Kabanata Kabanata 11 · The Sign of the Broken Sword

. 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 façade 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.