 
 gods who had gone roaming in that irrational 
 forest, and who will never find their way back to 
 heaven. 
 
 " You see," said Father Brown in low but easy 
 tone, " Scotch people before Scotland existed were 
 a curious lot. In fact, they're a curious lot still. 
 But in the prehistoric times I fancy they really 
 worshipped demons. That," he added genially, " is 
 why they jumped at the Puritan theology." 
 
 159 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 " My friend," said Flambeau, turning in a kind 
 of fury, " what does all that snuff mean ? " 
 
 " My friend," replied Brown, with equal serious- 
 ness, " there is one mark of all genuine religions : 
 materialism. Now, devil-worship is a perfectly 
 genuine religion." 
 
 They had come up on the grassy scalp of the 
 hill, one of the few bald spots that stood clear of 
 the crashing and roaring pine forest. A mean en- 
 closure, partly timber and partly wire, rattled in 
 the tempest to tell them the border of the grave- 
 yard. But by the time Inspector Craven had come 
 to the corner of the grave, and Flambeau had 
 planted his spade point downwards and leaned on 
 it, they were both almost as shaken as the shaky 
 wood and wire. At the foot of the grave grew 
 great tall thistles, grey and silver in their decay. 
 Once or twice, when a ball of thistledown broke 
 under the breeze and flew past him, Craven jumped 
 slightly as if it had been an arrow. 
 
 Flambeau drove the blade of his spade through 
 the whistling grass into the wet clay below. Then 
 he seemed to stop and lean on it as on a staff. 
 
 " Go on," said the priest very gently. " We are 
 only trying to find the truth. What are you afraid 
 of?" 
 
 "I am afraid of finding it," said Flambeau. 
 
 The London detective spoke suddenly in a high 
 crowing voice that was meant to be conversational 
 and cheery. "I wonder why he really did hide 
 
 160 
 
THE HONOUR OF ISRAEL GOW 
 
 himself like that. Something nasty, I suppose ; was 
 he a leper ? " 
 
 " Something worse than that," said Flambeau. 
 
 " And what do you imagine," asked the other, 
 " would be worse than a leper? " 
 
 " I don't imagine it," said Flambeau. 
 
 He dug for some dreadful minutes in silence, 
 and then said in a choked voice, " I'm afraid of his 
 not being the right shape." 
 
 " Nor was that piece of paper, you know," said 
 Father Brown quietly, " and we survived even that 
 piece of paper." 
 
 Flambeau dug on with a blind energy. But the 
 tempest had shouldered away the choking grey 
 clouds that clung to the hills like smoke and revealed 
 grey fields of faint starlight before he cleared the 
 shape of a rude timber coffin, and somehow tipped 
 it up upon the turf. Craven stepped forward with 
 his axe; a thistle-top touched him, and he flinched. 
 Then he took a firmer stride, and hacked and 
 wrenched with an energy like Flambeau's till the lid 
 was torn off, and all that was there lay glimmering 
 in the grey starlight. 
 
 " Bones," said Craven ; and then he added, " but 
 it is a man," as if that were something unexpected. 
 
 " Is he," asked Flambeau in a voice that went 
 oddly up and down, " is he all right ? " 
 
 " Seems so," said the officer huskily, bending 
 over the obscure and decaying skeleton in the box. 
 " Wait a minute." 
 
 » 161 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 A vast heave went over Flambeau's huge figure. 
 " And now I come to think of it," he cried, " why 
 in the name of madness shouldn't he be all right? 
 What is it gets hold of a man on these cursed cold 
 mountains? I think it's the black, brainless repe- 
 tition; all these forests, and over all an ancient 
 horror of unconsciousness. It's like the dream of 
 an atheist. Pine-trees and more pine-trees and 
 millions more pine-trees " 
 
 " God ! " cried the man by the coffin, " but he 
 hasn't got a head." 
 
 While the others stood rigid the priest, for the 
 first time, showed a leap of startled concern. 
 
 "No head!" he repeated. "No head?" as if 
 he had almost expected some other deficiency. 
 
 Half-witted visions of a headless baby born to 
 Glengyle, of a headless youth hiding himself in the 
 castle, of a headless man pacing those ancient halls 
 or that gorgeous garden, passed in panorama 
 through their minds. But even in that stiffened 
 instant thtetale took no root in them and seemed 
 to* have no reason in it. They stood listening to 
 the loud woods and the shrieking sky quite fool- 
 ishly, like exhausted animals. Thought seemed to 
 be something enormous that had suddenly slipped 
 out of their grasp. 
 
 "There are three headless men," said Father 
 Brown, " standing round this open grave." 
 
 The pale defective^ rom London opened his mouth 
 to speak, and left it open like a yokel, while a long 
 
 162 
 
THE HONOUR OF ISRAEL \GOW 
 
 scream of wind tore the sky; then he looked at the 
 axe in his hands as if it did not belong to\him, and 
 dropped it. \ 
 
 " Father," said Flambeau in that infantile and 
 heavy voice he used very seldom, " what ark we to 
 do?" 
 
 His friend's reply came with the pent prompti- 
 tude of a gun going off. \ 
 
 "Sleep!" cried Father Brown. "Sleep. \We 
 have come to the end of the ways. Do you kftow 
 what sleep is? Do you know that every man who 
 sleeps believes in God? It is a sacrament; for it 
 is an act of faith and it is a food. And we need 
 a sacrament, if only a natural one. Something has 
 fallen on us that falls very seldom on men; perhaps 
 the worst thing that can fall on them." 
 
 Craven's parted lips came together to say, 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 The priest had turned his face to the castle as 
 he answered: 
 
 " We have found the truth ; and the truth makes 
 no sense." 
 
 He went down the path in front of them with 
 a plunging and reckless step very rare with him, 
 and when they reached the castle again he threw 
 himself upon sleep with the simplicity of a dog. 
 
 Despite his mystic praise of slumber, Father 
 Brown was up earlier than anyone else except the 
 silent gardener; and was found smoking a big 
 pipe and watching that expert at his speechless 
 
 163 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 labours in/ the kitchen garden. Towards daybreak 
 the rocki;hg storm had ended in roaring rains, and 
 the day /came with a curious freshness. The gar- 
 dener sfcemed even to have been conversing, but 
 at sigh* of the detectives he planted his spade sul- 
 lenly in a bed and, saying something about his 
 breakfast, shifted along the lines of cabbages and 
 shut himself in the kitchen. " He's a valuable man, 
 that/' said Father Brown. " He does the potatoes 
 amazingly. Still," he added, with a dispassionate 
 charity, "he has his faults; which of us hasn't? 
 He doesn't dig this bank quite regularly. There, 
 for instance," and he stamped suddenly on one spot. 
 '*'' I'm really very doubtful about that potato." 
 i "And why?" asked Craven, amused with the 
 little man's hobby. 
 
 " I'm doubtful about it," said the other, " because 
 old Gow was doubtful about it himself. He put 
 his spade in methodically in every place but just 
 this. There must be a mighty fine potato just 
 here." 
 
 Flambeau pulled up the spade and impetuously 
 drove it into the place. He turned up, under a load 
 of soil, something that did not look like a potato, 
 but rather like a monstrous, over-domed mushroom. 
 But it struck the spade with a cold click; it rolled 
 over like a ball, and grinned up at them. 
 
 " The Earl of Glengyle," said Brown sadly, and 
 looked down heavily at the skull. 
 
 Thfen, after a momentary meditation, he plucked 
 164 
 
\ 
 
 THE HONOUR OF ISRAEL 6o\V 
 
 the spade from Flambeau, and, saying " We must 
 hide it again," clamped the skull down in the earth. 
 Then he leaned his little body and huge head on 
 the great handle of the spade, that stood up> stiffly 
 in the earth, and his eyes were empty and his' fore- 
 head full of wrinkles. " If one could only con- 
 ceive," he muttered, "the meaning of this last 
 monstrosity." And leaning on the large spade 
 handle, he buried his brows in his hands, as men do 
 in church. 
 
 All the corners of the sky were brightening into 
 blue and silver; the birds were chattering in the 
 tiny garden trees ; so loud it seemed as if the trees 
 themselves were talking. But the three men were 
 silent enough. 
 
 " Well, I give it all up," said Flambeau at last 
 boisterously. " My brain and this world don't fit 
 each other; and there's an end of it. Snuff, spoilt 
 Prayer Books, and the insides of musical boxes — > 
 what " 
 
 Brown threw up his bothered brow and rapped 
 on the spade handle with an intolerance quite un- 
 usual with him. " Oh, tut, tut, tut, tut ! " he cried, i 
 " All that is as plain as a pikestaff. I understood 
 the snuff and clockwork, and so on, when I first 
 opened my eyes this morning. And since then 
 I've had it out with old Gow, the gardener, who 
 is neither so deaf nor so stupid as he pretends. 
 There's nothing amiss about the loose items. I 
 was wrong about the torn mass-book, too ; there's no 
 
 i65 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 harm in; that. But it's this last business. Dese- 
 crating /graves and stealing dead men's heads — 
 surely ,there's harm in that? Surely there's black 
 magic /still in that? That doesn't fit in to the quite 
 simply story of the snuff and the candles." And, 
 striding about again, he smoked moodily. 
 
 "My friend," said Flambeau, with a grim hu- 
 mour, " you must be careful with me and remember 
 I Was once a criminal. The great advantage of 
 that estate was that I always made up the story 
 myself, and acted it as quick as I chose. This 
 detective business of waiting about is too much for 
 my French impatience. All my life, for good or evil, 
 I have done things at the instant; I always fought 
 duels the next morning; I always paid bills on 
 the nail; I never even put off a visit to the 
 dentist- " 
 
 Father Brown's pipe fell out of his mouth and 
 broke into three pieces on the gravel path. He 
 stood rolling his eyes, the exact picture of an idiot. 
 " Lord, what a turnip I am!" he kept saying. 
 " Lord, what a turnip ! " Then, in a somewhat 
 g r °ggy kind of way, he began to laugh. 
 
 " The dentist ! " he repeated. " Six hours in 
 the spiritual abyss, and all because I never thought 
 of the dentist ! Such a simple, such a beautiful and 
 peaceful thought ! Friends, we have passed a night 
 in hell ; but now the sun is risen, the birds are sing- 
 ing, and the radiant form of the dentist consoles 
 the world." 
 
 166 
 
THE HONOUR OF ISRAEL GOW 
 
 " I will get some sense out of this," cried Flam- 
 beau, striding forward, " if I use the tortures of the 
 Inquisition." 
 
 Father Brown repressed what appeared to be a 
 momentary disposition to dance on the now sunlit 
 lawn and cried quite piteously, like a child, " Oh, 
 let me be silly a little. You don't know how un- 
 happy I have been. And now I know that there 
 has been no deep sin in this business at all. Only 
 a little lunacy, perhaps — and who minds that ? " 
 
 He spun round once more, then faced them with 
 gravity. 
 
 " This is not a story of crime," he said ; " rather 
 it is the story of a strange and crooked honesty. 
 We are dealing with the one man on earth, per- 
 haps, who has taken no more than his due. It is a 
 study in the savage living logic that has been the 
 religion of this race. 
 
 " That old local rhyme about the house of Glen- 
 gyle— 
 
 " ' As green sap to the simmer trees 
 Is red gold to the Ogilvies ' — 
 
 was literal as well as metaphorical. It did not 
 merely mean that the Glengyles sought for wealth; 
 it was also true that they literally gathered gold; 
 they had a huge collection of ornaments and uten- 
 sils in that metal. They were, in fact, misers whose 
 mania took that turn. , In the light of that fact, 
 
 167 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 run through all the things we found in the castle. 
 Diamonds without their gold rings; candles with- 
 out their gold candlesticks; snuff without the gold 
 snuff-boxes; pencil-leads without the gold pencil- 
 cases; a walking stick without its gold top; clock- 
 work without the gold clocks — or rather watches. 
 And, mad as it sounds, because the halos and the 
 name of God in the old missals were of real gold; 
 these also were taken away." 
 
 The garden seemed to brighten, the grass to grow 
 gayer in t the strengthening sun, as the crazy truth 
 was told. Flambeau lit a cigarette as his friend 
 went on. 
 
 "Were taken away," continued Father Brown; 
 " were taken away — but not stolen. Thieves would 
 never have left this mystery. Thieves would have 
 taken the gold snuff-boxes, snuff and all; the gold 
 pencil-cases, lead and all. We have to deal with 
 a man with a peculiar conscience, but certainly a 
 conscience. I found that mad moralist this morn- 
 ing in the kitchen garden yonder, and I heard the 
 whole story. 
 
 " The late Archibald Ogilvie was the nearest ap- 
 proach to a good man ever born at Glengyle. But 
 his bitter virtue took the turn of the misanthrope; 
 he moped over the dishonesty of his ancestors, from 
 which, somehow, he generalised a dishonesty of 
 all men. More especially he distrusted philan- 
 thropy or free-giving; and he swore if he could 
 find one man who took his exact rights he should 
 
 168 
 
THE HONOUR OF ISRAEL GOW 
 
 have all the gold of Glengyle. Having delivered 
 this defiance to humanity he shut himself up, with- 
 out the smallest expectation of its being answered. 
 One day, however, a deaf and seemingly senseless 
 lad from a distant village brought him a belated 
 telegram; and Glengyle, in his acrid pleasantry, 
 gave him a new farthing. At least he thought he 
 had done so, but when he turned over his change 
 he found the new farthing still there and a sovereign 
 gone. The accident offered him vistas of sneering 
 speculation. Either way, the boy would show the 
 greasy greed of the species. Either he would van- 
 ish, a thief stealing a coin ; or he would sneak back 
 with it virtuously, a snob seeking a reward. In 
 the middle of that night Lord Glengyle was knocked 
 up out of his bed — for he lived alone — and forced to 
 open the door to the deaf idiot. The idiot brought 
 with him, not the sovereign, but exactly nineteen 
 shillings and eleven-pence three- farthings in change. 
 " Then the wild exactitude of this action took 
 hold of the mad lord's brain like fire. He swore 
 he was Diogenes, that had long sought an honest 
 man, and at last had found one. He made a new 
 will, which I have seen. He took the literal youth 
 into his huge, neglected house, and trained him up 
 as his solitary servant and — after an odd manner — 
 his heir. And whatever that queer creature under- 
 stands, he understood absolutely his lord's two fixed 
 ideas: first, that the letter of right is everything; 
 and second, that he himself was to have the gold 
 
 169 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 of Glengyle. So far, that is all ; and that is simple. 
 He has stripped the house of gold, and taken not a 
 grain that was not gold; not so much as a grain 
 of snuff. He lifted the gold leaf off an old illu- 
 mination, fully satisfied that he left the rest unspoilt. 
 All that I understood; but I could not understand 
 this skull business. I was really uneasy about that- 
 human head buried among the potatoes. It dis- 
 tressed me — till Flambeau said the word. 
 
 " It will be all right. He will put the skull back 
 in the grave, when he has taken the gold out of the 
 tooth." 
 
 And, indeed, when Flambeau crossed the hill 
 that morning, he saw that strange being, the just 
 miser, digging at the desecrated grave, the plaid 
 round his throat thrashing out in the mountain 
 wind; the sober top hat on his head. 
 
 170 
 
VII 
 
 THE WRONG SHAPE 
 
 Certain of the great roads going north out of 
 London continue far into the country a sort of 
 attenuated and interrupted spectre of a street, with 
 great gaps in the building, but preserving the line. 
 Here will be a group of shops, followed by a 
 fenced field or paddock, and then a famous public- 
 house, and then perhaps a market garden or a 
 nursery garden, and then one large private house, 
 and then another field and another inn, and so 
 on. If anyone walks along one of these roads 
 he will pass a house which will probably catch his 
 eye, though he may not be able to explain its at- 
 traction. It is a long, low house, running parallel 
 with the road, painted mostly white and pale green, 
 with a veranda and sun-blinds, and porches capped 
 with those quaint sort of cupolas like wooden um- 
 brellas that one sees in some old-fashioned houses. 
 In fact, it is an old-fashioned house, very English 
 and very suburban in the good old wealthy Clap- 
 ham sense. And yet the house has a look of having 
 been built chiefly for the hot weather. Looking at 
 its white paint and sun-blinds one thinks vaguely 
 of pugarees and even of palm trees. I cannot trace 
 
 171 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 the feeling to its root; perhaps the place was built 
 by an Anglo-Indian. 
 
 Anyone passing this house, I say, would be name- 
 lessly fascinated by it; would feel that it was a 
 place about which some story was to be told. And 
 he would have been right, as you shall shortly 
 hear. For this is the story — the story of the 
 strange things that did really happen in it in the 
 Whitsuntide of the year 18 — : 
 
 Anyone passing the house on the Thursday be- 
 fore Whit-Sunday at about half-past four p. m. 
 would have seen the front door open, and Father 
 Brown, of the small church of St. Mungo, come 
 out smoking a large pipe in company with a very 
 tall French friend of his called Flambeau, who 
 was smoking a very small cigarette. These per- 
 sons may or may not be of interest to the reader, 
 but the truth is that they were not the only inter- 
 esting things that were displayed when the front 
 door of the white-and-green house was opened. 
 There are further peculiarities about this house, 
 which must be described to start with, not only 
 that the reader may understand this tragic tale, 
 but also that he may realise what it was that the 
 opening of the door revealed. 
 
 The whole house was built upon the plan of a 
 T, but a T with a very long cross piece and a very 
 short tail piece. The long cross piece was the 
 frontage that ran along in face of the street, with 
 the front door in the middle; it was two stories 
 
 172 
 
THE WRONG SHAPE 
 
 high, and contained nearly all the important rooms. 
 The short tail piece, which ran out at the back 
 immediately opposite the front door, was one story 
 high, and consisted only of two long rooms, the 
 one leading into the other. The first of these two 
 rooms was the study in which the celebrated Mr. 
 Quinton wrote his wild Oriental poems and ro- 
 mances. The farther room was a glass conserva- 
 tory full of tropical blossoms of quite unique and 
 almost monstrous beauty, and on such afternoons 
 as these glowing with gorgeous sunlight. Thus 
 when the hall door was open, many a passer-by 
 literally stopped to stare and gasp; for he looked 
 down a perspective of rich apartments to something 
 really like a transformation scene in a fairy play: 
 purple clouds and golden suns and crimson stars 
 that were at once scorchingly vivid and yet trans- 
 parent and far away. 
 
 Leonard Quinton, the poet, had himself most 
 carefully arranged this effect; and it is doubtful 
 whether he so perfectly expressed his personality in 
 any of his poems. For he was a man who drank 
 and bathed in colours, who indulged his lust for 
 colour somewhat to the neglect of form — even of 
 good form. This it was that had turned his genius 
 so wholly to eastern art and imagery; to those be- 
 wildering carpets or blinding embroideries in which 
 all the colours seem fallen into a fortunate chaos, 
 having nothing to typify or to teach. He had at- 
 tempted, not perhaps with complete artistic success, 
 
 173 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 but with acknowledged imagination and invention, 
 to compose epics and love stories reflecting the 
 riot of violent and even cruel colour; tales of trop- 
 ical heavens of burning gold or blood-red copper; 
 of eastern heroes who rode with twelve-turbaned 
 mitres upon elephants painted purple or peacock 
 green; of gigantic jewels that a hundred negroes 
 could not carry, but which burned with ancient and 
 strange-hued fires. 
 
 In short (to put the matter from the more com- 
 mon point of view), he dealt much in eastern 
 heavens, rather worse than most western hells; in 
 eastern monarchs, whom we might possibly call 
 maniacs ; and in eastern jewels which a Bond Street 
 jeweller (if the hundred staggering negroes brought 
 them into his shop) might possibly not regard as 
 genuine. Quinton was a genius, if a morbid one; 
 and even his morbidity appeared more in his life 
 than in his work. In temperament he was weak 
 and waspish, and his health had suffered heavily 
 from oriental experiments with opium. His wife 
 —a handsome, hard-working, and, indeed, over- 
 worked woman — objected to the opium, but ob- 
 jected much more to a live Indian hermit in white 
 and yellow robes, whom her husband insisted on 
 entertaining for months together, a Virgil to guide 
 his spirit through the heavens and the hells of the 
 east. 
 
 It was out of this artistic household that Father 
 Brown and his friend stepped on to the door-step; 
 
 174 
 
THE WRONG SHAPE 
 
 and to judge from their faces, they stepped out of 
 it with much relief. Flambeau had known Quinton 
 in wild student days in Paris, and they had re- 
 newed the acquaintance for a week-end; but apart 
 from Flambeau's more responsible developments 
 of late, he did not get on well with the poet now. 
 Choking oneself with opium and writing little 
 erotic verses on vellum was not his notion of how 
 a gentleman should go to the devil. 'As the two 
 paused on the doorstep, before taking a turn in 
 the garden, the front garden gate was thrown open 
 with violence, and a young man with a billycock 
 hat on the back of his head tumbled up the steps 
 in his eagerness. He was a dissipated-looking 
 youth with a gorgeous red necktie all awry, as 
 if he had slept in it, and he kept fidgeting and 
 lashing about with one of those little jointed canes. 
 
 " I say," he said breathlessly, " I want to see old 
 Quinton. I must see him. Has he gone ? " 
 
 " Mr. Quinton is in, I believe," said Father 
 Brown, cleaning his. pipe, " but I do not know if 
 you can see him. The doctor is with him at pres- 
 ent." 
 
 The young man, who seemed not to be per- 
 fectly sober, stumbled into the hall; 'and at the 
 same moment the doctor came out of Quinton's 
 study, shutting the door and beginning to put on 
 his gloves. 
 
 "See Mr. Quinton?" said the doctor coolly. 
 "No, I'm afraid you can't. In fact, you mustn't 
 
 175 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWK 
 
 on any account. Nobody must see him ; I've just 
 given him his sleeping draught." 
 
 "No, but look here, old chap," said the youth 
 in the red tie, trying affectionately to capture the 
 doctor by the lapels of his coat. " Look here. I'm 
 simply sewn up, I tell you. I " 
 
 " It's no good, Mr. Atkinson," said the doctor, 
 forcing him to fall back; "when you can alter 
 the effects of a drug I'll alter my decision," and, 
 settling on his hat, he stepped out into the sunlight 
 with the other two. He was a bull-necked, good- 
 tempered little man with a small moustache, inex- 
 pressibly ordinary, yet giving an impression of 
 capacity. 
 
 The young man in the billycock, who did not 
 seem to be gifted with any tact in dealing with 
 people beyond the general idea of clutching hold 
 of their coats, stood outside the door, as dazed as 
 if he had been thrown out bodily, and silently 
 watched the other three walk away together through 
 the garden. 
 
 " That was a sound, spanking lie I told just 
 now," remarked the medical man, laughing. " In 
 point of fact, poor Quinton doesn't have his sleep- 
 ing draught for nearly half an hour. But I'm 
 not going to have him bothered with that little 
 beast, who only wants to borrow money that he 
 wouldn't pay back if he could. He's a dirty little 
 scamp, though he is Mrs. Quinton's brother, and 
 she's as fine a woman as ever walked." 
 
 176 
 
THE WRONG SHAPE 
 
 "Yes," said Father Brown. "She's a good 
 woman." 
 
 " So I propose to hang about the garden till 
 the creature has cleared off," went on the doctor, 
 " and then I'll go in to Quinton with the med- 
 icine. Atkinson can't get in, because I locked the 
 door." 
 
 " In that case, Dr. Harris," said Flambeau, " we 
 might as well walk round at the back by the end 
 of the conservatory. There's no entrance to it 
 that way, but it's worth seeing, even from the out- 
 side." 
 
 " Yes, and I might get a squint at my patient," 
 laughed the doctor, " for he prefers to lie on an 
 ottoman right at the end of the conservatory amid 
 all those blood-red poinsettias ; it would give me the 
 creeps. But what are you doing? " 
 
 Father Brown had stopped for a moment, and 
 picked up out of the long grass, where it had al- 
 most been wholly hidden, a queer, crooked Ori- 
 ental knife, inlaid exquisitely in coloured stones 
 and metals. 
 
 " What is this ? " asked Father Brown, regarding 
 it with some disfavour. 
 
 " Oh, Quinton's, I suppose," said Dr. Harrris 
 carelessly; " he has all sorts of Chinese knickknacks 
 about the place. Or perhaps it belongs to that mild 
 Hindoo of his whom he keeps on a string." 
 
 "What Hindoo?" asked Father Brown, still 
 staring at the dagger in his hand. 
 
 177 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 " Oh, some Indian conjuror," said the doctor 
 lightly; "a fraud, of course." 
 
 " You don't believe in magic ? " asked Father 
 Brown, without looking up. 
 
 " O crickey ! magic ! " said the doctor. 
 
 " It's very beautiful," said the priest in a low, 
 dreaming voice ; " the colours are very beautiful. 
 But it's the wrong shape." 
 
 "What for?" asked Flambeau, staring. 
 
 " For anything. It's the wrong shape in the 
 abstract. Don't you ever feel that about Eastern 
 art? The colours are intoxicatingly lovely; but the 
 shapes are mean and bad — deliberately mean and 
 bad. I have seen wicked things in a Turkey car- 
 pet." 
 
 " Mon Dieu!" cried Flambeau, laughing. 
 
 " They are letters and symbols in a language 
 I don't know; but I know they stand for evil 
 words," went on the priest, his voice growing lower 
 and lower. " The lines go wrong on purpose — like 
 serpents doubling to escape." 
 
 " What the devil are you talking about ? " said 
 the doctor with a loud laugh. 
 
 Flambeau spoke quietly to him in answer. " The 
 Father sometimes gets this mystic's cloud on him," 
 he said ; " but I give you fair warning that I have 
 never known him have it except when there was 
 some evil quite near." 
 
 " Oh, rats ! " said the scientist. 
 
 "Why, look at it," cried Father Brown, hold- 
 178 
 
THE WRONG SHAPE 
 
 ing out the crooked knife at arms' length, as if 
 it were some glittering snake. " Don't you see it 
 is the wrong shape? Don't you see that it has no 
 hearty and plain purpose. It does not point like 
 a spear. It does not sweep like a scythe. It does 
 not look like a weapon. It looks like an instrument 
 of torture." 
 
 " Well, as you don't seem to like it," said the 
 jolly Harris, " it had better be taken back to its 
 owner. Haven't we come to the end of this con- 
 founded conservatory yet? This house is the 
 wrong shape, if you like." 
 
 " You don't understand," said Father Brown, 
 shaking his head. " The shape of this house is 
 quaint — it is even laughable. But there is nothing 
 wrong about it." 
 
 As they spoke they came round the curve of 
 glass that ended the conservatory, an uninterrupted 
 curve, for there was neither door nor window by 
 which to enter at that end. The glass, however, 
 was clear, and the sun still bright, though begin- 
 ning to set; and they could see not only the flam- 
 boyant blossoms inside, but the frail figure of the 
 poet in a brown velvet coat lying languidly on the 
 sofa, having, apparently, fallen half asleep over 
 a book. He was a pale, slight man, with loose, 
 chestnut hair and a fringe of beard that was the 
 paradox of his face, for the beard made him look 
 less manly. These traits were well known to all 
 three of them; but even had it not been so, it may 
 
 179 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 be doubted whether they would have looked at 
 Quinton just then. Their eyes were riveted on an- 
 other object. 
 
 Exactly in their path, immediately outside the 
 round end of the glass building, was standing a 
 tall man, whose drapery fell to his feet in faultless 
 white, and whose bare, brown skull, face, and neck 
 gleamed in the setting sun like splendid bronze. 
 He was looking through the glass at the sleeper, 
 and he was more motionless than a mountain. 
 
 " Who is that ? " cried Father Brown, stepping 
 back with a hissing intake of his breath. 
 
 " Oh, it is only that Hindoo humbug," growled 
 Harris ; " but I don't know what the deuce he's 
 doing here." 
 
 " It looks like hypnotism," said Flambeau, biting 
 his black moustache. 
 
 " Why are you unmedical fellows always talk- 
 ing bosh about hypnotism ? " cried the doctor. " It 
 looks a deal more like burglary." 
 
 " Well, we will speak to it, at any rate," said 
 Flambeau, who was always for action. One long 
 stride took him to the place where the Indian 
 stood. Bowing from his great height, which over- 
 topped even the Oriental's he said with placid im- 
 pudence : 
 
 "Good evening, sir. Do you want anything?" 
 
 Quite slowly, like a great ship turning into a 
 harbour, the great yellow face turned, and looked 
 at last over its white shoulder. They were startled 
 
 1 80 
 
THE WRONG SHAPE 
 
 to see that its yellow eyelids were quite sealed, as 
 in sleep. " Thank you," said the face in excellent 
 English. " I want nothing." Then, half opening 
 the lids, so as to show a slit of opalescent eyeball, 
 he repeated, " I want nothing." Then he opened 
 his eyes wide with a startling stare, said, " I want 
 nothing," and went rustling away into the rapidly 
 darkening garden. 
 
 " The Christian is more modest," muttered 
 Father Brown; "he wants something." 
 
 " What on earth was he doing? " asked Flam- 
 beau, knitting his black brows and lowering his 
 voice. 
 
 " I should like to talk to you later," said Father 
 Brown. 
 
 The sunlight was still a reality, but it was the 
 red light of evening, and the bulk of the garden 
 trees and bushes grew blacker and blacker against 
 it. They turned round the end of the conservatory, 
 and walked in silence down the other side to get 
 round to the front door. As they went they 
 seemed to wake something, as one startles a bird, 
 in the deeper corner between the study and the 
 main building; and again they saw the white-robed 
 fakir slide out of the shadow, and slip round to- 
 wards the front door. To their surprise, however, 
 he had not been alone. They found themselves 
 abruptly pulled up and forced to banish their be- 
 wilderment by the appearance of Mrs. Quinton, with 
 her heavy golden hair and square pale face, ad- 
 
 181 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 vancing on them out of the twilight. She looked 
 a little stern, but was entirely courteous. 
 
 " Good evening, Dr. Harris," was all she said. 
 
 "Good evening, Mrs. Quinton," said the little 
 doctor heartily. "I am just going to give your 
 husband his sleeping draught." 
 
 " Yes," she said in a clear voice. " I think it is 
 quite time." And she smiled at them, and went 
 sweeping into the house. 
 
 " That woman's over-driven," said Father 
 Brown; "that's the kind of woman that does her 
 duty for twenty years, and then does something 
 dreadful." 
 
 The little doctor looked at him for the first time 
 with an eye of interest. " Did you ever study 
 medicine ? " he asked. 
 
 " You have to know something of the mind as 
 well as the body," answered the priest; "we have 
 to know something of the body as well as the 
 mind." 
 
 "Well," said the doctor, "I think I'll go and 
 give Quinton his stuff." 
 
 They had turned the corner of the front facade, 
 and were approaching the front doorway. As they 
 turned into it they saw the man in the white robe 
 for the third time. He came so straight- towards 
 the front door that it seemed quite incredible that 
 he had not just come out of the study opposite to 
 it. Yet they knew that the study door was locked. 
 
 Father Brown and Flambeau, however, kept this 
 182 
 
THE WRONG SHAPE 
 
 weird contradiction to themselves, and Dr. Harris 
 was not a man to waste his thoughts on the im- 
 possible. He permitted the omnipresent Asiatic to 
 make his exit, and then stepped briskly into the hall. 
 There he found a figure which he had already for- 
 gotten. The inane Atkinson was still hanging 
 about, humming and poking things with his knobby 
 cane. The doctor's face had a spasm of disgust and 
 decision, and he whispered rapidly to his companion : 
 " I must lock the door again, or this rat will get 
 in. But I shall be out again in two minutes." 
 
 He rapidly unlocked the door and locked it again 
 behind him, just balking a blundering charge from 
 the young man in the billycock. The young man 
 threw himself impatiently on a hall chair. Flam- 
 beau looked at a Persian illumination on the wall; 
 Father Brown, who seemed in a sort of daze, dully 
 eyed the door. In about four minutes the door 
 was opened again. Atkinson was quicker this 
 time. He sprang forward, held the door open for 
 an instant, and called out : " Oh, I say, Quinton, I 
 want " 
 
 From the other end of the study came the clear 
 voice of Quinton, in something between a yawn 
 and a yell of weary laughter. 
 
 " Oh, I know what you want. Take it, and leave 
 me in peace. I'm writing a song about peacocks." 
 
 Before the door closed half a sovereign came 
 flying through the aperture; and Atkinson, stum- 
 bling forward, caught it with singular dexterity. 
 
 183 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 "So that's settled," said the doctor, and, lock- 
 ing the door savagely, he led the way out into the 
 garden. 
 
 " Poor Leonard can get a little peace now," he 
 added to Father Brown; "he's locked in all by 
 himself for an hour or two." 
 
 "Yes," answered the priest; "and his voice 
 sounded jolly enough when we left him." Then 
 he looked gravely round the garden, and saw the 
 loose figure of Atkinson standing and jingling the 
 half-sovereign in his pocket, and beyond, in the 
 purple twilight, the figure of the Indian sitting bolt 
 upright upon a bank of grass with his face turned 
 towards the setting sun. Then he said abruptly: 
 " Where is Mrs. Quinton ? " 
 
 " She has gone up to her room," said the doctor. 
 " That is her shadow on the blind." 
 
 Father Brown looked up, and frowningly scru- 
 tinised a dark outline at the gas-lit window. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " that is her shadow," and he 
 walked a yard or two and threw himself upon a 
 garden seat. 
 
 Flambeau sat down beside him; but the doctor 
 was one of those energetic people who live naturally 
 on their legs. He walked away, smoking, into the 
 twilight, and the two friends were left together. 
 
 " My father," said Flambeau in French, " what 
 is the matter with you ? " 
 
 Father Brown was silent and motionless for half 
 184 
 
THE WRONG SHAPE 
 
 a minute, then he said : " Superstition is irreli- 
 gious, but there is something in the air of this place. 
 I think it's that Indian — at least, partly." 
 
 He sank into silence, and watched the distant 
 outline of the Indian, who still sat rigid as if in 
 prayer. At first sight he seemed motionless, but 
 as Father Brown watched him he saw that the 
 man swayed ever so slightly with a rhythmic move- 
 ment, just as the dark tree-tops swayed ever so 
 slightly in the wind that was creeping up the dim 
 garden paths and shuffling the fallen leaves a little. 
 
 The landscape was growing rapidly dark, as if 
 for a storm, but they could still see all the figures 
 in their various places. Atkinson was leaning 
 against a tree with a listless face; Quinton's wife 
 was still at her window; the doctor had gone 
 strolling round the end of the conservatory; they 
 could see his cigar like a will-o'-the-wisp; and the 
 fakir still sat rigid and yet rocking, while the trees 
 above him began to rock and almost to roar. Storm 
 was certainly coming. 
 
 " When that Indian spoke to us," went on Brown 
 in a conversational undertone, " I had a sort of 
 vision, a vision of him and all his universe. Yet 
 he only said the same thing three times. When 
 first he said ' I want nothing,' it meant only that 
 he was impenetrable, that Asia does not give itself 
 away. Then he said again, ' I want nothing,' and 
 I knew that he meant that he was sufficient to him- 
 
 185 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 self, like a cosmos, that he needed no God, neither 
 admitted any sins. And when he said the third 
 time, ' I want nothing,' he said it with blazing eyes. 
 And I knew that he meant literally what he said; 
 that nothing was his desire and his home; that he 
 was weary for nothing as for wine; that annihila- 
 tion, the mere destruction of everything or any- 
 thing " 
 
 Two drops of rain fell; and for some reason 
 Flambeau started and looked up, as if they had 
 stung him. And the same instant the doctor down 
 by the end of the conservatory began running to- 
 wards them, calling out something as he ran. 
 
 As he came among them like a bombshell the 
 restless Atkinson happened to be taking a turn 
 nearer to the house front; and the doctor clutched 
 him by the collar in a convulsive grip. " Foul 
 play!" he cried; "what have you been doing to 
 him, you dog ? " 
 
 The priest had sprung erect, and had the voice 
 of steel of a soldier in command. 
 
 " No fighting," he cried coolly ; " we are enough 
 to hold anyone we want to. What is the matter, 
 doctor?" 
 
 " Things are not right with Quinton," said the 
 doctor, quite white. " I could just see him through 
 the glass, and I don't like the way he's lying. It's 
 not as I left him, anyhow." 
 
 " Let us go into him," said Father Brown shortly. 
 186 
 
THE WRONG SHAPE 
 
 " You can leave Mr. Atkinson alone. I have had 
 him in sight since we heard Quinton's voice." 
 
 " I will stop here and watch him," said Flambeau 
 hurriedly. " You go in and see." 
 
 The doctor and the priest flew to the study door, 
 unlocked it, and fell into the room. In doing so 
 they neferly fell over the large mahogany table in 
 the centre at which the poet usually wrote ; for the 
 place was lit only by a small fire kept for the in- 
 valid. In the middle of this table lay a single sheet 
 of paper, evidently left there on purpose. The doc- 
 tor snatched it up, glanced at it, handed it to Father 
 Brown, and crying, "Good God, look at that!" 
 plunged toward the glass room beyond, where the 
 terrible tropic flowers still seemed to keep a crimson 
 memory of the sunset. 
 
 Father Brown read the words three times before 
 he put down the paper. The words were : " I die 
 by my own hand ; yet I die murdered ! " They were 
 in the quite inimitable, not to say illegible, hand- 
 writing of Leonard Quinton. 
 
 Then Father Brown, still keeping the paper in 
 his hand, strode towards the conservatory, only 
 to meet his medical friend coming back with a face 
 of assurance and collapse. " He's done it," said 
 Harris. 
 
 They went together through the gorgeous un- 
 natural beauty of cactus and azalea and found 
 Leonard Quinton, poet and romancer, with his head 
 
 187 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 hanging downward off his ottoman and his red curls 
 sweeping the ground. Into his left side was thrust 
 the queer dagger that they had picked up in the 
 garden, and his limp hand still rested on the hilt. 
 
 Outside the storm had come at one stride, like 
 the night in Coleridge, and garden and glass roof 
 were darkened with driving rain. Father Brown 
 seemed to be studying the paper more than the 
 corpse; he held it close to his eyes; and seemed 
 trying to read it in the twilight. Then he held it 
 up against the faint light, and, as he did so, light- 
 ning stared at them for an instant so white that 
 the paper looked black against it. 
 
 Darkness full of thunder followed, and after 
 the thunder Father . Brown's voice said out of the 
 dark : " Doctor, this paper is the wrong shape." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked Doctor Harris, 
 with a frowning stare. 
 
 " It isn't square," answered Brown. " It has a 
 sort of edge snipped off at the corner. What does 
 it mean ? " 
 
 "How the deuce should I know?" growled the 
 doctor. " Shall we move this poor chap, do you 
 think? He's quite dead." 
 
 " No," answered the priest ; " we must leave him 
 as he lies and send for the police." But he was still 
 scrutinising the paper. 
 
 As they went back through the study he stopped 
 by the table and picked up a small pair of nail 
 scissors. " Ah," he said, with a sort of relief, " this 
 
 1 88 
 
THE WRONG SHAPE 
 
 is what he did it with. But yet " And he 
 
 knitted his brows. 
 
 " Oh, stop fooling with that scrap of paper," 
 said the doctor emphatically. " It was a fad of his. 
 He had hundreds of them. He cut all his paper 
 like that," as he pointed to a stack of sermon pa- 
 per still unused on another and smaller table. 
 Father Brown went up to it and held up a sheet. 
 It was the same irregular shape. 
 
 " Quite so," he said. " And here I see the cor- 
 ners that were snipped off." And to the indignation 
 of his colleague he began to count them. 
 
 "That's all right," he said, with an apologetic 
 smile. " Twenty-three sheets cut and twenty-two 
 corners cut off them. And as I see you are impa- 
 tient we will rejoin the others." 
 
 "Who is to tell his wife?" asked Dr. Harris. 
 " Will you go and tell her now, while I send a serv- 
 ant for the police ? " 
 
 " As you will," said Father Brown indifferently. 
 And he went out to the hall door. 
 
 Here also he found a drama, though of a more 
 grotesque sort. It showed nothing less than his 
 big friend Flambeau in an attitude to which he had 
 long been unaccustomed, while upon the pathway at 
 the bottom of the steps was sprawling with his boots 
 in the air the amiable Atkinson, his billycock hat 
 and walking cane sent flying in opposite directions 
 along the path. Atkinson had at length wearied of 
 Flambeau's almost paternal custody, and had en- 
 
 189 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 deavoured to knock him down, which was by no 
 means a smooth game to play with the Roi des 
 Apaches, even after that monarch's abdication. 
 
 Flambeau was about to leap upon his enemy and 
 secure him once more, when the priest patted him 
 easily on the shoulder. 
 
 " Make it up with Mr. Atkinson, my friend," he 
 said. " Beg a mutual pardon and say ' Good night.' 
 We need not detain him any longer." Then, as 
 Atkinson rose somewhat doubtfully and gathered 
 his hat and stick and went towards the garden gate, 
 Father Brown said in a more serious voice : " Where 
 is that Indian ? " 
 
 They all three (for the doctor had joined them) 
 turned involuntarily towards the dim grassy bank 
 amid the tossing trees purple with twilight, where 
 they had last seen the brown man swaying in his 
 strange prayers. The Indian was gone. 
 
 " Confound him," cried the doctor, stamping fu- 
 riously. " Now I know that it was that nigger that 
 did it." 
 
 " I thought you didn't believe in magic," said 
 Father Brown quietly. 
 
 " No more I did," said the doctor, rolling his 
 eyes. " I only know that I loathed that yellow 
 devil when I thought he was a sham wizard. And 
 I shall loathe him more if I come to think he was a 
 real one." 
 
 " Well, his having escaped is nothing," said 
 Flambeau. " For we could have proved nothing 
 
 190 
 
THE WRONG SHAPE 
 
 and done nothing against him. One hardly goes 
 to the parish constable with a story of suicide im- 
 posed by witchcraft or auto-suggestion." 
 
 Meanwhile Father Brown had made his way 
 into the house, and now went to break the news 
 to the wife of the dead man. 
 
 When he came out again he looked a little pale 
 and tragic, but what passed between them in that 
 interview was never known, even when all was 
 known. 
 
 Flambeau, who was talking quietly with the doc- 
 tor, was surprised to see his friend reappear so 
 soon at his elbow; but Brown took no notice, and 
 merely drew the doctor apart. " You have sent for 
 the police, haven't you ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes," answered Harris. " They ought to be 
 here in ten minutes." 
 
 " Will you do me a favour ? " said the priest 
 quietly. " The truth is, I make a collection of 
 these curious stories, which often contain, as in 
 the case of our Hindoo friend, elements which can 
 hardly be put into a police report. Now, I want 
 you to write out a report of this case for my private 
 use. Yours is a clever trade," he said, looking 
 the doctor gravely and steadily in the face. " I 
 sometimes think that you know some details of 
 this matter which you have not thought fit to men- 
 tion. Mine is a confidential trade like yours, and 
 I will treat anything you write for me in strict 
 confidence. But write the whole." 
 
 191 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 The doctor, who had been listening thought- 
 fully with his head a little on one side, looked the 
 priest in the face for an instant, and said : " All 
 right," and went into the study, closing the door 
 behind him. 
 
 " Flambeau," said Father Brown, " there is a 
 long seat there under the veranda, where we can 
 smoke out of the rain. You are my only friend in 
 the world, and I want to talk to you. Or, perhaps, 
 be silent with you." 
 
 They established themselves comfortably in the 
 veranda seat; Father Brown, against his common 
 habit, accepted a good cigar and smoked it steadily 
 in silence, while the rain shrieked and rattled on the 
 roof of the veranda. 
 
 " My friend," he said at length, " this is a very 
 queer case. A very queer case." 
 
 " I should think it was," said Flambeau, with 
 something like a shudder. 
 
 " You call it queer, and I call it queer," said 
 the other, " and yet we mean quite opposite things. 
 The modern mind always mixes up two different 
 ideas : mystery in the sense of what is marvellous, 
 and mystery in the sense of what is complicated. 
 That is half its difficulty about miracles. A miracle 
 is startling; but it is simple. It is simple because 
 it is a miracle. It is power coming directly from 
 God (or the devil) instead of indirectly through 
 nature or human wills. Now, you mean that this 
 business is marvellous because it is miraculous, 
 
 192 
 
THE WRONG SHAPE 
 
 because it is witchcraft worked by a wicked Indian. 
 Understand, I do not say that it was not spiritual 
 or diabolic. Heaven and hell only know by what 
 surrounding influences strange sins come into the 
 lives of men. But for the present my point is 
 this: If it was pure magic, as you think, then it 
 is marvellous; but it is not mysterious — that is, 
 it is not complicated. The quality of a miracle is 
 mysterious, but its manner is simple. Now, the 
 manner of this business has been the reverse of 
 simple." 
 
 The storm that had slackened for a little seemed 
 to be swelling again, and there came heavy move- 
 ments as of faint thunder. Father Brown let fall 
 the ash of his cigar and went on : 
 
 " There has been in this incident," he said, " a 
 twisted, ugly, complex quality that does not belong 
 to the straight bolts either of heaven or hell. As 
 one knows the crooked track of a snail, I know the 
 crooked track of a man." 
 
 The white lightning opened its enormous eye in 
 one wink, the sky shut up again, and the priest went 
 on: 
 
 "Of all these crooked things, the crookedest was 
 the shape of that piece of paper. It was crookeder 
 than the dagger that killed him." 
 
 "You mean the paper on which Quinton con- 
 fessed his suicide," said Flambeau. 
 
 " I mean the paper on which Quinton wrote, ' I 
 die by my own hand," answered Father Brown. 
 13 193 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 " The shape of that paper, my friend, was the wrong 
 shape; the wrong shape, if ever I have seen it in 
 this wicked world." 
 
 " It only had a corner snipped off," said Flam- 
 beau, " and I understand that all Quinton's paper 
 was cut that way." 
 
 " It was a very odd way," said the other, " and 
 a very bad way, to my taste and fancy. Look here, 
 Flambeau, this Quinton — God receive his soul! — 
 was perhaps a bit of a cur in some ways, but he 
 really was an artist, with the pencil as well as the 
 pen. His handwriting, though hard to read, was 
 bold and beautiful. I can't prove what I say; I 
 can't prove anything. But I tell you with the full 
 force of conviction that he could never have cut 
 that mean little piece off a sheet of paper. If he 
 had wanted to cut down paper for some purpose 
 of fitting in, or binding up, or what not, he would 
 have made quite a different slash with the scissors. 
 Do you remember the shape? It was a mean 
 shape. It was a wrong shape. Like this. Don't 
 you remember ? " 
 
 And he waved his burning cigar before him in 
 the darkness, making irregular squares so rapidly 
 that Flambeau really seemed to see them as fiery 
 hieroglyphics upon the darkness — hieroglyphics 
 such as his friend had spoken of, which are unde- 
 cipherable, yet can have no good meaning. 
 
 " But," said Flambeau, as the priest put his 
 cigar in his mouth again and leaned back, staring 
 
 194 
 
THE WRONG SHAPE 
 
 at the roof. " Suppose somebody else did use the 
 scissors. Why should somebody else, cutting 
 pieces off his sermon paper, make Quinton commit 
 suicide? " 
 
 Father Brown was still leaning back and staring 
 at the roof, but he took his cigar out of his 
 mouth and said: "Quinton never did commit 
 suicide." 
 
 Flambeau stared at him. " Why, confound it 
 all," he cried, " then why did he confess to 
 suicide ? " 
 
 The priest leant forward again, settled his 
 elbows on his knees, looked at the ground, and 
 said, in a low, distinct voice : " He never did con- 
 fess to suicide." 
 
 Flambeau laid his cigar down. " You mean," he 
 said, " that the writing was forged ? " 
 
 " No," said Father Brown. " Quinton wrote it 
 all right." 
 
 " Well, there you are," said the aggravated 
 Flambeau ; " Quinton wrote, ' I die by my own 
 hand,' with his own hand on a plain piece of paper." 
 
 " Of the wrong shape," said the priest calmly. 
 
 " Oh, the shape be damned ! " cried Flambeau. 
 " What has the shape to do with it ? " 
 
 " There were twenty-three snipped papers," re- 
 sumed Brown unmoved, " and only twenty-two 
 pieces snipped off. Therefore one of the pieces 
 had been destroyed, probably that from the written 
 paper. Does that suggest anything to you ? " 
 
 195 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 A light dawned on Flambeau's face, and he said : 
 " There was something else written by Quinton, 
 some other words. ' They will tell you I die by my 
 own hand,' or ' Do not believe that ' " 
 
 " Hotter, as the children say," said his friend. 
 " But the piece was hardly half an inch across ; 
 there was no room for one word, let alone five. 
 Can you think of anything hardly bigger than a 
 comma which the man with hell in his heart had 
 to tear away as a testimony against him ? " 
 
 " I can think of nothing," said Flambeau at last. 
 
 " What about quotation marks ? " said the 
 priest, and flung his cigar far into the darkness like 
 a shooting star. 
 
 All words had left the other man's mouth, and 
 Father Brown said, like one going back to funda- 
 mentals : 
 
 " Leonard Quinton was a romancer, and was 
 writing an Oriental romance about wizardry and 
 hypnotism. He " 
 
 At this moment the door opened briskly behind 
 them, and the doctor came out with his hat on. He 
 put a long envelope into the priest's hands. 
 
 " That's the document you wanted," he said, 
 " and I must be getting home. Good night." 
 
 " Good night," said Father Brown, as the doctor 
 walked briskly to the gate. He had left the front 
 door open, so that a shaft of gaslight fell upon 
 them. In the light of this Brown opened the en- 
 velope and read the following words : 
 
 196 
 
THE WRONG SHAPE 
 
 " Dear Father Brown, — Vicisti Galilae. 
 Otherwise, damn your eyes, which are very pene- 
 trating ones. Can it be possible that there is 
 something in all that stuff of yours after all ? 
 
 " I am a man who has ever since boyhood be- 
 lieved in Nature and in all natural functions and 
 instincts, whether men called them moral or im- 
 moral. Long before I became a doctor, when I 
 was a schoolboy keeping mice and spiders, I be- 
 lieved that to be a good animal is the best thing 
 in the world. But just now I am shaken; I have 
 believed in Nature; but it seems as if Nature could 
 betray a man. Can there be anything in your 
 bosh ? I am really getting morbid. 
 
 " I loved Quinton's wife. What was there 
 wrong in that? Nature told me to, and it's love 
 that makes the world go round. I also thought 
 quite sincerely that she would be happier with a 
 clean animal like me than with that tormenting 
 little lunatic. What was there wrong in that? I 
 was only facing facts, like a man of science. She 
 would have been happier. 
 
 " According to my own creed I was quite free 
 to kill Quinton, which was the best thing for every- 
 body, even himself. But as a healthy animal I had 
 no notion of killing myself. I resolved, therefore, 
 that I would never do it until I saw a chance that 
 would leave me scot free. I saw that chance this 
 morning. 
 
 " I have been three times, all told, into Quin- 
 197 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 ton's study to-day. The first time I went in he 
 would talk about nothing but the weird tale, called 
 ' The Curse of a Saint,' which he was writing, 
 which was all about how some Indian hermit made 
 an English colonel kill himself by thinking about 
 him. He showed me the last sheets, and even 
 read me the last paragraph, which was something 
 like this: 'The conqueror of the Punjab, a mere 
 yellow skeleton, but still gigantic, managed to lift 
 himself on his elbow and gasp in his nephew's 
 ear : " I die by my own hand, yet I die mur- 
 dered ! " ' It so happened by one chance out of a 
 hundred, that those last words were written at the 
 top of a new sheet of paper. I left the room, and 
 went out into the garden intoxicated with a fright- 
 ful opportunity. 
 
 " We walked round the house ; and two more 
 things happened in my favour. You suspected an 
 Indian, and you found a dagger which the Indian 
 might most probably use. Taking the opportunity 
 to stuff it in my pocket I went back to Quinton's 
 study, locked the door, and gave him his sleeping 
 draught. He was against answering Atkinson at 
 all, but I urged him to call out and quiet the fellow, 
 because I wanted a clear proof that Quinton was 
 alive when I left the room for the second time. 
 Quinton lay down in the conservatory, and I came 
 through the study. I am a quick man with my 
 hands, and in a minute and a half I had done what 
 I wanted to do. I had emptied all the first part of 
 
 198 
 
THE WRONG SHAPE 
 
 Quinton's romance into the fireplace, where it 
 burnt to ashes. Then I saw that the quotation 
 marks wouldn't do, so I snipped them off, and to 
 make it seem likelier, snipped the whole quire to 
 match. Then I came out with the knowledge that 
 Quinton's confession of suicide lay on the front 
 table, while Quinton lay alive but asleep in the con- 
 servatory beyond. 
 
 " The last act was a desperate one ; you can 
 guess it: I pretended to have seen Quinton dead 
 and rushed to his room. I delayed you with the 
 paper, and, being a quick man with my hands, 
 killed Quinton while you were looking at his con- 
 fession of suicide. He was half-asleep being 
 drugged, and I put his own hand on the knife and 
 drove it into his body. The knife was of so queer 
 a shape that no one but an operator could have 
 calculated the angle that would reach his heart. I 
 wonder if you noticed this. 
 
 " When I had done it, the extraordinary thing 
 happened. Nature deserted me. I felt ill. I felt 
 just as if I had done something wrong. I think 
 my brain is breaking up ; I feel some sort of desper- 
 ate pleasure in thinking I have told the thing to 
 somebody; that I shall not have to be alone with 
 it if I marry and have children. What is the matter 
 with me? . . . Madness ... or can one 
 have remorse, just as if one were in Byron's 
 poems ! I cannot write any more. — James 
 Erskine Harris." 
 
 199 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 Father Brown carefully folded up the letter, and 
 put it in his breast pocket just as there came a loud 
 peal at the gate bell, and the wet waterproofs of 
 several policemen gleamed in the road outside. 
 
 200 
 
VIII 
 
 THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 When Flambeau took his month's holiday from 
 his office in Westminster he took it in a small 
 sailing-boat, so small that it passed much of its 
 time as a rowing-boat. He took it, moreover, in 
 little rivers in the Eastern counties, rivers so small 
 that the boat looked like a magic boat, sailing on 
 land through meadows and cornfields. The vessel 
 was just comfortable for two people; there was 
 room only for necessities, and Flambeau had 
 stocked it with such things as his special philoso- 
 phy considered necessary. They reduced them- 
 selves, apparently, to four essentials: tins of 
 salmon, if he should want to eat ; loaded revolvers, 
 if he should want to fight; a bottle of brandy, 
 presumably in case he should faint; and a priest, 
 presumably in case he should die. With this light 
 luggage he crawled down the little Norfolk rivers, 
 intending to reach the Broads at last, but mean- 
 while delighting in the overhanging gardens and 
 meadows, the mirrored mansions or villages, linger- 
 ing to fish in the pools and corners, and in some 
 sense hugging the shore. 
 
 Like a true philosopher, Flambeau had no aim 
 201 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 in his holiday ; but, like a true philosopher, he had 
 an excuse. He had a sort of half purpose, which 
 he took just so seriously that its success would 
 crown the holiday, but just so lightly that its 
 failure would not spoil it. Years ago, when he 
 had been a king of thieves and the most famous 
 figure in Paris, he had often received wild com- 
 munications of approval, denunciation, or even 
 love; but one had, somehow, stuck in his memory. 
 It consisted simply of a visiting-card, in an en- 
 velope with an English postmark. On the back 
 of the card was written in French and in green 
 ink: "If you ever retire and become respectable, 
 come and see me. I want to meet you, for I have 
 met all the other great men of my time. That 
 trick of yours of getting one detective to arrest 
 the other was the most splendid scene in French 
 history." On the front of the card was engraved 
 in the formal fashion, " Prince Saradine, Reed 
 House, Reed Island, Norfolk." 
 
 He had not troubled much about the prince then, 
 beyond ascertaining that he had been a brilliant and 
 fashionable figure in southern Italy. In his youth, 
 it was said, he had eloped with a married woman of 
 high rank; the escapade was scarcely startling in 
 his social world, but it had clung to men's minds 
 because of an additional tragedy : the alleged suicide 
 of the insulted husband, who appeared to have 
 flung himself over a precipice in Sicily. The prince 
 then lived in Vienna for a time, but his more recent 
 
 202 
 
THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 years seemed to have been passed in perpetual and 
 restless travel. But when Flambeau, like the prince 
 himself, had left European celebrity and settled in 
 England, it occurred to him that he might pay a 
 surprise visit to this eminent exile in the Norfolk 
 Broads. Whether he should find the place he had 
 no idea; and, indeed, it was sufficiently small and 
 forgotten. But, as things fell out, he found it much 
 sooner than he expected. 
 
 They had moored their boat one night under 
 a bank veiled in high grasses and short pollarded 
 trees. Sleep, after heavy sculling, had come to 
 them early, and by a corresponding accident they 
 awoke before it was light. To speak more strictly, 
 they awoke before it was daylight; for a large 
 lemon moon was only just setting in the forest 
 of high grass above their heads, and the sky was 
 of a vivid violet-blue, nocturnal but bright. Both 
 men had simultaneously a reminiscence of child- 
 hood, of the elfin and adventurous time when tall 
 weeds close over us like woods. Standing up thus 
 against the large low moon, the daisies really 
 seemed to be giant daisies, the dandelions to be 
 giant dandelions. Somehow it reminded them of 
 the dado of a nursery wall-paper. The drop of the 
 river-bed sufficed to sink them under the roots of all 
 shrubs and flowers and make them gaze upwards at 
 the grass. 
 
 " By Jove ! " said Flambeau, " it's like being in 
 fairyland." 
 
 203 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 Father Brown sat bolt upright in the boat and 
 crossed himself. His movement was so abrupt that 
 his friend asked him, with a mild stare, what was 
 the matter. 
 
 " The people who wrote the mediaeval ballads," 
 answered the priest, " knew more about fairies than 
 you do. It isn't only nice things that happen in 
 fairyland." 
 
 "Oh, bosh!" said Flambeau. "Only nice 
 things could happen under such an innocent moon. 
 I am for pushing on now and seeing what does 
 really come. We may die and rot before we ever 
 see again such a moon or such a mood." 
 
 " All right," said Father Brown. " I never 
 said it was always wrong to enter fairyland. I only 
 said it was always dangerous." 
 
 They pushed slowly up the brightening river; 
 the glowing violet of the sky and the pale gold 
 of the moon grew fainter and fainter, and faded 
 into that vast colourless cosmos that precedes the 
 colours of the dawn. When the first faint stripes 
 of red and gold and grey split the horizon from 
 end to end they were broken by the black bulk of 
 a town or village which sat on the river just ahead 
 of them. It was already an easy twilight, in which 
 all things were visible, when they came under the 
 hanging roofs and bridges of this riverside ham- 
 let. The houses, with their long, low, stooping 
 roofs, seemed to come down to drink at the river, 
 like huge grey and red cattle. The broadening 
 
 204 
 
THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 and whitening dawn had already turned to work- 
 ing daylight before they saw any living creature on 
 the wharves and bridges of that silent town. 
 Eventually they saw a very placid and prosperous 
 man in his shirt sleeves, with a face as round as 
 the recently sunken moon, and rays of red whisker 
 around the low arc of it, who was leaning on a 
 post above the sluggish tide. By an impulse not 
 to be analysed, Flambeau rose to his full height in 
 the swaying boat and shouted at the man to ask if 
 he knew Reed Island or Reed House. The pros- 
 perous man's smile grew slightly more expansive, 
 and he simply pointed up the river towards the 
 next bend of it. Flambeau went ahead without 
 further speech. 
 
 The boat took many such grassy corners and 
 followed many such reedy and silent reaches of 
 river; but before the search had become mono- 
 tonous they had swung round a specially sharp 
 angle and come into the silence of a sort of pool 
 or lake, the sight of which instinctively arrested 
 them. For in the middle of this wider piece of 
 water, fringed on every side with rushes, lay a 
 long, low islet, along which ran a long, low house 
 or bungalow built of bamboo or some kind of 
 tough tropic cane. The upstanding rods of 
 bamboo which made the walls were pale yellow, the 
 sloping rods that made the roof were of darker 
 red or brown, otherwise the long house was a thing 
 of repetition and monotony. The early morning 
 
 205 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 breeze rustled the reeds round the island and sang 
 in the strange ribbed house as in a giant pan-pipe. 
 
 " By George ! " cried Flambeau ; " here is the 
 place, after all ! Here is Reed Island, if ever there 
 was one. Here is Reed House, if it is anywhere. I 
 believe that fat man with whiskers was a fairy." 
 
 " Perhaps," remarked Father Brown impartially. 
 " If he was, he was a bad fairy." 
 
 But even as he spoke the impetuous Flambeau 
 had run his boat ashore in the rattling reeds, and 
 they stood in the long, quaint islet beside the odd 
 and silent house. 
 
 The house stood with its back, as it were, to 
 the river and the only landing-stage; the main en- 
 trance was on the other side, and looked down the 
 long island garden. The visitors approached it, 
 therefore, by a small path running round nearly 
 three sides of the house, close under the low eaves. 
 Through three different windows on three different 
 sides they looked in on the same long, well-lit 
 room, panelled in light wood, with a large number 
 of looking-glasses, and laid out as for an elegant 
 lunch. The front door, when they came round to 
 it at last, was flanked by two turquoise-blue flower 
 pots. It was opened by a butler of the drearier 
 type — long, lean, grey and listless — who murmured 
 that Prince Saradine was from home at present, 
 but was expected hourly; the house being kept 
 ready for him and his guests. The exhibition of 
 the card with the scrawl of green ink awoke a 
 
 206 
 
THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 flicker of life in the parchment face of the de- 
 pressed retainer, and it was with a certain shaky 
 courtesy that he suggested that the strangers 
 should remain. " His Highness may be here any 
 minute," he said, " and would be distressed to have 
 just missed any gentleman he had invited. We 
 have orders always to keep a little cold lunch for 
 him and his friends, and I am sure he would wish 
 it to be offered." 
 
 Moved with curiosity to this minor adventure, 
 Flambeau assented gracefully, and followed the 
 old man, who ushered him ceremoniously into the 
 long, lightly panelled room. There was nothing 
 very notable about it, except the rather unusual 
 alternation of many long, low windows with many 
 long, low oblongs of looking-glass, which gave a 
 singular air of lightness and unsubstantialness to 
 the place. It was somehow like lunching out of 
 doors. One or two pictures of a quiet kind hung 
 in the corners, one a large grey photograph of a 
 very young man in uniform, another a red chalk 
 sketch of two long-haired boys. Asked by Flam- 
 beau whether the soldierly person was the prince, 
 the butler answered shortly in the negative; it was 
 the prince's younger brother, Captain Stephen Sara- 
 dine, he said. And with that the old man seemed 
 to dry up suddenly and lose all taste for conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 After lunch had tailed off with exquisite coffee 
 and liqueurs, the guests were introduced to the gar- 
 
 207 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 den, the library, and the housekeeper — a dark, 
 handsome lady, of no little majesty, and rather 
 like a plutonic Madonna. It appeared that she and 
 the butler were the only survivors of the prince's 
 original foreign menage, all the other servants now 
 in the house being new and collected in Norfolk by 
 the housekeeper. This latter lady went by the 
 name of Mrs. Anthony, but she spoke with a slight 
 Italian accent, and Flambeau did not doubt that 
 Anthony was a Norfolk version of some more Latin 
 name. Mr. Paul, the butler, also had a faintly for- 
 eign air, but he was in tongue and training English, 
 as are many of the most polished men-servants of 
 the cosmopolitan nobility. 
 
 Pretty and unique as it was, the place had 
 about it a curious luminous sadness. Hours 
 passed in it like days. The long, well-windowed 
 rooms were full of daylight, but it seemed a dead 
 daylight. And through all other incidental noises, 
 the sound of talk, the clink of glasses, or the pass- 
 ing feet of servants, they could hear on all sides of 
 the house the melancholy noise of the river. 
 
 " We have taken a wrong turning, and come to 
 a wrong place," said Father Brown, looking out of 
 the window at the grey-green sedges and the silver 
 flood. " Never mind ; one can sometimes do good 
 by being the right person in the wrong place." 
 
 Father Brown, though commonly a silent, was 
 an oddly sympathetic little man, and in those few 
 but endless hours he unconsciously sank deeper 
 
 208 
 
THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 into the secrets of Reed House than his profes- 
 sional friend. He had that knack of friendly- 
 silence which is so essential to gossip; and saying 
 scarcely a word, he probably obtained from his 
 new acquaintances all that in any case they would 
 have told. The butler indeed was naturally un- 
 communicative. He betrayed a sullen and almost 
 animal affection for his master; who, he said, had 
 been very badly treated. The chief offender 
 seemed to be his highness's brother, whose name 
 alone would lengthen the old man's lantern jaws 
 and pucker his parrot nose into a sneer. Captain 
 Stephen was a ne'er-do-weel, apparently, and had 
 drained his benevolent brother of hundreds and 
 thousands; forced him to fly from fashionable life 
 and live quietly in this retreat. That was all Paul, 
 the butler, would say, and Paul was obviously a 
 partisan. 
 
 The Italian housekeeper was somewhat more 
 communicative, being, as Brown fancied, some- 
 what less content. Her tone about her master was 
 faintly acid; though not without a certain awe. 
 Flambeau and his friend were standing in the room 
 of the looking-glasses examining the red sketch of 
 the two boys, when the housekeeper swept in 
 swiftly on some domestic errand. It was a pecu- 
 liarity of this glittering, glass-panelled place that 
 anyone entering was reflected in four or five mirrors 
 at once ; and Father Brown, without turning round, 
 stopped in the middle of a sentence of family crit- 
 x * 209 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 icism. But Flambeau, who had his face close up 
 to the picture was already saying in a loud voice, 
 " The brothers Saradine, I suppose. They both 
 look innocent enough. It would be hard to say 
 which is the good brother and which the bad." 
 Then, realising the lady's presence, he turned the 
 conversation with some triviality, and strolled out 
 into the garden. But Father Brown still gazed 
 steadily at the red crayon sketch; and Mrs. An- 
 thony still gazed steadily at Father Brown. 
 
 She had large and tragic brown eyes, and her 
 olive face glowed darkly with a curious and painful 
 wonder — as of one doubtful of a stranger's identity 
 or purpose. Whether the little priest's coat and 
 creed touched some southern memories of confes- 
 sion, or whether she fancied he knew more than he 
 did, she said to him in a low voice as to a fellow 
 plotter, " He is right enough in one way, your 
 friend. He says it would be hard to pick out the 
 good and bad brothers. Oh, it would be hard, 
 it would be mighty hard, to pick out the good 
 one." 
 
 " I don't understand you," said Father Brown, 
 and began to move away. 
 
 The woman took a step nearer to him, with 
 thunderous brows and a sort of savage stoop, like 
 a bull lowering his horns. 
 
 " There isn't a good one," she hissed. " There 
 was badness enough in the captain taking all that 
 money, but I don't think there was much goodness 
 
 210 
 
THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 in the prince giving it. The captain's not the only 
 one with something against him." 
 
 A light dawned on the cleric's averted face, and 
 his mouth formed silently the word " blackmail." 
 Even as he did so the woman turned an abrupt 
 white face over her shoulder and almost fell. The 
 door had opened soundlessly and the pale Paul 
 stood like a ghost in the doorway. By the weird 
 trick of the reflecting walls, it seemed as if five 
 Pauls had entered by five doors simultaneously. 
 " His Highness," he said, " has just arrived." 
 In the same flash the figure of a man had passed 
 outside the first window, crossing the sunlit pane 
 like a lighted stage. An instant later he passed 
 at the second window and the many mirrors re- 
 painted in successive frames the same eagle profile 
 and marching figure. He was erect and alert, but 
 his hair was white and his complexion of an odd 
 ivory yellow. He had that short, curved Roman 
 nose which generally goes with long, lean cheeks 
 and chin, but these were partly masked by 
 moustache and imperial. The moustache was 
 much darker than the beard, giving an effect 
 slightly theatrical, and he was dressed up to the 
 same dashing part, having a white top hat, an 
 orchid in his coat, a yellow waistcoat and yellow 
 gloves which he flapped and swung as he walked. 
 When he came round to the front door they heard 
 the stiff Paul open it, and heard the new arrival say 
 cheerfully, " Well, you see I have come." The 
 
 211 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 stiff Mr. Paul bowed and answered in his inaudible 
 manner; for a few minutes their conversation could 
 not be heard. Then the butler said, " Everything 
 is at your disposal " ; and the glove-flapping Prince 
 Saradine came gaily into the room to greet them. 
 They beheld once more that spectral scene — five 
 princes entering a room with five doors. 
 
 The prince put the white hat and yellow gloves 
 on the table and offered his hand quite cordially. 
 
 " Delighted to see you here, Mr. Flambeau," he 
 said. " Knowing you very well by reputation, if 
 that's not an indiscreet remark." 
 
 " Not at all," answeied Flambeau, laughing. " I 
 am not sensitive. Very few reputations are gained 
 by unsullied virtue." 
 
 The prince flashed a sharp look at him to see if 
 the retort had any personal point; then he laughed 
 also and offered chairs to everyone, including him- 
 self. 
 
 " Pleasant little place, this, I think," he said with 
 a detached air. " Not much to do, I fear ; but the 
 fishing is really good." 
 
 The priest, who was staring at him with the 
 grave stare of a baby, was haunted by some fancy 
 that escaped definition. He looked at the grey, 
 carefully curled hair, yellow white visage, and slim, 
 somewhat foppish figure. These were not un- 
 natural, though perhaps a shade pronounce, like the 
 outfit of a figure behind the footlights. The name- 
 less interest lay in something else, in the very 
 
 212 
 
THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 framework of the face ; Brown was tormented with 
 a half memory of having seen it somewhere before. 
 The man looked like some old friend of his dressed 
 up. Then he suddenly remembered the mirrors, 
 and put his fancy down to some psychological effect 
 of that multiplication of human masks. 
 
 Prince Saradine distributed his social attentions 
 between his guests with great gaiety and tact. 
 Finding the detective of a sporting turn and eager 
 to employ his holiday, he guided Flambeau and 
 Flambeau's boat down to the best fishing spot in 
 the stream, and was back in his own canoe in 
 twenty minutes to join Father Brown in the library 
 and plunge equally politely into the priest's more 
 philosophic pleasures. He seemed to know a great 
 deal both about the fishing and the books, though 
 of these not the most edifying; he spoke five or six 
 languages, though chiefly the slang of each. He 
 had evidently lived in varied cities and very 
 motley societies, for some of his cheerfullest stories 
 were about gambling hells and opium dens, Aus- 
 tralian bushrangers or Italian brigands. Father 
 Brown knew that the once celebrated Saradine had 
 spent his last few years in almost ceaseless travel, 
 but he had not guessed that the travels were so 
 disreputable or so amusing. 
 
 Indeed, with all his dignity of a man of the world, 
 Prince Saradine radiated to such sensitive observers 
 as the priest, a certain atmosphere of the restless 
 and even the unreliable. His face was fastidious, 
 
 213 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 but his eye was wild; he had little nervous tricks, 
 like a man shaken by drink or drugs, and he neither 
 had, nor professed to have, his hand on the helm of 
 household affairs. All these were left to the two 
 old servants, especially to the butler, who was 
 plainly the central pillar of the house. Mr. Paul, 
 indeed, was not so much a butler as a sort of steward 
 or, even, chamberlain; he dined privately, but with 
 almost as much pomp as his master; he was feared 
 by all the servants ; and he consulted with the prince 
 decorously, but somewhat unbendingly — rather as if 
 he were the prince's solicitor. The sombre house- 
 keeper was a mere shadow in comparison; indeed, 
 she seemed to efface herself and wait only on the 
 butler, and Brown heard no more of those volcanic 
 whispers which had half told him of the younger 
 brother who blackmailed the elder. Whether the 
 prince was really being thus bled by the absent cap- 
 tain, he could not be certain, but there was some- 
 thing insecure and secretive about Saradine that 
 made the tale by no means incredible. 
 
 When they went once more into the long hall 
 with the windows and the mirrors, yellow even- 
 ing was dropping over the waters and the willowy 
 banks ; and a bittern sounded in the distance like an 
 elf upon his dwarfish drum. The same singular 
 sentiment of some sad and evil fairyland crossed 
 the priest's mind again like a little grey cloud. " I 
 wish Flambeau were back," he muttered. 
 
 214 
 
THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 "Do you believe in doom?" asked the restless 
 Prince Saradine suddenly. 
 
 " No," answered his guest. " I believe in 
 Doomsday." 
 
 The prince turned from the window and stared 
 at him in a singular manner, his face in shadow 
 against the sunset. " What do you mean ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " I mean that we here are on the wrong side of 
 the tapestry," answered Father Brown. " The 
 things that happen here do not seem to mean 
 anything; they mean something somewhere else. 
 Somewhere else retribution will come on the real 
 offender. Here it often seems to fall on the wrong 
 person." 
 
 The prince made an inexplicable noise like an 
 animal ; in his shadowed face the eyes were shining 
 queerly. A new and shrewd thought exploded 
 silently in the other's mind. Was there another 
 meaning in Saradine's blend of brilliancy and abrupt- 
 ness? Was the prince Was he perfectly 
 
 sane? He was repeating, "The wrong person — 
 the wrong person," many more times than was 
 natural in a social exclamation. 
 
 Then Father Brown awoke tardily to a second 
 truth. In the mirrors before him he could see the 
 silent door standing open, and the silent Mr. Paul 
 standing in it, with his usual pallid impassiveness. 
 
 " I thought it better to announce at once," he 
 215 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 said, with the same stiff respectfulness as of an 
 old family lawyer, " a boat rowed by six men has 
 come to the landing-stage, and there's a gentleman 
 sitting in the stern." 
 
 " A boat ! " repeated the prince ; " a gentleman ? " 
 and he rose to his feet. 
 
 There was a startled silence punctuated only by 
 the odd noise of the bird in the sedge; and then, 
 before anyone could speak again, a new face and 
 figure passed in profile round the three sunlit win- 
 dows, as the prince had passed an hour or two 
 before. But except for the accident that both out- 
 lines were aquiline, they had little in common. 
 Instead of the new white topper of Saradine, was 
 a black one of antiquated or foreign shape; under 
 it was a young and very solemn face, clean shaven, 
 blue about its resolute chin, and carrying a faint 
 suggestion of the young Napoleon. The association 
 was assisted by something old and odd about the 
 whole get-up, as of a man who had never troubled 
 to change the fashions of his fathers. He had a 
 shabby blue frock coat, a red, soldierly looking 
 waistcoat, and a kind of coarse white trousers 
 common among the early Victorians, but strangely 
 incongruous to-day. From all this old clothes-shop 
 his olive face stood out strangely young and mon- 
 strously sincere. 
 
 " The deuce ! " said Prince Saradine, and clapping 
 on his white hat he went to the front door himself, 
 flinging it open on the sunset garden. 
 
 216 
 
THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 By that time the new-comer and his followers 
 were drawn up on the lawn like a small stage army. 
 The six boatmen had pulled the boat well up on 
 shore, and were guarding it almost menacingly, 
 holding their oars erect like spears. They were 
 swarthy men, and some of them wore earrings. 
 But one of them stood forward beside the olive- 
 faced young man in the red waistcoat, and carried 
 a large black case of unfamiliar form. 
 
 " Your name," said the young man, " is Sara- 
 dine?" 
 
 Saradine assented rather negligently. 
 
 The new-comer had dull, dog-like brown eyes, 
 as different as possible from the restless and glit- 
 tering grey eyes of the prince. But once again 
 Father Brown was tortured with a sense of having 
 seen somewhere a replica of the face; and once 
 again he remembered the repetitions of the glass- 
 panelled room, and put down the coincidence to that. 
 " Confound this crystal palace ! " he muttered. 
 " One sees everything too many times. It's like a 
 dream." 
 
 " If you are Prince Saradine," said the young 
 man, " I may tell you that my name is Antonelli." 
 
 " Antonelli," repeated the prince languidly. 
 " Somehow I remember the name." 
 
 " Permit me to present myself," said the young 
 Italian. 
 
 With his left hand he politely took off his old- 
 fashioned top hat; with his right he caught Prince 
 
 217 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 Saradine so ringing a crack across the face that the 
 white top hat rolled down the steps and one of the 
 blue flower-pots rocked upon its pedestal. 
 
 The prince, whatever he was, was evidently not 
 a coward; he sprang at his enemy's throat and al- 
 most bore him backwards to the grass. But his 
 enemy extricated himself with a singularly inap- 
 propriate air of hurried politeness. 
 
 "That is all right," he said, panting and in 
 halting English. "I have insulted. I will give 
 satisfaction. Marco, open the case." 
 
 The man beside him with the earrings and the 
 big black case proceeded to unlock it. He took 
 out of it two long Italian rapiers, with splendid 
 steel hilts and blades, which he planted point down- 
 wards in the lawn. The strange young man stand- 
 ing facing the entrance with his yellow and 
 vindictive face, the two swords standing up in the 
 turf like two crosses in a cemetery, and the line of 
 the ranked towers behind, gave it all an odd ap- 
 pearance of being some barbaric court of justice. 
 But everything else was unchanged, so sudden had 
 been the interruption. The sunset gold still 
 glowed on the lawn, and the bittern still boomed 
 as announcing some small but dreadful destiny. 
 
 " Prince Saradine," said the man called Antonelli, 
 " when I was an infant in the cradle you killed 
 my father and stole my mother ; my father was the 
 more fortunate. You did not kill him fairly, as I 
 am going to kill you. You and my wicked mother 
 
 218 
 
THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 took him driving to a lonely pass in Sicily, flung 
 him down a cliff, and went on your way. I could 
 imitate you if I chose, but imitating you is too vile. 
 I have followed you all over the world, and you 
 have always fled from me. But this is the end of 
 the world — and of you. I have you now, and I 
 give you the chance you never gave my father. 
 Choose one of those swords." 
 
 Prince Saradine, with contracted brows, seemed 
 to hesitate a moment, but his ears were still singing 
 with the blow, and he sprang forward and snatched 
 at one of the hilts. Father Brown had also sprung 
 forward, striving to compose the dispute; but he 
 soon found his personal presence made matters 
 worse. Saradine was a French freemason and a 
 fierce atheist, and a priest moved him by the law of 
 contraries. And for the other man neither priest 
 nor layman moved him at all. This young man 
 with the Bonaparte face and the brown eyes was 
 something far sterner than a puritan — a pagan. 
 He was a simple slayer from the morning of the 
 earth ; a man of the stone age — a man of stone. 
 
 One hope remained, the summoning of the house- 
 hold; and Father Brown ran back into the house. 
 He found, however, that all the under servants had 
 been given a holiday ashore by the autocrat Paul, 
 and that only the sombre Mrs. Anthony moved un- 
 easily about the long rooms. But the moment she 
 turned a ghastly face upon him, he resolved one 
 of the riddles of the house of mirrors. The heavy 
 
 219 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 brown eyes of Antonelli were the heavy brown eyes 
 of Mrs. Anthony; and in a flash he saw half the 
 story. 
 
 " Your son is outside," he said without wasting- 
 words ; " either he or the prince will be killed. 
 Where is Mr. Paul?" 
 
 " He is at the landing-stage," said the woman 
 faintly. " He is — he is — signalling for help." 
 
 " Mrs. Anthony," said Father Brown seriously, 
 " there is no time for nonsense. My friend has his 
 boat down the river fishing. Your son's boat is 
 guarded by your son's men. There is only this one 
 canoe; what is Mr. Paul doing with it? " 
 
 " Santa Maria! I do not know," she said; and 
 swooned all her length on the matted floor. 
 
 Father Brown lifted her to a sofa, flung a pot of 
 water over her, shouted for help, and then rushed 
 down to the landing-stage of the little island. But 
 the canoe was already in mid-stream, and old Paul 
 was pulling and pushing it up the river with an 
 energy incredible at his years. 
 
 " I will save my master," he cried, his eyes blaz- 
 ing maniacally. " I will save him yet ! " 
 
 Father Brown could do nothing but gaze after the 
 boat as it struggled up-stream and pray that the old 
 man might waken the little town in time. 
 
 " A duel is bad enough," he muttered, rubbing 
 up his rough dust-coloured hair, " but there's some- 
 thing wrong about this duel, even as a duel. I feel 
 it in my bones. But what can it be ? " 
 
 220 
 
THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 As he stood staring at the water, a wavering 
 mirror of sunset, he heard from the other end of the 
 island garden a small but unmistakable sound — the 
 cold concussion of steel. He turned his head. 
 
 Away on the farthest cape or headland of the 
 long islet, on a strip of turf beyond the last rank 
 of roses, the duellists had already crossed swords. 
 Evening above them was a dome of virgin gold, 
 and, distant as they were, every detail was picked 
 out. They had cast off their coats, but the yellow 
 waistcoat and white hair of Saradine, the red waist- 
 coat and white trousers of Antonelli, glittered in 
 the level light like the colours of the dancing clock- 
 work dolls. The two swords sparkled from point 
 to pommel like two diamond pins. There was 
 something frightful in the two figures appearing 
 so little and so gay. They looked like two butter- 
 flies trying to pin each other to a cork. 
 
 Father Brown ran as hard as he could, his little 
 legs going like a wheel. But when he came to the 
 field of combat he found he was both too late and 
 too early — too late to stop the strife, under the 
 shadow of the grim Sicilians leaning on their oars, 
 and too early to anticipate any disastrous issue of 
 it. For the two men were singularly well matched, 
 the prince using his skill with a sort of cynical con- 
 fidence, the Sicilian using his with a murderous 
 care. Few finer fencing matches can ever have 
 been seen in crowded amphitheatres than that which 
 tinkled and sparkled on that forgotten island in 
 
 221 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 the reedy river. The dizzy fight was balanced so 
 long that hope began to revive in the protesting 
 priest; by all common probability Paul must soon 
 come back with the police. It would be some com- 
 fort even if Flambeau came back from his fishing, 
 for Flambeau, physically speaking, was*worth four 
 other men. But there was no sign of Flambeau, 
 and, what was much queerer, no sign of Paul or the 
 police. No other raft or stick was left to float on ; 
 in that lost island in that vast nameless pool, they 
 were cut off as on a rock in the Pacific. 
 
 Almost as he had the thought the ringing of the 
 rapiers quickened to a rattle, the prince's arms flew 
 up, and the point shot out behind between his shoul- 
 der-blades. He went over with a great whirling 
 movement, almost like one throwing the half of 
 a boy's cart-wheel. The sword flew from his hand 
 like a shooting star, and dived into the distant river. 
 And he himself sank with so earth-shaking a sub- 
 sidence that he broke a big rose-tree with his body 
 and shook up into the sky a cloud of red earth — 
 like the smoke of some heathen sacrifice. The Si- 
 cilian had made blood-offering to the ghost of his 
 father. 
 
 The priest was instantly on his knees by the 
 corpse; but only to make too sure that it was a 
 corpse. As he was still trying some last hopeless 
 tests he heard for the first time voices from farther 
 up the river, and saw a police boat shoot up to the 
 landing-stage, with constables and other important 
 
 222 
 
THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 people, including the excited Paul. The little priest 
 rose with a distinctly dubious grimace. 
 
 " Now, why on earth," he muttered, " why on 
 earth couldn't he have come before ? " 
 
 Some seven minutes later the island was occupied 
 by an invasion of townsfolk and police, and the 
 latter had put their hands on the victorious duellist, 
 ritually reminding him that anything he said might 
 be used against him. 
 
 " I shall not say anything," said the mono- 
 maniac, with a wonderful and peaceful face. " I 
 shah never say anything more. I am very happy, 
 and I only want to be hanged." 
 
 Then he shut his mouth as they led him away, 
 and it is the strange but certain truth that he never 
 opened it again in this world, except to say 
 " Guilty " at his trial. 
 
 Father Brown had stared at the suddenly 
 crowded garden, the arrest of the man of blood, 
 the carrying away of the corpse after its examina- 
 tion by the doctor, rather as one watches the break- 
 up of some ugly dream; he was motionless, like a 
 man in a nightmare. He gave his name and ad- 
 dress as a witness, but declined their offer of a boat 
 to the shore, and remained alone in the island gar- 
 den, gazing at the broken rose bush and the whole 
 green theatre of that swift and inexplicable tragedy. 
 The light died along the river; mist rose in the 
 marshy banks; a few belated birds flitted fitfully 
 
 across. 
 
 223 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 Stuck stubbornly in his sub-consciousness (which 
 was an unusually lively one) was an unspeakable 
 certainty that there was something still unex- 
 plained. This sense that had clung to him all day 
 could not be fully explained by his fancy about 
 "looking-glass land." Somehow he had not seen 
 the real story, but some game or masque. And 
 yet people do not get hanged or run through the 
 body for the sake of a charade. 
 
 As he sat on the steps of the landing-stage ru- 
 minating he grew conscious of the tall, dark streak 
 of a sail coming silently down the shining river, 
 and sprang to his feet with such a backrush of feel- 
 ing that he almost wept. 
 
 " Flambeau ! " he cried, and shook his friend by 
 both hands again and again, much to the astonish- 
 ment of that sportsman, as he came on shore with 
 his fishing tackle. " Flambeau," he said, " so 
 you're not killed ? " 
 
 " Killed ! " repeated the angler in great aston- 
 ishment. " And why should I be killed ? " 
 
 " Oh, because nearly everybody else is," said his 
 companion rather wildly. " Saradine got • mur- 
 dered, and Antonelli wants to be hanged, and his 
 mother's fainted, and I, for one, don't know 
 whether I'm in this world or the next. But, thank 
 God, you're in the same one." And he took the 
 bewildered Flambeau's arm. 
 
 As they turned from the landing-stage they came 
 under the eaves of the low bamboo house, and looked 
 
 224 
 
THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 in through one of the windows, as they had done 
 on their first arrival, They beheld a lamp-lit inte- 
 rior well calculated to arrest their eyes. The table 
 in the long dining-room had been laid for dinner 
 when Saradine's destroyer had fallen like a storm- 
 bolt on the island. And the dinner was now in 
 placid progress, for Mrs. Anthony sat somewhat 
 sullenly at the foot of the table, while at the head 
 of it was Mr. Paul, the major domo, eating and 
 drinking of the best, his bleared, bluish eyes stand- 
 ing queerly out of his face, his gaunt countenance 
 inscrutable, but by no means devoid of satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 With a gesture of powerful impatience, Flambeau 
 rattled at the window, wrenched it open, and put an 
 indignant head into the lamp-lit room. 
 
 " Well," he cried. " I can understand you may 
 need some refreshment, but really to steal your mas- 
 ter's dinner while he lies murdered in the gar- 
 den " 
 
 " I have stolen a great many things in a long and 
 pleasant, life," replied the strange old gentleman 
 placidly ; " this dinner is one of the few things I 
 have not stolen. This dinner and this house and 
 garden happen to belong to me." 
 
 A thought flashed across Flambeau's face. 
 " You mean to say," he began, " that the will of 
 Prince Saradine " 
 
 " I am Prince Saradine," said the old man, 
 munching a salted almond. 
 15 225 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 Father Brown, who was looking at the birds 
 outside, jumped as if he were shot, and put in at 
 the window a pale face like a turnip. 
 
 " You are what? " he repeated in a shrill voice. 
 
 " Paul, Prince Saradine, a vos ordres," said the 
 venerable person politely, lifting a glass of sherry. 
 " I live here very quietly, being a domestic kind of 
 fellow; and for the sake of modesty I am called 
 Mr. Paul, to distinguish me from my unfortunate 
 brother Mr. Stephen. He died, I hear, recently — 
 in the garden. Of course, it is not my fault if 
 enemies pursue him to this place. It is owing to 
 the regrettable irregularity of his life. He was not 
 a domestic character." 
 
 He relapsed into silence, and continued to gaze 
 at the opposite wall just above the bowed and 
 sombre head of the woman. They saw plainly the 
 family likeness that had haunted them in the dead 
 man. Then his old shoulders began to heave and 
 shake a little, as if he were choking, but his face did 
 not alter. 
 
 " My God! " cried Flambeau after a pause, " he's 
 laughing! " 
 
 " Come away," said Father Brown, who was 
 quite white. " Come away from this house of hell. 
 Let us get into an honest boat again." 
 
 Night had sunk on rushes and river by the time 
 they had pushed off from the island, and they went 
 down-stream in the dark, warming themselves with 
 two big cigars that glowed like crimson ships' lan- 
 
 226 
 
THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 terns. Father Brown took his cigar out of his 
 mouth and said: 
 
 " I suppose you can guess the whole story now ? 
 After all, it's a primitive story. A man had two 
 enemies. He was a wise man. And so he discov- 
 ered that two enemies are better than one." 
 
 " I do not follow that," answered Flambeau. 
 
 " Oh, it's really simple," rejoined his friend. 
 " Simple, though anything but innocent. Both the 
 Saradines were scamps, but the prince, the elder, 
 was the sort of scamp that gets to the top, and the 
 younger, the captain, was the sort that sinks to the 
 bottom. This squalid officer fell from beggar to 
 blackmailer, and one ugly day he got his hold upon 
 his brother, the prince. Obviously it was for no 
 light matter, for Prince Paul Saradine was frankly 
 * fast,' and had no reputation to lose as to the mere 
 sins of society. In plain fact, it was a hanging 
 matter, and Stephen literally had a rope round his 
 brother's neck. He had somehow discovered the 
 truth about the Sicilian affair, and could prove that 
 Paul murdered old Antonelli in the mountains. 
 The captain raked in the hush money heavily for 
 ten years, until even the prince's splendid fortune 
 began to look a little foolish. 
 
 " But Prince Saradine bore another burden be- 
 sides his blood-sucking brother. He knew that the 
 son of Antonelli, a mere child at the time of the 
 murder, had been trained in savage Sicilian loyalty, 
 and lived only to avenge his father, not with the 
 
 227 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 gibbet (for he lacked Stephen's legal proof), but 
 with the old weapons of vendetta. The boy had 
 practised arms with a deadly perfection, and about 
 the time that he was old enough to use them Prince 
 Saradine began, as the society papers said, to travel. 
 The fact is that he began to flee for his life, passing 
 from place to place like a hunted criminal ; but with 
 one relentless man upon his trail. That was Prince 
 Paul's position, and by no means a pretty one. The 
 more money he spent on eluding Antonelli the less 
 he had to silence Stephen. The more he gave to 
 silence Stephen the less chance there was of finally 
 escaping Antonelli. Then it was that he showed 
 himself a great man — a genius like Napoleon. 
 
 " Instead of resisting his two antagonists, he 
 surrendered suddenly to both of them. He gave 
 way like a Japanese wrestler, and his foes fell pros- 
 trate before him. He gave up the race round the 
 world, and he gave up his address to young An- 
 tonelli; then he gave up everything to his brother. 
 He sent Stephen money enough for smart clothes 
 and easy travel, with a letter saying roughly: 
 ' This is all I have left. You have cleaned me out. 
 I still have a little house in Norfolk, with servants 
 and a cellar, and if you want more from me you 
 must take that. Come and take possession if you 
 like, and I will live there quietly as your friend or 
 agent or anything.' He knew that the Sicilian had 
 never seen the Saradine brothers save, perhaps, in 
 
 228 
 
THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 pictures; he knew they were somewhat alike, both 
 having grey, pointed beards. Then he shaved his 
 own face and waited. The trap worked. The un- 
 happy captain, in his new clothes, entered the house 
 in triumph as a prince, and walked upon the Sicilian's 
 sword. 
 
 " There was one hitch, and it is to the honour 
 of human nature. Evil spirits like Saradine often 
 blunder by never expecting the virtues of mankind. 
 He took it for granted that the Italian's blow, when 
 it came, would be dark, violent and nameless, like 
 the blow it avenged; that the victim would be 
 knifed at night, or shot from behind a hedge, and 
 so die without speech. It was a bad minute for 
 Prince Paul when Antonelli's chivalry proposed a 
 formal duel, with all its possible explanations. It 
 was then that I found him putting off in his boat 
 with wild eyes. He was fleeing, bareheaded, in an 
 open boat before Antonelli should learn who he was. 
 
 " But, however agitated, he was not hopeless. 
 He knew the adventurer and he knew the fanatic. 
 It was quite probable that Stephen, the adventurer, 
 would hold his tongue, through his mere histrionic 
 pleasure in playing a part, his lust for clinging to 
 his new cosy quarters, his rascal's trust in luck, and 
 his fine fencing. It was certain that Antonelli, the 
 fanatic, would hold his tongue, and be hanged 
 without telling tales of his family. Paul hung about 
 on the river till he knew the fight was over. Then 
 
 229 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 he roused the town, brought the police, saw his two 
 vanquished enemies taken away forever, and sat 
 down smiling to his dinner." 
 
 " Laughing, God help us ! " said Flambeau with 
 a strong shudder. " Do they get such ideas from 
 Satan?" 
 
 " He got that idea from you," answered the priest. 
 
 "God forbid!" ejaculated Flambeau. "From 
 me ? What do you mean ? " 
 
 The priest pulled a visiting-card from his pocket 
 and held it up in the faint glow of his cigar; it was 
 scrawled with green ink. 
 
 " Don't you remember his original invitation to 
 you ? " he asked, " and the compliment to your crim- 
 inal exploit? 'That trick of yours,' he says, 'of 
 getting one detective to arrest the other ? ' He has 
 just copied your trick. With an enemy on each 
 side of him, he slipped swiftly out of the way and 
 let them collide and kill each other." 
 
 Flambeau tore Prince Saradine's card from the 
 priest's hands and rent it savagely in small pieces. 
 
 " There's the last of that old skull and cross- 
 bones," he said as he scattered the pieces upon the 
 dark and disappearing waves of the stream ; " but 
 I should think it would poison the fishes." 
 
 The last gleam of white card and green ink was 
 drowned and darkened; a faint and vibrant colour 
 as of morning changed the sky, and the moon be- 
 hind the grasses grew paler. They drifted in 
 silence. 
 
 230 
 
THE SINS OF PRINCE SARADINE 
 
 " Father," said Flambeau suddenly, " do you 
 think it was all a dream ? " 
 
 The priest shook his head, whether in dissent or 
 agnosticism, but remained mute. A smell of haw- 
 thorn and of orchards came to them through the 
 darkness, telling them that a wind was awake; the 
 next moment it swayed their little boat and swelled 
 their sail, and carried them onward down the wind- 
 ing river to happier places and the homes of harm- 
 less men. 
 
 231 
 
IX 
 
 THE HAMMER OF GOD 
 
 The little village of Bohun Beacon was perched on 
 a hill so steep that the tall spire of its church seemed 
 only like the peak of a small mountain. At the 
 foot of the church stood a smithy, generally red 
 with fires and always littered with hammers and 
 scraps of iron; opposite to this, over a rude cross 
 of cobbled paths, was " The Blue Boar," the only 
 inn of the place. It was upon this crossway, in the 
 lifting of a leaden and silver daybreak, that two 
 brothers met in the street and spoke; though one 
 was beginning the day and the other finishing it. 
 The Rev. and Hon. Wilfred Bohun was very de- 
 vout, and was making his way to some austere 
 exercises of prayer or contemplation at dawn. 
 Colonel the Hon. Norman Bohun, his elder brother, 
 was by no means devout, and was sitting in evening 
 dress on the bench outside " The Blue Boar," drink- 
 ing what the philosophic observer was free to regard 
 either as his last glass on Tuesday or his first on 
 Wednesday. The colonel was not particular. 
 
 The Bohuns were one of the very few aristo- 
 cratic families really dating from the Middle Ages, 
 
 232 
 
THE HAMMER OF GOD 
 
 and their pennon had actually seen Palestine. But 
 it is a great mistake to suppose that such houses 
 stand high in chivalric tradition. Few except the 
 poor preserve traditions. Aristocrats live not in 
 traditions but in fashions. The Bohuns had been 
 Mohocks under Queen Anne and Mashers under 
 Queen Victoria. But like more than one of the 
 really ancient houses, they had rotted in the last 
 two centuries into mere drunkards and dandy de- 
 generates, till there had even come a whisper of 
 insanity. Certainly there was something hardly 
 human about the colonel's wolfish pursuit of pleas- 
 ure, and his chronic resolution not to go home till 
 morning had a touch of the hideous clarity of in- 
 somnia. He was a tall, fine animal, elderly, but 
 with hair still startlingly yellow. He would have 
 looked merely blonde, and leonine, but his blue eyes 
 were sunk so deep in his face that they looked 
 black. They were a little too close together. He 
 had very long yellow moustaches; on each side of 
 them a fold or furrow from nostril to jaw, so that 
 a sneer seemed cut into his face. Over his evening 
 clothes he wore a curious pale yellow coat that 
 looked more like a very light dressing gown than 
 an overcoat, and on the back of his head was stuck 
 an extraordinary broad-brimmed hat of a bright 
 green colour, evidently some oriental curiosity 
 caught up at random. He was proud of appearing 
 in such incongruous attires — proud of the fact that 
 he always made them look congruous. 
 
 233 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 His brother the curate had also the yellow hair 
 and the elegance, but he was buttoned up to the chin 
 in black, and his face was clean-shaven, cultivated, 
 and a little nervous. He seemed to live for nothing 
 but his religion; but there were some who said 
 (notably the blacksmith, who was a Presbyterian) 
 that it was a love of Gothic architecture rather than 
 of God, and that his haunting of the church like a 
 ghost was only another and purer turn of the almost 
 morbid thirst for beauty which sent his brother 
 raging after women and wine. This charge was 
 doubtful, while the man's practical piety was in- 
 dubitable. Indeed, the charge was mostly an ig- 
 norant misunderstanding of the love of solitude and 
 secret prayer, and was founded on his being often 
 found kneeling, not before the altar, but in peculiar 
 places, in the crypts or gallery, or even in the belfry. 
 He was at the moment about to enter the church 
 through the yard of the smithy, but stopped and 
 frowned a little as he saw his brother's cavernous 
 eyes staring in the same direction. On the hy- 
 pothesis that the colonel was interested in the church 
 he did not waste any speculations. There only re- 
 mained the blacksmith's shop, and though the black- 
 smith was a Puritan and none of his people, 
 Wilfred Bohun had heard some scandals about a 
 beautiful and rather celebrated wife. He flung a 
 suspicious look across the shed, and the colonel 
 stood up laughing to speak to him. 
 
 " Good morning, Wilfred," he said. " Like a 
 234 
 
THE HAMMER OF GOD 
 
 good landlord I am watching sleeplessly over my 
 people. I am going to call on the blacksmith." 
 
 Wilfred looked at the ground, and said : " The 
 blacksmith is out. He is over at Greenford." 
 
 " I know," answered the other with silent laugh- 
 ter; " that is why I am calling on him." 
 
 " Norman," said the cleric, with his eye on a 
 pebble in the road, " are you ever afraid of thunder- 
 bolts?" 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked the colonel. "Is 
 your hobby meteorology ? " 
 
 " I mean," said Wilfred, without looking up, 
 " do you ever think that God might strike you in 
 the street?" 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said the colonel ; " I see 
 your hobby is folk-lore." 
 
 " I know your hobby is blasphemy," retorted the 
 religious man, stung in the one live place of his 
 nature. " But if you do not fear God, you have 
 good reason to fear man." 
 
 The elder raised his eyebrows politely. " Fear 
 man ? " he said. 
 
 " Barnes the blacksmith is the biggest and strong- 
 est man for forty miles round," said the clergyman 
 sternly. " I know you are no coward or weakling, 
 but he could throw you over the wall." 
 
 This struck home, being true, and the lowering 
 line by mouth and nostril darkened and deepened. 
 For a moment he stood with the heavy sneer on 
 his face. But in an instant Colonel Bohun had 
 
 235 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 recovered his own cruel good humour and laughed, 
 showing two dog-like front teeth under his yellow 
 moustache. " In that case, my dear Wilfred," he 
 said quite carelessly, " it was wise for the last of the 
 Bohuns to come out partially in armour." 
 
 And he took off the queer round hat covered with 
 green, showing that it was lined within with steel. 
 Wilfred recognised it indeed as a light Japanese or 
 Chinese helmet torn down from a trophy that hung 
 in the old family hall. 
 
 " It was the first hat to hand," explained his 
 brother airily ; " always the nearest hat — and the 
 nearest woman." 
 
 " The blacksmith is away at Greenford," said 
 Wilfred quietly; "the time of his return is un- 
 settled." 
 
 And with that he turned and went into the church 
 with bowed head, crossing himself like one who 
 wishes to be quit of an unclean spirit. He was 
 anxious to forget such grossness in the cool twilight 
 of his tall Gothic cloisters; but on that morning it 
 was fated that his still round of religious exercises 
 should be everywhere arrested by small shocks. As 
 he entered the church, hitherto always empty at that 
 hour, a kneeling figure rose hastily to its feet and 
 came towards the full daylight of the doorway. 
 When the curate saw it he stood still with surprise. 
 For the early worshipper was none other than the 
 village idiot, a nephew of the blacksmith, one who 
 neither would nor could care for the church or for 
 
 236 
 
THE HAMMER OF GOD 
 
 anything else. He was always called " Mad Joe," 
 and seemed to have no other name ; he was a dark, 
 strong, slouching lad, with a heavy white face, dark 
 straight hair, and a mouth always open. As he 
 passed the priest, his moon-calf countenance gave 
 no hint of what he had been doing or thinking of. 
 He had never been known to pray before. What 
 sort of prayers was he saying now ? Extraordinary 
 prayers surely. 
 
 Wilfred Bohun stood rooted to the spot long 
 enough to see the idiot go out into the sunshine, 
 and even to see his dissolute brother hail him with 
 a sort of avuncular jocularity. The last thing he 
 saw was the colonel throwing pennies at the open 
 mouth of Joe, with the serious appearance of trying 
 to hit it. 
 
 This ugly sunlight picture of the stupidity and 
 cruelty of the earth sent the ascetic finally to his 
 prayers for purification and new thoughts. He 
 went up to a pew in the gallery, which brought him 
 under a coloured window which he loved and al- 
 ways quieted his spirit ; a blue window with an angel 
 carrying lilies. There he began to think less about 
 the half-wit, with his livid face and mouth like a 
 fish. He began to think less of his evil brother, 
 pacing like a lean lion in his horrible hunger. He 
 sank deeper and deeper into those cold and sweet 
 colours of silver blossoms and sapphire sky. 
 
 In this place half an hour afterwards he was 
 found by Gibbs, the village cobbler, who had been 
 
 237 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 sent for him in some haste. He got to his feet with 
 promptitude, for he knew that no small matter 
 would have brought Gibbs into such a place at all. 
 The cobbler was, as in many villages, an atheist, 
 and his appearance in church was a shade more ex- 
 traordinary than Mad Joe's. It was a morning 
 of theological enigmas. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Wilfred Bohun rather 
 stiffly, but putting out a trembling hand for his hat. 
 
 The atheist spoke in a tone that, coming from 
 him, was quite startlingly respectful, and even, as 
 it were, huskily sympathetic. 
 
 " You must excuse me, sir," he said in a hoarse 
 whisper, " but we didn't think it right not to let 
 you know at once. I'm afraid a rather dreadful 
 thing has happened, sir. I'm afraid your 
 brother " 
 
 Wilfred clenched his frail hands. " What dev- 
 ilry has he done now ? " he cried in involuntary 
 passion. 
 
 " Why, sir," said the cobbler, coughing, " I'm 
 afraid he's done nothing, and won't do anything. 
 I'm afraid he's done for. You had really better 
 come down, sir." 
 
 The curate followed the cobbler down a short 
 winding stair which brought them out at an en- 
 trance rather higher than the street. Bohun saw 
 the tragedy in one glance, flat underneath him like a 
 plan. In the yard of the smithy were standing five 
 or six men mostly in black, one in an inspector's 
 
 238 
 
THE HAMMER OF GOD 
 
 uniform. They included the doctor, the Presbyte- 
 rian minister, and the priest from the Roman Cath- 
 olic chapel, to which the blacksmith's wife belonged. 
 The latter was speaking to her, indeed, very rapidly, 
 in an undertone, as she, a magnificent woman with 
 red-gold hair, was sobbing blindly on a bench. 
 Between these two groups, and just clear of the 
 main heap of hammers, lay a man in evening dress, 
 spread-eagled and flat on his face. From the height 
 above Wilfred could have sworn to every item of 
 his costume and appearance, down to the Bohun 
 rings upon his fingers; but the skull was only a 
 hideous splash, like a star of blackness and blood. 
 
 Wilfred Bohun gave but one glance, and ran 
 down the steps into the yard. The doctor, who 
 was the family physician, saluted him, but he 
 scarcely took any notice. He could only stammer 
 out : " My brother is dead. What does it mean ? 
 What is this horrible mystery?" There was an 
 unhappy silence; and then the cobbler, the most 
 outspoken man present, answered : " Plenty of 
 horror, sir," he said; "but not much mystery." 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked Wilfred, with a 
 white face. 
 
 " It's plain enough," answered Gibbs. " There is 
 only one man for forty miles round that could have 
 struck such a blow as that, and he's the man that 
 had most reason to." 
 
 "We must not prejudge anything," put in the 
 doctor, a tall, black-bearded man, rather nervously ; 
 
 239 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 " but it is competent for me to corroborate what 
 Mr. Gibbs says about the nature of the blow, sir; 
 it is an incredible blow. Mr. Gibbs says that only 
 one man in this district could have done it. I 
 should have said myself that nobody could have 
 done it." 
 
 A shudder of superstition went through the slight 
 figure of the curate. " I can hardly understand," 
 he said. 
 
 " Mr. Bohun," said the doctor in a low voice, 
 "metaphors literally fail me. It is inadequate to 
 say that the skull was smashed to bits like an egg- 
 shell. Fragments of bone were driven into the 
 body and the ground like bullets into a mud wall. 
 It was the hand of a giant." 
 
 He was silent a moment, looking grimly through 
 his glasses ; then he added : " The thing has one 
 advantage — that it clears most people of suspicion 
 at one stroke. If you or I or any normally made 
 man in the country were accused of this crime, we 
 should be acquitted as an infant would be acquitted 
 of stealing the Nelson column." 
 
 " That's what I say," repeated the cobbler obsti- 
 nately ; " there's only one man that could have done 
 it, and he's the man that would have done it. 
 .Where's Simeon Barnes, the blacksmith ? " 
 
 " He's over at Greenford," faltered the curate. 
 
 " More likely over in France," muttered the cob- 
 bler. 
 
 "No; he is in neither of those places," said a 
 240 
 
THE HAMMER OF GOD 
 
 small and colourless voice, which came from the 
 little Roman priest who had joined the group. " As 
 a matter of fact, he is coming up the road at this 
 moment." 
 
 The little priest was not an interesting man to 
 look at, having stubbly brown hair and a round and 
 stolid face. But if he had been as splendid as 
 Apollo no one would have looked at him at that 
 moment. Everyone turned round and peered at the 
 pathway which wound across the plain below, along 
 which was indeed walking, at his own huge stride 
 and with a hammer on his shoulder, Simeon the 
 smith. He was a bony and gigantic man, with deep, 
 dark, sinister eyes and a dark chin beard. He was 
 walking and talking quietly with two other men; 
 and though he was never specially cheerful, he 
 seemed quite at his ease. 
 
 " My God ! " cried the atheistic cobbler, " and 
 there's the hammer he did it with." 
 
 " No," said the inspector, a sensible-looking man 
 with a sandy moustache, speaking for the first time. 
 " There's the hammer he did it with over there by 
 the church wall. We have left it and the body ex- 
 actly as they are." 
 
 All glanced round and the short priest went across 
 and looked down in silence at the tool where it lay. 
 It was one of the smallest and the lightest of the 
 hammers, and would not have caught the eye among 
 the rest; but on the iron edge of it were blood and 
 yellow hair. 
 
 16 241 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 After a silence the short priest spoke without 
 looking up, and there was a new note in his dull 
 voice. " Mr. Gibbs was hardly right," he said, " in 
 saying that there is no mystery. There is at least 
 the mystery of why so big a man should attempt so 
 big a blow with so little a hammer." 
 
 " Oh, never mind that," cried Gibbs, in a fever. 
 " What are we to do with Simeon Barnes ? " 
 
 " Leave him alone," said the priest quietly. 
 " He is coming here of himself. I know those two 
 men with him. They are very good fellows from 
 Greenford, and they have come over about the 
 Presbyterian chapel." 
 
 Even as he spoke the tall smith swung round the 
 corner of the church, and strode into his own yard. 
 Then he stood there quite still, and the hammer fell 
 from his hand. The inspector, who had preserved 
 impenetrable propriety, immediately went up to him. 
 
 " I won't ask you, Mr. Barnes," he said, 
 " whether you know anything about what has hap- 
 pened here. You are not bound to say. I hope 
 you don't know, and that you will be able to prove 
 it. But I must go through the form of arresting 
 you in the King's name for the murder of Colonel 
 Norman Bohun." 
 
 " You are not bound to say anything," said the 
 cobbler in officious excitement. "They've got to 
 prove everything. They haven't proved yet that it 
 is Colonel Bohun, with the head all smashed up 
 like that." 
 
 242 
 
THE HAMMER OF GOD 
 
 " That won't wash," said the doctor aside to the 
 priest. " That's out of the detective stories. I was 
 the colonel's medical man, and I knew his body- 
 better than he did. He had very fine hands, but 
 quite peculiar ones. The second and third fingers 
 were the same length. Oh, that's the colonel right 
 enough." 
 
 As he glanced at the brained corpse upon the 
 ground the iron eyes of the motionless blacksmith 
 followed them and rested there also. 
 
 " Is Colonel Bohun dead ? " said the smith quite 
 calmly. " Then he's damned." 
 
 " Don't say anything ! Oh, don't say anything," 
 cried the atheist cobbler, dancing about in an ecstasy 
 of admiration of the English legal system. For no 
 man is such a legalist as the good Secularist. 
 
 The blacksmith turned on him over his shoulder 
 the august face of a fanatic. 
 
 " It's well for you infidels to dodge like foxes 
 because the world's law favours you," he said; 
 " but God guards His own in His pocket, as you 
 shall see this day." 
 
 Then he pointed to the colonel and said: 
 " When did this dog die in his sins ? " 
 
 " Moderate your language," said the doctor. 
 
 " Moderate the Bible's language, and I'll mode- 
 rate mine. When did he die ? " 
 
 " I saw him alive at six o'clock this morning," 
 stammered Wilfred Bohun. 
 
 " God is good," said the smith. " Mr. Inspector, 
 243 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 I have not the slightest objection to being arrested. 
 It is you who may object to arresting me. I don't 
 mind leaving the court without a stain on my charac- 
 ter. You do mind perhaps leaving the court with 
 a bad set-back in your career." 
 
 The solid inspector for the first time looked at 
 the blacksmith with a lively eye; as did everybody 
 else, except the short, strange priest, who was still 
 looking down at the little hammer that had dealt 
 the dreadful blow. 
 
 " There are two men standing outside this shop," 
 went on the blacksmith with ponderous lucidity, 
 " good tradesmen in Greenford whom you all 
 know, who will swear that they saw me from before 
 midnight till daybreak and long after in the com- 
 mittee-room of our Revival Mission, which sits all 
 night, we save souls so fast. In Greenford itself 
 twenty people could swear to me for all that time. 
 If I were a heathen, Mr. Inspector, I would let 
 you walk on to your downfall. But as a Christian 
 man I feel bound to give you your chance, and ask 
 you whether you will hear my alibi now or in court." 
 
 The inspector seemed for the first time disturbed, 
 and said, " Of course I should be glad to clear you 
 altogether now." 
 
 The smith walked out of his yard with the same 
 long and easy stride, and returned to his two friends 
 from Greenford, who were indeed friends of nearly 
 everyone present. Each of them said a few words 
 which no one ever thought of disbelieving. When 
 
 244 
 
THE HAMMER OF GOD 
 
 they had spoken, the innocence of Simeon stood 
 up as solid as the great church above them. 
 
 One of those silences struck the group which 
 are more strange and insufferable than any speech. 
 Madly, in order to make conversation, the curate 
 said to the Catholic priest : 
 
 " You seem very much interested in that ham- 
 mer, Father Brown." 
 
 " Yes, I am," said Father Brown; " why is it such 
 a small hammer? " 
 
 The doctor swung round on him. 
 
 " By George, that's true," he cried ; " who would 
 use a little hammer with ten larger hammers lying 
 about?" 
 
 Then he lowered his voice in the curate's ear 
 and said : " Only the kind of person that can't 
 lift a large hammer. It is not a question of force 
 or courage between the sexes. It's a question of 
 lifting power in the shoulders. A bold woman 
 could commit ten murders with a light hammer and 
 never turn a hair. She could not kill a beetle with 
 a heavy one." 
 
 Wilfred Bohun was staring at him with a sort 
 of hypnotised horror, while Father Brown listened 
 with his head a little on one side, really interested 
 and attentive. The doctor went on with more hiss- 
 ing emphasis : 
 
 " Why do these idiots always assume that the 
 only person who hates the wife's lover is the wife's 
 husband? Nine times out of ten the person who 
 
 245 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 most hates the wife's lover is the wife. Who knows 
 what insolence or treachery he had shown her — 
 look there?" 
 
 He made a momentary gesture towards the red- 
 haired woman on the bench. She had lifted her 
 head at last and the tears were drying on her 
 splendid face. But the eyes were fixed on the 
 corpse with an electric glare that had in it some- 
 thing of idiocy. 
 
 The Rev. Wilfred Bohun made a limp gesture 
 as if waving away all desire to know; but Father 
 Brown, dusting off his sleeve some ashes blown 
 from the furnace, spoke in his indifferent way. 
 
 " You are like so many doctors," he said ; " your 
 mental science is really suggestive. It is your 
 physical science that is utterly impossible. I agree 
 that the woman wants to kill the co-respondent 
 much more than the petitioner does. And I agree 
 that a woman will always pick up a small hammer 
 instead of a big one. But the difficulty is one of 
 physical impossibility. No woman ever born could 
 have smashed a man's skull out flat like that." 
 Then he added reflectively, after a pause : " These 
 people haven't grasped the whole of it. The man 
 was actually wearing an iron helmet, and the blow 
 scattered it like broken glass. Look at that woman. 
 Look at her arms." 
 
 Silence held them all up again, and then the doc- 
 tor said rather sulkily : " Well, I may be wrong ; 
 there are objections to everything. But I stick to 
 
 246 
 
THE HAMMER OF GOD 
 
 the main point. No man but an idiot would pick 
 up that little hammer if he could use a big hammer." 
 
 With that the lean and quivering hands of 
 Wilfred Bohun went up to his head and seemed 
 to clutch his scanty yellow hair. After an instant 
 they dropped, and he cried : " That was the word 
 I wanted ; you have said the word." 
 
 Then he continued, mastering his discomposure: 
 " The words you said were, ' No man but an idiot 
 would pick up the small hammer.' " 
 
 " Yes," said the doctor. " Well ? " 
 
 " Well," said the curate, " no man but an idiot 
 did." The rest stared at him with eyes arrested 
 and riveted, and he went on in a febrile and femi- 
 nine agitation. 
 
 " I am a priest," he cried unsteadily, " and a priest 
 should be no shedder of blood. I — I mean that he 
 should bring no one to the gallows. And I thank 
 God that I see the criminal clearly now — because he 
 is a criminal who cannot be brought to the gal- 
 lows." 
 
 "You will not denounce him ?" inquired the 
 doctor. 
 
 " He would not be hanged if I did denounce 
 him," answered Wilfred with a wild but curiously 
 happy smile. " When I went into the church this 
 morning I found a madman praying there — that 
 poor Joe, who has been wrong all his life. God 
 knows what he prayed; but with such strange folk 
 it is not incredible to suppose that their prayers 
 
 247 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 are all upside down. Very likely a lunatic would 
 pray before killing a man. When I last saw poor 
 Joe he was with my brother. My brother was 
 mocking him." 
 
 " By Jove ! " cried the doctor, " this is talking 
 at last. But how do you explain " 
 
 The Rev. Wilfred was almost trembling with 
 the excitement of his own glimpse of the truth. 
 "Don't you see; don't you see," he cried fever- 
 ishly ; " that is the only theory that covers both 
 the queer things, that answers both the riddles. 
 The two riddles are the little hammer and the big 
 blow. The smith might have struck the big blow, 
 but would not have chosen the little hammer. His 
 wife would have chosen the little hammer, but she 
 could not have struck the big blow. But the mad- 
 man might have done both. As for the little 
 hammer — why, he was mad and might have picked 
 up anything. And for the big blow, have you never 
 heard, doctor, that a maniac in his paroxysm may 
 have the strength of ten men? " 
 
 The doctor drew a deep breath and then said, 
 " By golly, I believe you've got it." 
 
 Father Brown had fixed his eyes on the speaker 
 so long and steadily as to prove that his large grey, 
 ox-like eyes were not quite so insignificant as the 
 rest of his face. When silence had fallen he said 
 with marked respect : " Mr. Bohun, yours is the 
 only theory yet propounded which holds water every- 
 way and is essentially unassailable. I think, there- 
 
 248 
 
THE HAMMER OF GOD 
 
 fore, that you deserve to be told, on my positive 
 knowledge, that it is not the true one." And with 
 that the old little man walked away and stared again 
 at the hammer. 
 
 " That fellow seems to know more than he ought 
 to," whispered the doctor peevishly to Wilfred. 
 " Those popish priests are deucedly sly." 
 
 " No, no," said Bohun, with a sort of wild 
 fatigue. " It was the lunatic. It was the lunatic." 
 
 The group of the two clerics and the doctor had 
 fallen away from the more official group containing 
 the inspector and the man he had arrested. Now, 
 however, that their own party had broken up, they 
 heard voices from the others. The priest looked 
 up quietly and then looked down again as he heard 
 the blacksmith say in a loud voice : 
 
 " I hope I've convinced you, Mr. Inspector. I'm 
 a strong man, as you say, but I couldn't have flung 
 my hammer bang here from Greenford. My 
 hammer hasn't got wings that it should come flying 
 half a mile over hedges and fields." 
 
 The inspector laughed amicably and said : " No, 
 I think you can be considered out of it, though it's 
 one of the rummiest coincidences I ever saw. I 
 can only ask you to give us all the assistance you 
 can in finding a man as big and strong as yourself. 
 By George ! you might be useful, if only to hold him! 
 I suppose you yourself have no guess at the man? " 
 
 " I may have a guess," said the pale smith, " but 
 it is not at a man." Then, seeing the scared eyes 
 
 249 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 turn towards his wife on the bench, he put his huge 
 hand on her shoulder and said : " Nor a woman 
 either." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked the inspector 
 jocularly. " You don't think cows use hammers, 
 do you ? " 
 
 " I think no thing of flesh held that hammer," 
 said the blacksmith in a stifled voice ; " mortally 
 speaking, I think the man died alone." 
 
 Wilfred made a sudden forward movement and 
 peered at him with burning eyes. 
 
 " Do you mean to say, Barnes," came the sharp 
 voice of the cobbler, " that the hammer jumped up 
 of itself and knocked the man down? " 
 
 " Oh, you gentlemen may stare and snigger," 
 cried Simeon ; " you clergymen who tell us on Sun- 
 day in what a stillness the Lord smote Sennacherib. 
 I believe that One who walks invisible in every house 
 defended the honour of mine, and laid the denier 
 dead before the door of it. I believe the force in 
 that blow was just the force there is in earthquakes, 
 and no force less." 
 
 Wilfred said, with a voice utterly undescribable : 
 " I told Norman myself to beware of the thunder- 
 bolt." 
 
 " That agent is outside my jurisdiction," said 
 the inspector with a slight smile. 
 
 " You are not outside His," answered the smith ; 
 " see you to it," and, turning his broad back, he 
 went into the house. 
 
 250 
 
THE HAMMER OF GOD 
 
 The shaken Wilfred was led away by Father 
 Brown, who had an easy and friendly way with 
 him. " Let us get out of this horrid place, Mr. 
 Bohun," he said. " May I look inside your church? 
 I hear it's one of the oldest in England. We take 
 some interest, you know," he added with a comical 
 grimace, " in old English churches." 
 
 Wilfred Bohun did not smile, for humour was 
 never his strong point. But he nodded rather 
 eagerly, being only too ready to explain the Gothic 
 splendours to someone more likely to be sympa- 
 thetic than the Presbyterian blacksmith or the atheist 
 cobbler. 
 
 " By all means," he said ; " let us go in at this 
 side." And he led the way into the high side en- 
 trance at the top of the flight of steps. Father 
 Brown was mounting the first step to follow him 
 when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned 
 to behold the dark, thin figure of the doctor, his 
 face darker yet with suspicion. 
 
 " Sir," said the physician harshly, " you appear 
 to know some secrets in this black business. May 
 I ask if you are going to keep them to yourself? " 
 
 " Why, doctor," answered the priest, smiling quite 
 pleasantly, " there is one very good reason why a 
 man of my trade should keep things to himself when 
 he is not sure of them, and that is that it is so con- 
 stantly his duty to keep them to himself when he is 
 sure of them. But if you think I have been dis- 
 courteously reticent with you or anyone, I will go 
 
 251 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 to the extreme limit of my custom. I will give you 
 two very large hints." 
 
 " Well, sir ? " said the doctor gloomily. 
 
 " First," said Father Brown quietly, " the thing 
 is quite in your own province. It is a matter of 
 physical science. The blacksmith is mistaken, not 
 perhaps in saying that the blow was divine, but 
 certainly in saying that it came by a miracle. It 
 was no miracle, doctor, except in so far as man is 
 himself a miracle, with his strange and wicked and 
 yet half-heroic heart. The force that smashed that 
 skull was a force well known to scientists — one 
 of the most frequently debated of the laws of 
 nature." 
 
 The doctor, who was looking at him with 
 frowning intentness, only said: "And the other 
 hint?" 
 
 " The other hint is this," said the priest. " Do 
 you remember the blacksmith, though he believes 
 in miracles, talking scornfully of the impossible 
 fairy tale that his hammer had wings and flew 
 half a mile across country ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the doctor, " I remember that." 
 
 " Well," added Father Brown, with a broad 
 smile, "that fairy tale was the nearest thing to 
 the real truth that has been said to-day." And 
 with that he turned his back and stumped up the 
 steps after the curate. 
 
 The Reverend Wilfred, who had been waiting 
 for him, pale and impatient, as if this little delay 
 
 252 
 
THE HAMMER OF GOD 
 
 were the last straw for his nerves, led him imme- 
 diately to his favourite corner of the church, that 
 part of the gallery closest to the carved roof and 
 lit by the wonderful window with the angel. The 
 little Latin priest explored and admired every- 
 thing exhaustively, talking cheerfully but in a low 
 voice all the time. When in the course of his 
 investigation he found the side exit and the wind- 
 ing stair down which Wilfred had rushed to find 
 his brother dead, Father Brown ran not down but 
 up, with the agility of a monkey, and his clear 
 voice came from an outer platform above. 
 
 " Come up here, Mr. Bohun," he called. " The 
 air will do you good." 
 
 Bohun followed him, and came out on a kind 
 of stone gallery or balcony outside the building, 
 from which one could see the illimitable plain in 
 which their small hill stood, wooded away to the 
 purple horizon and dotted with villages and farms. 
 Clear and square, but quite small beneath them, 
 was the blacksmith's yard, where the inspector still 
 stood taking notes and the corpse still lay like a 
 smashed fly. 
 
 " Might be the map of the world, mightn't it? " 
 said Father Brown. 
 
 " Yes," said Bohun very gravely, and nodded 
 his head. 
 
 Immediately beneath and about them the lines 
 of the Gothic building plunged outwards into the 
 void with a sickening swiftness akin to suicide. 
 
 253 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 There is that element of Titan energy in the 
 architecture of the Middle Ages that, from what- 
 ever aspect it be seen, it always seems to be rush- 
 ing away, like the strong back of some maddened 
 horse. This church was hewn out of ancient and 
 silent stone, bearded with old fungoids and stained 
 with the nests of birds. And yet, when they saw 
 it from below, it sprang like a fountain at the 
 stars; and when they saw it, as now, from above, 
 it poured like a cataract into a voiceless pit. For 
 these two men on the tower were left alone with 
 the most terrible aspect of the Gothic; the mon- 
 strous foreshortening and disproportion, the dizzy 
 perspectives, the glimpses of great things small and 
 small things great; a topsy-turvydom of stone in 
 the mid-air. Details of stone, enormous by their 
 proximity, were relieved against a pattern of fields 
 and farms, pygmy in their distance. A carved 
 bird or beast at a corner seemed like some vast 
 walking or flying dragon wasting the pastures and 
 villages below. The whole atmosphere was dizzy 
 and dangerous, as if men were upheld in air amid 
 the gyrating wings of colossal genii ; and the whole 
 of that old church, as tall and rich as a cathedral, 
 seemed to sit upon the sunlit country like a cloud- 
 burst. 
 
 " I think there is something rather dangerous 
 about standing on these high places even to pray," 
 said Father Brown. " Heights were made to be 
 looked at, not to be looked from." 
 
 254 
 
THE HAMMER OF GOD 
 
 " Do you mean that one may fall over," asked 
 Wilfred. 
 
 " I mean that one's soul may fall if one's body 
 doesn't," said the other priest. 
 
 " I scarcely understand you," remarked Bohun 
 indistinctly. 
 
 " Look at that blacksmith, for instance," went 
 on Father Brown calmly ; " a good man, but not a 
 Christian — hard, imperious, unforgiving. Well, his 
 Scotch religion was made up by men who prayed 
 on hills and high crags, and learnt to look down 
 on the world more than to look up at heaven. 
 Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great 
 things from the valley; only small things from the 
 peak." 
 
 " But he — he didn't do it," said Bohun tremu- 
 lously. 
 
 " No," said the other in an odd voice ; " we know 
 he didn't do it." 
 
 After a moment he resumed, looking tranquilly 
 out over the plain with his pale grey eyes. " I 
 knew a man," he said, " who began by worship- 
 ping with others before the altar, but who grew 
 fond of high and lonely places to pray from, cor- 
 ners or niches in the belfry or the spire. And 
 once in one of those dizzy places, where the whole 
 world seemed to turn under him like a wheel, his 
 brain turned also, and he fancied he was God. 
 So that though he was a good man, he committed 
 a great crime." 
 
 255 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 Wilfred's face was turned away, but his bony 
 hands turned blue and white as they tightened on 
 the parapet of stone. 
 
 " He thought it was given to him to judge the 
 world and strike down the sinner. He would never 
 have had such a thought if he had been kneeling 
 with other men upon a floor. But he saw all men 
 walking about like insects. He saw one especially 
 strutting just below him, insolent and evident by a 
 bright green hat — a poisonous insect." 
 
 Rooks cawed round the corners of the belfry; 
 but there was no other sound till Father Brown 
 went on. 
 
 " This also tempted him, that he had in his 
 hand one of the most awful engines of nature; I 
 mean gravitation, that mad and quickening rush 
 by which all earth's creatures fly back to her heart 
 when released. See, the inspector is strutting just 
 below us in the smithy. If I were to toss a pebble 
 over this parapet it would be something like a bullet 
 by the time it struck him. If I were to drop a 
 hammer — even a small hammer " 
 
 Wilfred Bohun threw one leg over the parapet, 
 and Father Brown had him in a minute by the 
 collar. 
 
 " Not by that door," he said quite gently ; " that 
 door leads to hell." 
 
 Bohun staggered back against the wall, and 
 stared at him with frightful eyes. 
 
 256 
 
THE HAMMER OF GOD 
 
 " How do you know all this ? " he cried. " Are 
 you a devil ? " 
 
 "lama man," answered Father Brown gravely; 
 " and therefore have all devils in my heart. Listen 
 to me," he said after a short pause. " I know what 
 you did — at least, I can guess the great part of it. 
 When you left your brother you were racked with 
 no unrighteous rage, to the extent even that you 
 snatched up a small hammer, half inclined to kill 
 him with his foulness on his mouth. Recoiling, 
 you thrust it under your buttoned coat instead, and 
 rushed into the church. You pray wildly in many 
 places, under the angel window, upon the platform 
 above, and a higher platform still, from which 
 you could see the colonel's Eastern hat like the 
 back of a green beetle crawling about. Then some- 
 thing snapped in your soul, and you let God's 
 thunderbolt fall." 
 
 Wilfred put a weak hand to his head, and asked 
 in a low voice : " How did you know that his hat 
 looked like a green beetle ? " 
 
 " Oh, that," said the other with the shadow of 
 a smile, "that was common sense. But hear me 
 further. I say I know all this; but no one else 
 shall know it. The next step is for you; I shall 
 take no more steps; I will seal this with the seal 
 of confession. If you ask me why, there are many 
 reasons, and only one that concerns you.' I leave 
 things to you because you have not yet gone very 
 17 257 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 far wrong, as assassins go. You did not help to 
 fix the crime on the smith when it was easy; or 
 on his wife, when that was easy. You tried to 
 fix it on the imbecile because you knew that he 
 could not suffer. That was one of the gleams that 
 it is my business to find in assassins. And now 
 come down into the village, and go your own way 
 as free as the wind ; for I have said my last word." 
 They went down the winding stairs in utter 
 silence, and came out into the sunlight by the 
 smithy. Wilfred Bohun carefully unlatched the 
 wooden gate of the yard, and going up to the in- 
 spector, said: "I wish to give myself up; I have 
 killed my brother." 
 
 258 
 
X 
 
 THE EYE OF APOLLO 
 
 That singular smoky sparkle, at once a confusion 
 and a transparency, which is the strange secret of 
 the Thames, was changing more and more from 
 its grey to its glittering extreme as the sun climbed 
 to the zenith over Westminster, and two men 
 crossed Westminster Bridge. One man was very 
 tall and the other very short ; they might even have 
 been fantastically compared to the arrogant clock- 
 tower of Parliament and the humbler humped 
 shoulders of the Abbey, for the short man was in 
 clerical dress. The official description of the tall 
 man was M. Hercule Flambeau, private detective, 
 and he was going to his new offices in a new pile 
 of flats facing the Abbey entrance. The official de- 
 scription of the short man was the Rev. J. Brown, 
 attached to St. Francis Xavier's Church, Camber- 
 well, and he was coming from a Camberwell death- 
 bed to see the new offices of his friend. 
 
 The building was American in its sky-scraping 
 altitude, and American also in the oiled elabora- 
 tion of its machinery of telephones and lifts. But 
 it was barely finished and still understaffed; only 
 
 259 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 three tenants had moved in; the office just above 
 Flambeau was occupied, as also was the office just 
 below him; the two floors above that and the three 
 floors below were entirely bare. But the first 
 glance at the new tower of flats caught something 
 much more arresting. Save for a few relics of 
 scaffolding, the one glaring object was erected out- 
 side the office just above Flambeau's. It was an 
 enormous gilt effigy of the human eye, surrounded 
 with rays of gold, and taking up as much room as 
 two or three of the office windows. 
 
 " What on earth is that ? " asked Father Brown, 
 and stood still. 
 
 " Oh, a new religion," said Flambeau, laugh- 
 ing; "one of those new religions that forgive your 
 sins by saying you never had any. Rather like 
 Christian Science, I should think. The fact is that 
 a fellow calling himself Kalon (I don't know what 
 his name is, except that it can't be that) has taken 
 the flat just above me. I have two lady type- 
 writers underneath me, and this enthusiastic old 
 humbug on top. He calls himself the New Priest 
 of Apollo, and he worships the sun." 
 
 " Let him look out," said Father Brown. " The 
 sun was the cruellest of all the gods. But what 
 does that monstrous eye mean ? " 
 
 " As I understand it, it is a theory of theirs," 
 answered Flambeau, "that a man can endure any- 
 thing if his mind is quite steady. Their two great 
 symbols are the sun and the open eye; for they 
 
 260 
 
THE EYE OF APOLLO 
 
 say that if a man were really healthy he could stare 
 at the sun." 
 
 " If a man were really healthy," said Father 
 Brown, " he would not bother to stare at it." 
 
 " Well, that's all I can tell you about the new 
 religion," went on Flambeau carelessly. " It claims, 
 of course, that it can cure all physical diseases." 
 
 " Can it cure the one spiritual disease ? " asked 
 Father Brown, with a serious curiosity. 
 
 "And what is the one spiritual disease?" asked 
 Flambeau, smiling. 
 
 " Oh, thinking one is quite well," said his friend. 
 
 Flambeau was more interested in the quiet little 
 office below him than in the flamboyant temple 
 above. He was a lucid Southerner, incapable of 
 conceiving himself as anything but a Catholic or 
 an atheist ; and new religions of a bright and pallid 
 sort were not much in his line. But humanity was 
 always in his line, especially when it was good- 
 looking; moreover, the ladies downstairs were 
 characters in their way. The office was kept by 
 two sisters, both slight and dark, one of them tall 
 and striking. She had a dark, eager and aquiline 
 profile, and was one of those women whom one 
 always thinks of in profile, as of the clean-cut 
 edge of some weapon. She seemed to cleave her 
 way through life. She had eyes of startling bril- 
 liancy, but it was the brilliancy of steel rather than 
 of diamonds; and her straight, slim figure was a 
 shade too stiff for its grace. Her younger sister 
 
 261 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 was like her shortened shadow, a little greyer, paler, 
 and more insignificant. They both wore a busi- 
 ness-like black, with little masculine cuffs and collars. 
 There are thousands of such curt, strenuous ladies 
 in the offices of London, but the interest of these 
 lay rather in their real than their apparent position. 
 
 For Pauline Stacey, the elder, was actually the 
 heiress of a crest and half a county, as well as 
 great wealth; she had been brought up in castles 
 and gardens, before a frigid fierceness (peculiar to 
 the modern woman) had driven her to what she 
 considered a harsher and a higher existence. She 
 had not, indeed, surrendered her money; in that 
 there would have been a romantic or monkish 
 abandon quite alien to her masterful utilitarianism. 
 She held her wealth, she would say, for use upon 
 practical social objects. Part of it she had put into 
 her business, the nucleus of a model typewriting 
 emporium; part of it was distributed in various 
 leagues and causes for the advancement of such 
 work among women. How far Joan, her sister 
 and partner, shared this slightly prosaic idealism 
 no one could be very sure. But she followed her 
 leader with a dog-like affection which was some- 
 how more attractive, with its touch of tragedy, 
 than the hard, high spirits of the elder. For 
 Pauline Stacey had nothing to say to tragedy; she 
 was understood to deny its existence. 
 
 Her rigid rapidity and cold impatience had 
 amused Flambeau very much on the first occasion 
 
 262 
 
THE EYE OF APOLLO 
 
 of his entering the flats. He had lingered outside 
 the lift in the entrance hall waiting for the lift-boy, 
 who generally conducts strangers to the various 
 floors. But this bright-eyed falcon of a girl had 
 openly refused to endure such official delay. She 
 said sharply that she knew all about the lift, and 
 was not dependent on boys — or on men either. 
 Though her flat was only three floors above, she 
 managed in the few seconds of ascent to give Flam- 
 beau a great many of her fundamental views in 
 an off-hand manner; they were to the general ef- 
 fect that she was a modern working woman and 
 loved modern working machinery. Her bright 
 black eyes blazed with abstract anger against those 
 who rebuke mechanic science and ask for the re- 
 turn of romance. Everyone, she said, ought to 
 be able to manage' machines, just as she could man- 
 age the lift. She seemed almost to resent the fact 
 of Flambeau opening the lift-door for her; and 
 that gentleman went up to his own apartments smil- 
 ing with somewhat mingled feelings at the memory 
 of such spit-fire self-dependence. 
 
 She certainly had a temper, of a snappy, prac- 
 tical sort; the gestures of her thin, elegant hands 
 were abrupt or even destructive. Once Flambeau 
 entered her office on some typewriting business, 
 and found she had just flung a pair of spectacles 
 belonging to her sister into the middle of the floor 
 and stamped on them. She was already in the 
 rapids of an ethical tirade about the " sickly medical 
 
 263 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 notions " and the morbid admission of weakness 
 implied in such an apparatus. She dared her sister 
 to bring such artificial, unhealthy rubbish into the 
 place again. She asked if she was expected to wear 
 wooden legs or false hair or glass eyes; and as 
 she spoke her eyes sparkled like the terrible 
 crystal. 
 
 Flambeau, quite bewildered with this fanaticism, 
 could not refrain from asking Miss Pauline (with 
 direct French logic) why a pair of spectacles was 
 a more morbid sign of weakness than a lift, and 
 why, if science might help us in the one effort, it 
 might not help us in the other. 
 
 " That is so different," said Pauline Stacey, 
 loftily. " Batteries and motors and all those things 
 are marks of the force of man — yes, Mr. Flambeau, 
 and the force of woman, too! We shall take our 
 turn at these great engines that devour distance 
 and defy time. That is high and splendid — that is 
 really science. But these nasty props and plasters 
 the doctors sell — why, they are just badges of 
 poltroonery. Doctors stick on legs and arms as 
 if we were born cripples and sick slaves. But I 
 was free-born, Mr. Flambeau! People only think 
 they need these things because they have been 
 trained in fear instead of being trained in power 
 and courage, just as the silly nurses tell children 
 not to stare at the sun, and so they can't do it 
 without blinking. But why among the stars should 
 there be one star I may not see? The sun is not 
 
 264 
 
THE EYE OF APOLLO 
 
 my master, and I will open my eyes and stare at 
 him whenever I choose." 
 
 " Your eyes," said Flambeau, with a foreign bow, 
 " will dazzle the sun." He took pleasure in com- 
 plimenting this strange stiff beauty, partly because 
 it threw her a little off her balance. But as he 
 went upstairs to his floor he drew a deep breath and 
 whistled, saying to himself : " So she has got 
 into the hands of that conjurer upstairs with his 
 golden eye." For, little as he knew or cared about 
 the new religion of Kalon, he had heard of his 
 special notion about sun-gazing. 
 
 He soon discovered that the spiritual bond be- 
 tween the floors above and below him was close 
 and increasing. The man who called himself 
 Kalon was a magnificent creature, worthy, in a 
 physical sense, to be the pontiff of Apollo. He 
 was nearly as tall even as Flambeau, and very 
 much better looking, with a golden beard, strong 
 blue eyes, and a mane flung back like a lion's. In 
 structure he was the blonde beast of Nietzsche, 
 but all this animal beauty was heightened, bright- 
 ened and softened by genuine intellect and spiritu- 
 ality. If he looked like one of the great Saxon 
 kings, he looked like one of the kings that were 
 also saints. And this despite the cockney incon- 
 gruity of his surroundings; the fact that he had 
 an office half-way up a building in Victoria Street; 
 that the clerk (a commonplace youth in cuffs and 
 collars) sat in the outer room, between him and 
 
 265 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 the corridor; that his name was on a brass plate, 
 and the gilt emblem of his creed hung above his 
 street, like the advertisement of an oculist. All 
 this vulgarity could not take away from the man 
 called Kalon the vivid oppression and inspiration 
 that came from his soul and body. When all was 
 said, a man in the presence of this quack did feel 
 in the presence of a great man. Even in the loose 
 jacket-suit of linen that he wore as a workshop 
 dress in his office he was a fascinating and for- 
 midable figure; and when robed in the white vest- 
 ments and crowned with the golden circlet, in which 
 he daily saluted the sun, he really looked so splendid 
 that the laughter of the street people sometimes died 
 suddenly on their lips. For three times in the day 
 the new sun-worshipper went out on his little bal- 
 cony, in the face of all Westminster, to say some 
 litany to his shining lord: once at daybreak, once 
 at sunset, and once at the shock of noon. And it 
 was while the shock of noon still shook faintly from 
 the towers of Parliament and parish church that 
 Father Brown, the friend of Flambeau, first looked 
 up and saw the white priest of Apollo. 
 
 Flambeau had seen quite enough of these daily 
 salutations of Phcebus, and plunged into the porch 
 of the tall building without even looking for his 
 clerical friend to follow. But Father Brown, 
 whether from a professional interest in ritual or a 
 strong individual interest in tomfoolery, stopped 
 and stared up at the balcony of the sun-worshipper, 
 
 266 
 
THE EYE OF APOLLO 
 
 just, as he might have stopped and stared up at a 
 Punch and Judy. Kalon the Prophet was already 
 erect, with argent garments and uplifted hands, 
 and the sound of his strangely penetrating voice 
 could be heard all the way down the busy street 
 uttering his solar litany. He was already in the 
 middle of it; his eyes were fixed upon the flaming 
 disc. It is doubtful if he saw anything or anyone 
 on this earth; it is substantially certain that he 
 did not see a stunted, round-faced priest who, in 
 the crowd below, looked up at him with blinking 
 eyes. That was perhaps the most startling differ- 
 ence between even these two far divided men. 
 Father Brown could not look at anything without 
 blinking; but the priest of Apollo could look on 
 the blaze at noon without a quiver of the eyelid. 
 
 " O sun," cried the prophet, " O star that art 
 too great to be allowed among the stars ! O foun- 
 tain that flowest quietly in that secret spot that is 
 called space. White father of all white unwearied 
 things, white flames and white flowers and white 
 peaks. Father, who art more innocent than all thy 
 most innocent and quiet children ; primal purity, into 
 the peace of which " 
 
 A rush and crash like the reversed rush of a 
 rocket was cloven with a strident and incessant 
 yelling. Five people rushed into the gate of the 
 mansions as three people rushed out, and for an 
 instant they all deafened each other. The sense 
 of some utterly abrupt horror seemed for a moment 
 
 267 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 to fill half the street with bad news — bad news that 
 was all the worse because no one knew what it 
 was. Two figures remained still after the crash 
 of commotion: the fair priest of Apollo on the 
 balcony above, and the ugly priest of Christ below 
 him. 
 
 At last the tall figure and titanic energy of Flam- 
 beau appeared in the doorway of the mansions and 
 dominated the little mob. Talking at the top of 
 his voice like a fog-horn, he told somebody or any- 
 body to go for a surgeon; and as he turned back 
 into the dark and thronged entrance his friend 
 Father Brown slipped in insignificantly after him. 
 Even as he ducked and dived through the crowd 
 he could still hear the magnificent melody and 
 monotony of the solar priest still calling on the 
 happy god who is the friend of fountains and 
 flowers. 
 
 Father Brown found Flambeau and some six 
 other people standing round the enclosed space into 
 which the lift commonly descended. But the lift 
 had not descended. Something else had descended ; 
 something that ought to have come by a lift. 
 
 For the last four minutes Flambeau had looked 
 down on it; had seen the brained and bleeding 
 figure of that beautiful woman who denied the 
 existence of tragedy. He had never had the 
 slightest doubt that it was Pauline Stacey; and, 
 though he had sent for a doctor, he had not the 
 slightest doubt that she was dead. 
 
 268 
 
THE EYE OF APOLLO 
 
 He could not remember for certain whether he 
 had liked her or disliked her; there was so much 
 both to like and dislike. But she had been a person 
 to him, and the unbearable pathos of details and 
 habit stabbed him with all the small daggers of 
 bereavement. He remembered her pretty face and 
 priggish speeches with a sudden secret vividness 
 which is all the bitterness of death. In an instant 
 like a bolt from the blue, like a thunderbolt from 
 nowhere, that beautiful and defiant body had been 
 dashed down the open well of the lift to death at 
 the bottom. Was it suicide? With so insolent an 
 optimist it seemed impossible. Was it murder? 
 But who was there in those hardly inhabited flats 
 to murder anybody? In a rush of raucous words, 
 which he meant to be strong and suddenly found 
 weak, he asked where was that fellow Kalon. A 
 voice, habitually heavy, quiet and full, assured him 
 that Kalon for the last fifteen minutes had been 
 away up on his balcony worshipping his god. 
 When Flambeau heard the voice, and felt the hand 
 of Father Brown, he turned his swarthy face and 
 said abruptly : 
 
 " Then, if he has been up there all the time, 
 who can have done it ? " 
 
 " Perhaps," said the other, " we might go up- 
 stairs and find out. We have half an hour before 
 the police will move." 
 
 Leaving the body of the slain heiress in charge 
 of the surgeons, Flambeau dashed up the stairs to 
 
 269 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 the typewriting office, found it utterly empty, and 
 then dashed up to his own. Having entered that, 
 he abruptly returned with a new and white face to 
 his friend. 
 
 " Her sister," he said, with an unpleasant serious- 
 ness, " her sister seems to have gone out for a 
 walk." 
 
 Father Brown nodded. " Or, she may have gone 
 up to the office of that sun man," he said. " If 
 I were you I should just verify that, and then let 
 us all talk it over in your office. No," he added 
 suddenly, as if remembering something, " shall I 
 ever get over that stupidity of mine? Of course, 
 in their office downstairs." 
 
 Flambeau stared ; but he followed the little father 
 downstairs to the empty flat of the Staceys, where 
 that impenetrable pastor took a large red-leather 
 chair in the very entrance, from which he could 
 see the stairs and landings, and waited. He did 
 not wait very long. In about four minutes three 
 figures descended the stairs, alike only in their 
 solemnity. The first was Joan Stacey, the sister 
 of the dead woman — evidently she had been up- 
 stairs in the temporary temple of Apollo ; the second 
 was the priest of Apollo himself, his litany finished, 
 sweeping down the empty stairs in utter magnif- 
 icence — something in his white robes, beard and 
 parted hair had the look of Dore's Christ leaving 
 the Pretorium; the third was Flambeau, black 
 browed and somewhat bewildered. 
 
 270 
 
THE EYE OF APOLLO 
 
 Miss Joan Stacey, dark, with a drawn face and 
 hair prematurely touched with grey, walked straight 
 to her own desk and set out her papers with a 
 practical flap. The mere action rallied everyone 
 else to sanity. If Miss Joan Stacey was a criminal, 
 she was a cool one. Father Brown regarded her 
 for some time with an odd little smile, and then, 
 without taking his eyes off her, addressed himself 
 to somebody else. 
 
 " Prophet," he said, presumably addressing 
 Kalon, " I wish you would tell me a lot about your 
 religion." 
 
 " I shall be proud to do it," said Kalon, inclin- 
 ing his still .crowned head, " but I am not sure that 
 I understand." 
 
 " Why, it's like this," said Father Brown, in 
 his frankly doubtful way : " We are taught that 
 if a man has really bad first principles, that must 
 be partly his fault. But, for all that, we can make 
 some difference between a man who insults his 
 quite clear conscience and a man with a conscience 
 more or less clouded with sophistries. Now, do 
 you really think that murder is wrong at all ? " 
 
 " Is this an accusation ? " asked Kalon very 
 quietly. 
 
 " No," answered Brown, equally gently, " it is 
 the speech for the defence." 
 
 In the long and startled stillness of the room 
 the prophet of Apollo slowly rose; and really it 
 was like the rising of the sun. He filled that room 
 
 271 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 with his light and life in such a manner that a 
 man felt he could as easily have filled Salisbury 
 Plain. His robed form seemed to hang the whole 
 room with classic draperies; his epic gesture 
 seemed to extend it into grander perspectives, till 
 the little black figure of the modern cleric seemed 
 to be a fault and an intrusion, a round, black blot 
 upon some splendour of Hellas. 
 
 " We meet at last, Caiaphas," said the prophet. 
 " Your church and mine are the only realities on 
 this earth. I adore the sun, and you the darkening 
 of the sun; you are the priest of the dying and I 
 of the living God. Your present work of suspicion 
 and slander is worthy of your coat and creed. All 
 your church is but a black police; you are only 
 spies and detectives seeking to tear from men con- 
 fessions of guilt, whether by treachery or torture. 
 You would convict men of crime, I would convict 
 them of innocence. You would convince them of 
 sin, I would convince them of virtue. 
 
 " Reader of the books of evil, one more word 
 before I blow away your baseless nightmares for 
 ever. Not even faintly could you understand how 
 little I care whether you can convict me or no. 
 The things you call disgrace and horrible hanging 
 are to me no more than an ogre in a child's toy- 
 book to a man once grown up. You said you 
 were offering the speech for the defence. I care 
 so little for the cloudland of this life that I will 
 offer you the speech for the prosecution. There is 
 
 272 
 
THE EYE OF APOLLO 
 
 but one thing that can be said against me in this 
 matter, and I will say it myself. The woman that 
 is dead was my love and my bride; not after such 
 manner as your tin chapels call lawful, but by a 
 law purer and sterner than you will ever under- 
 stand. She and I walked another world from 
 yours, and trod palaces of crystal while you were 
 plodding through tunnels and corridors of brick. 
 Well, I know that policemen, theological and other- 
 wise, always fancy that where there has been love 
 there must soon be hatred; so there you have the 
 first point made for the prosecution. But the 
 second point is stronger; I do not grudge it you. 
 Not only is it true that Pauline loved me, but it is 
 also ..true that this very morning, before she died, 
 she wrote at that table a will leaving me and my 
 new church half a million. Come, where are the 
 handcuffs? Do you suppose I care what foolish 
 things you do with me? Penal servitude will only 
 be like waiting for her at a wayside station. The 
 gallows will only be going to her in a headlong 
 car." 
 
 He spoke with the brain-shaking authority of an 
 orator, and Flambeau and Joan Stacey stared at 
 him in amazed admiration. Father Brown's face 
 seemed to express nothing but extreme distress ; he 
 looked at the ground with one wrinkle of pain across 
 his forehead. The prophet of the sun leaned easily 
 against the mantelpiece and resumed : 
 
 " In a few words I have put before you the whole 
 
 18 273 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 case against me — the only possible case against me. 
 In fewer words still I will blow it to pieces, so that 
 not a trace of it remains. As to whether I have 
 committed this crime, the truth is in one sentence: 
 I could not have committed this crime. Pauline 
 Stacey fell from this floor to the ground at five min- 
 utes past twelve. A hundred people will go into 
 the witness-box and say that I was standing out upon 
 the balcony of my own rooms above from just be- 
 fore the stroke of noon to a quarter-past — the usual 
 period of my public prayers. My clerk (a respecta- 
 ble youth from Clapham, with no sort of connection 
 with me) will swear that he sat in my outer office 
 all the morning, and that no communication passed 
 through. He will swear that I arrived a full ten 
 minutes before the hour, fifteen minutes before any 
 whisper of the accident, and that I did not leave the 
 office or the balcony all that time. No one ever had 
 so complete an alibi; I could subpoena half West- 
 minster. I think you had better put the handcuffs 
 away again. The case is at an end. 
 
 " But last of all, that no breath of this idiotic 
 suspicion remain in the air, I will tell you all you 
 want to know. I believe I do know how my un- 
 happy friend came by her death. You can, if you 
 choose, blame me for it, or my faith and philosophy 
 at least; but you certainly cannot lock me up. It 
 is well known to all students of the higher truths 
 that certain adepts and illuminati have in history 
 
 274 
 
THE EYE OF APOLLO 
 
 attained the power of levitation — that is, of being 
 self-sustained upon the empty air. It is but a part 
 of that general conquest of matter which is the main 
 element in our occult wisdom. Poor Pauline was 
 of an impulsive and ambitious temper. I think, to 
 tell the truth, she thought herself somewhat deeper 
 in the mysteries than she was; and she has often 
 said to me, as we went down in the lift together, 
 that if one's will were strong enough, one could float 
 down as harmlessly as a feather. I solemnly believe 
 that in some ecstasy of noble thoughts she attempted 
 the miracle. Her will, or faith, must have failed 
 her at the crucial instant, and the lower law of matter 
 had its horrible revenge. There is the whole story, 
 gentlemen, very sad and, as you think, very pre- 
 sumptuous and wicked, but certainly not criminal or 
 in any way connected with me. In the short-hand 
 of the police-courts, you had better call it suicide. 
 I shall always call it heroic failure for the advance 
 of science and the slow scaling of heaven." 
 
 It was the first time Flambeau had ever seen 
 Father Brown vanquished. He still sat looking at 
 the ground, with a painful and corrugated brow, 
 as if in shame. It was impossible to avoid the feel- 
 ing which the prophet's winged words had fanned, 
 that here was a sullen, professional suspecter of men 
 overwhelmed by a prouder and purer spirit of nat- 
 ural liberty and health. At last he said, blinking as 
 if in bodily distress : " Well, if that is so, sir, you 
 
 275 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 need do no more than take the testamentary paper 
 you spoke of and go. I wonder where the poor 
 lady left it." 
 
 " It will be over there on her desk by the door, 
 I think," said Kalon, with that massive innocence 
 of manner that seemed to acquit him wholly. " She 
 told me specially she would write it this morning, 
 and I actually saw her writing as I went up in the 
 lift to my own room." 
 
 " Was her door open then ? " asked the priest, 
 with his eye on the corner of the matting. 
 
 " Yes," said Kalon calmly. 
 
 " Ah ! it has been open ever since," said the other, 
 and resumed his silent study of the mat. 
 
 " There is a paper over here," said the grim Miss 
 Joan, in a somewhat singular voice. She had passed 
 over to her sister's desk by the doorway, and was 
 holding a sheet of blue foolscap in her hand. There 
 was a sour smile on her face that seemed unfit for 
 such a scene or occasion, and Flambeau looked at 
 her with a darkening brow. 
 
 Kalon the prophet stood away from the paper 
 with that loyal unconsciousness that had carried 
 him through. But Flambeau took it out of the 
 lady's hand, and read it with the utmost amazement. 
 It did, indeed, begin in the formal manner of a will, 
 but after the words "I give and bequeath all of 
 which I die possessed " the writing abruptly stopped 
 with a set of scratches, and there was no trace of 
 the name of any legatee. Flambeau, in wonder, 
 
 276 
 
THE EYE OF APOLLO 
 
 handed this truncated testament to his clerical friend, 
 who glanced at it and silently gave it to the priest 
 of the sun. 
 
 An instant afterwards that pontiff, in his splendid 
 sweeping draperies, had crossed the room in two 
 great strides, and was towering over Joan Stacey, 
 his blue eyes standing from his head. 
 
 " What monkey tricks have you been playing 
 here ? " he cried. " That's not all Pauline wrote." 
 
 They were startled to hear him speak in quite 
 a new voice, with a Yankee shrillness in it; all his 
 grandeur and good English had fallen from him 
 like a cloak. 
 
 " That is the only thing on her desk," said Joan, 
 and confronted him steadily with the same smile of 
 evil favour. 
 
 Of a sudden the man broke out into blasphemies 
 and cataracts of incredulous words. There was 
 something shocking about the dropping of his mask; 
 it was like a man's real face falling off. 
 
 " See here ! " he cried in broad American, when 
 he was breathless with cursing, " I may be an ad- 
 venturer, but I guess you're a murderess. Yes, 
 gentlemen, here's your death explained, and with- 
 out any levitation. The poor girl is writing a will 
 in my favour; her cursed sister comes in, struggles 
 for the pen, drags her to the well, and throws her 
 down before she can finish it. Sakes! I reckon 
 we want the handcuffs after all." 
 
 "As you have truly remarked," replied Joan, 
 277 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 with ugly calm, " your clerk is a very respectable 
 young man, who knows the nature of an oath ; and 
 he will swear in any court that I was up in your 
 office arranging some typewriting work for five 
 minutes before and five minutes after my sister fell. 
 Mr. Flambeau will tell you that he found me there." 
 
 There was a silence. 
 
 " Why, then," cried Flambeau, " Pauline was 
 alone when she fell, and it was suicide ! " 
 
 " She was alone when she fell," said Father 
 Brown, " but it was not suicide." 
 
 " Then how did she die ? " asked Flambeau im- 
 patiently. 
 
 " She was murdered." 
 
 " But she was alone," objected the detective. 
 
 " She was murdered when she was all alone," 
 answered the priest. 
 
 All the rest stared at him, but he remained sitting 
 in the same old dejected attitude, with a wrinkle 
 in his round forehead and an appearance of imper- 
 sonal shame and sorrow; his voice was colourless 
 and sad. 
 
 " What I want to know," cried Kalon, with an 
 oath, " is when the police are coming for this bloody 
 and wicked sister. She's killed her flesh and blood ; 
 she's robbed me of half a million that was just as 
 sacredly mine as " 
 
 " Come, come, prophet," interrupted Flambeau, 
 with a kind of sneer ; " remember that all this world 
 is a cloudland." 
 
 278 
 
THE EYE OF APOLLO 
 
 The hierophant of the sun-god made an effort 
 to climb back on his pedestal. " It is not the mere 
 money," he cried, "though that would equip the 
 cause throughout the world. It is also my beloved 
 one's wishes. To Pauline all this was holy. In 
 Pauline's eyes " 
 
 Father Brown suddenly sprang erect, so that his 
 chair fell over flat behind him. He was deathly 
 pale, yet he seemed fired with a hope; his eyes 
 shone. 
 
 " That's it ! " he cried in a clear voice. " That's 
 the way to begin. In Pauline's eyes " 
 
 The tall prophet retreated before the tiny priest 
 in an almost mad disorder. " What do you mean ? 
 How dare you?" he cried repeatedly. 
 
 " In Pauline's eyes," repeated the priest, his own 
 shining more and more. " Go on — in God's 
 name, go on. The foulest crime the fiends ever 
 prompted feels lighter after confession; and I im- 
 plore you to confess. Go on, go on — in Pauline's 
 eyes " 
 
 " Let me go, you devil ! " thundered Kalon, strug- 
 gling like a giant in bonds. " Who are you, you 
 cursed spy, to weave your spiders' webs round me, 
 and peep and peer? Let me go." 
 
 " Shall I stop him ? " asked Flambeau, bounding 
 towards the exit, for Kalon had already thrown the 
 door wide open. 
 
 " No ; let him pass," said Father Brown, with 
 a strange deep sigh that seemed to come from the 
 
 279 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 depths of the universe. " Let Cain pass by, for he 
 belongs to God." 
 
 There was a long-drawn silence in the room 
 when he had left it, which was to Flambeau's fierce 
 wits one long agony of interrogation. Miss Joan 
 Stacey very coolly tidied up the papers on her 
 desk. 
 
 " Father," said Flambeau at last, " it is my duty, 
 not my curiosity only — it is my duty to find out, 
 if I can, who committed the crime." 
 
 " Which crime ? " asked Father Brown. 
 
 " The one we are dealing with, of course," re- 
 plied his impatient friend. 
 
 " We are dealing with two crimes," said Brown, 
 " crimes of very different weight — and by very dif- 
 ferent criminals." 
 
 Miss Joan Stacey, having collected and put away 
 her papers, proceeded to lock up her drawer. 
 Father Brown went on, noticing her as little as she 
 noticed him. 
 
 " The two crimes," he observed, " were com- 
 mitted against the same weakness of the same per- 
 son, in a struggle for her money. The author of 
 the larger crime found himself thwarted by the 
 smaller crime; the author of the smaller crime got 
 the money." 
 
 " Oh, don't go on like a lecturer," groaned Flam- 
 beau ; " put it in a few words." 
 
 " I can put it in one word," answered his friend. 
 
 Miss Joan Stacey skewered her business-like 
 280 
 
THE EYE OF APOLLO 
 
 black hat on to her head with a business-like black 
 frown before a little mirror, and, as the conversa- 
 tion proceeded, took her handbag and umbrella in 
 an unhurried style, and left the room. 
 
 " The truth is one word, and a short one," said 
 Father Brown. " Pauline Stacey was blind." 
 
 " Blind ! " repeated Flambeau, and rose slowly 
 to his whole huge stature. 
 
 " She was subject to it by blood," Brown pro- 
 ceeded. " Her sister would have started eyeglasses 
 if Pauline would have let her ; but it was her special 
 philosophy or fad that one must not encourage such 
 diseases by yielding to them. She would not admit 
 the cloud ; or she tried to dispel it by will. So her 
 eyes got worse and worse with straining; but the 
 worst strain was to come. It came with this 
 precious prophet, or whatever he calls himself, who 
 taught her to stare at the hot sun with the naked 
 eye. It was called accepting Apollo. Oh, if these 
 new pagans would only be old pagans, they would ' 
 be a little wiser! The old pagans knew that mere 
 naked Nature-worship must have a cruel side. 
 They knew that the eye of Apollo can blast and 
 blind." 
 
 There was a pause, and the priest went on in 
 a gentle and even broken voice. " Whether or no 
 that devil deliberately made her blind, there is no 
 doubt that he deliberately killed her through her 
 blindness. The very simplicity of the crime is 
 sickening. You know he and she went up and down 
 
 281 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 in those lifts without official help; you know also 
 how smoothly and silently the lifts slide. Kalon 
 brought the lift to the girl's landing, and saw her, 
 through the open door, writing in her slow, sightless 
 way the will she had promised him. He called out 
 to her cheerily that he had the lift ready for her, 
 and she was to come out when she was ready. 
 Then he pressed a button and shot soundlessly up 
 to his own floor, walked through his own office, out 
 on to his own balcony, and was safely praying be- 
 fore the crowded street when the poor girl, having 
 finished her work, ran gaily out to where lover and 
 lift were to receive her, and stepped " 
 
 " Don't ! " cried Flambeau. 
 
 " He ought to have got half a million by pressing 
 that button," continued the little father, in the col- 
 ourless voice in which he talked of such horrors. 
 " But that went smash. It went smash because 
 there happened to be another person who also 
 wanted the money, and who also knew the secret 
 about poor Pauline's sight. There was one thing 
 about that will that I think nobody noticed: al- 
 though it was unfinished and without signature, the 
 other Miss Stacey and some servant of hers had 
 already signed it as witnesses. Joan had signed 
 first, saying Pauline could finish it later, with a 
 typical feminine contempt for legal forms. There- 
 fore, Joan wanted her sister to sign the will without 
 real witnesses. Why? I thought of the blindness, 
 and felt sure she had wanted Pauline to sign in 
 
 282 
 
> 
 
 M . 
 
 O S 
 
 S 5 
 
THE EYE OF APOLLO 
 
 solitude because she had wanted her not to sign at 
 all. 
 
 " People like the Staceys always use fountain 
 pens ; but this was specially natural to Pauline. By 
 habit and her strong will and memory she could still 
 write almost as well as if she saw; but she could not 
 tell when her pen needed dipping. Therefore, her 
 fountain pens were carefully filled by her sister — 
 all except this fountain pen. This was carefully not 
 filled by her sister; ihe remains of the ink held out 
 for a few lines and then failed altogether. And the 
 prophet lost five hundred thousand pounds and com- 
 mitted one of the most brutal and brilliant murders 
 in human history for nothing." 
 
 Flambeau went to the open door and heard the 
 official police ascending the stairs. He turned and 
 said : " You must have followed everything devil- 
 ish close to have traced the crime to Kalon in ten 
 minutes." 
 
 Father Brown gave a sort of start. 
 
 " Oh ! to him," he said. " No ; I had to follow 
 rather close to find out about Miss Joan and the 
 fountain pen. But I knew Kalon was the criminal 
 before I came into the front door." 
 
 "You must be joking!" cried Flambeau. 
 
 " I'm quite serious," answered the priest. " I tell 
 you I knew he had done it, even before I knew what 
 he had done." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 f'These pagan stoics," said Brown reflectively, 
 283 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 " always fail by their strength. There came a crash 
 and a scream down the street, and the priest of 
 Apollo did not start or look round. I did not know_ 
 what it was. But I knew that he was expecting it." 
 
 284 
 
XI 
 
 THE SIGN OF THE BROKEN SWORD 
 
 The thousand arms of the forest were grey, and its 
 million fingers silver. In a sky of dark green-blue- 
 like slate the stars were bleak and brilliant like 
 splintered ice. All that thickly wooded and sparsely 
 tenanted countryside was stiff with a bitter and 
 brittle frost. The black hollows between the trunks 
 of the trees looked like bottomless, black caverns 
 of that Scandinavian hell, a hell of incalculable cold. 
 Even the square stone tower of the church looked 
 northern to the point of heathenry, as if it were 
 some barbaric tower among the sea rocks of Ice- 
 land. It was a queer night for anyone to explore 
 a churchyard. But, on the other hand, perhaps it 
 was worth exploring. 
 
 It rose abruptly out of the ashen wastes of forest 
 in a sort of hump or shoulder of green turf that 
 looked grey in the starlight. Most of the graves 
 were on a slant, and the path leading up to the 
 church was as steep as a staircase. On the top of 
 the hill, in the one flat and prominent place, was 
 the monument for which the place was famous. It 
 contrasted strangely with the featureless graves all 
 
 285 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 round, for it was the work of one of the greatest 
 sculptors of modern Europe ; and yet his fame was 
 at once forgotten in the fame of the man whose 
 image he had made. It showed, by touches of the 
 small silver pencil of starlight, the massive metal 
 figure of a soldier recumbent, the strong hands 
 sealed in an everlasting worship, the great head 
 pillowed upon a gun. The venerable face was 
 bearded, or rather whiskered, in the old, heavy 
 Colonel Newcome fashion. The uniform, though 
 suggested with the few strokes of simplicity, was 
 that of modern war. By his right side lay a sword, 
 of which the tip was broken off; on the left side 
 lay a Bible. On glowing summer afternoons wag- 
 onettes came full of Americans and cultured sub- 
 urbans to see the sepulchre ; but even then they felt 
 the vast forest land with its one dumpy dome of 
 churchyard and church as a place oddly dumb and 
 neglected. In this freezing darkness of mid-winter 
 one would think he might be left alone with the 
 stars. Nevertheless, in the stillness of those stiff 
 woods a wooden gate creaked, and two dim figures 
 dressed in black climbed up the little path to the 
 tomb. 
 
 So faint was that frigid starlight that nothing 
 could have been traced about them except that while 
 they both wore black, one man was enormously big, 
 and the other (perhaps by contrast) almost start- 
 lingly small. They went up to the great graven 
 tomb of the historic warrior, and stood for a few, 
 
 286 
 
THE SIGN OF THE BROKEN SWORD 
 
 minutes staring at it. There was no human, per- 
 haps no living, thing for a wide circle ; and a morbid 
 fancy might well have wondered if they were human 
 themselves. In any case, the beginning of their 
 conversation might have seemed strange. After the 
 first silence the small man said to the other : 
 
 " Where does a wise man hide a pebble ? " 
 
 And the tall man answered in a low voice : " On 
 the beach." 
 
 The small man nodded, and after a short silence 
 said : " Where does a wise man hide a leaf? " 
 
 And the other answered : " In the forest." 
 
 There was another stillness, and then the tall 
 man resumed : " Do you mean that when a wise 
 man has to hide a real diamond, he has been known 
 to hide it among sham ones ? " 
 
 " No, no," said the little man with a laugh, " we 
 will let bygones be bygones." 
 
 He stamped his cold feet for a second or two, 
 and then said : " I'm not thinking of that at all, 
 but of something else; something rather peculiar. 
 Just strike a match, will you ? " 
 
 The big man fumbled in his pocket, and soon 
 a scratch and a flare painted gold the whole flat 
 side of the monument. On it was cut in black 
 letters the well-known words which so many Ameri- 
 cans had reverently read : " Sacred to the Memory 
 of General Sir Arthur St. Clare, Hero and Martyr, 
 who Always Vanquished his Enemies and Always 
 Spared Them, and Was Treacherously Slain by 
 
 287 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 Them At Last. May God in Whom he Trusted 
 both Reward and Revenge him." 
 
 The match burnt the big man's fingers, black- 
 ened, and dropped. He was about to strike another, 
 but his small companion stopped him. " That's all 
 right, Flambeau, old man; I saw what I wanted. 
 Or, rather, I didn't see what I didn't want. And 
 now we must walk a mile and a half along the road 
 to the next inn, and I will try to tell you all about 
 it. For Heaven knows a man should have a fire 
 and ale when he dares tell such a story." 
 
 They descended the precipitous path, they re- 
 latched the rusty gate, and set off at a stamping, 
 ringing walk down the frozen forest road. They 
 had gone a full quarter of a mile before the smaller 
 man spoke again. He said : " Yes ; the wise man 
 hides a pebble on the beach. But what does he do 
 if there is no beach? Do you know anything of 
 that great St. Clare trouble? " 
 
 " I know nothing about English generals, Father 
 Brown," answered the large man, laughing, 
 " though a little about English policemen. I only 
 know that you have dragged me a precious long 
 dance to all the shrines of this fellow, whoever 
 he is. One would think he got buried in six dif- 
 ferent places. I've seen a memorial to General St. 
 Clare in Westminster Abbey. I've seen a ramping 
 equestrian statue of General St. Clare on the Em- 
 bankment. I've seen a medallion of General St. 
 Clare in the street he was born in, and another in 
 
 288 
 
THE SIGN OF THE BROKEN SWORD 
 
 the street he lived in; and now you drag me after 
 dark to his coffin in the village church-yard. I am 
 beginning to be a bit tired of his magnificent per- 
 sonality, especially as I don't in the least know who 
 he was. What are you hunting for in all these 
 crypts and effigies ? " 
 
 " I am only looking for one word," said Father 
 Brown. " A word that isn't there." 
 
 " Well," asked Flambeau ; " are you going to tell 
 me anything about it ? " 
 
 " I must divide it into two parts," remarked the 
 priest. " First there is what everybody knows ; and 
 then there is what I know. Now, what everybody 
 knows is short and plain enough. It is also entirely 
 wrong." 
 
 " Right you are," said the big man called Flam- 
 beau cheerfully. " Let's begin at the wrong end. 
 Let's begin with what everybody knows, which isn't 
 true." 
 
 "If not wholly untrue, it is at least very inade- 
 quate," continued Brown ; " for in point of fact, all 
 that the public knows amounts precisely to this : 
 The public knows that Arthur St. Clare was a great 
 and successful English general. It knows that after 
 splendid yet careful campaigns both in India and 
 Africa he was in command against Brazil when the 
 great Brazilian patriot Olivier issued his ultimatum. 
 It knows that on that occasion St. Clare with a very 
 small force attacked Olivier with a very large one, 
 and was captured after heroic resistance. And it 
 •s 289 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 knows that after his capture, and to the abhorrence 
 of the civilised world, St. Clare was hanged on the 
 nearest tree. He was found swinging there after 
 the Brazilians had retired, with his broken sword 
 hung round his neck." 
 
 " And that popular story is untrue ? " suggested 
 Flambeau. 
 
 " No," said his friend quietly, " that story is 
 quite true, so far as it goes." 
 
 " Well, I think it goes far enough ! " said Flam- 
 beau; "but if the popular story is true, what is the 
 mystery ? " 
 
 They had passed many hundreds of grey and 
 ghostly trees before the little priest answered. 
 Then he bit his finger reflectively and said : " Why, 
 the mystery is a mystery of psychology. Or, rather, 
 it is a mystery of two psychologies. In that Bra- 
 zilian business two of the most famous men of mod- 
 ern history acted flat against their characters. 
 Mind you, Olivier and St. Clare were both heroes — 
 the old thing, and no mistake; it was like the fight 
 between Hector and Achilles. Now, what would 
 you say to an affair in which Achilles was timid and 
 Hector was treacherous ? " 
 
 " Go on," said the large man impatiently as the 
 other bit his finger again. 
 
 " Sir Arthur St. Clare was a soldier of the old 
 religious type — the type that saved us during the 
 Mutiny," continued Brown. " He was always more 
 for duty than for dash; and with all his personal 
 
 290 
 
THE SIGN OF THE BROKEN SWORD 
 
 courage was decidedly a prudent commander, par- 
 ticularly indignant at any needless waste of soldiers. 
 Yet in this last battle he attempted something that 
 a baby could see was absurd. One need not be a 
 strategist to see it was as wild as wind ; just as one 
 need not be a strategist to keep out of the way of a 
 motor-bus. Well, that is the first mystery; what 
 had become of the English general's head ? The sec- 
 ond riddle is, what had become of the Brazilian gen- 
 eral's heart ? President Olivier might be called a vi- 
 sionary or a nuisance ; but even his enemies admitted 
 that he was magnanimous to the point of knight 
 errantry. Almost every other prisoner he had ever 
 captured had been set free or even loaded with bene- 
 fits. Men who had really wronged him came away 
 touched by his simplicity and sweetness. Why the 
 deuce should he diabolically revenge himself only 
 once in his life; and that for the one particular 
 blow that could not have hurt him ? Well,_ there 
 you have it. One of the wisest men in the world 
 acted like an idiot for no reason. One of the best 
 men in the world acted like a fiend for no reason. 
 That's the long and the short of it ; and I leave it to 
 you, my boy." 
 
 " No, you don't," said the other with a snort. 
 "I leave it to you; and you jolly well tell me all 
 about it." 
 
 "Well," resumed Father Brown, "it's not fair 
 to say that the public impression is just what I've 
 said, without adding that two things have happened 
 
 291 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 since. I can't say they threw a new light; for no- 
 body can make sense of them. But they threw a 
 new kind of darkness; they threw the darkness in 
 new directions. The first was this. The family 
 physician of the St. Clares quarrelled with that fam- 
 ily, and began publishing a violent series of articles, 
 in which he said that the late general was a religious 
 maniac; but as far as the tale went, this seemed to 
 mean little more than a religious man. Anyhow, 
 the story fizzled out. Everyone knew, of course, 
 that St. Clare had some of the eccentricities of pu- 
 ritan piety. The second incident was much more 
 arresting. In the luckless and unsupported regi- 
 ment which made that rash attempt at the Black 
 River there was a certain Captain Keith, who was 
 at that time engaged to St. Clare's daughter, and 
 who afterwards married her. He was one of those 
 who were captured by Olivier, and, like all the rest 
 except the general, appears to have been bounteously 
 treated and promptly set free. Some twenty years 
 afterwards this man, then Lieutenant-Colonel Keith, 
 published a sort of autobiography called ' A British 
 Officer in Burmah and Brazil.' In the place where 
 the reader looks eagerly for some account of the 
 mystery of St. Clare's disaster may be found the 
 following words : ' Everywhere else in this book I 
 have narrated things exactly as they occurred, hold- 
 ing as I do the old-fashioned opinion that the glory 
 of England is old enough to take care of itself. The 
 exception I shall make is in this matter of the defeat 
 
 292 
 
THE SIGN OF THE BROKEN SWORD 
 
 by the Black River ; and my reasons, though private, 
 are honourable and compelling. I will, however, 
 add this in justice to the memories of two distin- 
 guished men. General St. Clare has been accused 
 of incapacity on this occasion ; I can at least testify 
 that this action, properly understood, was one of 
 the most brilliant and sagacious of his life. Presi- 
 dent Olivier by similar report is charged with savage 
 injustice. I think it due to the honour of an enemy 
 to say that he acted on this occasion with even more 
 than his characteristic good feeling. To put the 
 matter popularly, I can assure my countrymen that 
 St. Clare was by no means such a fool nor Olivier 
 such a brute as he looked. This is all I have to say ; 
 nor shall any earthly consideration induce me to add 
 a word to it.' " 
 
 A large frozen moon like a lustrous snowball 
 began to show through the tangle of twigs in front 
 of them, and by its light the narrator had been able 
 to refresh his memory of Captain Keith's text from 
 a scrap of printed paper. As he folded it up and 
 put it back in his pocket Flambeau threw up his 
 hand with a French gesture. 
 
 " Wait a bit, wait a bit," he cried excitedly. " I 
 believe I can guess it at the first go." 
 
 He strode on, breathing hard, his black head and 
 bull neck forward, like a man winning a walk- 
 ing race. The little priest, amused and interested, 
 had some trouble in trotting beside him. Just be- 
 fore them the trees fell back a little to left and 
 
 293 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 right, and the road swept downwards across a 
 clear, moonlit valley, till it dived again like a rabbit 
 into the wall of another wood. The entrance to 
 the farther forest looked small and round, like 
 the black hole of a remote railway tunnel. But 
 it was within some hundred yards, and gaped like 
 a cavern before Flambeau spoke again. 
 
 " I've got it," he cried at last, slapping his thigh 
 with his great hand. " Four minutes' thinking, 
 and I can tell your whole story myself." 
 
 " All right," assented his friend. " You tell it." 
 
 Flambeau lifted his head, but lowered his voice. 
 " General Sir Arthur St. Clare," he said, " came of 
 a family in which madness was hereditary ; and his 
 whole aim was to keep this from his daughter, and 
 even, if possible, from his future son-in-law. 
 Rightly or wrongly, he thought the final collapse 
 was close, and resolved on suicide. Yet ordinary 
 suicide would blazen the very idea he dreaded. As 
 the campaign approached the clouds came thicker 
 on his brain ; and at last in a mad moment he sacri- 
 ficed his public duty to his private. He rushed 
 rashly into battle, hoping to fall by the first shot. 
 When he found that he had only attained capture 
 and discredit, the sealed bomb in his brain burst, 
 and he broke his own sword and hanged himself." 
 
 He stared firmly at the grey fagade of forest in 
 front of him, with the one black gap in it, like the 
 mouth of the grave, into which their path plunged. 
 Perhaps something menacing in the road thus sud- 
 
 294 
 
THE SIGN OF THE BROKEN SWORD 
 
 denly swallowed reinforced his vivid vision of the 
 tragedy, for he shuddered. 
 
 " A horrid story," he said. 
 
 "A horrid story," repeated the priest with bent 
 head. " But not the real story." 
 
 Then he threw back his head with a sort of de- 
 spair and cried : " Oh, I wish it had been." 
 
 The tall Flambeau faced round and stared at 
 him. 
 
 " Yours is a clean story," cried Father Brown, 
 deeply moved. "A sweet, pure, honest story, as 
 open and white as that moon. Madness and de- 
 spair are innocent enough. There are worse things, 
 Flambeau." 
 
 Flambeau looked up wildly at the moon thus 
 invoked; and from where he stood one black 
 tree-bough curved across it exactly like a devil's 
 horn. 
 
 " Father— father," cried Flambeau with the 
 French gesture and stepping yet more rapidly for- 
 ward, " do you mean it was worse than that ? " 
 
 " Worse than that," said Paul like a grave echo. 
 And they plunged into the black cloister of the 
 woodland, which ran by them in a dim tapestry of 
 trunks, like one of the dark corridors in a dream. 
 
 They were soon in the most secret entrails of 
 the wood, and felt close about them foliage that 
 they could not see, when the priest said again: 
 
 "Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the 
 forest. But what does he do if there is no forest? " 
 
 295 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 "Well, well/' cried Flambeau irritably, "what 
 does he do ? " 
 
 " He grows a forest to hide it in," said the priest 
 in an obscure voice. " A fearful sin." 
 
 " Look here," cried his friend impatiently, for 
 the dark wood and the dark saying got a little on 
 his nerves; "will you tell me this story or not? 
 What other evidence is there to go on ? " 
 
 " There are three more bits of evidence," said 
 the other, "that I have dug up in holes and cor- 
 ners; and I will give them in logical rather than 
 chronological order. First of all, of course, our 
 authority for the issue and event of the battle is 
 in Olivier's own dispatches, which are lucid 
 enough. He was entrenched with two or three 
 regiments on the heights that swept down to the 
 Black River, on the other side of which was lower 
 and more marshy ground. Beyond this again was 
 gently rising country, on which was the first Eng- 
 lish outpost, supported by others which lay, how- 
 ever, considerably in its rear. The British forces 
 as a whole were greatly superior in numbers; but 
 this particular regiment was just far enough from 
 its base to make Olivier consider the project of 
 crossing the river to cut it off. By sunset, how- 
 ever, he had decided to retain his own position, 
 which was a specially strong one. At daybreak 
 next morning he was thunderstruck to see that this 
 stray handful of English, entirely unsupported 
 from their rear, had flung themselves across the 
 
 296 
 
THE SIGN OF THE BROKEN SWORD 
 
 river, half by a bridge to the right, and the other 
 half by a ford higher up, and were massed upon 
 the marshy bank below him. 
 
 That they should attempt an attack with such 
 numbers against such a position was incredible 
 enough; but Olivier noticed something yet more 
 extraordinary. For instead of attempting to seize 
 more solid ground, this mad regiment, having put 
 the river in its rear by one wild charge, did nothing 
 more, but stuck there in the mire like flies in 
 treacle. Needless to say, the Brazilians blew great 
 gaps in them with artillery, which they could only 
 return with spirited but lessening rifle fire. Yet 
 they never broke; and Olivier's curt account ends 
 with a strong tribute of admiration for the mystic 
 valour of these imbeciles. ' Our line then ad- 
 vanced finally,' writes Olivier, ' and drove them 
 into the river; we captured General St. Clare him- 
 self and several other officers. The colonel and 
 the major had both fallen in the battle. I cannot 
 resist saying that few finer sights can have been 
 seen in history than the last stand of this extraor- 
 dinary regiment; wounded officers picking up 
 the rifles of dead soldiers, and the general himself 
 facing us on horseback bareheaded and with a 
 broken sword.' On what happened to the general 
 afterwards Olivier is as silent as Captain Keith." 
 
 " Well," grunted Flambeau, " get on to the next 
 bit of evidence." 
 
 " The next evidence," said Father Brown, " took 
 297 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 some time to find, but it will not take long to 
 tell. I found at last in an almshouse down in the 
 Lincolnshire Fens an old soldier who not only 
 was wounded at the Black River, but had actually- 
 knelt beside the colonel of the regiment when he 
 died. This latter was a certain Colonel Clancy, a 
 big bull of an Irishman; and it would seem that 
 he died almost as much of rage as of bullets. He, 
 at any rate, was not responsible for that ridiculous 
 raid; it must have been imposed on him by the 
 general. His last edifying words, according to my 
 informant, were these: 'And there goes the 
 damned old donkey with the end of his sword 
 knocked off. I wish it was his head.' You will 
 remark that everyone seems to have noticed this 
 detail about the broken sword blade, though most 
 people regard it somewhat more reverently than 
 did the late Colonel Clancy. And now for the 
 third fragment." 
 
 Their path through the woodland began to go 
 upward, and the speaker paused a little for breath 
 before he went on. Then he continued in the same 
 business-like tone: 
 
 " Only a month or two ago a certain Brazilian 
 official died in England, having quarrelled with 
 Olivier and left his country. He was a well-known 
 figure both here and on the Continent, a Spaniard 
 named Espado; I knew him myself, a yellow-faced 
 old dandy, with a hooked nose. For various 
 private reasons I had permission to see the docu- 
 
 298 
 
THE SIGN OF THE BROKEN SWORD 
 
 ments he had left; he was a Catholic, of course, 
 and I had been with him towards the end. There 
 was nothing of his that lit up any corner of the 
 black St. Clare business, except five or six common 
 exercise books filled with the diary of some English 
 soldier. I can only suppose that it was found by 
 the Brazilians on one of those that fell. Anyhow, 
 it stopped abruptly the night before the battle. 
 
 " But the account of that last day in the poor 
 fellow's life was certainly worth reading. I have 
 it on me; but it's too dark to read it here, and I 
 will give you a resume. The first part of that 
 entry is full of jokes, evidently flung about among 
 the men, about somebody called the Vulture. It 
 does not seem as if this person, whoever he was, 
 was one of themselves, nor even an Englishman; 
 neither is he exactly spoken of as one of the enemy. 
 It sounds rather as if he were some local go- 
 between and non-combatant; perhaps a guide or 
 a journalist. He has been closeted with old Col- 
 onel Clancy; but is more often seen talking to the 
 major. Indeed, the major is somewhat prominent 
 in this soldier's narrative ; a lean, dark-haired man, 
 apparently, of the name of Murray — a north of 
 Ireland man and a Puritan. There are continual 
 jests about the contrast between this Ulsterman's 
 austerity and the conviviality of Colonel Clancy. 
 There is also some joke about the Vulture wearing 
 bright-coloured clothes. 
 
 " But all these levities are scattered by what may 
 299 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 well be called the note of a bugle. Behind the 
 English camp and almost parallel to the river ran 
 one of the few great roads of that district. West- 
 ward the road curved round towards the river, 
 which it crossed l by the bridge before mentioned. 
 To the east the road swept backwards into the 
 wilds, and some two miles along it was the next 
 English outpost. From this direction there came 
 along the road that evening a glitter and clatter 
 of light cavalry, in which even the simple diarist 
 could recognise with astonishment the general with 
 his staff. He rode the great white horse which 
 you have seen so often in illustrated papers and 
 Academy pictures; and you may be sure that the 
 salute they gave him was not merely ceremonial. 
 He, at least, wasted no time on ceremony, but, 
 springing from the saddle immediately, mixed 
 with the group of officers, and fell into emphatic 
 though confidential speech. What struck our 
 friend the diarist most was his special disposition 
 to discuss matters with Major Murray; but, in- 
 deed, such a selection, so long as it was not 
 marked, was in no way unnatural. The two men 
 were made for sympathy; they were men who 
 ' read their Bibles ' ; they were both the old Evan- 
 gelical type of officer. However this may be, it 
 is certain that when the general mounted again he 
 was still talking earnestly to Murray; and that as 
 he walked his horse slowly down the road towards 
 the river, the tall Ulsterman still walked by his 
 
 300 
 
THE SIGN OF THE BROKEN SWORD 
 
 bridle rein in earnest debate. The soldiers watched 
 the two until they vanished behind a clump of trees 
 where the road turned towards the river. The 
 colonel had gone back to his tent, and the men to 
 their pickets; the man with the diary lingered for 
 another four minutes, and saw a marvellous sight. 
 
 " The great white horse which had marched 
 slowly down the road, as it had marched in so 
 many processions, flew back, galloping up the road 
 towards them as if it were mad to win a race. At 
 first they thought it had run away with the man 
 on its back; but they soon saw that the general, 
 a fine rider, was himself urging it to full speed. 
 Horse and man swept up to them like a whirlwind ; 
 and then, reining up the reeling charger, the general 
 turned on them a face like flame, and called for 
 the colonel like the trumpet that wakes the dead. 
 
 " I conceive that all the earthquake events of 
 that catastrophe tumbled on top of each other 
 rather like lumber in the minds of men such as 
 our friend with the diary. With the dazed excite- 
 ment of a dream, they found themselves falling — 
 literally falling — into their ranks, and learned that 
 an attack was to be led at once across the river. 
 The general and the major, it was said, had found 
 out something at the bridge, and there was only 
 just time to strike for life. The major had gone 
 back at once to call up the reserve along the road 
 behind; it was doubtful if even with that prompt 
 appeal help could reach them in time. But they 
 
 301 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 must pass the stream that night, and seize the' 
 heights by morning. It is with the very stir and 
 throb of that romantic nocturnal march that the 
 diary suddenly ends." 
 
 Father Brown had mounted ahead; for the 
 woodland path grew smaller, steeper, and more 
 twisted, till they felt as if they were ascending a 
 winding staircase. The priest's voice came from 
 above out of the darkness. 
 
 " There was one other little and enormous thing. 
 When the general urged them to their chivalric 
 charge he half drew his sword from the scabbard; 
 and then, as if ashamed of such melodrama, thrust 
 it back again. The sword again, you see." 
 
 A half-light broke through the network of 
 boughs above them, flinging the ghost of a net 
 about their feet; for they were mounting again to 
 the faint luminosity of the naked night. Flambeau 
 felt truth all round him as an atmosphere, but not 
 as an idea. He answered with bewildered brain: 
 " Well, what's the matter with the sword ? Officers 
 generally have swords, don't they ? " 
 
 " They are not often mentioned in modern war," 
 said the other dispassionately ; " but in this affair 
 one falls over the blessed sword everywhere." 
 
 " Well, what is there in that ? " growled Flam- 
 beau ; " it was a twopence coloured sort of incident ; 
 the old man's blade breaking in his last battle. 
 Anyone might bet the papers would get hold of 
 it, as they have. On all these tombs and things 
 
 302 
 
THE SIGN OF THE BROKEN SWORD 
 
 it's shown broken at the point. I hope you haven't 
 dragged me through this Polar expedition merely 
 because two men with an eye for a picture saw St. 
 Clare's broken sword." 
 
 " No," cried Father Brown, with a sharp voice 
 like a pistol shot ; " but who saw his unbroken 
 sword?" 
 
 " What do you mean ? " cried the other, and 
 stood still under the stars. They had come ab- 
 ruptly out of the grey gates of the wood. 
 
 " I say, who saw his unbroken sword ? " re- 
 peated Father Brown obstinately. " Not the writer 
 of the diary, anyhow; the general sheathed it in 
 time." 
 
 Flambeau looked about him in the moonlight, 
 as a man struck blind might look in the sun; and 
 his friend went on for the first time with eager- 
 ness: 
 
 " Flambeau," he cried, " I cannot prove it, even 
 after hunting through the tombs. But I am sure 
 of it. Let me add just one more tiny fact that 
 tips the whole thing over. The colonel, by a 
 strange chance, was one of the first struck by a 
 bullet. He was struck long before the troops came 
 to close quarters. But he saw St. Clare's sword 
 broken. Why was it broken ? How was it broken ? 
 My friend, it was broken before the battle." 
 
 " Oh ! " said his friend, with a sort of forlorn 
 jocularity; "and pray where is the other piece?" 
 
 " I can tell you," said the priest promptly. " In 
 303 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 the north-east corner of the cemetery of the Prot- 
 estant Cathedral at Belfast." 
 
 " Indeed ? " inquired the other. " Have you 
 looked for it?" 
 
 " I couldn't," replied Brown, with frank regret. 
 "There's a great marble monument on top of it; 
 a monument to the heroic Major Murray, who fell 
 fighting gloriously at the famous Battle of the 
 Black River." 
 
 Flambeau seemed suddenly galvanised into exist- 
 ence. " You mean," he cried hoarsely, " that Gen- 
 eral St. Clare hated Murray, and murdered him 
 on the field of battle because " 
 
 " You are still full of good and pure thoughts," 
 said the other. " It was worse than that." 
 
 " Well," said the large man, " my stock of evil 
 imagination is used up." 
 
 The priest seemed really doubtful where to be- 
 gin, and at last he said again: 
 
 " Where would a wise man hide a leaf ? In the 
 forest." 
 
 The other did not answer. 
 
 " If there were no forest, ne would make a 
 forest. And if he wished to hide a dead leaf, he 
 would make a dead forest." 
 
 There was still no reply, and the priest added 
 still more mildly and quietly : 
 
 " And if a man had to hide a dead body, he 
 would make a field of dead bodies to hide it in." 
 
 Flambeau began to stamp forward with an in- 
 304 
 
THE SIGN OF THE BROKEN SWORD 
 
 tolerance of delay in time or space; but Father 
 Brown went on as if he were continuing the last 
 sentence : 
 
 " Sir Arthur St. Clare, as I have already said, 
 was a man who read his Bible. That was what 
 was the matter with him. When will people under- 
 stand that it is useless for a man to read his Bible 
 unless he also reads everybody else's Bible? A 
 printer reads a Bible for misprints. A Mormon 
 reads his Bible, and finds polygamy; a Christian 
 Scientist reads his, and finds we have no arms 
 and legs. St. Clare was an old Anglo-Indian Prot- 
 estant soldier. Now, just think what that might 
 mean; and, for Heaven's sake, don't cant about it. 
 It might mean a man physically formidable living 
 under a tropic sun in an Oriental society, and 
 soaking himself without sense or guidance in an 
 Oriental book. Of course, he read the Old Testa- 
 ment rather than the New. Of course, he found in 
 the Old Testament anything that he wanted — lust, 
 tyranny, treason. Oh, I dare say he was honest, 
 as you call it. But what is the good of a man 
 being honest in his worship of dishonesty? 
 
 " In each of the hot and secret countries to 
 which that man went he kept a harem, he tortured 
 witnesses, he amassed shameful gold; but certainly 
 he would have said with steady eyes that he did it 
 to the glory of the Lord. My own theology is 
 sufficiently expressed by asking which Lord ? Any- 
 how, there is this about such evil, that it opens door 
 30 305 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 after door in hell, and always into smaller and 
 smaller chambers. This is the real case against 
 crime, that a man does not become wilder and 
 wilder, but only meaner and meaner. St. Clare 
 was soon suffocated by difficulties of bribery and 
 blackmail; and needed more and more cash. And 
 by the time of the Battle of the Black River he had 
 fallen from world to world to that place which 
 Dante makes the lowest floor of the universe." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked his friend again. 
 
 " I mean that," retorted the cleric, and suddenly 
 pointed at a puddle sealed with ice that shone in 
 the moon. " Do you remember whom Dante put 
 in the last circle of ice? " 
 
 " The traitors," said Flambeau, and shuddered. 
 As he looked around at the inhuman landscape of 
 trees, with taunting and almost obscene outlines, 
 he could almost fancy he was Dante, and the priest 
 with the rivulet of a voice was, indeed, a Virgil 
 leading him through a land of eternal sins. 
 
 The voice went on : " Olivier, as you know, was 
 quixotic, and would not permit a secret service and 
 spies. The thing, however, was done, like many 
 other things, behind his back. It was managed 
 by my old friend Espado; he was the bright-clad 
 fop, whose hook nose got him called the Vulture. 
 Posing as a sort of philanthropist at the front, he 
 felt his way through the English Army, and at 
 last got his fingers on its one corrupt man — please 
 God! — and that man at the top. St. Clare was in 
 
 306 
 
THE SIGN OF THE BROKEN SWORD 
 
 foul need of money, and mountains of it. The 
 discredited family doctor was threatening those 
 extraordinary exposures that afterwards began and 
 were broken off ; tales of monstrous and prehistoric 
 things in Park Lane; things done by an English 
 Evangelical that smelt like human sacrifice and 
 hordes of slaves. Money was wanted, too, for his 
 daughter's dowry; for to him the fame of wealth 
 was as sweet as wealth itself. He snapped the 
 last thread, whispered the word to Brazil, and 
 wealth poured in from the enemies of England. 
 But another man had talked to Espado the Vulture 
 as well as he. Somehow the dark, grim young 
 major from Ulster had guessed the hideous truth; 
 and when they walked slowly together down that 
 road towards the bridge Murray was telling the 
 general that he must resign instantly, or be court- 
 martialled and shot. The general temporised with 
 him till they came to the fringe of tropic trees by 
 the bridge; and there by the singing river and the 
 sunlit palms (for I can see the picture) the general 
 drew his sabre and plunged it through the body of 
 the major." 
 
 The wintry road curved over a ridge in cutting 
 frost, with cruel black shapes of bush and thicket; 
 but Flambeau fancied that he saw beyond it faintly 
 the edge of an aureole that was not starlight and 
 moonlight, but some fire such as is made by men. 
 He watched it as the tale drew to its close. 
 
 " St. ,Qare was a hell-hound, but he was a 
 307 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 hound of breed. Never, I'll swear, was he so lucid 
 and so strong as when poor Murray lay a cold 
 lump at his feet. Never in all his triumphs, as 
 Captain Keith said truly, was the great man so 
 great as he was in this last world-despised defeat. 
 He looked coolly at his weapon to wipe off the 
 blood; he saw the point he had planted between 
 his victim's shoulders had broken off in the body. 
 He saw quite calmly, as through a club window- 
 pane, all that must follow. He saw that men must 
 find the unaccountable corpse; must extract the 
 unaccountable sword-point; must notice the un- 
 accountable broken sword — or absence of sword. 
 He had killed, but not silenced. But his imperious 
 intellect rose against the facer; there was one way 
 yet. He could make the corpse less unaccountable. 
 He could create a hill of corpses to cover this one. 
 In twenty minutes eight hundred English soldiers 
 were marching down to their death." 
 
 The warmer glow behind the black winter wood 
 grew richer and brighter, and Flambeau strode on 
 to reach it. Father Brown also quickened his 
 stride; but he seemed merely absorbed in his tale. 
 
 " Such was the valour of that English thousand, 
 and such the genius of their commander, that if 
 they had at once attacked the hill, even their mad 
 march might have met some luck. But the evil 
 mind that played with them like pawns had other 
 aims and reasons. They must remain in the 
 marshes by the bridge at least till British corpses 
 
 308 
 
THE SIGN OF THE BROKEN SWORD 
 
 should be a common sight there. Then for the 
 last grand scene; the silver-haired soldier-saint 
 would give up his shattered sword to save further 
 slaughter. Oh, it was well organised for an im- 
 promptu. But I think (I cannot prove), I think 
 that it was while they stuck there in the bloody- 
 mire that someone doubted — and someone guessed." 
 
 He was mute a moment, and then said : " There 
 in a voice from nowhere that tells me the man who 
 guessed was the lover. . . . the man to wed 
 the old man's child." 
 
 " But what about Olivier and the hanging? " 
 asked Flambeau. 
 
 " Olivier, partly from chivalry, partly from 
 policy, seldom encumbered his march with cap- 
 tives," explained the narrator. " He released 
 everybody in most cases. He released everybody 
 in this case." 
 
 " Everybody but the general," said the tall man. 
 
 " Everybody," said the priest. 
 
 Flambeau knitted his black brows. " I don't 
 grasp it all yet," he said. 
 
 " There is another picture, Flambeau," said 
 Brown in his more mystical undertone. " I can't 
 prove it; but I can do more — I can see it. There 
 is a, camp breaking up on the bare, torrid hills at 
 morning, and Brazilian uniforms massed in blocks 
 and columns to march. There is the red shirt and 
 long black beard of Olivier, which blows as he 
 stands, his broad-brimmed hat in his hand. He 
 
 309 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 is saying farewell to the great enemy he is setting 
 free — the simple, snow-headed English veteran, 
 who thanks him in the name of his men. The 
 English remnant stand behind at attention; beside 
 them are stores and vehicles for the retreat. The 
 drums roll; the Brazilians are moving; the English 
 are still like statues. So they abide till the last 
 hum and flash of the enemy have faded from the 
 tropic horizon. Then they alter their postures all 
 at once, like dead men coming to life; they turn 
 their fifty faces upon the general — faces not to be 
 forgotten." 
 
 Flambeau gave a great jump. "Ah," he cried. 
 " You don't mean " 
 
 " Yes," said Father Brown in a deep, moving 
 voice. " It was an English hand that put the rope 
 round St. Clare's neck; I believe the hand that put 
 the ring on his daughter's finger. They were Eng- 
 lish hands that dragged him up to the tree of 
 shame ; the hands of men that had adored him and 
 followed him to victory. And they were English 
 souls (God pardon and endure us all!) who stared 
 at him swinging in that foreign sun on the green 
 gallows of palm, and prayed in their hatred that he 
 might drop off it into hell." 
 
 As the two topped the ridge there burst on 
 them the strong scarlet light of a red-curtained 
 English inn. It stood sideways in the road, as if 
 standing aside in the amplitude of hospitality. Its 
 three doors stood open with invitation; and even 
 
 310 
 
THE SIGN OF THE BROKEN SWORD 
 
 where they stood they could hear the hum and 
 laughter of humanity happy for a night. 
 
 "I need not tell you more," said Father 
 Brown. " They tried him in the wilderness and 
 destroyed him; and then, for the honour of Eng- 
 land and of his daughter, they took an oath to seal 
 up for ever the story of the traitor's purse and the 
 assassin's sword blade. Perhaps — Heaven help 
 them — they tried to forget it. Let us try to for- 
 get it, anyhow; here is our inn." 
 
 " With all my heart," said Flambeau, and was 
 just striding into the bright, noisy bar when he 
 stepped back and almost fell on the road. 
 
 " Look there, in the devil's name ! " he cried, 
 and pointed rigidly at the square wooden sign that 
 overhung the road. It showed dimly the crude 
 shape of a sabre hilt and a shortened blade; and 
 was inscribed in false archaic lettering, " The Sign 
 of the Broken Sword." 
 
 " Were you not prepared ? " asked Father 
 Brown gently. " He is the god of this country ; 
 half the inns and parks and streets are named after 
 him and his story." 
 
 " I thought we had done with the leper," cried 
 Flambeau, and spat on the road. 
 
 " You will never have done with him in Eng- 
 land," said the priest, looking down, " while brass 
 is strong and stone abides. His marble statues 
 will erect the souls of proud, innocent boys for 
 centuries, his village tomb will smell of loyalty, 
 
 3" 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 as of lilies. Millions who never knew him shall 
 love him like a father — this man whom the last 
 few 1 that knew him dealt with like dung. He shall 
 be a saint; and the truth shall never be told of 
 him, because I have made up my mind at last. 
 There is so much good and evil in breaking secrets, 
 that I put my conduct to a test. All these news- 
 papers will perish; the anti-Brazil boom is already 
 over ; Olivier is already honoured everywhere. But 
 I told myself that if anywhere, by name, in metal 
 or marble that will endure like the pyramids, 
 Colonel Clancy, or Captain Keith, or President 
 Olivier, or any innocent man was wrongly blamed, 
 then I would speak. If it were only that St. Clare 
 was wrongly praised, I would be silent. And I 
 will." 
 
 They plunged into the red-curtained tavern, 
 which was not only cosy, but even luxurious inside. 
 On a table stood a silver model of the tomb of 
 St. Clare, the silver head bowed, the silver sword 
 broken. On the walls were coloured photographs 
 of the same scene, and of the system of wagonettes 
 that took tourists to see it. They sat down on the 
 comfortable padded benches. 
 
 "Come, it's cold," cried Father Brown; "let's 
 have some wine or beer." 
 
 " Or brandy," said Flambeau. 
 
 312 
 
XII 
 
 THE THREE TOOLS OF DEATH 
 
 Both by calling and conviction Father Brown 
 knew better than most of us, that every man is 
 dignified when he is dead. But even he felt a 
 pang of incongruity when he was knocked up at 
 daybreak and told that Sir Aaron Armstrong had 
 been murdered. There was something absurd and 
 unseemly about secret violence in connection with 
 so entirely entertaining and popular a figure. For 
 Sir Aaron Armstrong was entertaining to the point 
 of being comic; and popular in such a manner as 
 to be almost legendary. It was like hearing that 
 Sunny Jim had hanged himself; or that Mr. Pick- 
 wick had died in Hanwell. For though Sir Aaron 
 was a philanthropist, and thus dealt with the darker 
 side of our society, he prided himself on dealing 
 with it in the brightest possible style. His political 
 and social speeches were cataracts of anecdotes and 
 " loud laughter " ; his bodily health was of a burst- 
 ing sort ; his ethics were all optimism ; and he dealt 
 with the Drink problem (his favourite topic) with 
 that immortal or even monotonous gaiety which is 
 so often a mark of the prosperous total abstainer. 
 The established story of his conversion was 
 313 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 familiar on the more puritanic platforms and 
 pulpits, how he had been, when only a boy, drawn 
 away from Scotch theology to Scotch whisky, 
 and how he had risen out of both and become (as 
 he modestly put it) what he was. Yet his wide 
 white beard, cherubic face, and sparkling spec- 
 tacles, at the numberless dinners and congresses 
 where they appeared, made it hard to believe, some- 
 how, that he had ever been anything so morbid 
 as either a dram-drinker or a Calvinist. He was, 
 one felt, the most seriously merry of all the sons 
 of men. 
 
 He had lived on the rural skirt of Hampstead 
 in a handsome house, high but not broad, a modern 
 and prosaic tower. The narrowest of its narrow 
 sides overhung the steep green bank of a railway, 
 and was shaken by passing trains. Sir Aaron 
 Armstrong, as he boisterously explained, had no 
 nerves. But if the train had often given a shock 
 to the house, that morning the tables were turned, 
 and it was the house that gave a shock to the 
 train. 
 
 The engine slowed down and stopped just be- 
 yond that point where an angle of the house im- 
 pinged upon the sharp slope of turf. The arrest 
 of most mechanical things must be slow; but the 
 living cause of this had been very rapid. A man 
 clad completely in black, even (it was remembered) 
 to the dreadful detail of black gloves, appeared on 
 the ridge above the engine, and waved his black 
 
 3i4 
 
THE THREE TOOLS OF DEATH 
 
 hands like some sable windmill. This in itself 
 would hardly have stopped even a lingering train. 
 But there came out of him a cry which was talked 
 of afterwards as something utterly unnatural and 
 new. It was one of those shouts that are horridly 
 distinct even when we cannot hear what is shouted. 
 The word in this case was " Murder ! " 
 
 But the engine-driver swears he would have 
 pulled up just the same if he had heard only the 
 dreadful and definite accent and not the word. 
 
 The train once arrested, the most superficial 
 stare could take in many features of the tragedy. 
 The man in black on the green bank was Sir 
 Aaron Armstrong's man-servant Magnus. The 
 baronet in his optimism had often laughed at the 
 black gloves of this dismal attendant; but no one 
 was likely to laugh at him just now. 
 
 So soon as an inquirer or two had stepped off 
 the line and across the smoky hedge, they saw, 
 rolled down almost to the bottom of the bank, the 
 body of an old man in a yellow dressing-gown with 
 a very vivid scarlet lining. A scrap of rope seemed 
 Caught about his leg, entangled persumably in a 
 struggle. There was a smear or so of blood, 
 though very little ; but the body was bent or broken 
 into a posture impossible to any living thing. It 
 was Sir Aaron Armstrong. A few more be- 
 wildered moments brought out a big fair-bearded 
 man, whom some travellers could salute as the dead 
 man's secretary, Patrick Royce, once well known 
 
 3i5 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 in Bohemian society and even famous in the Bo- 
 hemian arts. In a manner more vague, but even 
 more convincing, he echoed the agony of the 
 servant. By the time the third figure of that house- 
 hold, Alice Armstrong, daughter of the dead man, 
 had come already tottering and wavering into the 
 garden, the engine-driver had put a stop to his 
 stoppage. The whistle had blown and the train 
 had panted on to get help from the next station. 
 
 Father Brown had been thus rapidly summoned 
 at the request of Patrick Royce, the big ex- 
 Bohemian secretary. Royce was an Irishman by 
 birth; and that casual kind of Catholic that never 
 remembers his religion until he is really in a hole. 
 But Royce's request might have been less promptly 
 complied with if one of the official detectives had 
 not been a friend and admirer of the unofficial 
 Flambeau; and it was impossible to be a friend 
 of Flambeau without hearing numberless stories 
 about Father Brown. Hence, while the young de- 
 tective (whose name was Merton) led the little 
 priest across the fields to the railway, their talk 
 was more confidential than could be expected be- 
 tween two total strangers. 
 
 " As far as I can see," said Mr. Merton can- 
 didly, " there is no sense to be made of it at all. 
 There is nobody one can suspect. Magnus is a 
 solemn old fool; far too much of a fool to be an 
 assassin. Royce has been the baronet's best friend 
 for years; and his daughter undoubtedly adored 
 
 316 
 
THE THREE TOOLS OF DEATH 
 
 him. Besides, it's all too absurd. Who would 
 kill such a cheery old chap as Armstrong? Who 
 could dip his hands in the gore of an after-dinner 
 speaker? It would be like killing Father Christ- 
 mas." 
 
 "Yes, it was a cheery house," assented Father 
 Brown. " It was a cheery house while he was alive. 
 Do you think it will be cheery now he is dead ? " 
 
 Merton started a little and regarded his com- 
 panion with an enlivened eye. " Now he is dead ? " 
 he repeated. 
 
 " Yes," continued the priest stolidly, " he was 
 cheerful. But did he communicate his cheerful- 
 ness? Frankly, was anyone else in the house 
 cheerful but he ? " 
 
 A window in Merton's mind let in that strange 
 light of surprise in which we see for the first time 
 things we have known all along. He had often 
 been to the Armstrongs', on little police jobs of 
 the philanthropist; and, now he came to think of 
 it, it was in itself a depressing house. The rooms 
 were very high and very cold ; the decoration mean 
 and provincial; the draughty corridors were lit by 
 electricity that was bleaker than moonlight. And 
 though the old man's scarlet face and silver beard 
 had blazed like a bonfire in each room or passage 
 in turn, it did not leave any warmth behind it. 
 Doubtless this spectral discomfort in the place was 
 partly due to the very vitality and exuberance of 
 its owner; he needed no stoves or lamps, he would 
 
 3i7 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 say, but carried his own warmth with him. But 
 when Merton recalled the other inmates, he was 
 compelled to confess that they also were as shadows 
 of their lord. The moody man-servant, with his 
 monstrous black gloves, was almost a nightmare; 
 Royce, the secretary, was solid enough, a big bull 
 of a man, in tweeds, with a short beard; but the 
 straw-coloured beard was startlingly salted with 
 grey like the tweeds, and the broad forehead Was 
 barred with premature wrinkles. He was good-- 
 natured enough also, but it was a sad sort of good- 
 nature, almost a heart-broken sort — he had the 
 general air of being some sort of failure in life. As 
 for Armstrong's daughter, it was almost incredible 
 that she was his daughter; she was so pallid in 
 colour and sensitive in outline. She was graceful, 
 but there was a quiver in the very shape of her 
 that was like the lines of an aspen. Merton had 
 sometimes wondered if she had learnt to quail at 
 the crash of the passing trains. 
 
 " You see," said Father Brown, blinking 
 modestly, " I'm not sure that the Armstrong cheer- 
 fulness is so very cheerful — for other people. 
 You say that nobody could kill such a happy old 
 man, but I'm not sure; ne nos inducas in tenta- 
 tionem. If ever I murdered somebody," he added 
 quite simply, " I dare say it might be an Optimist." 
 
 "Why?" cried Merton, amused. "Do you 
 think people dislike cheerfulness ? " 
 
 " People like frequent laughter/' answered 
 3i8 
 
THE THREE TOOLS OF DEATH 
 
 Father Brown, "but I don't think they like a 
 permanent smile. Cheerfulness without humour is 
 a very trying thing." 
 
 They walked some way in silence along the 
 windy grassy bank by the rail, and just as they 
 came under the far-flung shadow of the tall Arm- 
 strong house, Father Brown said suddenly, like a 
 man throwing away a troublesome thought rather 
 than offering it seriously : "Of course, drink is 
 neither good nor bad in itself. But I can't help 
 sometimes feeling that men like Armstrong want 
 an occasional glass of wine, to sadden them." 
 
 Merton's official superior, a grizzled and capable 
 detective named Gilder, was standing on the green 
 bank waiting for the coroner, talking to Patrick 
 Royce, whose big shoulders and bristly beard and 
 hair towered above him. This was the more notice- 
 able because Royce walked always with a sort of 
 powerful stoop, and seemed to be going about his 
 small clerical and domestic duties in a heavy and 
 humbled style, like a buffalo drawing a go-cart. 
 
 He raised his head with unusual pleasure at the 
 sight of the priest, and took him a few paces apart. 
 Meanwhile Merton was addressing the older detec- 
 tive respectfully indeed, but not without a certain 
 boyish impatience. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Gilder, have you got much farther 
 with the mystery ? " 
 
 " There is no mystery," replied Gilder, as he 
 looked under dreamy eyelids at the rooks. 
 
 3 IQ - 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROY N 
 
 " Well, there is for me, at any rate," said Merton, 
 smiling. 
 
 " It is simple enough, my boy," observed the 
 senior investigator, stroking his grey, pointed 
 beard. " Three minutes after you'd gone for Mr. 
 Royce's parson the whole thing came out. You 
 know that pasty-faced servant in the black gloves 
 who stopped the train? " 
 
 " I should know him anywhere. Somehow he 
 rather gave me the creeps." 
 
 "Well," drawled Gilder, "when the train had 
 gone on again, that man had gone too. Rather a 
 cool criminal, don't you think, to escape by the 
 very train that went off for the police ? " 
 
 " You're pretty sure, I suppose," remarked the 
 young man, " that he really did kill his master ? " 
 
 " Yes, my son, I'm pretty sure," replied Gilder 
 drily, " for the trifling reason that he has gone off 
 with twenty thousand pounds in papers that were 
 in his master's desk. No, the only thing worth 
 calling a difficulty is how he killed him. The skull 
 seems broken as with some big weapon, but 
 there's no weapon at all lying about, and the 
 murderer would have found it awkward to carry 
 it away, unless the weapon was too small to be 
 noticed." 
 
 " Perhaps the weapon was too big to be noticed," 
 said the priest, with an odd little giggle. 
 
 Gilder looked round at this wild remark, and 
 rather sternly asked Brown what he meant. 
 
 320 
 
THE THREE TOOLS OF DEATH 
 
 " Silly way of putting it, I know," said Father 
 Brown apologetically. " Sounds like a fairy tale. 
 But poor Armstrong was killed with a giant's club, 
 a great green club, too big to be seen, and which 
 we call the earth. He was broken against this green 
 bank we are standing on." 
 
 "How do you mean?" asked the detective 
 quickly. 
 
 Father Brown turned his moon face up to the 
 narrow facade of the house and blinked hopelessly 
 up. Following his eyes, they saw that right at the 
 top of this otherwise blind back quarter of the 
 building, an attic window stood open. 
 
 " Don't you see," he explained, pointing a little 
 awkwardly like a child, " he was thrown down 
 from there ? " 
 
 Gilder frowningly scrutinised the window, and 
 then said : " Well, it is certainly possible. But I 
 don't see why you are so sure about it." 
 
 Brown opened his grey eyes wide. " Why," he 
 said, "there's a bit of rope round the dead man's 
 leg. Don't you see that other bit of rope up there 
 caught at the corner of the window?" 
 
 At that height the thing looked like the faintest 
 particle of dust or hair, but the shrewd old investi- 
 gator was satisfied. "You're quite right, sir," he 
 said to Father Brown; "that is certainly one to 
 you." 
 
 Almost as he spoke a special train with one 
 carriage took the curve of the line on their left, and, 
 3i 321 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 stopping, disgorged another group of policemen, in 
 whose midst was the hangdog visage of Magnus, 
 the absconded servant. 
 
 " By Jove ! they've got him," cried Gilder, and 
 stepped forward with quite a new alertness. 
 
 " Have you got the money ? " he cried to the 
 first policeman. 
 
 The man looked him in the face with a rather 
 curious expression and said : " No." Then he 
 added: "At least, not here." 
 
 " Which is the inspector, please ? " asked the 
 man called Magnus. 
 
 When he spoke everyone instantly understood 
 how this voice had stopped a train. He was a dull- 
 looking man with flat black hair, a colourless face, 
 and a faint suggestion of the East in the level slits 
 in his eyes and mouth. His blood and name, in- 
 deed, had remained dubious, ever since Sir Aaron 
 had " rescued " him from a waitership in a London 
 restaurant, and (as some said) from more infamous 
 things. But his voice was as vivid as his face was 
 dead. Whether through exactitude in a foreign 
 language, or in deference to his master (who had 
 been somewhat deaf), Magnus's tones had a pe- 
 culiarly ringing and piercing quality, and the 
 whole group quite jumped when he spoke. 
 
 " I always knew this would happen," he said 
 aloud with brazen blandness. " My poor old mas- 
 ter made game of me for wearing black; but I 
 always said I should be ready for his funeral." 
 
 322 
 
THE THREE TOOLS OF DEATH 
 
 And he made a momentary movement with his 
 ,two dark-gloved hands. 
 
 " Sergeant," said Inspector Gilder, eyeing the 
 black hands with wrath, " aren't you putting the 
 bracelets on this fellow; he looks pretty danger- 
 ous." 
 
 " Well, sir," said the sergeant, with the same 
 odd look of wonder, " I don't know that we can." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked the other sharply. 
 "Haven't you arrested him?" 
 
 A faint scorn widened the slit-like mouth, and 
 the whistle of an approaching train seemed oddly 
 to echo the mockery. 
 
 "We arrested him," replied the sergeant 
 gravely, "just as he was coming out of the police 
 station at Highgate, where he had deposited all his 
 master's money in the care of Inspector Robinson." 
 
 Gilder looked at the man-servant in utter amaze- 
 ment. " Why on earth did you do that ? " he 
 asked of Magnus. 
 
 " To keep it safe from the criminal, of course," 
 replied that person placidly. 
 
 " Surely," said Gilder, " Sir Aaron's money 
 might have been safely left with Sir Aaron's 
 family." 
 
 The tail of his sentence was drowned in the 
 roar of the train as it went rocking and clanking; 
 but through all the hell of noises to which that 
 unhappy house was periodically subject, they could 
 hear the syllables of Magnus's answer, in all their 
 
 323 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 bell-like distinctness : " I have no reason to feel 
 confidence in Sir Aaron's family." 
 
 All the motionless men had the ghostly sensa- 
 tion of the presence of some new person; and 
 Merton was scarcely surprised when he looked up 
 and saw the pale face of Armstrong's daughter 
 over Father Brown's shoulder. She was still 
 young and beautiful in a silvery style, but her 
 hair was of so dusty and hueless a brown that in 
 some shadows it seemed to have turned totally 
 grey. 
 
 " Be careful what you say," said Royce gruffly, 
 " you'll frighten Miss Armstrong." 
 
 " I hope so," said the man with the clear voice. 
 
 As the woman winced and everyone else won- 
 dered, he went on : "I am somewhat used to Miss 
 Armstrong's tremors. I have seen her trembling 
 off and on for years. And some said she was 
 shaking with cold and some she was shaking with 
 fear, but I know she was shaking with hate and 
 wicked anger — fiends that have had their feast this 
 morning. She would have been away by now 
 with her lover and all the money but for me. 
 Ever since my poor old master prevented her from 
 marrying that tipsy blackguard " 
 
 " Stop," said Gilder very sternly. " We have 
 nothing to do with your family fancies or sus- 
 picions. Unless you have some practical evidence, 
 your mere opinions " 
 
 " Oh ! I'll give you practical evidence," cut in 
 324 
 
THE THREE TOOLS OF DEATH 
 
 Magnus, in his hacking accent. " You'll have to 
 subpoena me, Mr. Inspector, and I shall have to 
 tell the truth. And the truth is this: An instant 
 after the old man was pitched bleeding out of the 
 window, I ran into the attic, and found his daughter 
 swooning on the floor with a red dagger still in 
 her hand. Allow me to hand that also to the 
 proper authorities." He took from his tail-pocket 
 a long horn-hilted knife with a red smear on it, 
 and handed it politely to the sergeant. Then he 
 stood back again, and his slits of eyes almost faded 
 from his face in one fat Chinese sneer. 
 
 Merton felt an almost bodily sickness at the 
 sight of him ; and he muttered to Gilder : " Surely 
 you would take Miss Armstrong's word against 
 his?" 
 
 Father Brown suddenly lifted a face so absurdly 
 fresh that it looked somehow as if he had just 
 washed it. " Yes," he said, radiating innocence, 
 "but is Miss Armstrong's word against his?" 
 
 The girl uttered a startled, singular little cry; 
 everyone looked at her. Her figure was rigid as if 
 paralysed; only her face within its frame of faint 
 brown hair was alive with an appalling surprise. 
 She stood like one of a sudden lassooed and 
 throttled. 
 
 " This man," said Mr. Gilder gravely, " actually 
 says that you were found grasping a knife, in- 
 sensible, after the murder." 
 
 " He says the truth," answered Alice. 
 325 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 The next fact of which they were conscious was 
 that Patrick Royce strode with his great stooping 
 head into their ring and uttered the singular words : 
 " Well, if I've got to go, I'll have a bit of pleasure 
 first." 
 
 His huge shoulder heaved and he sent an iron 
 fist smash into Magnus's bland Mongolian visage, 
 laying him on the lawn as flat as a starfish. Two 
 or three of the police instantly put their hands on 
 Royce; but to the rest it seemed as if all reason 
 had broken up and the universe were turning into 
 a brainless harlequinade. 
 
 "None of that, Mr. Royce," Gilder had called 
 out authoritatively. "I shall arrest you for as- 
 sault." 
 
 " No, you won't," answered the secretary in a 
 voice like an iron gong, " you will arrest me for 
 murder." 
 
 Gilder threw an alarmed glance at the man 
 knocked down; but since that outraged person was 
 already sitting up and wiping a little blood off a 
 substantially uninjured face, he only said shortly: 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " It is quite true, as this fellow says," explained 
 Royce, " that Miss Armstrong fainted with a knife 
 in her hand. But she had not snatched the knife 
 to attack her father, but to defend him." 
 
 " To defend him," repeated Gilder gravely. 
 " Against whom ? " 
 
 " Against me, " answered the secretary. 
 326 
 
THE THREE TOOLS OF DEATH 
 
 Alice looked at him with a complex and baffling 
 face ; then she said in a low voice : " After it all, 
 I am still glad you are brave." 
 
 " Come upstairs," said Patrick Royce heavily, 
 " and I will show you the whole cursed thing." 
 
 The attic, which was the secretary's private place 
 (and rather a small cell for so large a hermit), had 
 indeed all the vestiges of a violent drama. Near 
 the centre of the floor lay a large revolver as if 
 flung away; nearer to the left was rolled a whisky 
 bottle, open but not quite empty. The cloth of the 
 little table lay dragged and trampled, and a length 
 of cord, like that found on the corpse, was cast 
 wildly across the window sill. Two vases were 
 smashed on the mantelpiece and one on the carpet. 
 
 "I was drunk," said Royce; and this simplicity 
 in the prematurely battered man somehow had the 
 pathos of the first sin of a baby. 
 
 " You all know about me," he continued huskily ; 
 " everybody knows how my story began, and it 
 may as well end like that too. I was called a 
 clever man once, and might have been a happy one ; 
 Armstrong saved the remains of a brain and body 
 from the taverns, and was always kind to me in his 
 own way, poor fellow! Only he wouldn't let me 
 marry Alice here ; and it will always be said that he 
 was right enough. Well, you can form your own 
 conclusions, and you won't want me to go into de- 
 tails. That is my whisky bottle half emptied in the 
 corner; that is my revolver quite emptied on the 
 
 327 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 carpet. It was the rope from my box that was 
 found on the corpse, and it was from my window 
 the corpse was thrown. You need not set detectives 
 to grub up my tragedy ; it is a common enough weed 
 in this world. I give myself to the gallows; and, 
 by God, that is enough ! " 
 
 At a sufficiently delicate sign, the police gathered 
 round the large man to lead him away; but their 
 unobtrusiveness was somewhat staggered by the re- 
 markable appearance of Father Brown, who was 
 on his hands and knees on the carpet in the doorway, 
 as if engaged in some kind of undignified prayers. 
 Being a person utterly insensible to the social figure 
 he cut, he remained in this posture, but turned a 
 bright round face up at the company, presenting 
 the appearance of a quadruped with a very comic 
 human head. 
 
 " I say," he said good-naturedly, " this really 
 won't do at all, you know. At the beginning you 
 said we'd found no weapon. But now we're find- 
 ing too many; there's the knife to stab, and the 
 rope to strangle, and the pistol to shoot; and after 
 all he broke his neck by falling out of a window! 
 It won't do. It's not economical." And he shook 
 his head at the ground as a horse does grazing. 
 
 Inspector Gilder had opened his mouth with seri- 
 ous intentions, but before he could speak the gro- 
 tesque figure on the floor had gone on quite vol- 
 ubly. 
 
 " And now three quite impossible things. First, 
 328 
 
THE THREE TOOLS OF DEATH 
 
 these holes in the carpet, where the six bullets 
 have gone in. Why on earth should anybody fire 
 at the carpet ? A drunken man lets fly at his ene- 
 my's head, the thing that's grinning at him. He 
 doesn't pick a quarrel with his feet, or lay siege to 
 his slippers. And then there's the rope " — and hav- 
 ing done with the carpet the speaker lifted his hands 
 and put them in his pocket, but continued unaf- 
 fectedly on his knees — " in what conceivable in- 
 toxication would anybody try to put a rope round 
 a man's neck and finally put it round his leg? 
 Royce, anyhow, was not so drunk as that, or he 
 would be sleeping like a log by now. And, plainest 
 of all, the whisky bottle. You suggest a dipso- 
 maniac fought for the whisky bottle, and then hav- 
 ing won, rolled it away in a corner, spilling one 
 half and leaving the other. That is the very last 
 thing a dipsomaniac would do." 
 
 He scrambled awkwardly to his feet, and said 
 to the self-accused murderer in tones of limpid 
 penitence: "I'm awfully sorry, my dear sir, but 
 your tale is really rubbish." 
 
 " Sir," said Alice Armstrong in a low tone to the 
 priest, " can I speak to you alone for a moment ? " 
 
 This request forced the communicative cleric out 
 of the gangway, and before he could speak in the 
 next room, the girl was talking with strange in- 
 cisiveness. 
 
 " You are a clever man," she said, " and you are 
 trying to save Patrick, I know. But it's no use. 
 
 329 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 The core of all this is black, and the more things 
 you find out the more there will be against the mis- 
 erable man I love." 
 
 "Why?" asked Brown, looking at her steadily. 
 
 " Because," she answered equally steadily, " I 
 saw him commit the crime myself." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the unmoved Brown, " and what did 
 he do?" 
 
 " I was in this room next to them," she explained ; 
 " both doors were closed, but I suddenly heard a 
 voice, such as I had never heard on earth, roaring 
 ' Hell, hell, hell,' again and again, and then the two 
 doors shook with the first explosion of the re- 
 volver. Thrice again the thing banged before I got 
 the two doors open and found the room full of 
 smoke ; but the pistol was smoking in my poor, mad 
 Patrick's hand ; and I saw him fire the last murder- 
 ous volley with my own eyes. Then he leapt on 
 my father, who was clinging in terror to the win- 
 dow-still, and, grappling, tried to strangle him with 
 the rope, which he threw over his head, but which 
 slipped over his struggling shoulders to his feet. 
 Then it tightened round one leg and Patrick dragged 
 him along like a maniac. I snatched a knife from 
 the mat, and, rushing between them, managed to cut 
 the rope before I fainted." 
 
 " I see," said Father Brown, with the same 
 wooden civility. " Thank you." 
 
 As the girl collapsed under her memories, the 
 priest passed stiffly into the next room, where he 
 
 33o 
 
THE THREE TOOLS OF DEATH 
 
 found Gilder and Merton alone with Patrick Royce, 
 who sat in a chair, handcuffed. There he said to 
 the Inspector submissively : 
 
 " Might I say a word to the prisoner in your 
 presence; and might he take off those funny cuffs 
 for a minute ? " 
 
 " He is a very powerful man," said Merton in 
 an undertone. " Why do you want them taken 
 off?" 
 
 "Why, I thought," replied the priest humbly, 
 " that perhaps I might have the very great honour 
 of shaking hands with him." 
 
 Both detectives stared, and Father Brown added : 
 " Won't you tell them about it, sir ? " 
 
 The man on the chair shook his tousled head, and 
 the priest turned impatiently. 
 
 " Then I will," he said. " Private lives are more 
 important than public reputations. I am going to 
 save the living, and let the dead bury their dead." 
 
 He went to the fatal window, and blinked out of 
 it as he went on talking. 
 
 " I told you that in this case there were too many 
 weapons and only one death. I tell you now that 
 they were not weapons, and were not used to cause 
 death. All those grisly tools, the noose, the bloody 
 knife, the exploding pistol, were instruments of a 
 curious mercy. They were not used to kill Sir 
 Aaron, but to save him." 
 
 " To save him ! " repeated Gilder. " And from 
 what?" 
 
 331 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 " From himself," said Father Brown. " He was 
 a suicidal maniac." 
 
 " What? " cried Merton in an incredulous tone. 
 " And the Religion of Cheerfulness " 
 
 " It is a cruel religion," said the priest, looking 
 out of the window. " Why couldn't they let him 
 weep a little, like his fathers before him? His 
 plans stiffened, his views grew cold; behind that 
 merry mask was the empty mind of the atheist. At 
 last, to keep up his hilarious public level, he fell 
 back on that dram-drinking he had abandoned long 
 ago. But there is this horror about alcoholism in 
 a sincere teetotaler: that he pictures and expects 
 that psychological inferno from which he has 
 warned others. It leapt upon poor Armstrong pre- 
 maturely, and by this morning he was in such a 
 case that he sat here and cried he was in hell, in so 
 crazy a voice that his daughter did not know it. 
 He was mad for death, and with the monkey tricks 
 of the mad he had scattered round him death in 
 many shapes — a running noose and his friend's re- 
 volver and a knife. Royce entered accidentally and 
 acted in a flash. He flung the knife on the mat 
 behind him, snatched up the revolver, and having 
 no time to unload it, emptied it shot after shot all 
 over the floor. The suicide saw a fourth shape of 
 death, and made a dash for the window. The 
 rescuer did the only thing he could — ran after him 
 with the rope and tried to tie him hand and foot. 
 
 332 
 
THE THREE TOOLS OF DEATH 
 
 Then it was that the unlucky girl ran in, and mis- 
 understanding the struggle, strove to slash her 
 father free. At first she only slashed poor Royce's 
 knuckles, from which has come all the little blood 
 in this affair. But, of course, you noticed that he 
 left blood, but no wound, on that servant's face? 
 Only before the poor woman swooned, she did hack 
 her father loose, so that he went crashing through 
 that window into eternity." 
 
 There was a long stillness slowly broken by the 
 metallic noises of Gilder unlocking the handcuffs of 
 Patrick Royce, to whom he said : " I think I 
 should have told the truth, sir. You and the young 
 lady are worth more than Armstrong's obituary 
 notices." 
 
 " Confound Armstrong's notices," cried Royce 
 roughly. " Don't you see it was because she 
 mustn't know ? " 
 
 " Mustn't know what ? " asked Merton. 
 
 "Why, that she killed her father, you fool!" 
 roared the other. " He'd have been alive now but 
 for her. It might craze her to know that." 
 
 " No, I don't think it would," remarked Father 
 Brown, as he picked up his hat. " I rather think I 
 should tell jier. Even the most murderous blunders 
 don't poison life like sins ; anyhow, I think you may 
 both be the happier now. I've got to go back to 
 the Deaf School." 
 
 As he went out on to the gusty grass an ac- 
 333 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN 
 
 quaintance from Highgate stopped him and said: 
 " The Coroner has arrived. The inquiry is just 
 
 going to begin." 
 
 " I've got to get back to the Deaf School," said 
 
 Father Brown. " I'm sorry I can't stop for the 
 
 inquiry." 
 
 THE END 
 
 334 
 
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON 
 
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THE COMPLETE WORKS 
 
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THE RED LANTERN 
 
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 EDITH WHERRY 
 
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