Gow, and was
the one silent servant on that deserted estate. But the energy with
which he dug potatoes, and the regularity with which he disappeared
into the kitchen gave people an impression that he was providing for the
meals of a superior, and that the strange earl was still concealed in
the castle. If society needed any further proof that he was there, the
servant persistently asserted that he was not at home. One morning the
provost and the minister (for the Glengyles were Presbyterian) were
summoned to the castle. There they found that the gardener, groom and
cook had added to his many professions that of an undertaker, and had
nailed up his noble master in a coffin. With how much or how little
further inquiry this odd fact was passed, did not as yet very plainly
appear; for the thing had never been legally investigated till Flambeau
had gone north two or three days before. By then the body of Lord
Glengyle (if it was the body) had lain for some time in the little
churchyard on the hill.

As Father Brown passed through the dim garden and came under the
shadow of the chateau, the clouds were thick and the whole air damp
and thundery. Against the last stripe of the green-gold sunset he saw
a black human silhouette; a man in a chimney-pot hat, with a big spade
over his shoulder. The combination was queerly suggestive of a sexton;
but when Brown remembered the deaf servant who dug potatoes, he thought
it natural enough. He knew something of the Scotch peasant; he knew the
respectability which might well feel it necessary to wear "blacks" for
an official inquiry; he knew also the economy that would not lose an
hour's digging for that. Even the man's start and suspicious stare as
the priest went by were consonant enough with the vigilance and jealousy
of such a type.

The great door was opened by Flambeau himself, who had with him a lean
man with iron-grey hair and papers in his hand: Inspector Craven from
Scotland Yard. The entrance hall was mostly stripped and empty; but the
pale, sneering faces of one or two of the wicked Ogilvies looked down
out of black periwigs and blackening canvas.

Following them into an inner room, Father Brown found that the allies
had been seated at a long oak table, of which their end was covered with
scribbled papers, flanked with whisky and cigars. Through the whole of
its remaining length it was occupied by detached objects arranged at
intervals; objects about as inexplicable as any o