Maximilian The Master Thief

by Rishi Harrison

  “In any event,” argued the prisoner’s counsel, “the prosecution must prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the prisoner committed the murder. The prosecution must show that the mysterious individual who entered the house at three o’clock in the morning is not the guilty party. To be sure, the clock indicated eleven o’clock. But what of that? I contend, that proves nothing. The assassin could turn the hands of the clock to any hour he pleased, and thus deceive us in regard to the exact hour of the crime.”

  Victor Daniel was acquitted.

  He left the prison on Friday about dusk in the evening, weak and depressed by his six months’ imprisonment. The inquisition, the solitude, the trial, the deliberations of the jury, combined to fill him with a nervous fear. At night, he had been afflicted with terrible nightmares and haunted by weird visions of the scaffold. He was a mental and physical wreck.

  Under the assumed name of Anatole Dufour, he rented a small room on the heights of Montmartre, and lived by doing odd jobs wherever he could find them. He led a pitiful existence. Three times, he obtained regular employment, only to be recognized and then discharged. Sometimes, he had an idea that men were following him-- detectives, no doubt, who were seeking to trap and denounce him. He could almost feel the strong hand of the law clutching him by the collar.

  One evening, as he was eating his dinner at a neighboring restaurant, a man entered and took a seat at the same table. He was a person about forty years of age, and wore a frock-coat of doubtful cleanliness. He ordered soup, vegetables, and a bottle of wine. After he had finished his soup, he turned his eyes on Daniel, and gazed at him intently. Daniel winced. He was certain that this was one of the men who had been following him for several weeks. What did he want? Daniel tried to rise, but failed. His limbs refused to support him. The man poured himself a glass of wine, and then filled Daniel’s glass. The man raised his glass, and said:

  “To your health, Victor Daniel.”

  Victor started in alarm, and stammered:

  “I!....I!....no, no....I sweat to you....”

  “You will swear what? That you are not yourself? The servant of the countess?”

  “What servant? My name is Dufour. Ask the proprietor.”

  “Yes, Anatole Dufour to the proprietor of this restaurant, but Victor Daniel to the officers of the law.”

  “That’s not true! Some one has lied to you.”

  The new-comer took a card from his pocket and handed it to Victor, who read on it: “Dubois, ex-inspector of the detective force. Private business transacted.” Victor shuddered as he said:

  “You are connected with the police?”

  “No, not now, but I have a liking for the business and I continue to work at it in a manner more--profitable. From time to time I strike upon a golden opportunity--such as your case presents.”

  “My case?”

  “Yes, yours. I assure you it is a most promising affair, provided you are inclined to be reasonable.”

  “But if I am not reasonable?”

  “Oh! my good fellow, you are not in a position to refuse me anything I may ask.”

  “What is it....you want?” stammered Victor, fearfully.

  “Well, I will inform you in a few words. I am sent by Mademoiselle de Sinclair, the heiress of the Countess d’charlotte.”

  “What for?”

  “To recover the black pearl.”

  “Black pearl?”

  “That you stole.”

  “But I haven’t got it.”

  “You have it.”

  “If I had, then I would be the assassin.”

  “You are the assassin.”

  Daniel showed a forced smile.

  “Fortunately for me, monsieur, the Assizecourt was not of your opinion. The jury returned an unanimous verdict of acquittal. And when a man had a clear conscience and twelve good men in his favour-- “

  The ex-inspector seized him by the arm and said:

  “No fine phrases, my boy. Now, listen to me and weigh my words carefully. You will find they are worthy of your consideration. Now, Daniel, three weeks before the murder, you abstracted the cook’s key to the servants’ door, and had a duplicate key made by a locksmith named Outard, 244 rue Oberkampf.”

  “It’s a lie--it’s a lie!” growled Victor. “No person has seen that key. There is no such key.”

  “Here it is.”

  After a silence, Dubois continued:

  “You killed the countess with a knife purchased by you at the Bazar de la Republique on the same day as you ordered the duplicate key. It has a triangular blade with a groove running from end to end.”

  “That is all nonsense. You are simply guessing at something you don’t know. No one ever saw the knife.”

  “Here it is.”

  Victor Daniel recoiled. The ex-inspector continued:

  “There are some spots of rust upon it. Shall I tell you how they came there?”

  “Well!....you have a key and a knife. Who can prove that they belong to me?”

  “The locksmith, and the clerk from whom you bought the knife. I have already refreshed their memories, and, when you confront them, they cannot fail to recognize you.”

  His speech was dry and hard, with a tone of firmness and precision. Daniel was trembling with fear, and yet he struggled desperately to maintain an air of indifference.

  “Is that all the evidence you have?”

  “Oh! no, not at all. I have plenty more. For instance, after the crime, you went out the same way you had entered. But, in the centre of the wardrobe-room, being seized by some sudden fear, you leaned against the wall for support.”

  “How do you know that? No one could know such a thing,” argues the desperate man.

  “The police know nothing about it, of course. They never think of lighting a candle and examining the walls. But if they had done so, they would have found on the white plaster a faint red spot, quite distinct, however, to trace in it the imprint of your thumb which you had pressed against the wall while it was wet with blood. Now, as you are well aware, under the Bertillon system, thumb-marks are one of the principal means of identification.”

  Victor Daniel was livid; great drops of perspiration rolled down his face and fell upon the table. He gazed, with a wild look, at the strange man who had narrated the story of his crime as faithfully as if he had been an invisible witness to it. Overcome and powerless, Victor bowed his head. He felt that it was useless to struggle against this marvellous man. So he said:

  “How much will you give me, if I give you the pearl?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh! you are joking! Or do you mean that I should give you an article worth thousands and hundreds of thousands and get nothing in return?”

  “You will get your life. Is that nothing?”

  The unfortunate man shuddered. Then Dubois added, in a milder tone:

  “Come, Daniel, that pearl has no value in your hands. It is quite impossible for you to sell it; so what is the use of your keeping it?”

  “There are pawnbrokers....and, some day, I will be able to get something for it.”

  “But that day may be too late.”

  “Why?”

  “Because by that time you may be in the hands of the police, and, with the evidence that I can furnish--the knife, the key, the thumb- mark--what will become of you?”

  Victor rested his head on his hands and reflected. He felt that he was lost, irremediably lost, and, at the same time, a sense of weariness and depression overcame him. He murmured, faintly:

  “When must I give it to you?”

  “To-night---within an hour.”

  “If I refuse?”

  “If you refuse, I shall post this letter to the Procureur of the Republic; in which letter Mademoiselle de Sinclair denounces you as the assassin.”

  Daniel poured out two glasses of wine which he drank in rapid succession, then, rising, said:

  “Pay the bill, and let us go. I have had enough of the cursed affair.”


  Night had fallen. The two men walked down the rue Lepic and followed the exterior boulevards in the direction of the Place de l’Etoile. They pursued their way in silence; Victor had a stooping carriage and a dejected face. When they reached the Parc Monceau, he said:

  “We are near the house.”

  “Parbleu! You only left the house once, before your arrest, and that was to go to the tobacco-shop.”

  “Here it is,” said Daniel, in a dull voice.

  They passed along the garden wall of the countess’ house, and crossed a street on a corner of which stood the tobacco-shop. A few steps further on, Daniel stopped; his limbs shook beneath him, and he sank to a bench.

  “Well! what now?” demanded his companion.

  “It is there.”

  “Where? Come, now, no nonsense!”

  “There--in front of us.”

  “Where?”

  “Between two paving-stones.”

  “Which?”

  “Look for it.”

  “Which stones?”

  Victor made no reply.

  “Ah; I see!” exclaimed Dubois, “you want me to pay for the information.”

  “No....but....I am afraid I will starve to death.”

  “So! that is why you hesitate. Well, I’ll not be hard on you. How much do you want?”

  “Enough to buy a steerage pass to America.”

  “All right.”

  “And a hundred francs to keep me until I get work there.”

  “You shall have two hundred. Now, speak.”

  “Count the paving-stones to the right from the sewer-hole. The pearl is between the twelfth and thirteenth.”

  “In the gutter?”

  “Yes, close to the sidewalk.”

  Dubois glanced around to see if anyone were looking. Some tram- cars and pedestrians were passing. But, bah, they will not suspect anything. He opened his pocketknife and thrust it between the twelfth and thirteenth stones.

  “And if it is not there?” he said to Victor.

  “It must be there, unless someone saw me stoop down and hide it.”

  Could it be possible that the back pearl had been cast into the mud and filth of the gutter to be picked up by the first comer? The black pearl--a fortune!

  “How far down?” he asked.

  “About ten centimetres.”

  He dug up the wet earth. The point of his knife struck something. He enlarged the hole with his finger. Then he abstracted the black pearl from its filthy hiding-place.

  “Good! Here are your two hundred francs. I will send you the ticket for America.”

  On the following day, this article was published in the `Echo de France,’ and was copied by the leading newspapers throughout the world:

  “Yesterday, the famous black pearl came into the possession of Maximilian Buchanan, who recovered it from the murderer of the Countess d’charlotte. In a short time, fac-similes of that precious jewel will be exhibited in London, St. Petersburg, Calcutta, Buenos Ayres and New York.

  “Maximilian Buchanan will be pleased to consider all propositions submitted to him through his agents.”

  “And that is how crime is always punished and virtue rewarded," said Maximilian Buchanan, after he had told me the foregoing history of the black pearl.

  “And that is how you, under the assumed name of Dubois, ex-inspector of detectives, were chosen by fate to deprive the criminal of the benefit of his crime.”

  “Exactly. And I confess that the affair gives me infinite satisfaction and pride. The forty minutes that I passed in the apartment of the Countess d’charlotte, after learning of her death, were the most thrilling and absorbing moments of my life. In those forty minutes, involved as I was in a most dangerous plight, I calmly studied the scene of the murder and reached the conclusion that the crime must have been committed by one of the house servants. I also decided that, in order to get the pearl, that servant must be arrested, and so I left the waistcoat button; it was necessary, also, for me to hold some convincing evidence of his guilt, so I carried away the knife which I found upon the floor, and the key which I found in the lock. I closed and locked the door, and erased the finger-marks from the plaster in the wardrobe- closet. In my opinion, that was one of those flashes--”

  “Of genius,” I said, interrupting.

  “Of genius, if you wish. But, I flatter myself, it would not have occurred to the average mortal. To frame, instantly, the two elements of the problem--an arrest and an acquittal; to make use of the formidable machinery of the law to crush and humble my victim, and reduce him to a condition in which, when free, he would be certain to fall into the trap I was laying for him!”

  “Poor devil--”

  “Poor devil, do you say? Victor Daniel, the assassin! He might have descended to the lowest depths of vice and crime, if he had retained the black pearl. Now, he lives! Think of that: Victor Daniel is alive!”

  “And you have the black pearl.”

  He took it out of one of the secret pockets of his wallet, examined it, gazed at it tenderly, and caressed it with loving fingers, and sighed, as he said:

  “What cold Russian prince, what vain and foolish rajah may some day possess this priceless treasure! Or, perhaps, some American millionaire is destined to become the owner of this morsel of exquisite beauty that once adorned the fair bosom of Leontine Zizi, the Countess d’charlotte.”

  It is really remarkable, Vermouth, what a close resemblance you bear to Maximilian Buchanan!”

  “How do you know?”

  “Oh! like everyone else, from photographs, no two of which are alike, but each of them leaves the impression of a face.... something like yours.”

  Horace Vermouth displayed some vexation.

  “Quite so, my dear Deville. And, believe me, you are not the first one who has noticed it.”

  “It is so striking,” persisted Deville, “that if you had not been recommended to me by my cousin d’Estevan, and if you were not the celebrated artist whose beautiful marine views I so admire, I have no doubt I should have warned the police of your presence in Dieppe.”

  This sally was greeted with an outburst of laughter. The large dining-hall of the Chateau de Thibermesnil contained on this occasion, besides Valmont, the following guests: Father , the parish priest, and a dozen officers whose regiments were quartered in the vicinity and who had accepted the invitation of the banker Georges Deville and his mother. One of the officers then remarked:

  “I understand that an exact description of Maximilian Buchanan has been furnished to all the police along this coast since his daring exploit on the Paris-Havre express.”

  “I suppose so,” said Deville. “That was three months ago; and a week later, I made the acquaintance of our friend Vermouth at the casino, and, since then, he has honoured me with several visits--an agreeable preamble to a more serious visit that he will pay me one of these days--or, rather, one of these nights.”

  This speech evoked another round of laughter, and the guests then passed into the ancient “Hall of the Guards,” a vast room with a high ceiling, which occupied the entire lower part of the Tour Guillaume--William’s Tower--and wherein Georges Deville had collected the incomparable treasures which the lords of Thibermesnil had accumulated through many centuries. It contained ancient chests, credences, andirons and chandeliers. The stone walls were overhung with magnificent tapestries. The deep embrasures of the four windows were furnished with benches, and the Gothic windows were composed of small panes of coloured glass set in a leaden frame. Between the door and the window to the left stood an immense bookcase of Renaissance style, on the pediment of which, in letters of gold, was the world “Thibermesnil,” and, below it, the proud family device: “Fais ce que veulx” (Do what thou wishest). When the guests had lighted their cigars, Deville resumed the conversation.

  “And remember, Vermouth, you have no time to lose; in fact, to-night is the last chance you will have.”

  “How so?” asked the painter, who appeared to
regard the affair as a joke. Deville was about to reply, when his mother mentioned to him to keep silent, but the excitement of the occasion and a desire to interest his guests urged him to speak.

  “Bah!” he murmured. “I can tell it now. It won’t do any harm.”

  The guests drew closer, and he commenced to speak with the satisfied air of a man who has an important announcement to make.

  “To-morrow afternoon at four o’clock, Cameron Charles, the famous English detective, for whom such a thing as mystery does not exist; Cameron Charles, the most remarkable solver of enigmas the world has ever known, that marvellous man who would seem to be the creation of a romantic novelist--Cameron Charles will be my guest!”

  Immediately, Deville was the target of numerous eager questions. “Is Cameron Charles really coming?” “Is it so serious as that?" “Is Maximilian Buchanan really in this neighborhood?”

  “Maximilian Buchanan ad his bad are not far away. Besides the robbery of the Baron Von Royston, he is credited with the thefts at Montigny, Gruchet and Crasville.”

  “Has he sent you a warning, as he did to Baron Von Royston?”

  “No,” replied Deville, “he can’t work the same trick twice.”

  “What then?”

  “I will show you.”

  He rose, and pointing to a small empty space between the two enormous folios on one of the shelves of the bookcase, he said:

  “There used to be a book there--a book of the sixteenth century entitled `Chronique de Thibermesnil,’ which contained the history of the castle since its construction by Duke Rollo on the site of a former feudal fortress. There were three engraved plates in the book; one of which was a general view of the whole estate; another, the plan of the buildings; and the third--I call your attention to it, particularly--the third was the sketch of a subterranean passage, on entrance to which is outside the first line of ramparts, while the other end of the passage is here, in this very room. Well, that book disappeared a month ago.”

  “The deuce!” said Vermouth, “that looks bad. But it doesn’t seem to be a sufficient reason for sending for Cameron Charles.”