s curse was there, anyhow. I woke again in the dark with
a sensation that could not be put in colder or more literal words than
that a breath bit like an adder. Existence was an agony of extinction;
I dashed my head against walls until I dashed it against a window; and
fell rather than jumped into the garden below. Putnam, poor fellow, who
had called the other thing a chance scratch, was bound to take seriously
the fact of finding me half insensible on the grass at dawn. But I fear
it was my mental state he took seriously; and not my story.

"The third happened in Malta. We were in a fortress there; and as it
happened our bedrooms overlooked the open sea, which almost came up to
our window-sills, save for a flat white outer wall as bare as the sea.
I woke up again; but it was not dark. There was a full moon, as I walked
to the window; I could have seen a bird on the bare battlement, or
a sail on the horizon. What I did see was a sort of stick or branch
circling, self-supported, in the empty sky. It flew straight in at my
window and smashed the lamp beside the pillow I had just quitted. It was
one of those queer-shaped war-clubs some Eastern tribes use. But it had
come from no human hand."

Father Brown threw away a daisy-chain he was making, and rose with a
wistful look. "Has Major Putnam," he asked, "got any Eastern curios,
idols, weapons and so on, from which one might get a hint?"

"Plenty of those, though not much use, I fear," replied Cray; "but by
all means come into his study."

As they entered they passed Miss Watson buttoning her gloves for church,
and heard the voice of Putnam downstairs still giving a lecture on
cookery to the cook. In the Major's study and den of curios they came
suddenly on a third party, silk-hatted and dressed for the street,
who was poring over an open book on the smoking-table--a book which he
dropped rather guiltily, and turned.

Cray introduced him civilly enough, as Dr Oman, but he showed such
disfavour in his very face that Brown guessed the two men, whether
Audrey knew it or not, were rivals. Nor was the priest wholly
unsympathetic with the prejudice. Dr Oman was a very well-dressed
gentleman indeed; well-featured, though almost dark enough for an
Asiatic. But Father Brown had to tell himself sharply that one should be
in charity even with those who wax their pointed beards, who have small
gloved hands, and who speak with perfectly modulated voices.

Cray seemed to find somet