bjects could be. One
looked like a small heap of glittering broken glass. Another looked like
a high heap of brown dust. A third appeared to be a plain stick of wood.

"You seem to have a sort of geological museum here," he said, as he sat
down, jerking his head briefly in the direction of the brown dust and
the crystalline fragments.

"Not a geological museum," replied Flambeau; "say a psychological
museum."

"Oh, for the Lord's sake," cried the police detective laughing, "don't
let's begin with such long words."

"Don't you know what psychology means?" asked Flambeau with friendly
surprise. "Psychology means being off your chump."

"Still I hardly follow," replied the official.

"Well," said Flambeau, with decision, "I mean that we've only found out
one thing about Lord Glengyle. He was a maniac."

The black silhouette of Gow with his top hat and spade passed the
window, dimly outlined against the darkening sky. Father Brown stared
passively at it and answered:

"I can understand there must have been something odd about the man, or
he wouldn't have buried himself alive--nor been in such a hurry to bury
himself dead. But what makes you think it was lunacy?"

"Well," said Flambeau, "you just listen to the list of things Mr. Craven
has found in the house."

"We must get a candle," said Craven, suddenly. "A storm is getting up,
and it's too dark to read."

"Have you found any candles," asked Brown smiling, "among your
oddities?"

Flambeau raised a grave face, and fixed his dark eyes on his friend.

"That is curious, too," he said. "Twenty-five candles, and not a trace
of a candlestick."

In the rapidly darkening room and rapidly rising wind, Brown went along
the table to where a bundle of wax candles lay among the other scrappy
exhibits. As he did so he bent accidentally over the heap of red-brown
dust; and a sharp sneeze cracked the silence.

"Hullo!" he said, "snuff!"

He took one of the candles, lit it carefully, came back and stuck it in
the neck of the whisky bottle. The unrestful night air, blowing through
the crazy window, waved the long flame like a banner. And on every side
of the castle they could hear the miles and miles of black pine wood
seething like a black sea around a rock.

"I will read the inventory," began Craven gravely, picking up one of
the papers, "the inventory of what we found loose and unexplained in the
castle. You are to understand that the place generally was dismantled