If (to pursue the same vein2 of improbable conjecture) you were to meet a mild, hard-working little priest, named Father Brown, and were to ask him what he thought was the most singular luck of his life, he would probably reply that upon the whole his best stroke was at the Vernon Hotel, where he had averted3 a crime and, perhaps, saved a soul, merely by listening to a few footsteps in a passage. He is perhaps a little proud of this wild and wonderful guess of his, and it is possible that he might refer to it. But since it is immeasurably unlikely that you will ever rise high enough in the social world to find “The Twelve True Fishermen,” or that you will ever sink low enough among slums and criminals to find Father Brown, I fear you will never hear the story at all unless you hear it from me.
The Vernon Hotel at which The Twelve True Fishermen held their annual dinners was an institution such as can only exist in an oligarchical5 society which has almost gone mad on good manners. It was that topsy-turvy product—an “exclusive” commercial enterprise. That is, it was a thing which paid not by attracting people, but actually by turning people away. In the heart of a plutocracy7 tradesmen become cunning enough to be more fastidious than their customers. They positively8 create difficulties so that their wealthy and weary clients may spend money and diplomacy9 in overcoming them. If there were a fashionable hotel in London which no man could enter who was under six foot, society would meekly11 make up parties of six-foot men to dine in it. If there were an expensive restaurant which by a mere4 caprice of its proprietor12 was only open on Thursday afternoon, it would be crowded on Thursday afternoon. The Vernon Hotel stood, as if by accident, in the corner of a square in Belgravia. It was a small hotel; and a very inconvenient13 one. But its very inconveniences were considered as walls protecting a particular class. One inconvenience, in particular, was held to be of vital importance: the fact that practically only twenty-four people could dine in the place at once. The only big dinner table was the celebrated14 terrace table, which stood open to the air on a sort of veranda15 overlooking one of the most exquisite16 old gardens in London. Thus it happened that even the twenty-four seats at this table could only be enjoyed in warm weather; and this making the enjoyment17 yet more difficult made it yet more desired. The existing owner of the hotel was a Jew named Lever; and he made nearly a million out of it, by making it difficult to get into. Of course he combined with this limitation in the scope of his enterprise the most careful polish in its performance. The wines and cooking were really as good as any in Europe, and the demeanour of the attendants exactly mirrored the fixed18 mood of the English upper class. The proprietor knew all his waiters like the fingers on his hand; there were only fifteen of them all told. It was much easier to become a Member of Parliament than to become a waiter in that hotel. Each waiter was trained in terrible silence and smoothness, as if he were a gentleman’s servant. And, indeed, there was generally at least one waiter to every gentleman who dined.
The club of The Twelve True Fishermen would not have consented to dine anywhere but in such a place, for it insisted on a luxurious19 privacy; and would have been quite upset by the mere thought that any other club was even dining in the same building. On the occasion of their annual dinner the Fishermen were in the habit of exposing all their treasures, as if they were in a private house, especially the celebrated set of fish knives and forks which were, as it were, the insignia of the society, each being exquisitely21 wrought22 in silver in the form of a fish, and each loaded at the hilt with one large pearl. These were always laid out for the fish course, and the fish course was always the most magnificent in that magnificent repast. The society had a vast number of ceremonies and observances, but it had no history and no object; that was where it was so very aristocratic. You did not have to be anything in order to be one of the Twelve Fishers; unless you were already a certain sort of person, you never even heard of them. It had been in existence twelve years. Its president was Mr. Audley. Its vice-president was the Duke of Chester.
If I have in any degree conveyed the atmosphere of this appalling24 hotel, the reader may feel a natural wonder as to how I came to know anything about it, and may even speculate as to how so ordinary a person as my friend Father Brown came to find himself in that golden galley25. As far as that is concerned, my story is simple, or even vulgar. There is in the world a very aged26 rioter and demagogue who breaks into the most refined retreats with the dreadful information that all men are brothers, and wherever this leveller went on his pale horse it was Father Brown’s trade to follow. One of the waiters, an Italian, had been struck down with a paralytic27 stroke that afternoon; and his Jewish employer, marvelling28 mildly at such superstitions29, had consented to send for the nearest Popish priest. With what the waiter confessed to Father Brown we are not concerned, for the excellent reason that that cleric kept it to himself; but apparently30 it involved him in writing out a note or statement for the conveying of some message or the righting of some wrong. Father Brown, therefore, with a meek10 impudence31 which he would have shown equally in Buckingham Palace, asked to be provided with a room and writing materials. Mr. Lever was torn in two. He was a kind man, and had also that bad imitation of kindness, the dislike of any difficulty or scene. At the same time the presence of one unusual stranger in his hotel that evening was like a speck32 of dirt on something just cleaned. There was never any borderland or anteroom in the Vernon Hotel, no people waiting in the hall, no customers coming in on chance. There were fifteen waiters. There were twelve guests. It would be as startling to find a new guest in the hotel that night as to find a new brother taking breakfast or tea in one’s own family. Moreover, the priest’s appearance was second-rate and his clothes muddy; a mere glimpse of him afar off might precipitate33 a crisis in the club. Mr. Lever at last hit on a plan to cover, since he might not obliterate34, the disgrace. When you enter (as you never will) the Vernon Hotel, you pass down a short passage decorated with a few dingy35 but important pictures, and come to the main vestibule and lounge which opens on your right into passages leading to the public rooms, and on your left to a similar passage pointing to the kitchens and offices of the hotel. Immediately on your left hand is the corner of a glass office, which abuts36 upon the lounge—a house within a house, so to speak, like the old hotel bar which probably once occupied its place.
In this office sat the representative of the proprietor (nobody in this place ever appeared in person if he could help it), and just beyond the office, on the way to the servants’ quarters, was the gentlemen’s cloak room, the last boundary of the gentlemen’s domain37. But between the office and the cloak room was a small private room without other outlet38, sometimes used by the proprietor for delicate and important matters, such as lending a duke a thousand pounds or declining to lend him sixpence. It is a mark of the magnificent tolerance40 of Mr. Lever that he permitted this holy place to be for about half an hour profaned41 by a mere priest, scribbling42 away on a piece of paper. The story which Father Brown was writing down was very likely a much better story than this one, only it will never be known. I can merely state that it was very nearly as long, and that the last two or three paragraphs of it were the least exciting and absorbing.
For it was by the time that he had reached these that the priest began a little to allow his thoughts to wander and his animal senses, which were commonly keen, to awaken43. The time of darkness and dinner was drawing on; his own forgotten little room was without a light, and perhaps the gathering44 gloom, as occasionally happens, sharpened the sense of sound. As Father Brown wrote the last and least essential part of his document, he caught himself writing to the rhythm of a recurrent noise outside, just as one sometimes thinks to the tune45 of a railway train. When he became conscious of the thing he found what it was: only the ordinary patter of feet passing the door, which in an hotel was no very unlikely matter. Nevertheless, he stared at the darkened ceiling, and listened to the sound. After he had listened for a few seconds dreamily, he got to his feet and listened intently, with his head a little on one side. Then he sat down again and buried his brow in his hands, now not merely listening, but listening and thinking also.
The footsteps outside at any given moment were such as one might hear in any hotel; and yet, taken as a whole, there was something very strange about them. There were no other footsteps. It was always a very silent house, for the few familiar guests went at once to their own apartments, and the well-trained waiters were told to be almost invisible until they were wanted. One could not conceive any place where there was less reason to apprehend46 anything irregular. But these footsteps were so odd that one could not decide to call them regular or irregular. Father Brown followed them with his finger on the edge of the table, like a man trying to learn a tune on the piano.
First, there came a long rush of rapid little steps, such as a light man might make in winning a walking race. At a certain point they stopped and changed to a sort of slow, swinging stamp, numbering not a quarter of the steps, but occupying about the same time. The moment the last echoing stamp had died away would come again the run or ripple47 of light, hurrying feet, and then again the thud of the heavier walking. It was certainly the same pair of boots, partly because (as has been said) there were no other boots about, and partly because they had a small but unmistakable creak in them. Father Brown had the kind of head that cannot help asking questions; and on this apparently trivial question his head almost split. He had seen men run in order to jump. He had seen men run in order to slide. But why on earth should a man run in order to walk? Or, again, why should he walk in order to run? Yet no other description would cover the antics of this invisible pair of legs. The man was either walking very fast down one-half of the corridor in order to walk very slow down the other half; or he was walking very slow at one end to have the rapture48 of walking fast at the other. Neither suggestion seemed to make much sense. His brain was growing darker and darker, like his room.
Yet, as he began to think steadily49, the very blackness of his cell seemed to make his thoughts more vivid; he began to see as in a kind of vision the fantastic feet capering50 along the corridor in unnatural51 or symbolic52 attitudes. Was it a heathen religious dance? Or some entirely53 new kind of scientific exercise? Father Brown began to ask himself with more exactness what the steps suggested. Taking the slow step first: it certainly was not the step of the proprietor. Men of his type walk with a rapid waddle54, or they sit still. It could not be any servant or messenger waiting for directions. It did not sound like it. The poorer orders (in an oligarchy) sometimes lurch55 about when they are slightly drunk, but generally, and especially in such gorgeous scenes, they stand or sit in constrained56 attitudes. No; that heavy yet springy step, with a kind of careless emphasis, not specially20 noisy, yet not caring what noise it made, belonged to only one of the animals of this earth. It was a gentleman of western Europe, and probably one who had never worked for his living.
Just as he came to this solid certainty, the step changed to the quicker one, and ran past the door as feverishly57 as a rat. The listener remarked that though this step was much swifter it was also much more noiseless, almost as if the man were walking on tiptoe. Yet it was not associated in his mind with secrecy58, but with something else—something that he could not remember. He was maddened by one of those half-memories that make a man feel half-witted. Surely he had heard that strange, swift walking somewhere. Suddenly he sprang to his feet with a new idea in his head, and walked to the door. His room had no direct outlet on the passage, but let on one side into the glass office, and on the other into the cloak room beyond. He tried the door into the office, and found it locked. Then he looked at the window, now a square pane59 full of purple cloud cleft60 by livid sunset, and for an instant he smelt61 evil as a dog smells rats.
The rational part of him (whether the wiser or not) regained62 its supremacy63. He remembered that the proprietor had told him that he should lock the door, and would come later to release him. He told himself that twenty things he had not thought of might explain the eccentric sounds outside; he reminded himself that there was just enough light left to finish his own proper work. Bringing his paper to the window so as to catch the last stormy evening light, he resolutely64 plunged65 once more into the almost completed record. He had written for about twenty minutes, bending closer and closer to his paper in the lessening66 light; then suddenly he sat upright. He had heard the strange feet once more.
This time they had a third oddity. Previously67 the unknown man had walked, with levity68 indeed and lightning quickness, but he had walked. This time he ran. One could hear the swift, soft, bounding steps coming along the corridor, like the pads of a fleeing and leaping panther. Whoever was coming was a very strong, active man, in still yet tearing excitement. Yet, when the sound had swept up to the office like a sort of whispering whirlwind, it suddenly changed again to the old slow, swaggering stamp.
Father Brown flung down his paper, and, knowing the office door to be locked, went at once into the cloak room on the other side. The attendant of this place was temporarily absent, probably because the only guests were at dinner and his office was a sinecure69. After groping through a grey forest of overcoats, he found that the dim cloak room opened on the lighted corridor in the form of a sort of counter or half-door, like most of the counters across which we have all handed umbrellas and received tickets. There was a light immediately above the semicircular arch of this opening. It threw little illumination on Father Brown himself, who seemed a mere dark outline against the dim sunset window behind him. But it threw an almost theatrical70 light on the man who stood outside the cloak room in the corridor.
He was an elegant man in very plain evening dress; tall, but with an air of not taking up much room; one felt that he could have slid along like a shadow where many smaller men would have been obvious and obstructive. His face, now flung back in the lamplight, was swarthy and vivacious71, the face of a foreigner. His figure was good, his manners good humoured and confident; a critic could only say that his black coat was a shade below his figure and manners, and even bulged72 and bagged in an odd way. The moment he caught sight of Brown’s black silhouette73 against the sunset, he tossed down a scrap74 of paper with a number and called out with amiable75 authority: “I want my hat and coat, please; I find I have to go away at once.”
Father Brown took the paper without a word, and obediently went to look for the coat; it was not the first menial work he had done in his life. He brought it and laid it on the counter; meanwhile, the strange gentleman who had been feeling in his waistcoat pocket, said laughing: “I haven’t got any silver; you can keep this.” And he threw down half a sovereign, and caught up his coat.
Father Brown’s figure remained quite dark and still; but in that instant he had lost his head. His head was always most valuable when he had lost it. In such moments he put two and two together and made four million. Often the Catholic Church (which is wedded76 to common sense) did not approve of it. Often he did not approve of it himself. But it was real inspiration—important at rare crises—when whosoever shall lose his head the same shall save it.
“I think, sir,” he said civilly, “that you have some silver in your pocket.”
The tall gentleman stared. “Hang it,” he cried, “if I choose to give you gold, why should you complain?”
“Because silver is sometimes more valuable than gold,” said the priest mildly; “that is, in large quantities.”
The stranger looked at him curiously77. Then he looked still more curiously up the passage towards the main entrance. Then he looked back at Brown again, and then he looked very carefully at the window beyond Brown’s head, still coloured with the after-glow of the storm. Then he seemed to make up his mind. He put one hand on the counter, vaulted78 over as easily as an acrobat79 and towered above the priest, putting one tremendous hand upon his collar.
“I do want to threaten you,” said Father Brown, in a voice like a rolling drum, “I want to threaten you with the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched81.”
“You’re a rum sort of cloak-room clerk,” said the other.
“I am a priest, Monsieur Flambeau,” said Brown, “and I am ready to hear your confession82.”
The first two courses of the dinner of The Twelve True Fishermen had proceeded with placid84 success. I do not possess a copy of the menu; and if I did it would not convey anything to anybody. It was written in a sort of super-French employed by cooks, but quite unintelligible85 to Frenchmen. There was a tradition in the club that the hors d’oeuvres should be various and manifold to the point of madness. They were taken seriously because they were avowedly86 useless extras, like the whole dinner and the whole club. There was also a tradition that the soup course should be light and unpretending—a sort of simple and austere87 vigil for the feast of fish that was to come. The talk was that strange, slight talk which governs the British Empire, which governs it in secret, and yet would scarcely enlighten an ordinary Englishman even if he could overhear it. Cabinet ministers on both sides were alluded88 to by their Christian89 names with a sort of bored benignity90. The Radical91 Chancellor92 of the Exchequer93, whom the whole Tory party was supposed to be cursing for his extortions, was praised for his minor94 poetry, or his saddle in the hunting field. The Tory leader, whom all Liberals were supposed to hate as a tyrant95, was discussed and, on the whole, praised—as a Liberal. It seemed somehow that politicians were very important. And yet, anything seemed important about them except their politics. Mr. Audley, the chairman, was an amiable, elderly man who still wore Gladstone collars; he was a kind of symbol of all that phantasmal and yet fixed society. He had never done anything—not even anything wrong. He was not fast; he was not even particularly rich. He was simply in the thing; and there was an end of it. No party could ignore him, and if he had wished to be in the Cabinet he certainly would have been put there. The Duke of Chester, the vice-president, was a young and rising politician. That is to say, he was a pleasant youth, with flat, fair hair and a freckled96 face, with moderate intelligence and enormous estates. In public his appearances were always successful and his principle was simple enough. When he thought of a joke he made it, and was called brilliant. When he could not think of a joke he said that this was no time for trifling97, and was called able. In private, in a club of his own class, he was simply quite pleasantly frank and silly, like a schoolboy. Mr. Audley, never having been in politics, treated them a little more seriously. Sometimes he even embarrassed the company by phrases suggesting that there was some difference between a Liberal and a Conservative. He himself was a Conservative, even in private life. He had a roll of grey hair over the back of his collar, like certain old-fashioned statesmen, and seen from behind he looked like the man the empire wants. Seen from the front he looked like a mild, self-indulgent bachelor, with rooms in the Albany—which he was.
As has been remarked, there were twenty-four seats at the terrace table, and only twelve members of the club. Thus they could occupy the terrace in the most luxurious style of all, being ranged along the inner side of the table, with no one opposite, commanding an uninterrupted view of the garden, the colours of which were still vivid, though evening was closing in somewhat luridly98 for the time of year. The chairman sat in the centre of the line, and the vice-president at the right-hand end of it. When the twelve guests first trooped into their seats it was the custom (for some unknown reason) for all the fifteen waiters to stand lining39 the wall like troops presenting arms to the king, while the fat proprietor stood and bowed to the club with radiant surprise, as if he had never heard of them before. But before the first chink of knife and fork this army of retainers had vanished, only the one or two required to collect and distribute the plates darting99 about in deathly silence. Mr. Lever, the proprietor, of course had disappeared in convulsions of courtesy long before. It would be exaggerative, indeed irreverent, to say that he ever positively appeared again. But when the important course, the fish course, was being brought on, there was—how shall I put it?—a vivid shadow, a projection100 of his personality, which told that he was hovering101 near. The sacred fish course consisted (to the eyes of the vulgar) in a sort of monstrous102 pudding, about the size and shape of a wedding cake, in which some considerable number of interesting fishes had finally lost the shapes which God had given to them. The Twelve True Fishermen took up their celebrated fish knives and fish forks, and approached it as gravely as if every inch of the pudding cost as much as the silver fork it was eaten with. So it did, for all I know. This course was dealt with in eager and devouring103 silence; and it was only when his plate was nearly empty that the young duke made the ritual remark: “They can’t do this anywhere but here.”
“Nowhere,” said Mr. Audley, in a deep bass104 voice, turning to the speaker and nodding his venerable head a number of times. “Nowhere, assuredly, except here. It was represented to me that at the Cafe Anglais—”
Here he was interrupted and even agitated105 for a moment by the removal of his plate, but he recaptured the valuable thread of his thoughts. “It was represented to me that the same could be done at the Cafe Anglais. Nothing like it, sir,” he said, shaking his head ruthlessly, like a hanging judge. “Nothing like it.”
“Overrated place,” said a certain Colonel Pound, speaking (by the look of him) for the first time for some months.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the Duke of Chester, who was an optimist106, “it’s jolly good for some things. You can’t beat it at—”
A waiter came swiftly along the room, and then stopped dead. His stoppage was as silent as his tread; but all those vague and kindly107 gentlemen were so used to the utter smoothness of the unseen machinery108 which surrounded and supported their lives, that a waiter doing anything unexpected was a start and a jar. They felt as you and I would feel if the inanimate world disobeyed—if a chair ran away from us.
The waiter stood staring a few seconds, while there deepened on every face at table a strange shame which is wholly the product of our time. It is the combination of modern humanitarianism109 with the horrible modern abyss between the souls of the rich and poor. A genuine historic aristocrat23 would have thrown things at the waiter, beginning with empty bottles, and very probably ending with money. A genuine democrat110 would have asked him, with comrade-like clearness of speech, what the devil he was doing. But these modern plutocrats could not bear a poor man near to them, either as a slave or as a friend. That something had gone wrong with the servants was merely a dull, hot embarrassment111. They did not want to be brutal112, and they dreaded113 the need to be benevolent114. They wanted the thing, whatever it was, to be over. It was over. The waiter, after standing115 for some seconds rigid116, like a cataleptic, turned round and ran madly out of the room.
When he reappeared in the room, or rather in the doorway117, it was in company with another waiter, with whom he whispered and gesticulated with southern fierceness. Then the first waiter went away, leaving the second waiter, and reappeared with a third waiter. By the time a fourth waiter had joined this hurried synod, Mr. Audley felt it necessary to break the silence in the interests of Tact118. He used a very loud cough, instead of a presidential hammer, and said: “Splendid work young Moocher’s doing in Burmah. Now, no other nation in the world could have—”
A fifth waiter had sped towards him like an arrow, and was whispering in his ear: “So sorry. Important! Might the proprietor speak to you?”
The chairman turned in disorder119, and with a dazed stare saw Mr. Lever coming towards them with his lumbering120 quickness. The gait of the good proprietor was indeed his usual gait, but his face was by no means usual. Generally it was a genial121 copper-brown; now it was a sickly yellow.
“You will pardon me, Mr. Audley,” he said, with asthmatic breathlessness. “I have great apprehensions122. Your fish-plates, they are cleared away with the knife and fork on them!”
“Well, I hope so,” said the chairman, with some warmth.
“You see him?” panted the excited hotel keeper; “you see the waiter who took them away? You know him?”
“Know the waiter?” answered Mr. Audley indignantly. “Certainly not!”
Mr. Lever opened his hands with a gesture of agony. “I never send him,” he said. “I know not when or why he come. I send my waiter to take away the plates, and he find them already away.”
Mr. Audley still looked rather too bewildered to be really the man the empire wants; none of the company could say anything except the man of wood—Colonel Pound—who seemed galvanised into an unnatural life. He rose rigidly123 from his chair, leaving all the rest sitting, screwed his eyeglass into his eye, and spoke124 in a raucous125 undertone as if he had half-forgotten how to speak. “Do you mean,” he said, “that somebody has stolen our silver fish service?”
The proprietor repeated the open-handed gesture with even greater helplessness and in a flash all the men at the table were on their feet.
“Are all your waiters here?” demanded the colonel, in his low, harsh accent.
“Yes; they’re all here. I noticed it myself,” cried the young duke, pushing his boyish face into the inmost ring. “Always count ‘em as I come in; they look so queer standing up against the wall.”
“But surely one cannot exactly remember,” began Mr. Audley, with heavy hesitation126.
“I remember exactly, I tell you,” cried the duke excitedly. “There never have been more than fifteen waiters at this place, and there were no more than fifteen tonight, I’ll swear; no more and no less.”
The proprietor turned upon him, quaking in a kind of palsy of surprise. “You say—you say,” he stammered127, “that you see all my fifteen waiters?”
“Nothing,” said Lever, with a deepening accent, “only you did not. For one of zem is dead upstairs.”
There was a shocking stillness for an instant in that room. It may be (so supernatural is the word death) that each of those idle men looked for a second at his soul, and saw it as a small dried pea. One of them—the duke, I think—even said with the idiotic129 kindness of wealth: “Is there anything we can do?”
“He has had a priest,” said the Jew, not untouched.
Then, as to the clang of doom130, they awoke to their own position. For a few weird131 seconds they had really felt as if the fifteenth waiter might be the ghost of the dead man upstairs. They had been dumb under that oppression, for ghosts were to them an embarrassment, like beggars. But the remembrance of the silver broke the spell of the miraculous132; broke it abruptly133 and with a brutal reaction. The colonel flung over his chair and strode to the door. “If there was a fifteenth man here, friends,” he said, “that fifteenth fellow was a thief. Down at once to the front and back doors and secure everything; then we’ll talk. The twenty-four pearls of the club are worth recovering.”
Mr. Audley seemed at first to hesitate about whether it was gentlemanly to be in such a hurry about anything; but, seeing the duke dash down the stairs with youthful energy, he followed with a more mature motion.
At the same instant a sixth waiter ran into the room, and declared that he had found the pile of fish plates on a sideboard, with no trace of the silver.
The crowd of diners and attendants that tumbled helter-skelter down the passages divided into two groups. Most of the Fishermen followed the proprietor to the front room to demand news of any exit. Colonel Pound, with the chairman, the vice-president, and one or two others darted134 down the corridor leading to the servants’ quarters, as the more likely line of escape. As they did so they passed the dim alcove135 or cavern136 of the cloak room, and saw a short, black-coated figure, presumably an attendant, standing a little way back in the shadow of it.
“Hallo, there!” called out the duke. “Have you seen anyone pass?”
The short figure did not answer the question directly, but merely said: “Perhaps I have got what you are looking for, gentlemen.”
They paused, wavering and wondering, while he quietly went to the back of the cloak room, and came back with both hands full of shining silver, which he laid out on the counter as calmly as a salesman. It took the form of a dozen quaintly137 shaped forks and knives.
“You—you—” began the colonel, quite thrown off his balance at last. Then he peered into the dim little room and saw two things: first, that the short, black-clad man was dressed like a clergyman; and, second, that the window of the room behind him was burst, as if someone had passed violently through. “Valuable things to deposit in a cloak room, aren’t they?” remarked the clergyman, with cheerful composure.
“Did—did you steal those things?” stammered Mr. Audley, with staring eyes.
“If I did,” said the cleric pleasantly, “at least I am bringing them back again.”
“But you didn’t,” said Colonel Pound, still staring at the broken window.
“To make a clean breast of it, I didn’t,” said the other, with some humour. And he seated himself quite gravely on a stool. “But you know who did,” said the, colonel.
“I don’t know his real name,” said the priest placidly138, “but I know something of his fighting weight, and a great deal about his spiritual difficulties. I formed the physical estimate when he was trying to throttle139 me, and the moral estimate when he repented140.”
“Oh, I say—repented!” cried young Chester, with a sort of crow of laughter.
Father Brown got to his feet, putting his hands behind him. “Odd, isn’t it,” he said, “that a thief and a vagabond should repent141, when so many who are rich and secure remain hard and frivolous142, and without fruit for God or man? But there, if you will excuse me, you trespass143 a little upon my province. If you doubt the penitence144 as a practical fact, there are your knives and forks. You are The Twelve True Fishers, and there are all your silver fish. But He has made me a fisher of men.”
“Did you catch this man?” asked the colonel, frowning.
Father Brown looked him full in his frowning face. “Yes,” he said, “I caught him, with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, and still to bring him back with a twitch145 upon the thread.”
There was a long silence. All the other men present drifted away to carry the recovered silver to their comrades, or to consult the proprietor about the queer condition of affairs. But the grim-faced colonel still sat sideways on the counter, swinging his long, lank146 legs and biting his dark moustache.
At last he said quietly to the priest: “He must have been a clever fellow, but I think I know a cleverer.”
“He was a clever fellow,” answered the other, “but I am not quite sure of what other you mean.”
“I mean you,” said the colonel, with a short laugh. “I don’t want to get the fellow jailed; make yourself easy about that. But I’d give a good many silver forks to know exactly how you fell into this affair, and how you got the stuff out of him. I reckon you’re the most up-to-date devil of the present company.”
Father Brown seemed rather to like the saturnine147 candour of the soldier. “Well,” he said, smiling, “I mustn’t tell you anything of the man’s identity, or his own story, of course; but there’s no particular reason why I shouldn’t tell you of the mere outside facts which I found out for myself.”
He hopped148 over the barrier with unexpected activity, and sat beside Colonel Pound, kicking his short legs like a little boy on a gate. He began to tell the story as easily as if he were telling it to an old friend by a Christmas fire.
“You see, colonel,” he said, “I was shut up in that small room there doing some writing, when I heard a pair of feet in this passage doing a dance that was as queer as the dance of death. First came quick, funny little steps, like a man walking on tiptoe for a wager149; then came slow, careless, creaking steps, as of a big man walking about with a cigar. But they were both made by the same feet, I swear, and they came in rotation150; first the run and then the walk, and then the run again. I wondered at first idly and then wildly why a man should act these two parts at once. One walk I knew; it was just like yours, colonel. It was the walk of a well-fed gentleman waiting for something, who strolls about rather because he is physically151 alert than because he is mentally impatient. I knew that I knew the other walk, too, but I could not remember what it was. What wild creature had I met on my travels that tore along on tiptoe in that extraordinary style? Then I heard a clink of plates somewhere; and the answer stood up as plain as St. Peter’s. It was the walk of a waiter—that walk with the body slanted152 forward, the eyes looking down, the ball of the toe spurning153 away the ground, the coat tails and napkin flying. Then I thought for a minute and a half more. And I believe I saw the manner of the crime, as clearly as if I were going to commit it.”
Colonel Pound looked at him keenly, but the speaker’s mild grey eyes were fixed upon the ceiling with almost empty wistfulness.
“A crime,” he said slowly, “is like any other work of art. Don’t look surprised; crimes are by no means the only works of art that come from an infernal workshop. But every work of art, divine or diabolic, has one indispensable mark—I mean, that the centre of it is simple, however much the fulfilment may be complicated. Thus, in Hamlet, let us say, the grotesqueness154 of the grave-digger, the flowers of the mad girl, the fantastic finery of Osric, the pallor of the ghost and the grin of the skull155 are all oddities in a sort of tangled156 wreath round one plain tragic157 figure of a man in black. Well, this also,” he said, getting slowly down from his seat with a smile, “this also is the plain tragedy of a man in black. Yes,” he went on, seeing the colonel look up in some wonder, “the whole of this tale turns on a black coat. In this, as in Hamlet, there are the rococo158 excrescences—yourselves, let us say. There is the dead waiter, who was there when he could not be there. There is the invisible hand that swept your table clear of silver and melted into air. But every clever crime is founded ultimately on some one quite simple fact—some fact that is not itself mysterious. The mystification comes in covering it up, in leading men’s thoughts away from it. This large and subtle and (in the ordinary course) most profitable crime, was built on the plain fact that a gentleman’s evening dress is the same as a waiter’s. All the rest was acting6, and thundering good acting, too.”
“Still,” said the colonel, getting up and frowning at his boots, “I am not sure that I understand.”
“Colonel,” said Father Brown, “I tell you that this archangel of impudence who stole your forks walked up and down this passage twenty times in the blaze of all the lamps, in the glare of all the eyes. He did not go and hide in dim corners where suspicion might have searched for him. He kept constantly on the move in the lighted corridors, and everywhere that he went he seemed to be there by right. Don’t ask me what he was like; you have seen him yourself six or seven times tonight. You were waiting with all the other grand people in the reception room at the end of the passage there, with the terrace just beyond. Whenever he came among you gentlemen, he came in the lightning style of a waiter, with bent159 head, flapping napkin and flying feet. He shot out on to the terrace, did something to the table cloth, and shot back again towards the office and the waiters’ quarters. By the time he had come under the eye of the office clerk and the waiters he had become another man in every inch of his body, in every instinctive160 gesture. He strolled among the servants with the absent-minded insolence161 which they have all seen in their patrons. It was no new thing to them that a swell162 from the dinner party should pace all parts of the house like an animal at the Zoo; they know that nothing marks the Smart Set more than a habit of walking where one chooses. When he was magnificently weary of walking down that particular passage he would wheel round and pace back past the office; in the shadow of the arch just beyond he was altered as by a blast of magic, and went hurrying forward again among the Twelve Fishermen, an obsequious163 attendant. Why should the gentlemen look at a chance waiter? Why should the waiters suspect a first-rate walking gentleman? Once or twice he played the coolest tricks. In the proprietor’s private quarters he called out breezily for a syphon of soda164 water, saying he was thirsty. He said genially165 that he would carry it himself, and he did; he carried it quickly and correctly through the thick of you, a waiter with an obvious errand. Of course, it could not have been kept up long, but it only had to be kept up till the end of the fish course.
“His worst moment was when the waiters stood in a row; but even then he contrived166 to lean against the wall just round the corner in such a way that for that important instant the waiters thought him a gentleman, while the gentlemen thought him a waiter. The rest went like winking167. If any waiter caught him away from the table, that waiter caught a languid aristocrat. He had only to time himself two minutes before the fish was cleared, become a swift servant, and clear it himself. He put the plates down on a sideboard, stuffed the silver in his breast pocket, giving it a bulgy168 look, and ran like a hare (I heard him coming) till he came to the cloak room. There he had only to be a plutocrat again—a plutocrat called away suddenly on business. He had only to give his ticket to the cloak-room attendant, and go out again elegantly as he had come in. Only—only I happened to be the cloak-room attendant.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the priest immovably, “that is where the story ends.”
“And the interesting story begins,” muttered Pound. “I think I understand his professional trick. But I don’t seem to have got hold of yours.”
“I must be going,” said Father Brown.
They walked together along the passage to the entrance hall, where they saw the fresh, freckled face of the Duke of Chester, who was bounding buoyantly along towards them.
“Come along, Pound,” he cried breathlessly. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. The dinner’s going again in spanking170 style, and old Audley has got to make a speech in honour of the forks being saved. We want to start some new ceremony, don’t you know, to commemorate171 the occasion. I say, you really got the goods back, what do you suggest?”
“Why,” said the colonel, eyeing him with a certain sardonic172 approval, “I should suggest that henceforward we wear green coats, instead of black. One never knows what mistakes may arise when one looks so like a waiter.”
“Oh, hang it all!” said the young man, “a gentleman never looks like a waiter.”
“Nor a waiter like a gentleman, I suppose,” said Colonel Pound, with the same lowering laughter on his face. “Reverend sir, your friend must have been very smart to act the gentleman.”
Father Brown buttoned up his commonplace overcoat to the neck, for the night was stormy, and took his commonplace umbrella from the stand.
“Yes,” he said; “it must be very hard work to be a gentleman; but, do you know, I have sometimes thought that it may be almost as laborious173 to be a waiter.”
And saying “Good evening,” he pushed open the heavy doors of that palace of pleasures. The golden gates closed behind him, and he went at a brisk walk through the damp, dark streets in search of a penny omnibus.
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1
audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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3
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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4
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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oligarchical
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| adj.寡头政治的，主张寡头政治的 | |
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6
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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plutocracy
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| n.富豪统治 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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10
meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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11
meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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12
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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13
inconvenient
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| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
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14
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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15
veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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16
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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17
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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18
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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19
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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20
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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21
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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22
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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23
aristocrat
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| n.贵族，有贵族气派的人，上层人物 | |
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24
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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25
galley
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| n.（飞机或船上的）厨房单层甲板大帆船；军舰舰长用的大划艇； | |
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26
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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27
paralytic
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| adj. 瘫痪的 n. 瘫痪病人 | |
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28
marvelling
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| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的现在分词 ) | |
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29
superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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30
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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31
impudence
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| n.厚颜无耻；冒失；无礼 | |
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32
speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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33
precipitate
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| adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物 | |
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34
obliterate
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| v.擦去，涂抹，去掉...痕迹，消失，除去 | |
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35
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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36
abuts
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| v.（与…）邻接( abut的第三人称单数 )；（与…）毗连；接触；倚靠 | |
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37
domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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38
outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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39
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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40
tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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41
profaned
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| v.不敬( profane的过去式和过去分词 )；亵渎，玷污 | |
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42
scribbling
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| n.乱涂[写]胡[乱]写的文章[作品]v.潦草的书写( scribble的现在分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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43
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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44
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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45
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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46
apprehend
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| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
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47
ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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48
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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49
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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50
capering
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| v.跳跃，雀跃( caper的现在分词 )；蹦蹦跳跳 | |
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51
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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52
symbolic
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| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
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53
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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54
waddle
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| vi.摇摆地走；n.摇摆的走路(样子) | |
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55
lurch
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| n.突然向前或旁边倒；v.蹒跚而行 | |
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56
constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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57
feverishly
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| adv. 兴奋地 | |
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58
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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59
pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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60
cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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61
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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62
regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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63
supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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64
resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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65
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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66
lessening
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| 减轻，减少，变小 | |
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67
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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68
levity
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| n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变 | |
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69
sinecure
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| n.闲差事，挂名职务 | |
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70
theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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71
vivacious
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| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
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72
bulged
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| 凸出( bulge的过去式和过去分词 )； 充满； 塞满（某物） | |
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73
silhouette
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| n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓 | |
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74
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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75
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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76
wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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77
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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78
vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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79
acrobat
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| n.特技演员，杂技演员 | |
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80
hacking
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| n.非法访问计算机系统和数据库的活动 | |
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81
quenched
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| 解（渴）( quench的过去式和过去分词 )； 终止（某事物）； （用水）扑灭（火焰等）； 将（热物体）放入水中急速冷却 | |
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82
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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83
gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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84
placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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85
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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86
avowedly
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| adv.公然地 | |
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87
austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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88
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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89
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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90
benignity
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| n.仁慈 | |
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91
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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92
chancellor
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| n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长 | |
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93
exchequer
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| n.财政部；国库 | |
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94
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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95
tyrant
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| n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人 | |
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96
freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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97
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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98
luridly
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| adv. 青灰色的(苍白的, 深浓色的, 火焰等火红的) | |
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darting
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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100
projection
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| n.发射，计划，突出部分 | |
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101
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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102
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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103
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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104
bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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105
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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106
optimist
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| n.乐观的人，乐观主义者 | |
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107
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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108
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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109
humanitarianism
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| n.博爱主义；人道主义；基督凡人论 | |
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110
democrat
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| n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员 | |
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111
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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112
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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113
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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114
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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115
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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116
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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117
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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118
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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119
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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120
lumbering
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| n.采伐林木 | |
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121
genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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122
apprehensions
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| 疑惧 | |
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123
rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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124
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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125
raucous
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| adj.(声音)沙哑的，粗糙的 | |
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126
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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127
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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128
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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129
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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130
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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131
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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133
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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134
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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135
alcove
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| n.凹室 | |
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136
cavern
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| n.洞穴，大山洞 | |
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137
quaintly
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| adv.古怪离奇地 | |
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138
placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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139
throttle
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| n.节流阀，节气阀，喉咙；v.扼喉咙，使窒息，压 | |
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140
repented
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| 对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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141
repent
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| v.悔悟，悔改，忏悔，后悔 | |
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142
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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143
trespass
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| n./v.侵犯，闯入私人领地 | |
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144
penitence
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| n.忏悔，赎罪；悔过 | |
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145
twitch
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| v.急拉，抽动，痉挛，抽搐；n.扯，阵痛，痉挛 | |
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146
lank
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| adj.瘦削的；稀疏的 | |
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saturnine
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| adj.忧郁的，沉默寡言的，阴沉的，感染铅毒的 | |
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148
hopped
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| 跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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149
wager
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| n.赌注；vt.押注，打赌 | |
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150
rotation
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| n.旋转；循环，轮流 | |
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151
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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152
slanted
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| 有偏见的； 倾斜的 | |
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153
spurning
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| v.一脚踢开，拒绝接受( spurn的现在分词 ) | |
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154
grotesqueness
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155
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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156
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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157
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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158
rococo
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| n.洛可可；adj.过分修饰的 | |
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159
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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160
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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161
insolence
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| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
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162
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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163
obsequious
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| adj.谄媚的，奉承的，顺从的 | |
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164
soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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165
genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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166
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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167
winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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168
bulgy
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| a.膨胀的；凸出的 | |
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169
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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170
spanking
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| adj.强烈的，疾行的；n.打屁股 | |
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171
commemorate
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| vt.纪念，庆祝 | |
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172
sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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173
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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