The Incredulity of Father Brown
there really is, in one sense, a conspiracy; though the conspiracy should only consist of one man."
"Of one man?" repeated Father Brown almost mechanically.
"Of one madman, for all I know," said Professor Smaill. "It's a long story and in some ways a silly one."
He paused again, tracing plans like architectural drawings with his finger on the cloth, and then resumed:
"Perhaps I had better tell you about it from the beginning, in case you see some little point in the story that is meaningless to me. It began years and years ago, when I was conducting some investigations on my own account in the antiquities of Crete and the Greek islands. I did a great deal of it practically single-handed; sometimes with the most rude and temporary help from the inhabitants of the place, and sometimes literally alone. It was under the latter circumstances that I found a maze of subterranean passages which led at last to a heap of rich refuse, broken ornaments and scattered gems which I took to be the ruins of some sunken altar, and in which I found the curious gold cross. I turned it over, and on the back of it I saw the Ichthus or fish, which was an early Christian symbol, but of a shape and pattern rather different from that commonly found; and, as it seemed to me, more realistic-more as if the archaic designer had meant
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