The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] (102 page)

The
cloister was on the usual plan, as regards its original structure; but the line
of Gothic pillars and pointed arches that formed the inner square was linked together
all along by a low wall, about waist high, turning the Gothic doors into Gothic
windows and giving each a sort of flat window-sill of stone. This alteration
was probably of ancient date; but there were other alterations of a quainter
sort, which witnessed to the rather unusual individual ideas of Lord and Lady
Mounteagle. Between the pillars hung thin curtains, or rather veils, made of
beads or light canes, in a continental or southern manner; and on these again
could be traced the lines and colours of Asiatic dragons or idols, that contrasted
with the grey Gothic framework in which they were suspended. But this, while it
further troubled the dying light of the place, was the least of the
incongruities of which the company, with very varying feelings, became aware.

In
the open space surrounded by the cloisters, there ran, like a circle in a square,
a circular path paved with pale stones and edged with some sort of green enamel
like an imitation lawn. Inside that, in the very centre, rose the basin of a
dark-green fountain, or raised pond, in which water-lilies floated and goldfish
flashed to and fro; and high above these, its outline dark against the dying
light, was a great green image. Its back was turned to them and its face so
completely invisible in the hunched posture that the statue might almost have
been headless. But in that mere dark outline, in the dim twilight, some of them
could see instantly that it was the shape of no Christian thing.

A
few yards away, on the circular path, and looking towards the great green god, stood
the man called the Master of the Mountain. His pointed and finely-finished
features seemed moulded by some skilful craftsman as a mask of copper. In
contrast with this, his dark-grey beard looked almost blue like indigo; it
began in a narrow tuft on his chin, and then spread outwards like a great fan
or the tail of a bird. He was robed in peacock green and wore on his bald head
a high cap of uncommon outline: a head-dress none of them had ever seen before;
but it looked rather Egyptian than Indian. The man was standing with staring
eyes; wide open, fish-shaped eyes, so motionless that they looked like the eyes
painted on a mummy-case. But though the figure of the Master of the Mountain
was singular enough, some of the company, including Father Brown, did not look
at him; they still looked at the dark-green idol at which he himself was
looking.

“
This
seems a queer thing,” said Hardcastle, frowning a little, “to set up in the middle
of an old abbey cloister.”

“
Now,
don’t tell me you’re going to be silly,” said Lady Mounteagle. “That’s just what
we meant; to link up the great religions of East and West; Buddha and Christ.
Surely you must understand that all religions are really the same.”

“
If
they are,” said Father Brown mildly, “it seems rather unnecessary to go into the
middle of Asia to get one.”

“
Lady
Mounteagle means that they are different aspects or facets, as there are of this
stone,” began Hardcastle; and becoming interested in the new topic, laid the
great ruby down on the stone sill or ledge under the Gothic arch. “But it does
not follow that we can mix the aspects in one artistic style. You may mix Christianity
and Islam, but you can’t mix Gothic and Saracenic, let alone real Indian.”

As
he spoke, the Master of the Mountain seemed to come to life like a cataleptic, and
moved gravely round another quarter segment of the circle, and took up his position
outside their own row of arches, standing with his back to them and looking now
towards the idol’s back. It was obvious that he was moving by stages round the
whole circle, like a hand round a clock; but pausing for prayer or
contemplation.

“
What
is his religion?” asked Hardcastle, with a faint touch of impatience.

“
He
says,” replied Lord Mounteagle, reverently, “that it is older than Brahminism and
purer than Buddhism.”

“
Oh,”
said Hardcastle, and continued to stare through his single eyeglass, standing with
both his hands in his pockets.

“
They
say,” observed the nobleman in his gentle but didactic voice, “that the deity called
the God of Gods is carved in a colossal form in the cavern of Mount Meru — —”

Even
his lordship’s lecturing serenity was broken abruptly by the voice that came over
his shoulder. It came out of the darkness of the museum they had just left, when
they stepped out into the cloister. At the sound of it the two younger men looked
first incredulous, then furious, and then almost collapsed into laughter.

“
I
hope I do not intrude,” said the urbane and seductive voice of Professor Phroso,
that unconquerable wrestler of the truth, “but it occurred to me that some of
you might spare a little time for that much despised science of Bumps, which —
—”

“
Look
here,” cried the impetuous Tommy Hunter, “I haven’t got any bumps; but you’ll jolly
well have some soon, you — —”

Hardcastle
mildly restrained him as he plunged back through the door; and for the moment all
the group had turned again and were looking back into the inner room.

It
was at that moment that the thing happened. It was the impetuous Tommy, once more,
who was the first to move, and this time to better effect. Before anyone else
had seen anything, when Hardcastle had barely remembered with a jump that he
had left the gem on the stone sill, Tommy was across the cloister with the leap
of a cat and, leaning with his head and shoulders out of the aperture between
two columns, had cried out in a voice that rang down all the arches: “I’ve got
him!”

In
that instant of time, just after they turned, and just before they heard his triumphant
cry, they had all seen it happen. Round the corner of one of the two columns,
there had darted in and out again a brown or rather bronze-coloured hand, the
colour of dead gold; such as they had seen elsewhere. The hand had struck as
straight as a striking snake; as instantaneous as the flick of the long tongue
of an ant-eater. But it had licked up the jewel. The stone slab of the
window-sill shone bare in the pale and fading light.

“
I’ve
got him,” gasped Tommy Hunter; “but he’s wriggling pretty hard. You fellows run
round him in front — he can’t have got rid of it, anyhow.”

The
others obeyed, some racing down the corridor and some leaping over the low wall,
with the result that a little crowd, consisting of Hardcastle, Lord Mounteagle,
Father Brown, and even the undetachable Mr. Phroso of the bumps, had soon
surrounded the captive Master of the Mountain, whom Hunter was hanging on to
desperately by the collar with one hand, and shaking every now and then in a
manner highly insensible to the dignity of Prophets as a class.

“
Now
we’ve got him, anyhow,” said Hunter, letting go with a sigh. “We’ve only got to
search him. The thing must be here.”

Three-quarters
of an hour later. Hunter and Hardcastle, their top-hats, ties, gloves, slips and
spats somewhat the worse for their recent activities, came face to face in the
cloister and gazed at each other.

“
Well,”
asked Hardcastle with restraint, “have you any views on the mystery?”

“
Hang
it all,” replied Hunter; “you can’t call it a mystery. Why, we all saw him take
it ourselves.”

“
Yes,”
replied the other, “but we didn’t all see him lose it ourselves. And the mystery
is, where has he lost it so that we can’t find it?”

“
It
must be somewhere,” said Hunter. “Have you searched the fountain and all round that
rotten old god there?”

“
I
haven’t dissected the little fishes,” said Hardcastle, lifting his eyeglass and
surveying the other. “Are you thinking of the ring of Polycrates?”

Apparently
the survey, through the eye-glass, of the round face before him, convinced him that
it covered no such meditation on Greek legend.

“
It’s
not on him, I admit,” repeated Hunter, suddenly, “unless he’s swallowed it.”

“
Are
we to dissect the Prophet, too?” asked the other smiling. “But here comes our host.”

“
This
is a most distressing matter,” said Lord Mounteagle, twisting his white moustache
with a nervous and even tremulous hand. “Horrible thing to have a theft in
one’s house, let alone connecting it with a man like the Master. But, I
confess, I can’t quite make head or tail of the way in which he is talking about
it. I wish you’d come inside and see what you think.”

They
went in together, Hunter falling behind and dropping into conversation with Father
Brown, who was kicking his heels round the cloister.

“
You
must be very strong,” said the priest pleasantly. “You held him with one hand; and
he seemed pretty vigorous, even when we had eight hands to hold him, like one
of those Indian gods.”

They
took a turn or two round the cloister, talking; and then they also went into the
inner room, where the Master of the Mountain was seated on a bench, in the capacity
of a captive, but with more of the air of a king.

It
was true, as Lord Mounteagle said, that his air and tone were not very easy to understand.
He spoke with a serene, and yet secretive sense of power. He seemed rather
amused at their suggestions about trivial hiding-places for the gem; and certainly
he showed no resentment whatever. He seemed to be laughing, in a still
unfathomable fashion at their efforts to trace what they had all seen him take.

“
You
are learning a little,” he said, with insolent benevolence, “of the laws of time
and space; about which your latest science is a thousand years behind our oldest
religion. You do not even know what is really meant by hiding a thing. Nay, my
poor little friends, you do not even know what is meant by seeing a thing; or
perhaps you would see this as plainly as I do.”

“
Do
you mean it is here?” demanded Hardcastle harshly.

“
Here
is a word of many meanings, also,” replied the mystic. “But I did not say it was
here. I only said I could see it.”

There
was an irritated silence, and he went on sleepily.

“
If
you were to be utterly, unfathomably, silent, do you think you might hear a cry
from the other end of the world? The cry of a worshipper alone in those mountains,
where the original image sits, itself like a mountain. Some say that even Jews
and Moslems might worship that image; because it was never made by man. Hark!
Do you hear the cry with which he lifts his head and sees in that socket of
stone, that has been hollow for ages, the one red and angry moon that is the
eye of the mountain?”

“
Do
you really mean,” cried Lord Mounteagle, a little shaken, “that you could make it
pass from here to Mount Meru? I used to believe you had great spiritual powers,
but — —”

“
Perhaps,”
said the Master, “I have more than you will ever believe.”

Hardcastle
rose impatiently and began to pace the room with his hands in his pockets.

“
I
never believed so much as you did; but I admit that powers of a — certain type may
. . . Good God!”

His
high, hard voice had been cut off in mid-air, and he stopped staring; the eye-glass
fell out of his eye. They all turned their faces in the same direction; and on
every face there seemed to be the same suspended animation.

The
Red Moon of Meru lay on the stone window-sill, exactly as they had last seen it.
It might have been a red spark blown there from a bonfire, or a red rose-petal
tossed from a broken rose; but it had fallen in precisely the same spot where
Hardcastle had thoughtlessly laid it down.

This
time Hardcastle did not attempt to pick it up again; but his demeanour was somewhat
notable. He turned slowly and began to stride about the room again; but there
was in his movements something masterful, where before it had been only
restless. Finally, he brought himself to a standstill in front of the seated
Master, and bowed with a somewhat sardonic smile.

“
Master,”
he said, “we all owe you an apology and, what is more important, you have taught
us all a lesson. Believe me, it will serve as a lesson as well as a joke. I
shall always remember the very remarkable powers you really possess, and how
harmlessly you use them. Lady Mounteagle,” he went on, turning towards her,
“you will forgive me for having addressed the Master first; but it was to you I
had the honour of offering this explanation some time ago. I may say that I
explained it before it had happened. I told you that most of these things could
be interpreted by some kind of hypnotism. Many believe that this is the explanation
of all those Indian stories about the mango plant and the boy who climbs a rope
thrown into the air. It does not really happen; but the spectators are
mesmerized into imagining that it happened. So we were all mesmerized into
imagining this theft had happened. That brown hand coming in at the window, and
whisking away the gem, was a momentary delusion; a hand in a dream. Only,
having seen the stone vanish, we never looked for it where it was before. We
plunged into the pond and turned every leaf of the water lilies; we were almost
giving emetics to the goldfish. But the ruby has been here all the time.”