The Death Mask Murders

by Gabriel Farago

  Cajamarca: 26 July 1533

  During the weeks and months that followed, only small amounts of gold and silver began to arrive, and it became clear that it would take a very long time to fill the chamber as promised by Atahualpa, if at all. Pizarro and his men became increasingly suspicious and fearful that instead of collecting gold, Atahualpa was assembling a huge army to crush them and set him free.

  Tired of waiting and aware of the impatience of his men, who became more restless and surlier by the day, Pizarro decided to act. Instead of waiting any longer for promised gold that may never arrive, he decided to execute Atahualpa as a sign of strength, thereby foiling any attempt to mount an attack to free him. Atahualpa was sentenced to death during a hastily arranged trial based on false charges, and then garrotted in public.

  When the Inca priests approached Pizarro after this brutal and humiliating execution, to claim their dead king’s body for burial, Pizarro noticed a magnificent gold mask being carried by Villaq Umm, the high priest, at the head of a solemn procession crossing the plaza. The heavy gold mask – a precious, ancient ceremonial object with magical powers – would protect the king from evil spirits and provide safe passage into the afterlife.

  Mesmerised by the stunning beauty of the strange, priceless mask reflecting the setting sun like a promise of eternal life, Pizarro walked up to the priest and ordered one of his men to seize the mask, take it back to his quarters and add it to the meagre booty of gold and silver he had collected since taking Atahualpa prisoner.

  Villaq Umm recoiled in horror and began to plead with Pizarro to reconsider. The interpreter used by Pizarro was only able to provide a very limited translation of the priest’s lamentations, but it became clear that removing the mask and thereby depriving the king of his entry into the afterlife was not only a heinous crime, but would also result in a curse so powerful and severe that it would last for generations and bring untold misery and death to all affected.

  Pizarro laughed and dismissed the priest kneeling at his feet, and was about to turn away when the priest took hold of a corner of his cloak in a last, desperate attempt to stop the evil deed. Annoyed, Pizarro was aware that all eyes in the crowded plaza were upon him, watching his every move. Pizarro realised a show of strength was needed to keep the angry crowd in check. He pulled his razor-sharp dagger from his belt, bent down and cut the priest’s throat. Then he calmly turned around and followed the soldier carrying the mask, back to his quarters.

  Had Pizarro waited just a little bit longer, things may have turned out differently. Unbeknown to Pizarro, just as Atahualpa was being executed, Ruminahui – the legendary Inca general – was approaching Cajamarca with the king’s ransom treasure consisting of huge amounts of gold, being hauled up the mountains by hundreds of porters.

  Upon hearing of Atahualpa’s murder, Ruminahui ordered the porters to turn around and carry the treasure east to a remote, uninhabited part of the empire, beyond the reach of the treacherous invaders who had killed his king, and hide it. Rumours of a treasure hidden deep in the Llanganates Mountains soon began to circulate and reached the Spaniards, who mounted a desperate campaign to recover it.

  The avaricious conquistadors and the forces of Ruminahui eventually met in the Battle of Mount Chimborazo. Ruminahui was defeated and captured. During a horrendous torture session that lasted days and would have made the Inquisitors look like amateurs, a defiant Ruminahui remained silent and refused to reveal the location of the treasure. The brave and loyal general took that information to his grave, adding further mystery to the already legendary treasure of the Llanganates that would haunt treasure hunters for centuries to come.

  A few years later, on 26 June 1541, twenty heavily armed assassins – supporters of a rival conquistador, Diego de Almagro – stormed Pizarro’s palace in Lima. Pizarro put up a valiant fight but was eventually overpowered and stabbed several times in the throat. Just before he died, he painted a cross in his own blood on the floor and asked for Christ’s forgiveness. All his worldly goods and possessions were left to the Church, including the golden burial mask that had deprived a humiliated king entry into the afterlife. The curse of the golden mask had claimed its first victim.

  After Pizarro’s death, Almagro was appointed the new governor of Peru, a position he was able to enjoy for only a short time. He was executed the following year, after suffering a crushing defeat in the battle of Chupas.

  1

  Fleury-Mérogis Prison, Paris: 12 September 2018

  Lying on a hard, narrow bunk in his tiny, claustrophobic cell, Maurice Landru was turning restlessly in his sleep. Covered in sweat and moaning, he clutched the top of the crumpled blanket with both hands to his chest like a drowning man holding onto a lifeline. Then something banished the bad dream that had tortured his feverish brain: an elusive flash of inspiration he had been desperately searching for since his conviction for murder five years earlier. It was the missing piece of a cruel puzzle that had haunted him for years, and almost sent him mad.

  Instantly awake, Landru opened his eyes and sat up with a jolt. Mon Dieu, that’s it! he thought and reached for the little notebook and pen he always kept under the mattress, to record fleeting ideas before they evaporated into the mind-numbing routine of prison life. Holding it with shaking hands, he got up, turned on the light, and wrote down two letters. Then he reached for Jack’s book The Lost Symphony, which had just been released, and reread the passage he had underlined the night before. A broad smile spread across his face as he read the passage over and over. No doubt about it, it works!

  Landru sat down on the bunk and reached for a bundle of papers on the little desk attached to the wall next to the toilet bowl. The loose, creased pages were covered in strange diagrams, symbols and calculations, with extensive notes in his spidery handwriting scribbled in the margins. The pages contained the work that had kept him sane all these years, and had nourished the flame of hope burning in his chest like an eternal fire that was keeping him alive.

  Landru was certain he had just found what he had so desperately been looking for since his conviction, which could prove his innocence and set him free. Feeling elated, he brushed the notes and newspaper clippings aside, reached for a blank page, and began to write a letter to his lawyer.

  2

  Kuragin chateau: 24 September

  Jack and Countess Kuragin sat in the conservatory overlooking the park-like grounds and the lily pond at the back of the chateau. Surrounded by potted palms and exotic plants, it was Jack’s favourite place and where he did most of his writing when he was staying with the countess. The chateau just outside Paris had become his second home ever since he had found Anna, the countess’s daughter, in outback Australia eight years earlier, and returned her to her pining mother’s waiting arms.

  For an intrepid, restless adventure junkie like Jack, who travelled most of the year, it was not only the place where he felt most comfortable and relaxed, surrounded by the warmth of a family he didn’t have, but also a refuge from the harsh realities of life that seemed to follow him wherever he went. The chateau was a sanctuary where he could heal his emotional bruises, surrounded by the love of Countess Kuragin’s family, who had welcomed him into their lives as one of their own. It was good-karma payback for a selfless act of extraordinary courage that had saved Anna’s life and that of her baby son, earning him the friendship and gratitude of the countess.

  ‘What now?’ asked the countess, sipping her second cup of strong coffee, a teasing glint in her eyes.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Jack, sitting back in his comfortable wicker chair.

  ‘Well, you’ve just released your book about your Russian adventures, we’ve been to St Petersburg to return the famous Fabergé Easter egg to where it belongs, you’ve saved Professor Stolzfus – one of the great geniuses of our time – and you found your mother in Colombia. Have I left something out?’

  ‘No, that’s about it.’

  ‘Then surely you see what I mean?’
<
br />   Jack nodded. ‘I was thinking of taking some time out. Finishing a book is always draining. As you know, writing is a struggle for me. I have to wrestle with myself to put words on a page. I’m much better out in the open, doing stuff.’

  ‘Ah, is that what it is?’

  ‘I haven’t been back to Australia for a while now; this would be a good time to go to the Kimberley and pay my Aboriginal friends in Broome a visit, before the cyclone season begins.’

  ‘Good idea. When are you leaving?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘Before another adventure you cannot resist finds you, and you have to drop everything?’ teased the countess, smiling.

  ‘Something like that. You know me too well.’

  ‘You don’t say. More coffee?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘It may already be too late for that,’ interjected Claude Dupree, walking into the room. He had overheard the countess’s remark. ‘Cook told me I would find you here.’

  Dupree, a retired French police officer, lived in the Gatekeeper’s Cottage next to the chateau. He had become another member of the extended Kuragin family after a fire the year before had burned his home to the ground, killing his son. Dupree was severely burned and found himself with nowhere to live. The countess had offered the cottage without hesitation. Shortly after that, Dupree and Jack had collaborated in solving a notorious cold case concerning Le Fantôme, a cat burglar, and the Black Widow, a shady Paris art dealer and fence, which reached back to Dupree’s detective days in the Paris Police Prefecture. These were all subjects explored in Jack’s latest book – The Lost Symphony – which had become an overnight bestseller.

  ‘Pull up a chair,’ said Jack. ‘Croissant?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Jack handed Dupree a plate and a cup of coffee. ‘What do you mean, it may already be too late?’

  ‘I just had a call from Lapointe ...’

  Detective Chief Superintendent Marcel Lapointe was a senior commissionaire of the Paris Brigade Criminelle and one of Dupree’s former junior colleagues and protégées. He reminded Jack of Maigret, the legendary fictitious Paris detective who featured in more than seventy novels by Georges Simenon. Lapointe, Dupree and Jack had collaborated in solving the sensational Ritz murder case the year before by linking it to the Black Widow, who had perished in dramatic circumstances in a deliberately lit house fire just before Lapointe could make an arrest.

  ‘Oh, no!’ said the countess.

  ‘What was the call about?’ asked Jack.

  ‘An old case of ours ...’

  ‘What kind of case?’

  ‘The Death Mask Murders,’ replied Dupree, lowering his voice as if just the mention of the controversial subject could bring bad luck and cause disaster.

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘Not surprising; it was some time ago. Lapointe and I worked on it for years.’

  ‘And this is relevant because?’ said Jack.

  Dupree took a sip of hot coffee and sat back. ‘I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Here we go,’ said the countess. ‘I knew it. The Kimberley trip may have to wait a little longer.’

  ‘Don’t jinx it,’ said Jack. ‘Let’s hear what Claude has to say.’

  ‘The Death Mask Murders was without doubt one of the most complicated and challenging cases of my entire career,’ began Dupree, ‘and the most controversial. I still wake up at night from time to time, haunted by the memories and the unanswered questions.’

  ‘In what way?’ asked Jack.

  ‘To begin with, we were dealing with a serial killer of a very different kind: sophisticated, clever, unpredictable, resourceful, and totally unique. None of the usual characteristics or patterns of behaviour applied. This was a dangerous criminal, out of the ordinary. Someone in a class of his own. No women involved, not even a hint of a sexual motive of any kind, only a bizarre signature. In fact, the absence of motive was one of our main problems in solving the cases. Random murders without obvious motive or connections are always a nightmare for the police. For years, the investigation was lost at sea without a rudder, in the middle of a media storm that pursued us relentlessly, screaming for answers and results. The pressure was enormous.’

  ‘What kind of signature?’ asked the countess.

  ‘A death mask made of some kind of plaster of Paris was left at the scene of each crime.’

  ‘Seriously?’ said Jack. ‘How on earth was that done?’

  Dupree nodded. ‘Good question. The killer prepared a death mask of the victim immediately after the murder before rigor mortis set in. He then removed the body, but left the mask behind. This must have been quite a process, but the killer knew what he was doing and was very good at it. Meticulous and resourceful.’

  ‘How gruesome.’

  ‘Perhaps, but in many ways he was quite an artist because the masks were perfect; expertly done. Quite beautiful and moving, in fact. A perfect replica of a face just after death. By the time we arrived at the scene, all we found was the mask and nothing else of importance we could use. The killer was fastidious in “cleaning up”. He left no clues behind. Just the mask. It was like a game. He was playing with us, teasing us, throwing us a challenge. None of the bodies have ever been found except for the last one. We caught the killer in the act, so to speak. He was preparing the death mask as we arrested him. And one more thing: all the victims were killed in the same way.’

  ‘How?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Garrotted. With piano wire.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘The death mask included the upper part of the neck as well and clearly showed where the wire had cut into the flesh. It even contained a piece of piano wire, obviously to tell us exactly how the victim was killed. It was like a signature.’

  ‘How bizarre.’

  ‘Oh yes. Everything about these cases is quite bizarre.’

  ‘How many victims were there?’

  ‘Three that we know of.’

  ‘Three? There could have been more?’ said Jack.

  ‘Absolutely. We always suspected there were more. It was one of our most perplexing and difficult cases. All victims appeared to have been chosen at random – at least that was the thinking at the time – without any apparent links or connection to one another. That’s why it took us years to catch the killer. We used a well-known profiler to help us, and even turned to a famous psychic the police had used before for assistance. That’s how desperate we were.’

  ‘Was this helpful?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Difficult to say.’

  ‘Was the killer convicted of the other murders?’

  ‘No, you put your finger right on it. Only the last one. And that’s one of the main problems here. His name was Maurice Landru. We had no evidence to link him to the other crimes, except for the signature mask. And that was merely circumstantial, and certainly not enough without further compelling evidence. Especially without the bodies. What we needed was a confession, but Landru certainly wasn’t the kind of man to confess to anything. On the contrary, he denied everything – even the killing of the last victim, despite all the evidence – and claimed that he had been framed.’

  ‘Framed by whom?’

  ‘The real killer, but he had no proof or leads of any kind to back this up. We dismissed this as fantasy, a fabrication of a desperate man, and we didn’t take it seriously at the time. But now, after all these years?’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ said Jack, who had noticed a haunted expression on Dupree’s face.

  ‘I’m no longer that sure ...’

  ‘That’s quite something coming from someone like you,’ said the countess.

  Dupree didn’t reply.

  ‘Where’s Landru now?’ asked Jack, changing direction.

  ‘Serving a life sentence in the Fleury-Mérogis Prison right here in Paris. There’s a lot more about this case that is fascinating, and troubling.’

  ‘Troubling?’ said Jack. ‘In what way? Apart from th
e fact that at least two bodies are still out there, their murders unsolved, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ll tell you another time.’

  ‘Then, why are you telling us all this right now?’ said the countess. ‘You haven’t told us what Lapointe’s call was about.’

  ‘Landru’s lawyer contacted the Prefect of Police, the big man in charge of the Prefecture here in Paris.’

  ‘What about?’ asked Jack.

  ‘New information, and a request. That’s why the Prefect contacted Lapointe, who had worked on the case for years and knows the facts like no other. He was the one who arrested Landru and had him convicted.’

  ‘What kind of information?’ asked Jack.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ said Dupree, sidestepping the question.

  ‘And Lapointe called you this morning about this?’ interjected the countess. ‘Why?’

  ‘To be more specific, he called me about the request.’

  Jack could feel the fine hairs on the back of his neck beginning to tingle. It was a familiar premonition that rarely let him down, and usually happened when a new adventure or challenge came hurtling towards him. I have a bad feeling about this, he thought. ‘How intriguing,’ he said. ‘What kind of request?’

  ‘The information and the request are linked.’

  ‘Linked? In what way?’

  ‘Landru asked for permission to meet someone, face to face.’

  ‘How weird. Why?’

  ‘He will only disclose this new information to the person he would like to meet.’

  ‘Did he say who that was?’