t the man you have so
accurately described."

"I did meet him in a way," Brown said, biting his finger rather
nervously--"I did really. And it was too dark to see him properly,
because it was under that bandstand affair. But I'm afraid I didn't
describe him so very accurately after all, for his pince-nez was broken
under him, and the long gold pin wasn't stuck through his purple scarf
but through his heart."

"And I suppose," said the other in a lower voice, "that glass-eyed guy
had something to do with it."

"I had hoped he had only a little," answered Brown in a rather troubled
voice, "and I may have been wrong in what I did. I acted on impulse. But
I fear this business has deep roots and dark."

They walked on through some streets in silence. The yellow lamps were
beginning to be lit in the cold blue twilight, and they were evidently
approaching the more central parts of the town. Highly coloured bills
announcing the glove-fight between Nigger Ned and Malvoli were slapped
about the walls.

"Well," said Flambeau, "I never murdered anyone, even in my criminal
days, but I can almost sympathize with anyone doing it in such a
dreary place. Of all God-forsaken dustbins of Nature, I think the most
heart-breaking are places like that bandstand, that were meant to be
festive and are forlorn. I can fancy a morbid man feeling he must kill
his rival in the solitude and irony of such a scene. I remember once
taking a tramp in your glorious Surrey hills, thinking of nothing but
gorse and skylarks, when I came out on a vast circle of land, and over
me lifted a vast, voiceless structure, tier above tier of seats, as huge
as a Roman amphitheatre and as empty as a new letter-rack. A bird sailed
in heaven over it. It was the Grand Stand at Epsom. And I felt that no
one would ever be happy there again."

"It's odd you should mention Epsom," said the priest. "Do you remember
what was called the Sutton Mystery, because two suspected men--ice-cream
men, I think--happened to live at Sutton? They were eventually released.
A man was found strangled, it was said, on the Downs round that part. As
a fact, I know (from an Irish policeman who is a friend of mine) that he
was found close up to the Epsom Grand Stand--in fact, only hidden by one
of the lower doors being pushed back."

"That is queer," assented Flambeau. "But it rather confirms my view
that such pleasure places look awfully lonely out of season, or the man
wouldn't have been