ause I have made up my mind at last. There is so much good
and evil in breaking secrets, that I put my conduct to a test. All these
newspapers will perish; the anti-Brazil boom is already over; Olivier
is already honoured everywhere. But I told myself that if anywhere, by
name, in metal or marble that will endure like the pyramids, Colonel
Clancy, or Captain Keith, or President Olivier, or any innocent man was
wrongly blamed, then I would speak. If it were only that St. Clare was
wrongly praised, I would be silent. And I will."

They plunged into the red-curtained tavern, which was not only cosy, but
even luxurious inside. On a table stood a silver model of the tomb of
St. Clare, the silver head bowed, the silver sword broken. On the
walls were coloured photographs of the same scene, and of the system
of wagonettes that took tourists to see it. They sat down on the
comfortable padded benches.

"Come, it's cold," cried Father Brown; "let's have some wine or beer."

"Or brandy," said Flambeau.

The Three Tools of Death

Both by calling and conviction Father Brown knew better than most of us,
that every man is dignified when he is dead. But even he felt a pang of
incongruity when he was knocked up at daybreak and told that Sir Aaron
Armstrong had been murdered. There was something absurd and unseemly
about secret violence in connection with so entirely entertaining and
popular a figure. For Sir Aaron Armstrong was entertaining to the point
of being comic; and popular in such a manner as to be almost legendary.
It was like hearing that Sunny Jim had hanged himself; or that Mr.
Pickwick had died in Hanwell. For though Sir Aaron was a philanthropist,
and thus dealt with the darker side of our society, he prided himself
on dealing with it in the brightest possible style. His political and
social speeches were cataracts of anecdotes and "loud laughter"; his
bodily health was of a bursting sort; his ethics were all optimism; and
he dealt with the Drink problem (his favourite topic) with that immortal
or even monotonous gaiety which is so often a mark of the prosperous
total abstainer.

The established story of his conversion was familiar on the more
puritanic platforms and pulpits, how he had been, when only a boy, drawn
away from Scotch theology to Scotch whisky, and how he had risen out of
both and become (as he modestly put it) what he was. Yet his wide
white beard, cherubic face, and sparkling spectacles, at th