The Innocence of Father Brown / Неведение отца Брауна. Гилберт Кит ЧестертонЧитать онлайн книгу.
the house.”
“Left!” cried Valentin, and rose for the first time to his feet.
“Gone. Scooted. Evaporated[48],” replied Ivan in humorous French. “His hat and coat are gone, too, and I'll tell you something more. I ran outside the house to find any traces of him, and I found one, and a big trace, too.”
“What do you mean?” asked Valentin.
“I'll show you,” said his servant, and reappeared with a cavalry sabre, streaked with blood. Everyone in the room eyed it as if it were a thunderbolt; but the experienced Ivan went on quite quietly:
“I found this,” he said, “flung among the bushes fifty yards up the road to Paris. In other words, I found it just where your respectable Mr. Brayne threw it when he ran away.”
There was again a silence, but of a new sort. Valentin took the sabre, examined it, and then turned a respectful face to O'Brien. “Commandant,” he said, “we trust you will always produce this weapon if it is wanted for police examination. Meanwhile,” he added, putting the steel back in the scabbard, “let me return you your sword.”
At the military symbolism of the action the audience applauded.
For Neil O'Brien, indeed, that gesture was the turningpoint of existence. By the time he was wandering in the garden again in the morning, he was a man with many reasons for happiness. Lord Galloway was a gentleman, and had offered him an apology. Lady Margaret had perhaps given him something better than an apology, as they walked among the old flowerbeds before breakfast. The whole company was more lighthearted and humane, for though the riddle of the death remained, the load of suspicion was lifted off them all, and sent flying off to Paris with the strange millionaire – a man they hardly knew.
Still, the riddle remained; and when O'Brien threw himself on a garden seat beside Dr. Simon, they resumed talking about that.
“I can't say it interests me much,” said the Irishman frankly, “especially as it seems pretty clear now. Apparently Brayne hated this stranger for some reason; lured him into the garden, and killed him with my sword. Then he fled to the city, tossing the sword away as he went. By the way, Ivan tells me the dead man had a Yankee dollar in his pocket. So he was a countryman of Brayne's, and that seems to explain it. I don't see any difficulties about the business.”
“There are five colossal difficulties,” said the doctor quietly; “Don't mistake me. I don't doubt that Brayne did it; his flight, I fancy, proves that. But as to how he did it. First difficulty: Why should a man kill another man with a great sabre, when he can almost kill him with a pocket knife and put it back in his pocket? Second difficulty: Why was there no noise or outcry? Does a man commonly see another come up waving a yataghan and offer no remarks? Third difficulty: a servant watched the front door all the evening; and a rat cannot get into Valentin's garden anywhere. How did the dead man get into the garden? Fourth difficulty: Given the same conditions, how did Brayne get out of the garden?”
“And the fifth,” said Neil, with eyes fixed on the English priest who was coming slowly up the path.
“Is a trifle, I suppose,” said the doctor, “but I think an odd one. When I first saw how the head had been slashed, I supposed the assassin had struck more than once. But on examination I found many cuts across the shortened section; in other words, they were struck after the head was off. Did Brayne hate his foe so much that he stood sabring his body in the moonlight?”
“Horrible!” said O'Brien, and shuddered.
The little priest, Brown, had arrived while they were talking, and had waited, till they had finished. Then he said awkwardly:
“I say, I'm sorry to interrupt. But I was sent to tell you the news!”
“News?” repeated Simon.
“Yes, I'm sorry,” said Father Brown mildly. “There's been another murder, you know.”
Both men on the seat sprang up.
“And, what's stranger still,” continued the priest, with his eye on the rhododendrons, “it's the same disgusting sort; it's another beheading. They found the second head actually bleeding into the river, a few yards along Brayne's road to Paris; so they suppose that he – ”
“Great Heaven!” cried O'Brien. “Is Brayne a maniac?”
“There are American vendettas,” said the priest impassively. Then he added: “They want you to come to the library and see it.”
Commandant O'Brien followed the others, feeling decidedly sick. As a soldier, he hated all this carnage; where were these extravagant amputations going to stop? First one head was cut off, and then another; in this case (he told himself bitterly) it was not true that two heads were better than one. As he crossed the study he almost stopped at a shocking coincidence. Upon Valentin's table lay the coloured picture of yet a third bleeding head; and it was the head of Valentin himself. A second glance showed him it was only a Nationalist paper, called The Guillotine, which every week showed one of its political opponents with rolling eyes just after execution; for Valentin was a notable anti-clerical.
The library was long, low, and dark. Valentin and his servant Ivan were waiting for them at the upper end of a long, slightly-sloping desk, on which lay the mortal remains, looking enormous in the twilight. The big black figure and yellow face of the man found in the garden looked unchanged. The second head, which had been fished from among the river reeds that morning, lay dripping beside it; Valentin's men were still seeking to find the rest of this second corpse in the water. Father Brown went up to the second head and examined it with care. It was little more than a mop of wet white hair; the face, which seemed of an ugly and criminal type, had been much battered against trees or stones as it tossed in the water.
“Good morning, Commandant O'Brien,” said Valentin, with quiet cordiality. “You have heard of Brayne's last experiment in butchery, I suppose?”
Father Brown was still bending over the head with white hair, and he said, without looking up:
“I suppose it is quite certain that Brayne cut off this head, too.”
“Well, it seems common sense,” said Valentin, with his hands in his pockets. “Killed in the same way as the other. Found within a few yards of the other. And sliced by the same weapon which we know he carried away.”
“Yes, yes; I know,” replied Father Brown. “Yet, you know, I doubt whether Brayne could have cut off this head.”
“Why not?” inquired Dr. Simon, with a stare.
“Well, doctor,” said the priest, looking up blinking, “can a man cut off his own head? I don't know.”
O'Brien felt the universe crashing about his ears; but the doctor sprang forward and pushed back the wet white hair.
“Oh, there's no doubt it's Brayne,” said the priest quietly.
“He had exactly that chip in the left ear.”
The detective, who had been regarding the priest with steady eyes, opened his clenched mouth and said sharply: “You seem to know a lot about him, Father Brown.”
“I do,” said the little man simply. “I've been about with him for some weeks. He was thinking of joining our church.”
The light of the fanatic sprang into Valentin's eyes; he strode towards the priest with clenched hands. “And, perhaps,” he cried, with a sneer, “perhaps he was also thinking of leaving all his money to your church.”
“Perhaps he was,” said Brown stolidly; “it is possible.”
“In that case,” cried Valentin, with a dreadful smile, “you may indeed know a great deal about him. About his life and about his – ”
Commandant O'Brien laid a hand on Valentin's arm. “Drop that slanderous rubbish, Valentin,” he said, “or there may be more swords yet.”
But Valentin (under the steady gaze of the priest) had already recovered himself. “Well,” he said shortly, “people's private opinions can wait.
Пропал. Смылся. Испарился.