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that have happened since; and you shall judge which of us is right.
The first happened in an Indian village on the edge of the jungle, but
hundreds of miles from the temple, or town, or type of tribes and customs
where the curse had been put on me. I woke in black midnight, and lay thinking
of nothing in particular, when I felt a faint tickling thing, like a thread or
a hair, trailed across my throat. I shrank back out of its way, and could not
help thinking of the words in the temple. But when I got up and sought lights
and a mirror, the line across my neck was a line of blood.
The second happened in a lodging in Port Said, later, on our journey home
together. It was a jumble of tavern and curiosity-shop; and though there was
nothing there remotely suggesting the cult of the Monkey, it is, of course,
possible that some of its images or talismans were in such a place. Its curse
was there, anyhow. I woke again in the dark with a sensation that could not be
put in colder or more literal words than that a breath bit like an adder.
Existence was an agony of extinction; I dashed my head against walls until I
dashed it against a window; and fell rather than jumped into the garden below.
Putnam, poor fellow, who had called the other thing a chance scratch, was
bound to take seriously the fact of finding me half insensible on the grass at
dawn. But I fear it was my mental state he took seriously; and not my story.
The third happened in Malta. We were in a fortress there; and as it happened
our bedrooms overlooked the open sea, which almost came up to our windowsills,
save for a flat white outer wall as bare as the sea. I woke up again; but it
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was not dark. There was a full moon, as I walked to the window; I could have
seen a bird on the bare battlement, or a sail on the horizon. What I did see
was a sort of stick or branch circling, self-supported, in the empty sky. It
flew straight in at my window and smashed the lamp beside the pillow I had
just quitted. It was one of those queer-shaped war-clubs some Eastern tribes
use. But it had come from no human hand.
Father Brown threw away a daisy chain he was making, and rose with a wistful
look. Has Major Putnam, he asked, got any Eastern curios, idols, weapons
and so on, from which one might get a hint?
Plenty of those, though not much use, I fear, replied Cray; but by all
means come into his study.
As they entered they passed Miss Watson buttoning her gloves for church, and
heard the voice of Putnam downstairs still giving a lecture on cookery to the
cook. In the Major s study and den of curios they came suddenly on a third
party, silk-hatted and dressed for the street, who was poring over an open
book on the smoking-table a book which he dropped rather guiltily, and turned.
Cray introduced him civilly enough, as Dr. Oman, but he showed such disfavor
in his very face that Brown guessed the two men, whether Audrey knew it or
not, were rivals. Nor was the priest wholly unsympathetic with the prejudice.
Dr. Oman was a very well dressed gentleman indeed; well featured, though
almost dark enough for an Asiatic. But Father Brown had to tell himself
sharply that one should be in charity even with those who wax their pointed
beards, who have small gloved hands, and who speak with perfectly modulated
voices.
Cray seemed to find something especially irritating in the small prayer book
in Oman s dark-gloved hand. I didn t know that was in your line, he said
rather rudely.
Oman laughed mildly, but without offence. This is more so, I know, he said,
laying his hand on the big book he had dropped, a dictionary of drugs and
such things. But it s rather too large to take to church. Then he closed the
larger book, and there seemed again the faintest touch of hurry and
embarrassment.
I suppose, said the priest, who seemed anxious to change the subject, all
these spears and things are from India?
From everywhere, answered the doctor. Putnam is an old soldier, and has
been in Mexico and Australia, and the Cannibal Islands for all I know.
I hope it was not in the Cannibal Islands, said Brown, that he learnt the
art of cookery. And he ran his eyes over the stew-pots or other strange
utensils on the wall.
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