The Eye of Apollo by G. K. Chesterton. That singular smoky sparkle,
at once a confusion and a transparency, which is the strange secret of
the Thames was changing more and more from its gray to its glittering extreme.
As the sun climbed to the zenith over Westminster, and two men crossed Westminster
Bridge. One man was very tall and the other very short. They might
even have been fantastically compared to the arrogant clock tower of Parliament and the humbler
humped shoulders of the abbey, for the short man was in clerical dress.
The official description of the tall man was m Hercule Flambeau, private detective,
and he was going to his new offices in a new pile of flats facing
the abbey entrance. The official description of the short man was the Reverend J.
Brown, attached to Saint Francis Xavior's Church, Camberwell, and he was
coming from a Camberwell deathbed to see the new offices of his friend. The
building was America in its skyscraping altitude, an American also in the oiled elaboration
of its machinery of telephones and lifts, but it was barely finished. And
still understaffed. Only three tenants had moved in the office just above Flambeau was
occupied, as also was the office just below him. The two floors above
that and the three floors below were entirely bare. But the first glance the
new tower of Flats caught something much more arresting. Save for a few relics
of scaffolding, the one glaring object was erected outside the office just above Flambeau's.
It was an enormous guilt effigy of the human eye, surrounded with rays
of gold, and taking up as much room as two or three of the
office windows. What on earth is that? Asked Father Brown, and stood
still. Oh a new religion, said Flambeau, laughing, one of those
new religions that forgive your sins by saying you never had any, rather like
Christian science. I should think. The fact is that a fellow calling himself
Ceylon. I don't know what his name is, except that it can't be
that has taken the flat just to me. I have two lady typewriters underneath
me, and this enthusiastic old humbug on top. He calls himself the new
Priest of Apollo, and he worships the Sun. Let him look out,
said father Brown. The son was the cruelest of all the gods. But
what does that monstrous? I mean? As I understand it, it is
a theory of theirs, answered Flambeau. That a man can endure anything if
his mind is quite steady. The two great symbols are the sun and the
open eye. For they say that if a man were really healthy, he
could stare at the sun. If a man were really healthy, said father
Brown, you would not bother to stare at it. Well, that's all
I can tell you about the new religion, went on Flambeaux carelessly. It
claims, of course, that it can cure all physical diseases. Can a
cure the one's spiritual disease? Asked Father Brown, with a serious curiosity.
And what is the one's spiritual disease? Asked Flambeaux, smiling, Oh,
thinking one is quite well, said his friend. Flambeau was more interested in
the quiet little office below him than in the flatboyant temple above. He was
a lucid Southerner, incapable of conceiving himself as anything but a Catholic or an
atheist. And new religions of a bright and pallid sort were not much in
his line, but humanity was always in his line, especially when it was
good looking. Moreover, the ladies downstairs were characters in their way. The
office was kept by two sisters, both slight and dark, one of them
tall and striking. She had a dark, eager, and aquiline profile,
and was one of those women whom one always thinks of a profile as of
the clean cut edge of some weapon. She seemed to cleave her way through
life. She had eyes of a startling brilliancy, but it was the brilliancy
of steel rather than of diamonds, and her straight swim figure was a shade
too stiff for its grace. Her younger sister was like her shortened shadow,
a little grayer, paler, and more insignificant. They both wore a business
like black, with little masculine cuffs and collars. There are thousands of such
curt strenuous ladies in the offices of London, but the interests of these lay
rather in their rear than their apparent position. For Pauline Stacy the Elder was
actually the heiress of a crest and half a county, as well as great
wealth. She had been brought up in castles and gardens before a frigid,
fierceness peculiar to the modern woman, had driven her to what she considered a
harsher and a higher existence. She had not, indeed surrendered her money in
that there would have been a romantic or monkish abandon quite alien to her masterful
utilitarianism. She held her wealth, she would say, for use upon practical
social objects. Part of it she had put into her business the nucleus of
a model typewriting. Important part of it was distributed in various leagues and causes
for the advancement of such work among women. How far Joan, her sister
and partner, shared this slightly prosaic idealism known could be very sure, But
she followed her leader with a doglike affection, which was somewhow more attractive with
its touch of tragedy than the hard high spirits of the elder. For Pauline
Stacey had nothing to say to tragedy. She was understood to deny its existence.
Her rigid rapidity and cold impatience had amused Flambeaux very much on the first
occasion of his entering the flats. He had lingered outside the lift in the
entrance hall, waiting for the lift boy, who generally conduct strangers to the
various floors. But this bright eyed falcon of a girl had openly refused to
endure such official delay. She said sharply that she knew all about the lift
and was not dependent on boys or men either. Though her flat was only
three floors above, she managed in the few seconds of ascent to give Flambeaux
a great many of her fundamental views in an offhand manner. They were to
the general effect that she was a modern working woman and loved modern working machinery.
Her bright black eyes blazed with abstract anger against those who were buque mechanic
science and asked for the return of romance. Everyone, she said, ought
to be able to manage machines, just as she could manage the lift.
She seemed almost to resent the fact of Flambeau opening the lift door for her,
and that gentleman went up to his own apartment, smiling with somewhat mingled
feelings at the memory of such spitfire self dependence. She certainly had a temper
of a snappy, practical sort. The gestures of her thin, elegant hands
were abrupt or even destructive. Once Flambeau entered her office on some typewriting business
and found she had just flung a pair of spectacles belonged to her sister into
the middle of the floor and stamped on them. She was already in the
rapids of an ethical tirade about the sickly medical notions and the morbid admission of
weakness implied in such an apparatus. She dared her sister to bring such artificial,
unhealthy rubbish into the place again. She asked if she was expected to
wear wooden legs, or false hair or glass eyes, and as she spoke,
her eyes sparkled like the terrible crystal. Flambeau, quite bewildered with this
fanaticism, could not refrain from asking Miss Pauline, with direct French logic,
why a pair of spectacles was a more morbid sign of weakness than the lift,
And why if science might help us in one effort, it might not
help us in the other. That is so different, said Pauline stacy loftily.
Batteries and motors and all those things are marks of the force of man.
Yes, mister Flambeau, and the force of woman too. We shall
take our turn at these great engines that devour distance intofy time. That is
high and splendid. That is really science. But these nasty props and plasters
the doctors sell, why they are just badges of poltroonery. Doctors stick on
legs and arms as if we were born cripples and six slaves. But I
was free born, mister Flambeau. People only think they need these things because
they have been trained in fear instead of being trained in power and courage.
Just as the silly nurses tell children not to stare at the sun, and
so they can't do it without blinking. But why among the stars should there
be one star that I may not see. The Sun is not my master,
and I will open my eyes and stare at him whenever I choose your
eyes, said Flambeau, with a foreign bow, will dazzle the sun.
He took pleasure in complimenting this strange, stiff beauty, partly because it threw
her a little off her balance. But as he went upstairs to his floor,
he drew a deep breath and whistled, saying to himself, she has
got into the hands of that conjuror upstairs with his golden eye. For little
as he knew or cared about the new religion of Chelon, he had heard
of his special notion about sun gazing. He soon discovered that the spiritual bond
between the floors above and below him was close and increasing. The man who
called himself Chelon was a magnificent creature, worthy in a physical sense to be
pontiff of Apollo. He was nearly as tall even as Flambeaux, and very
much better looking, with a golden beard, strong blue eyes, and a
mane flung back like a lion's. In structure, he was the blonde beast
of Nietzsche. But all this animal beauty was heightened, brightened, and softened
by genuine intellect and spirituality. If he looked like one of the great Saxon
kings, he looked like one of the kings that were also saints. And
this despite the cockney incongruity of his surroundings, the fact that he had an
office halfway up a building in Victoria Street, that the clerk, a commonplace
youth in cuffs and collars, sat in the outer room between him and the
corridor that his name was on a brass plate, and the gilt emblem of
his creed hung above his street like the advertisement of an oculist. All this
vulgarity could not take away from the man called Chelon, the vivid oppression and
inspiration that came from his soul and body. When all was said, a
man in the presence of this quack did feel in the presence of a great
man. Even in the loose jacket suit of linen that he wore as a
workshop dress in his office, he was a fascinating and formidable figure. And
when robed in the white vestments and crowned with a golden circulate in which he
daily sluted the sun, he really looked so splendid that the laughter of the
street people sometimes died suddenly on their lips. For three times in the day
the new sun worshiper went out on his little balcony in the face of all
Westminster to say some litany to his shining Lord, once at daybreak, once
at sunset, and once at the shock of noon. And it was while
the shock of noon still shook faintly from the towers of Parliament and parish Church,
that Father Brown, the friend of Flambeau first looked up and saw the
white priest of Apollo. Flambeau had seen quite enough of these daily salutations of
Phoebus, and plunged into the porch of the tall building without even looking for
his clerical friend to follow. But Father Brown, whether from a professional interest
in ritual or a strong individual interest in tom foolery, stopped and stared up
at the balcony of the sun worshiper, just as he might have stopped and
stared up at a pung and judy calon. The prophet was already erect with
argent garments and uplifted hands, and the sound of his strangely penetrating voice could
be heard all the way down the busy street, uttering his solar litany.
He was already in the middle of it. His eyes were fixed upon the
flaming disc. It is doubtful if he saw anything or anyone on this earth.
It is substantially certain that he did not see a stunted, round faced
priest who in the crowd below clip at him with blinking eyes. That was
perhaps the most starling difference between even these two far divided men. Father Brown
could not look at anything without blinking, but the Priest of Apollo could look
on the blaze at noon without a quiver of the eyelid. Oh Son cried
the prophet, O star that are too great to be allowed among the stars,
O fountain that flowest quietly in that secret spot that is called space.
White, Father of all white, unwearied things, white flames and white flowers
and white peaks, Father, who are more innocent than all thy most innocent
and quiet children, primal purity, into the peace of which a rush and
crash, like the reversed rush of a rocket, was cloven with a strident
and incessant yelling. Five people rushed into the gate of the mansions, as
three people rushed out, and for an instant they all deafened each other,
the sense of some utterly abrupt horror seen for a moment to fill half the
street with bad news, bad news that was all the worst, because no
one knew what it was. Two figures remained still after the crash of commotion,
the fair Priest of Apollo on the balcony above, and the ugly Priest
of Christ below him. At last, the tall figure and titanic energy of
Flambeau appeared in the doorway of the mansions and dominated the little mob. Looking
at the top of his voice like a foghorn, he told somebody or anybody
to go for a surgeon. And as he turned back into the dark and
frogged entrance, his friend, Father Brown, dipped in insignificantly after him.
Even as he ducked and dived through the crowd, he could still hear the
magnificent melody and monotony of the solar priest, still calling on the happy God,
who is the friend of fountains and flowers. Father Brown found Flambeaux and
some six other people standing around the enclosed space into which the lift commonly descended.
But the lift had not descended. Something else had descended, something that
ought to have come by a lift. For the last four minutes Flambeau had
looked down on it, had seen the brained and bleeding figure of that beautiful
woman who denied the existence of tragedy. He had never had the slightest doubt
that it was Pauline Stacy, and though he had sent for a doctor,
he had not the slightest doubt that she was dead. He could not remember
for certain whether he had liked her or disliked her. There was so much
both to like and dislike, but she had been a person to him,
and the unbearable pathos of details and habits stabbed him with all the small daggers
of bereavement. He remembered her pretty face and the priggish speeches with a sudden,
secret vividness, which is all the bitterness of death. In an instant,
like a bolt from the blue, like a thunderbolt from nowhere, that
beautiful and defiant body had been dashed down the open well of the lift to
death at the bottom. Was it suicide? With so insolent an optimist,
it seemed impossible? Was it murder? But who was there in those hardily
inhabited flats to murder anybody? In a rush of raucous words which he meant
to be strong and suddenly found weak, he asked, where was that fellow
Chelon? A voice, habitually heavy, quiet and full assured him that Chelon,
for the last fifteen minutes had been away up on his balcony, worshiping
his God. When Flambeau heard the voice and felt the hand of Father Brown,
he turned his swarthy face and said, abruptly, then, if he
has been up there all the time, who can have done it? Perhaps,
said the other. We might go upstairs and find out. We have
half an hour before the police will move. Leaving the body of the slain
heiress in charge of the surgeons, Flambeaux dashed up the stairs to the typewriting
office, found it utterly empty, and then dashed up to his own.
Having entered that, he abruptly returned with a new and white face to his
friend her sister. He said, with an unpleasant seriousness, Her sister seems
to have gone out for a walk. Father Brown nodded. Or she may
have gone up to the office of that sunman, he said. If I
were you, I should just verify that and then let us all talk it
over in your office. No, he added, suddenly, as if remembering
something. Shall I ever get over that stupidity of mine? Of course,
in their office downstairs. Flambeau stared, but he followed the little father downstairs
to the empty flat of the Staceys, where that impenetrable pasture took a large
red leather chair in the very entrance, from which he could not see the
stairs and landings, and waited. He did not wait very long. In
about four minutes, three figures descended the stairs, alike only in their solemnity.
The first was Joan Stacey, the sister of the dead woman. Evidently
she had been upstairs in the temporary temple of Apollo. The second was the
Priest of Apollo himself, his whotny finished sweeping down the empty stairs and utter
magnificence. Something in his white robes, beard and parted hair had the look
of doors Christ leaving the praetorium. The third was Flambeaux, black browed and
somewhat bewildered. Miss Joan Stacey, dark, with a drawn face and hair
prematurely touched with gray, walked straight to her own desk and set out her
papers with a practical flap. The mere action rallied everyone else to sanity.
If Miss Joan Stacey was a criminal, she was a cool one. Father
Brown regarded her for some time with an odd little smile, and then,
without taking his eyes off her, addressed himself to somebody else. Prophet,
he said, presumably addressing Chelon. I wish you would tell me a lot
about your religion. I shall be proud to do it, said Chelon,
inclining his still crowned head but I'm not sure that I understand why it's like
this, said father Brown in his frankly doubtful way. We are taught that
if a man has really bad first principles, that must be partly his fault.
But for all that, we can make some difference between a man who
insults his quite clear conscience and a man with a conscience more or less clouded
with sophistries. Now do you really think that murder is wrong at all?
Is this an accusation? Asked Chelon, very quietly. No, answered Brown
equally gently. Is the speech for the defense? In the long and startled
stillness of the room, the profit of Apollo slowly rose, And really it
was like the rising of the sun. He filled that room with his light
and life, and such a manner that a man felt he could as easily
have filled Salisbury Plain. His robed form seemed to hang the whole room with
classic draperies. His epic gesture seemed to extend it into grander perspectives, till
the little black figure of the modern cleric seemed to be a fault and an
intrusion, a round black blot upon some splendor of Hellas we meet at last,
Caiaphas, said the prophet. Your church and mine are the only realities
on this earth. I adore the sun, and you the darkening of the
sun. You are the priests of the dying and I of the living God.
Your present work of suspicion and slander is worthy of your code and creed.
All your church is but a black police. You are only spies and
detectives seeking to tear from men confessions of guilt, whether by treachery or torture.
You would convict men of crime, I would convict them of innocence.
You would convince them of sin. I would convince them of virtue. Reader
of the Books of the Ease, one more word before I blow away your
baseless nightmares forever. Not even faintly, could you understand how little I care
whether you could convict me or know The things you call disgrace and horrible hanging
are to me no more than an ogre and a child's toy book to a
man once grown up. You said you were offering this speech for the defense.
I care so little for the cloud land of this life that I will
offer you the speech for the prosecution. There is but one thing that can
be said against me in this matter, and I will say it myself.
The woman that is dead was my love and my bride, not after such
manner as your tin chapels call lawful, but by a law purer and sterner
than you will ever understand. She and I walked another world from yours,
and trod palaces of crystal, while you were plodding through tunnels and corridors of
brick. Well, I know that policemen, theological and otherwise, always fancy
that where there has been love, there must soon be hatred. So there
you have the first point made for the prosecution. But the second point is
stronger. I do not grudge it you. Not only is it true that
Pauline loved me, but it is also true that this very morning before she
died, she wrote at that table a will leaving me and my new church
half a million. Come. Where are the handcuffs? Do you suppose I
care what foolish things you do with me? Penal Sertude will only be like
waiting for her at a wayside station. The gallows will only be going to
her in a headlong car. He spoke with the brain shaking authority of an
orator and Flambeau and Joan Stacy stared at him in amazed admiration. Father Brown's
face seemed to express nothing but extreme distress. He looked at the ground with
one wrinkle of pinon across his forehead. The Prophet of the Sun leaned easily
against the mantelpiece and resumed in a few words, I have put before you
the whole case against me, the only possible case against me. In fewer
words still, I will blow it to pieces so that not a trace of
it remains as to whether I have committed this crime. The truth is in
one sentence. I could not have committed this crime. Pauline Stacy fell from
this floor to the ground at five minutes past twelve. A hundred people will
go into the witness box and say that I was standing out upon the balcony
of my own rooms above from just before the stroke of noon to a quarter
past the usual period of my public prayers. My clerk, our respectable youth
from Clapham, with no sort of connection with me, will swear that he
sat in my outer office all the morning, and that no communication passed through.
He will swear that I arrived a full ten minutes before the hour,
fifteen minutes before any whisper of the accident, and that I did not leave
the office or the balcony all that time. No one ever had so complete
an alibi I could subpoena half Westminster. I think you had better put the
handcuffs away again. The case is at an end. But last of all,
that no breath of this idiotic suspicion remained in the air. I will
tell you all you want to know. I believe I do know how my
unhappy friend came by her death. You can, if you choose, blame
me for it, or my faith and philosophy at least, but you certainly
cannot lock me up. It is well known to all students of the Higher
Truths that certain adepts and illuminati have in history attained the power of levitation,
that is, of being self sustained upon the empty air. It is but
a part of that general conquest of matter, which is the main element in
our occult wisdom. Poor Pauline was of an impulsive and ambitious temper, I
think, to tell the truth, she thought herself somewhat deeper in the mysteries
than she was, and she has often said to me as we went down
in the lift together, that if one's will were strong enough, one could
float down as harmlessly as a feather. I solemnly believe that, in some
ecstasy of noble thoughts, she attempted the miracle. Her will or faith must
have failed her at the crucial instant, and the lower law of matter had
its horrible revenge. There is the whole story, gentlemen, very sad,
and as you think, very presumptuous and wicked, but certainly not criminal or
in any way connected with me. In the shorthand of the police courts.
You had better call it suicide. I shall always call it heroic failure for
the advance of science and the slow scaling of heaven. It was the first
time Flambeau had ever seen Father Brown vanquished. He still sat looking at the
ground with a painful and corrugated brow, as if in shame. It was
impossible to avoid the feeling which the prophet's winged words had fanned, that here
was a sullen, professional suspecter of men, overwhelmed by a prouder and pure
spirit of natural liberty and help. At last, he said, blinking as
if in bodily distress. Well, If that is so, sir, you
need to do no more than take the testamentary paper you spoke of and go.
I wonder where the poor lady left it. It will be over there
on her desk by the door, I think, said Caelon, with that
massive innocence of manner that seemed to acquit him wholly. She told me specially
she would write it this morning, and I actually saw her writing as I
went up in the lift to my own room. Was her door open,
then, asked the priest, with his eye on the corner of the matting.
Yes, said Chevon, calmly ah, it has been open ever since,
said the other, and resumed his silent study of the map. There
is a paper over here, said the grim miss Jane, in a somewhat
singular voice. She had passed over to her sister's desk by the doorway and
was holding a sheet of blue fool's cap in her hand. There was a
sour smile on her face that seemed unfit for such a scene or occasion,
and Flambaud looked at her with a darkening brow. Cheyvon the prophet stood away
from the paper with that loyal unconsciousness that had carried him through, but Flambaud
took it out of the lady's hand and read it with the utmost amazement.
It did indeed begin in the formal manner of a will, but after the
words I give and bequeath all of which I die possessed, the writing abruptly
stopped with a set of scratches, and there is no trace of the name
of any legatee. Flambeau in wonder handed this truncated testament to his clerical friend,
who glanced at it and silently gave it to the priests of the Sun.
An instant afterwards, that Pontiff and his splendid sweeping draperies had crossed the
room in two great strides, and was towering over Joan Stacey, his blue
eyes standing from his head. What monkey tricks have you been playing here?
He cried, That's not all, Pauline wrote. They were startled to hear
him speak in quite a new voice, with a Yankee shrillness in it.
All his grandeur and good English had fallen from him like a cloak. That
is the only thing on her desk, said Joan, and confronted him steadily
with the same smile of ill favor. Of a sudden the man broke out
into blasphemies and cataracts of incredulous words. There was something shocking about the dropping
of his man. It was like a man's real face falling off. See
here, he cried and broad American when he was breathless with cursing. I
may be an adventurer, but I guess you're a murderess. Yes, gentlemen,
here's your death explained, and without any levitation. The poor girl was
writing a will in my favor. Her cursed sister comes in, struggles for
the pen, drags her to the well, and throws her down before she
could finish it. Sakes, I reckon, we want the handcuffs after all,
as you have truly remarked, replied Joan, with ugly calm. Your
clerk is a very respectable young man who knows the nature of an oath,
and he will swear in any court that I was up in your office arranging
some typewriting work for five minutes before and five minutes after my sister fell.
Mister Flambeau will tell you that he found me there. There was a silence,
Why then, cried Flambeau, Pauline was alone when she fell, and
it was suicide. She wasn't alone when she fell, said father Brown.
But it was not suicide. Then how did she die, asked Flambeau impatiently.
She was murdered, but she was alone, objected to the detective.
She was murdered when she was all alone, answered the priest. All the
rest stared at him, but he remained sitting in the same old, dejected
attitude, with a wrinkle in his round forehead and an appearance of impersonal shame
and sorrow. His voice was colorless and sad. What I want to know,
cried Caelon with an oath, is when the police are coming for this
bloody and wicked sister. She's killed her flesh and blood. She drobbed me
of half a million. That was just as sacredly mine as come, come,
Prophet, interrupted Flambeaud with a kind of sneer. Remember that all this
world is a cloud of land, the hiro font of the sun. God
made an effort to climb back on his pedestal. It is not the mere
money, he cried, though that would equip the cause throughout the world.
It is also my beloved one's wishes to Pauline. All this was holy.
In Pauline's eyes, Father Brown suddenly sprang erect, so that his chair fell
over flat behind him. He was deathly pale. If he seen fired with
a hope, his eyes shone. That's it, he cried in a clear
voice. That's the way to begin. In Pauline's eyes, the tall prophet
retreated before the tiny priest in an almost mad disorder. What do you mean?
How dare you? He cried repeatedly. In Pauline's eyes, repeated the
priest, his own shining more and more, go on, in God's name,
go on, the foulest crime the fiends ever prompted. Feels lighter after
confession. And I implore you to confess. Go on, go on.
In Pauline's eyes, let me go, you devil, thundered Kaelon, struggling
like a giant in bonds. Who are you, you cursed spy to weave
your spiders webs round me and peep and peer, let me go? Shall
I stop him, asked Flambeaux, bounding towards the exit, for Kaelon had
already thrown the door wide open. No let him pass, said Father Brown,
with a strange deep sigh that seemed to come from the depths of the
universe. But Caine passed by, for he belongs to God. There was
a long drawn silence in the room when he had left it, which was
to Flambeau's fierce wits, one long agony of interrogation. Miss Joan Stacy very
coolly tidied up the papers on her desk, Father, said Flambou. At
last, it is my duty, not my curiosity. Only it is my
duty to find out, if I can, who committed the crime. Which
crime, asked Father Brown. The one we are dealing with, of course,
replied his impatient friend. We are dealing with two crimes, said Brown,
crimes of very different weight and by very different criminals. Miss Joan Stacy,
having collected and put away her papers, proceeded to lock up her drawer.
Father Brown went on, noticing her as little as she noticed him.
The two crimes, he observed, were committed against the same weakness of the
same person. In a struggle for her money. The author of the larger
crime found himself thwarted by the smaller crime. The author of the smaller crime
got the money. Oh, don't go on like a lecturer groaned Flambeaux put
it in a few words. I can put it in one word, answered
his friend, Miss Joe. And Stacey skewered her business like black hat on
to her head with a business like black frown before a little mirror, and
as the conversation proceeded, took her handbag an umbrella in an unhurried style,
and left the room. The truth is one word, and a short one,
said father Brown. Pauline Stacy was blind, blind, repeated Flambeau,
and rose slowly to his whole huge stature. She was subject to it by
blood. Brown proceeded. Her sister would have started eyeglasses if Pauline would have
let her, But it was her special philosophy or fad, that one must
not encourage such diseases by yielding to them. She would not admit the cloud,
or she tried to dispel it by will. So her eyes got worse
and worse with straining. But the worst strain was to come. It came
with this precious prophet or whatever he calls himself, who taught her to stare
at the hot sun with the naked eye. It was called accepting a poddle.
Oh, if these new pagans would only be old pagan They would be
a little wiser. The old pagans knew that mere naked nature worship must have
a cruel side. They knew that the eye of Apollo can blast and blind.
There was a pause, and the priest went on in a gentle and
even broken voice, whether or no that devil deliberately made her blind, there
is no doubt that he deliberately killed her through her blindness. The very simplicity
of the crime is sickening. You know, he and she went up and
down in those lifts without official help. You know also how smoothly and silently
the lift slide. Caelon brought the lift of the girl's landing and saw her
through the open door, writing in her slow, slightless way the will she
had promised him. He called out to her cheerily that he had to lift
ready for her, and she was to come out when she was ready.
Then he pressed a button and shot soundlessly up to his own floor, walked
through his own office, owed on to his own balcony, and was safely
praying before the crowded street. When the poor girl, having finished her work,
gran gaily out to where lover and lift were to receive her and stepped.
Don't, cried Flambeau. He ought to have got half a million by
pressing that button, continued the little Father, in the colorless voice in which
she talked of such horrors. But that went smash. It went smash because
there happened to be another person who also wanted the money, and who also
knew the secret about poor Pauline's sight. There was one thing about that will
which I think nobody noticed. Although it was unfinished and without signature, the
other Miss Stacy and some servant of hers had already signed it as witnesses.
Joan had signed first, saying Pauline could finish it later, with a typical
feminine contempt for legal forms. Therefore, Joan wanted her sister to sign the
will without real witnesses. Why. I thought of the blindness and felt sure
she had wanted Pauline to sign in solitude, because she had not wanted her
to sign at all. People like the Staces always use fountain pens, but
this was specially natural to Pauline. By habit and her strong will and memory.
She could still write almost as well as if she saw, but she
could not tell when her pen needed dipping. Therefore, her fountain pens were
carefully filled by her sister, all except this fountain pen. This was carefully
not filled by her sister. The remains of the ink held out for a
few lines and then failed altogether, and the prophet lost five hundred thousand pounds
and committed one of the most brutal and brilliant murders in human history for nothing.
Flambeau went to the open door and heard the official police ascending the stairs.
He turned and said, you must have followed everything devilish close to have
traced the crime to Kaelon in ten minutes. Father Brown gave a sort of
start oh to him. He said, no, I had to follow rather
close to find out about miss Joan and the fountain pen. But I knew
Aylon was the criminal before I came into the front door. You must be
joking, cried Flambeaud. I'm quite serious, answered the priest. I tell
you, I knew he had done it, even before I knew what he
had done. But why these pagan stoics, said Father Brown reflectively, always
fail by their strength. There came a crash and a screamed down the street,
and the Priest of Apollo did not start or look around. I did
not know what it was, but I knew that he was expecting it.
And of the eye of Apollo by G. K. Chesterton