The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] (101 page)

“
We’re
quite prepared for that,” answered the solicitor; “but anyhow it can’t last indefinitely.
The old man is nearly eighty, though he still walks about, and the people at
the inn here laugh and say they don’t believe he will ever die.”

Father
Brown jumped up with one of his rare but rapid movements, but remained with his
hands on the table, leaning forward and looking his friend in the face.

“
That’s
it,” he cried in a low but excited voice. “That’s the only problem. That’s the only
real difficulty. How will he die? How on earth is he to die?”

“
What
on earth do you mean?” asked Granby.

“
I
mean,” came the voice of the priest out of the darkening room, “that I know the
crime that James Musgrave committed.”

His
tones had such a chill in them that Granby could hardly repress a shiver; he murmured
a further question.

“
It
was really the worst crime in the world,” said Father Brown. “At least, many communities
and civilizations have accounted it so. It was always from the earliest times
marked out in tribe and village for tremendous punishment. But anyhow, I know
now what young Musgrave really did and why he did it.”

“
And
what did he do?” asked the lawyer.

“
He
killed his father,” answered the priest.

The
lawyer in his turn rose from his seat and gazed across the table with wrinkled brows.

“
But
his father is at the castle,” he cried in sharp tones.

“
His
father is in the moat,” said the priest, “and I was a fool not to have known it
from the first when something bothered me about that suit of armour. Don’t you remember
the look of that room? How very carefully it was arranged and decorated? There
were two crossed battle-axes hung on one side of the fire-place, two crossed
battle-axes on the other. There was a round Scottish shield on one wall, a
round Scottish shield on the other. And there was a stand of armour guarding
one side of the hearth, and an empty space on the other. Nothing will make me
believe that a man who arranged all the rest of that room with that exaggerated
symmetry left that one feature of it lopsided. There was almost certainly
another man in armour. And what has become of him?”

He
paused a moment, and then went on in a more matter-of-fact tone; “When you come
to think of it, it’s a very good plan for a murder, and meets the permanent problem
of the disposal of the body. The body could stand inside that complete tilting-armour
for hours, or even days, while servants came and went, until the murderer could
simply drag it out in the dead of night and lower it into the moat, without
even crossing the bridge. And then what a good chance he ran! As soon as the
body was at all decayed in the stagnant water there would sooner or later be
nothing but a skeleton in fourteenth-century armour, a thing very likely to be
found in the moat of an old Border castle. It was unlikely that anybody would
look for anything there, but if they did, that would soon be all they would
find. And I got some confirmation of that. That was when you said I was looking
for a rare plant; it was a plant in a good many senses, if you’ll excuse the
jest. I saw the marks of two feet sunk so deep into the solid bank I was sure
that the man was either very heavy or was carrying something very heavy. Also,
by the way, there’s another moral from that little incident when I made my
celebrated graceful and cat-like leap.”

“
My
brain is rather reeling,” said Granby, “but I begin to have some notion of what
all this nightmare is about. What about you and your cat-like leap?”

“
At
the post office to-day,” said Father Brown, “I casually confirmed the statement
the baronet made to me yesterday, that he had been there just after closing-time
on the day previous — that is, not only on the very day we arrived, but at the
very time we arrived. Don’t you see what that means? It means that he was
actually out when we called, and came back while we were waiting; and that was
why we had to wait so long. And when I saw that, I suddenly saw a picture that
told the whole story.”

“
Well,”
asked the other impatiently, “and what about it?”

“
An
old man of eighty can walk,” said Father Brown. “An old man can even walk a good
deal, pottering about in country lanes. But an old man can’t jump. He would be
an even less graceful jumper than I was. Yet, if the baronet came back while we
were waiting, he must have come in as we came in — by jumping the moat — for
the bridge wasn’t lowered till later. I rather guess he had hampered it himself
to delay inconvenient visitors, to judge by the rapidity with which it was
repaired. But that doesn’t matter. When I saw that fancy picture of the black
figure with the grey hair taking a flying leap across the moat I knew instantly
that it was a young man dressed up as an old man. And there you have the whole
story.”

“
You
mean,” said Granby slowly, “that this pleasing youth killed his father, hid the
corpse first in the armour and then in the moat, disguised himself and so on?”

“
They
happened to be almost exactly alike,” said the priest. “You could see from the family
portraits how strong the likeness ran. And then you talk of his disguising
himself. But in a sense everybody’s dress is a disguise. The old man disguised
himself in a wig, and the young man in a foreign beard. When he shaved and put
the wig on his cropped head he was exactly like his father, with a little
make-up. Of course, you understand now why he was so very polite about getting
you to come up next day here by car. It was because he himself was coming up
that night by train. He got in front of you, committed his crime, assumed his
disguise, and was ready for the legal negotiations.”

“
Ah,”
said Granby thoughtfully, “the legal negotiations! You mean, of course, that
the real old baronet would have negotiated very differently.

“
He
would have told you plainly that the Captain would never get a penny,” said Father
Brown. “The plot, queer as it sounds, was really the only way of preventing his
telling you so. But I want you to appreciate the cunning of what the fellow did
tell you. His plan answered several purposes at once. He was being blackmailed
by these Russians for some villainy; I suspect for treason during the war. He
escaped from them at a stroke, and probably sent them chasing off to Riga after
him. But the most beautiful refinement of all was that theory he enunciated
about recognizing his son as an heir, but not as a human being. Don’t you see
that while it secured the post obit, it also provided some sort of answer to
what would soon be the greatest difficulty of all?”

“
I
see several difficulties,” said Granby; “which one do you mean?”

“
I
mean that if the son was not even disinherited, it would look rather odd that the
father and son never met. The theory of a private repudiation answered that. So
there only remained one difficulty, as I say, which is probably perplexing the
gentleman now. How on earth is the old man to die?”

“
I
know how he ought to die,” said Granby.

Father
Brown seemed to be a little bemused, and went on in a more abstracted fashion.

“
And
yet there is something more in it than that,” he said. “There was something about
that theory that he liked in a way that is more — well, more theoretical. It
gave him an insane intellectual pleasure to tell you in one character that he
had committed a crime in another character — when he really had. That is what I
mean by the infernal irony; by the joke shared with the Devil. Shall I tell you
something that sounds like what they call a paradox? Sometimes it is a joy in
the very heart of hell to tell the truth. And above all, to tell it so that
everybody misunderstands it. That is why he liked that antic of pretending to
be somebody else, and then painting himself as black — as he was. And that was
why my niece heard him laughing to himself all alone in the picture gallery.”

Granby
gave a slight start, like a person brought back to common things with a bump.

“
Your
niece,” he cried. “Didn’t her mother want her to marry Musgrave? A question of wealth
and position, I suppose.”

“
Yes,”
said Father Brown dryly; “her mother was all in favour of a prudent marriage.”

EVERYONE
agreed that the bazaar at Mallowood Abbey (by kind permission of Lady Mounteagle)
was a great success; there were roundabouts and swings and side-shows, which
the people greatly enjoyed; I would also mention the Charity, which was the
excellent object of the proceedings, if any of them could tell me what it was.
However, it is only with a few of them that we are here concerned; and
especially with three of them, a lady and two gentlemen, who passed between two
of the principal tents or pavilions, their voices high in argument. On their
right was the tent of the Master of the Mountain, that world-famous fortune-teller
by crystals and chiromancy; a rich purple tent, all over which were traced, in
black and gold, the sprawling outlines of Asiatic gods waving any number of
arms like octopods. Perhaps they symbolized the readiness of divine help to be
had within; perhaps they merely implied that the ideal being of a pious palmist
would have as many hands as possible. On the other side stood the plainer tent
of Phroso the Phrenologist; more austerely decorated with diagrams of the heads
of Socrates and Shakespeare, which were apparently of a lumpy sort. But these
were presented merely in black and white, with numbers and notes, as became the
rigid dignity of a purely rationalistic science. The purple tent had an opening
like a black cavern, and all was fittingly silent within. But Phroso the
Phrenologist, a lean, shabby, sunburnt person, with an almost improbably fierce
black moustache and whiskers, was standing outside his own temple, and talking,
at the top of his voice, to nobody in particular, explaining that the head of
any passer-by would doubtless prove, on examination, to be every bit as knobbly
as Shakespeare’s. Indeed, the moment the lady appeared between the tents, the
vigilant Phroso leapt on her and offered, with a pantomime of old-world
courtesy, to feel her bumps.

She
refused with civility that was rather like rudeness; but she must be excused, because
she was in the middle of an argument. She also had to be excused, or at any
rate was excused, because she was Lady Mounteagle. She was not a nonentity, however,
in any sense; she was at once handsome and haggard, with a hungry look in her
deep, dark eyes and something eager and almost fierce about her smile. Her
dress was bizarre for the period; for it was before the Great War had left us
in our present mood of gravity and recollection. Indeed, the dress was rather
like the purple tent; being of a semi-oriental sort, covered with exotic and
esoteric emblems. But everyone knew that the Mounteagles were mad; which was
the popular way of saying that she and her husband were interested in the creeds
and culture of the East.

The
eccentricity of the lady was a great contrast to the conventionality of the two
gentlemen, who were braced and buttoned up in all the stiffer fashion of that far-off
day, from the tips of their gloves to their bright top hats. Yet even here
there was a difference; for James Hardcastle managed at once to look correct
and distinguished, while Tommy Hunter only looked correct and commonplace.
Hardcastle was a promising politician; who seemed in society to be interested
in everything except politics. It may be answered gloomily that every
politician is emphatically a promising politician. But to do him justice, he
had often exhibited himself as a performing politician. No purple tent in the
bazaar, however, had been provided for him to perform in.

“
For
my part,” he said, screwing in the monocle that was the only gleam in his hard,
legal face, “I think we must exhaust the possibilities of mesmerism before we talk
about magic. Remarkable psychological powers undoubtedly exist, even in apparently
backward peoples. Marvellous things have been done by fakirs.”

“
Did
you say done by fakers?” asked the other young man, with doubtful innocence.

“
Tommy,
you are simply silly,” said the lady. “Why will you keep barging in on things you
don’t understand? You’re like a schoolboy screaming out that he knows how a conjuring
trick is done. It’s all so Early Victorian — that schoolboy scepticism. As for
mesmerism, I doubt whether you can stretch it to — —”

At
this point Lady Mounteagle seemed to catch sight of somebody she wanted; a black
stumpy figure standing at a booth where children were throwing hoops at hideous
table ornaments. She darted across and cried:

“
Father
Brown, I’ve been looking for you. I want to ask you something: Do you believe in
fortune-telling?”

The
person addressed looked rather helplessly at the little hoop in his hand and said
at last:

“
I
wonder in which sense you’re using the word ‘believe.’ Of course, if it’s all a
fraud — —”

“
Oh,
but the Master of the Mountain isn’t a bit of a fraud,” she cried. “He isn’t a common
conjurer or a fortune-teller at all. It’s really a great honour for him to
condescend to tell fortunes at my parties; he’s a great religious leader in his
own country; a Prophet and a Seer. And even his fortune-telling isn’t vulgar
stuff about coming into a fortune. He tells you great spiritual truths about
yourself, about your ideals.”

“
Quite
so,” said Father Brown. “That’s what I object to. I was just going to say that if
it’s all a fraud, I don’t mind it so much. It can’t be much more of a fraud than
most things at fancy bazaars; and there, in a way, it’s a sort of practical
joke. But if it’s a religion and reveals spiritual truths — then it’s all as
false as hell and I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole.”

“
That
is something of a paradox,” said Hardcastle, with a smile.

“
I
wonder what a paradox is,” remarked the priest in a ruminant manner. “It seems to
me obvious enough. I suppose it wouldn’t do very much harm if somebody dressed
up as a German spy and pretended to have told all sorts of lies to the Germans.
But if a man is trading in the truth with the Germans — well! So I think if a
fortune-teller is trading in truth like that — —”

“
You
really think,” began Hardcastle grimly.

“
Yes,”
said the other; “I think he is trading with the enemy.”

Tommy
Hunter broke into a chuckle. “Well,” he said, “if Father Brown thinks they’re good
so long as they’re frauds, I should think he’d consider this copper-coloured
prophet a sort of saint.”

“
My
cousin Tom is incorrigible,” said Lady Mounteagle. “He’s always going about showing
up adepts, as he calls it. He only came down here in a hurry when he heard the
Master was to be here, I believe. He’d have tried to show up Buddha or Moses.”

“
Thought
you wanted looking after a bit,” said the young man, with a grin on his round face.
“So I toddled down. Don’t like this brown monkey crawling about.”

“
There
you go again!” said Lady Mounteagle. “Years ago, when I was in India, I suppose
we all had that sort of prejudice against brown people. But now I know something
about their wonderful spiritual powers, I’m glad to say I know better.”

“
Our
prejudices seem to cut opposite ways,” said Father Brown. “You excuse his being
brown because he is brahminical; and I excuse his being brahminical because he is
brown. Frankly, I don’t care for spiritual powers much myself. I’ve got much more
sympathy with spiritual weaknesses. But I can’t see why anybody should dislike
him merely because he is the same beautiful colour as copper, or coffee, or
nut-brown ale, or those jolly peat-streams in the North. But then,” he added,
looking across at the lady and screwing up his eyes, “I suppose I’m prejudiced
in favour of anything that’s called brown.”

“
There
now!” cried Lady Mounteagle with a sort of triumph. “I knew you were only talking
nonsense!”

“
Well,”
grumbled the aggrieved youth with the round face. “When anybody talks sense you
call it schoolboy scepticism. When’s the crystal-gazing going to begin?”

“
Any
time you like, I believe,” replied the lady. “It isn’t crystal-gazing, as a matter
of fact, but palmistry; I suppose you would say it was all the same sort of
nonsense.”

“
I
think there is a via media between sense and nonsense,” said Hardcastle, smiling.
“There are explanations that are natural and not at all nonsensical; and yet the
results are very amazing. Are you coming in to be operated on? I confess I am
full of curiosity.”

“
Oh,
I’ve no patience with such nonsense,” spluttered the sceptic, whose round face had
become rather a red face with the heat of his contempt and incredulity. “I’ll
let you waste your time on your mahogany mountebank; I’d rather go and throw at
coco-nuts.”

The
Phrenologist, still hovering near, darted at the opening.

“
Heads,
my dear sir,” he said, “human skulls are of a contour far more subtle than that
of coco-nuts. No coco-nut can compare with your own most — —”

Hardcastle
had already dived into the dark entry of the purple tent; and they heard a low murmur
of voices within. As Tom Hunter turned on the Phrenologist with an impatient
answer, in which he showed a regrettable indifference to the line between
natural and preternatural sciences, the lady was just about to continue her
little argument with the little priest, when she stopped in some surprise. James
Hardcastle had come out of the tent again, and in his grim face and glaring
monocle, surprise was even more vividly depicted. “He’s not there,” remarked
the politician abruptly. “He’s gone. Some aged nigger, who seems to constitute
his suite, jabbered something to me to the effect that the Master had gone
forth rather than sell sacred secrets for gold.”

Lady
Mounteagle turned radiantly to the rest. “There now,” she cried. “I told you he
was a cut above anything you fancied! He hates being here in a crowd; he’s gone
back to his solitude.”

“
I
am sorry,” said Father Brown gravely. “I may have done him an injustice. Do you
know where he has gone?”

“
I
think so,” said his hostess equally gravely. “When he wants to be alone, he always
goes to the cloisters, just at the end of the left wing, beyond my husband’s
study and private museum, you know. Perhaps you know this house was once an
abbey.”

“
I
have heard something about it,” answered the priest, with a faint smile.

“
We’ll
go there, if you like,” said the lady, briskly. “You really ought to see my husband’s
collection; or the Red Moon at any rate. Haven’t you ever heard of the Red Moon
of Meru? Yes, it’s a ruby.”

“
I
should be delighted to see the collection,” said Hardcastle quietly, “including
the Master of the Mountain, if that prophet is one exhibit in the museum.” And they
all turned towards the path leading to the house.

“
All
the same,” muttered the sceptical Thomas, as he brought up the rear, “I should very
much like to know what the brown beast did come here for, if he didn’t come to
tell fortunes.”

As
he disappeared, the indomitable Phroso made one more dart after him, almost snatching
at his coat-tails. “The bump — —” he began.

“
No
bump,” said the youth, “only a hump. Hump I always have when I come down to see
Mounteagle.” And he took to his heels to escape the embrace of the man of science.

On
their way to the cloisters the visitors had to pass through the long room that was
devoted by Lord Mounteagle to his remarkable private museum of Asiatic charms
and mascots. Through one open door, in the length of the wall opposite, they
could see the Gothic arches and the glimmer of daylight between them, marking
the square open space, round the roofed border of which the monks had walked in
older days. But they had to pass something that seemed at first sight rather
more extraordinary than the ghost of a monk.

It
was an elderly gentleman, robed from head to foot in white, with a pale green turban,
but a very pink and white English complexion and the smooth white moustaches of
some amiable Anglo-Indian colonel. This was Lord Mounteagle, who had taken his
Oriental pleasures more sadly, or at least more seriously than his wife. He
could talk of nothing whatever, except Oriental religion and philosophy; and
had thought it necessary even to dress in the manner of an Oriental hermit.
While he was delighted to show his treasures, he seemed to treasure them much
more for the truths supposed to be symbolized in them than for their value in
collections, let alone cash. Even when he brought out the great ruby, perhaps
the only thing of great value in the museum, in a merely monetary sense, he
seemed to be much more interested in its name than in its size, let alone its
price.

The
others were all staring at what seemed a stupendously large red stone, burning like
a bonfire seen through a rain of blood. But Lord Mounteagle rolled it loosely
in his palm without looking at it; and staring at the ceiling, told them a long
tale about the legendary character of Mount Meru, and how, in the Gnostic
mythology, it had been the place of the wrestling of nameless primeval powers.

Towards
the end of the lecture on the Demiurge of the Gnostics (not forgetting its connexion
with the parallel concept of Manichaeus), even the tactful Mr. Hardcastle
thought it time to create a diversion. He asked to be allowed to look at the
stone; and as evening was closing in, and the long room with its single door
was steadily darkening, he stepped out in the cloister beyond, to examine the
jewel by a better light. It was then that they first became conscious, slowly
and almost creepily conscious, of the living presence of the Master of the
Mountain.