Gilbert Chesterton: The Scandal of Father Brown

Flambeau had seated himself on a chair by the little table which stood beside the dead man's bed. He was frowning thoughtfully at three or four white pills or pellets that lay in a small tray beside a bottle of water.

"The murderer or murderess," said Flambeau, "had some incomprehensible reason or other for wanting us to think the dead man was strangled or stabbed or both. He was not strangled or stabbed or anything of the kind. Why did they want to suggest it? The most logical explanation is that he died in some particular way which would, in itself, suggest a connection with some particular person. Suppose, for instance, he was poisoned. And suppose somebody is involved who would naturally look more like a poisoner than anybody else."

"After all," said Father Brown softly, "our friend in the blue spectacles is a doctor."

"I'm going to examine these pills pretty carefully," went on Flambeau. "I don't want to lose them, though. They look as if they were soluble in water."

"It may take you some time to do anything scientific with them," said the priest, "and the police doctor may be here before that. So I should certainly advise you not to lose them. That is, if you are going to wait for the police doctor."

"I am going to stay here till I have solved this problem," said Flambeau.

"Then you will stay here for ever," said Father Brown, looking calmly out of the window. "I don't think I shall stay in this room, anyhow."

"Do you mean that I shan't solve the problem?" asked his friend. "Why shouldn't I solve the problem?"

"Because it isn't soluble in water. No, nor in blood," said the priest; and he went down the dark stairs into the darkening garden. There he saw again what he had already seen from the window.

The heat and weight and obscurity of the thunderous sky seemed to be pressing yet more closely on the landscape; the clouds had conquered the sun which, above, in a narrowing clearance, stood up paler than the moon. There was a thrill of thunder in the air, but now no more stirring of wind or breeze; and even the colours of the garden seemed only like richer shades of darkness. But one colour still glowed with a certain dusky vividness; and that was the red hair of the woman of that house, who was standing with a sort of rigidity, staring, with her hands thrust up into her hair. That scene of eclipse, with something deeper in his own doubts about its significance, brought to the surface the memory of haunting and mystical lines; and he found himself murmuring: "A secret spot, as savage and enchanted as e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted by woman wailing for her demon lover." His muttering became more agitated. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners… that's what it is; that's terribly like what it is; woman wailing for her demon lover."

He was hesitant and almost shaky as he approached the woman; but he spoke with his common composure. He was gazing at her very steadily, as he told her earnestly that she must not be morbid because of the mere accidental accessories of the tragedy, with all their mad ugliness. "The pictures in your grandfather's room were truer to him than that ugly picture that we saw," he said gravely. "Something tells me he was a good man; and it does not matter what his murderers did with his body."

"Oh, I am sick of his holy pictures and statues!" she said, turning her head away. "Why don't they defend themselves, if they are what you say they are? But rioters can knock off the Blessed Virgin's head and nothing happens to them. Oh, what's the good? You can't blame us, you daren't blame us, if we've found out that Man is stronger than God."

"Surely," said Father Brown very gently, "it is not generous to make even God's patience with us a point against Him."

"God may be patient and Man impatient," she answered, "and suppose we like the impatience better. You call it sacrilege; but you can't stop it."

Father Brown gave a curious little jump. "Sacrilege!" he said; and suddenly turned back to the doorway with a new brisk air of decision. At the same moment Flambeau appeared in the doorway, pale with excitement, with a screw of paper in his hands. Father Brown had already opened his mouth to speak, but his impetuous friend spoke before him.

"I'm on the track at last!" cried Flambeau. "These pills look the same, but they're really different. And do you know that, at the very moment I spotted them, that one-eyed brute of a gardener thrust his white face into the room; and he was carrying a horse-pistol. I knocked it out of his hand and threw him down the stairs, but I begin to understand everything. If I stay here another hour or two, I shall finish my job."

"Then you will not finish it," said the priest, with a ring in his voice very rare in him indeed. "We shall not stay here another hour. We shall not stay here another minute. We must leave this place at once!"

"What!" cried the astounded Flambeau. "Just when we are getting near the truth! Why, you can tell that we're getting near the truth because they are afraid of us."

Father Brown looked at him with a stony and inscrutable face, and said: "They are not afraid of us when we are here. They will only be afraid of us when we are not here."

They had both become conscious that the rather fidgety figure of Dr Flood was hovering in the lurid haze; now it precipitated itself forward with the wildest gestures.

"Stop! Listen!" cried the agitated doctor. "I have discovered the truth!"

"Then you can explain it to your own police," said Father Brown, briefly. "They ought to be coming soon. But we must be going."

The doctor seemed thrown into a whirlpool of emotions, eventually rising to the surface again with a despairing cry. He spread out his arms like a cross, barring their way.

"Be it so!" he cried. "I will not deceive you now, by saying I have discovered the truth. I will only confess the truth."

"Then you can confess it to your own priest," said Father Brown, and strode towards the garden gate, followed by his staring friend. Before he reached the gate, another figure had rushed athwart him like the wind; and Dunn the gardener was shouting at him some unintelligible derision at detectives who were running away from their job. Then the priest ducked just in time to dodge a blow from the horse-pistol, wielded like a club. But Dunn was just not in time to dodge a blow from the fist of Flambeau, which was like the club of Hercules. The two left Mr Dunn spread flat behind them on the path, and, passing out of the gate, went out and got into their car in silence. Flambeau only asked one brief question and Father Brown only answered: "Casterbury."

At last, after a long silence, the priest observed: "I could almost believe the storm belonged only to that garden, and came out of a storm in the soul."

"My friend," said Flambeau. "I have known you a long time, and when you show certain signs of certainty, I follow your lead. But I hope you are not going to tell me that you took me away from that fascinating job, because you did not like the atmosphere."

"Well, it was certainly a terrible atmosphere," replied Father Brown, calmly. "Dreadful and passionate and oppressive. And the most dreadful thing about it was this — that there was no hate in it at all."

"Somebody," suggested Flambeau, "seems to have had a slight dislike of grandpapa."

"Nobody had any dislike of anybody," said Father Brown with a groan. "That was the dreadful thing in that darkness. It was love."

"Curious way of expressing love — to strangle somebody and stick him with a sword," observed the other.

"It was love," repeated the priest, "and it filled the house with terror."

"Don't tell me," protested Flambeau, "that that beautiful woman is in love with that spider in spectacles."

"No," said Father Brown and groaned again. "She is in love with her husband. It is ghastly."