NINE -- The God of the Gongs
IT was one of those chilly and empty afternoons in early winter, whenthe daylight is silver rather than gold and pewter rather than silver.If it was dreary in a hundred bleak offices and yawning drawing-rooms,it was drearier still along the edges of the flat Essex coast, where themonotony was the more inhuman for being broken at very long intervalsby a lamp-post that looked less civilized than a tree, or a tree thatlooked more ugly than a lamp-post. A light fall of snow had half-meltedinto a few strips, also looking leaden rather than silver, when it hadbeen fixed again by the seal of frost; no fresh snow had fallen, but aribbon of the old snow ran along the very margin of the coast, so as toparallel the pale ribbon of the foam.
The line of the sea looked frozen in the very vividness of itsviolet-blue, like the vein of a frozen finger. For miles and miles,forward and back, there was no breathing soul, save two pedestrians,walking at a brisk pace, though one had much longer legs and took muchlonger strides than the other.
It did not seem a very appropriate place or time for a holiday, butFather Brown had few holidays, and had to take them when he could, andhe always preferred, if possible, to take them in company with his oldfriend Flambeau, ex-criminal and ex-detective. The priest had hada fancy for visiting his old parish at Cobhole, and was goingnorth-eastward along the coast.
After walking a mile or two farther, they found that the shore wasbeginning to be formally embanked, so as to form something like aparade; the ugly lamp-posts became less few and far between and moreornamental, though quite equally ugly. Half a mile farther on FatherBrown was puzzled first by little labyrinths of flowerless flower-pots,covered with the low, flat, quiet-coloured plants that look less likea garden than a tessellated pavement, between weak curly paths studdedwith seats with curly backs. He faintly sniffed the atmosphere of acertain sort of seaside town that he did not specially care about, and,looking ahead along the parade by the sea, he saw something that putthe matter beyond a doubt. In the grey distance the big bandstand of awatering-place stood up like a giant mushroom with six legs.
"I suppose," said Father Brown, turning up his coat-collar and drawinga woollen scarf rather closer round his neck, "that we are approaching apleasure resort."
"I fear," answered Flambeau, "a pleasure resort to which few people justnow have the pleasure of resorting. They try to revive these places inthe winter, but it never succeeds except with Brighton and the old ones.This must be Seawood, I think--Lord Pooley's experiment; he had theSicilian Singers down at Christmas, and there's talk about holding oneof the great glove-fights here. But they'll have to chuck the rottenplace into the sea; it's as dreary as a lost railway-carriage."
They had come under the big bandstand, and the priest was looking up atit with a curiosity that had something rather odd about it, his heada little on one side, like a bird's. It was the conventional, rathertawdry kind of erection for its purpose: a flattened dome or canopy,gilt here and there, and lifted on six slender pillars of painted wood,the whole being raised about five feet above the parade on a roundwooden platform like a drum. But there was something fantastic aboutthe snow combined with something artificial about the gold that hauntedFlambeau as well as his friend with some association he could notcapture, but which he knew was at once artistic and alien.
"I've got it," he said at last. "It's Japanese. It's like those fancifulJapanese prints, where the snow on the mountain looks like sugar, andthe gilt on the pagodas is like gilt on gingerbread. It looks just likea little pagan temple."
"Yes," said Father Brown. "Let's have a look at the god." And with anagility hardly to be expected of him, he hopped up on to the raisedplatform.
"Oh, very well," said Flambeau, laughing; and the next instant his owntowering figure was visible on that quaint elevation.
Slight as was the difference of height, it gave in those level wastes asense of seeing yet farther and farther across land and sea. Inland thelittle wintry gardens faded into a confused grey copse; beyond that, inthe distance, were long low barns of a lonely farmhouse, and beyond thatnothing but the long East Anglian plains. Seawards there was no sailor sign of life save a few seagulls: and even they looked like the lastsnowflakes, and seemed to float rather than fly.
Flambeau turned abruptly at an exclamation behind him. It seemed to comefrom lower down than might have been expected, and to be addressed tohis heels rather than his head. He instantly held out his hand, but hecould hardly help laughing at what he saw. For some reason or other theplatform had given way under Father Brown, and the unfortunate littleman had dropped through to the level of the parade. He was just tallenough, or short enough, for his head alone to stick out of the hole inthe broken wood, looking like St John the Baptist's head on a charger.The face wore a disconcerted expression, as did, perhaps, that of StJohn the Baptist.
In a moment he began to laugh a little. "This wood must be rotten," saidFlambeau. "Though it seems odd it should bear me, and you go through theweak place. Let me help you out."
But the little priest was looking rather curiously at the corners andedges of the wood alleged to be rotten, and there was a sort of troubleon his brow.
"Come along," cried Flambeau impatiently, still with his big brown handextended. "Don't you want to get out?"
The priest was holding a splinter of the broken wood between his fingerand thumb, and did not immediately reply. At last he said thoughtfully:"Want to get out? Why, no. I rather think I want to get in." And hedived into the darkness under the wooden floor so abruptly as to knockoff his big curved clerical hat and leave it lying on the boards above,without any clerical head in it.
Flambeau looked once more inland and out to sea, and once more could seenothing but seas as wintry as the snow, and snows as level as the sea.
There came a scurrying noise behind him, and the little priest camescrambling out of the hole faster than he had fallen in. His face was nolonger disconcerted, but rather resolute, and, perhaps only through thereflections of the snow, a trifle paler than usual.
"Well?" asked his tall friend. "Have you found the god of the temple?"
"No," answered Father Brown. "I have found what was sometimes moreimportant. The Sacrifice."
"What the devil do you mean?" cried Flambeau, quite alarmed.
Father Brown did not answer. He was staring, with a knot in hisforehead, at the landscape; and he suddenly pointed at it. "What's thathouse over there?" he asked.
Following his finger, Flambeau saw for the first time the corners of abuilding nearer than the farmhouse, but screened for the most part witha fringe of trees. It was not a large building, and stood well back fromthe shore--, but a glint of ornament on it suggested that it was partof the same watering-place scheme of decoration as the bandstand, thelittle gardens and the curly-backed iron seats.
Father Brown jumped off the bandstand, his friend following; and as theywalked in the direction indicated the trees fell away to right andleft, and they saw a small, rather flashy hotel, such as is common inresorts--the hotel of the Saloon Bar rather than the Bar Parlour. Almostthe whole frontage was of gilt plaster and figured glass, and betweenthat grey seascape and the grey, witch-like trees, its gimcrack qualityhad something spectral in its melancholy. They both felt vaguely thatif any food or drink were offered at such a hostelry, it would be thepaste-board ham and empty mug of the pantomime.
In this, however, they were not altogether confirmed. As they drewnearer and nearer to the place they saw in front of the buffet, whichwas apparently closed, one of the iron garden-seats with curly backsthat had adorned the gardens, but much longer, running almost the wholelength of the frontage. Presumably, it was placed so that visitors mightsit there and look at the sea, but one hardly expected to find anyonedoing it in such weather.
Nevertheless, just in front of the extreme end of the iron seat stooda small round restaurant table, and on this stood a small bottle ofChablis and a plate of almonds and raisins. Behind the table and on theseat sat a dark-haired young
man, bareheaded, and gazing at the sea in astate of almost astonishing immobility.
But though he might have been a waxwork when they were within four yardsof him, he jumped up like a jack-in-the-box when they came within three,and said in a deferential, though not undignified, manner: "Will youstep inside, gentlemen? I have no staff at present, but I can get youanything simple myself."
"Much obliged," said Flambeau. "So you are the proprietor?"
"Yes," said the dark man, dropping back a little into his motionlessmanner. "My waiters are all Italians, you see, and I thought it onlyfair they should see their countryman beat the black, if he really cando it. You know the great fight between Malvoli and Nigger Ned is comingoff after all?"
"I'm afraid we can't wait to trouble your hospitality seriously," saidFather Brown. "But my friend would be glad of a glass of sherry, I'msure, to keep out the cold and drink success to the Latin champion."
Flambeau did not understand the sherry, but he did not object to it inthe least. He could only say amiably: "Oh, thank you very much."
"Sherry, sir--certainly," said their host, turning to his hostel."Excuse me if I detain you a few minutes. As I told you, I have nostaff--" And he went towards the black windows of his shuttered andunlighted inn.
"Oh, it doesn't really matter," began Flambeau, but the man turned toreassure him.
"I have the keys," he said. "I could find my way in the dark."
"I didn't mean--" began Father Brown.
He was interrupted by a bellowing human voice that came out of thebowels of the uninhabited hotel. It thundered some foreign name loudlybut inaudibly, and the hotel proprietor moved more sharply towards itthan he had done for Flambeau's sherry. As instant evidence proved, theproprietor had told, then and after, nothing but the literal truth. Butboth Flambeau and Father Brown have often confessed that, in all their(often outrageous) adventures, nothing had so chilled their blood asthat voice of an ogre, sounding suddenly out of a silent and empty inn.
"My cook!" cried the proprietor hastily. "I had forgotten my cook. Hewill be starting presently. Sherry, sir?"
And, sure enough, there appeared in the doorway a big white bulk withwhite cap and white apron, as befits a cook, but with the needlessemphasis of a black face. Flambeau had often heard that negroes madegood cooks. But somehow something in the contrast of colour and casteincreased his surprise that the hotel proprietor should answer thecall of the cook, and not the cook the call of the proprietor. But hereflected that head cooks are proverbially arrogant; and, besides, thehost had come back with the sherry, and that was the great thing.
"I rather wonder," said Father Brown, "that there are so few peopleabout the beach, when this big fight is coming on after all. We only metone man for miles."
The hotel proprietor shrugged his shoulders. "They come from the otherend of the town, you see--from the station, three miles from here. Theyare only interested in the sport, and will stop in hotels for the nightonly. After all, it is hardly weather for basking on the shore."
"Or on the seat," said Flambeau, and pointed to the little table.
"I have to keep a look-out," said the man with the motionless face. Hewas a quiet, well-featured fellow, rather sallow; his dark clothes hadnothing distinctive about them, except that his black necktie was wornrather high, like a stock, and secured by a gold pin with some grotesquehead to it. Nor was there anything notable in the face, except somethingthat was probably a mere nervous trick--a habit of opening one eyemore narrowly than the other, giving the impression that the other waslarger, or was, perhaps, artificial.
The silence that ensued was broken by their host saying quietly:"Whereabouts did you meet the one man on your march?"
"Curiously enough," answered the priest, "close by here--just by thatbandstand."
Flambeau, who had sat on the long iron seat to finish his sherry, put itdown and rose to his feet, staring at his friend in amazement. He openedhis mouth to speak, and then shut it again.
"Curious," said the dark-haired man thoughtfully. "What was he like?"
"It was rather dark when I saw him," began Father Brown, "but he was--"
As has been said, the hotel-keeper can be proved to have told theprecise truth. His phrase that the cook was starting presently wasfulfilled to the letter, for the cook came out, pulling his gloves on,even as they spoke.
But he was a very different figure from the confused mass of white andblack that had appeared for an instant in the doorway. He was buttonedand buckled up to his bursting eyeballs in the most brilliant fashion.A tall black hat was tilted on his broad black head--a hat of the sortthat the French wit has compared to eight mirrors. But somehow the blackman was like the black hat. He also was black, and yet his glossy skinflung back the light at eight angles or more. It is needless to saythat he wore white spats and a white slip inside his waistcoat. The redflower stood up in his buttonhole aggressively, as if it had suddenlygrown there. And in the way he carried his cane in one hand and hiscigar in the other there was a certain attitude--an attitude we mustalways remember when we talk of racial prejudices: something innocentand insolent--the cake walk.
"Sometimes," said Flambeau, looking after him, "I'm not surprised thatthey lynch them."
"I am never surprised," said Father Brown, "at any work of hell. But asI was saying," he resumed, as the negro, still ostentatiously pulling onhis yellow gloves, betook himself briskly towards the watering-place,a queer music-hall figure against that grey and frosty scene--"as I wassaying, I couldn't describe the man very minutely, but he had a flourishand old-fashioned whiskers and moustachios, dark or dyed, as in thepictures of foreign financiers, round his neck was wrapped a long purplescarf that thrashed out in the wind as he walked. It was fixed at thethroat rather in the way that nurses fix children's comforters with asafety-pin. Only this," added the priest, gazing placidly out to sea,"was not a safety-pin."
The man sitting on the long iron bench was also gazing placidly out tosea. Now he was once more in repose. Flambeau felt quite certain thatone of his eyes was naturally larger than the other. Both were now wellopened, and he could almost fancy the left eye grew larger as he gazed.
"It was a very long gold pin, and had the carved head of a monkey orsome such thing," continued the cleric; "and it was fixed in a ratherodd way--he wore pince-nez and a broad black--"
The motionless man continued to gaze at the sea, and the eyes in hishead might have belonged to two different men. Then he made a movementof blinding swiftness.
Father Brown had his back to him, and in that flash might have fallendead on his face. Flambeau had no weapon, but his large brown hands wereresting on the end of the long iron seat. His shoulders abruptly alteredtheir shape, and he heaved the whole huge thing high over his head, likea headsman's axe about to fall. The mere height of the thing, as he heldit vertical, looked like a long iron ladder by which he was inviting mento climb towards the stars. But the long shadow, in the level eveninglight, looked like a giant brandishing the Eiffel Tower. It was theshock of that shadow, before the shock of the iron crash, that made thestranger quail and dodge, and then dart into his inn, leaving the flatand shining dagger he had dropped exactly where it had fallen.
"We must get away from here instantly," cried Flambeau, flinging thehuge seat away with furious indifference on the beach. He caught thelittle priest by the elbow and ran him down a grey perspective of barrenback garden, at the end of which there was a closed back garden door.Flambeau bent over it an instant in violent silence, and then said: "Thedoor is locked."
As he spoke a black feather from one of the ornamental firs fell,brushing the brim of his hat. It startled him more than the small anddistant detonation that had come just before. Then came another distantdetonation, and the door he was trying to open shook under the bulletburied in it. Flambeau's shoulders again filled out and alteredsuddenly. Three hinges and a lock burst at the same instant, and he wentout into the empty path behind, carrying the great garden door with him,as Samson carried th
e gates of Gaza.
Then he flung the garden door over the garden wall, just as a third shotpicked up a spurt of snow and dust behind his heel. Without ceremony hesnatched up the little priest, slung him astraddle on his shoulders, andwent racing towards Seawood as fast as his long legs could carry him.It was not until nearly two miles farther on that he set his smallcompanion down. It had hardly been a dignified escape, in spite of theclassic model of Anchises, but Father Brown's face only wore a broadgrin.
"Well," said Flambeau, after an impatient silence, as they resumed theirmore conventional tramp through the streets on the edge of the town,where no outrage need be feared, "I don't know what all this means, butI take it I may trust my own eyes that you never met the man you have soaccurately described."
"I did meet him in a way," Brown said, biting his finger rathernervously--"I did really. And it was too dark to see him properly,because it was under that bandstand affair. But I'm afraid I didn'tdescribe him so very accurately after all, for his pince-nez was brokenunder him, and the long gold pin wasn't stuck through his purple scarfbut through his heart."
"And I suppose," said the other in a lower voice, "that glass-eyed guyhad something to do with it."
"I had hoped he had only a little," answered Brown in a rather troubledvoice, "and I may have been wrong in what I did. I acted on impulse. ButI fear this business has deep roots and dark."
They walked on through some streets in silence. The yellow lamps werebeginning to be lit in the cold blue twilight, and they were evidentlyapproaching the more central parts of the town. Highly coloured billsannouncing the glove-fight between Nigger Ned and Malvoli were slappedabout the walls.
"Well," said Flambeau, "I never murdered anyone, even in my criminaldays, but I can almost sympathize with anyone doing it in such adreary place. Of all God-forsaken dustbins of Nature, I think the mostheart-breaking are places like that bandstand, that were meant to befestive and are forlorn. I can fancy a morbid man feeling he must killhis rival in the solitude and irony of such a scene. I remember oncetaking a tramp in your glorious Surrey hills, thinking of nothing butgorse and skylarks, when I came out on a vast circle of land, and overme lifted a vast, voiceless structure, tier above tier of seats, as hugeas a Roman amphitheatre and as empty as a new letter-rack. A bird sailedin heaven over it. It was the Grand Stand at Epsom. And I felt that noone would ever be happy there again."
"It's odd you should mention Epsom," said the priest. "Do you rememberwhat was called the Sutton Mystery, because two suspected men--ice-creammen, I think--happened to live at Sutton? They were eventually released.A man was found strangled, it was said, on the Downs round that part. Asa fact, I know (from an Irish policeman who is a friend of mine) that hewas found close up to the Epsom Grand Stand--in fact, only hidden by oneof the lower doors being pushed back."
"That is queer," assented Flambeau. "But it rather confirms my viewthat such pleasure places look awfully lonely out of season, or the manwouldn't have been murdered there."
"I'm not so sure he--" began Brown, and stopped.
"Not so sure he was murdered?" queried his companion.
"Not so sure he was murdered out of the season," answered the littlepriest, with simplicity. "Don't you think there's something rathertricky about this solitude, Flambeau? Do you feel sure a wise murdererwould always want the spot to be lonely? It's very, very seldom a man isquite alone. And, short of that, the more alone he is, the more certainhe is to be seen. No; I think there must be some other--Why, here we areat the Pavilion or Palace, or whatever they call it."
They had emerged on a small square, brilliantly lighted, of which theprincipal building was gay with gilding, gaudy with posters, and flankedwith two giant photographs of Malvoli and Nigger Ned.
"Hallo!" cried Flambeau in great surprise, as his clerical friendstumped straight up the broad steps. "I didn't know pugilism was yourlatest hobby. Are you going to see the fight?"
"I don't think there will be any fight," replied Father Brown.
They passed rapidly through ante-rooms and inner rooms; they passedthrough the hall of combat itself, raised, roped, and padded withinnumerable seats and boxes, and still the cleric did not look roundor pause till he came to a clerk at a desk outside a door marked"Committee". There he stopped and asked to see Lord Pooley.
The attendant observed that his lordship was very busy, as the fightwas coming on soon, but Father Brown had a good-tempered tedium ofreiteration for which the official mind is generally not prepared. In afew moments the rather baffled Flambeau found himself in the presence ofa man who was still shouting directions to another man going out of theroom. "Be careful, you know, about the ropes after the fourth--Well, andwhat do you want, I wonder!"
Lord Pooley was a gentleman, and, like most of the few remaining to ourrace, was worried--especially about money. He was half grey and halfflaxen, and he had the eyes of fever and a high-bridged, frost-bittennose.
"Only a word," said Father Brown. "I have come to prevent a man beingkilled."
Lord Pooley bounded off his chair as if a spring had flung him from it."I'm damned if I'll stand any more of this!" he cried. "You and yourcommittees and parsons and petitions! Weren't there parsons in the olddays, when they fought without gloves? Now they're fighting with theregulation gloves, and there's not the rag of a possibility of either ofthe boxers being killed."
"I didn't mean either of the boxers," said the little priest.
"Well, well, well!" said the nobleman, with a touch of frosty humour."Who's going to be killed? The referee?"
"I don't know who's going to be killed," replied Father Brown, with areflective stare. "If I did I shouldn't have to spoil your pleasure. Icould simply get him to escape. I never could see anything wrong aboutprize-fights. As it is, I must ask you to announce that the fight is offfor the present."
"Anything else?" jeered the gentleman with feverish eyes. "And what doyou say to the two thousand people who have come to see it?"
"I say there will be one thousand nine-hundred and ninety-nine of themleft alive when they have seen it," said Father Brown.
Lord Pooley looked at Flambeau. "Is your friend mad?" he asked.
"Far from it," was the reply.
"And look here," resumed Pooley in his restless way, "it's worse thanthat. A whole pack of Italians have turned up to back Malvoli--swarthy,savage fellows of some country, anyhow. You know what theseMediterranean races are like. If I send out word that it's off we shallhave Malvoli storming in here at the head of a whole Corsican clan."
"My lord, it is a matter of life and death," said the priest. "Ring yourbell. Give your message. And see whether it is Malvoli who answers."
The nobleman struck the bell on the table with an odd air of newcuriosity. He said to the clerk who appeared almost instantly in thedoorway: "I have a serious announcement to make to the audience shortly.Meanwhile, would you kindly tell the two champions that the fight willhave to be put off."
The clerk stared for some seconds as if at a demon and vanished.
"What authority have you for what you say?" asked Lord Pooley abruptly."Whom did you consult?"
"I consulted a bandstand," said Father Brown, scratching his head. "But,no, I'm wrong; I consulted a book, too. I picked it up on a bookstall inLondon--very cheap, too."
He had taken out of his pocket a small, stout, leather-bound volume, andFlambeau, looking over his shoulder, could see that it was some book ofold travels, and had a leaf turned down for reference.
"'The only form in which Voodoo--'" began Father Brown, reading aloud.
"In which what?" inquired his lordship.
"'In which Voodoo,'" repeated the reader, almost with relish, "'iswidely organized outside Jamaica itself is in the form known as theMonkey, or the God of the Gongs, which is powerful in many parts of thetwo American continents, especially among half-breeds, many of whomlook exactly like white men. It differs from most other forms ofdevil-worship and human sacrifice in the fact that the blood is not
shedformally on the altar, but by a sort of assassination among the crowd.The gongs beat with a deafening din as the doors of the shrine open andthe monkey-god is revealed; almost the whole congregation rivet ecstaticeyes on him. But after--'"
The door of the room was flung open, and the fashionable negro stoodframed in it, his eyeballs rolling, his silk hat still insolently tiltedon his head. "Huh!" he cried, showing his apish teeth. "What this? Huh!Huh! You steal a coloured gentleman's prize--prize his already--yo'think yo' jes' save that white 'Talian trash--"
"The matter is only deferred," said the nobleman quietly. "I will bewith you to explain in a minute or two."
"Who you to--" shouted Nigger Ned, beginning to storm.
"My name is Pooley," replied the other, with a creditable coolness."I am the organizing secretary, and I advise you just now to leave theroom."
"Who this fellow?" demanded the dark champion, pointing to the priestdisdainfully.
"My name is Brown," was the reply. "And I advise you just now to leavethe country."
The prize-fighter stood glaring for a few seconds, and then, rather tothe surprise of Flambeau and the others, strode out, sending the door towith a crash behind him.
"Well," asked Father Brown rubbing his dusty hair up, "what do you thinkof Leonardo da Vinci? A beautiful Italian head."
"Look here," said Lord Pooley, "I've taken a considerableresponsibility, on your bare word. I think you ought to tell me moreabout this."
"You are quite right, my lord," answered Brown. "And it won't take longto tell." He put the little leather book in his overcoat pocket. "Ithink we know all that this can tell us, but you shall look at it to seeif I'm right. That negro who has just swaggered out is one of the mostdangerous men on earth, for he has the brains of a European, with theinstincts of a cannibal. He has turned what was clean, common-sensebutchery among his fellow-barbarians into a very modern and scientificsecret society of assassins. He doesn't know I know it, nor, for thematter of that, that I can't prove it."
There was a silence, and the little man went on.
"But if I want to murder somebody, will it really be the best plan tomake sure I'm alone with him?"
Lord Pooley's eyes recovered their frosty twinkle as he looked at thelittle clergyman. He only said: "If you want to murder somebody, Ishould advise it."
Father Brown shook his head, like a murderer of much riper experience."So Flambeau said," he replied, with a sigh. "But consider. The more aman feels lonely the less he can be sure he is alone. It must mean emptyspaces round him, and they are just what make him obvious. Have younever seen one ploughman from the heights, or one shepherd from thevalleys? Have you never walked along a cliff, and seen one man walkingalong the sands? Didn't you know when he's killed a crab, and wouldn'tyou have known if it had been a creditor? No! No! No! For an intelligentmurderer, such as you or I might be, it is an impossible plan to makesure that nobody is looking at you."
"But what other plan is there?"
"There is only one," said the priest. "To make sure that everybody islooking at something else. A man is throttled close by the big stand atEpsom. Anybody might have seen it done while the stand stood empty--anytramp under the hedges or motorist among the hills. But nobody wouldhave seen it when the stand was crowded and the whole ring roaring,when the favourite was coming in first--or wasn't. The twisting of aneck-cloth, the thrusting of a body behind a door could be done in aninstant--so long as it was that instant. It was the same, of course,"he continued turning to Flambeau, "with that poor fellow under thebandstand. He was dropped through the hole (it wasn't an accidentalhole) just at some very dramatic moment of the entertainment, when thebow of some great violinist or the voice of some great singer openedor came to its climax. And here, of course, when the knock-out blowcame--it would not be the only one. That is the little trick Nigger Nedhas adopted from his old God of Gongs."
"By the way, Malvoli--" Pooley began.
"Malvoli," said the priest, "has nothing to do with it. I dare say hehas some Italians with him, but our amiable friends are not Italians.They are octoroons and African half-bloods of various shades, but I fearwe English think all foreigners are much the same so long as they aredark and dirty. Also," he added, with a smile, "I fear the Englishdecline to draw any fine distinction between the moral characterproduced by my religion and that which blooms out of Voodoo."
The blaze of the spring season had burst upon Seawood, littering itsforeshore with famines and bathing-machines, with nomadic preachers andnigger minstrels, before the two friends saw it again, and long beforethe storm of pursuit after the strange secret society had died away.Almost on every hand the secret of their purpose perished with them.The man of the hotel was found drifting dead on the sea like so muchseaweed; his right eye was closed in peace, but his left eye waswide open, and glistened like glass in the moon. Nigger Ned had beenovertaken a mile or two away, and murdered three policemen with hisclosed left hand. The remaining officer was surprised--nay, pained--andthe negro got away. But this was enough to set all the English papers ina flame, and for a month or two the main purpose of the British Empirewas to prevent the buck nigger (who was so in both senses) escaping byany English port. Persons of a figure remotely reconcilable with hiswere subjected to quite extraordinary inquisitions, made to scrub theirfaces before going on board ship, as if each white complexion were madeup like a mask, of greasepaint. Every negro in England was put underspecial regulations and made to report himself; the outgoing ships wouldno more have taken a nigger than a basilisk. For people had found outhow fearful and vast and silent was the force of the savage secretsociety, and by the time Flambeau and Father Brown were leaning on theparade parapet in April, the Black Man meant in England almost what heonce meant in Scotland.
"He must be still in England," observed Flambeau, "and horridly wellhidden, too. They must have found him at the ports if he had onlywhitened his face."
"You see, he is really a clever man," said Father Brown apologetically."And I'm sure he wouldn't whiten his face."
"Well, but what would he do?"
"I think," said Father Brown, "he would blacken his face."
Flambeau, leaning motionless on the parapet, laughed and said: "My dearfellow!"
Father Brown, also leaning motionless on the parapet, moved one fingerfor an instant into the direction of the soot-masked niggers singing onthe sands.
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