Page:The Incredulity of Father Brown.pdf/77

The Arrow of Heaven accidents of the robbery. Anyhow, he had it; and that man Drage knew the story and was blackmailing him. But Wilton was after him for a very different purpose; I fancy he only discovered the truth when he'd got into this house. But anyhow, it was in this house, and in that room, that this hunt ended, and he slew the slayer of his father."

For a long time nobody answered. Then old Crake could be heard drumming with his fingers on the table and muttering, "Brander must have been mad. He must have been mad."

"But, good Lord!" burst out Peter Wain, "what are we to do? What are we to say? Oh, it's all quite different! What about the papers and the big business people? Brander Merton is a thing like the President or the Pope of Rome."

"I certainly think it is rather different," began Barnard Blake the lawyer, in a low voice. "The difference involves a whole"

Father Brown struck the table so that the glasses on it rang; and they could almost fancy a ghostly echo from the mysterious chalice that still stood in the room beyond.

"No!" he cried, in a voice like a pistol-shot. "There shall be no difference. I gave you your chance of pitying the poor devil when you thought he was a common criminal. You wouldn't listen then; you were all for private vengeance then. You were all for letting him be butchered like a wild beast