The lawyer and the Admiral, and even the doctor, showed some surprise on finding that Father Brown was rather ready to defend the priest’s son[55]against the local complaints on the side of the priest.

‘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 him[56]. 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 case[57]. 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 believe[58]; 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 Essex[59]. 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 Dragon[60], 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 thoughts[61], and then went on:‘They didn’t understandthe meaning of those few last words poor Maltravers was heard to say[62]. 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 part[63]; 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 village[64]. 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 village[65], 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?’