w bamboo house, and looked in through one of the windows, as they
had done on their first arrival. They beheld a lamp-lit interior well
calculated to arrest their eyes. The table in the long dining-room
had been laid for dinner when Saradine's destroyer had fallen like a
stormbolt on the island. And the dinner was now in placid progress, for
Mrs. Anthony sat somewhat sullenly at the foot of the table, while at
the head of it was Mr. Paul, the major domo, eating and drinking of the
best, his bleared, bluish eyes standing queerly out of his face, his
gaunt countenance inscrutable, but by no means devoid of satisfaction.

With a gesture of powerful impatience, Flambeau rattled at the window,
wrenched it open, and put an indignant head into the lamp-lit room.

"Well," he cried. "I can understand you may need some refreshment,
but really to steal your master's dinner while he lies murdered in the
garden--"

"I have stolen a great many things in a long and pleasant life," replied
the strange old gentleman placidly; "this dinner is one of the few
things I have not stolen. This dinner and this house and garden happen
to belong to me."

A thought flashed across Flambeau's face. "You mean to say," he began,
"that the will of Prince Saradine--"

"I am Prince Saradine," said the old man, munching a salted almond.

Father Brown, who was looking at the birds outside, jumped as if he were
shot, and put in at the window a pale face like a turnip.

"You are what?" he repeated in a shrill voice.

"Paul, Prince Saradine, A vos ordres," said the venerable person
politely, lifting a glass of sherry. "I live here very quietly, being
a domestic kind of fellow; and for the sake of modesty I am called Mr.
Paul, to distinguish me from my unfortunate brother Mr. Stephen. He
died, I hear, recently--in the garden. Of course, it is not my fault
if enemies pursue him to this place. It is owing to the regrettable
irregularity of his life. He was not a domestic character."

He relapsed into silence, and continued to gaze at the opposite wall
just above the bowed and sombre head of the woman. They saw plainly
the family likeness that had haunted them in the dead man. Then his old
shoulders began to heave and shake a little, as if he were choking, but
his face did not alter.

"My God!" cried Flambeau after a pause, "he's laughing!"

"Come away," said Father Brown, who was quite white. "Come away from
this house of hell. Let us get into an hon