The Time Machine is the eleventh episode of the third season of Father Brown.
Father Brown visits a student named Jacob, who is determined to use his new invention, a time machine, to prove that a member of his family killed his father a year ago.
Tropes:
- Finger-Licking Poison: One victim was killed by strychnine placed in the bowl of his pipe.
- Laxative Prank: A girl spikes her sister's water bottle in an attempt to cause her to lose a race. Unfortunately, this act coincides with her sister keeling over from a dose of strychnine.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: A rare heroic example — Jacob, a young scientist, claims to have invented a working time machine, which he announces that he will use to prove his father's suicide was actually a murder. Of course, the time machine does not actually work, but is really an extremely elaborate feint (complete with setting every clock in the house wrong beforehand to throw off all the suspects' sense of time) intended to make the killer panic and incriminate themselves. The killer (Jacob's cousin, as it turns out) panics, all right... and kills Jacob too to shut him up.
