The innocence of Father Brown
massive metal figure of a soldier recumbent, the strong hands sealed
in an everlasting worship, the great head pillowed upon a gun. The
venerable face was bearded, or rather whiskered, in the old, heavy
Colonel Newcome fashion. The uniform, though suggested with the few
strokes of simplicity, was that of modern war. By his right side lay a
sword, of which the tip was broken off; on the left side lay a Bible. On
glowing summer afternoons wagonettes came full of Americans and cultured
suburbans to see the sepulchre; but even then they felt the vast forest
land with its one dumpy dome of churchyard and church as a place oddly
dumb and neglected. In this freezing darkness of mid-winter one would
think he might be left alone with the stars. Nevertheless, in the
stillness of those stiff woods a wooden gate creaked, and two dim
figures dressed in black climbed up the little path to the tomb.
So faint was that frigid starlight that nothing could have been
traced about them except that while they both wore black, one man was
enormously big, and the other (perhaps by contrast) almost startlingly
small. They went up to the great graven tomb of the historic warrior,
and stood for a few minutes staring at it. There was no human, perhaps
no living, thing for a wide circle; and a morbid fancy might well have
wondered if they were human themselves. In any case, the beginning of
their conversation might have seemed strange. After the first silence
the small man said to the other:
“Where does a wise man hide a pebble?”
And the tall man answered in a low voice: “On the beach.”
The small man nodded, and after a short silence said: “Where does a wise
man hide a leaf?”
And the other answered: “In the forest.”
There was another stillness, and then the tall man resumed: “Do you mean
that when a wise man has to hide a real diamond he has been known to
hide it among sham ones?”
“No, no,” said the little man with a laugh, “we will let bygones be
bygones.”
He stamped his cold feet for a second or two, and then said: “I’m
not thinking of that at all, but of something else; something rather
peculiar. Just strike a match, will you?”
The big man fumbled in his pocket, and soon a scratch and a flare
painted gold the whole flat side of the monument. On it was cut in black
letters the well-known words which so many Americans had reverently
read: “Sacred to the Memory of General Sir Arthur St. Clare, Hero and
Martyr, who Always Vanquished his Enemies and Always Spared Them, and
Was Treacherously Slain by Them At Last. May God in Whom he Trusted both
Reward and Revenge him.”
The match burnt the big man’s fingers, blackened, and dropped. He was
about to strike another, but his small companion stopped him. “That’s
all right, Flambeau, old man; I saw what I wanted. Or, rather, I didn’t
see what I didn’t want. And now we must walk a mile and a half along
the road to the next inn, and I will try to tell you all about it. For
Heaven knows a man should have a fire and ale when he dares tell such a
story.”
They descended the precipitous path, they relatched the rusty gate, and
set off at a stamping, ringing walk down the frozen forest road. They
had gone a full quarter of a mile before the smaller man spoke again. He
said: “Yes; the wise man hides a pebble on the beach. But what does he
do if there is no beach? Do you know anything of that great St. Clare
trouble?”
“I know nothing about English generals, Father Brown,” answered the
large man, laughing, “though a little about English policemen. I only
know that you have dragged me a precious long dance to all the shrines
of this fellow, whoever he is. One would think he got buried in
six different places. I’ve seen a memorial to General St. Clare in
Westminster Abbey. I’ve seen a ramping equestrian statue of General
St. Clare on the Embankment. I’ve seen a medallion of St. Clare in the
street he was born in, and another in the street he lived in; and now
you drag me after dark to his coffin in the village churchyard. I am
beginning to be a bit tired of his magnificent personality, especially
as I don’t in the least know who he was. What are you hunting for in all
these crypts and effigies?”
“I am only looking for one word,” said Father Brown. “A word that isn’t
there.”
“Well,” asked Flambeau; “are you going to tell me anything about it?”
“I must divide it into two parts,” remarked the priest. “First there is
what everybody knows; and then there is what I know. Now, what everybody
knows is short and plain enough. It is also entirely wrong.”
“Right you are,” said the big man called Flambeau cheerfully. “Let’s
begin at the wrong end. Let’s begin with what everybody knows, which
isn’t true.”
“If not wholly untrue, it is at least very inadequate,” continued Brown;
“for in point of fact, all that the public knows amounts precisely to
this: The public knows that Arthur St. Clare was a great and successful
English general. It knows that after splendid yet careful campaigns
both in India and Africa he was in command against Brazil when the great
Brazilian patriot Olivier issued his ultimatum. It knows that on that
occasion St. Clare with a very small force attacked Olivier with a very
large one, and was captured after heroic resistance. And it knows that
after his capture, and to the abhorrence of the civilised world, St.
Clare was hanged on the nearest tree. He was found swinging there after
the Brazilians had retired, with his broken sword hung round his neck.”
“And that popular story is untrue?” suggested Flambeau.
“No,” said his friend quietly, “that story is quite true, so far as it
goes.”
“Well, I think it goes far enough!” said Flambeau; “but if the popular
story is true, what is the mystery?”
They had passed many hundreds of grey and ghostly trees before the
little priest answered. Then he bit his finger reflectively and said:
“Why, the mystery is a mystery of psychology. Or, rather, it is a
mystery of two psychologies. In that Brazilian business two of the most
famous men of modern history acted flat against their characters. Mind
you, Olivier and St. Clare were both heroes--the old thing, and no
mistake; it was like the fight between Hector and Achilles. Now, what
would you say to an affair in which Achilles was timid and Hector was
treacherous?”
“Go on,” said the large man impatiently as the other bit his finger
again.
“Sir Arthur St. Clare was a soldier of the old religious type--the type
that saved us during the Mutiny,” continued Brown. “He was always more
for duty than for dash; and with all his personal courage was decidedly
a prudent commander, particularly indignant at any needless waste of
soldiers. Yet in this last battle he attempted something that a baby
could see was absurd. One need not be a strategist to see it was as wild
as wind; just as one need not be a strategist to keep out of the way
of a motor-bus. Well, that is the first mystery; what had become of the
English general’s head? The second riddle is, what had become of the
Brazilian general’s heart? President Olivier might be called a visionary
or a nuisance; but even his enemies admitted that he was magnanimous to
the point of knight errantry. Almost every other prisoner he had ever
captured had been set free or even loaded with benefits. Men who had
really wronged him came away touched by his simplicity and sweetness.
Why the deuce should he diabolically revenge himself only once in his
life; and that for the one particular blow that could not have hurt him?
Well, there you have it. One of the wisest men in the world acted like
an idiot for no reason. One of the best men in the world acted like a
fiend for no reason. That’s the long and the short of it; and I leave it
to you, my boy.”
“No, you don’t,” said the other with a snort. “I leave it to you; and
you jolly well tell me all about it.”
“Well,” resumed Father Brown, “it’s not fair to say that the public
impression is just what I’ve said, without adding that two things have
happened since. I can’t say they threw a new light; for nobody can make
sense of them. But they threw a new kind of darkness; they threw the
darkness in new directions. The first was this. The family physician
of the St. Clares quarrelled with that family, and began publishing a
violent series of articles, in which he said that the late general was
a religious maniac; but as far as the tale went, this seemed to mean
little more than a religious man.
“Anyhow, the story fizzled out. Everyone knew, of course, that St. Clare
had some of the eccentricities of puritan piety. The second incident was
much more arresting. In the luckless and unsupported regiment which made
that rash attempt at the Black River there was a certain Captain Keith,
who was at that time engaged to St. Clare’s daughter, and who afterwards
married her. He was one of those who were captured by Olivier, and,
like all the rest except the general, appears to have been bounteously
treated and promptly set free. Some twenty years afterwards this man,
then Lieutenant-Colonel Keith, published a sort of autobiography called
‘A British Officer in Burmah and Brazil.’ In the place where the reader
looks eagerly for some account of the mystery of St. Clare’s disaster
may be found the following words: ‘Everywhere else in this book I
have narrated things exactly as they occurred, holding as I do the
old-fashioned opinion that the glory of England is old enough to take
care of itself. The exception I shall make is in this matter of
the defeat by the Black River; and my reasons, though private, are
honourable and compelling. I will, however, add this in justice to the
memories of two distinguished men. General St. Clare has been accused
of incapacity on this occasion; I can at least testify that this action,
properly understood, was one of the most brilliant and sagacious of
his life. President Olivier by similar report is charged with savage
injustice. I think it due to the honour of an enemy to say that he acted
on this occasion with even more than his characteristic good feeling. To
put the matter popularly, I can assure my countrymen that St. Clare was
by no means such a fool nor Olivier such a brute as he looked. This is
all I have to say; nor shall any earthly consideration induce me to add
a word to it.’”
A large frozen moon like a lustrous snowball began to show through the
tangle of twigs in front of them, and by its light the narrator had
been able to refresh his memory of Captain Keith’s text from a scrap of
printed paper. As he folded it up and put it back in his pocket Flambeau
threw up his hand with a French gesture.
“Wait a bit, wait a bit,” he cried excitedly. “I believe I can guess it
at the first go.”
He strode on, breathing hard, his black head and bull neck forward, like
a man winning a walking race. The little priest, amused and interested,
had some trouble in trotting beside him. Just before them the trees fell
back a little to left and right, and the road swept downwards across a
clear, moonlit valley, till it dived again like a rabbit into the wall
of another wood. The entrance to the farther forest looked small and
round, like the black hole of a remote railway tunnel. But it was within
some hundred yards, and gaped like a cavern before Flambeau spoke again.
“I’ve got it,” he cried at last, slapping his thigh with his great hand.
“Four minutes’ thinking, and I can tell your whole story myself.”
“All right,” assented his friend. “You tell it.”
Flambeau lifted his head, but lowered his voice. “General Sir Arthur St.
Clare,” he said, “came of a family in which madness was hereditary; and
his whole aim was to keep this from his daughter, and even, if possible,
from his future son-in-law. Rightly or wrongly, he thought the final