Edmondson railway ticket

Chesterton converted to Roman Catholicism in 1922, and his faith became central to his life and work. His fictional priest was based on his friend Father John OБЂ™Connor, to whom The Secret of Father Brown, published in 1927, was dedicated. We first meet Father Brown in the story БЂњThe Blue Cross,БЂ«and see him through the eyes of Valentin, described as the head of the Paris police. Valentin found himself sharing a railway carriage with a very short Roman Catholic priest going up from a small Essex village, who seemed to Valentin to be БЂњthe essence of those Eastern flats with a face as round and dull as a Norfolk dumpling and eyes as empty as the North Sea.БЂ«He had several brown-paper parcels which he was quite incapable of managing, a large shabby umbrella which constantly fell on the floor, and did not seem to know which was the right part of his return ticket. Valentin was not the only person to be taken in by this seeming innocence and simplicity. Father Brown could not be more different from the Golden Age heroes of detective fiction ...»