The Incredulity of Father Brown"Naturally we wondered and worried a good deal about who shot that arrow through the window and whether it came from far away, and so on. But the truth is that nobody shot the arrow at all. It never came in at the window at all."

"Then how did it come there?" asked the swarthy lawyer, with a rather lowering face.

"Somebody brought it with him, I suppose," said Father Brown; "it wouldn't be hard to carry or conceal. Somebody had it in his hand as he stood with Merton in Merton's own room. Somebody thrust it into Merton's throat like a poignard; and then had the highly intelligent idea of placing the whole thing at such a place and angle that we all assumed in a flash that it had flown in at the window like a bird."

"Somebody," said old Crake, in a voice as heavy as stone.

The telephone bell rang with a strident and horrible clamour of insistence. It was in the adjoining room, and Father Brown had darted there before anybody else could move.

"What the devil is it all about?" cried Peter Wain, who seemed all shaken and distracted.

"He said he expected to be rung up by Wilton, the secretary," replied his uncle, in the same dead voice.

"I suppose it is Wilton?" observed the lawyer, like one speaking to fill up a silence. But nobody