"Began to suspect me?" repeated the outlaw with increased
intensity. "Did you really have the gumption to suspect me just
because I brought you up to this bare part of the heath?"

"No, no," said Brown with an air of apology. "You see, I
suspected you when we first met. It's that little bulge up the
sleeve where you people have the spiked bracelet."

"How in Tartarus," cried Flambeau, "did you ever hear of the
spiked bracelet?"

"Oh, one's little flock, you know!" said Father Brown, arching
his eyebrows rather blankly. "When I was a curate in Hartlepool,
there were three of them with spiked bracelets. So, as I
suspected you from the first, don't you see, I made sure that the
cross should go safe, anyhow. I'm afraid I watched you, you know.
So at last I saw you change the parcels. Then, don't you see, I
changed them back again. And then I left the right one behind."

"Left it behind?" repeated Flambeau, and for the first time
there was another note in his voice beside his triumph.

"Well, it was like this," said the little priest, speaking in
the same unaffected way. "I went back to that sweet-shop and
asked if I'd left a parcel, and gave them a particular address if
it turned up. Well, I knew I hadn't; but when I went away again I
did. So, instead of running after me with that valuable parcel,
they have sent it flying to a friend of mine in Westminster."
Then he added rather sadly: "I learnt that, too, from a poor