CHESTERTON-THE INNOCENT OF FR BROWN - The Sign of the Broken Sword
The thousand arms of the forest were grey, and its million fingers
silver. In a sky of dark green-blue-like slate the stars were
bleak and brilliant like splintered ice. All that thickly wooded
and sparsely tenanted countryside was stiff with a bitter and
brittle frost. The black hollows between the trunks of the trees
looked like bottomless, black caverns of that Scandinavian hell, a
hell of incalculable cold. Even the square stone tower of the
church looked northern to the point of heathenry, as if it were
some barbaric tower among the sea rocks of Iceland. It was a
queer night for anyone to explore a churchyard. But, on the other
hand, perhaps it was worth exploring.
It rose abruptly out of the ashen wastes of forest in a sort
of hump or shoulder of green turf that looked grey in the
starlight. Most of the graves were on a slant, and the path
leading up to the church was as steep as a staircase. On the top
of the hill, in the one flat and prominent place, was the monument
for which the place was famous. It contrasted strangely with the
featureless graves all round, for it was the work of one of the
greatest sculptors of modern Europe; and yet his fame was at once
forgotten in the fame of the man whose image he had made. It
showed, by touches of the small silver pencil of starlight, the
massive metal figure of a soldier recumbent, the strong hands
sealed in an everlasting worship, the great head pillowed upon a
gun. The venerable face was bearded, or rather whiskered, in the
old, heavy Colonel Newcome fashion. The uniform, though suggested
with the few strokes of simplicity, was that of modern war. By
his right side lay a sword, of which the tip was broken off; on
the left side lay a Bible. On glowing summer afternoons
wagonettes came full of Americans and cultured suburbans to see
the sepulchre; but even then they felt the vast forest land with
its one dumpy dome of churchyard and church as a place oddly dumb
and neglected. In this freezing darkness of mid-winter one would
think he might be left alone with the stars. Nevertheless, in the
stillness of those stiff woods a wooden gate creaked, and two dim
figures dressed in black climbed up the little path to the tomb.
So faint was that frigid starlight that nothing could have
been traced about them except that while they both wore black, one
man was enormously big, and the other (perhaps by contrast) almost
startlingly small. They went up to the great graven tomb of the
historic warrior, and stood for a few minutes staring at it.
There was no human, perhaps no living, thing for a wide circle;
and a morbid fancy might well have wondered if they were human
themselves. In any case, the beginning of their conversation
might have seemed strange. After the first silence the small man
said to the other:
"Where does a wise man hide a pebble?"
And the tall man answered in a low voice: "On the beach."
The small man nodded, and after a short silence said: "Where
does a wise man hide a leaf?"
And the other answered: "In the forest."
There was another stillness, and then the tall man resumed:
"Do you mean that when a wise man has to hide a real diamond he
has been known to hide it among sham ones?"
"No, no," said the little man with a laugh, "we will let
bygones be bygones."
He stamped his cold feet for a second or two, and then said:
"I'm not thinking of that at all, but of something else; something
rather peculiar. Just strike a match, will you?"
The big man fumbled in his pocket, and soon a scratch and a
flare painted gold the whole flat side of the monument. On it was
cut in black letters the well-known words which so many Americans
had reverently read: "Sacred to the Memory of General Sir Arthur
St. Clare, Hero and Martyr, who Always Vanquished his Enemies and
Always Spared Them, and Was Treacherously Slain by Them At Last.
May God in Whom he Trusted both Reward and Revenge him."
The match burnt the big man's fingers, blackened, and dropped.
He was about to strike another, but his small companion stopped
him. "That's all right, Flambeau, old man; I saw what I wanted.
Or, rather, I didn't see what I didn't want. And now we must walk
a mile and a half along the road to the next inn, and I will try
to tell you all about it. For Heaven knows a man should have a
fire and ale when he dares tell such a story."
They descended the precipitous path, they relatched the rusty
gate, and set off at a stamping, ringing walk down the frozen
forest road. They had gone a full quarter of a mile before the
smaller man spoke again. He said: "Yes; the wise man hides a
pebble on the beach. But what does he do if there is no beach?
Do you know anything of that great St. Clare trouble?"
"I know nothing about English generals, Father Brown,"
answered the large man, laughing, "though a little about English
policemen. I only know that you have dragged me a precious long
dance to all the shrines of this fellow, whoever he is. One would
think he got buried in six different places. I've seen a memorial
to General St. Clare in Westminster Abbey. I've seen a ramping
equestrian statue of General St. Clare on the Embankment. I've
seen a medallion of St. Clare in the street he was born in, and
another in the street he lived in; and now you drag me after dark
to his coffin in the village churchyard. I am beginning to be a
bit tired of his magnificent personality, especially as I don't in
the least know who he was. What are you hunting for in all these
crypts and effigies?"
"I am only looking for one word," said Father Brown. "A word
that isn't there."
"Well," asked Flambeau; "are you going to tell me anything
about it?"
"I must divide it into two parts," remarked the priest.
"First there is what everybody knows; and then there is what I
know. Now, what everybody knows is short and plain enough. It is
also entirely wrong."
"Right you are," said the big man called Flambeau cheerfully.
"Let's begin at the wrong end. Let's begin with what everybody
knows, which isn't true."
"If not wholly untrue, it is at least very inadequate,"
continued Brown; "for in point of fact, all that the public knows
amounts precisely to this: The public knows that Arthur St. Clare
was a great and successful English general. It knows that after
splendid yet careful campaigns both in India and Africa he was in
command against Brazil when the great Brazilian patriot Olivier
issued his ultimatum. It knows that on that occasion St. Clare
with a very small force attacked Olivier with a very large one,
and was captured after heroic resistance. And it knows that after
his capture, and to the abhorrence of the civilised world, St.
Clare was hanged on the nearest tree. He was found swinging there
after the Brazilians had retired, with his broken sword hung round
his neck."
"And that popular story is untrue?" suggested Flambeau.
"No," said his friend quietly, "that story is quite true, so
far as it goes."
"Well, I think it goes far enough!" said Flambeau; "but if the
popular story is true, what is the mystery?"
They had passed many hundreds of grey and ghostly trees before
the little priest answered. Then he bit his finger reflectively
and said: "Why, the mystery is a mystery of psychology. Or,
rather, it is a mystery of two psychologies. In that Brazilian
business two of the most famous men of modern history acted flat
against their characters. Mind you, Olivier and St. Clare were
both heroes--the old thing, and no mistake; it was like the
fight between Hector and Achilles. Now, what would you say to an
affair in which Achilles was timid and Hector was treacherous?"
"Go on," said the large man impatiently as the other bit his
finger again.
"Sir Arthur St. Clare was a soldier of the old religious type
--the type that saved us during the Mutiny," continued Brown.
"He was always more for duty than for dash; and with all his
personal courage was decidedly a prudent commander, particularly
indignant at any needless waste of soldiers. Yet in this last
battle he attempted something that a baby could see was absurd.
One need not be a strategist to see it was as wild as wind; just
as one need not be a strategist to keep out of the way of a
motor-bus. Well, that is the first mystery; what had become of
the English general's head? The second riddle is, what had become
of the Brazilian general's heart? President Olivier might be
called a visionary or a nuisance; but even his enemies admitted
that he was magnanimous to the point of knight errantry. Almost
every other prisoner he had ever captured had been set free or
even loaded with benefits. Men who had really wronged him came
away touched by his simplicity and sweetness. Why the deuce
should he diabolically revenge himself only once in his life; and
that for the one particular blow that could not have hurt him?
Well, there you have it. One of the wisest men in the world acted
like an idiot for no reason. One of the best men in the world
acted like a fiend for no reason. That's the long and the short
of it; and I leave it to you, my boy."
"No, you don't," said the other with a snort. "I leave it to
you; and you jolly well tell me all about it."
"Well," resumed Father Brown, "it's not fair to say that the
public impression is just what I've said, without adding that two
things have happened since. I can't say they threw a new light;
for nobody can make sense of them. But they threw a new kind of
darkness; they threw the darkness in new directions. The first was
this. The family physician of the St. Clares quarrelled with that
family, and began publishing a violent series of articles, in which
he said that the late general was a religious maniac; but as far as
the tale went, this seemed to mean little more than a religious
man.
"Anyhow, the story fizzled out. Everyone knew, of course, that St.
Clare had some of the eccentricities of puritan piety. The second
incident was much more arresting. In the luckless and unsupported
regiment which made that rash attempt at the Black River there was
a certain Captain Keith, who was at that time engaged to St. Clare's
daughter, and who afterwards married her. He was one of those who
were captured by Olivier, and, like all the rest except the general,
appears to have been bounteously treated and promptly set free.
Some twenty years afterwards this man, then Lieutenant-Colonel
Keith, published a sort of autobiography called `A British Officer
in Burmah and Brazil.' In the place where the reader looks eagerly
for some account of the mystery of St. Clare's disaster may be
found the following words: `Everywhere else in this book I have
narrated things exactly as they occurred, holding as I do the
old-fashioned opinion that the glory of England is old enough to
take care of itself. The exception I shall make is in this matter
of the defeat by the Black River; and my reasons, though private,
are honourable and compelling. I will, however, add this in
justice to the memories of two distinguished men. General St.
Clare has been accused of incapacity on this occasion; I can at
least testify that this action, properly understood, was one of
the most brilliant and sagacious of his life. President Olivier
by similar report is charged with savage injustice. I think it
due to the honour of an enemy to say that he acted on this
occasion with even more than his characteristic good feeling.
To put the matter popularly, I can assure my countrymen that St.
Clare was by no means such a fool nor Olivier such a brute as he
looked. This is all I have to say; nor shall any earthly
consideration induce me to add a word to it.'"
A large frozen moon like a lustrous snowball began to show
through the tangle of twigs in front of them, and by its light the
narrator had been able to refresh his memory of Captain Keith's
text from a scrap of printed paper. As he folded it up and put it
back in his pocket Flambeau threw up his hand with a French
gesture.
"Wait a bit, wait a bit," he cried excitedly. "I believe I
can guess it at the first go."
He strode on, breathing hard, his black head and bull neck
forward, like a man winning a walking race. The little priest,
amused and interested, had some trouble in trotting beside him.
Just before them the trees fell back a little to left and right,
and the road swept downwards across a clear, moonlit valley, till
it dived again like a rabbit into the wall of another wood. The
entrance to the farther forest looked small and round, like the
black hole of a remote railway tunnel. But it was within some
hundred yards, and gaped like a cavern before Flambeau spoke
again.
"I've got it," he cried at last, slapping his thigh with his
great hand. "Four minutes' thinking, and I can tell your whole
story myself."
"All right," assented his friend. "You tell it."
Flambeau lifted his head, but lowered his voice. "General Sir
Arthur St. Clare," he said, "came of a family in which madness was
hereditary; and his whole aim was to keep this from his daughter,
and even, if possible, from his future son-in-law. Rightly or
wrongly, he thought the final collapse was close, and resolved on
suicide. Yet ordinary suicide would blazon the very idea he
dreaded. As the campaign approached the clouds came thicker on
his brain; and at last in a mad moment he sacrificed his public
duty to his private. He rushed rashly into battle, hoping to fall
by the first shot. When he found that he had only attained
capture and discredit, the sealed bomb in his brain burst, and he
broke his own sword and hanged himself."
He stared firmly at the grey facade of forest in front of him,
with the one black gap in it, like the mouth of the grave, into
which their path plunged. Perhaps something menacing in the road
thus suddenly swallowed reinforced his vivid vision of the tragedy,
for he shuddered.
"A horrid story," he said.
"A horrid story," repeated the priest with bent head. "But
not the real story."
Then he threw back his head with a sort of despair and cried:
"Oh, I wish it had been."
The tall Flambeau faced round and stared at him.
"Yours is a clean story," cried Father Brown, deeply moved.
"A sweet, pure, honest story, as open and white as that moon.
Madness and despair are innocent enough. There are worse things,
Flambeau."
Flambeau looked up wildly at the moon thus invoked; and from
where he stood one black tree-bough curved across it exactly like
a devil's horn.
"Father--father," cried Flambeau with the French gesture
and stepping yet more rapidly forward, "do you mean it was worse
than that?"
"Worse than that," said Paul like a grave echo. And they
plunged into the black cloister of the woodland, which ran by them
in a dim tapestry of trunks, like one of the dark corridors in a
dream.
They were soon in the most secret entrails of the wood, and
felt close about them foliage that they could not see, when the
priest said again:
"Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. But what
does he do if there is no forest?"
"Well, well," cried Flambeau irritably, "what does he do?"
"He grows a forest to hide it in," said the priest in an
obscure voice. "A fearful sin."
"Look here," cried his friend impatiently, for the dark wood
and the dark saying got a little on his nerves; "will you tell
me this story or not? What other evidence is there to go on?"
"There are three more bits of evidence," said the other, "that
I have dug up in holes and corners; and I will give them in logical
rather than chronological order. First of all, of course, our
authority for the issue and event of the battle is in Olivier's
own dispatches, which are lucid enough. He was entrenched with
two or three regiments on the heights that swept down to the Black
River, on the other side of which was lower and more marshy
ground. Beyond this again was gently rising country, on which was
the first English outpost, supported by others which lay, however,
considerably in its rear. The British forces as a whole were
greatly superior in numbers; but this particular regiment was just
far enough from its base to make Olivier consider the project of
crossing the river to cut it off. By sunset, however, he had
decided to retain his own position, which was a specially strong
one. At daybreak next morning he was thunderstruck to see that
this stray handful of English, entirely unsupported from their
rear, had flung themselves across the river, half by a bridge to
the right, and the other half by a ford higher up, and were massed
upon the marshy bank below him.
"That they should attempt an attack with such numbers against
such a position was incredible enough; but Olivier noticed
something yet more extraordinary. For instead of attempting to
seize more solid ground, this mad regiment, having put the river
in its rear by one wild charge, did nothing more, but stuck there
in the mire like flies in treacle. Needless to say, the Brazilians
blew great gaps in them with artillery, which they could only
return with spirited but lessening rifle fire. Yet they never
broke; and Olivier's curt account ends with a strong tribute of
admiration for the mystic valour of these imbeciles. `Our line
then advanced finally,' writes Olivier, `and drove them into the
river; we captured General St. Clare himself and several other
officers. The colonel and the major had both fallen in the battle.
I cannot resist saying that few finer sights can have been seen in
history than the last stand of this extraordinary regiment; wounded
officers picking up the rifles of dead soldiers, and the general
himself facing us on horseback bareheaded and with a broken sword.'
On what happened to the general afterwards Olivier is as silent as
Captain Keith."
"Well," grunted Flambeau, "get on to the next bit of evidence."
"The next evidence," said Father Brown, "took some time to
find, but it will not take long to tell. I found at last in an
almshouse down in the Lincolnshire Fens an old soldier who not
only was wounded at the Black River, but had actually knelt beside
the colonel of the regiment when he died. This latter was a
certain Colonel Clancy, a big bull of an Irishman; and it would
seem that he died almost as much of rage as of bullets. He, at
any rate, was not responsible for that ridiculous raid; it must
have been imposed on him by the general. His last edifying words,
according to my informant, were these: `And there goes the damned
old donkey with the end of his sword knocked off. I wish it was
his head.' You will remark that everyone seems to have noticed
this detail about the broken sword blade, though most people
regard it somewhat more reverently than did the late Colonel
Clancy. And now for the third fragment."
Their path through the woodland began to go upward, and the
speaker paused a little for breath before he went on. Then he
continued in the same business-like tone:
"Only a month or two ago a certain Brazilian official died in
England, having quarrelled with Olivier and left his country. He
was a well-known figure both here and on the Continent, a Spaniard
named Espado; I knew him myself, a yellow-faced old dandy, with a
hooked nose. For various private reasons I had permission to see
the documents he had left; he was a Catholic, of course, and I had
been with him towards the end. There was nothing of his that lit
up any corner of the black St. Clare business, except five or six
common exercise books filled with the diary of some English
soldier. I can only suppose that it was found by the Brazilians
on one of those that fell. Anyhow, it stopped abruptly the night
before the battle.
"But the account of that last day in the poor fellow's life
was certainly worth reading. I have it on me; but it's too dark
to read it here, and I will give you a resume. The first part of
that entry is full of jokes, evidently flung about among the men,
about somebody called the Vulture. It does not seem as if this
person, whoever he was, was one of themselves, nor even an
Englishman; neither is he exactly spoken of as one of the enemy.
It sounds rather as if he were some local go-between and
non-combatant; perhaps a guide or a journalist. He has been
closeted with old Colonel Clancy; but is more often seen talking
to the major. Indeed, the major is somewhat prominent in this
soldier's narrative; a lean, dark-haired man, apparently, of the
name of Murray--a north of Ireland man and a Puritan. There are
continual jests about the contrast between this Ulsterman's
austerity and the conviviality of Colonel Clancy. There is also
some joke about the Vulture wearing bright-coloured clothes.
"But all these levities are scattered by what may well be
called the note of a bugle. Behind the English camp and almost
parallel to the river ran one of the few great roads of that
district. Westward the road curved round towards the river, which
it crossed by the bridge before mentioned. To the east the road
swept backwards into the wilds, and some two miles along it was
the next English outpost. From this direction there came along
the road that evening a glitter and clatter of light cavalry, in
which even the simple diarist could recognise with astonishment
the general with his staff. He rode the great white horse which
you have seen so often in illustrated papers and Academy pictures;
and you may be sure that the salute they gave him was not merely
ceremonial. He, at least, wasted no time on ceremony, but,
springing from the saddle immediately, mixed with the group of
officers, and fell into emphatic though confidential speech. What
struck our friend the diarist most was his special disposition to
discuss matters with Major Murray; but, indeed, such a selection,
so long as it was not marked, was in no way unnatural. The two
men were made for sympathy; they were men who `read their Bibles';
they were both the old Evangelical type of officer. However this
may be, it is certain that when the general mounted again he was
still talking earnestly to Murray; and that as he walked his horse
slowly down the road towards the river, the tall Ulsterman still
walked by his bridle rein in earnest debate. The soldiers watched
the two until they vanished behind a clump of trees where the road
turned towards the river. The colonel had gone back to his tent,
and the men to their pickets; the man with the diary lingered for
another four minutes, and saw a marvellous sight.
"The great white horse which had marched slowly down the road,
as it had marched in so many processions, flew back, galloping up
the road towards them as if it were mad to win a race. At first
they thought it had run away with the man on its back; but they
soon saw that the general, a fine rider, was himself urging it to
full speed. Horse and man swept up to them like a whirlwind; and
then, reining up the reeling charger, the general turned on them a
face like flame, and called for the colonel like the trumpet that
wakes the dead.
"I conceive that all the earthquake events of that catastrophe
tumbled on top of each other rather like lumber in the minds of
men such as our friend with the diary. With the dazed excitement
of a dream, they found themselves falling--literally falling--
into their ranks, and learned that an attack was to be led at once
across the river. The general and the major, it was said, had
found out something at the bridge, and there was only just time to
strike for life. The major had gone back at once to call up the
reserve along the road behind; it was doubtful if even with that
prompt appeal help could reach them in time. But they must pass
the stream that night, and seize the heights by morning. It is
with the very stir and throb of that romantic nocturnal march that
the diary suddenly ends."
Father Brown had mounted ahead; for the woodland path grew
smaller, steeper, and more twisted, till they felt as if they were
ascending a winding staircase. The priest's voice came from above
out of the darkness.
"There was one other little and enormous thing. When the
general urged them to their chivalric charge he half drew his
sword from the scabbard; and then, as if ashamed of such
melodrama, thrust it back again. The sword again, you see."
A half-light broke through the network of boughs above them,
flinging the ghost of a net about their feet; for they were
mounting again to the faint luminosity of the naked night.
Flambeau felt truth all round him as an atmosphere, but not as an
idea. He answered with bewildered brain: "Well, what's the matter
with the sword? Officers generally have swords, don't they?"
"They are not often mentioned in modern war," said the other
dispassionately; "but in this affair one falls over the blessed
sword everywhere."
"Well, what is there in that?" growled Flambeau; "it was a
twopence coloured sort of incident; the old man's blade breaking
in his last battle. Anyone might bet the papers would get hold of
it, as they have. On all these tombs and things it's shown broken
at the point. I hope you haven't dragged me through this Polar
expedition merely because two men with an eye for a picture saw
St. Clare's broken sword."
"No," cried Father Brown, with a sharp voice like a pistol
shot; "but who saw his unbroken sword?"
"What do you mean?" cried the other, and stood still under the
stars. They had come abruptly out of the grey gates of the wood.
"I say, who saw his unbroken sword?" repeated Father Brown
obstinately. "Not the writer of the diary, anyhow; the general
sheathed it in time."
Flambeau looked about him in the moonlight, as a man struck
blind might look in the sun; and his friend went on, for the first
time with eagerness:
"Flambeau," he cried, "I cannot prove it, even after hunting
through the tombs. But I am sure of it. Let me add just one more
tiny fact that tips the whole thing over. The colonel, by a
strange chance, was one of the first struck by a bullet. He was
struck long before the troops came to close quarters. But he saw
St. Clare's sword broken. Why was it broken? How was it broken?
My friend, it was broken before the battle."
"Oh!" said his friend, with a sort of forlorn jocularity; "and
pray where is the other piece?"
"I can tell you," said the priest promptly. "In the northeast
corner of the cemetery of the Protestant Cathedral at Belfast."
"Indeed?" inquired the other. "Have you looked for it?"
"I couldn't," replied Brown, with frank regret. "There's a
great marble monument on top of it; a monument to the heroic Major
Murray, who fell fighting gloriously at the famous Battle of the
Black River."
Flambeau seemed suddenly galvanised into existence. "You
mean," he cried hoarsely, "that General St. Clare hated Murray,
and murdered him on the field of battle because--"
"You are still full of good and pure thoughts," said the
other. "It was worse than that."
"Well," said the large man, "my stock of evil imagination is
used up."
The priest seemed really doubtful where to begin, and at last
he said again:
"Where would a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest."
The other did not answer.
"If there were no forest, he would make a forest. And if he
wished to hide a dead leaf, he would make a dead forest."
There was still no reply, and the priest added still more
mildly and quietly:
"And if a man had to hide a dead body, he would make a field
of dead bodies to hide it in."
Flambeau began to stamp forward with an intolerance of delay
in time or space; but Father Brown went on as if he were continuing
the last sentence:
"Sir Arthur St. Clare, as I have already said, was a man who
read his Bible. That was what was the matter with him. When will
people understand that it is useless for a man to read his Bible
unless he also reads everybody else's Bible? A printer reads a
Bible for misprints. A Mormon reads his Bible, and finds polygamy;
a Christian Scientist reads his, and finds we have no arms and
legs. St. Clare was an old Anglo-Indian Protestant soldier. Now,
just think what that might mean; and, for Heaven's sake, don't
cant about it. It might mean a man physically formidable living
under a tropic sun in an Oriental society, and soaking himself
without sense or guidance in an Oriental Book. Of course, he read
the Old Testament rather than the New. Of course, he found in the
Old Testament anything that he wanted--lust, tyranny, treason.
Oh, I dare say he was honest, as you call it. But what is the
good of a man being honest in his worship of dishonesty?
"In each of the hot and secret countries to which the man went
he kept a harem, he tortured witnesses, he amassed shameful gold;
but certainly he would have said with steady eyes that he did it
to the glory of the Lord. My own theology is sufficiently
expressed by asking which Lord? Anyhow, there is this about such
evil, that it opens door after door in hell, and always into
smaller and smaller chambers. This is the real case against crime,
that a man does not become wilder and wilder, but only meaner and
meaner. St. Clare was soon suffocated by difficulties of bribery
and blackmail; and needed more and more cash. And by the time of
the Battle of the Black River he had fallen from world to world to
that place which Dante makes the lowest floor of the universe."
"What do you mean?" asked his friend again.
"I mean that," retorted the cleric, and suddenly pointed at a
puddle sealed with ice that shone in the moon. "Do you remember
whom Dante put in the last circle of ice?"
"The traitors," said Flambeau, and shuddered. As he looked
around at the inhuman landscape of trees, with taunting and almost
obscene outlines, he could almost fancy he was Dante, and the
priest with the rivulet of a voice was, indeed, a Virgil leading
him through a land of eternal sins.
The voice went on: "Olivier, as you know, was quixotic, and
would not permit a secret service and spies. The thing, however,
was done, like many other things, behind his back. It was managed
by my old friend Espado; he was the bright-clad fop, whose hook
nose got him called the Vulture. Posing as a sort of
philanthropist at the front, he felt his way through the English
Army, and at last got his fingers on its one corrupt man--please
God!--and that man at the top. St. Clare was in foul need of
money, and mountains of it. The discredited family doctor was
threatening those extraordinary exposures that afterwards began
and were broken off; tales of monstrous and prehistoric things in
Park Lane; things done by an English Evangelist that smelt like
human sacrifice and hordes of slaves. Money was wanted, too, for
his daughter's dowry; for to him the fame of wealth was as sweet
as wealth itself. He snapped the last thread, whispered the word
to Brazil, and wealth poured in from the enemies of England. But
another man had talked to Espado the Vulture as well as he.
Somehow the dark, grim young major from Ulster had guessed the
hideous truth; and when they walked slowly together down that road
towards the bridge Murray was telling the general that he must
resign instantly, or be court-martialled and shot. The general
temporised with him till they came to the fringe of tropic trees
by the bridge; and there by the singing river and the sunlit palms
(for I can see the picture) the general drew his sabre and plunged
it through the body of the major."
The wintry road curved over a ridge in cutting frost, with
cruel black shapes of bush and thicket; but Flambeau fancied that
he saw beyond it faintly the edge of an aureole that was not
starlight and moonlight, but some fire such as is made by men. He
watched it as the tale drew to its close.
"St. Clare was a hell-hound, but he was a hound of breed.
Never, I'll swear, was he so lucid and so strong as when poor
Murray lay a cold lump at his feet. Never in all his triumphs, as
Captain Keith said truly, was the great man so great as he was in
this last world-despised defeat. He looked coolly at his weapon
to wipe off the blood; he saw the point he had planted between his
victim's shoulders had broken off in the body. He saw quite
calmly, as through a club windowpane, all that must follow. He
saw that men must find the unaccountable corpse; must extract the
unaccountable sword-point; must notice the unaccountable broken
sword--or absence of sword. He had killed, but not silenced.
But his imperious intellect rose against the facer; there was one
way yet. He could make the corpse less unaccountable. He could
create a hill of corpses to cover this one. In twenty minutes
eight hundred English soldiers were marching down to their death."
The warmer glow behind the black winter wood grew richer and
brighter, and Flambeau strode on to reach it. Father Brown also
quickened his stride; but he seemed merely absorbed in his tale.
"Such was the valour of that English thousand, and such the
genius of their commander, that if they had at once attacked the
hill, even their mad march might have met some luck. But the evil
mind that played with them like pawns had other aims and reasons.
They must remain in the marshes by the bridge at least till British
corpses should be a common sight there. Then for the last grand
scene; the silver-haired soldier-saint would give up his shattered
sword to save further slaughter. Oh, it was well organised for an
impromptu. But I think (I cannot prove), I think that it was
while they stuck there in the bloody mire that someone doubted--
and someone guessed."
He was mute a moment, and then said: "There is a voice from
nowhere that tells me the man who guessed was the lover ... the
man to wed the old man's child."
"But what about Olivier and the hanging?" asked Flambeau.
"Olivier, partly from chivalry, partly from policy, seldom
encumbered his march with captives," explained the narrator. "He
released everybody in most cases. He released everybody in this
case."
"Everybody but the general," said the tall man.
"Everybody," said the priest.
Flambeau knit his black brows. "I don't grasp it all yet," he
said.
"There is another picture, Flambeau," said Brown in his more
mystical undertone. "I can't prove it; but I can do more--I can
see it. There is a camp breaking up on the bare, torrid hills at
morning, and Brazilian uniforms massed in blocks and columns to
march. There is the red shirt and long black beard of Olivier,
which blows as he stands, his broad-brimmed hat in his hand. He
is saying farewell to the great enemy he is setting free--the
simple, snow-headed English veteran, who thanks him in the name of
his men. The English remnant stand behind at attention; beside
them are stores and vehicles for the retreat. The drums roll; the
Brazilians are moving; the English are still like statues. So
they abide till the last hum and flash of the enemy have faded
from the tropic horizon. Then they alter their postures all at
once, like dead men coming to life; they turn their fifty faces
upon the general--faces not to be forgotten."
Flambeau gave a great jump. "Ah," he cried, "you don't mean--"
"Yes," said Father Brown in a deep, moving voice. "It was an
English hand that put the rope round St. Clare's neck; I believe
the hand that put the ring on his daughter's finger. They were
English hands that dragged him up to the tree of shame; the hands
of men that had adored him and followed him to victory. And they
were English souls (God pardon and endure us all!) who stared at
him swinging in that foreign sun on the green gallows of palm, and
prayed in their hatred that he might drop off it into hell."
As the two topped the ridge there burst on them the strong
scarlet light of a red-curtained English inn. It stood sideways
in the road, as if standing aside in the amplitude of hospitality.
Its three doors stood open with invitation; and even where they
stood they could hear the hum and laughter of humanity happy for a
night.
"I need not tell you more," said Father Brown. "They tried
him in the wilderness and destroyed him; and then, for the honour
of England and of his daughter, they took an oath to seal up for
ever the story of the traitor's purse and the assassin's sword
blade. Perhaps--Heaven help them--they tried to forget it.
Let us try to forget it, anyhow; here is our inn."
"With all my heart," said Flambeau, and was just striding into
the bright, noisy bar when he stepped back and almost fell on the
road.
"Look there, in the devil's name!" he cried, and pointed
rigidly at the square wooden sign that overhung the road. It
showed dimly the crude shape of a sabre hilt and a shortened
blade; and was inscribed in false archaic lettering, "The Sign of
the Broken Sword."
"Were you not prepared?" asked Father Brown gently. "He is
the god of this country; half the inns and parks and streets are
named after him and his story."
"I thought we had done with the leper," cried Flambeau, and
spat on the road.
"You will never have done with him in England," said the
priest, looking down, "while brass is strong and stone abides.
His marble statues will erect the souls of proud, innocent boys
for centuries, his village tomb will smell of loyalty as of lilies.
Millions who never knew him shall love him like a father--this
man whom the last few that knew him dealt with like dung. He shall
be a saint; and the truth shall never be told of him, because I
have made up my mind at last. There is so much good and evil in
breaking secrets, that I put my conduct to a test. All these
newspapers will perish; the anti-Brazil boom is already over;
Olivier is already honoured everywhere. But I told myself that if
anywhere, by name, in metal or marble that will endure like the
pyramids, Colonel Clancy, or Captain Keith, or President Olivier,
or any innocent man was wrongly blamed, then I would speak. If it
were only that St. Clare was wrongly praised, I would be silent.
And I will."
They plunged into the red-curtained tavern, which was not only
cosy, but even luxurious inside. On a table stood a silver model
of the tomb of St. Clare, the silver head bowed, the silver sword
broken. On the walls were coloured photographs of the same scene,
and of the system of wagonettes that took tourists to see it.
They sat down on the comfortable padded benches.
"Come, it's cold," cried Father Brown; "let's have some wine
or beer."
"Or brandy," said Flambeau.
CHESTERTON-THE INNOCENT OF FR BROWN - The Sign of the Broken Sword