Page:The Incredulity of Father Brown.pdf/67

The Arrow of Heaven quarrel with 'em. Any sham lawyer could bamboozle me, but he couldn't bamboozle you; because you're a lawyer yourself. Any fool could dress up as a Red Indian and I'd swallow him whole as the only original Hiawatha; but Mr. Crake would see through him at once. A swindler could pretend to me that he knew all about aeroplanes, but not to Captain Wain. And it's just the same with the other, don't you see? It's just because I have picked up a little about mystics that I have no use for mystagogues. Real mystics don't hide mysteries, they reveal them. They set a thing up in broad daylight, and when you've seen it it's still a mystery. But the mystagogues hide a thing in darkness and secrecy, and when you find it, it's a platitude. But in the case of Drage, I admit he had also another and more practical notion, in talking about fire from heaven or bolts from the blue."

"And what was his notion?" asked Wain. "I think it wants watching, whatever it is."

"Well," replied the priest, slowly, "he wanted us to think the murders were miracles because well, because he knew they weren't."

"Ah," said Wain, with a sort of hiss, "I was waiting for that. In plain words, he is the criminal."

"In plain words, he is the criminal who didn't commit the crime," answered Father Brown, calmly.

"Is that your conception of plain words?" inquired Blake politely.