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Father Brown xx-xx-xx The Mirror of the Magistrate
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Father Brown xx-xx-xx The Mirror of the Magistrate
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Limu. Emu and Doug Limu and I always tell you to customize your car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. But now we want you to feel it. Cue the Emu music. Limu, save yourself money today. Increase your wealth. Customize and save. We save. That may have been too much feeling. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty. Liberty Savings Very Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates Excludes Massachusetts. THE Mirror OF the Magistrate it would not be fair to record the adventures of Father Brown without some mention of the curious experience which he always referred to as the mirror of the Magistrate. The case might equally well, and indeed more properly have been called the looking glass of the Judge. But no doubt the alliteration of those capital M's appealed to my friend's liking for Euphony, and so, in deference to him, I shall adhere to the title which he himself chose to bestow on it. As you shall hear, it was only by the merest chance that our little priest came to be involved in the strange circumstances at all. For the tale rarely begins when two old cronies, James Bagshaw and Wilfrid Underhill, were taking their customary evening stroll through the leafy labyrinths of the large suburb in which they lived. Bagshaw was by profession a police detective, while his friend could best be described as an amateur interested in detection. They talked interminably as they walked, but contrary to general belief, it was on the whole the detective who did the talking and the amateur who listened. Yes, this is the only trade, Underhill, in which the professional is always supposed to be wrong. After all, people don't write stories in which hairdressers can't cut hair and have to be helped by a customer. Or in which a cabman can't drive a cab until his station explains to him the philosophy of cab driving. No, I suppose not. For all that, I never deny that we often tend to get into a rut, or in other words, have the disadvantage of going by a rule. But where these writer chaps are wrong is that they don't allow us even the advantages of going by a rule. Surely Sherlock Holmes, for example, would say that he went by a logical rule. You may be right, but I mean a collective rule. It's like the staff work of an army. We pool our information too. And you don't think detective stories allow for that? Well, let's take an imaginary case of Sherlock Holmes and Lestrade. The official detective. Sherlock Holmes, let us say, can guess that a total stranger crossing the street is A foreigner merely because he seems to look for the traffic to go to the right instead of the left. I'm quite sure Lestrade wouldn't guess anything of the kind. But what they leave out is the fact that the policeman who couldn't guess might probably know that the man was a foreigner merely because his department has to keep an eye on all foreigners. Some would say on all natives, too. And as a policeman, I'm glad the police know so much. As a citizen, I sometimes wonder whether they don't know too much. You don't seriously mean to say that you know anything about strange people in a strange street? That if a man walked out of that house over there, you'd know anything about him? I should, if he was the householder. That house is rented by a literary man of Anglo Romanian extraction who generally lives in Paris, but is over here in connection with some poetical play of his. His name's Osric Orme, one of the new poets. And pretty steep to read, I believe. But I mean all the people down the road behind these high blank walls and inside these houses lost in large gardens. You can't know all of them. I know a few. This garden wall here, for instance, that's at the end of the grounds of Sir Humphrey Gwyn, better known as Mr. Justice Gwyn. You mean the old judge who made such a fuss about spying during the war? Yes, that's the chap. The house next door belongs to a wealthy cigar merchant. He comes from Spanish America and looks Spanish enough himself, but he bears the very English name of Buller. The house beyond that. Did you hear that? I certainly did. And what's more, it came straight out of the back garden of Mr. Justice Gwyn. That paradise of peace and legality. What do we do? Well, find out what's happened. Of course, there's no sign of a gate, so it's over the wall somehow. Go on, you'll have to give me a leg up. Move. Now, get your hand under my foot. Yes, I think I can. Right. Now, if I hang on to this branch. Just a minute, I can. Can you grab hold of my hand? Yes, I think I can get you up. Right. 1, 2, 3. Right. Now, I suggest that we use the branch had swing over. Might help soften the fall. Right. Right. Right then. Quick. You all right? Yes. Along this path, the garden seems to be illuminated. See those colored lights in the trees? Is he having a party, do you think? No, lights are a hobby of his. He likes playing with a little electricity plant that he works in that summer house over There, where he does his work and keeps his papers. Fuller, who knows him well, since the colored lamps are more often a sign that he's not to be disturbed. Sort of red. Danger signals, perhaps? Good Lord. I'm afraid they are danger signals. Look over there by that little pond where the lights are clustered. Great heavens. There's someone lying there. And his head's in the water. Come on. Across the lawn. This looks to me like here. Wait a moment. Where are you going? What's the matter? Come on. Come on. Gotcha. Let go of me. No, you don't. Now, come on. Stop struggling if you don't want to get hurt. Come on. That's better. Now, my friend, you'd better explain yourself. What were you doing skulking in the bushes? Nothing. Nothing, I tell you. Let me go. Not so fast. I want a better look at you under the light. Come along. What on earth's going on? Caught this man lurking in the bushes. Trying to make his escape, I shouldn't wonder. Oh, lucky I spotted him in those laurels. You've got it all wrong. I wasn't trying to escape. I was all on the hill. I wish you'd run on and see what's up by that pool. Very well, if I must. And now, my friend, who are you? What's your name? Michael Floyd. But I've got nothing to do with it. I found him lying dead and I was scared. But I only came to interview him from a paper. A journalist, eh? When you interview celebrities for the press, do you generally climb over the wall? How did you know that? That trail of footprints in the dew coming and going across the lawn towards the wall. I couldn't make anybody hear at the front door. The servant had gone out, huh? How do you know he'd gone out? I've just seen him drop back over the wall. Where? Over there, just by the garden door. You. Come here. I want to speak to you. You the servant here? Yes, I am. Very well, I'll have something to say to you later. Now, Mr. Flood, is there anybody who can testify to your identity? I've just come from Ireland. The only man I know around here is a priest at St. Dominic's Father Brown. He's a newcomer too, is he not? He's not been in the parish long. Long enough to be able to vouch for you, I hope. Now, neither of you is to leave this place for the present. But you, my man, you can go into the house and ring up some Dominic's. Ask Father Brown if he would mind coming here at once. Very well, if I must. No tricks mine. As for you, Mr. Flood, I must ask you to remain with me until Father Brown turns up. While our energetic detective was securing his potential fugitives, his companion had hastened to the pond. There a strange and tragic sight met his eyes. The dead man, there was no doubt he was dead, lay with his head in the pond, his black spidery legs sprawling at angles up the steep bank from which he had fallen. In the glow of the artificial illumination, his face looked gaunt and rather sinister, its bald dome crowned with scanty grey locks. He was an evening dress, and despite the damage done by the bullet wound in the temple, Underhill had no difficulty in recognizing the features he had seen in many portraits of Sir Humphrey Gwyn. Blood was slowly eddying from the head wound into the luminous water in snaky rings like the transparent crimson of sunset clouds. Underhill did not know how long he stood staring down at this macabre figure, but when he looked up, he saw a group of four people standing above him on the bank. Bagshaw and his Irish captive he was prepared for. And the third, judging by his striped red waistcoat, was clearly a servant of some kind. It was the fourth person, a stumpy little man with a round face and a hat like a black halo, whose presence puzzled him. Then he heard Bagshaw say, I'm glad you are able to identify this man, Father Brown, but you must realize he's still under suspicion. Of course, he may be innocent, but he did enter the garden in an irregular fashion. I think he's innocent myself, but of course, I may be wrong. Why do you think he's innocent? Because he entered the garden in an irregular fashion, while I entered in a regular fashion. But I seem to be almost the only person here who did. What do you mean by regular fashion? Well, I came in by the front door. Does it matter very much how you came in? Unless you propose to confess to the murder? Yes, I think it does. When I came in at the front door, I saw something in the passage I don't think any of the rest of you have seen. Ah, what was that? A sort of general smash up. A big looking glass broken, a small palm tree knocked over, and the pot lying in pieces on the floor. Ah. Right then. Let's go into the house. You, my man, show us the way. Very good, sir. Father Brown, Mr. Flood, be so good as to follow him. Certainly. Underhill. Underhill. A word with you. Yes, what is it? Something odd about that servant. Tells me his name is Green, Though he looks like some kind of Foreigner. However, there seems no doubt that he really is Gwyn's servant. The only one, apparently. The queer thing is that he flatly denies that his master was in the garden at all, dead or alive. Does he, by Jove, yes. He said the old judge had gone out to a grand legal dinner and he didn't expect to be home for hours. That was his excuse for slipping out. Did he give any excuse for his curious way of slipping in? None that I could make sense of. That he. He seems to be scared of something. This way, gentlemen, if you please. Hey, everybody, it's Nicole Byer here with some hot takes from Wayfair. A cozy corduroy sectional from Wayfair. Um, yeah, that's a hot take. Go on and add it to your cart and take it. A pink glam nightstand from Wayfair. Scalding hot take. Take it before I do. A mid century modern cabinet from Wayfair that doubles as a wine bar. Do I have to say it? It's a hot take. Get it@wayfair.com and enjoy that free shipping too. Wayfair. Every style, every home rose is your name. But when you poop it sure don't smell like roses. Your number two burns the hair in my nose. But we fought hand in paw. Now your poop don't stink at all. Now that the air is clear. Clear. I'll treasure your front and rear, my sweet Ro. Instantly neutralize poop stink with poop fighter from world's best cat Litter for the world's best cat. This is the front entrance hall, sir. Not much light, is there? Can't you turn that lamp up higher? I'll do my best, sir. Ah, yes, that's better. Yes, yes, I see what you mean, Father Brown. Mirrors smashed in smithereens. Cloud overturned and broken debris everywhere. Yes, you're quite right. There's been a struggle here. And it must have been a struggle between Gwyn and his murderer. It did seem to me that something had happened here. Yes, and it's pretty clear what. The murderer entered by the front door and found Gwyn. Oh, probably Gwyn let him in. There was a deadly grapple, possibly a charged shot that hit the glass. Gwyn fled into the garden where he was pursued and the and shot finally. Down by the pond. That seems a reasonable theory. I fancy that's the whole story of the crime itself. But of course I must take a look round the other rooms before reaching a final conclusion. Remarkably little to help us in any of the rooms so far. Things seem pretty ship shape on the Whole? Oh, this is the library, I suppose. Yes. Splendid, splendid. Papers in order, correspondence undisturbed. No sign of anybody. Ah, what have we here? An automatic pistol. Oh, really? And loaded too. What exactly would one would expect to find in a judge's library desk? Perhaps he was expecting something. Or somebody. Possibly. It seems queer he didn't take this with him when he went out into the hall. Well, as there's nothing else to be seen here, we'd better take another look at the scene of the struggle. As they returned to the hall, making their way towards the front door, Father Brown let his eye roam around in a rather absent minded fashion. The gray and faded pattern of the wallpaper seemed to emphasize the dust and dingy floridity of the few early Victorian ornaments. The green rust that devoured the bronze of the single lamp and the dull gold that glimmered in the frame of the broken mirror. You know, Inspector Bagshaw, they say it's bad luck to break a looking glass. This looks like the very house of ill luck. There's something about the very furniture, the very atmosphere of the whole place. It's rather odd. I thought the front door would be shut, but it's left on the latch. That's right. Well, at least we can take a look at the front garden. Yes. Flower beds laid out neatly either side of the drive. Roses too, I see. Rather more conventional than the rest of the garden. Yes, indeed. That fine new hedge running down to the gate adds to the impression of formality, does it not? Curious the way it's been clipped. How do you mean? That sort of turret effect along the top. And that odd hole that's been cut into the side like some great green cavern intended to accommodate a garden bench. Most likely. So I should imagine. Why, bless my soul, it's the entrance to some kind of inner sanctum. Hey, where are you off to? Father Brown? What's going on? Is there someone there? There most certainly is. Inspector Bagshaw. This is none other than Mr. Orme, the celebrated poet. I understand. I must trouble him to answer a few questions and to explain what the devil he's doing here. Mr. Osric Orme, the poet was not a model of self expression when it came to the answering of questions. The little he said was obscure, either because he really knew hardly any English or because he knew better than to know any. Apart from the fact that he was a very small man. His only outstanding feature was a shock of fair hair, yellow and radiant as the head of a huge dandelion. Bagshaw's inquiries elicited little more from him than that. The poet had intended to call on Sir Humphrey Gwynne, but had not done so because he could not get anyone to answer the bell. Now, do you mean to tell me that you did not observe that the door was partly open? Yes, I do. And you did not succeed in seeing Sir Humphrey? No. In any case, the hour was somewhat late for paying a social visit, was it not? Possibly. Why then did you remain in the garden? Very well. If you refuse to answer my questions, Mr. Orme, there is nothing more to be done. For the present, I must ask you to accompany my friends and me as far as your residence. As for you, Mr. Flood, I won't detain you any longer, But I must warn you that I shall be making further inquiries in the morning. Now, gentlemen, let us be on our way. Good evening, Inspector. Well, I'm jiggered. Mr. Buller, is it not? Couldn't recognize you for a moment, sir. May I ask what you're doing here? Standing under a lamp post, taking a last puff at a cigar before turning in. That's all, Inspector. Hallo. Or here we are again, eh? Had a long talk with old Gwyn, I suppose. Sir Humphrey Gwyn is dead, Mr. Bullock. Dead? Yes, that's what I said. I'm investigating the case. And I must ask you what you meant just now. I only meant that when I passed two hours ago, Mr. Orme was going in at this gate to see Sir Humphrey. He says he hasn't seen him yet or even been inside the house. It's a long time to stand on the doorstep. Yes, and it's rather a long time to stand in the street. I've been home since then, been writing letters and came out again to post them. Well, you'll have to tell all that later. And in a different place, I've no doubt. Good night to you, Mr. Buller. Oh, perhaps it would be more accurate to bid you good morning. The trial of Osric Orme for the murder of Sir Humphrey Gwynne, which filled the newspapers for so many weeks, really turned entirely on that little talk under the lamppost when the gray dawn was breaking about the dark streets and gardens. Everything came back to the enigma of those two hours when Buller saw Orme going in at the garden gate. And the time when Father Brown found him still lurking in the hole behind a new hedge. He certainly had time to commit murders, had he wished. And it was also argued by the prosecution that he also had the opportunity. Since both the front and side doors were unlatched, the court Followed with interest Bagshaw's reconstruction of the struggle in the passage, of which the traces were so evident. Indeed, the police had since found the shot that had shattered the glass. Finally, in the view of the prosecution, that hole in the hedge had very much the appearance of a hiding place. Father Brown, you say that this hole in the hedge led to some kind of inner chamber? That is so. Was there any other means of exit to this rustic arbour? No. It was a cul de sac. There was no way out. And since this place gave no access elsewhere, it was unlikely to be disturbed by the casual passerby. That is so. In short, it would provide a convenient retreat for someone who wished to conceal his presence. I suppose it would, yes. Thank you, Father Brown. I am much obliged to you. But in his final pleading, Sir Matthew Blake, counsel for the defence, skilfully turned this point to his client's advantage. I ask you, members of the jury, why any man, particularly a guilty one, should entrap himself in a place without possible exit, when it would obviously be more sensible to slip out into the street again? And this is the final point for your consideration. What possible motive could prompt this man, a poet of international fame and only a rare visitor to this country, to commit such a foul and heinous crime? What possible reason would such a man have for doing to death one of the most eminent and honored luminaries in the whole of our legal profession? In the witness box, Orme could give no coherent account of what he was doing that night and was as uncommunicative to his own counsel as he was to the prosecution. Sir Arthur Travers, the distinguished prosecuting counsel, made all possible capital out of his silence. A long, gaunt man with a cadaverous face, he might, thought Father Brown, be compared to some crane or stork. As he leant forward, prodging the poet with questions, his long nose might have been a beak. Mr. Orme, do you mean to tell the jury that you never went in to see the deceased gentleman at all? No. You wanted to see him. I suppose you must have been very anxious to see him. Didn't you wait two hours in front of his front door? Yes. And yet you never noticed that the door was open? No. What in the world were you doing for two hours in somebody else's front garden? You were doing something, I suppose. Yes. Is it a secret? It's a secret. Hey, everybody, it's Nicole Byer here with some hot takes from Wayfair. A cozy corduroy sectional from Wayfair. Um, yeah, that's A hot take. Go on and add it to your cart and take it. A pink glam night stand from Wayfair. Scalding hot take. Take it before I do. A mid century modern cabinet from Wayfair that doubles as a wine bar. Do I have to say it? It's a hot take. Get it@wayfair.com and enjoy that free shipping too. Wayfair. Every style, every home. Possibility means you have a chance. Passion opens the door to all possibilities. When I feel like anything's possible, I feel kind of giddy. I want to be an astronaut, the art, an actress. To visit another country. All I need is a backpack and a pair of shoes and I'll find a way I'm able to do anything I set my mind to. I've never felt like more things are possible than right now. In the right shoes, anything's possible. Dsw. Countless shoes at bragworthy prices. Imagine the possibilities from you. Silence. Gentlemen of the jury. We do not know the exact reason why this honorable public servant was murdered. We shall not know the reason when the next public servant is murdered. If my learned friend on the other side should himself fall victim to his imminence and incur the hatred of which the hellish powers of destruction feel for the guardians of the law, he will be murdered. And he will not know the reason. He too will have perished in the octopus coil of this foul and far flung conspiracy. For conspiracy it is without a doubt, make no mistake about that. The conspiracy as alien to our British way of life and thinking as are the evil and faceless criminals who hide behind it. If the forces of anarchy prevail, half the decent people in this court will be butchered in their beds. And we shall never know the reason. And we shall never know the reason and never arrest the massacre as long as the defence is permitted to stop all proceedings of with the stale tag about motive. When every fact in the case, every glaring incongruity, every gaping silence tells us that we stand in the presence of Cain. Gentlemen of the jury, this callous, this inhuman wretch stands arraigned before you. I ask you as responsible and law abiding citizens to arrive at the only possible verdict. Well, I wonder how long the jury will be making up its mind. Oh, not long, I fancy. The case seems pretty well tied up. I must say, I never heard Sir Arthur getting so excited. Some people are saying that he went beyond the usual limit and that the prosecution in a murder case oughtn't to be so vindictive. I agree, Bagshaw. All the same. I'll not deny that there was something downright creepy about that little goblin with the yellow hair. I felt at times there was a monster in the dock. But if that was due to Sir Arthur's eloquence, then he certainly took a heavy responsibility in putting so much passion into it. He was a friend of poor Gwyn's, of course. I dare say that's why he feels so strongly in this case. I suppose it's doubtful whether a man ought to act in such a case on mere personal feeling. Oh, you're wrong. Unveiled. Sir Arthur Travers wouldn't act on feeling, however strong it was. He's got a very stiff sense of his professional position. He's one of those men who are ambitious even when they've satisfied their ambition. I know nobody who'd take more trouble to keep his position in the world. No, if he lets himself go like that, he must have some very good reason for wanting to convict Orm. And some very good reason for thinking he can do it. That means that the facts will support him. His confidence doesn't look well for the prisoner. No, indeed. Well, Father Brown, what do you think of our judicial procedure? Well, I. I think the thing that struck me most was how different men look in their wigs. You talk about Sir Arthur being so tremendous, but I happened to see him take off his wig for a moment and he really looks quite a different man. He's quite bald, for one thing. You wouldn't propose to found the defense on the fact that the prosecuting counsel is bald, would you? Not exactly. To tell you the truth, I was thinking how little some kinds of people know about other kinds of people. Oh, and where does that get us? Suppose I went among some remote people who had never heard of England. Suppose I told them that there's a man in my country who won't ask a question of life and death until he's put a creation made of horse hair on top of his head with little tails behind and great corkscrew curls at the side. They would think he was rather eccentric. And they would think so because they don't know anything about English barristers. Because they don't know what a barrister is. Well, grant you that. But I don't see how that barrister doesn't know what a poet is. He doesn't understand that a poet's eccentricities wouldn't seem eccentric to other poets. He thinks it odd that Orm should walk about in a beautiful garden for two hours with nothing to do. God bless my soul, a poet would think Nothing of walking about in the same backyard for 10 hours. If he had a poet poem to do. Orme's counsel was just as stupid. It had never occurred to him to ask Orme the obvious question. What question do you mean? Why? What poem he was making up, of course. What line he was stuck at, what epithet he was looking for, what climax he was trying to work up to. If there were any educated people in court who know what literature is, they would have known well enough. If he had anything genuine to do, you'd have asked a manufacturer about the conditions of his factory. But nobody seems to consider the conditions under which poetry is manufactured. That's all very well, but why did he hide? Why did he go into that hole behind the hedge and stop there? It led nowhere. Why? Because it led nowhere. Of course, Anybody who clapped eyes on that blind alley ending in nothing might have known that an artist would want to go there, just as a child would. To go there for what? I beg your pardon, but it seems odd that none of you understand these things. Don't you know that an artist must have time in which to think, to ponder, to absorb his impressions and then find the means by which to express them? If you told him that hole in the hedge led nowhere except to that small green cavern in which I found him, he would tell you that it led to the country at the end of the world. A country which no one else beside himself could ever hope to enter. But do you expect him to tell you that in the witness box? What would you say to him if he did? You talk about a man having a jury of his peers. Why don't you have a jury of poets? You talk as if you were a poet yourself. You thank your stars I'm not. Thank your lucky stars. A priest has to be more charitable than a poet. Lord have mercy on us. If you knew what a crushing, what a cruel contempt he feels for the lot of you, you'd feel as if you were under Niagara. You may know more than I do about the artistic temperament, Father Brown. But after all, the answer is simple. You can only show that he might have acted as he did without committing the crime. But it's equally true that he might have committed the crime. And who else could have committed it? Have you thought about the servant Green? He told rather a queer story. Oh, you think Green did it after all? Oh, I'm quite sure he didn't. I only asked if you thought about his queer story. He only went out for a drink or an assignation or what not. But he went out by the garden door and came back over the garden wall. In other words, he left the door open. But he came back to find it shut. Why? Because somebody else had already passed that way. The murderer. Do you know who he was? I know what he looked like. You do? Yes. But that's the only thing I do know. I can almost see him as he came in at the front door in the gleam of the hall lamp. His figure, his clothes, even his face. What is all this? How did he look? He looked like Sir Humphrey Gwyn. What the devil do you mean? Gwyn was lying dead with his head in the pond. Oh, yes. Well, let's go back to that theory of yours for a moment, Inspector. It was a very good one, though I don't quite agree with it. Oh? And why is that? Well, you see, you suppose the murderer came in at the front door, met the judge in the hall, struggled with him, breaking the mirror in the process. You further suppose that the judge then retreated into the garden where he was finally shot beside the pond. Am I correct? Or an essayist? Well, somehow it doesn't sound natural to me. Granted, he retreated down the hall. There are two exits at the end. One into the garden and one into the house. Now, surely he would be more likely to retreat into the house. Why? His gun was there, his telephone was there. His servant, so far as he knew, was there. Even his nearest neighbors were on that side of the house. Now, why should he stop to open the garden door and go out alone on the deserted side of the house? There's something in that, certainly. Yes, but we know he did go out of the house. We know he went out of the house because he was found in the garden. He never went out of the house because he was never in the house. What? Well, not that evening. I mean, he was sitting in that summer house. Yes, I read that lesson in the dark at the beginning in red and golden stars across the garden. The lights. Yes, the lights. You told me, Inspector, that they were worked from the summer house, did you not? I did. Well, they wouldn't have been burning at all if Gwyn hadn't been in the summer house. No, he was there all right. And he was trying to run across to the house and telephone for help when the murderer shot him beside the pond. Yes, but what about the pot and the palm and the broken mirror? It was you who found them, Father Brown. It was you yourself who said that there must have been a struggle in the horn. Did I? Oh, surely I didn't say that. Oh, yes, you did. You heard him too, didn't you, Underhill? I certainly understood him to say something. I never thought that. What I think I said was that something had happened in the hall. And something did happen, but it wasn't a struggle. And what broke the mirror? A bullet broke the mirror. A bullet? Fired by the criminal. And the broken palm pot, how do you account for that? The fragments of falling glass were quite big enough to knock over the pot and the palm. Yes, I'll grant that. But what else could he be firing at except Gwyn? That's rather a fine metaphysical point. In one sense, of course, he was firing at Gwyn. But Gwyn wasn't there to be fired at. Wasn't there? What on earth do you mean? I mean that the murderer was alone in the hall. Alone? Yes, alone. Now imagine, both of you, the looking glass at the end of the passage before it was broken. Of course. And with the tall palm arching over it. In the half light reflecting those dark, monochrome walls, it would look like the end of the passage, would it not? Yes, I suppose it might. And a man reflected in it would look like a man coming from inside the house. If only that reflection were a little like him. The murderer standing by the front door would think a minute. I believe I begin to. Yes, you begin to see. You begin to see why all the suspect in this case must be innocent. Not one of them could possibly have mistaken his own reflection for Mr. Justice Gwynne Orme, the man now on trial for his life in that courtroom. Or would have known at once that his shock of yellow hair was not a bald head. Flood, whose hair, you recollect, was a flaming red, would have seen that same red hair in the mirror. And Green, with his red striped servant's waistcoat, would have recognized himself at once. Besides, all three men were short and shabby. None of them could have thought that their own image was a tall, thin, old gentleman with a bald head and wearing evening dress. No, no. We want another equally tall and thin to match him. That's what I meant by saying that I knew what the murderer looked like. And what do you mean by that? I am going to argue the very thing which you said was so ludicrous and impossible. What do you mean? I am going to base the defense on the fact that the prosecuting counsel had a bald head. Oh, my God. You've been following the movements of a good many people in this business. You policemen were prodigiously interested in the movements of the poet and the servant. The Irishman. The man whose movements Seem to have been rather forgotten is the dead man himself. How so? His servant was quite honestly astonished at finding his master had returned home. His master had gone to a great dinner of all the leaders of the legal profession, but had left it abruptly and come home a why? He was not ill, for he summoned no assistance. No, he had almost certainly quarrelled with one of his fellow guests, with some leader of the legal profession. It's among the leaders of that profession that we should have looked first for his enemy. Yes, I take your point, Father Brown. Sir Humphrey returned home and shut himself up in the summer house where he kept all his private documents and notes about unethical, dubious, possibly even treasonable practices among certain of his colleagues. But the leader of the legal profession, who knew there was something against him in those documents, was thoughtful enough to follow his accuser home. He also being in evening dress, but with a pistol in his pocket. That is all. And nobody could ever have guessed. Except for the mirror. A queer thing is a mirror, you know, a picture frame that holds hundreds of different pictures all vivid and vanish forever. Yet there was something specially strange about them. The glass that hung at the end of that grey corridor under that green palm. It is as if. As if it were a magic glass and had a different fate from others. As if its picture could somehow survive it, hanging in the air of that twilight house like a specter, or at least like an abstract diagram, the skeleton of an argument we could at least conjure out of the void. The thing that Sir Arthur Travers saw. By the way, Inspector, there was one very true thing that you said about him. I'm glad to hear it. What was it you said? That Sir Arthur must have some good reason for wanting to get orm hanged. Well, I'm bl. About time to go back into court, gentlemen. I understand the jury will be returning in a matter of minutes. Usher, I must see counsel for the defence at once. See Sir Matthew Blake, Inspector. That'd be most irregular. At this stage of the proceedings, it's absolutely imperative that I speak with Sir Matthew before the jury is called back. There's not a moment to lose. It's a matter of life and death. In that case, you better come this way, sir. I'll see what can be done. Special. Special. Late night special. Arm case sensation. Judge stops trial. Famous lawyer with jawsome case. Special murder trial sensation. Special. Late night special. Here, boy, give me a paper. What you are, Governor. Here's your penny. Special. Late night. Special. Murder trial sensation. Hey, Oliver, listen to this. Following the judge's unprecedented Intervention in the trial of Osric Orr. It is understood that Sir Arthur Travers, the distinguished prosecuting counsel, has torn up his brief and has disassociated himself from any further proceedings. Phew. Well, I'm jiggered. Never knew that old windbag to chuck his hand in. What's up with him, you suppose? Rumor and wild conjecture flew everywhere. From the most exclusive of London clubs to the humblest of public houses. In some dockland back street, the subject was on the tip of every tongue. What people were asking could have been the extraordinary circumstances which caused a learned judge to stop the trial of Osric Orme? What new and vital evidence could have reached His Lordship's ears at so later stage? Had he perhaps decided that the man in the dock was unfit to plead? Had someone born false witness? Or could it have been that for once the prosecution had overreached itself and that Sir Arthur Trevor's impassioned denunciation was held to have so prejudiced the minds of the jury as to inhibit its members from reaching a proper verdict and so procure a grave miscarriage of justice? Father Brown, immersed once more in his pastoral duties and secure in his belief that an innocent man had been saved from the gallows, gave little thought to all this wild speculation. And it was not until several days later that he had an opportunity of meeting Inspector Bagshaw again. Then a sudden call to the sick bed of a distant parishioner took him fortuitously past the portals of the local police headquarters. On an impulse, he stopped and went inside. Ah, Father Brown. Nice to see you. Come on in and sit down. I thought I'd just drop in. I understand that the authorities have been moving pretty quickly on the new lines of inquiry. Yes, that is so. But haven't you heard the news? You mean the retirement from the scene of Sir Arthur Travers? Arthur Travers is dead. Dead? You mean that he. Yes. Last night he shot at the the same man again, but this time not in a mirror. That was the Mirror of the Magistrate by G.K. chesterton, adapted by Archie Campbell. You heard Leslie French as Father Brown, William Rushton as G.K. chesterton who narrated the story, and Alan Roe as Detective Inspector Bagshaw. Underhill was played by David Sinclair, Michael Flood by John Livesey, Osric Orme by Jonathan Byrne Green by Sam Dastore Buller by Timothy Bateson, Sir Michael Blake by Nigel Lambert, Sir Arthur Travers by Godfrey Kenton, and the Newsboy by Mark Burton. The play was produced by Christopher Venning. Lowe's knows how to help make your home holiday ready for less. 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