The Scandal of Father Brown (father brown)

by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

  "There's precious little to go on," said Inspector Greenwood. "Of course a lot of officious servants must do their duty as usual, and wash out all the glasses; including old Raggley's glass. If it weren't for everybody else's efficiency, we detectives might be quite efficient."

  "I know," said Father Brown, and his mouth took on again the twisted smile. "I sometimes think criminals invented hygiene. Or perhaps hygienic reformers invented crime; they look like it, some of them. Everybody talks about foul dens and filthy slums in which crime can run riot; but it's just the other way. They are called foul, not because crimes are committed, but because crimes are discovered. It's in the neat, spotless, clean and tidy places that crime can run riot; no mud to make footprints; no dregs to contain poison; kind servants washing out all traces of the murder; and the murderer killing and cremating six wives and all for want of a little Christian dirt. Perhaps I express myself with too much warmth — but look here. As it happens, I do remember one glass, which has doubtless been cleaned since, but I should like to know more about it."

  "Do you mean Raggley's glass?" asked Greenwood .

  "No; I mean Nobody's glass," replied the priest. "It stood near that glass of milk and it still held an inch or two of whisky. Well, you and I had no whisky. I happen to remember that the manager, when treated by the jovial Jukes, had 'a drop of gin'. I hope you don't suggest that our Moslem was a whisky-drinker disguised in a green turban; or that the Rev. David Pryce-Jones managed to drink whisky and milk together, without noticing it."

  "Most of the commercial travellers took whisky," said the Inspector. "They generally do."

  "Yes; and they generally see they get it too," answered Father Brown. "In this case, they had it all carefully carted after them to their own room. But this glass was left behind."

  "An accident, I suppose," said Greenwood doubtfully. "The man could easily get another in the Commercial Room afterwards."

  Father Brown shook his head. "You've got to see people as they are. Now these sort of men — well, some call them vulgar and some common; but that's all likes and dislikes. I'd be content to say that they are mostly simple men. Lots of them very good men, very glad to go back to the missus and the kids; some of them might be blackguards; might have had several missuses; or even murdered several missuses. But most of them are simple men; and, mark you, just the least tiny bit drunk. Not much; there's many a duke or don at Oxford drunker; but when that sort of man is at that stage of conviviality, he simply can't help noticing things, and noticing them very loud. Don't you observe that the least little incident jerks them into speech; if the beer froths over, they froth over with it, and have to say, 'Whoa, Emma,' or 'Doing me proud, aren't you?' Now I should say it's flatly impossible for five of these festive beings to sit round a table in the Commercial Room, and have only four glasses set before them, the fifth man being left out, without making a shout about it. Probably they would make a shout about it. Certainly he would make a shout about it. He wouldn't wait, like an Englishman of another class, till he could get a drink quietly later. The air would resound with things like, 'And what about little me?' or, 'Here, George, have I joined the Band of Hope?' or, 'Do you see any green in my turban, George?' But the barman heard no such complaints. I take it as certain that the glass of whisky left behind had been nearly emptied by somebody else; somebody we haven't thought about yet."

  "But can you think of any such person?" ask the other.

  "It's because the manager and the barman won't hear of any such person, that you dismiss the one really independent piece of evidence; the evidence of that boy outside cleaning the steps. He says that a man, who well may have been a bagman, but who did not, in fact, stick to the other bagmen, went in and came out again almost immediately. The manager and the barman never saw him; or say they never saw him. But he got a glass of whisky from the bar somehow. Let us call him, for the sake of argument, The Quick One. Now you know I don't often interfere with your business, which I know you do better than I should do it, or should want to do it. I've never had anything to do with setting police machinery at work, or running down criminals, or anything like that. But, for the first time in my life, I want to do it now. I want you to find The Quick One; to follow The Quick One to the ends of the earth; to set the whole infernal official machinery at work like a drag-net across the nations, and jolly well recapture The Quick One. Because he is the man we want."

  Greenwood made a despairing gesture. "Has he face or form or any visible quality except quickness?" he inquired.

  "He was wearing a sort of Inverness cape," said Father Brown, "and he told the boy outside he must reach Edinburgh by next morning. That's all the boy outside remembers. But I know your organization has got on to people with less clue than that."

  "You seem very keen on this," said the Inspector, a little puzzled.

  The priest looked puzzled also, as if at his own thoughts; he sat with knotted brow and then said abruptly: "You see, it's so easy to be misunderstood. All men matter. You matter. I matter. It's the hardest thing in theology to believe."

  The Inspector stared at him without comprehension; but he proceeded.

  "We matter to God — God only knows why. But that's the only possible justification of the existence of policemen." The policeman did not seem enlightened as to his own cosmic justification. "Don't you see, the law really is right in a way, after all. If all men matter, all murders matter. That which He has so mysteriously created, we must not suffer to be mysteriously destroyed. But — "

  He said the last word sharply, like one taking a new step in decision.

  "But, when once I step off that mystical level of equality, I don't see that most of your important murders are particularly important. You are always telling me that this case and that is important. As a plain, practical man of the world, I must realize that it is the Prime Minister who has been murdered. As a plain, practical man of the world, I don't think that the Prime Minister matters at all. As a mere matter of human importance, I should say he hardly exists at all. Do you suppose if he and the other public men were shot dead tomorrow, there wouldn't be other people to stand up and say that every avenue was being explored, or that the Government had the matter under the gravest consideration? The masters of the modern world don't matter. Even the real masters don't matter much. Hardly anybody you ever read about in a newspaper matters at all."

  He stood up, giving the table a small rap: one of his rare gestures; and his voice changed again. "But Raggley did matter. He was one of a great line of some half a dozen men who might have saved England . They stand up stark and dark like disregarded sign-posts, down all that smooth descending road which has ended in this swamp of merely commercial collapse. Dean Swift and Dr Johnson and old William Cobbett; they had all without exception the name of being surly or savage, and they were all loved by their friends, and they all deserved to be. Didn't you see how that old man, with the heart of a lion, stood up and forgave his enemy as only fighters can forgive? He jolly well did do what that temperance lecturer talked about; he set an example to us Christians and was a model of Christianity. And when there is foul and secret murder of a man like that — then I do think it matters, matters so much that even the modern machinery of police will be a thing that any respectable person may make use of … Oh, don't mention it. And so, for once in a way, I really do want to make use of you."

  And so, for some stretch of those strange days and nights, we might almost say that the little figure of Father Brown drove before him into action all the armies and engines of the police forces of the Crown, as the little figure of Napoleon drove the batteries and the battle-lines of the vast strategy that covered Europe. Police stations and post offices worked all night; traffic was stopped, correspondence was intercepted, inquiries were made in a hundred places, in order to track the flying trail of that ghostly figure, without face or name, with an Inverness cape and an Edinburgh ticket.

  Meanwhile, of course, the other lines of investigation were not negl
ected. The full report of the post-mortem had not yet come in; but everybody seemed certain that it was a case of poisoning. This naturally threw the primary suspicion upon the cherry brandy; and this again naturally threw the primary suspicion on the hotel.

  "Most probably on the manager of the hotel," said Greenwood gruffly. "He looks a nasty little worm to me. Of course it might be something to do with some servant, like the barman; he seems rather a sulky specimen, and Raggley might have cursed him a bit, having a flaming temper, though he was generally generous enough afterwards. But, after all, as I say, the primary responsibility, and therefore the primary suspicion, rests on the manager."

  "Oh, I knew the primary suspicion would rest on the manager," said Father Brown. "That was why I didn't suspect him. You see, I rather fancied somebody else must have known that the primary suspicion would rest on the manager; or the servants of the hotel. That is why I said it would be easy to kill anybody in the hotel… But you'd better go and have it out with him, I suppose."

  The Inspector went; but came back again after a surprisingly short interview, and found his clerical friend turning over some papers that seemed to be a sort of dossier of the stormy career of John Raggley.

  "This is a rum go," said the Inspector. "I thought I should spend hours cross-examining that slippery little toad there, for we haven't legally got a thing against him. And instead of that, he went to pieces all at once, and I really think he's told me all he knows in sheer funk."

  "I know," said Father Brown. "That's the way he went to pieces when he found Raggley's corpse apparently poisoned in his hotel. That's why he lost his head enough to do such a clumsy thing as decorate the corpse with a Turkish knife, to put the blame on the nigger, as he would say. There never is anything the matter with him but funk; he's the very last man that ever would really stick a knife into a live person. I bet he had to nerve himself to stick it into a dead one. But he's the very first person to be frightened of being charged with what he didn't do; and to make a fool of himself, as he did."

  "I suppose I must see the barman too," observed Greenwood .

  "I suppose so," answered the other. "I don't believe myself it was any of the hotel people — well, because it was made to look as if it must be the hotel people… But look here, have you seen any of this stuff they've got together about Raggley? He had a jolly interesting life; I wonder whether anyone will write his biography."

  "I took a note of everything likely to affect an affair like this," answered the official. "He was a widower; but he did once have a row with a man about his wife; a Scotch land-agent then in these parts; and Raggley seems to have been pretty violent. They say he hated Scotchmen; perhaps that's the reason… Oh, I know what you are smiling grimly about. A Scotchman… Perhaps an Edinburgh man."

  "Perhaps," said Father Brown. "It's quite likely, though, that he did dislike Scotchmen, apart from private reasons. It's an odd thing, but all that tribe of Tory Radicals, or whatever you call them, who resisted the Whig mercantile movement, all of them did dislike Scotchmen. Cobbett did; Dr Johnson did; Swift described their accent in one of his deadliest passages; even Shakespeare has been accused of the prejudice. But the prejudices of great men generally have something to do with principles. And there was a reason, I fancy. The Scot came from a poor agricultural land, that became a rich industrial land. He was able and active; he thought he was bringing industrial civilization from the north; he simply didn't know that there had been for centuries a rural civilization in the south. His own grandfather's land was highly rural but not civilized… Well, well, I suppose we can only wait for more news."

  "I hardly think you'll get the latest news out of Shakespeare and Dr Johnson," grinned the police officer. "What Shakespeare thought of Scotchmen isn't exactly evidence."

  Father Brown cocked an eyebrow, as if a new thought had surprised him. "Why, now I come to think of it," he said, "there might be better evidence, even out of Shakespeare. He doesn't often mention Scotchmen. But he was rather fond of making fun of Welshmen."

  The Inspector was searching his friend's face; for he fancied he recognized an alertness behind its demure expression. "By Jove," he said. "Nobody thought of turning the suspicions that way, anyhow."

  "Well," said Father Brown, with broad-minded calm, "you started by talking about fanatics; and how a fanatic could do anything. Well, I suppose we had the honour of entertaining in this bar-parlour yesterday, about the biggest and loudest and most fat-headed fanatic in the modern world. If being a pig-headed idiot with one idea is the way to murder, I put in a claim for my reverend brother Pryce-Jones, the Prohibitionist, in preference to all the fakirs in Asia, and it's perfectly true, as I told you, that his horrible glass of milk was standing side by side on the counter with the mysterious glass of whisky."

  "Which you think was mixed up with the murder," said Greenwood , staring. "Look here, I don't know whether you're really serious or not."

  Even as he was looking steadily in his friend's face, finding something still inscrutable in its expression, the telephone rang stridently behind the bar. Lifting the flap in the counter Inspector Greenwood passed rapidly inside, unhooked the receiver, listened for an instant, and then uttered a shout; not addressed to his interlocutor, but to the universe in general. Then he listened still more attentively and said explosively at intervals, "Yes, yes… Come round at once; bring him round if possible… Good piece of work… Congratulate you."

  Then Inspector Greenwood came back into the outer lounge, like a man who has renewed his youth, sat down squarely on his seat, with his hands planted on his knees, stared at his friend, and said:

  "Father Brown, I don't know how you do it. You seem to have known he was a murderer before anybody else knew he was a man. He was nobody; he was nothing; he was a slight confusion in the evidence; nobody in the hotel saw him; the boy on the steps could hardly swear to him; he was just a fine shade of doubt founded on an extra dirty glass. But we've got him, and he's the man we want."

  Father Brown had risen with the sense of the crisis, mechanically clutching the papers destined to be so valuable to the biographer of Mr Raggley; and stood staring at his friend. Perhaps this gesture jerked his friend's mind to fresh confirmations.

  "Yes, we've got The Quick One. And very quick he was, like quicksilver, in making his get-away; we only just stopped him — off on a fishing trip to Orkney, he said. But he's the man, all right; he's the Scotch land-agent who made love to Raggley's wife; he's the man who drank Scotch whisky in this bar and then took a train to Edinburgh . And nobody would have known it but for you."

  "Well, what I meant," began Father Brown, in a rather dazed tone; and at that instant there was a rattle and rumble of heavy vehicles outside the hotel; and two or three other and subordinate policemen blocked the bar with their presence. One of them, invited by his superior to sit down, did so in an expansive manner, like one at once happy and fatigued; and he also regarded Father Brown with admiring eyes.

  "Got the murderer. Sir, oh yes," he said: "I know he's a murderer, "cause he bally nearly murdered me. I've captured some tough characters before now; but never one like this — hit me in the stomach like the kick of a horse and nearly got away from five men. Oh, you've got a real killer this time. Inspector."

  "Where is he?" asked Father Brown, staring.

  "Outside in the van, in handcuffs," replied the policeman, "and, if you're wise, you'll leave him there — for the present."

  Father Brown sank into a chair in a sort of soft collapse; and the papers he had been nervously clutching were shed around him, shooting and sliding about the floor like sheets of breaking snow. Not only his face, but his whole body, conveyed the impression of a punctured balloon.

  "Oh… Oh," he repeated, as if any further oath would be inadequate. "Oh…I've done it again."

  "If you mean you've caught the criminal again," began Greenwood . But his friend stopped him with a feeble explosion, like that of expiring soda-water.

  "I mean," sa
id Father Brown, "that it's always happening; and really, I don't know why. I always try to say what I mean. But everybody else means such a lot by what I say."

  "What in the world is the matter now?" cried Greenwood , suddenly exasperated.

  "Well, I say things," said Father Brown in a weak voice, which could alone convey the weakness of the words. "I say things, but everybody seems to know they mean more than they say. Once I saw a broken mirror and said 'Something has happened' and they all answered, 'Yes, yes, as you truly say, two men wrestled and one ran into the garden,' and so on. I don't understand it, 'Something happened,' and 'Two men wrestled,' don't seem to me at all the same; but I dare say I read old books of logic. Well, it's like that here. You seem to be all certain this man is a murderer. But I never said he was a murderer. I said he was the man we wanted. He is. I want him very much. I want him frightfully. I want him as the one thing we haven't got in the whole of this horrible case — a witness!"

  They all stared at him, but in a frowning fashion, like men trying to follow a sharp new turn of the argument; and it was he who resumed the argument.

  "From the first minute I entered that big empty bar or saloon, I knew what was the matter with all this business was emptiness; solitude; too many chances for anybody to be alone. In a word, the absence of witnesses. All we knew was that when we came in, the manager and the barman were not in the bar. But when were they in the bar? What chance was there of making any sort of time-table of when anybody was anywhere? The whole thing was blank for want of witnesses. I rather fancy the barman or somebody was in the bar just before we came; and that's how the Scotchman got his Scotch whisky. He certainly didn't get it after we came. But we can't begin to inquire whether anybody in the hotel poisoned poor Raggley's cherry brandy, till we really know who was in the bar and when. Now I want you to do me another favour, in spite of this stupid muddle, which is probably all my fault. I want you to collect all the people involved in this room — I think they're all still available, unless the Asiatic has gone back to Asia — and then take the poor Scotchman out of his handcuffs, and bring him in here, and let him tell us who did serve him with whisky, and who was in the bar, and who else was in the room, and all the rest. He's the only man whose evidence can cover just that period when the crime was done. I don't see the slightest reason for doubting his word."