Page:The Incredulity of Father Brown.pdf/281

The Ghost of Gideon Wise grim and ironic implacability, "and it's about time you knew that some of them are jolly expert in playing it." And without moving his own eyes from the bright but dead eyes of Elias, he told him of the threat of Stein.

"I was prepared for something of that sort," said the smiling Elias without moving, "I may say quite prepared."

"Dirty dogs!" exploded Jake. "If a poor man said a thing like that he'd go to penal servitude. But I reckon they'll go somewhere worse before they guess. If they don't go to hell, I don't know where the hell they'll go to"

Horne made a movement of protest, perhaps not so much at what the man was saying as at what he was going to say, and Elias cut the speech short with cold exactitude.

"It is quite unnecessary for us," he said, looking at Byrne steadily through his spectacles, "to bandy threats with the other side. It is quite sufficient that their threats are quite ineffective so far as we are concerned. We also have made all our own arrangements, and some of them will not appear until they appear in motion. So far as we are concerned, an immediate rupture and an extreme trial of strength will be quite according to plan."

As he spoke in a quite quiet and dignified fashion, something in his motionless yellow face and his great goggles started a faint fear creeping up