"The negations of Christion asceticism--the innocence and denial of experience symbolized by celibacy--are exageratted in the clumsy figure and absent-minded actions of the dumpy priest. But these negations lead to knowledge. The innocent man sees, the humble man perceives things in the right perspective. An eccentric like Sherlock Holmes cannot judge human problems because he is not himself placed in the center of humanity. That is why Holmes must measure and magnify the trivial deposits of man's passage."
(Wills 124)

"Social satire, comedy, and debate give the complication necessary to detective stories; but the secret at the core is simple, as it must be in all such mysteries. The priest is only a marionette, but the puppets act out entertaining and deeply significant parables. By giving a moral significance to the action, Chesterton avoided the anti-climax and mere dispersal of interest which is the danger of the detective novel's concluding pages."
(Wills 125)