“Hang it all,” replied Hunter; “you can’t call it a mystery. Why, we all saw him take it ourselves.”
“Yes,” replied the other, “but we didn’t all see him lose it ourselves. And the mystery is, where has he lost it so that we can’t find it?”
“It must be somewhere,” said Hunter. “Have you searched the fountain and all round that rotten old god there?”
“I haven’t dissected the little fishes,” said Hardcastle, lifting his eyeglass and surveying the other. “Are you thinking of the ring of Polycrates?”
Apparently the survey, through the eye-glass, of the round face before him, convinced him that it covered no such meditation on Greek legend.
“It’s not on him, I admit,” repeated Hunter, suddenly, “unless he’s swallowed it.”
“Are we to dissect the Prophet, too?” asked the other smiling. “But here comes our host.”
“This is a most distressing matter,” said Lord Mounteagle, twisting his white moustache with a nervous and even tremulous hand. “Horrible thing to have a theft in one’s house, let alone connecting it with a man like the Master. But, I confess, I can’t quite make head or tail of the way in which he is talking about it. I wish you’d come inside and see what you think.”
They went in together, Hunter falling behind and dropping into conversation with Father Brown, who was kicking his heels round the cloister.
“You must be very strong,” said the priest pleasantly. “You held him with one hand; and he seemed pretty vigorous, even when we had eight hands to hold him, like one of those Indian gods.”
They took a turn or two round the cloister, talking; and then they also went into the inner room, where the Master of the Mountain was seated on a bench, in the capacity of a captive, but with more of the air of a king.
It was true, as Lord Mounteagle said, that his air and tone were not very easy to understand. He spoke with a serene, and yet secretive sense of power. He seemed rather amused at their suggestions about trivial hiding-places for the gem; and certainly he showed no resentment whatever. He seemed to be laughing, in a still unfathomable fashion at their efforts to trace what they had all seen him take.
“You are learning a little,” he said, with insolent benevolence, “of the laws of time and space; about which your latest science is a thousand years behind our oldest religion. You do not even know what is really meant by hiding a thing. Nay, my poor little friends, you do not even know what is meant by seeing a thing; or perhaps you would see this as plainly as I do.”
“Do you mean it is here?” demanded Hardcastle harshly.
“Here is a word of many meanings, also,” replied the mystic. “But I did not say it was here. I only said I could see it.”
There was an irritated silence, and he went on sleepily.
“If you were to be utterly, unfathomably, silent, do you think you might hear a cry from the other end of the world? The cry of a worshipper alone in those mountains, where the original image sits, itself like a mountain. Some say that even Jews and Moslems might worship that image; because it was never made by man. Hark! Do you hear the cry with which he lifts his head and sees in that socket of stone, that has been hollow for ages, the one red and angry moon that is the eye of the mountain?”
“Do you really mean,” cried Lord Mounteagle, a little shaken, “that you could make it pass from here to Mount Meru? I used to believe you had great spiritual powers, but — — ”
“Perhaps,” said the Master, “I have more than you will ever believe.”
Hardcastle rose impatiently and began to pace the room with his hands in his pockets.
“I never believed so much as you did; but I admit that powers of a — certain type may . . . Good God!”
His high, hard voice had been cut off in mid-air, and he stopped staring; the eye-glass fell out of his eye. They all turned their faces in the same direction; and on every face there seemed to be the same suspended animation.
The Red Moon of Meru lay on the stone window-sill, exactly as they had last seen it. It might have been a red spark blown there from a bonfire, or a red rose-petal tossed from a broken rose; but it had fallen in precisely the same spot where Hardcastle had thoughtlessly laid it down.
This time Hardcastle did not attempt to pick it up again; but his demeanour was somewhat notable. He turned slowly and began to stride about the room again; but there was in his movements something masterful, where before it had been only restless. Finally, he brought himself to a standstill in front of the seated Master, and bowed with a somewhat sardonic smile.
“Master,” he said, “we all owe you an apology and, what is more important, you have taught us all a lesson. Believe me, it will serve as a lesson as well as a joke. I shall always remember the very remarkable powers you really possess, and how harmlessly you use them. Lady Mounteagle,” he went on, turning towards her, “you will forgive me for having addressed the Master first; but it was to you I had the honour of offering this explanation some time ago. I may say that I explained it before it had happened. I told you that most of these things could be interpreted by some kind of hypnotism. Many believe that this is the explanation of all those Indian stories about the mango plant and the boy who climbs a rope thrown into the air. It does not really happen; but the spectators are mesmerized into imagining that it happened. So we were all mesmerized into imagining this theft had happened. That brown hand coming in at the window, and whisking away the gem, was a momentary delusion; a hand in a dream. Only, having seen the stone vanish, we never looked for it where it was before. We plunged into the pond and turned every leaf of the water lilies; we were almost giving emetics to the goldfish. But the ruby has been here all the time.”
And he glanced across at the opalescent eyes and smiling bearded mouth of the Master, and saw that the smile was just a shade broader. There was something in it that made the others jump to their feet with an air of sudden relaxation and general, gasping relief.
“This is a very fortunate escape for us all,” said Lord Mounteagle, smiling rather nervously. “There cannot be the least doubt it is as you say. It has been a most painful episode and I really don’t know what apologies — — ”
“I have no complaints,” said the Master or the Mountain, still smiling. “You have never touched Me at all.”
While the rest went off rejoicing, with Hardcastle for the hero of the hour, the little Phrenologist with the whiskers sauntered back towards his preposterous tent. Looking over his shoulder he was surprised to find Father Brown following him.
“Can I feel your bumps?” asked the expert, in his mildly sarcastic tone.
“I don’t think you want to feel any more, do you?” said the priest good-humouredly. “You’re a detective, aren’t you?”
“Yep,” replied the other. “Lady Mounteagle asked me to keep an eye on the Master, being no fool, for all her mysticism; and when he left his tent, I could only follow by behaving like a nuisance and a monomaniac. If anybody had come into my tent, I’d have had to look up Bumps in an encyclopaedia.”
“Bumps, What Ho She; see Folk-Lore,” observed Father Brown, dreamily. “Well, you were quite in the part in pestering people — at a bazaar.”
“Rum case, wasn’t it?” remarked the fallacious Phrenologist. “Queer to think the thing was there all the time.”
“Very queer,” said the priest.
Something in his voice made the other man stop and stare.
“Look here!” he cried; “what’s the matter with you? What are you looking like that for! Don’t you believe that it was there all the time?”
Father Brown blinked rather as if he had received a buffet; then he said slowly and with hesitation: “No, the fact is ... I can’t — I can’t quite bring myself to believe it.”
“You’re not the sort of chap,” said the other shrewdly, “who’d say that without reason. Why don’t you think the ruby had been there all the time?”
“Only because I put it back myself,” sai
d Father Brown.
The other man stood rooted to the spot, like one whose hair was standing on end. He opened his mouth without speech.
“Or rather,” went on the priest, “I persuaded the thief to let me put it back. I told him what I’d guessed and showed him there was still time for repentance. I don’t mind telling you in professional confidence; besides, I don’t think the Mounteagles would prosecute, now they’ve got the thing back, especially considering who stole it.”
“Do you mean the Master?” asked the late Phroso.
“No,” said Father Brown, “the Master didn’t steal it.”
“But I don’t understand,” objected the other. “Nobody was outside the window except the Master; and a hand certainly came from outside.”
“The hand came from outside, but the thief came from the inside,” said Father Brown.
“We seem to be back among the mystics again. Look here, I’m a practical man; I only wanted to know if it is all right with the ruby — — ”
“I knew it was all wrong,” said Father Brown, “before I even knew there was a ruby.”
After a pause he went on thoughtfully. “Right away back in that argument of theirs, by the tents, I knew things were going wrong. People will tell you that theories don’t matter and that logic and philosophy aren’t practical. Don’t you believe them. Reason is from God, and when things are unreasonable there is something the matter. Now, that quite abstract argument ended with something funny. Consider what the theories were. Hardcastle was a trifle superior and said that all things were perfectly possible; but they were mostly done merely by mesmerism, or clairvoyance; scientific names for philosophical puzzles, in the usual style. But Hunter thought it all sheer fraud and wanted to show it up. By Lady Mounteagle’s testimony, he not only went about showing up fortune-tellers and such like, but he had actually come down specially to confront this one. He didn’t often come; he didn’t get on with Mounteagle, from whom, being a spendthrift, he always tried to borrow; but when he heard the Master was coming, he came hurrying down. Very well. In spite of that, it was Hardcastle who went to consult the wizard and Hunter who refused. He said he’d waste no time on such nonsense; having apparently wasted a lot of his life on proving it to be nonsense. That seems inconsistent. He thought in this case it was crystal-gazing; but he found it was palmistry.”
“Do you mean he made that an excuse?” asked his companion, puzzled.
“I thought so at first,” replied the priest; “but I know now it was not an excuse, but a reason. He really was put off by finding it was a palmist, because — — ”
“Well,” demanded the other impatiently.
“Because he didn’t want to take his glove off,” said Father Brown.
“Take his glove off?” repeated the inquirer.
“If he had,” said Father Brown mildly, “we should all have seen that his hand was painted pale brown already. ... Oh, yes, he did come down specially because the Master was here. He came down very fully prepared.”
“You mean,” cried Phroso, “that it was Hunter’s hand, painted brown, that came in at the window? Why, he was with us all the time!”
“Go and try it on the spot and you’ll find it’s quite possible,” said the priest. “Hunter leapt forward and leaned out of the window; in a flash he could tear off his glove, tuck up his sleeve, and thrust his hand back round the other side of the pillar, while he gripped the Indian with the other hand and halloed out that he’d caught the thief. I remarked at the time that he held the thief with one hand, where any sane man would have used two. But the other hand was slipping the jewel into his trouser pocket.”
There was a long pause and then the ex-Phrenologist said slowly. “Well, that’s a staggerer. But the thing stumps me still. For one thing, it doesn’t explain the queer behaviour of the old magician himself. If he was entirely innocent, why the devil didn’t he say so? Why wasn’t he indignant at being accused and searched? Why did he only sit smiling and hinting in a sly way what wild and wonderful things he could do?”
“Ah!” cried Father Brown, with a sharp note in his voice: “there you come up against it! Against everything these people don’t and won’t understand. All religions are the same, says Lady Mounteagle. Are they, by George! I tell you some of them are so different that the best man of one creed will be callous, where the worst man of another will be sensitive. I told you I didn’t like spiritual power, because the accent is on the word power. I don’t say the Master would steal a ruby, very likely he wouldn’t; very likely he wouldn’t think it worth stealing. It wouldn’t be specially his temptation to take jewels; but it would be his temptation to take credit for miracles that didn’t belong to him any more than the jewels. It was to that sort of temptation, to that sort of stealing that he yielded today. He liked us to think that he had marvellous mental powers that could make a material object fly through space; and even when he hadn’t done it, he allowed us to think he had. The point about private property wouldn’t occur primarily to him at all. The question wouldn’t present itself in the form: ‘Shall I steal this pebble?’ but only in the form: ‘Could I make a pebble vanish and re-appear on a distant mountain?’ The question of whose pebble would strike him as irrelevant. That is what I mean by religious being different. He is very proud of having what he calls spiritual powers. But what he calls spiritual doesn’t mean what we call moral. It means rather mental; the power of the mind over matter; the magician controlling the elements. Now we are not like that, even when we are no better; even when we are worse. We, whose fathers at least were Christians, who have grown up under those mediaeval arches even if we bedizen them with all the demons in Asia — we have the very opposite ambition and the very opposite shame. We should all be anxious that nobody should think we had done it. He was actually anxious that everybody should think he had — even when he hadn’t. He actually stole the credit of stealing. While we were all casting the crime from us like a snake, he was actually luring it to him like a snake-charmer. But snakes are not pets in this country! Here the traditions of Christendom tell at once under a test like this. Look at old Mounteagle himself, for instance! Ah, you may be as Eastern and esoteric as you like, and wear a turban and a long robe and live on messages from Mahatmas; but if a bit of stone is stolen in your house, and your friends are suspected, you will jolly soon find out that you’re an ordinary English gentleman in a fuss. The man who really did it would never want us to think he did it, for he also was an English gentleman. He was also something very much better; he was a Christian thief. I hope and believe he was a penitent thief.”
“By your account,” said his companion laughing, “the Christian thief and the heathen fraud went by contraries. One was sorry he’d done it and the other was sorry he hadn’t.”
“We mustn’t be too hard on either of them,” said Father Brown. “Other English gentlemen have stolen before now, and been covered by legal and political protection; and the West also has its own way of covering theft with sophistry. After all, the ruby is not the only kind of valuable stone in the world that has changed owners; it is true of other precious stones; often carved like cameos and coloured like flowers.” The other looked at him inquiringly; and the priest’s finger was pointed to the Gothic outline of the great Abbey. “A great graven stone,” he said, “and that was also stolen.”
The Chief Mourner of Marne
A BLAZE of lightning blanched the grey woods tracing all the wrinkled foliage down to the last curled leaf, as if every detail were drawn in silverpoint or graven in silver. The same strange trick of lightning by which it seems to record millions of minute things in an instant of time, picked out everything, from the elegant litter of the picnic spread under the spreading tree to the pale lengths of winding road, at the end of which a white car was waiting. In the distance a melancholy mansion with four towers like a castle, which in the grey evening had been but a dim and distant huddle of walls like a crumbling cloud, seemed to spring into the foreground, and stood up wi
th all its embattled, roofs and blank and staring windows. And in this, at least, the light had something in it of revelation. For to some of those grouped under the tree that castle was, indeed, a thing faded and almost forgotten, which was to prove its power to spring up again in the foreground of their lives.
The light also clothed for an instant, in the same silver splendour, at least one human figure that stood up as motionless as one of the towers. It was that of a tall man standing on a rise of ground above the rest, who were mostly sitting on the grass or stooping to gather up the hamper and crockery. He wore a picturesque short cloak or cape clasped with a silver clasp and chain, which blazed like a star when the flash touched it; and something metallic in his motionless figure was emphasized by the fact that his closely-curled hair was of the burnished yellow that can be really called gold; and had the look of being younger than his face, which was handsome in a hard aquiline fashion, but looked, under the strong light, a little wrinkled and withered. Possibly it had suffered from wearing a mask of make-up, for Hugo Romaine was the greatest actor of his day. For that instant of illumination the golden curls and ivory mask and silver ornament made his figure gleam like that of a man in armour; the next instant his figure was a dark and even black silhouette against the sickly grey of the rainy evening sky.
But there was something about its stillness, like that of a statue, that distinguished it from the group at his feet. All the other figures around him had made the ordinary involuntary movement at the unexpected shock of light; for though the skies were rainy it was the first flash of the storm. The only lady present, whose air of carrying grey hair gracefully, as if she were really proud of it, marked her a matron of the United States, unaffectedly shut her eyes and uttered a sharp cry. Her English husband, General Outram, a very stolid Anglo-Indian, with a bald head and black moustache and whiskers of antiquated pattern, looked up with one stiff movement and then resumed his occupation of tidying up. A young man of the name of Mallow, very big and shy, with brown eyes like a dog’s, dropped a cup and apologized awkwardly. A third man, much more dressy, with a resolute head, like an inquisitive terrier’s, and grey hair brushed stiffly back, was no other than the great newspaper proprietor, Sir John Cockspur; he cursed freely, but not in an English idiom or accent, for he came from Toronto. But the tall man in the short cloak stood up literally like a statue in the twilight; his eagle face under the full glare had been like the bust of a Roman Emperor, and the carved eyelids had not moved.
The Complete Father Brown Mysteries Collection Page 85