The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] (3 page)

“
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 running 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 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 direction 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 instant before a
little garish sweetstuff shop. After an instant’s hesitation he went in; he
stood amid the gaudy colours of the confectionery with entire gravity and
bought thirteen chocolate cigars 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 behind him blocked with
the blue uniform of the inspector, 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 forward 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 important, 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
unexpectedly 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 shapelessly 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 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 impatiently. By the time he had substantially diminished 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 greenhorn
in the train. Now there was nothing wonderful about the fact that what Valentin
had found out Flambeau had also found out; Flambeau found out everything. Also
there was nothing wonderful in the fact that when Flambeau heard of a sapphire
cross he should try to steal it; that was the most natural thing in all natural
history. And most certainly there was nothing wonderful 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 despised 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 paying for windows first and breaking them
afterwards? 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 crawling like black flies across the huge green
contour of a hill. They were evidently sunk in conversation, 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 pursuers gained on them, the
latter had to use the undignified attitudes of the deer-stalker, to crouch behind
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 desolate sunset scenery. Under a tree
in this commanding 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 detached
themselves more and more like solid jewels. Mutely motioning to his followers,
Valentin contrived to creep up behind the big branching tree, and, standing
there in deathly silence, heard the words of the strange priests for the first
time.

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 strengthening 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 universes above us
where reason is utterly unreasonable?”

“
No,”
said the other priest; “reason is always reasonable, even in the last limbo, in
the lost borderland 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
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 universe —?”

“
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 fingernails 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 sapphires? 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.’”

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 think that other worlds may perhaps 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 compass. He seemed still to have a somewhat foolish face
turned to the stars. Perhaps he had not understood. Or, perhaps, he had understood
and sat rigid with terror.