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on the suburbs. I ve altered him to Mr. Brown, a Spiritualist.
Yours,
E. NUTT.
A day or two afterward found the active and judicious editor examining, with
blue eyes that seemed to grow rounder and rounder, the second installment of
Mr. Finn s tale of mysteries in high life. It began with the words:
I have made an astounding discovery. I freely confess it is quite different
from anything I expected to discover, and will give a much more practical
shock to the public. I venture to say, without any vanity, that the words I
now write will be read all over Europe, and certainly all over America and the
Colonies. And yet I heard all I have to tell before I left this same little
wooden table in this same little wood of apple-trees.
I owe it all to the small priest Brown; he is an extraordinary man. The big
librarian had left the table, perhaps ashamed of his long tongue, perhaps
anxious about the storm in which his mysterious master had vanished: anyway,
he betook himself heavily in the Duke s tracks through the trees. Father Brown
had picked up one of the lemons and was eyeing it with an odd pleasure.
What a lovely color a lemon is! he said. There s one thing I don t like
about the Duke s wig the color.
I don t think I understand, I answered.
I dare say he s got good reason to cover his ears, like King Midas, went on
the priest, with a cheerful simplicity which somehow seemed rather flippant
under the circumstances. I can quite understand that it s nicer to cover them
with hair than with brass plates or leather flaps. But if he wants to use
hair, why doesn t he make it look like hair? There never was hair of that
color in this world. It looks more like a sunset-cloud coming through the
wood. Why doesn t he conceal the family curse better, if he s really so
ashamed of it? Shall I tell you? It s because he isn t ashamed of it. He s
proud of it
It s an ugly wig to be proud of and an ugly story, I said.
Consider, replied this curious little man, how you yourself really feel
about such things. I don t suggest you re either more snobbish or more morbid
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than the rest of us: but don t you feel in a vague way that a genuine old
family curse is rather a fine thing to have? Would you be ashamed, wouldn t
you be a little proud, if the heir of the Glamis horror called you his friend?
or if Byron s family had confided, to you only, the evil adventures of their
race? Don t be too hard on the aristocrats themselves if their heads are as
weak as ours would be, and they are snobs about their own sorrows.
By Jove! I cried; and that s true enough. My own mother s family had a
banshee; and, now I come to think of it, it has comforted me in many a cold
hour.
And think, he went on, of that stream of blood and poison that spurted
from his thin lips the instant you so much as mentioned his ancestors. Why
should he show every stranger over such a Chamber of Horrors unless he is
proud of it? He doesn t conceal his wig, he doesn t conceal his blood, he
doesn t conceal his family curse, he doesn t conceal the family crimes but
The little man s voice changed so suddenly, he shut his hand so sharply, and
his eyes so rapidly grew rounder and brighter like a waking owl s, that it had
all the abruptness of a small explosion on the table.
But, he ended, he does really conceal his toilet.
It somehow completed the thrill of my fanciful nerves that at that instant
the Duke appeared again silently among the glimmering trees, with his soft
foot and sunset-hued hair, coming round the corner of the house in company
with his librarian. Before he came within earshot, Father Brown had added
quite composedly, Why does he really hide the secret of what he does with the
purple wig? Because it isn t the sort of secret we suppose.
The Duke came round the corner and resumed his seat at the head of the table
with all his native dignity. The embarrassment of the librarian left him
hovering on his hind legs, like a huge bear. The Duke addressed the priest
with great seriousness. Father Brown, he said, Doctor Mull informs me that
you have come here to make a request. I no longer profess an observance of the
religion of my fathers; but for their sakes, and for the sake of the days when
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