Uploaded June 2023 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
Breakfast in the Bankes household is enlivened by news that a notorious jewel thief is believed to be living nearby under an assumed name, not least because Mrs. Bankes is the owner of a valuable emerald necklace. The new lodger at Smith the bee-keeper's farm seems to be an obvious suspect. As robbery develops into murder, luckily Smith's friend Father Brown is on hand to investigate...
Narrated/performed by Simon Stanhope, aka Bitesized Audio. If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, there are a few ways you can support me (and get access to exclusive content):
* Occasional/one-off support via Buy Me a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/bitesizedaudio
* Monthly support on Patreon: patreon.com/bitesizedaudio
* Donate via PayPal: paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=HMMUWZ7URN26A
* Visit my Bandcamp page to hear more of my performances of classic stories, and you can purchase and download high quality audio files to listen offline: bitesizedaudio.bandcamp.com
* Become a Bitesized Audio Classics member on YouTube, from $1 / £1 / €1 per month:
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00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:20 The Man With Two Beards
00:54:47 Credits, thanks and further listening
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) was an English author, theologian, philosopher and critic, who produced a wide-ranging output of fiction, poetry and journalism. His writing covered a wide variety of subjects, ranging from crime fiction to Christianity. His most famous novel is probably the "metaphysical thriller" 'The Man Who Was Thursday' (1908), but his most famous fictional creation is surely Father Brown, the Catholic priest-detective who featured in more than 50 short stories published episodically between 1910 and 1936. A complete contrast to his (near) contemporary Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown is quiet, unassuming and solves crimes with instinct, intuition and a deep understanding of human nature.
'The Man With Two Beards' first appeared in the April 1925 edition of Cassell's Magazine, London (issue No.157), and in Harper's Magazine (in the USA) in the same month. It was subsequently published in the fourth collection of stories featuring the priest-detective, 'The Secret of Father Brown' (Cassell & Co., 1927).
Recording © Bitesized Audio 2023
Breakfast in the Bankes household is enlivened by news that a notorious jewel thief is believed to be living nearby under an assumed name, not least because Mrs. Bankes is the owner of a valuable emerald necklace. The new lodger at Smith the bee-keeper's farm seems to be an obvious suspect. As robbery develops into murder, luckily Smith's friend Father Brown is on hand to investigate...
Narrated/performed by Simon Stanhope, aka Bitesized Audio. If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, there are a few ways you can support me (and get access to exclusive content):
* Occasional/one-off support via Buy Me a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/bitesizedaudio
* Monthly support on Patreon: patreon.com/bitesizedaudio
* Donate via PayPal: paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=HMMUWZ7URN26A
* Visit my Bandcamp page to hear more of my performances of classic stories, and you can purchase and download high quality audio files to listen offline: bitesizedaudio.bandcamp.com
* Become a Bitesized Audio Classics member on YouTube, from $1 / £1 / €1 per month:
youtube.com/c/BitesizedAudioClassics/join
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:20 The Man With Two Beards
00:54:47 Credits, thanks and further listening
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) was an English author, theologian, philosopher and critic, who produced a wide-ranging output of fiction, poetry and journalism. His writing covered a wide variety of subjects, ranging from crime fiction to Christianity. His most famous novel is probably the "metaphysical thriller" 'The Man Who Was Thursday' (1908), but his most famous fictional creation is surely Father Brown, the Catholic priest-detective who featured in more than 50 short stories published episodically between 1910 and 1936. A complete contrast to his (near) contemporary Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown is quiet, unassuming and solves crimes with instinct, intuition and a deep understanding of human nature.
'The Man With Two Beards' first appeared in the April 1925 edition of Cassell's Magazine, London (issue No.157), and in Harper's Magazine (in the USA) in the same month. It was subsequently published in the fourth collection of stories featuring the priest-detective, 'The Secret of Father Brown' (Cassell & Co., 1927).
Recording © Bitesized Audio 2023
