The Innocence of Father Brown

Father Brown and Flambeau visit an old friend of Flambeau’s, a romantic poet named Leonard Quinton, who has developed an obsession with Eastern cultures and fallen into opium addiction. They are greeted by his doctor, Dr. James Harris, and Mr. Quinton’s brother-in-law Mr. Atkinson, whom the doctor dislikes. Father Brown notices that Quinton has many Eastern knick-knacks, including a crooked knife inlaid with colorful jewels. He finds the colors exquisite but the shape wrong and even malevolent, like an implement of torture rather than a “hearty and straightforward” weapon. He argues that this instrument is emblematic of all Asian cultures, claiming that even the letters of Asian languages and the shapes in Turkish rugs are indefinably but deliberately “mean and bad.” They then see a man lying on the sofa, whom Dr. Harris says is the Indian man Quinton keeps as a companion. When Flambeau asks if the man wants anything, the man repeatedly says, “I want nothing” (87). Father Brown finds this oddly prideful, noting that Christians recognize that they want something. They meet Mrs. Quinton, and Dr. Harris gives Quinton his “sleeping draught”—a euphemism for a dose of opium. Mr. Atkinson appears again to talk to Quinton, but the latter only says that he is “writing a song about peacocks” (89).