es.

The Duke, however stimulated, had the instincts of an aristocrat, and
desired rather to stare at the house than to spy on it; but Flambeau,
who had the instincts of a burglar (and a detective), had already swung
himself from the wall into the fork of a straggling tree from which he
could crawl quite close to the only illuminated window in the back of
the high dark house. A red blind had been pulled down over the light,
but pulled crookedly, so that it gaped on one side, and by risking his
neck along a branch that looked as treacherous as a twig, Flambeau
could just see Colonel Dubosc walking about in a brilliantly-lighted and
luxurious bedroom. But close as Flambeau was to the house, he heard the
words of his colleagues by the wall, and repeated them in a low voice.

"Yes, they will meet now after all!"

"They will never meet," said Father Brown. "Hirsch was right when he
said that in such an affair the principals must not meet. Have you
read a queer psychological story by Henry James, of two persons who so
perpetually missed meeting each other by accident that they began to
feel quite frightened of each other, and to think it was fate? This is
something of the kind, but more curious."

"There are people in Paris who will cure them of such morbid fancies,"
said Valognes vindictively. "They will jolly well have to meet if we
capture them and force them to fight."

"They will not meet on the Day of Judgement," said the priest. "If God
Almighty held the truncheon of the lists, if St Michael blew the trumpet
for the swords to cross--even then, if one of them stood ready, the
other would not come."

"Oh, what does all this mysticism mean?" cried the Duc de Valognes,
impatiently; "why on earth shouldn't they meet like other people?"

"They are the opposite of each other," said Father Brown, with a queer
kind of smile. "They contradict each other. They cancel out, so to
speak."

He continued to gaze at the darkening trees opposite, but Valognes
turned his head sharply at a suppressed exclamation from Flambeau. That
investigator, peering into the lighted room, had just seen the Colonel,
after a pace or two, proceed to take his coat off. Flambeau's first
thought was that this really looked like a fight; but he soon dropped
the thought for another. The solidity and squareness of Dubosc's chest
and shoulders was all a powerful piece of padding and came off with his
coat. In his shirt and trousers he was a comparative