The Man of a Hundred Faces (1927)
Translated by Hannaford Bennett, 1930
Original French Title: ‘Mister Flow’
Leroux’s last novel first appeared in serial form in Le Journal as La Veritable Histoire du Celebre Mister Flow at the beginning of 1927. As Mister Flow: Une histoire epouvantable (A Terrible Story) the serial was collated was published in one volume by La Baudiniere in the original French, also in 1927. An American translation appeared in the 1925 book version, published by MacCaulay and Co. in New York as The Man of a Hundred Faces. In 1936, a French film adaptation of the original novel was released, directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Fernand Gravey, Edwige Feuillère and Jean Périer. The script was written by Henri Jeanson.
It is an excellent tale of old-school gentleman burglars that can outwit the police at every turn and create and almost good natured mayhem wherever they go. It is reminiscent of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Raffles and latterly the Pink Panther, told with verve and humour. It is unusual for many authors to achieve such a level of interest in their later works, but Leroux has achieved it here. The Phantom of many years before also casts a shadow here, in the playfully malicious wit of Mister Flow and his infamous antics. In many ways, it is a strong final outing by the author.
The 1927 first edition
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
The first edition of the 1930 translation
CHAPTER I
MY NEW CLIENT did not lift his head when I entered his cell in the Paris jail. He was seated on a low stool, hunched over in an attitude of despair, his face in his hands. The door clicked behind me and the footsteps of the guard dwindled down the corridor.
The iron walls and floor of the cell exuded the stifling, dead heat of an afternoon in late June. High up in the rear wall a narrow window admitted a single streak of light from the world of freedom outside; but by contrast, the bleak walls and huddled figure seemed more desolate and hopeless than if there had been no sun at all.
I drew a bench out from the wall and sat down on it. At the scraping of the bench across the floor, the prisoner slowly lifted his head and stared at me.
His face was like a ball of soft putty, black and stupid. His pale eyes blinked uncomprehendingly and he nervously clasped and unclasped his fingers. The slip in my vest pocket had already told me that his offense was a trivial one: merely the theft of a stickpin from the man by whom he had been employed as a valet. But men of his kind were often frightened at any collision with the forces of justice. Obviously it was going to be an uninteresting and unprofitable case.
With a gesture of impatience, I drew the slip from my pocket. The putty face continued to stare at me vacantly. From the bleary look of his eyes I suspected, with contempt, that the man had been weeping. A stupid business all around, I thought to myself, and one that I could get over with as soon as possible.
Certainly, at that moment, there was nothing to warn me that I stood on the threshold of the most enigmatic, the most sensational, and the most dangerous adventure that has roused the public and baffled the police in the Twentieth Century.
“Charles Durin?” I asked, as a matter of form.
He nodded his head.
“Yes, sir.” The voice was as flat and stupid as the expression on his face.
“I am the lawyer who has been appointed to handle your case,” I continued.
“For God’s sake, sir,” he broke out. “I didn’t mean to do anything wrong! I swear to you, I am an honest man.... I’ve never done anything like that before in my life. They aren’t going to put me in prison for something I didn’t mean to do, are they? I couldn’t stand that, sir, honest to God, I couldn’t, the shame of it would — I’ve always been an honest—”
“Never mind that now,” I said, and the repugnance his weakness aroused in me made my tone more curt than usual. “If you have had a good record in the past, there’s nothing to get frightened about now. Meanwhile I want to check up on the facts. I understand that you have been employed as valet to—” I glanced at the slip of paper— “Sir Archibald Skarlett, during his residence here in Paris. Is that right?”
“Yes, sir, and Sir Archibald will tell you himself that I have always—”
“How long have you been in his employ?”
“Two years, sir. He hired me two years ago next month, in Milan. I was out of a job at that time, sir, and an English gentleman was kind enough to recommend me to his lordship, who was a great friend of his. I never had a better employer in my life, sir, than his lordship. I couldn’t have done anything to hurt him—”
“You admitted stealing the pin, didn’t you?”
“That’s true, sir. I did steal the pin, but I am sorry it happened, and I swear to you I never intended to do it. It just came over me, like that, and the first thing I knew, I had done it. It was a sort of a spell I had, sir. Isn’t there some kind of a disease that makes people steal things like that?”
I admitted that there was a disease that made people steal things for which they had no need, and he begged me to tell him the name of it. At the sound of the medical term, his watery eyes grew still more bewildered, and he dropped his face in his hands.
“My God,” he groaned, “klepto — what’d you call it? — kleptomania. Is that what I’ve got? They won’t convict me for that, sir, will they? I didn’t mean to do anything wrong, and I’ve—”
“Now, look here,” I said, “sit up and be a man. You’re not going to die over this. In the first place, I’ve been appointed to look after your interests; and in the second place, your employer has already written a letter to the court, withdrawing the charge against you and asking for clemency.”
I drew the letter from my pocket and handed it to him. He took it timidly, as if it might explode, and stared at it without understanding.
Sir Archibald Skarlett had written from Scotland, where he had been summoned on business. He regretted that he had filed a complaint against Durin, who had served him faithfully, except for this one delinquency. The baronet explained, with a strong flavor of the Scotch Presbyterian, that he was himself to blame, for having exposed his valet to temptation, and that his only desire now was to save Durin’s soul. Unfortunately, he could not come to Paris at the present moment, for important matters kept him at Edinburgh; but he would return in October, and would consider it his duty to take Durin back into his service. Meanwhile, he sent him a Bible to read in prison and exhorted him to pray for guidance.
After gazing at the letter for several minutes, Durin returned it to me respectfully.
“His lordship is a wonderful man,” he said. “I never had a better employer, sir. Will they let me go, when they read this letter?”
I explained that, in October, I would ask for a reprieve, and that with the support of Sir Archibald, it would probably be granted.
I then questioned him a little, in an attempt to win his confidence and to find out if there were any other facts in the case that did not appear on the surface. But I could get nothing from him except his repeated assurance that he was sorry, that he had never intended to do anything wrong, and that he didn’t see how a man could be justly convicted for a crime he had not meant to commit.
Soon growing tired of this tune, I left him in disgust. Stepping from the close atmosphere of the prison into the blinding sunlight of the street, I paused for a moment to consider my own prospects. They were anything but brilliant for a needy young lawyer. The summer recess was already beginning, and there was no chance of anything interesting coming up in court until fall. The sidewalk steamed with heat and the air choked me as I breathed it. The older men in our profession were scattering now to the seashore or the mountains, w
here they would be wading the trout streams, while I was left in the city to sweat over a half-wit who had stolen a stickpin. My God, what a career!
One more year gone by, the third since I had been admitted, trembling with great expectations, to the bar.
I had imagined then that I would soon be both rich and famous. And after three years of drudgery, I had in my pocket a bunch of keys and fifteen francs — and my rent was due the following Tuesday.
I gave a deep sigh and tramped up the hill, mopping my brow at every ten paces, to my hall bedroom in the rue des Bernardins.
In the corridor outside the door next to mine I found a little pile of bags, a brief-case, and two typewriters. Nathalie and Clotilde were evidently going away. The presence of the two sisters, with whom I chatted sometimes in the evening, was the only thing that had made my hotel livable. Nathalie was a stenographer, a quiet, gentle creature, with clear hazel eyes and a friendly smile. She worked for an agency, typing plays and novels. And many a night I had fallen asleep, while the sound of her patient clicking went on, with unbroken industry, into the small hours. Clotilde was studying law, and about ready to take her final examinations. To tell the truth, I resented her entering our profession: as if it wasn’t already crowded enough, without the ladies joining it! But Clotilde was a forceful young woman, with unbounded confidence in herself, her abilities, and her future success.
The sisters appeared in their door, with the last few bundles, as I mounted the steps. Clotilde, who was always the spokesman for the pair, greeted me cordially and explained that they were off for two months in their “villa” at Lion-by-the-Sea.
“Why not invite me to go with you?” I said laughingly. “I’ll be the man-of-all-work on your grounds.”
“There’s only one bedroom in our villa,” said Clotilde. “I don’t know where we would put you up.”
“I’ll sleep in the parlor,” I suggested.
But it seemed there was no parlor either. The “villa” had only two rooms.
“Here’s a picture of it,” volunteered Clotilde. “And it belongs to us, every inch of it!”
It was a little cabin they had built with their own hands, of packing-boxes and tar paper, hidden away in a fold of the sand dunes. In the rear a tall fence enclosed a garden — where only clamshells grew!
I helped them carry their baggage downstairs and said good-by to them on the curb. Clotilde’s eyes were dancing with glee.
“What a relief to get out of this broiling city!” she exclaimed. “When you wake up in the morning, you can think of us taking a dive in the ocean before breakfast!”
Nathalie extended her hand shyly:
“Stop in and see us if you are near there this summer,” she said with a quiet smile.
I watched them drive off in a taxi, and once more slowly climbed the stairs. My narrow little room, with its wall paper hanging in a strip from the ceiling, was doubly stuffy now when I looked at it through my mental vision of the two girls plunging into the cool surf.
Durin’s case was called the next morning. When he rose to plead guilty, he looked — if possible — more imbecile than the day before. Sir Archibald Skarlett’s letter was read, and the case put over until October. In five minutes we were out of the court room, and I had nothing to do but kill time.
After lunch a letter was brought me from the prison. I tossed it unopened on the bed and was about to go out for a walk, when force of habit made me pick it up and open it.
“Dear sir,” I read, “I should like to say a word to you about your fees. — Charles Durin.”
I blinked with astonishment. As I had been appointed by the court, there was no need for the prisoner to worry about my fee. I experienced a sudden change of heart about Durin: evidently I had misjudged the fellow! The mention of fees, when I didn’t have enough money for dinner, made my heart leap up with delight. I seized my hat and tumbled down the stairs with complete disregard for the dignity of a young lawyer who was some day going to be famous and wealthy!
This time I found a different Durin. I stared at him in amazement when he rose at my entrance. His face was no longer made of soft putty. The loose flesh had been drawn into firm lines, and chiseled with an air of command. The bleary eyes had narrowed and hardened into two clear lenses of crystal, which swept over me with a quick, calculating glance as I stepped in the doorway. With an arrogant gesture he invited me to sit down. Invited? It was more as if he ordered me to be seated. You would have thought that he was my lawyer, receiving me in his private office.
“I am sorry,” he said dryly, “that I didn’t mention your fees in the first place. I see that your interest in the case would have been considerably more lively.”
At the sound of his voice, I could hardly believe my ears. The stupid mumbling of his speech in court had vanished; he spoke now in the incisive tone of a man who knew what he wanted and was in the habit of getting it.
“I assure you,” I countered, to gain time while I tried to grasp the new situation, “there can be no question of fee. You understand that I am appointed by the court to—”
He smiled ironically.
“You don’t need to keep up that game with me,” he remarked. “Let’s say it’s just a question of my gratitude for the little favor I am going to ask of you.”
“That depends on what sort of favor it is...”
“I have read in your eyes that you are bored with Paris and would not mind taking a little trip to the seashore.”
I started in my seat. Durin pulled up the stool and sat down casually, like a man about to begin a confidential chat with his partner. His eyes, however, continued to watch me quizzically. But unless he was a mind-reader, he could not have guessed how nearly he had hit the nail on the head. A little trip to the seashore: for a moment I could smell the salt water and feel the cool sea breeze on my cheek. Then I saw the prisoner glance at my worn shoes, and an expression of contemptuous pity crossed his face. This reversing of our rôles touched me to the quick. I drew myself up and blushed.
“On the contrary,” I said coldly, “I enjoy Paris in the summer.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“In that case, we shan’t mention it again.”
The note of indifference in his voice made the sweat break out on my brow. Had my rudeness forfeited any chance of earning the “gratitude” he had mentioned? In the silence that followed I cursed myself for a clumsy fool. I hoped that he would not take me at my word. Yet I also dreaded what he might say next, for the expression in his eyes warned me that if our conversation did not stop there, it might go much further — further, perhaps, than the ethics of my profession allowed. For some intuition told me that my client was about to ask a “favor,” which I, as his lawyer, would have no right to grant.
As the silence became painfully prolonged, I reached for my hat.
“A thousand francs,” he said cryptically.
My throat grew suddenly dry.
“A thousand francs? What for?”
“For you to take a little trip to Deauville, at the seashore.”
“Are you as anxious as all that to keep me from being bored in Paris?”
This time he did not smile.
“I have a friend at Deauville,” he said, “a rich and distinguished woman.... Since you are my lawyer, I suppose I can talk frankly to you, can’t I?”
“Anything you say will be in the strictest confidence.”
“Good. In that case, I will admit to you that this woman, who is prominent in society, is exposed to a certain danger....” He paused as if, in spite of my promise, he had no right to say more. Then: “If she has learned of my arrest,” he added, “she will be consumed with anxiety.”
I wondered what secrets this strange valet, who could appear simple-minded one day and masterly the next, had got possession of.
“And you want to put her anxiety at rest — is that the idea?”
“Exactly. I see that you are a man of experience and understanding. It happens t
hat I have certain papers in my care that are of the most vital importance to her. If those papers were to fall into the hands of her enemies, or even find their way into the files of my case, where they might become public, her reputation would be ruined. Since I have been locked up in this cell, I have thought of nothing but the danger to her. All that I want is to have those papers returned to her, as quietly as possible. Are you willing to do that for a thousand francs?”
I looked at him with a feeling of new respect.
“You are behaving like a true gentleman,” I said.
“My dear sir,” he replied smiling, “if I were a blackmailer, do you suppose I would have called you in?”
“Thank you.”
We looked into each other’s eyes in silence for a moment, and our agreement was made without a word spoken.
“When can you leave?” he asked at length.
“When I have the papers.”
“Naturally. But I don’t suppose I need tell you that I haven’t got them in my pocket.... They are in a small apartment, in the rue Chalgrin, near the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne.”
“A fashionable neighborhood,” I remarked.
“I told you this was a prominent woman,” he answered. “But I have a key to the apartment, which I shall give you. Go in the door to the right on the first landing. And don’t speak to the superintendent. If he should ask you any questions, which I don’t think he will, say that you were sent by Monsieur Van Housen, who gave you the key. That’s all you have to do.”
“And when I get in?”
“When you get in, you will open the top drawer in the desk and take out all the papers you find there. Slip them into your brief-case, and bring them here tomorrow. I will sort them out and give you the package to take to Deauville.”
“Is that all?”
“Not quite.”
From the lining of his vest he extracted two small keys, which he weighed on the palm of his hand. “This is the key to the apartment; that one opens the davenport in the little drawing-room. Lift up the fringe of the davenport, and feel underneath until you find the keyhole. Open it. Inside you will find a fawn-colored traveling bag.”
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 455