"Please." "No." "Oh, dear." "My condolences on your wife." "One day left and you could be joining her." "..Bid thy holy angels welcome her and lead her home to paradise." "Let her not undergo the pains of hell for she put her hope and trust in me but establish her in that bliss which knows no ending." "Through Christ our Lord." "Amen." "Lord grant her eternal rest." "Shooting your own mum... imagine it." "It was an accident." "Bunch of in-breds." "Deserve everything that they get." "Talking of mothers..." "I'll be seeing yours tomorrow - collection day." "Father." "I have offered myself to Sir Aaron." "Really?" "With Miss Alice back home, he'll need help taking care of her." "How kind of you." "It's the least I could do." "Did you see the marks on her temples." "Marks?" "Reminds me of John XXI." "It is said he believed that hysteria could be cured by eating roasted rodents." "How little we have moved on." "Alice?" "Talk to me." "Peter, would you be so kind as to take Alice to the car." "Of course." "How is she?" "Well she's still very disturbed by it all, Father." "She's blocked a lot of it out." "Understandable." "Still at least the police investigation is closed." "The police inspector confirmed that Alice's gun WAS faulty." "But still she blames herself." "What does the hospital say?" "Well, they believe they can make her better with this new electric shock machine of theirs." "Are you thinking of readmitting her?" "She's so very withdrawn." "Sir Aaron, can I be of any help?" "Well, I think some spiritual guidance may help." "Mm, I don't think she'd come to me." "Why don't you join Mrs McCarthy at the house this evening." "I'll see you this evening." "Magnus, would you fetch Miss Alice's things from the hospital, please?" "Oh, and... and her shotgun from the police station." "They no longer need it." "Sir Aaron, I was wondering if..." "Not right now." "It won't take long..." "I said not now." "Time's up." "Oi, Father Dopey, watch where you're going!" "Toffee?" "You what?" "Apparently chewing's good for anger." "You're a fruit cake!" "And a very good day to you too!" "What are you doing up there Mrs McCarthy?" "Wasn't my idea." "Well, how could I sit up at front and leave the Holy Mother balancing here on the back?" "Let me help you down." "It's a wonder I'm alive at all." "He drives like a madman." "Well, there's gratitude for you!" "Yes, but you do!" "Sir Aaron." "Are you all right?" "Oh, it's nothing, I slipped down the bank." "Silly old fool." "Well, let's go in, I must change." "Who was that man?" "Was he a friend of yours?" "No, no, no, he was just asking for directions." "Miss Alice, it's me, it's Mrs McCarthy." "I'll be right down." "They did everything together." "What about yourself, how are YOU feeling, Sir Aaron?" "Well, you know what they say - life goes on." "I'm a practical man." "I don't believe in indulging in one's own misery." "Ah, Peter, come and join us." "I'm too busy, I'm afraid." "First class secretary!" "Doesn't know how to relax." "Sir Aaron, may I speak with you?" "You know, if it wasn't for him the Housing Trust would have collapsed long ago." "And sterling work your charity does in Kembleford." "Yeah, a pity the Catholic Church doesn't donate towards it." "Now now, Peter." "Now now." "Excuse me..." "What is it you want?" "Cheeky little upstart." "I rather like him." "It's Alice." "I barely recognise her." "Oh, well, it's going to take some time." "No, no, no, it's not that, it's what they did to her." "Now, Peter..." "You can't send her back there, you can't." "Can't?" "Who on earth do you think you're talking to?" "Look, I'm sorry, I'm just worried..." "Just a little too worried if you ask me." "Is that really such a bad thing?" "Am I so unsuitable?" "I should have seen it!" "Sir Aaron..." "Well, now you leave me no choice." "I can't have you living under the same roof as her." "After everything I have done for you, the Trust." "And you think that entitles you to..." "You have abused my hospitality." "I want you packed and gone by the morning." "I was just going to check on Alice." "There's no need, Father." "No need." "I'm just going up." "Alice?" "Please speak to me." "I only ever wanted what was best for you." "Joan of Arc." "What?" "What you let them do to me." "It's like being burnt alive." "Good night, Mrs McCarthy." "Good night, Father." "Good night, Sir Aaron." "Good night, Sir Aaron, God bless you." "Going somewhere?" "So you think you can help Alice?" "I'll do my best." "The last thing she needs right now is to be force-fed religion." "Alice was baptised a Catholic by me." "Of course!" "Get them while they're young, eh, Father?" "Atheist." "Alice." "Please may I have your gun?" "Thank you." "Your father says you're having trouble with your memories." "Are you doubting what happened?" "No." "I know..." "I killed Mummy." "The gun was faulty." "But I'm still to blame." "Ever since I was little, it was drummed into me, never point your gun at anyone." "So why did I point it at my mummy?" "Why?" "Perhaps if you went back into the clearing." "No." "I could come with you." "I said no!" "Alice..." "Oh, where are you off to now, Father?" "And what are you hoping to find under there?" "Oh!" "Oh!" "He was certainly hit with some force." "The back of his skull is completely caved in." "Oh, well, look who's here." "Keep searching for the weapon." "Father Brown." "I don't think it's hidden." "I'm sorry?" "I think the weapon's under your feet." "He hit the ground there." "So... the killer bound him by his hands, threw him out the window, and then proceeded to drag his body under the brush." "I'll show you up." "Ah, very kind." "Looks like he put up a fight." "But why, when he was thrown out of the window, are there three tools of death?" "Rope, knife, gun." "You can leave the detective work to me, thank you, Father." "Empty." "Motive, but no suspect." "A little slow off the mark for you, Father." "The chauffeur's gone AWOL - drove off late last night... in Sir Aaron's car." "Ah." "Like I said." "Leave the detective work to you." "Precisely." "He was such a lovely man, so generous." "The ladies at the institute used to call him Father Christmas." "He was tied up?" "Yes, his hands were bound." "But..." "Alice." "There you are." "Miss Alice, I thought you should know that we've found your father's car in town." "Magnus must have left it there and fled." "After all Sir Aaron did for him!" "No-one else would even employ him." "I thought he was a reformed character." "An innocent man wouldn't flee in the victim's car and then go on the run." "He's always been very trustworthy." "He's also an ex-convict with a history of firearms." "Alice..." "I think we should talk." "Actually, I need you at the station to look at the mug-shots of the man you saw in the lorry." "Surely that can wait." "No." "He could be working with Magnus." "I'll be back as quickly as I can." "I'll take care of her." "Oh!" "I hate crucifixes." "Now..." "I ain't never cut up a priest before, but there's a first time for everything." "Unless... you keep shtoom to the coppers about seeing me." "Deal?" "No." "Listen, I'm deadly serious." "All these silly threats." "Silly threats?" "I'm a vicious killer!" "You're scared, you're scared of being hung for a crime you didn't commit." "Too right!" "If the coppers know I've been round, they'll fit me right up!" "But if you confessed your sins to me here and now," "I'd be duty bound to keep shtoom, wouldn't I?" "How'd you know I was a Catholic?" "You said crucifix not cross." "How about it?" "Act of contrition?" "Well, I don't know." "I mean, there's so many and, well, I've been a very naughty boy." "I keep seeing him." "Who?" "Daddy." "Tied up like an animal." "Alice, don't." "Why haven't they arrested Magnus yet?" "I can't take it any more." "It'll get better." "Make it go away, make love to me again." "Peter?" "It's not that I don't want to." "It just feels like I'm taking advantage." "That's ridiculous." "After everything that's happened, it doesn't seem right." "To make love to a mad woman, you mean?" "That's not what I'm saying." "I'm not mad!" "Alice..." "Don't touch me." "You're just like everyone else." "That's not true." "Prove it." "Look, Alice..." "Come on, prove it." "Then Wednesday, I repossessed all of Mr Bedford's furniture." "He was in that tin bath." "when I called." "Thursday, went and worried Jed Bosworth - he's falling behind with his payments." "Yesterday?" "Yesterday...?" "Yesterday I went and put the frighteners on Sir Aaron." "And that's all!" "Toffs are always the worst, you know." "He owes a fortune to every building contractor in this county." "Anything else?" "Then I went and paid his chauffeur's mum a visit." "Mrs Magnus." "Did you hurt her?" "No!" "Just had a strong word!" "Her son came through, paid all her back rent and the interest." "And then of course I knocked you off your bike." "Ego te absolvo ab omnibus censuris, et peccatis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti." "Amen." "Amen." "What, is that it?" "No penance?" "Nothing on me knees?" "Rocking horse?" "Oh, yeah, went and collected it off some kid." "Only decent thing in the house." "Mum had fallen behind with her loan." "So you took her child's toy?" "You absolve sins, I collect debts!" "That's what I do, mate!" "Oh, sorry about your bike." "Don't you want your crucifix?" "You can keep it." "Nutty as a fruit cake." "What you looking at?" "Father?" "Hello?" "Mrs Magnus, haven't seen Father, have you?" "No, sorry." "Oh!" "Oh, that hurt." "He can't have got far, you take this side," "I'll start here, every door." "Ignore them." "Father." "Been looking for you everywhere!" "Found out Magnus was hiding in the church." "Have you told the police?" "Do I look like a grass?" "Anyway, he clobbered me and scarpered." "He did it, didn't he?" "Well, it certainly looks as if he stole the money." "What have you done?" "Poor old faithful Bucephalus, rest in peace." "I'll see what I can do." "Mrs Magnus." "Father, I suppose you've heard the news." "Yes." "I can't believe he's gone back to his old ways." "When was the last time you saw him?" "Er, this morning." "He stayed last night." "But I've no idea where he is now." "Well, if you do see him again, tell him to meet me at the barn at the Armstrongs at 8:00pm." "Meet you?" "I won't turn him in." "Better to confess to God than to the police." "Mum!" "Alice, I know you're scared, but I'm not going anywhere." "You think I'm pathetic." "No, I think we should wait, that's all, out of respect for your father." "Look, if it wasn't for him, I'd still be a farm hand." "Before I went to hospital, you'd have married me." "Mrs McCarthy, why are you hiding in there?" "Fornication." "I caught them at it once already." "I see." "And I will not let Miss Alice be taken advantage of for a second time." "Keep up the good work, Mrs McCarthy." "Father, we were beginning to get worried." "Speak for yourself." "I'll see you back at the house." "Daddy's favourite spot." "I can see why." "So what's it going to be this time, Father?" "A sermon about grief?" "Don't tell the Bishop, but I'm not very keen on sermons - too boring." "Do you still have gaps in your memory?" "Yes." "But I meant what I said, I'm not going back to the clearing." "What are you afraid of?" "The truth." "Perhaps I'm not supposed to remember." "An experienced shot does not aim their gun by accident." "You're saying it's intentional?" "I don't know what to think any more." "Maybe I am sick in the mind." "It won't last for ever you know - this self-loathing, it will pass." "And be replaced with what?" "He loves you." "Does he?" "Is he my saviour?" "And what about God?" "Where does he fit in all of this?" "Where do you want him to fit in?" "I don't know if I believe any more." "But if he does exist, it's rather evident he's turned his back on me, don't you think?" "He'll be there... when you want him most." "I like you, Father, I always have... ..but you're an idealist." "Magnus, it's Father Brown." "Magnus." "Magnus?" "So... can you help me, Father?" "Hopefully, if you tell me the truth." "I heard you paid your mother's back rent - that was an awful lot of money." "It's not what you think." "Sir Aaron let me take the car last night to go and see her, I was worried." "When I got in, there was an envelope of money on the driver's seat." "It had my name on it, I was sure it was from Sir Aaron." "Why didn't you tell the police?" "Well, I heard this morning he'd been robbed and murdered, I..." "I got scared." "With him dead and me with the money..." "You'd be the main suspect." "Exactly, why would I kill him, Father?" "I mean, he was good to me." "Then who did kill him?" "I wasn't the only one in the house with a motive." "Peter?" "So he could marry Miss Alice." "I wasn't thinking of him." "Since killing her mother, she's not been right." "She adored her father." "Not after what he did... the electric shocks." "Know anything about these?" "Magnus, this is Inspector Sullivan." "You told them!" "No." "I know you're in there." "Magnus, what are you doing?" "Give yourself up." "I'm not swinging for something that I never did." "Magnus, no!" "Stay where you are." "After him, go on!" "Argh!" "How did you know where to find him?" "I saw you talking to his mother, so had you followed." "What's happened?" "We've arrested Magnus." "And broke his arm in the process." "It was his own fault, resisting arrest." "Are you all right?" "Of course she's not all right." "These thugs are out there attacking people." "Talk about a police state." "Oh, Godless and a communist!" "Look, despite certain people's intuition that Magnus is innocent, the facts say otherwise." "Yes, well, the money from the safe was left on the seat of the car, so Magnus may have been framed." "Framed?" "I hardly think that's the money that was stolen." "No, I found them by the lake." "In the ashes of a fire." "Why would someone want to burn old coins?" "Old coins turned into buttons." "Magnus' jacket?" "Solid silver." "Think Magnus can afford a jacket like that?" "No." "But I could." "They're from the blazer I bought you." "The one you wore last night." "Did I?" "And you've been near a fire." "Why would you burn your jacket, Mr Royce?" "I..." "I just did." "Well, why?" "Alice..." "Peter?" "I'm sorry." "I knew it!" "Were you disposing of incriminating evidence?" "Answer him." "Answer him!" "What was on the jacket, Mr Royce?" "Blood?" "No." "How could you?" "How could you!" "Peter Royce, I'm arresting you on suspicion of murder." "You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so..." "OK, OK!" "Alice, I love you." "..whatever you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence." "Will you be letting Magnus go now?" "No." "I suspect they were in it together." "Together?" "Explains your three tools of death." "One had a gun, the other a knife, tied Sir Armstrong up with the rope, robbed him, killed him." "Simple." "Except that he wasn't tied up with the rope." "It was the cord from his own dressing gown." "They adapted their plan." "Using cord to bind someone's wrists is much easier than using a thick piece of rope." "Is he ready to go?" "Father Brown has decided to stay a little longer." "Nobody tells me anything." "Sid." "Have you mended my bicycle already?" "Nah, lost cause, threw it in the canal." "Anyway, I hear the murder's been solved." "I think Magnus is innocent, which means there's still too many tools of death for one person - a gun, a knife, and a rope." "Now it's important that you eat something." "When I think how that monster deceived you." "Well, I suppose that's where atheism gets you." "Now, you make a start on that and I'll go get the tea." "Looks like you were wrong." "Sorry?" "Peter's not my saviour." "Perhaps you're wrong about other things too." "Alice, I know how it must seem..." "Save your breath." "God doesn't exist." "Do you really believe that?" "I've been awake all night, waiting for some guidance, for him to answer me." "As always, nothing!" "What were you asking him?" "If you wanted an answer, there must have been a question." "What was it, Alice?" "Whether I should go to the police and confess." "It's my fault that they didn't catch Peter sooner." "I lied to the police, I withheld information." "About your father's death." "The night he was killed," "I went to apologise for upsetting him about my treatment." "But I found him tied up." "Was he alive?" "He was drunk." "I went to get a knife to cut him free." "Ah!" "Daddy, who did this to you?" "No, Alice, Alice..." "Look, I'll explain everything tomorrow." "Just tell me..." "I must ask you to leave." "..how long have you been there?" "Just talk to me." "Don't say anything to anybody, will you?" "Please don't." "I don't..." "Alice, please!" "I must ask you to leave." "Please." "Alice... ..sorry." "That's all that happened." "I swear I wasn't there when he was murdered." "So why'd you keep it from the police?" "Peter said the police would never believe something so outlandish, that they think that I had something to do with his murder." "And you believed Peter?" "I was scared, Father." "Scared I'd have to go back to that hospital." "You don't know what it's like." "Oh, Alice." "Too farfetched to be true, if you ask me." "Too farfetched not to be true." "If Peter threw Sir Aaron out the window, why would he tie him to a radiator first?" "That don't make sense." "No." "Unless he tortured him." "Sir Aaron wasn't tortured." "Oh, what an idiot I've been." "Peter was trying to restrain him." "Restrain him?" "He wasn't trying to kill him, he was trying to save him!" "From who?" "Rope." "Chipped paint." "Gun." "Gunpowder." "It was his gun." "Peter came in he was intent on killing himself," "Sir Aaron, no, no!" "Leave me alone." "No, please!" "No!" "Let me die." "Give me the gun!" "Give me...!" "So Peter had to tie him up." "And later, when the ropes were cut..." "He jumped." "So, Daddy wasn't murdered?" "No." "Would you wait for me, please, Sid?" "You've got five minutes." "You've come to read me my last rites?" "Why would I?" "You're innocent." "I'm sorry?" "Sir Aaron really did leave that money for Magnus, didn't he?" "Always the philanthropist." "His final act of charity." "Before he ended it all." "You know?" "It wasn't your fault." "Yeah... yeah, it was." "I never should have left him." "Why did you?" "After tying him up, I..." "I waited for him to fall asleep." "I went to get a bottle... to steady my nerves, and keep me going through the night." "'I was only gone a few minutes.'" "'Why did he kill himself?" "'" "'Grief?" "'" "Debt?" "He owed thousands." "It was all in his suicide note." "What note?" "I burned it." "So, let me get this straight, after he jumped, you tied him up, and dragged him under a bush to make it look like murder?" "I had to protect Alice!" "Blaming herself for her mother's death, it almost destroyed her." "If she knew that cutting the ropes caused her father's death as well, then..." "She mustn't find out anything, Father!" "Father Brown!" "'I've killed the ones I love.'" "'My life's become a...haze, a blur.'" "I'll go round the side!" "'I'm sinking.'" "Alice!" "Alice!" "'Suffocating." "'Beyond help.'" "'Forgive me.'" "Come on!" "Oh, we're too late, Father!" "We're too late!" "Alice, can you hear me?" "Alice?" "She's gone." "No." "No." "Alice, don't die like this." "God is here." "He's with you." "Alice?" "Can you hear me?" "Alice?" "Yeah!" "Yeah, yeah, yeah!" "That's it, that's it, that's it!" "Good girl!" "It's going to be all right!" "You warm enough?" "Hmm." "And how are you feeling today?" "I'm not sure, really." "Erm... relieved... that it wasn't my fault." "But I can't stop thinking about Daddy." "If I hadn't have cut that rope and sobered him up, he'd still be here." "Peter, what exactly did the note that Sir Aaron left behind say?" "Just that he was sorry." "For Alice not to worry about his debts." "Why would he say that?" "Well, I guess he knew his debts would die with him." "He transferred the estate into Alice's name last week." "So, his suicide wasn't a drunken moment of madness or despair." "He would have killed himself the next night, or the next, or the next." "Your father's death, like your mother's, had nothing to do with you." "He planned it." "Thank you." "Ah!" "Excuse me." "Have you come to give me a ride home?" "Better than that." "Ta-dah!" "Did you honestly think I threw it in the canal?" "Thank you, Sid." "Yeah, just don't break it this time." "Race you back!" "And off we go again."