"Just hand over that sapphire cross of yours, will you? We're all alone here, and I could pull you to pieces like a straw doll."The utterly unaltered voice and attitude added a strange violence to that shocking change of speech. But the guarder of the relic only seemed to turn his head by the smallest section of the compass. He seemed still to have a somewhat foolish face turned to the stars. Perhaps he had not understood. Or, perhaps, he had understood and sat rigid with terror.
"Yes," said the tall priest, in the same low voice and in the same still posture, "yes, I am Flambeau."Then, after a pause, he said:
"Come, will you give me that cross?"
"No," said the other, and the monosyllable had an odd sound.
Flambeau suddenly flung off all his pontifical pretensions.
The great robber leaned back in his seat and laughed low but long.
"No," he cried, "you won't give it me, you proud prelate. You won't give it me, you little celibate simpleton. Shall I tell you why you won't give it me? Because I've got it already in my own breast-pocket."The small man from Essex turned what seemed to be a dazed face in the dusk, and said, with the timid eagerness of "The Private Secretary":
"Are--are you sure?"
Flambeau yelled with delight.
"Really, you're as good as a three-act farce," he cried.
"Yes, you turnip, I am quite sure. I had the sense to make a duplicate of the right parcel, and now, my friend, you've got the duplicate and I've got the jewels. An old dodge, Father Brown--a very old dodge."
"Yes," said Father Brown, and passed his hand through his hair with the same strange vagueness of manner. "Yes, I've heard of it before."The colossus of crime leaned over to the little rustic priest with a sort of sudden interest.
"You have heard of it?" he asked. "Where have you heard of it?""Well, I mustn't tell you his name, of course," said the little man simply. "He was a penitent, you know. He had lived prosperously for about twenty years entirely on duplicate brown paper parcels. And so, you see, when I began to suspect you, Ithought of this poor chap's way of doing it at once.""Began to suspect me?" repeated the outlaw with increased intensity. "Did you really have the gumption to suspect me just because I brought you up to this bare part of the heath?""No, no," said Brown with an air of apology. "You see, Isuspected you when we first met. It's that little bulge up the sleeve where you people have the spiked bracelet.""How in Tartarus," cried Flambeau, "did you ever hear of the spiked bracelet?""Oh, one's little flock, you know!" said Father Brown, arching his eyebrows rather blankly. "When I was a curate in Hartlepool, there were three of them with spiked bracelets. So, as Isuspected you from the first, don't you see, I made sure that the cross should go safe, anyhow. I'm afraid I watched you, you know.
So at last I saw you change the parcels. Then, don't you see, Ichanged them back again. And then I left the right one behind.""Left it behind?" repeated Flambeau, and for the first time there was another note in his voice beside his triumph.
