But Valentin (under the steady, humble gaze of the priest) had already recovered himself. "Well, " he said shortly, "people's private opinions can wait. You gentlemen are still bound by your promise to stay; you must enforce it on yourselves — and on each other. Ivan here will tell you anything more you want to know; I must get to business and write to the authorities. We can' t keep this quiet any longer. I shall be writing in my study if there is any more news."
"Is there any more news, Ivan? " asked Dr. Simon, as the chief of police strode out of the room.
"Only one more thing, I think, sir, " said Ivan, wrinkling up his grey old face, "but that' s important, too, in its way. There' s that old buffer you found on the lawn, " and he pointed without pretence of reverence at the big black body with the yellow head. "We' ve found out who he is, anyhow."
"Indeed!" cried the astonished doctor, "and who is he? "
"His name was Arnold Becker, " said the under-detective, "though he went by many aliases. He was a wandering sort of scamp, and is known to have been in America; so that was where Brayne got his knife into him. We didn' t have much to do with him ourselves, for he worked mostly in Germany. We've communicated, of course, with the German police. But, oddly enough, there was a twin brother of his, named Louis Becker, whom we had a great deal to do with. In fact, we found it necessary to guillotine him only yesterday. Well, it' s a rum thing, gentlemen, but when I saw that fellow flat on the lawn I had the greatest jump of my life. If I hadn' t seen Louis Becker guillotined with my own eyes, I' d have sworn it was Louis Becker lying there in the grass. Then, of course, I remembered his twin brother in Germany, and following up the clue..."
The explanatory Ivan stopped, for the excellent reason that nobody was listening to him. The Commandant and the doctor were both staring at Father Brown, who had sprung stiffly to his feet, and was holding his temples tight like a man in sudden and violent pain.