The Wisdom of Father Brown | Page 8

(from the expression on his face) is not a serious one. He was also practising the trick of a
release from ropes, like the Davenport Brothers, and he was just about to free himself
when we all burst into the room. The cards, of course, are for card tricks, and they are
scattered on the floor because he had just been practising one of those dodges of sending
them flying through the air. He merely kept his trade secret, because he had to keep his
tricks secret, like any other conjurer. But the mere fact of an idler in a top hat having once
looked in at his back window, and been driven away by him with great indignation, was
enough to set us all on a wrong track of romance, and make us imagine his whole life
overshadowed by the silk-hatted spectre of Mr Glass."
"But What about the two voices?" asked Maggie, staring.
"Have you never heard a ventriloquist?" asked Father Brown. "Don't you know they
speak first in their natural voice, and then answer themselves in just that shrill, squeaky,
unnatural voice that you heard?"
There was a long silence, and Dr Hood regarded the little man who had spoken with a
dark and attentive smile. "You are certainly a very ingenious person," he said; "it could
not have been done better in a book. But there is just one part of Mr Glass you have not
succeeded in explaining away, and that is his name. Miss MacNab distinctly heard him so
addressed by Mr Todhunter."
The Rev. Mr Brown broke into a rather childish giggle. "Well, that," he said, "that's the
silliest part of the whole silly story. When our juggling friend here threw up the three
glasses in turn, he counted them aloud as he caught them, and also commented aloud
when he failed to catch them. What he really said was: `One, two and three--missed a
glass one, two--missed a glass.' And so on."
There was a second of stillness in the room, and then everyone with one accord burst out
laughing. As they did so the figure in the corner complacently uncoiled all the ropes and
let them fall with a flourish. Then, advancing into the middle of the room with a bow, he
produced from his pocket a big bill printed in blue and red, which announced that
ZALADIN, the World's Greatest Conjurer, Contortionist, Ventriloquist and Human
Kangaroo would be ready with an entirely new series of Tricks at the Empire Pavilion,
Scarborough, on Monday next at eight o'clock precisely.

TWO

The Paradise of Thieves
THE great Muscari, most original of the young Tuscan poets, walked swiftly into his
favourite restaurant, which overlooked the Mediterranean, was covered by an awning and
fenced by little lemon and orange trees. Waiters in white aprons were already laying out
on white tables the insignia of an early and elegant lunch; and this seemed to increase a
satisfaction that already touched the top of swagger. Muscari had an eagle nose like
Dante; his hair and neckerchief were dark and flowing; he carried a black cloak, and
might almost have carried a black mask, so much did he bear with him a sort of Venetian
melodrama. He acted as if a troubadour had still a definite social office, like a bishop. He
went as near as his century permitted to walking the world literally like Don Juan, with
rapier and guitar.
For he never travelled without a case of swords, with which he had fought many brilliant
duels, or without a corresponding case for his mandolin, with which he had actually
serenaded Miss Ethel Harrogate, the highly conventional daughter of a Yorkshire banker
on a holiday. Yet he was neither a charlatan nor a child; but a hot, logical Latin who liked
a certain thing and was it. His poetry was as straightforward as anyone else's prose. He
desired fame or wine or the beauty of women with a torrid directness inconceivable
among the cloudy ideals or cloudy compromises of the north; to vaguer races his intensity
smelt of danger or even crime. Like fire or the sea, he was too simple to be trusted.
The banker and his beautiful English daughter were staying at the hotel attached to
Muscari's restaurant; that was why it was his favourite restaurant. A glance flashed
around the room told him at once, however, that the English party had not descended.
The restaurant was glittering, but still comparatively empty. Two priests were talking at a
table in a corner, but Muscari (an ardent Catholic) took no more notice of them than of a
couple of crows. But from a yet farther seat, partly concealed behind a dwarf tree golden
with oranges, there rose and advanced towards the poet a person whose