Father Brown seemed to take it quite naturally, and even casually, that he should be called in to consider the queer conduct of one of his flock, whether she was to be regarded as a black sheep or only as a lost lamb. But he did not seem to think much of the suggestion of suicide.
“I suppose there was some reason for her flying off the handle like that,” he said. “Does anybody know what it was?”
“Dissatisfied with her part, I believe,” said the older actor.
“They always are,” growled Mr. Mundon Mandeville. “And I thought my wife would look after those arrangements.”
“I can only say,” said Mrs. Mundon Mandeville rather wearily, “that I gave her what ought to be the best part. It’s supposed to be what stage-struck young women want, isn’t it—to act the beautiful young heroine and marry the beautiful young hero in a shower of bouquets and cheers from the gallery? Women of my age naturally have to fall back on acting respectable matrons, and I was careful to confine myself to that.”
“It would be devilish awkward to alter the parts now, anyhow,” said Randall.
“It’s not to be thought of,” declared Norman Knight firmly. “Why, I could hardly act—but anyhow it’s much too late.”
Father Brown had slipped forward and was standing outside the locked door listening.
“Is there no sound?” asked the manager anxiously; and then added in a lower voice: “Do you think she can have done herself in?”
“There is a certain sound,” replied Father Brown calmly. “I should be inclined to deduce from the sound that she is engaged in breaking windows or looking-glasses, probably with her feet. No; I do not think there is much danger of her going on to destroy herself. Breaking looking-glasses with your feet is a very unusual prelude to suicide. If she had been a German, gone away to think quietly about metaphysics and welt-schmerz, I should be all for breaking the door down. These Italians don’t really die so easily; and are not liable to kill themselves in a rage. Somebody else, perhaps … yes, possibly … it might be well to take ordinary precautions if she comes out with a leap.”
“So you’re not in favour of forcing the door?” asked Mandeville.
“Not if you want her to act in your play,” replied Father Brown. “If you do that, she’ll raise the roof and refuse to stay in the place; if you leave her alone she’ll probably come out from mere curiosity. If I were you, I should just leave somebody to guard the door, more or less, and trust to time for an hour or two.”
“In that case,” said Mandeville, “we can only get on with rehearsing the scenes where she doesn’t appear. My wife will arrange all that is necessary for scenery just now. After all, the fourth act is the main business. You had better get on with that.”
“Not a dress rehearsal,” said Mandeville’s wife to the others.
“Very well,” said Knight, “not a dress rehearsal, of course. I wish the dresses of the infernal period weren’t so elaborate.”
“What is the play?” asked the priest with a touch of curiosity.
“The School for Scandal,” said Mandeville. “It may be literature, but I want plays. My wife likes what she calls classical comedies. A long sight more classic than comic.”
At this moment the old doorkeeper, known as Sam, and the solitary inhabitant of the theatre during off-hours, came waddling up to the manager with a card, to say that Lady Miriam Marden wished to see him. He turned away, but Father Brown continued to blink steadily for a few seconds in the direction of the manager’s wife, and saw that her wan face wore a faint smile; not altogether a cheerful smile.
Father Brown moved off in company with the man who had brought him in, who happened, indeed, to be a friend and person of a similar persuasion, which is not uncommon among actors. As he moved off, however, he heard Mrs. Mandeville give quiet directions to Mrs. Sands that she should take up the post of watcher beside the closed door.
“Mrs. Mandeville seems to be an intelligent woman,” said the priest to his companion, “though she keeps so much in the background.”
“She was once a highly intellectual woman,” said Jarvis sadly; “rather washed-out and wasted, some would say, by marrying a bounder like Mandeville. She has the very highest ideals of the drama, you know; but, of course, it isn’t often she can get her lord and master to look at anything in that light. Do you know he actually wanted a woman like that to act as a pantomime boy? Admitted that she was a fine actress, but said pantomimes paid better. That will give you about a measure of his psychological insight and sensibility. But she never complained. As she said to me once: ‘Complaint always comes back in an echo from the ends of the world; but silence strengthens us.’ If only she were married to somebody who understood her ideas, she might have been one of the great actresses of the age; indeed the highbrow critics still think a lot of her. As it is, she is married to that.”
And he pointed to where the big black bulk of Mandeville stood with his back to them, talking to the ladies who had summoned him forth into the vestibule. Lady Miriam was a very long and languid and elegant lady, handsome in a recent fashion largely modelled on Egyptian mummies; her dark hair cut low and square, like a sort of helmet, and her lips very painted and prominent and giving her a permanent expression of contempt. Her companion was a very vivacious lady with an ugly attractive face and hair powdered with grey. She was a Miss Theresa Talbot and she talked a great deal, while her companion seemed too tired to talk at all. Only, just as the two men passed, Lady Miriam summoned up the energy to say:
“Plays are a bore;
