Page:The Incredulity of Father Brown.pdf/169

The Curse of the Golden Cross or two from the holly, and outlined darkly against the steely sea, stood a motionless figure. But for its dark-grey clothing it might almost have been the statue on some sepulchral monument. But Father Brown instantly recognized something in the elegant stoop of the shoulders and the rather sullen outward thrust of the short beard.

"Gee!" exclaimed the professor of archæology, "it's that man Tarrant, if you call him a man. Did you think, when I spoke on the boat, that I should ever get so quick an answer to my question?"

"I thought you might get too many answers to it," answered Father Brown.

"Why, how do you mean?" inquired the Professor, darting a look at him over his shoulder.

"I mean," answered the other mildly, "that I thought I heard voices behind the yew-tree. I don't think Mr. Tarrant is so solitary as he looks; I might even venture to say, so solitary as he likes to look."

Even as Tarrant turned slowly round in his moody manner, the confirmation came. Another voice, high and rather hard, but none the less feminine, was saying with experienced raillery:

"And how was I to know he would be here?"

It was borne in upon Professor Smaill that this gay observation was not addressed to him; so he was forced to conclude in some bewilderment, that yet a third person was present. As Lady Diana