These, we presume, indicated the nature of the
papers which had been destroyed by Colonel Openshaw.
"For an instant I imagined that Bannister had taken the unpardonable liberty of examining my
papers. He denied it, however, with the utmost earnestness, and I am convinced that he was speaking the truth.
'Wretch that you are,' she answered, and now her hands clasped her head: 'through what fatal error of Flintwinch's, through what incompleteness on his part, who was the only other person helping in these things and trusted with them, through whose and what bringing together of the ashes of a burnt
paper, you have become possessed of that codicil, I know no more than how you acquired the rest of your power here--'
Father Brown read the words three times before he put down the
paper. The words were: "I die by my own hand; yet I die murdered!" They were in the quite inimitable, not to say illegible, handwriting of Leonard Quinton.
On the bed, and on a movable table which was attached to it, we found books and writing materials, and a
paper containing some unfinished verses in manuscript, afterward identified as being in the handwriting of the deceased.
Stepan Arkadyevitch took in and read a liberal
paper, not an extreme one, but one advocating the views held by the majority.
"And here," said the Ingenious Patriot, pulling another
paper from another pocket, "are the working plans of a gun that I have invented, which will pierce that armour.
(It seemed improbable.) One thing, however, was certain: I was missed, and the Batterburys were naturally anxious about me--anxious enough to advertise in the public
papers.
The bill of fare is as follows: First, under a pica headline, to enforce attention and respect, is a four-line sermon urging mankind to remember that, although they are pilgrims here below, they are yet heirs of heaven; and that "When they depart from earth they soar to heaven." Perhaps a four-line sermon in a Saturday
paper is the sufficient German equivalent of the eight or ten columns of sermons which the New-Yorkers get in their Monday morning
papers.
"And as you've heard a good deal mentioned regarding a celebrated Chancery will case of the same name, and as you know what a card Krook was for buying all manner of old pieces of furniter, and books, and
papers, and what not, and never liking to part with 'em, and always a-going to teach himself to read, you begin to think-- and you never was more correct in your born days--'Ecod, if I don't look about me, I may get into trouble regarding this will.'"
But why should
papers of political import be intrusted to Van Baerle, who not only was, but also boasted of being, an entire stranger to the science of government, which, in his opinion, was more occult than alchemy itself?
The morning
papers on Saturday contained, in addition to lengthy special articles on the planet Mars, on life in the planets, and so forth, a brief and vaguely worded telegram, all the more striking for its brevity.
