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harmless little priest whom they had left in the drawing-room.

      “I say,” he said meekly, “there are no gates to this garden, do you know.”

      Valentin's black brows had come together somewhat crossly. “You are right,” he said. “Before we find out how he came to be killed, we may have to find out how he came to be here. Now listen to me, gentlemen. We shall all agree that certain distinguished names might well be kept out of this. There are ladies, gentlemen, and there is a foreign ambassador. If we must mark it down as a crime, then it must be investigated as a crime. I am the head of the police; I am so public that I can afford to be private. Please Heaven, I will clear everyone of my own guests before I call in my men to look for anybody else. Gentlemen, upon your honour, you will none of you leave the house till tomorrow at noon; there are bedrooms for all. Simon, I think you know where to find my man, Ivan, in the front hall. Tell him to leave another servant on guard and come to me at once. Lord Galloway, you are certainly the best person to tell the ladies what has happened, and prevent a panic. They also must stay. Father Brown and I will remain with the body.”

      Dr. Simon went through to the armoury and found Ivan, the public detective's private detective. Galloway went to the drawing-room and told the terrible news to the ladies tactfully enough. Meanwhile the good priest and the good atheist stood at the head and foot of the dead man motionless in the moonlight, like symbolic statues of their two philosophies of death.

      Ivan, the confidential man with the scar and the moustaches, dashed out of the house like a cannon ball, and came racing across the lawn to Valentin like a dog to his master. He asked his master's permission to examine the remains.

      “Yes; look, if you like, Ivan,” said Valentin, “but don't be long. We must go in and clear this up in the house.”

      Ivan lifted the head, and then almost let it drop.

      “Why,” he gasped, “it's – no, it isn't; it can't be. Do you know this man, sir?”

      “No,” said Valentin indifferently; “we had better go inside.”

      Between them they carried the corpse to a sofa in the study, and then all made their way to the drawing-room.

      The detective sat down at a desk quietly; but his eye was the iron eye of a judge at the trial. He made a few fast notes upon paper in front of him, and then said shortly: “Is everybody here?”

      “Not Mr. Brayne,” said the Duchess of Mont St. Michel, looking round.

      “No,” said Lord Galloway in a hoarse voice. “And not Mr. Neil O'Brien, I fancy. I saw that gentleman walking in the garden when the corpse was still warm.”

      “Ivan,” said the detective, “go and fetch Commandant O'Brien and Mr. Brayne. Mr. Brayne, I know, is finishing a cigar in the dining-room; Commandant O'Brien, I think, is walking up and down the conservatory. I am not sure.”

      The attendant flashed from the room, and before anyone could stir or speak Valentin went on:

      “Everyone here knows that a dead man has been found in the garden, his head cut clean from his body. Dr. Simon, you have examined it. Do you think that to cut a man's throat like that would need great force? Or, perhaps, only a very sharp knife?”

      “I should say that it could not be done with a knife at all,” said the pale doctor.

      “Have you any thought,” resumed Valentin, “of a tool with which it could be done?”

      “I really haven't,” said the doctor, arching his brows. “This was a very clean cut. It could be done with an old headsman's axe[45], or an old two-handed sword.”

      “But, good heavens!” cried the Duchess, almost in hysterics, “there aren't any two-handed swords and battleaxes round here.”

      Valentin was still busy with the paper in front of him. “ Tell me,” he said, still writing rapidly, “could it have been done with a long French cavalry sabre?”

      A low knocking came at the door. Amid the frozen silence Dr. Simon managed to say: “A sabre – yes, I suppose it could.”

      “Thank you,” said Valentin. “Come in, Ivan.”

      The confidential Ivan opened the door and brought in Commandant Neil O'Brien, whom he had found at last pacing the garden again.

      The Irish officer stood up on the threshold. “What do you want with me?” he cried.

      “Please sit down,” said Valentin in pleasant, level tones. “Why, you aren't wearing your sword. Where is it?”

      “I left it on the library table,” said O'Brien.

      “Ivan,” said Valentin, “please go and get the Commandant's sword from the library.” Then, as the servant disappeared, “Lord Galloway says he saw you leaving the garden just before he found the corpse. What were you doing in the garden?”

      The Commandant flung himself into a chair. “Oh,” he cried in pure Irish, “admirin' the moon. Communing with Nature, me bhoy[46].”

      A heavy silence fell and lasted, and at the end of it came again that terrible knocking. Ivan reappeared, carrying an empty steel scabbard. “This is all I can find,” he said.

      “Put it on the table,” said Valentin, without looking up.

      There was an inhuman silence in the room. The voice that came was quite unexpected.

      “I think I can tell you,” cried Lady Margaret, in a clear voice. “I can tell you what Mr. O'Brien was doing in the garden. He was asking me to marry him. I refused; I said in my family circumstances I could give him nothing but my respect. He was a little angry at that; he did not seem to think much of my respect. I wonder,” she added, “if he will care at all for it now. For I offer it him now. I will swear anywhere that he never did a thing like this.”

      Lord Galloway had moved up to his daughter. “Hold your tongue, Maggie,” he said in a thunderous whisper. “Why should you protect the fellow? Where's his sword? Where's his confounded cavalry – ”

      He stopped because of the stare with which his daughter was regarding him.

      “You old fool!” she said in a low voice, “what do you suppose you are trying to prove? I tell you this man was innocent while with me. But if he wasn't innocent, he was still with me. Do you hate Neil so much as to put your own daughter – ”

      Lady Galloway screamed. Everyone sat witnessing one of those tragedies that have been between lovers before now. They saw the proud, white face of the Scotch aristocrat and her lover, the Irish adventurer, like old portraits in a dark house. The long silence was full of historical memories of murdered husbands and poisonous lovers.

      In the centre of this awful silence an innocent voice said: “Was it a very long cigar?”

      The change of thought was so sharp that they had to look round to see who had spoken.

      “I mean,” said little Father Brown, from the corner of the room, “I mean that cigar Mr. Brayne is finishing. It seems nearly as long as a walking-stick.”

      “Quite right,” remarked Valentin sharply. “Ivan, go and see about Mr. Brayne again, and bring him here at once.”

      As soon as Ivan closed the door, Valentin addressed the girl.

      “Lady Margaret,” he said, “we all feel, I am sure, both gratitude and admiration for your explaining the Commandant's conduct. But there is a gap still. Lord Galloway, I understand, met you passing from the study to the drawing-room, and it was only some minutes afterwards that he found the garden and the Commandant still walking there.”

      “You have to remember,” replied Margaret, with a faint irony in her voice, “that I had just refused him, so we should hardly have come back arm in arm. He is a gentleman, anyhow; and he stayed behind – and so got charged with murder[47].”

      “In those few moments,” said Valentin gravely,

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