happen. What would happen to you if a lunatic let off a firearm without rhyme or reason right under your window? What’s the very first thing that would happen?"
Vandam looked thoughtful. "I guess I should look out of the window," he said.
"Yes," said Father Brown, "you'd look out of the window. That's the whole story. It's a sad story, but it's finished now; and there were extenuating circumstances."
"Why should looking out of the window hurt him?" asked Alboin. "He didn't fall out, or he'd have been found in the lane."
"No," said Father Brown, in a low voice. "He didn't fall. He rose."
There was something in his voice like the groan of a gong, a note of doom, but otherwise he went on steadily:
"He rose, but not on wings; not on the wings of any holy or unholy angels. He rose at the end of a rope, exactly as you saw him in the garden; a noose dropped over his head the moment it was poked out of the window. Don't you remember Wilson, that big servant of his, a man of huge strength, while Wynd was the lightest of little shrimps? Didn't Wilson go to the floor above to get a pamphlet, to a room full of luggage corded in coils and coils of rope? Has Wilson been seen since that day? I fancy not."
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