The Wisdom of Father Brown | Page 5

corner of the room
was rolled a gentleman's silk top hat, as if it had just been knocked off his head; so much
so, indeed, that one almost looked to see it still rolling. And in the corner behind it,
thrown like a sack of potatoes, but corded like a railway trunk, lay Mr James Todhunter,
with a scarf across his mouth, and six or seven ropes knotted round his elbows and ankles.
His brown eyes were alive and shifted alertly.
Dr Orion Hood paused for one instant on the doormat and drank in the whole scene of
voiceless violence. Then he stepped swiftly across the carpet, picked up the tall silk hat,
and gravely put it upon the head of the yet pinioned Todhunter. It was so much too large
for him that it almost slipped down on to his shoulders.
"Mr Glass's hat," said the doctor, returning with it and peering into the inside with a
pocket lens. "How to explain the absence of Mr Glass and the presence of Mr Glass's hat?
For Mr Glass is not a careless man with his clothes. That hat is of a stylish shape and
systematically brushed and burnished, though not very new. An old dandy, I should
think."
"But, good heavens!" called out Miss MacNab, "aren't you going to untie the man first?"
"I say `old' with intention, though not with certainty" continued the expositor; "my reason
for it might seem a little far-fetched. The hair of human beings falls out in very varying
degrees, but almost always falls out slightly, and with the lens I should see the tiny hairs
in a hat recently worn. It has none, which leads me to guess that Mr Glass is bald. Now
when this is taken with the high-pitched and querulous voice which Miss MacNab
described so vividly (patience, my dear lady, patience), when we take the hairless head
together with the tone common in senile anger, I should think we may deduce some

advance in years. Nevertheless, he was probably vigorous, and he was almost certainly
tall. I might rely in some degree on the story of his previous appearance at the window, as
a tall man in a silk hat, but I think I have more exact indication. This wineglass has been
smashed all over the place, but one of its splinters lies on the high bracket beside the
mantelpiece. No such fragment could have fallen there if the vessel had been smashed in
the hand of a comparatively short man like Mr Todhunter."
"By the way," said Father Brown, "might it not be as well to untie Mr Todhunter?"
"Our lesson from the drinking-vessels does not end here," proceeded the specialist. "I
may say at once that it is possible that the man Glass was bald or nervous through
dissipation rather than age. Mr Todhunter, as has been remarked, is a quiet thrifty
gentleman, essentially an abstainer. These cards and wine-cups are no part of his normal
habit; they have been produced for a particular companion. But, as it happens, we may go
farther. Mr Todhunter may or may not possess this wine-service, but there is no
appearance of his possessing any wine. What, then, were these vessels to contain? I
would at once suggest some brandy or whisky, perhaps of a luxurious sort, from a flask in
the pocket of Mr Glass. We have thus something like a picture of the man, or at least of
the type: tall, elderly, fashionable, but somewhat frayed, certainly fond of play and strong
waters, perhaps rather too fond of them Mr Glass is a gentleman not unknown on the
fringes of society."
"Look here," cried the young woman, "if you don't let me pass to untie him I'll run
outside and scream for the police."
"I should not advise you, Miss MacNab," said Dr Hood gravely, "to be in any hurry to
fetch the police. Father Brown, I seriously ask you to compose your flock, for their sakes,
not for mine. Well, we have seen something of the figure and quality of Mr Glass; what
are the chief facts known of Mr Todhunter? They are substantially three: that he is
economical, that he is more or less wealthy, and that he has a secret. Now, surely it is
obvious that there are the three chief marks of the kind of man who is blackmailed. And
surely it is equally obvious that the faded finery, the profligate habits, and the shrill
irritation of Mr Glass are the unmistakable marks of the kind of man who blackmails him.
We have the two typical figures of a tragedy of hush money: on the one hand, the
respectable man with a mystery; on the other, the West-end vulture with a scent for a
mystery. These two