a cut-throat Socialist, who says openly he would steal anything from a
richer man. This is the end of it. Here is the richer man--and none the
richer."

"If you want the inside of my head you can have it," said Brown rather
wearily. "What it's worth you can say afterwards. But the first thing I
find in that disused pocket is this: that men who mean to steal diamonds
don't talk Socialism. They are more likely," he added demurely, "to
denounce it."

Both the others shifted sharply and the priest went on:

"You see, we know these people, more or less. That Socialist would no
more steal a diamond than a Pyramid. We ought to look at once to the one
man we don't know. The fellow acting the policeman--Florian. Where is he
exactly at this minute, I wonder."

The pantaloon sprang erect and strode out of the room. An interlude
ensued, during which the millionaire stared at the priest, and the
priest at his breviary; then the pantaloon returned and said, with
staccato gravity, "The policeman is still lying on the stage. The
curtain has gone up and down six times; he is still lying there."

Father Brown dropped his book and stood staring with a look of blank
mental ruin. Very slowly a light began to creep in his grey eyes, and
then he made the scarcely obvious answer.

"Please forgive me, colonel, but when did your wife die?"

"Wife!" replied the staring soldier, "she died this year two months. Her
brother James arrived just a week too late to see her."

The little priest bounded like a rabbit shot. "Come on!" he cried in
quite unusual excitement. "Come on! We've got to go and look at that
policeman!"

They rushed on to the now curtained stage, breaking rudely past the
columbine and clown (who seemed whispering quite contentedly), and
Father Brown bent over the prostrate comic policeman.

"Chloroform," he said as he rose; "I only guessed it just now."

There was a startled stillness, and then the colonel said slowly,
"Please say seriously what all this means."

Father Brown suddenly shouted with laughter, then stopped, and
only struggled with it for instants during the rest of his speech.
"Gentlemen," he gasped, "there's not much time to talk. I must run after
the criminal. But this great French actor who played the policeman--this
clever corpse the harlequin waltzed with and dandled and threw about--he
was--" His voice again failed him, and he turned his back to run.

"He was?" called Fischer inquiringly.

"A real