The innocence of Father Brown
he was looking at. I fancy this sort of disfigurement embittered the
poor chap a little; for while Smythe was ready to show off his monkey
tricks anywhere, James Welkin (that was the squinting man’s name) never
did anything except soak in our bar parlour, and go for great walks
by himself in the flat, grey country all round. All the same, I think
Smythe, too, was a little sensitive about being so small, though he
carried it off more smartly. And so it was that I was really puzzled, as
well as startled, and very sorry, when they both offered to marry me in
the same week.
“Well, I did what I’ve since thought was perhaps a silly thing. But,
after all, these freaks were my friends in a way; and I had a horror of
their thinking I refused them for the real reason, which was that they
were so impossibly ugly. So I made up some gas of another sort, about
never meaning to marry anyone who hadn’t carved his way in the world. I
said it was a point of principle with me not to live on money that
was just inherited like theirs. Two days after I had talked in this
well-meaning sort of way, the whole trouble began. The first thing I
heard was that both of them had gone off to seek their fortunes, as if
they were in some silly fairy tale.
“Well, I’ve never seen either of them from that day to this. But I’ve
had two letters from the little man called Smythe, and really they were
rather exciting.”
“Ever heard of the other man?” asked Angus.
“No, he never wrote,” said the girl, after an instant’s hesitation.
“Smythe’s first letter was simply to say that he had started out walking
with Welkin to London; but Welkin was such a good walker that the little
man dropped out of it, and took a rest by the roadside. He happened to
be picked up by some travelling show, and, partly because he was nearly
a dwarf, and partly because he was really a clever little wretch, he
got on quite well in the show business, and was soon sent up to the
Aquarium, to do some tricks that I forget. That was his first letter.
His second was much more of a startler, and I only got it last week.”
The man called Angus emptied his coffee-cup and regarded her with mild
and patient eyes. Her own mouth took a slight twist of laughter as
she resumed, “I suppose you’ve seen on the hoardings all about this
‘Smythe’s Silent Service’? Or you must be the only person that hasn’t.
Oh, I don’t know much about it, it’s some clockwork invention for doing
all the housework by machinery. You know the sort of thing: ‘Press a
Button--A Butler who Never Drinks.’ ‘Turn a Handle--Ten Housemaids who
Never Flirt.’ You must have seen the advertisements. Well, whatever
these machines are, they are making pots of money; and they are making
it all for that little imp whom I knew down in Ludbury. I can’t help
feeling pleased the poor little chap has fallen on his feet; but the
plain fact is, I’m in terror of his turning up any minute and telling me
he’s carved his way in the world--as he certainly has.”
“And the other man?” repeated Angus with a sort of obstinate quietude.
Laura Hope got to her feet suddenly. “My friend,” she said, “I think
you are a witch. Yes, you are quite right. I have not seen a line of the
other man’s writing; and I have no more notion than the dead of what or
where he is. But it is of him that I am frightened. It is he who is all
about my path. It is he who has half driven me mad. Indeed, I think he
has driven me mad; for I have felt him where he could not have been, and
I have heard his voice when he could not have spoken.”
“Well, my dear,” said the young man, cheerfully, “if he were Satan
himself, he is done for now you have told somebody. One goes mad all
alone, old girl. But when was it you fancied you felt and heard our
squinting friend?”
“I heard James Welkin laugh as plainly as I hear you speak,” said the
girl, steadily. “There was nobody there, for I stood just outside the
shop at the corner, and could see down both streets at once. I had
forgotten how he laughed, though his laugh was as odd as his squint. I
had not thought of him for nearly a year. But it’s a solemn truth that a
few seconds later the first letter came from his rival.”
“Did you ever make the spectre speak or squeak, or anything?” asked
Angus, with some interest.
Laura suddenly shuddered, and then said, with an unshaken voice, “Yes.
Just when I had finished reading the second letter from Isidore Smythe
announcing his success. Just then, I heard Welkin say, ‘He shan’t have
you, though.’ It was quite plain, as if he were in the room. It is
awful, I think I must be mad.”
“If you really were mad,” said the young man, “you would think you must
be sane. But certainly there seems to me to be something a little rum
about this unseen gentleman. Two heads are better than one--I spare you
allusions to any other organs and really, if you would allow me, as
a sturdy, practical man, to bring back the wedding-cake out of the
window--”
Even as he spoke, there was a sort of steely shriek in the street
outside, and a small motor, driven at devilish speed, shot up to the
door of the shop and stuck there. In the same flash of time a small man
in a shiny top hat stood stamping in the outer room.
Angus, who had hitherto maintained hilarious ease from motives of mental
hygiene, revealed the strain of his soul by striding abruptly out of
the inner room and confronting the new-comer. A glance at him was quite
sufficient to confirm the savage guesswork of a man in love. This
very dapper but dwarfish figure, with the spike of black beard carried
insolently forward, the clever unrestful eyes, the neat but very nervous
fingers, could be none other than the man just described to him: Isidore
Smythe, who made dolls out of banana skins and match-boxes; Isidore
Smythe, who made millions out of undrinking butlers and unflirting
housemaids of metal. For a moment the two men, instinctively
understanding each other’s air of possession, looked at each other with
that curious cold generosity which is the soul of rivalry.
Mr. Smythe, however, made no allusion to the ultimate ground of their
antagonism, but said simply and explosively, “Has Miss Hope seen that
thing on the window?”
“On the window?” repeated the staring Angus.
“There’s no time to explain other things,” said the small millionaire
shortly. “There’s some tomfoolery going on here that has to be
investigated.”
He pointed his polished walking-stick at the window, recently depleted
by the bridal preparations of Mr. Angus; and that gentleman was
astonished to see along the front of the glass a long strip of paper
pasted, which had certainly not been on the window when he looked
through it some time before. Following the energetic Smythe outside into
the street, he found that some yard and a half of stamp paper had been
carefully gummed along the glass outside, and on this was written in
straggly characters, “If you marry Smythe, he will die.”
“Laura,” said Angus, putting his big red head into the shop, “you’re not
mad.”
“It’s the writing of that fellow Welkin,” said Smythe gruffly. “I
haven’t seen him for years, but he’s always bothering me. Five times in
the last fortnight he’s had threatening letters left at my flat, and I
can’t even find out who leaves them, let alone if it is Welkin himself.
The porter of the flats swears that no suspicious characters have been
seen, and here he has pasted up a sort of dado on a public shop window,
while the people in the shop--”
“Quite so,” said Angus modestly, “while the people in the shop were
having tea. Well, sir, I can assure you I appreciate your common sense
in dealing so directly with the matter. We can talk about other things
afterwards. The fellow cannot be very far off yet, for I swear there was
no paper there when I went last to the window, ten or fifteen minutes
ago. On the other hand, he’s too far off to be chased, as we don’t even
know the direction. If you’ll take my advice, Mr. Smythe, you’ll put
this at once in the hands of some energetic inquiry man, private rather
than public. I know an extremely clever fellow, who has set up in
business five minutes from here in your car. His name’s Flambeau, and
though his youth was a bit stormy, he’s a strictly honest man now, and
his brains are worth money. He lives in Lucknow Mansions, Hampstead.”
“That is odd,” said the little man, arching his black eyebrows. “I live,
myself, in Himylaya Mansions, round the corner. Perhaps you might care
to come with me; I can go to my rooms and sort out these queer Welkin
documents, while you run round and get your friend the detective.”
“You are very good,” said Angus politely. “Well, the sooner we act the
better.”
Both men, with a queer kind of impromptu fairness, took the same sort of
formal farewell of the lady, and both jumped into the brisk little
car. As Smythe took the handles and they turned the great corner of the
street, Angus was amused to see a gigantesque poster of “Smythe’s
Silent Service,” with a picture of a huge headless iron doll, carrying a
saucepan with the legend, “A Cook Who is Never Cross.”
“I use them in my own flat,” said the little black-bearded man,
laughing, “partly for advertisements, and partly for real convenience.
Honestly, and all above board, those big clockwork dolls of mine do
bring your coals or claret or a timetable quicker than any live servants
I’ve ever known, if you know which knob to press. But I’ll never deny,
between ourselves, that such servants have their disadvantages, too.”
“Indeed?” said Angus; “is there something they can’t do?”
“Yes,” replied Smythe coolly; “they can’t tell me who left those
threatening letters at my flat.”
The man’s motor was small and swift like himself; in fact, like his
domestic service, it was of his own invention. If he was an advertising
quack, he was one who believed in his own wares. The sense of something
tiny and flying was accentuated as they swept up long white curves of
road in the dead but open daylight of evening. Soon the white curves
came sharper and dizzier; they were upon ascending spirals, as they say
in the modern religions. For, indeed, they were cresting a corner of
London which is almost as precipitous as Edinburgh, if not quite so
picturesque. Terrace rose above terrace, and the special tower of flats
they sought, rose above them all to almost Egyptian height, gilt by
the level sunset. The change, as they turned the corner and entered the
crescent known as Himylaya Mansions, was as abrupt as the opening of a
window; for they found that pile of flats sitting above London as above
a green sea of slate. Opposite to the mansions, on the other side of the
gravel crescent, was a bushy enclosure more like a steep hedge or dyke
than a garden, and some way below that ran a strip of artificial water,
a sort of canal, like the moat of that embowered fortress. As the car
swept round the crescent it passed, at one corner, the stray stall of
a man selling chestnuts; and right away at the other end of the curve,
Angus could see a dim blue policeman walking slowly. These were the only
human shapes in that high suburban solitude; but he had an irrational
sense that they expressed the speechless poetry of London. He felt as if
they were figures in a story.
The little car shot up to the right house like a bullet, and shot out
its owner like a bomb shell. He was immediately inquiring of a tall
commissionaire in shining braid, and a short porter in shirt sleeves,
whether anybody or anything had been seeking his apartments. He was
assured that nobody and nothing had passed these officials since his
last inquiries; whereupon he and the slightly bewildered Angus were shot
up in the lift like a rocket, till they reached the top floor.