The Incredulity of Father Brown
without a hearing or a public trial, and said he had only got his deserts. Very well then, if Daniel Doom has got his deserts, Brander Merton has got his deserts. If that was good enough for Doom, by all that is holy it is good enough for Merton. Take your wild justice or our dull legality; but in the name of Almighty God, let there be an equal lawlessness or an equal law."
Nobody answered except the lawyer, and he answered with something like a snarl.
"What will the police say if they tell them we mean to condone a crime?"
"What will they say if I tell them you did condone it?" replied Father Brown. "Your respect for the law comes rather late, Mr. Barnard Blake."
After a pause he resumed in a milder tone: "I, for one, am ready to tell the truth if the proper authorities ask me; and the rest of you can do as you like. But as a fact, it will make very little difference. Wilton only rang me up to tell me that I was now free to lay his confession before you; for when you heard it, he would be beyond pursuit."
He walked slowly into the inner room and stood there by the little table beside which the millionaire had died. The Coptic Cup still stood in the same place, and he remained there for a space staring at its cluster of all the colours of the rainbow, and beyond it into a blue abyss of sky.
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