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Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith), 1874-1936

"The Man Who Knew Too Much"


The dark silhouette of the head showed two small tufts like horns;
and they could almost have sworn that the horns moved.
"Archer!" shouted Herries, with sudden passion, and called to him
with curses to come down. The figure drew back at the first cry,
with an agitated movement so abrupt as almost to be called an antic.
The next moment the man seemed to reconsider and collect himself,
and began to come down the zigzag garden path, but with obvious
reluctance, his feet falling in slower and slower rhythm. Through
March's mind were throbbing the phrases that this man himself had
used, about going mad in the middle of the night and wrecking the
stone figure. Just so, he could fancy, the maniac who had done such
a thing might climb the crest of the hill, in that feverish dancing
fashion, and look down on the wreck he had made. But the wreck he
had made here was not only a wreck of stone.
When the man emerged at last on to the garden path, with the full
light on his face and figure, he was walking slowly indeed, but
easily, and with no appearance of fear.
"This is a terrible thing," he said. "I saw it from above; I was
taking a stroll along the ridge."
"Do you mean that you saw the murder?" demanded March, "or the
accident? I mean did you see the statue fall?"
"No," said Archer, "I mean I saw the statue fallen.


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