The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] by G.K. Chesterton

city as one ugly energy, from the sanguinary sketch lying on Valentin’s
table up to where, above a mountain and forest of gargoyles, the great devil
grins on Notre Dame.
    The
library was long, low, and dark; what light entered it shot from under low blinds
and had still some of the ruddy tinge of morning. 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 confronted them essentially
unchanged. The second head, which had been fished from among the river reeds
that morning, lay streaming and dripping beside it; Valentin’s men were still
seeking to recover the rest of this second corpse, which was supposed to be
afloat. Father Brown, who did not seem to share O’Brien’s sensibilities in the
least, went up to the second head and examined it with his blinking care. It
was little more than a mop of wet white hair, fringed with silver fire in the
red and level morning light; the face, which seemed of an ugly, empurpled and
perhaps 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 submissively. “Yet, you know, I doubt whether
Brayne could have cut off this head.”
    “ Why
not?” inquired Dr. Simon, with a rational stare.
    “ Well,
doctor,” said the priest, looking up blinking, “can a man cut off his own head?
I don’t know.”
    O’Brien
felt an insane universe crashing about his ears; but the doctor sprang forward with
impetuous practicality 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 and glittering 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
star of the fanatic sprang into Valentin’s eyes; he strode towards the priest with
clenched hands. “And, perhaps,” he cried, with a blasting 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, humble gaze of the priest) had already recovered himself.
“Well,” he said shortly, “people’s private opinions can wait. You gentlemen are
still bound by your promise to stay; you must enforce it on yourselves — and on
each other. Ivan here will tell you anything more you want to know; I must get
to business and write to the authorities. We can’t keep this quiet any longer.
I shall be writing in my study if there is any more news.”
    “ Is
there any more news, Ivan?” asked Dr. Simon, as the chief of police strode out of
the room.
    “ Only
one more thing, I think, sir,” said Ivan, wrinkling up his grey old face, “but that’s
important, too, in its way. There’s that old