Simon’s pince-nez dropped from his nose in his doubt and wonder, but he answered at once. “Well, the first question, you know, is why a man should kill another with a clumsy sabre at all when a man can kill with a bodkin?”
“ A man cannot behead with a bodkin,” said Brown calmly, “and for this murder beheading was absolutely necessary.”
“ Why?” asked O’Brien, with interest.
“ And the next question?” asked Father Brown.
“ Well, why didn’t the man cry out or anything?” asked the doctor; “sabres in gardens are certainly unusual.”
“ Twigs,” said the priest gloomily, and turned to the window which looked on the scene of death. “No one saw the point of the twigs. Why should they lie on that lawn (look at it) so far from any tree? They were not snapped off; they were chopped off. The mur
