Thus, when a very unobtrusive Oxford9 man named John Boulnois wrote in a very unreadable review called the Natural Philosophy Quarterly a series of articles on alleged10 weak points in Darwinian evolution, it fluttered no corner of the English papers; though Boulnois’s theory (which was that of a comparatively stationary11 universe visited occasionally by convulsions of change) had some rather faddy fashionableness at Oxford, and got so far as to be named “Catastrophism”. But many American papers seized on the challenge as a great event; and the Sun threw the shadow of Mr Boulnois quite gigantically across its pages. By the paradox already noted12, articles of valuable intelligence and enthusiasm were presented with headlines apparently13 written by an illiterate14 maniac15, headlines such as “Darwin Chews Dirt; Critic Boulnois says He Jumps the Shocks”—or “Keep Catastrophic, says Thinker Boulnois.” And Mr Calhoun Kidd, of the Western Sun, was bidden to take his butterfly tie and lugubrious16 visage down to the little house outside Oxford where Thinker Boulnois lived in happy ignorance of such a title.
That fated philosopher had consented, in a somewhat dazed manner, to receive the interviewer, and had named the hour of nine that evening. The last of a summer sunset clung about Cumnor and the low wooded hills; the romantic Yankee was both doubtful of his road and inquisitive17 about his surroundings; and seeing the door of a genuine feudal18 old-country inn, The Champion Arms, standing19 open, he went in to make inquiries20.
In the bar parlour he rang the bell, and had to wait some little time for a reply to it. The only other person present was a lean man with close red hair and loose, horsey-looking clothes, who was drinking very bad whisky, but smoking a very good cigar. The whisky, of course, was the choice brand of The Champion Arms; the cigar he had probably brought with him from London. Nothing could be more different than his cynical21 negligence22 from the dapper dryness of the young American; but something in his pencil and open notebook, and perhaps in the expression of his alert blue eye, caused Kidd to guess, correctly, that he was a brother journalist.
“Could you do me the favour,” asked Kidd, with the courtesy of his nation, “of directing me to the Grey Cottage, where Mr Boulnois lives, as I understand?”
“It’s a few yards down the road,” said the red-haired man, removing his cigar; “I shall be passing it myself in a minute, but I’m going on to Pendragon Park to try and see the fun.”
“What is Pendragon Park?” asked Calhoun Kidd.
“Sir Claude Champion’s place—haven’t you come down for that, too?” asked the other pressman, looking up. “You’re a journalist, aren’t you?”
“I have come to see Mr Boulnois,” said Kidd.
“I’ve come to see Mrs Boulnois,” replied the other. “But I shan’t catch her at home.” And he laughed rather unpleasantly.
“Are you interested in Catastrophism?” asked the wondering Yankee.
“I’m interested in catastrophes23; and there are going to be some,” replied his companion gloomily. “Mine’s a filthy24 trade, and I never pretend it isn’t.”
With that he spat25 on the floor; yet somehow in the very act and instant one could realize that the man had been brought up as a gentleman.
The American pressman considered him with more attention. His face was pale and dissipated, with the promise of formidable passions yet to be loosed; but it was a clever and sensitive face; his clothes were coarse and careless, but he had a good seal ring on one of his long, thin fingers. His name, which came out in the course of talk, was James Dalroy; he was the son of a bankrupt Irish landlord, and attached to a pink paper which he heartily27 despised, called Smart Society, in the capacity of reporter and of something painfully like a spy.
Smart Society, I regret to say, felt none of that interest in Boulnois on Darwin which was such a credit to the head and hearts of the Western Sun. Dalroy had come down, it seemed, to snuff up the scent28 of a scandal which might very well end in the Divorce Court, but which was at present hovering29 between Grey Cottage and Pendragon Park.
Sir Claude Champion was known to the readers of the Western Sun as well as Mr Boulnois. So were the Pope and the Derby Winner; but the idea of their intimate acquaintanceship would have struck Kidd as equally incongruous. He had heard of (and written about, nay30, falsely pretended to know) Sir Claude Champion, as “one of the brightest and wealthiest of England’s Upper Ten”; as the great sportsman who raced yachts round the world; as the great traveller who wrote books about the Himalayas, as the politician who swept constituencies with a startling sort of Tory Democracy, and as the great dabbler31 in art, music, literature, and, above all, acting32. Sir Claude was really rather magnificent in other than American eyes. There was something of the Renascence Prince about his omnivorous33 culture and restless publicity34—, he was not only a great amateur, but an ardent35 one. There was in him none of that antiquarian frivolity36 that we convey by the word “dilettante”.
That faultless falcon37 profile with purple-black Italian eye, which had been snap-shotted so often both for Smart Society and the Western Sun, gave everyone the impression of a man eaten by ambition as by a fire, or even a disease. But though Kidd knew a great deal about Sir Claude—a great deal more, in fact, than there was to know—it would never have crossed his wildest dreams to connect so showy an aristocrat38 with the newly-unearthed founder39 of Catastrophism, or to guess that Sir Claude Champion and John Boulnois could be intimate friends. Such, according to Dalroy’s account, was nevertheless the fact. The two had hunted in couples at school and college, and, though their social destinies had been very different (for Champion was a great landlord and almost a millionaire, while Boulnois was a poor scholar and, until just lately, an unknown one), they still kept in very close touch with each other. Indeed, Boulnois’s cottage stood just outside the gates of Pendragon Park.
But whether the two men could be friends much longer was becoming a dark and ugly question. A year or two before, Boulnois had married a beautiful and not unsuccessful actress, to whom he was devoted40 in his own shy and ponderous41 style; and the proximity42 of the household to Champion’s had given that flighty celebrity43 opportunities for behaving in a way that could not but cause painful and rather base excitement. Sir Claude had carried the arts of publicity to perfection; and he seemed to take a crazy pleasure in being equally ostentatious in an intrigue44 that could do him no sort of honour. Footmen from Pendragon were perpetually leaving bouquets45 for Mrs Boulnois; carriages and motor-cars were perpetually calling at the cottage for Mrs Boulnois; balls and masquerades perpetually filled the grounds in which the baronet paraded Mrs Boulnois, like the Queen of Love and Beauty at a tournament. That very evening, marked by Mr Kidd for the exposition of Catastrophism, had been marked by Sir Claude Champion for an open-air rendering46 of Romeo and Juliet, in which he was to play Romeo to a Juliet it was needless to name.
“I don’t think it can go on without a smash,” said the young man with red hair, getting up and shaking himself. “Old Boulnois may be squared—or he may be square. But if he’s square he’s thick—what you might call cubic. But I don’t believe it’s possible.”
“He is a man of grand intellectual powers,” said Calhoun Kidd in a deep voice.
“Yes,” answered Dalroy; “but even a man of grand intellectual powers can’t be such a blighted47 fool as all that. Must you be going on? I shall be following myself in a minute or two.”
But Calhoun Kidd, having finished a milk and soda48, betook himself smartly up the road towards the Grey Cottage, leaving his cynical informant to his whisky and tobacco. The last of the daylight had faded; the skies were of a dark, green-grey, like slate49, studded here and there with a star, but lighter50 on the left side of the sky, with the promise of a rising moon.
The Grey Cottage, which stood entrenched51, as it were, in a square of stiff, high thorn-hedges, was so close under the pines and palisades of the Park that Kidd at first mistook it for the Park Lodge52. Finding the name on the narrow wooden gate, however, and seeing by his watch that the hour of the “Thinker’s” appointment had just struck, he went in and knocked at the front door. Inside the garden hedge, he could see that the house, though unpretentious enough, was larger and more luxurious53 than it looked at first, and was quite a different kind of place from a porter’s lodge. A dog-kennel54 and a beehive stood outside, like symbols of old English country-life; the moon was rising behind a plantation55 of prosperous pear trees, the dog that came out of the kennel was reverend-looking and reluctant to bark; and the plain, elderly man-servant who opened the door was brief but dignified56.
“Mr Boulnois asked me to offer his apologies, sir,” he said, “but he has been obliged to go out suddenly.”
“But see here, I had an appointment,” said the interviewer, with a rising voice. “Do you know where he went to?”
“To Pendragon Park, sir,” said the servant, rather sombrely, and began to close the door.
Kidd started a little.
“No, sir,” said the man shortly; “he stayed behind, and then went out alone.” And he shut the door, brutally58, but with an air of duty not done.
The American, that curious compound of impudence59 and sensitiveness, was annoyed. He felt a strong desire to hustle60 them all along a bit and teach them business habits; the hoary61 old dog and the grizzled, heavy-faced old butler with his prehistoric62 shirt-front, and the drowsy63 old moon, and above all the scatter-brained old philosopher who couldn’t keep an appointment.
“If that’s the way he goes on he deserves to lose his wife’s purest devotion,” said Mr Calhoun Kidd. “But perhaps he’s gone over to make a row. In that case I reckon a man from the Western Sun will be on the spot.”
And turning the corner by the open lodge-gates, he set off, stumping64 up the long avenue of black pine-woods that pointed65 in abrupt66 perspective towards the inner gardens of Pendragon Park. The trees were as black and orderly as plumes67 upon a hearse; there were still a few stars. He was a man with more literary than direct natural associations; the word “Ravenswood” came into his head repeatedly. It was partly the raven68 colour of the pine-woods; but partly also an indescribable atmosphere almost described in Scott’s great tragedy; the smell of something that died in the eighteenth century; the smell of dank gardens and broken urns69, of wrongs that will never now be righted; of something that is none the less incurably70 sad because it is strangely unreal.
More than once, as he went up that strange, black road of tragic71 artifice72, he stopped, startled, thinking he heard steps in front of him. He could see nothing in front but the twin sombre walls of pine and the wedge of starlit sky above them. At first he thought he must have fancied it or been mocked by a mere73 echo of his own tramp. But as he went on he was more and more inclined to conclude, with the remains74 of his reason, that there really were other feet upon the road. He thought hazily75 of ghosts; and was surprised how swiftly he could see the image of an appropriate and local ghost, one with a face as white as Pierrot’s, but patched with black. The apex76 of the triangle of dark-blue sky was growing brighter and bluer, but he did not realize as yet that this was because he was coming nearer to the lights of the great house and garden. He only felt that the atmosphere was growing more intense, there was in the sadness more violence and secrecy—more—he hesitated for the word, and then said it with a jerk of laughter—Catastrophism.
More pines, more pathway slid past him, and then he stood rooted as by a blast of magic. It is vain to say that he felt as if he had got into a dream; but this time he felt quite certain that he had got into a book. For we human beings are used to inappropriate things; we are accustomed to the clatter77 of the incongruous; it is a tune78 to which we can go to sleep. If one appropriate thing happens, it wakes us up like the pang79 of a perfect chord. Something happened such as would have happened in such a place in a forgotten tale.
Over the black pine-wood came flying and flashing in the moon a naked sword—such a slender and sparkling rapier as may have fought many an unjust duel80 in that ancient park. It fell on the pathway far in front of him and lay there glistening81 like a large needle. He ran like a hare and bent82 to look at it. Seen at close quarters it had rather a showy look: the big red jewels in the hilt and guard were a little dubious83. But there were other red drops upon the blade which were not dubious.
He looked round wildly in the direction from which the dazzling missile had come, and saw that at this point the sable84 facade85 of fir and pine was interrupted by a smaller road at right angles; which, when he turned it, brought him in full view of the long, lighted house, with a lake and fountains in front of it. Nevertheless, he did not look at this, having something more interesting to look at.
Above him, at the angle of the steep green bank of the terraced garden, was one of those small picturesque86 surprises common in the old landscape gardening; a kind of small round hill or dome87 of grass, like a giant mole-hill, ringed and crowned with three concentric fences of roses, and having a sundial in the highest point in the centre. Kidd could see the finger of the dial stand up dark against the sky like the dorsal88 fin26 of a shark and the vain moonlight clinging to that idle clock. But he saw something else clinging to it also, for one wild moment—the figure of a man.
Though he saw it there only for a moment, though it was outlandish and incredible in costume, being clad from neck to heel in tight crimson89, with glints of gold, yet he knew in one flash of moonlight who it was. That white face flung up to heaven, clean-shaven and so unnaturally90 young, like Byron with a Roman nose, those black curls already grizzled—he had seen the thousand public portraits of Sir Claude Champion. The wild red figure reeled an instant against the sundial; the next it had rolled down the steep bank and lay at the American’s feet, faintly moving one arm. A gaudy92, unnatural91 gold ornament93 on the arm suddenly reminded Kidd of Romeo and Juliet; of course the tight crimson suit was part of the play. But there was a long red stain down the bank from which the man had rolled—that was no part of the play. He had been run through the body.
Mr Calhoun Kidd shouted and shouted again. Once more he seemed to hear phantasmal footsteps, and started to find another figure already near him. He knew the figure, and yet it terrified him. The dissipated youth who had called himself Dalroy had a horribly quiet way with him; if Boulnois failed to keep appointments that had been made, Dalroy had a sinister94 air of keeping appointments that hadn’t. The moonlight discoloured everything, against Dalroy’s red hair his wan95 face looked not so much white as pale green.
All this morbid96 impressionism must be Kidd’s excuse for having cried out, brutally and beyond all reason: “Did you do this, you devil?”
James Dalroy smiled his unpleasing smile; but before he could speak, the fallen figure made another movement of the arm, waving vaguely towards the place where the sword fell; then came a moan, and then it managed to speak.
“Boulnois.... Boulnois, I say.... Boulnois did it... jealous of me...he was jealous, he was, he was...”
Kidd bent his head down to hear more, and just managed to catch the words:
“Boulnois...with my own sword...he threw it...”
Again the failing hand waved towards the sword, and then fell rigid97 with a thud. In Kidd rose from its depth all that acrid98 humour that is the strange salt of the seriousness of his race.
“See here,” he said sharply and with command, “you must fetch a doctor. This man’s dead.”
“And a priest, too, I suppose,” said Dalroy in an undecipherable manner. “All these Champions are papists.”
The American knelt down by the body, felt the heart, propped99 up the head and used some last efforts at restoration; but before the other journalist reappeared, followed by a doctor and a priest, he was already prepared to assert they were too late.
“Were you too late also?” asked the doctor, a solid prosperous-looking man, with conventional moustache and whiskers, but a lively eye, which darted100 over Kidd dubiously101.
“In one sense,” drawled the representative of the Sun. “I was too late to save the man, but I guess I was in time to hear something of importance. I heard the dead man denounce his assassin.”
“Boulnois,” said Calhoun Kidd, and whistled softly.
The doctor stared at him gloomily with a reddening brow—, but he did not contradict. Then the priest, a shorter figure in the background, said mildly: “I understood that Mr Boulnois was not coming to Pendragon Park this evening.”
“There again,” said the Yankee grimly, “I may be in a position to give the old country a fact or two. Yes, sir, John Boulnois was going to stay in all this evening; he fixed103 up a real good appointment there with me. But John Boulnois changed his mind; John Boulnois left his home abruptly104 and all alone, and came over to this darned Park an hour or so ago. His butler told me so. I think we hold what the all-wise police call a clue—have you sent for them?”
“Yes,” said the doctor, “but we haven’t alarmed anyone else yet.”
“Does Mrs Boulnois know?” asked James Dalroy, and again Kidd was conscious of an irrational105 desire to hit him on his curling mouth.
“I have not told her,” said the doctor gruffly—, “but here come the police.”
The little priest had stepped out into the main avenue, and now returned with the fallen sword, which looked ludicrously large and theatrical106 when attached to his dumpy figure, at once clerical and commonplace. “Just before the police come,” he said apologetically, “has anyone got a light?”
The Yankee journalist took an electric torch from his pocket, and the priest held it close to the middle part of the blade, which he examined with blinking care. Then, without glancing at the point or pommel, he handed the long weapon to the doctor.
“I fear I’m no use here,” he said, with a brief sigh. “I’ll say good night to you, gentlemen.” And he walked away up the dark avenue towards the house, his hands clasped behind him and his big head bent in cogitation107.
The rest of the group made increased haste towards the lodge-gates, where an inspector108 and two constables109 could already be seen in consultation110 with the lodge-keeper. But the little priest only walked slower and slower in the dim cloister111 of pine, and at last stopped dead, on the steps of the house. It was his silent way of acknowledging an equally silent approach; for there came towards him a presence that might have satisfied even Calhoun Kidd’s demands for a lovely and aristocratic ghost. It was a young woman in silvery satins of a Renascence design; she had golden hair in two long shining ropes, and a face so startingly pale between them that she might have been chryselephantine—made, that is, like some old Greek statues, out of ivory and gold. But her eyes were very bright, and her voice, though low, was confident.
“Father Brown?” she said.
“Mrs Boulnois?” he replied gravely. Then he looked at her and immediately said: “I see you know about Sir Claude.”
He did not answer the question, but asked another: “Have you seen your husband?”
“My husband is at home,” she said. “He has nothing to do with this.”
Again he did not answer; and the woman drew nearer to him, with a curiously113 intense expression on her face.
“Shall I tell you something more?” she said, with a rather fearful smile. “I don’t think he did it, and you don’t either.” Father Brown returned her gaze with a long, grave stare, and then nodded, yet more gravely.
“Father Brown,” said the lady, “I am going to tell you all I know, but I want you to do me a favour first. Will you tell me why you haven’t jumped to the conclusion of poor John’s guilt114, as all the rest have done? Don’t mind what you say: I—I know about the gossip and the appearances that are against me.”
Father Brown looked honestly embarrassed, and passed his hand across his forehead. “Two very little things,” he said. “At least, one’s very trivial and the other very vague. But such as they are, they don’t fit in with Mr Boulnois being the murderer.”
He turned his blank, round face up to the stars and continued absentmindedly: “To take the vague idea first. I attach a good deal of importance to vague ideas. All those things that ‘aren’t evidence’ are what convince me. I think a moral impossibility the biggest of all impossibilities. I know your husband only slightly, but I think this crime of his, as generally conceived, something very like a moral impossibility. Please do not think I mean that Boulnois could not be so wicked. Anybody can be wicked—as wicked as he chooses. We can direct our moral wills; but we can’t generally change our instinctive115 tastes and ways of doing things. Boulnois might commit a murder, but not this murder. He would not snatch Romeo’s sword from its romantic scabbard; or slay116 his foe117 on the sundial as on a kind of altar; or leave his body among the roses, or fling the sword away among the pines. If Boulnois killed anyone he’d do it quietly and heavily, as he’d do any other doubtful thing—take a tenth glass of port, or read a loose Greek poet. No, the romantic setting is not like Boulnois. It’s more like Champion.”
“Ah!” she said, and looked at him with eyes like diamonds.
“And the trivial thing was this,” said Brown. “There were finger-prints on that sword; finger-prints can be detected quite a time after they are made if they’re on some polished surface like glass or steel. These were on a polished surface. They were half-way down the blade of the sword. Whose prints they were I have no earthly clue; but why should anybody hold a sword half-way down? It was a long sword, but length is an advantage in lunging at an enemy. At least, at most enemies. At all enemies except one.”
“Except one,” she repeated.
“There is only one enemy,” said Father Brown, “whom it is easier to kill with a dagger118 than a sword.”
“I know,” said the woman. “Oneself.”
There was a long silence, and then the priest said quietly but abruptly: “Am I right, then? Did Sir Claude kill himself?”
“Yes” she said, with a face like marble. “I saw him do it.”
“He died,” said Father Brown, “for love of you?”
An extraordinary expression flashed across her face, very different from pity, modesty119, remorse120, or anything her companion had expected: her voice became suddenly strong and full. “I don’t believe,” she said, “he ever cared about me a rap. He hated my husband.”
“Why?” asked the other, and turned his round face from the sky to the lady.
“He hated my husband because...it is so strange I hardly know how to say it...because...”
“Yes?” said Brown patiently.
“Because my husband wouldn’t hate him.”
Father Brown only nodded, and seemed still to be listening; he differed from most detectives in fact and fiction in a small point—he never pretended not to understand when he understood perfectly121 well.
Mrs Boulnois drew near once more with the same contained glow of certainty. “My husband,” she said, “is a great man. Sir Claude Champion was not a great man: he was a celebrated122 and successful man. My husband has never been celebrated or successful; and it is the solemn truth that he has never dreamed of being so. He no more expects to be famous for thinking than for smoking cigars. On all that side he has a sort of splendid stupidity. He has never grown up. He still liked Champion exactly as he liked him at school; he admired him as he would admire a conjuring123 trick done at the dinner-table. But he couldn’t be got to conceive the notion of envying Champion. And Champion wanted to be envied. He went mad and killed himself for that.”
“Yes,” said Father Brown; “I think I begin to understand.”
“Oh, don’t you see?” she cried; “the whole picture is made for that—the place is planned for it. Champion put John in a little house at his very door, like a dependant—to make him feel a failure. He never felt it. He thinks no more about such things than—than an absent-minded lion. Champion would burst in on John’s shabbiest hours or homeliest meals with some dazzling present or announcement or expedition that made it like the visit of Haroun Alraschid, and John would accept or refuse amiably124 with one eye off, so to speak, like one lazy schoolboy agreeing or disagreeing with another. After five years of it John had not turned a hair; and Sir Claude Champion was a monomaniac.”
“And Haman began to tell them,” said Father Brown, “of all the things wherein the king had honoured him; and he said: ‘All these things profit me nothing while I see Mordecai the Jew sitting in the gate.’”
“The crisis came,” Mrs Boulnois continued, “when I persuaded John to let me take down some of his speculations125 and send them to a magazine. They began to attract attention, especially in America, and one paper wanted to interview him. When Champion (who was interviewed nearly every day) heard of this late little crumb127 of success falling to his unconscious rival, the last link snapped that held back his devilish hatred128. Then he began to lay that insane siege to my own love and honour which has been the talk of the shire. You will ask me why I allowed such atrocious attentions. I answer that I could not have declined them except by explaining to my husband, and there are some things the soul cannot do, as the body cannot fly. Nobody could have explained to my husband. Nobody could do it now. If you said to him in so many words, ‘Champion is stealing your wife,’ he would think the joke a little vulgar: that it could be anything but a joke—that notion could find no crack in his great skull129 to get in by. Well, John was to come and see us act this evening, but just as we were starting he said he wouldn’t; he had got an interesting book and a cigar. I told this to Sir Claude, and it was his death-blow. The monomaniac suddenly saw despair. He stabbed himself, crying out like a devil that Boulnois was slaying130 him; he lies there in the garden dead of his own jealousy131 to produce jealousy, and John is sitting in the dining-room reading a book.”
There was another silence, and then the little priest said: “There is only one weak point, Mrs Boulnois, in all your very vivid account. Your husband is not sitting in the dining-room reading a book. That American reporter told me he had been to your house, and your butler told him Mr Boulnois had gone to Pendragon Park after all.”
Her bright eyes widened to an almost electric glare; and yet it seemed rather bewilderment than confusion or fear. “Why, what can you mean?” she cried. “All the servants were out of the house, seeing the theatricals132. And we don’t keep a butler, thank goodness!”
Father Brown started and spun133 half round like an absurd teetotum. “What, what?” he cried seeming galvanized into sudden life. “Look here—I say—can I make your husband hear if I go to the house?”
“Oh, the servants will be back by now,” she said, wondering.
“Right, right!” rejoined the cleric energetically, and set off scuttling134 up the path towards the Park gates. He turned once to say: “Better get hold of that Yankee, or ‘Crime of John Boulnois’ will be all over the Republic in large letters.”
“You don’t understand,” said Mrs Boulnois. “He wouldn’t mind. I don’t think he imagines that America really is a place.”
When Father Brown reached the house with the beehive and the drowsy dog, a small and neat maid-servant showed him into the dining-room, where Boulnois sat reading by a shaded lamp, exactly as his wife described him. A decanter of port and a wineglass were at his elbow; and the instant the priest entered he noted the long ash stand out unbroken on his cigar.
“He has been here for half an hour at least,” thought Father Brown. In fact, he had the air of sitting where he had sat when his dinner was cleared away.
“Don’t get up, Mr Boulnois,” said the priest in his pleasant, prosaic135 way. “I shan’t interrupt you a moment. I fear I break in on some of your scientific studies.”
“No,” said Boulnois; “I was reading ‘The Bloody136 Thumb.’” He said it with neither frown nor smile, and his visitor was conscious of a certain deep and virile137 indifference138 in the man which his wife had called greatness. He laid down a gory139 yellow “shocker” without even feeling its incongruity140 enough to comment on it humorously. John Boulnois was a big, slow-moving man with a massive head, partly grey and partly bald, and blunt, burly features. He was in shabby and very old-fashioned evening-dress, with a narrow triangular141 opening of shirt-front: he had assumed it that evening in his original purpose of going to see his wife act Juliet.
“I won’t keep you long from ‘The Bloody Thumb’ or any other catastrophic affairs,” said Father Brown, smiling. “I only came to ask you about the crime you committed this evening.”
Boulnois looked at him steadily, but a red bar began to show across his broad brow; and he seemed like one discovering embarrassment142 for the first time.
“I know it was a strange crime,” assented143 Brown in a low voice. “Stranger than murder perhaps—to you. The little sins are sometimes harder to confess than the big ones—but that’s why it’s so important to confess them. Your crime is committed by every fashionable hostess six times a week: and yet you find it sticks to your tongue like a nameless atrocity144.”
“It makes one feel,” said the philosopher slowly, “such a damned fool.”
“I know,” assented the other, “but one often has to choose between feeling a damned fool and being one.”
“I can’t analyse myself well,” went on Boulnois; “but sitting in that chair with that story I was as happy as a schoolboy on a half-holiday. It was security, eternity—I can’t convey it... the cigars were within reach...the matches were within reach... the Thumb had four more appearances to...it was not only a peace, but a plenitude. Then that bell rang, and I thought for one long, mortal minute that I couldn’t get out of that chair—literally, physically145, muscularly couldn’t. Then I did it like a man lifting the world, because I knew all the servants were out. I opened the front door, and there was a little man with his mouth open to speak and his notebook open to write in. I remembered the Yankee interviewer I had forgotten. His hair was parted in the middle, and I tell you that murder—”
“I understand,” said Father Brown. “I’ve seen him.”
“I didn’t commit murder,” continued the Catastrophist mildly, “but only perjury146. I said I had gone across to Pendragon Park and shut the door in his face. That is my crime, Father Brown, and I don’t know what penance147 you would inflict148 for it.”
“I shan’t inflict any penance,” said the clerical gentleman, collecting his heavy hat and umbrella with an air of some amusement; “quite the contrary. I came here specially126 to let you off the little penance which would otherwise have followed your little offence.”
“And what,” asked Boulnois, smiling, “is the little penance I have so luckily been let off?”
“Being hanged,” said Father Brown.
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colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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hustling
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| 催促（hustle的现在分词形式） | |
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journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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mellower
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| 成熟的( mellow的比较级 )； （水果）熟透的； （颜色或声音）柔和的； 高兴的 | |
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paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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7
redeems
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| 补偿( redeem的第三人称单数 )； 实践； 解救； 使…免受责难 | |
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8
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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9
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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10
alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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stationary
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| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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14
illiterate
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| adj.文盲的；无知的；n.文盲 | |
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15
maniac
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| n.精神癫狂的人；疯子 | |
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16
lugubrious
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| adj.悲哀的，忧郁的 | |
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inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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19
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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21
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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22
negligence
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| n.疏忽，玩忽，粗心大意 | |
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23
catastrophes
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| n.灾祸( catastrophe的名词复数 )；灾难；不幸事件；困难 | |
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24
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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25
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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26
fin
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| n.鳍；(飞机的)安定翼 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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28
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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29
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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30
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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31
dabbler
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| n. 戏水者, 业余家, 半玩半认真做的人 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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33
omnivorous
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| adj.杂食的 | |
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34
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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35
ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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36
frivolity
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| n.轻松的乐事，兴高采烈；轻浮的举止 | |
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37
falcon
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| n.隼，猎鹰 | |
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38
aristocrat
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| n.贵族，有贵族气派的人，上层人物 | |
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39
Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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40
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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41
ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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42
proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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43
celebrity
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| n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望 | |
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44
intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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45
bouquets
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| n.花束( bouquet的名词复数 )；（酒的）芳香 | |
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46
rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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47
blighted
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| adj.枯萎的，摧毁的 | |
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48
soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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49
slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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50
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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51
entrenched
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| adj.确立的，不容易改的(风俗习惯) | |
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52
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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53
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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54
kennel
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| n.狗舍，狗窝 | |
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55
plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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56
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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57
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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58
brutally
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| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
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59
impudence
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| n.厚颜无耻；冒失；无礼 | |
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60
hustle
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| v.推搡；竭力兜售或获取；催促；n.奔忙(碌) | |
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61
hoary
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| adj.古老的；鬓发斑白的 | |
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62
prehistoric
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| adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的 | |
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63
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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64
stumping
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| 僵直地行走，跺步行走( stump的现在分词 )； 把（某人）难住； 使为难； （选举前）在某一地区作政治性巡回演说 | |
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65
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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66
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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67
plumes
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| 羽毛( plume的名词复数 )； 羽毛饰； 羽毛状物； 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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68
raven
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| n.渡鸟，乌鸦；adj.乌亮的 | |
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69
urns
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| n.壶( urn的名词复数 )；瓮；缸；骨灰瓮 | |
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70
incurably
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| ad.治不好地 | |
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71
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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72
artifice
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| n.妙计，高明的手段；狡诈，诡计 | |
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73
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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74
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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75
hazily
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| ad. vaguely, not clear | |
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76
apex
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| n.顶点，最高点 | |
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77
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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78
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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79
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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80
duel
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| n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争 | |
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81
glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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82
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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83
dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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84
sable
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| n.黑貂；adj.黑色的 | |
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85
facade
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| n.(建筑物的)正面，临街正面；外表 | |
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86
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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87
dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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88
dorsal
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| adj.背部的，背脊的 | |
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89
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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90
unnaturally
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| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
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91
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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92
gaudy
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| adj.华而不实的；俗丽的 | |
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93
ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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94
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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95
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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96
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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97
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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98
acrid
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| adj.辛辣的，尖刻的，刻薄的 | |
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99
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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100
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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101
dubiously
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| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
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102
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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103
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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104
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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105
irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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106
theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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107
cogitation
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| n.仔细思考，计划，设计 | |
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108
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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109
constables
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| n.警察( constable的名词复数 ) | |
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110
consultation
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| n.咨询；商量；商议；会议 | |
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111
cloister
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| n.修道院；v.隐退，使与世隔绝 | |
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112
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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113
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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114
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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115
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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116
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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117
foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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118
dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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119
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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120
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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121
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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122
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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123
conjuring
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| n.魔术 | |
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124
amiably
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| adv.和蔼可亲地，亲切地 | |
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125
speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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126
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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127
crumb
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| n.饼屑，面包屑，小量 | |
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128
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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129
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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130
slaying
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| 杀戮。 | |
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131
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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132
theatricals
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| n.（业余性的）戏剧演出，舞台表演艺术；职业演员；戏剧的( theatrical的名词复数 )；剧场的；炫耀的；戏剧性的 | |
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133
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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134
scuttling
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| n.船底穿孔，打开通海阀（沉船用）v.使船沉没( scuttle的现在分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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135
prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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136
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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137
virile
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| adj.男性的；有男性生殖力的；有男子气概的；强有力的 | |
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138
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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139
gory
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| adj.流血的；残酷的 | |
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140
incongruity
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| n.不协调，不一致 | |
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141
triangular
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| adj.三角（形）的，三者间的 | |
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142
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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143
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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144
atrocity
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| n.残暴，暴行 | |
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145
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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146
perjury
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| n.伪证；伪证罪 | |
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147
penance
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| n.（赎罪的）惩罪 | |
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148
inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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