The priest who arrived at the reception of the large, well-to-do hotel looked a very unlikely person to provoke a strong reaction, good or bad, in anyone. He had a round, unremarkable face, he was short, some would say stumpy, his black, priestly clothing was somewhat shapeless and his large umbrella had seen better days.
However, the shouts of genuine, heartfelt joy from a tall Irishman who had just entered the reception through an internal door, the small middle-aged priest provoked a strong reaction upon being recognised.
“Is that you, Father Brown?” his voice, more appropriate to a parade ground, boomed across the room.
Momentarily the shorter man looked bewildered as he tried to place the source of the voice. But then he responded: “Why bless me! It’s Clonmel, County Tipperary’s, favourite son, Detective Sergeant John O’Connor, of the Metropolitan Police Force! What brings you to this part of the Home Counties?”
The two men vigorously shook hands and in a quieter, more confidential tone of voice O’Connor said: “I’m here to help the local police force apprehend a ruthless, cold-blooded killer. The local force believes a young man, who was treated exceptionally badly by the victim, to be the killer.”
At this point, O’Connor tapped his nose with a finger before adding: “But my instinct and my policeman’s nose tells me he’s not the man we’re looking for. The man I fancy as the killer is, I believe, staying at this very hotel!”
“Goodness me,” said Father Brown.
O’Connor said “Please join me in the resident’s bar. It’s my treat. I’ll have a drop of Guinness and I believe your tipple is still a half pint of brown ale?”
“It certainly is,” Father Brown agreed, affably. He excused himself momentarily to give the porter a gratuity to take his bags to his bedroom.
“Now, why don’t you tell me all about it?” he said as they companionably walked through the door into the residents’ bar.
With their drinks delivered to their table, O’Connor began talking. “We received intelligence a local businessman had become involved with a gang of criminals. Unfortunately, he crossed them because they ordered a professional killer to come here to murder him and the informant was able to tell the police the killer was staying in this hotel.”
“The local police were involved and decided a small-time criminal by the name of Peter Finch was the killer.”
Father Brown took a reflective sip of his brown ale. “You disagree, John?”
“I do Father Brown, I do! I know Finch. Yes, he’s a bit of a crook but he’s no killer. But I have to convince the local police force of that.”
“Why are you involved?” asked Father Brown.
“It’s complicated. I was following Peter Finch as we suspect him of being a member of a gang of car thieves, involved with the murdered local businessman who owned a second-hand car showroom. But when I arrived in town my superiors decided to put me on secondment to the local police force to offer them my services.”
“And did they not like that? Asked Father Brown, perceptively.
“That they didn’t! They had their noses put out of joint! So they arrested young Finch and whilst he is languishing in a police cell the murderer is going to get away Scot free unless I can do something.
But I’m not quite sure what I can do. Oh, of course, I’ve sent a telegram to my boss at Scotland Yard and doubtless, he’ll be trying to pull some strings from his end, but at the moment it’s a bit of a waiting game, I’m sorry to say.”
Father Brown said: “And who is this man you suspect of being the hired killer?”
“He’s in the hotel under the name of Harold Pritchard and he claims to be a commercial traveller selling cheeses. He is booked to leave tomorrow, this evening will be his last night here. He’s out now, attending to business, or so he told everyone very loudly this morning.”
Father Brown sat, thinking, a slight smile playing on his lips. Eventually, he spoke. “I think I have the germ of an idea. Let’s go to see the hotel manager.”
In fictional detective stories, hotel managers either demand to see a search warrant or ask for bribes to allow the detectives to enter the room.
Mr Jones, the manager of the Devonshire Arms hotel did neither. He was a no-nonsense man of the old school. As a child, he’d been raised to trust police officers and, for that matter, priests, so when a detective and a priest asked, very politely, to look round the room of another guest he immediately acquiesced to their request.
They found nothing in the room save for an empty suitcase and a modest chest of drawers containing the resident's clothing. On a shelf near the washbasin were a toothbrush and his shaving kit and a bottle of men’s scented water.
“Tell me, Mr Jones, does Mr Pritchard have anything else in storage within the hotel? Any other luggage? Does he have a car or a small van parked outside? Anything like that?”
“No Father, he doesn’t. Not a thing. This is all he has. He has no vehicle parked within our garage or our car park. ”
“Thank you,” said Father Brown. He turned to his friend and said: “I want you to sniff the air deeply. Tell me what you can smell.”
His companion obliged and said, puzzled, “All I can smell is a faint whiff of lavender polish and whatever scent Pritchard splashes on himself. What was I supposed to smell, Father Brown?”
Father Brown was looking thoughtful again, as his mind spun and whirred. “Under the circumstances as I am beginning to understand them, probably nothing, John.”
The detective made sure that they had disturbed nothing in the room and as the manager locked the door with his passkey Father Brown said: “Excuse me, but what time is dinner served this evening?”
“It’s served at 8 pm sharp. We used to have room service meals available but that was before the Great War when we had a full staff. Sadly things like that are lost into the past and I doubt we will ever see them again.”
Father Brown nodded, sadly. “Could you please arrange for Mr Pritchard to be placed on our table for dinner, presuming that he will be dining in this evening?”
“Oh, he will be dining in this evening. He specifically asked what was on the menu for his last meal here. It will be a matter of simplicity to arrange the seating arrangements as you desire them. The hotel is quite full and your room was the last one vacant, Father.”
Once back in his room, Detective Sergeant O’Connor began to puzzle as to why Father Brown had told him told to sniff deeply in the room and what he would be able to ascertain from that.
Detective Sergeant O’Connor, and not for the first time since he had met Father Brown all those years ago when Father Brown was a relatively new priest and he had not long come out of being a probationary police constable, thought: “I’m thanking the good Lord above that you did not decide to live a life of crime, Father Brown! Because no policeman could ever have had your measure! You would have got away with everything that you put your mind to, every crooked plan and scheme and we would have been unable to stop you at all!”
That evening at 8 pm sharp everyone was seated in the hotel’s dining room. Its late Victorian splendour was clearly in the dim and distant past, but it was still obviously the dining room of the best hotel in the small Home Counties market town.
At the table was an unmarried middle-aged school teacher visiting her family who still lived in the town of her birth, but for a variety of reasons, she chose to stay at the hotel rather than imposing herself on her relatives.
After listening to what Sergeant O’Connor later described to Father Brown as her “whine list” they knew several things about Miss Carpenter. She was single, filled with her own self-importance and a dreadful bore. Or was that a dreadful boor? The difference was pretty much immaterial.
But Harold Pritchard! What a revelation that man was! He was thin to the point of looking somewhat cadaverous, almost as if an undertaker had taken a bet to starve himself to the point of becoming skeletal.
However, he had a perfectly normal appetite and ate heartily of the various courses of fine cuisine and excellent wines that the hotel’s chef and sommelier were able to offer.
Eventually, they talked about their jobs. They learned that Miss Carpenter was a teacher, they laughed when they said it was obvious that Father Brown was a priest and when Sergeant O’Connor revealed that although he was an Irishman through-and-through, he was not living in the Irish Free State, nor was he a member of the recently formed Garda Síochána, but rather the Metropolitan Police of London.
Father Brown watched Pritchard. To the casual observer, nothing had changed in the demeanour of the man. But Father Brown was not a casual observer. He was a keen student of human behaviour and was always willing to learn more and to discover more.
He had noticed that Pritchard’s pupil’s had suddenly dilated and that the carotid artery in his neck had pulsed, obvious signs of distress.
“And what is it that you, do, Mr Pritchard?”
Pritchard attempted to smile affably, though the effect was more alarming than reassuring, as it carried all the warmth of the kiss of the ice maiden’s dissolute older brother.
“I, Father Brown? I am a commercial traveller in cheese. I go up and down the entire island of Britain taking orders for cheese from department stores, large hotels, cheesemongers, large grocery stores and the like.”
“What a fascinating job!” said Father Brown, being able to load his tone with just the correct amount of sincerity and interest.
Warming to his task Pritchard spoke of his life on the road as a commercial traveller in cheeses. The longer he went on, the more confident he became, managing to wrest wry grins and the odd chuckle from his captive audience of three souls with his stories.
Eventually, when he paused, the others at the table took up the conversation. Miss Carpenter expressed a dislike of all types of cheeses (which did not surprise the others, to be perfectly honest) and Detective Sergeant O’Connor opined that “you just can’t beat a nice chunk of Irish farmhouse cheese with some good freshly baked soda bread and some freshly churned farm butter!”
Everyone agreed, save for Miss Carpenter whose shudder indicated that her dislike of cheese was a deeply rooted matter.
Then Father Brown began to speak. “I agree with you, Sergeant. The many times that I have visited Ireland and enjoyed some good, farmhouse cheeses there, does tend to bear out what you say. However, I must admit that I like the French Roquefort cheese. It’s equal in taste to Stilton and it’s easy to see why the French describe it as the Queen of Cheeses. And the fact that the farmers of The Camargue exclusively make it with 100% goat’s milk is remarkable as it gives it that delicious tang.”
Pritchard agreed and said: “Ah, yes! The goat’s milk is the key to what makes that cheese so tasty, you are correct there, Father Brown! However, I tend to only deal with our own British cheeses, not any specialist continental types.”
After coffee, the diners took leave of each other and returned to their rooms. Except for Father Brown who went with Detective Sergeant O'Connor into his room.
“Why on earth were you going on about cheeses?” asked Sergeant O’Connor. “But I do know one thing, you will have had a damn good reason to talk to him about cheeses!”
“I did indeed,” said Father Brown. “When we went to his room, remind me, what was it we found?”
Sergeant O’Connor paused in thought for a few seconds. “Not much, now you come to mention it. His clothing, his toiletry items, shaving kit, not much else, really.”
“Exactly!” said Father Brown, emphatically. “If he really is a commercial traveller dealing in cheeses, where is his order book? Where are his samples of cheese? In the old days, commercial travellers who were attempting to sell cheeses to potential customers would have carried waxed samples of their various cheeses. And nowadays as we move on to a more technical and, or so we are told, brighter and better, more scientific future, there are even small vans with refrigerator units in them.
“And that’s another thing. If he is a commercial traveller in anything, where is his vehicle? I specifically asked the hotelier and he has no vehicle on the premises, not even an old Penny Farthing!
“So how does he take his cheese to his customers? Catch a train? Hop onto a bus?”
“But there’s something that just now has occurred to me,” said Detective Sergeant O’Connor. “When you asked me to sniff for something in the air of his room, I got the impression that you were asking me to sniff out something in particular. What was it?”
“Cheese! Just the smell of cheese! If he is a commercial traveller in cheese, why was there no smell of any types of cheeses? Oh, I know that kind of evidence such as it is would not stand up in court, far too insubstantial, a case depending on a smell, but very indicative, all the same.”
“And what of that conversation at dinner, just now? What did that tell us?”
“It confirmed what we already suspected, that Pritchard is no more a commercial traveller in cheeses than a swan could fly to the moon. That story I told him about Roquefort Cheese was a total canard, to borrow a French word.
"Roquefort is not produced in The Camargue, it is produced in caves in Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, about 140 miles away. And although previously some farmers might have added a little goat’s milk or cow’s to the Roquefort cheese, it’s essentially 100% Ewe’s milk.
“And yet he made not the slightest effort to correct me or to ask me where I had received my information from. Even if he didn’t sell French cheeses, he’d almost certainly be expected to know what the main cheese types in France are. And Roquefort is known as the King of Cheeses in France, not the Queen of Cheeses. And if I, an ordinary parish priest know that, a cheese salesman certainly would have been expected to know that. And a cheese salesman would be pleasingly plump, not as cadaverous as Mr Pritchard!”
“Thank you, Father Brown! Now I’ll have to get the local police station to provide me with some armed officers and their senior detective to help put the cuffs on that murderer. And they’ll have to let Finch go. He’s an idiot, but he’s certainly no killer.”
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