The Complete Father Brown Mysteries [Annotated, With Introduction, Rare Additional Material] by G.K. Chesterton

intelligent and even distinguished
lineaments, but a sallow and almost alien complexion. This showed the more
plainly because he wore an aggressive red tie, the only part of his costume of
which he seemed to take any care. Perhaps it was a symbol. He took no notice of
the girl’s alarmed adjuration, but leapt like a grasshopper to the ground
beside her, where he might very well have broken his legs.
    “ I
think I was meant to be a burglar,” he said placidly, “and I have no doubt I should
have been if I hadn’t happened to be born in that nice house next door. I can’t
see any harm in it, anyhow.”
    “ How
can you say such things!” she remonstrated.
    “ Well,”
said the young man, “if you’re born on the wrong side of the wall, I can’t see that
it’s wrong to climb over it.”
    “ I
never know what you will say or do next,” she said.
    “ I
don’t often know myself,” replied Mr. Crook; “but then I am on the right side of
the wall now.”
    “ And
which is the right side of the wall?” asked the young lady, smiling.
    “ Whichever
side you are on,” said the young man named Crook.
    As
they went together through the laurels towards the front garden a motor horn sounded
thrice, coming nearer and nearer, and a car of splendid speed, great elegance,
and a pale green colour swept up to the front doors like a bird and stood
throbbing.
    “ Hullo,
hullo!” said the young man with the red tie, “here’s somebody born on the right
side, anyhow. I didn’t know, Miss Adams, that your Santa Claus was so modern as
this.”
    “ Oh,
that’s my godfather, Sir Leopold Fischer. He always comes on Boxing Day.”
    Then,
after an innocent pause, which unconsciously betrayed some lack of enthusiasm, Ruby
Adams added:
    “ He
is very kind.”
    John
Crook, journalist, had heard of that eminent City magnate; and it was not his fault
if the City magnate had not heard of him; for in certain articles in The Clarion
or The New Age Sir Leopold had been dealt with austerely. But he said nothing
and grimly watched the unloading of the motor-car, which was rather a long
process. A large, neat chauffeur in green got out from the front, and a small,
neat manservant in grey got out from the back, and between them they deposited
Sir Leopold on the doorstep and began to unpack him, like some very carefully
protected parcel. Rugs enough to stock a bazaar, furs of all the beasts of the
forest, and scarves of all the colours of the rainbow were unwrapped one by
one, till they revealed something resembling the human form; the form of a
friendly, but foreign-looking old gentleman, with a grey goat-like beard and a
beaming smile, who rubbed his big fur gloves together.
    Long
before this revelation was complete the two big doors of the porch had opened in
the middle, and Colonel Adams (father of the furry young lady) had come out himself
to invite his eminent guest inside. He was a tall, sunburnt, and very silent
man, who wore a red smoking-cap like a fez, making him look like one of the
English Sirdars or Pashas in Egypt. With him was his brother-in-law, lately come
from Canada, a big and rather boisterous young gentleman-farmer, with a yellow
beard, by name James Blount. With him also was the more insignificant figure of
the priest from the neighbouring Roman Church; for the colonel’s late wife had
been a Catholic, and the children, as is common in such cases, had been trained
to follow her. Everything seemed undistinguished about the priest, even down to
his name, which was Brown; yet the colonel had always found something
companionable about him, and frequently asked him to such family gatherings.
    In
the large entrance hall of the house there was ample room even for Sir Leopold and
the removal of his wraps. Porch and vestibule, indeed, were unduly large in proportion
to the house, and formed, as it were, a big room with the front door at one
end, and the bottom of the staircase at the other. In front of the large hall
fire, over