The impatient Simon sank into a chair by the door and said briefly: "The head and shoulders were cut about in a queer way. It seemed to be done after death."
"Yes, " said the motionless priest, "it was done so as to make you assume exactly the one simple falsehood that you did assume. It was done to make you take for granted that the head belonged to the body."
The borderland of the brain, where all the monsters are made, moved horribly in the Gaelic O' Brien. He felt the chaotic presence of all the horse-men and fish-women that man' s unnatural fancy has begotten. A voice older than his first fathers seemed saying in his ear: "Keep out of the monstrous garden where grows the tree with double fruit. Avoid the evil garden where died the man with two heads." Yet, while these shameful symbolic shapes passed across the ancient mirror of his Irish soul, his Frenchified intellect was quite alert, and was watching the odd priest as closely and incredulously as all the rest.
Father Brown had turned round at last, and stood against the window, with his face in dense shadow; but even in that shadow they could see it was pale as ashes. Nevertheless, he spoke quite sensibly, as if there were no Gaelic souls on earth.
"Gentlemen, " he said, "you did not find the strange body of Becker in the garden. You did not find any strange body in the garden. In face of Dr. Simon' s rationalism, I still affirm that Becker was only partly present. Look here!" (pointing to the black bulk of the mysterious corpse) "you never saw that man in your lives. Did you ever see this man? "
He rapidly rolled away the bald, yellow head of the unknown, and put in its place the white-maned head beside it. And there, complete, unified, unmistakable, lay Julius K. Brayne.
"The murderer, " went on Brown quietly, "hacked off his enemy' s head and flung the sword far over the wall. But he was too clever to fling the sword only. He flung the head over the wall also. Then he had only to clap on another head to the corpse, and (as he insisted on a private inquest) you all imagined a totally new man."
"Clap on another head!" said O' Brien staring. "What other head? Heads don' t grow on garden bushes, do they? "
"No, " said Father Brown huskily, and looking at his boots; "there is only one place where they grow. They grow in the basket of the guillotine, beside which the chief of police, Aristide Valentin, was standing not an hour before the murder. Oh, my friends, hear me a minute more before you tear me in pieces. Valentin is an honest man, if being mad for an arguable cause is honesty. But did you never see in that cold, grey eye of his that he is mad! He would do anything, anything, to break what he calls the superstition of the Cross. He has fought for it and starved for it, and now he has murdered for it. Brayne' s crazy millions had hitherto been scattered among so many sects that they did little to alter the balance of things. But Valentin heard a whisper that Brayne, like so many scatter-brained sceptics, was drifting to us; and that was quite a different thing. Brayne would pour supplies into the impoverished and pugnacious Church of France; he would support six Nationalist newspapers like The Guillotine. The battle was already balanced on a point, and the fanatic took flame at the risk. He resolved to destroy the millionaire, and he did it as one would expect the greatest of detectives to commit his only crime. He abstracted the severed head of Becker on some criminological excuse, and took it home in his official box. He had that last argument with Brayne, that Lord Galloway did not hear the end of; that failing, he led him out into the sealed garden, talked about swordsmanship, used twigs and a sabre for illustration, and— "
Ivan of the Scar sprang up. "You lunatic, " he yelled; "you' ll go to my master now, if I take you by— "
"Why, I was going there, " said Brown heavily; "I must ask him to confess, and all that."
Driving the unhappy Brown before them like a hostage or sacrifice, they rushed together into the sudden stillness of Valentin' s study.
The great detective sat at his desk apparently too occupied to hear their turbulent entrance. They paused a moment, and then something in the look of that upright and elegant back made the doctor run forward suddenly. A touch and a glance showed him that there was a small box of pills at Valentin' s elbow, and that Valentin was dead in his chair; and on the blind face of the suicide was more than the pride of Cato.
巴黎警察局局长阿尔斯蒂德·瓦伦丁举办了一场晚宴，他宴请的宾客都已纷纷到来，他本人却一直没有出现。他的亲信伊万再三保证，局长一定会如约而至。伊万是一个面带伤疤，脸色像胡须那样苍白的老头。他总是坐在大厅入口处的桌子旁，大厅里则挂满了各种枪支。瓦伦丁局长的住所就像他本人一样，不仅与众不同，而且闻名遐迩。这是一座老式建筑，尽管院墙很高，但是，那些高大挺拔的白杨树还是几乎将枝叶伸到了塞纳河畔。这座房子的建筑结构极为奇特——这可能是源于警察的审美标准——这里除了正门以外，别无其他出口，而正门则由伊万和一个门卫严加看守。花园不仅宽敞，而且装饰精美，房间里的各个出口均可通向花园，花园同外界之间却没有任何通道相连。花园四周用高大、光滑且难以攀登的院墙围起来，院墙上面还插满了特制的长钉。对于一个有上百个罪犯发誓要对他进行报复的警察来说，这无疑是个绝佳的设计。
伊万向各位宾客解释，局长打电话说要晚到十来分钟。局长正在对执行死刑及其他相关事情作最后的部署，尽管他对这些任务厌恶透顶，但是他对待工作仍然十分细心。追击罪犯的工作是十分残酷的，他则尽量温和地处理这些刑罚。他在法国乃至欧洲很多国家的警务界都享有至高的权威，因此，他对减刑和净化监狱环境方面的工作有着深远的影响。他也是法国人道主义自由思想家之一，这类人的唯一错误就是把仁慈弄得像审判一样冷酷无情。
瓦伦丁局长终于来了。姗姗来迟的他身穿黑色晚礼服，佩戴玫瑰形胸针，风度翩翩，他那黝黑的胡须已经略带灰色。他径直穿过房间，走向书房，书房通向后面的花园。花园的门是开着的，他小心翼翼地把公文箱锁在了固定的地点，又在门口停留了几秒钟，朝花园望了望。一轮新月在被风暴卷起的破纸碎片中时隐时现，对于一向理性严谨的瓦伦丁来说，闪过这样的念头实在是不同寻常，或许他本能地对一些性命攸关的大事有某种预感。瓦伦丁很快回过神来，因为他知道自己已经迟到了，宾客们早已等候多时了。