ot associated
in his mind with secrecy, but with something else--something that he
could not remember. He was maddened by one of those half-memories that
make a man feel half-witted. Surely he had heard that strange, swift
walking somewhere. Suddenly he sprang to his feet with a new idea in
his head, and walked to the door. His room had no direct outlet on the
passage, but let on one side into the glass office, and on the other
into the cloak room beyond. He tried the door into the office, and
found it locked. Then he looked at the window, now a square pane full of
purple cloud cleft by livid sunset, and for an instant he smelt evil as
a dog smells rats.

The rational part of him (whether the wiser or not) regained its
supremacy. He remembered that the proprietor had told him that he should
lock the door, and would come later to release him. He told himself that
twenty things he had not thought of might explain the eccentric sounds
outside; he reminded himself that there was just enough light left to
finish his own proper work. Bringing his paper to the window so as to
catch the last stormy evening light, he resolutely plunged once more
into the almost completed record. He had written for about twenty
minutes, bending closer and closer to his paper in the lessening light;
then suddenly he sat upright. He had heard the strange feet once more.

This time they had a third oddity. Previously the unknown man had
walked, with levity indeed and lightning quickness, but he had walked.
This time he ran. One could hear the swift, soft, bounding steps coming
along the corridor, like the pads of a fleeing and leaping panther.
Whoever was coming was a very strong, active man, in still yet tearing
excitement. Yet, when the sound had swept up to the office like a sort
of whispering whirlwind, it suddenly changed again to the old slow,
swaggering stamp.

Father Brown flung down his paper, and, knowing the office door to
be locked, went at once into the cloak room on the other side. The
attendant of this place was temporarily absent, probably because the
only guests were at dinner and his office was a sinecure. After groping
through a grey forest of overcoats, he found that the dim cloak room
opened on the lighted corridor in the form of a sort of counter or
half-door, like most of the counters across which we have all handed
umbrellas and received tickets. There was a light immediately above
the semicircular arch of this opening. It