The Wisdom of Father Brown

by G. K. Chesterton

  M. Armagnac looked at M. Brun. M. Brun borrowed the letter, read it, andlooked at M. Armagnac. Then both betook themselves briskly to one of thelittle tables under the chestnuts opposite, where they procured two tallglasses of horrible green absinthe, which they could drink apparently inany weather and at any time. Otherwise the cafe seemed empty, exceptfor one soldier drinking coffee at one table, and at another a large mandrinking a small syrup and a priest drinking nothing.

  Maurice Brun cleared his throat and said: "Of course we must help themaster in every way, but--"

  There was an abrupt silence, and Armagnac said: "He may have excellentreasons for not meeting the man himself, but--"

  Before either could complete a sentence, it was evident that the invaderhad been expelled from the house opposite. The shrubs under the archwayswayed and burst apart, as that unwelcome guest was shot out of themlike a cannon-ball.

  He was a sturdy figure in a small and tilted Tyrolean felt hat, afigure that had indeed something generally Tyrolean about it. The man'sshoulders were big and broad, but his legs were neat and active inknee-breeches and knitted stockings. His face was brown like a nut; hehad very bright and restless brown eyes; his dark hair was brushedback stiffly in front and cropped close behind, outlining a square andpowerful skull; and he had a huge black moustache like the horns of abison. Such a substantial head is generally based on a bull neck; butthis was hidden by a big coloured scarf, swathed round up the man's earsand falling in front inside his jacket like a sort of fancy waistcoat.It was a scarf of strong dead colours, dark red and old gold and purple,probably of Oriental fabrication. Altogether the man had something ashade barbaric about him; more like a Hungarian squire than an ordinaryFrench officer. His French, however, was obviously that of a native;and his French patriotism was so impulsive as to be slightly absurd.His first act when he burst out of the archway was to call in a clarionvoice down the street: "Are there any Frenchmen here?" as if he werecalling for Christians in Mecca.

  Armagnac and Brun instantly stood up; but they were too late. Menwere already running from the street corners; there was a small butever-clustering crowd. With the prompt French instinct for the politicsof the street, the man with the black moustache had already run acrossto a corner of the cafe, sprung on one of the tables, and seizing abranch of chestnut to steady himself, shouted as Camille Desmoulins onceshouted when he scattered the oak-leaves among the populace.

  "Frenchmen!" he volleyed; "I cannot speak! God help me, that is why Iam speaking! The fellows in their filthy parliaments who learn tospeak also learn to be silent--silent as that spy cowering in the houseopposite! Silent as he is when I beat on his bedroom door! Silent as heis now, though he hears my voice across this street and shakes where hesits! Oh, they can be silent eloquently--the politicians! But the timehas come when we that cannot speak must speak. You are betrayed to thePrussians. Betrayed at this moment. Betrayed by that man. I am JulesDubosc, Colonel of Artillery, Belfort. We caught a German spy in theVosges yesterday, and a paper was found on him--a paper I hold in myhand. Oh, they tried to hush it up; but I took it direct to the man whowrote it--the man in that house! It is in his hand. It is signed withhis initials. It is a direction for finding the secret of this newNoiseless Powder. Hirsch invented it; Hirsch wrote this note about it.This note is in German, and was found in a German's pocket. 'Tell theman the formula for powder is in grey envelope in first drawer to theleft of Secretary's desk, War Office, in red ink. He must be careful.P.H.'"

  He rattled short sentences like a quick-firing gun, but he was plainlythe sort of man who is either mad or right. The mass of the crowdwas Nationalist, and already in threatening uproar; and a minority ofequally angry Intellectuals, led by Armagnac and Brun, only made themajority more militant.

  "If this is a military secret," shouted Brun, "why do you yell about itin the street?"

  "I will tell you why I do!" roared Dubosc above the roaring crowd. "Iwent to this man in straight and civil style. If he had any explanationit could have been given in complete confidence. He refuses to explain.He refers me to two strangers in a cafe as to two flunkeys. He hasthrown me out of the house, but I am going back into it, with the peopleof Paris behind me!"

  A shout seemed to shake the very facade of mansions and two stones flew,one breaking a window above the balcony. The indignant Colonel plungedonce more under the archway and was heard crying and thundering inside.Every instant the human sea grew wider and wider; it surged up againstthe rails and steps of the traitor's house; it was already certain thatthe place would be burst into like the Bastille, when the broken frenchwindow opened and Dr Hirsch came out on the balcony. For an instantthe fury half turned to laughter; for he was an absurd figure in sucha scene. His long bare neck and sloping shoulders were the shape of achampagne bottle, but that was the only festive thing about him. Hiscoat hung on him as on a peg; he wore his carrot-coloured hair longand weedy; his cheeks and chin were fully fringed with one of thoseirritating beards that begin far from the mouth. He was very pale, andhe wore blue spectacles.

  Livid as he was, he spoke with a sort of prim decision, so that the mobfell silent in the middle of his third sentence.

  "...only two things to say to you now. The first is to my foes, thesecond to my friends. To my foes I say: It is true I will not meet M.Dubosc, though he is storming outside this very room. It is true I haveasked two other men to confront him for me. And I will tell you why!Because I will not and must not see him--because it would be against allrules of dignity and honour to see him. Before I am triumphantly clearedbefore a court, there is another arbitration this gentleman owes me as agentleman, and in referring him to my seconds I am strictly--"

  Armagnac and Brun were waving their hats wildly, and even the Doctor'senemies roared applause at this unexpected defiance. Once more a fewsentences were inaudible, but they could hear him say: "To my friends--Imyself should always prefer weapons purely intellectual, and to thesean evolved humanity will certainly confine itself. But our own mostprecious truth is the fundamental force of matter and heredity. My booksare successful; my theories are unrefuted; but I suffer in politicsfrom a prejudice almost physical in the French. I cannot speak likeClemenceau and Deroulede, for their words are like echoes of theirpistols. The French ask for a duellist as the English ask for asportsman. Well, I give my proofs: I will pay this barbaric bribe, andthen go back to reason for the rest of my life."

  Two men were instantly found in the crowd itself to offer their servicesto Colonel Dubosc, who came out presently, satisfied. One was the commonsoldier with the coffee, who said simply: "I will act for you, sir. Iam the Duc de Valognes." The other was the big man, whom his friend thepriest sought at first to dissuade; and then walked away alone.

  In the early evening a light dinner was spread at the back of the CafeCharlemagne. Though unroofed by any glass or gilt plaster, the guestswere nearly all under a delicate and irregular roof of leaves; for theornamental trees stood so thick around and among the tables as to givesomething of the dimness and the dazzle of a small orchard. At one ofthe central tables a very stumpy little priest sat in complete solitude,and applied himself to a pile of whitebait with the gravest sort ofenjoyment. His daily living being very plain, he had a peculiar tastefor sudden and isolated luxuries; he was an abstemious epicure. He didnot lift his eyes from his plate, round which red pepper, lemons, brownbread and butter, etc., were rigidly ranked, until a tall shadow fellacross the table, and his friend Flambeau sat down opposite. Flambeauwas gloomy.

  "I'm afraid I must chuck this business," said he heavily. "I'm all onthe side of the French soldiers like Dubosc, and I'm all against theFrench atheists like Hirsch; but it seems to me in this case we've madea mistake. The Duke and I thought it as well to investigate the charge,and I must say I'm glad we did."

  "Is the paper a forgery, then?" asked the priest

  "That's just the odd thing," replied Flambeau. "It's exactly likeHirsch's writing, and nobody can point out any mistake in it. But itwasn't
written by Hirsch. If he's a French patriot he didn't write it,because it gives information to Germany. And if he's a German spy hedidn't write it, well--because it doesn't give information to Germany."

  "You mean the information is wrong?" asked Father Brown.

  "Wrong," replied the other, "and wrong exactly where Dr Hirsch wouldhave been right--about the hiding-place of his own secret formula in hisown official department. By favour of Hirsch and the authorities, theDuke and I have actually been allowed to inspect the secret drawer atthe War Office where the Hirsch formula is kept. We are the only peoplewho have ever known it, except the inventor himself and the Minister forWar; but the Minister permitted it to save Hirsch from fighting. Afterthat we really can't support Dubosc if his revelation is a mare's nest."

  "And it is?" asked Father Brown.

  "It is," said his friend gloomily. "It is a clumsy forgery by somebodywho knew nothing of the real hiding-place. It says the paper is in thecupboard on the right of the Secretary's desk. As a fact the cupboardwith the secret drawer is some way to the left of the desk. It saysthe grey envelope contains a long document written in red ink. It isn'twritten in red ink, but in ordinary black ink. It's manifestly absurd tosay that Hirsch can have made a mistake about a paper that nobody knewof but himself; or can have tried to help a foreign thief by telling himto fumble in the wrong drawer. I think we must chuck it up and apologizeto old Carrots."

  Father Brown seemed to cogitate; he lifted a little whitebait on hisfork. "You are sure the grey envelope was in the left cupboard?" heasked.

  "Positive," replied Flambeau. "The grey envelope--it was a whiteenvelope really--was--"

  Father Brown put down the small silver fish and the fork and staredacross at his companion. "What?" he asked, in an altered voice.

  "Well, what?" repeated Flambeau, eating heartily.

  "It was not grey," said the priest. "Flambeau, you frighten me."

  "What the deuce are you frightened of?"

  "I'm frightened of a white envelope," said the other seriously, "If ithad only just been grey! Hang it all, it might as well have been grey.But if it was white, the whole business is black. The Doctor has beendabbling in some of the old brimstone after all."

  "But I tell you he couldn't have written such a note!" cried Flambeau."The note is utterly wrong about the facts. And innocent or guilty, DrHirsch knew all about the facts."

  "The man who wrote that note knew all about the facts," said hisclerical companion soberly. "He could never have got 'em so wrongwithout knowing about 'em. You have to know an awful lot to be wrong onevery subject--like the devil."

  "Do you mean--?"

  "I mean a man telling lies on chance would have told some of the truth,"said his friend firmly. "Suppose someone sent you to find a house witha green door and a blue blind, with a front garden but no back garden,with a dog but no cat, and where they drank coffee but not tea. Youwould say if you found no such house that it was all made up. But I sayno. I say if you found a house where the door was blue and the blindgreen, where there was a back garden and no front garden, where catswere common and dogs instantly shot, where tea was drunk in quarts andcoffee forbidden--then you would know you had found the house. The manmust have known that particular house to be so accurately inaccurate."

  "But what could it mean?" demanded the diner opposite.

  "I can't conceive," said Brown; "I don't understand this Hirsch affairat all. As long as it was only the left drawer instead of the right, andred ink instead of black, I thought it must be the chance blunders of aforger, as you say. But three is a mystical number; it finishes things.It finishes this. That the direction about the drawer, the colour ofink, the colour of envelope, should none of them be right by accident,that can't be a coincidence. It wasn't."

  "What was it, then? Treason?" asked Flambeau, resuming his dinner.

  "I don't know that either," answered Brown, with a face of blankbewilderment. "The only thing I can think of.... Well, I neverunderstood that Dreyfus case. I can always grasp moral evidence easierthan the other sorts. I go by a man's eyes and voice, don't you know,and whether his family seems happy, and by what subjects he chooses--andavoids. Well, I was puzzled in the Dreyfus case. Not by the horriblethings imputed both ways; I know (though it's not modern to say so) thathuman nature in the highest places is still capable of being Cenci orBorgia. No--, what puzzled me was the sincerity of both parties. I don'tmean the political parties; the rank and file are always roughlyhonest, and often duped. I mean the persons of the play. I mean theconspirators, if they were conspirators. I mean the traitor, if he was atraitor. I mean the men who must have known the truth. Now Dreyfuswent on like a man who knew he was a wronged man. And yet the Frenchstatesmen and soldiers went on as if they knew he wasn't a wronged manbut simply a wrong 'un. I don't mean they behaved well; I mean theybehaved as if they were sure. I can't describe these things; I know whatI mean."

  "I wish I did," said his friend. "And what has it to do with oldHirsch?"

  "Suppose a person in a position of trust," went on the priest, "began togive the enemy information because it was false information. Supposehe even thought he was saving his country by misleading the foreigner.Suppose this brought him into spy circles, and little loans were madeto him, and little ties tied on to him. Suppose he kept up hiscontradictory position in a confused way by never telling the foreignspies the truth, but letting it more and more be guessed. The betterpart of him (what was left of it) would still say: 'I have not helpedthe enemy; I said it was the left drawer.' The meaner part of him wouldalready be saying: 'But they may have the sense to see that means theright.' I think it is psychologically possible--in an enlightened age,you know."

  "It may be psychologically possible," answered Flambeau, "and itcertainly would explain Dreyfus being certain he was wronged and hisjudges being sure he was guilty. But it won't wash historically, becauseDreyfus's document (if it was his document) was literally correct."

  "I wasn't thinking of Dreyfus," said Father Brown.

  Silence had sunk around them with the emptying of the tables; it wasalready late, though the sunlight still clung to everything, as ifaccidentally entangled in the trees. In the stillness Flambeau shiftedhis seat sharply--making an isolated and echoing noise--and threw hiselbow over the angle of it. "Well," he said, rather harshly, "if Hirschis not better than a timid treason-monger..."

  "You mustn't be too hard on them," said Father Brown gently. "It's notentirely their fault; but they have no instincts. I mean those thingsthat make a woman refuse to dance with a man or a man to touch aninvestment. They've been taught that it's all a matter of degree."

  "Anyhow," cried Flambeau impatiently, "he's not a patch on my principal;and I shall go through with it. Old Dubosc may be a bit mad, but he's asort of patriot after all."

  Father Brown continued to consume whitebait.

  Something in the stolid way he did so caused Flambeau's fierce blackeyes to ramble over his companion afresh. "What's the matter with you?"Flambeau demanded. "Dubosc's all right in that way. You don't doubthim?"

  "My friend," said the small priest, laying down his knife and fork in akind of cold despair, "I doubt everything. Everything, I mean, that hashappened today. I doubt the whole story, though it has been acted beforemy face. I doubt every sight that my eyes have seen since morning. Thereis something in this business quite different from the ordinary policemystery where one man is more or less lying and the other man more orless telling the truth. Here both men.... Well! I've told you the onlytheory I can think of that could satisfy anybody. It doesn't satisfyme."

  "Nor me either," replied Flambeau frowning, while the other went oneating fish with an air of entire resignation. "If all you can suggestis that notion of a message conveyed by contraries, I call it uncommonlyclever, but...well, what would you call it?"

  "I should call it thin," said the priest promptly. "I should call ituncommonly thin. But that's the queer thing about the whole business.The lie is like a schoolboy's. There a
re only three versions, Dubosc'sand Hirsch's and that fancy of mine. Either that note was written bya French officer to ruin a French official; or it was written by theFrench official to help German officers; or it was written by the Frenchofficial to mislead German officers. Very well. You'd expect a secretpaper passing between such people, officials or officers, to lookquite different from that. You'd expect, probably a cipher, certainlyabbreviations; most certainly scientific and strictly professionalterms. But this thing's elaborately simple, like a penny dreadful: 'Inthe purple grotto you will find the golden casket.' It looks as if... asif it were meant to be seen through at once."

  Almost before they could take it in a short figure in French uniformhad walked up to their table like the wind, and sat down with a sort ofthump.

  "I have extraordinary news," said the Duc de Valognes. "I have just comefrom this Colonel of ours. He is packing up to leave the country, and heasks us to make his excuses sur le terrain."

  "What?" cried Flambeau, with an incredulity quitefrightful--"apologize?"

  "Yes," said the Duke gruffly; "then and there--before everybody--whenthe swords are drawn. And you and I have to do it while he is leavingthe country."

  "But what can this mean?" cried Flambeau. "He can't be afraid of thatlittle Hirsch! Confound it!" he cried, in a kind of rational rage;"nobody could be afraid of Hirsch!"

  "I believe it's some plot!" snapped Valognes--"some plot of the Jews andFreemasons. It's meant to work up glory for Hirsch..."

  The face of Father Brown was commonplace, but curiously contented; itcould shine with ignorance as well as with knowledge. But there wasalways one flash when the foolish mask fell, and the wise mask fitteditself in its place; and Flambeau, who knew his friend, knew that hisfriend had suddenly understood. Brown said nothing, but finished hisplate of fish.

  "Where did you last see our precious Colonel?" asked Flambeau,irritably.

  "He's round at the Hotel Saint Louis by the Elysee, where we drove withhim. He's packing up, I tell you."

  "Will he be there still, do you think?" asked Flambeau, frowning at thetable.

  "I don't think he can get away yet," replied the Duke; "he's packing togo a long journey..."

  "No," said Father Brown, quite simply, but suddenly standing up, "for avery short journey. For one of the shortest, in fact. But we may stillbe in time to catch him if we go there in a motor-cab."

  Nothing more could be got out of him until the cab swept round thecorner by the Hotel Saint Louis, where they got out, and he led theparty up a side lane already in deep shadow with the growing dusk. Once,when the Duke impatiently asked whether Hirsch was guilty of treason ornot, he answered rather absently: "No; only of ambition--like Caesar."Then he somewhat inconsequently added: "He lives a very lonely life; hehas had to do everything for himself."

  "Well, if he's ambitious, he ought to be satisfied now," said Flambeaurather bitterly. "All Paris will cheer him now our cursed Colonel hasturned tail."

  "Don't talk so loud," said Father Brown, lowering his voice, "yourcursed Colonel is just in front."

  The other two started and shrank farther back into the shadow of thewall, for the sturdy figure of their runaway principal could indeed beseen shuffling along in the twilight in front, a bag in each hand. Helooked much the same as when they first saw him, except that he hadchanged his picturesque mountaineering knickers for a conventional pairof trousers. It was clear he was already escaping from the hotel.

  The lane down which they followed him was one of those that seem tobe at the back of things, and look like the wrong side of the stagescenery. A colourless, continuous wall ran down one flank of it,interrupted at intervals by dull-hued and dirt-stained doors, all shutfast and featureless save for the chalk scribbles of some passinggamin. The tops of trees, mostly rather depressing evergreens, showedat intervals over the top of the wall, and beyond them in the grey andpurple gloaming could be seen the back of some long terrace of tallParisian houses, really comparatively close, but somehow looking asinaccessible as a range of marble mountains. On the other side of thelane ran the high gilt railings of a gloomy park.

  Flambeau was looking round him in rather a weird way. "Do you know," hesaid, "there is something about this place that--"

  "Hullo!" called out the Duke sharply; "that fellow's disappeared.Vanished, like a blasted fairy!"

  "He has a key," explained their clerical friend. "He's only gone intoone of these garden doors," and as he spoke they heard one of the dullwooden doors close again with a click in front of them.

  Flambeau strode up to the door thus shut almost in his face, and stoodin front of it for a moment, biting his black moustache in a fury ofcuriosity. Then he threw up his long arms and swung himself aloft likea monkey and stood on the top of the wall, his enormous figure darkagainst the purple sky, like the dark tree-tops.

  The Duke looked at the priest. "Dubosc's escape is more elaborate thanwe thought," he said; "but I suppose he is escaping from France."

  "He is escaping from everywhere," answered Father Brown.

  Valognes's eyes brightened, but his voice sank. "Do you mean suicide?"he asked.

  "You will not find his body," replied the other.

  A kind of cry came from Flambeau on the wall above. "My God," heexclaimed in French, "I know what this place is now! Why, it's the backof the street where old Hirsch lives. I thought I could recognize theback of a house as well as the back of a man."

  "And Dubosc's gone in there!" cried the Duke, smiting his hip. "Why,they'll meet after all!" And with sudden Gallic vivacity he hopped up onthe wall beside Flambeau and sat there positively kicking his legs withexcitement. The priest alone remained below, leaning against the wall,with his back to the whole theatre of events, and looking wistfullyacross to the park palings and the twinkling, twilit trees.

  The Duke, however stimulated, had the instincts of an aristocrat, anddesired rather to stare at the house than to spy on it; but Flambeau,who had the instincts of a burglar (and a detective), had already swunghimself from the wall into the fork of a straggling tree from which hecould crawl quite close to the only illuminated window in the back ofthe high dark house. A red blind had been pulled down over the light,but pulled crookedly, so that it gaped on one side, and by risking hisneck along a branch that looked as treacherous as a twig, Flambeaucould just see Colonel Dubosc walking about in a brilliantly-lighted andluxurious bedroom. But close as Flambeau was to the house, he heard thewords of his colleagues by the wall, and repeated them in a low voice.

  "Yes, they will meet now after all!"

  "They will never meet," said Father Brown. "Hirsch was right when hesaid that in such an affair the principals must not meet. Have youread a queer psychological story by Henry James, of two persons who soperpetually missed meeting each other by accident that they began tofeel quite frightened of each other, and to think it was fate? This issomething of the kind, but more curious."

  "There are people in Paris who will cure them of such morbid fancies,"said Valognes vindictively. "They will jolly well have to meet if wecapture them and force them to fight."

  "They will not meet on the Day of Judgement," said the priest. "If GodAlmighty held the truncheon of the lists, if St Michael blew the trumpetfor the swords to cross--even then, if one of them stood ready, theother would not come."

  "Oh, what does all this mysticism mean?" cried the Duc de Valognes,impatiently; "why on earth shouldn't they meet like other people?"

  "They are the opposite of each other," said Father Brown, with a queerkind of smile. "They contradict each other. They cancel out, so tospeak."

  He continued to gaze at the darkening trees opposite, but Valognesturned his head sharply at a suppressed exclamation from Flambeau. Thatinvestigator, peering into the lighted room, had just seen the Colonel,after a pace or two, proceed to take his coat off. Flambeau's firstthought was that this really looked like a fight; but he soon droppedthe thought for another. The solidity and squareness of Dubosc's chestand shoulders was all
a powerful piece of padding and came off with hiscoat. In his shirt and trousers he was a comparatively slim gentleman,who walked across the bedroom to the bathroom with no more pugnaciouspurpose than that of washing himself. He bent over a basin, dried hisdripping hands and face on a towel, and turned again so that the stronglight fell on his face. His brown complexion had gone, his big blackmoustache had gone; he--was clean-shaven and very pate. Nothing remainedof the Colonel but his bright, hawk-like, brown eyes. Under the wallFather Brown was going on in heavy meditation, as if to himself.

  "It is all just like what I was saying to Flambeau. These oppositeswon't do. They don't work. They don't fight. If it's white instead ofblack, and solid instead of liquid, and so on all along the line--thenthere's something wrong, Monsieur, there's something wrong. One of thesemen is fair and the other dark, one stout and the other slim, one strongand the other weak. One has a moustache and no beard, so you can't seehis mouth; the other has a beard and no moustache, so you can't see hischin. One has hair cropped to his skull, but a scarf to hide his neck;the other has low shirt-collars, but long hair to bide his skull. It'sall too neat and correct, Monsieur, and there's something wrong. Thingsmade so opposite are things that cannot quarrel. Wherever the onesticks out the other sinks in. Like a face and a mask, like a lock and akey..."

  Flambeau was peering into the house with a visage as white as a sheet.The occupant of the room was standing with his back to him, but in frontof a looking-glass, and had already fitted round his face a sortof framework of rank red hair, hanging disordered from the head andclinging round the jaws and chin while leaving the mocking mouthuncovered. Seen thus in the glass the white face looked like the face ofJudas laughing horribly and surrounded by capering flames of hell. Fora spasm Flambeau saw the fierce, red-brown eyes dancing, then they werecovered with a pair of blue spectacles. Slipping on a loose black coat,the figure vanished towards the front of the house. A few moments latera roar of popular applause from the street beyond announced that DrHirsch had once more appeared upon the balcony.