Respite

"Father? Where are you?"

Father Brown looked up from the homily he was working on in his office. He had sent Sid on an errand two hours ago and hadn't expected him back this early. Something might have gone wrong.

"Sid?" he said, getting up and leaving his office. He walked into the kitchen to find Sid sitting at the table. More accurately, Sid was slumped over the tabletop, his face red and sweat dribbling down his forehead.

"Sid, what happened?" he said, fetching a glass from the cupboard. "You were just supposed to follow Mr. Hubbard not beat him in a marathon."

"And that's all I did," Sid huffed. "How was I to know he'd start running all over Kembleford after closing his shop for the day? I still don't see how he did it."

"What do you mean?" Brown said, his curiosity aroused. He got a glass pitcher of water from the fridge and poured Sid a drink before sitting down next to him. Sid immediately grabbed the glass and gulped down half the water before continuing.

"I hung around his shop, like you said, right? Well, this bloke shows up with a huge paper sack on his arm."

"By any chance was it our friend with the dark glasses?" Brown asked. Sid grinned and pointed a finger at him.

"You guessed it, Father. So I figure, 'if he's showing up out in the open, it's got to be important.' He's in there for ten minutes and leaves and that's when Hubbard closes his shop and heads out. He tried looking around, seeing if anyone was following him at first, but he never spotted me. But then he starts running off. I had to keep running the whole time to stick with him."

"And where did our Mr. Hubbard go?" Brown asked. Sid finished what was in his glass and wiped his face with his forearm.

"It wasn't just one place. It was four. The same four places where the owners suddenly 'forgot' about being burgled three nights ago. Some coincidence, huh?"

"Yes," Father Brown smiled. "I think it's time that Inspector Sullivan paid them another visit. I have a hunch that his search of those houses will yield much more fruitful results than his initial searches did."

"Like finding all of those coin cases from that museum exhibit that went missing," Sid said nodding. Then he went back to resting on the tabletop, his head lying on his hands.

Father Brown got up to pour Sid another glass of water, making sure this time to add a couple of ice cubes to it. Sid looked exhausted, but hadn't complained once about all the running he just did.

Although there was nothing unusual about that. Something that was always in a corner of Father Brown's mind.

"Here, drink this," he said, setting the glass next to Sid's hand. "I'm going to go make a phone call now."

Sid didn't sit up, but still nodded his head. Father Brown lightly patted Sid's shoulder, an even wider smile on his face as he moved toward the telephone.