threw little illumination on
Father Brown himself, who seemed a mere dark outline against the dim
sunset window behind him. But it threw an almost theatrical light on the
man who stood outside the cloak room in the corridor.

He was an elegant man in very plain evening dress; tall, but with an air
of not taking up much room; one felt that he could have slid along like
a shadow where many smaller men would have been obvious and obstructive.
His face, now flung back in the lamplight, was swarthy and vivacious,
the face of a foreigner. His figure was good, his manners good humoured
and confident; a critic could only say that his black coat was a shade
below his figure and manners, and even bulged and bagged in an odd
way. The moment he caught sight of Brown's black silhouette against the
sunset, he tossed down a scrap of paper with a number and called out
with amiable authority: "I want my hat and coat, please; I find I have
to go away at once."

Father Brown took the paper without a word, and obediently went to look
for the coat; it was not the first menial work he had done in his
life. He brought it and laid it on the counter; meanwhile, the strange
gentleman who had been feeling in his waistcoat pocket, said laughing:
"I haven't got any silver; you can keep this." And he threw down half a
sovereign, and caught up his coat.

Father Brown's figure remained quite dark and still; but in that instant
he had lost his head. His head was always most valuable when he had lost
it. In such moments he put two and two together and made four million.
Often the Catholic Church (which is wedded to common sense) did not
approve of it. Often he did not approve of it himself. But it was real
inspiration--important at rare crises--when whosoever shall lose his
head the same shall save it.

"I think, sir," he said civilly, "that you have some silver in your
pocket."

The tall gentleman stared. "Hang it," he cried, "if I choose to give you
gold, why should you complain?"

"Because silver is sometimes more valuable than gold," said the priest
mildly; "that is, in large quantities."

The stranger looked at him curiously. Then he looked still more
curiously up the passage towards the main entrance. Then he looked back
at Brown again, and then he looked very carefully at the window beyond
Brown's head, still coloured with the after-glow of the storm. Then he
seemed to make up his mind. He put one hand on the counter, vaulted
over as ea