The Innocence of Father Brown

Flambeau is the antagonist of the short stories “The Blue Cross,” “The Queer Feet,” and “The Flying Stars” and the deuteragonist of all the other short stories in the collection except “The Hammer of God” and “The Three Tools of Death,” in which he does not appear. He is a French thief whom Parisian police chief Valentin pursues in the first short story. He tries to steal the relic the Blue Cross from Father Brown and poses as a priest to gain his trust, but because he underestimates Father Brown’s intelligence and disregards reason, Father Brown realizes that he is a criminal. He then steals silver from The Twelve True Fishermen club before Father Brown finds him and convinces him to give the silver to him. He tries to steal once again, taking the precious diamonds known as the “Flying Stars,” but Father Brown convinces him to give back the diamonds, warning him that he will ruin an innocent man’s life as well as his own in the future. This incident convinces Flambeau to give up his life of crime, and he starts working with Father Brown in “The Invisible Man.” He also makes several new friends, including Angus and Pauline. He is shown to have been a social person even before his reformation, having been friends with the poet Leonard Quinton in Paris years ago, before Quinton fell into opium addiction. In addition, he received many invitations from important people as a prominent thief in Europe, including from the French Prince Saradine to his home in Norfolk—an invitation that sets the stage for the story “The Sins of Prince Saradine.”

While Father Brown is a thoughtful and patient man, Flambeau is a self-professed man of action. He sometimes becomes impatient with the priest and struggles to understand his internal logic. Because of his impatience and quickness to action, he has never been late, not even to his dentist appointments. Flambeau also explains that when he was a criminal, he saw crime as an art form, wanting to stylize his crimes according to important events. He regards his attempt to steal the Flying Stars around Christmas as his “most beautiful crime” (47). However, he steadily begins to learn theology from Father Brown and becomes more moral, wanting to help bring justice. He even expresses distaste at the popularity in England of the purported war hero Sir Arthur St. Clare once Father Brown tells him about St. Clare’s many hideous crimes.

Valentin is the Paris chief of police who pursues Flambeau in “The Blue Cross.” One of that story’s two protagonists, he is a straightforward man who likes to get a sense of what led the criminals he is pursuing in their direction. He tracks Father Brown and Flambeau by following the trail of strange things that Father Brown has done at various locations across the city, and he expresses concern for the priest upon finding him with the revealed Flambeau. He also admires Father Brown’s use of reason and work with the police in helping find Flambeau, bowing to the priest at the case’s closing. He also instructs Flambeau to bow to Father Brown for uncovering Flambeau’s identity.

Valentin’s hidden spiritual and mental instability is uncovered in “The Secret Garden,” when his fervently anti-religious and anti-clerical views are challenged by Brayne’s embrace of Roman Catholicism. He is so eager to “break what he calls the superstition of the Cross” that he kills Brayne to prevent him from donating his substantial fortune to the Church (30). Not wanting to be caught for this murder, Valentin replaces Brayne’s severed head with one from a guillotine and tries to make it appear that Brayne killed someone before disappearing. He also draws a picture of his own decapitated head to avoid suspicion. However, Brayne’s head is found, and Father Brown realizes what he has done. When Valentin realizes that he cannot get away with the crime and will be arrested for it, he ends his life by overdosing on pills. Valentin’s sudden and unexpected slip into violent crime shows Father Brown how anti-religious zealotry can sometimes push people to do things that they would normally consider morally unacceptable. Father Brown asserts that Valentin is generally an honest and good man but that his intense commitment to atheism has caused him to lose his reason. The shift in personality caused Valentin to become calculating and capable of committing a crime and covering his tracks.

Wilfred is an Anglican Reverend in the village of Bohun Beacon. He is descended from the once prestigious and aristocratic Bohun family. In contrast to his vulgar, immoral, and atheistic older brother Colonel Norman Bohun, Wilfred is a devout Christian and despises his brother’s blasphemy. After a bitter confrontation, Norman’s immorality pushes him over the edge, and he murders him with a hammer. Initially, he pins his brother’s murder on a man in the village whom everyone calls “Mad Joe.” However, Father Brown quickly realizes that Wilfred murdered his brother.

Even though Wilfred’s devotion to his faith led him to become angry at his blasphemous brother and murder him, he still has a moral code after the murder. Father Brown notices this and points it out, telling him that he could have accused Simeon Barnes or his wife of the murder if he wanted to, but he did not. This shows that Wilfred’s momentary rage was driven by a strong and rigid moral code and that this code has not changed after the murder. Wilfred instead tried to pin the murder on Mad Joe because Mad Joe would likely not suffer consequences. Wilfred’s code of morality eventually leads him to confess his crime to the police. When Father Brown gives him the choice of whether to go to the police, Wilfred chooses to do what is right, allowing himself to be accountable to the law and God. Though he murdered his brother, Wilfred still has goodness and a desire to repent.