The Secret of Father Brown

by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

  Then he looked at Smith and the look in his long eyes seemed for the moment not only sleepy, but a little sly.

  “I think you and Dalmon can testify,” he said, “that you saw me sitting there through your whole journey there and back.”

  “Yes,” said Evan Smith shortly, and seemed rather impatient at the long interruption.

  “The only thing I can think of,” went on Dr. Abbott slowly; and then the interruption was itself interrupted. A figure at once light and sturdy strode very rapidly across the green lawn between the gay flowerbeds, and John Dalmon appeared among them, holding a paper in his hand. He was neatly dressed and rather swarthy, with a very fine square Napoleonic face and very sad eyes – eyes so sad that they looked almost dead. He seemed to be still young, but his black hair had gone prematurely grey about the temples.

  “I’ve just had this telegram from the police,” he said “I wired to them last night and they say they’re sending down a man at once. Do you know, Dr. Abbott, of anybody else we ought to send for? Relations, I mean, and that sort of thing.”

  “There is his nephew, Vernon Vaudrey, of course,” said the old man. “If you will come with me, I think I can give you his address and – and tell you something rather special about him.”

  Dr. Abbott and Dalmon moved away in the direction of the house and, when they had gone a certain distance, Father Brown said simply, as if there had been no interruption:

  “You were saying?”

  “You’re a cool hand,” said the secretary. “I suppose it comes of hearing confessions. I feel rather as if I were going to make a confession. Some people would feel a bit jolted out of the mood of confidence by that queer old elephant creeping up like a snake. But I suppose I’d better stick to it, though it really isn’t my confession, but somebody else’s.” He stopped a moment, frowning and pulling his moustache; then he said, abruptly:

  “I believe Sir Arthur has bolted, and I believe I know why.”

  There was a silence and then he exploded again.

  “I’m in a damnable position, and most people would say I was doing a damnable thing. I am now going to appear in the character of a sneak and a skunk and I believe I am doing my duty.”

  “You must be the judge,” said Father Brown gravely. “What is the matter with your duty?”

  “I’m in the perfectly foul position of telling tales against a rival, and a successful rival, too,” said the young man bitterly; “and I don’t know what else in the world I can do. You were asking what was the explanation of Vaudrey’s disappearance. I am absolutely convinced that Dalmon is the explanation.”

  “You mean,” said the priest, with composure, “that Dalmon has killed Sir Arthur?”

  “No!” exploded Smith, with startling violence. “No, a hundred times! He hasn’t done that, whatever else he’s done. He isn’t a murderer, whatever else he is. He has the best of all alibis; the evidence of a man who hates him. I’m not likely to perjure myself for love of Dalmon; and I could swear in any court he did nothing to the old man yesterday. Dalmon and I were together all day, or all that part of the day, and he did nothing in the village except buy cigarettes, and nothing here except smoke them and read in the library. No; I believe he is a criminal, but he did not kill Vaudrey. I might even say more; because he is a criminal he did not kill Vaudrey.”

  “Yes,” said the other patiently, “and what does that mean?”

  “It means,” replied the secretary, “that he is a criminal committing another crime: and his crime depends on keeping Vaudrey alive.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Father Brown.

  “I know Sybil Rye pretty well, and her character is a great part of this story. It is a very fine character in both senses: that is, it is of a noble quality and only too delicate a texture. She is one of those people who are terribly conscientious, without any of that armour of habit and hard common sense that many conscientious people get. She is almost insanely sensitive and at the same time quite unselfish. Her history is curious: she was left literally penniless like a foundling and Sir Arthur took her into his house and treated her with consideration, which puzzled many; for, without being hard on the old man, it was not much in his line. But, when she was about seventeen, the explanation came to her with a shock; for her guardian asked her to marry him. Now I come to the curious part of the story. Somehow or other, Sybil had heard from somebody (I rather suspect from old Abbott) that Sir Arthur Vaudrey, in his wilder youth, had committed some crime or, at least, done some great wrong to somebody, which had got him into serious trouble. I don’t know what it was. But it was a sort of nightmare to the girl at her crude sentimental age, and made him seem like a monster, at least too much so for the close relation of marriage. What she did was incredibly typical of her. With helpless terror and with heroic courage she told him the truth with her own trembling lips. She admitted that her repulsion might be morbid; she confessed it like a secret madness. To her relief and surprise he took it quietly and courteously, and apparently said no more on the subject; and her sense of his generosity was greatly increased by the next stage of the story. There came into her lonely life the influence of an equally lonely man. He was camping-out like a sort of hermit on one of the islands in the river; and I suppose the mystery made him attractive, though I admit he is attractive enough; a gentleman, and quite witty, though very melancholy – which, I suppose, increased the romance. It was this man, Dalmon, of course; and to this day I’m not sure how far she really accepted him; but it got as far as his getting permission to see her guardian. I can fancy her awaiting that interview in an agony of terror and wondering how the old beau would take the appearance of a rival. But here, again, she found she had apparently done him an injustice. He received the younger man with hearty hospitality and seemed to be delighted with the prospects of the young couple. He and Dalmon went shooting and fishing together and were the best of friends, when one day she had another shock. Dalmon let slip in conversation some chance phrase that the old man ‘had not changed much in thirty years,’ and the truth about the odd intimacy burst upon her. All that introduction and hospitality had been a masquerade; the men had obviously known each other before. That was why the younger man had come down rather covertly to that district. That was why the elder man was lending himself so readily to promote the match. I wonder what you are thinking?”

  “I know what you are thinking,” said Father Brown, with a smile, “and it seems entirely logical. Here we have Vaudrey, with some ugly story in his past – a mysterious stranger come to haunt him, and getting whatever he wants out of him. In plain words, you think Dalmon is a blackmailer.”

  “I do,” said the other; “and a rotten thing to think, too.”

  Father Brown reflected for a moment and then said: “I think I should like to go up to the house now and have a talk to Dr. Abbott.”

  When he came out of the house again an hour or two afterwards, he may have been talking to Dr. Abbott, but he emerged in company with Sybil Rye, a pale girl with reddish hair and a profile delicate and almost tremulous; at the sight of her, one could instantly understand all the secretary’s story of her shuddering candour. It recalled Godiva and certain tales of virgin martyrs; only the shy can be so shameless for conscience’s sake. Smith came forward to meet them, and for a moment they stood talking on the lawn. The day which had been brilliant from daybreak was now glowing and even glaring; but Father Brown carried his black bundle of an umbrella as well as wearing his black umbrella of a hat; and seemed, in a general way, buttoned up to breast the storm. But perhaps it was only an unconscious effect of attitude; and perhaps the storm was not a material storm.

  “What I hate about it all,” Sybil was saying in a low voice, “is the talk that’s beginning already; suspicions against everybody. John and Evan can answer for each other, I suppose; but Dr. Abbott has had an awful scene with the butcher, who thinks he is accused and is throwing accusations about in consequence.”

  Evan Smith looked very uncomfortab
le; then blurted out: “Look here, Sybil, I can’t say much, but we don’t believe there’s any need for all that. It’s all very beastly, but we don’t think there’s been – any violence.”

  “Have you got a theory, then?” said the girl, looking instantly at the priest.

  “I have heard a theory,” he replied, “which seems to me very convincing.”

  He stood looking rather dreamily towards the river; and Smith and Sybil began to talk to each other swiftly, in lowered tones. The priest drifted along the river bank, ruminating, and plunged into a plantation of thin trees on an almost overhanging bank. The strong sun beat on the thin veil of little dancing leaves like small green flames, and all the birds were singing as if the tree had a hundred tongues. A minute or two later, Evan Smith heard his own name called cautiously and yet clearly from the green depths of the thicket. He stepped rapidly in that direction and met Father Brown returning. The priest said to him, in a very low voice:

  “Don’t let the lady come down here. Can’t you get rid of her? Ask her to telephone or something; and then come back here again.”

  Evan Smith turned with a rather desperate appearance of carelessness and approached the girl; but she was not the sort of person whom it is hard to make busy with small jobs for others. In a very short time she had vanished into the house and Smith turned to find that Father Brown had once more vanished into the thicket. Just beyond the clump of trees was a sort of small chasm where the turf had subsided to the level of the sand by the river. Father Brown was standing on the brink of this cleft, looking down; but, either by accident or design, he was holding his hat in his hand, in spite of the strong sun pouring on his head.

  “You had better see this yourself,” he said, heavily, “as a matter of evidence. But I warn you to be prepared.”

  “Prepared for what?” asked the other

  “Only for the most horrible thing I ever saw in my life,” said Father Brown.

  Even Smith stepped to the brink of the bank of turf and with difficulty repressed a cry rather like a scream.

  Sir Arthur Vaudrey was glaring and grinning up at him; the face was turned up so that he could have put his foot on it; the head was thrown back, with its wig of whitish yellow hair towards him, so that he saw the face upside down. This made it seem all the more like a part of a nightmare; as if a man were walking about with his head stuck on the wrong way. What was he doing? Was it possible that Vaudrey was really creeping about, hiding in the cracks of field and bank, and peering out at them in this unnatural posture? The rest of the figure seemed hunched and almost crooked, as if it had been crippled or deformed but on looking more closely, this seemed only the foreshortening of limbs fallen in a heap. Was he mad? Was he? The more Smith looked at him the stiffer the posture seemed.

  “You can’t see it from here properly,” said Father Brown, “but his throat is cut.”

  Smith shuddered suddenly. “I can well believe it’s the most horrible thing you’ve seen,” he said. “I think it’s seeing the face upside down. I’ve seen that face at breakfast, or dinner, every day for ten years; and it always looked quite pleasant and polite. You turn it upside down and it looks like the face of a fiend.”

  “The face really is smiling,” said Father Brown, soberly; “which is perhaps not the least part of the riddle. Not many men smile while their throats are being cut, even if they do it themselves. That smile, combined with those gooseberry eyes of his that always seemed standing out of his head, is enough, no doubt, to explain the expression. But it’s true, things look different upside down. Artists often turn their drawings upside down to test their correctness. Sometimes, when it’s difficult to turn the object itself upside down (as in the case of the Matterhorn, let us say), they have been known to stand on their heads, or at least look between their legs.”

  The priest, who was talking thus flippantly to steady the other man’s nerves, concluded by saying, in a more serious tone: “I quite understand how it must have upset you. Unfortunately, it also upset something else.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It has upset the whole of our very complete theory,” replied the other; and he began clambering down the bank on to the little strip of sand by the river.

  “Perhaps he did it himself,” said Smith abruptly. “After all, that’s the most obvious sort of escape, and fits in with our theory very well. He wanted a quiet place and he came here and cut his throat.”

  “He didn’t come here at all,” said Father Brown. “At least, not alive, and not by land. He wasn’t killed here; there’s not enough blood. This sun has dried his hair and clothes pretty well by now; but there are the traces of two trickles of water in the sand. Just about here the tide comes up from the sea and makes an eddy that washed the body into the creek and left it when the tide retired. But the body must first have been washed down the river, presumably from the village, for the river runs just behind the row of little houses and shops. Poor Vaudrey died up in the hamlet, somehow; after all, I don’t think he committed suicide; but the trouble is who would, or could, have killed him up in that potty little place?”

  He began to draw rough designs with the point of his stumpy umbrella on the strip of sand.

  “Let’s see; how does the row of shops run? First, the butcher’s; well, of course, a butcher would be an ideal performer with a large carving-knife. But you saw Vaudrey come out, and it isn’t very probable that he stood in the outer shop while the butcher said: ‘Good morning. Allow me to cut your throat! Thank you. And the next article, please?’ Sir Arthur doesn’t strike me as the sort of man who’d have stood there with a pleasant smile while this happened. He was a very strong and vigorous man, with rather a violent temper. And who else, except the butcher, could have stood up to him? The next shop is kept by an old woman. Then comes the tobacconist, who is certainly a man, but I am told quite a small and timid one. Then there is the dressmaker’s, run by two maiden ladies, and then a refreshment shop run by a man who happens to be in hospital and who has left his wife in charge. There are two or three village lads, assistants and errand boys, but they were away on a special job. The refreshment shop ends the street; there is nothing beyond that but the inn, with the policeman between.”

  He made a punch with the ferrule of his umbrella to represent the policeman, and remained moodily staring up the river. Then he made a slight movement with his hand and, stepping quickly across, stooped over the corpse.

  “Ah,” he said, straightening himself and letting out a great breath. “The tobacconist! Why in the world didn’t I remember that about the tobacconist?”

  “What is the matter with you?” demanded Smith in some exasperation; for Father Brown was rolling his eyes and muttering, and he had uttered the word “tobacconist” as if it were a terrible word of doom.

  “Did you notice,” said the priest, after a pause, “something rather curious about his face?”

  “Curious, my God!” said Evan, with a retrospective shudder. “Anyhow, his throat was cut…”

  “I said his face,” said the cleric quietly. “Besides, don’t you notice he has hurt his hand and there’s a small bandage round it?”

  “Oh, that has nothing to do with it,” said Evan hastily. “That happened before and was quite an accident. He cut his hand with a broken ink-bottle while we were working together.”

  “It has something to do with it, for all that,” replied Father Brown.

  There was a long silence, and the priest walked moodily along the sand, trailing his umbrella and sometimes muttering the word “tobacconist,” till the very word chilled his friend with fear. Then he suddenly lifted the umbrella and pointed to a boat-house among the rushes.

  “Is that the family boat?” he asked. “I wish you’d just scull me up the river; I want to look at those houses from the back. There’s no time to lose. They may find the body; but we must risk that.”

  Smith was already pulling the little boat upstream towards the hamlet before Father Brown spoke again
. Then he said:

  “By the way, I found out from old Abbott what was the real story about poor Vaudrey’s misdemeanour. It was a rather curious story about an Egyptian official who had insulted him by saying that a good Moslem would avoid swine and Englishmen, but preferred swine; or some such tactful remark. Whatever happened at the time, the quarrel was apparently renewed some years after, when the official visited England; and Vaudrey, in his violent passion, dragged the man to a pig-sty on the farm attached to the country house and threw him in, breaking his arm and leg and leaving him there till next morning. There was rather a row about it, of course, but many people thought Vaudrey had acted in a pardonable passion of patriotism. Anyhow, it seems not quite the thing that would have kept a man silent under deadly blackmail for decades.”

  “Then you don’t think it had anything to do with the story we are considering?” asked the secretary, thoughtfully.

  “I think it had a thundering lot to do with the story I am considering now,” said Father Brown.

  They were now floating past the low wall and the steep strips of back garden running down from the back doors to the river. Father Brown counted them carefully, pointing with his umbrella, and when he came to the third he said again:

  “Tobacconist! Is the tobacconist by any chance…? But I think I’ll act on my guess till I know. Only, I’ll tell you what it was I thought odd about Sir Arthur’s face.”

  “And what was that?” asked his companion, pausing and resting on his oars for an instant.

  “He was a great dandy,” said Father Brown, “and the face was only half-shaved… Could you stop here a moment? We could tie up the boat to that post.”