The Blue Cross by G. K. Chesterton
Between the silver ribbon of morning and the
green glittering ribbon of sea, the boat touched
Harwich and let loose a swarm of folk like
flies, among whom the man we must follow was
by no means conspicuous — nor wished to
be. There was nothing notable about him, except
a slight contrast between the holiday gaiety
of his clothes and the official gravity of
his face. His clothes included a slight, pale
grey jacket, a white waistcoat, and a silver
straw hat with a grey-blue ribbon. His lean
face was dark by contrast, and ended in a
curt black beard that looked Spanish and suggested
an Elizabethan ruff. He was smoking a cigarette
with the seriousness of an idler. There was
nothing about him to indicate the fact that
the grey jacket covered a loaded revolver,
that the white waistcoat covered a police
card, or that the straw hat covered one of
the most powerful intellects in Europe. For
this was Valentin himself, the head of the
Paris police and the most famous investigator
of the world; and he was coming from Brussels
to London to make the greatest arrest of the
century.
Flambeau was in England. The police of three
countries had tracked the great criminal at
last from Ghent to Brussels, from Brussels
to the Hook of Holland; and it was conjectured
that he would take some advantage of the unfamiliarity
and confusion of the Eucharistic Congress,
then taking place in London. Probably he would
travel as some minor clerk or secretary connected
with it; but, of course, Valentin could not
be certain; nobody could be certain about
Flambeau.
It is many years now since this colossus of
crime suddenly ceased keeping the world in
a turmoil; and when he ceased, as they said
after the death of Roland, there was a great
quiet upon the earth. But in his best days
(I mean, of course, his worst) Flambeau was
a figure as statuesque and international as
the Kaiser. Almost every morning the daily
paper announced that he had escaped the consequences
of one extraordinary crime by committing another.
He was a Gascon of gigantic stature and bodily
daring; and the wildest tales were told of
his outbursts of athletic humour; how he turned
the juge d’instruction upside down and stood
him on his head, “to clear his mind”;
how he ran down the Rue de Rivoli with a policeman
under each arm. It is due to him to say that
his fantastic physical strength was generally
employed in such bloodless though undignified
scenes; his real crimes were chiefly those
of ingenious and wholesale robbery. But each
of his thefts was almost a new sin, and would
make a story by itself. It was he who ran
the great Tyrolean Dairy Company in London,
with no dairies, no cows, no carts, no milk,
but with some thousand subscribers. These
he served by the simple operation of moving
the little milk cans outside people’s doors
to the doors of his own customers. It was
he who had kept up an unaccountable and close
correspondence with a young lady whose whole
letter-bag was intercepted, by the extraordinary
trick of photographing his messages infinitesimally
small upon the slides of a microscope. A sweeping
simplicity, however, marked many of his experiments.
It is said that he once repainted all the
numbers in a street in the dead of night merely
to divert one traveller into a trap. It is
quite certain that he invented a portable
pillar-box, which he put up at corners in
quiet suburbs on the chance of strangers dropping
postal orders into it. Lastly, he was known
to be a startling acrobat; despite his huge
figure, he could leap like a grasshopper and
melt into the tree-tops like a monkey. Hence
the great Valentin, when he set out to find
Flambeau, was perfectly aware that his adventures
would not end when he had found him.
But how was he to find him? On this the great
Valentin’s ideas were still in process of
settlement.
There was one thing which Flambeau, with all
his dexterity of disguise, could not cover,
and that was his singular height. If Valentin’s
quick eye had caught a tall apple-woman, a
tall grenadier, or even a tolerably tall duchess,
he might have arrested them on the spot. But
all along his train there was nobody that
could be a disguised Flambeau, any more than
a cat could be a disguised giraffe. About
the people on the boat he had already satisfied
himself; and the people picked up at Harwich
or on the journey limited themselves with
certainty to six. There was a short railway
official travelling up to the terminus, three
fairly short market gardeners picked up two
stations afterwards, one very short widow
lady going up from a small Essex town, and
a very short Roman Catholic priest going up
from a small Essex village. When it came to
the last case, Valentin gave it up and almost
laughed. The little priest was so much the
essence of those Eastern flats; he had a face
as round and dull as a Norfolk dumpling; he
had eyes as empty as the North Sea; he had
several brown paper parcels, which he was
quite incapable of collecting. The Eucharistic
Congress had doubtless sucked out of their
local stagnation many such creatures, blind
and helpless, like moles disinterred. Valentin
was a sceptic in the severe style of France,
and could have no love for priests. But he
could have pity for them, and this one might
have provoked pity in anybody. He had a large,
shabby umbrella, which constantly fell on
the floor. He did not seem to know which was
the right end of his return ticket. He explained
with a moon-calf simplicity to everybody in
the carriage that he had to be careful, because
he had something made of real silver “with
blue stones” in one of his brown-paper parcels.
His quaint blending of Essex flatness with
saintly simplicity continuously amused the
Frenchman till the priest arrived (somehow)
at Tottenham with all his parcels, and came
back for his umbrella. When he did the last,
Valentin even had the good nature to warn
him not to take care of the silver by telling
everybody about it. But to whomever he talked,
Valentin kept his eye open for someone else;
he looked out steadily for anyone, rich or
poor, male or female, who was well up to six
feet; for Flambeau was four inches above it.
He alighted at Liverpool Street, however,
quite conscientiously secure that he had not
missed the criminal so far. He then went to
Scotland Yard to regularise his position and
arrange for help in case of need; he then
lit another cigarette and went for a long
stroll in the streets of London. As he was
walking in the streets and squares beyond
Victoria, he paused suddenly and stood. It
was a quaint, quiet square, very typical of
London, full of an accidental stillness. The
tall, flat houses round looked at once prosperous
and uninhabited; the square of shrubbery in
the centre looked as deserted as a green Pacific
islet. One of the four sides was much higher
than the rest, like a dais; and the line of
this side was broken by one of London’s
admirable accidents — a restaurant that
looked as if it had strayed from Soho. It
was an unreasonably attractive object, with
dwarf plants in pots and long, striped blinds
of lemon yellow and white. It stood specially
high above the street, and in the usual patchwork
way of London, a flight of steps from the
street ran up to meet the front door almost
as a fire-escape might run up to a first-floor
window. Valentin stood and smoked in front
of the yellow-white blinds and considered
them long.
The most incredible thing about miracles is
that they happen. A few clouds in heaven do
come together into the staring shape of one
human eye. A tree does stand up in the landscape
of a doubtful journey in the exact and elaborate
shape of a note of interrogation. I have seen
both these things myself within the last few
days. Nelson does die in the instant of victory;
and a man named Williams does quite accidentally
murder a man named Williamson; it sounds like
a sort of infanticide. In short, there is
in life an element of elfin coincidence which
people reckoning on the prosaic may perpetually
miss. As it has been well expressed in the
paradox of Poe, wisdom should reckon on the
unforeseen.
Aristide Valentin was unfathomably French;
and the French intelligence is intelligence
specially and solely. He was not “a thinking
machine”; for that is a brainless phrase
of modern fatalism and materialism. A machine
only is a machine because it cannot think.
But he was a thinking man, and a plain man
at the same time. All his wonderful successes,
that looked like conjuring, had been gained
by plodding logic, by clear and commonplace
French thought. The French electrify the world
not by starting any paradox, they electrify
it by carrying out a truism. They carry a
truism so far — as in the French Revolution.
But exactly because Valentin understood reason,
he understood the limits of reason. Only a
man who knows nothing of motors talks of motoring
without petrol; only a man who knows nothing
of reason talks of reasoning without strong,
undisputed first principles. Here he had no
strong first principles. Flambeau had been
missed at Harwich; and if he was in London
at all, he might be anything from a tall tramp
on Wimbledon Common to a tall toast-master
at the Hotel Metropole. In such a naked state
of nescience, Valentin had a view and a method
of his own.
In such cases he reckoned on the unforeseen.
In such cases, when he could not follow the
train of the reasonable, he coldly and carefully
followed the train of the unreasonable. Instead
of going to the right places — banks, police
stations, rendezvous — he systematically
went to the wrong places; knocked at every
empty house, turned down every cul de sac,
went up every lane blocked with rubbish, went
round every crescent that led him uselessly
out of the way. He defended this crazy course
quite logically. He said that if one had a
clue this was the worst way; but if one had
no clue at all it was the best, because there
was just the chance that any oddity that caught
the eye of the pursuer might be the same that
had caught the eye of the pursued. Somewhere
a man must begin, and it had better be just
where another man might stop. Something about
that flight of steps up to the shop, something
about the quietude and quaintness of the restaurant,
roused all the detective’s rare romantic
fancy and made him resolve to strike at random.
He went up the steps, and sitting down at
a table by the window, asked for a cup of
black coffee.
It was half-way through the morning, and he
had not breakfasted; the slight litter of
other breakfasts stood about on the table
to remind him of his hunger; and adding a
poached egg to his order, he proceeded musingly
to shake some white sugar into his coffee,
thinking all the time about Flambeau. He remembered
how Flambeau had escaped, once by a pair of
nail scissors, and once by a house on fire;
once by having to pay for an unstamped letter,
and once by getting people to look through
a telescope at a comet that might destroy
the world. He thought his detective brain
as good as the criminal’s, which was true.
But he fully realised the disadvantage. “The
criminal is the creative artist; the detective
only the critic,” he said with a sour smile,
and lifted his coffee cup to his lips slowly,
and put it down very quickly. He had put salt
in it.
He looked at the vessel from which the silvery
powder had come; it was certainly a sugar-basin;
as unmistakably meant for sugar as a champagne-bottle
for champagne. He wondered why they should
keep salt in it. He looked to see if there
were any more orthodox vessels. Yes; there
were two salt-cellars quite full. Perhaps
there was some speciality in the condiment
in the salt-cellars. He tasted it; it was
sugar. Then he looked round at the restaurant
with a refreshed air of interest, to see if
there were any other traces of that singular
artistic taste which puts the sugar in the
salt-cellars and the salt in the sugar-basin.
Except for an odd splash of some dark fluid
on one of the white-papered walls, the whole
place appeared neat, cheerful and ordinary.
He rang the bell for the waiter.
When that official hurried up, fuzzy-haired
and somewhat blear-eyed at that early hour,
the detective (who was not without an appreciation
of the simpler forms of humour) asked him
to taste the sugar and see if it was up to
the high reputation of the hotel. The result
was that the waiter yawned suddenly and woke
up.
“Do you play this delicate joke on your
customers every morning?” inquired Valentin.
“Does changing the salt and sugar never
pall on you as a jest?”
The waiter, when this irony grew clearer,
stammeringly assured him that the establishment
had certainly no such intention; it must be
a most curious mistake. He picked up the sugar-basin
and looked at it; he picked up the salt-cellar
and looked at that, his face growing more
and more bewildered. At last he abruptly excused
himself, and hurrying away, returned in a
few seconds with the proprietor. The proprietor
also examined the sugar-basin and then the
salt-cellar; the proprietor also looked bewildered.
Suddenly the waiter seemed to grow inarticulate
with a rush of words.
“I zink,” he stuttered eagerly, “I zink
it is those two clergy-men.”
“What two clergymen?”
“The two clergymen,” said the waiter,
“that threw soup at the wall.”
“Threw soup at the wall?” repeated Valentin,
feeling sure this must be some singular Italian
metaphor.
“Yes, yes,” said the attendant excitedly,
and pointed at the dark splash on the white
paper; “threw it over there on the wall.”
Valentin looked his query at the proprietor,
who came to his rescue with fuller reports.
“Yes, sir,” he said, “it’s quite true,
though I don’t suppose it has anything to
do with the sugar and salt. Two clergymen
came in and drank soup here very early, as
soon as the shutters were taken down. They
were both very quiet, respectable people;
one of them paid the bill and went out; the
other, who seemed a slower coach altogether,
was some minutes longer getting his things
together. But he went at last. Only, the instant
before he stepped into the street he deliberately
picked up his cup, which he had only half
emptied, and threw the soup slap on the wall.
I was in the back room myself, and so was
the waiter; so I could only rush out in time
to find the wall splashed and the shop empty.
It don’t do any particular damage, but it
was confounded cheek; and I tried to catch
the men in the street. They were too far off
though; I only noticed they went round the
next corner into Carstairs Street.”
The detective was on his feet, hat settled
and stick in hand. He had already decided
that in the universal darkness of his mind
he could only follow the first odd finger
that pointed; and this finger was odd enough.
Paying his bill and clashing the glass doors
behind him, he was soon swinging round into
the other street.
It was fortunate that even in such fevered
moments his eye was cool and quick. Something
in a shop-front went by him like a mere flash;
yet he went back to look at it. The shop was
a popular greengrocer and fruiterer’s, an
array of goods set out in the open air and
plainly ticketed with their names and prices.
In the two most prominent compartments were
two heaps, of oranges and of nuts respectively.
On the heap of nuts lay a scrap of cardboard,
on which was written in bold, blue chalk,
“Best tangerine oranges, two a penny.”
On the oranges was the equally clear and exact
description, “Finest Brazil nuts, 4d. a
lb.” M. Valentin looked at these two placards
and fancied he had met this highly subtle
form of humour before, and that somewhat recently.
He drew the attention of the red-faced fruiterer,
who was looking rather sullenly up and down
the street, to this inaccuracy in his advertisements.
The fruiterer said nothing, but sharply put
each card into its proper place. The detective,
leaning elegantly on his walking-cane, continued
to scrutinise the shop. At last he said, “Pray
excuse my apparent irrelevance, my good sir,
but I should like to ask you a question in
experimental psychology and the association
of ideas.”
The red-faced shopman regarded him with an
eye of menace; but he continued gaily, swinging
his cane, “Why,” he pursued, “why are
two tickets wrongly placed in a greengrocer’s
shop like a shovel hat that has come to London
for a holiday? Or, in case I do not make myself
clear, what is the mystical association which
connects the idea of nuts marked as oranges
with the idea of two clergymen, one tall and
the other short?”
The eyes of the tradesman stood out of his
head like a snail’s; he really seemed for
an instant likely to fling himself upon the
stranger. At last he stammered angrily: “I
don’t know what you ‘ave to do with it,
but if you’re one of their friends, you
can tell ‘em from me that I’ll knock their
silly ‘eads off, parsons or no parsons,
if they upset my apples again.”
“Indeed?” asked the detective, with great
sympathy. “Did they upset your apples?”
“One of ‘em did,” said the heated shopman;
“rolled ‘em all over the street. I’d
‘ave caught the fool but for havin’ to
pick ‘em up.”
“Which way did these parsons go?” asked
Valentin.
“Up that second road on the left-hand side,
and then across the square,” said the other
promptly.
“Thanks,” replied Valentin, and vanished
like a fairy. On the other side of the second
square he found a policeman, and said: “This
is urgent, constable; have you seen two clergymen
in shovel hats?”
The policeman began to chuckle heavily. “I
‘ave, sir; and if you arst me, one of ‘em
was drunk. He stood in the middle of the road
that bewildered that — ”
“Which way did they go?” snapped Valentin.
“They took one of them yellow buses over
there,” answered the man; “them that go
to Hampstead.”
Valentin produced his official card and said
very rapidly: “Call up two of your men to
come with me in pursuit,” and crossed the
road with such contagious energy that the
ponderous policeman was moved to almost agile
obedience. In a minute and a half the French
detective was joined on the opposite pavement
by an inspector and a man in plain clothes.
“Well, sir,” began the former, with smiling
importance, “and what may — ?”
Valentin pointed suddenly with his cane. “I’ll
tell you on the top of that omnibus,” he
said, and was darting and dodging across the
tangle of the traffic. When all three sank
panting on the top seats of the yellow vehicle,
the inspector said: “We could go four times
as quick in a taxi.”
“Quite true,” replied their leader placidly,
“if we only had an idea of where we were
going.”
“Well, where are you going?” asked the
other, staring.
Valentin smoked frowningly for a few seconds;
then, removing his cigarette, he said: “If
you know what a man’s doing, get in front
of him; but if you want to guess what he’s
doing, keep behind him. Stray when he strays;
stop when he stops; travel as slowly as he.
Then you may see what he saw and may act as
he acted. All we can do is to keep our eyes
skinned for a queer thing.”
“What sort of queer thing do you mean?”
asked the inspector.
“Any sort of queer thing,” answered Valentin,
and relapsed into obstinate silence.
The yellow omnibus crawled up the northern
roads for what seemed like hours on end; the
great detective would not explain further,
and perhaps his assistants felt a silent and
growing doubt of his errand. Perhaps, also,
they felt a silent and growing desire for
lunch, for the hours crept long past the normal
luncheon hour, and the long roads of the North
London suburbs seemed to shoot out into length
after length like an infernal telescope. It
was one of those journeys on which a man perpetually
feels that now at last he must have come to
the end of the universe, and then finds he
has only come to the beginning of Tufnell
Park. London died away in draggled taverns
and dreary scrubs, and then was unaccountably
born again in blazing high streets and blatant
hotels. It was like passing through thirteen
separate vulgar cities all just touching each
other. But though the winter twilight was
already threatening the road ahead of them,
the Parisian detective still sat silent and
watchful, eyeing the frontage of the streets
that slid by on either side. By the time they
had left Camden Town behind, the policemen
were nearly asleep; at least, they gave something
like a jump as Valentin leapt erect, struck
a hand on each man’s shoulder, and shouted
to the driver to stop.
They tumbled down the steps into the road
without realising why they had been dislodged;
when they looked round for enlightenment they
found Valentin triumphantly pointing his finger
towards a window on the left side of the road.
It was a large window, forming part of the
long facade of a gilt and palatial public-house;
it was the part reserved for respectable dining,
and labelled “Restaurant.” This window,
like all the rest along the frontage of the
hotel, was of frosted and figured glass; but
in the middle of it was a big, black smash,
like a star in the ice.
“Our cue at last,” cried Valentin, waving
his stick; “the place with the broken window.”
“What window? What cue?” asked his principal
assistant. “Why, what proof is there that
this has anything to do with them?”
Valentin almost broke his bamboo stick with
rage.
“Proof!” he cried. “Good God! the man
is looking for proof! Why, of course, the
chances are twenty to one that it has nothing
to do with them. But what else can we do?
Don’t you see we must either follow one
wild possibility or else go home to bed?”
He banged his way into the restaurant, followed
by his companions, and they were soon seated
at a late luncheon at a little table, and
looked at the star of smashed glass from the
inside. Not that it was very informative to
them even then.
“Got your window broken, I see,” said
Valentin to the waiter as he paid the bill.
“Yes, sir,” answered the attendant, bending
busily over the change, to which Valentin
silently added an enormous tip. The waiter
straightened himself with mild but unmistakable
animation.
“Ah, yes, sir,” he said. “Very odd thing,
that, sir.”
“Indeed?” Tell us about it,” said the
detective with careless curiosity.
“Well, two gents in black came in,” said
the waiter; “two of those foreign parsons
that are running about. They had a cheap and
quiet little lunch, and one of them paid for
it and went out. The other was just going
out to join him when I looked at my change
again and found he’d paid me more than three
times too much. ‘Here,’ I says to the
chap who was nearly out of the door, ‘you’ve
paid too much.’ ‘Oh,’ he says, very
cool, ‘have we?’ ‘Yes,’ I says, and
picks up the bill to show him. Well, that
was a knock-out.”
“What do you mean?” asked his interlocutor.
“Well, I’d have sworn on seven Bibles
that I’d put 4s. on that bill. But now I
saw I’d put 14s., as plain as paint.”
“Well?” cried Valentin, moving slowly,
but with burning eyes, “and then?”
“The parson at the door he says all serene,
‘Sorry to confuse your accounts, but it’ll
pay for the window.’ ‘What window?’
I says. ‘The one I’m going to break,’
he says, and smashed that blessed pane with
his umbrella.”
All three inquirers made an exclamation; and
the inspector said under his breath, “Are
we after escaped lunatics?” The waiter went
on with some relish for the ridiculous story:
“I was so knocked silly for a second, I
couldn’t do anything. The man marched out
of the place and joined his friend just round
the corner. Then they went so quick up Bullock
Street that I couldn’t catch them, though
I ran round the bars to do it.”
“Bullock Street,” said the detective,
and shot up that thoroughfare as quickly as
the strange couple he pursued.
Their journey now took them through bare brick
ways like tunnels; streets with few lights
and even with few windows; streets that seemed
built out of the blank backs of everything
and everywhere. Dusk was deepening, and it
was not easy even for the London policemen
to guess in what exact direction they were
treading. The inspector, however, was pretty
certain that they would eventually strike
some part of Hampstead Heath. Abruptly one
bulging gas-lit window broke the blue twilight
like a bull’s-eye lantern; and Valentin
stopped an instant before a little garish
sweetstuff shop. After an instant’s hesitation
he went in; he stood amid the gaudy colours
of the confectionery with entire gravity and
bought thirteen chocolate cigars with a certain
care. He was clearly preparing an opening;
but he did not need one.
An angular, elderly young woman in the shop
had regarded his elegant appearance with a
merely automatic inquiry; but when she saw
the door behind him blocked with the blue
uniform of the inspector, her eyes seemed
to wake up.
“Oh,” she said, “if you’ve come about
that parcel, I’ve sent it off already.”
“Parcel?” repeated Valentin; and it was
his turn to look inquiring.
“I mean the parcel the gentleman left — the
clergyman gentleman.”
“For goodness’ sake,” said Valentin,
leaning forward with his first real confession
of eagerness, “for Heaven’s sake tell
us what happened exactly.”
“Well,” said the woman a little doubtfully,
“the clergymen came in about half an hour
ago and bought some peppermints and talked
a bit, and then went off towards the Heath.
But a second after, one of them runs back
into the shop and says, ‘Have I left a parcel!’
Well, I looked everywhere and couldn’t see
one; so he says, ‘Never mind; but if it
should turn up, please post it to this address,’
and he left me the address and a shilling
for my trouble. And sure enough, though I
thought I’d looked everywhere, I found he’d
left a brown paper parcel, so I posted it
to the place he said. I can’t remember the
address now; it was somewhere in Westminster.
But as the thing seemed so important, I thought
perhaps the police had come about it.”
“So they have,” said Valentin shortly.
“Is Hampstead Heath near here?”
“Straight on for fifteen minutes,” said
the woman, “and you’ll come right out
on the open.” Valentin sprang out of the
shop and began to run. The other detectives
followed him at a reluctant trot.
The street they threaded was so narrow and
shut in by shadows that when they came out
unexpectedly into the void common and vast
sky they were startled to find the evening
still so light and clear. A perfect dome of
peacock-green sank into gold amid the blackening
trees and the dark violet distances. The glowing
green tint was just deep enough to pick out
in points of crystal one or two stars. All
that was left of the daylight lay in a golden
glitter across the edge of Hampstead and that
popular hollow which is called the Vale of
Health. The holiday makers who roam this region
had not wholly dispersed; a few couples sat
shapelessly on benches; and here and there
a distant girl still shrieked in one of the
swings. The glory of heaven deepened and darkened
around the sublime vulgarity of man; and standing
on the slope and looking across the valley,
Valentin beheld the thing which he sought.
Among the black and breaking groups in that
distance was one especially black which did
not break — a group of two figures clerically
clad. Though they seemed as small as insects,
Valentin could see that one of them was much
smaller than the other. Though the other had
a student’s stoop and an inconspicuous manner,
he could see that the man was well over six
feet high. He shut his teeth and went forward,
whirling his stick impatiently. By the time
he had substantially diminished the distance
and magnified the two black figures as in
a vast microscope, he had perceived something
else; something which startled him, and yet
which he had somehow expected. Whoever was
the tall priest, there could be no doubt about
the identity of the short one. It was his
friend of the Harwich train, the stumpy little
cure of Essex whom he had warned about his
brown paper parcels.
Now, so far as this went, everything fitted
in finally and rationally enough. Valentin
had learned by his inquiries that morning
that a Father Brown from Essex was bringing
up a silver cross with sapphires, a relic
of considerable value, to show some of the
foreign priests at the congress. This undoubtedly
was the “silver with blue stones”; and
Father Brown undoubtedly was the little greenhorn
in the train. Now there was nothing wonderful
about the fact that what Valentin had found
out Flambeau had also found out; Flambeau
found out everything. Also there was nothing
wonderful in the fact that when Flambeau heard
of a sapphire cross he should try to steal
it; that was the most natural thing in all
natural history. And most certainly there
was nothing wonderful about the fact that
Flambeau should have it all his own way with
such a silly sheep as the man with the umbrella
and the parcels. He was the sort of man whom
anybody could lead on a string to the North
Pole; it was not surprising that an actor
like Flambeau, dressed as another priest,
could lead him to Hampstead Heath. So far
the crime seemed clear enough; and while the
detective pitied the priest for his helplessness,
he almost despised Flambeau for condescending
to so gullible a victim. But when Valentin
thought of all that had happened in between,
of all that had led him to his triumph, he
racked his brains for the smallest rhyme or
reason in it. What had the stealing of a blue-and-silver
cross from a priest from Essex to do with
chucking soup at wall paper? What had it to
do with calling nuts oranges, or with paying
for windows first and breaking them afterwards?
He had come to the end of his chase; yet somehow
he had missed the middle of it. When he failed
(which was seldom), he had usually grasped
the clue, but nevertheless missed the criminal.
Here he had grasped the criminal, but still
he could not grasp the clue.
The two figures that they followed were crawling
like black flies across the huge green contour
of a hill. They were evidently sunk in conversation,
and perhaps did not notice where they were
going; but they were certainly going to the
wilder and more silent heights of the Heath.
As their pursuers gained on them, the latter
had to use the undignified attitudes of the
deer-stalker, to crouch behind clumps of trees
and even to crawl prostrate in deep grass.
By these ungainly ingenuities the hunters
even came close enough to the quarry to hear
the murmur of the discussion, but no word
could be distinguished except the word “reason”
recurring frequently in a high and almost
childish voice. Once over an abrupt dip of
land and a dense tangle of thickets, the detectives
actually lost the two figures they were following.
They did not find the trail again for an agonising
ten minutes, and then it led round the brow
of a great dome of hill overlooking an amphitheatre
of rich and desolate sunset scenery. Under
a tree in this commanding yet neglected spot
was an old ramshackle wooden seat. On this
seat sat the two priests still in serious
speech together. The gorgeous green and gold
still clung to the darkening horizon; but
the dome above was turning slowly from peacock-green
to peacock-blue, and the stars detached themselves
more and more like solid jewels. Mutely motioning
to his followers, Valentin contrived to creep
up behind the big branching tree, and, standing
there in deathly silence, heard the words
of the strange priests for the first time.
After he had listened for a minute and a half,
he was gripped by a devilish doubt. Perhaps
he had dragged the two English policemen to
the wastes of a nocturnal heath on an errand
no saner than seeking figs on its thistles.
For the two priests were talking exactly like
priests, piously, with learning and leisure,
about the most aerial enigmas of theology.
The little Essex priest spoke the more simply,
with his round face turned to the strengthening
stars; the other talked with his head bowed,
as if he were not even worthy to look at them.
But no more innocently clerical conversation
could have been heard in any white Italian
cloister or black Spanish cathedral.
The first he heard was the tail of one of
Father Brown’s sentences, which ended: “... what
they really meant in the Middle Ages by the
heavens being incorruptible.”
The taller priest nodded his bowed head and
said:
“Ah, yes, these modern infidels appeal to
their reason; but who can look at those millions
of worlds and not feel that there may well
be wonderful universes above us where reason
is utterly unreasonable?”
“No,” said the other priest; “reason
is always reasonable, even in the last limbo,
in the lost borderland of things. I know that
people charge the Church with lowering reason,
but it is just the other way. Alone on earth,
the Church makes reason really supreme. Alone
on earth, the Church affirms that God himself
is bound by reason.”
The other priest raised his austere face to
the spangled sky and said:
“Yet who knows if in that infinite universe
— ?”
“Only infinite physically,” said the little
priest, turning sharply in his seat, “not
infinite in the sense of escaping from the
laws of truth.”
Valentin behind his tree was tearing his fingernails
with silent fury. He seemed almost to hear
the sniggers of the English detectives whom
he had brought so far on a fantastic guess
only to listen to the metaphysical gossip
of two mild old parsons. In his impatience
he lost the equally elaborate answer of the
tall cleric, and when he listened again it
was again Father Brown who was speaking:
“Reason and justice grip the remotest and
the loneliest star. Look at those stars. Don’t
they look as if they were single diamonds
and sapphires? Well, you can imagine any mad
botany or geology you please. Think of forests
of adamant with leaves of brilliants. Think
the moon is a blue moon, a single elephantine
sapphire. But don’t fancy that all that
frantic astronomy would make the smallest
difference to the reason and justice of conduct.
On plains of opal, under cliffs cut out of
pearl, you would still find a notice-board,
‘Thou shalt not steal.’”
Valentin was just in the act of rising from
his rigid and crouching attitude and creeping
away as softly as might be, felled by the
one great folly of his life. But something
in the very silence of the tall priest made
him stop until the latter spoke. When at last
he did speak, he said simply, his head bowed
and his hands on his knees:
“Well, I think that other worlds may perhaps
rise higher than our reason. The mystery of
heaven is unfathomable, and I for one can
only bow my head.”
Then, with brow yet bent and without changing
by the faintest shade his attitude or voice,
he added:
“Just hand over that sapphire cross of yours,
will you? We’re all alone here, and I could
pull you to pieces like a straw doll.”
The utterly unaltered voice and attitude added
a strange violence to that shocking change
of speech. But the guarder of the relic only
seemed to turn his head by the smallest section
of the compass. He seemed still to have a
somewhat foolish face turned to the stars.
Perhaps he had not understood. Or, perhaps,
he had understood and sat rigid with terror.
“Yes,” said the tall priest, in the same
low voice and in the same still posture, “yes,
I am Flambeau.”
Then, after a pause, he said:
“Come, will you give me that cross?”
“No,” said the other, and the monosyllable
had an odd sound.
Flambeau suddenly flung off all his pontifical
pretensions. The great robber leaned back
in his seat and laughed low but long.
“No,” he cried, “you won’t give it
me, you proud prelate. You won’t give it
me, you little celibate simpleton. Shall I
tell you why you won’t give it me? Because
I’ve got it already in my own breast-pocket.”
The small man from Essex turned what seemed
to be a dazed face in the dusk, and said,
with the timid eagerness of “The Private
Secretary”:
“Are — are you sure?”
Flambeau yelled with delight.
“Really, you’re as good as a three-act
farce,” he cried. “Yes, you turnip, I
am quite sure. I had the sense to make a duplicate
of the right parcel, and now, my friend, you’ve
got the duplicate and I’ve got the jewels.
An old dodge, Father Brown — a very old
dodge.”
“Yes,” said Father Brown, and passed his
hand through his hair with the same strange
vagueness of manner. “Yes, I’ve heard
of it before.”
The colossus of crime leaned over to the little
rustic priest with a sort of sudden interest.
“You have heard of it?” he asked. “Where
have you heard of it?”
“Well, I mustn’t tell you his name, of
course,” said the little man simply. “He
was a penitent, you know. He had lived prosperously
for about twenty years entirely on duplicate
brown paper parcels. And so, you see, when
I began to suspect you, I thought of this
poor chap’s way of doing it at once.”
“Began to suspect me?” repeated the outlaw
with increased intensity. “Did you really
have the gumption to suspect me just because
I brought you up to this bare part of the
heath?”
“No, no,” said Brown with an air of apology.
“You see, I suspected you when we first
met. It’s that little bulge up the sleeve
where you people have the spiked bracelet.”
“How in Tartarus,” cried Flambeau, “did
you ever hear of the spiked bracelet?”
“Oh, one’s little flock, you know!”
said Father Brown, arching his eyebrows rather
blankly. “When I was a curate in Hartlepool,
there were three of them with spiked bracelets.
So, as I suspected you from the first, don’t
you see, I made sure that the cross should
go safe, anyhow. I’m afraid I watched you,
you know. So at last I saw you change the
parcels. Then, don’t you see, I changed
them back again. And then I left the right
one behind.”
“Left it behind?” repeated Flambeau, and
for the first time there was another note
in his voice beside his triumph.
“Well, it was like this,” said the little
priest, speaking in the same unaffected way.
“I went back to that sweet-shop and asked
if I’d left a parcel, and gave them a particular
address if it turned up. Well, I knew I hadn’t;
but when I went away again I did. So, instead
of running after me with that valuable parcel,
they have sent it flying to a friend of mine
in Westminster.” Then he added rather sadly:
“I learnt that, too, from a poor fellow
in Hartlepool. He used to do it with handbags
he stole at railway stations, but he’s in
a monastery now. Oh, one gets to know, you
know,” he added, rubbing his head again
with the same sort of desperate apology. “We
can’t help being priests. People come and
tell us these things.”
Flambeau tore a brown-paper parcel out of
his inner pocket and rent it in pieces. There
was nothing but paper and sticks of lead inside
it. He sprang to his feet with a gigantic
gesture, and cried:
“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe
a bumpkin like you could manage all that.
I believe you’ve still got the stuff on
you, and if you don’t give it up — why,
we’re all alone, and I’ll take it by force!”
“No,” said Father Brown simply, and stood
up also, “you won’t take it by force.
First, because I really haven’t still got
it. And, second, because we are not alone.”
Flambeau stopped in his stride forward.
“Behind that tree,” said Father Brown,
pointing, “are two strong policemen and
the greatest detective alive. How did they
come here, do you ask? Why, I brought them,
of course! How did I do it? Why, I’ll tell
you if you like! Lord bless you, we have to
know twenty such things when we work among
the criminal classes! Well, I wasn’t sure
you were a thief, and it would never do to
make a scandal against one of our own clergy.
So I just tested you to see if anything would
make you show yourself. A man generally makes
a small scene if he finds salt in his coffee;
if he doesn’t, he has some reason for keeping
quiet. I changed the salt and sugar, and you
kept quiet. A man generally objects if his
bill is three times too big. If he pays it,
he has some motive for passing unnoticed.
I altered your bill, and you paid it.”
The world seemed waiting for Flambeau to leap
like a tiger. But he was held back as by a
spell; he was stunned with the utmost curiosity.
“Well,” went on Father Brown, with lumbering
lucidity, “as you wouldn’t leave any tracks
for the police, of course somebody had to.
At every place we went to, I took care to
do something that would get us talked about
for the rest of the day. I didn’t do much
harm — a splashed wall, spilt apples, a
broken window; but I saved the cross, as the
cross will always be saved. It is at Westminster
by now. I rather wonder you didn’t stop
it with the Donkey’s Whistle.”
“With the what?” asked Flambeau.
“I’m glad you’ve never heard of it,”
said the priest, making a face. “It’s
a foul thing. I’m sure you’re too good
a man for a Whistler. I couldn’t have countered
it even with the Spots myself; I’m not strong
enough in the legs.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
asked the other.
“Well, I did think you’d know the Spots,”
said Father Brown, agreeably surprised. “Oh,
you can’t have gone so very wrong yet!”
“How in blazes do you know all these horrors?”
cried Flambeau.
The shadow of a smile crossed the round, simple
face of his clerical opponent.
“Oh, by being a celibate simpleton, I suppose,”
he said. “Has it never struck you that a
man who does next to nothing but hear men’s
real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware
of human evil? But, as a matter of fact, another
part of my trade, too, made me sure you weren’t
a priest.”
“What?” asked the thief, almost gaping.
“You attacked reason,” said Father Brown.
“It’s bad theology.”
And even as he turned away to collect his
property, the three policemen came out from
under the twilight trees. Flambeau was an
artist and a sportsman. He stepped back and
swept Valentin a great bow.
“Do not bow to me, mon ami,” said Valentin
with silver clearness. “Let us both bow
to our master.”
And they both stood an instant uncovered while
the little Essex priest blinked about for
his umbrella.
You've been listening to a Bitesized Audiobook.
I hope you enjoyed it. If you'd like to hear
more stories like this please try the links
below — and do click 'Subscribe' and hit
the bell to hear about future uploads. You
may also be interested in becoming a channel
member — there are a few options available,
with various benefits. Click the 'Join' button
to find out more. Thank you for listening!
