The Incredulity of Father Brown"Oh, help," said Byrne feebly.

"I mean," persisted the little priest, "he's in it because he's out of it. That's the whole explanation."

"And a very lucid explanation too," said the journalist with feeling.

They stood looking out to sea for a time in silence, and then Father Brown said cheerfully:

"And so we come back to the ice-box. Where you have all gone wrong from the first in this business is where a good many of the papers and the public men do go wrong. It's because you assumed that there is nothing whatever in the modern world to fight about except Bolshevism. This story has nothing whatever to do with Bolshevism; except perhaps as a blind."

"I don't see how that can be," remonstrated Byrne. "Here you have the three millionaires in that one business murdered———"

"No!" said the priest in a sharp ringing voice. "You do not. That is just the point. You do not have three millionaires murdered. You have two millionaires murdered; and you have the third millionaire very much alive and kicking and quite ready to kick. And you have that third millionaire freed for ever from the threat that was thrown at his head before your very face, in playfully polite terms, and in that conversation you described as taking place in the hotel. Gallup and Stein threatened