, and lifted on six slender pillars of painted wood,
the whole being raised about five feet above the parade on a round
wooden platform like a drum. But there was something fantastic about
the snow combined with something artificial about the gold that haunted
Flambeau as well as his friend with some association he could not
capture, but which he knew was at once artistic and alien.

"I've got it," he said at last. "It's Japanese. It's like those fanciful
Japanese prints, where the snow on the mountain looks like sugar, and
the gilt on the pagodas is like gilt on gingerbread. It looks just like
a little pagan temple."

"Yes," said Father Brown. "Let's have a look at the god." And with an
agility hardly to be expected of him, he hopped up on to the raised
platform.

"Oh, very well," said Flambeau, laughing; and the next instant his own
towering figure was visible on that quaint elevation.

Slight as was the difference of height, it gave in those level wastes a
sense of seeing yet farther and farther across land and sea. Inland the
little wintry gardens faded into a confused grey copse; beyond that, in
the distance, were long low barns of a lonely farmhouse, and beyond that
nothing but the long East Anglian plains. Seawards there was no sail
or sign of life save a few seagulls: and even they looked like the last
snowflakes, and seemed to float rather than fly.

Flambeau turned abruptly at an exclamation behind him. It seemed to come
from lower down than might have been expected, and to be addressed to
his heels rather than his head. He instantly held out his hand, but he
could hardly help laughing at what he saw. For some reason or other the
platform had given way under Father Brown, and the unfortunate little
man had dropped through to the level of the parade. He was just tall
enough, or short enough, for his head alone to stick out of the hole in
the broken wood, looking like St John the Baptist's head on a charger.
The face wore a disconcerted expression, as did, perhaps, that of St
John the Baptist.

In a moment he began to laugh a little. "This wood must be rotten," said
Flambeau. "Though it seems odd it should bear me, and you go through the
weak place. Let me help you out."

But the little priest was looking rather curiously at the corners and
edges of the wood alleged to be rotten, and there was a sort of trouble
on his brow.

"Come along," cried Flambeau impatiently, still with his big brown hand
extend