d, Heinrich, who, though not a
traitor, had always been tame and even timid compared with his active
brothers, retired into something like a hermitage, became converted to a
Christian quietism which was almost Quakerish, and never mixed with men
except to give nearly all he had to the poor. They tell me that not long
ago he could still be seen about the neighbourhood occasionally, a man
in a black cloak, nearly blind, with very wild, white hair, but a face
of astonishing softness."

"I know," said Father Brown. "I saw him once."

His friend looked at him in some surprise. "I didn't know you'd been
here before," he said. "Perhaps you know as much about it as I do.
Anyhow, that's the story of the Arnholds, and he was the last survivor
of them. Yes, and of all the men who played parts in that drama."

"You mean that the Prince, too, died long before?"

"Died," repeated Flambeau, "and that's about as much as we can say. You
must understand that towards the end of his life he began to have
those tricks of the nerves not uncommon with tyrants. He multiplied the
ordinary daily and nightly guard round his castle till there seemed to
be more sentry-boxes than houses in the town, and doubtful characters
were shot without mercy. He lived almost entirely in a little room that
was in the very centre of the enormous labyrinth of all the other rooms,
and even in this he erected another sort of central cabin or cupboard,
lined with steel, like a safe or a battleship. Some say that under the
floor of this again was a secret hole in the earth, no more than large
enough to hold him, so that, in his anxiety to avoid the grave, he was
willing to go into a place pretty much like it. But he went further yet.
The populace had been supposed to be disarmed ever since the suppression
of the revolt, but Otto now insisted, as governments very seldom
insist, on an absolute and literal disarmament. It was carried out,
with extraordinary thoroughness and severity, by very well-organized
officials over a small and familiar area, and, so far as human strength
and science can be absolutely certain of anything, Prince Otto was
absolutely certain that nobody could introduce so much as a toy pistol
into Heiligwaldenstein."

"Human science can never be quite certain of things like that," said
Father Brown, still looking at the red budding of the branches over
his head, "if only because of the difficulty about definition and
connotation. What is a weapon