by Guy d'Armen
Ardan ignored the sarcasm but, under Ménardier’s astonished eyes, he flexed his biceps; the veins of his arm swelled and the muscles tore the seams of his sleeves. There was a loud snap and the handcuffs fell to the ground. The man of bronze leaned forward, pressing his fists on the table. The inspector remained impassive, with only a discreet smile on his lips.
“Monsieur Ardan, do not aggravate your situation!”
“What am I accused of?”
“You are accused of the murders of Baron Hampain, Ferdinand Finalit, Horace Dasseaux and Serge Bouriet, all punishable by the death penalty under Article 295-298 of the French penal code.”
Ardan clenched his fists; his knuckles turned white.
“And why would have I done that?”
“For the money, of course! They were four of the largest fortunes in France...”
“Ridiculous! I have more wealth that I could ever spend in a lifetime.”
“Ah, yes! I forgot! Your father’s Central American gold mines!”
“Indeed. And the income generated by the Hidalgo Trading Company which guarantees me a very comfortable standard of living...”
“While it is true that my meager pay does not allow me to look at this business with complete impartiality, it seems to me that wealth always creates a desire for more of the same. The thirst for it is insatiable...”
“Let me call my lawyer. Ham will soon get to the bottom of this.”
“Unfortunately, we have too much evidence against you. I am forced to incarcerate you at La Santé prison.”
“You’re making a terrible mistake...”
“I don’t think so. Unless I’m in error, you are soon scheduled to present your doctorate thesis at the Medical School of La Sorbonne, is that right?”
“Yes, but I don’t see the connection...”
“And your research is about...?”
“I doubt that you’re educated enough to grasp it.”
“Let me be the judge of that, please.”
“Well, my thesis deals with the after-effects of partial lobotomy on human behavior.”
“Good. We’re making progress! Now, let me introduce you to some of the evidence against you. First, all four victims suffered from some odd brain surgery only a few weeks before they were killed; second, they all developed abnormal behavior and emptied their bank accounts in a totally irrational fashion before their alleged suicides; third, we found your student card under the sofa at the home of the banker, Serge Bouriet—the last victim! You see, Monsieur Ardan, we know a lot about you...”
“You know nothing! Someone is obviously trying to frame me for this.”
“Really? What about the billions of francs that Bouriet transferred to your bank account before he died? I’m referring to the account held in your name at the Depository Bank of Zurich. It belongs to you, doesn’t it?”
“…”
“I see that I’ve managed to surprise you at last… You see, even a lowly French official with a questionable level of education might know a thing or two about tax havens. Finding your trail was difficult but not impossible... I wish you good night now, Monsieur Ardan. I hope your bed at La Santé won’t be too hard!”
Winter was rapidly approaching; the days were shortening; the weather had turned cold and damp. On the Rue de Turenne, under the wan light of the street lamps, the passers-by were raising the collars of their coats and burying their hands in their pockets.
The offices of the banker, Berthelaux, occupied a building at the corner of an upscale street in Le Marais district.
“Vallières! You’re still here? Excellent! Bring me the file on the Industrial Bank of China. It’s in the safe in my room. I left it open... Stop dilly-dallying and hurry up!”
Silently, Berthelaux’s personal secretary obeyed the order. The early night had surprised Berthelaux at work. After Vallières had left the office, the banker stretched in his chair and looked at his books filled with carefully calligraphied figures in black ink. His bronze art deco desk lamp cast a shadow on his worried face. With his fingertips, he prodded at the back of his neck... What had happened to him? That morning, he had to twist in front of the mirror to catch a glimpse of a thin, white scar. His hair had been cut there but was already regrowing. Someone had performed some kind of surgery on him, maybe a week or ten days before, judging from the hair, but he had no memory of it...
“I’ve got it, Monsieur.”
Berthelaux was startled; he had not heard Vallières return. The old secretary stood at the door, file in hand.
“Damn! You scared me! Next time, knock on the door will you? Leave the file here. I’ll look at it alone. See you tomorrow, Vallières. Be on time.”
“Yes, Monsieur. Certainly, Monsieur.”
With the corner of his eye, Berthelaux stared at the departing secretary. The man was tall, seemingly alert, but his temples were covered with pure white hair. He couldn’t tell his age... Forty? Fifty? Older? The secretary hadn’t seemed to notice the banker’s concerns, which suited Berthelaux well. Vallières’ absolute discretion was, on occasion, verging on naiveté. Berthelaux never had to complain about the man’s professional behavior. Vallières was an ideal employee, hard-working, effective, even-tempered and loyal to the point of stupidity. Even today, the secretary had not questioned any of Berthelaux’s unexplained absences.
I should give him a raise, he thought before returning to his main subject of preoccupation.
His inexplicable amnesia worried him. There was no way he could tell the police. With all the evidence of his financial wrongdoings lying around, he would be the one to find himself behind bars! He could consult his physician, but the strange scar night trigger a cascade of investigations and interrogations… Who had kidnapped him? For what reason?
The problem haunted him and disturbed his thoughts. He did not remember anything... Simply waking up one morning fully dressed with a raging migraine. Panic had overwhelmed him, prompting him to burn his accounting books and destroy all incriminating documents. But he had saved the file on the Industrial Bank of China because it was his highest concern. He, Hampain, Finalit, Dasseaux and Bouriet had started it, supposedly to finance French industrial expansion in the Far East. In reality, the bank allowed them to siphon away the savings of small French investors and divert investment from the Chinese government... The scandal had broken in 1921, but it had been quickly stifled and Berthelaux had been sentenced to only a ten year loss of his civil rights—a trifle!
Today, the newspapers had reported the death of his fourth partner! What a strange coincidence—or was it? This series of murders may have been committed by one of the many French investors ruined by the scam. Could someone have decided to wait four years before taking his revenge? Was he next? He glanced at the file labeled BIC and threw it into the fireplace. Then, he lit a match after dousing it with rubbing alcohol and watched it burn.
“All the evidence is going up in smoke!” he said to himself.
Vallières slammed the outside door when he left the house. The aged secretary, his hands in his pockets, plunged into the Parisian night. At the end of the street, he glanced back. One could see Berthelaux’s shadow illuminated by bursts of light from the fireplace, on the curtains of the first floor windows.
“Damn you, Berthelaux!” muttered Vallières. “Your time has come, villain... I see that fear is driving you to try to destroy the evidence against you… But you’ll soon discover how useless it is…”
Berthelaux was his mortal enemy! The man had set up shop again, but his public notoriety was merely a front; behind it hid one of the worst villains of the world of finance. Not just any crook to Vallières, but one of the men who had conspired to ruin his father, the Comte de Trémeuse. Buried under his debts, and the schemes of the bankers, the unhappy nobleman had committed suicide. It all dated back to before the Great War, when he was but a child. Over the years, he had grown into a fearsome crime-fighter called Judex, who had succeeded in avenging his father and wa
s now going after the criminals of high finance who destroyed the lives of their victims, but were rarely pursued by the Law. For the identity of Vallières was but a mask, a disguise useful to infiltrate the privacy of the scoundrels he hunted.
An odd couple was strolling through the streets of Paris. One was a dapper dandy, carrying a thin black cane; his companion looked more like a gorilla than a man. The dandy was the lawyer Theodore Marley Brooks, a.k.a. Ham; his burly friend was Andrew Blodgett Mayfair a.k.a. Monk. They always seemed ready to jump at each other’s throats and neither missed an opportunity to hurl insults at the other. Yet, Ham had often risked his life to save Monk, and vice versa. The lawyer, used to the square grid of New York streets, felt lost in the maze of the French capital and blindly followed his friend. Monk, his bushy eyebrows furrowed, studied a map of Paris.
“Right, then right again, then left” he announced. “It isn’t very far! Here, look: a café! I would love to have a petit blanc, as they say around here... What do you think, Ham? It would do us a world of good before we have to wrestle with that undertaker!”
“God, no! Not on an empty stomach! Besides, we don’t have time. Sorry Monk, it’ll have to be another time!”
“That’s fine, I can wait until tonight. How about we go and listen to our compatriot at the Dome?”
“What on Earth are you talking about?”
“Josephine Baker! The singer, you idiot! The one who walks in the streets of Paris with a Panther on a leash! They call her the Queen of Montmartre!”
“The name does ring a bell,” the lawyer admitted.
“I have two amooouuurs…” Monk began to sing.
“With your face, just one would be a miracle.”
Monk growled, baring his fangs and gave his friend a small blow to the solar plexus. The young lawyer, breathless, was forced to listen to the entire song...
The telegram reporting the arrest of Francis Ardan had been delivered to the Empire State Building the day before. It had been received by Colonel John Renwick a.k.a. Renny, who had immediately notified his two associates Thomas J. Roberts, a.k.a. Long Tom, and William Harper Littlejohn, a.k.a. Johnny. All three were ready to travel to France, but the Atlantic crossing proved impossible! Traveling by boat would have taken too much time, and the test flight of the dirigible Graf Zeppelin X1 between New York and Cherbourg wasn’t scheduled for another few weeks.
Monk and Ham, however, were already in England, each attending professional conferences, Ham on International Law in Cambridge and Monk on chemistry in Oxford. It was child’s play for them to take the first ferry from Dover to Calais. Meanwhile, Long Tom, Johnny and Renny had set up a hotline at the Empire State, in case their help became necessary.
Ham had a lot of professional contacts around the world and knew Mr. Ferval, the Director of the Police Judiciaire. The two had met at Harvard the year before and had immediately hit it off. At the time, Ferval had been in Boston to acquaint himself with the modern methods of American policing. His support would be invaluable in helping Ardan prove his innocence.
Ham and Monk had arrived in Paris the day after the arrest of their friend. A telegram from Johnny was already waiting for them at their hotel. They were to proceed at once to the hospital of La Pitié-Salpêtrière where the autopsy of the latest victim, Serge Bouriet, was being conducted. Then, a meeting at the prison of La Santé with Ardan, Ferval and the arresting officer, Inspector Ménardier, had been arranged.
Once the two Americans reached the Boulevard Saint-Marcel, they looked at the map and quickly located La Pitié-Salpêtrière. There, the receptionist gave them directions to the pathology department where the Morgue was located. They introduced themselves to an orderly and sat patiently in the waiting room.
“I hate the smell of hospitals,” muttered Monk, wiping the sweat beading on his forehead with one of his paw-like hands.
“You mean that irresistible fragrance of ether and excrement?”
“Yes! With a touch of mycosis.”
“Stop being such a girl.”
“And if you keep making fun of me, I’m leaving you here alone here to deal with the Frenchies!”
Monk was pretending to leave when a door opened and a voice called out:
“Mr. Brooks? Mr. Mayfair? The Doctor will see you now.”
A thin, lanky, orderly, reeking of formaldehyde, invited them to follow him.
“Doctor de Grandin apologizes for the delay,” he added. “He just finished the autopsy and immediately sent me to fetch you.”
“Excellent,” said Ham. “It is very kind of Doctor de Grandin to see us so quickly. This is a matter of grave urgency. The clock is ticking!”
The orderly looked at him, a little shocked by his bluntness... He took the two Americans into a room filled rows of gleaming stainless steel tables, upon which were cadavers. Some were wrapped in a black plastic sheath, but the vast majority were naked, some as pale as snow, others mottled with cyanosis. Monk almost had a heart attack when he saw the grisly scene. At the end of the room was a doctor in a white coat, mask, gloves and goggles.
“Come in, gentlemen!” he shouted to the newcomers. “I’ve just finished the autopsy of our ‘client.’ Step right up! I think some my findings are bound to be of interest to you...
The remains of Serge Bouriet rested on the autopsy table, his skull opened and his thorax ajar. Various bloody bodily fluids had collected in the metal gutters. Monk turned green at the sight of the dismembered corpse.
Doctor Jules de Grandin, of the Ecole de Médecine of the University of Paris, was a small blond man with a beautiful waxed mustache and extraordinarily piercing blue eyes He appeared perfectly at ease as he completed his gruesome task. He told the two Americans that Bouriet had died of asphyxiation by hanging, as evidenced by a pulmonary edema and a tracheal cartilage fracture. But a strange scar on his neck had captured the doctor’s attention.
“You see, right there!” he said, animatedly. “This scar is relatively recent, less than four weeks-old. It is clean; the work of a surgeon, made by a scalpel and professionally stitched. I’m still trying to figure out its purpose… As you can see, the left trapezius and complexus muscles were cut and then stitched back together. There is a small swelling right here…” added the doctor, inserting a gloved finger inside the body/ “Ha-ha! I feel something!”
“Have you found something?” asked Ham.
Monk, his mouth half open, stood speechless, unable to tear his eyes away from the opened skull.
“Yes! Par la barbe d’un bouc vert! It’s something small—and metallic! I’m going to pull it out…”
Making a careful excision took some time, but de Grandin finally extracted a small, black, metallic sphere, the size of an olive, with very fine, silver filaments hanging from its ends.
De Grandin deposited the object in a basin and, adjusting magnifying lenses over his glasses, returned to his study of the dead man’s brain.
“I’m cutting through the ligaments to study the lower segment of the medulla oblongata. Parbleu! The columns of Goll and Burdach are riddled with microscopic holes...” De Grandin adjusted his magnifying glasses. “The holes are pointing towards the cerebral protuberance. It’s impossible... How could this man have endured such an intervention? It’s...”
The rest of his words became lost in incomprehensible medical jargon. Ham suddenly felt a nagging doubt. Ardan had come to France to complete his medical studies and benefit from the teaching of Clovis Vincent, the famous neurosurgeon. Could this be their friend’s work? No! He couldn’t believe it! Maybe the analysis of the strange metallic “olive” would provide a clue towards the solution of this puzzle?
Suddenly, a loud thud interrupted his thoughts: Monk had just fainted.
Monk quickly recovered from his shock and the duo soon joined Monsieur Ferval and Inspector Ménardier at the prison of La Santé. The meeting between Ham and the Director of the Police was enthusiastic, and the smartly-dressed lawyer even allowed the Frenchman
to hug him.
Ferval used his position to take them inside the prison without the usual searches, etc. They expected to find their friend laid low by this terrible trial. But that would have been a mistake! Instead, Ardan welcomed them with good spirits and open arms and only the short stubble on his cheeks testified to his incarceration...
He had taken advantage of his day behind bars to continue writing his thesis, between his usual tough training sessions. His incredible skills were not the result of magic, but of great physical and mental discipline. His perfectly proportioned body and vast intellectual abilities were the result of intensive training, scientifically designed by his father, who had begun to work with his son in the cradle...
Ardan thanked his friends for coming so quickly. Ham introduced him to Monsieur Ferval and the two men bowed to each other. In the prison’s parlor, they quickly reviewed the situation. Ferval had asked Ménardier for a copy of the file in order to form his own opinion. It appeared that the four victims had several things in common: they were all involved in the scandal of the International Bank of China, they all had undergone some strange surgery during which a mysterious artificial implant had been connected to their brains, and finally, they all had emptied their bank accounts before committing suicide.
The first three men had transferred their assets to banks located in the Far East, but the latest victim, Serge Bouriet, had transferred his money to an account in Switzerland in the name of Francis Ardan...
That, in addition to his student card, unexpectedly found at the crime scene, seemed to incriminate him; but Ferval was suspicious. Ardan explained that he had no recollection of when the card had disappeared from his wallet.
The only lead left to the police was to interview the last surviving founding member of the International Bank of China. The man’s name was Berthelaux. Ferval asked Ménardier to call on him and place him under police protection as soon as possible.
Ardan asked to attend, or even participate in, the analysis of the strange olive-shaped implant that was to be performed by Doctor de Grandin that same night. Ferval was, at first, reluctant to authorize it, but Ham suggested that, if his friend was accompanied by a police escort, gave his word of honor not to attempt to escape, and deposited a large sum of money with the Caisse des Depôts & Consignations, then bail was possible.
