Before You Begin

Before you begin.

In the blue twilight of two steep Camden streets, John Turnbull Angus enters a glowing confectioner’s shop and asks Laura Hope to marry him. Her answer begins with an old country inn, two rejected suitors, and the memory of a voice heard where no speaker could be seen.

One of those suitors has returned as the wealthy inventor of a clockwork domestic service. Then a warning appears on the shop window, although no one saw it placed there. Angus turns to Flambeau, now a private detective, while Father Brown listens from the edge of the room.

First published in 1910, “The Invisible Man” is the fifth Father Brown story. Chesterton builds its mystery from a simple human habit: people may look straight at someone and still fail to count him among the people who matter.