THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10598, 29 October 1910, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN.

(By G. K. Chesterton.) Tlu- Chief of the Paris Police, Aristidt Valentin, was late for his dinner, am! some of his guests began to arrive before him. These were, however, reassured by his confidential servant. Ivan, the old man with a scar and a f a cc almost as gray as his moustaches, - ,vho iil"" a . vs sa * at a tamo i n the en•Tance hall —a hall hung with weapons. L Valentin's house was, - perhaps, as peculiar and celebrated as its master. Tt was an old house with high walls ~nd tall poplars almost overhanging the Seine: but the, oddity—and, perhaps, tlio police value —of its architecture was this: that there was no ultimate exit a t all except through this front door, "which was so carefully guarded by Ivan and the armory. - V - ,i, The garden 'was large; and elaborate, and there were many exits from the house into the garden. But there was ~o exit from the garden into the world outside; all around it ran a- tall; smooth, unscalable wall with special spikes at the top, no bad garden, perhaps, for a man to reflect in whom some' hundred criminals had sworn to

As Ivan explained to the guests, their host had telephoned that '/he was -detained for ten minutes. He was, in truth, making some last arrangements about executions and such ugly things; and though these duties were rootedly reptiisive to him he always performed them with precision. Ruthless in the pursuit of criminals, he was very mild about their punishment. Since he had been supreme over French—and largely over European —political methods, his <reat influence had been honorably used for the mitigation of sentences and the purification of prisons. He was one of the great humanitarian French freethinkers, and the only thing wrong with them is that they make mercy even colder than justice. When Valentin arrived he was already dressed in black clothes and the r ed rosette; an elegant figure, his dark beard already streaked with gray. He went straight through his house to his study, which opened on the grounds behind. The garden door of it was open, and after he had carefully locked his box in its official place he stood for a few seconds at the open door, looking out upon the garden. A sharp moon was fighting with the flying rags and tatters of a storm, and Valentin regarded it with a wistfulriess unusual in such scientific natures as his. Terjiaps such scientific natures have some psvehic prevision of the most tremendous problem of their lives. From any such occult mood, at least, he quickly recovered, for he knew he was late and that his guests had already begun to arrive. A glance' at his drawing-room when he entered it was enough to make certain that his principal guest was rot there, at any rate. He saw all the other pillars of the little party; he c a w Lord Galloway, the English Ambassador, a choleric old man with a russet face like an apple, wearing the blue ribbon of the Garter. He saw Lady Galloway, slim and threadlike, with silver hair and a face sensitive and superior. He saw her daughter, Ladv Margaret Graham, a pale and pret'tv girl with an elfish face and cop-per-colored hair. He saw the Duchess of Mont St. Michel, black-eyed and opulent also. He saw Doctor Simon, a typical French scientist, with glasses, a 'pointed brown beard and a forehead barred with those parallel wrinkles which are the penalty of superciliousness, since they come thxougn constaivt--I,'elevating the eyebrows. He saw

Father Brown, of Cobhole, in Esses, whom he had recently met in England. He saw —perhaps with more interest than anv of these —a tall man m uniform, who had bowed to the Galloways without receiving any very hearty acknowledgment, and who now advanced alone to pay his respects to his host. This was Commandant O'Brien, of the French Foreign Legion. He-was a slim ret somewhat swaggering figure, cleanshaven, dark-haired and blue-eyed ; and, as seems natural in an officer or that famous regiment of victorious failures and successful suicides, lie had an air at once dashing and melancholy. He was bv birth an Irish gentleman, and in bnvhood had known -the Galloways.especially Margaret Graham. He had '.'.left his country after some crash of ;"iebts, and now expressed his complete •fcedom from British etiquette by (ringing about in uniform, sabre and 'surs. When lie bowed to the Ambassador s familv Lord and Lady Galloway bent stifflv". and Lady Margaret looked away But for whatever old causes such people might be interested in each other, their distinguished host was not " special! v interested in them. No one of them, at. least, was, in his eyes, the guest of the evening. Valentin was expecting for special reasons a man of world-wide fame, whose friendship he had secured during some of his great detective tours and triumphs in the United States. He was expecting Julius K. Brayne, that multi-millionaire whose .colossal and even "crushing endowments of small religions have occasioned so much gay sport and easier solemnity for 'the American and English papers. Nobody could quite make out whether Mr Brayne was an atheist or a Mormon; tut. he was ready to pour money into any intellectual vessel so long as it Ms an untried vessel. One of his hobbies was to wait for the American

Shakespeare—a hobby more patient than angling. He admired Walt Whitman, but thought that Luke P. Tanner, of Paris, Pennsylvania, was more "progressive" than Whitman, any day. He liked anything that he thought ' progressive." He thought Valentin "propessive," thereby doing him a grave injustice. The solid appearance of Julius Iv. :Bravne in the room was as decisive as a dinner-bell. He had this great quality, which very few of us can claim: that his presence was as big as his absence. He was a huge fellow, as fat :as he was tall, clad in complete eventing black, without so much relief cs a *atch-ehain or' a ring. His hair was white and well-brushed back like a German's; his face was red, fierce and .cherubic, with one dark tuft under the lower lias that threw up that otherwise infantile visage with an effect theatrical and even Mephistophelean. Not long, however, did that salon imwely stare at the celebrated Ameri- ; <an; his lateness had already become [i domestic problem, and he was sent *ith all sneed into the dining-room with jlady Galloway upon his arm. t Except on one point the Galloways jKere geuial and casual enough. So long ?;» Ladv Margaret did not take the ;»rm of" that adventurer, O'Brien, her father was quite satisfied; and she had ftot done so; she had decorously gone in with Doctor Simon. Nevertheless, old Lord Galloway was restless and almost rude. He was diplomatic enough ! during dinner, but when, over the •dgars, three of the younger men — Simon the doctor, Brown the priest, ?nd the. detrimental O'Brien, the exile #J foreign uniform —all melted away to mix with the ladies or smoke 111 .the conservatory, then the Ehghsh diplomatist grew 'very undiplomatic indeed. Up was stung every sixty seconds ;■:$"» the thought that the scamp M Bricn might be signalling to. Market somehow. He did not attempt >-imagine how. He was left alone :°/w the ooffee with Brayne. the hoary jankee who believed in all- religions, ■:m Valentin, the grizzled Frenchman .-WO'believed' in none. They could ar Pie with each other, but neither Wild appeal to him. After a time this progressive" logomachv had reached a crisis of tedium. Lord Galloway got "'P also and sought the drawing-room. '"y'he went toward it he. could hear «°ng passages the high-pitched, didacV c voice <.f the doctor, and then the "nil-voice „f the priest, followed by T !?leut laughicr. They also, he thought . *?'' a curse, were probably-arguing '"out science and religion. But the nir he opened the salon door he saw ?{>»• one tiling—he saw what was not ;? erc - He saw Commandant O'Brien "as absent—and that Lady Margaret *"« absent too. Kisnij; impatiently from the: drawing™om as he had from the dining-room; £ e stamped along the passage once T™\ His notion of protecting' his "augliter from the Irish-Algerian ne'erami ,lntl become something central «o even mad in liis mind, Ais-he went S?,* hack of the house, where ,« 'alentin's study, he waS surprised "fneet hi s daughter,- who swept'past: " n a white, scornful face,' which was -o'n c ? nd enigma. If she-haUbeen with h a ? rien . was O'Brien ?o?If 5 she t,ha i nt ''ten with O'Brien,>where had been? "vVith a sort} tofjisenile^and

passionate suspicion be groped his way to the dark back parts of the mansion and eventually found a servants' entrance that opened on to the garden. 'Die moon, with her scimitar, had now ripped up and rolled away all the storm wreck. The argent light lit up all four corners of the garden. A tall figure in blue was striding across the lawn toward the study door; a glint of moonlit silver oil his facings picked him out as Commandant O'Brien. He vanished through the French windows into the house, leaving Lord Galloway in an indescribable temper, at once virulent and vague. The blue and /'silver garden, like a scene in a theatre, seemed to, taunt him with all that tyrannic tenderness against which his worldly authority was, at war. The length and grace of .the Irishman's stride enraged him as if he,were arival ■ instead of a father: the moonlight maddened him. He'was trapped as if by magic into a garden of troubadours, a Watteau fairyland; and, willing to shako off such amorous imbecilities by speech, he stepped briskly after - his enemy. As he did so he tripped oyer some tree or stone in the grass, looked down at it first with irritation, and then a second time with curiqsity. The next instant the moon arid the tall poplars looked at :an tmusual sight: ail

elderly English diplomatist •'., running hard and crying or bellowing as lie-ran. His hoarse shouts brought a pale face to the Study door —the beaming glasses and worried brow of Doctor' Simon, ! who heard the nobleman's first clear words. Lord Galloway was crying: "A corpse in the grass —a corpse." O'Brien, at least, had gone utterly from his mind. "We must tell Valentin-at oiice," said the doctor, when the other had brokenly described all that he had dared ■ to examine. "It is fortunate that he •is hero," and even as he spoke the great detective "entered the'study, attracted by the cry. It was almost amusing to note his typical transformation. He had come with the common concern of a host and a gentleman, fearing that some guest or servant was ill. When he was told the gory fact he turned with all his gravity instantly bright and businesslike;. for this, however abrupt and awful, was his business. "Strange, gentlemen," he said as they hurried out into the garden, "that I should have hunted mysteries all over the earth and now one comes and settles in my own back yard. But where is the place?"',. They crossed the lawn less easily, as a slight mist had begun to ; rise from the river; but under the guidance of the shaken Galloway they :

found the body sunken in deep grass — the body of a very tall and broadshouldered man. He lay face downward, so they could only see that his big shoulders were clad in black? cloth and that his big Head was bald except for a wisp or two of brown hair that clung to his skull like wet seaweed. A scarlet serpent of blood crawled from under his fallen face.

"At least," said Simon with a .deep and singular intonation, "he is none of our party." "Examine him, Doctor," cried Valentin rather sharply. "He may not be dead." The doctor bent down. "He is not quite cold, but I am afraid he is dead enough," he answered. "Just help me to lift him up." They lifted him carefully an inch from the ground and the last question was answered at once and frightfully. The head had been entirely sundered from the body. Even Valentin was slightly shocked. ' 'He must have been as strong as a gorilla," he muttered. Not without a shiver Doctor Simon lifted the head. It was slightly slashed about the neck and jaw, but the face was substantially unhurt. It was a ponderous, yellow face at once sunken and. swollen, with a hawklike nose and heavy lids; the face of a wicked Roman emperor with, perhaps, a distant touch of a Chinese emperor. All present seemed to look at it with the coldest eye of ignorance. Nothing else could be noted about the man except that as they had lifted his body they had seen I underneath it the white gleam of a 1 shirt front defaced with a red gleam of blood. As Doctor Simon said, the man had never been of their party. But he might very well have been trying to join it, for he was come dressed for such an occasion.

Valentin went down on his hands and knees and examined with his closest professional attention the grass and ground for some twenty yards around the body, in which he was assisted less skilfully by the doctor and quite vaguely by the English lord. Nothing rewarded their grovelings. except a few twigs snapped or chopped into very small lengths, which Valentin lifted.for an instant's examination and then tossed away. "Twigs," said -Valentin gravely; "twigs and a total stranger with his head cut off. That is all there is on this lawn."

There was an almost creepy stillness, and then the unnerved Galloway called out sharply: "Who's that? Who's that over there by the garden wall?" ' A small figure with a foolishly _ large head drew waveringly near them in the moonlit haze, looked for an instant like a goblin, but turned out to be the harmless little priest whom they had left in the drawing-room.

"I say," he said meekly, "there'arc no gates to this garden, do you know." Valentin's black brows had come together somewhat crossly, as they did on principle, -at the sight of a cassock. But he was far too just- a man to deny the relevance of the remark.' "You are right,""he said. "Before we find how he came to be killed we may havo_ to find how he came to be here. Now listen to me, gentlemen. If it can be done without prejudice to my position and duty we shall all agree that certain distinguished names might well be kept out of this. There are ladies, gentlemen, and there is a foreign ambassador. If we must mark it down as a crime then it must be followed up as a crime. But till then I can use my own discretion. I am the head of the police; I am so public that I can afford to be private. Please Heaven, "I will clear every one of my own guests before I call in my men to look for anybodv else. Gentlemen, upon your honor, you" will none of you leave the house till to-morrow at noon. There are bedrooms jor all. Simon, I think you know where to find my man, Ivan, in the'front hall; he is a confidential man. Tell him to leavo another servant on guard and como to me at once. Lord Galloway, vou are certainly the best person to tell the ladies what has happened and prevent their leaving in a panic. They also must stay tho . night. Father Brown and I will remain with the body."

"When this spirit of the Captain spoke in Valentin he was obeyed like a bugle. Doctor Simon went through to the armory and routed out Ivan, the public detective's private detective. Gallowaywent to the drawing-room and told the terrible news tactfully enough, so that b\ the time the company assembled thci o the ladies, weie alieady staitled and ilreadv soothed. Meanwhile, tho good priest and tho good atheist stood at the head and foot of the dead man, motionless m the moonlight, hko symbolic statues of then two philosphies or death. Ivan, tho confidential man with the scar, came out of the house like" a cannonball and came lacing acioss the hiwn to Valentin like a dog to his master His livid laco was quite hveb with the glow of this domestic detective eagerness "that he asked his master's permission to examine tho remains. "Yes, if sou like. Ivan," said Valentin, "but don't be long. Wo must go in and thrash tins out m tho house ' Ivan lifted tho head, and then almost let it 'drop. ""Whv," he gasped, "it s—no, it isn't, it can't-be. Do you kuow this man, sir 5 " , _ "No," said Valentin indifferently. "AVo had better go inside." Between them they carried tho corpsf to a sofa in the study, and then all made their way to tho drawing-ioora The detectivo sat down at a desk quietlv and even with hesitation, but Ins was the non eye of a judge at asbizc. Ho mado a few rapid notp 3 upon paper in front of-him and then said shortly "Is everybody hero?" ' Not Mr Bra-vne," said thoDuchresso do Mont St. Michel, looking around "No," said Lord Galloway m a harsh \olce. "And not Mr Ned O'Brien, I fancy. I saw that gentleman walkuig in the garden when the corpse was still warm." "Ivan," said the detective, go and fetch Commandant O'Brien -and Mr Biayne. Mr Brayne, I know, is finishing a cigar in the dinmg room._ Commandant O'Brien, I rather -=, think, is walking up and down the conservatory.*. lam not sure." V"- . ' * f , "■ - '

The faithful attendant flashed from the room, and before any one could stir or speak Valentin went on with the sam<- soldierly swiftness; of exposition. '•Everyone here knows that a dead body ha:'; been found in tho garden, its head cut clean from its body. Doctor Simon, you have examined it. Do you think that to cut a man's throat like that would need great force? or, perhaps, only a very sharp knife ?" "It could not be done with a knife at all," said the palo doctor. "Have you thought of a tool with which it could bo done?" "Speaking within modern probabilities I. haven't," said tho doctor, arching his painful, brows. "Its not easy to hack a neck through, even clumsily; and this was a very clean cut. It could be done with a battle-axe or an old headsman's ■axe or an old two-handed sword." "But, -good Heavens!" ered the Duchess, almost 'in hysterics, ' "certainly thero aren't any two-handed swords and battle-axes around here." Valentin was still busy with riio paper in front of him. "Tell me," : he said, still writing rapidly, "could it havo been done with a long French cavalry'sabre?" A low knocking came at tho door, which —for some unreasonable - reason — curdled everyone's blood like the knocking in Macbeth. ■ Amid thai; frozen silenco Doctor Simon managed to say: "A sabre .... yes, I suppose it could."

"Thank you," said Valentin. "Conic in, Ivan." Tho confidential Ivan opened the door" and ushered in Commandant Neil O'Brien, whom ho had found at last, pacing 'tho garden again. The Irish officer stood up, disordered and defiant, on the threshold.' "What .do you want with me ?" ho cried. "Please sit down," said, Valentin in pleasant level tones. "Why, you aren't wearing your sword. Where is it?" ' "I left it on the library table," said O'Brien, his brogue deepening in his disturbed mood. "It waa a nuisanceit was getting " "Ivan," said Valentin, "please go [ and get the Commandant's sword from the library." Then, as tho . servant vanished: "Lord Galloway say ahe saw 1 you leaving tho garden just beforo he found tho corpse. What wero you doing in the garden?" The Commandant flung himself recklessly into a chair. "Oh," he cried, "admirin' tho moon. Communing with. Nature, me boy."

A heavy silence sank, and endured, and at the end of it came again that trival and terriblo knocking. Ivan reappeared, carrying an empty steel scabbard. "Tins is all I can find," he said.

"Put it on the table," said Valentin without looking up from his notes. There was an inhuman silence in the room like that sea of inhuman silence around the dock of the condemned murderer. The Duchess' weak exclamations had\long ago died' away. Lord Galloway's a swollen hatred was satisfied arid even sobered. Tho voice that came waa quite unexpected. "I think I can tell you," cried Lady Margaret in that clear, quivering voice with which a courageous woman speaks publicly. "I can tell you what MiO'Brien was doing in the garden, since he is bound to silence. He was asking me to marry him. I refused; I said, in my family circumstances, I could give him nothing but my respect, lie was a little angry at that. He did not seem to think much of my respect. I wonder," she added with rather a wan smile, "if he will care at all for it now. For I offer it him now. I will swear anywhere that he never did a thing like this."

Lorcl Galloway had edged up to his daughter and was intimidating her in what lie imagined to be an undertone. "Hold your tongue, Maggie," he said in a thunderous whisper. "Why should you shield tho fellow? Where's his sword? Where his confounded " He stopped because of the singular stare with which his daughter was regarding him —a look that was, indeed, a lurid magnet for the whole group. "You old fool," she said in a low voice without pretence of piety, "what do you suppose you aro trying to prove? I tell you this man was innocent while with me. But if he wasn't innocent, he was still with me. If he murdered a man in the garden, who was it who must havo seen —who must, at 1 east, have known? Do.^you.hate, Neil so mueh v as to put your daughter— : —" Lady Galloway screamed. Everyone else sat tingling at the touch of those Satanic tragedies that have been between lovery before now. They saw the proud white face of the Scotch aristocrat and of her lover, the Irish adventurer, like old portraits in a dark house. The long silence was full of formless historical memories of murdered husbands and poisoned favorites. ...

In the centre of this morbid silence an innocent voice said: "Was it a very long cigar?" The change of thought was so sharp that they had to look around to see who had spoken. "I mean," said little Father Brown from tho corner of tho room, "I mean that cigar Mr Brayne is finishing. It seems nearly as long as a walking., stick."

Despite the irrelevanco there was assent as well as irritation in Valentin's face aa he lifted his head.

"Quite right," he . said sharply. "Ivan, go and. see about Mr Brayne again, and bring him here at once." • ' The instant the' factotum had closed the door Valentin addressed the girl with an entirely new earnestness. "Lady Margaret," he said, "we all feel, I am sure, both gratitude and. admiration for your act in rising above your lower dignity and explaining the commandant's conduct. But there is a hiatus still. Lord Galloway, I understand, met you passing from the study to the drawing-room, and it was only some minutes afterwards that he found the garden, and the commandant still walking there." "You have to remember," replied Margaret with a faint irony in her voice,' "that I had just refused him, so-we, should scarcely have come back arm in arm. He is a gentleman; anyhow ; and he loitered behind —and so got charged with murder." "In those few moments," said Valentin gravely, "he. might really -" The knock came again and Ivan put in his scarred face.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said, "but Mr Brayne has left? the house." "Left!" cried Valentin, rising to his feet. .. ':■ 4 . ' "Gone! Scooted! Evaporatedl'-said Ivan in humorous French. "His hat and coat are gone too, and I'll tell you something to cap it'all.;'. I ran outside the house to find traces of him; and I found one, and a big trace, too." "What do you mean?" asked Valen-

tin. "I'll show you," saicl.liis servant, and reappeared with a flashing, naked cavalry sabre, streaked with blood about the point and edge. Everyone in the room eyed it as if it were a thunderholt ; but the experienced Ivan went on qmto quieth : , „ ' I found tins," he said, "flung I among the hushes fifty yards up the road to Pans. "In other words, I found it ]ust wheie >our lespcrtable Mr Biajne threw it when he ran awaj." I Theie was again a silence, but .1 new 'sort of Valentin took the sabre, examined it, icflecited with unaffected concentration of thought, and then turned a respectful face to O Bnen. "Commandant," he said "wo tiust will always produce this weapon if it is wanted for police examination. Meanwhile," he added slapping the steel back into the scabbard, "let me return you >our sword." At the military sjnibolism of the actum the audience could haidly refiam fiom applause. For Neil O'Brien, indeed, that gesture was the turning point oi existence the time he was wandering 111 the nnstenous garden again m the rolors of"the morning the tragic futility of his ordmarv mien had fallen from him, he was a man with many reasons for happiness. Lord Galloway was a gentleman and had, offeied him an apologj. Lady Maigaret was .something better than a .perhaps, giveu him something better than an apology as they drifted among I the old flower-beds before breakfast. 'The whole company was more lighthearted and humane; for, though the 1 riddle of the death lemamed, the load of suspicion was lifted off them fll and sent flying off to Paris with the strange millionaire, a man they hardly knew. The devil was cast out of the house —he had cast himself out. Still, the ricTdle remained; and when O'Brien threw himself on a garden "seat beside Doctor ..Simon that* keenly .scientific"person at once resume'd it. He \ did get much talk- out of O'Brien,^

vhose thoughts were on pleasanter 'hings. •'] can't say it interests me much," ;aid the Irishman frankly, "especially is it seems pretty plain now. Apparently, Brayne hated this stranger for :ome" reasou; lured him into the garlen and killed him with my sword. L'hen he fled to the city, tossing the ;word . away as he went. By the way, van tells me the dead man had' a Yankee dollar in his pocket. So he was a :ountryman of Brayne's, and that ;eems to clinch it. I don't see any dificulties about the business." "There are five colossal difficulties," laid the doctor quietly, "like high walls vithin walls. Don't mistake me. I lon't doubt that Brayne did it. His light, I fancy, proves that. But as ,o how he did it. . First difficulty—■iVhy should a man kill another man vith a great, hulking sabre when he :an kill him with a pocketknife and )ut it back in his pocket ? Second diffi:ulty—why was there no noise or out:ry? Does a man commonly see anither come up, waving a "scimitar, and iffer no.remarks? Third difficulty—A ervant watched the front door all the evening, and a rat cannot get into r alentin's garden anywhere. How did .he 'dead man get into the garden? fourth difficulty—Given the same conlitions, how did Brayne get out of the jarden?" ' "And' the: fifth ?" said Neil, with eyes ixed on the English priest,, who was :oming "slowly up the path. "Is a trifle, I suppose,". said the loctor, "but I think an odd one. When first saw how : the head had been flashed I'...supposed! the assassin had truck more than once. But on examilation I found many cuts- across the ■runcated section. In other words, ,hey were struck after the head was, iff. Did Brayne hate his foe so fiendshly that he stood sabring his body in ,he moonlight?" "Horrible!" said O'Brien, and slmdlered. The little priest, Brown, had arrived vhile they were talking and had waited vith characteristic shyness till they had inished. Then he said awkwardly: "1 say —I'm sorry to interrupt. But .' was sent to tell you the news!" "News?" repeated Simon, and stared it 'him rather painfully through his "Yes, I'm sorry," said Father Brown nildly. "There's been another murler, you know." Both men on the seat sprang up, eaving it rocking. "And what's stranger still," continued the priest, with his dull eye on he rhododendrons, "it's the same disgusting sort. It's another beheading. Fliey found the second head actually deeding in the river, a few yards along 3rayne's road to Paris; so they sup)ose that he " ' . "Is Brayne a monomaniac?" cried )'Brien. "There are American vendettas, laid the priest impatiently; ,then he idded: "They want you to come to ;he library and see it." Commandant O'Brien followed the ithers toward the inquest, feeling de:idedly sick. As a soldier he loathed ill this secretive carnage; where were ;hese extravagant amputations going ,o stop? First one bead was hacked iff and then another. In this case, he old himself bitterly, it was not true •hat two heads were better than one. Vs he crossed the study he almost staggered at a shocking coincidence. Jpon Valentin's table lay the colored licture of yet a third bleeding head, md it was the head of Valentin himelf. A second glance showed him it vas only a Nationalist paper called the Juillotiue, which every week showed me of its political opponents with rollng eves and writhing features just ifter execution, for Valentin was an mti-clerical of some note. But )'Brien was an Irishman with a kind >f chastity even in his sins; and his ;orge rose against that great brutality >f the intellect which belongs only to Trance. He seemed to see the moon md the garden and the gory head and ill the rest as a string of green and mrple pictures in some vile Parisian omance. He felt Paris as a whole, rom the grotesques on the Gothic ihurches to the gross caricatures in the lewspapers. He remembered the gigantic jests of the Revolution. He aw the whole city as one ugly orgy, rom the sanguinary sketeh lying on Valentin's table up to where, above a nountain and forest of gargoyles, the ;reat devil grins on Notre Dame. The library was long, low, and dark. iVliat light entered it shot from under ow blinds, and had still some; of the uddy tinge of morning. Valentin and lis servant Ivan were waiting for them it the upper end of a long; slightly loping desk on which lay the mortal emains, looking enormous in the twiight. The big black figure and yellow ace of the man found in the garden ionfronted. them, essentially unchanged. The second head, which had been fished rom among the river weeds that mowing, lay streaming and dripping beside t. Valentin's men were still seeking ;o recover the rest of this second corpse, vhich was supposed to be afloat. Father Brown, who did not seem to ■hare O'Brien's sensibilities in the east, went up to the second head and ixamined it with his blinking care. It vas little more than a mop of white lair fringed with silver fire in the red and- level morning light. The face, vhich seemed of an ugly, impurpled md, perhaps, criminal type, had been nuch battered against trees or stones is it tossed in the water. To O'Brien t seemed the last touch of that Parisian nightmare that the apish face aad this halo of silver hair like .a ■aint. "Good morning, Commandant," said Valentin, with quiet cordiality. "You lave beard of Brayne's last experinent in butchery, I suppose?" Father Brown was still bending over >he head with white hair, and he said, vithout looking up: ''l suppose it is quite certain that 3rayne cut off this head too?" "Well, it seems common sense," said Valentin, with his hands in his pockets. 'Killed in the same way as the other. ?ound within a few yards of the other, ijid sliced by the same weapon which ve know he carried away." "Yes, yes, I-know," replied Father 3rown, submissively. "Yet, do you mow, I really doubt whether Brayne :puld have cut off this head?" "Why not?" inquired Doctor Simon, vitli a "rational stare. "Well, Doctor,'' said the priest, lookng up and blinking, "can a man cut )ff his own head? I don't know." O'Brien felt an insane ■■ universe jrashing about his ears, but the doctor sprang forward with impetuous praeti;ality and pushed back the wet white nair. "Oh, there's no doubt it's Brayne," said the priest quietly. "He had exactly that chip in the left ear." The detective, who had been regarding the priest with steady and glittering eyes, opened his clenched mouth and said sharply "You ssem to know a lot about him, Father Brown." ' "I do," said the little man simply. "I've been about with him for some weeks. . He was thinking of joining our church." The staie of the fanatic sprang into Valentin's eses; he strode towaid the priest with "clenched hands. "And, perhaps." ho cried vith a blasting sneer —"peihaps he was also thinking of leaving all his money to your chuich." ~ "Perhaps he was, s m Blown stoudlj . "it is possible." "In that case," cued Valentin'with a dreadful smile, "jou may, indeed, know a great deal uoout him. About his life and about his " Commandant O'Brien laid a hand on Valentin's arm. "Drop that slanderous rubbish, Valentin," he said, "or there may be more swords yet.' l But Valentin —under the steady, humble gaze of the priest—had already recovered himself. "Well," he said shortly, "people's private opinions can wait. Yon gentlemen are still bound by your promise to stay ,'jou must enforce it on yourselves and on each other. Ivan, 'here, will tell you anything moie you want to know. I must get *to business and write to the authorities. We can't keep this quiet any longer. I shall be writing in my study —if there i; any more news." "Is there any more news, Ivan? asked" Doctor Simon, as the chief of police strode out of the room. "Only oiie moie thing, I think, sir," said Ivan,.~wiinkling up'his gray old face; "but that's important, too, m its way. There's that old buffer you found on "the lawa," and he pointed without pretence of reverence-- at the' big black body with the yellow head, j - ".We've found" out w-ho Wis,' anyhow." - 7 ''"cried,the astonished.,doctor,; '-"andMvhd ,is'ih.e ?"-X _ .-•-- Jri

"His name was Arnold Becker,",said the under-detective, "though .lie went by many aliases. He was a wandering sort of scamp and is known to have been in America; so that was where Brayne got his knife into him. We didn't have much to do with, him ourselves, for he worked mostly in Germany. We've communicated, of course, with the German police. . But, oddly enough, there was a twin brother of his 'named Louis Becker, with whom we had a great deal to do. In fact, wejfpund it necessary'to guillotine; him only) the- other' day. Well, it's a rum thing, gentlemen, but when I saw that fellow flat on/the lawn I had .the greatest jump of my life. If I hadn't ■ seen Louis Becker'guillotined with my own eyes,;'l'd have sworn it was Louis Becker lying there in the grass. Then, of • course, I remembered his "twin brother in Germany, and following—" The explanatory Ivan stopped for the excellent reason that nobody was listening to him. The commandant arid the doctor were both staring at Father Brown, who had sprung stiffly to. his feet .and was holding his temples tight like a man in sudden and violent pain. "Stop! stop! stop!" he-cried. "Stop talking T a niinute,.for I see half. Will my brain make the one jump and see all? Heaven help me? I used to be fairly good at thinking. I could paraphrase any page in Aquinas once. Will my head split—or shall I see? I see half —I only see half." He buried his head in his hands and stood in a sort of rigid torture of thought or prayer; the other three could only go on staring at this last prodigy of their wild twelve hours. When Father Brown's hands fell they showed a face quite fresh and serious, like a child's. He heaved a huge sigh and said!:. "Let us get this said and ■ done with as quickly as possible. Look here! This will be the quickest way to convince you. all of the truth." He turned to the doctor. "Doctor Simon," he said, "you have a strong headpiece, and I heard you this morning asking- the five hardest questions about this business. Well, if you will ask them again I will answer them." Simon's pince-nez dropped from his nose in his doubt and wonder, but he answered at once: "Well, the first question, you know, is why a man should kill another with a clumsy sabre at all, when a man can kill with a bodkin?" "A man cannot behead! with a bodkin," said Brown calmly, "and, for this murder, beheading was absolutely necessary.". . "Why?" asked O'Brien with interest. "And the next question?" asked Brown.

"Well, why didn't the man cry out or anything?" asked the doctor. "Sabres in gardens are certainly xinusual."

"Twigs," said the priest gloomily, and turned to the'window which looked on the scene of death. "No one saw the point of the twigs. Why should they lie on that lawn —rlook at it—so far from any tree? They were not snapped off, they were chopped off. The murderer occupied his enemy with some tricks with the sabre, showing how he could cut a branch in mid-air or what not. Then, while his enemy bent down to see the result, a silent slash and the head fell." ,

"Well," said the doctor slowly, "that seems plausible enough. But my last two questions will stump anyone." The priest still stood, looking critically out of the window, and waited. "You know how all the garden was sealed up like an air-tight chamber," said the- doctor quietly. "Well, how did the strange man get into the garden ?"

Without turning around the little priest answered: "There never was any strange man in the garden." There was a silence, and then a cackle of almost childish laughter relieved the strain. The almost indecent absurdity of Brown's remark moved Ivan to open taunts. "Oh," he cried, "then we didn't lug a great, fat corpse on to a sofa last night? He hadn't got into the garden, I suppose." "Got jnto the garden?" repeated Brown reflectively. "No, not entire"Hang it all!" cried Simon; "a man' gets into a garden, or he doesn't." "Not necessarily," said the priest with a faint smile. "What is the next question, Doctor?" . "I fancy you're ill," said Doctor Simon sharply, "but I'll ask the next question if you like. How did Brayne get out of the garden?" "He didn't get out of the garden," said the priest, still "looking out of the window.

"Didn't get out of the garden?" exploded Simon. "Not completely," said Father Brown.

Simon shook his fists in a frenzy of French logic. "A man gets out of a garden, or he doesn't," he cried. "Not always," said Father Brown. Doctor Simon sprang to his feet impatiently. "I have no time to. spare on such senseless talk," he cried angrily. "If you can't understand a man being on one side of a wall or the other I won't trouble you further." "Doctor," said the cleric very gently, "we have always got on very pleasantly together. If only for the sake of old friendship, stop and tell me your fifth question." The impatient Simon sank into a chair by the door and said briefly: "The head and' shoulders were cut about in a queer way. • It seemed to be done after death." .

"Yes," said the motionless priest; "it was done so as to make you assume exactly the one falsehood that you did assume; it was done to make you take for granted that the head belonged to the body." . The borderland of the brain, where all the monsters are made, moved horribly in the Gaelic O'Brien. He felt the chaotic presence of all the horsemen and fishwomeii that man's unnatural fancy has begotten. A voice older than his first fathers seemed saying in his ear: "Keep out of the monstrous garden'where grows the tree with double fruit. Avoid the evil garden where died the man with two heads." Yet, while these shameful symbolic shapes passed across the ancient mirror of his Irish soul, his intellect was quite alert and was watching the old priest as closely and incredulously as all oho Father Brown had turned around at last, and stood against the window with his face in dense shadow; but even m that shadow they could see it was pale as ashes. .Nevertheless, he spoke quite sensibly, as if there were no Gaelic souls on earth. ~' ~ v i + "Gentlemen," he said, "you did not find the strange body of Becker in the garden. You did not find any strange body in the garden. In face of Doctor Simon's rationalism I still affirm' that Becker was only partly present. Look here!" —pointing to the black bulk ot the mvsterious corpse—"you never saw that man in your lives. Did you ever, see this man?" He rapidly rolled away the bald yellow head of the unknown and put it in its place the white-maned head beside it And there, complete, unified, unmistakable, lay Julius K. Brayne m his plain black clothes, exactly as they had seen him, large and. laughing, m the drawing-room. "The murderer," went on Brown quietlv, "hacked off his enemy's head and flung the sword far over the wall. But he was too clever to fling , the sword onlv. He flung the head over the wall also. Then he had only to clap on another head to the corpse and—as he insisted on a private all imagined a totally new man. "Clap on another head'l" said O'Brien, staring. "What other head? Heads don't grow on garden bushes, do they?" , ~ "No," said Father Brown huskilv, and looking at his boots, "there is only one place where they grow. They grow in the" basket of the guillotine, beside which the' chief of police, Anstide Valentin, was standing not an hour before the murder. Oh, my friends, hear me a minute more before you. tear me in pieces! Valentin is an honest man, if being mad for an arguable cause is honesty. But did you never see"in that cold, gray eye of his that he is mad? He would do anything, anything, to break what he calls the superstition of the cross. He has fought for it and starved for it, 'and now he has murdered for it. Braync's crazy millions had hitherto been scattered among so many sects-that they did little to alter the 'halance of things. But Valentin heard a whisper that Brayne, like so many scatter-brained sceptics, was drifting to us, and that was quite a differ~eht J tKing. Brayne would pour supplies ihto'the'impoverished Church of France; he.'would support six Nationalist news-

papers like the Guillotine. The battle was already balanced on a point, and the fanatic* took flame at the risk. He resolved to destroy the millionaire, and he did it as one would expect the greatest of detectives to commit his only crime. He abstracted the severed head of Becker on some criminological excuse, and took it home in Iris 'official, box,. He had that last argument with Brayne, that; Lord Galloway did not hear the end of. When that failed >he led him out into the sealed garden, talked to him about swordsmanship, {Used"twigs and a sabre for-illustration, arid "■"•■ -Ivan of the Scar sprang up as if startled out of a trance. The,'] dull rapidity and clearness with whielithe priest had unfolded the frightful actuality had held them so far with a paralysed attention, but when Ivan found his - voice it. was the voice of. the cohviilsed company. "You filthy lunatic!" he yelled; "and if my master does hate such shovelhatted liars as you I reckon he's pretty. well right. Well, he'll know how to finish you!' He'll not leave much of you, my man; and you'll go to him now if I take you by the scruff of the neck;" "Why, I was going there," said Father Brown heavily. "I must ask him to confess and all that. If he does, it is not so very bad, you know, after all."

Driving the unhappy Brown before them like a hostage or human sacrifice, they rushed together toward the back part of the house and tumbled somehow into the sudden stillness of Valentin's study. The great detective sat at his desk apparently too occupied -to hear their turbulent entrance. ' They paused a moment, and then something, in the look of that upright and elegant back made the doctor run forward suddenly. A touch and a glance showed him that there was a small box of pills at Valentin's elbow.and that Valentin was dead in his chair, and on the blind face of the suicide was more 'than the pride of Cato.