“The dentist!” he repeated.  “Six hours in the spiritual abyss, and all because I never thought of the dentist!  Such a simple, such a beautiful and peaceful thought!  Friends, we have passed a night in hell; but now the sun is risen, the birds are singing, and the radiant form of the dentist consoles the world.”

“I will get some sense out of this,” cried Flambeau, striding forward, “if I use the tortures of the Inquisition.”

Father Brown repressed what appeared to be a momentary disposition to dance on the now sunlit lawn and cried quite piteously, like a child, “Oh, let me be silly a little.  You don’t know how unhappy I have been.  And now I know that there has been no deep sin in this business at all.  Only a little lunacy, perhaps —­and who minds that?”

He spun round once more, then faced them with gravity.

“This is not a story of crime,” he said; “rather it is the story of a strange and crooked honesty.  We are dealing with the one man on earth, perhaps, who has taken no more than his due.  It is a study in the savage living logic that has been the religion of this race.

“That old local rhyme about the house of Glengyle—­

    As green sap to the simmer trees
    Is red gold to the Ogilvies—­

was literal as well as metaphorical.  It did not merely mean that the Glengyles sought for wealth; it was also true that they literally gathered gold; they had a huge collection of ornaments and utensils in that metal.  They were, in fact, misers whose mania took that turn.  In the light of that fact, run through all the things we found in the castle.  Diamonds without their gold rings; candles without their gold candlesticks; snuff without the gold snuff-boxes; pencil-leads without the gold pencil-cases; a walking stick without its gold top; clockwork without the gold clocks—­or rather watches.  And, mad as it sounds, because the halos and the name of God in the old missals were of real gold; these also were taken away.”

The garden seemed to brighten, the grass to grow gayer in the strengthening sun, as the crazy truth was told.  Flambeau lit a cigarette as his friend went on.

“Were taken away,” continued Father Brown; “were taken away—­ but not stolen.  Thieves would never have left this mystery.  Thieves would have taken the gold snuff-boxes, snuff and all; the gold pencil-cases, lead and all.  We have to deal with a man with a peculiar conscience, but certainly a conscience.  I found that mad moralist this morning in the kitchen garden yonder, and I heard the whole story.