"Horrible!" said O'Brien, and shuddered.

The little priest, Brown, had arrived while they were talking,
and had waited, with characteristic shyness, till they had
finished. Then he said awkwardly:

"I say, I'm sorry to interrupt. But I was sent to tell you
the news!"

"News?" repeated Simon, and stared at him rather painfully
through his glasses.

"Yes, I'm sorry," said Father Brown mildly. "There's been
another murder, you know."

Both men on the seat sprang up, leaving it rocking.

"And, what's stranger still," continued the priest, with his
dull eye on the rhododendrons, "it's the same disgusting sort;
it's another beheading. They found the second head actually
bleeding into the river, a few yards along Brayne's road to Paris;
so they suppose that he--"

"Great Heaven!" cried O'Brien. "Is Brayne a monomaniac?"

"There are American vendettas," said the priest impassively.
Then he added: "They want you to come to the library and see it."

Commandant O'Brien followed the others towards the inquest,