legatee. Flambeau, in wonder, handed this truncated testament to his
clerical friend, who glanced at it and silently gave it to the priest of
the sun.

An instant afterwards that pontiff, in his splendid sweeping draperies,
had crossed the room in two great strides, and was towering over Joan
Stacey, his blue eyes standing from his head.

"What monkey tricks have you been playing here?" he cried. "That's not
all Pauline wrote."

They were startled to hear him speak in quite a new voice, with a Yankee
shrillness in it; all his grandeur and good English had fallen from him
like a cloak.

"That is the only thing on her desk," said Joan, and confronted him
steadily with the same smile of evil favour.

Of a sudden the man broke out into blasphemies and cataracts of
incredulous words. There was something shocking about the dropping of
his mask; it was like a man's real face falling off.

"See here!" he cried in broad American, when he was breathless with
cursing, "I may be an adventurer, but I guess you're a murderess. Yes,
gentlemen, here's your death explained, and without any levitation. The
poor girl is writing a will in my favour; her cursed sister comes in,
struggles for the pen, drags her to the well, and throws her down before
she can finish it. Sakes! I reckon we want the handcuffs after all."

"As you have truly remarked," replied Joan, with ugly calm, "your clerk
is a very respectable young man, who knows the nature of an oath; and
he will swear in any court that I was up in your office arranging some
typewriting work for five minutes before and five minutes after my
sister fell. Mr. Flambeau will tell you that he found me there."

There was a silence.

"Why, then," cried Flambeau, "Pauline was alone when she fell, and it
was suicide!"

"She was alone when she fell," said Father Brown, "but it was not
suicide."

"Then how did she die?" asked Flambeau impatiently.

"She was murdered."

"But she was alone," objected the detective.

"She was murdered when she was all alone," answered the priest.

All the rest stared at him, but he remained sitting in the same
old dejected attitude, with a wrinkle in his round forehead and an
appearance of impersonal shame and sorrow; his voice was colourless and
sad.

"What I want to know," cried Kalon, with an oath, "is when the police
are coming for this bloody and wicked sister. She's killed her flesh and
blood; she's robbed me of half a million that was just