ye, though he may not be able to explain
its attraction. It is a long, low house, running parallel with the road,
painted mostly white and pale green, with a veranda and sun-blinds, and
porches capped with those quaint sort of cupolas like wooden umbrellas
that one sees in some old-fashioned houses. In fact, it is an
old-fashioned house, very English and very suburban in the good old
wealthy Clapham sense. And yet the house has a look of having been built
chiefly for the hot weather. Looking at its white paint and sun-blinds
one thinks vaguely of pugarees and even of palm trees. I cannot trace
the feeling to its root; perhaps the place was built by an Anglo-Indian.

Anyone passing this house, I say, would be namelessly fascinated by it;
would feel that it was a place about which some story was to be told.
And he would have been right, as you shall shortly hear. For this is the
story--the story of the strange things that did really happen in it in
the Whitsuntide of the year 18--:

Anyone passing the house on the Thursday before Whit-Sunday at about
half-past four p.m. would have seen the front door open, and Father
Brown, of the small church of St. Mungo, come out smoking a large pipe
in company with a very tall French friend of his called Flambeau, who
was smoking a very small cigarette. These persons may or may not be of
interest to the reader, but the truth is that they were not the only
interesting things that were displayed when the front door of the
white-and-green house was opened. There are further peculiarities about
this house, which must be described to start with, not only that the
reader may understand this tragic tale, but also that he may realise
what it was that the opening of the door revealed.

The whole house was built upon the plan of a T, but a T with a very long
cross piece and a very short tail piece. The long cross piece was the
frontage that ran along in face of the street, with the front door
in the middle; it was two stories high, and contained nearly all
the important rooms. The short tail piece, which ran out at the back
immediately opposite the front door, was one story high, and consisted
only of two long rooms, the one leading into the other. The first of
these two rooms was the study in which the celebrated Mr. Quinton wrote
his wild Oriental poems and romances. The farther room was a glass
conservatory full of tropical blossoms of quite unique and almost
monstrous beauty, and on such