‘All the old ladies having been born this very minute [17] ,’ observed Father Brown. ‘I think she is said to have vamped the priest’s son [18] .’

‘Yes, and it seems to be a very awful problem to the poor old priest. She is supposed to be a widow.’

Father Brown’s face became red with anger which it seldom did. ‘She is supposed to be a widow, as the priest’s son is supposed to be the priest’s son, and the lawyer is supposed to be a lawyer and you are supposed to be a doctor. Why in thunder [19] shouldn’t she be a widow? Have they one reason for thinking that she is not what she says she is?’

Dr Mulborough suddenly straightened his broad shoulders and sat up. ‘Of course you’re right again,’ he said. ‘But we haven’t come to the scandal yet. Well, the scandal is that she is a widow.’

‘Oh,’ said Father Brown; and his face changed and he said something soft and unclear, that might almost have been ‘My God!’

‘First of all,’ said the doctor, ‘they found out one thing about Mrs Maltravers. She is an actress.’

‘I thought so,’ said Father Brown. ‘Never mind why [20] . I had another thought about her, that would seem even more unimportant.’

‘Well, at that moment it was scandal enough that she was an actress. The dear old priest of course is heartbroken, to think that his white hairs should be brought to the grave by an actress and adventuress. The spinsters cry altogether. The Admiral says he has sometimes been to a theatre in town; but refuses that such things were among us. Well, of course I’ve no particular protest of that kind. This actress is certainly a lady, if a bit of a Dark Lady, in the style of the Sonnets [21] ; the young man is very much in love with her; andI am no doubt a sentimental old fool in having some feelings for the stupid young man who is walking round the Grange;and I was getting thoughts that this village was ideal,when suddenly the thunderbolt fell. And I, who am the only person who ever had any sympathy with these people, am sent down to be the messenger of doom [22] .’

‘Yes,’ said Father Brown, ‘and why were you sent down?’

The doctor answered with a sort of sigh:

‘Mrs Maltravers is not only a widow, but she is the widow of Mr Maltravers.’

‘It sounds like a shockingnews, as you put it,’ said the priest seriously.

‘And Mr Maltravers,’ continued his medical friend, ‘was the man who was probably murdered in this very village [23] a year or two ago; supposed to have been hit on the head by one of the simple villagers.’

‘I remember you told me,’ said Father Brown. ‘The doctor, or some doctor, said he had probably died of being hit on the head with a club.’

Dr Mulborough was silent for a moment frowning, and then said sharply:

‘Dog doesn’t eat dog, and doctors don’t bite doctors, not even when they are mad doctors. I wouldn’t cast any reflection on the previous doctor in Potter’s Pond, if I could avoid it [24] ; but I know you are really safe for secrets [25] . And, speaking in confidence [26] , my predecessor at Potter’s Pond was a great fool; a drunken old idiot and absolutely incompetent. I was asked, originally by the Chief Constable of the County (for I’ve lived a long time in the county, though only lately in the village), to look into the whole case; the evidence and papers of the investigation and so on. And there simply isn’t any question about it [27] . Maltravers may have been hit on the head; he was a traveling actor passing through the place; and Potter’s Pond probably thinks it is all in the natural order that such people should be hit on the head. But whoever hit him on the head did not kill him [28] ; it is simply impossible for such injury to do more than knock him out for a few hours. But lately I have managed to turn up some other facts concerning the matter; and the result of it is pretty dark.’

He sat looking at the landscape as it fell past the window, and then said more sharply:‘I am coming down here, and asking your help, because there’s going to be an exhumation. They think that he has been poisoned.’

‘And here we are at the station,’ said Father Brown happily. ‘I suppose your idea is that poisoning the poor man would be among the household tasks of his wife.’

‘Well, there never seems to have been anyone else here [29] who had any connection with him,’ said Mulborough, as they got off the train. ‘At least there is one strange old friendof his, a broken-down actor, hanging around; but the police and the local lawyer seem sure thathe is an unbalanced gossiper; with some obsession on an argument with an actor who was his enemy; but who certainly wasn’t Maltravers. A repeating case, I should say, and certainly nothing to do with the problem of the poison.’

Father Brown had heard the story. But he knew that he never knew a story until he knew the characters in the story [30] . He spent the next two or three days visitingthe main actors of the drama. His first interview with the strange widow was short but bright. He brought away from it at least two facts; one that Mrs Maltravers sometimes talked in a way which the Victorian village would call sarcastic; and, second, that unlike few actresses, she happened to belong to his own church [31] .

He was right not to figure out from this alone that she was innocent of the said crime. He knew well that his old church had several notable poisoners. But he easily understood its connection, in this sort of case, with a certain intellectual liberty which these Puritans would call immorality; and which would certainly seem to them to be almost cosmopolitan. Anyhow, he was sure she could count for a great deal, whether for good or evil. Her brown eyes were brave to the point of battle, and her mouth, playful and rather large, suggested that her purposes touching the priest’s poetical son, whatever they might be [32] , were of pretty deep nature.