by Jamie Probin
Although Toussante and Le Fantôme made the headlines, several other characters played notable roles, and no history of Le Fantôme’s career would be complete without them.
When his career spread beyond France’s borders he came onto Scotland Yard’s radar, and in particular crossed swords with Chief Inspector Hugh Rogers on a number of occasions, although it was the Cambridge don Dr Samuel Harris, long-time consultant to the Yard, whom some think Le Fantôme considered his greatest opponent.
Rogers and Harris were considered valuable allies by Toussante, but his first and most dependable colleague was Sûreté detective Patrick Larsan, whom he appointed as his right hand man. The public knew far less about this impressive young man, at least not until he eventually succeeded his mentor as chief of the Sûreté, but Toussante himself was fulsome in his praise of Larsan, crediting him with many of the successes publicly attributed to Toussante. Of course Larsan also failed to bring Le Fantôme to justice, but more than one observer – this author included – has noted that Le Fantôme’s career mysteriously ended during Larsan’s tenure, and have suggested that it was he and Dr Harris that finally nullified the threat. Why, if that were the case, they never explained the truth is one more great mystery surrounding Le Fantôme’s exploits.
The affair which gave Toussante such confidence in his young prodigy is notable for also being the incident which thrust Le Fantôme firmly into the public consciousness. Whilst nominally a victory (the first of very few) for the Sûreté, experts have in hindsight suggested the whole episode was actually orchestrated by Le Fantôme from start to finish, claiming it was at this point he fully appreciated how he could use Toussante and Larsan as puppets to fully realise the character he was creating.
One newspaper of the time dubbed it “The Episode of the Nine Monets”, and while that may be a little sensational, the affair certainly deserves to be chronicled in detail, and the reader can find full details in chapter seven.[*]
This was not the first time the Sûreté were aware of Le Fantôme, although of course that name was several months away. Until this point however the police merely knew that an unusually intelligent and resourceful criminal had recently begun to leave his fingerprints on several ambitious enterprises, metaphorically if not literally. Prior to the Episode of the Nine Monets the genius of this mastermind had been attributed to his ability to conceive and coordinate his plans from afar, since no trace of any stranger was ever evident at the scene of the crime. It was only once Toussante and Larsan noted what appeared to be a mistake made by this criminal and foiled his plans to steal a priceless painting that they realised the truth: that their quarry must have actually been at each and every crime scene, and his real gift was not that of distant manipulator (though he was that too), but of disguise.
This, then, was arguably the pivotal moment of Le Fantôme’s early career. The original Monet was returned, a triumph for the Sûreté, and Toussante in particular, and yet Le Fantôme escaped with a fortune. Into the bargain it became clear that this villain had brilliantly impersonated a well-known businessman, and possessed an extraordinary talent for disguise. At this point the whole affair was launched into the public domain; Le Fantôme became public enemy number one, yet also a celebrity, Toussante was seized on by the media as the face of the law, and Larsan was appointed as Toussante's indispensable deputy.
From this moment on the battle between Le Fantôme and Toussante gripped the public’s attention, and rarely did a week pass without some mention of their rivalry in the papers. As mentioned earlier, some commentators suggested that this “mistake” made by Le Fantôme over the Monets was nothing of the sort, but rather a carefully conceived and executed masterstroke, possibly even the ulterior motive of the whole affair. They noted that the great criminal had made no such similar mistakes since, and the longer his otherwise flawless career continued the more credibility this opinion received. According to this view, Le Fantôme’s primary goal was public infamy, of his name if not his face, and all his crimes were first and foremost about notoriety. Drama and flamboyance trumped material gain in Le Fantôme’s world, they said, and from an early point he had appreciated the need for a nemesis. Once a suitably resourceful candidate had been discovered in Henri Toussante, the clue was duly laid and taken, the public were fed just the right mix of criminal bravado and police justice, and the contest began in earnest.
Whatever the truth of its origins, there can be no doubt that the battle between these two giants will go down in history alongside the likes of Eliot Ness versus Al Capone and Pat Garrett versus Billy the Kid. And it may be that history judges Toussante versus Le Fantôme as the greatest rivalry of them all.
(Copyright, Marie Juliette Sauton, 1948. Reproduced with permission.)
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[*] Unfortunately that chapter of Mme. Sauton’s book is not included in this excerpt, but you can read more details in the free short story, “The Episode of the Nine Monets”, coming soon. Follow my Amazon author page to make sure you receive it.