Two Headscratchers about The Invisible Man
One of the clues Father Brown picks up on that the stalker/murderer is a postman is that his voice was heard immediately after the woman received a letter, but both times this happened she was in the middle of the street. Did postmen just walk up to people in the street and hand them their mail at the time the story was set? Secondly, what's up with the clockwork robot servants? How are primitive clockwork automata without eyes or working hands supposed to fulfil the functions of butler, housemaid, cook, etc? Was that just Chesterton letting his whimsy override plausibility?
- She was in the street just outside of the bakery, so the postman handed over the letter directly, saving him the trouble of going inside.
- In answer to the second question: Pretty much. Chesterton wasn't a "hard" sci-fi writer, he simply postulated something that seemed not impossible because he needed it for his story. Though it wouldn't have seemed quite as implausible at the time, there were a lot of such things wandering around the sci-fi and speculative fiction of the era.
