“I still don’t quite see how he was used,” said Byrne, “or what was the good of it.”
“Don’t you see,” cried Father Brown sharply, “that they gave each other an alibi?”
Byrne still looked at him a little doubtfully, though understanding was dawning on his face.
“That’s what I mean,” continued the other, “when I say they were in it because they were out of it. Most people would say they must be out of the other two crimes, because they were in this one. As a fact, they were in the other two because they were out of this one; because this one never happened at all. A very queer, improbable sort of alibi, of course; improbable and therefore impenetrable. Most people would say a man who confesses a murder must be sincere; a man who forgives his murderer must be sincere. Nobody would think of the notion that the thing never happened, so that one man had nothing to forgive and the other nothing to fear. They were fixed here for that night by a story against themselves. But they were not here that night; for Horne was murdering old Gallup in the wood while Wise was strangling that little Jew in his Roman bath. That’s why I ask whether Wise was really strong enough for the climbing adventure.”
“It was quite a good adventure,” said Byrne regretfully. “It fitted into the landscape, and was really very convincing.”
“Too convincing to convince,” said Father Brown, shaking his head. “How very vivid was that moonlit foam flung up and turning to a ghost. And how very literary! Horne is a sneak and a skunk, but do not forget that, like many other sneaks and skunks in history, he is also a poet.”
Colophon
The Incredulity of Father Brown
was published in 1926 by
G. K. Chesterton.
This ebook was produced for
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Barbara Watson, Mary Meehan, Mark Akrigg,
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The cover page is adapted from
L’église de Marissel, près de Beauvais,
a painting completed in 1866 by
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.
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