it's the only thing we have got," answered the
good-humoured Major. "You must remember that mustard, vinegar, oil and
so on vanished with the cruet and the burglar."

"I know," replied Brown, rather vaguely. "That's what I've always been
afraid would happen. That's why I always carry a cruet-stand about with
me. I'm so fond of salads."

And to the amazement of the two men he took a pepper-pot out of his
waistcoat pocket and put it on the table.

"I wonder why the burglar wanted mustard, too," he went on, taking a
mustard-pot from another pocket. "A mustard plaster, I suppose. And
vinegar"--and producing that condiment--"haven't I heard something about
vinegar and brown paper? As for oil, which I think I put in my left--"

His garrulity was an instant arrested; for lifting his eyes, he saw what
no one else saw--the black figure of Dr Oman standing on the sunlit
lawn and looking steadily into the room. Before he could quite recover
himself Cray had cloven in.

"You're an astounding card," he said, staring. "I shall come and hear
your sermons, if they're as amusing as your manners." His voice changed
a little, and he leaned back in his chair.

"Oh, there are sermons in a cruet-stand, too," said Father Brown, quite
gravely. "Have you heard of faith like a grain of mustard-seed; or
charity that anoints with oil? And as for vinegar, can any soldiers
forget that solitary soldier, who, when the sun was darkened--"

Colonel Cray leaned forward a little and clutched the tablecloth.

Father Brown, who was making the salad, tipped two spoonfuls of the
mustard into the tumbler of water beside him; stood up and said in a
new, loud and sudden voice--"Drink that!"

At the same moment the motionless doctor in the garden came running, and
bursting open a window cried: "Am I wanted? Has he been poisoned?"

"Pretty near," said Brown, with the shadow of a smile; for the emetic
had very suddenly taken effect. And Cray lay in a deck-chair, gasping as
for life, but alive.

Major Putnam had sprung up, his purple face mottled. "A crime!" he cried
hoarsely. "I will go for the police!"

The priest could hear him dragging down his palm-leaf hat from the peg
and tumbling out of the front door; he heard the garden gate slam. But
he only stood looking at Cray; and after a silence said quietly:

"I shall not talk to you much; but I will tell you what you want to
know. There is no curse on you. The Temple of the Monkey was either a
coinci