THE WISDOM OF FATHER BROWN
cloth, the thrusting of a body behind a door could be done in an instant—so long as it was that instant. It was the same, of course," he continued, turning to Flambeau, "with that poor fellow under the bandstand. He was dropped through the hole (it wasn't an accidental hole) just at some very dramatic moment of the entertainment, when the bow of some great violinist or the voice of some great singer opened or came to its climax. And here, of course, when the knock-out blow came—it would not be the only one. That is the little trick Nigger Ned has adopted from his old God of Gongs."
"By the way, Malvoli" Pooley began.
"Malvoli," said the priest, "has nothing to do with it. I dare say he has some Italians with him, but our amiable friends are not Italians. They are octoroons and African half-bloods of various shades, but I fear we English think all foreigners are much the same so long as they are dark and dirty. Also," he added, with a smile, "I fear the English decline to draw any fine distinction between the moral character produced by my religion and that which blooms out of Voodoo."
*****
The blaze of the spring season had burst upon Seawood, littering its foreshore with families and bathing-machines, with nomadic preachers and nigger minstrels, before the two friends saw it
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