“Yes,” answered Harris.  “They ought to be here in ten minutes.”

“Will you do me a favour?” said the priest quietly.  “The truth is, I make a collection of these curious stories, which often contain, as in the case of our Hindoo friend, elements which can hardly be put into a police report.  Now, I want you to write out a report of this case for my private use.  Yours is a clever trade,” he said, looking the doctor gravely and steadily in the face.  “I sometimes think that you know some details of this matter which you have not thought fit to mention.  Mine is a confidential trade like yours, and I will treat anything you write for me in strict confidence.  But write the whole.”

The doctor, who had been listening thoughtfully with his head a little on one side, looked the priest in the face for an instant, and said:  “All right,” and went into the study, closing the door behind him.

“Flambeau,” said Father Brown, “there is a long seat there under the veranda, where we can smoke out of the rain.  You are my only friend in the world, and I want to talk to you.  Or, perhaps, be silent with you.”

They established themselves comfortably in the veranda seat; Father Brown, against his common habit, accepted a good cigar and smoked it steadily in silence, while the rain shrieked and rattled on the roof of the veranda.

“My friend,” he said at length, “this is a very queer case.  A very queer case.”

“I should think it was,” said Flambeau, with something like a shudder.

“You call it queer, and I call it queer,” said the other, “and yet we mean quite opposite things.  The modern mind always mixes up two different ideas:  mystery in the sense of what is marvellous, and mystery in the sense of what is complicated.  That is half its difficulty about miracles.  A miracle is startling; but it is simple.  It is simple because it is a miracle.  It is power coming directly from God (or the devil) instead of indirectly through nature or human wills.  Now, you mean that this business is marvellous because it is miraculous, because it is witchcraft worked by a wicked Indian.  Understand, I do not say that it was not spiritual or diabolic.  Heaven and hell only know by what surrounding influences strange sins come into the lives of men.  But for the present my point is this:  If it was pure magic, as you think, then it is marvellous; but it is not mysterious—­that is, it is not complicated.  The quality of a miracle is mysterious, but its manner is simple.  Now, the manner of this business has been the reverse of simple.”

The storm that had slackened for a little seemed to be swelling again, and there came heavy movements as of faint thunder.  Father Brown let fall the ash of his cigar and went on: 

“There has been in this incident,” he said, “a twisted, ugly, complex quality that does not belong to the straight bolts either of heaven or hell.  As one knows the crooked track of a snail, I know the crooked track of a man.”