Gilbert Keith Chesterton

“ The police had already pushed into the centre with their ponderous omnipotence, and even as they did so Rupert Grant sprang forward with his incontrollable and intolerable secret.
"That is the man, constable," he shouted, pointing at the battered lieutenant. "He is a suspicious character. He did the murder."
"There's been no murder done, sir," said the policeman, with his automatic civility. "The poor man's only hurt. I shall only be able to take the names and addresses of the men in the scuffle and have a good eye kept on them." ”

“ There had been a brawl concerned with some six men, and one of them lay almost dead on the stones of the street. Of the other four, all interesting matters were, as far as we were concerned, swallowed up in one stupendous fact. One of the four survivors of the brutal and perhaps fatal scuffle was the immaculate Lieutenant Keith, his clothes torn to ribbons, his eyes blazing, blood on his knuckles. One other thing, however, pointed at him in a worse manner. A short sword, or very long knife, had been drawn out of his elegant walking-stick and lay in front of him upon the stones. ”

“ That notion that civilization isn't poetical is a civilized delusion. Wait till you've really lost yourself in nature, among the devilish woodlands and the cruel flowers. Then you'll know that there's no star like the red star of man that he lights on his hearth-stone; no river like the red river of man, the good red wine, which you, Mr. Rupert Grant, if I have any knowledge of you, will be drinking in two or three minutes in enormous quantities."
Rupert and I exchanged glances of fear. Basil went on heartily as the wind died in the dreary trees. ”

“ They came out of queer places, where a good man would scarcely find himself, out of opium-dens and gambling-hells; they had the heat of the thieves' kitchens or smelled of a strange smoke from cannibal incantations. These are the kind of stories which discredit a person almost equally whether they are believed or no. If Keith's tales were false he was a liar; if they were true he had had, at any rate, every opportunity of being a scamp.
He had just left the room in which I sat with Basil Grant and his brother Rupert, the voluble amateur detective. ”

“ Rupert could not help laughing. "Do you have much custom?" he asked.
"N-not much," replied Mr. Montmorency, and then he glanced at Keith, who was (I am convinced) his only client. "But what there is—very select."
"My dear friends," said Basil, puffing his cigar, "always remember two facts. The first is that though, when you are guessing about any one who is sane, the sanest thing is the most likely; when you are guessing about any one who is, like our host, insane, the maddest thing is the most likely. The second is to remember that very plain literal fact always seems fantastic. ”

“ He tells the truth in too exact and bald a style; he is too veracious."
"Oh, if you are going to be paradoxical," said Rupert, contemptuously, "be a bit funnier than that. Say, for instance, that he has lived all his life in one ancestral manor."
"No, he's extremely fond of change of scene," replied Basil, dispassionately, "and of living in odd places. That doesn't prevent his chief trait being verbal exactitude. What you people don't understand is that telling a thing crudely and coarsely as it happened makes it sound frightfully strange. ”

“ We were ourselves, by this time, far on our frantic vertical journey. The mighty trunks were beginning to sway and shake slightly in the wind. Then I looked down and saw something which made me feel that we were far from the world in a sense, and to a degree that I cannot easily describe. I saw that the almost straight lines of the tall elm-trees diminished a little in perspective as they fell. I was used to seeing parallel lines taper towards the sky. ”

“ There are inland tracts of London which, in the very heart of artificial civilization, humanity has almost become nomadic once more. But in that restless interior there was no ragged tramp so restless as the elegant officer in the loose, white clothes. ”

“ Next morning, however, when Basil and I came down we found him ready and restless.
"Well," he said, sharply, to his brother almost before we sat down to the meal. "What do you think of your Drummond Keith now?"
"What do I think of him?" inquired Basil, slowly. "I don't think anything of him."
"I'm glad to hear it," said Rupert, buttering his toast with an energy that was somewhat exultant. "I thought you'd come round to my view, but I own I was startled at your not seeing it from the beginning. The man is a translucent liar and knave." ”

“ You think every one as good as yourself. Isn't the thing plain enough now? A doubtful acquaintance, rowdy stories, a most suspicious conversation, mean streets, a concealed knife, a man nearly killed, and, finally, a false address. That's what we call glaring goodness."
"It's certainly very extraordinary," repeated Basil. And he strolled moodily about the room. Then he said: "You are quite sure, constable, that there's no mistake? You got the address right, and the police have really gone to it and found it was a fraud?"
"It was very simple, sir," said the policeman, chuckling. ”

“ The crowd was stirring very slightly. But any one with a knowledge of the eternal populace knows that if the outside rim of a crowd stirs ever so slightly it means that there is madness in the heart and core of the mob. ”

“ It is our nature always to follow vanishing things, and value them if they really show a resolution to depart. We all followed Basil, and I cannot say why, except that he was a vanishing thing, that he vanished decisively with his great-coat and his stick. Rupert ran after him with a considerable flurry of rationality. ”

“ What he did say was:
"A business man? That's rather a general description, Lieutenant Keith."
Keith looked at him sharply, and then said, with something rather like ill-temper:
"He's a thingummy-bob, a house-agent, say. I'm going to see him."
"Oh, you're going to see a house-agent, are you?" said Rupert Grant, grimly. "Do you know, Mr. Keith, I think I should very much like to go with you?"
Basil shook with his soundless laughter. Lieutenant Keith started a little; his brow blackened sharply. ”

“ And I said, quite truthfully, that I lived in the elms on Buxton Common, near Purley. So I do. This gentleman, Mr. Montmorency, whom I think you have met before, is an agent for houses of this kind. He has a special line in arboreal villas. It's being kept rather quiet at present, because the people who want these houses don't want them to get too common. But it's just the sort of thing that a fellow like myself, racketing about in all sorts of queer corners of London, naturally knocks up against. ”

“ To find a middle-aged man who had left the army at the primitive rank of lieutenant is unusual and not necessarily encouraging. With the more cautious and solid this fact, like his endless flitting, did the mysterious gentleman no good. ”