Гилберт Честертон
The Innocence of Father Brown / Неведение отца Брауна

© Шитова Л. Ф., адаптация, сокращение, словарь, 2021

© ООО «ИД «Антология», 2021

The Blue Cross

The boat touched Harwich[1] and let loose a swarm of folk like flies, among whom the man we must follow was by no means conspicuous. There was nothing notable about him, except contrast between his clothes and his face. His clothes included a pale grey jacket, a white waistcoat, and a silver straw hat with a grey-blue ribbon. His lean face was dark, and ended in a short black beard. There was nothing about him to indicate the fact that the grey jacket covered a loaded revolver, that the white waistcoat covered a police card, or that the straw hat covered one of the most powerful intellects in Europe. For this was Valentin himself, the head of the Paris police and the most famous investigator of the world; and he was coming from Brussels[2] to London to make the greatest arrest of the century.

Flambeau was in England. The police of three countries had tracked the great criminal at last from Ghent[3] to Brussels, from Brussels to Holland; and they believed that he would take some advantage[4] of the Eucharistic Congress[5], then taking place in London. Probably he would travel as some clerk or secretary connected with it; but, of course, Valentin could not be certain; nobody could be certain about Flambeau.

It is many years now since this colossus of crime suddenly stopped keeping the world in agitation; and when he did so, there was a great quiet upon the earth. But in his best days (I mean, of course, his worst) almost every morning the daily paper announced that he had escaped the consequences of one extraordinary crime by committing another. He was of gigantic stature, and the tales were told of how he ran down the Rue de Rivoli[6] with a policeman under each arm. It should be stated that his fantastic physical strength was generally employed in bloodless scenes; his real crimes were mostly those of ingenious robbery. It was he who ran the great Tyrolean Dairy Company in London, with no dairies, no cows, no carts, no milk, but with some thousand subscribers. These he served by the simple operation of moving the little milk cans outside people's doors to the doors of his own customers. An amazing simplicity, however, marked many of his experiments. It is said that he once repainted all the numbers in a street overnight merely to direct one traveller into a trap. Lastly, he was known to be a perfect acrobat; despite his huge figure, he could leap like a grasshopper and climb up to the tree-tops like a monkey. So the great Valentin, when he set out to find Flambeau, was perfectly aware that his adventures would not end when he had found him.

But how was he to find him? Valentin's ideas on this were still in a process of development.

There was one thing which Flambeau, with all his ability to disguise, could not hide, and that was his height. If Valentin's quick eye had caught a tall apple-woman, a tall grenadier, or even a tall duchess, he might have arrested them on the spot[7]. He had already studied all the people on the boat; and the people who took a train at Harwich to go to London were limited to six. Among them was a very short Roman Catholic priest going up from a small Essex village. The little priest had a face as round and dull as a dumpling; he had eyes as empty as the North Sea; he had several brown paper parcels, which he was quite incapable of collecting. Valentin had no love for priests. But he could have pity for them, and this one might have provoked pity in anybody. He had a large, shabby umbrella, which constantly fell on the floor. He explained with a moon-calf simplicity to everybody in the carriage that he had to be careful, because he had something made of real silver “with blue stones” in one of his brown-paper parcels. His simplicity amused the Frenchman, and Valentin even had the good nature to warn him against telling everybody about the silver. But to whomever he talked, Valentin kept his eye open for someone else; he looked out for anyone, rich or poor, male or female, who was well up to six feet; for Flambeau was four inches above it.

He alighted at Liverpool Street[8], however, quite sure that he had not missed the criminal so far. He then went to Scotland Yard to register his position and arrange for help in case of need; he then lit a cigarette and went for a long stroll in the streets of London. As he was walking in the streets and squares near Victoria[9], he paused suddenly and stood. It was a quiet square, very typical of London. The tall, flat houses round looked at once prosperous and uninhabited. One of the four sides was much higher than the rest; and the line of this side was broken by one of London's admirable accidents – a restaurant that looked as if it had been part of Soho[10]. It was an attractive object, with small plants in pots and long, striped blinds of lemon yellow and white. It stood high above the street, and a flight of steps from the street ran up to the front door. Valentin stood and smoked in front of the yellow-white blinds and considered them long.

The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen. Nelson does die in the instant of victory. In short, there is in life an element of coincidence which people may miss. As it has been well expressed in the paradox of Poe[11], wisdom should expect the unforeseen.

Aristide Valentin was very French; and the French intelligence is very special. He was not “a thinking machine”; for that is a brainless phrase of modern fatalism and materialism. A machine only is a machine because it cannot think. But he was a thinking man. All his wonderful successes had been made by logic, by clear and commonplace French thought. But exactly because Valentin understood reason, he understood the limits of reason. Only a man who knows nothing of motors talks of motoring without petrol; only a man who knows nothing of reason talks of reasoning without strong first principles. Here he had no strong first principles. Flambeau had been missed at Harwich; and if he was in London at all, he might be anything from a tall tramp on Wimbledon Common to a tall toast-master at the Hotel Metropole. In such a state of ignorance, Valentin had a view and a method of his own.

In such cases he expected the unforeseen. In such cases, when he could not follow the train of the reasonable, he coldly and carefully followed the train of the unreasonable. Instead of going to the right places – banks, police stations, rendezvous – he systematically went to the wrong places; knocked at every empty house, took paths that led him out of the way. He defended this crazy course quite logically. He said that if one had a clue this was the worst way; but if one had no clue at all it was the best, because there was just the chance that any oddity that caught the eye of the pursuer might be the same that had caught the eye of the pursued. Something about that flight of steps up to the shop, something about the quietness of the restaurant, took all the detective's romantic fancy and made him strike at random[12]. He went up the steps, and sitting down at a table by the window, asked for a cup of black coffee.

It was half-way through the morning, and he had not breakfasted; the litter of other breakfasts stood on the table to remind him of his hunger; and adding a poached egg to his order, he began to shake some white sugar into his coffee, thinking all the time about Flambeau. He remembered how Flambeau had escaped, once by a pair of nail scissors, and once by a house on fire. He thought his detective brain as good as the criminal's, which was true. But he fully realized the disadvantage. “The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic,” he said with a smile, and lifted his coffee cup to his lips slowly, and put it down very quickly. He had put salt in it.

He looked at the vessel from which the silvery powder had come; it was certainly a sugar-basin. He wondered why they should keep salt in it. He looked to see if there were any more such vessels. Yes; there were two salt-cellars quite full. Perhaps there was some speciality in the condiment in the saltcellars. He tasted it; it was sugar. Then he looked round at the restaurant with interest, to see if there were any other traces of that singular artistic taste which puts the sugar in the saltcellars and the salt in the sugar-basin. Except for an odd stain on one of the white-papered walls, the whole place appeared neat, cheerful and ordinary. He rang the bell for the waiter.

When that official hurried up, curly-haired and rather sleepy at that early hour, the detective (who could appreciate the simpler forms of humour) asked him to taste the sugar and see if it was up to the high reputation of the hotel. The result was that the waiter yawned suddenly and woke up.

“Do you play this joke on your customers every morning?” inquired Valentin. “I mean, changing the salt and sugar?”

The waiter, when he got this irony, stammeringly assured him that the restaurant had certainly no such intention; it must be a most curious mistake. He picked up the sugar-basin and looked at it; he picked up the salt-cellar and looked at that, his face growing more and more confused. At last he abruptly excused himself, and hurrying away, returned in a few seconds with the proprietor. The proprietor also examined the sugar-basin and then the salt-cellar; he also looked confused.

Suddenly the waiter started speaking.

“I zink,” he stuttered, “I zink it is those two.”

“What two clergymen?”

“The two clergymen,” said the waiter, “that threw soup at the wall.”

“Threw soup at the wall?” repeated Valentin, feeling sure this must be some special Italian metaphor.

“Yes, yes,” said the attendant excitedly, and pointed at the dark stain on the white paper; “threw it over there on the wall.”

Valentin looked at the proprietor, who came to his rescue[13].

“Yes, sir,” he said, “it's quite true, though I don't suppose it has anything to do with the sugar and salt. Two clergymen came in and drank soup here very early. They were both very quiet, respectable people; one of them paid the bill and went out; the other, who seemed a slower coach[14] altogether, was some minutes longer getting his things together. But he went at last. Only, the instant before he stepped into the street he picked up his cup, which he had only half emptied, and threw the soup on the wall. I was in the back room myself, and so was the waiter; so I could only rush out in time to find the wall stained and the shop empty. It don't do any particular damage, but it was confounded cheek[15]; and I tried to catch the men in the street. They were too far off though; I only noticed they went round the next corner into Carstairs Street.”

The detective was on his feet, hat pulled and stick in hand. He had already decided that in the universal darkness of his mind he could only follow the first odd finger that pointed. Paying his bill, he was soon running into the other street.

It was fortunate that even in such moments his eye was quick. Something in a shop-front went by him like a flash; yet he went back to look at it. The shop was a popular greengrocer and fruiterer's, an array of goods set out in the open air and ticketed with their names and prices. In two compartments there were two heaps, of oranges and of nuts respectively. On the heap of nuts lay a piece of cardboard, on which was written in blue chalk, “Best tangerine oranges, two a penny.” On the oranges was the equally clear description, “Finest Brazil nuts, 4d. a lb[16].” M. Valentin looked at these two cards and thought he had met this form of humour before, and that somewhat recently. He drew the attention of the red-faced fruiterer to this inaccuracy in his advertisements. The fruiterer said nothing, but sharply put each card into its proper place. The detective, leaning elegantly on his walking-cane, continued to look around the shop. At last he said, “Excuse me, my good sir, but I should like to ask you a question in experimental psychology and the association of ideas.”

The red-faced shopman regarded him with an eye of menace; but he continued gaily, swinging his cane, “In case I do not make myself clear, what is the mystical association which connects the idea of nuts marked as oranges with the idea of two clergymen, one tall and the other short?”

The eyes of the tradesman stood out of his head like a snail's; he really seemed for an instant likely to fling himself upon the stranger. At last he stammered angrily: “I don't know what you 'ave[17] to do with it, but if you're one of their friends, you can tell 'em from me that I'll knock their silly 'eads off, parsons or no parsons, if they upset my apples again.”

“Indeed?” asked the detective, with great sympathy. “Did they upset your apples?”

“One of 'em did,” said the shopman; “rolled 'em all over the street. I'd 'ave caught the fool but for havin' to pick 'em up.”

“Which way did these parsons go?” asked Valentin.

“Up that second road on the left-hand side, and then across the square,” said the other promptly.

“ Thanks,” replied Valentin. On the other side of the second square he found a policeman, and said: “This is urgent, constable; have you seen two clergymen in shovel hats[18]?”

The policeman began to chuckle heavily. “I 'ave, sir; and if you arst me, one of 'em was drunk. He stood in the middle of the road that confused that —”

“Which way did they go?” snapped Valentin.

“ They took one of them yellow buses over there,” answered the man; “them that go to Hampstead[19].”

Valentin showed his official card and said very rapidly: “Call up two of your men to come with me in pursuit,” and crossed the road. In a minute and a half the French detective was joined by an inspector and a man in plain clothes.

“Well, sir,” began the former, “and what may —?”

Valentin pointed suddenly with his cane. “I'll tell you on the top of that omnibus,” he said, and ran across the traffic. When all three sank panting on the top seats of the yellow bus, the inspector said: “We could go four times as quick in a taxi.”

“Quite true,” replied their leader, “if we only had an idea of where we were going.”

“Well, where are you going?” asked the other, staring.

Valentin smoked for a few seconds; then, removing his cigarette, he said: “If you know what a man's doing, get in front of him; but if you want to guess what he's doing, keep behind him. Stop when he stops; travel as slowly as he does. Then you may see what he saw and may act as he acted. All we can do is to keep our eyes skinned[20] for a queer thing.”

“What sort of queer thing do you mean?” asked the inspector.

“Any sort of queer thing,” answered Valentin, and fell into silence.

The yellow omnibus crawled up the northern roads for what seemed like hours; the great detective would not explain further, and perhaps his assistants felt a growing doubt of his task. Perhaps, also, they felt a growing desire for lunch, for the hours went long past the normal luncheon hour. But though the winter twilight was already darkening the road ahead of them, the Parisian detective still sat silent and watchful, eyeing the facade of the streets that went by on either side. By the time they had left Camden Town behind, the policemen were nearly asleep; at least, they gave something like a jump as Valentin struck a hand on each man's shoulder, and shouted to the driver to stop.

They tumbled down the steps into the road without realizing why they had been disturbed; when they looked round for explanation they found Valentin triumphantly pointing his finger towards a window on the left side of the road. It was a large window, forming part of the long facade of a gilt and magnificent public-house; it was the part reserved for respectable dining, and labelled “Restaurant.” This window, like all the rest along the frontage of the hotel, was of frosted and figured glass[21]; but in the middle of it was a big, black smash.

“Our cue at last,” cried Valentin, waving his stick; “the place with the broken window.”

“What window? What cue?” asked his principal assistant. “Why, what proof is there that this has anything to do with them?”

Valentin almost broke his bamboo stick with rage.

“Proof!” he cried. “Good God! the man is looking for proof! Why, of course, the chances are twenty to one that it has nothing to do with them. But what else can we do? Don't you see we must either follow any possibility or else go home to bed?” He went into the restaurant, followed by his companions, and they were soon seated at a late luncheon at a little table, and looked at the smashed glass from the inside. Not that it was very informative to them even then.

“Got your window broken, I see,” said Valentin to the waiter as he paid the bill.

“Yes, sir,” answered the attendant, bending busily over the change, to which Valentin silently added an enormous tip. The waiter straightened himself with unmistakable enthusiasm.

“Ah, yes, sir,” he said. “Very odd thing, that, sir.”

“Indeed?” Tell us about it,” said the detective with careless curiosity.

“Well, two gents in black came in,” said the waiter; “two of those foreign parsons that are running about. They had a cheap and quiet little lunch, and one of them paid for it and went out. The other was just going out to join him when I looked at my change again and found he'd paid me more than three times too much. 'Here[22][23],' I says to the chap who was nearly out of the door, 'you've paid too much.' 'Oh,' he says, 'have we?' 'Yes,' I says, and picks up the bill to show him. Well, that was a knock-out.”

“What do you mean?” asked the detective.

“Well, I'd have sworn on seven Bibles that I'd put 4s.2 on that bill. But now I saw I'd put 14s.”

“Well?” cried Valentin, “and then?”

“ The parson at the door he says quietly, 'Sorry to confuse your accounts, but it'll pay for the window.' 'What window?' I says. 'The one I'm going to break,' he says, and smashed that window with his umbrella.”

All three men made an exclamation; and the inspector said under his breath[24], “Are we after escaped lunatics[25]?” The waiter went on with his story:

“I was so knocked silly for a second, I couldn't do anything. The man marched out of the place and joined his friend just round the corner. Then they went so quick up Bullock Street that I couldn't catch them.”

“Bullock Street,” said the detective, and ran up that thoroughfare as quickly as the strange couple he pursued.

Their journey now took them through a bare brick district; streets with few lights and even with few windows. Dusk was deepening, and it was not easy even for the London policemen to guess in what exact direction they were going. Abruptly one gas-lit window broke the blue twilight; and Valentin stopped before a little sweetstuff shop. After an instant's hesitation he went in and bought thirteen chocolate cigars. He was clearly preparing an opening; but he did not need one.

An elderly woman in the shop had regarded his elegant appearance with an automatic inquiry; but when she saw the door behind him blocked with the blue uniform of the inspector, her eyes seemed to wake up.

“Oh,” she said, “if you've come about that parcel, I've sent it off already.”

“Parcel?” repeated Valentin; and it was his turn to look inquiring.

“I mean the parcel the gentleman left – the clergyman gentleman.”

“For goodness' sake,” said Valentin, leaning forward eagerly, “for Heaven's sake tell us what happened exactly.”

“Well,” said the woman, “the clergymen came in about half an hour ago and bought some peppermints and talked a bit, and then went off towards the Heath[26]. But a second after, one of them runs back into the shop and says, 'Have I left a parcel!' Well, I looked everywhere and couldn't see one; so he says, 'Never mind; but if it should turn up, please post it to this address,' and he left me the address and a shilling for my trouble. And sure enough, though I thought I'd looked everywhere, I found he'd left a brown paper parcel, so I posted it to the place he said. I can't remember the address now; it was somewhere in Westminster. But as the thing seemed so important, I thought perhaps the police had come about it.”

“So they have,” said Valentin shortly. “Is Hampstead Heath near here?”

“Straight on for fifteen minutes,” said the woman, “and you'll come right out on the open.” Valentin sprang out of the shop and began to run. The other detectives followed him reluctantly.

The street they took was so narrow and shut in by shadows that when they came out unexpectedly into the open space under a vast sky they were startled to find the evening still so light and clear. The holiday makers who roam this region had not wholly dispersed; a few couples sat on benches; and here and there a distant girl still shrieked in one of the swings. Standing on the slope and looking across the beautiful valley, Valentin noticed the thing which he sought.

Among the black groups in the distance was one especially black – a group of two figures clerically clad. Though they seemed as small as insects, Valentin could see that one of them was much smaller than the other. Though the other had a student's stoop and an unremarkable manner, he could see that the man was well over six feet high. By the time he had substantially cut the distance, he had seen something else; something which surprised him, and yet which he had somehow expected. Whoever was the tall priest, there could be no doubt about the identity of the short one. It was his friend of the Harwich train, the little cure of Essex whom he had warned about his brown paper parcels.

Now, everything fitted in finally and rationally enough. Valentin had learned by his inquiries that morning that a Father Brown from Essex was bringing up a silver cross with sapphires, a relic of considerable value, to show some of the foreign priests at the congress. This undoubtedly was the “silver with blue stones”; and Father Brown undoubtedly was the little greenhorn in the train. Now there was nothing wonderful about the fact that what Valentin had found out Flambeau had also found out. Also there was nothing wonderful in the fact that when Flambeau heard of a sapphire cross he should try to steal it. And most certainly there was nothing wonderful about the fact that Flambeau should have it all his own way[27] with such a silly sheep as the man with the umbrella and the parcels. He was the sort of man whom anybody could lead on a string[28] to the North Pole; it was not surprising that an actor like Flambeau, dressed as another priest, could lead him to Hampstead Heath. So far the crime seemed clear enough; and while the detective pitied the priest for his helplessness, he almost despised Flambeau for cheating so gullible a victim. But when Valentin thought of all that had happened in between, he racked his brains for the smallest rhyme or reason in it[29]. What had the stealing of a blue-and-silver cross from a priest from Essex to do with throwing soup at wall paper? What had it to do with calling nuts oranges, or with paying for windows first and breaking them afterwards? He had come to the end of his chase; yet somehow he had missed the middle of it.

The two figures that they followed were crawling like black flies across the huge green contour of a hill. They were evidently engaged in conversation, and perhaps did not notice where they were going; but they were certainly going to the wilder and more silent heights of the Heath. As their pursuers gained on them, the latter had to hide behind clumps of trees and even to crawl in deep grass. The hunters even came close enough to hear the murmur of the discussion, but no word could be heard except the word “reason” said frequently in a high and almost childish voice. Once the detectives actually lost the two figures they were following. They did not find the trail again for an agonizing ten minutes. Under a tree in a neglected spot there was an old wooden seat. On this seat sat the two priests still in serious speech together. The gorgeous green and gold of the scenery looked beautiful on the darkening horizon; and the stars looked like solid jewels. Silently motioning to his followers, Valentin managed to hide behind the big branching tree, and, standing there in deathly silence, heard the words of the strange priests for the first time.

After he had listened for a minute and a half, he was taken by doubt. Perhaps he had dragged the two English policemen to the heath in vain. For the two priests were talking exactly like priests, piously, about the problems of theology. The little Essex priest spoke more simply, with his round face turned to the stars; the other talked with his head bowed. But so innocent a clerical conversation could have been heard in any Italian cloister or Spanish cathedral.

Valentin behind his tree was biting his fingernails with silent fury. He seemed almost to hear the sniggers of the English detectives whom he had brought so far only to listen to the metaphysical gossip of two old parsons.

Father Brown was speaking:

“Look at those stars. Don't they look as if they were single diamonds and sapphires? Think of forests of adamant with leaves of brilliants. Think the moon is a blue moon, a single sapphire. But don't fancy that all that astronomy would make the smallest difference to the reason and justice of conduct. On plains of opal, under cliffs cut out of pearl, you would still find a notice-board, 'Thou shalt not steal[30].'”

Valentin was just in the act of rising from his rigid and crouching attitude and creeping away as softly as might be. But something in the very silence of the tall priest made him stop until the latter spoke. When at last he did speak, he said simply, his head bowed and his hands on his knees:

“Well, I think that other worlds may perhaps rise higher than our reason. The mystery of heaven is unknowable, and I can only bow my head.”

Then, without changing his attitude or voice, he added:

“Just hand over that sapphire cross of yours, will you? We're all alone here, and I could pull you to pieces like a straw doll[31].”

The unaltered voice and attitude added a strange violence to that shocking change of speech. But the guarder of the relic only seemed to turn his head a bit. He seemed still to have a somewhat foolish face turned to the stars. Perhaps he had not understood. Or, perhaps, he had understood and sat still with terror.

“Yes,” said the tall priest, in the same low voice, “yes, I am Flambeau.”

Then, after a pause, he said:

“Come, will you give me that cross?”

“No,” said the other, and it sounded odd.

The great robber suddenly leaned back in his seat and laughed low[32] but long.

“No,” he cried, “you won't give it me, you proud prelate. You won't give it me, you little celibate simpleton. Shall I tell you why you won't give it me? Because I've got it already in my own breast-pocket.”

The small man from Essex turned his face in the dusk, and said timidly:

“Are – are you sure?”

Flambeau yelled with delight.

“Yes, you turnip[33]”, he cried. “I am quite sure. I had the sense to make a duplicate of the right parcel, and now, my friend, you've got the duplicate and I've got the jewels. An old dodge[34], Father Brown – a very old dodge.”

“Yes,” said Father Brown, and passed his hand through his hair quietly. “Yes, I've heard of it before.”

Flambeau leaned over to the little priest with a sort of sudden interest.

“You have heard of it?” he asked. “Where have you heard of it?”

“Well, I mustn't tell you his name, of course,” said the little man simply. “He was a penitent, you know. He had lived prosperously for about twenty years entirely on duplicate brown paper parcels. And so, you see, when I began to suspect you, I thought of this poor chap's way of doing it at once.”

“Began to suspect me?” repeated the thief. “Did you really have the gumption to suspect me just because I brought you up to this bare part of the heath?”

“No, no,” said Brown with an air of apology. “You see, I suspected you when we first met. It's that little bulge up the sleeve where you people have the spiked bracelet.”

“How did you ever hear of the spiked bracelet?” cried Flambeau.

“Oh, one's little flock, you know!” said Father Brown, arching his eyebrows. “When I was a curate in Hartlepool, there were three of them with spiked bracelets. So, as I suspected you from the first, don't you see, I made sure that the cross should go safe, anyhow. I'm afraid I watched you, you know. So at last I saw you change the parcels. Then, don't you see, I changed them back again. And then I left the right one behind.”

“Left it behind?” repeated Flambeau, and for the first time there was another note in his voice beside his triumph.

“Well, it was like this,” said the little priest. “I went back to that sweet-shop and asked if I'd left a parcel, and gave them a particular address if it turned up. Well, I knew I hadn't; but when I went away again I did. So, instead of running after me with that valuable parcel, they have sent it to a friend of mine in Westminster.” Then he added rather sadly: “I learnt that, too, from a poor fellow in Hartlepool. He used to do it with handbags he stole at railway stations, but he's in a monastery now. Oh, one gets to know, you know[35],” he added, rubbing his head again with the same sort of apology. “We can't help being priests[36]. People come and tell us these things.”

Flambeau tore a brown-paper parcel out of his inner pocket. There was nothing but paper and sticks of lead inside it. He sprang to his feet, and cried:

“I don't believe you. I don't believe a bumpkin like you could manage all that. I believe you've still got the stuff on you, and if you don't give it up – why, we're all alone, and I'll take it by force!”

“No,” said Father Brown simply, and stood up also, “you won't take it by force. First, because I really haven't still got it. And, second, because we are not alone.”

Flambeau stopped in his stride forward.

“Behind that tree,” said Father Brown, pointing, “are two strong policemen and the greatest detective alive. How did they come here, do you ask? Why, I brought them, of course! How did I do it? Why, I'll tell you if you like! Lord bless you, we have to know twenty such things when we work among the criminal classes! Well, I wasn't sure you were a thief, and you really might be one of our own clergy. So I just tested you to see if anything would make you show yourself. A man generally makes a small scene if he finds salt in his coffee; if he doesn't, he has some reason for keeping quiet. I changed the salt and sugar, and you kept quiet. A man generally objects if his bill is three times too big. If he pays it, he has some motive for passing unnoticed. I altered your bill, and you paid it.”

The world seemed waiting for Flambeau to leap like a tiger. But he was stunned with curiosity.

“Well,” went on Father Brown, “as you wouldn't leave any tracks for the police, of course somebody had to. At every place we went to, I took care to do something that would get us talked about for the rest of the day. I didn't do much harm – a splashed wall, spilt apples, a broken window; but I saved the cross, as the cross will always be saved. It is at Westminster by now.

“How do you know all these tricks?” asked Flambeau.

The shadow of a smile crossed the round, simple face of his clerical opponent.

“Oh, by being a celibate simpleton, I suppose,” he said. “Has it never occurred to you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins[37] is likely to be wholly aware of human evil? But, as a matter of fact, another part of my trade, too, made me sure you weren't a priest.”

“What?” asked the thief.

“You attacked reason,” said Father Brown. “It's bad theology.”

And even as he turned away to collect his property, the three policemen came out from under the twilight trees. Flambeau was an artist and a sportsman. He stepped back and swept Valentin a great bow[38].

“Do not bow to me, mon ami[39]” said Valentin. “Let us both bow to our master.”

And they both stood an instant uncovered[40] while the little Essex priest blinked about for his umbrella.

The Secret Garden

Aristide Valentin, Chief of the Paris Police, was late for his dinner, and some of his guests began to arrive before him. These were, however, met by his servant, Ivan, the old man with a scar, who always sat at a table in the entrance hall – a hall hung with weapons. Valentin's house was perhaps as peculiar and celebrated as its master. It was an old house, with high walls and tall poplars almost overhanging the Seine; but the oddity of its architecture was this: that there was no other exit at all except through this front door, which was guarded by Ivan and the weapons. The garden was large and well-kept, and there were many exits from the house into the garden. But there was no exit from the garden into the world outside; all round it ran a tall, inaccessible wall with special spikes at the top.

As Ivan explained to the guests, their host had telephoned that he was delayed for ten minutes. He was, in truth, making some last arrangements[41] about executions and such ugly things; and though these duties were unpleasant to him, he always performed them with accuracy. Ruthless in the pursuit of criminals, he was very mild about their punishment. Since he had been supreme over French police methods, his great influence had been used for making sentences milder. He was one of the great humanitarian French freethinkers.

When Valentin arrived he was already dressed in black clothes and the red rosette – an elegant figure, his dark beard already with grey. He went straight through his house to his study. The garden door of it was open, and after he had carefully locked his box in its official place, he stood for a few seconds at the open door looking out upon the garden. A sharp moon was rising, and Valentin regarded it with wistfulness unusual in such scientific natures as his. From such mood he quickly recovered, for he knew he was late, and that his guests had already begun to arrive. A glance at his drawing-room when he entered it was enough to make certain that his principal guest was not there. He saw all the other members of the little party; he saw Lord Galloway, the English Ambassador. He saw Lady Galloway, with silver hair and a face sensitive and superior. He saw her daughter, Lady Margaret Graham, a pale and pretty girl with an oval face and copper-coloured hair. He saw the Duchess of Mont St. Michel, black-eyed and opulent, and her two daughters, black-eyed and opulent also. He saw Dr. Simon, a typical French scientist, with glasses, and a pointed brown beard. He saw Father Brown, whom he had recently met in England. He saw – perhaps with more interest than any of these – a tall man in uniform, who had bowed to the Galloways, and who now advanced to pay his respects[42] to his host. This was Commandant O'Brien, of the French Foreign Legion. He was slim, clean-shaven, darkhaired, and blue-eyed, and he had an air at once dynamic and melancholic. He was by birth an Irish gentleman, and in boyhood had known the Galloways – especially Margaret Graham. He had left his country after making debts, and now expressed his complete freedom from British etiquette by demonstrating his uniform, sabre and spurs. When he bowed to the Ambassador's family, Lord and Lady Galloway bent stiffly, and Lady Margaret looked away.

But no one of them was in the host's eyes the guest of the evening. Valentin was expecting, for special reasons, a man of world-wide fame, whose friendship he had got during some of his great detective tours and triumphs in the United States. He was expecting Julius K. Brayne, that multi-millionaire whose colossal donations to small religions have been reported in the American and English papers. Nobody could quite make out whether Mr. Brayne was an atheist or a Mormon or a Christian Scientist; but he was ready to invest money into any intellectual project. One of his hobbies was to wait for the American Shakespeare. He liked anything that he thought “progressive.” He thought Valentin “progressive,” which was totally wrong.

The appearance of Julius K. Brayne in the room was as decisive as a dinner bell. He had this great quality, which very few of us can have, that his presence was as big as his absence. He was a huge fellow, as fat as he was tall, dressed in complete evening black. His hair was white and well brushed back like a German's; his face was red and fierce. Not long, however, the salon stared at the celebrated American; his lateness had already become a domestic problem[43], and he was sent into the dining-room with Lady Galloway on his arm.

Except on one point the Galloways were non-official. So long as Lady Margaret did not take the arm of that adventurer O'Brien, her father was quite satisfied; she had decorously gone in with Dr. Simon. Nevertheless, old Lord Galloway was restless and almost rude. He was diplomatic enough during dinner, but when, over the cigars, three of the younger men – Simon the doctor, Brown the priest, and O'Brien – all went away to mix with the ladies or smoke in the conservatory, then the English diplomatist grew very undiplomatic indeed. Every sixty seconds he thought that that scamp O'Brien might be making advances[44] to Margaret somehow; he did not attempt to imagine how. He was left over the coffee with Brayne, the Yankee who believed in all religions, and Valentin, the Frenchman who believed in none. They could argue with each other, but neither could appeal to him and it was tiresome. After a time Lord Galloway got up and went to the drawing-room. He lost his way in long passages for some six or eight minutes: till he heard the high-pitched voice of the doctor, and then the dull voice of the priest, followed by general laughter. They also, he thought, were probably arguing about “science and religion.” But the instant he opened the salon door he saw only one thing – he saw that Commandant O'Brien was absent, and that Lady Margaret was absent too.

From the drawing-room, he stamped along the passage once more. His duty of protecting his daughter from the Irish-Algerian had become something central and even mad in his mind. As he went towards the back of the house, where was Valentin's study, he was surprised to meet his daughter, who swept past with a white, scornful face. If she had been with O'Brien, where was O'Brien! If she had not been with O'Brien, where had she been? With suspicion he groped his way to the dark back parts of the mansion, and eventually found a servants' entrance that opened on to the garden. The moon lit up all four corners of the garden. A tall figure in blue was striding across the lawn towards the study door; it was Commandant O'Brien.

He came through the French windows into the house, leaving Lord Galloway furious and confused. The grace of the Irishman's stride maddened him as if he were a rival instead of a father. He stepped quickly after his enemy. As he did so he tripped over some tree or stone in the grass; looked down at it first with irritation and then a second time with curiosity. The next instant the moon and the tall poplars looked at an unusual sight – an elderly English diplomatist crying and running hard.

Lord Galloway was crying: “A corpse in the grass – a blood-stained corpse.” O'Brien at last had gone out of his mind.

“We must tell Valentin at once,” said the doctor. “It is fortunate that he is here;” and even as he spoke the great detective entered the study, attracted by the cry. It was almost amusing to note his typical transformation; he had come as a host and a gentleman, fearing that some guest or servant was ill. When he was told the gory fact, he turned instantly bright and businesslike; for this, however, was his business.

“Strange, gentlemen,” he said as they hurried out into the garden, “that I should have hunted mysteries all over the earth, and now one comes to my own back-yard. But where is the place?” They crossed the lawn, and under the guidance of the shaken Galloway they found the body in deep grass – the body of a very tall and broad-shouldered man. He lay face downwards, so they could only see that his big shoulders were covered in black cloth, and that his big head was bald. A scarlet serpent of blood crawled from under his fallen face.

“At least,” said Simon, “he is none of our party.”

“Examine him, doctor,” cried Valentin rather sharply. “He may not be dead.”

The doctor bent down. “He is not quite cold, but I am afraid he is dead enough,” he answered. “Just help me to lift him up.”

They lifted him carefully an inch from the ground, and all doubts disappeared. The head fell away. It had been entirely cut off from the body. Even Valentin was slightly shocked. “He must have been as strong as a gorilla,” he muttered.

Not without a shiver, though he was used to anatomical dissections, Dr. Simon lifted the head. The face was substantially unhurt. It was a yellow face, with a hawk-like nose and heavy lids. Nothing else could be noted about the man. As Dr. Simon said, the man had never been of their party. But he might very well have been trying to join it, for he had come dressed for such an occasion.

Valentin went down on his hands and knees and examined with his closest professional attention the grass and ground for some twenty yards round the body, in which he was assisted by the doctor, and the English lord. Valentin's attention was drawn by a few twigs, snapped or chopped into very small lengths, which he lifted for an instant's examination and then tossed away.

“Twigs,” he said gravely; “twigs, and a total stranger with his head cut off; that is all there is on this lawn.”

There was an almost creepy stillness, and then the unnerved Galloway called out sharply:

“Who's that! Who's that over there by the garden wall!”

A small figure with a foolishly large head came near them in the moonlight; looked for an instant like a goblin, but turned out to be the harmless little priest whom they had left in the drawing-room.

“I say,” he said meekly, “there are no gates to this garden, do you know.”

Valentin's black brows had come together somewhat crossly. “You are right,” he said. “Before we find out how he came to be killed, we may have to find out how he came to be here. Now listen to me, gentlemen. We shall all agree that certain distinguished names might well be kept out of this. There are ladies, gentlemen, and there is a foreign ambassador. If we must mark it down as a crime, then it must be investigated as a crime. I am the head of the police; I am so public that I can afford to be private. Please Heaven, I will clear everyone of my own guests before I call in my men to look for anybody else. Gentlemen, upon your honour, you will none of you leave the house till tomorrow at noon; there are bedrooms for all. Simon, I think you know where to find my man, Ivan, in the front hall. Tell him to leave another servant on guard and come to me at once. Lord Galloway, you are certainly the best person to tell the ladies what has happened, and prevent a panic. They also must stay. Father Brown and I will remain with the body.”

Dr. Simon went through to the armoury and found Ivan, the public detective's private detective. Galloway went to the drawing-room and told the terrible news to the ladies tactfully enough. Meanwhile the good priest and the good atheist stood at the head and foot of the dead man motionless in the moonlight, like symbolic statues of their two philosophies of death.

Ivan, the confidential man with the scar and the moustaches, dashed out of the house like a cannon ball, and came racing across the lawn to Valentin like a dog to his master. He asked his master's permission to examine the remains.

“Yes; look, if you like, Ivan,” said Valentin, “but don't be long. We must go in and clear this up in the house.”

Ivan lifted the head, and then almost let it drop.

“Why,” he gasped, “it's – no, it isn't; it can't be. Do you know this man, sir?”

“No,” said Valentin indifferently; “we had better go inside.”

Between them they carried the corpse to a sofa in the study, and then all made their way to the drawing-room.

The detective sat down at a desk quietly; but his eye was the iron eye of a judge at the trial. He made a few fast notes upon paper in front of him, and then said shortly: “Is everybody here?”

“Not Mr. Brayne,” said the Duchess of Mont St. Michel, looking round.

“No,” said Lord Galloway in a hoarse voice. “And not Mr. Neil O'Brien, I fancy. I saw that gentleman walking in the garden when the corpse was still warm.”

“Ivan,” said the detective, “go and fetch Commandant O'Brien and Mr. Brayne. Mr. Brayne, I know, is finishing a cigar in the dining-room; Commandant O'Brien, I think, is walking up and down the conservatory. I am not sure.”

The attendant flashed from the room, and before anyone could stir or speak Valentin went on:

“Everyone here knows that a dead man has been found in the garden, his head cut clean from his body. Dr. Simon, you have examined it. Do you think that to cut a man's throat like that would need great force? Or, perhaps, only a very sharp knife?”

“I should say that it could not be done with a knife at all,” said the pale doctor.

“Have you any thought,” resumed Valentin, “of a tool with which it could be done?”

“I really haven't,” said the doctor, arching his brows. “This was a very clean cut. It could be done with an old headsman's axe[45], or an old two-handed sword.”

“But, good heavens!” cried the Duchess, almost in hysterics, “there aren't any two-handed swords and battleaxes round here.”

Valentin was still busy with the paper in front of him. “ Tell me,” he said, still writing rapidly, “could it have been done with a long French cavalry sabre?”

A low knocking came at the door. Amid the frozen silence Dr. Simon managed to say: “A sabre – yes, I suppose it could.”

“Thank you,” said Valentin. “Come in, Ivan.”

The confidential Ivan opened the door and brought in Commandant Neil O'Brien, whom he had found at last pacing the garden again.

The Irish officer stood up on the threshold. “What do you want with me?” he cried.

“Please sit down,” said Valentin in pleasant, level tones. “Why, you aren't wearing your sword. Where is it?”

“I left it on the library table,” said O'Brien.

“Ivan,” said Valentin, “please go and get the Commandant's sword from the library.” Then, as the servant disappeared, “Lord Galloway says he saw you leaving the garden just before he found the corpse. What were you doing in the garden?”

The Commandant flung himself into a chair. “Oh,” he cried in pure Irish, “admirin' the moon. Communing with Nature, me bhoy[46].”

A heavy silence fell and lasted, and at the end of it came again that terrible knocking. Ivan reappeared, carrying an empty steel scabbard. “This is all I can find,” he said.

“Put it on the table,” said Valentin, without looking up.

There was an inhuman silence in the room. The voice that came was quite unexpected.

“I think I can tell you,” cried Lady Margaret, in a clear voice. “I can tell you what Mr. O'Brien was doing in the garden. He was asking me to marry him. I refused; I said in my family circumstances I could give him nothing but my respect. He was a little angry at that; he did not seem to think much of my respect. I wonder,” she added, “if he will care at all for it now. For I offer it him now. I will swear anywhere that he never did a thing like this.”

Lord Galloway had moved up to his daughter. “Hold your tongue, Maggie,” he said in a thunderous whisper. “Why should you protect the fellow? Where's his sword? Where's his confounded cavalry – ”

He stopped because of the stare with which his daughter was regarding him.

“You old fool!” she said in a low voice, “what do you suppose you are trying to prove? I tell you this man was innocent while with me. But if he wasn't innocent, he was still with me. Do you hate Neil so much as to put your own daughter – ”

Lady Galloway screamed. Everyone sat witnessing one of those tragedies that have been between lovers before now. They saw the proud, white face of the Scotch aristocrat and her lover, the Irish adventurer, like old portraits in a dark house. The long silence was full of historical memories of murdered husbands and poisonous lovers.

In the centre of this awful silence an innocent voice said: “Was it a very long cigar?”

The change of thought was so sharp that they had to look round to see who had spoken.

“I mean,” said little Father Brown, from the corner of the room, “I mean that cigar Mr. Brayne is finishing. It seems nearly as long as a walking-stick.”

“Quite right,” remarked Valentin sharply. “Ivan, go and see about Mr. Brayne again, and bring him here at once.”

As soon as Ivan closed the door, Valentin addressed the girl.

“Lady Margaret,” he said, “we all feel, I am sure, both gratitude and admiration for your explaining the Commandant's conduct. But there is a gap still. Lord Galloway, I understand, met you passing from the study to the drawing-room, and it was only some minutes afterwards that he found the garden and the Commandant still walking there.”

“You have to remember,” replied Margaret, with a faint irony in her voice, “that I had just refused him, so we should hardly have come back arm in arm. He is a gentleman, anyhow; and he stayed behind – and so got charged with murder[47].”

“In those few moments,” said Valentin gravely, “he might really – ”

The knock came again, and Ivan put in his scarred face.

“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, “but Mr. Brayne has left the house.”

“Left!” cried Valentin, and rose for the first time to his feet.

“Gone. Scooted. Evaporated[48],” replied Ivan in humorous French. “His hat and coat are gone, too, and I'll tell you something more. I ran outside the house to find any traces of him, and I found one, and a big trace, too.”

“What do you mean?” asked Valentin.

“I'll show you,” said his servant, and reappeared with a cavalry sabre, streaked with blood. Everyone in the room eyed it as if it were a thunderbolt; but the experienced Ivan went on quite quietly:

“I found this,” he said, “flung among the bushes fifty yards up the road to Paris. In other words, I found it just where your respectable Mr. Brayne threw it when he ran away.”

There was again a silence, but of a new sort. Valentin took the sabre, examined it, and then turned a respectful face to O'Brien. “Commandant,” he said, “we trust you will always produce this weapon if it is wanted for police examination. Meanwhile,” he added, putting the steel back in the scabbard, “let me return you your sword.”

At the military symbolism of the action the audience applauded.

For Neil O'Brien, indeed, that gesture was the turningpoint of existence. By the time he was wandering in the garden again in the morning, he was a man with many reasons for happiness. Lord Galloway was a gentleman, and had offered him an apology. Lady Margaret had perhaps given him something better than an apology, as they walked among the old flowerbeds before breakfast. The whole company was more lighthearted and humane, for though the riddle of the death remained, the load of suspicion was lifted off them all, and sent flying off to Paris with the strange millionaire – a man they hardly knew.

Still, the riddle remained; and when O'Brien threw himself on a garden seat beside Dr. Simon, they resumed talking about that.

“I can't say it interests me much,” said the Irishman frankly, “especially as it seems pretty clear now. Apparently Brayne hated this stranger for some reason; lured him into the garden, and killed him with my sword. Then he fled to the city, tossing the sword away as he went. By the way, Ivan tells me the dead man had a Yankee dollar in his pocket. So he was a countryman of Brayne's, and that seems to explain it. I don't see any difficulties about the business.”

“There are five colossal difficulties,” said the doctor quietly; “Don't mistake me. I don't doubt that Brayne did it; his flight, I fancy, proves that. But as to how he did it. First difficulty: Why should a man kill another man with a great sabre, when he can almost kill him with a pocket knife and put it back in his pocket? Second difficulty: Why was there no noise or outcry? Does a man commonly see another come up waving a yataghan and offer no remarks? Third difficulty: a servant watched the front door all the evening; and a rat cannot get into Valentin's garden anywhere. How did the dead man get into the garden? Fourth difficulty: Given the same conditions, how did Brayne get out of the garden?”

“And the fifth,” said Neil, with eyes fixed on the English priest who was coming slowly up the path.

“Is a trifle, I suppose,” said the doctor, “but I think an odd one. When I first saw how the head had been slashed, I supposed the assassin had struck more than once. But on examination I found many cuts across the shortened section; in other words, they were struck after the head was off. Did Brayne hate his foe so much that he stood sabring his body in the moonlight?”

“Horrible!” said O'Brien, and shuddered.

The little priest, Brown, had arrived while they were talking, and had waited, till they had finished. Then he said awkwardly:

“I say, I'm sorry to interrupt. But I was sent to tell you the news!”

“News?” repeated Simon.

“Yes, I'm sorry,” said Father Brown mildly. “There's been another murder, you know.”

Both men on the seat sprang up.

“And, what's stranger still,” continued the priest, with his eye on the rhododendrons, “it's the same disgusting sort; it's another beheading. They found the second head actually bleeding into the river, a few yards along Brayne's road to Paris; so they suppose that he – ”

“Great Heaven!” cried O'Brien. “Is Brayne a maniac?”

“There are American vendettas,” said the priest impassively. Then he added: “They want you to come to the library and see it.”

Commandant O'Brien followed the others, feeling decidedly sick. As a soldier, he hated all this carnage; where were these extravagant amputations going to stop? First one head was cut off, and then another; in this case (he told himself bitterly) it was not true that two heads were better than one. As he crossed the study he almost stopped at a shocking coincidence. Upon Valentin's table lay the coloured picture of yet a third bleeding head; and it was the head of Valentin himself. A second glance showed him it was only a Nationalist paper, called The Guillotine, which every week showed one of its political opponents with rolling eyes just after execution; for Valentin was a notable anti-clerical.

The library was long, low, and dark. Valentin and his servant Ivan were waiting for them at the upper end of a long, slightly-sloping desk, on which lay the mortal remains, looking enormous in the twilight. The big black figure and yellow face of the man found in the garden looked unchanged. The second head, which had been fished from among the river reeds that morning, lay dripping beside it; Valentin's men were still seeking to find the rest of this second corpse in the water. Father Brown went up to the second head and examined it with care. It was little more than a mop of wet white hair; the face, which seemed of an ugly and criminal type, had been much battered against trees or stones as it tossed in the water.

“Good morning, Commandant O'Brien,” said Valentin, with quiet cordiality. “You have heard of Brayne's last experiment in butchery, I suppose?”

Father Brown was still bending over the head with white hair, and he said, without looking up:

“I suppose it is quite certain that Brayne cut off this head, too.”

“Well, it seems common sense,” said Valentin, with his hands in his pockets. “Killed in the same way as the other. Found within a few yards of the other. And sliced by the same weapon which we know he carried away.”

“Yes, yes; I know,” replied Father Brown. “Yet, you know, I doubt whether Brayne could have cut off this head.”

“Why not?” inquired Dr. Simon, with a stare.

“Well, doctor,” said the priest, looking up blinking, “can a man cut off his own head? I don't know.”

O'Brien felt the universe crashing about his ears; but the doctor sprang forward and pushed back the wet white hair.

“Oh, there's no doubt it's Brayne,” said the priest quietly.

“He had exactly that chip in the left ear.”

The detective, who had been regarding the priest with steady eyes, opened his clenched mouth and said sharply: “You seem to know a lot about him, Father Brown.”

“I do,” said the little man simply. “I've been about with him for some weeks. He was thinking of joining our church.”

The light of the fanatic sprang into Valentin's eyes; he strode towards the priest with clenched hands. “And, perhaps,” he cried, with a sneer, “perhaps he was also thinking of leaving all his money to your church.”

“Perhaps he was,” said Brown stolidly; “it is possible.”

“In that case,” cried Valentin, with a dreadful smile, “you may indeed know a great deal about him. About his life and about his – ”

Commandant O'Brien laid a hand on Valentin's arm. “Drop that slanderous rubbish, Valentin,” he said, “or there may be more swords yet.”

But Valentin (under the steady gaze of the priest) had already recovered himself. “Well,” he said shortly, “people's private opinions can wait. You gentlemen are still bound by your promise[49] to stay. Ivan here will tell you anything more you want to know; I must get to business and write to the authorities. We can't keep this quiet any longer. I shall be writing in my study if there is any more news.”

“Is there any more news, Ivan?” asked Dr. Simon, as the chief of police strode out of the room.

“Only one more thing, I think, sir,” said Ivan, wrinkling up his grey old face, “but that's important, too, in its way. There's that old man you found on the lawn,” and he pointed at the big black body with the yellow head. “We've found out who he is, anyhow.”

“Indeed!” cried the astonished doctor, “and who is he?”

“His name was Arnold Becker,” said the under-detective, “though he went by many aliases. He was a wandering sort of scamp, and is known to have been in America; so that was where Brayne got his knife into him. We didn't have much to do with him ourselves, for he worked mostly in Germany. We've communicated, of course, with the German police.

But, oddly enough, there was a twin brother of his, named Louis Becker, whom we had a great deal to do with. In fact, we found it necessary to guillotine him only yesterday. Well, it's a strange thing, gentlemen, but when I saw that fellow flat on the lawn I had the greatest jump of my life. If I hadn't seen Louis Becker guillotined with my own eyes, I'd have sworn it was Louis Becker lying there in the grass. Then, of course, I remembered his twin brother in Germany, and following up the clue – ”

Ivan stopped, for nobody was listening to him. The Commandant and the doctor were both staring at Father Brown, who had sprung to his feet, and was holding his temples tight like a man in sudden and violent pain.

“Stop, stop, stop!” he cried; “stop talking a minute. Will God give me strength? Will Heaven help me! I used to be fairly good at thinking. Will my head split – or will it see? I see half – I only see half.”

He buried his head in his hands, while the other three could only go on staring at him.

When Father Brown's hands fell they showed a face quite fresh and serious, like a child's. He heaved a huge sigh[50], and said: “Let us get this said and done with as quickly as possible[51]. Look here, this will be the quickest way to convince you all of the truth.” He turned to the doctor. “Dr. Simon,” he said, “you have a strong head-piece, and I heard you this morning asking the five hardest questions about this business. Well, if you will ask them again, I will answer them.”

Simon's pince-nez dropped from his nose in his doubt and wonder, but he answered at once. “Well, the first question, you know, is why a man should kill another with a sabre at all when a man can kill with a bodkin?”

“A man cannot behead with a bodkin,” said Brown calmly, “and for this murder beheading was absolutely necessary.”

“Why?” asked O'Brien, with interest.

“And the next question?” asked Father Brown.

“Well, why didn't the man cry out or anything?” asked the doctor; “sabres in gardens are certainly unusual.”

“ Twigs,” said the priest gloomily, and turned to the window which looked on the scene of death. “No one saw the point of the twigs. Why should they lie on that lawn (look at it) so far from any tree? They were not snapped off; they were chopped off. The murderer occupied his enemy with some tricks with the sabre, showing how he could cut a branch in mid-air, or what-not[52]. Then, while his enemy bent down to see the result, a silent slash, and the head fell.”

“Well,” said the doctor slowly, “that seems possible enough. But my next two questions will confuse anyone.”

The priest still stood looking critically out of the window and waited.

“You know how all the garden was sealed up like an airtight chamber,” went on the doctor. “Well, how did the strange man get into the garden?”

Without turning round, the little priest answered: “There never was any strange man in the garden.”

There was a silence, and then a sudden laughter diminished the strain. The absurdity of Brown's remark made Ivan tease him.

“Oh!” he cried; “then we didn't lug a great fat corpse on to a sofa last night? He hadn't got into the garden, I suppose?”

“Got into the garden?” repeated Brown reflectively. “No, not entirely.”

“Just tell us all,” cried Simon, “a man gets into a garden, or he doesn't.”

“Not necessarily,” said the priest, with a faint smile. “What is the nest question, doctor?”

“I fancy you're ill,” exclaimed Dr. Simon sharply; “but I'll ask the next question if you like. How did Brayne get out of the garden?”

“He didn't get out of the garden,” said the priest, still looking out of the window.

“Didn't get out of the garden?” exploded Simon.

“Not completely,” said Father Brown.

“A man gets out of a garden, or he doesn't,” cried Simon.

“Not always,” said Father Brown.

Dr. Simon sprang to his feet impatiently. “I have no time to spare on such senseless talk,” he cried angrily.

“Doctor,” said the cleric very gently, “we have always got on very pleasantly together. For the sake of old friendship[53], stop and tell me your fifth question.”

The impatient Simon sank into a chair by the door and said briefly: “The head and shoulders were cut about in a queer way. It seemed to be done after death.”

“Yes,” said the motionless priest, “it was done to make you believe that the head belonged to the body.”

Father Brown had turned round at last, and stood against the window, with his face in shadow; but even in that shadow they could see it was pale as ashes. Nevertheless, he spoke quite sensibly.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “you did not find the strange body of Becker in the garden. You did not find any strange body in the garden. I still affirm that Becker was only partly present. Look here!” (pointing to the black bulk of the mysterious corpse) “you never saw that man in your lives. Did you ever see this man?”

He rapidly rolled away the bald, yellow head of the unknown, and put in its place the white-haired head beside it. And there, complete, unmistakable, lay Julius K. Brayne.

“The murderer,” went on Brown quietly, “hacked off his enemy's head and flung the sword far over the wall. But he was too clever to fling the sword only. He flung the head over the wall also. Then he had only to clap on another head to the corpse, and you all imagined a totally new man.”

“Clap on another head!” said O'Brien staring. “What other head? Heads don't grow on garden bushes, do they?”

“No,” said Father Brown, looking at his boots; “there is only one place where they grow. They grow in the basket of the guillotine, beside which the chief of police, Aristide Valentin, was standing not an hour before the murder. Oh, my friends, hear me a minute more before you tear me in pieces. Valentin is an honest man, if being mad for an arguable cause is honesty[54]. But did you never see in that cold, grey eye of his that he is mad! He would do anything, to break what he calls the superstition of the Cross[55]. He has fought for it and starved for it, and now he has murdered for it. Valentin heard a whisper that the millionaire Brayne was drifting to us; and that was quite a different thing. Brayne would give money to the impoverished Church of France; he would support six Nationalist newspapers like The Guillotine. He resolved to destroy the millionaire, and he did it as the greatest of detectives would commit his own crime. He abstracted the severed head[56] of Becker on some criminological excuse, and took it home in his official box. He had that last argument with Brayne, then led him out into the garden, talked about swordsmanship, used twigs and a sabre for illustration, and – ”

Ivan of the Scar sprang up. “You lunatic,” he yelled; “you'll go to my master now, if I take you by – 1”

“Why, I was going there,” said Brown heavily; “I must ask him to confess, and all that.”

Pushing the unhappy Brown before them like a hostage or sacrifice, they rushed together into the sudden stillness of Valentin's study.

The great detective sat at his desk apparently too occupied to hear their noisy entrance. They paused a moment, and then something in the look of that upright and elegant back made the doctor run forward suddenly. A touch and a glance showed him that there was a small box of pills at Valentin's elbow, and that Valentin was dead in his chair; and on the blind face of the suicide was more than the pride of Cato[57][58].

The Queer Feet

If you meet a member of that select club, “ The Twelve True Fishermen,” entering the Vernon Hotel for the annual club dinner, you will observe, as he takes off his overcoat, that his evening coat is green and not black. If you ask him why, he will probably answer that he does it to avoid being mistaken for a waiter.

If you were to meet a mild, hard-working little priest, named Father Brown, and were to ask him what he thought was the greatest luck of his life, he would probably reply that his best luck was at the Vernon Hotel, where he had prevented a crime and, perhaps, saved a soul, merely by listening to a few footsteps in a passage. But since it is very 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 Vernon Hotel at which The Twelve True Fishermen held their annual dinners was an institution which can only exist in an oligarchical society which has almost gone mad on good manners[59]. It was that topsy-turvy product. That is, it was a thing which paid[60] not by attracting people, but actually by turning people away. If there were a fashionable hotel in London which no man could enter who was under six foot, society would make up parties of six-foot men to dine in it. If there were an expensive restaurant which by a mere caprice of its proprietor was only open on Thursday afternoon, it would be crowded on Thursday afternoon. The Vernon Hotel stood, as if by accident, in the corner of a square in Belgravia[61]. It was a small hotel; and a very inconvenient one. But its inconveniences were considered as walls protecting a particular class. One inconvenience, in particular, was of vital importance: the fact that practically only twenty-four people could dine in the place at once. The only big dinner table was the celebrated terrace table, which stood on a sort of veranda overlooking one of the most exquisite old gardens in London, so even the twenty-four seats could only be enjoyed in warm weather. The existing owner of the hotel was a Jew named Lever; and he made nearly a million out of it, by making it difficult to get into. But this limitation of his enterprise in size matched the perfect performance. The wines and cooking were really as good as any in Europe, and the manners of the attendants exactly mirrored the fixed mood of the English upper class. The proprietor knew all his waiters like the fingers on his hand; there were only fifteen of them. It was much easier to become a Member of Parliament than to become a waiter in that hotel. Each waiter was trained in terrible silence and smoothness, as if he were a gentleman's servant. And, indeed, there was generally at least one waiter to every gentleman who dined.

The club of The Twelve True Fishermen would not have agreed to dine anywhere but in such a place; and would have been quite upset by the mere thought that any other club was even dining in the same building. On the occasion of their annual dinner the Fishermen were in the habit of demonstrating all their treasures, especially the celebrated set of fish knives and forks which were, as it were[62], the symbol of the society, being made of silver in the form of a fish, and each decorated with one large pearl. These were always laid out for the fish course, and the fish course was always the most magnificent in that magnificent meal. The society had a lot of ceremonies, but it had no history and no object; it was just so very aristocratic. You did not have to be anything in order to be one of the Twelve Fishers. It had been in existence twelve years. Its president was Mr. Audley. Its vice-president was the Duke of Chester.

Therefore, the reader may wonder how I came to know anything about it, and how so ordinary a person as my friend Father Brown came to find himself in that institution. As far as that is concerned, my story is simple, or even vulgar. As it happened, one of the waiters, an Italian, had been struck down with a paralytic stroke that afternoon; and his Jewish employer had agreed to send for the nearest Popish priest. With what the waiter confessed to Father Brown we are not concerned[63], for the reason that that cleric kept it to himself; but he was obliged to write out some note or statement. So Father Brown, with a meek impudence which he would have shown equally in Buckingham Palace, asked to be given a room and writing materials. Mr. Lever was torn in two. He was a kind man who disliked any difficulty or scene. At the same time the presence of one unusual stranger in his hotel that evening was like a speck of dirt on something just cleaned. There was never any anteroom in the Vernon Hotel, no people waiting in the hall, no customers coming in on chance. There were fifteen waiters. There were twelve guests. It would be as startling to find a new guest in the hotel that night as to find a new brother taking breakfast or tea in one's own family. Moreover, the priest's appearance was second-rate and his clothes muddy; a mere glimpse of him might speed up a crisis in the club. Mr. Lever at last hit on a smart plan[64]. When you enter (as you never will) the Vernon Hotel, you pass down a short passage, and come to the main vestibule and lounge which opens on your right into passages leading to the public rooms, and on your left to a similar passage pointing to the kitchens and offices of the hotel. Immediately on your left hand is the corner of a glass office, in which sat the representative of the proprietor, and just beyond the office, on the way to the servants' quarters, was the gentlemen's cloak room. But between the office and the cloak room was a small private room without other exit, sometimes used by the proprietor for delicate and important matters, such as lending a duke a thousand pounds or refusing to lend him sixpence. On that occasion, Mr. Lever permitted this holy place to be for about half an hour used by the priest. The story which Father Brown was writing down was very likely a much better story than this one, only it will never be known.

The time of darkness and dinner was drawing on; his little room was without a light. As Father Brown wrote the last and least essential part of his document, he caught himself writing to the rhythm of a regular noise outside. When he became conscious of the thing he found what it was: just the ordinary patter of feet passing the door, which in an hotel was no very unlikely matter. Nevertheless, he stared at the darkened ceiling, and listened to the sound. After he had listened for a few seconds, he got to his feet and listened intently, with his head a little on one side. Then he sat down again and buried his brow in his hands, now not merely listening, but listening and thinking also.

There was something very strange about the footsteps. There were no other steps. It was a very silent house, for the guests went at once to their own apartments, and the well-trained waiters were told to be invisible until they were wanted. Nothing irregular could happen there. But these footsteps were so odd that one could not decide to call them regular or irregular.

First, there came rapid little steps, such as a light man might make in winning a walking race. At a certain point they stopped and changed to a sort of slow, swinging stamp. The moment the last stamp had died away, the run of light, hurrying feet would come again, and then again the thud of the heavier walking. It was certainly the same pair of boots, because they had a small but unmistakable creak in them. Father Brown had the kind of head that cannot help asking questions; and on this apparently trivial question his head almost split. He had seen men run in order to jump. But why on earth should a man run in order to walk? Or, again, why should he walk in order to run? The man was either walking very fast down one-half of the corridor in order to walk very slow down the other half; or he was walking very slow at one end to have the pleasure of walking fast at the other. Neither suggestion seemed to make much sense. His brain was growing darker and darker, like his room.

Yet, as he began to think steadily, his thoughts grew more vivid; he began to have a vision of the fantastic feet hopping along the corridor in unnatural or symbolic attitudes. Was it a religious dance? Or some entirely new kind of scientific exercise? Father Brown began to ask himself what the steps suggested. Taking the slow step first: it certainly was not the step of the proprietor. Men of his type walk with a rapid waddle[65], or they sit still. It could not be any servant or messenger waiting for directions. It did not sound like it. That heavy, springy step belonged to a gentleman of Western Europe, and probably one who had never worked for his living.

Just as he came to this conclusion, the step changed to the quicker one, and ran past the door. This step was much swifter and it was also much more noiseless, almost as if the man were walking on tiptoe. Surely he had heard that strange, swift walking somewhere. Suddenly he sprang to his feet with a new idea in his head, and walked to the door. His room had no direct exit to the passage. He tried the door into the office, and found it locked. Then he looked at the window, now purple of the sunset, and for an instant he smelt evil[66] as a dog smells rats.

He remembered that the proprietor had told him that he should lock the door, and would come later to set him free. He reminded himselfthat there was just enough light left to finish his own proper work. He had written for about twenty minutes, then suddenly he sat upright. He had heard the strange feet once more.

This time they had a third oddity. Previously the unknown man had walked, this time he ran. Whoever was coming was a very strong, active man. Yet, when the sound had reached the office, it suddenly changed again to the slow gait.

Father Brown flung down his paper, and, knowing the office door to be locked, went at once into the cloak room on the other side. The attendant of this place was temporarily absent, probably because the only guests were at dinner. After groping through a grey forest of overcoats, he found that the cloak room ended up with a half-door, like a counter, across which we have all handed umbrellas and received tickets. There was a light above the arch of this opening in which he saw the man who stood outside the cloak room in the corridor.

He was an elegant, tall man in very plain evening dress. His face was dark and vivacious, the face of a foreigner. His figure was good, his manners confident; a critic could only say that his black coat even bulged and bagged in an odd way. The moment he caught sight of Brown's black silhouette against the sunset, he tossed down a scrap of paper with a number and called out with amiable authority: “I want my hat and coat, please; I find I have to go away at once.”

Father Brown took the paper without a word, and obediently went to look for the coat. He brought it and laid it on the counter; meanwhile, the strange gentleman who had been feeling in his waistcoat pocket, said laughing: “I haven't got any silver; you can keep this.” And he threw down half a sovereign, and took his coat.

Father Brown's figure remained quite dark and still; but in that instant he had lost his head. His head was always most valuable when he had lost it. In such moments he put two and two together and made four million.

“I think, sir,” he said civilly, “that you have some silver in your pocket.”

The tall gentleman stared. “Hang it[67],” he cried, “if I choose to give you gold, why should you complain?”

“Because silver is sometimes more valuable than gold,” said the priest mildly; “that is, in large quantities.”

The stranger looked at him curiously. Then he looked still more curiously up the passage towards the main entrance. Then he looked back at Brown again, and then he looked very carefully at the window beyond Brown's head, still coloured with the sunset. Then he seemed to make up his mind[68]. He put one hand on the counter, jumped over as easily as an acrobat and stood above the priest, putting one tremendous hand upon his collar.

“Stand still,” he said, in a whisper. “I don't want to threaten you, but —”

“I do want to threaten you,” said Father Brown, “I want to threaten you with the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched[69].”

“You're a strange sort of cloak-room clerk,” said the other.

“I am a priest, Monsieur Flambeau,” said Brown, “and I am ready to hear your confession.”

The other stood staring for a few moments, and then staggered back into a chair.

The first two courses of the dinner of The Twelve True Fishermen had gone with success. There was a tradition in the club that the hors d'oeuvres should be various to the point of madness. There was also a tradition that the soup course should be light to prepare the guests for the coming feast of fish. The talk was about politics and politicians. Mr. Audley, the chairman, was an amiable, elderly man who was a kind of symbol of the society. He had never done anything – not even anything wrong. He was simply in the thing; no party could ignore him, and if he had wished to be in the Cabinet he certainly would have been put there. The Duke of Chester, the vice-president, was a young and rising politician. That is to say, he was a pleasant youth, with flat, fair hair and a freckled face, with moderate intelligence and enormous estates. In public his appearances were always successful and his principle was simple enough. In private, he was simply quite pleasantly frank and silly, like a schoolboy.

As has been remarked, there were twenty-four seats at the terrace table, and only twelve members of the club. Thus they could occupy the terrace in the most luxurious style, along the inner side of the table, with no one opposite, enjoying a view of the garden, the colours of which were still vivid. The chairman sat in the centre of the line, and the vice-president at the right-hand end of it. When the twelve guests first walked into their seats it was the custom for all the fifteen waiters to stand lining the wall, while the fat proprietor stood and bowed to the club with radiant surprise, as if he had never heard of them before. But only the one or two stayed to collect and distribute the plates rushing about in deathly silence. Mr. Lever, the proprietor, of course had disappeared long before. But when the fish course was being brought on, there was a sort of his shadow in the air, which told that he was nearby. The sacred fish course consisted (to the eyes of the vulgar) in a sort of monstrous pudding, about the size and shape of a wedding cake, in which some considerable number of interesting fishes had finally lost the shapes which God had given to them. The Twelve True Fishermen took up their celebrated fish knives and fish forks, and approached it as gravely as if every inch of the pudding cost as much as the silver fork it was eaten with. This course was dealt with in silence; and it was only when his plate was nearly empty that the young duke made the ritual remark: “They can't do this anywhere but here.”

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Примечания

1

Харидж, порт на берегу Северного моря, в 120 км от Лондона.

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2

Брюссель, столица Бельгии.

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3

Гент, город в Бельгии.

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4

воспользоваться

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5

Евхаристический конгресс

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6

Рю де Риволи, центральная улица Парижа.

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7

тут же / на месте

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8

Железнодорожная станция в Лондоне.

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9

Виктория, один из вокзалов Лондона.

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10

Сохо, торгово-развлекательный квартал в центре Лондона.

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11

Эдгар По (1809–1849), американский писатель.

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12

наугад

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13

пришёл на выручку

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14

копуша

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15

явная наглость

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16

4 пенса за фунт

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17

Здесь и далее – примеры лондонского просторечия «кокни».

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18

широкополая шляпа (у английских духовных лиц)

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19

Хэмстед-Хит, лесопарковая зона на севере Лондона.

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20

смотреть в оба / быть начеку

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21

матовое, узорчатое стекло

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22

Послушайте!

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23

4 шиллинга

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24

сказал себе под нос / пробормотал

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25

сбежавшие из сумасшедшего дома

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26

Хэмстед-Хит, лесопарковая зона на севере Лондона.

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27

поступит по-своему

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28

вести на верёвочке

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29

он ломал голову в поисках малейшей причины

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30

Не укради

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31

я могу вас распотрошить, как соломенную куклу

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32

тихо смеялся

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33

ты, репоголовый

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34

старый трюк

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35

поневоле узнаёшь / учишься

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36

На то мы и священники.

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37

человек, который только и делает, что слушает о реальных человеческих прегрешениях

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38

отвесил Валантэну глубокий поклон

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39

друг мой

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40

с непокрытой головой

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41

делал последние приготовления

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42

засвидетельствовать почтение

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43

бытовая проблема

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44

заигрывать с к.-л.

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45

топор палача

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46

my boy (ирландский диалект)

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47

обвиняется в убийстве

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48

Пропал. Смылся. Испарился.

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49

связаны своим обещанием

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50

Он сделал глубокий вдох

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51

Давайте покончим с этим как можно быстрее.

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52

или что-то в этом духе

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53

ради старой дружбы

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54

если можно считать порядочным человека, свихнувшегося на весьма спорном деле

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55

суеверие / религиозный предрассудок Креста

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56

Он извлёк отрубленную голову

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57

вы сейчас же пойдёте к моему хозяину, даже если мне придётся вас…

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58

Катон, военный трибун в Македонии. Не желая смириться с поражением, покончил с собой (46 до н. э.).

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59

помешались на хороших манерах

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60

окупаться

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61

Белгравия, аристократический район Лондона.

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62

так сказать

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63

Мы не знаем, в чём официант покаялся отцу Брауну

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64

придумал блестящий план

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65

ходят вразвалочку

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66

почуял злодейство

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67

Чёрт!

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68

решиться, принять решение

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69

где червь неумолимо точит их и огонь никогда не угаснет (библ.)

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