Remembering Inspector Valentin

"There was nothing notable about him, except a slight contrast between the holiday gaiety of his clothes and the official gravity of his face. . . . There was nothing about him to indicate the fact that the grey jacket covered a loaded revolver, that the white waistcoat covered a police card, or that the straw hat covered one of the most powerful intellects in Europe. For this wasValentin himself, the head of the Paris police and the most famous investigator of the world; and he was coming from Brussels to London to make the greatest arrest of the century."

Valentin was pitted against one of the greatest criminals of all time -- Flambeau himself. Valentin may have been one of the most powerful intelects in Europe, but he was now facing another of the most powerful intellects in Europe. But what neither of these two could have ever expected was a very short Roman Catholic Priest, with a face round and dull, set with eyes as empy as the North Sea.
Enter Father Brown, the man who will face and capture the greatest criminal in Europe, the man who will charge the most famous investigator in the world with a high crime, and the very same Priest who will be side-by-side with Flambeau when it's all said and done. It all starts with Inspector Valentin.

I could think of no one else better suited to be honored on such a day as this -- "The Day of Valentin", or as we call it, "Valentine's Day".
Inspector Valentin, "the most famous investigator of the world."

Read it all:
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN
By G. K. Chesterton
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/204/204-h/204-h.htm