The Innocence of Father Brown / Неведение отца Брауна. Гилберт Кит Честертон
Читать онлайн книгу.
or symbolic attitudes. Was it a religious dance? Or some entirely new kind of scientific exercise? Father Brown began to ask himself what the steps suggested. Taking the slow step first: it certainly was not the step of the proprietor. Men of his type walk with a rapid waddle[65], or they sit still. It could not be any servant or messenger waiting for directions. It did not sound like it. That heavy, springy step belonged to a gentleman of Western Europe, and probably one who had never worked for his living.
Just as he came to this conclusion, the step changed to the quicker one, and ran past the door. This step was much swifter and it was also much more noiseless, almost as if the man were walking on tiptoe. Surely he had heard that strange, swift walking somewhere. Suddenly he sprang to his feet with a new idea in his head, and walked to the door. His room had no direct exit to the passage. He tried the door into the office, and found it locked. Then he looked at the window, now purple of the sunset, and for an instant he smelt evil[66] as a dog smells rats.
He remembered that the proprietor had told him that he should lock the door, and would come later to set him free. He reminded himselfthat there was just enough light left to finish his own proper work. He had written for about twenty minutes, then suddenly he sat upright. He had heard the strange feet once more.
This time they had a third oddity. Previously the unknown man had walked, this time he ran. Whoever was coming was a very strong, active man. Yet, when the sound had reached the office, it suddenly changed again to the slow gait.
Father Brown flung down his paper, and, knowing the office door to be locked, went at once into the cloak room on the other side. The attendant of this place was temporarily absent, probably because the only guests were at dinner. After groping through a grey forest of overcoats, he found that the cloak room ended up with a half-door, like a counter, across which we have all handed umbrellas and received tickets. There was a light above the arch of this opening in which he saw the man who stood outside the cloak room in the corridor.
He was an elegant, tall man in very plain evening dress. His face was dark and vivacious, the face of a foreigner. His figure was good, his manners confident; a critic could only say that his black coat even bulged and bagged in an odd way. The moment he caught sight of Brown's black silhouette against the sunset, he tossed down a scrap of paper with a number and called out with amiable authority: “I want my hat and coat, please; I find I have to go away at once.”
Father Brown took the paper without a word, and obediently went to look for the coat. He brought it and laid it on the counter; meanwhile, the strange gentleman who had been feeling in his waistcoat pocket, said laughing: “I haven't got any silver; you can keep this.” And he threw down half a sovereign, and took his coat.
Father Brown's figure remained quite dark and still; but in that instant he had lost his head. His head was always most valuable when he had lost it. In such moments he put two and two together and made four million.
“I think, sir,” he said civilly, “that you have some silver in your pocket.”
The tall gentleman stared. “Hang it[67],” he cried, “if I choose to give you gold, why should you complain?”
“Because silver is sometimes more valuable than gold,” said the priest mildly; “that is, in large quantities.”
The stranger looked at him curiously. Then he looked still more curiously up the passage towards the main entrance. Then he looked back at Brown again, and then he looked very carefully at the window beyond Brown's head, still coloured with the sunset. Then he seemed to make up his mind[68]. He put one hand on the counter, jumped over as easily as an acrobat and stood above the priest, putting one tremendous hand upon his collar.
“Stand still,” he said, in a whisper. “I don't want to threaten you, but —”
“I do want to threaten you,” said Father Brown, “I want to threaten you with the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched[69].”
“You're a strange sort of cloak-room clerk,” said the other.
“I am a priest, Monsieur Flambeau,” said Brown, “and I am ready to hear your confession.”
The other stood staring for a few moments, and then staggered back into a chair.
The first two courses of the dinner of The Twelve True Fishermen had gone with success. There was a tradition in the club that the hors d'oeuvres should be various to the point of madness. There was also a tradition that the soup course should be light to prepare the guests for the coming feast of fish. The talk was about politics and politicians. Mr. Audley, the chairman, was an amiable, elderly man who was a kind of symbol of the society. He had never done anything – not even anything wrong. He was simply in the thing; no party could ignore him, and if he had wished to be in the Cabinet he certainly would have been put there. The Duke of Chester, the vice-president, was a young and rising politician. That is to say, he was a pleasant youth, with flat, fair hair and a freckled face, with moderate intelligence and enormous estates. In public his appearances were always successful and his principle was simple enough. In private, he was simply quite pleasantly frank and silly, like a schoolboy.
As has been remarked, there were twenty-four seats at the terrace table, and only twelve members of the club. Thus they could occupy the terrace in the most luxurious style, along the inner side of the table, with no one opposite, enjoying a view of the garden, the colours of which were still vivid. The chairman sat in the centre of the line, and the vice-president at the right-hand end of it. When the twelve guests first walked into their seats it was the custom for all the fifteen waiters to stand lining the wall, while the fat proprietor stood and bowed to the club with radiant surprise, as if he had never heard of them before. But only the one or two stayed to collect and distribute the plates rushing about in deathly silence. Mr. Lever, the proprietor, of course had disappeared long before. But when the fish course was being brought on, there was a sort of his shadow in the air, which told that he was nearby. The sacred fish course consisted (to the eyes of the vulgar) in a sort of monstrous pudding, about the size and shape of a wedding cake, in which some considerable number of interesting fishes had finally lost the shapes which God had given to them. The Twelve True Fishermen took up their celebrated fish knives and fish forks, and approached it as gravely as if every inch of the pudding cost as much as the silver fork it was eaten with. This course was dealt with in silence; and it was only when his plate was nearly empty that the young duke made the ritual remark: “They can't do this anywhere but here.”
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «Литрес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на Литрес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.