Tales of the Shadowmen 1: The Modern Babylon

by Jean-Marc Lofficier

  Inside the room, Etienne Leonard stood, tears streaming down his face. It shocked Maigret to see the stoic man with the fierce eyes so vulnerable. In one hand, Leonard held a sheaf of papers; in the other, a small revolver. As they watched, he opened the grill and thrust the papers into the fire. He pulled another paper from his pocket and read it through before dropping it into the fire as well. He shut the grate and raised the pistol to his head.

  “Name of a blue man!” Jules de Grandin hissed. “We must stop him.”

  They burst into the room.

  “Monsieur Leonard, stop!” Maigret called. “There is another way to save your daughter!”

  The magistrate froze in place, a look of pain and confusion on his face as Jules de Grandin opened the grate and pulled the burning scraps of paper onto the carpet, then tried to stamp out the flames.

  “Maigret? Doctor de Grandin? What are you doing?”

  “We know the truth, Monsieur,” Maigret said. “The true ransom has nothing to do with the quarter million francs, does it? Your silence will not save your daughter. Only your cooperation can help her now.”

  Leonard slumped heavily into a chair. The pistol fell from his fingers.

  Maigret turned to his friend.

  “The papers?”

  “A loss, I’m afraid,” the small man answered. “We may be able to piece together a little from the fragments, but I don’t hold out much hope.”

  “Monsieur le Juge can tell us.” Maigret turned back to the stricken Leonard.

  “The last paper you tossed into the fire. That was the note that told of the kidnappers’ true demands, wasn’t it? What was it you were investigating?”

  Leonard raised his eyes. All of his defiant anger was gone.

  “Do you know of the criminal syndicate called the Red Hand?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Maigret said. “They’re one of the most dangerous organizations on the continent. I’ve heard that their influence extends even as far as America.”

  Leonard nodded.

  “I’ve been investigating them for years and recently learned the names of the two individuals who lead them. I was going to prosecute them, but I had to be sure. They are powerful men with impeccable reputations. To accuse them without final confirmation would have been folly.”

  “And this confirmation?” de Grandin asked.

  “It came yesterday evening,” the magistrate said. “The night Louise was taken.”

  “You received two ransom notes?”

  “Yes, the first was for money. It was to occupy the police so they wouldn’t suspect the real demands. I was to burn all the evidence against the two men, and then I was to take my own life. They can’t afford for anyone who knows what I know to live.”

  “You must tell us what you know, sir.” Maigret’s voice was agonized. “If we’re to have a chance to save Louise, we have to know everything.”

  “The Red Hand will kill her whether you take your own life or not,” de Grandin added. “You must know this.”

  Etienne Leonard nodded his head.

  “I do. I hoped that somehow this could save my little girl, but that hope is gone.”

  “Tell us the names, sir.”

  Leonard raised his head. Whether he intended to answer Maigret’s question or not wasn’t clear. When he looked at the doorway, a fresh look of surprise crossed his face. Then, there was a gunshot. A small round hole appeared in Leonard’s forehead and he sagged into the chair.

  “I beg your pardon, gentlemen.” Inspector Gauthier stepped into the study, pistol in hand. “I’m afraid the names of my employers must remain a secret.”

  “Gauthier!” Maigret had half-suspected his mentor. Even so, it was a shock.

  “I am sorry to admit it, but I have a passion for betting. Sadly, I am not very good at choosing the best horse or the fastest dog.”

  “But the Red Hand told you they could make your debts disappear, didn’t they?” Jules de Grandin’s voice was contemptuous.

  “Your deduction is correct, Doctor. I’ve always regretted that you chose medical investigation over the regular police force. We could have used you.” He turned to Maigret with sad eyes. “And you, young Maigret, you have the makings of an outstanding detective. It’s a shame such a promising career must be cut short.”

  He raised his pistol.

  “Maigret, be ready to rush him,” de Grandin hissed. “He can only shoot one of us, then the other will be on him.”

  Gauthier looked worried. He backed into the doorway, trying to cover both men.

  “Don’t try it. I’m an excellent shot. I can kill two men as easily as one.”

  “What about three?” said a voice from the darkness.

  Gauthier started to turn to face the speaker. Before he could move, a black-clad arm chopped against the side of his neck and he fell senseless.

  “Judex!” Maigret cried. “What perfect timing.”

  The black-cloaked man stepped into the room.

  “I’m glad to have gotten here when I did,” he said, “but if my timing had been perfect, Monsieur Leonard would still be alive.”

  He scooped up Gauthier’s gun and tossed it to Maigret.

  “You’ll need this before the night is out.”

  “But it’s evidence.”

  “If you want to save Mademoiselle Leonard from Gouroull, you’ll need more than evidence.”

  Maigret looked to de Grandin. The little investigator nodded and picked up the pistol Leonard had held.

  “Now that her father is dead, your Louise’s life can probably be measured in hours. We must act immediately.”

  “But how? We are no closer to knowing where she is being held than before.”

  “On the contrary,” Judex nodded to Gauthier’s unconscious form. “He will tell us.”

  The ride to Judex’s lair had seemed to take hours, even in the mysterious man’s powerful motorcar. He had sworn Maigret and de Grandin to secrecy before driving them to the ruins of Château-Rouge. On the way, he had told them of his investigation of the Red Hand. He had learned of the plan to kidnap Louise too late to do anything more than try to intercept her abductors.

  Château-Rouge had been a stone castle overlooking the Seine Valley. It sat at the top of a sheer cliff and had been an impressive stronghold in its time. Now, it was a crumbling ruin, but one which still functioned as a stronghold. A hidden hatch led to a maze of passages that Judex had outfitted with the most modern equipment.

  Gauthier sat in a small, windowless cell. The men could watch him using an electronically-controlled mirror. The room held some rudimentary furniture including a chair, a cot and a glass screen of a type Maigret had never seen set into one of the walls.

  “He will wake soon,” Judex said. “I’ve given him a hypnotic drug to make him more susceptible to my methods.”

  “I never thought I would be a party to such things,” Maigret said softly.

  Judex gazed at the policeman.

  “I do as I must to find justice, Monsieur Maigret. If you believe that police methods will have a better chance at saving the young lady’s life, I will gladly hand over the prisoner.”

  Maigret said nothing. He was willing to go along with Judex in these extreme circumstances but he couldn’t help but sympathize with the man in the cell. Inspector Gauthier had been his superior and his friend. It was painful to see him like this.

  “This is a remarkable place,” Jules de Grandin commented. “And that cell, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

  “It is as much as a monk’s cell as it is a place of confinement,” Judex replied. “In that room, a man must face his sins. He is made to see all that he has done so that he can seek atonement. I designed it for another, but his time of judgment has not yet come.”

  “He’s awake!” Maigret pointed at the mirror. The others saw that Gauthier had risen and was looking around the cell.

  Judex crossed to a desk where a futuristic-looking typewriter sat. As he typed, words fo
rmed on the screen in glowing red letters.

  ROBERT GAUTHIER, YOU ARE MY PRISONER. FOR THE CRIMES YOU HAVE COMMITTED, I SENTENCE YOU TO CONFINEMENT IN THIS CELL FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

  “What is this?” the Inspector cried, “You have no right to hold me! I demand to be handed over to the police at once!”

  THIS IS NO LONGER AN AFFAIR FOR THE POLICE. I HAVE TRIED YOU AND FOUND YOU GUILTY. I NOW PASS SENTENCE ON YOU.

  “Who are you?” Gauthier’s voice rose with the beginnings of panic.

  I AM JUDEX.

  “Judex? The madman who has been terrorizing the underworld?”

  THOSE WHO HAVE KNOWN TERROR AT MY HAND HAVE BEEN DESERVING OF JUDGMENT. LIKE THEM YOU HAVE BEEN JUDGED AND FOUND WANTING.

  NOW, BID FAREWELL TO EVERYTHING YOU HAVE KNOWN.

  “You cannot frighten me!” the Inspector shouted. “I will never give in to these childish tricks!”

  “He’s telling the truth,” Maigret said. “I know him, he’s too strong to break.”

  “Perhaps not,” Judex replied. “But it may be that you underestimate me.”

  For hours, it continued and Maigret watched his former friend’s sanity slip away bit by bit. The drug made it impossible for him to ignore the flaming letters promising just punishment for his crimes. At one point, Jules de Grandin whispered in Maigret’s ear.

  “This Judex is relentless. It is only a question of whether Gauthier’s will breaks first, or his mind.”

  It was past midnight when the end came. Gauthier hadn’t spoken for an hour. He had simply sat and stared at the screen with its fiery messages of judgment.

  Finally, the policeman let out a loud wail.

  “No! Please! Is there nothing I can do?” Gauthier sounded desperate. Maigret shook his head in sorrow. The man he had trusted and admired was reduced to something barely coherent, wild eyes filled with panic.

  WHY DO YOU DESERVE MERCY?

  “Because I repent!” the Inspector was sobbing now. “I will do anything I can to atone for my sins! I will tell you everything I know!”

  WHERE IS THE GIRL?

  “She is being held at the Red Hand’s headquarters. It is a secret basement beneath the dairy on the Rue Mouffetard!” He paused, breathing raggedly. “I’ve told you. Will you show me mercy?”

  I RESERVE JUDGMENT. I WILL RETURN SOON. IF THE GIRL IS UNHARMED, YOU WILL GO TO THE AUTHORITIES. IF SHE IS NOT, I SHALL PASS SENTENCE ON YOU.

  Judex left the final words glowing on the screen as he turned to the others.

  “Our course is clear, gentlemen. We cannot call the police, they are not prepared to deal with Gouroull, and Mademoiselle Leonard would certainly be killed the moment they approached the building.”

  Jules de Grandin held up his revolver.

  “I am not certain that we are any better prepared to fight that monster.”

  “I have thought of that.” Judex reached into his desk and pulled out a strange weapon that looked like an oversized version of an automatic pistol. It had a very long barrel and was obviously hand-crafted.

  “Among my allies is a gunsmith of considerable talent,” the caped man said with a trace of a smile. “When I realized that we faced the Frankenstein Monster, I asked him to make this. It has the compactness of a pistol, but it fires the rounds of a high-powered hunting rifle. I thank God for his efficiency and speed.”

  “You knew that we were facing the Monster?” Jules de Grandin seemed slightly put out that he was not the only one to reach this conclusion.

  “What else was I to think after your comments about synthetic blood?” Judex crossed to a file cabinet and produced a folder. He dropped it on the desk in front of the detectives.

  “Once I knew what to look for, I had my agents comb the newspaper morgues. Here is his trail. Frankenstein created the Monster at the end of the 18th century. The events of Mary Shelley’s novel seem to be accurate in most regards.

  “After the Monster’s supposed death in the Arctic, his body was recovered by an Ulsterman named Blessed. Blessed returned to his homeland where he made an exhibit of the body. In 1875, the Monster revived and killed a man. It was lost in the bogs and was thought dead until it turned up in Scotland several years later. The records are confused, even hysterical, but it seems that the Monster was involved in a string of horrible deaths in the village of Plosway.

  “The last appearance I have found was in the Swiss Alps, near Ingolstadt. The Swiss are usually so meticulous about times and dates but my men haven’t been able to sort out whether this was 10 years ago or nearly 20. In either case, Gouroull had taken up with a mad clergyman named Schleger. Their activities together are too horrible to relate. They eventually had a failing out. Gouroull murdered the pastor and fled into the mountains.”

  “Frankenstein... It’s so hard to believe.” Maigret shook his head. “But, if it is true, will even a weapon like that be enough?”

  “I am told that it would kill a tiger, an American grizzly bear or even a Cape buffalo. As for Gouroull,” Judex shrugged, “we will know that soon enough.”

  Doctor Cornelius Kramm sat at his desk in the clinic on the Rue Mouffetard, reading through a great pile of notes on anatomy, biology and the alchemical treatises that had inspired Victor Frankenstein. Suddenly, the red light on his desk came on.

  Cornelius frowned. Fritz was away on other business and none of the members of the Red Hand knew of the secret elevator. Best to be safe. He pressed a hidden button on the underside of the desk. The soft swishing sound of something large sliding filled the room. He smiled and pressed the button that caused the bookcase to slide back.

  Gouroull stepped out, his massive form nearly filling the elevator.

  “Ah!” Cornelius said, “I thought it might be you, my friend. It was very clever of you to find my conveyance. What do you want?”

  The creature gazed at the surgeon with hate-filled eyes and his thin red lips pulled into an ugly grimace.

  “I see,” Cornelius’ voice was as calm as if he were discussing the weather. “You’re here to kill me then?”

  The Monster surged forward, giant hands reaching for the doctor’s throat. A few feet from the desk, he stopped abruptly as he collided with something that was invisible but very solid.

  “If you found the elevator shaft, I suppose you must also have been eavesdropping on my conversations with my brother Fritz. That was very careless of me, I’m usually much more discrete.”

  Gouroull ran his hands across the unseen wall. He began to pound at it with his mighty fists. This produced a loud, vaguely musical “bonging” but had no other results.

  “Useless, I’m afraid,” Doctor Cornelius said pleasantly. “Even you can’t beat your way through my barrier. It’s a bulletproof glass of my own design. The transparency is marvelous, don’t you think?”

  Cornelius’ hand slipped beneath the desk again.

  “Were you going to ambush Fritz after you’d killed me? Or perhaps, you were going to take the Leonard girl and disappear into the countryside?” The doctor shook his head. “You seem to be forever trapped into repeating the same patterns.”

  Cornelius hand slipped beneath the desk and his finger pressed another button. There was a quiet hiss as a dozen tiny jets began to fill Gouroull’s side of the room with a greenish gas that smelled of mimosa.

  “It’s a shame it has to end this way. I would have preferred your cooperation.”

  The giant covered his mouth and nose with one hand while the other flailed around, smashing bookcases and hurling their contents against the unseen barrier. As Cornelius watched, he noticed that the books were forming a large pile against the center of the glass wall.

  Gouroull stopped his rampage and pulled a box of wooden matches out of his pocket. He bared his teeth at Doctor Cornelius in what might have been a grin as he struck a match and dropped it on the pile of books.

  “Very clever!” Cornelius murmured. “Even I have underestimated you it seems.”

  It was raining
heavily when Judex’s car pulled to the side of the Rue Mouffetard and stopped. The three men had a good view of the dairy.

  “How do we get in without raising an alarm?” Maigret asked.

  “We need a distraction,” Judex replied. “I wish I had thought to bring my hunting hounds. If we sent that pack into the building, the Red Hand wouldn’t know what to make of them. We could slip in easily.”

  “We may not need any such thing. Look!”

  The others followed Jules de Grandin’s pointing finger. Smoke was starting to pour out of the second floor of the charity clinic next to the dairy.

  “My God,” Maigret cried. “Those poor people.”

  “The two of you see that the clinic is evacuated,” Judex snapped. “I’ll use this opportunity to find the way down to the Red Hand’s headquarters. Join me there as soon as you can.”

  Maigret and Jules de Grandin raced to the clinic where a slender man with fierce black eyes and a high, bald head was directing the evacuation.

  “Monsieur, we are here to help.”

  “Excellent!” the man said. He was admirably calm. “Are you with the police?”

  “I’m Constable Maigret.”

  “Good! I am the clinic’s director. The fire broke out on the second floor so the patients are safe for the moment. All the beds are on the ground level. Just the same we need to get them out quickly.”

  “Why is that?”

  “We store a great deal of ether on the upper floor. When the fire reaches it, there will be a terrible explosion. Can you send for help?”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  Maigret managed to round up several gendarmes. The pouring rain hampered their efforts but it also slowed the progress of the fire. Before long, the building was evacuated and the fire brigade was setting up to fight the blaze.

  Maigret and Jules de Grandin regrouped at the door of the crémerie.

  “We had best see what Judex has found.”

  Maigret nodded at his friend’s comment and the two turned to go in.