own shabby umbrella, with some faint memories of
the ogre's club in a coloured toy-book. But he never composed anything
in the form of fiction, unless it be the tale that follows:

"I wonder," he said, "whether one would have real adventures in a place
like this, if one put oneself in the way? It's a splendid back-scene for
them, but I always have a kind of feeling that they would fight you with
pasteboard sabres more than real, horrible swords."

"You are mistaken," said his friend. "In this place they not only fight
with swords, but kill without swords. And there's worse than that."

"Why, what do you mean?" asked Father Brown.

"Why," replied the other, "I should say this was the only place in
Europe where a man was ever shot without firearms."

"Do you mean a bow and arrow?" asked Brown in some wonder.

"I mean a bullet in the brain," replied Flambeau. "Don't you know the
story of the late Prince of this place? It was one of the great police
mysteries about twenty years ago. You remember, of course, that this
place was forcibly annexed at the time of Bismarck's very earliest
schemes of consolidation--forcibly, that is, but not at all easily. The
empire (or what wanted to be one) sent Prince Otto of Grossenmark to
rule the place in the Imperial interests. We saw his portrait in
the gallery there--a handsome old gentleman if he'd had any hair or
eyebrows, and hadn't been wrinkled all over like a vulture; but he had
things to harass him, as I'll explain in a minute. He was a soldier of
distinguished skill and success, but he didn't have altogether an easy
job with this little place. He was defeated in several battles by
the celebrated Arnhold brothers--the three guerrilla patriots to whom
Swinburne wrote a poem, you remember:

Wolves with the hair of the ermine,
Crows that are crowned and kings--
These things be many as vermin,
Yet Three shall abide these things.

Or something of that kind. Indeed, it is by no means certain that the
occupation would ever have been successful had not one of the three
brothers, Paul, despicably, but very decisively declined to abide
these things any longer, and, by surrendering all the secrets of the
insurrection, ensured its overthrow and his own ultimate promotion to
the post of chamberlain to Prince Otto. After this, Ludwig, the one
genuine hero among Mr Swinburne's heroes, was killed, sword in hand,
in the capture of the city; and the thir