Gilbert Chesterton - The Secret of Father Brown

He plodded through a variety of wide streets and squares till he came to a handsome old-fashioned house in the West End, where he asked the servant if he could see General Outram. After some little palaver he was shown into a study, fitted out less with books than with maps and globes, where the bald-headed, black-whiskered Anglo-Indian sat smoking a long, thin, black cigar and playing with pins on a chart.

“I am sorry to intrude,” said the priest, “and all the more because I can’t help the intrusion looking like interference. I want to speak to you about a private matter, but only in the hope of keeping it private. Unfortunately, some people are likely to make it public. I think, general, that you know Sir John Cockspur.”

The mass of black moustache and whisker served as a sort of mask for the lower half of the old general’s face; it was always hard to see whether he smiled, but his brown eyes often had a certain twinkle.

“Everybody knows him, I suppose,” he said. “I don’t know him very well.”

“Well, you know everybody knows whatever he knows,” said Father Brown, smiling, “when he thinks it convenient to print it. And I understand from my friend Mr. Mallow, whom, I think, you know, that Sir John is going to print some scorching anti-clerical articles founded on what he would call the Marne Mystery. ‘ Monks Drive Marquis Mad,’ etc.”

“If he is,” replied the general, “I don’t see why you should come to me about it. I ought to tell you I’m a strong Protestant.”

“I’m very fond of strong Protestants,” said Father Brown. “I came to you because I was sure you would tell the truth. I hope it is not uncharitable to feel less sure of Sir John Cockspur.”

The brown eyes twinkled again, but the general said nothing.

“General,” said Father Brown, “suppose Cockspur or his sort were going to make the world ring with tales against your country and your flag. Suppose he said your regiment ran away in battle, or your staff were in the pay of the enemy. Would you let anything stand between you and the facts that would refute him? Wouldn’t you get on the track of the truth at all costs to anybody? Well, I have a regiment, and I belong to an army. It is being discredited by what I am certain is a fictitious story; but I don’t know the true story. Can you blame me for trying to find it out?”

The soldier was silent, and the priest continued:

“I have heard the story Mallow was told yesterday, about Marne retiring with a broken heart through the death of his more than brother. I am sure there was more in it than that. I came to ask you if you know any more.”

“No,” said the general shortly; “I cannot tell you any more.”

“General,” said Father Brown with a broad grin, “you would have called me a Jesuit if I had used that equivocation.”

The soldier laughed gruffly, and then growled with much greater hostility.

“Well, I won’t tell you, then,” he said. “What do you say to that?”

“I only say,” said the priest mildly, “that in that case I shall have to tell you.”

The brown eyes stared at him; but there was no twinkle in them now. He went on:

“You compel me to state, less sympathetically perhaps than you could, why it is obvious that there is more behind. I am quite sure the marquis has better cause for his brooding and secretiveness than merely having lost an old friend. I doubt whether priests have anything to do with it; I don’t even know if he’s a convert or merely a man comforting his conscience with charities; but I’m sure he’s something more than a chief mourner. Since you insist, I will tell you one or two of the things that made me think so.

“First, it was stated that James Mair was engaged to be married, but somehow became unattached again after the death of Maurice Mair. Why should an honourable man break off his engagement merely because he was depressed by the death of a third party? He’s much more likely to have turned for consolation to it; but, anyhow, he was bound in decency to go through with it.”

The general was biting his black moustache, and his brown eyes had become very watchful and even anxious, but he did not answer.

“A second point,” said Father Brown, frowning at the table. “James Mair was always asking his lady friend whether his cousin Maurice was not very fascinating, and whether women would not admire him. I don’t know if it occurred to the lady that there might be another meaning to that inquiry.”

The general got to his feet and began to walk or stamp about the room.

“Oh, damn it all,” he said, but without any air of animosity.

“The third point,” went on Father Brown, “is James Mair’s curious manner of mourning – destroying all relics, veiling all portraits, and so on. It does sometimes happen, I admit; it might mean mere affectionate bereavement. But it might mean something else.”

“Confound you,” said the other. “How long are you going on piling this up?”

“The fourth and fifth points are pretty conclusive,” said the priest calmly, “especially if you take them together. The first is that Maurice Mair seems to have had no funeral in particular, considering he was a cadet of a great family. He must have been buried hurriedly; perhaps secretly. And the last point is, that James Mair instantly disappeared to foreign parts; fled, in fact, to the ends of the earth.

“And so,” he went on, still in the same soft voice, “when you would blacken my religion to brighten the story of the pure and perfect affection of two brothers, it seems -”

“Stop!” cried Outram in a tone like a pistol shot. “I must tell you more, or you will fancy worse. Let me tell you one thing to start with. It was a fair fight.”

“Ah,” said Father Brown, and seemed to exhale a huge breath.

“It was a duel,” said the other. “It was probably the last duel fought in England, and it is long ago now.”

“That’s better,” said Father Brown. “Thank God; that’s a great deal better.”

“Better than the ugly things you thought of, I suppose?” said the general gruffly. “Well, it’s all very well for you to sneer at the pure and perfect affection; but it was true for all that. James Mair really was devoted to his cousin, who’d grown up with him like a younger brother. Elder brothers and sisters do sometimes devote themselves to a child like that, especially when he’s a sort of infant phenomenon. But James Mair was the sort of simple character in whom even hate is in a sense unselfish. I mean that even when his tenderness turns to rage it is still objective, directed outwards to its object; he isn’t conscious of himself. Now poor Maurice Mair was just the opposite. He was far more friendly and popular; but his success had made him live in a house of mirrors. He was first in every sort of sport and art and accomplishment; he nearly always won and took his winning amiably. But if ever, by any chance, he lost, there was just a glimpse of something not so amiable; he was a little jealous. I needn’t tell you the whole miserable story of how he was a little jealous of his cousin’s engagement; how he couldn’t keep his restless vanity from interfering. It’s enough to say that one of the few things in which James Mair was admittedly ahead of him was marksmanship with a pistol; and with that the tragedy ended.”

“You mean the tragedy began,” replied the priest. “The tragedy of the survivor. I thought he did not need any monkish vampires to make him miserable.”

“To my mind he’s more miserable than he need be,” said the general. “After all, as I say, it was a ghastly tragedy, but it was a fair fight. And Jim had great provocation.”

“How do you know all this?” asked the priest.

“I know it because I saw it,” answered Outram stolidly. “I was James Mair’s second, and I saw Maurice Mair shot dead on the sands before my very eyes.”