Gilbert Keith Chesterton

by Maisie Ward

A book called The Floating Admiral was brought out by the Club. Chesterton wrote the introduction and each member produced one chapter. Reading it without inside knowledge I conceived that the idea was for each to clear up the problems created by his predecessor and create fresh ones for his successor. Gilbert tells of the subtler joke underlying the story:

Perhaps the most characteristic thing that the Detection Club ever did was to publish a detective story, which was quite a good detective story, but the best things in which could not possibly be understood by anybody except the gang of criminals that had produced it. It was called The Floating Admiral, and was written somewhat uproariously in the manner of one of those "paper games" in which each writer in turn continues a story of which he knows neither head nor tail. It turned out remarkably readable, but the joke of it will never be discovered by the ordinary reader; for the truth is that almost every chapter thus contributed by an amateur detective is a satire on the personal peculiarities of the last amateur detective. This, it will be sternly said, is not the way to become a best-seller. It is a matter of taste; but to my mind there is always a curious tingle of obscure excitement, in the works of this kind which have remained here and there in literary history; the sort of book that it is even more enjoyable to write than to read.

The Floating Admiral was a fair success financially. "We hired a sort of garret," writes Monsignor Knox "with the proceeds, as Club Rooms; and on the night after we all received our keys the premises were burglariously entered; why or by whom is still a mystery, but it was a good joke that it should happen to the Detective Club."

Lord Peter and Father Brown and Monsieur Poirot—how were the mighty fallen!

There is a custom in both English and Scottish universities of electing a Lord Rector with the accompaniment of much undergraduate "ragging" of the choicest kind. The candidates usually each represent a political party but personal popularity has much to say in their success. At the Scottish universities the contests are particularly spirited, and his keen sense of fun made Gilbert ready to accept frequent invitations to stand. At Glasgow in 1925 Austen Chamberlain got 1242, votes, Chesterton 968 and Sidney Webb 285. "What swamped you," wrote Jack Phillimore, always critical of the gentler sex, "was the women, whose simple snobbery cannot get past the top hat and frock coat and Right Honourable . . . Boyle was never kidnapped: others were removed into the mountains."

The last sentence might have been lifted from Sir Walter: it refers to a pleasing habit among Scots undergraduates of kidnapping the supporters of their opponents and keeping them safely concealed till after the election.

Whether or not it was through their simple snobbery, as Professor Phillimore said, it was certainly the women's vote that swamped him: of the 374 votes by which Austen Chamberlain beat Chesterton, the men only accounted for 20, the women for 354. But it must have been some profounder passion that caused one of England's leading women novelists to write to the Secretary of the Glasgow University Liberal Club:

I fail to see why you should desire to embarrass Liberalism at one of its least happy moments by associating it with that village idiot on a large scale who is responsible for the muddled economics and disagreeable fantastics of "G.K.'s Weekly."

This was the outlook of that official Liberalism which had long made it so difficult for Gilbert to go on calling himself a Liberal. The Servile State was in full swing and official Liberalism asked nothing better than to be allowed to operate it. Whether Belloc and Cecil Chesterton had been right or wrong at an earlier date in seeing the political parties in collusion it is certain that by now an utter bankruptcy in statesmanship had reduced them all to saying the same things while they did nothing. Ten years later, on the day of the last General election of his life, Gilbert wrote:

The Liberal has formed the opinion that Peace is decidedly preferable to its alternative of War; and that this should be achieved through support of the League of Nations interfering with the ambitions of other nations. The Ministerialist, on the other hand, holds that we should, if possible, employ a machinery called the League of Nations; with the object of securing Peace, to which he is much attached. The Ministerialist demands that strong action should be taken to reduce Unemployment; but the Liberal does not scruple to retort that Unemployment is an evil, against which strong action must be taken. The Liberal thinks that we ought to revive our Trade, thus thwarting and throwing himself across the path of the National Tory, who still insists that our Trade should be revived. Thus the two frowning cohorts confront each other; and I hear the noise of battle even as I write.