第17章 THREE The Duel of Dr Hirsch(4)

I don't mean they behaved well; I mean they behaved as if they were sure.

I can't describe these things; I know what I mean."

"I wish I did," said his friend. "And what has it to do with old Hirsch?"

"Suppose a person in a position of trust," went on the priest, "began to give the enemy information because it was false information.

Suppose he even thought he was saving his country by misleading the foreigner.

Suppose this brought him into spy circles, and little loans were made to him, and little ties tied on to him. Suppose he kept up his contradictory position in a confused way by never telling the foreign spies the truth, but letting it more and more be guessed. The better part of him (what was left of it) would still say: `I have not helped the enemy;I said it was the left drawer.' The meaner part of him would already be saying: `But they may have the sense to see that means the right.'

I think it is psychologically possible--in an enlightened age, you know."

"It may be psychologically possible," answered Flambeau, "and it certainly would explain Dreyfus being certain he was wronged and his judges being sure he was guilty. But it won't wash historically, because Dreyfus's document (if it was his document) was literally correct."

"I wasn't thinking of Dreyfus," said Father Brown.

Silence had sunk around them with the emptying of the tables; it was already late, though the sunlight still clung to everything, as if accidentally entangled in the trees. In the stillness Flambeau shifted his seat sharply--making an isolated and echoing noise-- and threw his elbow over the angle of it. "Well," he said, rather harshly, "if Hirsch is not better than a timid treason-monger..."

"You mustn't be too hard on them," said Father Brown gently.

"It's not entirely their fault; but they have no instincts.

I mean those things that make a woman refuse to dance with a man or a man to touch an investment. They've been taught that it's all a matter of degree."

"Anyhow," cried Flambeau impatiently, "he's not a patch on my principal; and I shall go through with it. Old Dubosc may be a bit mad, but he's a sort of patriot after all."

Father Brown continued to consume whitebait.

Something in the stolid way he did so caused Flambeau's fierce black eyes to ramble over his companion afresh. "What's the matter with you?" Flambeau demanded. "Dubosc's all right in that way.

You don't doubt him?"

"My friend," said the small priest, laying down his knife and fork in a kind of cold despair, "I doubt everything. Everything, I mean, that has happened today. I doubt the whole story, though it has been acted before my face. I doubt every sight that my eyes have seen since morning. There is something in this business quite different from the ordinary police mystery where one man is more or less lying and the other man more or less telling the truth. Here both men....

Well! I've told you the only theory I can think of that could satisfy anybody. It doesn't satisfy me."

"Nor me either," replied Flambeau frowning, while the other went on eating fish with an air of entire resignation. "If all you can suggest is that notion of a message conveyed by contraries, I call it uncommonly clever, but...well, what would you call it?"

"I should call it thin," said the priest promptly.

"I should call it uncommonly thin. But that's the queer thing about the whole business. The lie is like a schoolboy's.

There are only three versions, Dubosc's and Hirsch's and that fancy of mine.

Either that note was written by a French officer to ruin a French official; or it was written by the French official to help German officers; or it was written by the French official to mislead German officers.

Very well. You'd expect a secret paper passing between such people, officials or officers, to look quite different from that.

You'd expect, probably a cipher, certainly abbreviations; most certainly scientific and strictly professional terms.

But this thing's elaborately simple, like a penny dreadful:

`In the purple grotto you will find the golden casket.' It looks as if... as if it were meant to be seen through at once."

Almost before they could take it in a short figure in French uniform had walked up to their table like the wind, and sat down with a sort of thump.

"I have extraordinary news," said the Duc de Valognes.

"I have just come from this Colonel of ours. He is packing up to leave the country, and he asks us to make his excuses sur le terrain."

"What?" cried Flambeau, with an incredulity quite frightful--"apologize?"

"Yes," said the Duke gruffly; "then and there--before everybody-- when the swords are drawn. And you and I have to do it while he is leaving the country."

"But what can this mean?" cried Flambeau. "He can't be afraid of that little Hirsch! Confound it!" he cried, in a kind of rational rage;"nobody could be afraid of Hirsch!"

"I believe it's some plot!" snapped Valognes--"some plot of the Jews and Freemasons. It's meant to work up glory for Hirsch..."

The face of Father Brown was commonplace, but curiously contented; it could shine with ignorance as well as with knowledge.

But there was always one flash when the foolish mask fell, and the wise mask fitted itself in its place; and Flambeau, who knew his friend, knew that his friend had suddenly understood.

Brown said nothing, but finished his plate of fish.

"Where did you last see our precious Colonel?" asked Flambeau, irritably.

"He's round at the Hotel Saint Louis by the Elysee, where we drove with him. He's packing up, I tell you."

"Will he be there still, do you think?" asked Flambeau, frowning at the table.

"I don't think he can get away yet," replied the Duke;"he's packing to go a long journey..."

"No," said Father Brown, quite simply, but suddenly standing up, "for a very short journey. For one of the shortest, in fact.

But we may still be in time to catch him if we go there in a motor-cab."