Hymn (Knees up Father Brown)
A small, dishevelled priest in a shovel hat stands blinking in the spotlight. He looks exactly nothing like Mark Williams and is distinctly not a Brummy.
Father Brown: Let us throw soup at the walls.
Beaker Folk throw soup at the Moot House walls, break the windows and chase after men in passages.
Archdruid: I hope you're going to pay for the damage.
Fr Brown: Indeed, when I corrected the bill to £2,000 from £200 yesterday, I ensured you had enough.
Archdruid: Ah, but I corrected it from £2,000 to £32,000 pounds....
Burton Dasset: Hang on! That was my credit card!
Fr Brown: Flambeau! You have betrayed yourself again.
Flambeau (for it is he): Curses. And I thought I was the master criminal.
Hnaef: I thought Burton had put on some height....
Archdruid: You cannot escape. We have Young Keith's uncle the police officer outside. And Mark Williams dressed as GK Chesterton himself is on the roof, above the tin sheet.
There is a loud crash
Flambeau: One mere constable from the Bedfordshire Constabulary cannot stop the great Flambeau!
He springs nimbly through the South East Door
And is dragged back in by the....
Archdruid: ....wolves. Forgot to tell you about the wolves.
Fr Brown: But those are all the wolves. If they are only guarding that door, there is nobody at the Northwest door....
Flambeau leaps nimbly through the North Door
The clang of a heavy hammer on bone is heard .
Fr Brown: .... except the blacksmith.
Hnaef: So Flambeau - if you can just give us the giant opal you stole from the Russian princess.
Flambeau: Aha! I have my little victory! That parcel containing a PlayStation for my nephew that I had to drop off at the post office? It was the jewel. It is even now on its way to my apartment in Paris.
Fr Brown (blinking): I fear not. I switched parcels in the White Horse. The opal is even now being delivered to the princess's secret Belgravia townhouse.
Flambeau: OK. It's a fair cop. I'm gonna get years for this.
Archdruid: Not so. Flambeau, you have two choices for redemption.
Fr Brown: Either you spend the next 30 years in a monastery, where you will confess your many sins to me and do penance for your many wicked ways....
Archdruid: .... or you can stay here for a few days at very reasonable rates, light a couple of tea lights, and realise you're actually quite a decent chap and it's society's fault. (She hums a few bars of "Will You Come and Follow Me")
Flambeau: No contest is it? Monastery it is.
Dismissal
Archdruid: The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes.
All: The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.
Archdruid: Then let us all go about our business.
Charlii: Keith, Hnaef - get down to Drayton Parslow's house, take the fascia down and retrieve the opal before he gets home
Archdruid: Master criminal? Genius Priest Detective?
Charlii: Yeah, what fool would think a vilkage like Husborne Crawley would have a post office, these days?
A far-off sound can be heard. It is PG Wodehouse turning in his grave.
A village Post Office? Ah yes, I think I can just about remember what one of those is! We lost our 4-mornings-a-week PO a decade or so ago when the postmistress died.
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