A Narrow Escape

            It was natural that Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown should eventually meet.   Either had of course heard of the exemplary casework of the other, and regarded it with respect, if not perhaps with total comprehension, their habitual modus of approach to problems of what the newspapers call crimes, being so disparate  or even occasionally at variance.  And Brown  having once replied to the great sleuth’s standing invitation to drop by for a visit, should chance or industry ever take him up to London, that he would be pleased to do so, it was only natural that, when fate eventually did so send him (not upon any detectival matter, but merely to attend a clerical conference at Westminster), he should telegram the time of his expected arrival, and prove as good as his word.

            What was much less natural, on the plain secular face of it, though in the end it seemed to have been fated (and this by a Fate, that tempers the wind, to the full-wooled lamb  as well as the shorn), was that, during what had been intended to be a largely social visit, with exchange of anecdotes over refreshments (English stout for the priest, and some sort of white powder for the host) and sharing of professional particulars,  a sudden inruption of circumstances  should have ordained that the two of them should collaborate on a delicate and highly enigmatic case, involving life and death -- indeed, tied up with something more serious than either of these.

            They were both relaxing comfortably in their respective chairs, and Holmes was about to entertain his clerical visitor (who seemed not to be inclined, unprompted, to make show of any little adventures of his own) with the remarkable Case of the Speckled Penguin (withheld from Watson’s published record, as being too choice for vulgar consumption) when there came a knock upon the oak, faint at first, then firmer, then quickly overloud.    With a glance of annoyance, Holmes rose and strode over, and flung open the door.  There upon the threshold stood a young man of perhaps six-and-twenty winters, of something above medium height, not badly made, and of muscular build.   His attire was sober, even plain,  his head uncovered.  Yet after a moment’s hesitation, he drew himself up to his full stature, and made his entrance, casting only the most cursory glances on either side.  Holmes waved him on, with a controlled approximation of courtesy, despite his pique at the interruption, to the rather stiff and elegant formal seat that was reserved for visitors; but this visitor just shook his head.

            “I shall avail myself of the comfortable chair, if you don’t mind,” he said, on a tone that implied:  and even if you do.  Then, suiting deed to the word, he settled himself upon the very chair that Holmes himself had just now been occupying.  And then, glancing about for a hassock and finding none, with no further words but a Cheshire smile, planted his polished boots upon the little display table of Chinese curios, knocking two or three of them aside in the process.   And finally, taking his time, and without taking his gaze off Holmes’ now astonished face,  slowly and deliberately  lit a cigarette.

            Holmes knew better than to display any temper, or even to allow any emotion within himself, to distract him from the task at hand;  but concentrated all of his considerable energies  into observation of the keenest sort, reading clues off, one upon the other, from the most insignificant details:  the way a physician (such as his friend and amanuensis Doctor Watson, presently out of town) may, from the most minute murmurs and smudges, deduce the presence of a fatal illness.   Meanwhile, from the antique clock on the mantelpiece, the seconds, in their measured way, ticked by.

                        Holmes, saying nothing, giving nothing away, waited for the stranger to find his own moment to speak.  At length he did.

            “I come to you about the matter of the kidnapping of young lord Euston.”

            Though accustomed to illustrious cases, Holmes was inwardly surprised that this unprepossessing specimen of an English lout should be in any way connected to this one.

            “I have heard of it, of course,” replied Holmes coolly, “although it has not yet appeared in the papers.  The only son and heir to the dukedom, snatched while on an outing with his careless, or possibly complicit nurse.”

            The stranger nodded meaningfully.  “She has since been sent away.”

            “A curly blond boy, dressed in the suit of Her Majesty’s navy, about six years of age --“

            “Not quite;  still five.”

            “And so, what -- you come on behalf of the duke?  You are engaging my services on his authority?”   Rather an insolent emissary, if so, but no doubt some of the innate aristocratic arrogance of his ducal Grace  had rubbed off on his subordinate.

            “In a sense I do,” the other returned, with a smirk.  “I do, in the sense that I wish him well -- wish him well in the sense, that I desire him to see his young son again, alive and unharmed.  I am empowered, on my own authority, to oversee the transfer of funds -- no, not to yourself, as your finder’s fee, should you succeed in locating the lad (which you shall not, for reasons to be explained):  but to an account that I control, in a place to be named:  as a ransom.” 

            In the face of Holmes’ uncharacteristic speechlessness, the astonishing stranger’s glance passed from the imposing aquiline visage of the great London detective, to the round, blinking face of the little priest.   At sight of the latter, he startled, and his look became less certain, and lingered longer upon this  to all appearances  insignificant object, than one might have expected.   Holmes he had been mocking;  but he did not now mock the priest.

            Wrenching his attention back to the Baker Street shamus, though with a bit less bravado than before, he resumed.

            “You may wonder, that I make so bold, as baldly to present myself, unaccompanied and unarmed, at the lion’s very den.”

            “I do wonder.”

            “The gr-reat lion of detection.”

            Holmes mastered himself.

            “And yet I feel myself to be in as complete security, as were I -- as were I --“  Here he groped for a word.

            “In the right;  which you are not,” supplied the priest.

            The visitor hurriedly continued.  “I feel so because -- to make the thing explicit -- should you fail to follow my elaborate instructions to the letter, the Duke will never again see his son. -- Or not,” he added, with a curiously nervous glance at the priest, “not for a very long while, anyhow.”  Then, again glaring at the frigid Holmes:  “And should you yourself prove so foolish (as all the world knows you not to be) as to attempt to have me arrested, or to pursue this case on your own, not only do you not get the boy back, but you personally would be morally responsible for the loss, and for any harm that might come to the lad at the hands of my accomplices who are holding him, and would be, further, societally answerable to the wrath and long arm of the Duke.  Moreover, at some future time of their own choosing, my bloodthirsty accomplices in the field  might swoop down when you least anticipate, and exact a further, physical retribution, beyond any that the Duke might impose.”

            At this point, the priest, who unaccountably  seemed to have been enjoying this narrative, put in:

            “And these accomplices of yours, in the field as you say, -- are they quite as ruthless as you are?”

            The young man appeared perplexed at the intervention, and seemed actually to shrink in his chair;  but then puffed out his chest.  “More so!”

            At this, the little priest actually grinned.  “Like pirates!”

            Surprise, and then an answering expression of pleasure.  “Like the very worst!”    And, grinning back, he bared his teeth.

            Father Brown clapped his little round hands, and fell silent, having nothing to add.

            At the impudent challenge from his visitor, Holmes’ jaw had tightened, but the insult only steeled him in his resolve.

            “And how do I know, thou worse than worthless, that you have the least involvement or knowledge of this affair, which would appear to be far above your miserable attainments and low station?   Perhaps you merely overheard a leak from police headquarters, where I have no doubt you have often been a visitor, though not in any adjuvant capacity, the same as I did early this morning  from the good Lestrade.   Perchance you are a vulgar little guttersnipe, having no connection to the case, attempting to extract by guile  what you would by no means have had the simple manly courage to obtain by bolder action.”

            But here Holmes was mistaken, for that action had indeed been taken, and there was no fraud.   As authentication, the visitor silently tended, with the air of a bridge-player laying down trumps, two items:  a photograph;  and a small cloth cap which (so the stranger asserted) belonged to the small boy’s bear.   Holmes impatiently waved the puny article aside (“It could be anything,” he muttered to himself), but stared at the photo:  It showed the unmistakable likeness of their visitor, in the company of little lord Euston himself.

            At this point, unaccountably, and for reasons best known to himself, the little priest put in:   “Why just the cap, and not the bear itself?”

            The stranger seemed taken aback, and stammered an indecipherable reply;  but the priest seemed satisfied, and did not oblige the young man to continue.

            With that, the extortionist turned his attention back to Holmes, handing him a slip with bank instructions, and a large though not actually overly large figure written across the top, payable in pounds sterling.   “Now if you’ll excuse me,” he said, rising, and bowing slightly with mock, or perhaps actual politeness,  “I’ll be off, for I am in need of some refreshment.  Once my financial agents notify me of the successful transfer, you’ll get back the boy.”   With that, he bid them good day, and Holmes showed him to the door.

           

~

            So soon as they were alone, Holmes, who had been curt and subdued throughout the interview, came suddenly to a feverish life.  Bending down, he scraped from the Persian carpet a bit of dirt that had flaked off from their visitor’s boots upon entry;  and carefully assembled the cigarette-ash.   Each sample successively, he crumbled between his fingers, and sniffed.

            “It is as I thought,” he said.   “Clay of a sort found only around the Levonshire coal-pits -- quite possibly that is where they are holding the boy.   The cigarettes -- simple Woodbines, of the sort available to any laborer:   but scented with a hint of London porter, with which he had no doubt been steeling his courage before coming to us.   Further--  although this detail may have escaped your vigilance, Brown -- his dialect betrays his origin among the the hamlets of the Levonshire hills;  the burr is unmistakable.”    (Oddly, this latter fact had not indeed eluded the observation of the little priest, who, though quite insensible to the attractions of dirt and cigarettes, did pay close attention to what men said, and to how they said it, and had on occasion attended to the rustic flock of that unprosperous province, patiently hearing them out, for all their uncouth burr.)  More than a little tickled at his own brilliance, Holmes twirled to his inspection  a minute nit which had adhered to their visitor’s costume and then come off against the fabric of the chair, swiftly identifying it as belonging to the insect Archiformia levonensis, native to Levonshire.

It must be conceded that the short detective had signally failed to be instructed by the spectacle of his more celebrated colleague in full forensic pursuit; for, instead of producing (Watson-like) a memorandum book, and assiduously noting down every detail of the Holmian analysis and technique, for the admiration of future generations, or even listening very closely to what was said,  Brown apparently reverted to his inner six-year-old, which was never far from the surface (and which indeed showed plainly  at all times  in the shape of his blinking moonface), as though oblivious to the pageant of deduction playing itself out before his eyes,  fell to examining the little cap, turning it this way and that, eventually placing it upon his own round head, where it perched uncertainly.   And there he sat, blissful yet thoughtful, as though it were his Thinking Cap.

            Though not a vain man, Holmes -- well, to be sure, he was a very vain man, crackling with insight and wit and the pride of it, but at all events, not vain about the sort of things that minor men are vain over -- his dress, his looks, the expense of his trinkets;  and though in no measure could he ever be considered as intellectually insecure, for he believed himself -- quite accurately, indeed anything less would have been false modesty (a vice of which Holmes was pleasingly and completely free) -- to be quite simply the most brilliant man in all the British Isles (not excluding Scotland and Wales;  Ireland  of course  might be safely left quite out of account in this regard), with no near rival whose advancing pre-eminence he need fear, least of all this modest and simple, perhaps even simple-minded little priest:  still and despite all that, Holmes did here experience a twinge or tic of something like resentment, as his splendor of ratiocination had been on full display, yet scarce remarked by the little provincial.   (It pains us to relate, that perhaps just for an instant, the mean thought did enter the great detective’s head, that perhaps that just went to show why, despite undeniable though difficult-to-characterize gifts, Brown was no more, at the end of the day, and on cold early-rising country mornings, than an obscure provincial priest.)

            “So-o, you have examined the hat,” remarked Holmes with a touch of acid.  (“The cap,” said Brown to himself.)  “Goo-ood.  And have you reached any conclusions?”

            Brown blinked, and then remembering where the item lay, gently removed it from his head.   He beheld it anew  with a kind of reverence.

            “It is homemade,” he said.  “Probably by the boy’s own mother.”

            Holmes snorted.  “One can see at a glance that the material is one of simple English wool, such as any shopgirl might have access to.  Neither silk, nor velvet, nor any lacework or damask.  And from this you conclude that it is the product of industry at the dukedom, a fit offering for the young heir himself?”

            “No,” said Brown, as mildly as can be.  “From this I conclude that it was made by a mother.”

            He shook the item gently, at which point a small and crumpled paper-napkin, of the sort that accompanies a drink or a dish of savouries  rather than a full meal, fluttered down from where it had been wadded in the crown.  It had stuck there, possibly owing to a trace of some reddish-brownish sticky substance.   Holmes regarded it sharply, but it was not blood.

            At that point,  Holmes largely lost interest;  some sort of spot of foodstuff, such as one might expect on a napkin, nothing more.   The object otherwise apparently yielded no clues, for it was imprinted with no writing evidencing its provenience, whether from Levonshire or elsewhere, only the commonplace, workmanlike design of a British lion together with that fanciful beast (actually believed-in by the medieval peasantry) known as the “unicorn”, the two of them solemnly engaged in something even more fanciful, a sort of dance.

            “Hmm,” mused Holmes.  “Not much of a clue.  That could come from anywhere in England.   If there were time, I might have the organic residue chemographically analyzed, to ascertain whether it may contain any trace of contact with Gorsica herbalensis (which grows only in East Levonshire) or  Herbaria furzonaria (largely confined to the west of that region -- consult my monograph on the subject). “

            Brown, meanwhile, had thoughtfully licked the tip of his finger.  “It’s chocolate,” he announced, brightening;  and then, as though whetted, he dipped it again in the sample, and repeated the assay.   “Rather good chocolate, too, and quite fresh.”

            Holmes could not repress a shudder of impatience at this imbecility.    “Well, enjoy your repast,” he said;  and then, as though partly repenting of his curtness to an inoffensive invited guest, by way of reconciliation  tendered the photograph, and sollicited his colleague’s professional assessment.  Brown stared at it a bit, then shuddered.  “He looks frightened,” he said.

            Surprised at the remark, Holmes snatched back the photo, and studied it briefly.  “Not unduly, I should say, considering that his life was and remains in danger.   In fact, if anything, he seems to regard it as something of a lark, like the countryside outing itself;  too young, perhaps, and too sheltered, to understand it as anything but another adventure.”

            “I didn’t mean the small boy,” said Brown.  “I meant the other  one.”

            Holmes could make nothing of the remark, but moved on to better business.  From inside his jacket, he flourished-forth a piece of paper of a more substantial and official sort than paper napkins from some pub.  “For myself, I concern myself with a much more revealing clue, one which even you, with your inveterate predilection for shadowy and spiritual concerns, to the exclusion of hard facts, will confess, possesses …”

            Here he paused;  and Brown placidly completed, “… certain features of interest.”

            “While escorting our amiable visitor to the door,” Holmes went on drolly, “I took the liberty of extracting, from his greatcoat pocket, this document;  which, as you can observe --“  (here Holmes held it forth to the near-sighted priest) “is a train schedule, upon which the name of a certain provincial station is circled in pencil:  one located no otherwhere than in … Levonshire!  Whither I am off, incontinently, before it shall be too late!”

            And on this note of triumph, he gathered his pistol, stuck on his deerstalker, then strode purposefully out the door.

~

            Like his colleague Freud, Holmes was minutely observant in his way, and able to winkle out clues from cigar-ash as readily as the great alienist could read an entire psyche in a wisp of dream or slip of the tongue;  still he was not truly what can be called a menschenkenner. (Freud, on the testimony of his intimates, suffered from the same defect.)  For one thing, he lacked all commonality of interest with his beer-and-skittles-relishing, wench-bottom-pinching fellow men:  going further in this regard,  even than the intensely cerebral Viennese physician, who at least had entered into ordinary matrimony.   Brown, by contrast, enjoyed a game of skittles as well as anything or anyone, though he had seldom had time for this in later years;  and though his clerical collar had of necessity kept him from the wenches (Holmes abstaining likewise, though for different reasons), still he looked very kindly upon the youthful exuberance, with its occasional indiscretions, which, please Providence, might lead on to marriage.

            Alone now, as he so often was after his exertions, Father Brown sat awhile in silence in the great man’s room.    He did not move to examine the many strange and curious objets d’art, crowding the mantelpiece and strewn strategically about the room, with which a more inquisitive visitor, or one more versed in the rarified pleasures of virtù,  would have eagerly occupied himself;  but rather sat contemplating the mystery -- the real one -- not the mystery of the lad’s location, for that was evident enough, but that of the young man, who had committed a rash and criminal act,  and who would sin so far as to separate the poor bear from its cap, yet not so far as to separate the boy from his bear.  Tired now, with a more than human weariness, Father Brown shut his eyes, and for a time appeared to nap.  Yet then, opening them completely refreshed, he said aloud:  “You know, I am feeling peckish.  I think I shall have some more of that chocolate.”

~

            Some hours passed;  and there passed as well, events, and confessions, words uttered in confidence, which we have no authority to relate.   Big Ben in the distance was tolling the onset of evening, when a dusty and defeated Holmes  trudged in at the door.   “Not a trail -- not a trace!  And the villain will by now be over the border.   I may have to turn the whole thing over to Lestrade.  How he will laugh at me!”

            He glanced irritably towards the chair in which he had left his guest, but, finding him not there, looked further about, and then, in astonishment, and something like consternation, beheld him at the other end of the room, seated at a little round table, which had been set with saucers each bearing a chocolate, and three fresh little napkins with the heraldic dancing beasts.  This modest feast Brown was enjoying in the company of little lord Euston, and (making a third) the bear (who so far had not touched his plate; quite possibly the young master must finish it for him).

            Noticing his host’s return, and breaking off the animated festivities which he had been enjoying with his two commensals, Brown welcomed the new arrival, generously offering him part of his own chocolate-bar.   Then, realizing that some explanation was in order, he added:  “Oh, I spoke to the man, and he told me where he had hidden the boy.  Just in the back room, actually, where he was being entertained by the barmaid.”

            “And where,” uttered Holmes, with difficulty maintaining his composure, “was that?”

            Here Father Brown lowered his eyes in some confusion.  “The pub just round the corner, in the next street over.  The, er, ‘Unicorn and Lion’;  I noticed it as I was walking to your lodgings.”

            Here Holmes had the unaccustomed weakness, or perhaps it was decency, actually to color slightly.

            “Well, good, that will count in his favor at his sentencing.”

            Father Brown shrugged.

            “But -- Surely you called a policeman!  Don’t tell me you let him get away.  Great Scott, man, did he escape?”

            Father Brown returned gravely:   “He had a very narrow escape indeed.”

            “But -- But why did he do it in the first place, only to then go and blow the whole game?    And his dangerous accomplices are still at large!  Tell me everything he said, man, it may contain vital clues as to their whereabouts.”

            Father Brown seemed unconcerned.  “Oh, I shouldn’t worry about any ‘accomplices’.  What matters is that two souls for now are safe, that had been in peril.   As for the details of his Confession, that is under Seal.”

            It took Holmes a moment to react.  “Two?  Was there -- a second hostage?”  He looked uncertainly about the room, but encountered only that most unlikely kidnapee or object of ransom, the bear.    Between each of these, his attention flitted, until, admitting defeat, it came to rest -- like the very meerschaum in its stand --upon the mantelpiece, chocked with all varieties of Oriental knick-knacks, which no longer, just at present, had power to exert any sort of  charm, then rose to the glass in self-reflection.  And then he became very quiet.

            “Perhaps indeed three,” said Father Brown.

The key that cracked the case

            Holmes sighed, regaining his wry good humor.  “Well, the fellow’s off with his own skin, for now at any rate --“

            “For now, at any rate,” agreed Father Brown.  “The road ahead is full of peril, both for him and more especially for the duke-to-be.”

            “-- and though he managed to avoid capture, still at least he is no shilling the richer for all his efforts and elaborate schemes.”

            “Actually, two shillings the poorer, “said Brown.  “You see, he paid for the chocolates.”

~

Noch seltsamer -- Sherlock Holmes begegnet Sigmund Freud:

Der Fall von der botanischen Monographie

Lesen Sie das kostenfrei.

~

~

For additional fine detective fiction, try this site:

Murphy Brothers -- Private Investigators

~

This little exercise is in the spirit of Maurice Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin contre Herlock Sholmès (1906 f.)

“Euh… C’est élémentaire, mon cher …”

For an alternate rapprochement,  try this:

Holmes vs. Freud

~

The essence of that narrative, is the yin-yang complementarity between the brain and the heart -- the mind and the soul.   And the reason that Father Brown was able to penetrate to the heart of this case, where it eluded the brilliant insights of Holmes, is that he was able to detect that saving grace -- that pinpoint of light -- in the heart of darkness of this particular sinner.   Such was the immortal portrait we had, of the Bishop and Jean Valjean;  and such is the import of

The Penitent and the Impenitent Thief

(Click here, to hear the author reading  this telling fragment of Murphy on the Mount.)

On Movies and Moral Anchors

(Reflections on “The Wolf of Wall Street”.)

I am comfortable with complexity,

and I think I’m pretty good at keeping my moral compass

while recognizing that I am a product of original sin.

-- President Barack Obama (quoted in the current New Yorker)

Had it been merely up to me, I would not have gone and seen the movie, based upon David Denby’s review in The New Yorker, and a general lack of interest in watching Wall Street sharks on the screen.   (In this respect, they are classed with serial killers, boxers, and baseball players on my personal cinematic to-avoid list.)   The blandishments of glitz and drugs are among those I happen to be immune to.   And, had I been watching it alone, rather than in the company of a Named U.S. Spouseperson who (a stone Di Caprio fan) was loving every minute of it, I would have walked out after half an hour.   My appetite for cinematic depravity is extremely limited;  for a time, I actually used to dial up the minute-long recorded reviews provided telephonically by the Catholic Church, for some guidance as to what to see.   Yet, having stayed, I found much to enjoy, principally the comedy, both physical and verbal.

We went, knowing that the film was controversial.   My companion had been perturbed that people had been denouncing the film by saying that the villain doesn’t get his comeuppance.   After  we had seen the actual movie, she wondered which movie the others had seen.  She rather thought that losing your wife, your kids, your house, your car, your bank balance, and going to jail,  does count as a comeuppance of some sort.

However, what makes a movie moral  is by no means that the ultimate verdict of Judgment Day shall be anticipated here in this life -- as it so manifestly is not, despite the hype and come-ons from certain motivational evangelists outside the discipline of the Historical Church.   It is probably a good thing that movies aimed at children do mete out such punishments and rewards on-screen, by way of gently shepherding the development of Just Deserts, to be followed later by that of Right and Wrong, ultimately to be heightened and quite transformed in the fullness of Christian understanding.    Hollywood habitually panders to the childish desires of its audience in this regard, as the Historical Church notably does not;  but we cannot fault Mr Scorcese for refraining from regressing to that level.  Moreover, he was closely following the perpetrator’s memoirs in his narration:  the actual scamster was not sent to prison for life, nor was he struck down by a thunderbolt from the blue, nor (as the Erinyes would have it)  gobbled up by gerbils, beginning with the genitals;  sorry, it didn’t happen.

~

The critical reactions to this film have been all over the map.

The Guardian reviewer complains (with what passes  in these times  for the equity of Solomon) that, while much pussy is on display, we do not likewise get to set lots ‘n’ lots ‘n’  lots  of cocks, and the one they did show he found (apparently a connoisseur) personally disappointing (duly noted;  "More huge cocks for the gentleman in aisle three, please")  And he objects, with great Correctitude, that “With a couple of notable exceptions, the women here are all wives, girlfriends and sex-workers.”  (The complete absence of nuns,  woman Supreme Court justices, or female astronaut-cum-brain-surgeon-cum-rocket-scientists from the trading floor  is indeed inexplicable other than by imputations of sexism.)  Though also (as he does not note):  with (as we shall argue) only one notable exception, there are no admirable men.  --  Folks:  If you want positive role-models for women, do not go to Wall Street, neither in the movie-house or on lower Manhattan.  (Cf. further the excellent memoir Liar’s Poker in this regard.)   And if you want to see your favorite identity-group  glowingly portrayed upon the silver screen -- women, or Hispanics, or plumbers, or meteorologists, or Pacific Islanders -- then make a movie; don’t kibbitz the one that other people have made. 

Actually, as the Telegraph reviewer pointed out, the movie does make an extra-textual concession to current sensibilities:

Scorsese includes a sensational scene that echoes the moment in The Public Enemy where Cagney vengefully pushes half a grapefruit into the face of his lover. Here, though, it is Belfort’s outraged trophy wife Naomi, played by Margot Robbie, who hurls a first, second, then third glass of water in her husband’s face, while he throws a spluttering tantrum.

That is very much in line with the current fashion, in movies and especially on television, of depicting men as schlumpfs (an emasculated Cagney) being easily pushed around by superwomen.  Maybe that’s an improvement, matter of taste;  but surely we have seen enough of that.

(There are other scenes of Belfort being masochistically abused:  One  by wife  as he crawls on the floor, the whole thing watched on a hidden camera; and one by a somewhat homely dominatrix -- an unpleasant scene (mercifully brief), but which ends with a very funny line:  “Wolfie, Wolfie!” he yelps, as the hot wax becomes too much;  yet she continues the torture.  “Hey, that’s my Safe Word!” he objects, in the jargon of that sad trade.  “Fuck your safe-word” she retorts, and keeps on abusing him .)

~

And what of that lone male exception to the general depravity, which I mentioned earlier?

“Down these mean streets, there must walk a man, who is not himself mean.” (The credo of PI Phillip Marlowe.)   In this movie, in a brief and understated role, that upright man is Denham, the FBI investigator (based, we are told, upon the real agent Gregory Coleman, whom we here salute).   The small but crucial role is played with great patience and self-effacement by Kyle Chandler, whose visage in repose  says more than words.   The virtues of such dogged self-restraint recall those we praised in our review of Argo,  concerning the role taken up by actor/director Ben Affleck.

Among the most poignant and elegiac moments in movies, come towards the very end of the weary road traveled, and occur without words.  Such is the silent and solitary walk beneath the falling leaves, that culminates “The Third Man”;  such, the blowing leaves across the lawn, as a single shot rings out in the distance, in the second “Godfather”;  and such, here, the agent’s lonely ride on the New York subway, after another wearying day at work, as he silently beholds the care-worn faces of the strangers around him, whom he is sworn to protect.

Roger Ebert:

Belfort chides the prosecutor Denham for living what Henry Hill would have called the goody-two-shoes life, and in a scene near the end, as Denham rides the subway home, we can see that the taunt stuck in his craw.

(He’s not a prosecutor, he’s an FBI investigator, but anyway.)

David Thomson agrees:

When he tells the FBI man who has been tracking him for years that on his lowly government salary the agent will still be riding home on a hot, slow subway watching the lost faces he’s supposed to be protecting, this could be the bravado of a crook on the run. But then the movie depicts that glum moment and Mr. FBI looks like a stooge who realizes every Belfort boast was gold.

That might well be the director’s intention;  I don’t know, I saw it through my own lenses, with a vision entirely different, tutored and clarified is it has been  by the example of Father Brown.   As Denham’s eyes beheld the tired and decent subway-riders at the end of another workday, to me it felt like a return to sanity.  Here were the people that Belfort had fleeced:  and -- thanks to Denham’s tireless efforts -- Belfort (as we are reminded in the next shot, surely a hint at what was in Denham’s mind as well at that moment)  was heading off for a stretch in the slammer. 

The perspective I have in mind  is difficult to convey in a few lines;  but I shall try, simply by way of pointing to a short work which, all in itself, is worth a dozen of the films of Mr. Scorcese:  G.K. Chesterton’s “The Queer Feet”, featuring the portly bespectacled detective-priest, Father Brown.   In this tale, Brown is obliged by circumstances to undo a swindle being perpetrated upon “The Twelve True Fishermen” (the name is an irony), these being a group as select and wealthy as the money-men of Wall Street:

Since it is immeasurably unlikely that you will ever rise high enough in the social world  to find “The Twelve True Fishermen”, or that you will ever sink low enough among slums and criminals to find Father Brown, I fear you will never hear the story at all  unless you hear it from me.

The key to solving the mystery, which Father Brown, even more immured than Nero Wolfe, solves purely by listening to footsteps, from within the confines of a cloakroom, lies in something just a bit off about the rhythm,  just as, in the classic story “The Wrong Shape”, it turns upon a subtle corruption of shape.

Father Brown recovers the silver loot and returns it to its (improper) owners, while recovering (how far more precious a treasure) the thief to Grace.  (Though, in a merely physical sense, he lets him go.)

“Did you catch this man?” asked the colonel, frowning.

Father Brown looked him  full in his frowning face.   “Yes,” he said, “I caught him, with an unseen hook  and an invisible line  which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.”

Laus deo!

And then, his work there done (though never understood or properly appreciated),  Father Brown must end his workday.

And saying “Good evening,”  he pushed upon the heavy doors of that palace of pleasures.  The golden gates closed behind him, and he went at a brisk walk through the damp, dark streets,  in search of a penny omnibus.

~

Thus far have faith and philosophy had their say.   What of the actual human viewer?   Consider the response of my companion, who watched the whole thing enthralled.

At one point, as the Bureau’s investigation inexorably progressed, she remarked (the first thing she had said in the course of the movie): “It’s too bad he’s doing things that are illegal.”

I turned and stared.  “Um, honey, even apart from that:  he is not a good man….”

Her attitude (which I report with reticence) flowed by no means from generalized moral obtuseness, but from a specific scotoma supplied from the collective unconscious, from the psychic substrate from which we grow:  She sees in Di Caprio the visual image of her former suitor and her current son.  (This insight was originally supplied to me by someone who knows us both.)  Do not scoff at this;  it is because of such instincts that mothers put up with us at all.

~

A.O. Scott begins and ends his review with a question;  respectively,

Does it offer a sustained and compelling diagnosis of the terminal pathology that afflicts us, or is it an especially florid symptom of the disease?

and

Does “The Wolf of Wall Street” condemn or celebrate?

Answer (respectively):  “Neither”;  and “Both”.

It’s not important to “get this movie right”;  it is not an important movie.   One good friend hated it;  my wife loved it;  de gustibus.   The bacchanalia quickly fades;  eternal things remain.