But, again, being at the stage of practice, he very slightly grazed
the inside of his throat with the weapon. Hence he has a wound
inside him, which I am sure (from the expression on his face)
is not a serious one. He was also practising the trick of
a release from ropes, like the Davenport Brothers, and he was just about
to free himself when we all burst into the room. The cards, of course,
are for card tricks, and they are scattered on the floor because
he had just been practising one of those dodges of sending them
flying through the air. He merely kept his trade secret,
because he had to keep his tricks secret, like any other conjurer.
But the mere fact of an idler in a top hat having once looked in
at his back window, and been driven away by him with great indignation,
was enough to set us all on a wrong track of romance, and make us imagine
his whole life overshadowed by the silk-hatted spectre of Mr Glass."

"But What about the two voices?" asked Maggie, staring.

"Have you never heard a ventriloquist?" asked Father Brown.
"Don't you know they speak first in their natural voice, and then
answer themselves in just that shrill, squeaky, unnatural voice
that you heard?"

There was a long silence, and Dr Hood regarded the little man
who had spoken with a dark and attentive smile. "You are certainly
a very ingenious person," he said; "it could not have been done better
in a book. But there is just one part of Mr Glass you have not succeeded
in explaining away, and that is his name. Miss MacNab distinctly
heard him so addressed by Mr Todhunter."

The Rev. Mr Brown broke into a rather childish giggle.