Page:The Incredulity of Father Brown.pdf/181

The Curse of the Golden Cross "Well, you see I didn't," said Boon.

"Why have you come back?" asked the priest almost sternly.

"This is not the sort of little rural paradise for a journalist to leave in a hurry," replied the other. "Things happen too fast here to make it worth while to go back to a dull place like London. Besides, they can't keep me out of the affair-I mean this second affair. It was I that found the body, or at any rate the clothes. Quite suspicious conduct on my part, wasn't it? Perhaps you; think I wanted to dress up in his clothes. Shouldn't I make a lovely parson?"

And the lean and long-nosed mountebank suddenly made an extravagant gesture in the middle of the market-place, stretching out his arms and spreading out his dark-gloved hands in a sort of burlesque benediction and saying, "Oh, my dear brethren and sisters, for I would embrace you all "

"What on earth are you talking about?" cried Father Brown, and rapped the stones slightly with his stumpy umbrella, for he was a little less patient than usual.

"Oh, you'll find out all about it if you ask that picnic party of yours at the inn," replied Boon scornfully. "That man Tarrant seems to suspect me merely because I found the clothes; though he only came up a minute too late to find them himself.