The Wisdom of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton (story books for 5 year olds txt) ๐
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- Author: G. K. Chesterton
Read book online ยซThe Wisdom of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton (story books for 5 year olds txt) ๐ยป. Author - G. K. Chesterton
Sir Walter Cowdray allowed an impressive interval, during which the witness looked down, and for all his usual composure seemed to have more than his usual pallor. Then the barrister said in a lower voice, which seemed at once sympathetic and creepy: โDid you see it distinctly?โ
Sir Wilson Seymour, however moved, had his excellent brains in full working-order. โVery distinctly as regards its outline, but quite indistinctly, indeed not at all, as regards the details inside the outline. The passage is of such length that anyone in the middle of it appears quite black against the light at the other end.โ The witness lowered his steady eyes once more and added: โI had noticed the fact before, when Captain Cutler first entered it.โ There was another silence, and the judge leaned forward and made a note.
โWell,โ said Sir Walter patiently, โwhat was the outline like? Was it, for instance, like the figure of the murdered woman?โ
โNot in the least,โ answered Seymour quietly.
โWhat did it look like to you?โ
โIt looked to me,โ replied the witness, โlike a tall man.โ
Everyone in court kept his eyes riveted on his pen, or his umbrella-handle, or his book, or his boots or whatever he happened to be looking at. They seemed to be holding their eyes away from the prisoner by main force; but they felt his figure in the dock, and they felt it as gigantic. Tall as Bruno was to the eye, he seemed to swell taller and taller when an eyes had been torn away from him.
Cowdray was resuming his seat with his solemn face, smoothing his black silk robes, and white silk whiskers. Sir Wilson was leaving the witness-box, after a few final particulars to which there were many other witnesses, when the counsel for the defence sprang up and stopped him.
โI shall only detain you a moment,โ said Mr Butler, who was a rustic-looking person with red eyebrows and an expression of partial slumber. โWill you tell his lordship how you knew it was a man?โ
A faint, refined smile seemed to pass over Seymourโs features. โIโm afraid it is the vulgar test of trousers,โ he said. โWhen I saw daylight between the long legs I was sure it was a man, after all.โ
Butlerโs sleepy eyes opened as suddenly as some silent explosion. โAfter all!โ he repeated slowly. โSo you did think at first it was a woman?โ
Seymour looked troubled for the first time. โIt is hardly a point of fact,โ he said, โbut if his lordship would like me to answer for my impression, of course I shall do so. There was something about the thing that was not exactly a woman and yet was not quite a man; somehow the curves were different. And it had something that looked like long hair.โ
โThank you,โ said Mr Butler, K.C., and sat down suddenly, as if he had got what he wanted.
Captain Cutler was a far less plausible and composed witness than Sir Wilson, but his account of the opening incidents was solidly the same. He described the return of Bruno to his dressing-room, the dispatching of himself to buy a bunch of lilies-of-the-valley, his return to the upper end of the passage, the thing he saw in the passage, his suspicion of Seymour, and his struggle with Bruno. But he could give little artistic assistance about the black figure that he and Seymour had seen. Asked about its outline, he said he was no art criticโwith a somewhat too obvious sneer at Seymour. Asked if it was a man or a woman, he said it looked more like a beastโwith a too obvious snarl at the prisoner. But the man was plainly shaken with sorrow and sincere anger, and Cowdray quickly excused him from confirming facts that were already fairly clear.
The defending counsel also was again brief in his cross-examination; although (as was his custom) even in being brief, he seemed to take a long time about it. โYou used a rather remarkable expression,โ he said, looking at Cutler sleepily. โWhat do you mean by saying that it looked more like a beast than a man or a woman?โ
Cutler seemed seriously agitated. โPerhaps I oughtnโt to have said that,โ he said; โbut when the brute has huge humped shoulders like a chimpanzee, and bristles sticking out of its head like a pigโโ
Mr Butler cut short his curious impatience in the middle. โNever mind whether its hair was like a pigโs,โ he said, โwas it like a womanโs?โ
โA womanโs!โ cried the soldier. โGreat Scott, no!โ
โThe last witness said it was,โ commented the counsel, with unscrupulous swiftness. โAnd did the figure have any of those serpentine and semi-feminine curves to which eloquent allusion has been made? No? No feminine curves? The figure, if I understand you, was rather heavy and square than otherwise?โ
โHe may have been bending forward,โ said Cutler, in a hoarse and rather faint voice.
โOr again, he may not,โ said Mr Butler, and sat down suddenly for the second time.
The third, witness called by Sir Walter Cowdray was the little Catholic clergyman, so little, compared with the others, that his head seemed hardly to come above the box, so that it was like cross-examining a child. But unfortunately Sir Walter had somehow got it into his head (mostly by some ramifications of his familyโs religion) that Father Brown was on the side of the prisoner, because the prisoner was wicked and foreign and even partly black. Therefore he took Father Brown up sharply whenever that proud pontiff tried to explain anything; and told him to answer yes or no, and tell the plain facts without any jesuitry. When Father Brown began, in his simplicity, to say who he thought the man in the passage was, the barrister told him that he did not want his theories.
โA black shape was seen in the passage. And you say you saw the black shape. Well, what shape was it?โ
Father Brown blinked as under rebuke; but he had long known the literal nature of obedience. โThe shape,โ he said, โwas short and thick, but had two sharp, black projections curved upwards on each side of the head or top, rather like horns, andโโ
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