The secret of Father Brown
above these, its outline dark against the dying light, was a great green
image. Its back was turned to them and its face so completely invisible
in the hunched posture that the statue might almost have been headless.
But in that mere dark outline, in the dim twilight, some of them could
see instantly that it was the shape of no Christian thing.
A few yards away, on the circular path, and looking towards the great
green god, stood the man called the Master of the Mountain. His pointed
and finely finished features seemed moulded by some skilful craftsman as
a mask of copper. In contrast with this, his dark grey beard looked
almost blue like indigo; it began in a narrow tuft on his chin, and then
spread outwards like a great fan or the tail of a bird. He was robed in
peacock green and wore on his bald head a high cap of uncommon outline:
a head-dress none of them had ever seen before; but it looked rather
Egyptian than Indian. The man was standing with staring eyes; wide open,
fish-shaped eyes, so motionless that they looked like the eyes painted
on a mummy-case. But though the figure of the Master of the Mountain was
singular enough, some of the company, including Father Brown, did not
look at him; they still looked at the dark green idol at which he
himself was looking.
"This seems a queer thing," said Hardcastle, frowning a little, "to set
up in the middle of an old abbey cloister."
"Now, don't tell me you're going to be silly," said Lady Mounteagle.
"That's just what we meant; to link up the great religions of East and
West; Buddha and Christ. Surely you must understand that all religions
are really the same."
"If they are," said Father Brown mildly, "it seems rather unnecessary to
go into the middle of Asia to get one."
"Lady Mounteagle means that they are different aspects or facets, as
there are of this stone," began Hardcastle; and becoming interested in
the new topic, laid the great ruby down on the stone sill or ledge under
the Gothic arch. "But it does not follow that we can mix the aspects in
one artistic style. You may mix Christianity and Islam, but you can't
mix Gothic and Saracenic, let alone real Indian."
As he spoke, the Master of the Mountain seemed to come to life like a
cataleptic, and moved gravely round another quarter segment of the
circle, and took up his position outside their own row of arches,
standing with his back to them and looking now towards the idol's back.
It was obvious that he was moving by stages round the whole circle, like
a hand round a clock; but pausing for prayer or contemplation.
"What _is_ his religion?" asked Hardcastle, with a faint touch of
impatience.
"He says," replied Lord Mounteagle, reverently, "that it is older than
Brahminism and purer than Buddhism."
"Oh," said Hardcastle, and continued to stare through his single
eyeglass, standing with both his hands in his pockets.
"They say," observed the nobleman in his gentle but didactic voice,
"that the deity called the God of Gods is carved in a colossal form in
the cavern of Mount Meru----"
Even his lordship's lecturing serenity was broken abruptly by the voice
that came over his shoulder. It came out of the darkness of the museum
they had just left, when they stepped out into the cloister. At the
sound of it the two younger men looked first incredulous, then furious,
and then almost collapsed into laughter.
"I hope I do not intrude," said the urbane and seductive voice of
Professor Phroso, that unconquerable wrestler of the truth, "but it
occurred to me that some of you might spare a little time for that much
despised science of Bumps, which----"
"Look here," cried the impetuous Tommy Hunter, "I haven't got any bumps;
but you'll jolly well have some soon, you----"
Hardcastle mildly restrained him as he plunged back through the door;
and for the moment all the group had turned again and were looking back
into the inner room.
It was at that moment that the thing happened. It was the impetuous
Tommy, once more, who was the first to move, and this time to better
effect. Before anyone else had seen anything, when Hardcastle had barely
remembered with a jump that he had left the gem on the stone sill, Tommy
was across the cloister with the leap of a cat and, leaning with his
head and shoulders out of the aperture between two columns, had cried
out in a voice that rang down all the arches: "I've got him!"
In that instant of time, just after they turned, and just before they
heard his triumphant cry, they had all seen it happen. Round the corner
of one of the two columns, there had darted in and out again a brown or
rather bronze-coloured hand, the colour of dead gold; such as they had
seen elsewhere. The hand had struck as straight as a striking snake; as
instantaneous as the flick of the long tongue of an ant-eater. But it
had licked up the jewel. The stone slab of the window-sill shone bare in
the pale and fading light.
"I've got him," gasped Tommy Hunter; "but he's wriggling pretty hard.
You fellows run round him in front--he can't have got rid of it,
anyhow."
The others obeyed, some racing down the corridor and some leaping over
the low wall, with the result that a little crowd, consisting of
Hardcastle, Lord Mounteagle, Father Brown, and even the undetachable Mr.
Phroso of the bumps, had soon surrounded the captive Master of the
Mountain, whom Hunter was hanging on to desperately by the collar with
one hand, and shaking every now and then in a manner highly insensible
to the dignity of Prophets as a class.
"Now we've got him, anyhow," said Hunter, letting go with a sigh. "We've
only got to search him. The thing must be here."
Three quarters of an hour later, Hunter and Hardcastle, their top-hats,
ties, gloves, slips and spats somewhat the worse for their recent
activities, came face to face in the cloister and gazed at each other.
"Well," asked Hardcastle with restraint, "have you any views on the
mystery?"
"Hang it all," replied Hunter; "you can't call it a mystery. Why, we all
saw him take it ourselves."
"Yes," replied the other, "but we didn't all see him lose it ourselves.
And the mystery is, where has he lost it so that we can't find it?"
"It must be somewhere," said Hunter. "Have you searched the fountain and
all round that rotten old god there?"
"I haven't dissected the little fishes," said Hardcastle, lifting his
eyeglass and surveying the other. "Are you thinking of the ring of
Polycrates?"
Apparently the survey, through the eye-glass, of the round face before
him, convinced him that it covered no such meditation on Greek legend.
"It's not on him, I admit," repeated Hunter, suddenly, "unless he's
swallowed it."
"Are we to dissect the Prophet, too?" asked the other smiling. "But here
comes our host."
"This is a most distressing matter," said Lord Mounteagle, twisting his
white moustache with a nervous and even tremulous hand. "Horrible thing
to have a theft in one's house, let alone connecting it with a man like
the Master. But, I confess, I can't quite make head or tail of the way
in which he is talking about it. I wish you'd come inside and see what
you think."
They went in together, Hunter falling behind and dropping into
conversation with Father Brown, who was kicking his heels round the
cloister.
"You must be very strong," said the priest pleasantly. "You held him
with one hand; and he seemed pretty vigorous, even when we had eight
hands to hold him, like one of those Indian gods."
They took a turn or two round the cloister, talking; and then they also
went into the inner room, where the Master of the Mountain was seated on
a bench, in the capacity of a captive, but with more of the air of a
king.
It was true, as Lord Mounteagle said, that his air and tone were not
very easy to understand. He spoke with a serene, and yet secretive sense
of power. He seemed rather amused at their suggestions about trivial
hiding-places for the gem; and certainly he showed no resentment
whatever. He seemed to be laughing, in a still unfathomable fashion at
their efforts to trace what they had all seen him take.
"You are learning a little," he said, with insolent benevolence, "of the
laws of time and space; about which your latest science is a thousand
years behind our oldest religion. You do not even know what is really
meant by hiding a thing. Nay, my poor little friends, you do not even
know what is meant by _seeing_ a thing; or perhaps you would see this as
plainly as I do."
"Do you mean it is here?" demanded Hardcastle harshly.
"Here is a word of many meanings, also," replied the mystic. "But I did
not say it was here. I only said I could see it."
There was an irritated silence, and he went on sleepily.
"If you were to be utterly, unfathomably, silent, do you think you might
hear a cry from the other end of the world? The cry of a worshipper
alone in those mountains, where the original image sits, itself like a
mountain. Some say that even Jews and Moslems might worship that image;
because it was never made by man. Hark! Do you hear the cry with which
he lifts his head and sees in that socket of stone, that has been hollow
for ages, the one red and angry moon that is the eye of the mountain?"
"Do you really mean," cried Lord Mounteagle, a little shaken, "that you
could make it pass from here to Mount Meru? I used to believe you had
great spiritual powers, but----"
"Perhaps," said the Master, "I have more than you will ever believe."
Hardcastle rose impatiently and began to pace the room with his hands in
his pockets.
"I never believed so much as you did; but I admit that powers of a
certain type may ... Good God!"
His high, hard voice had been cut off in mid-air, and he stopped
staring; the eye-glass fell out of his eye. They all turned their faces
in the same direction; and on every face there seemed to be the same
suspended animation.
The Red Moon of Meru lay on the stone window-sill, exactly as they had
last seen it. It might have been a red spark blown there from a bonfire,
or a red rose-petal tossed from a broken rose; but it had fallen in
precisely the same spot where Hardcastle had thoughtlessly laid it down.
This time Hardcastle did not attempt to pick it up again; but his
demeanour was somewhat notable. He turned slowly and began to stride
about the room again; but there was in his movements something
masterful, where before it had been only restless. Finally, he brought
himself to a standstill in front of the seated Master, and bowed with a
somewhat sardonic smile.
"Master," he said, "we all owe you an apology and, what is more
important, you have taught us all a lesson. Believe me, it will serve as
a lesson as well as a joke. I shall always remember the very remarkable
powers you really possess, and how harmlessly you use them. Lady
Mounteagle," he went on, turning towards her, "you will forgive me for
having addressed the Master first; but it was to you I had the honour of
offering this explanation some time ago. I may say that I explained it
before it had happened. I told you that most of these things could be
interpreted by some kind of hypnotism. Many believe that this is the
explanation of all those Indian stories about the mango plant and the
boy who climbs a rope thrown into the air. It does not really happen;
but the spectators are mesmerized into imagining that it happened. So we
were all mesmerized into imagining this theft had happened. That brown
hand coming in at the window, and whisking away the gem, was a momentary
delusion; a hand in a dream. Only, having seen the stone vanish, we
never looked for it where it was before. We plunged into the pond and
turned every leaf of the water lilies; we were almost giving emetics to
the goldfish. But the ruby has been here all the time."