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Father Brown
The Queer Feet: A Father Brown Mystery
Librarian's note: this entry is for the story "The Queer Feet." Collections of short stories by the author can be found elsewhere.
The Vernon Hotel has been the host for an annual dinner of a mixed collection of gentlemen called "The Twelve True Fishermen" for more than a decade. They wear green jackets and have an unusual reason for the colour - to avoid being mistaken for waiters, specifically the black-jacketed ones at their Vernon Hotel dinner. There's a criminal story behind the colour differentiation and a little priest, Father Brown, was involved. Deeply involved. (less)
The Vernon Hotel has been the host for an annual dinner of a mixed collection of gentlemen called "The Twelve True Fishermen" for more than a decade. They wear green jackets and have an unusual reason for the colour - to avoid being mistaken for waiters, specifically the black-jacketed ones at their Vernon Hotel dinner. There's a criminal story behind the colour differentiation and a little priest, Father Brown, was involved. Deeply involved. (less)
17 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 1910
About the author
G.K. Chesterton
3,775 books5,972 followersGilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic.
He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.
Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.
He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.
Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
July 23, 2023
El Padre Brown resuelve un caso más que parecía imposible a través de su pensamiento deductivo. En concreto, durante una reunión muy exclusiva hay un robo. El Padre Brown se encuentra allí por casualidad y escucha una serie de pasos que le parecen sospechosos.
Una historia más del entrañable Padre Brown que ideó Chesterton.
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Father Brown solves yet another seemingly impossible case through his deductive thinking. Specifically, during a very exclusive meeting there is a robbery. Father Brown finds himself there by chance and hears a series of footsteps that seem suspicious to him.
Yet another of Chesterton's endearing Father Brown stories.
Una historia más del entrañable Padre Brown que ideó Chesterton.
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Father Brown solves yet another seemingly impossible case through his deductive thinking. Specifically, during a very exclusive meeting there is a robbery. Father Brown finds himself there by chance and hears a series of footsteps that seem suspicious to him.
Yet another of Chesterton's endearing Father Brown stories.
May 28, 2021
I will give a full review at a later date.
February 6, 2021
3 Stars. Where's the crime? For much of the story we are following the narrator's description of Father Brown as he listens to footsteps up and down the adjacent corridor in the Vernon Hotel. He is locked, voluntarily, in a small room on the main floor of the hotel doing work on a report he must complete for the Church. The unique footsteps of a person in the corridor attract his attention, at one moment fast, and at another, slow and deliberate. He's certain they belong to a gentleman. My copy is from the BBC's "The Complete Father Brown Stories" of 2013, but the story first saw the light of day in "The Saturday Evening Post" in 1910. As we begin to wonder about anything criminal, a glimmer appears. There's always a touch of humour with Chesterton; Brown's room connects to the cloakroom and, at one point, our priest is serving as the hotel's cloakroom attendant! His customer? Flambeau. Ahh. Is a robbery happening? A murder too? Flambeau is nothing if not an intelligent criminal. He has noticed that the guests gathered for the annual dinner of the Twelve True Fishermen are dressed in evening wear, just like the fifteen waiters. And the club's cutlery is solid silver. (February 2021)
November 28, 2020
Good mystery, if a little bit of a stretch. But Chesterton's mysteries were more about the theology behind the plot than the actual mystery.
May 10, 2013
From BBC RAdio 4 Extra:
Death and theft in a small hotel, and confusion over waiters. Andrew Sachs stars as GK Chesterton's insightful clerical sleuth.
Death and theft in a small hotel, and confusion over waiters. Andrew Sachs stars as GK Chesterton's insightful clerical sleuth.
March 6, 2025
This may be my favorite of all the Father Brown stories. The story is set in Belgravia in a very exclusive (fictional) hotel where a group of gentlemen called The Twelve True Fishermen have an annual dinner. There are a number of real-life, très expensive hotels in that extremely posh area of London which I explored via Google Maps (the Berkeley, the Emory, the Wellesley, the Lanesborough, the Peninsula, the Cadogan, etc.) and that enhanced the atmosphere of the story.
The hotel’s chef prepares an abundance of gourmet dishes featuring fish and the diners use a special set of silver fish knives and forks, each of which is inlaid with a large pearl.
Father Brown is present at the hotel only because one of the waiters had a stroke and requested a priest. After seeing the fatally stricken waiter and administering last rites, he asks if he can be taken to a private office to write a note on behalf of the waiter. While in a tiny hole of an office he hears very odd footsteps - a series of running steps followed by slow, regular ones.
Father Brown has solved a very unique robbery before anyone else even knows a crime has been committed. Or, as Chesterton puts it: “… he had averted a crime and, perhaps, saved a soul, merely by listening to a few footsteps in a passage.”
The hotel’s chef prepares an abundance of gourmet dishes featuring fish and the diners use a special set of silver fish knives and forks, each of which is inlaid with a large pearl.
Father Brown is present at the hotel only because one of the waiters had a stroke and requested a priest. After seeing the fatally stricken waiter and administering last rites, he asks if he can be taken to a private office to write a note on behalf of the waiter. While in a tiny hole of an office he hears very odd footsteps - a series of running steps followed by slow, regular ones.
Father Brown has solved a very unique robbery before anyone else even knows a crime has been committed. Or, as Chesterton puts it: “… he had averted a crime and, perhaps, saved a soul, merely by listening to a few footsteps in a passage.”
October 26, 2018
Fantastic biting social commentary. Certainly a precursor to Columbo.
December 31, 2022
More political parable than mystery.
January 6, 2025
After the subversion before, we're back to another Flambeau story. And I know the next story is too, I'm not looking forward to it as much. I like Flambeau but with how many stories appear here, he kind of bores me a bit. I think the deduction here is a bit of a stretch too, though we're definitely closing in on the Brown that I'm expecting more, the looking at a strange thing and saying "why?" Not the best though.
My rating: 3.5/5 (rounded down)
Would I own/re-read?: No.
TW: No trigger warnings in this one, as far as I remember.
Does the animal die?: No animals die because of queer feet (possibly the strangest way I've phrased this segment.
My rating: 3.5/5 (rounded down)
Would I own/re-read?: No.
TW: No trigger warnings in this one, as far as I remember.
Does the animal die?: No animals die because of queer feet (possibly the strangest way I've phrased this segment.
April 18, 2011
"A man has died. But there's really no mystery in that. His heart failed, that's all. But when Father Brown goes into a private room to write down the man's final confession, he is distracted by the strange way in which someone is walking outside his door. From the gait of the queer feet, he discovers that a nefarious plot is most definitely afoot."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 7, 2015
Father Brown is a likeable monk who has the vigor Little John in the Robin Hood stories, combined with the intellect of Sherlock Holmes. I liked this "locked room mystery" and intend to read more of Chesterton's stories. And he doesn't have queer feet, but he certainly can use his intuition in solving a strange crime by merely hearing some wierd footsteps!
November 23, 2016
Or how Father Brown solves a crime by listening and interpreting a set of footsteps. As the Vernon Hotel hosts a dinner for The Twelve True Fishermen, a crime is committed, and then solved by Father Brown.
Though most of the story seemed to be leading up to the crime, it was an interesting enough tale.
Though most of the story seemed to be leading up to the crime, it was an interesting enough tale.
December 23, 2010
It seems that everything I read lately is about the difference between the classes and the delusions that are self perpetuating.
Very cute and Sherlock Holmes Like.
Very cute and Sherlock Holmes Like.
May 16, 2012
The beginning dragged on about minor details that weren't really all that necissary for the story. But it was entertaining nontheless.
September 4, 2013
A quick, simple, yet impressive mystery.
February 2, 2016
Interesting story, bit like Sherlock Holmes with tad more classical description and character building.
November 13, 2017
The Father Brown stories... one loves them or one doesn't. I've loved them for decades.
May 14, 2020
Tiny bit too fast with no intrigue or anything. All too much about the Fishers
June 10, 2020
This story has cunning, theft and a healthy dose of redemption.
You gotta love father Brown!
You gotta love father Brown!
November 26, 2020
4.5
the story itself was a 4/5, but chesterton’s excellent writing and fucking amazing social commentary bump the story up to a 4.5
the story itself was a 4/5, but chesterton’s excellent writing and fucking amazing social commentary bump the story up to a 4.5
November 22, 2025
Manners Movement and Mischief
The Queer Feet is a compact Chestertonian exercise in wit and observation: a charming conceit wrapped in genteel ritual, and a reminder that small details—etiquette, footsteps, the rhythm of public life—can be the most revealing clues of all. I gave it three stars because the story delights in its cleverness and Father Brown’s low-key perspicacity, even as it keeps the emotional temperature modest. Chesterton stages the mystery among ceremonious gourmands and clubly manners, and the central device—where sound and propriety supply the crucial evidence—works as a neat demonstration of his deductive philosophy. The downside is that once the trick is perceived, some of the suspense slips away; the tale is more intellectual parlor game than gutting revelation. The pleasure here comes from the craft of noticing: Chesterton teaches the reader how to look and listen, and Father Brown’s triumph is moral as much as intellectual. It’s best enjoyed as a witty interlude or palate cleanser rather than a heavyweight entry in the canon.
The Queer Feet is a compact Chestertonian exercise in wit and observation: a charming conceit wrapped in genteel ritual, and a reminder that small details—etiquette, footsteps, the rhythm of public life—can be the most revealing clues of all. I gave it three stars because the story delights in its cleverness and Father Brown’s low-key perspicacity, even as it keeps the emotional temperature modest. Chesterton stages the mystery among ceremonious gourmands and clubly manners, and the central device—where sound and propriety supply the crucial evidence—works as a neat demonstration of his deductive philosophy. The downside is that once the trick is perceived, some of the suspense slips away; the tale is more intellectual parlor game than gutting revelation. The pleasure here comes from the craft of noticing: Chesterton teaches the reader how to look and listen, and Father Brown’s triumph is moral as much as intellectual. It’s best enjoyed as a witty interlude or palate cleanser rather than a heavyweight entry in the canon.
June 9, 2026
“Because silver is sometimes more valuable than gold,” said the priest mildly; “that is, in large quantities.”
“A crime,” he said slowly, “is like any other work of art. Don’t look surprised; crimes are by no means the only works of art that come from an infernal workshop. But every work of art, divine or diabolic, has one indispensable mark—I mean, that the centre of it is simple, however much the fulfilment may be complicated. Thus, in Hamlet, let us say, the grotesqueness of the grave-digger, the flowers of the mad girl, the fantastic finery of Osric, the pallor of the ghost and the grin of the skull are all oddities in a sort of tangled wreath round one plain tragic figure of a man in black."
"Why should the gentlemen look at a chance waiter? Why should the waiters suspect a first-rate walking gentleman?"
“Yes,” he said; “it must be very hard work to be a gentleman; but, do you know, I have sometimes thought that it may be almost as laborious to be a waiter.”
“A crime,” he said slowly, “is like any other work of art. Don’t look surprised; crimes are by no means the only works of art that come from an infernal workshop. But every work of art, divine or diabolic, has one indispensable mark—I mean, that the centre of it is simple, however much the fulfilment may be complicated. Thus, in Hamlet, let us say, the grotesqueness of the grave-digger, the flowers of the mad girl, the fantastic finery of Osric, the pallor of the ghost and the grin of the skull are all oddities in a sort of tangled wreath round one plain tragic figure of a man in black."
"Why should the gentlemen look at a chance waiter? Why should the waiters suspect a first-rate walking gentleman?"
“Yes,” he said; “it must be very hard work to be a gentleman; but, do you know, I have sometimes thought that it may be almost as laborious to be a waiter.”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 27, 2025
Another boring tale about how Father Bruin figures it out.
Mind you, I found the analysis of the footsteps in this one a lot more believable than usual for a Father Bruin story. Mind you, you don't need a religious insight into the criminal mind to figure this one out. Only an understanding of the common labour practices of waiters.
And I liked the insight into the prejudices of upper class white males in England at the time, in regards to their attitudes towards working class waiters, which still actually holds true to some extent today.
As usual though, the story is handicapped by a cast of dull, bland characters and a priest detective who is probably the most boring character ever created in the history of detective fiction.
And, as also usual, the story moves at the pace of a dead snail. GLC sure could use a good editor.
Mind you, I found the analysis of the footsteps in this one a lot more believable than usual for a Father Bruin story. Mind you, you don't need a religious insight into the criminal mind to figure this one out. Only an understanding of the common labour practices of waiters.
And I liked the insight into the prejudices of upper class white males in England at the time, in regards to their attitudes towards working class waiters, which still actually holds true to some extent today.
As usual though, the story is handicapped by a cast of dull, bland characters and a priest detective who is probably the most boring character ever created in the history of detective fiction.
And, as also usual, the story moves at the pace of a dead snail. GLC sure could use a good editor.
June 13, 2026
This is one I didn’t hate, just didn’t get. I didn’t get the set up or the solution to the mystery, but I did like the setting and a lot of the dialogue as usual. In this story, Father Brown is invited to a fancy Gentleman’s Club called the Twelve True Fishermen, is put in his own small room and then start hearing strange footsteps in the hallway outside, hence the title “The Queer Feet” queer in this sense meaning weird or strange (as you can probably tell). Then at the end, it turns out that Flambeau from the Blue Cross and Father Brown’s future sidekick, is pretending to be a waiter at the club so he can steal priceless cutlery and was running down the hallway with it which are the Queer Feet that Father Brown heard.
That is as much as I can explain it, but I might be getting some fact wrong. I’m noticing a pattern with these stories, in having overly complicated solutions that don’t really add up overall. Also, Flambeau is only mentioned once by name, and we don’t get an explanation as to what he’s doing here or how he escaped prison after the Blue Cross. But then most people reading this in 1910 might not have read that story so they might not question it, but they will question how Father Brown knows who this thief is and why he seemed to let him off at the end. But it might have something to with his redemption arc which reaches its conclusion in the next story “The Flaying Stars” but that’s just a guess. I didn’t expect all these stories to be interconnected with Inspector Valentine coming back in the last story and Flambeau returning in “this” one, I can’t say I’ve seen that in many stories of the time.
Overall, I wouldn’t say this is the weakest story in the collection, especially compered with the last one, but I would say it is the weakest in terms of plot. The last story had a good set up but a disappointing pay off, while this one just had a nothing set up and a nothing pay off. So, it’s hard to get really offended by it like the last one. I still made a quote from this story, which is a plus, but I can’t say I will be revisiting this story, any time soon.
That is as much as I can explain it, but I might be getting some fact wrong. I’m noticing a pattern with these stories, in having overly complicated solutions that don’t really add up overall. Also, Flambeau is only mentioned once by name, and we don’t get an explanation as to what he’s doing here or how he escaped prison after the Blue Cross. But then most people reading this in 1910 might not have read that story so they might not question it, but they will question how Father Brown knows who this thief is and why he seemed to let him off at the end. But it might have something to with his redemption arc which reaches its conclusion in the next story “The Flaying Stars” but that’s just a guess. I didn’t expect all these stories to be interconnected with Inspector Valentine coming back in the last story and Flambeau returning in “this” one, I can’t say I’ve seen that in many stories of the time.
Overall, I wouldn’t say this is the weakest story in the collection, especially compered with the last one, but I would say it is the weakest in terms of plot. The last story had a good set up but a disappointing pay off, while this one just had a nothing set up and a nothing pay off. So, it’s hard to get really offended by it like the last one. I still made a quote from this story, which is a plus, but I can’t say I will be revisiting this story, any time soon.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 27, 2025
Este pequeño cuento del Padre Brown es, en mi opinión, aún más interesante que los últimos dos. Me fascina el modo en que Chesterton enfoca a su personaje, distinguiéndolo de otros grandes detectives como Holmes o Poirot. Brown es, primero, sacerdote y, después, detective. Su interés primordial no es atrapar al criminal: es conseguir su redención. Aunque muchos de los detalles nunca se revelan (pues están protegidos por el sello de la confesión), el cuento se presenta como sumamente interesante, uniendo de una manera increíble la dimensión del detective con la Sacramental.
December 8, 2019
Pareciera que la resolución de este misterio, y de hecho su planteo, dependen enteramente de la distinction de clases propia de la Inglaterra eduardiana.
Cuento #3 de El candor del padre Brown
Anterior: “The Secret Garden”
Siguiente: “The Flying Stars”
Cuento #3 de El candor del padre Brown
Anterior: “The Secret Garden”
Siguiente: “The Flying Stars”
February 14, 2026
Hmm, I'm not certain I see the ending of the story as smoothly as its beginning. I'll try harder to pay more attention to the tales. It's got to be me But that means No blame on the writer for a circuitous tale. And I'm detecting that in this author's works. (detecting 🤣)
May 21, 2021
Demasiados pasos, demasiados pasillos y demasiado pudín de pescado
November 20, 2022
What can I say? Chesterton picked this short story as his best for a Faber & Faber anthology...and I agree.
August 5, 2023
Great short story and biting social commentary. Interesting how author points that crime was committed because of perverse social relationships and only 3 persons picked that up.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews