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It was safe to say that Flambeau loved adventure. One might say he was addicted to it and to adrenaline as its material component. He also had enough money to indulge in his fancies, and took an opportunity to do so when Father Brown once again had to journey to and through Europe for a reason so vague it seemed as if either fortune or some other, more deliberate power pointed at random spot on a map and decided that it was where Father was to find himself carrying out his mission. This, naturally, entailed a risk that before, or after he found himself there, he would get lost, and preventing it was, in its turn, a mission which Flambeau, as Brown's travelling companion, undertook of his own volition.
The first step of the journey proper, apart from a rather quick process of packing suitcases – plural for Flambeau and singular for Brown, his twin among bags of any kind: small, approaching roundness and somewhat shabby, except there was nothing falling out of the priest's figure, and he never threatened to fall into two parts – the first step was to get to Europe, which involved the sea, and it was hard to determine whether the sea took less liking in Father Brown or Father Brown in the sea.
Flambeau knew it and spent a few days considering different options and, having rejected even such an intriguing thing as a boat train (which in fact only took the worst of its parents), decided on a surprise.
And, to his satisfaction, he quickly learned that it was an idea that never visited Brown's bespectacled head.
"I admit I am curious," the priest mumbled on their way across a landing field, "but we could take a passenger plane, not a three-seater or what it's called."
"Two," Flambeau replied with a single syllable, striding under the trifling weight of their combined luggage so effortlessly he could as well carry the priest too.
"What do you mean," Father Brown peeped, growing so cold inside he forgot about the correct intonation.
"The plane only has two seats," Flambeau said nonchalantly.
"I assume you can fly a plane, then?" Brown asked, not exactly full of hope.
"I believe so," his friend responded with the air of some sort of entitlement.
It would have been a perfect moment to mention an interesting fact, or quote something hagiographical, or even squeeze in a tiny sermon, but Father didn't have enough energy for something except vain efforts to chase away blurry images of things falling and things rising.
He was almost drowning in his seat, both clenching and barely holding onto his umbrella, like when you feel you might faint and are afraid that you could lose the possessions you have on you at the moment... Well, this is exactly what was happening with Father Brown.
His hat was hidden, for good measure, with the suitcases in the back of the small but elegant plane, but he categorically refused to part with the umbrella, as if it was a holy relic able to provide mystical protection. Flambeau didn't argue about it, and for the next two or three hours (or weeks, as this period of time felt to the poor priest) no one argued with anyone about anything, because neither could hear a sound apart from the noise of a plane.
"No thank you," Father Brown grunted, much less amiably than usual, but still amiably enough for it to suit him, when Flambeau opened the cabin door on his side after they landed on another field, and, laughing loudly, offered to pull him out. "I would really like to take control of my position in space back into my own hands."
He climbed out of the plane with displeased noises and the greatest gracefulness possible in his current state (which normally already wasn't that great), with Flambeau having to catch him by the elbow at least one time, and, taking a deep breath, pinched himself on the back of his hand.
"Alright," he sighed with relief, after blinking several times to completely come back to reality, "either I am in heaven which looks suspiciously like France (which is rather improbable but no one can ever know for sure), or you, my friend, can indeed fly a plane."
"I thought you would scream bloody murder during the entire flight," Flambeau added, still laughing, now at his own joke.
"I was too busy praying for our lives," Father countered, dusting his clothes off with hands that were still trembling a little, with no way to tell whether from the nervous tension or the mechanical vibrations of the vehicle.
"It wasn't actually that bad," he confessed in a while, when the surrounding landscape turned from a barren land of iron birds to the much more vivid nature of Flambeau's motherland.