re's an end of it. Snuff,
spoilt Prayer Books, and the insides of musical boxes--what--"

Brown threw up his bothered brow and rapped on the spade handle with an
intolerance quite unusual with him. "Oh, tut, tut, tut, tut!" he
cried. "All that is as plain as a pikestaff. I understood the snuff
and clockwork, and so on, when I first opened my eyes this morning. And
since then I've had it out with old Gow, the gardener, who is neither so
deaf nor so stupid as he pretends. There's nothing amiss about the loose
items. I was wrong about the torn mass-book, too; there's no harm in
that. But it's this last business. Desecrating graves and stealing dead
men's heads--surely there's harm in that? Surely there's black magic
still in that? That doesn't fit in to the quite simple story of the
snuff and the candles." And, striding about again, he smoked moodily.

"My friend," said Flambeau, with a grim humour, "you must be careful
with me and remember I was once a criminal. The great advantage of that
estate was that I always made up the story myself, and acted it as quick
as I chose. This detective business of waiting about is too much for my
French impatience. All my life, for good or evil, I have done things at
the instant; I always fought duels the next morning; I always paid bills
on the nail; I never even put off a visit to the dentist--"

Father Brown's pipe fell out of his mouth and broke into three pieces
on the gravel path. He stood rolling his eyes, the exact picture of
an idiot. "Lord, what a turnip I am!" he kept saying. "Lord, what a
turnip!" Then, in a somewhat groggy kind of way, he began to laugh.

"The dentist!" he repeated. "Six hours in the spiritual abyss, and all
because I never thought of the dentist! Such a simple, such a beautiful
and peaceful thought! Friends, we have passed a night in hell; but now
the sun is risen, the birds are singing, and the radiant form of the
dentist consoles the world."

"I will get some sense out of this," cried Flambeau, striding forward,
"if I use the tortures of the Inquisition."

Father Brown repressed what appeared to be a momentary disposition to
dance on the now sunlit lawn and cried quite piteously, like a child,
"Oh, let me be silly a little. You don't know how unhappy I have been.
And now I know that there has been no deep sin in this business at all.
Only a little lunacy, perhaps--and who minds that?"

He spun round once more, then faced them with gravity.

"This