sex turned what seemed to be a dazed face in the
dusk, and said, with the timid eagerness of "The Private Secretary":

"Are--are you sure?"

Flambeau yelled with delight.

"Really, you're as good as a three-act farce," he cried. "Yes, you
turnip, I am quite sure. I had the sense to make a duplicate of the
right parcel, and now, my friend, you've got the duplicate and I've got
the jewels. An old dodge, Father Brown--a very old dodge."

"Yes," said Father Brown, and passed his hand through his hair with the
same strange vagueness of manner. "Yes, I've heard of it before."

The colossus of crime leaned over to the little rustic priest with a
sort of sudden interest.

"You have heard of it?" he asked. "Where have you heard of it?"

"Well, I mustn't tell you his name, of course," said the little man
simply. "He was a penitent, you know. He had lived prosperously for
about twenty years entirely on duplicate brown paper parcels. And so,
you see, when I began to suspect you, I thought of this poor chap's way
of doing it at once."

"Began to suspect me?" repeated the outlaw with increased intensity.
"Did you really have the gumption to suspect me just because I brought
you up to this bare part of the heath?"

"No, no," said Brown with an air of apology. "You see, I suspected you
when we first met. It's that little bulge up the sleeve where you people
have the spiked bracelet."

"How in Tartarus," cried Flambeau, "did you ever hear of the spiked
bracelet?"

"Oh, one's little flock, you know!" said Father Brown, arching his
eyebrows rather blankly. "When I was a curate in Hartlepool, there were
three of them with spiked bracelets. So, as I suspected you from the
first, don't you see, I made sure that the cross should go safe, anyhow.
I'm afraid I watched you, you know. So at last I saw you change the
parcels. Then, don't you see, I changed them back again. And then I left
the right one behind."

"Left it behind?" repeated Flambeau, and for the first time there was
another note in his voice beside his triumph.

"Well, it was like this," said the little priest, speaking in the same
unaffected way. "I went back to that sweet-shop and asked if I'd left a
parcel, and gave them a particular address if it turned up. Well, I knew
I hadn't; but when I went away again I did. So, instead of running after
me with that valuable parcel, they have sent it flying to a friend of
mine in Westminster." Then he added rather sadly: "I