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The
Scandal of Father Brown
It would not be
fair to record the adventures of Father Brown,
without admitting that he was once involved in a
grave scandal. There still are persons, perhaps
even of his own community, who would say that
there was a sort of blot upon his name. It
happened in a picturesque Mexican road-house of
rather loose repute, as appeared later; and to
some it seemed that for once the priest had
allowed a romantic streak in him, and his
sympathy for human weakness, to lead him into
loose and unorthodox action. The story in itself
was a simple one; and perhaps the whole surprise
of it consisted in its simplicity.
Burning Troy began with Helen; this disgraceful
story began with the beauty of Hypatia Potter.
Americans have a great power, which Europeans do
not always appreciate, of creating institutions
from below; that is by popular initiative. Like
every other good thing, it has its lighter
aspects; one of which, as has been remarked by
Mr Wells and others, is that a person may become
a public institution without becoming an
official institution. A girl of great beauty or
brilliancy will be a sort of uncrowned queen,
even if she is not a Film Star or the original
of a Gibson Girl. Among those who had the
fortune, or misfortune, to exist beautifully in
public in this manner, was a certain Hypatia
Hard, who had passed through the preliminary
stage of receiving florid compliments in society
paragraphs of the local press, to the position
of one who is actually interviewed by real
pressmen. On War and Peace and Patriotism and
Prohibition and Evolution and the Bible she had
made her pronouncements with a charming smile;
and if none of them seemed very near to the real
grounds of her own reputation, it was almost
equally hard to say what the grounds of her
reputation really were...
The
Donnington Affair
IT was natural, of course, that we should
think of calling in expert opinion on the
tragedy; or, at least, something subtler than
the passing policeman. But I could think of few
people or none whom it would be useful to
consult thus privately. I remembered an
investigator who had taken some interest in
Southby’s original trouble; merely because I
remembered the curious surname of Shrike; but
report told me that he had since grown rich and
retired, and was now yachting inaccessibly among
the Pacific Islands.
My old friend Brown, the Roman priest at Cobhole,
who had often given me good advice in small
problems, had wired that he feared he could not
come down, even for an hour. He merely added—what,
I confess, I thought inconsequent—that the key
might be found in the sentence, that “Mester was
the cheeriest soul possible.”
Superintendent Matthews still carries weight
with any considering person who has actually
talked to him; but he is naturally in most cases
officially reticent, and in some cases
officially slow.
Sir Borrow seemed stricken rigid by this final
tragedy; a thing pardonable enough in a very old
man who, whatever his faults, had never had
anything but tragedy upon tragedy out of his own
blood and name...
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