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‘I found our young friend rather attractive, myself,’ he said. ‘He’s a good talker and a good poet; and Mrs Maltravers, who is serious about that at least, says he’s quite a good actor.’

‘Indeed,’ said the lawyer. ‘Potter’s Pond, outside Mrs Maltravers, is rather more interested if he is a good son.’

‘He is a good son,’ said Father Brown. ‘That’s the strange thing.’

‘Damn it all,’ said the Admiral. ‘Do you mean he really loves his father?’

The priest was uncertain. Then he said, ‘I’m not quite so sure about that. That’s the other strange thing.’

‘What the devil do you mean?’ asked the sailor with a curse.

‘I mean,’ said Father Brown, ‘that the son still speaks of his father in a hard unkind way; but he seems after all to have done more than his duty by him⁵⁶. I had a talk with the bank manager, and as we were looking privately into a serious crime, under authority from the police, he told me the facts. The old clergyman has left thechurch work; indeed, this was never actually his church. The people who go to church at all, go to Dutton-Abbot, not far away from here. The old man has no money of his own, but his son is making good money; and the old man is well looked after. He gave me some port-wineof absolutely first-class quality; I saw manyold bottles of it; and I left him sitting down to a little fine lunch in an old-fashioned style. It must be done on the young man’s money.’

‘Quite a model son,’ said Carver with a sarcasm.

Father Brown agreed, frowning, as if thinking ofa riddle of his own; and then said:‘A model son. But rather an unnatural model.’

At this moment a postman brought in an unstamped letter for the lawyer; a letter which the lawyer opened impatiently after a quick look. As it fell apart, the priest saw a spidery, crazy handwriting and the autograph of ‘Phoenix Fitzgerald’; and made a conclusion which the other supported.

‘It’s that highly emotional actor that’s always annoying us,’ he said. ‘He’s got some conflict with his dead and gone fellow actor, which can’t have anything to do with the case⁵⁷. We all refuse to see him, except the doctor, who did see him; and the doctor says he’s mad.’

‘Yes,’ said Father Brown, pressing his lips. ‘I should say he’s mad. But of course there can’t be any doubt that he’s right.’

‘Right?’ shouted Carver. ‘Right about what?’

‘About this being connected with the old theatrical company,’ said Father Brown. ‘Do you know the first thing that surprised me about this story? It was that idea that Maltravers was killed by villagers because he said something bad about their village. It’s strange what court investigators can get jurymen to believe⁵⁸; and journalists, of course, trust them too. They can’t know much about English villagers. I’m an English villager myself; at least I was grown, with other turnips, in Essex⁵⁹. Can you imagine an English peasant thinking abouthis village as an ideal place, like the citizen of an old Greek city-state; taking the sword to protect it, like a man in the small medieval republic of an Italian town? Can you hear a merry old villager saying, “Blood alone can wipe out one spot on the emblem of Potter’s Pond”? By St George and the Dragon⁶⁰, I only wish they would! But, in fact, I have a more practical argument for the other idea.’

He paused for a moment, as if collecting his thoughts⁶¹, and then went on:‘They didn’t understandthe meaning of those few last words poor Maltravers was heard to say⁶². He wasn’t telling the villagers that the village was only a hamlet. He was talking to an actor; they were going to put on a performance in which Fitzgerald was to be Fortinbras, the unknown Hankin to be Polonius, and Maltravers, no doubt, the Prince of Denmark. Perhaps somebody else wanted the part or had views on the part⁶³; and Maltravers said angrily, “You’d be an ugly little Hamlet”; that’s all.’

Dr Mulborough was struck; he seemed to be thinking aboutthat idea slowly but without difficulty. At last he said, before the others could speak:‘And what do you suggest that we should do now?’

Father Brown stood up quickly; but he spoke calmly enough. ‘If these gentlemen will excuse us for a moment, I propose that you and I, doctor, should go round at once to the Horners. I know the priest and his son will both be there just now. And what I want to do, doctor, is this. Nobody in the village knows yet, I think, about your autopsy and its result. I want you to simply tell both the clergyman and his son, while they are there together, the exact fact of the case; that Maltravers died by poison and not by a hit on the head.’

Dr Mulborough had to rethink his disbelief when told that it was an unusual village⁶⁴. The scene which followed, when he actually did what the priest asked him, was certainly of the sort in which a man, as the saying is, can hardly believe his eyes.

The Rev. Samuel Horner was standing in his black dress, which made the silver of his head more noticeable; his hand rested at the moment on the table at which he often sit to study the Bible, now possibly by accident only; but it gave him a greater look of authority. And opposite to him his rebel son was sitting relaxed in a chair, smoking a cheap cigarette with a grin on his face; a lively picture of youthful disrespect.

The old man offered Father Brown a seat, which he took and sat there silent, looking at the ceiling. But something made Mulborough feel that he could tell his important news more impressively standing up.

‘I feel,’ he said, ‘that you should know, as in some sense the spiritual father of this village⁶⁵, that one terrible tragedy has taken on a new significance; possibly even more terrible. You must remember the sad case of the death of Maltravers, who was supposed to have been killed with the hit of a club, probably by some enemy among the villagers.’

The clergyman moved hishand. ‘God forbid,’ he said, ‘that I should say anything good about that case. But when an actor brings his evil into this quiet village, he goes against the judgement of God.’

‘Perhaps,’ said the doctor seriously. ‘But anyhow it was not so that the judgement fell. I have just been asked to make an autopsy on the body; and I can tell you, first, that the hit on the head could not have caused the death; and, second, that the body was full of poison, which caused death without any doubt.’

Young Hurrel Horner threw his cigarette away and was on his feet as quick as a cat. He jumped towards the reading-desk.

‘Are you certain of this?’ he exclaimed. ‘Are you absolutely certain that that hit could not cause death?’

‘Absolutely certain,’ said the doctor.

‘Well,’ said Hurrel, ‘I almost wish this one could.’

In a moment, before anyone could move a finger, he had hit the priest on the mouth, throwinghim backwards like a black doll against the door.

‘What are you doing?’ shouted Mulborough, shaken from head to foot with the shock and mere sound of the hit. ‘Father Brown, what is this madman doing?’

But Father Brown had not moved; he was still lookingplainly at the ceiling.

‘I was waiting for him to do that,’ said the priest calmly. ‘I rather ask myself why he hasn’t done it before.’

‘Good God,’ said the doctor. ‘I know we thought he was bad in some ways; but to hit his father; to hit a clergyman and an innocent person – ’

‘He has not hit his father; and he has not hit a clergyman,’ said Father Brown. ‘He has hit a blackmailing actor dressed up as a clergyman, who has lived on him like a parasite for years. Now he knows he is free of the blackmail, he lets fly⁶⁶; and I can’t say I blame him much. More especially as I have very strong suspicions that the one who blackmailed gave poison too⁶⁷. I think, Mulborough, you had better call the police.’

They went out of the room and the two others didn’t stop them – the one was in shock, the other still blind and breathing heavilywith feelings of relief and anger. But as they passed, Father Brown once turned his face to the young man; and the young man was one of the very few human beings who have seen that face implacable.

‘He was right there,’ said Father Brown. ‘When an actor brings his evil into this innocent village, he goes against the judgement of God.’

‘Well,’ said Father Brown, as he and the doctor again placed themselves in a train standing in the station of Potter’s Pond. ‘As you say, it’s a strange story; but I don’t think it’s any longer a mystery story. Anyhow, the story seems to me to have been like this⁶⁸. Maltravers came here, with part of his acting company on tour, some of them went straight to Dutton-Abbot, where they were all presenting some melodrama about the early nineteenth century; he himself happened to be in his stage dress⁶⁹, the very noticeable dress of a fashionable man of that time. Another character was an old-fashioned priest, whose dark dress was less noticeable and might pass as being something old-fashioned. This part was taken by a man who usually acted old men⁷⁰; had acted Shylock and was afterwards going to act Polonius.

‘A third figure in the drama was our dramatic poet, who was also a dramatic performer, and had a dispute with Maltravers about how to play Hamlet, but more about personal things, too. I think it likely that⁷¹ he was in love with Mrs Maltravers even then; I don’t believe there was anything wrong with them; and I hope it may now be all right with them. But he may very well have offended Maltravers; for Maltravers was a bully and likely to start a fight. In some such fight they took clubs, and the poet hit Maltravers very hard on the head, and, in the light of the investigation, had every reason to think he had killed him.

‘A third person was present or connected with the event, the man acting the old priest; and he started to blackmail the supposed murderer, forcing from him some money as a retired clergyman. It was the plain masquerade for such a man in such a place, simply to go on wearing his stage clothes as a retired clergyman. But he had his own reason for being a retired clergyman. For the true story of Maltravers’ death was that he rolled into a tall grass, woke up in time, tried to walk towards a house, and was in the end killed, not by the club, but by the fact that the clergyman had given him poison an hour before, probably in a glass of port-wine. I was beginning to think so, when I drank a glass of the priest’s port-wine. It made me a little nervous. The police are working on that theory now; but whether they will be able to prove that part of the story, I don’t know⁷². They will have to find the exact reason; but it’s clear that this group of actors was full of disputes and Maltravers was very much hated.’

‘The police may prove something now they have got the suspicion⁷³,’ said Dr Mulborough. ‘What I don’t understand is why you ever began to suspect. Why in the world should you suspect that very innocent gentleman in a black dress?’

Father Brown smiled lightly. ‘I suppose in one sense,’ he said, ‘it was a question of special knowledge; almost a professional question, but in an unusual sense. You know our opponents often complain that people don’t know muchabout what our religion is really like. But it is really more interesting than that. It is true, and it is not at all unnatural, that England does not know much about the Church of Rome. But England does not know much about the Church of England. Not even as much as I do. You would be surprised at how little the common public understands about the Anglican questionable topics; lots of them don’t really know what is meant by a High Churchman or a Low Churchman, even on the specific points of practice, not to mention the two theories of history and philosophy behind them⁷⁴. You can see this in any newspaper; in any popular novel or play.

‘Now the first thing that shocked me was that this honorable clergyman had got the whole thing totally mixed up. No Anglican priest could be so wrong about every Anglican problem. He was supposed to be an old Tory High Churchman; and then he said to be a Puritan⁷⁵. A man like that might personally be rather Puritanical; but he would never call it being a Puritan⁷⁶. He openly said he hada fear of the stage; he didn’t know that High Churchmen generally don’t have that special fear, though Low Churchmen do. He talked like a Puritan about the Sabbath; and then he had a crucifix in his room⁷⁷. He evidently had no idea of what a very religious priest ought to be, except that he ought to be very serious and noble and frown upon the pleasures of the world.

‘All this time there was an inner thought running in my head; something I couldn’t fix in my memory; and then it came to me all of a sudden. This is a Stage Priest. That is exactly the honourable old fool who would be the nearest image a popular playwright or play-actor of the old school had of anything so strange as a religious man⁷⁸.’

‘To say nothing of a doctor of the old school⁷⁹,’ said Mulborough with a smile, ‘who does not know much about being a religious man.’

‘As a matter of fact,’ went on Father Brown, ‘there was a plainer and more noticeable reason for suspicion. It is connected with the Dark Lady of the Grange, who was supposed to be the Vampire of the Village.

‘I very early formed the impression that this black sheep⁸⁰ was rather the bright spot of the village. She was treated as a mystery; but there was really nothing mysterious about her⁸¹. She had come down here quite lately, quite openly, under her own name, to help the new investigation to be made about her own husband. He hadn’t treated her too well; but she had principles, suggesting that it was connected with her married name and with common justice. For the same reason, she went to live in the house outside which her husband had been found dead. The other innocent and simple case, besides the Vampire of the Village, was the Scandal of the Village, the priest’s rebel son. He also had no mysteryof his profession or past connection with the acting world. That’s why I didn’t suspect him as I did the priest. But you’ll already have found a real and suitable reason for suspecting the priest.’

‘Yes, I think I see,’ said the doctor, ‘that’s why you bring in the name of the actress.’

‘Yes, I mean his strong wish not to see the actress,’ said the priest. ‘But he didn’t really refuse to seeing her. He refused to her seeing him⁸².’

‘Yes, I see that,’ agreed the other.

‘If she had seen the Rev. Samuel Horner, she would have recognized the actor Hankin, dressed as a fake priest with a pretty bad character behind the mask. Well, that is the whole of this simple village, I think. But you will agree I kept my promise; I have shown you something in the village much more strange than a dead body; even a dead body stuffed with poison. The black dress of a priest put on a blackmailer is at least worth noticing and my live man is much deadlier than your dead one⁸³.’

‘Yes,’ said the doctor, placing himself comfortably on the seat. ‘If it comes to a little company on a railway journey, I should prefer the dead body⁸⁴.’