By Night in Chile

The epigraph of By Night in Chile invites the reader to distrust Urrutia. The quote, “Take off your wig,” from G.K. Chesterton’s detective story, “The Purple Wig,” introduces the themes of pretense and deception. A reading of the full story develops the epigraph’s bearing both on Urrutia’s confession and on the horrors Urrutia cannot bring himself to look at.

“The Purple Wig” follows a reporter, Finn, as he investigates the familial curse of an English aristocrat, the Duke of Exmoor. By chance, Finn meets the Duke and a detective, Father Brown, in a pub, where Finn learns that the Duke wears a purple wig to conceal the embarrassing effect of the curse: Deformed ears. Father Brown challenges the Duke’s motives, asking why, if he is so ashamed of the curse, he wears a wig that draws attention to himself, and readily tells everyone, including Finn, about the curse. Eventually, Finn rips off the Duke’s wig, revealing not deformed ears but a distinctive scar, identifying him as the former lawyer of the old Duke of Exmoor. After the lawyer tricked the Duke into giving him his assets, the Duke hit the lawyer over the head, giving him the distinctive scar.