Amid the silence that followed it was he who resumed his explanation.
‘Most of your father’s money, I am sorry to say, has gone. It went by the financial dexterity of the grey-haired gentleman named Dyke, who is (I grieve to say) a swindler. Admiral Craven was murdered to silence him about the way in which he was swindled. The fact that he was ruined and you were disinherited is the single simple clue, not only to the murder, but to all the other mysteries in this business.’ He took a puff or two and then continued.
‘I told Mr Rook you were disinherited and he rushed back to help you. Mr Rook is a rather remarkable person.’
‘Oh, chuck it,’ said Mr Rook with a hostile air.
‘Mr Rook is a monster,’ said Father Brown with scientific calm. ‘He is an anachronism, an atavism, a brute survival
