the park, where the third accomplice hooked him on to a tree. Remember the lane was always empty; remember the wall opposite was quite blank; remember it was all over in five minutes after the Irishman gave the signal with the pistol. There were three of them in it, of course; and I wonder whether you can all guess who they were.”
They were all three staring at the plain, square window and the blank, white wall beyond; and nobody answered.
“By the way,” went on Father Brown, “don’t think I blame you for jumping to preternatural conclusions. The reason’s very simple, really. You all swore you were hard-shelled materialists; and as a matter of fact you were all balanced on the very edge of belief—of belief in almost anything. There are thousands balanced on it today; but it’s a sharp, uncomfortable edge to sit on. You won’t rest till you believe something; that’s why Mr. Vandam went through new religions with a tooth-comb and Mr. Alboin quotes Scripture for his religion of breathing exercises, and Mr. Fenner grumbles at the very God he denies. That’s where you all split; it’s natural to believe in the supernatural. It never feels natural to accept only natural things. But though it wanted only a touch to tip you into preternaturalism about these things, these things really were only natural things. They were not only natural, they were almost unnaturally simple. I suppose there never was quite so simple a story as this.”
Fenner laughed and then looked puzzled. “I don’t understand one thing,” he said. “If it was Wilson, how did Wynd come to have a man like that on such intimate terms? How did he come to be killed by a man he’d seen every day for years? He was famous as being a judge of men.”
Father Brown thumped his umbrella on the ground with an emphasis he rarely showed.
“Yes,” he said, almost fiercely; “that was how he came to be killed. He was killed for just that. He was killed for being a judge of men.”
They all stared at him, but he went on, almost as if they were not there.
“What is any man that he should be a judge of men?” he demanded. “These three were the tramps that once stood before him and were dismissed rapidly right and left to one place or another; as if for them there were no cloak of courtesy, no stages of intimacy, no free will in friendship. And twenty years has not exhausted the indignation born of that unfathomable insult in that moment when he dared to know them at a glance.”
“Yes,” said the secretary; “I understand … and I understand how it is that you understand—all sorts of things.”
“Well, I’m blamed if I understand,” cried the breezy Western gentleman boisterously. “Your Wilson and your Irishman seem to be just a couple of cutthroat murderers who killed their benefactor. I’ve no use for a black and bloody assassin of that sort in my morality, whether it’s religion or not.”
“He was a black and bloody assassin, no doubt,” said Fenner, quietly. “I’m not defending him; but I suppose it’s Father Brown’s business to pray for all men, even for a man like—”
“Yes,” assented Father Brown, “it’s my business to pray for all men, even for a man like Warren Wynd.”
The Curse of the Golden Cross
Six people sat round a small table, seeming almost as incongruous and accidental as if they had been shipwrecked separately on the same small desert island. At least the sea surrounded them; for in one sense their island was enclosed in another island, a large and flying island like Laputa. For the little table was one of many little tables dotted about in the dining-saloon of that monstrous ship the Moravia, speeding through the night and the everlasting emptiness of the Atlantic. The little company had nothing in common except that all were travelling from America to England. Two of them at least might be called celebrities; others might be called obscure, and in one or two cases even dubious.
The first was the famous Professor Smaill, an authority on certain archaeological studies touching the later Byzantine Empire. His lectures, delivered in an American University, were accepted as of the first authority even in the most authoritative seats of learning in Europe. His literary works were so steeped in a mellow and imaginative sympathy with the European past, that it often gave strangers a start to hear him speak with an American accent. Yet he was in his way very American; he had long fair hair brushed back from a big square forehead, long straight features and a curious mixture of preoccupation with a poise of potential swiftness, like a lion pondering absentmindedly on his next leap.
There was only one lady in the group; and she was (as the journalists often said of her) a host in herself; being quite prepared to play hostess, not to say empress, at that or any other table. She was Lady Diana Wales, the celebrated lady traveller in tropical and other countries; but there was nothing rugged or masculine about her appearance at dinner. She was herself handsome in an almost tropical fashion, with a mass of hot and heavy red hair; she was dressed in what the journalists call a daring fashion, but her face was intelligent and her eyes had that bright and rather prominent appearance which belongs to the eyes of ladies who ask questions at political meetings.
The other four figures seemed at first like shadows in this shining presence; but they showed differences on a closer view. One of them was a young man entered on the ship’s register as Paul T. Tarrant. He was an American type which might be more truly called an American antitype. Every nation probably has an antitype; a sort of extreme exception that proves the national rule. Americans really respect work, rather as Europeans respect war. There is a halo of
