Читать книгу Сельский вампир и другие истории Отца Брауна / Vampire of the Village and other Father Brown Stories. Уровень 3 онлайн | страница 2

‘Perhaps that’s why she wants to live there,’ said Father Brown.

‘Well, her loneliness is seen as strange. She annoys them by being good-looking and even what is called good style. And all the young men are told that she’s a vampire.’

she keeps to herself

‘That is true,’ said the doctor. ‘And yet she is really rather a strange person. I saw her and found her interesting; one of those brown women, long and elegant and beautifully ugly, if you know what I mean. She is rather smart, and though young enough certainly gives me an impression of what they call – well, experience. What the old ladies call a Past.’

All the old ladies having been born this very minuteI think she is said to have vamped the priest’s son

‘Yes, and it seems to be a very awful problem to the poor old priest. She is supposed to be a widow.’

Why in thunder

Dr Mulborough suddenly straightened his broad shoulders and sat up. ‘Of course you’re right again,’ he said. ‘But we haven’t come to the scandal yet. Well, the scandal is that she is a widow.’

‘Oh,’ said Father Brown; and his face changed and he said something soft and unclear, that might almost have been ‘My God!’

‘First of all,’ said the doctor, ‘they found out one thing about Mrs Maltravers. She is an actress.’

Never mind why

in the style of the Sonnets And I, who am the only person who ever had any sympathy with these people, am sent down to be the messenger of doom.’

‘Yes,’ said Father Brown, ‘and why were you sent down?’

The doctor answered with a sort of sigh:

‘Mrs Maltravers is not only a widow, but she is the widow of Mr Maltravers.’

‘It sounds like a shockingnews, as you put it,’ said the priest seriously.

in this very village

‘I remember you told me,’ said Father Brown. ‘The doctor, or some doctor, said he had probably died of being hit on the head with a club.’

Dr Mulborough was silent for a moment frowning, and then said sharply:

I wouldn’t cast any reflection on the previous doctor in Potter’s Pond, if I could avoid ityou are really safe for secretsspeaking in confidenceAnd there simply isn’t any question about itBut whoever hit him on the head did not kill him