“No,” said Father Brown; “she might have been jealous of the Italian girl, perhaps, or of Lady Miriam Marden. But she was not jealous of the other wife.”
“And why not?”
“Because there was no other wife,” said Father Brown. “So far from being a bigamist, Mr. Mandeville seems to me to have been a highly monogamous person. His wife was almost too much with him; so much with him that you all charitably suppose that she must be somebody else. But I don’t see how she could have been with him when he was killed, for we agree that she was acting all the time in front of the footlights. Acting an important part, too…”
“Do you really mean,” cried Jarvis, “that the strange woman who haunted him like a ghost was only the Mrs. Mandeville we know?” But he received no answer; for Father Brown was staring into vacancy with a blank expression almost like an idiot’s. He always did look most idiotic at the instant when he was most intelligent.
The next moment he scrambled to his feet, looking very harassed and distressed. “This is awful,” he said. “I’m not sure it isn’t the worst business I ever had; but I’ve got to go through with it. Would you go and ask Mrs. Mandeville if I may speak to her in private?”
“Oh, certainly,” said Jarvis, as he turned towards the door. “But what’s the matter with you?”
“Only being a born fool,” said Father Brown; “a very common complaint in this vale of tears. I was fool enough to forget altogether that the play was The School For Scandal.”
He walked restlessly up and down the room until Jarvis re-appeared at the door with an altered and even alarmed face.
“I can’t find her anywhere,” he said. “Nobody seems to have seen her.”
“They haven’t seen Norman Knight either, have they?” asked Father Brown dryly. “Well, it saves me the most painful interview of my life. Saving the grace of God, I was very nearly frightened of that woman. But she was frightened of me, too; frightened of something I’d seen or said. Knight was always begging her to bolt with him. Now she’s done it; and I’m devilish sorry for him.”
“For him?” inquired Jarvis.
“Well, it can’t be very nice to elope with a murderess,” said the other dispassionately. “But as a matter of fact she was something very much worse than a murderess.”
“And what is that?”
“An egoist,” said Father Brown. “She was the sort of person who had looked in the mirror before looking out of the window, and it is the worst calamity of mortal life. The looking-glass was unlucky for her, all right; but rather because it wasn’t broken.”
“I can’t understand what all this means,” said Jarvis. “Everybody regarded her as a person of the most exalted ideals, almost moving on a higher spiritual plane than the rest of us…”
“She regarded herself in that light,” said the other; “and she knew how to hypnotize everybody else into it. Perhaps I hadn’t known her long enough to be wrong about her. But I knew the sort of person she was five minutes after I clapped eyes on her.”
“Oh, come.” cried Jarvis; “I’m sure her behaviour about the Italian was beautiful.”
“Her behaviour always was beautiful,” said the other. “I’ve heard from everybody here all about her refinements and subtleties and spiritual soarings above poor Mandeville’s head. But all these spiritualities and subtleties seem to me to boil themselves down to the simple fact that she certainly was a lady and he most certainly was not a gentleman. But, do you know, I have never felt quite sure that St. Peter will make that the only test at the gate of heaven.
“As for the rest,” he went on with increasing animation, “I knew from the very first words she said that she was not really being fair to the poor Italian, with all her fine airs of frigid magnanimity. And again, I realized it when I knew that the play was The School for Scandal.’
“You are going rather too fast for me,” said Jarvis in some bewilderment. “What does it matter what the play was?”
“Well,” said the priest, “she said she had given the girl the part of the beautiful heroine and had retired into the background herself with the older part of a matron. Now that might have applied to almost any play; but it falsifies the facts about that particular play. She can only have meant that she gave the other actress the part of Maria, which is hardly a part at all. And the part of the obscure and self-effacing married woman, if you please, must have been the part of Lady Teazle, which is the only part any actress wants to act. If the Italian was a first-rate actress who had been promised a first-rate part, there was really some excuse, or at least some cause, for her mad Italian rage. There generally is for mad Italian rages: Latins are logical and have a reason for going mad. But that one little thing let in daylight for me on the meaning of her magnanimity. And there was another thing, even then. You laughed when I said that the sulky look of Mrs. Sands was a study in character; but not in the character of Mrs. Sands. But it was true. If you want to know what a lady is really like, don’t look at her; for she may be too clever for you. Don’t look at the men round her, for they may be too silly about her. But look at some other woman who is always near to her, and especially one who is under her. You will see in that mirror her real face, and the face mirrored in Mrs. Sands was very ugly.
“And as for all the other impressions, what were they? I heard a lot about the unworthiness of poor old Mandeville; but it was all about his being unworthy other, and I am pretty certain it came indirectly from her. And, even so, it betrayed itself. Obviously, from what every man said, she had confided in every man about her confounded intellectual loneliness. You yourself said she never complained; and then quoted her about how her uncomplaining silence strengthened her soul. And that is just the note; that’s the unmistakable style. People who complain are just jolly, human Christian nuisances; I don’t mind them. But people who complain that they never complain are the devil. They are really the devil; isn’t that swagger of stoicism the whole point of the Byronic cult of Satan? I heard all this; but for the life of me I couldn’t hear of anything tangible she had to complain of. Nobody pretended that her husband drank, or beat her, or left her without money, or even was unfaithful, until the rumour about the secret meetings, which were simply her own melodramatic habit of pestering him with curtain-lectures in his own business office. And when one looked at the facts, apart from the atmospheric impression of martyrdom she contrived to spread, the facts were really quite the other way. Mandeville left off making money on pantomimes to please her; he started losing money on classical drama to please her. She arranged the scenery and furniture as she liked. She wanted Sheridan ’s play and she had it; she wanted the part of Lady Teazle and she had it; she wanted a rehearsal without costume at that particular hour and she had it. It may be worth remarking on the curious fact that she wanted that.”
“But what is the use of all this tirade?” asked the actor, who had hardly ever heard his clerical friend, make so long a speech before. “We seem to have got a long way from the murder in all this psychological business. She may have eloped with Knight; she may have bamboozled Randall; she may have bamboozled me. But she can’t have murdered her husband – for everyone agrees she was on the stage through the whole scene. She may be wicked; but she isn’t a witch.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Father Brown, with a smile. “But she didn’t need to use any witchcraft in this case. I know now that she did it, and very simply indeed.”
“Why are you so sure of that?” asked Jarvis, looking at him in a puzzled way.
“Because the play was The School for Scandal,” replied Father Brown, “and that particular act of The School for Scandal. I should like to remind you, as I said just now, that she always arranged the furniture how she liked. I should also like to remind you that this stage was built and used for pantomimes; it would naturally have trap-doors and trick exits of that sort. And when you say that witnesses could attest to having seen all the performers on the stage, I should like to remind you that in the
principal scene of The School for Scandal one of the principal performers remains for a considerable time on the stage, but is not seen. She is technically ‘on,’ but she might practically be very much ‘off.’ That is the Screen of Lady Teazle and the Alibi of Mrs. Mandeville.”
There was a silence and then the actor said: “You think she slipped through a trap-door behind a screen down to the floor below, where the manager’s room was?”
“She certainly slipped away in some fashion; and that is the most probable fashion,” said the other. “I think it all the more probable because she took the opportunity of an undress rehearsal, and even indeed arranged for one. It is a guess; but I fancy if it had been a dress rehearsal it might have been more difficult to get through a trap-door in the hoops of the eighteenth century. There are many little difficulties, of course, but I think they could all be met in time and in turn.”
“What I can’t meet is the big difficulty,” said Jarvis, putting his head on his hand with a sort of groan. “I simply can’t bring myself to believe that a radiant and serene creature like that could so lose, so to speak, her bodily balance, to say nothing of her moral balance. Was any motive strong enough? Was she very much in love with Knight?”
“I hope so,” replied his companion; “for really it would be the most human excuse. But I’m sorry to say that I have my doubts. She wanted to get rid of her husband, who was an old-fashioned, provincial hack, not even making much money. She wanted to have a career as the brilliant wife of a brilliant and rapidly-rising actor. But she didn’t want in that sense to act in The School for Scandal. She wouldn’t have run away with a man except in the last resort. It wasn’t a human passion with her, but a sort of hellish respectability. She was always dogging her husband in secret and badgering him to divorce himself or otherwise get out of the way; and as he refused he paid at last for his refusal. There’s another thing you’ve got to remember. You talk about these highbrows having a higher art and a more philosophical drama. But remember what a lot of the philosophy is! Remember what sort of conduct those highbrows often present to the highest! All about the Will to Power and the Right to Live and the Right to Experience – damned nonsense and more than damned nonsense – nonsense that can damn.”
Father Brown frowned, which he did very rarely; and there was still a cloud on his brow as he put on his hat and went out into the night.
Chapter VI. The Vanishing of Vaudrey
Sir Arthur Vaudrey, in his light-grey summer suit, and wearing on his grey head the white hat which he so boldly affected, went walking briskly up the road by the river from his own house to the little group of houses that were almost like outhouses to his own, entered that little hamlet, and then vanished completely as if he had been carried away by the fairies.
The disappearance seemed the more absolute and abrupt because of the familiarity of the scene and the extreme simplicity of the conditions of the problem. The hamlet could not be called a village; indeed, it was little more than a small and strangely-isolated street. It stood in the middle of wide and open fields and plains, a mere string of the four or five shops absolutely needed by the neighbours; that is, by a few farmers and the family at the great house. There was a butcher’s at the corner, at which, it appeared, Sir Arthur had last been seen. He was seen by two young men staying at his house – Evan Smith, who was acting as his secretary, and John Dalmon, who was generally supposed to be engaged to his ward. There was next to the butcher’s a small shop combining a large number of functions, such as is found in villages, in which a little old woman sold sweets, walking-sticks, golf-balls, gum, balls of string and a very faded sort of stationery. Beyond this was the tobacconist, to which the two young men were betaking themselves when they last caught a glimpse of their host standing in front of the butcher’s shop; and beyond that was a dingy little dressmaker’s, kept by two ladies. A pale and shiny shop, offering to the passer-by great goblets of very wan, green lemonade, completed the block of buildings; for the only real and Christian inn in the neighbourhood stood by itself some way, down the main road. Between the inn and the hamlet was a cross-roads, at which stood a policeman and a uniformed official of a motoring club; and both agreed that Sir Arthur had never passed that point on the road.
It had been at an early hour of a very brilliant summer day that the old gentleman had gone gaily striding up the road, swinging his walking-stick and flapping his yellow gloves. He was a good deal of a dandy, but one of a vigorous and virile sort, especially for his age. His bodily strength and activity were still very remarkable, and his curly hair might have been a yellow so pale as to look white instead of a white that was a faded yellow. His clean-shaven face was handsome, with a high-bridged nose like the Duke of Wellington’s; but the most outstanding features were his eyes. They were not merely metaphorically outstanding; something prominent and almost bulging about them was perhaps the only disproportion in his features; but his lips were sensitive and set a little tightly, as if by an act of will. He was the squire of all that country and the owner of the little hamlet. In that sort of place everybody not only knows everybody else, but generally knows where anybody is at any given moment. The normal course would have been for Sir Arthur to walk to the village, to say whatever he wanted to say to the butcher or anybody else, and then walk back to his house again, all in the course of about half an hour: as the two young men did when they had bought their cigarettes. But they saw nobody on the road returning; indeed, there was nobody in sight except the one other guest at the house, a certain Dr. Abbott, who was sitting with his broad back to them on the river bank, very patiently fishing.
When all the three guests returned to breakfast, they seemed to think little or nothing of the continued absence of the squire; but when the day wore on and he missed one meal after another, they naturally began to be puzzled, and Sybil Rye, the lady of the household, began to be seriously alarmed. Expeditions of discovery were dispatched to the village again and again without finding any trace; and eventually, when darkness fell, the house was full of a definite fear. Sybil had sent for Father Brown, who was a friend of hers and had helped her out of a difficulty in the past; and under the pressure of the apparent peril he had consented to remain at the house and see it through.
Thus it happened that when the new day’s dawn broke without news, Father Brown was early afoot and on the look-out for anything; his black, stumpy figure could be seen pacing the garden path where the garden was embanked along the river, as he scanned the landscape up and down with his short-sighted and rather misty gaze.
He realized that another figure was moving even more restlessly along the embankment, and saluted Evan Smith, the secretary, by name.
Evan Smith was a tall, fair-haired young man, looking rather harassed, as was perhaps natural in that hour of distraction. But something of the sort hung about him at all times. Perhaps it was more marked because he had the sort of athletic reach and poise and the sort of leonine yellow hair and moustache which accompany (always in fiction and sometimes in fact) a frank and cheerful demeanour of “English youth.” As in his case they accompanied deep and cavernous eyes and a rather haggard look, the contrast with the conventional tall figure and fair hair of romance may have had a touch of something sinister. But Father Brown smiled at him amiably enough and then said more seriously:
“This is a trying business.”
“It’s a very trying business for Miss Rye,” answered the young man gloomily; “and I don’t see why I should disguise what’s the worst part of it for me, even if she is engaged to Dalmon. Shocked, I suppose?”
Father Brown did not look very much shocked, but his face was often rather expressionless; he merely said, mildly:
“Naturally, we all sympathize with her anxiety. I suppose you haven’t any news or views in the matter?”
“I haven’t any news exactly.” answered Smith; “no news from outside at least. As for views…” And he relapsed into moody silence.
“I should be very glad to he
ar your views,” said the little priest pleasantly. “I hope you don’t mind my saying that you seem to have something on your mind.”
The young man stirred rather than started and looked at the priest steadily, with a frown that threw his hollow eyes into dense shadow.
“Well, you’re right enough,” he said at last. “I suppose I shall have to tell somebody. And you seem a safe sort of person to tell.”
“Do you know what has happened to Sir Arthur?” asked Father Brown calmly, as if it were the most casual matter in the world.
“Yes,” said the secretary harshly, “I think I know what has happened to Sir Arthur.”
“A beautiful morning,” said a bland voice in his ear; “a beautiful morning for a rather melancholy meeting.”
This time the secretary jumped as if he had been shot, as the large shadow of Dr. Abbott fell across his path in the already strong sunshine. Dr. Abbott was still in his dressing-gown – a sumptuous oriental dressing-gown covered with coloured flowers and dragons, looking rather like one of the most brilliant flower-beds that were growing under the glowing sun. He also wore large, flat slippers, which was doubtless why he had come so close to the others without being heard. He would normally have seemed the last person for such a light and airy approach, for he was a very big, broad and heavy man, with a powerful benevolent face very much sunburnt, in a frame of old-fashioned grey whiskers and chin beard, which hung about him luxuriantly, like the long, grey curls of his venerable head. His long slits of eyes were rather sleepy and, indeed, he was an elderly gentleman to be up so early; but he had a look at once robust and weatherbeaten, as of an old farmer or sea captain who had once been out in all weathers. He was the only old comrade and contemporary of the squire in the company that met at the house.
“It seems truly extraordinary,” he said, shaking his head. “Those little houses are like dolls’ houses, always open front and back, and there’s hardly room to hide anybody, even if they wanted to hide him. And I’m sure they don’t. Dalmon and I cross-examined them all yesterday; they’re mostly little old women that couldn’t hurt a fly. The men are nearly all away harvesting, except the butcher; and Arthur was seen coming out of the butcher’s. And nothing could have happened along that stretch by the river, for I was fishing there all day.”
The Secret of Father Brown Page 10