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The Innocence of Father Brown_Part 1 · The Innocence of Father Brown

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The blue cross, between the silver ribbon of mourning and
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the green, glittering ribbon of sea. The boat touched Harwitch
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and let loose a swarm of folk, like flies, among
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: whom the man we must follow was by no means conspicuous,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: nor wished to be. There was nothing notable about him
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: except a slight contrast between the holiday gayety of his
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: clothes and the official gravity of his face. His clothes
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: included a slight, pale gray jacket, a white waistcoat, and
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: a silver straw hat with a gray blue ribbon. His
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: lean face was dark by contrast, and ended in a
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: curt black beard that looked Spanish and suggested an Elizabethan rough.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: He was smoking a cigarette with the seriousness of an idler.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: There was nothing about him to indicate the fact that
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the gray jacket covered a loaded revolver, that the white
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: waistcoat covered a police card, or that the straw hat
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: covered one of the most powerful intellects in Europe. For
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: this was Valentine himself, the head of the Paris Police
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: and the most famous investigator of the world, and he
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: was coming from Brussels to London to make the greatest
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: arrest of the century. Flambeaux was in England. The police
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: of three countries had tracked the great criminal at last
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: from Ghent to Brussels, from Brussels to the hook of Holland,
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  Speaker 1: and it was conjectured that he would take some advantage
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: of the unfamiliarity and confusion of the Eucharistic Congress then
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: taking place in London. Probably he would travel as some
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: minor clerk or secretary connected with it. But of course
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Valentine could not be certain. Nobody could be certain about Flambeau.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: It is many years now since this colossus of crime
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: suddenly ceased, keeping the world in a turmoil. And when
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: he ceased, as they said after the death of Roland,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: there was a great quiet upon the earth. But in
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: his best days, I mean, of course his worst, Flambeau
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: was a figure as statuesque and international as the Kaiser.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Almost every morning the daily paper announced that he had
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: escaped the consequences of one extraordinary crime by committing another.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: He was a gascon of gigantic stature and bodily daring,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: and the wildest tales were told of his outbursts of
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: athletic humor. How he turned the Jews instruction upside down,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: and stood him on his head to clear his mind.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: How he ran down the Rue de Rivolis with a
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: policeman under each arm. It is due to him to
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: say that his fantastic physical strength was generally employed in
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: such bloodless though undignified scenes. His real crimes were chiefly
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: those of ingenious and wholesale robbery. But each of his
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: thefts was almost a new sin, and would make a
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: story by itself. It was he who ran the great
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Tyrolean dairy company in London, with no dairies, no cows,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: no carts, no milk, but with some thousand subscribers. These
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: he served by the simple operation of moving the little
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: milk cans outside people's doors to the doors of his
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: own customers. It was he who had kept up an
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: unaccountable and close correspondence with a young lady whose whole
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: letter bag was intercepted by the extraordinary trick of photographing
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: his messages infinitesimally small upon the slides of a microscope.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: A sweeping simplicity, however, marked many of his experiments. It
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: is said that he once repainted all the numbers in
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: a street in the dead of night, merely to divert
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: one traveler into a trap. It is quite certain that
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: he invented a portable pillar box, which he put up
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: at corners in quiet suburbs on the chance of strangers
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: dropping postal orders into it. Lastly, he was known to
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: be a startling act. Despite his huge figure. He could
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  Speaker 1: leap like a grasshopper and melt into the tree tops
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: like a monkey. Hence, the Great Valentine, when he set
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: out to find Flambeaux, was perfectly aware that his adventures
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  Speaker 1: would not end when he had found him. But how
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  Speaker 1: was he to find him? On this the Great Valentin's
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: ideas were still in process of settlement. There was one
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  Speaker 1: thing which Flambeaux, with all his dexterity of disguise, could
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: not cover, and that was his singular height. If Valentine's
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: quick eye had caught a tall apple woman, a tall grenadier,
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  Speaker 1: or even a tolerably tall duchess, he might have arrested
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  Speaker 1: them on the spot. But all along his train there
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: was nobody that could be a disguised Flambeaux any more
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: than a cat could be a disguised giraffe. About the
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: people on the boat, he had already satisfied himself and
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the people picked up at Harwich or on the journey
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: limited themselves with certainty to six. There was a short
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  Speaker 1: railway official traveling up to the terminus. Three fairly short
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  Speaker 1: market gardeners picked up two stations afterwards, one very short
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  Speaker 1: widow lady going up from a small Essex town, and
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: a very short Roman Catholic priest going up from a
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: small Essex village. When it came to the last case,
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  Speaker 1: Valentine gave it up and almost laughed. The little priest
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: was so much the essence of those Eastern flats. He
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: had a face as round and dull as a Norfolk dumpling.
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  Speaker 1: He had eyes as empty as the North Sea. He
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  Speaker 1: had several round paper parcels, which he was quite incapable
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  Speaker 1: of collecting. The Eucharistic Congress had doubtless sucked out of
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: their local stagnation. Many such creatures, blind and helpless, like moles, disinterred.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Valentine was a skeptic in the severe style of France,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: and could have no love for priests, but he could
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  Speaker 1: have pity for them, and this one might have provoked
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: pity in anybody. He had a large, shabby umbrella which
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: constantly fell on the floor, he did not seem to
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  Speaker 1: know which was the right end of his return ticket.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: He explained, with a moon calf's simplicity to everybody in
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  Speaker 1: the carriage that he had to be careful because he
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: had something made of real silver with blue stones in
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  Speaker 1: one of his brown paper parcels. His quaint blending of
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: sex flatness with saintly simplicity continuously amused the Frenchman till
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: the priest arrived somehow at Tottenham with all his parcels
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  Speaker 1: and came back for his umbrella. When he did the last,
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  Speaker 1: Valentine even had the good nature to warn him not
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  Speaker 1: to take care of the silver by telling everybody about it.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: But to whomever he talked, Valentine kept his eye open
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  Speaker 1: for someone else. He looked out steadily for anyone rich
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: or poor, male or female who was well up to
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  Speaker 1: six feet, for Flambeaux was four inches above it. He
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: alighted at Liverpool Street, however, quite conscientiously, secure that he
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: had not missed the criminal so far. He then went
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: to Scotland Yard to regularize his position and arranged for
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: help in case of need. He then lit another cigarette
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: and went for a long stroll in the streets of London.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: As he was walking in the streets and squares beyond Victoria,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: he paused suddenly and stood. It was a quaint, quiet square,
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  Speaker 1: very typical of London, full of an accidental stillness. The
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  Speaker 1: tall flat houses round looked at once prosperous and uninhabited.
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  Speaker 1: The square of shrubbery in the center looked as deserted
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  Speaker 1: as a green pacific islet. One of the four sides
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: was much higher than the rest, like a dais and
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: the line of this side was broken by one of
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  Speaker 1: London's admirable accidents, a restaurant that looked as if it
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  Speaker 1: had strayed from Soho. It was an unreasonably attractive object,
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  Speaker 1: with dwarf plants in pots and longs striped blinds of lemon,
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  Speaker 1: yellow and white. It stood specially high above the street
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  Speaker 1: and in the usual patchwork way of London. A flight
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  Speaker 1: of steps from the street ran up to meet the
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  Speaker 1: front door, almost as a fire escape might run up
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  Speaker 1: to a first floor window. Valentine stood and smoked in
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  Speaker 1: front of the yellow, white blinds, and considered them long.
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  Speaker 1: The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.
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  Speaker 1: A few clouds in heaven do come together into the
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  Speaker 1: staring shape of one human eye. A tree does stand
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  Speaker 1: up in the landscape of a doubtful journey, in the
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  Speaker 1: exact and elaborate shape of a note of interrogation. I
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  Speaker 1: have seen both these things myself within the last few days.
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  Speaker 1: Nelson does die in the instant of victory, and a
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  Speaker 1: man named Williams does quite accidentally murder a man named Williamson.
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  Speaker 1: It sounds like a sort of infanticide. In short, there
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: is in life an element of elfin coincidence, which people
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: reckoning on the prosaic may perpetually miss. As it has
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: been well expressed in the paradox of Poe, wisdom should
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: reckon on the unforeseen aristide. Valentine was unfathomably French, and
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the French intelligence is intelligence, specially and solely. He was
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  Speaker 1: not a thinking machine, for that is a brainless phrase
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  Speaker 1: of modern fatalism and materialism. A machine only is a
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  Speaker 1: machine because it cannot think. But he was a thinking
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  Speaker 1: man and a plain man at the same same time.
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  Speaker 1: All his wonderful successes that looked like conjuring had been
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  Speaker 1: gained by plotting logic, by clear and commonplace French thought.
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  Speaker 1: The French electrify the world, not by starting any paradox.
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  Speaker 1: They electrify it by carrying out a truism. They carry
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  Speaker 1: a truism so far as in the French Revolution. But
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: exactly because Valentine understood reason, he understood the limits of reason.
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  Speaker 1: Only a man who knows nothing of motors talks of
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  Speaker 1: motoring without petrol. Only a man who knows nothing of
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  Speaker 1: reason talks of reasoning without strong, undisputed first principles. Here
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  Speaker 1: he had no strong first principles. Flambeau had been at Harwich,
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  Speaker 1: and if he was in London at all, he might
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  Speaker 1: be anything from a tall tramp on Wimbledon Common to
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  Speaker 1: a tall toastmaster at the Hotel Metropol. In such a
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  Speaker 1: naked state of nascience, Valentine had a view and a
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  Speaker 1: method of his own. In such cases, he reckoned on
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  Speaker 1: the unforeseen. In such cases, when he could not follow
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  Speaker 1: the train of the reasonable, he coldly and carefully followed
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  Speaker 1: the train of the unreasonable. Instead of going to the
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  Speaker 1: right places banks, police stations, rendezvous, he systematically went to
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  Speaker 1: the wrong places, knocked at every house, turned down every
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  Speaker 1: cul de sac, and went up every lane blocked with rubbish,
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  Speaker 1: went round every crescent that led him uselessly out of
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  Speaker 1: the way. He defended this crazy course quite logically. He
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  Speaker 1: said that if one had a clue, this was the
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  Speaker 1: worst way, but if one had no clue at all,
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  Speaker 1: it was the best, because there was just the chance
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  Speaker 1: that any oddity that caught the eye of the pursuer
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  Speaker 1: might be the same that had caught the eye of
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  Speaker 1: the pursued. Somewhere a man must begin, and it had
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: better be just where another man might stop. Something about
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  Speaker 1: that flight of steps up to the shop, something about
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the quietude and quaintness of the restaurant, roused all the
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  Speaker 1: detective's rare romantic fantasy and made him resolve to strike
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  Speaker 1: at random. He went up the steps, and, sitting down
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  Speaker 1: at a table by the window, asked for a cup
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  Speaker 1: of black coffee. It was halfway through the morning and
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  Speaker 1: he had not breakfasted. The slight litter of other breakfast
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: stood about on the table to remind him of his hunger,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: and adding a poached egg to his order, he proceeded
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: musingly to shake some white sugar into his coffee, thinking
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  Speaker 1: all the time about Flambeaux. He remembered how Flambeaux had
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: escaped once by a pair of nail scissors, and once
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  Speaker 1: by a house on fire, once by having to pay
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: for an unstamped letter, and once by getting people to
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: look through a telescope at a comet that might destroy
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  Speaker 1: the world. He thought his detective brain as good as
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: the criminals, which was true. He fully realized the disadvantage.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: The criminal is the creative artist. The detective only the critic,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: he said with a sour smile, and lifted his coffee
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  Speaker 1: cup to his lips slowly and put it down very quickly.
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  Speaker 1: He had put salt in it. He looked at the
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: vessel from which the silvery powder had come. It was
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: certainly a sugar basin, as unmistakably meant for sugar as
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: a champagne bottle for champagne. He wondered why they should
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: keep salt in it. He looked to see if there
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  Speaker 1: were any more orthodox vessels. Yes, there were two salt cellars,
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  Speaker 1: quite full. Perhaps there was some specialty in the condiment
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: in the salt cellars. He tasted it. It was sugar.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Then he looked round at the restaurant with a refreshed
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: air of interest, to see if there were any other
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: traces of that singular artistic taste, which puts the sugar
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  Speaker 1: in salt cellars and the salt in the sugar basin.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Except for an odd splash of some dark fluid on
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  Speaker 1: one of the white papered walls, the whole place appeared deep, cheerful,
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  Speaker 1: and ordinary. He rang the bell for the waiter. When
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: that official hurried up, fuzzy haired and somewhat blear eyed
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: at that early hour, the detective, who was not without
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: an appreciation of the simpler forms of humor, asked him
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: to taste the sugar and see if it was up
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: to the high reputation of the hotel. The result was
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: that the waiter yawned suddenly and woke up. Do you
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: play this delicate joke on your customers every morning, inquired Valentine.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Does changing the salt and sugar never pall on you
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: as a jest? The waiter, when this irony grew clearer, stammeringly,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: assured him that the establishment had certainly no such intention.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: It must be a most curious mistake. He picked up
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: the sugar basin and looked at it. He picked up
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: the salt cellar and looked at that, his face growing
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: more and more bewildered. At last, he abruptly excused himself, and,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: hurrying away, returned in a few seconds with the proprietor.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: The proprietor also examined the sugar basin and then the
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: salt cellar. The proprietor also looked bewildered. Suddenly, the waiter
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: seemed to grow inarticulate with a rush of words. I sink,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: he stuttered eagerly. I think it is those two clergymen.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: What two clergymen? The two clergymen, said the waiter that
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: threw soup at the wall. Through soup at the wall,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: repeated Valentin, feeling sure this must be some singular Italian metaphor. Yes, yes,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: said the attendant excitedly, and pointed at the dark splash
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: on the white paper. Threw it over there on the wall.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Valentine looked his query at the proprietor, who came to
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: his rescue with fuller reports. Yes, sir, he said, it's
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: quite true, though I don't suppose it has anything to
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: do with the sugar and salt. Two clergymen came in
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: and drank soup here very early, as soon as the
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: shutters were taken down. They were both very quiet, respectable people.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: One of them paid the bill and went out. The other,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: who seemed a slower coach altogether, was some minutes longer
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: getting his things together, but he went at last. Only
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: the instant before he stepped into the street, he deliberately
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: picked up his cup, which he had only half emptied,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: and through the soup slap on the wall. I was
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: in the back room myself, and so was the waiter,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: so I could only rush out in time to find
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: the wall splash and the shop empty. It don't do
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: any particular damage, but it was confounded cheek, and I
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: tried to catch the men in the street. They were
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: too far off, though I only noticed they went round
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: the next corner into Karstair Street. The detective was on
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: his feet, hat settled and stick in hand. He had
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: already decided that in the universal darkness of his mind
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: he could only follow the first odd finger that pointed,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: and this finger was odd enough. Paying his bill and
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: clashing the glass doors behind him, he was soon swinging
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: round into the other street. It was fortunate that even
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: in such fevered moments, his eye was cool and quick.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Something in a shop front went by him like a
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: mere flash. Yet he went back to look at it.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: The shop was a popular greengrocer and fruiterer's, an array
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: of goods set out in the open air and plainly
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: ticketed with their names and prices. In the two most
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: prominent compartments were two heaps of oranges and of nuts, respectively.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: On the heap of nuts lay a scrap of cardboard,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: on which was written in bold blue chalk, best Tangerine
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Oranges two a penny. On the oranges was the equally
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: clear and exact description finest brazil nuts fourpenny a pound.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Monsieur Valentine looked at these two placards and fancied he
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: had met this highly subtle form of humor before, and
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: somewhat recently. He drew the attention of the red faced fruiterer,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: who was looking rather solely up and down the street,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: to this inaccuracy in his advertisements. The fruiterer said nothing
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: but sharply put each card into its proper place. The detective,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: leaning elegantly on his walking cane, continued to scrutinize the shop.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: At last, he said, pray, excuse my apparent irrelevance, my
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: good sir, but I should like to ask you a
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: question in experimental psychology and the association of ideas. The
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: red faced shop man regarded him with an eye of menace,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: but he continued gaily swinging his cane. Why, he pursued,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: why are two tickets wrongly placed in a greengrocer's shop
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: like a shovel hat that has come to London for
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: a holiday, Or, in case I do not make myself clear,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: what is the mystical association which connects the idea of
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: nuts marked as oranges with the idea of two clergymen,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: one tall and the other short. The eyes of the
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: tradesman stood out of his head like a snail's. He
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: really seemed for an instant likely to fling himself upon
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: the stranger. At last, he stammered angrily, I don't know
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: what you have to do with it, but if you're
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: one of their friends, you can tell em for me
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: that I'll knock their silly heads off. Parsons are no
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: parsons if they upset my apples again, indeed, asked the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: detective with great sympathy, did they upset your apples? One
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: of 'em did, said the heated shopman. Roll them all
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: over the street. I'd have caught the fool, but for
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: havin to pick em up. Which way did these parsons go,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: asked Valentin. Up that second road on the left hand side,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and then across the square, said the other. Promptly, thanks,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: replied Valentin, and vanished like a fairy. On the other
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: side of the second square, he found a policeman and said,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: this is urgent constable. Have you seen two clergymen in
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: shovel hats. The policeman began to chuckle heavily, I have, sir,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and if you areked me. One of em was drunk.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: He stood in the middle of the road that bewildered
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: that which way did they go? Snapped Valentine. They took
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: one of them yellow buses over there, answered the man
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: them that go to Hampstead. Valentin produced his official card
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: and said, very rapidly, call up two of your men
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: to come with me in pursuit, and crossed the road
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: with such contagious energy that the ponderous policeman was moved
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: to almost agile obedience. In a minute and a half,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: the French detective was joined on the opposite pavement by
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: an inspector and a man in plain clothes. Well, Sir
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: began the four with smiling importance and what may Valentin
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: pointed suddenly with his cane. I'll tell you on the
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: top of that omnibus, he said, and was darting and
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: dodging across the tangle of the traffic. When all three
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: sat panting on the top seats of the yellow vehicle,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: the inspector said, we could go four times as quick
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: in a taxi. Quite true, replied their leader placidly. If
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: we only had an idea of where we are going. Well,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: where are you going, asked the other, staring Valentin smoked
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: frowningly for a few seconds, then removing his cigarette, he said,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: if you know what a man's doing, get in front
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: of him. But if you want to guess what he's doing,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: keep behind him. Stray when he strays, stop when he stops.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Travel as slowly as he Then you may see what
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: he saw and may act as he acted. All we
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: can do is to keep our eyes skinned for a
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: queer thing. What sort of queer thing do you mean,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: asked the inspector. Any sort of queer thing, answered Valentine,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: and relapsed into obstinate silence. The yellow omnibus crawled up
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the northern roads for what seemed like hours on end,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: the great detective would not explain further, and perhaps his
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: assistants felt as silent and growing doubt of his errand
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: perhaps also they felt a silent and growing desire for lunch.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: For the hours crept long past the normal luncheon hour,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: and the long roads of the North London suburbs seemed
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: to shoot out into length after length, like an infernal telescope.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: It was one of those journeys on which a man
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: prepared peturally feels that now, at last he must have
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: come to the end of the universe, and then he
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: finds he has only come to the beginning of Tufnell Park.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: London died away in draggled taverns and dreary scrubs, and
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: then was unaccountably born again in blazing high streets and
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: blatant hotels. It was like passing through thirteen separate vulgar cities,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: all just touching each other. But though the winter twilight
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: was already threatening the road ahead of them, the Parisian
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: detectives still sat silent and watchful, eyeing the frontage of
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: the streets that slid by on either side. By the
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: time they had left Camden Town behind, the policemen were
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: nearly asleep. At least, they gave something like a jump
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: as Valentine leapt erect struck a hand on each man's
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: shoulder and shouted to the driver to stop. They tumbled
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: down the steps into the road without realizing why they
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: had been dislodged. When they looked round for enlightenment, they
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: found Valentine triumphantly pointing his finger towards a window on
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: the left side of the road. It was a large
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: window forming part of the long facade of a gilt
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: and palatial public house. It was the part reserved for
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: respectable dining and labeled restaurant. This window, like all the
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: rest along the frontage of the hotel, was of frosted
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: and figured glass, But in the middle of it was
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: a big black smash, like a star in the ice.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Our queue at last, cried Valentine, waving his stick, the
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: place with the broken window. What window? What queue? Asked
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: his principal assistant. Why, what proof is there that this
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: has anything to do with them? Valentin almost broke his
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: bamboo stick with rage. Proof He cried, good God, the
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: man is looking for proof. Why, of course, the chances
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: are twenty to one that it has nothing to do
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: with them. But what else can we do? Don't you see?
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: We must either follow one wild possibility or else go
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: home to bed. He banged his way into the restaurant,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: followed by his companions, and they were soon seated at
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: a late luncheon at a little table and looked at
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: the star of smashed glass from the inside. Not that
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: it was very informative to them even then. Got your
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: window broken, I see, said Valentin to the waiter, as
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: he paid the bill. Yes, sir, answered the attendant, bending
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: busily over the change, to which Valentin is silently added
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: an enormous tip. The waiter straightened himself with mild but
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: unmistakable animation. Ah, yes, sir, he said. Very odd thing that, sir. Indeed,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: tell us about it, said the detective, with careless curiosity. Well,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: two gents in black came in, said the waiter, Two
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: of those foreign parsons that are running about. They had
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: a cheap and quiet little lunch, and one of them
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: paid for it and went out. The other was just
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: going out to join him when I looked at my
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: chains again and found he'd paid me more than three
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: times too much. Here, I says to the chap who
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: was nearly out of the door. You've paid too much, oh,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: he says, Very cool, have we yes, I says, and
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: picks up the bill to show him. Well, that was
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: a knock out. What do you mean, asked his interlocutor. Well,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I'd have sworn on seven bibles that i'd put four
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: shillings on that bill, But now I saw i'd put
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: fourteen shillings as plain as print. Well, cried Valentin, moving
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: slowly but with burning eyes. And then the parson at
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: the door. He says, all serene, sorry to confuse your accounts,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: but it'll pay for the window. What window, I says,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: The one I'm going to break, he says, and smashed
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: that blessed pain with his umbrella. All three inquirers made
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: an exclamation, and the inspector said, under his breath, are
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: we after escaped lunatics? The waiter went on with some
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: relish for the ridiculous story. I was so knocked silly
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: for a second, I couldn't do anything. The man marched
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: out of the place and joined his friend just round
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: the Then they went so quick up Bullock Street that
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: I couldn't catch them, though I ran round the bars
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: to do it. Bullock street, said the detective, and shot
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: up that thoroughfare as quickly as the strange couple. He pursued.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Their journey now took them through bare brick ways like tunnels,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: streets with few lights, and even with few windows, streets
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: that seemed built out of the blank backs of everything
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: and everywhere. Dusk was deepening, and it was not easy
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: even for the London policemen to guess in what direction
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: they were treading. The inspector, however, was pretty certain that
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: they would eventually strike some part of Hampstead Heath. Abruptly,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: one bulging gas lit window broke the blue twilight like
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: a bull's eye lantern, and Valentine stopped an instant before
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: a little garrish sweet stuff shop. After an instant's hesitation,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: he went in. He stood amid the gaudy colors of
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: the confectionery with entire gravity, and bought thirteen chocolate cigars
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: with a certain care. He was clearly preparing an opening,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: but he did not need one. An angular elderly young
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: woman in the shop had regarded his elegant appearance with
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: a merely automatic inquiry, but when she saw the door
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: behind him blocked with the blue uniform of the inspector.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Her eyes seemed to wake up. Oh, she said, if
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: you've come about that parcel, I've sent it off already. Parcel,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: repeated Valentine, and it was his turn to look, inquiring.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: I mean the parcel the gentleman left the clergy gentleman,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: for goodness sake, said Valentine, leaning forward with his first
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: real confession of eagerness. For Heaven's sake, tell us what
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: happened exactly well, said the woman, a little doubtfully. The
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: clergyman came in about half an hour ago and bought
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: some peppermints and talked a bit, and then went off
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: towards the heath. But a second after one of them
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: runs back into the shop and says, if I left
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: a parcel, well, I looked everywhere and couldn't see one.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: So he says, never mind, but if it should turn up,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: please post it to this address. And he left me
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: in a dress and a shilling for my trouble. And
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: sure enough, though I thought I'd looked everywhere, I found
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: he'd left a brown paper parcel. So I posted it
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: to the place. He said, I can't remember the address now.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: It was somewhere in Westminster. But as the thing seemed
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: so important, I thought perhaps the police had come about it.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: So they have, said Valentine. Shortly is Amstead Heath near here?
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Straight on for fifteen minutes, said the woman, and you'll
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: come right out on the open. Valentin sprang out of
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: the shop and began to run. The other detectives followed
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: him at a reluctant trot. The street they threaded was
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: so narrow and shut in by shadows that when they
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: came out unexpectedly into the void common and vast sky,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: they were startled to find the evening still so light
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: and clear. A perfect dome of peacock green sank into
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: gold amid the blackening trees and the dark violet distances.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: The glowing green tint was just deep enough to pick
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: out in points of crystal one or two stars. All
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: that was left of the daylight lay in a golden
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: glitter across the edge of Hampstead and that popular hollow
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: which is called the Vale of Health. The holidaymakers who
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: roamed this region had not wholly dispersed. A few couple
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: sat shapelessly on benches, and here and there a distant
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: girl still shrieked in one of the swings, the glory
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: of heaven deepened and darkened around the sublime vulgarity of man,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: And standing on the slope and looking across the valley,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Valentine beheld the thing which he sought. Among the black
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: and breaking groups in that distance was one especially black,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: which did not break. A group of two figures, clerically clad.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Though they seemed as small as insects. Valentin could see
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: that one of them was much smaller than the other,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: though the other had a student stoop and an inconspicuous manner.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: He could see that the man was well over six
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: feet high. He shut his teeth and went forward, whirling
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: his stick impatiently. By the time he had substantially diminished
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: the distance and magnified the two black figures as in
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: a vast microscope, he had perceived something else, something which
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: startled him, and yet which he had somehow expected. Whoever
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: was the tall priest, there could be no doubt about
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: the identity of the short one. It was his friend
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: from the harwitch train, the stumpy little Cure of Essex,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: whom he had warned about his brown paper parcels. Now,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: so far as this went, everything fitted in. Finally, and
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: rationally enough, Valentin had learned by his inquiries that morning
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: that a Father Brown from Essex was bringing up a
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: silver cross with sapphires, a relic of considerable value, to
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: show some of the foreign priests at the Congress. This
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: undoubtedly was the silver with blue stones, and Father Brown
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: undoubtedly was the little greenhorn in the train. Now, there
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: was nothing wonderful about the fact that what Valentine had
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: found out, Flambeau had also found out. Flambeaux found out everything. Also,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: there was nothing wonderful in the fact that when Flambeaux
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: heard of a sapphire cross he should try to steal it.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: That was the most natural thing in all natural history.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: And most certainly there was nothing wonderful about the fact
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: that Flambeau should have it all his own way with
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: such a silly sheep as the man with the umbrella
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: and the parcels. He was the sort of man whom
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: anybody could lead on a string to the North Pole.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: It was not surprising that an actor like Flambeaux, dressed
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: as another priest, could lead him to Hampstead Heath. So far,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: the crime seemed clear enough, and while the detective pitied
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: the priest for his helplessness. He almost despised lamb Beau
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: for condescending to so gullible a victim. But when Valentine
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: thought of all that had happened in between, of all
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: that had led him to his triumph, he racked his
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: brains for the smallest rhyme or reason in it. What
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: had the stealing of a blue and silver crossed from
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: a priest from Essex to do with chucking soup at wallpaper?
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: What had it to do with calling nuts oranges? Or
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: with paying for windows first and breaking them afterwards. He
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: had come to the end of his chase, yet somehow
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: he had missed the middle of it. When he failed,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: which was seldom, he had usually grasped the clue, but
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: nevertheless missed the criminal. Here he had grasped the criminal,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: but still he could not grasp the clue. The two
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: figures that they followed were crawling like black flies across
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: the huge green contour of a hill. They were evidently
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: sunk in conversation and perhaps did not notice where they
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: were going, but they were certainly going to the wilder
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: and more silent heights of the heath. As their pursuers
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: gained on them, the latter had to use the undignified
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: attitudes of the deer stalker to crouch behind clumps of trees,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: and even to crawl prostrate in deep grass. By these
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: ungainly ingenuities, the hunters even came close enough to the
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: quarry to hear the murmur of the discussion, but no
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: word could be distinguished except the word reason, recurring frequently
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: in a high and almost childish voice. Once over an
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: abrupt dip of land and a dense tangle of thickets,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: the detectives actually lost the two figures they were following.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: They did not find the trail again for an agonizing
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: ten minutes, and then it led round the brow of
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: a great dome of hill, overlooking an amphitheater of rich
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: and desolate sunset scenery. Under a tree. In this commanding
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: yet neglected spot was an old ramshackle wooden seat. On
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: this seat sat the two priests, still in serious speech together.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: The gorgeous green and gold still clung to the darkening horizon,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: but the dome above was turning slowly from peacock green
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: to peacock blue, and the stars detached themselves more and
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: more like solid jewels, mutely motioning to his followers, Valentine
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: contrived to creep up behind the big branching tree, and,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: standing there in deathly silence, heard the words of the
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: strange priests for the first time. After he had listened
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: for a minute and a half, he was gripped by
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: a devilish doubt. Perhaps he had dragged the two English
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: policemen to the waists of a nocturnal heath on an
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: errand no saner than seeking figs on its thistles. For
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: the two priests were talking exactly like priests, piously with
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: learning and leisure, about the most aerial enigmas of theology.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: The little Essex priest spoke the more simply, with his
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: round face turned to the strengthening stars. The other talked
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: with his head bowed, as if he were not even
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: worthy to look at them. But no more innocently clerical
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: conversation could have been heard in any white Italian cloister
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: or black Spanish cathedral. The first he heard was the
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: tale of one of Father Brown's sentences, which ended what
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: they really meant in the Middle Ages by the heavens
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: being incorruptible. The taller priest nodded his bowed head and said, ah, yes,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: these modern infidels appeal to their reason. But who can
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: look at those millions of worlds and not feel that
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: there may well be wonderful universes above us where reason
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: is utterly unreasonable. No, said the other priest. Reason is
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: always reasonable, even in the last limbo, in the lost
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: borderland of things. I know that people charge the Church
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: with lowering reason, But it is just the other way.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Alone on Earth, the Church makes reason really supreme. Alone
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: on Earth, the Church affirms that God himself is bound
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: by reason. The other priest raised his austere face to
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: the spangled sky and said, Yet, who knows if in
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: that infinite universe only infinite physically, said the little priest,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: turning sharply in his seat, not infinite in the sense
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: of escaping from the laws of truth. Valentine, behind his tree,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: was tearing his finger nails with silent fury. He seemed
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: almost to hear the sniggers of the English detectives, whom
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: he had brought so far on a fantastic guess, only
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: to listen to the metaphysical gossip of two mild old parsons.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: In his impatience, he lost the equally elaborate answer of
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: the tall cleric, And when he listened again it was
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Father Brown who was speaking reason and justice. Grip the
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: remotest and the loneliest star. Look at those stars, don't
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: they look as if they were single diamonds and sapphires. Well,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: you can imagine any mad botany or geology. You please
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: think of forests of adamant with leaves of brilliance. Think
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: the moon is a blue moon, a single elephantine sapphire.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: But don't fancy that all that frantic astronomy would make
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: the smallest difference to the reason and justice of conduct.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: On plains of opal under cliffs. Cut out a pearl,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: you would still find a notice board. Thou shalt not steal.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Valentin was just in the act of rising from his
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: rigid and crouching attitude and creeping away as softly as
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: might be felled by the one great folly of his life.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: But something in the very silence of the tall priest
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: made him stop until the latter spoke. When at last
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: he did speak, he said, simply, his head bowed and
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: his hands on his knees. Well, I think that other
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: worlds may perhaps rise higher than our reason. The mystery
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: of heaven is unfathomable, and I, for one, can only
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: bow my head. Then, with brow yet bent, without changing
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: by the faintest shade his attitude or voice, he added,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: just hand over that sapphire cross of yours, will you?
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: We're all alone here, and I could pull you to
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: pieces like a straw doll. The utterly unaltered voice and
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: attitude added a strange violence to that shocking change of speech.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: But the garter of the relic only seemed to turn
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: his head by the smallest section of the compass. He
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: seemed still to have a somewhat foolish face turned to
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: the stars. Perhaps he had not understood, or perhaps he
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: had understood, and sat rigid with terror. Yes, said the
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: tall priest, in the same low voice, and in the
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: same still posture. Yes, I am Flambeaux. Then after a
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: pause he said, come, will you give me that cross? No,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: said the other, and the monosyllable had an odd sound.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Flambaux suddenly flung off all his pontifical pretensions. The great
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: robber leaned back in his seat and laughed, low but long. No,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: he cried, you won't give it to me, you proud
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: prelate you won't give it to me, you little syllabate simpleton.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: Shall I tell you why you won't give it to me?
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Because I've got it already in my own breast pocket.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: The small man from Essex turned what seemed to be
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: a dazed face in the dusk and said, with the
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: timid eagerness of the private secretary, Are are you sure?
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Flambaux yelled with delight. Really you're as good as a
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: three act farce, he cried, yes, you turn up. I
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: am quite sure. I had the sense to make a
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: duplicate of the right parcel. And now, my friend, you've
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: got the duplicate, and I've got the jewels. An old dodge,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Father Brown, a very old dodge. Yes, said Father Brown,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: and passed his hand through his hair with the same
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: strange vagueness of manner. Yes, I've heard of it before.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: The colossus of crime leaned over to the little rustic
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: priest with a sort of sudden interest. You have heard
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: of it, he asked, Where have you heard of it? Well?
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: I mustn't tell you his name, of course, said the
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: little man, simply. He was a penitent. You know. He
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: had lived prosperously for about twenty years entirely on duplicate
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: brown paper parcels. And so you see when I began
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: to suspect you, I thought of this poor chap's way
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: of doing it at once began to suspect me, repeated
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: the outlaw with increased intensity. Did you really have the
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: gumption to suspect me just because I brought you up
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: to this bare part of the heath? No? No, said
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Browne with an air of apology. You see, I suspected
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: you when we first met. It's that little bulge up
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: the sleeve where you people have the spiked bracelet. How
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: when Tartarus cried flambeau, did you ever hear of the
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: spiked bracelet? Oh? One's little flock, you know, said Father
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: brown arching his eyebrows rather blankly. When I was a
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: curate in Hartlepool, there were three of them with spiked bracelets.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: So as I suspected you from the first, don't you see,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: I made sure that the cross should go safe. Anyhow,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: I'm afraid I watched you so at last I saw
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: you change the parcels. Then don't you see I changed
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: them back again, and then I left the right one behind,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: left it behind, repeated Flambeaux, and for the first time
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: there was another note in his voice besides his triumph.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: Well it was like this, said the little priest, speaking
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: in the same unaffected way. I went back to that
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: sweet shop and asked if I had left a parcel
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: and gave them a particular address if it turned up. Well,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: I knew I hadn't, but when I went away again
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: I did so instead of running after me with that
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: valuable parcel, they have sent it flying to a friend
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: of mine in Westminster. Then he added, rather sadly, I
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: learnt that too from a poor fellow in Hartlepool. He
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: used to do it with handbags he stole at railway stations.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: But he's in a monastery now. Oh one gets to know,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: you know, he added, rubbing his head again, with the
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: same sort of desperate apology. We can't help being priests.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: People come and tell us these things. Flambeau tore a
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: brown paper parcel out of his inner pocket and rent
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: it into pieces. There was nothing but paper and sticks
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: of lead inside it. He sprang to his feet with
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: a gigantic gesture and cried, I don't believe you. I
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: don't believe a bumpkin like you could manage all that.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: I believe you've still got the stuff on you. And
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: if you don't give it up, why we're all alone,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: and I'll take it by force. No, said Father Brown simply,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: and stood up. Also, you won't take it by force,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: first because I really haven't still got it, and second
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: because we are not alone. Flambeau stopped in his stride
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: forward behind that tree, said Father Brown, pointing are two
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: strong policemen and the greatest detective alive. How did they
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: come here? Do you ask why I brought them? Of course,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: how did I do it? Why? I'll tell you if
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: you like, Lord bless you. We have to know twenty
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: such things when we work among the criminal classes. Well,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: I wasn't sure you were a thief, and it would
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: never do to make a scandal against one of our
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: own clergy. So I just tested you to see if
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: anything would make you show yourself. A man generally makes
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: a small scene if he finds salt in his coffee.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: If he doesn't, he has some reason for keeping quiet.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: I changed the salt and sugar, and you kept quiet.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: A man generally objects if his bill as three times
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: too big. If he pays it, he has some motive
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: for passing unnoticed. I altered your bill and you paid it.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: The world seemed waiting for Flambeau to leap like a tiger,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: but he was held back, as by a spell. He
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: was stunned with the utmost curiosity. Well went on, father Brown,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: with lumbering lucidity, as you wouldn't leave any tracks for
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: the police. Of course, somebody had to at every place
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: we went to. I took care to do something that
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: would get us talked about for the rest of the day.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: I didn't do much harm, a splashed wall, spilt apples,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: a broken window, But I saved the cross, as the
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: cross will always be saved. It is at Westminster by now.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: I rather wonder you didn't stop it with the donkey's whistle,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: with the what, asked Flambeaux. I'm glad you've never heard
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: of it, said the priest, making a face. It's a
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: foul thing. I'm sure you're too good a man for
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: a whistler. I couldn't have countered it even with the
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: spots myself. I'm not strong enough in the legs. What
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: on earth are you talking about, asked the other. Well,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: I did think you'd know the spots, said Father Brown,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: agreeably surprised. Oh, you can't have gone so very wrong yet,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: How in blazes do you know all these horrors? Cried Flambeaux.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: The shadow of a smile crossed the round, simple face
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: of his clerical opponent. Oh by being a celibate simpleton,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: I suppose, he said. Has it never struck you that
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: a man who does next to nothing but here men's
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: human evil? But as a matter of fact, another part
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: of my trade too, made me sure you weren't a priest?
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: What asked the thief, almost gaping you attacked? Reason, said
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: father Brown. It's bad theology. And even as he turned
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: away to collect his property, the three policemen came out
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: from under the twilight trees. Flambeaux was an artist and
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: a sportsman. He stepped back and swept Valentine a great bow.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: Do not bow to me, mon ami, said Valentine, with
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: silver clearness. Let us both bow to our master. And
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: they both stood an instant uncovered, while the little Essex
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: priest blinked about for his umbrella end of the Blue Cross.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: The secret guard Arden Aristide Valentine chief of the Paris Police,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: was late for his dinner, and some of his guests
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: began to arrive before him. These were, however, reassured by
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: his confidential servant, Ivan, the old man with a scar
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: and a face almost as gray as his mustaches, who
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: always sat at the table in the entrance hall, a
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: hall hung with weapons. Valentine's house was perhaps as peculiar
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: and celebrated as its master. It was an old house
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: with high walls and tall poplars, almost overhanging the Seine.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: But the oddity, and perhaps the police value of its architecture,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: was this that there was no ultimate exit at all
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: except through this front door, which was guarded by Ivan
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: and the army. The garden was large and elaborate, and
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: there were many exits from the house into the garden,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: but there was no exit from the garden into the
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: world outside. All round it ran a tall, smooth, unscalable
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: wall with special spikes at the top. No bad garden,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: perhaps for a man to reflect in whom some hundred
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: criminals had sworn to kill. As Ivan explained to the guests,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: their host had telephoned that he was detained for ten minutes.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: He was in truth making some last arrangements about executions
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: and such ugly things. And though these duties were rootedly
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: repulsive to him, he always performed them with precision, ruthless
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: in the pursuit of criminals, he was very mild about
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: their punishment. Since he had been supreme over French and
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: largely over European poaltial methods, his great influence had been
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: honorably used for the mitigation of sentences and the purification
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: of prisons. He was one of the great humanitarian French freethinkers,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: and the only thing wrong with them is that they
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: make mercy even colder than justice. When Valentine arrived, he
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: was already dressed in black clothes and the red rosette,
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: an elegant figure, his dark beard already streaked with gray.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: He went straight through his house to his study, which
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: opened on the grounds behind the garden. Door of it
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: was open, and after he had carefully locked his box
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: in its official place, he stood for a few seconds
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: at the open door, looking out upon the garden. A
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: sharp moon was fighting with the flying rags and tatters
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: of a storm, and Valentine regarded it with a wistfulness
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: unusual in such scientific natures as his. Perhaps such scientific
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: natures have some psychic prevision of the most tremendous problem
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: of their lives. From any such occult mood. At least
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: he quickly recovered, for he knew he was late, and
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: that his guests had already begun to arrive. A Glance
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: at his drawing room when he entered it was enough
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: to make certain that his principal guest was not there.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: At any rate, he saw all the other pillars of
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: the little party. He saw Lord Galloway, the English ambassador,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: a choleric old man with a russet face like an apple,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: wearing the blue ribbon of the Garter. He saw Lady Galloway,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: slim and threadlike, with silk hair and a face sensitive
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: and superior. He saw her daughter, Lady Margaret Graham, a
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: pale and pretty girl with an elfish face and copper
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: colored hair. He saw the Duchess of mont Saint Michel,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: black eyed and opulent, and with her her two daughters,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: black eyed and opulent. Also he saw doctor Simon, a
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: typical French scientist, with glasses, a pointed brown beard, and
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: a forehead barred with those parallel wrinkles which are the
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: penalty of superciliousness, since they come through constantly elevating the eyebrows.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: He saw Father Brown of Cobble in Essex, whom he
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: had recently met in England. He saw, perhaps with more
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: interest than any of these, a tall man in uniform
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: who had bowed to the Galloways without receiving any very
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: hearty acknowledgment, and who now advanced alone to pay his
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: respects to his host. This was Commandant O'Brien of the
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: French Foreign Legion. He was a slim yet somewhat swaggering figure,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: clean shaven, dark haired, and blue eyed, and, as seemed
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: natural in an officer of that famous regiment of victorious
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: failures and successful suicides, he had an air, at once
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: dashing and melancholy. He was by birth an Irish gentleman,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: and in boyhood had known the Galloways, especially Margaret Graham.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: He had left his country after some crash of debts,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: and now expressed his complete freedom from British etiquette by
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: swinging about in uniform, saber and spurs. When he bowed
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: to the ambassador's family, Lord and Lady Galloway bent stiff,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: and Lady Margaret looked away, but for whatever old causes.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: Such people might be interested in each other, their distinguished
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: host was not specially interested in them. No one of
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: them at least was, in his eyes. The guest of
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: the evening. Valentine was expecting, for special reasons, a man
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: of worldwide fame, whose friendship he had secured during some
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: of his great detective tours and triumphs in the United States.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: He was expecting Julius K. Brain, that multi millionaire whose
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: colossal and even crushing endowments of small religions have occasioned
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: so much easy sport and easier solemnity for the American
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: and English papers. Nobody could quite make out whether mister
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: Brain was an atheist, or a Mormon, or a Christian scientist,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: but he would. He was ready to pour money into
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: any intellectual vessel, so long as it was an untried vessel.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: One of his hobbies was to wait for the American Shakespeare,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: a hobby more patient than angling. He admired Walt Whitman,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: but thought that Luke P. Tanner of Paris, Pennsylvania was
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: more progressive than Whitman. Any day. He liked anything that
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: he thought progressive. He thought Valentine progressive. Thereby doing him
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: a grave injustice. The solid appearance of Julius k Brain
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: in the room was as decisive as a dinner bell.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: He had this great quality which very few of us
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: can claim, that his presence was as big as his absence.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: He was a huge fellow, as fat as he was tall,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: clad in common complete evening black, without so much relief
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: as a watch chain or a ring. His hair was
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: white and well brust back, like a German's. His face
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: was red, fierce and cherubic, with one dark tuft under
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: the lower lip that threw up that otherwise infantile visage
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: with an effect theatrical and even Mephistophelian. Not long, however,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: did that Salon merely stare at the celebrated American. His
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: lateness had already become a domestic problem, and he was
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: sent with all speed into the dining room with Lady
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: Galloway on his arm, except on one point. The Galloways
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: were genial and casual enough. So long as Lady Margaret
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: did not take the arm of that adventurer O'Brien, her
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: father was quite satisfied, and she had not done so.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: She had decorously gone in with doctor Simon. Nevertheless, old
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Lord Galloway was restless and almost rude. He was diplomatic
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: enough during dinner, but when over the cigars, three of
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: the younger men, Simon the doctor, Brown, the priest, and
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: the detrimental O'Brien, the exile in a foreign uniform, all
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: melted away to mix with the ladies or smoke in
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: the conservatory. Then the English diplomatist grew very undiplomatic. Indeed,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: he was stung every sixty seconds with the thought that
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: the scamp O'Brien might be signaling to Margaret somehow. He
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: did not attempt to imagine how he was left over
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: the coffee with Brain, the hoary Yankee, who believed in
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: all religions, and Valentine, the grizzled Frenchman, who believed in none.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: They could argue with each other, but neither could appeal
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: to him. After a time, this progressive logomachy had reached
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: a crisis of tedium. Lord Galloway got up also and
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: sought the drawing room. He lost his way in long
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: passages for some six or eight minutes, till he heard
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: the high pitched didactic voice of the doctor, and then
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: the dull voice of the priest. Followed by general laughter.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: They also, he thought with a curse, were probably arguing
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: about science and religion. But the instant he opened the
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: salon door, he saw only one thing. He saw what
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: was not there. He saw that Commandant O'Brien was absent,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: and that Lady Margaret was absent too. Rising impatiently from
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: the drawing room, as he had from the dining room,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: he stamped along the passage once more. His notion of
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: protecting his daughter from the Irish Algerian ne'er do well
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: had become something central and even mad in his mind.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: As he went towards the back of the house, where
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: was Valentine's study, he was surprised to meet his daughter,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: who swept past with a white, scornful face, which was
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: a second enigma. If she had been with O'Brien, where
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: was O'Brien. If she had not been with O'Brien, where
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: had she been. With a sort of sea nile and
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: passionate suspicion, he groped his way to the dark black
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: parts of the mansion and eventually found a servant's entrance
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: that opened on to the garden. The moon with her
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: cimeter had now ripped up and rolled away all the
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: storm rack. The argent light lit up all four corners
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: of the garden. A tall figure in blue was striding
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: across the lawn towards the study door. A glint of
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: moonlight silver on his facings picked him out as Commandant O'Brien.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: He vanished through the French windows into the house, leaving
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: Lord Galloway in an indescribable temper, At once virulent and vague.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: The blue and silver garden, like a scene in a theater,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: seemed to taunt him with all that tyrannic tenderness against
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: which his worldly authority was at war. The length and
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: grace of the irishman's stride enraged him, as if he
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: were a rival instead of a father. The moonlight maddened him.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: He was trapped, as if by magic, into a garden
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: of troubadours, a watteau fairyland. And willing to shake off
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: such amorous imbecilities by speech, he stepped briskly after his enemy.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: As he did so, he tripped over some tree or
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: stone in the grass. Looked down at it, first with irritation,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: and then a second time with curiosity. The next instant,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: the moon and the tall poplars looked at an unusual sight,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: an elderly English diplomatist, running hard and crying or bellowing
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: as he ran his horse shouts brought a pale face
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: to the study door, the beaming glasses and worried brow
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: of Doctor Simon, who heard the nobleman's first clear words.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: Lord Galloway was crying a corpse in the grass, a
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: blood stained corpse. O'Brien at last had gone utterly out
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: of his mind. We must tell Valentine at once, said
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: the doctor, when the other had brokenly described all that
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: he had dared to examine. It is fortunate that he
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: is here. And even as he spoke, the great detective
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: entered the study attracted by the cry. It was almost
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: amusing to note his typical transformation. He had come with
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: the common concern of a host and a gentleman, fearing
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: that some guest or servant was ill. When he was
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: told the gory fact, he turned with all his gravity,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: instantly bright and business like. For this, however, abrupt and awful,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: was his business. Strange gentlemen, He said, as they hurried
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: out into the garden, that I should have hunted mysteries
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: all over the earth. And now one comes and settles
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: in my own back yard. But where is the place?
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: They cried the lawn less easily, as a slight mist
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: had begun to rise from the river. But under the
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: guidance of the shaken galloway, they found the body sunken
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: in deep grass, the body of a very tall and
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: broad shouldered man. He lay face downwards, so that they
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: could only see that his big shoulders were clad in
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: black cloth, and that his big head was bald, except
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: for a whisper too of brown hair that clung to
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: his skull like wet seaweed. A scarlet serpent of blood
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: crawled from under his fallen face. At least, said Simon,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: with a deep and singular intonation. He is none of
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: our party. Examine him, doctor, cried Valentine, rather sharply. He
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: may not be dead. The doctor bent down. He is
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: not quite cold. But I am afraid he is dead enough,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: he answered, Just help me to lift him up. They
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: lifted him carefully an inch from the ground, and all
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: doubts as to his being really dead were settled at
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: once and frightfully. The head fell away. It had been
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: entirely sundered from the body. Whoever had cut his throat,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: had managed to sever the neck as well. Even Valentine
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: was slightly shocked. He must have been as strong as
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: a gorilla, he muttered, not without a shiver, though he
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: was used to anatomical abortions. Doctor Simon lifted the head.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: It was slightly slashed about the neck and jaw, but
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: the face was substantially unhurt. It was a ponderous yellow face,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: at once sunken and swollen, with a hawk like nose
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: and heavy lids, a face of a wicked Roman emperor,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: with perhaps a distant touch of a Chinese emperor. All
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: present seemed to look at it with the coldest eye
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: of ignorance. Nothing else could be noted about the man,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: except that, as they had lifted his body, they had
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: seen underneath it the white gleam of a shirt front
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: defaced with a red gleam of blood. As doctor Simon said,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: the man had never been of their party, but he
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: might very well have been trying to join it, for
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: he had come dressed for such an occasion. Valentine went
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: down on his hands and knees and examined with his
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: closest professional attention the grass and ground for some twenty
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: yards round the body, in which he was assisted less
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: skilled fully by the doctor and quite vaguely by the
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: English lord. Nothing rewarded their grovelings except a few twigs
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: snapped or chopped into very small lengths, which Valentine lifted
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: for an instant's examination, and then tossed away. Twigs, he said, gravely,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: Twigs and a total stranger with his head cut off,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: That is all there is on this lawn. There was
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: an almost creepy stillness, and then the unnerved Galloway called
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: out sharply, who's that? Who's that? Over there by the
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: garden wall. A small figure with a foolishly large head
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: drew waveringly near them in the moonlit haze, looked for
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: an instant like a goblin, but turned out to be
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: the harmless little priest whom they had left in the
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: drawing room. I say, he said, meekly, there are no
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: gates to this garden, do you know? Valentine's black brows
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: had come together somewhat crossly, as they did on principle,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: at the side of a cassock. But he was far
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: too just a man to deny the relevance of the remark.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: You are right, he said, before we find out how
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: he came to be killed. We may have to find
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: out how he came to be here. Now listen to me, gentlemen.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: If it can be done without prejudice to my position
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: and duty, we shall all agree that certain distinguished names
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: might well be kept out of this. There are ladies, gentlemen,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: and there is a foreign ambassador. If we must mark
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: it down as a crime, then it must be followed
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: up as a crime. But till then I can use
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: my own discretion. I am the head of the police.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: I am so public that I can afford to be private.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: Please Heaven, I will clear every one of my own
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: guests before I call in my men to look for
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: anybody else. Gentlemen, upon your honor, you will none of
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: you leave the house till tomorrow at noon. There are
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: bedrooms for all. Simon, I think you know where to
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: find my man Ivan in the front hall. He is
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: a confidential man. Tell him to leave another servant on
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: guard and come to me at once. Lord Galloway, you
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: are certainly the best person to tell the ladies what
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: has happened and prevent a panic. They also must stay,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: Father Browne, and I will remain with the body. When
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: this spirit of the captain spoke in Valentine, he was
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: obeyed like a bugle. Doctor Simon went through to the
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: armory and rooted out Ivan. The public Detective's private detective
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: Galloway went to the drawing room and told the terrible
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: news tactfully enough so that by the time the company
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: assembled there, the ladies were already startled and already soothed. Meanwhile,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: the good priest and the good Atheist stood at the
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: head and foot of the dead man, motionless in the moonlight,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: like symbolic statues of their two philosophies of death. Ivan,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: the confidential man with the scar and the mustaches, came
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: out of the house like a cannon ball, and came
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: racing across the lawn to Valentin, like a dog to
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: his master. His livid face was quite lively with the
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: glow of this domestic detective story, and it was with
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: almost un pleasant eagerness did he asked his master's permission
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: to examine the remains. Yes, look if you like, Ivan
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: said Valentine, but don't be long. We must go in
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: and thrash this out. In the house. Ivan lifted the
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: head and then almost let it drop. Why he gasped,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: It's no, it isn't it can't be. Do you know
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: this man, sir, No, said Valentin indifferently. We had better
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: go inside. Between them, they carried the corpse to a
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: sofa in the study, and then all made their way
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: to the drawing room. The detective sat down at a
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: desk quietly and even without hesitation, but his eye was
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: the iron eye of a judge at a size. He
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: made a few rapid notes upon paper in front of him,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: and then said, shortly, is everybody here? Not, mister Brain,
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: said the Duchess of monseeint Michel looking round. No, said
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: Lord Galloway in a hoarse, harsh voice. And not mister
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: Neil O'Brien. I fancy I saw that gentleman walking in
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: the garden when the corpse was still warm, Ivan, said
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: the detective. Go and fetch Commandant Obrien and mister Vrain.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: Mister Brain, I know is finishing a cigar in the
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: dining room. Commandant Obrien, I think is walking up and
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: down the conservatory. I am not sure. The faithful attendant
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: flashed from the room, and before any one could stir
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: or speak, Valentine went on with the same soldierly swiftness
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: of exposition. Everyone here knows that a dead man has
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: been found in the garden, his head cut clean from
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: his body. Doctor Simon, you have examined it. Do you
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: think that to cut a man's throat like that would
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: need great force? Or perhaps only a very sharp knife?
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: I should say that it could not be done with
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: a knife at all, said the pale doctor. Have you
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: any thought, resumed Valentin, of a tool with which it
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: could be done, speaking within modern probabilities, I really haven't,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: said the doctor, arching his painful brows. It's not easy
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: to hack a neck through, even clumsily, and this was
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: a very clean cut. It could be done with a
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: battle axe, or an old headsman's axe, or an old
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: two handed sword. But good heavens, cried the Duchess, almost
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: in hysterics. There aren't any two handed swords and battle
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: axes round here. Valentine was still busy with the paper
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: in front of him. Tell me, he said, still writing rapidly.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: Could it have been done with a long French cavalry saber.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: A low knocking came at the door, which, for some
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: unreasonable reason curdled every one's blood. Like the knocking in
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: macbeth amid that frozen silence, Doctor Simon managed to say
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: a saber. Yes, I suppose it could, thank you, said Valentin,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: Come in, Ivan, the confidential Ivan opened the door and
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: ushered in Commandant Neil O'Brien, whom he had found at
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: last pacing the garden again. The Irish officer stood up,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: disordered and defiant, on the threshold. What do you want
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: with me, he cried? Please sit down, said Valentine, in
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: pleasant level tones. Why you aren't wearing your sword? Where
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: is it? I left it on the library table, said O'Brien,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: his brogue deepening in his disturbed mood. It was a nuisance.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: It was getting Ivan, said Valentine. Please go and get
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: the commandant's sword from the library. Then, as the servant vanished,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: Lord Galloway says he saw you leaving the garden just
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: before he found the corpse. What were you doing in
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: the garden? The commandon flung himself recklessly into a chair. Oh,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: he cried in pure Irish admire in the moon, communing
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: with nature me boy. A heavy silence sank and endured,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: and at the end of it came again that trivial
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: and terrible knocking. Ivan reappeared carrying an empty steel scabbard.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: This is all I can find, he said. Put it
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: on the table, said Valentine, without looking up. There was
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: an inhuman silence in the room, like that sea of
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: inhuman silence round the dock of a condemned murderer. The
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: Duchess's weak exclamations had long ago died away. Lord Galloway's
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: swollen hatred was satisfied and even sobered. The voice that
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: came was quite unexpected. I think I can tell you,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: cried Lady Margaret, in that clear, quivering voice with which
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: a courageous woman speaks publicly. I can tell you what
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: mister O'Brien was doing in the garden. Since he is
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: bound to silence. He was asking me to marry him.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: I refused, I said, in my family circumstances, I could
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: give him nothing but my respect. He was a little
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: angry at that. He did not seem to think much
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: of my respect. I wonder, she added, with rather a
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: wan smile, if he will care it all for it now,
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: for I offer it to him now. I will swear
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: anywhere that he never did a thing like this. Lord
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: Galloway had edged up to his daughter and was in
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: timidating her in what he imagined to be an undertone.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: Hold your tongue, Maggie, he said, in a thunderous whisper.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: Why should you shield the fellow? Where's his sword? Where's
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: his confounded cavalry? He stopped because of the singular stare
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: with which his daughter was regarding him, A look that
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: was indeed a lurid magnet for the whole group, You
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: old fool, she said, in a low voice, without pretense
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: of piety. What do you suppose you were trying to prove?
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: I tell you this man was innocent, well with me.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: But if he wasn't innocent, he was still with me.
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: If he murdered a man in the garden, who was it?
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: Who must have seen, who must at least have known?
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: Do you hate Neil so much as to put your
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: own daughter? Lady Galloway screamed? Every One else sat tingling
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: at the touch of those satanic tragedies that have been
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: between lovers before. Now they saw the proud white face
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: of the Scotch aristocrat and her lover, the Irish adventurer,
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: Like old portraits in a dark house. The long silence
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: was full of formless historical memories of murdered husbands and
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: poisonous paramours. In the center of this morbid silence, an
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: innocent voice said, was it a very long cigar? The
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: change of thought was so sharp that they had to
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: look round to see who had spoken. I mean, said
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: little father Brown from the corner of the room, I
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: mean that cigar, mister Brain is finishing. It seems nearly
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: as long as a walking stick. Despite the irrelevance, there
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: was a scent as well as irritation in Valentine's face.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: As he lifted his head quite right, he remarked, sharply, Ivan,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: go and see about mister Vrain again, and bring him
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: here at once. The instant the factotum had closed the door,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: Valentin addressed the girl with an entirely new earnestness. Lady Margaret,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: he said, we all feel, I am sure, both gratitude
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: and admiration for your act in rising above your lower
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: dignity and explaining the commandant's conduct. But there is a
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: hiatus still, Lord Galloway, I understand met you passing from
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: the study to the drawing room, And it was only
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: some minutes afterwards that he found the garden and the
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: commandant still walking there. You have to remember, replied Margaret,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: with a faint irony in her voice, that I had
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: just refused him, so we should scarcely have come back
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: arm in arm. He is a gentleman anyhow, and he
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: loitered behind, and so he got charged with murder in
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: those few moments, said Valentin gravely. He might really. The
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: knock came again, and Ivan put in his carred face.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: Beg pardon, sir, he said, But mister Vrain has left
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: the house. Left, cried Valentine, and rose for the first
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: time to his feet, gone, scooted, evaporated, replied Ivan in
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: humorous French. His hat and coat are gone too, And
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you something to cap at all. I ran
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: outside the house to find any traces of him, and
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: I found one and a big trace two. What do
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: you mean, asked Valentin. I'll show you, said his servant,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: and reappeared with a flashing naked cavalry saber streaked with
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: blood about the point and edge. Everyone in the room
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: eyed it as if it were a thunderbolt, but the
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: experienced Ivan went on quite quietly. I found this, he said,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: flung among the bushes fifty yards up the road to Paris.
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: In other words, I found it just where your respectable
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: mister Vrain threw it when he ran away. There was
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: again a silence, but of a new sort. Valentine took
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: the saber, examined it, reflected with unaffected concentration of thought,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: and then turned a respectful face to O'Brien commandant. He said,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: we trust you will always produce this weapon if it
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: is wanted for police examination. Meanwhile, he added, slapping the
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: steel back into the ringing scabbard, let me return you
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: your sword. At the military symbolism of this action, the
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: audience could hardly refrain from applause for Neil O'Brien. Indeed,
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: that gesture was the turning point of existence. By the
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: time he was wandering in the mysterious garden again in
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: the colors of the morning, the tragic futility of his
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: ordinary mien had fallen from him. He was a man
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: with many reasons for happiness. Lord Galloway was a gentleman
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: and had offered him an apology. Lady Margaret was something
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: better than a late a woman at least, and had
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: perhaps given him something better than an apology. As they
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: drifted among the old flower beds before breakfast. The whole
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: company was more light hearted than humane, for though the
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: riddle of the death remained, the load of suspicion was
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: lifted off them all and sent flying off to Paris
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: with the strange millionaire, a man they hardly knew. The
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: devil was cast out of the house he had cast
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: himself out. Still the riddle remained, and when O'Brien threw
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: himself on a garden seat beside Doctor Simon, that keenly
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: scientific person at once resumed it. He did not get
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: much talk out of O'Brien, whose thoughts were unpleasanter things.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: I can't say it interests me much, said the irishman frankly,
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: especially as it seems pretty plain now. Apparently brain hated
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: the stranger for some reason, lured him into the garden
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: and killed him with my sword. Then he fled to
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: the city, tossing the sword away as he went. By
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: the way. Ivan tells me the dead man had a
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: Yankee dollar in his pocket, so he was a countryman
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: of brains, and that seems to clinch it. I don't
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: see any difficulties about the business. There are five colossal
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: difficulties said the doctor, quietly, like high walls within walls,
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: don't mistake me. I don't doubt that brain did it
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: his flight I fancy proves that, But as to how
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: he did it? First difficulty? Why should a man kill
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: another man with a great, hulking saber when he can
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: almost kill him with a pocket knife and put it
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: back in his pocket? Second difficulty? Why was there no
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: noise or outcry? Does a man commonly see another coming
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: up waving a scimitar and offer no remarks? Third difficulty?
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: A servant watched the front door all the evening, and
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: a rat cannot get into Valentine's garden anywhere? How did
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: the dead man get into the garden? Fourth difficulty? Given
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: the same conditions, how did brain get out of the garden?
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: And the fifth? Said Neil, with eyes fixed on the
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: English priest, who was coming slowly up the path. Is
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: a trifle, I suppose, said the doctor, But I think
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: an odd one. When I first saw how the head
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: had been slashed, I suppose the assassin had struck more
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: than once. But on examination, I've found many cuts across
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: the truncated section. In other words, they were struck after
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: the head was off. Did Brain hate his foe so
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: fiendishly that he stood sabering his body in the moonlight. Horrible,
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: said O'Brien, and shuddered. The little priest Brown had arrived
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: while they were talking, and had waited with characteristic shyness
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: till they had finished. Then he said, awkwardly, I say,
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry to interrupt, but I was sent to tell
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: you the news news, repeated Simon, and stared at him
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: rather painfully through his glasses. Yes, I'm sorry, said father
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: Brown mildly. There's been another murder, you know. Both men
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: on the seat sprang up, leaving it rocking. And what
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: stranger still, continued the priest, with his dull eye on
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: the rhododendrons. It's the same disgusting sort. It's another beheading.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: They found the second head actually bleeding into the river
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: a few yards along Brain's road to Paris. So they
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: supposed that he great Heaven, cried O'Brien. Is Brain a monomaniac.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: There are American vendettas, said the priest impassively. Then he added,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: they want you to come to the library and see it.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: Comandant O'Brien followed the others towards the inquest, feeling decidedly
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: sick as a soldier. He loathed all this secretive carnage.
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: Where were these extravage in amputations going to stop? First
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: one head was hacked off, and then another. In this case,
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: he told himself bitterly it was not true that two
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: heads were better than one. As he crossed the study,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: he almost staggered at a shocking coincidence. Upon Valentine's table
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: lay the colored picture of yet a third bleeding head,
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: and it was the head of Valentine himself. A second
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: glance showed him it was only a nationalist paper called
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: The Guillotine, which every week showed one of its political
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: opponents with rolling eyes and writhing features just after execution.
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: For Valentine was an anti clerical of some note, But
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: O'Brien was an irishman with a kind of chastity even
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: in his sins, and his gorge rose against that great
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: brutality of the intellect which belongs only to France. He
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: felt Paris as a whole, from the grotesques on the
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: Gothic churches to the gross caricatures in the newspapers. He
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: remembered the gigantic jests of the Revolution. He saw the
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: whole city as one ugly energy from the sanguinary sketch
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: lying on Valentine's table up to where above a mountain
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: and forest of gargoyles, the great devil grins on Notre Dame.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: The library was long, low and dark. What light entered
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: it shot from under low blinds, and had still some
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: of the ruddy tinge of mourning. Valentine and his servant
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: Ivan were waiting for them at the upper end of
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: a long, slightly sloping desk on which lay the mortal remains,
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: Looking enormous in the twilight. The big black figure and
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: yellow face of the man found in the garden confronted them,
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: essentially unchanged. The second head, which had been fished from
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: among the river reeds that morning, lay streaming and dripping
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: beside it. Valentine's men were still seeking to recover the
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: rest of this second corpse, which was supposed to be afloat.
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: Father Brown, who did not seem to share O'Brien's sensibilities
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: in the least, went up to the second head and
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: examined it with his blinking care. It was little more
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: than a mop of wet white hair fringed with silver
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: fire in the red and level morning light. The face,
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: which seemed of an ugly, impurpled and perhaps criminal type,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: had been much battered against trees or stones as it
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: tossed in the water. Good morning, Commandant O'Brien, said, Valentine,
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: with a quiet cordiality. You have heard of brain's last
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: experiment in butchery. I suppose Father Brown was still bending
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: over the head with white hair, and he said, without
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: looking up, I suppose it is quite certain that brain
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: cut off this head too. Well, it seems common sense,
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: said Valentine, with his hands in his pockets. Killed in
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: the same way as the other, found within a few
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: yards of the other, and sliced by the same weapon
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: which we know he carried away. Yes, yes, I know,
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: replied Father Brown submissively. Yet you know I doubt whether
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: brain could have cut off this head. Why not, inquired
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: Doctor Simon, with a rational stare. Well, doctor said the
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: priest best, looking up, blinking. Can a man cut off
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: his own head? I don't know. O'Brien felt an insane
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: universe crashing about his ears. But the doctor sprang forward
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: with impetuous practicality and pushed back the wet white hair. Oh,
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: there's no doubt it's brain, said the priest quietly. He
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: had exactly that chip in the left ear. The detective,
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: who had been regarding the priest with steady and glittering eyes,
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: opened his clenched mouth and said, sharply, you seem to
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: know a lot about him, Father Brown, I do, said
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: the little man, simply. I've been about with him for
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: some weeks. He was thinking of joining our church. The
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: star of the fanatic sprung into Valentine's eyes. He strode
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: towards the priest with clenched hands, and perhaps he cried
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: with a blasting sneer. Perhaps he was also thinking of
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: leaving all his money to your church. Perhaps he was,
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: said Brown, stolidly. It is possible. In that case, cried
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: Valentine with a dreadful smile, you may indeed know a
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: great deal about him, about his life, and about his commandant.
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: O'Brien laid a hand on Valentine's arm. Drop that slanderoush rubbish, Valentine,
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: he said, Or there may be more swords yet. But Valentine,
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: under the steady, humble gaze of the priest, had already
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: recovered himself. Well, he said shortly, people's private opinions can wait,
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: you gentlemen, and are still bound by your promise to stay.
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: You must enforce it on yourselves and on each other.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: Ivan here will tell you anything more you want to know.
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: I must get to business and write the authorities. We
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: can't keep this quiet any longer. I shall be writing
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: in my study if there is any more news? Is
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: there any more news? Ivan asked Doctor Simon, as the
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: chief of police strode out of the room. Only one
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: more thing, I think, sir, said Ivan, wrinkling up his
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: gray old face. But that's important too in its way.
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: There's that old buffer you found on the lawn. And
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: he pointed, without pretense of reverence, at the big black
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: body with the yellow head. We've found out who he
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: is anyhow, indeed, cried the astonished doctor. And who is he?
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: His name was Arnold Becker, said the under detective. Though
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: he went by many aliases. He was a wandering sort
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: of scamp and is known to have been in America.
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: So that was where Brain got his knife into him.
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: We didn't have much to do with him ourselves, for
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: he worked mostly in Germany. We've communicated, of course, with
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: the German police. But oddly enough, there was a twin
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: brother of his, named Louis Becker, whom we had a
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: great deal to do with. In fact, we found it
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: necessary to guillotine him only yesterday. Well it's a rum thing, gentlemen,
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: But when I saw that fellow flat on the lawn,
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: I had the greatest jump of my life. If I
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: hadn't seen Louis Becker guillotined with my own eyes, i'd
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: have sworn it was Lewisspacker lying there in the grass. Then,
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: of course I remembered his twin brother in Germany, and
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: following up the clue, the explanatory Ivan stopped for the
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: excellent reason that nobody was listening to him. The commandant
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: and the doctor were both staring at Father Brown, who
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: had sprung stiffly to his feet and was holding his
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: temples tight like a man in sudden and violent pain.
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: Stop Stop, stop, he cried, stop talking a minute, for
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: I see half? Will God give me strength? Will my
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: brain make the one jump? And see all Heaven help me.
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: I used to be fairly good at thinking. I could
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: paraphrase any page in a quynas once will my head split?
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: Or will I see I see half? I only see half?
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: He buried his head in his hands and stood in
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: a sort of rigid torture of thought or prayer, while
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: the other three could only go on staring at this
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: last prodigy of their wild twelve hours. When Father Brown's
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: hands fell, they showed a face quite fresh and serious,
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: like a child's. He heaved a huge sigh and said,
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: let us get this said and done with as quickly
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: as possible. Look here, this will be the quickest way
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: to convince you all of the truth. He turned to
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: the doctor, Doctor Simon. He said, you have a strong
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: head piece, and I heard you this morning asking the
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: five hardest questions about this business. Well, if you will
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: ask them again, I will answer them. Simon's pontenez dropped
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: from his nose in his doubt in wonder, but he
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: answered at once, Well, the first question, you know, is
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: why a man should kill another with a clumsy saber
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: at all? When a man can kill with a bodkin,
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: a man cannot be head with a bodkin, said Brown calmly.
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: And for this murder, beheading was absolutely necessary. Why, asked
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: O'Brien with interest, And the next question asked Father Brown, Well,
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: why didn't the man cry out or anything? Asked the doctor.
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: Sabers and gardens are certainly unusual. Twigs, said the priest gloomily,
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: and turned to the window, which looked on the scene
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: of death. No one saw the point of the twigs.
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: Why should they lie on that lawn? Look at it
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: so far from any They were not snapped off, They
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: were chopped off. The murderer occupied his enemy with some
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: tricks with the saber, showing how he could cut a
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: branch in mid air or what not. Then, while his
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: enemy bent down to see the result, a silent slash
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: and the head fell. Well, said the doctor slowly. That
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: seems plausible enough, But my next two questions will stump anyone.
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: The priest still stood, looking critically out of the window
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: and waited. You know how all the garden was sealed
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: up like an air tight chamber, went on the doctor, Well,
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: how did the strange man get into the garden without
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: turning round? The little priest answered, there never was any
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: strange man in the garden. There was a silence, and
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: then a sudden cackle of almost childish laughter relieved the strain.
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: The absurdity of Brown's remark moved Ivan to open taunts. Oh,
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: he cried, then we didn't lug a great fat corpse
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: onto a sofa last night. He hadn't got into the garden.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: I suppose got into the garden, repeated Brown reflectively. No,
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: not entirely. Hang it all, cried Simon. A man gets
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: into a garden or he doesn't, not necessarily, said the priest,
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: with a faint smile. What is the next question, doctor,
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: I fancy you're ill, exclaimed Doctor Simon sharply. But I'll
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: ask the next question if you like. How did brain
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: get out of the guard garden? He didn't get out
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: of the garden, said the priest, still looking out of
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: the window. Didn't get out of the garden, exploded Simon.
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: Not completely, said father Brown. Simon shook his fists in
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: a frenzy of French logic. A man gets out of
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: a garden, or he doesn't, he cried. Not always, said
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: father Brown. Doctor Simon sprang to his feet impatiently. I
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: have no time to spare on such senseless talk, he
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: cried angrily. If you can't understand a man being on
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: one side of a wall or the other, I won't
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: trouble you further, doctor, said the cleric, very gently. We
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: have always got on very pleasantly together, if only for
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: the sake of old old friendship, Stop and tell me
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: your fifth question. The impatient Simon sank into a chair
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: by the door and said briefly. The head and shoulders
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: were cut about in a queer way. It seemed to
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: be done after death. Yes, said the motionless priest. It
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: was done so as to make you assume exactly the
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: one simple falsehood that you did assume. It was done
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: to make you take for granted that the head belonged
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: to the body. The border landed the brain where all
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: the monsters are made moved horribly. In the Gaelic O'Brien,
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: he felt the chaotic presence of all the horsemen and
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: fish women. That man's unnatural fancy has begotten a voice
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: older than his first father seemed saying in his ear,
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: keep out of the monstrous garden where grows the tree
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: with double fruit. Avoid the evil garden where dyed the
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: man with two heads. Yet, while these shameful symbolic shapes
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: passed across the ancient mirror of his Irish soul, his
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: frenchified intellect was quite alert, and was watching the odd
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: priest as closely and incredulously as all the rest. Father
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: Brown had turned round at last and stood against the window,
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: with his face in dense shadow. But even in that
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: shadow they could see it was pale as ashes. Nevertheless,
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: he spoke quite sensibly, as if there were no Gallic
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: souls on earth. Gentlemen, he said, you did not find
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: the strange body of Becker in the garden. You did
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: not find any strange body in the garden. In face
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: of doctor Simon's rationalism, I still affirm that Becker was
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: only partly present. Look here, pointing to the black bulk
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: of the mysterious corpse. You never saw that man in
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: your lives? Did you ever see this man? He rapidly
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: rolled away the bald yellow head of the unknown and
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: put in its place the white maned head beside it,
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: And there complete, unified, unmistakable lay Julius k Brain. The
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: murderer went on. Brown quietly hacked off his enemy's head
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: and flung the sword far over the wall. But he
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: was too clever to fling the sword. Only he flung
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: the head over the wall. Also, then he had only
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: to clap on another head to the corpse. And as
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: he insisted on a private inquest, you all, ama a
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: totally new man. Clap on another head, said O'Brien, staring
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: what other head? Heads don't grow on garden bushes, do they? No,
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: said father Brown, huskily, and looking at his boots. There
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: is only one place where they grow. They grow in
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: the basket of the guillotine, beside which the chief of
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: police are steede. Valentine was standing not an hour before
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: the murder. Oh, my friends, hear me a minute more
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: before you tear me in pieces. Valentine is an honest man,
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: if being mad for an arguable cause is honesty. But
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: did you never see in that cold gray eye of
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: his that he is mad? He would do anything, anything
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: to break what he calls the superstition of the Cross.
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: He has fought for it, and starved for it, and
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: now he has murdered for it. Brain's crazy millions had
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: hitherto been scattered among so many sects that they did
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: little to alter the balance of things. But Valentine heard
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: a whisper that Brain, like so many scatterbrain skeptics, was
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: drifting to us, and that was quite a different thing.
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: Brain would pour supplies into the impoverished and pugnacious Church
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: of France. He would support six nationalist newspapers like the guillotine.
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: The battle was already balanced on a point, and the
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: fanatic took flame at the risk. He resolved to destroy
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: the millionaire, and he did it as one would expect
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: the greatest of detectives to commit. His only crime. He
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: abstracted the severed head of Becker on some criminological excuse
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: and took it home in his official boy. He had
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: that last argument with Brain that Lord Galloway did not
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: hear the end of that failing, he led him out
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: into the sealed garden, talked about swordsmanship, used twigs and
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: a saber for illustration, and Ivan of the scar sprang up.
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: You've lunatic, he yelled, you'll go to my master. Now
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: I'll take you by. Why I was going there, said
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: Brown heavily, I must ask him to confess, and all that,
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: driving the unhappy Brown before them like a hostage or sacrifice.
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: They rushed together into the sudden stillness of Valentine's study.
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: The great detective sat at his desk, apparently too occupied
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: to hear their turbulent entrance. They paused a moment, and
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: then something in the look of that upright and elegant
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: back made the doctor run forward. Suddenly, a touch and
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: a glance showed him that there was a small box
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: of pills at Valentine's elbow, and that Valentine was dead
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: in his chair, And on the blind face of the
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: suicide was more than the pride of Cato end of
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: the secret Garden the queer feet. If you meet a
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: member of that select club, the Twelve True Fishermen, entering
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: the Vernon Hotel for the annual club dinner, you will observe,
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: as he takes off his overcoat, that his evening coat
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: is green and not black. If supposing that you have
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: the star defying audacity to address such a being, you
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: ask him why, he will probably answer that he does
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: it to avoid being mistaken for a waiter. You will
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: then retire crushed, but you will leave behind you a
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: mystery as yet unsolved, and a tale worth telling. If
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: to pursue the same vein of improbable conjecture, you were
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: to meet a mild, hard working little priest named Father Brown,
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: and were to ask him what he thought was the
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: most singular luck of his life, he would probably reply that,
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: upon the whole his best stroke was at the Vernon hotel,
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: where he had averted a crime and perhaps saved a
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: soul merely by listening to a few footsteps in a passage.
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: He is perhaps a little proud of this wild and
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: wonderful guess of his, and it is probable that he
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: might refer to it. But since it is immeasurably unlikely
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: that you will ever rise high enough in the social
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: world to find the twelve True Fishermen, or that you
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: will ever sink low enough among the slums and criminals
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: to find father Brown, I fear you will never hear
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: the story at all unless you hear it from me.
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: The Vernon Hotel at which the twelve True Fishermen held
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: their annual dinners was an institution such as can only
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: exist in an oligarchical society which has almost gone mad
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: on good manners. It was that topsy turvy product, an
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: exclusive commercial enterprise. That is, it was a thing which
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: paid not by attracting people, but actually by turning people away.
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: In the heart of a plutocracy, tradesmen become cunning enough
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: to be more fastidious than their customers. They positively create
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: difficulties so that their wealthy and weary clients may spend
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: money and diplomacy in overcoming them. If there were a
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: fashionable hotel in London which no man could enter who
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 1: was under six foot, society would meekly make up parties
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: of six foot men to dine in it. If there
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: were an expensive restaurant which, by a mere caprice of
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: its proprietor, was only open on Thursday afternoon, it would
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 1: be crowded on Thursday afternoon. The Vernon Hotel stood as
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: if by accident, in the corner of a square in Belgravia.
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: It was a small hotel and a very inconvenient one,
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: but its very inconveniences were considered as walls protecting a
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: particular class. One inconvenience in particular was held to be
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: of vital importance the fact that practically only twenty four
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: people could dine in the place at once. The only
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: big dinner table was the celebrated Terrace table, which stood
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: open to the air on a sort of veranda overlooking
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: one of the most exquisite old gardens in London. Thus
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: it happened that even the twenty four seats at this
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: table could only be enjoyed in warm weather, and this
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: making the enjoyment yet more difficult, made it yet more desired.
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: The existing owner of the hotel was a jew named Lever,
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: and he he made nearly a million out of it
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: by making it difficult to get into. Of course, he
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: combined with this limitation in the scope of his enterprise,
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: the most careful polish in its performance. The wines and
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: cooking were really as good as any in Europe, and
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: the demeanor of the attendants exactly mirrored the fixed mood
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: of the English upper class. The proprietor knew all his
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: waiters like the fingers on his hand. There were only
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: fifteen of them. All told, it was much easier to
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: become a member of Parliament than to become a waiter
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: in that hotel. Each waiter was trained in terrible silence
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: and smoothness, as if he were a gentleman's servant, and
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: indeed there was generally at least one waiter to every
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: gentleman who dined. The claw of the twelve true fishermen
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: would not have consented to dine anywhere but in such
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: a place, for it insisted on a luxurious privacy, and
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: would have been quite upset by the mere thought that
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: any other club was even dining in the same building
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: on the occasion of their annual dinner. The fishermen were
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: in the habit of exposing all their treasures as if
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 1: they were in a private house, especially the celebrated set
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 1: of fish knives and forks, which were, as it were,
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 1: the insignia of the society, each being exquisitely wrought in
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 1: silver in the form of a fish, and each loaded
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: at the hilt with one large pearl. These were always
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: laid out for the fish course, and the fish course
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: was always the most magnificent in that magnificent repast. The
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: society had a vast number of sets, ceremonies, and observances,
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: but it had no history and no object. That was
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: where it was so very aristocratic. You did not have
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: to be anything in order to be one of the
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: twelve Fishers. Unless you were already a certain sort of person.
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: You never even heard of them. It had been in
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: existence twelve years. Its president was mister Audley. Its vice
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: president was the Duke of Chester. If I have in
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: any degree conveyed the atmosphere of this appalling hotel, the
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: reader may feel a natural wonder as to how I
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: came to know anything about it, and may even speculate
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: as to how so ordinary a person as my friend
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 1: Father Brown came to find himself in that golden galley.
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 1: As far as that is concerned, my story is simple,
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: or even vulgar. There is in the world a very
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: aged rioter and demagogue who breaks into the most refined
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: retreats with the dreadful information that all men are brothers.
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: And wherever this leveler went on his pale horse, it
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: was Father Brown's trade to follow. One of the waiters,
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: an Italian, had been struck down with a paralytic stroke
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: that afternoon, and his Jewish employer, marveling mildly at such superstitions,
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: had consented to send for the nearest Popish priest. With
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: what the waiter confessed to Father Brown. We are not
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 1: concerned for the excellent reason that the cleric kept it
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: to himself, but apparently it involved him in writing out
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: a note or statement for the conveying of some message
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: or the writing of some wrong. Father Brown, therefore, with
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: a meek impudence which he would have shown equally in
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: Buckingham Palace, asked to be provided with a room and
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 1: writing materials. Mister Lever was torn in two. He was
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: a kind man, and also had that bad imitation of kindness,
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 1: the dislike of any difficulty or scene. At the same time,
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: the presence of one unusual stranger in his hotel that
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: evening was like a speck of dirt on something just cleaned.
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: There was never any borderland or ante room in the
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: Vernon Hotel, no people waiting in the hall, no customers
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: coming in. On chance there were fifteen waiters, there were
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: twelve guests. It would be as startling to find a
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 1: new guest in the hotel that night as to find
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: a new brother taking breakfast or tea in one's own family. Moreover,
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: the priest's appearance was second rate, and his clothes muddy.
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: A mere glimpse of him afar off might precipitate a
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: crisis in the club. Mister Lever at last hit on
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: a plan to cover, since he might not obliterate the disgrace.
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: When you enter, as you never will the Vernon Hotel,
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: you pass down a short passage decorated with a few
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 1: dingy but important pictures, and come to the main vestibule
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: and lounge, which opens on your right into passages leading
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: to the public rooms, and on your left to a
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: similar passage pointing to the kitchens and offices of the hotel.
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: Immediately on your left hand is the corner of a
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: glass office which abuts upon the lounge, a house within
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: a house, so to speak, like the old hotel bar,
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: which probably once occupied its place. In this office sat
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: the representative of the propriet Nobody in this place ever
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: appeared in person if he could help it. And just
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 1: beyond the office, on the way to the servants quarters,
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: was the Gentleman's cloak Room, the last boundary of the
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: gentleman's domain. But between the office and the cloak room
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: was a small private room without other outlet, sometimes used
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 1: by the proprietor for delicate and important matters, such as
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 1: lending a duke a thousand pounds or declining to lend
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 1: him sixpence. It is a mark of the magnificent tolerance
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: of mister Lever that he permitted this holy place to
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 1: be for about half an hour profaned by a mere
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 1: priest scribbling away on a piece of paper. The story
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: which Father Brown was writing down was very likely a
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: much better story than this one, only it will never
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: be known. I can merely state that it was very
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: nearly as long, and that the last two or three
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 1: paragraphs of it were the least exciting and absorbing, For
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: it was by the time that he had reached these
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: that the priest began a little to allow his thoughts
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: to wander, and his animal senses, which were commonly keen
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: to awaken. The time of darkness and dinner was drawing
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: on his own forgotten little room was without a light,
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: and perhaps the gathering gloom, as occasionally happens, sharpened the
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: sense of sound. As Father Brown wrote the last and
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 1: least essential part of his document, he caught himself writing
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: to the rhythm of a recurrent noise outside, just as
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: one sometimes thinks to the tune of a railway train.
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: When he became conscious of the thing, he found what
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: it was, only the ordinary patter of feet passing the door,
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: which in a hotel was no very unlikely matter. Nevertheless,
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: he stared at the darkened ceiling and listened to the sound.
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: After he had listened for a few seconds, dreamily, he
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: got to his feet and listened intently, with his head
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: a little on one side. Then he sat down again
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: and buried his brow in his hands, now not merely listening,
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: but listening and thinking. Also the footsteps outside at any
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: given moment were such as one might hear in any hotel,
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: and yet taken as a whole, there was something very
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: strange about them. There were no other footsteps. It was
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: always a very silent house, for the few familiar guests
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 1: went at once to their own apartments, and the well
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: trained waiters were told to be almost invisible until they
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 1: were wanted. One could not conceive any place where there
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 1: was less reason to apprehend anything irregular. But these footsteps
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: were so odd that one could not decide to call
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: them regular or irregular. Father Brown followed them with his
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: finger on the edge of the table, like a man
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 1: trying to learn a tune on the piano. First there
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: came a long rush of rapid little steps, such as
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: a light man might make in winning a walking race.
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: At a certain point they stopped and changed to a
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 1: sort of slow swinging stamp, numbering not a quarter of
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: the steps, but occupying about the same time. The moment
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: the last echoing stamp had died away would come again
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: the run or ripple of light hurrying feet, and then
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: again the thud of the heavier walking. It was certainly
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 1: the same pair of boots, partly because, as has been said,
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: there were no other boots about, and partly because they
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 1: had a small but unmistakable creek in them. Father Brown
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: had the kind of head that cannot help asking questions,
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: and on this apparently trivial question, his head almost split.
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 1: He had seen men run in order to jump, He
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: had seen men run in order to slide. But why
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: on earth should a man run in order to walk?
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: Or again, why should he walk in order to run?
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: Yet no other description would cover the antics of this
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 1: invisible pair of legs. The man was either walking very
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: fast down one half of the corridor in order to
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 1: walk very slow down the other half, or he was
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 1: walking very slow at one end to have the rapture
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: of walking fast at the other. Neither suggestion seemed to
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: make much sense. His brain was growing darker and darker,
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 1: like his room. Yet as he began to think steadily,
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: the very blackness of his cell seemed to make his
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 1: thoughts more vivid. He began to see, as in a
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: kind of vision, the fantastic feet capering along the corridor
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: in unnatural or symbolic attitudes. Was it a heathen religious
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: dance or some entirely new kind of scientific exercise, Father
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 1: Brown began to ask himself with more exactness what the
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: steps suggested. Taking the slow step first, it certainly was
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 1: not the step of the proprietor men of his type
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: walk with a rapid waddle, or they sit still. It
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 1: could not be any servant or messenger waiting for directions.
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 1: It did not sound like it. The poorer orders in
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: an oligarchy sometimes lurch about when they are slightly drunk,
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: but generally, and especially in such gorgeous scenes, they stand
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: or sit in constrained attitudes. No, that heavy yet springy step,
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: with a kind of careless emphasis, not specially noisy, yet
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 1: not caring what noise it made, belonged to only one
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 1: of the animals of this earth. It was a gentleman
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 1: of Western Europe, and probably one who had never worked
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: for his living. Just as he came to this solid certainty,
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: the step chained to the quicker one and ran past
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 1: the door as feverishly as a rat. The listener remarked
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: that though this step was much swifter, it was also
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: much more noiseless, almost as if the man were walking
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: on tiptoe. Yet it was not associated in his mind
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: with secrecy, but with something else, something that he could
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: not remember. He was maddened by one of those half
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: memories that make a man feel half witted. Surely he
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 1: had heard that strange swift walking somewhere. Suddenly he sprang
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 1: to his feet, with a new idea in his head,
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 1: and walked to the door. His room had no direct
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 1: outlet on the passage, but let on one side into
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: the glass office, and on the other into the cloak
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 1: room beyond. He tried the door into the office and
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 1: found it locked. Then he looked at the window, now
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 1: a square pane full of purple cloud left by a
• 2:14:59
  Speaker 1: life at sunset, and for an instant he smelt evil
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: as a dog smells rats. The rational part of him,
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 1: whether the wiser or not, regained its supremacy. He remembered
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: that the proprietor had told him that he should lock
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: the door and would come later to release him. He
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 1: told himself that twenty things he had not thought of
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: might explain the eccentric sounds outside. He reminded himself that
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 1: there was just enough light left to finish his own
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: proper work. Bringing his paper to the window so as
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: to catch the last stormy evening light, he resolutely plunged
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 1: once more into the almost completed record He had written
• 2:15:50
  Speaker 1: for about twenty minutes, bending closer and closer to his
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 1: paper in the lessening light. Then suddenly he sat upright.
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 1: He had heard the strange feet once more. This time
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: they had a third oddity. Previously, the unknown man had
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: walked with levity, indeed and lightning quickness, but he had
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: walked this time he ran. One could hear the swift, soft,
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: bounding steps coming along the corridor, like the pads of
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 1: a fleeing and leaping panther. Whoever was coming was a
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: very strong, active man in still yet tearing excitement. Yet,
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 1: when the sound had swept up to the office like
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 1: a sort of whispering whirlwind, it suddenly changed again to
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: the old slow, swaggering stamp. Father Brown flung down his paper, and,
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 1: knowing the office door to be locked, went at once
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 1: into the cloak room on the other side. The attendant
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 1: of this place was temporarily absent, probably because the only
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 1: guests were at dinner and his office was a sinecure.
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: After groping through a gray forest of overcoats, he found
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: that the dim cloak room opened on the lighted corridor
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: in the form of a sort of counter or half door,
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: like most of the counters across which we have all
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: handed umbrellas and received tickets. There was a light immediately
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 1: above the semicircular arch of this opening. It threw little
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: illumination on Father Brown himself, who seemed a mere dark
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 1: outline against the dim sunset window behind him, but it
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 1: threw an almost theatrical light on the man who stood
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: outside the cloak room in the corridor. He was an
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 1: elegant man in very plain evening dress, tall but with
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 1: an air of not taking up much room. One felt
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 1: that he could have slid along like a shadow, where
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 1: many smaller men would have been obvious and obstructive. His face,
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 1: now flung back in the lamplight, was swarthy and vivacious,
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: the face of a foreigner. His figure was good, his
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 1: manners good, humored, and confident. A critic could only say
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: that his black coat with a shade below his figure
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 1: and manners, and even bulged and bagged in an odd way.
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 1: The moment he caught sight of Brown's black silhouette against
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 1: the sunset, he tossed down a scrap of paper with
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 1: a number, and called out with amiable authority. I want
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 1: my hat and coat. Please, I find I have to
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 1: go away. At once Father Brown took the paper without
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 1: a word, and obediently went to look for the coat.
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: It was not the first menial work he had done
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 1: in his life. He brought it and laid it on
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 1: the counter. Meanwhile, the strange gentleman, who had been feeling
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: in his waistcoat pocket, said laughing, I haven't got any silver.
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: You can keep this, And he threw down half a
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: sovereign and caught up his coat. Father Brown's figure remained
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 1: quite dark and still, but in that instant he had
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 1: lost his head. His head was always most valuable when
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: he had lost it. In such moments he put two
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: and two together and made four million. Often the Catholic Church,
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 1: which is wedded to common sense, did not approve of it.
• 2:19:47
  Speaker 1: Often he did not approve of it himself. But it
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: was real inspiration, important at rare crises. When whosoever shall
• 2:19:58
  Speaker 1: lose his head, same shall save it. I think, sir,
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: he said civilly, that you have some silver in your pocket.
• 2:20:12
  Speaker 1: The tall gentleman stared, hang it, he cried, If I
• 2:20:17
  Speaker 1: choose to give you gold, why should you complain? Because
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: silver is sometimes more valuable than gold, said the priest mildly,
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 1: that is, in large quantities. The stranger looked at him curiously.
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 1: Then he looked still more curiously up the passage towards
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: the main entrance. Then he looked back at Brown again,
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 1: and then he looked very carefully at the window beyond
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: Brown's head, still colored with the afterglow of the storm.
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: Then he seemed to make up his mind. He put
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 1: one hand on the counter, vaulted over as easy is
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: an acrobat, and towered above the priest, putting one tremendous
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: hand upon his collar. Stand still, he said in a
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 1: hacking whisper. I don't want to threaten you, but I
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: do want to threaten you, said Father Brown, in a
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: voice like a rolling drum. I want to threaten you
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 1: with the worm that dieth not and the fire that
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 1: is not quenched. Your rum sort of cloak room clerk,
• 2:21:31
  Speaker 1: said the other. I am a priest, Monsieur Flambeaux, said Browne,
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 1: and I am ready to hear your confession. The other
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 1: stood gasping for a few moments, and then staggered back
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: into a chair. The first two courses of the dinner
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 1: of the twelve true fishermen had proceeded with placid success.
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 1: I do not possess a copy of the menu, and
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 1: if I did, it would not convey anything to anybody.
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 1: It was written in a sort of super French, employed
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 1: by cooks, but quite unintelligible to Frenchmen. There was a
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: tradition in the club that the ord'eures should be various
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: and manifold to the point of madness. They were taken
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 1: seriously because they were avowedly useless extras, like the whole
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 1: dinner and the whole club. There was also a tradition
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: that the soup course should be light and unpretending a
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: sort of simple and austere vigil for the feast of
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 1: fish that was to come. The talk was that strange,
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 1: slight talk which governs the British Empire, which governs it
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 1: in secret, and yet would scarcely enlighten an ordinary Englishman
• 2:22:52
  Speaker 1: even if he could overhear it. Cabinet ministers on both
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: sides were alluded to by their Christian names with a
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 1: sort of bored benignity. The radical Chancellor of the Echequer,
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 1: whom the whole Tory party was supposed to be cursing,
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: for his extortions, was praised for his minor poetry, or
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 1: his saddle in the hunting field. The Tory leader, whom
• 2:23:19
  Speaker 1: all liberals were supposed to hate as a tyrant, was
• 2:23:22
  Speaker 1: discussed and on the whole praised as a liberal. It
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 1: seemed somehow that politicians were very important, and yet anything
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 1: seemed important about them except their politics. Mister Audley, the Chairman,
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: was an amiable elderly man who still wore Gladstone collars.
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: He was a kind of symbol of all that phantasmal
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 1: and yet fixed society. He had never done anything, not
• 2:23:56
  Speaker 1: even anything wrong. He was not fast, he was not
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 1: even particularly rich. He was simply in the thing, and
• 2:24:07
  Speaker 1: there was an end of it. No party could ignore him,
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 1: and if he had wished to be in the cabinet,
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 1: he certainly would have been put there. The Duke of Chester,
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 1: the Vice President, was a young and rising politician. That
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 1: is to say, he was a pleasant youth with flat,
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: fair hair and a freckled face, with moderate intelligence and
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: enormous estates in public. His appearances were always successful, and
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: his principle was simple enough. When he thought of a joke,
• 2:24:44
  Speaker 1: he made it, and was called brilliant when he could
• 2:24:48
  Speaker 1: not think of a joke. He said that this was
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 1: no time for trifling, and was called Abel. In private,
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 1: in a club of his own class, he was simply
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 1: quite pleasantly frank and silly, like a schoolboy. Mister Audley,
• 2:25:06
  Speaker 1: never having been in politics, treated them a little more seriously.
• 2:25:11
  Speaker 1: Sometimes he even embarrassed the company by phrases suggesting that
• 2:25:15
  Speaker 1: there was some difference between a liberal and a conservative.
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 1: He himself was a conservative. Even in private life. He
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 1: had a roll of gray hair over the back of
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 1: his collar, like certain old fashioned statesmen, and seen from behind,
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 1: he looked like the man the Empire wants. Seen from
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 1: the front, he looked like a mild, self indulgent bachelor
• 2:25:41
  Speaker 1: with rooms in the Albany, which he was. As has
• 2:25:48
  Speaker 1: been remarked, there were twenty four seats at the terrace
• 2:25:51
  Speaker 1: table and only twelve members of the club. Thus they
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 1: could occupy the terrorist in the most luxurious style of all,
• 2:26:00
  Speaker 1: being ranged along the inner side of the table with
• 2:26:04
  Speaker 1: no one opposite, commanding an uninterrupted view of the garden,
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 1: the colors of which were still vivid, though evening was
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 1: closing in somewhat luridly for the time of year. The
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 1: chairman sat in the center of the line, and the
• 2:26:19
  Speaker 1: vice president at the right hand end of it. When
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: the twelve guests first trooped into their seats, it was
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 1: the custom, for some unknown reason, for all the fifteen
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: waiters to stand lining the wall like troops presenting arms
• 2:26:34
  Speaker 1: to the king, while the fat proprietor stood and bowed
• 2:26:39
  Speaker 1: to the club with radiant surprise, as if he had
• 2:26:42
  Speaker 1: never heard of them before. But before the first chink
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: of knife and fork, this army of retainers had vanished,
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: only the one or two required to collect and distribute
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 1: the plates, darting about in deathly silence. Mister Lever, the proprietor,
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: of course, had disappeared in convulsions of courtesy long before.
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 1: It would be exaggerative, indeed irreverent to say that he
• 2:27:10
  Speaker 1: ever positively appeared again. But when the important course, the
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 1: fish course, was being brought on, there was, how shall
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: I put it, a vivid shadow, a projection of his personality,
• 2:27:26
  Speaker 1: which told that he was hovering near the sacred fish course,
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 1: consisted to the eyes of the vulgar in a sort
• 2:27:36
  Speaker 1: of monstrous pudding about the size and shape of a
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 1: wedding cake, in which some considerable number of interesting fishes
• 2:27:44
  Speaker 1: had finally lost the shapes which God had given to them.
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: The twelve true fishermen took up their celebrated fish knives
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 1: and fish forks and approached it as gravely as if
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 1: every inch of the pudding cost as much as the
• 2:27:59
  Speaker 1: silk fork it was eaten with. So it did. For
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 1: all I know. This course was dealt with in eager
• 2:28:08
  Speaker 1: and devouring silence. And it was only when his plate
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 1: was nearly empty that the young Duke made the ritual remark.
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: They can't do this anywhere but here. Nowhere, said mister
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: Audley in a deep bass voice, turning to the speaker
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 1: and nodding his venerable head a number of times. Nowhere, assuredly,
• 2:28:33
  Speaker 1: except here. It was represented to me that at the
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 1: Cafe on Clais here he was interrupted and even agitated
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 1: for a moment by the removal of his plate, but
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: he recaptured the valuable thread of his thoughts. It was
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: represented to me that the same could be done at
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 1: the Cafe on Glays. Nothing like it, sir, he said,
• 2:28:56
  Speaker 1: shaking his head ruthlessly like a hanging judge. Nothing like it,
• 2:29:03
  Speaker 1: overrated place, said a certain Colonel Pound speaking by the
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 1: look of him for the first time for some months.
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 1: Oh I don't know, said the Duke of Chester, who
• 2:29:17
  Speaker 1: was an optimist. It's jolly good for some things, you
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: can't beat it at a waiter came swiftly along the
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 1: room and then stopped dead. His stoppage was as silent
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 1: as his tread. But all those vague and kindly gentlemen
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 1: were so used to the utter smoothness of the unseen
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: machinery which surrounded and supported their lives, that a waiter
• 2:29:42
  Speaker 1: doing anything unexpected was a start and a jar. They
• 2:29:47
  Speaker 1: felt as you and I would feel if the inanimate
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 1: world disobeyed, if a chair ran away from us. The
• 2:29:56
  Speaker 1: waiter stood staring a few seconds while there deepened on
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 1: on every face at table, a strange shame which is
• 2:30:03
  Speaker 1: wholly the product of our time. It is the combination
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 1: of modern humanitarianism with the horrible modern abyss between the
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: souls of the rich and poor. A genuine historic aristocrat
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 1: would have thrown things at the waiter, beginning with empty bottles,
• 2:30:22
  Speaker 1: and very probably ending with money. A genuine democrat would
• 2:30:27
  Speaker 1: have asked him, with a comrade like clearness of speech,
• 2:30:32
  Speaker 1: what the devil he was doing. But these modern plutocrats
• 2:30:37
  Speaker 1: could not bear a poor man near to them, either
• 2:30:41
  Speaker 1: as a slave or as a friend. That something had
• 2:30:45
  Speaker 1: gone wrong with the servants was merely a dull, hot embarrassment.
• 2:30:52
  Speaker 1: They did not want to be brutal, and they dreaded
• 2:30:55
  Speaker 1: the need to be benevolent. They wanted the thing, whatever
• 2:30:59
  Speaker 1: it was, was to be over. It was over. The waiter,
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 1: after standing for some seconds rigid like a cataleptic, turned
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 1: round and ran madly out of the room. When he
• 2:31:18
  Speaker 1: reappeared in the room, or rather in the doorway, it
• 2:31:21
  Speaker 1: was in company with another waiter, with whom he whispered
• 2:31:25
  Speaker 1: and gesticulated with southern fierceness. Then the first waiter went away,
• 2:31:31
  Speaker 1: leaving the second waiter, and reappeared with a third waiter.
• 2:31:36
  Speaker 1: By the time a fourth waiter had joined this hurried synod,
• 2:31:40
  Speaker 1: mister Audley felt it necessary to break the silence in
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 1: the interests of tact. He used a very loud cough
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 1: instead of a presidential hammer, and said, splendid work young
• 2:31:54
  Speaker 1: Mucher's doing in Burma. Now, no other nation in the
• 2:31:58
  Speaker 1: world could have a fifth waiter had sped towards him
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 1: like an arrow, and was whispering in his ear, So sorry, important,
• 2:32:07
  Speaker 1: might the proprietor speak to you? The chairman turned in disorder,
• 2:32:14
  Speaker 1: and with a dazed stare, saw mister Lever coming towards
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 1: them with his lumbering quickness. The gait of the good
• 2:32:22
  Speaker 1: proprietor was indeed his usual gait, but his face was
• 2:32:27
  Speaker 1: by no means usual. Generally it was a genial copper brown.
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 1: Now it was a sickly yellow. You will pardon me,
• 2:32:40
  Speaker 1: mister Audley, he said, with asthmatic breathlessness. I have great
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 1: apprehensions your fish plates. They are cleared away with the
• 2:32:50
  Speaker 1: knife and fork on them. Well, I hope, so said
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 1: the chairman, with some warmth. You see him, panted the
• 2:33:01
  Speaker 1: excited hotel keeper. You see the waiter who took them away.
• 2:33:05
  Speaker 1: You know him, know the waiter, answered mister Audley indignantly.
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 1: Certainly not. Mister Lever opened his hands with a gesture
• 2:33:17
  Speaker 1: of agony. I never send him, he said, I know
• 2:33:23
  Speaker 1: not when or why he come. I send my waiter
• 2:33:26
  Speaker 1: to take away the plates, and he find them already away.
• 2:33:32
  Speaker 1: Mister Audley still looked rather too bewildered to be really
• 2:33:35
  Speaker 1: the man the Empire wants none of the company could
• 2:33:38
  Speaker 1: say anything except the man of wood, Colonel Pound, who
• 2:33:43
  Speaker 1: seemed galvanized into an unnatural life. He rose rigidly from
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 1: his chair, leaving all the rest sitting, screwed his eyeglass
• 2:33:53
  Speaker 1: into his eye, and spoke in a raucous undertone, as
• 2:33:58
  Speaker 1: if he had half forgotten how to speak. Do you
• 2:34:02
  Speaker 1: mean he said that somebody has stolen our silver fish service?
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 1: The proprietor repeated the open handed gesture with even greater helplessness,
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: and in a flash all the men at the table
• 2:34:17
  Speaker 1: were on their feet. Are all your waiters here? Demanded
• 2:34:23
  Speaker 1: the Colonel in his low, harsh accent. Yes they're all here.
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 1: I noticed it myself, cried the young Duke, pushing his
• 2:34:33
  Speaker 1: boyish face into the inmost ring. Always count em as
• 2:34:37
  Speaker 1: I come in. They look so queer standing up against
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 1: the wall. But surely one cannot exactly remember, began mister Audley,
• 2:34:47
  Speaker 1: with heavy hesitation. I remember exactly, I tell you, cried
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 1: the duke excitedly. There never have been more than fifteen
• 2:34:56
  Speaker 1: waiters at this place, and there were no more than
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 1: fifteen tonight. I'll swear no more and no less. The
• 2:35:06
  Speaker 1: proprietor turned upon him, quaking in a kind of palsy
• 2:35:10
  Speaker 1: of surprise. You say, you say, He stammered, that you
• 2:35:16
  Speaker 1: see all my fifteen waiters as usual, assented the Duke.
• 2:35:23
  Speaker 1: What is the matter with that? Nothing, said Lever, with
• 2:35:28
  Speaker 1: a deepening accent. Only you did not, for one of
• 2:35:32
  Speaker 1: them is dead upstairs. There was a shocking stillness for
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 1: an instant in that room. It may be so supernatural
• 2:35:44
  Speaker 1: is the word death, that each of those idle men
• 2:35:48
  Speaker 1: looked for a second at his soul and saw it
• 2:35:52
  Speaker 1: as a small, dried pea. One of them, the Duke,
• 2:35:57
  Speaker 1: I think, even, said, with the idiotic kindness of wealth,
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 1: is there anything we can do? He has had a priest,
• 2:36:09
  Speaker 1: said the Jew. Not untouched. Then, as to the clang
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 1: of doom, they awoke to their own position. For a
• 2:36:19
  Speaker 1: few weird seconds, they had really felt as if the
• 2:36:22
  Speaker 1: fifteenth waiter might be the ghost of the dead man upstairs.
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: They had been dumb under that oppression, for ghosts were
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: to them an embarrassment like beggars. But the remembrance of
• 2:36:37
  Speaker 1: the silver broke the spell of the miraculous broke it abruptly,
• 2:36:42
  Speaker 1: and with a brutal reaction. The colonel flung over his
• 2:36:47
  Speaker 1: chair and strode to the door. If there was a
• 2:36:51
  Speaker 1: fifteenth man here, friends, he said that fifteenth fellow was
• 2:36:56
  Speaker 1: a thief. Down at once to the front and back
• 2:36:59
  Speaker 1: door and secure everything. Then we'll talk. The twenty four
• 2:37:04
  Speaker 1: pearls of the club are worth recovering. Mister Audley seemed
• 2:37:10
  Speaker 1: at first to hesitate about whether it was gentlemanly to
• 2:37:13
  Speaker 1: be in such a hurry about anything, but seeing the
• 2:37:17
  Speaker 1: duke dash down the stairs with youthful energy, he followed
• 2:37:21
  Speaker 1: with a more mature emotion. At the same instant, a
• 2:37:26
  Speaker 1: sixth waiter ran into the room and declared that he
• 2:37:29
  Speaker 1: had found the pile of fish plates on a sideboard,
• 2:37:33
  Speaker 1: with no trace of the silver. The crowd of diners
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 1: in attendants that tumbled helter skelter down the passages divided
• 2:37:43
  Speaker 1: into two groups. Most of the fishermen followed the proprietor
• 2:37:48
  Speaker 1: to the front room to demand news of any exit.
• 2:37:53
  Speaker 1: Colonel Pound, with the chairman, the vice president, and one
• 2:37:58
  Speaker 1: or two others, darted down the corridor leading to the
• 2:38:01
  Speaker 1: servants quarters as the more likely line of escape. As
• 2:38:07
  Speaker 1: they did so, they passed the dim alcove or cavern
• 2:38:10
  Speaker 1: of the cloak room and saw a short black coated figure,
• 2:38:15
  Speaker 1: presumably an attendant, standing a little way back in the
• 2:38:19
  Speaker 1: shadow of it. Hallo there, called the Duke, have you
• 2:38:26
  Speaker 1: seen any one pass The short figure did not answer
• 2:38:31
  Speaker 1: the question directly, but merely said, perhaps I have got
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 1: what you were looking for. Gentlemen, they paused, wavering and wondering,
• 2:38:43
  Speaker 1: while he quietly went to the back of the cloak
• 2:38:45
  Speaker 1: room and came back with both hands full of shining silver,
• 2:38:50
  Speaker 1: which he laid out on the counter as calmly as
• 2:38:52
  Speaker 1: a salesman. It took the form of a dozen quaintly
• 2:38:57
  Speaker 1: shaped forks and knives. You you began, the colonel, quite
• 2:39:04
  Speaker 1: thrown off his balance. At last, Then he peered into
• 2:39:08
  Speaker 1: the dim little room and saw two things. First that
• 2:39:14
  Speaker 1: the short black clad man was dressed like a clergyman,
• 2:39:18
  Speaker 1: and second that the window of the room behind him
• 2:39:22
  Speaker 1: was burst, as if some one had passed violently through.
• 2:39:28
  Speaker 1: Valuable things to deposit in a cloak room, aren't they
• 2:39:31
  Speaker 1: remarked the clergyman with cheerful composure. Did did you steal
• 2:39:38
  Speaker 1: those things? Stammered mister Audley with staring eyes. If I did,
• 2:39:45
  Speaker 1: said the clerk pleasantly, at least I am bringing them
• 2:39:48
  Speaker 1: back again. But you didn't, said Colonel Pound, still staring
• 2:39:54
  Speaker 1: at the broken window, to make a clean breast of it.
• 2:39:59
  Speaker 1: I didn't, said the other, with some humor, and he
• 2:40:03
  Speaker 1: seated himself quite gravely on a stool. But you know
• 2:40:08
  Speaker 1: who did, said the colonel. I don't know his real name,
• 2:40:13
  Speaker 1: said the priest placidly, but I know something of his
• 2:40:17
  Speaker 1: fighting weight, and a great deal about his spiritual difficulties.
• 2:40:22
  Speaker 1: I formed the physical estimate when he was trying to
• 2:40:24
  Speaker 1: throttle me, and the moral estimate when he repented. Oh,
• 2:40:30
  Speaker 1: I say repented, cried young Chester, with a sort of
• 2:40:35
  Speaker 1: crow of laughter. Father Brown got to his feet, putting
• 2:40:40
  Speaker 1: his hands behind him. Odd, isn't it? He said that
• 2:40:45
  Speaker 1: a thief and a vagabond should repent, when so many
• 2:40:49
  Speaker 1: who were rich and secure remain hard and frivolous, and
• 2:40:53
  Speaker 1: without fruit for God or man. But there, if you
• 2:40:58
  Speaker 1: will excuse me, you trespass a little upon my province.
• 2:41:03
  Speaker 1: If you doubt the penitence is a practical fact, there
• 2:41:06
  Speaker 1: are your knives and forks. You are the twelve true fishers,
• 2:41:11
  Speaker 1: and there are all your silver fish. But he has
• 2:41:16
  Speaker 1: made me a fisher of men. Did you catch this man?
• 2:41:23
  Speaker 1: Asked the colonel, frowning. Father Brown looked him full in
• 2:41:28
  Speaker 1: his frowning face. Yes, he said, I caught him with
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 1: an unseen hook and an invisible line, which is long
• 2:41:38
  Speaker 1: enough to let him wander to the ends of the world,
• 2:41:42
  Speaker 1: and still to bring him back with a twitch upon
• 2:41:45
  Speaker 1: the thread. There was a long silence. All the other
• 2:41:51
  Speaker 1: men present drifted away to carry the recovered silver to
• 2:41:54
  Speaker 1: their comrades or to consult the proprietor about the queer
• 2:41:59
  Speaker 1: condition of a But the grim faced colonel still sat
• 2:42:04
  Speaker 1: sideways on the counter, swinging his long, lank legs and
• 2:42:09
  Speaker 1: biting his dark mustache. At last, he said quietly to
• 2:42:13
  Speaker 1: the priest, he must have been a clever fellow. But
• 2:42:19
  Speaker 1: I think I know a cleverer. He was a clever fellow,
• 2:42:25
  Speaker 1: answered the other. But I'm not quite sure what other
• 2:42:29
  Speaker 1: you mean. I mean, you, said the colonel with a
• 2:42:35
  Speaker 1: short laugh. I don't want to get the fellow jailed.
• 2:42:39
  Speaker 1: Make yourself easy about that, but I'd give a good
• 2:42:43
  Speaker 1: many silver forks to know exactly how you fell into
• 2:42:46
  Speaker 1: this affair and how you got the stuff out of him.
• 2:42:50
  Speaker 1: I reckon you're the most up to date devil of
• 2:42:52
  Speaker 1: the present company. Father Brown seemed rather to like the
• 2:42:58
  Speaker 1: saturnine candor of the soul er Well, he said, smiling,
• 2:43:04
  Speaker 1: I mustn't tell you anything of the man's identity or
• 2:43:08
  Speaker 1: his own story, of course, but there's no particular reason
• 2:43:12
  Speaker 1: why I shouldn't tell you of the mere outside facts
• 2:43:15
  Speaker 1: which I found out for myself. He hopped over the
• 2:43:20
  Speaker 1: barrier with unexpected activity and sat beside Colonel Pound, kicking
• 2:43:26
  Speaker 1: his short legs like a little boy on a gate.
• 2:43:29
  Speaker 1: He began to tell the story as easily as if
• 2:43:32
  Speaker 1: he were telling it to an old friend by a
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 1: Christmas fire, you see, Colonel, he said, I was shut
• 2:43:41
  Speaker 1: up in that small room there, doing some writing when
• 2:43:45
  Speaker 1: I heard a pair of feet in this passage doing
• 2:43:48
  Speaker 1: a dance that was as queer as the dance of death.
• 2:43:52
  Speaker 1: First came quick, funny little steps, like a man walking
• 2:43:56
  Speaker 1: on tiptoe for a wager. Then came slow, careless, creaking steps,
• 2:44:03
  Speaker 1: as of a big man walking about with a cigar.
• 2:44:07
  Speaker 1: But they were both made by the same feet, I swear,
• 2:44:11
  Speaker 1: and they came in rotation, first the run, and then
• 2:44:15
  Speaker 1: the walk, and then the run again. I wondered, at
• 2:44:19
  Speaker 1: first idly and then wildly, why a man should act
• 2:44:24
  Speaker 1: these two parts at once. One walk I knew it
• 2:44:29
  Speaker 1: was just like yours, Colonel. It was the walk of
• 2:44:33
  Speaker 1: a well fed gentleman waiting for something, who strolls about
• 2:44:37
  Speaker 1: rather because he is physically alert than because he is
• 2:44:40
  Speaker 1: mentally impatient. I knew that I knew the other walk, too,
• 2:44:46
  Speaker 1: but I could not remember what it was. What wild
• 2:44:50
  Speaker 1: creature had I met on my travels that tore along
• 2:44:54
  Speaker 1: on tiptoe in that extraordinary style. Then I heard a
• 2:44:59
  Speaker 1: clink of plates somewhere, and the answer stood up as
• 2:45:03
  Speaker 1: plain as Saint Peter's. It was the walk of a waiter,
• 2:45:07
  Speaker 1: that walk with the body slanted forward, the eyes looking down,
• 2:45:12
  Speaker 1: the ball of the toe spurning away the ground, the
• 2:45:16
  Speaker 1: coat tails and napkin flying. Then I thought for a
• 2:45:20
  Speaker 1: minute and a half more, and I believe I saw
• 2:45:23
  Speaker 1: the manner of the crime as clearly as if I
• 2:45:26
  Speaker 1: were going to commit it. Colonel Pound looked at him keenly,
• 2:45:33
  Speaker 1: but the speaker's mild gray eyes were fixed upon the
• 2:45:36
  Speaker 1: ceiling with almost empty wistfulness. A crime, he said, slowly,
• 2:45:44
  Speaker 1: is like any other work of art. Don't look surprised.
• 2:45:49
  Speaker 1: Crimes are, by no means the only works of art
• 2:45:51
  Speaker 1: that come from an infernal workshop. But every work of art,
• 2:45:57
  Speaker 1: divine or diabolic, has one indispensable mark. I mean that
• 2:46:03
  Speaker 1: the center of it is simple, however much the fulfillment
• 2:46:07
  Speaker 1: may be complicated. Thus, in Hamlet, let us say, the
• 2:46:14
  Speaker 1: grotesqueness of the grave digger, the flowers of the mad girl,
• 2:46:19
  Speaker 1: the fantastic finery of Osric, the pallor of the ghosts,
• 2:46:23
  Speaker 1: and the grin of the skull are all oddities in
• 2:46:27
  Speaker 1: a sort of tangled wreath round one plain tragic figure
• 2:46:31
  Speaker 1: of a man in black. Well, this also, he said,
• 2:46:38
  Speaker 1: getting slowly down from his seat with a smile. This
• 2:46:42
  Speaker 1: also is the plain tragedy of a man in black. Yes,
• 2:46:47
  Speaker 1: he went on, seeing the colonel look up in some wonder.
• 2:46:51
  Speaker 1: The whole of this tail turns on a black coat.
• 2:46:55
  Speaker 1: In this, as in Hamlet, there are the Rococo excres
• 2:47:00
  Speaker 1: essences yourselves. Let us say, there is the dead waiter,
• 2:47:06
  Speaker 1: who was there when he could not be there. There
• 2:47:10
  Speaker 1: is the invisible hand that swept your table clear of
• 2:47:13
  Speaker 1: silver and melted into air. But every clever crime is
• 2:47:18
  Speaker 1: founded ultimately on some one quite simple fact, some fact
• 2:47:23
  Speaker 1: that is not itself mysterious. The mystification comes in covering
• 2:47:29
  Speaker 1: it up, in leading men's thoughts away from it. This
• 2:47:35
  Speaker 1: large and subtle, and in the ordinary course most profitable
• 2:47:39
  Speaker 1: crime was built on the plain fact that a gentleman's
• 2:47:44
  Speaker 1: evening dress is the same as a waiter's. All the
• 2:47:50
  Speaker 1: rest was acting and thundering. Good acting, too, still, said
• 2:47:57
  Speaker 1: the colonel, getting up and frowning at his boots. I
• 2:48:01
  Speaker 1: am not sure that I understand, colonel, said father Brown.
• 2:48:07
  Speaker 1: I tell you that this archangel of impudence who stole
• 2:48:11
  Speaker 1: your forks, walked up and down this passage twenty times,
• 2:48:15
  Speaker 1: in the blaze of all the lamps, in the clare
• 2:48:18
  Speaker 1: of all the eyes. He did not go and hide
• 2:48:21
  Speaker 1: in dim corners where suspicion might have searched for him.
• 2:48:25
  Speaker 1: He kept constantly on the move in the lighted corridors,
• 2:48:29
  Speaker 1: and everywhere that he went he seemed to be there
• 2:48:33
  Speaker 1: by right. Don't ask me what he was like. You
• 2:48:37
  Speaker 1: have seen him yourself six or seven times. Tonight. You
• 2:48:41
  Speaker 1: were waiting with all the other grand people in the
• 2:48:43
  Speaker 1: reception room at the end of the passage, there with
• 2:48:47
  Speaker 1: the terrace just beyond. Whenever he came among you, gentlemen,
• 2:48:52
  Speaker 1: he came in the lightning style of a waiter. His
• 2:48:55
  Speaker 1: bent head, flapping napkin, and flying feet. He shot out
• 2:49:00
  Speaker 1: on the terrace, did something to the tablecloth, and shot
• 2:49:04
  Speaker 1: back again towards the office and the waiters quarters. By
• 2:49:09
  Speaker 1: the time he had come under the eye of the
• 2:49:11
  Speaker 1: office clerk and the waiters, he had become another man
• 2:49:15
  Speaker 1: in every inch of his body, in every instinctive gesture.
• 2:49:20
  Speaker 1: He strolled among the servants with the absent minded insolence
• 2:49:24
  Speaker 1: which they have all seen in their patrons. It was
• 2:49:28
  Speaker 1: no new thing to them that a swell from the
• 2:49:31
  Speaker 1: dinner party should pace all parts of the house like
• 2:49:34
  Speaker 1: an animal at the zoo. They know that nothing marks
• 2:49:37
  Speaker 1: the smart set more than a habit of walking where
• 2:49:40
  Speaker 1: one chooses. When he was magnificently weary of walking down
• 2:49:46
  Speaker 1: that particular passage, he would wheel round and pace back
• 2:49:50
  Speaker 1: past the office. In the shadow of the arch just beyond,
• 2:49:55
  Speaker 1: he was altered as by a blast of magic, and
• 2:49:58
  Speaker 1: went hurrying forward again among the twelve fishermen, an obsequious attendant.
• 2:50:05
  Speaker 1: Why should the gentleman look at a chance waiter? Why
• 2:50:08
  Speaker 1: should the waiters suspect a first rate walking gentleman? Once
• 2:50:13
  Speaker 1: or twice he played the coolest tricks in the proprietor's
• 2:50:18
  Speaker 1: private quarters. He called out breezily for a siphon of
• 2:50:21
  Speaker 1: soda water, saying he was thirsty. He said genially that
• 2:50:27
  Speaker 1: he would carry it himself, and he did. He carried
• 2:50:31
  Speaker 1: it quickly and correctly through the thicker view a waiter
• 2:50:35
  Speaker 1: with an obvious errand of course it could not have
• 2:50:39
  Speaker 1: been kept up long, but it only had to be
• 2:50:42
  Speaker 1: kept up until the end of the fish course. His
• 2:50:47
  Speaker 1: worst moment was when the waiters stood in a row.
• 2:50:51
  Speaker 1: But even then he contrived to lean against the wall
• 2:50:54
  Speaker 1: just round the corner, in such a way that, for
• 2:50:57
  Speaker 1: that important instant the waiters thought him a gentleman, while
• 2:51:01
  Speaker 1: the gentleman thought him a waiter. The rest went on
• 2:51:05
  Speaker 1: like winking. If any waiter caught him away from the table,
• 2:51:10
  Speaker 1: that waiter caught a languid aristocrat, he had only to
• 2:51:14
  Speaker 1: time himself two minutes before the fish was cleared, become
• 2:51:18
  Speaker 1: a swift servant and cleared himself. He put the plates
• 2:51:23
  Speaker 1: down on the sideboard, stuffed the silver in his breast pocket,
• 2:51:28
  Speaker 1: giving it a bulgy look, and ran like a hare.
• 2:51:31
  Speaker 1: I heard him coming till he came to the cloak room.
• 2:51:36
  Speaker 1: There he had only to be a plutocrat again, A
• 2:51:39
  Speaker 1: plutocrat called away suddenly on business. He had only to
• 2:51:44
  Speaker 1: give his ticket to the cloakroom attendant and go out
• 2:51:47
  Speaker 1: again elegantly as he had come in. Only only I
• 2:51:52
  Speaker 1: happened to be the cloakroom attendant. What did you do
• 2:51:57
  Speaker 1: to him? Cried the colonel with unusual intensity. What did
• 2:52:01
  Speaker 1: he tell you? I beg your pardon, said the priest immovably.
• 2:52:08
  Speaker 1: That is where the story ends, and the interesting story begins,
• 2:52:14
  Speaker 1: muttered Pound. I think I understand his professional trick, but
• 2:52:19
  Speaker 1: I don't seem to have got hold of yours. I
• 2:52:24
  Speaker 1: must be going, said Father Brown. They walked together along
• 2:52:29
  Speaker 1: the passage to the entrance hall, where they saw the fresh,
• 2:52:33
  Speaker 1: freckled face of the Duke of Chester, who was bounding
• 2:52:36
  Speaker 1: buoyantly along towards them. Come along, Pound, he cried breathlessly.
• 2:52:43
  Speaker 1: I've been looking for you everywhere. The dinner's going again
• 2:52:47
  Speaker 1: in spanking style, and Old Oddly has got to make
• 2:52:50
  Speaker 1: a speech in honor of the forks being saved. We
• 2:52:53
  Speaker 1: want to start some new ceremony, don't you know, to
• 2:52:57
  Speaker 1: commemorate the occasion. I say, you really got the goods back.
• 2:53:02
  Speaker 1: What do you suggest, why, said the colonel, eyeing him
• 2:53:08
  Speaker 1: with a certain sardonic approval. I should suggest that, henceforward
• 2:53:13
  Speaker 1: we wear green coats instead of black. One never knows
• 2:53:17
  Speaker 1: what mistakes may arise when one looks so like a waiter. Oh,
• 2:53:24
  Speaker 1: hang it all, said the young man. A gentleman never
• 2:53:28
  Speaker 1: looks like a waiter, nor a waiter like a gentleman,
• 2:53:33
  Speaker 1: I suppose, said Colonel Pound, with the same lowering laughter
• 2:53:37
  Speaker 1: on his face. Reverend Sir, your friend must have been
• 2:53:42
  Speaker 1: very smart to act the gentleman. Father Brown buttoned up
• 2:53:48
  Speaker 1: his commonplace overcoat to the neck for the night was stormy,
• 2:53:52
  Speaker 1: and took his commonplace umbrella from the stand. Yes, he said,
• 2:53:58
  Speaker 1: it must be very hard worked to be a gentleman.
• 2:54:01
  Speaker 1: But do you know I have sometimes thought that it
• 2:54:05
  Speaker 1: may be almost as laborious to be a waiter. And,
• 2:54:10
  Speaker 1: saying good evening, he pushed open the heavy doors of
• 2:54:13
  Speaker 1: that palace of pleasures. The golden gates closed behind him,
• 2:54:19
  Speaker 1: and he went at a brisk walk through the damp,
• 2:54:21
  Speaker 1: dark streets in search of a penny. Omnibus end of
• 2:54:29
  Speaker 1: the queer feet the flying stars, the most beautiful crime
• 2:54:39
  Speaker 1: I ever committed Flambeau would say in his highly moral
• 2:54:44
  Speaker 1: old age was also by a singular coincidence. My last
• 2:54:52
  Speaker 1: it was committed at Christmas. As an artist, I had
• 2:54:57
  Speaker 1: always attempted to provide crimes suitable to the special season
• 2:55:01
  Speaker 1: or landscapes in which I found myself, choosing this or
• 2:55:05
  Speaker 1: that terrace or garden for a catastrophe, as if for
• 2:55:09
  Speaker 1: a statuary group. Thus Squires should be swindled in long
• 2:55:15
  Speaker 1: rooms paneled with oak, while Jews, on the other hand,
• 2:55:21
  Speaker 1: should rather find themselves unexpectedly penniless among the lights and
• 2:55:25
  Speaker 1: screens of the cafe riche. Thus, in England, if I
• 2:55:31
  Speaker 1: wished to relieve a dean of his riches, which is
• 2:55:35
  Speaker 1: not so easy as you might suppose, I wished to
• 2:55:39
  Speaker 1: frame him, if I make myself clear, in the green
• 2:55:43
  Speaker 1: lawns and gray towers of some cathedral town. Similarly, in France,
• 2:55:52
  Speaker 1: when I had got money out of a rich and
• 2:55:53
  Speaker 1: wicked peasant, which is almost impossible, it gratified me to
• 2:55:59
  Speaker 1: get his indignant head relieved against a gray line of
• 2:56:03
  Speaker 1: clipped poplars and those solemn plains of Gaul over which
• 2:56:08
  Speaker 1: broods the mighty spirit of Malay. Well, my last crime
• 2:56:15
  Speaker 1: was a Christmas crime, A cheery, cozy English middle class crime,
• 2:56:22
  Speaker 1: a crime of Charles Dickens. I did it in a
• 2:56:26
  Speaker 1: good old middle class house near Putney. A house with
• 2:56:31
  Speaker 1: a crescent of carriage drive, a house with a stable
• 2:56:34
  Speaker 1: by the side of it, A house with the name
• 2:56:37
  Speaker 1: on the two outer gates, A house with a monkey tree.
• 2:56:43
  Speaker 1: Enough you know the species. I really think my imitation
• 2:56:48
  Speaker 1: of Dickens's style was dexterous and literary. It seems almost
• 2:56:53
  Speaker 1: a pity. I repented the same evening. Flambeau would then
• 2:56:59
  Speaker 1: press seed to tell the story from the inside, And
• 2:57:03
  Speaker 1: even from the inside it was odd. Seen from the outside,
• 2:57:08
  Speaker 1: it was perfectly incomprehensible, and it is from the outside
• 2:57:13
  Speaker 1: that the stranger must study it. From this standpoint, the
• 2:57:19
  Speaker 1: drama may be said to have begun when the front
• 2:57:22
  Speaker 1: doors of the house with the stable opened on the
• 2:57:25
  Speaker 1: garden with the monkey tree, and a young girl came
• 2:57:29
  Speaker 1: out with bread to feed the birds on the afternoon
• 2:57:32
  Speaker 1: of Boxing Day. She had a pretty face with brave
• 2:57:37
  Speaker 1: brown eyes, but her figure was beyond conjecture, for she
• 2:57:42
  Speaker 1: was so wrapped up in brown furs that it was
• 2:57:45
  Speaker 1: hard to say which was hair and which was fur.
• 2:57:50
  Speaker 1: But for the attractive face, she might have been a
• 2:57:52
  Speaker 1: small toddling bear. The winter afternoon was reddening towards evening,
• 2:58:00
  Speaker 1: and already a ruby light was rolled over the bloomless beds,
• 2:58:04
  Speaker 1: filling them, as it were, with the ghosts of the
• 2:58:08
  Speaker 1: dead roses. On one side of the house stood the stable.
• 2:58:13
  Speaker 1: On the other, an alley or cloister of laurels led
• 2:58:17
  Speaker 1: to the larger garden behind the young lady, having scattered
• 2:58:23
  Speaker 1: bread for the birds for the fourth or fifth time
• 2:58:26
  Speaker 1: that day. Because the dog ate, it passed unobtrusively down
• 2:58:31
  Speaker 1: the lane of laurels and into a glittering plantation of evergreens.
• 2:58:35
  Speaker 1: Behind here, she gave an exclamation of wonder real or ritual,
• 2:58:43
  Speaker 1: and looking up at the high garden wall above her,
• 2:58:47
  Speaker 1: beheld it fantastically bestridden by a somewhat fantastic figure. Oh
• 2:58:54
  Speaker 1: don't jump, mister crook, she called out, in some alarm,
• 2:58:59
  Speaker 1: it's much too high. The individual riding the party wall
• 2:59:06
  Speaker 1: like an aerial horse was a tall, angular young man,
• 2:59:10
  Speaker 1: with dark hair sticking up like a hair brush, intelligent
• 2:59:15
  Speaker 1: and even distinguished lineaments, but a sallow and almost alien complexion.
• 2:59:23
  Speaker 1: This showed the more plainly because he wore an aggressive
• 2:59:26
  Speaker 1: red tie, the only part of his costume of which
• 2:59:30
  Speaker 1: he seemed to take any care. Perhaps it was a symbol.
• 2:59:36
  Speaker 1: He took no notice of the girl's alarmed adjuration, but
• 2:59:40
  Speaker 1: leapt like a grasshopper to the ground beside her, where
• 2:59:43
  Speaker 1: he might very well have broken his legs. I think
• 2:59:48
  Speaker 1: I was meant to be a burglar, he said placidly,
• 2:59:53
  Speaker 1: and I have no doubt I should have been if
• 2:59:55
  Speaker 1: I hadn't happened to be born in that nice house
• 2:59:58
  Speaker 1: next door. I can't see any harm in it anyhow.
• 3:00:04
  Speaker 1: How can you say such things, she remonstrated, Well, said
• 3:00:10
  Speaker 1: the young man, if you're born on the wrong side
• 3:00:13
  Speaker 1: of the wall, I can't see that it's wrong to
• 3:00:16
  Speaker 1: climb over it. I never know what you will say
• 3:00:20
  Speaker 1: or do next, she said. I don't often know myself,
• 3:00:25
  Speaker 1: replied mister Crook. But then I am on the right
• 3:00:29
  Speaker 1: side of the wall now. And which is the right
• 3:00:34
  Speaker 1: side of the wall, asked the young lady, smiling. Whichever
• 3:00:39
  Speaker 1: side you are on, said the young man named Crook.
• 3:00:45
  Speaker 1: As they went together through the laurels toward the front garden,
• 3:00:48
  Speaker 1: a motor horn sounded thrice, coming nearer and nearer, and
• 3:00:53
  Speaker 1: a car of splendid speed, great elegance and a pale
• 3:00:57
  Speaker 1: green color swept up to the front doors like a
• 3:01:00
  Speaker 1: bird and stood throbbing. Hello, Hello, said the young man
• 3:01:06
  Speaker 1: with the red tie. Here's somebody born on the right side. Anyhow,
• 3:01:12
  Speaker 1: I didn't know, Miss Adams, that your Santa Claus was
• 3:01:15
  Speaker 1: so modern as this. Oh that's my godfather, Sir Leopold Fischer.
• 3:01:22
  Speaker 1: He always comes on Boxing day. Then, after an innocent
• 3:01:27
  Speaker 1: pause which unconsciously betrayed some lack of enthusiasm, Ruby Adams added,
• 3:01:35
  Speaker 1: he is very kind. John Crook journalist had heard of
• 3:01:43
  Speaker 1: that eminent city magnate, and it was not his fault
• 3:01:46
  Speaker 1: if the city magnate had not heard of him, For
• 3:01:50
  Speaker 1: in certain articles in the Clarion or The New Age,
• 3:01:54
  Speaker 1: Sir Leopold had been dealt with austerely. But he said
• 3:01:59
  Speaker 1: nothing and grimly watched the unloading of the motor car,
• 3:02:02
  Speaker 1: which was rather a long process. A large neat chauffeur
• 3:02:07
  Speaker 1: in green got out from the front, and a small
• 3:02:11
  Speaker 1: neat manservant in gray got out from the back, and
• 3:02:15
  Speaker 1: between them they deposited Sir Leopold on the doorstep and
• 3:02:19
  Speaker 1: began to unpack him like some very carefully protected parcel
• 3:02:25
  Speaker 1: rugs enough to stock a bazaar. Furs of all the
• 3:02:29
  Speaker 1: beasts of the forest and scarves of all the colors
• 3:02:32
  Speaker 1: of the rainbow were unwrapped one by one till they
• 3:02:36
  Speaker 1: revealed something resembling the human form, the form of a
• 3:02:40
  Speaker 1: friendly but foreign looking old gentleman with a gray goat
• 3:02:45
  Speaker 1: like beard and a beaming smile, who rubbed his big
• 3:02:49
  Speaker 1: fur gloves together. Long before this revelation was complete, the
• 3:02:56
  Speaker 1: two big doors of the porch had opened in the middle,
• 3:02:59
  Speaker 1: and Kuronel Adams, father of the furry young lady, had
• 3:03:04
  Speaker 1: come out himself to invite his eminent guests. Inside he
• 3:03:09
  Speaker 1: was a tall, sunburnt and very silent man who wore
• 3:03:14
  Speaker 1: a red smoking cap like a fez, making him look
• 3:03:17
  Speaker 1: like one of the English sirdars or pasha's in Egypt.
• 3:03:22
  Speaker 1: With him was his brother in law, lately come from Canada,
• 3:03:27
  Speaker 1: a big and rather boisterous young gentleman farmer with a
• 3:03:31
  Speaker 1: yellow beard by name James Blount. With him also was
• 3:03:37
  Speaker 1: the more insignificant figure of the priest from the neighboring
• 3:03:40
  Speaker 1: Roman church. For the colonel's late wife had been a Catholic,
• 3:03:44
  Speaker 1: and the children, as is common in such cases, had
• 3:03:48
  Speaker 1: been trained to follow her. Everything seemed undistinguished about the priest,
• 3:03:54
  Speaker 1: even down to his name, which was brown. Yet the
• 3:03:58
  Speaker 1: Colonel had always found something companionable about him, and frequently
• 3:04:03
  Speaker 1: asked him to such family gatherings. In the large entrance
• 3:04:09
  Speaker 1: hall of the house, there was ample room even for
• 3:04:12
  Speaker 1: Sir Leopold, and the removal of his wraps. Porch and
• 3:04:17
  Speaker 1: vestibule indeed were unduly large in proportion to the house,
• 3:04:22
  Speaker 1: and formed, as it were, a big room, with the
• 3:04:26
  Speaker 1: front door at one end and the bottom of the
• 3:04:29
  Speaker 1: staircase at the other, in front of the large hall fire,
• 3:04:34
  Speaker 1: over which hung the colonel's sword. The process was completed,
• 3:04:39
  Speaker 1: and the company, including the Saturnine Crook, presented to Sir
• 3:04:43
  Speaker 1: Leopold Fisher. That venerable financier, however, still seemed struggling with
• 3:04:51
  Speaker 1: portions of his well lined attire, and at length produced
• 3:04:55
  Speaker 1: from a very interior tail coat pocket a black oval case,
• 3:05:00
  Speaker 1: which he radiantly explained to be his Christmas present for
• 3:05:03
  Speaker 1: his god daughter, with an unaffected vainglory that had something
• 3:05:09
  Speaker 1: disarming about it. He held out the case before them
• 3:05:12
  Speaker 1: all it flew open at a touch and half blinded them.
• 3:05:18
  Speaker 1: It was just as if a crystal fountain had spurted
• 3:05:21
  Speaker 1: in their eyes in a nest of orange velvet lay,
• 3:05:26
  Speaker 1: like three eggs, three white and vivid diamonds that seemed
• 3:05:31
  Speaker 1: to set the very air on fire all round them.
• 3:05:35
  Speaker 1: Fisher stood beaming benevolently and drinking deep of the astonishment
• 3:05:40
  Speaker 1: and ecstasy of the girl, the grim admiration and gruff
• 3:05:44
  Speaker 1: thanks of the colonel, the wonder of the whole group.
• 3:05:51
  Speaker 1: I'll put em back now, my dear, said Fisher, returning
• 3:05:54
  Speaker 1: the case to the tails of his coat. I had
• 3:05:58
  Speaker 1: to be careful of him coming down. They're the three
• 3:06:01
  Speaker 1: great African diamonds, called the flying Stars because they've been
• 3:06:06
  Speaker 1: stolen so often. All the big criminals are on the track,
• 3:06:11
  Speaker 1: but even the rough men about in the streets and
• 3:06:13
  Speaker 1: hotels could hardly have kept their hands off them. I
• 3:06:18
  Speaker 1: might have lost them on the road here. It was
• 3:06:21
  Speaker 1: quite possible, quite natural, I should say, growled the man
• 3:06:27
  Speaker 1: in the red tie. I shouldn't blame em if they
• 3:06:31
  Speaker 1: had taken em. When they ask for bread and you
• 3:06:35
  Speaker 1: don't even give em a stone, I think they might
• 3:06:38
  Speaker 1: take the stone for themselves. I won't have you talking
• 3:06:43
  Speaker 1: like that, cried the girl who was in a curious glow.
• 3:06:48
  Speaker 1: You've only talked like that since you became a horrid
• 3:06:51
  Speaker 1: what's his name? You know what I mean? What do
• 3:06:55
  Speaker 1: you call a man who wants to embrace the chimney
• 3:06:57
  Speaker 1: sweep a saint, said Father Brown. I think, said Sir Leopold,
• 3:07:04
  Speaker 1: with a supercilious smile. That ruby means a socialist. A
• 3:07:12
  Speaker 1: radical does not mean a man who lives on radishes,
• 3:07:15
  Speaker 1: remarked Crook with some impatience. And a conservative does not
• 3:07:20
  Speaker 1: mean a man who preserves jam neither, I assure you.
• 3:07:25
  Speaker 1: Does a socialist mean a man who desires a social
• 3:07:28
  Speaker 1: evening with the chimney sweep. A socialist means a man
• 3:07:33
  Speaker 1: who wants all the chimneys swept, and all the chimney
• 3:07:36
  Speaker 1: sweeps paid for it, but who won't allow you, put
• 3:07:41
  Speaker 1: in the priest in a low voice, to own your
• 3:07:44
  Speaker 1: own soot. Crook looked at him with an eye of
• 3:07:48
  Speaker 1: interest and even respect. Does one want to own soot?
• 3:07:54
  Speaker 1: He asked? One might, answered father Brown, with speculation in it.
• 3:08:00
  Speaker 1: I've heard that gardeners use it, and I once made
• 3:08:05
  Speaker 1: six children happy at Christmas, when the conjuror didn't come
• 3:08:10
  Speaker 1: entirely with soot applied externally. Oh splendid, cried Ruby, Oh,
• 3:08:18
  Speaker 1: I wish you'd do it to this company. The boisterous
• 3:08:23
  Speaker 1: Canadian mister Blount was lifting his loud voice in applause,
• 3:08:28
  Speaker 1: and the astonished financier his in some considerable deprecation. When
• 3:08:34
  Speaker 1: a knock sounded at the double front doors, the priest
• 3:08:38
  Speaker 1: opened them, and they showed again the front garden of evergreens,
• 3:08:42
  Speaker 1: monkey tree, and all now gathering gloom against a gorgeous
• 3:08:46
  Speaker 1: violet sunset. The scene, thus framed, was so colored and quaint,
• 3:08:52
  Speaker 1: like a back scene in a play, that they forgot
• 3:08:55
  Speaker 1: a moment. The insignificant figure standing in the door. He
• 3:09:00
  Speaker 1: was dusty looking and in a frayed coat, evidently a
• 3:09:04
  Speaker 1: common messenger. Any of you, gentlemen, mister Blount, he asked,
• 3:09:10
  Speaker 1: and held forward a letter. Doubtfully, mister Blount started and
• 3:09:15
  Speaker 1: stopped in his shout of assent, Ripping up the envelope
• 3:09:19
  Speaker 1: with evident astonishment, he read it. His face clouded a
• 3:09:23
  Speaker 1: little and then cleared, and he turned to his brother
• 3:09:27
  Speaker 1: in law and host, I'm sick at being such a
• 3:09:30
  Speaker 1: nuisance colonel, he said, with the cheery colonial conventions. But
• 3:09:36
  Speaker 1: would it upset you if an old acquaintance called on
• 3:09:39
  Speaker 1: me here tonight on business. In point of fact, it's Florian,
• 3:09:44
  Speaker 1: that famous French acrobat and comic actor. I knew him
• 3:09:48
  Speaker 1: years ago out west. He was a French Canadian by birth,
• 3:09:52
  Speaker 1: and he seems to have business for me, though I
• 3:09:55
  Speaker 1: hardly guess what. Of course, of course, replied the colonel carelessly.
• 3:10:03
  Speaker 1: My dear chap, any friend of yours, no doubt he
• 3:10:06
  Speaker 1: will prove an acquisition. He'll black his face if that's
• 3:10:11
  Speaker 1: what you mean, cried Blount, laughing. I don't doubt he'd
• 3:10:15
  Speaker 1: black every one else's eyes. I don't care. I'm not refined.
• 3:10:21
  Speaker 1: I like the jolly old pantomime where a man sits
• 3:10:24
  Speaker 1: on his top hat, not on mine, please, said Sir
• 3:10:29
  Speaker 1: Leopold Fischer with dignity. Well well, observed crook airily. Don't
• 3:10:36
  Speaker 1: let's quarrel. There are lower jokes than sitting on a
• 3:10:40
  Speaker 1: top hat. Dislike of the red tied youth born of
• 3:10:46
  Speaker 1: his predatory opinions and evident intimacy with the pretty godchild
• 3:10:52
  Speaker 1: led Fisher to say, in his most sarcastic magisterial manner.
• 3:10:58
  Speaker 1: No doubt you have found something much lower than sitting
• 3:11:01
  Speaker 1: on a top hat. What is it pray letting a
• 3:11:06
  Speaker 1: top hat sit on you, for instance? Said the socialist
• 3:11:12
  Speaker 1: now now now cried the Canadian farmer with his barbarian benevolence.
• 3:11:17
  Speaker 1: Don't let's spoil a jolly evening. What I say is,
• 3:11:22
  Speaker 1: let's do something for the company to night. Not blacking
• 3:11:25
  Speaker 1: faces or sitting on hats if you don't like those,
• 3:11:29
  Speaker 1: but something of the sort. Why couldn't we have a
• 3:11:32
  Speaker 1: proper old English pantomime, clown Columbine and so on. I
• 3:11:38
  Speaker 1: saw one when I left England at twelve years old,
• 3:11:41
  Speaker 1: and it's blazed in my brain like a bonfire ever since.
• 3:11:46
  Speaker 1: I came back to the old country only last year,
• 3:11:49
  Speaker 1: and I find the things extinct, nothing but a lot
• 3:11:53
  Speaker 1: of sniveling fairy plays. I want a hot poker and
• 3:11:57
  Speaker 1: a policeman made into sausages, and they give me princesses,
• 3:12:01
  Speaker 1: moralizing by moonlight, blue birds or something, blue beards more
• 3:12:08
  Speaker 1: in my line, and him I like best when he
• 3:12:11
  Speaker 1: turned into the pantaloon. I'm all for making a policeman
• 3:12:17
  Speaker 1: into sausages, said John Crook, it's a better definition of
• 3:12:22
  Speaker 1: socialism than some recently given. But surely the get up
• 3:12:27
  Speaker 1: would be too big a business, not a scrap, cried Blount,
• 3:12:33
  Speaker 1: quite carried away a Harlequinade's the quickest thing we can do,
• 3:12:37
  Speaker 1: for two reasons. First one can gag to any degree.
• 3:12:43
  Speaker 1: And second, all the objects are household things, tables and towel,
• 3:12:49
  Speaker 1: horses and washing baskets and things like that. That's true,
• 3:12:55
  Speaker 1: admitted Crook, nodding eagerly and walking about. But I'm afraid
• 3:13:00
  Speaker 1: I can't have my policeman's uniform. Haven't killed a policeman lately?
• 3:13:07
  Speaker 1: Blount frowned thoughtfully a space and then smote his thigh.
• 3:13:11
  Speaker 1: Yes we can, he cried, I've got Florian's address here,
• 3:13:16
  Speaker 1: and he knows every costumer in London. I'll phone him
• 3:13:20
  Speaker 1: to bring a police dress when he comes. And he
• 3:13:23
  Speaker 1: went bounding away to the telephone. Oh it's glorious, godfather,
• 3:13:29
  Speaker 1: cried Gruby, almost dancing. I'll be Columbine and you shall
• 3:13:35
  Speaker 1: be Pantaloon. The millionaire held himself stiff with a sort
• 3:13:40
  Speaker 1: of heathen solemnity. I think, my dear, he said, you
• 3:13:46
  Speaker 1: must get some one else for pantaloon. I will be
• 3:13:51
  Speaker 1: pantaloon if you like, said Colonel Adams, taking his cigar
• 3:13:54
  Speaker 1: out of his mouth and speaking for the first and
• 3:13:58
  Speaker 1: last time. You ought to have a statue, cried the Canadian,
• 3:14:04
  Speaker 1: as he came back radiant from the telephone. There we
• 3:14:09
  Speaker 1: are all fitted. Mister Crook shall be clown. He's a
• 3:14:14
  Speaker 1: journalist and knows all the oldest jokes. I can be
• 3:14:18
  Speaker 1: harlequin that only wants long legs and jumping about. My
• 3:14:23
  Speaker 1: friend Florian phones. He's bringing the police costume. He's changing
• 3:14:27
  Speaker 1: on the way. We can act it in this very hall,
• 3:14:31
  Speaker 1: the audience sitting on those broad stairs opposite one row
• 3:14:35
  Speaker 1: above another. These front doors can be the back scene,
• 3:14:40
  Speaker 1: either open or shut shut. You see an English interior,
• 3:14:45
  Speaker 1: open a moonlit garden. It all goes by magic. And
• 3:14:51
  Speaker 1: snatching a chance piece of billiard chalk from his pocket,
• 3:14:55
  Speaker 1: he ran it across the hall floor, half way between
• 3:14:58
  Speaker 1: the front door and the staircase, to mark the line
• 3:15:01
  Speaker 1: of the footlights. How even such a banquet of bosh
• 3:15:07
  Speaker 1: was got ready in the time remained a riddle. But
• 3:15:10
  Speaker 1: they went at it with that mixture of recklessness and
• 3:15:13
  Speaker 1: industry that lives when youth is in a house, and
• 3:15:17
  Speaker 1: youth was in that house that night, though not all
• 3:15:20
  Speaker 1: may have isolated the two faces and hearts from which
• 3:15:23
  Speaker 1: it flamed. As always happens, the invention grew wilder and
• 3:15:29
  Speaker 1: wilder through the very tameness of the bourgeois conventions from
• 3:15:33
  Speaker 1: which it had to create. The Columbine looked charming in
• 3:15:38
  Speaker 1: an outstanding skirt that strangely resembled the large lamp shade
• 3:15:42
  Speaker 1: in the drawing room. The clown and pantaloon made themselves
• 3:15:47
  Speaker 1: white with flour from the cook, and red with rouge
• 3:15:51
  Speaker 1: from some other domestic who remained, like all true Christian
• 3:15:55
  Speaker 1: benefactors anonymous. The harlequins, already clad in silver paper out
• 3:16:02
  Speaker 1: of cigar boxes, was with difficulty prevented from smashing the
• 3:16:07
  Speaker 1: old Victorian luster chandeliers that he might cover himself with
• 3:16:12
  Speaker 1: resplendent crystals. In fact, he would certainly have done so,
• 3:16:17
  Speaker 1: had not Ruby unearthed some old pantomime paste jewels she
• 3:16:21
  Speaker 1: had worn at a fancy dress party as the Queen
• 3:16:24
  Speaker 1: of Diamonds. Indeed, her uncle James Blount, was getting almost
• 3:16:31
  Speaker 1: out of hand in his excitement. He was like a schoolboy.
• 3:16:36
  Speaker 1: He put a paper donkey's head unexpectedly on Father Brown,
• 3:16:40
  Speaker 1: who bore it patiently and even found some private manner
• 3:16:44
  Speaker 1: of moving his ears. He even essayed to put the
• 3:16:48
  Speaker 1: paper donkey's tail to the coat tails of Sir Leopold Fischer. This, however,
• 3:16:54
  Speaker 1: was frowned down. Uncle is too absurd, cried Ruby to Crook,
• 3:17:00
  Speaker 1: round whose shoulders she had seriously placed the string of sausages.
• 3:17:05
  Speaker 1: Why is he so wild? He is harlequin to your columbine,
• 3:17:11
  Speaker 1: said Crook. I am only the clown who makes the
• 3:17:15
  Speaker 1: old jokes. I wish you were the harlequin, she said,
• 3:17:20
  Speaker 1: and left the string of sausages swinging. Father Brown, though
• 3:17:26
  Speaker 1: he knew every detail done behind the scenes, and had
• 3:17:30
  Speaker 1: even evoked applause by his transformation of a pillow into
• 3:17:33
  Speaker 1: a pantomime, Baby, went round to the front and sat
• 3:17:37
  Speaker 1: among the audience with all the solemn expectation of a
• 3:17:41
  Speaker 1: child at his first matinee. The spectators were few, relations
• 3:17:47
  Speaker 1: one or two local friends and servants. Sir Leopold sat
• 3:17:53
  Speaker 1: in the front seat, his full and still fur collared
• 3:17:56
  Speaker 1: figure largely obscuring the view of the little cleric behind him.
• 3:18:01
  Speaker 1: But it has never been settled by artistic authorities. Whether
• 3:18:04
  Speaker 1: the cleric lost much. The pantomime was utterly chaotic, yet
• 3:18:10
  Speaker 1: not contemptible. There ran through it a rage of improvisation,
• 3:18:15
  Speaker 1: which came chiefly from Crook the clown. Commonly, he was
• 3:18:20
  Speaker 1: a clever man, and he was inspired tonight with a
• 3:18:23
  Speaker 1: wild omniscience, a folly wiser than the world that which
• 3:18:28
  Speaker 1: comes to a young man who has seen for an
• 3:18:31
  Speaker 1: instant a particular expression on a particular face. He was
• 3:18:37
  Speaker 1: supposed to be the clown, but he really was almost
• 3:18:40
  Speaker 1: everything else the author, so far as there was an author,
• 3:18:45
  Speaker 1: the prompter, the scene painter, the scene shifter, and above
• 3:18:50
  Speaker 1: all the orchestra. At abrupt intervals in the outrageous performance,
• 3:18:57
  Speaker 1: he would hurl himself in full costume at the piano
• 3:19:00
  Speaker 1: and bang out some popular music, equally absurd and appropriate.
• 3:19:07
  Speaker 1: The climax of this, as of all else, was the
• 3:19:11
  Speaker 1: moment when the two front doors at the back of
• 3:19:13
  Speaker 1: the scene flew open, showing the lovely moonlit garden, but
• 3:19:18
  Speaker 1: showing more prominently the famous professional guest, the Great Florian,
• 3:19:24
  Speaker 1: dressed up as a policeman. The clown at the piano
• 3:19:28
  Speaker 1: played the Constabulary chorus in the Pirates of penzance, but
• 3:19:32
  Speaker 1: it was drowned in the deafening applause, for every gesture
• 3:19:36
  Speaker 1: of the great comic actor was an admirable, though restrained
• 3:19:40
  Speaker 1: version of the carriage and manner of the police. The
• 3:19:45
  Speaker 1: harlequin leaped upon him and hit him over the helmet,
• 3:19:49
  Speaker 1: the pianist playing where did you get that hat? He
• 3:19:53
  Speaker 1: faced about in admirably simulated astonishment, and then the leaping
• 3:19:57
  Speaker 1: harlequin hit him again, pianis suggesting a few bars of
• 3:20:02
  Speaker 1: then we had another one. Then the harlequin rushed right
• 3:20:06
  Speaker 1: into the arms of the policeman and fell on top
• 3:20:09
  Speaker 1: of him amid a roar of applause. Then it was
• 3:20:14
  Speaker 1: that the strange actor gave that celebrated imitation of a
• 3:20:17
  Speaker 1: dead man, of which the fame still lingers round Putney.
• 3:20:22
  Speaker 1: It was almost impossible to believe that a living person
• 3:20:26
  Speaker 1: could appear so limp. The athletic harlequin swung him about
• 3:20:31
  Speaker 1: like a sack, or twisted or tossed him like an
• 3:20:34
  Speaker 1: Indian club, all the time to the most maddeningly ludicrous
• 3:20:39
  Speaker 1: tunes from the piano. When the harlequin heaved the comic
• 3:20:44
  Speaker 1: constable heavily off the floor, the clown played, I arise
• 3:20:49
  Speaker 1: from dreams of thee when he shuffled him across his back,
• 3:20:54
  Speaker 1: with my bundle on my shoulder, And when the harlequin
• 3:20:57
  Speaker 1: finally let fall the policeman with a most convincing thud,
• 3:21:02
  Speaker 1: the lunatic at the instrument struck into a jingling measure
• 3:21:06
  Speaker 1: with some words which are still believed to have been
• 3:21:09
  Speaker 1: I sent a letter to my love, and on the
• 3:21:12
  Speaker 1: way I dropped it. At about this limit of mental anarchy,
• 3:21:18
  Speaker 1: Father Brown's view was obscured altogether, for the city magnate
• 3:21:23
  Speaker 1: in front of him rose to his full height and
• 3:21:26
  Speaker 1: thrust his hands savagely into all his pockets. Then he
• 3:21:31
  Speaker 1: sat down nervously, still fumbling, and then stood up again.
• 3:21:37
  Speaker 1: For an instant it seemed seriously likely that he would
• 3:21:40
  Speaker 1: stride across the footlights. Then he turned a glare at
• 3:21:44
  Speaker 1: the clown playing the piano, and then he burst in
• 3:21:47
  Speaker 1: silence out of the room. The priest had only watched
• 3:21:52
  Speaker 1: for a few more minutes the absurd but not inelegant
• 3:21:56
  Speaker 1: dance of the amateur harlequin over his flendidly unconscious foe.
• 3:22:03
  Speaker 1: With real, though rude art, the harlequin danced slowly backwards
• 3:22:07
  Speaker 1: out of the door into the garden, which was full
• 3:22:10
  Speaker 1: of moonlight and stillness. The vamped dress of silver paper
• 3:22:15
  Speaker 1: and paste, which had been too glaring in the footlights,
• 3:22:19
  Speaker 1: looked more and more magical and silvery as it danced
• 3:22:23
  Speaker 1: away under a brilliant moon. The audience was closing in
• 3:22:28
  Speaker 1: with a cataract of applause when Brown felt his arm
• 3:22:31
  Speaker 1: abruptly touched, and he was asked in a whisper to
• 3:22:35
  Speaker 1: come into the colonel's study. He followed his summoner with
• 3:22:41
  Speaker 1: increasing doubt, which was not dispelled by a solemn comicality.
• 3:22:46
  Speaker 1: In the scene of the study, there sat Colonel Adams,
• 3:22:50
  Speaker 1: still unaffectedly dressed as a pantaloon, with the knobbed whalebone
• 3:22:55
  Speaker 1: nodding above his brow, but with his poor old eyes
• 3:22:59
  Speaker 1: sad enough to have sobered a saturnalia. Sir Leopold Fischer
• 3:23:05
  Speaker 1: was leaning against the mantelpiece and heaving with all the
• 3:23:09
  Speaker 1: importance of panic. This is a very painful matter, father Brown,
• 3:23:16
  Speaker 1: said Adams. The truth is, those diamonds we all saw
• 3:23:20
  Speaker 1: this afternoon seemed to have vanished from my friend's tailcoat pocket.
• 3:23:25
  Speaker 1: And as you, as I supplemented, Father Brown, with a
• 3:23:30
  Speaker 1: broad grin was sitting just behind him. Nothing of the
• 3:23:36
  Speaker 1: sort shall be suggested, said Colonel Adams, with a firm
• 3:23:40
  Speaker 1: look at Fisher, which rather implied that some such thing
• 3:23:44
  Speaker 1: had been suggested. I only ask you to give me
• 3:23:48
  Speaker 1: the assistance that any gentleman might give, which is turning
• 3:23:54
  Speaker 1: out his pockets, said father Brown, and proceeded to do so,
• 3:23:58
  Speaker 1: displaying seven and sixpence a return ticket, a small silver crucifix,
• 3:24:05
  Speaker 1: a small breviary, and a stick of chocolate. The Colonel
• 3:24:10
  Speaker 1: looked at him long and then said, do you know
• 3:24:15
  Speaker 1: I should like to see the inside of your head
• 3:24:18
  Speaker 1: more than the inside of your pockets. My daughter is
• 3:24:21
  Speaker 1: one of your people. I know well. She has lately
• 3:24:27
  Speaker 1: and he stopped. She has lately, cried out Old Fisher
• 3:24:33
  Speaker 1: opened her father's house to a cutthroat socialist who says
• 3:24:37
  Speaker 1: openly he would steal anything from a richer man. This
• 3:24:42
  Speaker 1: is the end of it. Here is the richer man,
• 3:24:45
  Speaker 1: and none the richer. If you want the inside of
• 3:24:50
  Speaker 1: my head, you can have it, said Brown, rather wearily.
• 3:24:55
  Speaker 1: What it's worth you can say afterwards. But the first
• 3:24:59
  Speaker 1: thing I find in that disused pocket is this that
• 3:25:03
  Speaker 1: men who mean to steal diamonds. Don't talk socialism. They
• 3:25:08
  Speaker 1: are more likely, he added demurely, to denounce it. Both
• 3:25:15
  Speaker 1: the others shifted sharply, and the priest went on, you see,
• 3:25:21
  Speaker 1: we know these people more or less. That socialist would
• 3:25:26
  Speaker 1: no more steal a diamond than a pyramid. We ought
• 3:25:30
  Speaker 1: to look at once to the one man we don't know,
• 3:25:33
  Speaker 1: the fellow acting, the policeman, Florian, where is he exactly
• 3:25:39
  Speaker 1: at this minute? I wonder? The pantaloon sprang erect and
• 3:25:44
  Speaker 1: strode out of the room. An interlude ensued, during which
• 3:25:49
  Speaker 1: the millionaire stared at the priest and the priest at
• 3:25:52
  Speaker 1: his breviary. Then the pantaloon returned and said, with staccato gravity,
• 3:26:00
  Speaker 1: the policeman is still lying on the stage. The curtain
• 3:26:04
  Speaker 1: has gone up and down six times. He is still
• 3:26:07
  Speaker 1: lying there. Father Brown dropped his book and stood staring
• 3:26:13
  Speaker 1: with a look of blank mental ruin. Very slowly, a
• 3:26:18
  Speaker 1: light began to creep in his gray eyes, and then
• 3:26:21
  Speaker 1: he made the scarcely obvious answer, Please forgive me, colonel,
• 3:26:28
  Speaker 1: but when did your wife die? Wife, replied the staring soldier.
• 3:26:35
  Speaker 1: She died this year. Two months her brother James arrived
• 3:26:39
  Speaker 1: just a week too late to see her. The little
• 3:26:43
  Speaker 1: priest bounded like a rabbit shot. Come on, he cried,
• 3:26:48
  Speaker 1: in quite unusual excitement. Come on, we've got to go
• 3:26:52
  Speaker 1: and look at that policeman. They rushed on to the
• 3:26:57
  Speaker 1: now curtained stage, breaking rudely pass asked the columbine and clown,
• 3:27:02
  Speaker 1: who seemed whispering quite contentedly, and Father Brown bent over
• 3:27:06
  Speaker 1: the prostrate comic policeman chloroform, he said, as he rose,
• 3:27:14
  Speaker 1: I only guessed it just now. There was a startled stillness,
• 3:27:20
  Speaker 1: and then the colonel said, slowly, please say seriously what
• 3:27:25
  Speaker 1: all this means. Father Brown suddenly shouted with laughter, then
• 3:27:31
  Speaker 1: stopped and only struggled with it. For instance, during the
• 3:27:35
  Speaker 1: rest of his speech, gentlemen, he gasped, there's not much
• 3:27:41
  Speaker 1: time to talk. I must run after the criminal. But
• 3:27:45
  Speaker 1: this great French actor who played the policeman, this clever corpse,
• 3:27:49
  Speaker 1: the harlequin, waltz with and dandled and threw about. He
• 3:27:53
  Speaker 1: was His voice again failed him, and he turned his
• 3:27:57
  Speaker 1: back to run. He was called Fisher inquiringly. A real policeman,
• 3:28:06
  Speaker 1: said Father Brown, and ran away into the dark. There
• 3:28:13
  Speaker 1: were hollows and bowers at the extreme end of that
• 3:28:16
  Speaker 1: leafy garden, in which the laurels and other immortal shrubs
• 3:28:21
  Speaker 1: showed against sapphire sky and silver moon, even in that
• 3:28:25
  Speaker 1: midwinter warm colors as of the south. The green gaiety
• 3:28:31
  Speaker 1: of the waving laurels, the rich purple indigo of the night,
• 3:28:36
  Speaker 1: the moon like a monstrous crystal, make an almost irresponsible
• 3:28:41
  Speaker 1: romantic picture. And among the top branches of the garden trees,
• 3:28:46
  Speaker 1: a strange figure is climbing who looks not so much
• 3:28:50
  Speaker 1: romantic as impossible. He sparkles from head to heel as
• 3:28:57
  Speaker 1: if clad in ten million moons. The real moon catches
• 3:29:01
  Speaker 1: him at every movement and sets a new inch of
• 3:29:04
  Speaker 1: him on fire. But he swings, flashing and successful, from
• 3:29:10
  Speaker 1: the short tree in this garden to the tall, rambling
• 3:29:14
  Speaker 1: tree in the other, and only stops there because a
• 3:29:17
  Speaker 1: shade has slid under the smaller tree and has unmistakably
• 3:29:22
  Speaker 1: called up to him. Well, Flambeaux, says the voice, You
• 3:29:29
  Speaker 1: really look like a flying star, but that always means
• 3:29:33
  Speaker 1: a falling star. At last, the silver, sparkling figure above
• 3:29:40
  Speaker 1: seems to lean forward in the laurels, and, confident of escape,
• 3:29:46
  Speaker 1: listens to the little figure below. You never did anything better, Flambeaux.
• 3:29:53
  Speaker 1: It was clever to come from Canada with a Paris ticket,
• 3:29:57
  Speaker 1: I suppose, just a week after missus as Adams died,
• 3:30:01
  Speaker 1: when no one was in a mood to ask questions.
• 3:30:05
  Speaker 1: It was cleverer to have marked down the flying stars
• 3:30:09
  Speaker 1: and the very day of Fisher's coming. But there's no
• 3:30:13
  Speaker 1: cleverness but mere genius in what followed. Stealing the stones,
• 3:30:19
  Speaker 1: I suppose was nothing to you. You could have done
• 3:30:23
  Speaker 1: it by sleight of hand in a hundred other ways,
• 3:30:26
  Speaker 1: besides that pretense of putting a paper donkey's tail to
• 3:30:29
  Speaker 1: Fisher's coat. But in the rest you eclipsed yourself. The
• 3:30:36
  Speaker 1: silvery figure among the green leaves seems to linger as
• 3:30:39
  Speaker 1: if hypnotized, though his escape is easy behind him, he
• 3:30:45
  Speaker 1: is staring at the man below. Oh yes, says the
• 3:30:50
  Speaker 1: man below, I know all about it. I know you
• 3:30:54
  Speaker 1: not only forced the pantomime, but put it to a
• 3:30:57
  Speaker 1: double use. You were going to steal the stones quietly.
• 3:31:03
  Speaker 1: News came by an accomplice that you were already suspected,
• 3:31:07
  Speaker 1: and a capable police officer was coming to rout you
• 3:31:10
  Speaker 1: up that very night. A common thief would have been
• 3:31:14
  Speaker 1: thankful for the warning, and fled. But you are a poet.
• 3:31:20
  Speaker 1: You already had the clever notion of hiding the jewels
• 3:31:24
  Speaker 1: in a blaze of false stage jewelry. Now you saw
• 3:31:28
  Speaker 1: that if the dress were a harlequin's, the appearance of
• 3:31:31
  Speaker 1: a policeman would be quite in keeping. The worthy officer
• 3:31:36
  Speaker 1: started from Putney Police Station to find you, and walked
• 3:31:40
  Speaker 1: into the queerest trap ever set in this world. When
• 3:31:44
  Speaker 1: the front door opened, he walked straight on to the
• 3:31:47
  Speaker 1: stage of a Christmas pantomime, where he could be kicked, clubbed,
• 3:31:52
  Speaker 1: stunned and drugged by a dancing harlequin, amid roars of
• 3:31:57
  Speaker 1: laughter from all the most respectable peace and Putney. Oh,
• 3:32:02
  Speaker 1: you will never do anything better. And now, by the way,
• 3:32:07
  Speaker 1: you might give me back those diamonds. The green branch
• 3:32:13
  Speaker 1: on which the glittering figure swung rustled as if in astonishment,
• 3:32:18
  Speaker 1: but the voice went on, I want you to give
• 3:32:22
  Speaker 1: them back, flambeaux, and I want you to give up
• 3:32:25
  Speaker 1: this life. There is still youth and honor and humor
• 3:32:30
  Speaker 1: in you. Don't fancy they will last in that trade.
• 3:32:35
  Speaker 1: Men may keep a sort of level of good, but
• 3:32:39
  Speaker 1: no man has ever been able to keep on one
• 3:32:42
  Speaker 1: level of evil. That road goes down and down. The
• 3:32:48
  Speaker 1: kind man drinks and turns cruel, the frank man kills
• 3:32:53
  Speaker 1: and lies about it. Many a man I've known started
• 3:32:57
  Speaker 1: like you to be an honest outlaw, a merry robber
• 3:33:01
  Speaker 1: of the rich, and ended stamped into slime. Maurice Blum
• 3:33:08
  Speaker 1: started out as an anarchist of principle, a father of
• 3:33:11
  Speaker 1: the poor. He ended a greasy spy and tale bearer
• 3:33:16
  Speaker 1: that both sides used and despised. Harry Burke started his
• 3:33:22
  Speaker 1: free money movement sincerely enough. Now he's sponging on a
• 3:33:27
  Speaker 1: half starved sister for endless brandies and sodas. Lord Amber
• 3:33:33
  Speaker 1: went into wild society in a sort of chivalry. Now
• 3:33:38
  Speaker 1: he's paying blackmail to the lowest vultures in London. Captain
• 3:33:43
  Speaker 1: Verilon was the great gentleman Apache before your time. He
• 3:33:49
  Speaker 1: died in a madhouse, screaming with fear of the narks
• 3:33:52
  Speaker 1: and receivers that had betrayed him and hunted him down.
• 3:33:58
  Speaker 1: I know the woods look very free behind you, Flambeaux.
• 3:34:02
  Speaker 1: I know that in a flash you can melt into
• 3:34:04
  Speaker 1: them like a monkey. But some day you will be
• 3:34:09
  Speaker 1: an old gray monkey. Flambeaux. You will sit up in
• 3:34:13
  Speaker 1: your free forest, cold at heart and close to death,
• 3:34:17
  Speaker 1: and the tree tops will be very bare. Everything continued still,
• 3:34:26
  Speaker 1: as if the small man below held the other in
• 3:34:28
  Speaker 1: the tree in some long invisible leash, and he went on.
• 3:34:34
  Speaker 1: Your downward steps have begun. You used to boast of
• 3:34:38
  Speaker 1: doing nothing mean, But you are doing something mean tonight.
• 3:34:43
  Speaker 1: You are leaving suspicion on an honest boy with a
• 3:34:47
  Speaker 1: good deal against him. Already you are separating him from
• 3:34:51
  Speaker 1: the woman he loves, and who loves him. But you
• 3:34:55
  Speaker 1: will do meaner things than that before you die. Three
• 3:35:01
  Speaker 1: flashing diamonds fell from the tree to the turf. The
• 3:35:06
  Speaker 1: small man stooped to pick them up, and when he
• 3:35:09
  Speaker 1: looked up again, the green cage of the tree was
• 3:35:13
  Speaker 1: emptied of its silver bird. The restoration of the gems,
• 3:35:22
  Speaker 1: accidentally picked up by Father Brown of all people, ended
• 3:35:27
  Speaker 1: the evening in uproarious triumph, and Sir Leopold, in his
• 3:35:32
  Speaker 1: height of good humor, even told the priest that though
• 3:35:36
  Speaker 1: he himself had broader views, he could respect those whose
• 3:35:41
  Speaker 1: creed required them to be cloistered and ignorant of this world.
• 3:35:49
  Speaker 1: End of the Flying Stars, the invisible man in the
• 3:35:58
  Speaker 1: cool blue twilight light of two steep streets in Camden Town.
• 3:36:04
  Speaker 1: The shop at the corner, a confectioner's, glowed like the
• 3:36:08
  Speaker 1: butt of a cigar, one should rather say, perhaps like
• 3:36:14
  Speaker 1: the butt of a firework, for the light was of
• 3:36:17
  Speaker 1: many colors and some complexity, broken up by many mirrors,
• 3:36:22
  Speaker 1: and dancing on many gilt and gaily colored cakes and sweetmeats.
• 3:36:29
  Speaker 1: Against this one fiery glass were glued the noses of
• 3:36:33
  Speaker 1: many gutter snipes. For the chocolates were all wrapped in
• 3:36:37
  Speaker 1: those red and gold and green metallic colors, which are
• 3:36:41
  Speaker 1: almost better than chocolate itself, and the huge white wedding
• 3:36:46
  Speaker 1: cake in the window was somehow at once remote and satisfying,
• 3:36:52
  Speaker 1: just as if the whole north pole were good to eat.
• 3:36:57
  Speaker 1: Such rainbow provocations could naturally collect the youth of the
• 3:37:01
  Speaker 1: neighborhood up to the ages of ten or twelve. But
• 3:37:06
  Speaker 1: this corner was also attractive to youth at a later stage,
• 3:37:11
  Speaker 1: and a young man not less than twenty four was
• 3:37:15
  Speaker 1: staring into the same shop window. To him, also, the
• 3:37:21
  Speaker 1: shop was of fiery charm, but this attraction was not
• 3:37:25
  Speaker 1: wholly to be explained by chocolates. Which, however, he was
• 3:37:30
  Speaker 1: far from despising. He was a tall, burly, red haired
• 3:37:37
  Speaker 1: young man with a resolute face but a listless manner.
• 3:37:44
  Speaker 1: He carried under his arm a flat gray portfolio of
• 3:37:47
  Speaker 1: black and white sketches, which he had sold with more
• 3:37:51
  Speaker 1: or less success to publishers ever since his uncle, who
• 3:37:55
  Speaker 1: was an admiral, had disinherited him for socialism because of electtion,
• 3:38:00
  Speaker 1: which he had delivered against that economic theory. His name
• 3:38:05
  Speaker 1: was John Turnbull Angus. Entering at last, he walked through
• 3:38:11
  Speaker 1: the confectioner's shop to the back room, which was a
• 3:38:14
  Speaker 1: sort of pastry cook restaurant, merely raising his hat to
• 3:38:18
  Speaker 1: the young lady who was serving there. She was a dark, elegant,
• 3:38:24
  Speaker 1: alert girl in black with a high color and very
• 3:38:28
  Speaker 1: quick dark eyes, and after the ordinary interval, she followed
• 3:38:33
  Speaker 1: him into the inner room to take his order. His
• 3:38:38
  Speaker 1: order was evidently a usual one. I want, please, he
• 3:38:43
  Speaker 1: said with precision, one halfpenny bun and a small cup
• 3:38:48
  Speaker 1: of black coffee. An instant before the girl could turn away,
• 3:38:52
  Speaker 1: he added, also, I want you to marry me. The
• 3:38:59
  Speaker 1: young lady of the shop stiffened suddenly and said, those
• 3:39:02
  Speaker 1: are jokes. I don't allow. The red haired young man
• 3:39:07
  Speaker 1: lifted gray eyes of an unexpected gravity. Really and truly,
• 3:39:13
  Speaker 1: he said, it's as serious, as serious as the halfpenny bun.
• 3:39:19
  Speaker 1: It is expensive, like the bun, one pays for it.
• 3:39:24
  Speaker 1: It is indigestible, like the bun. It hurts. The dark
• 3:39:30
  Speaker 1: young lady had never taken her dark eyes off him,
• 3:39:33
  Speaker 1: but seemed to be studying him with almost tragic exactitude.
• 3:39:38
  Speaker 1: At the end of her scrutiny, she had something like
• 3:39:41
  Speaker 1: the shadow of a smile, and she sat down in
• 3:39:44
  Speaker 1: a chair. Don't you think, observed angus absently, that it's
• 3:39:52
  Speaker 1: rather cruel to eat these halfpenny buns. They might grow
• 3:39:56
  Speaker 1: up into penny buns. I shall give up these brutal
• 3:40:00
  Speaker 1: sports when we are married. The dark young lady rose
• 3:40:05
  Speaker 1: from her chair and walked to the window, evidently in
• 3:40:08
  Speaker 1: a state of strong but not unsympathetic cogitation. When at
• 3:40:14
  Speaker 1: last she swung round again with an air of resolution,
• 3:40:18
  Speaker 1: she was bewildered to observe that the young man was
• 3:40:21
  Speaker 1: carefully laying out on the table various objects from the
• 3:40:24
  Speaker 1: shop window. They included a pyramid of highly colored sweets,
• 3:40:30
  Speaker 1: several plates of sandwiches, and the two decanters containing that
• 3:40:35
  Speaker 1: mysterious port and sherry, which are peculiar to pastry cooks.
• 3:40:41
  Speaker 1: In the middle of this neat arrangement, he had carefully
• 3:40:44
  Speaker 1: let down the enormous load of white sugared cake, which
• 3:40:48
  Speaker 1: had been the huge ornament of the window. What on
• 3:40:53
  Speaker 1: earth are you doing, she asked, duty, my dear Laura,
• 3:40:58
  Speaker 1: he began. Oh, for the Lord's sake, Stop a minute,
• 3:41:04
  Speaker 1: she cried, And don't talk to me in that way.
• 3:41:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, what is all that? A ceremonial meal, miss Hope?
• 3:41:15
  Speaker 1: And what is that, she asked, impatiently, pointing to the
• 3:41:19
  Speaker 1: mountain of sugar the wedding cake? Missus Angus, he said.
• 3:41:26
  Speaker 1: The girl marched to that article, removed it with some clatter,
• 3:41:31
  Speaker 1: and put it back in the shop window. She then returned, and,
• 3:41:36
  Speaker 1: putting her elegant elbows on the table, regarded the young
• 3:41:40
  Speaker 1: man not unfavorably, but with considerable exasperation. You don't give
• 3:41:47
  Speaker 1: me any time to think, she said, I'm not such
• 3:41:51
  Speaker 1: a fool. He answered, that's my Christian humility. She was
• 3:41:58
  Speaker 1: still looking at him, but she had grown considerably graver
• 3:42:01
  Speaker 1: behind the smile, Mister Angus, she said, steadily before there
• 3:42:09
  Speaker 1: is a minute more of this nonsense. I must tell
• 3:42:12
  Speaker 1: you something about myself as shortly as I can. Delighted,
• 3:42:18
  Speaker 1: replied Angus gravely, you might tell me something about myself
• 3:42:23
  Speaker 1: too while you are about it. Oh, do hold your
• 3:42:28
  Speaker 1: tongue and listen. She said. It's nothing that I'm ashamed of,
• 3:42:33
  Speaker 1: and it isn't even anything that I'm specially sorry about.
• 3:42:37
  Speaker 1: But what would you say if there were something that
• 3:42:40
  Speaker 1: is no business of mine and yet is my nightmare?
• 3:42:46
  Speaker 1: In that case, said the man seriously, I should suggest
• 3:42:50
  Speaker 1: that you bring back the cake. Well, you must listen
• 3:42:55
  Speaker 1: to the story first, said Laura persistently. To begin with,
• 3:43:01
  Speaker 1: I must tell you that my father owned the inn
• 3:43:04
  Speaker 1: called the Red Fish at Ludbury, and I used to
• 3:43:07
  Speaker 1: serve people in the bar. I have often wondered, he said,
• 3:43:13
  Speaker 1: why there was a kind of Christian air about this
• 3:43:16
  Speaker 1: one confectioner's shop. Ludbury is a sleepy, grassy little hole
• 3:43:23
  Speaker 1: in the Eastern Counties, and the only kind of people
• 3:43:26
  Speaker 1: who ever came to the Red Fish were occasional commercial travelers.
• 3:43:31
  Speaker 1: And for the rest the most awful people you can see,
• 3:43:35
  Speaker 1: only you've never seen them. I mean little loungy men
• 3:43:40
  Speaker 1: who had just enough to live on and had nothing
• 3:43:43
  Speaker 1: to do but lean about in bar rooms and bet
• 3:43:46
  Speaker 1: on horses in bad clothes that were just too good
• 3:43:49
  Speaker 1: for them. Even these wretched young rotters were not very
• 3:43:54
  Speaker 1: common at our house, but there were two of them
• 3:43:58
  Speaker 1: that were a lot too common, common in every sort
• 3:44:01
  Speaker 1: of way. They both lived on money of their own,
• 3:44:06
  Speaker 1: and were wearisomely idle and over dressed. But yet I
• 3:44:11
  Speaker 1: was a bit sorry for them, because I half believed
• 3:44:14
  Speaker 1: they slunk into our little empty bar, because each of
• 3:44:18
  Speaker 1: them had a slight deformity, the sort of thing that
• 3:44:21
  Speaker 1: some yokels laugh at. It wasn't exactly a deformity, either,
• 3:44:27
  Speaker 1: It was more an oddity. One of them was a
• 3:44:31
  Speaker 1: surprisingly small man, something like a dwarf, or at least
• 3:44:36
  Speaker 1: like a jockey. He was not at all jockeyish to
• 3:44:39
  Speaker 1: look at, though. He had a round black head and
• 3:44:43
  Speaker 1: a well trimmed black beard, bright eyes like a bird's.
• 3:44:48
  Speaker 1: He jingled money in his pockets, he jangled a great
• 3:44:52
  Speaker 1: gold watch chain, and he never turned up except dressed
• 3:44:57
  Speaker 1: just too much like a gentleman to be one. He
• 3:45:01
  Speaker 1: was no fool, though, though a futile idler He was
• 3:45:06
  Speaker 1: curiously clever at all kinds of things that couldn't be
• 3:45:09
  Speaker 1: the slightest use a sort of impromptu conjuring, making fifteen
• 3:45:15
  Speaker 1: matches set fire to each other like a regular firework,
• 3:45:19
  Speaker 1: or cutting a banana or some such thing into a
• 3:45:22
  Speaker 1: dancing doll. His name was Isidore Smythe, and I can
• 3:45:28
  Speaker 1: see him still with his little dark face, just coming
• 3:45:32
  Speaker 1: up to the counter, making a jumping kangaroo out of
• 3:45:36
  Speaker 1: five cigars. The other fellow was more silent and more ordinary,
• 3:45:43
  Speaker 1: but somehow he alarmed me much more than poor little Smythe.
• 3:45:48
  Speaker 1: He was very tall and slight and light haired. His
• 3:45:53
  Speaker 1: nose had a high bridge, and he might almost have
• 3:45:56
  Speaker 1: been handsome in a spectral sort of way. But he
• 3:46:00
  Speaker 1: had one of the most appalling squints. I have ever
• 3:46:03
  Speaker 1: seen or heard of. When he looked straight at you,
• 3:46:08
  Speaker 1: you didn't know where you were yourself, let alone what
• 3:46:11
  Speaker 1: he was looking at. I fancied this sort of disfigurement
• 3:46:16
  Speaker 1: embittered the poor chap a little. For while Smyth was
• 3:46:20
  Speaker 1: ready to show off his monkey tricks anywhere. James Welkin,
• 3:46:24
  Speaker 1: that was the squinting man's name, never did anything except
• 3:46:29
  Speaker 1: soak in our bar parlor, and go for great walks
• 3:46:32
  Speaker 1: by himself in the flat gray country all round all
• 3:46:38
  Speaker 1: the same. I think Smith too was a little sensitive
• 3:46:42
  Speaker 1: about being so small, though he carried it off more smartly.
• 3:46:48
  Speaker 1: And so it was that I was really puzzled as
• 3:46:51
  Speaker 1: well as startled and very sorry when they both offered
• 3:46:55
  Speaker 1: to marry me in the same week. Well, well, I
• 3:47:00
  Speaker 1: did what I've since thought was perhaps a silly thing.
• 3:47:04
  Speaker 1: But after all, these freaks were my friends in a way,
• 3:47:08
  Speaker 1: and I had a horror of their thinking. I refused
• 3:47:11
  Speaker 1: them for the real reason, which was that they were
• 3:47:14
  Speaker 1: so impossibly ugly. So I made up some gas of
• 3:47:18
  Speaker 1: another sort about never meaning to marry any one who
• 3:47:22
  Speaker 1: hadn't carved his way in the world. I said it
• 3:47:26
  Speaker 1: was a point of principle with me not to live
• 3:47:29
  Speaker 1: on money that was just inherited like theirs. Two days
• 3:47:33
  Speaker 1: after I had talked in this well meaning sort of way,
• 3:47:37
  Speaker 1: the whole trouble began. The first thing I heard was
• 3:47:41
  Speaker 1: that both of them had gone off to seek their fortunes,
• 3:47:44
  Speaker 1: as if they were in some silly fairy tale. Well,
• 3:47:49
  Speaker 1: I've never seen either of them from that day to this,
• 3:47:53
  Speaker 1: but I've had two letters from the little man called Smythe,
• 3:47:57
  Speaker 1: and really they were rather exciting. Ever heard of the
• 3:48:01
  Speaker 1: other man, asked Angus. No, he never wrote, said the girl,
• 3:48:08
  Speaker 1: after an instant's hesitation. Smyth's first letter was simply to
• 3:48:13
  Speaker 1: say that he had started out walking with Welkin to London,
• 3:48:17
  Speaker 1: but Welkin was such a good walker that the little
• 3:48:20
  Speaker 1: Man dropped out of it and took a rest by
• 3:48:23
  Speaker 1: the roadside. He happened to be picked up by some
• 3:48:27
  Speaker 1: traveling show and partly because he was nearly a dwarf,
• 3:48:32
  Speaker 1: and partly because he was really a clever little wretch,
• 3:48:36
  Speaker 1: he got on quite well in the show business, and
• 3:48:39
  Speaker 1: was soon sent up to the aquarium to do some
• 3:48:42
  Speaker 1: tricks that I forget. That was his first letter. His
• 3:48:47
  Speaker 1: second was much more of a startler, and I only
• 3:48:50
  Speaker 1: got it last week. The man called Angus emptied his
• 3:48:55
  Speaker 1: coffee cup and regarded her with mild and patient eyes.
• 3:49:00
  Speaker 1: His own mouth took a slight twist of laughter as
• 3:49:03
  Speaker 1: she resumed. I suppose you've seen on the hoardings all
• 3:49:08
  Speaker 1: about this Smythe's silent service, or you must be the
• 3:49:12
  Speaker 1: only person who hasn't. Oh, I don't know much about it.
• 3:49:18
  Speaker 1: It's some clockwork invention for doing all the housework by machinery.
• 3:49:23
  Speaker 1: You know, the sort of thing. Press a button, a
• 3:49:26
  Speaker 1: butler who never drinks, turn a handle, ten housemaids who
• 3:49:32
  Speaker 1: never flirt. You must have seen the advertisements. Well, whatever
• 3:49:38
  Speaker 1: these machines are, they are making pots of money, and
• 3:49:41
  Speaker 1: they are making it all for that little imp whom
• 3:49:44
  Speaker 1: I knew down in Ludbury. I can't help feeling pleased
• 3:49:48
  Speaker 1: the poor little chap has fallen on his feet. But
• 3:49:51
  Speaker 1: the plain fact is I'm in terror of his turning
• 3:49:54
  Speaker 1: up any minute and telling me he's carved his way
• 3:49:57
  Speaker 1: in the world, as he certainly had. And the other
• 3:50:02
  Speaker 1: man repeated Angus with a sort of obstinate quietude. Lora
• 3:50:09
  Speaker 1: Hope got to her feet suddenly, my friend, she said,
• 3:50:15
  Speaker 1: I think you are a witch. Yes, you are quite right.
• 3:50:20
  Speaker 1: I have not seen a line of the other man's writing,
• 3:50:23
  Speaker 1: but I have no more notion than the dead of
• 3:50:26
  Speaker 1: what or where he is. But it is of him
• 3:50:30
  Speaker 1: that I am frightened. It is he who is all
• 3:50:34
  Speaker 1: about my path. It is he who has half driven
• 3:50:37
  Speaker 1: me mad. Indeed I think he has driven me mad,
• 3:50:43
  Speaker 1: for I have felt him where he could not have been,
• 3:50:46
  Speaker 1: and I have heard his voice when he could not
• 3:50:49
  Speaker 1: have spoken. Well, my dear, said the young man cheerfully,
• 3:50:56
  Speaker 1: if he were Satan himself. He is done for now
• 3:51:00
  Speaker 1: you've told somebody one goes mad all alone, old girl.
• 3:51:05
  Speaker 1: But when was it you fancied you felt and heard
• 3:51:08
  Speaker 1: our squinting friend. I heard James Welkin laugh as plainly
• 3:51:14
  Speaker 1: as I hear you speak, said the girl steadily. There
• 3:51:19
  Speaker 1: was nobody there, for I stood just outside the shop
• 3:51:23
  Speaker 1: at the corner and could see down both streets at once.
• 3:51:28
  Speaker 1: I had forgotten how he laughed, though his laugh was
• 3:51:31
  Speaker 1: as odd as his squint. I had not thought of
• 3:51:35
  Speaker 1: him for nearly a year. But it's a solemn truth
• 3:51:39
  Speaker 1: that a few seconds later the first letter came from
• 3:51:42
  Speaker 1: his rival. Did you ever make the specter speak or
• 3:51:47
  Speaker 1: squeak or anything, asked Angus with some interest. Laura suddenly shuddered,
• 3:51:55
  Speaker 1: and then said, with an unshaken voice, yes. Just when
• 3:52:01
  Speaker 1: I had finished reading the second letter from Isidore Smythe
• 3:52:04
  Speaker 1: announcing his success, just then I heard welcome say, he
• 3:52:10
  Speaker 1: sha'n't have you, though it was quite plain as if
• 3:52:14
  Speaker 1: he were in the room. It is awful. I think
• 3:52:18
  Speaker 1: I must be mad. If you really were mad, said
• 3:52:24
  Speaker 1: the young man, you would think you must be sane.
• 3:52:28
  Speaker 1: But certainly there seems to me to be something a
• 3:52:30
  Speaker 1: little rum about this unseen gentleman. Two heads are better
• 3:52:35
  Speaker 1: than one. I spare you allusions to any other organs,
• 3:52:40
  Speaker 1: and really, if you would allow me, as a sturdy,
• 3:52:43
  Speaker 1: practical man, to bring back the wedding cake out of
• 3:52:47
  Speaker 1: the window. Even as he spoke, there was a sort
• 3:52:51
  Speaker 1: of steely shriek in the street outside, and a small
• 3:52:54
  Speaker 1: motor driven at devilish speed, shot up to the door
• 3:52:59
  Speaker 1: of the shop and stuck there. In the same flash
• 3:53:03
  Speaker 1: of time, a small man in a shiny top hat
• 3:53:06
  Speaker 1: stood stamping in the outer room. Angus, who had hitherto
• 3:53:12
  Speaker 1: maintained hilarious ease from motives of mental hygiene, revealed the
• 3:53:18
  Speaker 1: strain of his soul by striding abruptly out of the
• 3:53:21
  Speaker 1: inner room and confronting the newcomer. A glance at him
• 3:53:27
  Speaker 1: was quite sufficient to confirm the savage guesswork of a
• 3:53:30
  Speaker 1: man in love. This very dapper but dwarfish figure, with
• 3:53:35
  Speaker 1: the spike of black beard, carried insolently forward the clever,
• 3:53:40
  Speaker 1: unrestful eyes, the neat but very nervous fingers could be
• 3:53:45
  Speaker 1: none other than the man just described to him. Isidore
• 3:53:49
  Speaker 1: Smythe who made dolls out of banana skins in matchboxes.
• 3:53:55
  Speaker 1: Isidore Smythe, who made millions out of undrinking butlers and
• 3:54:00
  Speaker 1: unflirting housemaids of metal. For a moment, the two men, instinctively,
• 3:54:06
  Speaker 1: understanding each other's air of possession, looked at each other
• 3:54:11
  Speaker 1: with that curious, cold generosity which is the soul of rivalry.
• 3:54:18
  Speaker 1: Mister Smythe, however, made no allusion to the ultimate ground
• 3:54:21
  Speaker 1: of their antagonism, but said, simply and explosively, has mishope
• 3:54:27
  Speaker 1: seen that thing on the window? On the window, repeated
• 3:54:32
  Speaker 1: the staring Angus. There's no time to explain other things,
• 3:54:37
  Speaker 1: said the small millionaire shortly. There's some tomfoolery going on
• 3:54:42
  Speaker 1: here that has to be investigated. He pointed his polished
• 3:54:48
  Speaker 1: walking stick at the window, recently depleted by the bridal
• 3:54:52
  Speaker 1: preparations of mister Angus, and that gentleman was astonished to
• 3:54:56
  Speaker 1: see along the front of the glass a long strip
• 3:54:59
  Speaker 1: of paper pasted, which had certainly not been on the
• 3:55:03
  Speaker 1: window when he looked through it some time before. Following
• 3:55:07
  Speaker 1: the energetic smife outside into the street, he found that
• 3:55:11
  Speaker 1: some yard and a half of stamp paper had been
• 3:55:15
  Speaker 1: carefully gummed along the glass outside, and on this was
• 3:55:19
  Speaker 1: written in straggly characters. If you marry smythe he will die, Laura,
• 3:55:28
  Speaker 1: said Angus, putting his big red head into the shop.
• 3:55:33
  Speaker 1: You're not mad. It's the writing of that fellow Welkin,
• 3:55:39
  Speaker 1: said Smith gruffly. I haven't seen him for years, but
• 3:55:43
  Speaker 1: he's always bothering me. Five times in the last fortnight
• 3:55:48
  Speaker 1: he's had threatening letters left at my flat, and I
• 3:55:52
  Speaker 1: can't even find out who leaves them, let alone if
• 3:55:55
  Speaker 1: it is Welkin himself. The porter of the flat swears
• 3:55:59
  Speaker 1: that no those suspicious characters have been seen. And here
• 3:56:03
  Speaker 1: he has pasted up a sort of dado on a
• 3:56:05
  Speaker 1: public shop window while the people in the shop. Quite so,
• 3:56:11
  Speaker 1: said Angus modestly, while the people in the shop were
• 3:56:15
  Speaker 1: having tea. Well, sir, I can assure you I appreciate
• 3:56:21
  Speaker 1: your common sense in dealing so directly with the matter.
• 3:56:25
  Speaker 1: We can talk about other things afterwards. The fellow cannot
• 3:56:29
  Speaker 1: be very far off yet, for I swear there was
• 3:56:32
  Speaker 1: no paper there when I went last to the window.
• 3:56:35
  Speaker 1: Ten or fifteen minutes ago. On the other hand, he's
• 3:56:40
  Speaker 1: too far off to be chased, as we don't even
• 3:56:43
  Speaker 1: know the direction. If you'll take my advice, mister Smythe,
• 3:56:48
  Speaker 1: you'll put this at once in the hands of some
• 3:56:50
  Speaker 1: energetic inquiry man private rather than public. I know an
• 3:56:56
  Speaker 1: extremely clever fellow who has set up in business five minute.
• 3:57:00
  Speaker 1: It's from here in your car. His name's Flambeaux, and
• 3:57:04
  Speaker 1: though his youth was a bit stormy, he's a strictly
• 3:57:07
  Speaker 1: honest man now and his brains are worth money. He
• 3:57:12
  Speaker 1: lives in Lucknow Mansions, Hampstead. That is odd, said the
• 3:57:18
  Speaker 1: little man, arching his black eyebrows. I live myself in
• 3:57:24
  Speaker 1: him a laya mansions round the corner. Perhaps you might
• 3:57:28
  Speaker 1: care to come with me. I can go to my
• 3:57:31
  Speaker 1: rooms and sort out these queer welcome documents while you
• 3:57:35
  Speaker 1: run round and get your friend, the detective. You are
• 3:57:40
  Speaker 1: very good, said Angus politely. Well, the sooner we act,
• 3:57:45
  Speaker 1: the better. Both men, with a queer kind of impromptu fairness,
• 3:57:52
  Speaker 1: took the same sort of formal farewell of the lady,
• 3:57:55
  Speaker 1: and both jumped into the brisk little car as Smythe
• 3:57:59
  Speaker 1: took the handles, and they turned the great corner of
• 3:58:02
  Speaker 1: the street. Angus was amused to see a gigantesque poster
• 3:58:06
  Speaker 1: of Smythe's Silent Service, with a picture of a huge,
• 3:58:10
  Speaker 1: headless iron doll carrying a saucepan, with the legend a
• 3:58:15
  Speaker 1: cook who was never cross. I'd use them in my
• 3:58:20
  Speaker 1: own flat, said the little black bearded man, laughing, partly
• 3:58:25
  Speaker 1: for advertisements and partly for real convenience, honestly and all
• 3:58:31
  Speaker 1: above board. Those big clockwork dolls of mine do bring
• 3:58:36
  Speaker 1: your coals or claret or a timetable quicker than any
• 3:58:40
  Speaker 1: live servants I've ever known, if you know which knob depress.
• 3:58:45
  Speaker 1: But I'll never deny between ourselves that such servants have
• 3:58:49
  Speaker 1: their disadvantages too. Indeed, said Angus, is there something they
• 3:58:56
  Speaker 1: can't do, Yes, replied Smythe coolly. They can't tell me
• 3:59:02
  Speaker 1: who left those threatening letters at my flat. The man's
• 3:59:08
  Speaker 1: motor was small and swift, like himself, in fact, like
• 3:59:12
  Speaker 1: his domestic service. It was of his own invention. If
• 3:59:17
  Speaker 1: he was an advertising quack, he was one who believed
• 3:59:20
  Speaker 1: in his own wares. The sense of something tiny and
• 3:59:24
  Speaker 1: flying was accentuated as they swept up long white curves
• 3:59:29
  Speaker 1: of road in the dead but open daylight of evening.
• 3:59:33
  Speaker 1: Soon the white curves came sharper and dizzier. They were
• 3:59:37
  Speaker 1: upon ascending spirals, as they say in the modern religions.
• 3:59:42
  Speaker 1: For indeed they were cresting a corner of London, which
• 3:59:46
  Speaker 1: is almost as precipitous as Edinburgh, if not quite so.
• 3:59:50
  Speaker 1: Picturesque Terrace rose above Terrace, and the special tower of
• 3:59:56
  Speaker 1: flats they sought rose above them, all to almost eat
• 4:00:00
  Speaker 1: Egyptian height gilt by the level sunset. The change as
• 4:00:06
  Speaker 1: they turned the corner and entered the crescent known as
• 4:00:08
  Speaker 1: Himalaya Mansions was as abrupt as the opening of a window,
• 4:00:14
  Speaker 1: for they found that pile of flats sitting above London
• 4:00:18
  Speaker 1: as above a green sea of slate. Opposite to the
• 4:00:22
  Speaker 1: mansions on the other side of the gravel crescent was
• 4:00:26
  Speaker 1: a bushy enclosure, more like a steep hedge or dike
• 4:00:29
  Speaker 1: than a garden, and some way below that ran a
• 4:00:33
  Speaker 1: strip of artificial water, a sort of canal like the
• 4:00:37
  Speaker 1: moat of that embowered fortress. As the car swept round
• 4:00:42
  Speaker 1: the crescent, it passed at one corner the stray stall
• 4:00:46
  Speaker 1: of a man selling chestnuts, and right away at the
• 4:00:49
  Speaker 1: other end of the curve, Angus could see a dim
• 4:00:52
  Speaker 1: blue policeman walking slowly. These were the only human shapes
• 4:00:57
  Speaker 1: in that high suburban solitude, but he had an irrational
• 4:01:02
  Speaker 1: sense that they expressed the speechless poetry of London. He
• 4:01:07
  Speaker 1: felt as if they were figures in a story. The
• 4:01:12
  Speaker 1: little car shot up to the right house like a
• 4:01:14
  Speaker 1: bullet and shot out its owner like a bomb shell.
• 4:01:19
  Speaker 1: He was immediately inquiring of a tall commissionaire in shining
• 4:01:23
  Speaker 1: braid and a short porter in shirt sleeves whether anybody
• 4:01:28
  Speaker 1: or anything had been seeking his apartments. He was assured
• 4:01:33
  Speaker 1: that nobody and nothing had passed these officials since his
• 4:01:37
  Speaker 1: last inquiries. Whereupon he and the slightly bewildered Angus were
• 4:01:43
  Speaker 1: shot up in the lift like a rocket till they
• 4:01:46
  Speaker 1: reached the top floor. Just come in for a minute,
• 4:01:51
  Speaker 1: said the breathless smile. I want to show you those
• 4:01:54
  Speaker 1: welkin letters. Then you might run round the corner and
• 4:01:58
  Speaker 1: fetch your friend. He pressed a button concealed in the wall,
• 4:02:03
  Speaker 1: and the door opened of itself. It opened on a long,
• 4:02:08
  Speaker 1: commodious ante room, of which the only arresting features, ordinarily speaking,
• 4:02:15
  Speaker 1: were the rows of tall half human mechanical figures that
• 4:02:19
  Speaker 1: stood up on both sides like tailor's dummies. Like tailor's dummies,
• 4:02:25
  Speaker 1: they were headless, and like tailor's dummies, they had a handsome,
• 4:02:29
  Speaker 1: unnecessary humpiness in the shoulders and a pigeon breasted protuberance
• 4:02:34
  Speaker 1: of chest. But barring this, they were not much more
• 4:02:38
  Speaker 1: like a human figure than any automatic machine at a
• 4:02:42
  Speaker 1: station that is, about the human height. They had two
• 4:02:46
  Speaker 1: great hooks like arms for carrying trays, and they were
• 4:02:51
  Speaker 1: painted pea green or vermilion or black for convenience of distinction.
• 4:02:58
  Speaker 1: In every other way there there were only automatic machines,
• 4:03:02
  Speaker 1: and nobody would have looked twice at them on this occasion.
• 4:03:06
  Speaker 1: At least nobody did, for between the two rows of
• 4:03:11
  Speaker 1: these domestic dummies lay something more interesting than most of
• 4:03:16
  Speaker 1: the mechanics of the world. It was a white, tattered
• 4:03:20
  Speaker 1: scrap of paper scrawled with red ink, and the agile
• 4:03:24
  Speaker 1: inventor had snatched it up almost as soon as the
• 4:03:27
  Speaker 1: door flew open. He handed it to Angus without a word.
• 4:03:33
  Speaker 1: The red ink on it actually was not dry, and
• 4:03:36
  Speaker 1: the message ran, if you have been to see her today,
• 4:03:41
  Speaker 1: I shall kill you. There was a short silence and
• 4:03:47
  Speaker 1: then Isidore. Smythe said quietly, would you like a little whiskey?
• 4:03:52
  Speaker 1: I rather feel as if I should thank you. I
• 4:03:57
  Speaker 1: should like a little flambeaux, said Angus gloomily. This business
• 4:04:02
  Speaker 1: seems to me to be getting rather grave. I'm going
• 4:04:06
  Speaker 1: round at once to fetch him. Right you are, said
• 4:04:11
  Speaker 1: the other, with admirable cheerfulness. Bring him round here as
• 4:04:15
  Speaker 1: quick as you can. But as Angus closed the front
• 4:04:19
  Speaker 1: door behind him, he saw Smythe push back a button,
• 4:04:23
  Speaker 1: and one of the clockwork images glided from its place
• 4:04:27
  Speaker 1: and slid along a groove in the floor, carrying a
• 4:04:29
  Speaker 1: tray with siphon and decanter. There did seem something a
• 4:04:34
  Speaker 1: trifle weird about leaving the little man alone among those
• 4:04:37
  Speaker 1: dead servants who were coming to life. As the door closed,
• 4:04:44
  Speaker 1: six steps down from Smythe's landing, the man in shirt
• 4:04:47
  Speaker 1: sleeves was doing something with a pail. Angus stopped to
• 4:04:51
  Speaker 1: extract a promise, fortified with a prospective bribe, that he
• 4:04:56
  Speaker 1: would remain in that place until the return with the detective,
• 4:05:00
  Speaker 1: and would keep count of any kind of stranger coming
• 4:05:03
  Speaker 1: up those stairs. Dashing down to the front hall, he
• 4:05:08
  Speaker 1: then laid similar charges of vigilance on the commissionaire at
• 4:05:11
  Speaker 1: the front door, from whom he learned the simplifying circumstances
• 4:05:16
  Speaker 1: that there was no back door. Not content with this,
• 4:05:21
  Speaker 1: he captured the floating policeman and induced him to stand
• 4:05:24
  Speaker 1: opposite the entrance and watch it, and finally paused an
• 4:05:29
  Speaker 1: instant for a pennyworth of chestnuts and an inquiry as
• 4:05:33
  Speaker 1: to the probable length of the merchant's stay in the neighborhood.
• 4:05:38
  Speaker 1: The chestnut seller, turning up the collar of his coat,
• 4:05:42
  Speaker 1: told him he should probably be moving shortly, as he
• 4:05:45
  Speaker 1: thought it was going to snow. Indeed, the evening was
• 4:05:50
  Speaker 1: growing gray and bitter, but Angus, with all his eloquence,
• 4:05:55
  Speaker 1: proceeded to nail the chestnut man to his post. Keep
• 4:06:00
  Speaker 1: yourself warm on your own chestnuts, he said, earnestly, eat
• 4:06:05
  Speaker 1: up your whole stock. I'll make it worth your while.
• 4:06:08
  Speaker 1: I'll give you a sovereign if you'll wait here till
• 4:06:11
  Speaker 1: I come back, and then tell me whether any man,
• 4:06:14
  Speaker 1: woman or child has gone into that house where the
• 4:06:17
  Speaker 1: commissionaire is standing. He then walked away smartly, with a
• 4:06:23
  Speaker 1: last look at the besieged tower. I've made a ring
• 4:06:28
  Speaker 1: round that room anyhow, he said, they can't all four
• 4:06:32
  Speaker 1: of them be mister Welkins accomplices. Lucknow, mansions were, so
• 4:06:38
  Speaker 1: to speak, on a lower platform of that hill of
• 4:06:41
  Speaker 1: houses of which Himalaya mansions might be called the peak.
• 4:06:47
  Speaker 1: Mister Flambow's semi official flat was on the ground floor,
• 4:06:51
  Speaker 1: and presented in every way a marked contrast to the
• 4:06:55
  Speaker 1: American machinery and cold, hotel like luxury of the flat
• 4:06:59
  Speaker 1: of the Silent Service. Flambeaux, who was a friend of Angus,
• 4:07:05
  Speaker 1: received him in a Rococo artistic den behind his office,
• 4:07:10
  Speaker 1: of which the ornaments were sabers, harquebusses, Eastern curiosities, flasks
• 4:07:16
  Speaker 1: of Italian wine, savage cooking pots, a plumy Persian cat,
• 4:07:22
  Speaker 1: and a small, dusty looking Roman Catholic priest who looked
• 4:07:26
  Speaker 1: particularly out of place. This is my friend, father Brown,
• 4:07:33
  Speaker 1: said Flambeaux. I've often wanted you to meet him. Splendid weather,
• 4:07:38
  Speaker 1: this a little cold for Southerners like me. Yes, I
• 4:07:45
  Speaker 1: think it will keep clear, said Angus, sitting down on
• 4:07:48
  Speaker 1: a violet striped Eastern ottoman. No, said the priest quietly,
• 4:07:55
  Speaker 1: it has begun to snow, and indeed, as he spoke,
• 4:08:01
  Speaker 1: the first few flakes foreseen by the man of chestnuts,
• 4:08:05
  Speaker 1: began to drift across the darkening windowpane. Well, said Angus heavily.
• 4:08:13
  Speaker 1: I'm afraid I've come on business, and rather jumpy business
• 4:08:17
  Speaker 1: at that. The fact is, Flambeau, within a stone's throw
• 4:08:22
  Speaker 1: of your house is a fellow who badly wants your help.
• 4:08:27
  Speaker 1: He's perpetually being haunted and threatened by an invisible enemy,
• 4:08:31
  Speaker 1: a scoundrel whom nobody has even seen. As Angus proceeded
• 4:08:37
  Speaker 1: to tell the whole story of Smythe and Welkin, beginning
• 4:08:41
  Speaker 1: with Laura's story and going on with his own. The
• 4:08:45
  Speaker 1: supernatural laugh at the corner of two empty streets, the
• 4:08:48
  Speaker 1: strange distinct words spoken in an empty room. Flambeau grew
• 4:08:54
  Speaker 1: more and more vividly concerned, and the little priest seemed
• 4:08:58
  Speaker 1: to be left out of it, like a piece of furniture.
• 4:09:03
  Speaker 1: When it came to the scribbled stamp paper pasted on
• 4:09:06
  Speaker 1: the window, Flambeaux rose, seeming to fill the room with
• 4:09:10
  Speaker 1: his huge shoulders. If you don't mind, he said, I
• 4:09:16
  Speaker 1: think you had better tell me the rest On the
• 4:09:18
  Speaker 1: nearest road to this man's house. It strikes me somehow
• 4:09:23
  Speaker 1: that there is no time to be lost. Delighted, said Angus, rising, also,
• 4:09:31
  Speaker 1: though he's safe enough for the present, for I've set
• 4:09:34
  Speaker 1: four men to watch the only hole to his burrow.
• 4:09:39
  Speaker 1: They turned out into the street, the small priest trundling
• 4:09:42
  Speaker 1: after them with the docility of a small dog. He
• 4:09:46
  Speaker 1: merely said, in a cheerful way, like one making conversation,
• 4:09:52
  Speaker 1: how quick the snow gets thick on the ground. As
• 4:09:57
  Speaker 1: they threaded the steep side streets, all ready powdered with silver,
• 4:10:02
  Speaker 1: Angus finished his story, and by the time they reached
• 4:10:05
  Speaker 1: the crescent with the towering flats, he had leisure to
• 4:10:09
  Speaker 1: turn his attention to the four sentinels. The chestnut seller,
• 4:10:14
  Speaker 1: both before and after receiving a sovereign, swore stubbornly that
• 4:10:19
  Speaker 1: he had watched the door and seen no visitor enter.
• 4:10:23
  Speaker 1: The policeman was even more emphatic. He said he had
• 4:10:27
  Speaker 1: had experience of crooks of all kinds, in top hats
• 4:10:31
  Speaker 1: and in rags. He wasn't so green as to expect
• 4:10:34
  Speaker 1: suspicious characters to look suspicious. He looked out for anybody,
• 4:10:40
  Speaker 1: and so help him, there had been nobody, And when
• 4:10:45
  Speaker 1: all three men gathered round the gilded commissionaire, who still
• 4:10:49
  Speaker 1: stood smiling astride of the porch. The verdict was more final. Still,
• 4:10:56
  Speaker 1: I've got a right to ask any man, duke or
• 4:10:59
  Speaker 1: dustman what he wants in these flats, said the genial
• 4:11:03
  Speaker 1: and gold laced giant, and ilsewhere there's been nobody to
• 4:11:07
  Speaker 1: ask since this gentleman went away. The unimportant father Brown,
• 4:11:14
  Speaker 1: who stood back, looking modestly at the pavement here, ventured
• 4:11:19
  Speaker 1: to say, meekly, has nobody been up and down stairs? Then?
• 4:11:24
  Speaker 1: Since the snow began to fall it began while we
• 4:11:28
  Speaker 1: were all round at Flambeau's. Nobody's been in here, sir,
• 4:11:33
  Speaker 1: you can take it from me, said the official, with
• 4:11:36
  Speaker 1: beaming authority. Then I wonder what that is, said the priest,
• 4:11:43
  Speaker 1: and stared at the ground blankly, like a fish. The
• 4:11:47
  Speaker 1: others all looked down also, and Flambeaux used a fierce
• 4:11:51
  Speaker 1: exclamation and a French gesture. For it was unquestionably true
• 4:11:58
  Speaker 1: that down the middle of the entrance, guarded by the
• 4:12:01
  Speaker 1: man in gold lace, actually between the arrogant stretched legs
• 4:12:05
  Speaker 1: of that colossus, ran a stringy pattern of gray footprints
• 4:12:10
  Speaker 1: stamped upon the white snow. God cried angus involuntarily the
• 4:12:18
  Speaker 1: invisible man. Without another word, he turned and dashed up
• 4:12:24
  Speaker 1: the stairs, with Flambeaux following. But Father Brown still stood
• 4:12:29
  Speaker 1: looking about him in the snow clad street, as if
• 4:12:32
  Speaker 1: he had lost interest in his query. Flambeaux was plainly
• 4:12:37
  Speaker 1: in a mood to break down the door with his
• 4:12:39
  Speaker 1: big shoulders, but the Scotchman, with more reason, if less intuition,
• 4:12:45
  Speaker 1: fumbled about on the frame of the door till he
• 4:12:48
  Speaker 1: found the invisible button, and the door swung slowly open.
• 4:12:54
  Speaker 1: It showed substantially the same serried interior. The hall had
• 4:12:58
  Speaker 1: grown darker, thought it was still struck here and there
• 4:13:02
  Speaker 1: with the last crimson shafts of sunset, And one or
• 4:13:06
  Speaker 1: two of the headless machines had been moved from their
• 4:13:09
  Speaker 1: places for this or that purpose, and stood here or
• 4:13:13
  Speaker 1: there about the twilight place. The green and red of
• 4:13:17
  Speaker 1: their coats were all darkened in the dusk, and their
• 4:13:21
  Speaker 1: likeness to human shapes slightly increased by their very shapelessness.
• 4:13:28
  Speaker 1: But in the middle of the mall, exactly where the
• 4:13:31
  Speaker 1: paper with the red ink had lain, there lay something
• 4:13:34
  Speaker 1: that looked like red ink spilt out of its bottle,
• 4:13:39
  Speaker 1: But it was not red ink with a French combination
• 4:13:44
  Speaker 1: of reason and violence. Flambeaux simply said murder, and plunging
• 4:13:51
  Speaker 1: into the flat, had explored every corner and cupboard of
• 4:13:54
  Speaker 1: it in five minutes. But if he expected to find
• 4:13:59
  Speaker 1: a corpse, he found none. Isidore smythe was not in
• 4:14:04
  Speaker 1: the place, either dead or alive. After the most tearing search,
• 4:14:10
  Speaker 1: the two men met each other in the outer hall,
• 4:14:13
  Speaker 1: with streaming faces and staring eyes. My friend, said Flambeaux,
• 4:14:20
  Speaker 1: talking French in his excitement. Not only is your murderer invisible,
• 4:14:26
  Speaker 1: but he makes invisible also the murdered man. Angus looked
• 4:14:32
  Speaker 1: round at the dim room full of dummies, and in
• 4:14:35
  Speaker 1: some Celtic corner of his Scotch soul, a shudder started.
• 4:14:40
  Speaker 1: One of the life sized dolls stood immediately, overshadowing the
• 4:14:44
  Speaker 1: blood stain, summoned, perhaps by the slain man. An instant
• 4:14:50
  Speaker 1: before he fell, one of the high shouldered hooks that
• 4:14:55
  Speaker 1: served the thing for arms was a little lifted, and
• 4:14:59
  Speaker 1: Angus had sudden lay the horrid fancy that poor Smith's
• 4:15:02
  Speaker 1: own iron child had struck him down. Matter had rebelled,
• 4:15:09
  Speaker 1: and these machines had killed their master. But even so
• 4:15:15
  Speaker 1: what had they done with him? Eaten him? Said the
• 4:15:20
  Speaker 1: nightmare at his ear, and he sickened for an instant
• 4:15:24
  Speaker 1: at the idea of rent human remains absorbed and crushed
• 4:15:29
  Speaker 1: into all that acephalous clockwork. He recovered his mental health
• 4:15:35
  Speaker 1: by an emphatic effort and said to Flambeaux, well, there
• 4:15:40
  Speaker 1: it is. The poor fellow has evaporated like a cloud
• 4:15:44
  Speaker 1: and left a red streak on the floor. The tale
• 4:15:47
  Speaker 1: does not belong to this world. There is only one
• 4:15:52
  Speaker 1: thing to be done, said Flambeau, whether it belongs to
• 4:15:56
  Speaker 1: this world or the other. I must go down and
• 4:15:59
  Speaker 1: talk to him, my friend. They descended, passing the man
• 4:16:05
  Speaker 1: with the pale who again asseverated that he had let
• 4:16:09
  Speaker 1: no intruder pass, down to the commissionaire and the hovering
• 4:16:13
  Speaker 1: chestnut man, who rigidly reasserted their own watchfulness. But when
• 4:16:19
  Speaker 1: Angus looked round for his fourth confirmation, he could not
• 4:16:22
  Speaker 1: see it, and called out, with some nervousness, where is
• 4:16:27
  Speaker 1: the policeman. I beg your pardon, said father Brown. That
• 4:16:33
  Speaker 1: is my fault. I just sent him down the road
• 4:16:36
  Speaker 1: to investigate something, did I just thought worth investigating? Well,
• 4:16:42
  Speaker 1: we want him back pretty soon, said Angus abruptly, for
• 4:16:46
  Speaker 1: the wretched man upstairs has not only been murdered, but
• 4:16:50
  Speaker 1: wiped out. How asked the priest, father, said Flambeaux, after
• 4:16:58
  Speaker 1: a pause, upon my soul, I believe it is more
• 4:17:02
  Speaker 1: in your department than mine. No friend or foe has
• 4:17:06
  Speaker 1: entered the house, but Smythe is gone, as if stolen
• 4:17:10
  Speaker 1: by the fairies. If that is not supernatural I As
• 4:17:16
  Speaker 1: he spoke, they were all checked by an unusual sight.
• 4:17:19
  Speaker 1: The big blue policeman came round the corner of the
• 4:17:22
  Speaker 1: crescent running. He came straight up to Brown. You're right, sir,
• 4:17:29
  Speaker 1: he panted. They've just found poor mister Smythe's body in
• 4:17:33
  Speaker 1: the canal down below. Angus put his hand wildly to
• 4:17:38
  Speaker 1: his head. Did he run down and drown himself, he asked.
• 4:17:44
  Speaker 1: He never came down, I'll swear, said the constable. And
• 4:17:49
  Speaker 1: he wasn't drowned either, for he died of a great
• 4:17:52
  Speaker 1: stab over the heart. And yet ye saw no one enter,
• 4:17:58
  Speaker 1: said Flambeau in a grave. Let us walk down the
• 4:18:03
  Speaker 1: road a little, said the priest. As they reached the
• 4:18:07
  Speaker 1: other end of the crescent. He observed abruptly, stupid of me,
• 4:18:13
  Speaker 1: I forgot to ask the policeman something. I wonder if
• 4:18:16
  Speaker 1: they found a light brown sack. Why a light brown sack,
• 4:18:22
  Speaker 1: asked Angus, astonished, because if it was any other colored sack,
• 4:18:27
  Speaker 1: the case must begin over again, said father Brown. But
• 4:18:32
  Speaker 1: if it was a light brown sack, why the case
• 4:18:35
  Speaker 1: is finished? I am pleased to hear it, said Angus,
• 4:18:40
  Speaker 1: with hearty irony. It hasn't begun so far as I
• 4:18:44
  Speaker 1: am concerned. You must tell us all about it, said Flambeau,
• 4:18:50
  Speaker 1: with a strange, heavy simplicity, like a child. Unconsciously, they
• 4:18:57
  Speaker 1: were walking with quickening steps down the la long sweep
• 4:19:00
  Speaker 1: of road on the other side of the high Crescent,
• 4:19:04
  Speaker 1: Father Brown leading briskly, though in silence. At last, he said,
• 4:19:10
  Speaker 1: with an almost touching vagueness, Well, I'm afraid you'll think
• 4:19:14
  Speaker 1: it so prosy. We always begin at the abstract end
• 4:19:18
  Speaker 1: of things, and you can't begin this story anywhere else.
• 4:19:23
  Speaker 1: Have you ever noticed this that men never answer what
• 4:19:27
  Speaker 1: you say. They answer what you mean, or what they
• 4:19:32
  Speaker 1: think you mean. Suppose one lady says to another in
• 4:19:36
  Speaker 1: a country house, is anybody staying with you? The lady
• 4:19:41
  Speaker 1: doesn't answer yes, The butler, the three footmen the parlor maid,
• 4:19:46
  Speaker 1: and so on. Though the parlor maid may be in
• 4:19:49
  Speaker 1: the room, or the butler behind her chair. She says,
• 4:19:54
  Speaker 1: there is nobody staying with us, meaning nobody of the
• 4:19:58
  Speaker 1: sort you mean. But suppose a doctor, inquiring into an epidemic,
• 4:20:04
  Speaker 1: asks who was staying in the house, then the lady
• 4:20:09
  Speaker 1: will remember the butler, the parlor maid, and the rest.
• 4:20:13
  Speaker 1: All language is used like that. You never get a
• 4:20:17
  Speaker 1: question answered literally, even when you get it answered truly.
• 4:20:22
  Speaker 1: When those four quite honest men said that no man
• 4:20:26
  Speaker 1: had gone into the mansions, they did not really mean
• 4:20:29
  Speaker 1: that no man had gone into them. They meant no
• 4:20:33
  Speaker 1: man whom they could suspect of being your man. A
• 4:20:37
  Speaker 1: man did go into the house and did come out
• 4:20:40
  Speaker 1: of it, but they never noticed him. An invisible man,
• 4:20:46
  Speaker 1: inquired Angus, raising his red eyebrows. A mentally invisible man,
• 4:20:53
  Speaker 1: said father Brown. A minute or two after, he resumed
• 4:20:58
  Speaker 1: in the same unassuming voice, like a man thinking his way.
• 4:21:03
  Speaker 1: Of course, you can't think of such a man until
• 4:21:06
  Speaker 1: you do think of him. That's where his cleverness comes in.
• 4:21:11
  Speaker 1: But I came to think of him through two or
• 4:21:13
  Speaker 1: three little things. In the tale, mister Angus told us
• 4:21:17
  Speaker 1: First there was the fact that this Welkin went for
• 4:21:20
  Speaker 1: long walks, and then there was the vast lot of
• 4:21:24
  Speaker 1: stamp paper on the window. And then most of all,
• 4:21:29
  Speaker 1: they're worth the two things. The young lady said, things
• 4:21:32
  Speaker 1: that couldn't be true. Don't get annoyed, he added, hastily,
• 4:21:37
  Speaker 1: noting a sudden movement of the scotchman's head. She thought
• 4:21:41
  Speaker 1: they were true. A person can't be quite alone in
• 4:21:44
  Speaker 1: a street a second before she receives a letter. She
• 4:21:48
  Speaker 1: can't be quite alone in a street when she starts
• 4:21:51
  Speaker 1: reading a letter just received. There must be somebody pretty
• 4:21:55
  Speaker 1: near her. He must be mentally invisible. Why must there
• 4:22:01
  Speaker 1: be somebody near her, asked Angus, Because, said father Brown,
• 4:22:08
  Speaker 1: barring carrier pigeons. Somebody must have brought her the letter.
• 4:22:15
  Speaker 1: Do you really mean to say, asked Flambeau, with energy,
• 4:22:19
  Speaker 1: that Welkin carried his rival's letters to his lady. Yes,
• 4:22:24
  Speaker 1: said the priest. Welkin carried his rival's letters to his lady.
• 4:22:29
  Speaker 1: You see, he had to. Oh. I can't stand much
• 4:22:34
  Speaker 1: more of this, exploded Flambeaux. Who is this fellow? What
• 4:22:39
  Speaker 1: does he look like? What is the usual get up
• 4:22:42
  Speaker 1: of a mentally invisible man. He is dressed rather handsomely
• 4:22:47
  Speaker 1: in red, blue and gold, replied the priest promptly. With precision,
• 4:22:52
  Speaker 1: and in this striking and even showy costume, he entered
• 4:22:57
  Speaker 1: him alaya mansions under eight human eyes. He killed smythe
• 4:23:01
  Speaker 1: in cold blood, and came down into the street again,
• 4:23:05
  Speaker 1: carrying the dead body in his arms. Reverend Sir cried, angus,
• 4:23:11
  Speaker 1: standing still, are you raving? Mad? Or am I? You
• 4:23:17
  Speaker 1: are not mad? Said Brown, Only a little unobservant. You
• 4:23:22
  Speaker 1: have not noticed such a man as this. For example,
• 4:23:27
  Speaker 1: he took three quick strides forward and put his hand
• 4:23:30
  Speaker 1: on the shoulder of an ordinary passing postman, who had
• 4:23:34
  Speaker 1: bustled by them unnoticed under the shade of the trees.
• 4:23:40
  Speaker 1: Nobody ever notices postmen, somehow, he said thoughtfully. Yet they
• 4:23:45
  Speaker 1: have passions like other men, and even carry large bags
• 4:23:49
  Speaker 1: where a small corpse can be stowed quite easily. The postman,
• 4:23:55
  Speaker 1: instead of turning naturally, had ducked and tumbled against the
• 4:23:59
  Speaker 1: garden fence. He was a lean, fair bearded man of
• 4:24:04
  Speaker 1: very ordinary appearance. But as he turned an alarmed face
• 4:24:08
  Speaker 1: over his shoulder, all three men were fixed with an
• 4:24:12
  Speaker 1: almost fiendish squint Flambeau went back to his sabers, purple
• 4:24:21
  Speaker 1: rugs and persian cat. Having many things to attend to.
• 4:24:26
  Speaker 1: John Turnbull Angus went back to the lady at the shop,
• 4:24:30
  Speaker 1: with whom that imprudent young man contrives to be extremely comfortable.
• 4:24:36
  Speaker 1: But Father Brown walked those snow covered hills under the
• 4:24:39
  Speaker 1: stars for many hours with a murderer, and what they
• 4:24:43
  Speaker 1: said to each other will never be known. End of
• 4:24:49
  Speaker 1: the Invisible Man, the Honor of israel Gow. A stormy
• 4:24:57
  Speaker 1: evening of olive and silver was closing in as Father Brown,
• 4:25:02
  Speaker 1: wrapped in a gray Scotch plaid, came to the end
• 4:25:05
  Speaker 1: of a gray Scotch valley and beheld the strange castle
• 4:25:10
  Speaker 1: of Glengyle. It stopped one end of the glen or hollow,
• 4:25:15
  Speaker 1: like a blind alley, and it looked like the end
• 4:25:18
  Speaker 1: of the world, rising in steep roofs and spires of
• 4:25:24
  Speaker 1: sea green slate in the manner of the old French
• 4:25:27
  Speaker 1: Scotch chateau. It reminded an Englishman of the sinister steeple
• 4:25:32
  Speaker 1: hats of witches and fairy tales, and the pine woods
• 4:25:36
  Speaker 1: that rocked round the green turrets looked by comparison as
• 4:25:41
  Speaker 1: black as numberless flocks of ravens. This note of a dreamy,
• 4:25:47
  Speaker 1: almost sleepy devilry was no mere fancy from the landscape,
• 4:25:53
  Speaker 1: for there did rest on the place one of those
• 4:25:55
  Speaker 1: clouds of pride and madness and mysterious sorrow which lie
• 4:26:00
  Speaker 1: more heavily on the noble houses of Scotland than on
• 4:26:04
  Speaker 1: any other of the children of men. For Scotland has
• 4:26:08
  Speaker 1: a double dose of the poison called heredity, the sense
• 4:26:12
  Speaker 1: of blood in the aristocrat and the sense of doom
• 4:26:16
  Speaker 1: in the Calvinist. The priest had snatched a day from
• 4:26:22
  Speaker 1: his business at Glasgow to meet his friend Flambeaux, the
• 4:26:26
  Speaker 1: amateur detective, who was at Glengyle Castle with another more
• 4:26:30
  Speaker 1: formal officer investigating the life and death of the late
• 4:26:35
  Speaker 1: Earl of Glengyle. That mysterious person was the last representative
• 4:26:41
  Speaker 1: of a race whose valor, insanity, and violent cunning had
• 4:26:46
  Speaker 1: made them terrible. Even among the sinister nobility of their
• 4:26:50
  Speaker 1: nation in the sixteenth century. None were deeper in that
• 4:26:55
  Speaker 1: labyrinthine ambition in chamber within chamber of that palace of
• 4:27:00
  Speaker 1: lies that was built up around Mary, Queen of Scots.
• 4:27:06
  Speaker 1: The rhyme in the countryside attested the motive and the
• 4:27:09
  Speaker 1: result of their machinations candidly, as green sap to the
• 4:27:15
  Speaker 1: simmer trees is red gold to the Ogilvies. For many
• 4:27:23
  Speaker 1: centuries there had never been a decent lord in Glengeale Castle,
• 4:27:27
  Speaker 1: and with the Victorian era one would have thought that
• 4:27:31
  Speaker 1: all the eccentricities were exhausted. The last Glengyle, however, satisfied
• 4:27:37
  Speaker 1: his tribal tradition by doing the only thing that was
• 4:27:41
  Speaker 1: left for him to do. He disappeared. I do not
• 4:27:46
  Speaker 1: mean that he went abroad. By all accounts, he was
• 4:27:49
  Speaker 1: still in the castle if he was anywhere. But though
• 4:27:53
  Speaker 1: his name was in the church register and the big
• 4:27:57
  Speaker 1: red peerage, nobody ever saw him under the sun. If
• 4:28:03
  Speaker 1: anyone saw him, it was a solitary man servant, something
• 4:28:07
  Speaker 1: between a groom and a gardener. He was so deaf
• 4:28:11
  Speaker 1: that the more businesslike assumed him to be dumb, while
• 4:28:15
  Speaker 1: the more penetrating declared him to be half witted. A gaunt,
• 4:28:20
  Speaker 1: red haired laborer with a dogged jaw and chin, but
• 4:28:25
  Speaker 1: quite blank blue eyes. He went by the name of
• 4:28:29
  Speaker 1: israel Gow and was the one silent servant on that
• 4:28:33
  Speaker 1: deserted estate. But the energy with which he dug potatoes,
• 4:28:39
  Speaker 1: and the regularity with which he disappeared into the kitchen
• 4:28:43
  Speaker 1: gave people an impression that he was providing for the
• 4:28:45
  Speaker 1: meals of a superior, and that the strange Earl was
• 4:28:49
  Speaker 1: still concealed in the castle. If society needed any further
• 4:28:54
  Speaker 1: proof that he was there, the servant persistently asserted that
• 4:28:59
  Speaker 1: he was not at home. Home. One morning, the Provost
• 4:29:03
  Speaker 1: and the minister for the Glengyles were Presbyterian, were summoned
• 4:29:07
  Speaker 1: to the castle. There they found that the gardener, groom
• 4:29:12
  Speaker 1: and cook had added to his many professions that of
• 4:29:16
  Speaker 1: an undertaker, and had nailed up his noble master in
• 4:29:20
  Speaker 1: a coffin. With how much or how little further inquiry
• 4:29:25
  Speaker 1: this odd fact was passed did not, as yet very
• 4:29:28
  Speaker 1: plainly appear, for the thing had never been legally investigated
• 4:29:33
  Speaker 1: till Flambeaux had gone north two or three days before.
• 4:29:37
  Speaker 1: By then, the body of Lord Glengyle, if it was
• 4:29:41
  Speaker 1: the body, had lain for some time in the little
• 4:29:44
  Speaker 1: churchyard on the hill. As Father Brown passed through the
• 4:29:49
  Speaker 1: dim garden and came under the shadow of the chateau,
• 4:29:53
  Speaker 1: the clouds were thick, and the whole air damp and thundery.
• 4:29:58
  Speaker 1: Against the last stripe of the green gold sunset, he
• 4:30:01
  Speaker 1: saw a black human silhouette, a man in a chimney
• 4:30:05
  Speaker 1: pot hat with a big spade over his shoulder. The
• 4:30:10
  Speaker 1: combination was queerly suggestive of a sexton, but when Brown
• 4:30:15
  Speaker 1: remembered the deaf servant who dug potatoes, he thought it
• 4:30:18
  Speaker 1: natural enough. He knew something of the Scotch peasant. He
• 4:30:23
  Speaker 1: knew the respectability which might well feel it necessary to
• 4:30:27
  Speaker 1: wear blacks for an official inquiry. He knew also the
• 4:30:32
  Speaker 1: economy that would not lose an hour's digging for that.
• 4:30:37
  Speaker 1: Even the man's start and suspicious stare as the priest
• 4:30:40
  Speaker 1: went by were consonant enough with the vigilance and jealousy
• 4:30:44
  Speaker 1: of such a type. The great door was opened by
• 4:30:49
  Speaker 1: Flambeaux himself, who had with him a lean man with
• 4:30:53
  Speaker 1: iron gray hair and papers in his hand, Inspector Craven
• 4:30:58
  Speaker 1: from Scotland Yard. The entrance hall was mostly stripped and empty,
• 4:31:04
  Speaker 1: but the pale, sneering faces of one or two of
• 4:31:07
  Speaker 1: the wicked ogilvies looked down out of black periwigs and
• 4:31:11
  Speaker 1: blackening canvas. Following them into an inner room. Father Brown
• 4:31:18
  Speaker 1: found that the allies had been seated at a long
• 4:31:20
  Speaker 1: oak table, of which their end was covered with scribbled papers,
• 4:31:25
  Speaker 1: flanked with whiskey and cigars. Through the whole of its
• 4:31:29
  Speaker 1: remaining length, it was occupied by detached objects, arranged at intervals,
• 4:31:35
  Speaker 1: objects about as inexplicable as any objects could be. One
• 4:31:41
  Speaker 1: looked like a small heap of glittering broken glass, Another
• 4:31:46
  Speaker 1: looked like a high heap of brown dust. A third
• 4:31:50
  Speaker 1: appeared to be a plain stick of wood. You seem
• 4:31:54
  Speaker 1: to have a sort of geological museum here, he said,
• 4:31:58
  Speaker 1: as he sat down, jerking his head briefly in the
• 4:32:01
  Speaker 1: direction of the brown dust and the crystalline fragments. Not
• 4:32:07
  Speaker 1: a geological museum, replied Flambeau. Say a psychological museum. Oh,
• 4:32:15
  Speaker 1: for the lord's sake, cried the police detective, laughing. Don't
• 4:32:19
  Speaker 1: let's begin with such long words. Don't you know what
• 4:32:24
  Speaker 1: psychology means, asked Flambeau, with friendly surprise. Psychology means being
• 4:32:30
  Speaker 1: off your chump. Still I hardly follow replied the official. Well,
• 4:32:38
  Speaker 1: said Flambeau with decision. I mean that we've only found
• 4:32:43
  Speaker 1: out one thing about Lord Glengyle. He was a maniac.
• 4:32:48
  Speaker 1: The black silhouette of Gau with his top hat and
• 4:32:51
  Speaker 1: spade past the window, dimly outlined against the darkening sky.
• 4:32:57
  Speaker 1: Father Brown stared passively at it and answered, I can
• 4:33:01
  Speaker 1: understand there must have been something odd about the man,
• 4:33:05
  Speaker 1: or he wouldn't have buried himself alive, nor been in
• 4:33:08
  Speaker 1: such a hurry to bury himself dead. But what makes
• 4:33:12
  Speaker 1: you think it was lunacy? Well, said Flambeau. You just
• 4:33:17
  Speaker 1: listen to the list of things mister Craven has found
• 4:33:20
  Speaker 1: in the house. We must get a candle, said Craven.
• 4:33:24
  Speaker 1: Suddenly a storm is getting up and it's too dark
• 4:33:28
  Speaker 1: to read. Have you found any candles, asked Brown, smiling
• 4:33:34
  Speaker 1: among your oddities. Flambeaux raised a gray face and fixed
• 4:33:39
  Speaker 1: his dark eyes on his friend. That is curious, too,
• 4:33:44
  Speaker 1: he said, twenty five candles and not a trace of
• 4:33:48
  Speaker 1: a candlestick. In the rapidly darkening room and rapidly rising wind.
• 4:33:56
  Speaker 1: Brown went along the table to wear a bundle of
• 4:33:59
  Speaker 1: wax candle lay among the other scrappy exhibits. As he
• 4:34:03
  Speaker 1: did so, he bent accidentally over the heap of red
• 4:34:07
  Speaker 1: brown dust, and a sharp sneeze cracked the silence. Hullo,
• 4:34:12
  Speaker 1: he said, snuff. He took one of the candles, lit
• 4:34:18
  Speaker 1: it carefully, came back and stuck it in the neck
• 4:34:21
  Speaker 1: of the whisky bottle. The unrestful night air blowing through
• 4:34:26
  Speaker 1: the crazy window waved the long flame like a banner,
• 4:34:31
  Speaker 1: and on every side of the castle they could hear
• 4:34:34
  Speaker 1: the miles and miles of black pine wood seething like
• 4:34:38
  Speaker 1: a black sea around a rock. I will read the inventory,
• 4:34:45
  Speaker 1: began Craven, gravely, picking up one of the papers. The
• 4:34:49
  Speaker 1: inventory of what we found loose and unexplained in the castle.
• 4:34:54
  Speaker 1: You are to understand that the place generally was dismantled
• 4:34:57
  Speaker 1: and neglected, but one or two rooms had plainly been
• 4:35:01
  Speaker 1: inhabited in a simple but not squalid style by somebody,
• 4:35:06
  Speaker 1: somebody who was not the servant gow. The list is
• 4:35:10
  Speaker 1: as follows. First item, a very considerable horde of precious stones,
• 4:35:17
  Speaker 1: nearly all diamonds, and all of them loose without any
• 4:35:21
  Speaker 1: setting whatever. Of course, it is natural that the Ogilvie
• 4:35:26
  Speaker 1: should have family jewels, but those are exactly the jewels
• 4:35:29
  Speaker 1: that are almost always set in particular articles of ornament.
• 4:35:33
  Speaker 1: The Ogilvis would seem to have kept theirs loose in
• 4:35:36
  Speaker 1: their pockets like coppers. Second item, heaps and heaps of
• 4:35:42
  Speaker 1: loose snuff, not kept in a horn or even a pouch,
• 4:35:47
  Speaker 1: but lying in heaps on the mantel pieces, on the sideboard,
• 4:35:51
  Speaker 1: on the piano, anywhere. It looks as if the old
• 4:35:55
  Speaker 1: gentleman would not take the trouble to look in a
• 4:35:57
  Speaker 1: pocket or lift a lid. Third item, Here and there
• 4:36:03
  Speaker 1: about the house, curious little heaps of minute pieces of metal,
• 4:36:08
  Speaker 1: some like steel springs, and some in the form of
• 4:36:11
  Speaker 1: microscopic wheels, as if they had gutted some mechanical toy.
• 4:36:18
  Speaker 1: Fourth item, the wax candles, which have to be stuck
• 4:36:22
  Speaker 1: in bottle necks because there is nothing else to stick
• 4:36:24
  Speaker 1: them in. Now I wish you to note how very
• 4:36:28
  Speaker 1: much queerer all this is than anything we anticipated for
• 4:36:33
  Speaker 1: the central riddle we are prepared. We have all seen
• 4:36:36
  Speaker 1: at a glance that there was something wrong about the
• 4:36:39
  Speaker 1: last earl. We have come here to find out whether
• 4:36:43
  Speaker 1: he really lived here, whether he really died here, whether
• 4:36:47
  Speaker 1: that red haired scarecrow who did his burying had anything
• 4:36:51
  Speaker 1: to do with his dying. But suppose the worst in
• 4:36:55
  Speaker 1: all this, the most lurid or melodramatic solution you like.
• 4:37:00
  Speaker 1: Suppose the servant really killed the master, or suppose the
• 4:37:04
  Speaker 1: master isn't really dead, Or suppose the master is dressed
• 4:37:08
  Speaker 1: up as the servant, or suppose the servant is buried
• 4:37:11
  Speaker 1: for the master. Invent what Wilkie Collins tragedy you like?
• 4:37:16
  Speaker 1: And you still have not explained a candle without a candlestick,
• 4:37:20
  Speaker 1: or why an elderly gentleman of good family should habitually
• 4:37:24
  Speaker 1: spill snuff on the piano. The core of the tale,
• 4:37:28
  Speaker 1: we could imagine it is the fringes that are mysterious.
• 4:37:32
  Speaker 1: By no stretch of fancy. Can the human mind connect
• 4:37:35
  Speaker 1: together snuff and diamonds and wax and loose clockwork. I
• 4:37:43
  Speaker 1: think I see the connection, said the priest. This Glengyle
• 4:37:47
  Speaker 1: was mad against the French Revolution. He was an enthusiast
• 4:37:51
  Speaker 1: for the Ancien dejim and was trying to re enact
• 4:37:55
  Speaker 1: literally the family life of the last Bourbons. He had
• 4:37:59
  Speaker 1: snuff because it was the eighteenth century luxury, wax candles
• 4:38:04
  Speaker 1: because they were the eighteenth century lighting. The mechanical bits
• 4:38:08
  Speaker 1: of iron represent the locksmith hobby of Louis the sixteenth
• 4:38:13
  Speaker 1: The diamonds are for the diamond necklace of Marie Antoinette.
• 4:38:19
  Speaker 1: Both the other men were staring at him with round eyes.
• 4:38:23
  Speaker 1: What a perfectly extraordinary notion, cried Flambeaux. Do you really
• 4:38:28
  Speaker 1: think that is the truth? I am perfectly sure it isn't,
• 4:38:34
  Speaker 1: answered father Brown. Only you said that nobody could connect
• 4:38:37
  Speaker 1: snuff and diamonds and clockwork and candles. I give you
• 4:38:42
  Speaker 1: that connection off hand. The real truth, I am very sure,
• 4:38:46
  Speaker 1: lies deeper. He paused a moment and listened to the
• 4:38:51
  Speaker 1: wailing of the wind and the turrets. Then he said,
• 4:38:56
  Speaker 1: the late Earl of Glengyle was a thief. He lived
• 4:39:00
  Speaker 1: a second and darker life as a desperate housebreaker. He
• 4:39:04
  Speaker 1: did not have any candlesticks, because he only used these
• 4:39:08
  Speaker 1: candles cut short in the little lantern he carried the
• 4:39:12
  Speaker 1: snuff he employed as the fiercest French criminals have used
• 4:39:15
  Speaker 1: pepper to fling it suddenly in dense masses in the
• 4:39:19
  Speaker 1: face of a captor or pursuer. But the final proof
• 4:39:23
  Speaker 1: is in the curious coincidence of the diamonds in the
• 4:39:25
  Speaker 1: small steel wheels. Surely that makes everything plain to you.
• 4:39:31
  Speaker 1: Diamonds and small steel wheels are the only two instruments
• 4:39:35
  Speaker 1: with which you can cut out a pane of glass.
• 4:39:40
  Speaker 1: The bow of a broken pine tree lashed heavily in
• 4:39:43
  Speaker 1: the blast against the window pane behind them, as if
• 4:39:46
  Speaker 1: in parody of a burglar. But they did not turn round.
• 4:39:51
  Speaker 1: Their eyes were fastened on father, brown diamonds and small wheels,
• 4:39:57
  Speaker 1: repeated Craven, ruminating. Is that all that makes you think
• 4:40:02
  Speaker 1: it the true explanation. I don't think it the true explanation,
• 4:40:08
  Speaker 1: replied the priest placidly. But you said that nobody could
• 4:40:12
  Speaker 1: connect the four things. The true tale, of course, is
• 4:40:16
  Speaker 1: something much more humdrum. Glengyle had found, or thought he
• 4:40:21
  Speaker 1: had found precious stones on his estate. Somebody had bamboozled
• 4:40:26
  Speaker 1: him with those loose brilliants, saying they were found in
• 4:40:29
  Speaker 1: the castle caverns, the little wheels, or some diamond cutting affair.
• 4:40:35
  Speaker 1: He had to do the thing very roughly and in
• 4:40:38
  Speaker 1: a small way, with the help of a few shepherds
• 4:40:40
  Speaker 1: or rude fellows. On these hills. Snuff is the one
• 4:40:45
  Speaker 1: great luxury of such Scotch shepherds. It's the one thing
• 4:40:49
  Speaker 1: with which you can bribe them. They didn't have candlesticks
• 4:40:53
  Speaker 1: because they didn't want them. They held the candles in
• 4:40:56
  Speaker 1: their hands when they explored the caves. Is that all,
• 4:41:02
  Speaker 1: asked Flambeau, after a long pause. Have we got to
• 4:41:06
  Speaker 1: the dull truth at last? Oh? No, said Father Brown,
• 4:41:13
  Speaker 1: as the wind died in the most distant pine woods
• 4:41:15
  Speaker 1: with a long hoot. As of mockery, Father Brown, with
• 4:41:20
  Speaker 1: an utterly impassive face, went on, I only suggested that,
• 4:41:25
  Speaker 1: because you said one could not plausibly connect snuff with
• 4:41:28
  Speaker 1: clockwork or candles with bright stones, ten false philosophies will
• 4:41:33
  Speaker 1: fit the universe. Ten false theories will fit Glengyle Castle.
• 4:41:39
  Speaker 1: But we want the real explanation of the castle and
• 4:41:42
  Speaker 1: the universe. But are there no other exhibits? Craven laughed,
• 4:41:51
  Speaker 1: and Flambeaux rose smiling to his feet, and strolled down
• 4:41:54
  Speaker 1: the long table. Items five, six, seven, et cetera, he said,
• 4:42:02
  Speaker 1: and certainly more varied than instructive. A curious collection not
• 4:42:08
  Speaker 1: of lead pencils, but of the lead out of lead pencils.
• 4:42:13
  Speaker 1: A senseless stick of bamboo, with the top rather splintered.
• 4:42:18
  Speaker 1: It might be the instrument of the crime. Only there
• 4:42:21
  Speaker 1: isn't any crime. The only other things are a few
• 4:42:25
  Speaker 1: old missiles and little Catholic pictures which the Ogilvies kept,
• 4:42:30
  Speaker 1: I suppose from the Middle Ages, their family pride being
• 4:42:34
  Speaker 1: stronger than their puritanism. We only put them in the
• 4:42:38
  Speaker 1: museum because they seemed curiously cut about and defaced. The
• 4:42:44
  Speaker 1: heady tempest without drove a dreadful rack of clouds across Glengyle,
• 4:42:50
  Speaker 1: and threw the long room into darkness. As father Brown
• 4:42:53
  Speaker 1: picked up the little illuminated pages to examine them, he
• 4:42:58
  Speaker 1: spoke before the drift of darkness had passed. But it
• 4:43:01
  Speaker 1: was the voice of an utterly new man. Mister Craven said,
• 4:43:07
  Speaker 1: he talking like a man ten years younger. You have
• 4:43:11
  Speaker 1: got a legal warrant? Have you to go up and
• 4:43:14
  Speaker 1: examine that grave. The sooner we do it, the better
• 4:43:18
  Speaker 1: and get to the bottom of this horrible affair. If
• 4:43:21
  Speaker 1: I were you, I should start now now, repeated the
• 4:43:27
  Speaker 1: astonished detective. And why now? Because this is serious, answered Brown.
• 4:43:35
  Speaker 1: This is not spilt snuff or loose pebbles that might
• 4:43:38
  Speaker 1: be there for a hundred reasons. There is only one
• 4:43:42
  Speaker 1: reason I know of for this being done, and the
• 4:43:45
  Speaker 1: reason goes down to the roots of the world. These
• 4:43:49
  Speaker 1: religious pictures are not just dirtied or torn or scrawled over,
• 4:43:53
  Speaker 1: which might be done in idleness or bigotry by children
• 4:43:57
  Speaker 1: or by Protestants. These have been treated very carefully and
• 4:44:02
  Speaker 1: very queerly. In every place where the great ornamented name
• 4:44:07
  Speaker 1: of God comes in the old illuminations, it has been
• 4:44:10
  Speaker 1: elaborately taken out. The only other thing that has been
• 4:44:14
  Speaker 1: removed is the halo round the head of the child Jesus. Therefore,
• 4:44:20
  Speaker 1: I say, let us get our warrant and our spade
• 4:44:23
  Speaker 1: and our hatchet, and go up and break open that coffin.
• 4:44:29
  Speaker 1: What do you mean, demanded the London officer. I mean,
• 4:44:34
  Speaker 1: answered the little priest, and his voice seemed to rise
• 4:44:37
  Speaker 1: slightly in the roar of the gale. I mean that
• 4:44:41
  Speaker 1: the great devil of the universe may be sitting on
• 4:44:43
  Speaker 1: the top tower of this castle at this moment, as
• 4:44:46
  Speaker 1: big as a hundred elephants, and roaring like the apocalypse.
• 4:44:51
  Speaker 1: There is black magic somewhere at the bottom of this
• 4:44:55
  Speaker 1: black magic, repeated Flambeaux in a low voice. Or he
• 4:45:00
  Speaker 1: was too enlightened to man not to know of such things.
• 4:45:04
  Speaker 1: But what can these other things mean? Oh, something damnable,
• 4:45:09
  Speaker 1: I suppose, replied Brown impatiently. How should I know, how
• 4:45:14
  Speaker 1: can I guess all their mazes down below? Perhaps you
• 4:45:18
  Speaker 1: can make a torture out of snuff and bamboo. Perhaps
• 4:45:22
  Speaker 1: lunatics lust after wax and steel filings. Perhaps there is
• 4:45:27
  Speaker 1: a maddening drug made of lead pencils. Our shortest cut
• 4:45:31
  Speaker 1: to the mystery is up the hill to the grave.
• 4:45:36
  Speaker 1: His comrades hardly knew that they had obeyed and followed
• 4:45:40
  Speaker 1: him till a blast of the night wind nearly flung
• 4:45:43
  Speaker 1: them on their faces in the garden. Nevertheless, they had
• 4:45:47
  Speaker 1: obeyed him like automata. For Craven found a hatchet in
• 4:45:51
  Speaker 1: his hand and the warrant in his pocket. Flambeau was
• 4:45:55
  Speaker 1: carrying the heavy spade of the strange gardener. Father Brown
• 4:45:59
  Speaker 1: was carrying the little gilt book from which had been
• 4:46:02
  Speaker 1: torn the name of God. The path up the hill
• 4:46:07
  Speaker 1: to the churchyard was crooked, but short. Only under that
• 4:46:11
  Speaker 1: stress of wind, it seemed laborious and long, far as
• 4:46:16
  Speaker 1: the eye could see. Farther and farther as they mounted
• 4:46:19
  Speaker 1: the slope were seas beyond seas of pines. Now all
• 4:46:24
  Speaker 1: aslope one way under the wind, and that universal gesture
• 4:46:30
  Speaker 1: seemed as vain as it was vast as vain, as
• 4:46:33
  Speaker 1: if that wind were whistling about some unpeopled and purposeless planet.
• 4:46:40
  Speaker 1: Through all that infinite growth of gray blue forests, sang
• 4:46:44
  Speaker 1: shrill and high, that ancient sorrow that is in the
• 4:46:48
  Speaker 1: heart of all heathen things. One could fancy that the
• 4:46:52
  Speaker 1: voices from the underworld of unfathomable foliage were cries of
• 4:46:57
  Speaker 1: the lost and wandering pagan gods, gods who had gone
• 4:47:01
  Speaker 1: roaming in that irrational forest, and who will never find
• 4:47:05
  Speaker 1: their way back to heaven. You see, said father Brown
• 4:47:11
  Speaker 1: in low but easy tone. Scotch people before Scotland existed
• 4:47:16
  Speaker 1: were a curious lot. In fact, they're a curious lot still,
• 4:47:21
  Speaker 1: But in the prehistoric times, I fancy they really worship demons.
• 4:47:27
  Speaker 1: That he added genially is why they jumped at the
• 4:47:31
  Speaker 1: Puritan theology, my friend said Flambeaux, turning in a kind
• 4:47:37
  Speaker 1: of fury. What does all that snuff mean, my friend
• 4:47:43
  Speaker 1: replied Brown with equal seriousness. There is one mark of
• 4:47:48
  Speaker 1: all genuine religions materialism. Now devil worship is a perfectly
• 4:47:55
  Speaker 1: genuine religion. They had come up on the grassy scalp
• 4:48:00
  Speaker 1: of the hill, one of the few bald spots that
• 4:48:03
  Speaker 1: stood clear of the crashing and roaring pine forest. A
• 4:48:07
  Speaker 1: mean enclosure, partly timber and partly wire, rattled in the
• 4:48:12
  Speaker 1: tempest to tell them the border of the graveyard. But
• 4:48:16
  Speaker 1: by the time Inspector Craven had come to the corner
• 4:48:19
  Speaker 1: of the grave and Flambeaux had planted his spade point
• 4:48:23
  Speaker 1: downwards and leaned on it, they were both almost as
• 4:48:26
  Speaker 1: shaken as the shaky wood and wire. At the foot
• 4:48:31
  Speaker 1: of the grave grew great tall thistles, gray and silver
• 4:48:35
  Speaker 1: in their decay. Once or twice, when a ball of
• 4:48:39
  Speaker 1: thistle down broke under the breeze and flew past him,
• 4:48:43
  Speaker 1: Craven jumped slightly, as if it had been an arrow.
• 4:48:48
  Speaker 1: Flambeaux drove the blade of his spade through the whistling
• 4:48:51
  Speaker 1: grass into the wet clay below. Then he seemed to
• 4:48:55
  Speaker 1: stop and lean on it as on a staff. Go on,
• 4:49:01
  Speaker 1: said the priest very gently. We are only trying to
• 4:49:04
  Speaker 1: find the truth. What are you afraid of? I am
• 4:49:09
  Speaker 1: afraid of finding it, said Flambau. The London detective spoke
• 4:49:15
  Speaker 1: suddenly in a high, crowing voice that was meant to
• 4:49:19
  Speaker 1: be conversational and cheery. I wonder why he really did
• 4:49:23
  Speaker 1: hide himself like that, something nasty. I suppose was he
• 4:49:28
  Speaker 1: a leper? Something worse than that, said Flambeau. And what
• 4:49:34
  Speaker 1: do you imagine, asked the other, would be worse than
• 4:49:38
  Speaker 1: a leper? I don't imagine it, said Flambau. He dug
• 4:49:45
  Speaker 1: for some dreadful minutes in silence, and then said, in
• 4:49:48
  Speaker 1: a choked voice, I am afraid of his not being
• 4:49:51
  Speaker 1: the right shape. Nor was that piece of paper, you know,
• 4:49:57
  Speaker 1: said father Brown quietly, And he survived even that piece
• 4:50:01
  Speaker 1: of paper. Flambeaux dug on with a blind energy, but
• 4:50:07
  Speaker 1: the tempest had shouldered away the choking gray clouds that
• 4:50:10
  Speaker 1: clung to the hills like smoke, and revealed gray fields
• 4:50:14
  Speaker 1: of faint starlight. Before he cleared the shape of a
• 4:50:17
  Speaker 1: rude timber coffin, and somehow tipped it up upon the turf.
• 4:50:22
  Speaker 1: Craven stepped forward with his axe. A thistle top touched
• 4:50:26
  Speaker 1: him and he flinched. Then he took a firmer stride
• 4:50:31
  Speaker 1: and hacked and wrenched with an energy like Flambeau's, till
• 4:50:35
  Speaker 1: the lid was torn off, and all that was there
• 4:50:38
  Speaker 1: lay glimmering in the gray starlight. Bones, said Craven, and
• 4:50:44
  Speaker 1: then he added, but it is a man, as if
• 4:50:48
  Speaker 1: that were something unexpected? Is he asked Flambeaux, in a
• 4:50:55
  Speaker 1: voice that went oddly up and down. Is he all
• 4:50:58
  Speaker 1: all right? Seems so, said the officer, huskily, bending over
• 4:51:05
  Speaker 1: the obscure and decaying skeleton in the box. Wait a minute,
• 4:51:11
  Speaker 1: A vast heave went over Flambeau's huge figure. And now
• 4:51:16
  Speaker 1: I come to think of it, he cried, Why in
• 4:51:19
  Speaker 1: the name of madness shouldn't he be all right? What
• 4:51:22
  Speaker 1: is it that gets hold of a man on these
• 4:51:24
  Speaker 1: cursed cold mountains? I think it's the black, brainless repetition,
• 4:51:30
  Speaker 1: all these forests, and over all an ancient horror of unconsciousness.
• 4:51:35
  Speaker 1: It's like the dream of an atheist. Pine trees and
• 4:51:39
  Speaker 1: more pine trees, and millions more pine trees. God, cried
• 4:51:45
  Speaker 1: the man by the coffin. But he hasn't got a head.
• 4:51:50
  Speaker 1: While the others stood rigid, the priest, for the first
• 4:51:53
  Speaker 1: time showed a leap of startled concern. No head, he repeated,
• 4:52:00
  Speaker 1: no head, as if he had almost expected some other deficiency.
• 4:52:07
  Speaker 1: Half witted visions of a headless baby born to Glengyle,
• 4:52:12
  Speaker 1: of a headless youth hiding himself in the castle of
• 4:52:15
  Speaker 1: a headless man. Pacing those ancient halls, or that gorgeous
• 4:52:19
  Speaker 1: garden passed in panorama through their minds. But even in
• 4:52:25
  Speaker 1: that stiffened instant, the tail took no root in them,
• 4:52:28
  Speaker 1: and seemed to have no reason in it. They stood
• 4:52:32
  Speaker 1: listening to the loud woods and the shrieking sky, quite foolishly,
• 4:52:37
  Speaker 1: like exhausted animals, thought seemed to be something enormous that
• 4:52:42
  Speaker 1: had suddenly slipped out of their grasp. There are three
• 4:52:47
  Speaker 1: headless men, said father Brown, standing round this open grave.
• 4:52:54
  Speaker 1: The pale detective from London opened his mouth to speak,
• 4:52:58
  Speaker 1: and left it open like a yokel while a long
• 4:53:01
  Speaker 1: scream of wind tore the sky. Then he looked at
• 4:53:05
  Speaker 1: the axe in his hands, as if it did not
• 4:53:07
  Speaker 1: belong to him, and dropped it. Father, said Flambeau, in
• 4:53:14
  Speaker 1: that infantile and heavy voice he used very seldom. What
• 4:53:18
  Speaker 1: are we to do? His friend's reply came with the
• 4:53:22
  Speaker 1: pent promptitude of a gun going off. Sleep, cried Father Brown. Sleep,
• 4:53:30
  Speaker 1: we have come to the end of the ways. Do
• 4:53:32
  Speaker 1: you know what sleep is? Do you know that every
• 4:53:35
  Speaker 1: man who sleeps believes in God? It is a sacrament,
• 4:53:40
  Speaker 1: for it is an act of faith, and it is
• 4:53:43
  Speaker 1: a food. And we need a sacrament, if only a
• 4:53:47
  Speaker 1: natural one. Something has fallen on us that falls very
• 4:53:51
  Speaker 1: seldom on men, perhaps the worst thing that can fall
• 4:53:55
  Speaker 1: on them. Craven's parted lips came together to say, what
• 4:54:01
  Speaker 1: do you mean? The priest had turned his face to
• 4:54:05
  Speaker 1: the castle as he answered, we have found the truth,
• 4:54:09
  Speaker 1: and the truth makes no sense. He went down the
• 4:54:15
  Speaker 1: path in front of them with a plunging and reckless step,
• 4:54:18
  Speaker 1: very rare with him, and when they reached the castle again,
• 4:54:22
  Speaker 1: he threw himself upon sleep with the simplicity of a dog.
• 4:54:28
  Speaker 1: Despite his mystic praise of slumber, Father Brown was up
• 4:54:32
  Speaker 1: earlier than anyone else except the silent gardener, and was
• 4:54:36
  Speaker 1: found smoking a big pipe and watching that expert at
• 4:54:39
  Speaker 1: his speechless labours in the kitchen garden. Towards daybreak, the
• 4:54:44
  Speaker 1: rocking storm had ended in roaring rains, and the day
• 4:54:48
  Speaker 1: came with a curious freshness. The gardener seemed even to
• 4:54:53
  Speaker 1: have been conversing, but at sight of the detectives, he
• 4:54:57
  Speaker 1: planted his spade sullenly in a bed, and, saying something
• 4:55:01
  Speaker 1: about his breakfast, shifted along the lines of cabbages and
• 4:55:05
  Speaker 1: shut himself in the kitchen. He's a valuable man, that
• 4:55:11
  Speaker 1: said father Brown. He does the potatoes amazingly. Still, he added,
• 4:55:17
  Speaker 1: with a dispassionate charity. He has his faults, which of
• 4:55:22
  Speaker 1: us hasn't. He doesn't dig this bank quite regularly there,
• 4:55:27
  Speaker 1: for instance, and he stamped suddenly on one spot. I'm
• 4:55:32
  Speaker 1: really very doubtful about that potato. And why, asked Craven,
• 4:55:38
  Speaker 1: amused with the little man's hobby. I'm doubtful about it,
• 4:55:44
  Speaker 1: said the other, because old Gau was doubtful about it himself.
• 4:55:49
  Speaker 1: He put his spade in methodically in every place, but
• 4:55:52
  Speaker 1: just this, there must be a mighty fine potato just here.
• 4:55:59
  Speaker 1: Flambeau pulled up the spade and impetuously drove it into
• 4:56:02
  Speaker 1: the place. He turned up under a load of soil
• 4:56:07
  Speaker 1: something that did not look like a potato, but rather
• 4:56:10
  Speaker 1: like a monstrous, over domed mushroom. But it struck the
• 4:56:15
  Speaker 1: spade with a cold click. It rolled over like a
• 4:56:19
  Speaker 1: ball and grinned up at them. The Earl of Glengyle,
• 4:56:25
  Speaker 1: said Brown sadly, and looked down heavily at the skull. Then,
• 4:56:32
  Speaker 1: after a momentary meditation, he plucked the spade from Flambeaux, and,
• 4:56:37
  Speaker 1: saying we must hide it again, clamped the skull down
• 4:56:41
  Speaker 1: in the earth. Then he leaned his little body and
• 4:56:45
  Speaker 1: huge head on the great handle of the spade that
• 4:56:48
  Speaker 1: stood up stiffly in the earth. And his eyes were empty,
• 4:56:51
  Speaker 1: and his forehead full of wrinkles. If one could only conceive,
• 4:56:57
  Speaker 1: he muttered the meaning of this last month's atrocity, and
• 4:57:02
  Speaker 1: leaning on the large spade handle, he buried his brows
• 4:57:05
  Speaker 1: in his hands, as men do in church. All the
• 4:57:11
  Speaker 1: corners of the sky were brightening into blue and silver.
• 4:57:15
  Speaker 1: The birds were chattering in the tiny garden trees so
• 4:57:18
  Speaker 1: loud it seemed as if the trees themselves were talking,
• 4:57:22
  Speaker 1: but the three men were silent enough. Well, I give
• 4:57:27
  Speaker 1: it all up, said Flambeaux at last, boisterously. My brain
• 4:57:32
  Speaker 1: and this world don't fit each other. And there's an
• 4:57:35
  Speaker 1: end of it. Snuff, spoilt prayer books and the insides
• 4:57:40
  Speaker 1: of musical boxes. What Brown threw up his bothered brow
• 4:57:45
  Speaker 1: and wrapped on the spade handle with an intolerance quite
• 4:57:49
  Speaker 1: unusual with him. Oh, tut, tut, tut, tut, he cried,
• 4:57:54
  Speaker 1: All that is as plain as a pikestaff. I understood
• 4:57:58
  Speaker 1: the snuff and clockwork and so on when I first
• 4:58:01
  Speaker 1: opened my eyes this morning, and since then I've had
• 4:58:04
  Speaker 1: it out with old gow the gardener, who is neither
• 4:58:08
  Speaker 1: so deaf nor so stupid as he pretends. There's nothing
• 4:58:12
  Speaker 1: amiss about the loose items. I was wrong about the
• 4:58:15
  Speaker 1: torn mass book too. There's no harm in that. But
• 4:58:20
  Speaker 1: it's this last business, desecrating graves and stealing dead men's heads.
• 4:58:26
  Speaker 1: Surely there's harm in that. Surely there's black magic still
• 4:58:31
  Speaker 1: in that. That doesn't fit in to the quite simple
• 4:58:35
  Speaker 1: story of the snuff and the candles. And striding about again,
• 4:58:40
  Speaker 1: he smoked moodily. My friend said Flambeaux, with a grim humor.
• 4:58:47
  Speaker 1: You must be careful with me, and remember I was
• 4:58:50
  Speaker 1: once a criminal. The great advantage of that estate was
• 4:58:54
  Speaker 1: that I always made up the story myself and acted
• 4:58:57
  Speaker 1: it as quick as I chose. This detective business of
• 4:59:01
  Speaker 1: waiting about is too much for my French impatience. All
• 4:59:06
  Speaker 1: my life, for good or evil, I have done things
• 4:59:10
  Speaker 1: at the instant. I always fought duels the next morning.
• 4:59:14
  Speaker 1: I always paid bills on the nail. I never even
• 4:59:18
  Speaker 1: put off a visit to the dentist. Father Brown's pipe
• 4:59:22
  Speaker 1: fell out of his mouth and broke into three pieces
• 4:59:26
  Speaker 1: on the gravel path. He stood, rolling his eyes, the
• 4:59:30
  Speaker 1: exact picture of an idiot. Lord, what a turnip I am?
• 4:59:35
  Speaker 1: He kept saying, Lord, what a turnip. Then, in a
• 4:59:41
  Speaker 1: somewhat groggy kind of way, he began to laugh. The dentist,
• 4:59:48
  Speaker 1: he repeated, six hours in the spiritual abyss, and all
• 4:59:52
  Speaker 1: because I never thought of the dentist such a simple,
• 4:59:57
  Speaker 1: such a beautiful and peaceful thought. Friends, we have passed
• 5:00:01
  Speaker 1: a night in hell. But now the sun has risen,
• 5:00:05
  Speaker 1: the birds are singing, and the radiant form of the
• 5:00:08
  Speaker 1: dentist consoles the world. I will get some sense out
• 5:00:14
  Speaker 1: of this, cried Flambeaux, striding forward, if I use the
• 5:00:18
  Speaker 1: tortures of the inquisition. Father Brown repressed what appeared to
• 5:00:24
  Speaker 1: be a momentary disposition to dance on the now sunlit lawn,
• 5:00:29
  Speaker 1: and cried, quite piteously like a child. Oh, let me
• 5:00:34
  Speaker 1: be silly a little. You don't know how unhappy I
• 5:00:37
  Speaker 1: have been. And now I know that there has been
• 5:00:40
  Speaker 1: no deep sin in this business at all, only a
• 5:00:43
  Speaker 1: little lunacy perhaps, And who minds that he spun round
• 5:00:49
  Speaker 1: once more? Then? Faced them with gravity. This is not
• 5:00:54
  Speaker 1: a story of crime, he said. Rather, it is the
• 5:00:58
  Speaker 1: story of a strange and crooked honesty. We are dealing
• 5:01:03
  Speaker 1: with the one man on earth, perhaps, who has taken
• 5:01:06
  Speaker 1: no more than his due. It is a study in
• 5:01:10
  Speaker 1: the savage living logic that has been the religion of
• 5:01:13
  Speaker 1: this race. That old local rhyme about the house of Glengyle,
• 5:01:21
  Speaker 1: as green sap to the simmer trees is red gold
• 5:01:24
  Speaker 1: to the Ogilvies, was literal as well as metaphorical. It
• 5:01:31
  Speaker 1: did not merely mean that the Glengyles sought for wealth.
• 5:01:35
  Speaker 1: It was also true that they literally gathered gold. They
• 5:01:39
  Speaker 1: had a huge collection of ornaments and utensils in that metal.
• 5:01:44
  Speaker 1: They were, in fact misers whose mania took that turn.
• 5:01:50
  Speaker 1: In the light of that fact, run through all the
• 5:01:53
  Speaker 1: things we found in the castle. Diamonds without their gold rings,
• 5:01:59
  Speaker 1: candles without their gold candlesticks, snuff without the gold snuff boxes,
• 5:02:06
  Speaker 1: pencil leads without the gold pencil cases, a walking stick
• 5:02:11
  Speaker 1: without its gold top, clockwork without the gold clocks, or rather,
• 5:02:17
  Speaker 1: watches and mad as it sounds. Because the halos and
• 5:02:23
  Speaker 1: the name of God in the old missiles were of
• 5:02:25
  Speaker 1: real gold. These also were taken away. The garden seemed
• 5:02:32
  Speaker 1: to brighten, the grass to grow gayer in the strengthening sun.
• 5:02:36
  Speaker 1: As the crazy truth was told, Flambeaux lit a cigarette
• 5:02:41
  Speaker 1: as his friend went on. Were taken away, continued Father
• 5:02:46
  Speaker 1: Brown were taken away, but not stolen. Thieves would never
• 5:02:52
  Speaker 1: have left this mystery. Thieves would have taken the gold
• 5:02:56
  Speaker 1: snuff boxes, snuff and all the gold pencil cases led
• 5:03:01
  Speaker 1: in all we have to deal with a man with
• 5:03:04
  Speaker 1: a peculiar conscience, but certainly a conscience. I found that
• 5:03:10
  Speaker 1: mad moralist this morning in the kitchen garden Yonder, and
• 5:03:14
  Speaker 1: I heard the whole story. The late Archibald Ogilvie was
• 5:03:20
  Speaker 1: the nearest approach to a good man ever born at Glengyle,
• 5:03:25
  Speaker 1: but his bitter virtue took the turn of the misanthrope.
• 5:03:29
  Speaker 1: He moped over the dishonesty of his ancestors, from which
• 5:03:33
  Speaker 1: somehow he generalized the dishonesty of all men. More especially,
• 5:03:38
  Speaker 1: he distrusted philanthropy or free giving, and he swore, if
• 5:03:43
  Speaker 1: he could find one man who took his exact rights,
• 5:03:46
  Speaker 1: he should have all the gold of Glengyle. Having delivered
• 5:03:51
  Speaker 1: this defiance to humanity, he shut himself up without the
• 5:03:55
  Speaker 1: smallest expectation of its being answered. One day, however, a
• 5:04:01
  Speaker 1: deaf and seemingly senseless lad from a distant village brought
• 5:04:05
  Speaker 1: him a belated telegram, and Glengyle, in his acrid pleasantry,
• 5:04:11
  Speaker 1: gave him a new farthing. At least he thought he
• 5:04:14
  Speaker 1: had done so, But when he turned over his change,
• 5:04:18
  Speaker 1: he found the new farthing still there and a sovereign gone.
• 5:04:23
  Speaker 1: The accident offered him vistas of sneering speculation. Either way
• 5:04:29
  Speaker 1: the boy would show the greasy greed of the species.
• 5:04:33
  Speaker 1: Either he would vanish a thief stealing a coin, or
• 5:04:37
  Speaker 1: he would sneak back with it, virtuously a snob seeking
• 5:04:41
  Speaker 1: a reward. In the middle of that night, Lord Glengyle
• 5:04:47
  Speaker 1: was knocked up out of his bed, for he lived alone,
• 5:04:51
  Speaker 1: and forced to open the door to the deaf idiot.
• 5:04:55
  Speaker 1: The idiot brought with him not the sovereign, but exactly
• 5:04:59
  Speaker 1: nineteen shillings and elevenpence three farthings in change. Then the
• 5:05:05
  Speaker 1: wild exactitude of this action took hold of the mad
• 5:05:08
  Speaker 1: lord's brain like fire. He swore he was Diogenes that
• 5:05:12
  Speaker 1: had long sought an honest man, and at last had
• 5:05:16
  Speaker 1: found one. He made a new will, which I have seen.
• 5:05:21
  Speaker 1: He took the literal youth into his huge neglected house
• 5:05:25
  Speaker 1: and trained him up as his solitary servant, and, after
• 5:05:29
  Speaker 1: an odd manner, his heir. And whatever that queer creature understands,
• 5:05:35
  Speaker 1: he understood absolutely his lord's two fixed ideas, first that
• 5:05:42
  Speaker 1: the letter of right is everything, and second that he
• 5:05:46
  Speaker 1: himself was to have the gold of Glengyle. So far,
• 5:05:51
  Speaker 1: that is all, and that is simple. He has stripped
• 5:05:55
  Speaker 1: the house of gold and taken not a grain that
• 5:05:58
  Speaker 1: was not gold, not so much as a grain of snuff.
• 5:06:03
  Speaker 1: He lifted the gold leaf off the old illumination, fully
• 5:06:07
  Speaker 1: satisfied that he left the rest unspoilt. All that I understood,
• 5:06:13
  Speaker 1: But I could not understand this skull business. I was
• 5:06:17
  Speaker 1: really uneasy about that human head buried among the potatoes.
• 5:06:21
  Speaker 1: It distressed me till Flambeaux said the word, it will
• 5:06:27
  Speaker 1: be all right. He will put the skull back in
• 5:06:30
  Speaker 1: the grave when he has taken the gold out of
• 5:06:33
  Speaker 1: the tooth. And indeed, when Flambeaux crossed the hill that morning,
• 5:06:41
  Speaker 1: he saw that strange being the just miser digging at
• 5:06:46
  Speaker 1: the desecrated grave, the plaid round his throat, thrashing out
• 5:06:50
  Speaker 1: in the mountain wind, the sober top hat on his head,
• 5:06:57
  Speaker 1: end of the honor of Israel, the wrong shape. Certain
• 5:07:07
  Speaker 1: of the great roads going north out of London continue
• 5:07:11
  Speaker 1: far into the country. A sort of attenuated and interrupted
• 5:07:15
  Speaker 1: specter of a street, with great gaps in the building,
• 5:07:19
  Speaker 1: but preserving the line. Here will be a group of shops,
• 5:07:25
  Speaker 1: followed by a fence field or paddock, and then a
• 5:07:29
  Speaker 1: famous public house, and then perhaps a market garden or
• 5:07:33
  Speaker 1: a nursery garden, and then one large private house, and
• 5:07:39
  Speaker 1: then another field, and another inn, and so on. If
• 5:07:44
  Speaker 1: anyone walks along one of these roads, he will pass
• 5:07:48
  Speaker 1: a house which will probably catch his eye, though he
• 5:07:52
  Speaker 1: may not be able to explain its attraction. It is
• 5:07:56
  Speaker 1: a long, low