--0900  Review Class One

----Tale #1 reviewed: “The Blue Cross”

----More GKC bio. 

--0920  Two More GKC Short Stories
 
 

The Vampire of the Village seems to be one of three Father Brown stories published after his death in 1936, the last such appearing in 1988.

THE STORY

Potter’s Pond is a tiny village, “a mere huddle of houses.” (705) At the turn of a path in the hilly woods a fantastically dressed man (clothes of a hundred years earlier) disappeared into the dawn. A week later his body was found 1/4 mile away on a steep, rocky slope behind a gaunt, shuttered house named The Grange. Before he disappeared, he had been quarreling. Apparently he told some villagers that their village was “a wretched little hamlet.”

The local doctor said cause of death was crushing of the skull probably inflicted by a light club. No local savages were ever blamed. Coroner’s verdict: murder by persons unknown.

A year or two later the case was reopened. A DOCTOR MULBOROUGH had been asked by the Chief Constable of the County to look into the case again. He, in turn, invoked the aid of  FATHER BROWN whom he had consulted long ago over a poisoning. They were now traveling together by train towards Potter’s Pond. Father Brown sat opposite “with the air of a patient baby.” (705)
 

On the train, the doctor  tells Brown about the VERY old fashioned village and some of its denizens. Though 28 years a resident of the county, the doctor is still seen an an outsider. (706) The solicitor is ancient. The retired admiral lives in a house full of cutlasses. There is the (retired) High Church clergyman. He is dusty as Archbishop Laud. White haired. Studious. Easily shocked. He has a son who may be our problem. Mildly irregular. A poet. 

The village’s Great Scandal begins with MRS MALTRAVERS. She lives in the Grange. She only came a year or two ago. (707) Unknown. Not welcomed. Good looking. Considered a vamp. Especially to the parson’s son. The doctor finds her long, elegant and “beautifully ugly.” Witty. Projects experience, a Past. The scandal is that she IS a widow, of MALTRAVERS, the man who was murdered. She is also an actress. The clergyman objects to actresses. So does the Admiral and so do all the old ladies.

Doctor: My predecessor doctor was incompetent. (708) Drunken. Misread the killing of Maltravers. The blow to the head would not have killed him. “He was a strolling actor passing through the place.” Dr Mulborough has found more facts and as a result there will shortly be an exhumation. Poison is suspected. Brown: so you suspect the widow. Mulborough: no one else has any known connection with him. The two men alit from the train at the station.

Mulborough: there is one old crony of Maltravers -- queer, broken down actor. Says he had a quarrel with an actor who was his enemy.  Brown spent next 2 - 3 days looking up people.

--MRS MALTRAVERS: sometimes cynical, Roman Catholic (as stage people often were) (709).

--The Parson’s Son, HURREL HORNER. Young. Arty. Has the permanent sulks. Mane of auburn hair.  Son of REV. SAMUEL HORNER. Hurrel cursed to Father Brown the scandal mongering of the village. Said MR CARVER, the solicitor, was a womanizer, who even tried to force self on Mrs. Maltravers. Snapped out only a few words about his father. On further enquiry Brown learned that the son wrote mainly dramatic poetry, incl. verse tragedies acclaimed by good judges. Had good ideas about acting Shakespeare. He was earning a living from writing. He was sadder than he deserved to be. Not a boozer. Careful with his money. Fr Brown began to sense other causes.

--The Parson denounced Mrs Maltravers night and day as “a sort of barmaid with gilt hair.” He refuses to meet her or even look at her in the street or out of a window (710). The parson also thunders at son’s theatrical tastes. 

--Miss Carstairs-Carew treated Fr Brown a small glass of port wine and a slice of seed-cake. Ranted v. parson’s son and general decline of manners (711)

--Next visitor: the crazed ex-actor Phoenix Fitzgerald who shouted “Maltravers is dead.” But where is all the rest of his company? I acted parts of older men. But where is that other actor (711) who stole my lines and ruined my career? People raved about my Fortinbras. That villain HANKIN was to play Polonius. Follow that villain Hankin.

--Next interview at the bank for ten minutes.

--Then Father Brown called on the amiable clergyman Rev. Samuel Horner. Narrow crucifix on wall. Big bible on bookstand. Parson lamented the increasing disregard of Sunday. Gave a glass of port but with ancient British biscuit, not seed-cake. Things seemed almost too perfect, a century too old. Conscience would not allow the parson to meet a stage player.

Brown went off to meet Dr Mulborough to compare notes. The corpse has been re-autopsied. It was stuffed with poison. The two then went to solicitor’s (712). A dry old dandy. Lawyer introduced the Admiral. The three were surprised to hear Fr Brown defend the parson’s son. Mrs Maltravers had told Brown that Hurrel Horner was also a very good actor. He is also a good son in the sense of taking good care of the parson. But is he fond of his father? (713) Bank manager told me old parson did not retire from THIS parish. Most local populace is pretty pagan. They go to Dutton-Abbot less than a mile away if they go to church at all.  So the old parson has no private means. Gave Brown absolutely first-class vintage port, from a store of many dusty old bottles. He was sitting down to a quite recherché lunch. Brown: the parson has a model son, but a mechanical model! 

A letter is brought from actor Phoenix Fitzgerald. Lawyer: Fitzgerald is mad. Brown: “but of course there can’t be any doubt that he’s right” to complain of his feud with the actor Hankin. The murder is connected with the old theatrical company. No local would have killed Maltravers because he insulted their visit. English villagers are not like that. They misunderstood Maltravers’s last words. He wasn’t talking to villagers, but to an actor. They were to put on a play in which Fitzgerald was to be Fortinbras, Hankin to be Polonius and Maltravers the Prince of Denmark. Maybe someone else wanted the part and Maltravers said angrily, “You’d be a miserable little Hamlet.” (714)

What do we do now? Go at once to the Horners. Doctor, tell them the results of the autopsy.

Rev. Samuel Horner was standing in cassock. Hand on lectern. Opposite mutinous son sitting. Waved Father Brown to a seat. Mulborough (715) told of autopsy. Horner: an actor brought wickedness to village, challenging judgment of God. Doctor: blow did not kill Maltravers. Poison did. Hurrel leapt up and struck parson. Brown: not his father. Blackmailing him. Probably poisoner as well. Mulborough, ring up the police!

As he left room, Brown told “son” “father” was right, “When an actor brings his wickedness into this innocent village, he challenges the judgment of God.” (716)

Brown and Doctor enter RR carriage at station of Potter’s Pond. Brown explains all

--MALTRAVERS came here with a traveling company. Some went straight to Dutton-Abbot to present a melodrama about early 19th Century. Maltravers, however, hung around Potter’s Pond in stage dress A dandy. Another part he played was an old fashioned parson, acted by a man mostly acting old men. A third person was present: poet Hurrel. Might have been in love with Mrs MALTRAVERS even then. Quarreled with Maltravers about how to present Hamlet. Came to blows. Fought with sticks. Poet hit MALTRAVERS hard on head.

Man acting old parson was also present or looking on. Began blackmailing poet. Keep me in luxury or I will tell who murdered Maltravers. Meanwhile Maltravers had rolled into deep undergrowth, recovered, tried to walk to a house and was overcome by poison administered earlier. In glass of port  Motive? Hard to prove. The players were buzzing with quarrels and Maltravers was hated.

Doctor: how did you begin to suspect the blameless parson? (717)

--Special knowledge as a clergyman. About divisions in Church of England.

--It slowly dawned on me this was a STAGE clergyman. Mixed up High and Low Church as an amateur would. “No Anglican parson could be so wrong about every Anglican problem.”

--Supposed to be old Tory High Churchman. But boasted of being a Puritan.

--Professed a horror of the stage (not a High Churchmanly thing to do).

--Talked like a Puritan about the Sabbath.

--had a high church crucifix in his room. A Stage Parson. (717)

And the Vamp of the Village? She had come here recently, openly, under own name, to help the new inquiries about her husband.

The poet was also innocent. He made no secret of his profession or stage connections.

It was not that the parson did not want to see the actress. He did not want TO BE SEEN by her. (718) She would have recognized him at once.

[NOTE: what about being seen by his old enemy Fitzgerald? TPK]

[09-03-2003]

THE STORY

In a leisurely prelude, we are flies on the wall during a literally sugary marriage proposal by a young artist named John Turnbull Angus to the dark, elegant, alert Laura Hope who works in the London confectionary shop he is visiting. 

Laura diverts John by telling of an unresolved difficulty with two earlier suitors which began in another part of England two or more years earlier when she worked in her father's inn. The very short, almost dwarfish Isidore Smythe and the preternaturally tall, thin, squinting, long distance walker James Welkin both sought her hand. She disliked their physical deformities but put them off by saying that she would never marry a man who lived, as did they, on inherited money. So both went off to seek their fortunes.

Since then she moved to the new location and has seen neither of them since. But recently she has had two letters from the near dwarf Smythe. The clever inventive Smythe had since made a fortune from creation of “Smythe’s Silent Service,” selling metal robots of his invention to do household chores. He now has fame and is making much money.

James Welkin she had not seen recently but is more afraid of him than of Smythe. Laura has sensed Welkin’s physical presence and even heard his laugh but in a place where he could not have been. Seconds after hearing him laugh, Laura had received her first letter from Smythe. Just after reading Smythe’s second letter, Laura had distinctly heard Welkin say, “He shan’t have you, though.”

At this point in her story, Isidore Smythe drove up and asked if Laura had seen“that thing on the window?” (69) It must be investigated! A yard and a half sign made of stamp paper on the front window of the shop said, “If you marry Smythe, he will die.” (69) 

Smythe recognized Welkin’s writing. Five times in the fortnight there have been threatening letters from Welkin at Smythe’s flat. The porter of my flat says no one suspicious has been seen. Angus: there was no sign on the window 15 minutes ago.(70) Turnbull to Smythe, hire a private detective, e.g. my friend Flambeau. He lives in Lucknow Mansions, Hampstead. Smythe: a coincidence: I live in Himalaya Mansions around the corner. Smythe drives Angus to his flat. Laments that his iron servants can’t tell who delivered the 5 threatening letters. Climbed into the Edinburgh highlands of London. 

Climbed past a canal. Saw a chestnut seller and a policeman. The only human shapes (71). At his flat Smythe asked commissionaire and a porter if anyone had sought his apartment. Nobody and nothing had passed these two. Robots. A white tattered scrap of paper scrawled with red ink, “if you have been to see her to-day, I shall kill you.”

Angus rushes off for Flambeau, but tries to protect Smythe alone with his mechanical servants.

--(1) Man in shirt sleeves and a pail inside the building. Angus paid him to stay there and keep track of any stranger going up the stairs.

--(2)  Commissionaire at front door. Ditto. There is no back door.

--(3)  Policeman on beat: stand opposite entrance and watch it.

--(4) Chestnut seller. He wanted to move his van soon. About to snow. Bribed to stay on guard. tell me of any man, woman or child who goes into that house.

Flambeau receives his friend Angus. Also there “a small dusty looking Roman Catholic priest.” (71) Priest: it has begun to snow. Angus tells the whole story of Smythe’s threatening invisible enemy. Let’s rush to Smythe, though four men are on guard.

Priest: snow is thick quickly.

--(1) Chestnut seller: saw no visitor enter. 

--(2) Policeman: no crooks, no one.

--(3) Commissionaire: (74) there has been on one for me to ask why he was here.

Father Brown: “Has nobody been up and down stairs, then, since the snow began to fall?” Commissionaire: nobody.  Brown points grey footprints between Commissionaire’s legs!  Angus: the invisible man!

Angus and Flambeau rush up the stair. Brown remains behind. Amidst the robots: blood. Murder! Flambeau searched room for five minutes. no corpse. Had an iron machine struck Smythe down? (75) Eaten him? Smythe evaporated. Let’s consult Father Brown. Man with pail: no intruder. Commissionaire: no intruder. Chestnut man: I have been watchful. where is policeman? Father Brown had sent him down the road to investigate something. Flambeau: a supernatural murder. Stolen by fairies.

Policeman returns. Brown had been right. Smythe’s body found in canal. Stab over heart. Brown: did policeman find a light brown sack? If so, case is finished. (76)

Brown: “Have you ever noticed this -- that people never answer what you say? They answer what you mean -- or what they think you mean. Suppose one lady says to another in a country house, ‘Is anybody staying with you?’ the lady doesn’t answer, ‘Yes; the butler, the three footmen, the parlour-maid, and so on .. She says ‘There is nobody staying with us,’ meaning nobody of the sort you mean. But suppose a doctor inquiring into an epidemic asks, ‘who is staying in this house’” then all servants are enumerated. Language is like that. A question may be answered truly, but never literally."

The four men said no one went into the house. They meant “on man whom they could suspect of being your man. A man did go into the house, and did come out of it, but they never noticed him!

Angus: “an invisible man?

Brown: “a mentally invisible man.”  What tipped me to the answer from Angus’s story?

--(1) Welkin went for long walks.

--(2) Lots of stamp paper on the window.

--(3) The young woman heard laughter and words of the mentally invisible Welkin.

Barring carrier pigeons, someone must have brought her the letter(s). Welkin.

He was dressed handsomely as a postman. Killed Smythe in cold blood then brought his small body down in a large sack. (77) “Nobody ever notices postmen, somehow...” A squinting postman passing by was taken in hand by Father Brown. who “walked those snow-covered hills under the stars for many hours with a murderer, and what they said to each other will never be known.”
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
 

Maisie Ward (GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON, 1943, p. 277f) comments:   "'Father Brown' ... was a new genre: detection in which the mind of man means more than his footprints or cigar ash, even to the detective. The one reporduced in most anthologies -- 'The Invisible Man' --- depends for its solution on the fact that certain people are morally invisible." ... A thread of this sort runs through all the stories, but they are, like all his romances, full too of escape and peril and wild adventure.

The technique of Father Brown himself was imitated by a man in Detroit who recovered a stolen car by putting himself imaginatively in the thief's place and driving an exactly similar car around likely corners till he came suddenly upon his own, left in a lonely road. He wrote to tell Gilbert of the adventure."

-OOO-

09/04/2003