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It seems that "Spots" are neither drugs nor places but a type of device used by thieves in the underworld. And a Whistler is someone (a thief) who uses a "Donkey's Whistle", which is also a device used by thieves. The nature of these devices remains unknown because they have been made up by Chesterton himself. Part of the point of the story is that a naive, unassuming priest (the famous Father Brown of Chesterton's stories) is more knowledgeable about the ways and means of thieves than Flambeau, the greatest thief operating in Europe at the time, because as a priest he hears an awful lot of confessions. He therefore knows all about Flambeau's modus operandi, and even recognises him as a thief (in part) because of a bulge up his sleeve, which is clearly a "spiked bracelet", another unknown and unknowable gadget used by thieves. Another part of the point of the story is that he knows more than us, the reader. We're not supposed to know what these things are, although we're supposed to be intrigued by what they might be. So how to translate them? You're free to make up your own translation, of course, although I reckon it should be imaginative and in keeping with the story. I imagine the Donkey's Whistle truly to be a kind of Sifflet and the Whistler to be a Siffleur. The Spots are more difficult. They're supposed to be a way of neutralising the Donkey's Whistle, and something that demands effort in the legs. Even something as basic as "Taches" or "Points" would work, in my opinion, because they're nice and ambiguous, although you should use your imagination because it's supposed to be something that piques the reader's interest. http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=117718
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