THE CURSE OF THE GOLDEN CROSS (PART 1) A FATHER BROWN MYSTERY

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Welcome back, everyone, to 1001 Classic Short Stories & Tales and part one of The Curse of the Golden Cross, A Father Brown Mystery from GK. Chesterton. Part two to continue Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern Time. Tonight's Father Brown Mystery takes us far from the quiet English parishes we're used to, and begins instead aboard a great Atlantic liner cutting through the night. Around one small dinner table sits a strange assortment of travelers, a famous American archaeologist, a flamboyant lady adventurer, a moody young dandy, two English lecturers, and a small unassuming priest who notices everything. What begins as casual conversation soon turns toward a newly discovered tomb on the Sussex Coast, a tomb containing an embalmed body, a chain and a golden cross marked with a secret symbol from the earliest days of Christianity. And with that symbol comes a legend and a curse. Join us now for The Curse of the Golden Cross, a Father Brown mystery by GK. Chesterton. From his last Father Brown story collection, The Incredulity of Father Brown.

And now our story. First published in Nash's Magazine, May 1925

Six people sat around a small table, seeming almost as incongruous and accidental as if they had been shipwrecked separately on the same small desert island. At least the sea surrounded them, for in one sense their island was enclosed in another island, a large and flying island like Laputa. For the little table was one of many little tables dotted about in the dining salon of that monstrous ship, the Moravia, speeding through the night and the everlasting emptiness of the Atlantic.

The little company had nothing in common except that all were traveling from America to England. Two of them at least might be called celebrities, others might be called obscure, and in one or two cases even dubious. The first was the famous Professor Smaill, an authority on certain archaeological studies touching the later Byzantine Empire. His lectures, delivered in an American university, were accepted as of the first authority, even in the most authoritative seats of learning in Europe. His literary works were so steeped in a mellow and imaginative sympathy with the European past that it often gave strangers a start to hear him speak with an American accent. Yet he was, in his way, very American. He had long, fair hair brushed back from a big square forehead, long, straight features, and a curious mixture of preoccupation with a poise of potential swiftness, like a lion pondering absentmindedly on his next leap. There was only one lady in the group, and she was, as the journalists often said of her, a host in herself, being quite prepared to play hostess, not to say empress, at that or any other table. She was Lady Diana Wales, the celebrated lady traveler in tropical and other countries. But there was nothing rugged or masculine about her appearance at dinner. She was herself handsome in an almost tropical fashion, with a mass of hot and heavy red hair. She was dressed in what the journalists call a daring fashion. But her face was intelligent, and her eyes had that bright and rather prominent appearance which belongs to the eyes of ladies who ask questions of political meetings. The other four figures seemed at first like shadows in this shining presence, but they showed differences on a close view. One of them was a young man, entered in the ship's register as Paul T. Turant. He was an American type which might be more truly called an American anti-type. Every nation probably has an anti-type, a sort of extreme exception that proves the national rule. Americans really respect work, rather as Europeans respect war. There is a halo of heroism about it, and he who shrinks from it is less than a man. The anti-type is evident through being exceedingly rare. He is the dandy, or dude, the wealthy waster who makes a weak villain for so many American novels. Paul Tarrant seemed to have nothing whatever to do but change his clothes, which he did about six times a day, passing into paler or richer shades of his suit of exquisite light gray, like the delicate silver changes of the twilight.

Unlike most Americans, he cultivated very carefully a short, curly beard, and unlike most dandies, even of his own type, he seemed rather sulky than showy. Perhaps there was something almost byronic about his silence and his gloom.

The next two travelers were naturally classed together, merely because they were both English lecturers returning from an American tour. One of them was described as Leonard Smith, apparently a minor poet, but something of a major journalist, long-headed, light-haired, perfectly dressed, and perfectly capable of looking after himself.

The other was a rather comic contrast, being short and broad, with a black walrus mustache and as taciturn as the other was talkative. But as he had been both charged with robbing and praised for rescuing a Romanian princess threatened by a jaguar in his traveling menagerie and had thus figured in a fashionable case, it was naturally felt that his views on God, progress, his own early life, and the future of Anglo-American relations would be of great interest and value to the inhabitants of Minneapolis and Omaha. The sixth and most insignificant figure was that of a little English priest going by the name of Brown. He listened to the conversation with respectful attention and he was at that moment forming the impression that there was one rather curious thing about it. I suppose those Byzantine studies of yours, Professor, Leonard Smith was saying, would throw some light on this story of a tomb found somewhere on the south coast near Brighton, isn't it? Brighton is a long way from Byzantium, of course. But I read something about the style of burying or embalming or something being supposed to be Byzantine. Byzantine studies certainly have to reach a long way, replied the Professor, D'Reilly. They talk about specialists, but I think the hardest thing on earth is to specialize. In this case, for instance, how can a man know anything about Byzantium till he knows everything about Rome before it and about Islam after it? Most Arab arts were old Byzantine arts. Why, take Algebra. But I won't take Algebra, cried the Lady decisively. I never did, and I never do. But I'm awfully interested in embalming. I was with Gatton, you know, when he opened the Babylonian tombs. Ever since then I found mummies and preserved bodies and all that perfectly thrilling. Do tell us about this one. Gatton was an interesting man, said the Professor. They were an interesting family. That brother of his who went into Parliament was much more than an ordinary politician. I never understood the fascisti till he made that speech about Italy. Well, we're not going to Italy on this trip, said Lady Diana persistently. And I believe you're going to that little place where they found the tomb. In Sussex, isn't it? Sussex is pretty large, as these little English sections go, replied the Professor. One might wander about in it for a goodish time, and it's a good place to wander in. It's wonderful how large those low hills seem when you're on them. There was an abrupt accidental silence, and then the Lady said, Oh, I'm going on deck, and rose, the men rising with her. But the Professor lingered, and the little priest was the last to leave the table, carefully folding up his napkin. And as they were thus left alone, the Professor said suddenly to his companion, What would you say was the point of that little talk? Well, said Father Brown, smiling, since you ask me, there was something that amused me a little. I may be wrong, but it seemed to me that the company made three attempts to get you to talk about an embalmed body said to be found in Sussex. And you, on your side, very courteously offered a talk first about algebra, and then about the fascisti, and then about the landscape of the Downs. In short, replied the professor, you thought I was ready to talk about any subject but that one. You were quite right.