The Secret of Father Brown

by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

  An instant after there was the noise or knocking on the front door, dulled by the closed doors between. She knew that the rest of the household were in the upper parts of the house, but she could not have analysed the motive that made her go to the front door herself. On the doorstep stood a dumpy and dingy figure in black, which she recognized as the Roman Catholic priest, whose name was Brown. She knew him only slightly; but she liked him. He did not encourage her psychic views; quite the contrary; but he discouraged them as if they mattered and not as if they did not matter. It was not so much that he did not sympathize with her opinions, as that he did sympathize but did not agree. All this was in some sort of chaos in her mind as she found herself saying, without greeting, or waiting to hear his business:

  “I’m so glad you’ve come. I’ve seen a ghost.”

  “There’s no need to be distressed about that,” he said. “It often happens. Most of the ghosts aren’t ghosts, and the few that may be won’t do you any harm. Was it any ghost in particular?”

  “No,” she admitted, with a vague feeling of relief, “it wasn’t so much the thing itself as an atmosphere of awful decay, a sort of luminous ruin. It was a face. A face at the window. But it was pale and goggling, and looked like the picture of Judas.”

  “Well, some people do look like that,” reflected the priest, “and I dare say they look in at windows, sometimes. May I come in and see where it happened?”

  When she returned to the room with the visitor, however, other members of the family had assembled, and those of a less psychic habit had thought it convenient to light the lamps. In the presence of Mrs. Bankes, Father Brown assumed a more conventional civility, and apologized for his intrusion.

  “I’m afraid it is taking a liberty with your house, Mrs. Bankes,” he said. “But I think I can explain how the business happens to concern you. I was up at the Pulmans’ place just now, when I was rung up and asked to come round here to meet a man who is coming to communicate something that may be of some moment to you. I should not have added myself to the party, only I am wanted, apparently, because I am a witness to what has happened up at Beechwood. In fact, it was I who had to give the alarm.”

  “What has happened?” repeated the lady.

  “There has been a robbery up, at Beechwood House,” said Father Brown, gravely; “a robbery, and what I fear is worse, Lady Pulman’s jewels have gone; and her unfortunate secretary, Mr. Barnard, was picked up in the garden, having evidently been shot by the escaping burglar.”

  “That man,” ejaculated the lady of the house. “I believe he was -”

  She encountered the grave gaze of the priest, and her words suddenly went from her; she never knew why.

  “I communicated with the police,” he went on, “and with another authority interested in this case; and they say that even a superficial examination has revealed foot-prints and finger-prints and other indications of a well-known criminal.”

  At this point, the conference was for a moment disturbed, by the return of John Bankes, from what appeared to be an abortive expedition in the car. Old Smith seemed to have been a disappointing passenger, after all.

  “Funked it, after all, at the last minute,” he announced with noisy disgust. “Bolted off while I was looking at what I thought was a puncture. Last time I’ll take one of these yokels – ”

  But his complaints received small attention in the general excitement that gathered round Father Brown and his news.

  “Somebody will arrive in a moment,” went on the priest, with the same air of weighty reserve, “who will relieve me of this responsibility. When I have confronted you with him I shall have done my duty as a witness in a serious business. It only remains for me to say that a servant up at Beechwood House told me that she had seen a face at one of the windows – ”

  “I saw a face,” said Opal, “at one of our windows.”

  “Oh, you are always seeing faces,” said her brother John roughly.

  “It is as well to see facts even if they are faces,” said Father Brown equably, “and I think the face you saw – ”

  Another knock at the front door sounded through the house, and a minute afterwards the door of the room opened and another figure appeared. Devine half-rose from his chair at the sight of it.

  It was a tall, erect figure, with a long, rather cadaverous face, ending in a formidable chin. The brow was rather bald, and the eyes bright and blue, which Devine had last seen obscured with a broad straw hat.

  “Pray don’t let anybody move,” said the man called Carver, in clear and courteous tones. But to Devine’s disturbed mind the courtesy had an ominous resemblance to that of a brigand who holds a company motionless with a pistol.

  “Please sit down, Mr. Devine,” said Carver; “and, with Mrs. Bankes’s permission, I will follow your example. My presence here necessitates an explanation. I rather fancy you suspected me of being an eminent and distinguished burglar.”

  “I did,” said Devine grimly.

  “As you remarked,” said Carver, “it is not always easy to know a wasp from a bee.”

  After a pause, he continued: “I can claim to be one of the more useful, though equally annoying, insects. I am a detective, and I have come down to investigate an alleged renewal of the activities of the criminal calling himself Michael Moonshine. Jewel robberies were his speciality; and there has just been one of them at Beechwood House, which, by all the technical tests, is obviously his work. Not only do the prints correspond, but you may possibly know that when he was last arrested, and it is believed on other occasions also, he wore a simple but effective disguise of a red beard and a pair of large horn-rimmed spectacles.”

  Opal Bankes leaned forward fiercely.

  “That was it,” she cried in excitement, “that was the face I saw, with great goggles and a red, ragged beard like Judas. I thought it was a ghost.”

  “That was also the ghost the servant at Beechwood saw,” said Carver dryly.

  He laid some papers and packages on the table, and began carefully to unfold them. “As I say,” he continued, “I was sent down here to make inquiries about the criminal plans of this man, Moonshine. That is why I interested myself in bee-keeping and went to stay with Mr. Smith.”

  There was a silence, and then Devine started and spoke: “You don’t seriously mean to say that nice old man – ”

  “Come, Mr. Devine,” said Carver, with a smile, “you believed a beehive was only a hiding-place for me. Why shouldn’t it be a hiding-place for him?”

  Devine nodded gloomily, and the detective turned back to his papers. “Suspecting Smith, I wanted to get him out of the way and go through his belongings; so I took advantage of Mr. Bankes’s kindness in giving him a joy ride. Searching his house, I found some curious things to be owned by an innocent old rustic interested only in bees. This is one of them.”

  From the unfolded paper he lifted a long, hairy object almost scarlet in colour – the sort of sham beard that is worn in theatricals.

  Beside it lay an old pair of heavy horn-rimmed spectacles.

  “But I also found something,” continued Carver, “that more directly concerns this house, and must be my excuse for intruding to-night. I found a memorandum, with notes of the names and conjectural value of various pieces of jewellery in the neighbourhood. Immediately after the note of Lady Pulman’s tiara was the mention of an emerald necklace belonging to Mrs. Bankes.”

  Mrs. Bankes, who had hitherto regarded the invasion of her house with an air of supercilious bewilderment, suddenly grew attentive. Her face suddenly looked ten years older and much more intelligent. But before she could speak the impetuous John had risen to his full height like a trumpeting elephant.

  “And the tiara’s gone already,” he roared; “and the necklace – I’m going to see about that necklace!”

  “Not a bad idea,” said Carver, as the young man rushed from the room; “though, of course, we’ve been keeping our eyes open since we’ve been here. Well, it took me a little
time to make out the memorandum, which was in cipher, and Father Brown’s telephone message from the House came as I was near the end. I asked him to run round here first with the news, and I would follow; and so – ”

  His speech was sundered by a scream. Opal was standing up and pointing rigidly at the round window.

  “There it is again!” she cried.

  For a moment they all saw something – something that cleared the lady of the charges of lying and hysteria not uncommonly brought against her. Thrust out of the slate-blue darkness without, the face was pale, or, perhaps, blanched by pressure against the glass; and the great, glaring eyes, encircled as with rings, gave it rather the look of a great fish out of the dark-blue sea nosing at the port-hole of a ship. But the gills or fins of the fish were a coppery red; they were, in truth, fierce red whiskers and the upper part of a red beard. The next moment it had vanished.

  Devine had taken a single stride towards the window when a shout resounded through the house, a shout that seemed to shake it. It seemed almost too deafening to be distinguishable as words; yet it was enough to stop Devine in his stride, and he knew what had happened.

  “Necklace gone!” shouted John Bankes, appearing huge and heaving in the doorway, and almost instantly vanishing again with the plunge of a pursuing hound.

  “Thief was at the window just now!” cried the detective, who had already darted to the door, following the headlong John, who was already in the garden.

  “Be careful,” wailed the lady, “they have pistols and things.”

  “So have I,” boomed the distant voice of the dauntless John out of the dark garden.

  Devine had, indeed, noticed as the young man plunged past him that he was defiantly brandishing a revolver, and hoped there would be no need for him to so defend himself. But even as he had the thought, came the shock of two shots, as if one answered the other, and awakened a wild flock of echoes in that still suburban garden. They flapped into silence.

  “Is John dead?” asked Opal in a low, shuddering voice.

  Father Brown had already advanced deeper into the darkness, and stood with his back to them, looking down at something. It was he who answered her.

  “No,” he said; “it is the other.”

  Carver had joined him, and for a moment the two figures, the tall and the short, blocked out what view the fitful and stormy moonlight would allow. Then they moved to one side and, the others saw the small, wiry figure lying slightly twisted, as if with its last struggle. The false red beard was thrust upwards, as if scornfully at the sky, and the moon shone on the great sham spectacles of the man who had been called Moonshine.

  “What an end,” muttered the detective, Carver. “After all his adventures, to be shot almost by accident by a stockbroker in a suburban garden.”

  The stockbroker himself naturally regarded his own triumph with more solemnity, though not without nervousness.

  “I had to do it,” he gasped, still panting with exertion. “I’m sorry, he fired at me.”

  'There will have to be an inquest, of course,' said Carver, gravely. 'But I think there will be nothing for you to worry about. There’s a revolver fallen from his hand with one shot discharged; and he certainly didn’t fire after he’d got yours.'

  By this time they had assembled again in the room, and the detective was getting his papers together for departure. Father Brown was standing opposite to him, looking down at the table, as if in a brown study. Then he spoke abruptly:

  'Mr. Carver, you have certainly worked out a very complete case in a very masterly way. I rather suspected your professional business; but I never guessed you would link everything up together so quickly – the bees and the beard and the spectacles and the cipher and the necklace and everything.'

  'Always satisfactory to get a case really rounded off,' said Carver.

  'Yes,' said Father Brown, still looking at the table. 'I admire it very much.' Then he added with a modesty verging on nervousness: 'It’s only fair to you to say that I don’t believe a word of it.'

  Devine leaned forward with sudden interest. 'Do you mean you don’t believe he is Moonshine, the burglar?'

  'I know he is the burglar, but he didn’t burgle,' answered Father Brown. 'I know he didn’t come here, or to the great house, to steal jewels, or get shot getting away with them. Where are the jewels?'

  'Where they generally are in such cases,' said Carver. 'He’s either hidden them or passed them on to a confederate. This was not a one-man job. Of course, my people are searching the garden and warning the district.'

  'Perhaps,' suggested Mrs. Bankes, 'the confederate stole the necklace while Moonshine was looking in at the window.'

  'Why was Moonshine looking in at the window?' asked Father Brown quietly. 'Why should he want to look in at the window?'

  'Well, what do you think?' cried the cheery John.

  'I think,' said Father Brown, 'that he never did want to look in at the window.'

  'Then why did he do it?' demanded Carver. 'What’s the good of talking in the air like that? We’ve seen the whole thing acted before our very eyes.'

  'I’ve seen a good many things acted before my eyes that I didn’t believe in,' replied the priest. 'So have you, on the stage and off.'

  'Father Brown,' said Devine, with a certain respect in his tones, 'will you tell us why you can’t believe your eyes?'

  'Yes, I will try to tell you,' answered the priest. Then he said gently:

  'You know what I am and what we are. We don’t bother you much. We try to be friends with all our neighbours. But you can’t think we do nothing. You can’t think we know nothing. We mind our own business; but we know our own people. I knew this dead man very well indeed; I was his confessor, and his friend. So far as a man can, I knew his mind when he left that garden to-day; and his mind was like a glass hive full of golden bees. It’s an under-statement to say his reformation was sincere. He was one of those great penitents who manage to make more out of penitence than others can make out of virtue. I say I was his confessor; but, indeed, it was I who went to him for comfort. It did me good to be near so good a man. And when I saw him lying there dead in the garden, it seemed to me as if certain strange words that were said of old were spoken over him aloud in my ear. They might well be; for if ever a man went straight to heaven, it might be he.'

  'Hang it all,' said John Bankes restlessly, 'after all, he was a convicted thief.'

  'Yes,' said Father Brown; 'and only a convicted thief has ever in this world heard that assurance: "This night shalt thou be with Me in Paradise."'

  Nobody seemed to know what to do with the silence that followed, until Devine said, abruptly, at last:

  'Then how in the world would you explain it all?'

  The priest shook his head. 'I can’t explain it at all, just yet,” he said, simply. “I can see one or two odd things, but I don’t understand them. As yet I’ve nothing to go on to prove the man’s innocence, except the man. But I’m quite sure I’m right.'

  He sighed, and put out his hand for his big, black hat. As he removed it he remained gazing at the table with rather a new expression, his round, straight-haired head cocked at a new angle. It was rather as if some curious animal had come out of his hat, as out of the hat of a conjurer. But the others, looking at the table, could see nothing there but the detective’s documents and the tawdry old property beard and spectacles.

  'Lord bless us,' muttered Father Brown, 'and he’s lying outside dead, in a beard and spectacles.' He swung round suddenly upon Devine. 'Here’s something to follow up, if you want to know. Why did he have two beards?'

  With that he bustled in his undignified way out of the room; but Devine was now devoured with curiosity, and pursued him into the front garden.

  'I can’t tell you now,' – said Father Brown. 'I’m not sure, and I’m bothered about what to do. Come round and see me to-morrow, and I may be able to tell you the whole thing. It may already be settled for me, and – did you hear that noise?'


  'A motor-car starting,' remarked Devine.

  'Mr. John Bankes’s motor-car,' said the priest. 'I believe it goes very fast.'

  'He certainly is of that opinion.' said Devine, with a smile.

  'It will go far, as well as fast, to-night,' said Father Brown.

  'And what do you mean by that?' demanded the other.

  'I mean it will not return,' replied the priest. 'John Bankes suspected something of what I knew from what I said. John Bankes has gone and the emeralds and all the other jewels with him.'

  Next day, Devine found Father Brown moving to and fro in front of the row of beehives, sadly, but with a certain serenity.

  'I’ve been telling the bees,' he said. 'You know one has to tell the bees! "Those singing masons building roofs of gold." What a line!' Then more abruptly. 'He would like the bees looked after.'

  'I hope he doesn’t want the human beings neglected, when the whole swarm is buzzing with curiosity,' observed the young man. 'You were quite right when you said that Bankes was gone with the jewels; but I don’t know how you knew, or even what there was to be known.'

  Father Brown blinked benevolently at the bee-hives and said:

  'One sort of stumbles on things, and there was one stumbling-block at the start. I was puzzled by poor Barnard being shot up at Beechwood House. Now, even when Michael was a master criminal, he made it a point of honour, even a point of vanity, to succeed without any killing. It seemed extraordinary that when he had become a sort of saint he should go out of his way to commit the sin he had despised when he was a sinner. The rest of the business puzzled me to the last; I could make nothing out of it, except that it wasn’t true. Then I had a belated gleam of sense when I saw the beard and goggles and remembered the thief had come in another beard with other goggles. Now, of course, it was just possible that he had duplicates; but it was at least a coincidence that he used neither the old glasses nor the old beard, both in good repair. Again, it was just possible that he went out without them and had to procure new ones; but it was unlikely. There was nothing to make him go motoring with Bankes at all; if he was really going burgling, he could have taken his outfit easily in his pocket. Besides, beards don’t grow on bushes. He would have found it hard to get such things anywhere in the time.