[2] The scene begins with an American journalist named Paul Snaith critically assessing Father Brown's church and the other clerics there.

The story shifts over to John Adams Race, an electrical engineer from America who was hired by Mendoza to improve the same small South American town in which Father Brown resides.

The story flashes back to show Race looking out his window to see Father Brown pass by in the night, soon followed by two other men.

Father Brown tries without success to calm the crowd, but when he is unable, he runs to the telegraph office to send to the Bishop's secretary that there was no miracle that had happened.

Brown concludes, saying he must go thank God that he was saved from disgrace and that he had so quickly contacted the Bishop with an unknowing counter-claim to the antagonists' plot against him and inviting Race to a drink of un-drugged wine.

Wain describes how important Merton is to the world and how vital it is that he is protected while Father Brown laments how caged he must be.

Father Brown remarks that it is time to go in to speak with the millionaire, and as he walks into the inner room, he reveals Merton to have been shot with an arrow and murdered.

Crake, having a history with Red Indian war tactics, along with his nephew Captain Wain, are implied to be suspects of Father Brown's search to find the murderer and over the course of a few weeks, he speaks with each of them.

Potentially, Wain flew a plane over or near the mansion, while his uncle shot Merton with an arrow through an open window.

Both men are astounded to realize Brown's possible story of the event, but the priest refuses to comment on his thoughts.

There he debunks the idea that Drage could have killed the man, and instead claims that the arrow that was found in the victim most likely had been used to stab him, and later configured to appear as if it had been shot.

The group becomes conflicted and angry, and Brown comments on the necessity of consistency in the case, pausing to mention that by now, Wilton is long gone.

Fiennes reveals he had been walking a dog with Druce's nephews (Herbert and Harry) near the summer house when the man was murdered.

At Brown's prompting, Fiennes further reveals that Traill had been in the house to help revise the Colonel's will and that the original witnesses of the signing were Dr. Valentine and the secretary.

Brown suggests perhaps the couple had worked together to kill the Colonel (the will was primarily favoring the daughter), at which Fiennes is appalled.

As a point of French etiquette, he considered challenging the secretary to a duel because of the debate of his name, while the Colonel's daughter tried to dissuade him from this.

The story opens with a man named Warren Wynd sorting letters in an apartment in the town of Moon Crescent.

Wynd is described to have an uncanny gift for snap decisions (apparently there is a story of him being approached by three beggars, two of which he immediately sent away, the third going on to be a useful personal assistant of his).

A millionaire oil magnate named Silas Vandam is with him in the room, along with Wynd's personal servant (Wilson) and private secretary (Fenner Collins).

Newspapers and magazines picked up the tale too, and attempted to give nearly the exact opposite effect, raving of Father Brown's mysterious intuition and the superstitions involved in the group.

The police hired a famous psychologist named Dr. Vair to speak with the witnesses in order to more accurately assess what happened in the events of Wynd's death.

Collins becomes fed up with these accusations of their apparent lunacy or whatever else, and brings the rest of the group to talk with the priest about why the events happened the way they did.

Immediately, Wilson, who was a big strong man, from the floor above (where he was sent to collect papers) slipped a noose around Wynd's neck and hoisted him up, killing him.

The group has a conversation on the Byzantine empire, Smaill's specialty, and at the end, Brown points out that the professor mostly avoided the subject altogether.

Smaill describes him as a cold, methodical man, likely from the West, due to the detached sense of a collector simply trying to find the prize.

The group meets with the Vicar of the church under which the tomb was found, and begins to explore the dark caverns leading to the golden cross.

But Brown reveals it was really the vicar who had been in the coffin; the maniac who had been pursuing Smaill thought that he had finally committed the murder and wanted to end his own life abruptly.

Aylmer brings the priest another note he had recently received with similar design and shows off a blunderbuss capable of firing silver bullets.

He speaks a good deal about superstition and when he goes upstairs to get a picture of Strake to show Brown, the priest calls the police office to request backup.

He quickly swapped clothing and being much larger than Aylmer, hung the body in a cloak on the hat-stand, putting a hat over the head to cover it up.