ter the island was occupied by an invasion
of townsfolk and police, and the latter had put their hands on the
victorious duellist, ritually reminding him that anything he said might
be used against him.

"I shall not say anything," said the monomaniac, with a wonderful and
peaceful face. "I shall never say anything more. I am very happy, and I
only want to be hanged."

Then he shut his mouth as they led him away, and it is the strange but
certain truth that he never opened it again in this world, except to say
"Guilty" at his trial.

Father Brown had stared at the suddenly crowded garden, the arrest of
the man of blood, the carrying away of the corpse after its examination
by the doctor, rather as one watches the break-up of some ugly dream; he
was motionless, like a man in a nightmare. He gave his name and address
as a witness, but declined their offer of a boat to the shore, and
remained alone in the island garden, gazing at the broken rose bush
and the whole green theatre of that swift and inexplicable tragedy. The
light died along the river; mist rose in the marshy banks; a few belated
birds flitted fitfully across.

Stuck stubbornly in his sub-consciousness (which was an unusually
lively one) was an unspeakable certainty that there was something still
unexplained. This sense that had clung to him all day could not be fully
explained by his fancy about "looking-glass land." Somehow he had not
seen the real story, but some game or masque. And yet people do not get
hanged or run through the body for the sake of a charade.

As he sat on the steps of the landing-stage ruminating he grew conscious
of the tall, dark streak of a sail coming silently down the shining
river, and sprang to his feet with such a backrush of feeling that he
almost wept.

"Flambeau!" he cried, and shook his friend by both hands again and
again, much to the astonishment of that sportsman, as he came on shore
with his fishing tackle. "Flambeau," he said, "so you're not killed?"

"Killed!" repeated the angler in great astonishment. "And why should I
be killed?"

"Oh, because nearly everybody else is," said his companion rather
wildly. "Saradine got murdered, and Antonelli wants to be hanged, and
his mother's fainted, and I, for one, don't know whether I'm in this
world or the next. But, thank God, you're in the same one." And he took
the bewildered Flambeau's arm.

As they turned from the landing-stage they came under the eaves of the
lo