turned his head sharply at a suppressed exclamation from Flambeau.
That investigator, peering into the lighted room, had just seen
the Colonel, after a pace or two, proceed to take his coat off.
Flambeau's first thought was that this really looked like a fight;
but he soon dropped the thought for another. The solidity and
squareness of Dubosc's chest and shoulders was all a powerful piece
of padding and came off with his coat. In his shirt and trousers
he was a comparatively slim gentleman, who walked across the bedroom to
the bathroom with no more pugnacious purpose than that of washing himself.
He bent over a basin, dried his dripping hands and face on a towel,
and turned again so that the strong light fell on his face.
His brown complexion had gone, his big black moustache had gone;
he--was clean-shaven and very pate. Nothing remained of the Colonel
but his bright, hawk-like, brown eyes. Under the wall Father Brown
was going on in heavy meditation, as if to himself.

"It is all just like what I was saying to Flambeau.
These opposites won't do. They don't work. They don't fight.
If it's white instead of black, and solid instead of liquid,
and so on all along the line--then there's something wrong, Monsieur,
there's something wrong. One of these men is fair and the other dark,
one stout and the other slim, one strong and the other weak.
One has a moustache and no beard, so you can't see his mouth;
the other has a beard and no moustache, so you can't see his chin.
One has hair cropped to his skull, but a scarf to hide his neck;
the other has low shirt-collars, but long hair to bide his skull.
It's all too neat and correct, Monsieur, and there's something wrong.
Things made so opposite are things that cannot quarrel.
Wherever the one sticks out the other sinks in. Like a face and a mask,
like a lock and a key..."