The Man Who Knew Too Much by G. K. Chesterton (beach read book txt) 📕

his head was of too strange a shape to be a biretta. It suggested, rather, some archaic headdress of Persia or Babylon. He had a curious black beard appearing only at the corners of his chin, and his large eyes were oddly set in his face like the flat decorative eyes painted in old Egyptian profiles. Before they had gathered more than a general impression of him, he had dived into the doorway that was their own destination.

Nothing could be seen above ground of the sunken sanctuary except a strong wooden hut, of the sort recently run up for many military and official purposes, the wooden floor of which was indeed a mere platform over the excavated cavity below. A soldier stood as a sentry outside, and a superior soldier, an Anglo-Indian officer of distinction, sat writing at the desk inside. Indeed, the sightseers soon found that this particular sight was surrounded with the most extraordinary precautions. I have compared the silver coin to the Koh-i-noor, and in one sense it was even conventionally comparable, since by a historical accident it was at one time almost counted among the Crown jewels, or at least the Crown relics, until one of the royal princes publicly restored it to the shrine to which it was supposed to belong. Other causes combined to concentrate official vigilance upon it; there had been a scare about spies carrying explosives in small objects, and one of those experimental orders which pass like waves over bureaucracy had decreed first that all visitors should change their clothes for a sort of official sackcloth, and then (when this method caused some murmurs) that they should at least turn out their pockets. Colonel Morris, the officer in charge, was a short, active man with a grim and leathery face, but a lively and humorous eye— a contradiction borne out by his conduct, for he at once derided the safeguards and yet insisted on them.

“I don’t care a button myself for Paul’s Penny, or such things,” he admitted in answer to some antiquarian openings from the clergyman who was slightly acquainted with him, “but I wear the King’s coat, you know, and it’s a serious thing when the King’s uncle leaves a thing here with his own hands under my charge. But as for saints and relics and things, I fear I’m a bit of a Voltairian; what you would call a skeptic.”

“I’m not sure it’s even skeptical to believe in the royal family and not in the ‘Holy’ Family,” replied Mr. Twyford. “But, of course, I can easily empty my pockets, to show I don’t carry a bomb.”

The little heap of the parson’s possessions which he left on the table consisted chiefly of papers, over and above a pipe and a tobacco pouch and some Roman and Saxon coins. The rest were catalogues of old books, and pamphlets, like one entitled “The Use of Sarum,” one glance at which was sufficient both for the colonel and the schoolboy. They could not see the use of Sarum at all. The contents of the boy’s pockets naturally made a larger heap, and included marbles, a ball of string, an electric torch, a magnet, a small catapult, and, of course, a large pocketknife, almost to be described as a small tool box, a complex apparatus on which he seemed disposed to linger, pointing out that it included a pair of nippers, a tool for punching holes in wood, and, above all, an instrument for taking stones out of a horse’s hoof. The comparative absence of any horse he appeared to regard as irrelevant, as if it were a mere appendage easily supplied. But when the turn came of the gentleman in the black gown, he did not turn out his pockets, but merely spread out his hands.

“I have no possessions,” he said.

“I’m afraid I must ask you to empty your pockets and make sure,” observed the colonel, gruffly.

“I have no pockets,” said the stranger.

Mr. Twyford was looking at the long black gown with a learned eye.

“Are you a monk?” he asked, in a puzzled fashion.

“I am a magus,” replied the stranger. “You have heard of the magi, perhaps? I am a magician.”

“Oh, I say!” exclaimed Summers Minor, with prominent eyes.

“But I was once a monk,” went on the other. “I am what you would call an escaped monk. Yes, I have escaped into eternity. But the monks held one truth at least, that the highest life should be without possessions. I have no pocket money and no pockets, and all the stars are my trinkets.”

“They are out of reach, anyhow,” observed Colonel Morris, in a tone which suggested that it was well for them. “I’ve known a good many magicians myself in India—mango plant and all. But the Indian ones are all frauds, I’ll swear. In fact, I had a good deal of fun showing them up. More fun than I have over this dreary job, anyhow. But here comes Mr. Symon, who will show you over the old cellar downstairs.”

Mr. Symon, the official guardian and guide, was a young man, prematurely gray, with a grave mouth which contrasted curiously with a very small, dark mustache with waxed points, that seemed somehow, separate from it, as if a black fly had settled on his face. He spoke with the accent of Oxford and the permanent official, but in as dead a fashion as the most indifferent hired guide. They descended a dark stone staircase, at the floor of which Symon pressed a button and a door opened on a dark room, or, rather, a room which had an instant before been dark. For almost as the heavy iron door swung open an almost blinding blaze of electric lights filled the whole interior. The fitful enthusiasm of Stinks at once caught fire, and he eagerly asked if the lights and the door worked together.

“Yes, it’s all one system,” replied Symon. “It was all fitted up for the day His Royal Highness deposited the thing here. You see, it’s locked up behind a glass case exactly as he left it.”

A glance showed that the arrangements for guarding the treasure were indeed as strong as they were simple. A single pane of glass cut off one corner of the room, in an iron framework let into the rock walls and the wooden roof above; there was now no possibility of reopening the case without elaborate labor, except by breaking the glass, which would probably arouse the night watchman who was always within a few feet of it, even if he had fallen asleep. A close examination would have showed many more ingenious safeguards; but the eye of the Rev. Thomas Twyford, at least, was already riveted on what interested him much more—the dull silver disk which shone in the white light against a plain background of black velvet.

“St. Paul’s Penny, said to commemorate the visit of St. Paul to Britain, was probably preserved in this chapel until the eighth century,” Symon was saying in his clear but colorless voice. “In the ninth century it is supposed to have been carried away by the barbarians, and it reappears, after the conversion of the northern Goths, in the possession of the royal family of Gothland. His Royal Highness, the Duke of Gothland, retained it always in his own private custody, and when he decided to exhibit it to the public, placed it here with his own hand. It was immediately sealed up in such a manner—”

Unluckily at this point Summers Minor, whose attention had somewhat strayed from the religious wars of the ninth century, caught sight of a short length of wire appearing in a broken patch in the wall. He precipitated himself at it, calling out, “I say, say, does that connect?”

It was evident that it did connect, for no sooner had the boy given it a twitch than the whole room went black, as if they had all been struck blind, and an instant afterward they heard the dull crash of the closing door.

“Well, you’ve done it now,” said Symon, in his tranquil fashion. Then after a pause he added, “I suppose they’ll miss us sooner or later, and no doubt they can get it open; but it may take some little time.”

There was a silence, and then the unconquerable Stinks observed:

“Rotten that I had to leave my electric torch.”

“I think,” said his uncle, with restraint, “that we are sufficiently convinced of your interest in electricity.”

Then after a pause he remarked, more amiably: “I suppose if I regretted any of my own impedimenta, it would be the pipe. Though, as a matter of fact, it’s not much fun smoking in the dark. Everything seems different in the dark.”

“Everything is different in the dark,” said a third voice, that of the man who called himself a magician. It was a very musical voice, and rather in contrast with his sinister and swarthy visage, which was now invisible. “Perhaps you don’t know how terrible a truth that is. All you see are pictures made by the sun, faces and furniture and flowers and trees. The things themselves may be quite strange to you. Something else may be standing now where you saw a table or a chair. The face of your friend may be quite different in the dark.”

A short, indescribable noise broke the stillness. Twyford started for a second, and then said, sharply:

“Really, I don’t think it’s a suitable occasion for trying to frighten a child.”

“Who’s a child?” cried the indignant Summers, with a voice that had a crow, but also something of a crack in it. “And who’s a funk, either? Not me.”

“I will be silent, then,” said the other voice out of the darkness. “But silence also makes and unmakes.”

The required silence remained unbroken for a long time until at last the clergyman said to Symon in a low voice:

“I suppose it’s all right about air?”

“Oh, yes,” replied the other aloud; “there’s a fireplace and a chimney in the office just by the door.”

A bound and the noise of a falling chair told them that the irrepressible rising generation had once more thrown itself across the room. They heard the ejaculation: “A chimney! Why, I’ll be—” and the rest was lost in muffled, but exultant, cries.

The uncle called repeatedly and vainly, groped his way at last to the opening, and, peering up it, caught a glimpse of a disk of daylight, which seemed to suggest that the fugitive had vanished in safety. Making his way back to the group by the glass case, he fell over the fallen chair and took a moment to collect himself again. He had opened his mouth to speak to Symon, when he stopped, and suddenly found himself blinking in the full shock of the white light, and looking over the other man’s shoulder, he saw that the door was standing open.

“So they’ve got at us at last,” he observed to Symon.

The man in the black robe was leaning against the wall some yards away, with a smile carved on his face.

“Here comes Colonel Morris,” went on Twyford, still speaking to Symon. “One of us will have to tell him how the light went out. Will you?”

But Symon still said nothing. He was standing as still as a statue, and looking steadily at the black velvet behind the glass screen. He was looking at the black velvet because there was nothing else to look at. St. Paul’s Penny was gone.

Colonel Morris entered the room with two new visitors; presumably two new sightseers delayed by the accident. The foremost was a tall, fair, rather languid-looking man with a bald brow and a highbridged nose; his companion was a younger man with light, curly hair and frank, and even innocent, eyes. Symon scarcely