in a square, a circular path paved with pale stones and edged with some
sort of green enamel like an imitation lawn. Inside that, in the very
centre, rose the basin of a dark-green fountain, or raised pond, in
which water-lilies floated and goldfish flashed to and fro; and high
above these, its outline dark against the dying light, was a great green
image. Its back was turned to them and its face so completely invisible
in the hunched posture that the statue might almost have been headless.
But in that mere dark outline, in the dim twilight, some of them could
see instantly that it was the shape of no Christian thing.
A few yards away, on the circular path, and looking towards the great
green god, stood the man called the Master of the Mountain. His pointed
and finely finished features seemed moulded by some skilful craftsman as
a mask of copper. In contrast with this, his dark grey beard looked
almost blue like indigo; it began in a narrow tuft on his chin, and then
spread outwards like a great fan or the tail of a bird. He was robed in
peacock green and wore on his bald head a high cap of uncommon outline:
a head-dress none of them had ever seen before; but it looked rather
Egyptian than Indian. The man was standing with staring eyes; wide open,
fish-shaped eyes, so motionless that they looked like the eyes painted
on a mummy-case. But though the figure of the Master of the Mountain was
singular enough, some of the company, including Father Brown, did not
look at him; they still looked at the dark green idol at which he
himself was looking.
"This seems a queer thing," said Hardcastle, frowning a little, "to set
up in the middle of an old abbey cloister."
"Now, don't tell me you're going to be silly," said Lady Mounteagle.
"That's just what we meant; to link up the great religions of East and
West; Buddha and Christ. Surely you must understand that all religions
are really the same."
"If they are," said Father Brown mildly, "it seems rather unnecessary to
go into the middle of Asia to get one."
"Lady Mounteagle means that they are different aspects or facets, as
there are of this stone," began Hardcastle; and becoming interested in
the new topic, laid the great ruby down on the stone sill or ledge under
the Gothic arch. "But it does not follow that we can mix the aspects in
one artistic style. You may mix Christianity and Islam, but you can't
mix Gothic and Saracenic, let alone real Indian."
As he spoke, the Master of the Mountain seemed to come to life like a
cataleptic, and moved gravely round another quarter segment of the
circle, and took up his position outside their own row of arches,
standing with his back to them and looking now towards the idol's back.
It was obvious that he was moving by stages round the whole circle, like
a hand round a clock; but pausing for prayer or contemplation.
"What _is_ his religion?" asked Hardcastle, with a faint touch of
impatience.
"He says," replied Lord Mounteagle, reverently, "that it is older than
Brahminism and purer than Buddhism."
"Oh," said Hardcastle, and continued to stare through his single
eyeglass, standing with both his hands in his pockets.
"They say," observed the nobleman in his gentle but didactic voice,
"that the deity called the God of Gods is carved in a colossal form in
the cavern of Mount Meru----"
Even his lordship's lecturing serenity was broken abruptly by the voice
that came over his shoulder. It came out of the darkness of the museum
they had just left, when they stepped out into the cloister. At the
sound of it the two younger men looked first incredulous, then furious,
and then almost collapsed into laughter.
"I hope I do not intrude," said the urbane and seductive voice of
Professor Phroso, that unconquerable wrestler of the truth, "but it
occurred to me that some of you might spare a little time for that much
despised science of Bumps, which----"
"Look here," cried the impetuous Tommy Hunter, "I haven't got any bumps;
but you'll jolly well have some soon, you----"
Hardcastle mildly restrained him as he plunged back through the door;
and for the moment all the group had turned again and were looking back
into the inner room.
It was at that moment that the thing happened. It was the impetuous
Tommy, once more, who was the first to move, and this time to better
effect. Before anyone else had seen anything, when Hardcastle had barely
remembered with a jump that he had left the gem on the stone sill, Tommy
was across the cloister with the leap of a cat and, leaning with his
head and shoulders out of the aperture between two columns, had cried
out in a voice that rang down all the arches: "I've got him!"
In that instant of time, just after they turned, and just before they
heard his triumphant cry, they had all seen it happen. Round the corner
of one of the two columns, there had darted in and out again a brown or
rather bronze-coloured hand, the colour of dead gold; such as they had
seen elsewhere. The hand had struck as straight as a striking snake; as
instantaneous as the flick of the long tongue of an ant-eater. But it
had licked up the jewel. The stone slab of the window-sill shone bare in
the pale and fading light.
"I've got him," gasped Tommy Hunter; "but he's wriggling pretty hard.
You fellows run round him in front--he can't have got rid of it,
anyhow."
The others obeyed, some racing down the corridor and some leaping over
the low wall, with the result that a little crowd, consisting of
Hardcastle, Lord Mounteagle, Father Brown, and even the undetachable Mr.
Phroso of the bumps, had soon surrounded the captive Master of the
Mountain, whom Hunter was hanging on to desperately by the collar with
one hand, and shaking every now and then in a manner highly insensible
to the dignity of Prophets as a class.
"Now we've got him, anyhow," said Hunter, letting go with a sigh. "We've
only got to search him. The thing must be here."
Three quarters of an hour later, Hunter and Hardcastle, their top-hats,
ties, gloves, slips and spats somewhat the worse for their recent
activities, came face to face in the cloister and gazed at each other.
"Well," asked Hardcastle with restraint, "have you any views on the
mystery?"
"Hang it all," replied Hunter; "you can't call it a mystery. Why, we all
saw him take it ourselves."
"Yes," replied the other, "but we didn't all see him lose it ourselves.
And the mystery is, where has he lost it so that we can't find it?"
"It must be somewhere," said Hunter. "Have you searched the fountain and
all round that rotten old god there?"
"I haven't dissected the little fishes," said Hardcastle, lifting his
eyeglass and surveying the other. "Are you thinking of the ring of
Polycrates?"
Apparently the survey, through the eye-glass, of the round face before
him, convinced him that it covered no such meditation on Greek legend.
"It's not on him, I admit," repeated Hunter, suddenly, "unless he's
swallowed it."
"Are we to dissect the Prophet, too?" asked the other smiling. "But here
comes our host."
"This is a most distressing matter," said Lord Mounteagle, twisting his
white moustache with a nervous and even tremulous hand. "Horrible thing
to have a theft in one's house, let alone connecting it with a man like
the Master. But, I confess, I can't quite make head or tail of the way
in which he is talking about it. I wish you'd come inside and see what
you think."
They went in together, Hunter falling behind and dropping into
conversation with Father Brown, who was kicking his heels round the
cloister.
"You must be very strong," said the priest pleasantly. "You held him
with one hand; and he seemed pretty vigorous, even when we had eight
hands to hold him, like one of those Indian gods."
They took a turn or two round the cloister, talking; and then they also
went into the inner room, where the Master of the Mountain was seated on
a bench, in the capacity of a captive, but with more of the air of a
king.
It was true, as Lord Mounteagle said, that his air and tone were not
very easy to understand. He spoke with a serene, and yet secretive sense
of power. He seemed rather amused at their suggestions about trivial
hiding-places for the gem; and certainly he showed no resentment
whatever. He seemed to be laughing, in a still unfathomable fashion at
their efforts to trace what they had all seen him take.
"You are learning a little," he said, with insolent benevolence, "of the
laws of time and space; about which your latest science is a thousand
years behind our oldest religion. You do not even know what is really
meant by hiding a thing. Nay, my poor little friends, you do not even
know what is meant by _seeing_ a thing; or perhaps you would see this as
plainly as I do."
"Do you mean it is here?" demanded Hardcastle harshly.
"Here is a word of many meanings, also," replied the mystic. "But I did
not say it was here. I only said I could see it."
There was an irritated silence, and he went on sleepily.
"If you were to be utterly, unfathomably, silent, do you think you might
hear a cry from the other end of the world? The cry of a worshipper
alone in those mountains, where the original image sits, itself like a
mountain. Some say that even Jews and Moslems might worship that image;
because it was never made by man. Hark! Do you hear the cry with which
he lifts his head and sees in that socket of stone, that has been hollow
for ages, the one red and angry moon that is the eye of the mountain?"
"Do you really mean," cried Lord Mounteagle, a little shaken, "that you
could make it pass from here to Mount Meru? I used to believe you had
great spiritual powers, but----"
"Perhaps," said the Master, "I have more than you will ever believe."
Hardcastle rose impatiently and began to pace the room with his hands in
his pockets.
"I never believed so much as you did; but I admit that powers of a
certain type may ... Good God!"
His high, hard voice had been cut off in mid-air, and he stopped
staring; the eye-glass fell out of his eye. They all turned their faces
in the same direction; and on every face there seemed to be the same
suspended animation.
The Red Moon of Meru lay on the stone window-sill, exactly as they had
last seen it. It might have been a red spark blown there from a bonfire,
or a red rose-petal tossed from a broken rose; but it had fallen in
precisely the same spot where Hardcastle had thoughtlessly laid it down.
This time Hardcastle did not attempt to pick it up again; but his
demeanour was somewhat notable. He turned slowly and began to stride
about the room again; but there was in his movements something
masterful, where before it had been only restless. Finally, he brought
himself to a standstill in front of the seated Master, and bowed with a
somewhat sardonic smile.
"Master," he said, "we all owe you an apology and, what is more
important, you have taught us all a lesson. Believe me, it will serve as
a lesson as well as a joke. I shall always remember the very remarkable
powers you really possess, and how harmlessly you use them. Lady
Mounteagle," he went on, turning towards her, "you will forgive me for
having addressed the Master first; but it was to you I had the honour of
offering this explanation some time ago. I may say that I explained it
before it had happened. I told you that most of these things could be
interpreted by some kind of hypnotism. Many believe that this is the
explanation of all those Indian stories about the mango plant and the
boy who climbs a rope thrown into the air. It does not really happen;
but the spectators are mesmerized into imagining that it happened. So we
were all mesmerized into imagining this theft had happened. That brown
hand coming in at the window, and whisking away the gem, was a momentary
delusion; a hand in a dream. Only, having seen the stone vanish, we
never looked for it where it was before. We plunged into the pond and
turned every leaf of the water lilies; we were almost giving emetics to
the goldfish. But the ruby has been here all the time."
And he glanced across at the opalescent eyes and smiling bearded mouth
of the Master, and saw that the smile was just a shade broader. There
was something in it that made the others jump to their feet with an air
of sudden relaxation and general, gasping relief.
"This is a very fortunate escape for us all," said Lord Mounteagle,
smiling rather nervously. "There cannot be the least doubt it is as you
say. It has been a most painful episode and I really don't know what
apologies----"
"I have no complaints," said the Master or the Mountain, still smiling.
"You have never touched Me at all."
While the rest went off rejoicing, with Hardcastle for the hero of the
hour, the little Phrenologist with the whiskers sauntered back towards
his preposterous tent. Looking over his shoulder he was surprised to
find Father Brown following him.
"Can I feel your bumps?" asked the expert, in his mildly sarcastic tone.
"I don't think you want to feel any more, do you?" said the priest
good-humouredly. "You're a detective, aren't you?"
"Yep," replied the other. "Lady Mounteagle asked me to keep an eye on
the Master, being no fool, for all her mysticism; and when he left his
tent, I could only follow by behaving like a nuisance and a monomaniac.
If anybody had come into my tent, I'd have had to look up Bumps in an
encyclopaædia."
"Bumps, What Ho She; see Folk-Lore," observed Father Brown, dreamily.
"Well, you were quite in the part in pestering people--at a bazaar."
"Rum case, wasn't it?" remarked the fallacious Phrenologist. "Queer to
think the thing was there all the time."
"Very queer," said the priest.
Something in his voice made the other man stop and stare.
"Look here!" he cried; "what's the matter with you? What are you looking
like that for! Don't you _believe_ that it was there all the time?"
Father Brown blinked rather as if he had received a buffet; then he said
slowly and with hesitation: "No ... the fact is ... I can't--I can't quite
bring myself to believe it."
"You're not the sort of chap," said the other shrewdly, "who'd say that
without reason. Why don't you think the ruby had been there all the
time?"
"Only because I put it back myself," said Father Brown.
The other man stood rooted to the spot, like one whose hair was standing
on end. He opened his mouth without speech.
"Or rather," went on the priest, "I persuaded the thief to let me put it
back. I told him what I'd guessed and showed him there was still time
for repentance. I don't mind telling you in professional confidence;
besides, I don't think the Mounteagles would prosecute, now they've got
the thing back, especially considering who stole it."
"Do you mean the Master?" asked the late Phroso.
"No," said Father Brown, "the Master didn't steal it."
"But I don't understand," objected the other. "Nobody was outside the
window except the Master; and a hand certainly came from outside."
"The hand came from outside, but the thief came from the inside," said
Father Brown.
"We seem to be back among the mystics again. Look here, I'm a practical
man: I only wanted to know if it is all right with the ruby----"
"I knew it was all wrong," said Father Brown, "before I even knew there
was a ruby."
After a pause he went on thoughtfully. "Right away back in that argument
of theirs, by the tents, I knew things were going wrong. People will
tell you that theories don't matter and that logic and philosophy aren't
practical. Don't you believe them. Reason is from God, and when things
are unreasonable there is something the matter. Now, that quite abstract
argument ended with something funny. Consider what the theories were.
Hardcastle was a trifle superior and said that all things were perfectly
possible; but they were mostly done merely by mesmerism, or
clairvoyance; scientific names for philosophical puzzles, in the usual
style. But Hunter thought it all sheer fraud and wanted to show it up.
By Lady Mounteagle's testimony, he not only went about showing up
fortune-tellers and such like, but he had actually come down specially
to confront this one. He didn't often come; he didn't get on with
Mounteagle, from whom, being a spendthrift, he always tried to borrow;
but when he heard the Master was coming, he came hurrying down. Very
well. In spite of that, it was Hardcastle who went to consult the wizard
and Hunter who refused. He said he'd waste no time on such nonsense;
having apparently wasted a lot of his life on proving it to be nonsense.
That seems inconsistent. He thought in this case it was crystal-gazing;
but he found it was palmistry."
"Do you mean he made that an excuse?" asked his companion, puzzled.
"I thought so at first," replied the priest; "but I know now it was not
an excuse, but a reason. He really was put off by finding it was a
palmist, because----"
"Well," demanded the other impatiently.
"Because he didn't want to take his glove off," said Father Brown.
"Take his glove off?" repeated the inquirer.
"If he had," said Father Brown mildly, "we should all have seen that his
hand was painted pale brown already.... Oh, yes, he did come down
specially because the Master was here. He came down very fully
prepared."
"You mean," cried Phroso, "that it was Hunter's hand, painted brown,
that came in at the window? Why, he was with us all the time!"
"Go and try it on the spot and you'll find it's quite possible," said
the priest. "Hunter leapt forward and leaned out of the window; in a
flash he could tear off his glove, tuck up his sleeve, and thrust his
hand back round the other side of the pillar, while he gripped the
Indian with the other hand and halloed out that he'd caught the thief. I
remarked at the time that he held the thief with one hand, where any
sane man would have used two. But the other hand was slipping the jewel
into his trouser pocket."
There was a long pause and then the ex-Phrenologist said slowly. "Well,
that's a staggerer. But the thing stumps me still. For one thing, it
doesn't explain the queer behaviour of the old magician himself. If he
was entirely innocent, why the devil didn't he say so? Why wasn't he
indignant at being accused and searched? Why did he only sit smiling and
hinting in a sly way what wild and wonderful things he could do?"
"Ah!" cried Father Brown, with a sharp note in his voice: "there you
come up against it! Against everything these people don't and won't
understand. All religions are the same, says Lady Mounteagle. Are they,
by George! I tell you some of them are so different that the best man of
one creed will be callous, where the worst man of another will be
sensitive. I told you I didn't like spiritual power, because the accent
is on the word power. I don't say the Master would steal a ruby, very
likely he wouldn't; very likely he wouldn't think it worth stealing. It
wouldn't be specially his temptation to take jewels; but it would be his
temptation to take credit for miracles that didn't belong to him any
more than the jewels. It was to that sort of temptation, to _that_ sort of
stealing that he yielded to-day. He liked us to think that he had
marvellous mental powers that could make a material object fly through
space; and even when he hadn't done it, he allowed us to think he had.
The point about private property wouldn't occur primarily to him at all.
The question wouldn't present itself in the form: 'Shall I _steal_ this
pebble?' but only in the form: 'Could I make a pebble vanish and reappear
on a distant mountain?' The question of _whose_ pebble would strike
him as irrelevant. That is what I mean by religious being different. He
is very proud of having what he calls spiritual powers. But what he
calls spiritual doesn't mean what we call moral. It means rather mental;
the power of the mind over matter; the magician controlling the
elements. Now we are not like that, even when we are no better; even
when we are worse. We, whose fathers at least were Christians, who have
grown up under those mediæval arches even if we bedizen them with all
the demons in Asia--we have the very opposite ambition and the very
opposite shame. We should all be anxious that nobody should think we had
done it. He was actually anxious that everybody should think he
had--even when he hadn't. He actually stole the credit of stealing.
While we were all casting the crime from us like a snake, he was
actually luring it to him like a snake-charmer. But snakes are not pets
in this country! Here the traditions of Christendom tell at once under a
test like this. Look at old Mounteagle himself, for instance! Ah, you
may be as Eastern and esoteric as you like, and wear a turban and a long
robe and live on messages from Mahatmas; but if a bit of stone is stolen
in your house, and your friends are suspected, you will jolly soon find
out that you're an ordinary English gentleman in a fuss. The man who
really did it would never want us to think he did it, for he also was an
English gentleman. He was also something very much better; he was a
Christian thief. I hope and believe he was a penitent thief."
"By your account," said his companion laughing, "the Christian thief and
the heathen fraud went by contraries. One was sorry he'd done it and the
other was sorry he hadn't."
"We mustn't be too hard on either of them," said Father Brown. "Other
English gentlemen have stolen before now, and been covered by legal and
political protection; and the West also has its own way of covering
theft with sophistry. After all, the ruby is not the only kind of
valuable stone in the world that has changed owners; it is true of other
precious stones; often carved like cameos and coloured like flowers."
The other looked at him inquiringly; and the priest's finger was pointed
to the Gothic outline of the great Abbey.
"A great graven stone," he said, "and that was also stolen."
VIII
THE CHIEF MOURNER OF MARNE
A BLAZE of lightning blanched the grey woods tracing all the
wrinkled foliage down to the last curled leaf, as if every detail were
drawn in silverpoint or graven in silver. The same strange trick of
lightning by which it seems to record millions of minute things in an
instant of time, picked out everything, from the elegant litter of the
picnic spread under the spreading tree to the pale lengths of winding
road, at the end of which a white car was waiting. In the distance a
melancholy mansion with four towers like a castle, which in the grey
evening had been but a dim and distant huddle of walls like a crumbling
cloud, seemed to spring into the foreground, and stood up with all its
embattled, roofs and blank and staring windows. And in this, at least,
the light had something in it of revelation. For to some of those
grouped under the tree that castle was, indeed, a thing faded and almost
forgotten, which was to prove its power to spring up again in the
foreground of their lives.
The light also clothed for an instant, in the same silver splendour, at
least one human figure that stood up as motionless as one of the towers.
It was that of a tall man standing on a rise of ground above the rest,
who were mostly sitting on the grass or stooping to gather up the hamper
and crockery. He wore a picturesque short cloak or cape clasped with a
silver clasp and chain, which blazed like a star when the flash touched
it; and something metallic in his motionless figure was emphasized by
the fact that his closely-curled hair was of the burnished yellow that
can be really called gold; and had the look of being younger than his
face, which was handsome in a hard aquiline fashion, but looked, under
the strong light, a little wrinkled and withered. Possibly it had
suffered from wearing a mask of make-up, for Hugo Romaine was the
greatest actor of his day. For that instant of illumination the golden
curls and ivory mask and silver ornament made his figure gleam like that
of a man in armour; the next instant his figure was a dark and even
black silhouette against the sickly grey of the rainy evening sky.