“Anything else?” jeered the gentleman with feverish eyes. “And what do you say to the two thousand people who have come to see it?”
“I say there will be one thousand nine-hundred and ninety-nine of them left alive when they have seen it,” said Father Brown.
Lord Pooley looked at Flambeau. “Is your friend mad?” he asked.
“Far from it,” was the reply.
“And look here,” resumed Pooley in his restless way, “it’s worse than that. A whole pack of Italians have turned up to back Malvoli—swarthy, savage fellows of some country, anyhow. You know what these Mediterranean races are like. If I send out word that it’s off we shall have Malvoli storming in here at the head of a whole Corsican clan.”
“My lord, it is a matter of life and death,” said the priest. “Ring your bell. Give your message. And see whether it is Malvoli who answers.”
The nobleman struck the bell on the table with an odd air of new curiosity. He said to the clerk who appeared almost instantly in the doorway: “I have a serious announcement to make to the audience shortly. Meanwhile, would you kindly tell the two champions that the fight will have to be put off.”
The clerk stared for some seconds as if at a demon and vanished.
“What authority have you for what you say?” asked Lord Pooley abruptly. “Whom did you consult?”
“I consulted a bandstand,” said Father Brown, scratching his head. “But, no, I’m wrong; I consulted a book, too. I picked it up on a bookstall in London—very cheap, too.”
He had taken out of his pocket a small, stout, leather-bound volume, and Flambeau, looking over his shoulder, could see that it was some book of old travels, and had a leaf turned down for reference.
“ ‘The only form in which Voodoo—’ ” began Father Brown, reading aloud.
“In which what?” inquired his lordship.
“ ‘In which Voodoo,’ ” repeated the reader, almost with relish, “ ‘is widely organized outside Jamaica itself is in the form known as the Monkey, or the God of the Gongs, which is powerful in many parts of the two American continents, especially among half-breeds, many of whom look exactly like white men. It differs from most other forms of devil-worship and human sacrifice in the fact that the blood is not shed formally on the altar, but by a sort of assassination among the crowd. The gongs beat with a deafening din as the doors of the shrine open and the monkey-god is revealed; almost the whole congregation rivet ecstatic eyes on him. But after—’ ”
The door of the room was flung open, and the fashionable negro stood framed in it, his eyeballs rolling, his silk hat still insolently tilted on his head. “Huh!” he cried, showing his apish teeth. “What this? Huh! Huh! You steal a coloured gentleman’s prize—prize his already—yo’ think yo’ jes’ save that white ’Talian trash—”
“The matter is only deferred,” said the nobleman quietly. “I will be with you to explain in a minute or two.”
“Who you to—” shouted Nigger Ned, beginning to storm.
“My name is Pooley,” replied the other, with a creditable coolness. “I am the organizing secretary, and I advise you just now to leave the room.”
“Who this fellow?” demanded the dark champion, pointing to the priest disdainfully.
“My name is Brown,” was the reply. “And I advise you just now to leave the country.”
The prizefighter stood glaring for a few seconds, and then, rather to the surprise of Flambeau and the others, strode out, sending the door to with a crash behind him.
“Well,” asked Father Brown rubbing his dusty hair up, “what do you think of Leonardo da Vinci? A beautiful Italian head.”
“Look here,” said Lord Pooley, “I’ve taken a considerable responsibility, on your bare word. I think you ought to tell me more about this.”
“You are quite right, my lord,” answered Brown. “And it won’t take long to tell.” He put the little leather book in his overcoat pocket. “I think we know all that this can tell us, but you shall look at it to see if I’m right. That negro who has just swaggered out is one of the most dangerous men on earth, for he has the brains of a European, with the instincts of a cannibal. He has turned what was clean, commonsense butchery among his fellow-barbarians into a very modern and scientific secret society of assassins. He doesn’t know I know it, nor, for the matter of that, that I can’t prove it.”
There was a silence, and the little man went on.
“But if I want to murder somebody, will it really be the best plan to make sure I’m alone with him?”
Lord Pooley’s eyes recovered their frosty twinkle as he looked at the little clergyman. He only said: “If you want to murder somebody, I should advise it.”
Father Brown shook his head, like a murderer of much riper experience. “So Flambeau said,” he replied, with a sigh. “But consider. The more a man feels lonely the less he can be sure he is alone. It must mean empty spaces round him, and they are just what make him obvious. Have you never seen one ploughman from the heights, or one shepherd from the valleys? Have you never walked along a cliff, and seen one man walking along the sands? Didn’t you know when he’s killed a crab, and wouldn’t you have known if it had been a creditor? No! No! No! For an intelligent murderer, such as you or I might be, it is an impossible plan to make sure that nobody is looking at you.”
“But what other plan is there?”
“There is only one,” said the priest. “To make sure that everybody is looking at something else. A man is throttled close by the big stand at Epsom. Anybody might have seen it done while the stand stood empty—any tramp under the hedges
