erly wrong about the facts. And innocent or guilty, Dr
Hirsch knew all about the facts."

"The man who wrote that note knew all about the facts," said his
clerical companion soberly. "He could never have got 'em so wrong
without knowing about 'em. You have to know an awful lot to be wrong on
every subject--like the devil."

"Do you mean--?"

"I mean a man telling lies on chance would have told some of the truth,"
said his friend firmly. "Suppose someone sent you to find a house with
a green door and a blue blind, with a front garden but no back garden,
with a dog but no cat, and where they drank coffee but not tea. You
would say if you found no such house that it was all made up. But I say
no. I say if you found a house where the door was blue and the blind
green, where there was a back garden and no front garden, where cats
were common and dogs instantly shot, where tea was drunk in quarts and
coffee forbidden--then you would know you had found the house. The man
must have known that particular house to be so accurately inaccurate."

"But what could it mean?" demanded the diner opposite.

"I can't conceive," said Brown; "I don't understand this Hirsch affair
at all. As long as it was only the left drawer instead of the right, and
red ink instead of black, I thought it must be the chance blunders of a
forger, as you say. But three is a mystical number; it finishes things.
It finishes this. That the direction about the drawer, the colour of
ink, the colour of envelope, should none of them be right by accident,
that can't be a coincidence. It wasn't."

"What was it, then? Treason?" asked Flambeau, resuming his dinner.

"I don't know that either," answered Brown, with a face of blank
bewilderment. "The only thing I can think of.... Well, I never
understood that Dreyfus case. I can always grasp moral evidence easier
than the other sorts. I go by a man's eyes and voice, don't you know,
and whether his family seems happy, and by what subjects he chooses--and
avoids. Well, I was puzzled in the Dreyfus case. Not by the horrible
things imputed both ways; I know (though it's not modern to say so) that
human nature in the highest places is still capable of being Cenci or
Borgia. No--, what puzzled me was the sincerity of both parties. I don't
mean the political parties; the rank and file are always roughly
honest, and often duped. I mean the persons of the play. I mean the
conspirators, if they were conspirators. I mean the