FIVE -- The Mistake of the Machine
FLAMBEAU and his friend the priest were sitting in the Temple Gardensabout sunset; and their neighbourhood or some such accidental influencehad turned their talk to matters of legal process. From the problemof the licence in cross-examination, their talk strayed to Roman andmediaeval torture, to the examining magistrate in France and the ThirdDegree in America.
"I've been reading," said Flambeau, "of this new psychometric methodthey talk about so much, especially in America. You know what I mean;they put a pulsometer on a man's wrist and judge by how his heart goesat the pronunciation of certain words. What do you think of it?"
"I think it very interesting," replied Father Brown; "it reminds meof that interesting idea in the Dark Ages that blood would flow from acorpse if the murderer touched it."
"Do you really mean," demanded his friend, "that you think the twomethods equally valuable?"
"I think them equally valueless," replied Brown. "Blood flows, fast orslow, in dead folk or living, for so many more million reasons than wecan ever know. Blood will have to flow very funnily; blood will haveto flow up the Matterhorn, before I will take it as a sign that I am toshed it."
"The method," remarked the other, "has been guaranteed by some of thegreatest American men of science."
"What sentimentalists men of science are!" exclaimed Father Brown, "andhow much more sentimental must American men of science be! Who but aYankee would think of proving anything from heart-throbs? Why, they mustbe as sentimental as a man who thinks a woman is in love with him if sheblushes. That's a test from the circulation of the blood, discovered bythe immortal Harvey; and a jolly rotten test, too."
"But surely," insisted Flambeau, "it might point pretty straight atsomething or other."
"There's a disadvantage in a stick pointing straight," answered theother. "What is it? Why, the other end of the stick always points theopposite way. It depends whether you get hold of the stick by the rightend. I saw the thing done once and I've never believed in it since." Andhe proceeded to tell the story of his disillusionment.
It happened nearly twenty years before, when he was chaplain to hisco-religionists in a prison in Chicago--where the Irish populationdisplayed a capacity both for crime and penitence which kept himtolerably busy. The official second-in-command under the Governor was anex-detective named Greywood Usher, a cadaverous, careful-spoken Yankeephilosopher, occasionally varying a very rigid visage with an oddapologetic grimace. He liked Father Brown in a slightly patronizing way;and Father Brown liked him, though he heartily disliked his theories.His theories were extremely complicated and were held with extremesimplicity.
One evening he had sent for the priest, who, according to his custom,took a seat in silence at a table piled and littered with papers, andwaited. The official selected from the papers a scrap of newspapercutting, which he handed across to the cleric, who read it gravely. Itappeared to be an extract from one of the pinkest of American Societypapers, and ran as follows:
"Society's brightest widower is once more on the Freak Dinner stunt. Allour exclusive citizens will recall the Perambulator Parade Dinner, inwhich Last-Trick Todd, at his palatial home at Pilgrim's Pond, caused somany of our prominent debutantes to look even younger than their years.Equally elegant and more miscellaneous and large-hearted in socialoutlook was Last-Trick's show the year previous, the popular CannibalCrush Lunch, at which the confections handed round were sarcasticallymoulded in the forms of human arms and legs, and during which more thanone of our gayest mental gymnasts was heard offering to eat his partner.The witticism which will inspire this evening is as yet in Mr Todd'spretty reticent intellect, or locked in the jewelled bosoms of ourcity's gayest leaders; but there is talk of a pretty parody of thesimple manners and customs at the other end of Society's scale. Thiswould be all the more telling, as hospitable Todd is entertaining inLord Falconroy, the famous traveller, a true-blooded aristocrat freshfrom England's oak-groves. Lord Falconroy's travels began before hisancient feudal title was resurrected, he was in the Republic in hisyouth, and fashion murmurs a sly reason for his return. Miss Etta Toddis one of our deep-souled New Yorkers, and comes into an income ofnearly twelve hundred million dollars."
"Well," asked Usher, "does that interest you?"
"Why, words rather fail me," answered Father Brown. "I cannot think atthis moment of anything in this world that would interest me less. And,unless the just anger of the Republic is at last going to electrocutejournalists for writing like that, I don't quite see why it shouldinterest you either."
"Ah!" said Mr Usher dryly, and handing across another scrap ofnewspaper. "Well, does that interest you?"
The paragraph was headed "Savage Murder of a Warder. Convict Escapes,"and ran: "Just before dawn this morning a shout for help was heardin the Convict Settlement at Sequah in this State. The authorities,hurrying in the direction of the cry, found the corpse of the warder whopatrols the top of the north wall of the prison, the steepest and mostdifficult exit, for which one man has always been found sufficient. Theunfortunate officer had, however, been hurled from the high wall, hisbrains beaten out as with a club, and his gun was missing. Furtherinquiries showed that one of the cells was empty; it had been occupiedby a rather sullen ruffian giving his name as Oscar Rian. He was onlytemporarily detained for some comparatively trivial assault; but hegave everyone the impression of a man with a black past and a dangerousfuture. Finally, when daylight had fully revealed the scene ofmurder, it was found that he had written on the wall above the body afragmentary sentence, apparently with a finger dipped in blood: 'Thiswas self-defence and he had the gun. I meant no harm to him or any manbut one. I am keeping the bullet for Pilgrim's Pond--O.R.' A man musthave used most fiendish treachery or most savage and amazing bodilydaring to have stormed such a wall in spite of an armed man."
"Well, the literary style is somewhat improved," admitted the priestcheerfully, "but still I don't see what I can do for you. I should cuta poor figure, with my short legs, running about this State after anathletic assassin of that sort. I doubt whether anybody could find him.The convict settlement at Sequah is thirty miles from here; the countrybetween is wild and tangled enough, and the country beyond, where hewill surely have the sense to go, is a perfect no-man's land tumblingaway to the prairies. He may be in any hole or up any tree."
"He isn't in any hole," said the governor; "he isn't up any tree."
"Why, how do you know?" asked Father Brown, blinking.
"Would you like to speak to him?" inquired Usher.
Father Brown opened his innocent eyes wide. "He is here?" he exclaimed."Why, how did your men get hold of him?"
"I got hold of him myself," drawled the American, rising and lazilystretching his lanky legs before the fire. "I got hold of him with thecrooked end of a walking-stick. Don't look so surprised. I really did.You know I sometimes take a turn in the country lanes outside thisdismal place; well, I was walking early this evening up a steep lanewith dark hedges and grey-looking ploughed fields on both sides; and ayoung moon was up and silvering the road. By the light of it I saw a manrunning across the field towards the road; running with his body bentand at a good mile-race trot. He appeared to be much exhausted; but whenhe came to the thick black hedge he went through it as if it were madeof spiders' webs;--or rather (for I heard the strong branches breakingand snapping like bayonets) as if he himself were made of stone. In theinstant in which he appeared up against the moon, crossing the road, Islung my hooked cane at his legs, tripping him and bringing him down.Then I blew my whistle long and loud, and our fellows came running up tosecure him."
"It would have been rather awkward," remarked Brown, "if you had foundhe was a popular athlete practising a mile race."
"He was not," said Usher grimly. "We soon found out who he was; but Ihad guessed it with the first glint of the moon on him."
"You thought it was the runaway convict," observed the priest simply,"because you had read in the newspaper cutting that morni
ng that aconvict had run away."
"I had somewhat better grounds," replied the governor coolly. "I passover the first as too simple to be emphasized--I mean that fashionableathletes do not run across ploughed fields or scratch their eyes outin bramble hedges. Nor do they run all doubled up like a crouching dog.There were more decisive details to a fairly well-trained eye. The manwas clad in coarse and ragged clothes, but they were something morethan merely coarse and ragged. They were so ill-fitting as to be quitegrotesque; even as he appeared in black outline against the moonrise,the coat-collar in which his head was buried made him look like ahunchback, and the long loose sleeves looked as if he had no hands. Itat once occurred to me that he had somehow managed to change his convictclothes for some confederate's clothes which did not fit him. Second,there was a pretty stiff wind against which he was running; so that Imust have seen the streaky look of blowing hair, if the hair had notbeen very short. Then I remembered that beyond these ploughed fieldshe was crossing lay Pilgrim's Pond, for which (you will remember) theconvict was keeping his bullet; and I sent my walking-stick flying."
"A brilliant piece of rapid deduction," said Father Brown; "but had hegot a gun?"
As Usher stopped abruptly in his walk the priest added apologetically:"I've been told a bullet is not half so useful without it."
"He had no gun," said the other gravely; "but that was doubtless due tosome very natural mischance or change of plans. Probably the same policythat made him change the clothes made him drop the gun; he began torepent the coat he had left behind him in the blood of his victim."
"Well, that is possible enough," answered the priest.
"And it's hardly worth speculating on," said Usher, turning to someother papers, "for we know it's the man by this time."
His clerical friend asked faintly: "But how?" And Greywood Usher threwdown the newspapers and took up the two press-cuttings again.
"Well, since you are so obstinate," he said, "let's begin at thebeginning. You will notice that these two cuttings have only one thingin common, which is the mention of Pilgrim's Pond, the estate, asyou know, of the millionaire Ireton Todd. You also know that he is aremarkable character; one of those that rose on stepping-stones--"
"Of our dead selves to higher things," assented his companion. "Yes; Iknow that. Petroleum, I think."
"Anyhow," said Usher, "Last-Trick Todd counts for a great deal in thisrum affair."
He stretched himself once more before the fire and continued talking inhis expansive, radiantly explanatory style.
"To begin with, on the face of it, there is no mystery here at all. Itis not mysterious, it is not even odd, that a jailbird should take hisgun to Pilgrim's Pond. Our people aren't like the English, who willforgive a man for being rich if he throws away money on hospitals orhorses. Last-Trick Todd has made himself big by his own considerableabilities; and there's no doubt that many of those on whom he has shownhis abilities would like to show theirs on him with a shot-gun. Toddmight easily get dropped by some man he'd never even heard of; somelabourer he'd locked out, or some clerk in a business he'd busted.Last-Trick is a man of mental endowments and a high public character;but in this country the relations of employers and employed areconsiderably strained.
"That's how the whole thing looks supposing this Rian made for Pilgrim'sPond to kill Todd. So it looked to me, till another little discoverywoke up what I have of the detective in me. When I had my prisoner safe,I picked up my cane again and strolled down the two or three turns ofcountry road that brought me to one of the side entrances of Todd'sgrounds, the one nearest to the pool or lake after which the placeis named. It was some two hours ago, about seven by this time; themoonlight was more luminous, and I could see the long white streaksof it lying on the mysterious mere with its grey, greasy, half-liquidshores in which they say our fathers used to make witches walk untilthey sank. I'd forgotten the exact tale; but you know the place I mean;it lies north of Todd's house towards the wilderness, and has two queerwrinkled trees, so dismal that they look more like huge fungoids thandecent foliage. As I stood peering at this misty pool, I fancied I sawthe faint figure of a man moving from the house towards it, but it wasall too dim and distant for one to be certain of the fact, and stillless of the details. Besides, my attention was very sharply arrested bysomething much closer. I crouched behind the fence which ran not morethan two hundred yards from one wing of the great mansion, and which wasfortunately split in places, as if specially for the application of acautious eye. A door had opened in the dark bulk of the left wing, and afigure appeared black against the illuminated interior--a muffled figurebending forward, evidently peering out into the night. It closed thedoor behind it, and I saw it was carrying a lantern, which threw a patchof imperfect light on the dress and figure of the wearer. It seemed tobe the figure of a woman, wrapped up in a ragged cloak and evidentlydisguised to avoid notice; there was something very strange both aboutthe rags and the furtiveness in a person coming out of those rooms linedwith gold. She took cautiously the curved garden path which brought herwithin half a hundred yards of me--, then she stood up for an instant onthe terrace of turf that looks towards the slimy lake, and holding herflaming lantern above her head she deliberately swung it three times toand fro as for a signal. As she swung it the second time a flicker ofits light fell for a moment on her own face, a face that I knew. Shewas unnaturally pale, and her head was bundled in her borrowed plebeianshawl; but I am certain it was Etta Todd, the millionaire's daughter.
"She retraced her steps in equal secrecy and the door closed behind heragain. I was about to climb the fence and follow, when I realized thatthe detective fever that had lured me into the adventure was ratherundignified; and that in a more authoritative capacity I already heldall the cards in my hand. I was just turning away when a new noise brokeon the night. A window was thrown up in one of the upper floors, butjust round the corner of the house so that I could not see it; and avoice of terrible distinctness was heard shouting across the dark gardento know where Lord Falconroy was, for he was missing from every room inthe house. There was no mistaking that voice. I have heard it on many apolitical platform or meeting of directors; it was Ireton Todd himself.Some of the others seemed to have gone to the lower windows or on to thesteps, and were calling up to him that Falconroy had gone for a strolldown to the Pilgrim's Pond an hour before, and could not be tracedsince. Then Todd cried 'Mighty Murder!' and shut down the windowviolently; and I could hear him plunging down the stairs inside.Repossessing myself of my former and wiser purpose, I whipped out of theway of the general search that must follow; and returned here not laterthan eight o'clock.
"I now ask you to recall that little Society paragraph which seemed toyou so painfully lacking in interest. If the convict was not keepingthe shot for Todd, as he evidently wasn't, it is most likely that he waskeeping it for Lord Falconroy; and it looks as if he had delivered thegoods. No more handy place to shoot a man than in the curious geologicalsurroundings of that pool, where a body thrown down would sink throughthick slime to a depth practically unknown. Let us suppose, then, thatour friend with the cropped hair came to kill Falconroy and not Todd.But, as I have pointed out, there are many reasons why people in Americamight want to kill Todd. There is no reason why anybody in Americashould want to kill an English lord newly landed, except for theone reason mentioned in the pink paper--that the lord is paying hisattentions to the millionaire's daughter. Our crop-haired friend,despite his ill-fitting clothes, must be an aspiring lover.
"I know the notion will seem to you jarring and even comic; but that'sbecause you are English. It sounds to you like saying the Archbishop ofCanterbury's daughter will be married in St George's, Hanover Square,to a crossing-sweeper on ticket-of-leave. You don't do justice to theclimbing and aspiring power of our more remarkable citizens. You see agood-looking grey-haired man in evening-dress with a sort of authorityabout him, you know he is a pillar of the State, and you fancy he hada father. You are in error. You do not realize that a comparatively
fewyears ago he may have been in a tenement or (quite likely) in a jail.You don't allow for our national buoyancy and uplift. Many of ourmost influential citizens have not only risen recently, but risencomparatively late in life. Todd's daughter was fully eighteen when herfather first made his pile; so there isn't really anything impossible inher having a hanger-on in low life; or even in her hanging on to him, asI think she must be doing, to judge by the lantern business. If so, thehand that held the lantern may not be unconnected with the hand thatheld the gun. This case, sir, will make a noise."
"Well," said the priest patiently, "and what did you do next?"
"I reckon you'll be shocked," replied Greywood Usher, "as I know youdon't cotton to the march of science in these matters. I am given a gooddeal of discretion here, and perhaps take a little more than I'm given;and I thought it was an excellent opportunity to test that PsychometricMachine I told you about. Now, in my opinion, that machine can't lie."
"No machine can lie," said Father Brown; "nor can it tell the truth."
"It did in this case, as I'll show you," went on Usher positively."I sat the man in the ill-fitting clothes in a comfortable chair, andsimply wrote words on a blackboard; and the machine simply recorded thevariations of his pulse; and I simply observed his manner. The trick isto introduce some word connected with the supposed crime in a list ofwords connected with something quite different, yet a list in which itoccurs quite naturally. Thus I wrote 'heron' and 'eagle' and 'owl', andwhen I wrote 'falcon' he was tremendously agitated; and when I began tomake an 'r' at the end of the word, that machine just bounded. Who elsein this republic has any reason to jump at the name of a newly-arrivedEnglishman like Falconroy except the man who's shot him? Isn't thatbetter evidence than a lot of gabble from witnesses--if the evidence ofa reliable machine?"
"You always forget," observed his companion, "that the reliable machinealways has to be worked by an unreliable machine."
"Why, what do you mean?" asked the detective.
"I mean Man," said Father Brown, "the most unreliable machine I know of.I don't want to be rude; and I don't think you will consider Man to bean offensive or inaccurate description of yourself. You say you observedhis manner; but how do you know you observed it right? You say thewords have to come in a natural way; but how do you know that you did itnaturally? How do you know, if you come to that, that he did not observeyour manner? Who is to prove that you were not tremendously agitated?There was no machine tied on to your pulse."
"I tell you," cried the American in the utmost excitement, "I was ascool as a cucumber."
"Criminals also can be as cool as cucumbers," said Brown with a smile."And almost as cool as you."
"Well, this one wasn't," said Usher, throwing the papers about. "Oh, youmake me tired!"
"I'm sorry," said the other. "I only point out what seems a reasonablepossibility. If you could tell by his manner when the word that mighthang him had come, why shouldn't he tell from your manner that the wordthat might hang him was coming? I should ask for more than words myselfbefore I hanged anybody."
Usher smote the table and rose in a sort of angry triumph.
"And that," he cried, "is just what I'm going to give you. I tried themachine first just in order to test the thing in other ways afterwardsand the machine, sir, is right."
He paused a moment and resumed with less excitement. "I rather wantto insist, if it comes to that, that so far I had very little to go onexcept the scientific experiment. There was really nothing against theman at all. His clothes were ill-fitting, as I've said, but they wererather better, if anything, than those of the submerged class to whichhe evidently belonged. Moreover, under all the stains of his plungingthrough ploughed fields or bursting through dusty hedges, the man wascomparatively clean. This might mean, of course, that he had only justbroken prison; but it reminded me more of the desperate decency ofthe comparatively respectable poor. His demeanour was, I am bound toconfess, quite in accordance with theirs. He was silent and dignified asthey are; he seemed to have a big, but buried, grievance, as they do.He professed total ignorance of the crime and the whole question; andshowed nothing but a sullen impatience for something sensible that mightcome to take him out of his meaningless scrape. He asked me more thanonce if he could telephone for a lawyer who had helped him a long timeago in a trade dispute, and in every sense acted as you would expect aninnocent man to act. There was nothing against him in the world exceptthat little finger on the dial that pointed to the change of his pulse.
"Then, sir, the machine was on its trial; and the machine was right.By the time I came with him out of the private room into the vestibulewhere all sorts of other people were awaiting examination, I thinkhe had already more or less made up his mind to clear things up bysomething like a confession. He turned to me and began to say in a lowvoice: 'Oh, I can't stick this any more. If you must know all aboutme--'
"At the same instant one of the poor women sitting on the long benchstood up, screaming aloud and pointing at him with her finger. I havenever in my life heard anything more demoniacally distinct. Her leanfinger seemed to pick him out as if it were a pea-shooter. Though theword was a mere howl, every syllable was as clear as a separate strokeon the clock.
"'Drugger Davis!' she shouted. 'They've got Drugger Davis!'
"Among the wretched women, mostly thieves and streetwalkers, twentyfaces were turned, gaping with glee and hate. If I had never heard thewords, I should have known by the very shock upon his features thatthe so-called Oscar Rian had heard his real name. But I'm not quite soignorant, you may be surprised to hear. Drugger Davis was one of themost terrible and depraved criminals that ever baffled our police. It iscertain he had done murder more than once long before his last exploitwith the warder. But he was never entirely fixed for it, curiouslyenough because he did it in the same manner as those milder--ormeaner--crimes for which he was fixed pretty often. He was a handsome,well-bred-looking brute, as he still is, to some extent; and he usedmostly to go about with barmaids or shop-girls and do them out of theirmoney. Very often, though, he went a good deal farther; and they werefound drugged with cigarettes or chocolates and their whole propertymissing. Then came one case where the girl was found dead; butdeliberation could not quite be proved, and, what was more practicalstill, the criminal could not be found. I heard a rumour of his havingreappeared somewhere in the opposite character this time, lending moneyinstead of borrowing it; but still to such poor widows as he mightpersonally fascinate, but still with the same bad result for them. Well,there is your innocent man, and there is his innocent record. Even,since then, four criminals and three warders have identified him andconfirmed the story. Now what have you got to say to my poor littlemachine after that? Hasn't the machine done for him? Or do you prefer tosay that the woman and I have done for him?"
"As to what you've done for him," replied Father Brown, rising andshaking himself in a floppy way, "you've saved him from the electricalchair. I don't think they can kill Drugger Davis on that old vague storyof the poison; and as for the convict who killed the warder, I supposeit's obvious that you haven't got him. Mr Davis is innocent of thatcrime, at any rate."
"What do you mean?" demanded the other. "Why should he be innocent ofthat crime?"
"Why, bless us all!" cried the small man in one of his rare moments ofanimation, "why, because he's guilty of the other crimes! I don't knowwhat you people are made of. You seem to think that all sins are kepttogether in a bag. You talk as if a miser on Monday were always aspendthrift on Tuesday. You tell me this man you have here spent weeksand months wheedling needy women out of small sums of money; that heused a drug at the best, and a poison at the worst; that he turned upafterwards as the lowest kind of moneylender, and cheated most poorpeople in the same patient and pacific style. Let it be granted--let usadmit, for the sake of argument, that he did all this. If that is so, Iwill tell you what he didn't do. He didn't storm a spiked wall against aman with a loaded gun. He didn't write on the wall with his own hand, tosay he
had done it. He didn't stop to state that his justification wasself-defence. He didn't explain that he had no quarrel with the poorwarder. He didn't name the house of the rich man to which he was goingwith the gun. He didn't write his own, initials in a man's blood. Saintsalive! Can't you see the whole character is different, in good and evil?Why, you don't seem to be like I am a bit. One would think you'd neverhad any vices of your own."
The amazed American had already parted his lips in protest when thedoor of his private and official room was hammered and rattled in anunceremonious way to which he was totally unaccustomed.
The door flew open. The moment before Greywood Usher had been coming tothe conclusion that Father Brown might possibly be mad. The moment afterhe began to think he was mad himself. There burst and fell into hisprivate room a man in the filthiest rags, with a greasy squash hat stillaskew on his head, and a shabby green shade shoved up from one of hiseyes, both of which were glaring like a tiger's. The rest of his facewas almost undiscoverable, being masked with a matted beard and whiskersthrough which the nose could barely thrust itself, and further buried ina squalid red scarf or handkerchief. Mr Usher prided himself on havingseen most of the roughest specimens in the State, but he thought he hadnever seen such a baboon dressed as a scarecrow as this. But, above all,he had never in all his placid scientific existence heard a man likethat speak to him first.
"See here, old man Usher," shouted the being in the red handkerchief,"I'm getting tired. Don't you try any of your hide-and-seek on me; Idon't get fooled any. Leave go of my guests, and I'll let up on thefancy clockwork. Keep him here for a split instant and you'll feelpretty mean. I reckon I'm not a man with no pull."
The eminent Usher was regarding the bellowing monster with an amazementwhich had dried up all other sentiments. The mere shock to his eyes hadrendered his ears, almost useless. At last he rang a bell with a handof violence. While the bell was still strong and pealing, the voice ofFather Brown fell soft but distinct.
"I have a suggestion to make," he said, "but it seems a littleconfusing. I don't know this gentleman--but--but I think I knowhim. Now, you know him--you know him quite well--but you don't knowhim--naturally. Sounds paradoxical, I know."
"I reckon the Cosmos is cracked," said Usher, and fell asprawl in hisround office chair.
"Now, see here," vociferated the stranger, striking the table, butspeaking in a voice that was all the more mysterious because it wascomparatively mild and rational though still resounding. "I won't letyou in. I want--"
"Who in hell are you?" yelled Usher, suddenly sitting up straight.
"I think the gentleman's name is Todd," said the priest.
Then he picked up the pink slip of newspaper.
"I fear you don't read the Society papers properly," he said, and beganto read out in a monotonous voice, "'Or locked in the jewelled bosoms ofour city's gayest leaders; but there is talk of a pretty parody of themanners and customs of the other end of Society's scale.' There's beena big Slum Dinner up at Pilgrim's Pond tonight; and a man, one of theguests, disappeared. Mr Ireton Todd is a good host, and has tracked himhere, without even waiting to take off his fancy-dress."
"What man do you mean?"
"I mean the man with comically ill-fitting clothes you saw runningacross the ploughed field. Hadn't you better go and investigate him? Hewill be rather impatient to get back to his champagne, from which he ranaway in such a hurry, when the convict with the gun hove in sight."
"Do you seriously mean--" began the official.
"Why, look here, Mr Usher," said Father Brown quietly, "you said themachine couldn't make a mistake; and in one sense it didn't. But theother machine did; the machine that worked it. You assumed that theman in rags jumped at the name of Lord Falconroy, because he was LordFalconroy's murderer. He jumped at the name of Lord Falconroy because heis Lord Falconroy."
"Then why the blazes didn't he say so?" demanded the staring Usher.
"He felt his plight and recent panic were hardly patrician," repliedthe priest, "so he tried to keep the name back at first. But he wasjust going to tell it you, when"--and Father Brown looked down at hisboots--"when a woman found another name for him."
"But you can't be so mad as to say," said Greywood Usher, very white,"that Lord Falconroy was Drugger Davis."
The priest looked at him very earnestly, but with a baffling andundecipherable face.
"I am not saying anything about it," he said. "I leave all the rest toyou. Your pink paper says that the title was recently revived for him;but those papers are very unreliable. It says he was in the States inyouth; but the whole story seems very strange. Davis and Falconroy areboth pretty considerable cowards, but so are lots of other men. I wouldnot hang a dog on my own opinion about this. But I think," he went onsoftly and reflectively, "I think you Americans are too modest. I thinkyou idealize the English aristocracy--even in assuming it to be soaristocratic. You see a good-looking Englishman in evening-dress; youknow he's in the House of Lords; and you fancy he has a father. Youdon't allow for our national buoyancy and uplift. Many of our mostinfluential noblemen have not only risen recently, but--"
"Oh, stop it!" cried Greywood Usher, wringing one lean hand inimpatience against a shade of irony in the other's face.
"Don't stay talking to this lunatic!" cried Todd brutally. "Take me tomy friend."
Next morning Father Brown appeared with the same demure expression,carrying yet another piece of pink newspaper.
"I'm afraid you neglect the fashionable press rather," he said, "butthis cutting may interest you."
Usher read the headlines, "Last-Trick's Strayed Revellers: MirthfulIncident near Pilgrim's Pond." The paragraph went on: "A laughableoccurrence took place outside Wilkinson's Motor Garage last night.A policeman on duty had his attention drawn by larrikins to a manin prison dress who was stepping with considerable coolness into thesteering-seat of a pretty high-toned Panhard; he was accompanied by agirl wrapped in a ragged shawl. On the police interfering, the youngwoman threw back the shawl, and all recognized Millionaire Todd'sdaughter, who had just come from the Slum Freak Dinner at the Pond,where all the choicest guests were in a similar deshabille. She and thegentleman who had donned prison uniform were going for the customaryjoy-ride."
Under the pink slip Mr Usher found a strip of a later paper, headed,"Astounding Escape of Millionaire's Daughter with Convict. She hadArranged Freak Dinner. Now Safe in--"
Mr Greenwood Usher lifted his eyes, but Father Brown was gone.
The Wisdom of Father Brown Page 6