“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 markmanship 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.”
“I wish you would tell me more about it,” said Father Brown reflectively. “Who was Maurice Mair’s second?”
“He had a more distinguished backing,” replied the general grimly. “Hugo Romaine was his second; the great actor, you know. Maurice was mad on acting and had taken up Romaine (who was then a rising but still a struggling man), and financed the fellow and his ventures in return for taking lessons from the professional in his own hobby of amateur acting. But Romaine was then, I suppose, practically dependant on his rich friend; though he’s richer now than any aristocrat. So his serving as second proves very little about what he thought of the quarrel. They fought in the English fashion, with only one second apiece; I wanted at least to have a surgeon, but Maurice boisterously refused it, saying the fewer people who knew the better, and at the worst we could immediately get help. ‘There’s a doctor in the village not half a mile away,’ he said; ‘I know him and he’s got the fastest horse in the country. He could be brought here in no time; but there’s no need to bring him here till we know.’ Well, we all
