The Detective (1954)

Peter Finch: Flambeau

Photos 

Quotes 

• Father Brown : My son...

  Flambeau : Please do not call me your son.

  Father Brown : My son, you think that you are a man of the world and that I am not. But I assure you, my "innocent" ears encounter every day stories of a horror that would make your sophisticated hair stand on end. Although I wear funny clothes, and have taken certain vows, I live far more in the world than you do.

• Father Brown : A simple but effective ruse, taught me by one of the lambs in my flock.

  Flambeau : A strange flock.

  Father Brown : Oh, not strange, just human. Albert was a dear fellow. Where do you think he is now?

  Flambeau : In prison.

  Father Brown : In a monastery. Life is full of surprises, isn't it?

  Flambeau : One never dreams how full.

• Flambeau : What are you really after, your cross or my soul?

  Father Brown : Both, of course.

  Flambeau : Well, come and find us. I'll make you a bargain: whatever you can find you shall have.

  Father Brown : I accept your bargain.

  Flambeau : It would have been an interesting encounter. Pity it will never take place.

• Father Brown : Appalling.

  Flambeau : An odd word to apply to the finest private collection in the world.

  Father Brown : What is appalling is that it is private.

  Flambeau : You are the first person to have the privilege of seeing it. Look at my El Greco.

  Father Brown : Yours?

  Flambeau : Mine.

  Father Brown : This, I believe, is yours.

  [He hands Flambeau his cigarette case] 

  Flambeau : Oh. So that's how you traced me. Thank you. I wondered where I'd lost it.

  Father Brown : You didn't lose it. I stole it.

  Flambeau : We have something in common then.

  Father Brown : All men do.

• Flambeau : The police have an unfortunate habit of interrupting our conversations just when they begin to be interesting. I must beg your leave to leave you.

• Flambeau : When I was a child I was as stuffed with religion as a Strasborg goose with grain. I have no appetite left.

  Father Brown : When you were a child you understood as a child, you thought as a child. But now you have become a man and have not put away childish things.

• Flambeau : The acts we do for no evident reasons are sometimes the most rational.

• Flambeau : I've paid for my collection. Not in the currency of shop keepers but in the currency of fear.