Innocence of Father Brown

K. Chesterton G.

Description

The star of these stories is Father Brown, a character created by writer G. K. Chesterton. Based on a parish priest who was partially responsible for Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism in 1922, Brown is a stubby Catholic priest equipped with a large umbrella, a formless outfit and a sharp insight into the human nature. The stories included here are The Blue Cross, The Secret Garden, The Queer Feet, The Flying Stars, The Invisible Man, The Honour of Israel Gow, The Wrong Shape, The Sins of Prince Saradine, The Hammer of God, The Eye of Apollo, The Sign of the Broken Sword, and The Three Tools of Death.

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775414148
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN
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G. K. CHESTERTON
 
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The Innocence of Father Brown From a 1911 edition.
ISBN 978-1-775414-14-8
© 2009 THE FLOATING PRESS.
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
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Contents
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The Blue Cross The Secret Garden The Queer Feet The Flying Stars The Invisible Man The Honour of Israel Gow The Wrong Shape The Sins of Prince Saradine The Hammer of God The Eye of Apollo The Sign of the Broken Sword The Three Tools of Death
The Blue Cross
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Between the silver ribbon of morning and the green glitteringribbon of sea, the boat touched Harwich and let loose a swarm offolk like flies, among whom the man we must follow was by no meansconspicuous—nor wished to be. There was nothing notable abouthim, except a slight contrast between the holiday gaiety of hisclothes and the official gravity of his face. His clothesincluded a slight, pale grey jacket, a white waistcoat, and asilver straw hat with a grey-blue ribbon. His lean face was darkby contrast, and ended in a curt black beard that looked Spanishand suggested an Elizabethan ruff. He was smoking a cigarettewith the seriousness of an idler. There was nothing about him toindicate the fact that the grey jacket covered a loaded revolver,that the white waistcoat covered a police card, or that the strawhat covered one of the most powerful intellects in Europe. Forthis was Valentin himself, the head of the Paris police and themost famous investigator of the world; and he was coming fromBrussels to London to make the greatest arrest of the century.
Flambeau was in England. The police of three countries hadtracked the great criminal at last from Ghent to Brussels, fromBrussels to the Hook of Holland; and it was conjectured that hewould take some advantage of the unfamiliarity and confusion ofthe Eucharistic Congress, then taking place in London. Probablyhe would travel as some minor clerk or secretary connected withit; but, of course, Valentin could not be certain; nobody could becertain about Flambeau.
It is many years now since this colossus of crime suddenlyceased keeping the world in a turmoil; and when he ceased, as theysaid after the death of Roland, there was a great quiet upon theearth. But in his best days (I mean, of course, his worst)Flambeau was a figure as statuesque and international as theKaiser. Almost every morning the daily paper announced that hehad escaped the consequences of one extraordinary crime bycommitting another. He was a Gascon of gigantic stature andbodily daring; and the wildest tales were told of his outbursts ofathletic humour; how he turned the juge d'instruction upside downand stood him on his head, "to clear his mind"; how he ran downthe Rue de Rivoli with a policeman under each arm. It is due tohim to say that his fantastic physical strength was generallyemployed in such bloodless though undignified scenes; his realcrimes were chiefly those of ingenious and wholesale robbery. Buteach of his thefts was almost a new sin, and would make a story byitself. It was he who ran the great Tyrolean Dairy Company inLondon, with no dairies, no cows, no carts, no milk, but with somethousand subscribers. These he served by the simple operation ofmoving the little milk cans outside people's doors to the doors ofhis own customers. It was he who had kept up an unaccountable andclose correspondence with a young lady whose whole letter-bag wasintercepted, by the extraordinary trick of photographing hismessages infinitesimally small upon the slides of a microscope. Asweeping simplicity, however, marked many of his experiments. Itis said that he once repainted all the numbers in a street in thedead of night merely to divert one traveller into a trap. It isquite certain that he invented a portable pillar-box, which he putup at corners in quiet suburbs on the chance of strangers droppingpostal orders into it. Lastly, he was known to be a startlingacrobat; despite his huge figure, he could leap like a grasshopperand melt into the tree-tops like a monkey. Hence the greatValentin, when he set out to find Flambeau, was perfectly awarethat his adventures would not end when he had found him.
But how was he to find him? On this the great Valentin'sideas were still in process of settlement.
There was one thing which Flambeau, with all his dexterity ofdisguise, could not cover, and that was his singular height. IfValentin's quick eye had caught a tall apple-woman, a tallgrenadier, or even a tolerably tall duchess, he might havearrested them on the spot. But all along his train there wasnobody that could be a disguised Flambeau, any more than a catcould be a disguised giraffe. About the people on the boat he hadalready satisfied himself; and the people picked up at Harwich oron the journey limited themselves with certainty to six. Therewas a short railway official travelling up to the terminus, threefairly short market gardeners picked up two stations afterwards,one very short widow lady going up from a small Essex town, and avery short Roman Catholic priest going up from a small Essexvillage. When it came to the last case, Valentin gave it up andalmost laughed. The little priest was so much the essence ofthose Eastern flats; he had a face as round and dull as a Norfolkdumpling; he had eyes as empty as the North Sea; he had severalbrown paper parcels, which he was quite incapable of collecting.The Eucharistic Congress had doubtless sucked out of their localstagnation many such creatures, blind and helpless, like molesdisinterred. Valentin was a sceptic in the severe style ofFrance, and could have no love for priests. But he could havepity for them, and this one might have provoked pity in anybody.He had a large, shabby umbrella, which constantly fell on thefloor. He did not seem to know which was the right end of hisreturn ticket. He explained with a moon-calf simplicity toeverybody in the carriage that he had to be careful, because hehad something made of real silver "with blue stones" in one of hisbrown-paper parcels. His quaint blending of Essex flatness withsaintly simplicity continuously amused the Frenchman till thepriest arrived (somehow) at Tottenham with all his parcels, andcame back for his umbrella. When he did the last, Valentin evenhad the good nature to warn him not to take care of the silver bytelling everybody about it. But to whomever he talked, Valentinkept his eye open for someone else; he looked out steadily foranyone, rich or poor, male or female, who was well up to six feet;for Flambeau was four inches above it.
He alighted at Liverpool Street, however, quite conscientiouslysecure that he had not missed the criminal so far. He then wentto Scotland Yard to regularise his position and arrange for helpin case of need; he then lit another cigarette and went for a longstroll in the streets of London. As he was walking in the streetsand squares beyond Victoria, he paused suddenly and stood. It wasa quaint, quiet square, very typical of London, full of anaccidental stillness. The tall, flat houses round looked at onceprosperous and uninhabited; the square of shrubbery in the centrelooked as deserted as a green Pacific islet. One of the foursides was much higher than the rest, like a dais; and the line ofthis side was broken by one of London's admirable accidents—arestaurant that looked as if it had strayed from Soho. It was anunreasonably attractive object, with dwarf plants in pots andlong, striped blinds of lemon yellow and white. It stood speciallyhigh above the street, and in the usual patchwork way of London, aflight of steps from the street ran up to meet the front dooralmost as a fire-escape might run up to a first-floor window.Valentin stood and smoked in front of the yellow-white blinds andconsidered them long.
The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.A few clouds in heaven do come together into the staring shape ofone human eye. A tree does stand up in the landscape of adoubtful journey in the exact and elaborate shape of a note ofinterrogation. I have seen both these things myself within thelast few days. Nelson does die in the instant of victory; and aman named Williams does quite accidentally murder a man namedWilliamson; it sounds like a sort of infanticide. In short, thereis in life an element of elfin coincidence which people reckoningon the prosaic may perpetually miss. As it has been wellexpressed in the paradox of Poe, wisdom should reckon on theunforeseen.
Aristide Valentin was unfathomably French; and the Frenchintelligence is intelligence specially and solely. He was not "athinking machine"; for that is a brainless phrase of modernfatalism and materialism. A machine only is a machine because itcannot think. But he was a thinking man, and a plain man at thesame time. All his wonderful successes, that looked like conjuring,had been gained by plodding logic, by clear and commonplace Frenchthought. The French electrify the world not by starting anyparadox, they electrify it by carrying out a truism. They carry atruism so far—as in the French Revolution. But exactly becauseValentin understood reason, he understood the limits of reason.Only a man who knows nothing of motors talks of motoring withoutpetrol; only a man who knows nothing of reason talks of reasoningwithout strong, undisputed first principles. Here he had nostrong first principles. Flambeau had been missed at Harwich; andif he was in London at all, he might be anything from a tall trampon Wimbledon Common to a tall toast-master a