ew. The scattered
trees outlined themselves more and more out of the vapour, as if they
were first drawn in grey chalk and then in charcoal. At yet more distant
intervals appeared the houses upon the broken fringe of the suburb;
their outlines became clearer and clearer until he recognized many in
which he had chance acquaintances, and many more the names of whose
owners he knew. But all the windows and doors were sealed; none of the
people were of the sort that would be up at such a time, or still less
on such an errand. But as he passed under the shadow of one handsome
villa with verandas and wide ornate gardens, he heard a noise that made
him almost involuntarily stop. It was the unmistakable noise of a pistol
or carbine or some light firearm discharged; but it was not this that
puzzled him most. The first full noise was immediately followed by a
series of fainter noises--as he counted them, about six. He supposed
it must be the echo; but the odd thing was that the echo was not in the
least like the original sound. It was not like anything else that he
could think of; the three things nearest to it seemed to be the noise
made by siphons of soda-water, one of the many noises made by an animal,
and the noise made by a person attempting to conceal laughter. None of
which seemed to make much sense.

Father Brown was made of two men. There was a man of action, who was
as modest as a primrose and as punctual as a clock; who went his small
round of duties and never dreamed of altering it. There was also a man
of reflection, who was much simpler but much stronger, who could not
easily be stopped; whose thought was always (in the only intelligent
sense of the words) free thought. He could not help, even unconsciously,
asking himself all the questions that there were to be asked, and
answering as many of them as he could; all that went on like his
breathing or circulation. But he never consciously carried his actions
outside the sphere of his own duty; and in this case the two attitudes
were aptly tested. He was just about to resume his trudge in the
twilight, telling himself it was no affair of his, but instinctively
twisting and untwisting twenty theories about what the odd noises
might mean. Then the grey sky-line brightened into silver, and in
the broadening light he realized that he had been to the house which
belonged to an Anglo-Indian Major named Putnam; and that the Major had
a native cook from Malta who was of his co