SEVEN -- The Purple Wig
MR EDWARD NUTT, the industrious editor of the Daily Reformer, sat athis desk, opening letters and marking proofs to the merry tune of atypewriter, worked by a vigorous young lady.
He was a stoutish, fair man, in his shirt-sleeves; his movements wereresolute, his mouth firm and his tones final; but his round, ratherbabyish blue eyes had a bewildered and even wistful look that rathercontradicted all this. Nor indeed was the expression altogethermisleading. It might truly be said of him, as for many journalists inauthority, that his most familiar emotion was one of continuous fear;fear of libel actions, fear of lost advertisements, fear of misprints,fear of the sack.
His life was a series of distracted compromises between the proprietorof the paper (and of him), who was a senile soap-boiler with threeineradicable mistakes in his mind, and the very able staff he hadcollected to run the paper; some of whom were brilliant and experiencedmen and (what was even worse) sincere enthusiasts for the politicalpolicy of the paper.
A letter from one of these lay immediately before him, and rapid andresolute as he was, he seemed almost to hesitate before opening it. Hetook up a strip of proof instead, ran down it with a blue eye, and ablue pencil, altered the word "adultery" to the word "impropriety,"and the word "Jew" to the word "Alien," rang a bell and sent it flyingupstairs.
Then, with a more thoughtful eye, he ripped open the letter from hismore distinguished contributor, which bore a postmark of Devonshire, andread as follows:
DEAR NUTT,--As I see you're working Spooks and Dooks at the same time,what about an article on that rum business of the Eyres of Exmoor; oras the old women call it down here, the Devil's Ear of Eyre? The head ofthe family, you know, is the Duke of Exmoor; he is one of the few reallystiff old Tory aristocrats left, a sound old crusted tyrant it is quitein our line to make trouble about. And I think I'm on the track of astory that will make trouble.
Of course I don't believe in the old legend about James I; and as foryou, you don't believe in anything, not even in journalism. The legend,you'll probably remember, was about the blackest business in Englishhistory--the poisoning of Overbury by that witch's cat Frances Howard,and the quite mysterious terror which forced the King to pardon themurderers. There was a lot of alleged witchcraft mixed up with it; andthe story goes that a man-servant listening at the keyhole heard thetruth in a talk between the King and Carr; and the bodily ear with whichhe heard grew large and monstrous as by magic, so awful was the secret.And though he had to be loaded with lands and gold and made an ancestorof dukes, the elf-shaped ear is still recurrent in the family. Well, youdon't believe in black magic; and if you did, you couldn't use it forcopy. If a miracle happened in your office, you'd have to hush it up,now so many bishops are agnostics. But that is not the point. The pointis that there really is something queer about Exmoor and his family;something quite natural, I dare say, but quite abnormal. And the Earis in it somehow, I fancy; either a symbol or a delusion or diseaseor something. Another tradition says that Cavaliers just after James Ibegan to wear their hair long only to cover the ear of the first LordExmoor. This also is no doubt fanciful.
The reason I point it out to you is this: It seems to me that we makea mistake in attacking aristocracy entirely for its champagne anddiamonds. Most men rather admire the nobs for having a good time, but Ithink we surrender too much when we admit that aristocracy has made eventhe aristocrats happy. I suggest a series of articles pointing out howdreary, how inhuman, how downright diabolist, is the very smell andatmosphere of some of these great houses. There are plenty of instances;but you couldn't begin with a better one than the Ear of the Eyres. Bythe end of the week I think I can get you the truth about it.--Yoursever, FRANCIS FINN.
Mr Nutt reflected a moment, staring at his left boot; then he called outin a strong, loud and entirely lifeless voice, in which every syllablesounded alike: "Miss Barlow, take down a letter to Mr Finn, please."
DEAR FINN,--I think it would do; copy should reach us second postSaturday.--Yours, E. NUTT.
This elaborate epistle he articulated as if it were all one word; andMiss Barlow rattled it down as if it were all one word. Then he tookup another strip of proof and a blue pencil, and altered the word"supernatural" to the word "marvellous", and the expression "shoot down"to the expression "repress".
In such happy, healthful activities did Mr Nutt disport himself, untilthe ensuing Saturday found him at the same desk, dictating to the sametypist, and using the same blue pencil on the first instalment of MrFinn's revelations. The opening was a sound piece of slashing invectiveabout the evil secrets of princes, and despair in the high places of theearth. Though written violently, it was in excellent English; but theeditor, as usual, had given to somebody else the task of breaking itup into sub-headings, which were of a spicier sort, as "Peeress andPoisons", and "The Eerie Ear", "The Eyres in their Eyrie", and so onthrough a hundred happy changes. Then followed the legend of the Ear,amplified from Finn's first letter, and then the substance of his laterdiscoveries, as follows:
I know it is the practice of journalists to put the end of the storyat the beginning and call it a headline. I know that journalism largelyconsists in saying "Lord Jones Dead" to people who never knew that LordJones was alive. Your present correspondent thinks that this, likemany other journalistic customs, is bad journalism; and that the DailyReformer has to set a better example in such things. He proposes to tellhis story as it occurred, step by step. He will use the real names ofthe parties, who in most cases are ready to confirm his testimony. Asfor the headlines, the sensational proclamations--they will come at theend.
I was walking along a public path that threads through a privateDevonshire orchard and seems to point towards Devonshire cider, whenI came suddenly upon just such a place as the path suggested. It was along, low inn, consisting really of a cottage and two barns; thatchedall over with the thatch that looks like brown and grey hair grownbefore history. But outside the door was a sign which called it the BlueDragon; and under the sign was one of those long rustic tables that usedto stand outside most of the free English inns, before teetotallersand brewers between them destroyed freedom. And at this table sat threegentlemen, who might have lived a hundred years ago.
Now that I know them all better, there is no difficulty aboutdisentangling the impressions; but just then they looked like three verysolid ghosts. The dominant figure, both because he was bigger in allthree dimensions, and because he sat centrally in the length of thetable, facing me, was a tall, fat man dressed completely in black,with a rubicund, even apoplectic visage, but a rather bald and ratherbothered brow. Looking at him again, more strictly, I could not exactlysay what it was that gave me the sense of antiquity, except the antiquecut of his white clerical necktie and the barred wrinkles across hisbrow.
It was even less easy to fix the impression in the case of the man atthe right end of the table, who, to say truth, was as commonplace aperson as could be seen anywhere, with a round, brown-haired head and around snub nose, but also clad in clerical black, of a stricter cut. Itwas only when I saw his broad curved hat lying on the table beside himthat I realized why I connected him with anything ancient. He was aRoman Catholic priest.
Perhaps the third man, at the other end of the table, had really moreto do with it than the rest, though he was both slighter in physicalpresence and more inconsiderate in his dress. His lank limbs were clad,I might also say clutched, in very tight grey sleeves and pantaloons;he had a long, sallow, aquiline face which seemed somehow all the moresaturnine because his lantern jaws were imprisoned in his collar andneck-cloth more in the style of the old stock; and his hair (which oughtto have been dark brown) was of an odd dim, russet colour which, inconjunction with his yellow face, looked rather purple than red. Theunobtrusive yet unusual colour was all the more notable because his hairwas almost unnaturally healthy and curling, and he wore it full. But,after all analysis, I incline to think that what gave me my firstold-fashioned impression was simply a set of tall,
old-fashionedwine-glasses, one or two lemons and two churchwarden pipes. And also,perhaps, the old-world errand on which I had come.
Being a hardened reporter, and it being apparently a public inn, I didnot need to summon much of my impudence to sit down at the longtable and order some cider. The big man in black seemed very learned,especially about local antiquities; the small man in black, though hetalked much less, surprised me with a yet wider culture. So we got onvery well together; but the third man, the old gentleman in the tightpantaloons, seemed rather distant and haughty, until I slid into thesubject of the Duke of Exmoor and his ancestry.
I thought the subject seemed to embarrass the other two a little; but itbroke the spell of the third man's silence most successfully. Speakingwith restraint and with the accent of a highly educated gentleman, andpuffing at intervals at his long churchwarden pipe, he proceeded to tellme some of the most horrible stories I have ever heard in my life:how one of the Eyres in the former ages had hanged his own father; andanother had his wife scourged at the cart tail through the village; andanother had set fire to a church full of children, and so on.
Some of the tales, indeed, are not fit for public print--, such as thestory of the Scarlet Nuns, the abominable story of the Spotted Dog,or the thing that was done in the quarry. And all this red roll ofimpieties came from his thin, genteel lips rather primly than otherwise,as he sat sipping the wine out of his tall, thin glass.
I could see that the big man opposite me was trying, if anything,to stop him; but he evidently held the old gentleman in considerablerespect, and could not venture to do so at all abruptly. And the littlepriest at the other end of the-table, though free from any such air ofembarrassment, looked steadily at the table, and seemed to listen to therecital with great pain--as well as he might.
"You don't seem," I said to the narrator, "to be very fond of the Exmoorpedigree."
He looked at me a moment, his lips still prim, but whitening andtightening; then he deliberately broke his long pipe and glass on thetable and stood up, the very picture of a perfect gentleman with theframing temper of a fiend.
"These gentlemen," he said, "will tell you whether I have cause to likeit. The curse of the Eyres of old has lain heavy on this country, andmany have suffered from it. They know there are none who have sufferedfrom it as I have." And with that he crushed a piece of the fallenglass under his heel, and strode away among the green twilight of thetwinkling apple-trees.
"That is an extraordinary old gentleman," I said to the other two; "doyou happen to know what the Exmoor family has done to him? Who is he?"
The big man in black was staring at me with the wild air of a baffledbull; he did not at first seem to take it in. Then he said at last,"Don't you know who he is?"
I reaffirmed my ignorance, and there was another silence; then thelittle priest said, still looking at the table, "That is the Duke ofExmoor."
Then, before I could collect my scattered senses, he added equallyquietly, but with an air of regularizing things: "My friend here isDoctor Mull, the Duke's librarian. My name is Brown."
"But," I stammered, "if that is the Duke, why does he damn all the olddukes like that?"
"He seems really to believe," answered the priest called Brown, "thatthey have left a curse on him." Then he added, with some irrelevance,"That's why he wears a wig."
It was a few moments before his meaning dawned on me. "You don't meanthat fable about the fantastic ear?" I demanded. "I've heard of it, ofcourse, but surely it must be a superstitious yarn spun out of somethingmuch simpler. I've sometimes thought it was a wild version of one ofthose mutilation stories. They used to crop criminals' ears in thesixteenth century."
"I hardly think it was that," answered the little man thoughtfully, "butit is not outside ordinary science or natural law for a family to havesome deformity frequently reappearing--such as one ear bigger than theother."
The big librarian had buried his big bald brow in his big red hands,like a man trying to think out his duty. "No," he groaned. "You do theman a wrong after all. Understand, I've no reason to defend him, or evenkeep faith with him. He has been a tyrant to me as to everybody else.Don't fancy because you see him sitting here that he isn't a great lordin the worst sense of the word. He would fetch a man a mile to ring abell a yard off--if it would summon another man three miles to fetcha matchbox three yards off. He must have a footman to carry hiswalking-stick; a body servant to hold up his opera-glasses--"
"But not a valet to brush his clothes," cut in the priest, with acurious dryness, "for the valet would want to brush his wig, too."
The librarian turned to him and seemed to forget my presence; he wasstrongly moved and, I think, a little heated with wine. "I don't knowhow you know it, Father Brown," he said, "but you are right. He lets thewhole world do everything for him--except dress him. And that he insistson doing in a literal solitude like a desert. Anybody is kicked outof the house without a character who is so much as found near hisdressing-room door.
"He seems a pleasant old party," I remarked.
"No," replied Dr Mull quite simply; "and yet that is just what I mean bysaying you are unjust to him after all. Gentlemen, the Duke does reallyfeel the bitterness about the curse that he uttered just now. He does,with sincere shame and terror, hide under that purple wig something hethinks it would blast the sons of man to see. I know it is so; and Iknow it is not a mere natural disfigurement, like a criminal mutilation,or a hereditary disproportion in the features. I know it is worse thanthat; because a man told me who was present at a scene that no man couldinvent, where a stronger man than any of us tried to defy the secret,and was scared away from it."
I opened my mouth to speak, but Mull went on in oblivion of me, speakingout of the cavern of his hands. "I don't mind telling you, Father,because it's really more defending the poor Duke than giving him away.Didn't you ever hear of the time when he very nearly lost all theestates?"
The priest shook his head; and the librarian proceeded to tell the taleas he had heard it from his predecessor in the same post, who had beenhis patron and instructor, and whom he seemed to trust implicitly. Upto a certain point it was a common enough tale of the decline of a greatfamily's fortunes--the tale of a family lawyer. His lawyer, however, hadthe sense to cheat honestly, if the expression explains itself. Insteadof using funds he held in trust, he took advantage of the Duke'scarelessness to put the family in a financial hole, in which it might benecessary for the Duke to let him hold them in reality.
The lawyer's name was Isaac Green, but the Duke always called himElisha; presumably in reference to the fact that he was quite bald,though certainly not more than thirty. He had risen very rapidly, butfrom very dirty beginnings; being first a "nark" or informer, and then amoney-lender: but as solicitor to the Eyres he had the sense, as I say,to keep technically straight until he was ready to deal the final blow.The blow fell at dinner; and the old librarian said he should neverforget the very look of the lampshades and the decanters, as the littlelawyer, with a steady smile, proposed to the great landlord that theyshould halve the estates between them. The sequel certainly could notbe overlooked; for the Duke, in dead silence, smashed a decanter on theman's bald head as suddenly as I had seen him smash the glass that dayin the orchard. It left a red triangular scar on the scalp, and thelawyer's eyes altered, but not his smile.
He rose tottering to his feet, and struck back as such men do strike. "Iam glad of that," he said, "for now I can take the whole estate. The lawwill give it to me."
Exmoor, it seems, was white as ashes, but his eyes still blazed. "Thelaw will give it you," he said; "but you will not take it.... Why not?Why? because it would mean the crack of doom for me, and if you take itI shall take off my wig.... Why, you pitiful plucked fowl, anyone cansee your bare head. But no man shall see mine and live."
Well, you may say what you like and make it mean what you like. But Mullswears it is the solemn fact that the lawyer, after shaking his knottedfists in the air for an instant, simply ran fro
m the room and neverreappeared in the countryside; and since then Exmoor has been fearedmore for a warlock than even for a landlord and a magistrate.
Now Dr Mull told his story with rather wild theatrical gestures, andwith a passion I think at least partisan. I was quite conscious of thepossibility that the whole was the extravagance of an old braggart andgossip. But before I end this half of my discoveries, I think it due toDr Mull to record that my two first inquiries have confirmed his story.I learned from an old apothecary in the village that there was a baldman in evening dress, giving the name of Green, who came to him onenight to have a three-cornered cut on his forehead plastered. AndI learnt from the legal records and old newspapers that there was alawsuit threatened, and at least begun, by one Green against the Duke ofExmoor.
Mr Nutt, of the Daily Reformer, wrote some highly incongruous wordsacross the top of the copy, made some highly mysterious marks downthe side of it, and called to Miss Barlow in the same loud, monotonousvoice: "Take down a letter to Mr Finn."
DEAR FINN,--Your copy will do, but I have had to headline it a bit; andour public would never stand a Romanist priest in the story--youmust keep your eye on the suburbs. I've altered him to Mr Brown, aSpiritualist.
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 secondinstalment of Mr Finn's tale of mysteries in high life. It began withthe words:
I have made an astounding discovery. I freely confess it is quitedifferent from anything I expected to discover, and will give a muchmore practical shock to the public. I venture to say, without anyvanity, that the words I now write will be read all over Europe, andcertainly all over America and the Colonies. And yet I heard all I haveto tell before I left this same little wooden table in this same littlewood of apple-trees.
I owe it all to the small priest Brown; he is an extraordinary man. Thebig librarian had left the table, perhaps ashamed of his long tongue,perhaps anxious about the storm in which his mysterious master hadvanished: anyway, he betook himself heavily in the Duke's tracks throughthe trees. Father Brown had picked up one of the lemons and was eyeingit with an odd pleasure.
"What a lovely colour a lemon is!" he said. "There's one thing I don'tlike about the Duke's wig--the colour."
"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 seemedrather flippant under the circumstances. "I can quite understand thatit's nicer to cover them with hair than with brass plates or leatherflaps. But if he wants to use hair, why doesn't he make it look likehair? There never was hair of that colour in this world. It looks morelike a sunset-cloud coming through the wood. Why doesn't he conceal thefamily 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 reallyfeel about such things. I don't suggest you're either more snobbish ormore morbid than the rest of us: but don't you feel in a vague way thata genuine old family curse is rather a fine thing to have? Would yoube ashamed, wouldn't you be a little proud, if the heir of the Glamishorror called you his friend? or if Byron's family had confided, toyou only, the evil adventures of their race? Don't be too hard on thearistocrats themselves if their heads are as weak as ours would be, andthey are snobs about their own sorrows."
"By Jove!" I cried; "and that's true enough. My own mother's family hada banshee; and, now I come to think of it, it has comforted me in many acold hour."
"And think," he went on, "of that stream of blood and poison thatspurted from his thin lips the instant you so much as mentioned hisancestors. Why should he show every stranger over such a Chamber ofHorrors unless he is proud of it? He doesn't conceal his wig, he doesn'tconceal his blood, he doesn't conceal his family curse, he doesn'tconceal 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 thatinstant the Duke appeared again silently among the glimmering trees,with his soft foot and sunset-hued hair, coming round the corner ofthe house in company with his librarian. Before he came within earshot,Father Brown had added quite composedly, "Why does he really hide thesecret of what he does with the purple wig? Because it isn't the sort ofsecret we suppose."
The Duke came round the corner and resumed his seat at the head of thetable with all his native dignity. The embarrassment of the librarianleft him hovering on his hind legs, like a huge bear. The Duke addressedthe priest with great seriousness. "Father Brown," he said, "DoctorMull informs me that you have come here to make a request. I no longerprofess an observance of the religion of my fathers; but for theirsakes, and for the sake of the days when we met before, I am verywilling to hear you. But I presume you would rather be heard inprivate."
Whatever I retain of the gentleman made me stand up. Whatever I haveattained of the journalist made me stand still. Before this paralysiscould pass, the priest had made a momentarily detaining motion. "If,"he said, "your Grace will permit me my real petition, or if I retain anyright to advise you, I would urge that as many people as possible shouldbe present. All over this country I have found hundreds, even of my ownfaith and flock, whose imaginations are poisoned by the spell which Iimplore you to break. I wish we could have all Devonshire here to seeyou do it."
"To see me do what?" asked the Duke, arching his eyebrows.
"To see you take off your wig," said Father Brown.
The Duke's face did not move; but he looked at his petitioner with aglassy stare which was the most awful expression I have ever seen on ahuman face. I could see the librarian's great legs wavering under himlike the shadows of stems in a pool; and I could not banish from my ownbrain the fancy that the trees all around us were filling softly in thesilence with devils instead of birds.
"I spare you," said the Duke in a voice of inhuman pity. "I refuse. IfI gave you the faintest hint of the load of horror I have to bear alone,you would lie shrieking at these feet of mine and begging to know nomore. I will spare you the hint. You shall not spell the first letter ofwhat is written on the altar of the Unknown God."
"I know the Unknown God," said the little priest, with an unconsciousgrandeur of certitude that stood up like a granite tower. "I know hisname; it is Satan. The true God was made flesh and dwelt among us. AndI say to you, wherever you find men ruled merely by mystery, it is themystery of iniquity. If the devil tells you something is too fearful tolook at, look at it. If he says something is too terrible to hear, hearit. If you think some truth unbearable, bear it. I entreat your Grace toend this nightmare now and here at this table."
"If I did," said the Duke in a low voice, "you and all you believe, andall by which alone you live, would be the first to shrivel and perish.You would have an instant to know the great Nothing before you died."
"The Cross of Christ be between me and harm," said Father Brown. "Takeoff your wig."
I was leaning over the table in ungovernable excitement; in listeningto this extraordinary duel half a thought had come into my head. "YourGrace," I cried, "I call your bluff. Take off that wig or I will knockit off."
I suppose I can be prosecuted for assault, but I am very glad I did it.When he said, in the same voice of stone, "I refuse," I simply sprangon him. For three long instants he strained against me as if he had allhell to help him; but I forced his head until the hairy cap fell off it.I admit that, whilst wrestling, I shut my eyes as it fell.
I was awakened by a cry from Mull, who was also by this time at theDuke's side. His head and mine were
both bending over the bald headof the wigless Duke. Then the silence was snapped by the librarianexclaiming: "What can it mean? Why, the man had nothing to hide. Hisears are just like everybody else's."
"Yes," said Father Brown, "that is what he had to hide."
The priest walked straight up to him, but strangely enough did not evenglance at his ears. He stared with an almost comical seriousness at hisbald forehead, and pointed to a three-cornered cicatrice, long healed,but still discernible. "Mr Green, I think." he said politely, "and hedid get the whole estate after all."
And now let me tell the readers of the Daily Reformer what I think themost remarkable thing in the whole affair. This transformation scene,which will seem to you as wild and purple as a Persian fairy-tale, hasbeen (except for my technical assault) strictly legal and constitutionalfrom its first beginnings. This man with the odd scar and the ordinaryears is not an impostor. Though (in one sense) he wears another man'swig and claims another man's ear, he has not stolen another man'scoronet. He really is the one and only Duke of Exmoor. What happened wasthis. The old Duke really had a slight malformation of the ear, whichreally was more or less hereditary. He really was morbid about it; andit is likely enough that he did invoke it as a kind of curse in theviolent scene (which undoubtedly happened) in which he struck Green withthe decanter. But the contest ended very differently. Green pressed hisclaim and got the estates; the dispossessed nobleman shot himselfand died without issue. After a decent interval the beautiful EnglishGovernment revived the "extinct" peerage of Exmoor, and bestowed it,as is usual, on the most important person, the person who had got theproperty.
This man used the old feudal fables--properly, in his snobbish soul,really envied and admired them. So that thousands of poor English peopletrembled before a mysterious chieftain with an ancient destiny anda diadem of evil stars--when they are really trembling before aguttersnipe who was a pettifogger and a pawnbroker not twelve years ago.I think it very typical of the real case against our aristocracy as itis, and as it will be till God sends us braver men.
Mr Nutt put down the manuscript and called out with unusual sharpness:"Miss Barlow, please take down a letter to Mr Finn."
DEAR FINN,--You must be mad; we can't touch this. I wanted vampires andthe bad old days and aristocracy hand-in-hand with superstition. Theylike that but you must know the Exmoors would never forgive this. Andwhat would our people say then, I should like to know! Why, Sir Simonis one of Exmoor's greatest pals; and it would ruin that cousin of theEyres that's standing for us at Bradford. Besides, old Soap-Suds wassick enough at not getting his peerage last year; he'd sack me by wireif I lost him it with such lunacy as this. And what about Duffey? He'sdoing us some rattling articles on "The Heel of the Norman." And howcan he write about Normans if the man's only a solicitor? Do bereasonable.--Yours, E. NUTT.
As Miss Barlow rattled away cheerfully, he crumpled up the copyand tossed it into the waste-paper basket; but not before he had,automatically and by force of habit, altered the word "God" to the word"circumstances."