ce, once well known in Bohemian
society and even famous in the Bohemian arts. In a manner more vague,
but even more convincing, he echoed the agony of the servant. By the
time the third figure of that household, Alice Armstrong, daughter of
the dead man, had come already tottering and waving into the garden, the
engine-driver had put a stop to his stoppage. The whistle had blown and
the train had panted on to get help from the next station.

Father Brown had been thus rapidly summoned at the request of Patrick
Royce, the big ex-Bohemian secretary. Royce was an Irishman by birth;
and that casual kind of Catholic that never remembers his religion
until he is really in a hole. But Royce's request might have been less
promptly complied with if one of the official detectives had not been a
friend and admirer of the unofficial Flambeau; and it was impossible to
be a friend of Flambeau without hearing numberless stories about Father
Brown. Hence, while the young detective (whose name was Merton) led
the little priest across the fields to the railway, their talk was more
confidential than could be expected between two total strangers.

"As far as I can see," said Mr. Merton candidly, "there is no sense
to be made of it at all. There is nobody one can suspect. Magnus is a
solemn old fool; far too much of a fool to be an assassin. Royce has
been the baronet's best friend for years; and his daughter undoubtedly
adored him. Besides, it's all too absurd. Who would kill such a cheery
old chap as Armstrong? Who could dip his hands in the gore of an
after-dinner speaker? It would be like killing Father Christmas."

"Yes, it was a cheery house," assented Father Brown. "It was a cheery
house while he was alive. Do you think it will be cheery now he is
dead?"

Merton started a little and regarded his companion with an enlivened
eye. "Now he is dead?" he repeated.

"Yes," continued the priest stolidly, "he was cheerful. But did he
communicate his cheerfulness? Frankly, was anyone else in the house
cheerful but he?"

A window in Merton's mind let in that strange light of surprise in which
we see for the first time things we have known all along. He had often
been to the Armstrongs', on little police jobs of the philanthropist;
and, now he came to think of it, it was in itself a depressing house.
The rooms were very high and very cold; the decoration mean and
provincial; the draughty corridors were lit by electricity that was
bleaker