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visitor has got in here again? Do you think it s anything serious? After a
moment he added: I may be able to push back the bolt; I know the fastening on
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these doors.
He knelt down and pulled out a pocketknife with a long steel implement,
manipulated it for a moment, and the door swung open on the manager s study.
Almost the first thing they noticed was that there was no other door and even
no window, but a great electric lamp stood on the table. But it was not quite
the first thing that they noticed; for even before that they had seen that
Mandeville was lying flat on his face in the middle of the room and the blood
was crawling out from under his fallen face like a pattern of scarlet snakes
that glittered evilly in that unnatural subterranean light.
They did not know how long they had been staring at each other when Jarvis
said, like one letting loose something that he had held back with his breath:
If the stranger got in somehow, she has gone somehow.
Perhaps we think too much about the stranger, said Father Brown. There are
so many strange things in this strange theatre that you rather tend to forget
some of them.
Why, which things do you mean? asked his friend quickly.
There are many, said the priest. There is the other locked door, for
instance.
But the other door is locked, cried Jarvis staring.
But you forgot it all the same, said Father Brown. A few moments afterwards
he said thoughtfully: That Mrs. Sands is a grumpy and gloomy sort of card.
Do you mean, asked the other in a lowered voice, that she s lying and the
Italian did come out?
No, said the priest calmly; I think I meant it more or less as a detached
study of character.
You can t mean, cried the actor, that Mrs. Sands did it herself?
I didn t mean a study of her character, said Father Brown.
While they had been exchanging these abrupt reflections, Father Brown had
knelt down by the body and ascertained that it was beyond any hope or question
a dead body. Lying beside it, though not immediately visible from the doorway,
was a dagger of the theatrical sort; lying as if it had fallen from the wound
or from the hand of the assassin. According to Jarvis, who recognized the
instrument, there was not very much to be learned from it, unless the experts
could find some fingerprints. It was a property dagger; that is, it was
nobody s property; it had been kicking about the theatre for a long time, and
anybody might have picked it up. Then the priest rose and looked gravely round
the room.
We must send for the police, he said; and for a doctor, though the doctor
comes too late. Looking at this room, by the way, I don t see how our Italian
friend could manage it.
The Italian! cried his friend; I should think not. I should have thought
she had an alibi, if anybody had. Two separate rooms, both locked, at opposite
ends of a long passage, with a fixed witness watching it.
No, said Father Brown. Not quite. The difficulty is how she could have got
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in this end. I think she might have got out the other end.
And why? asked the other.
I told you, said Father Brown, that it sounded as if she was breaking
glass mirrors or windows. Stupidly enough I forgot something I knew quite
well; that she is pretty superstitious. She wouldn t be likely to break a
mirror; so I suspect she broke a window. It s true that all this is under the
ground floor; but it might be a skylight or a window opening on an area. But
there don t seem to be any skylights or areas here. And he stared at the
ceiling very intently for a considerable time.
Suddenly he came back to conscious life again with a start. We must go
upstairs and telephone and tell everybody. It is pretty painful... My God, can
you hear those actors still shouting and ranting upstairs? The play is still
going on. I suppose that s what they mean by tragic irony.
When it was fated that the theatre should be turned into a house of mourning,
an opportunity was given to the actors to show many of the real virtues of
their type and trade. They did, as the phrase goes, behave like gentlemen; and
not only like first walking gentlemen. They had not all of them liked or
trusted Mandeville, but they knew exactly the right things to say about him;
they showed not only sympathy but delicacy in their attitude to his widow. She
had become, in a new and very different sense, a tragedy queen her lightest
word was law and while she moved about slowly and sadly, they ran her many
errands.
She was always a strong character, said old Randall rather huskily; and
had the best brains of any of us. Of course poor Mandeville was never on her
level in education and so on; but she always did her duty splendidly. It was
quite pathetic the way she would sometimes say she wished she had more
intellectual life; but Mandeville well, nil nisi bonum, as they say. And the
old gentleman went away wagging his head sadly.
Nil nisi bonum indeed, said Jarvis grimly. I don t think Randall at any
rate has heard of the story of the strange lady visitor. By the way, don t you
think it probably was the strange woman?
It depends, said the priest, whom you mean by the strange woman.
Oh! I don t mean the Italian woman, said Jarvis hastily. Though, as a
matter of fact, you were quite right about her, too. When they went in the
skylight was smashed and the room was empty; but so far as the police can
discover, she simply went home in the most harmless fashion. No, I mean the
woman who was heard threatening him at that secret meeting; the woman who said
she was his wife. Do you think she really was his wife?
It is possible, said Father Brown, staring blankly into the void, that she
really was his wife.
That would give us the motive of jealousy over his bigamous remarriage,
reflected Jarvis, for the body was not robbed in any way. No need to poke
about for thieving servants or even impecunious actors. But as for that, of
course, you ve noticed the outstanding and peculiar thing about the case?
I have noticed several peculiar things, said Father Brown. Which one do
you mean?
I mean the corporate alibi, said Jarvis gravely. It s not often that
practically a whole company has a public alibi like that; an alibi on a
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lighted stage and all witnessing to each other. As it turns out it is jolly
lucky for our friends here that poor Mandeville did put those two silly
society women in the box to watch the rehearsal. They can bear witness that
the whole act was performed without a hitch, with the characters on the stage
all the time. They began long before Mandeville was last seen going into his
room. They went on at least five or ten minutes after you and I found his dead
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