“I don’t think he’s flirting with her,” said Father Brown.
Even as he spoke the group in question turned at the end of the gallery and broke up, and Captain Musgrave came back to them in hasty strides.
“Look here,” he cried, speaking naturally enough, though they fancied his colour was changed. “I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Granby, but I find I can’t come north with you tomorrow. Of course, you will take the car all the same. Please do; I shan’t want it. I—I have to be in London for some days. Take a friend with you if you like.”
“My friend, Father Brown—” began the lawyer.
“If Captain Musgrave is really so kind,” said Father Brown gravely. “I may explain that I have some status in Mr. Granby’s inquiry, and it would be a great relief to my mind if I could go.”
Which was how it came about that a very elegant car, with an equally elegant chauffeur, shot north the next day over the Yorkshire moors, bearing the incongruous burden of a priest who looked rather like a black bundle, and a lawyer who had the habit of running about on his feet instead of racing on somebody else’s wheels.
They broke their journey very agreeably in one of the great dales of the West Riding, dining and sleeping at a comfortable inn, and starting early next day began to run along the Northumbrian coast till they reached a country that was a maze of sand dunes and rank sea meadows, somewhere in the heart of which lay the old Border castle which had remained so unique and yet so secretive a monument of the old Border wars. They found it at last, by following a path running beside a long arm of the sea that ran inland, and turned eventually into a sort of rude canal ending in the moat of the castle. The castle really was a castle, of the square, embattled plan that the Normans built everywhere from Galilee to the Grampians. It did really and truly have a portcullis and a drawbridge, and they were very realistically reminded of the fact by an accident that delayed their entrance.
They waded amid long coarse grass and thistle to the bank of the moat, which ran in a ribbon of black with dead leaves and scum upon it, like ebony inlaid with a pattern of gold. Barely a yard or two beyond the black ribbon was the other green bank and the big stone pillars of the gateway. But so little, it would seem, had this lonely fastness been approached from outside that when the impatient Granby halloed across to the dim figures behind the portcullis, they seemed to have considerable difficulty even in lowering the great rusty drawbridge. It started on its way, turning over like a great falling tower above them and then stuck, sticking out in midair at a threatening angle.
The impatient Granby, dancing upon the bank, called out to his companion:
“Oh, I can’t stand these stick-in-the-mud ways! Why, it’d be less trouble to jump.”
And with characteristic impetuosity he did jump, landing with a slight stagger in safety on the inner shore. Father Brown’s short legs were not adapted to jumping. But his temper was more adapted than most people’s to falling with a splash into very muddy water. By the promptitude of his companion he escaped falling in very far. But as he was being hauled up the green, slimy bank, he stopped with bent head, peering at a particular point upon the grassy slope.
“Are you botanizing?” asked Granby irritably. “We’ve got no time for you to collect rare plants after your last attempt as a diver among the wonders of the deep. Come on, muddy or no, we’ve got to present ourselves before the baronet.”
When they had penetrated into the castle, they were received courteously enough by an old servant, the only one in sight, and after indicating their business were shown into a long oak-panelled room with latticed windows of antiquated pattern. Weapons of many different centuries hung in balanced patterns on the dark walls, and a complete suit of fourteenth-century armour stood like a sentinel beside the large fireplace. In another long room beyond could be seen, through the half-open door, the dark colours of the rows of family portraits.
“I feel as if I’d got into a novel instead of a house,” said the lawyer. “I’d no idea anybody did really keep up the Mysteries of Udolpho in this fashion.”
“Yes; the old gentleman certainly carries out his historical craze consistently,” answered the priest; “and these things are not fakes, either. It’s not done by somebody who thinks all medieval people lived at the same time. Sometimes they make up suits of armour out of different bits; but that suit all covered one man, and covered him very completely. You, see it’s the late sort of tilting-armour.”
“I think he’s a late sort of host, if it comes to that,” grumbled Granby. “He’s keeping us waiting the devil of a time.”
“You must expect everything to go slowly in a place like this,” said Father Brown. “I think it’s very decent of him to see us at all: two total strangers come to ask him highly personal questions.”
And, indeed, when the master of the house appeared they had no reason to complain of their reception; but rather became conscious of something genuine in the traditions of breeding and behaviour that could retain their native dignity without difficulty in that barbarous solitude, and after those long years of rustication and moping. The baronet did not seem either surprised or embarrassed at the rare visitation; though they suspected that he had not had a stranger in his house for a quarter of a lifetime, he behaved as if he had been bowing out duchesses a moment before. He showed neither shyness nor impatience when they touched on the very private matter of their errand; after a little leisurely reflection he seemed to recognize their curiosity as justified under
