The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [598]
There lay on it something more than the horror of darkness, the horror of sunlight; for the fitful sun painted tree and man in gay colours like a stage property; the tree was in flower and the corpse was hung with a faded peacock - green dressing - gown, and wore on its wagging head a scarlet smoking - cap. Also it had red bedroom - slippers, one of which had fallen off and lay on the grass like a blot of blood.
But neither Flambeau or Father Brown was looking at these things as yet. They were both staring at a strange object that seemed to stick out of the middle of the dead man's shrunken figure; and which they gradually perceived to be the black but rather rusty iron hilt of a seventeenth - century sword, which had completely transfixed the body. They both remained almost motionless as they gazed at it; until the restless Dr Flood seemed to grow quite impatient with their stolidity.
'What puzzles me most,' he said, nervously snapping his fingers, 'is the actual state of the body. And yet it has given me an idea already.'
Flambeau had stepped up to the tree and was studying the sword - hilt through an eye - glass. But for some odd reason, it was at that very instant that the priest in sheer perversity spun round like a teetotum, turned his back on the corpse, and looked peeringly in the very opposite direction. He was just in time to see the red head of Mrs Flood at the remote end of the garden, turned towards a dark young man, too dim with distance to be identified, who was at that moment mounting a motor - bicycle; who vanished, leaving behind him only the dying din of that vehicle. Then the woman turned and began to walk towards them across the garden, just as Father Brown turned also and began a careful inspection of the sword - hilt and the hanging corpse.
'I understand you only found him about half an hour ago,' said Flambeau. 'Was there anybody about here just before that? I mean anybody in his bedroom, or that part of the house, or this part of the garden - say for an hour beforehand?'
'No,' said the doctor with precision. 'That is the very tragic accident. My sister - in - law was in the pantry, which is a sort of out - house on the other side; this man Dunn was in the kitchen - garden, which is also in that direction; and I myself was poking about among the books, in a room just behind the one you found me in. There are two female servants, but one had gone to the post and the other was in the attic.'
'And were any of these people,' asked Flambeau, very quietly, 'I say any of these people, at all on bad terms with the poor old gentleman?'
'He was the object of almost universal affection,' replied the doctor solemnly. 'If there were any misunderstandings, they were mild and of a sort common in modern times. The old man was attached to the old religious habits; and perhaps his daughter and son - in - law had rather wider views. All that can have had nothing to do with a ghastly and fantastic assassination like this.'
'It depends on how wide the modern views were,' said Father Brown, 'or how narrow.'
At this moment they heard Mrs Flood hallooing across the garden as she came, and calling her brother - in - law to her with a certain impatience. He hurried towards her and was soon out of earshot; but as he went he waved his hand apologetically and then pointed with a long finger to the ground.
'You will find the footprints very intriguing,' he said; with the same strange air, as of a funereal showman.
The two amateur detectives looked across at each other. 'I find several other things intriguing,' said Flambeau.
'Oh, yes,' said the priest, staring rather foolishly at the grass.
'I was