They took leave of Father Brown at the corner of the road, with some
random apologies for any rudeness they might have shown. Both their
faces were tragic, but also cryptic.

The mind of the little priest was always a rabbit-warren of wild
thoughts that jumped too quickly for him to catch them. Like the white
tail of a rabbit he had the vanishing thought that he was certain of
their grief, but not so certain of their innocence.

"We had better all be going," said Seymour heavily; "we have done all we
can to help."

"Will you understand my motives," asked Father Brown quietly, "if I say
you have done all you can to hurt?"

They both started as if guiltily, and Cutler said sharply: "To hurt
whom?"

"To hurt yourselves," answered the priest. "I would not add to your
troubles if it weren't common justice to warn you. You've done nearly
everything you could do to hang yourselves, if this actor should be
acquitted. They'll be sure to subpoena me; I shall be bound to say that
after the cry was heard each of you rushed into the room in a wild state
and began quarrelling about a dagger. As far as my words on oath can go,
you might either of you have done it. You hurt yourselves with that; and
then Captain Cutler must have hurt himself with the dagger."

"Hurt myself!" exclaimed the Captain, with contempt. "A silly little
scratch."

"Which drew blood," replied the priest, nodding. "We know there's blood
on the brass now. And so we shall never know whether there was blood on
it before."

There was a silence; and then Seymour said, with an emphasis quite alien
to his daily accent: "But I saw a man in the passage."

"I know you did," answered the cleric Brown with a face of wood, "so did
Captain Cutler. That's what seems so improbable."

Before either could make sufficient sense of it even to answer, Father
Brown had politely excused himself and gone stumping up the road with
his stumpy old umbrella.

As modern newspapers are conducted, the most honest and most important
news is the police news. If it be true that in the twentieth century
more space is given to murder than to politics, it is for the excellent
reason that murder is a more serious subject. But even this would hardly
explain the enormous omnipresence and widely distributed detail of "The
Bruno Case," or "The Passage Mystery," in the Press of London and the
provinces. So vast was the excitement that for some weeks the
Press really told the truth; and the