Georges Meirs : La main fantôme, 1913

After several years we return to Georges Meirs, to talk about an excellent novel from 1913: La main fantôme.

Although it is a more than dated text, it is an excellent example of a mystery with an almost impossible crime and three locked rooms. In short, an almost unknown novel, but capable of keeping the reader captivated with a plot full of twists and turns and inventiveness.

 WARNING : SPOILERS !!!

 William Tharps, the famous private policeman, is urgently requested by Inspector Asselin: a crime has occurred in absolutely extraordinary circumstances, and the police are at a loss. In Miromesnil street, on the fifth floor of a building, an elderly sculptor was found dead in an apartment. The doctor has drawn up a death certificate due to embolism, but the inspector has a premonition, which turns out to be right: from how the body was found and from its appearance, Tharps formulates the hypothesis that he was killed instead. The autopsy will attest to Veronal poisoning.

Already in these first signs of a novel, Tharps shows all his deductions and observations, indicating both a series of fingerprints, even on the frame of a painting, and some signs, and finally the imprint of a hand, and poses an antithesis to Doctor Mortet: it would even seem that he hastened to diagnose a natural cause to mask the poisoning. Why?

However, this is not the only oddity, as the police in the figure of the Chief of Police Assarde and the Investigating Judge Ballencourt have already amazed several others: all around the body there are footprints, as if someone had done something during or after the death. Yet it is strange: he was not shot or stabbed or beaten, but poisoned. And the murderer seems to have remained there next to him until his death, which in itself has unparalleled audacity and temerity, and was looking for something: it seems something connected to a check book that Tharps finds while searching the house . It's not the only strangeness: there is an even more astonishing one. The assassin who murdered Mr. Corbat by giving him an elephantine dose of Veronal, entered a house completely barred by bolts and bars, while the servant was busy with his duties, in the other rooms of the house, entering the study, from which he it is also accessed via an external door secured by bolts, passing through a door concealed by a tapestry, which was known only to the staff of the house. But it wasn't the servant: everyone swears by his innocence and even Tharps is convinced of it. Yet someone must have entered the study illuminated by a large window in the ceiling: perhaps he passed through there? Hypothesis immediately set aside: the putty surrounding the glass is old and has no cracks and there are also cobwebs all around which make one think that no one could have gotten through there.

An invisible killer, or rather... a phantom killer. And yes because a hand, a ghost, will make an attempt on Tharps' life later, shooting him in the apartment, guarded by the police, where no one has entered from the outside, as the doorman of the building swears. A killer materialized, who escapes and vanishes into the air: Carr would have been delighted.

But before this occurs, the checkbook will also disappear from the investigating judge's office, barred, and without any break-in having occurred; and for that matter neither Ballencourt nor his highly trusted Chancellor can be held guilty of it.

And after the attack on Tharps, thank God, grazed by two bullets and slightly wounded, another closed chamber with another crime will occur in the apartment, an apartment already defined as cursed before Corbat's death, because in the previous years a series of tenants had died in mysterious circumstances: not least the last tenant, Barolais, who fell from the window into the living room. An unknown body will be found in the apartment watched closely by two policemen, and absolutely barred: how could it have materialized?

Tharps, during a session, in front of Doctor Mortet, the Chief of Police, Judge Ballancourt, the servant and his assistant Pastor Linhyam, will discover his papers and identify the culprit, or rather... the culprits.

 THE END OF SPOILERS

Written in 1913, this novel by Meirs, despite having certain quite dated characters, e.g. the deductions based on Lynham's appearance and several others, which also concern the places of the crime (for example that the murderer must have been of average height) which clearly refer to Sherlock Holmes of whom Tharps is clearly a clone, undoubtedly possesses of his qualities:

for being from 1913, therefore in an age of the detective novel still influenced by adventure, this story is captivating, proposing a series of false culprits: first Mortet, then the servant who leaves the apartment and disappears in search of a phantom person, then again Mortet who materializes, when Tharps is shot, and another servant of the neighbor, then again Corbat's servant, until the unexpected conclusion; a series of cursed and suspicious deaths; a strange bankruptcy story, curiously linked to that apartment; a missing banker with a treasure trove of securities; a poor sculptor living well beyond his means; and a series of near-murders and murders and disappearances of objects and people, in impossible situations.

The solution is logical, and today we would say almost obvious, but not that much: one by Halter is directly connected to it (which makes me suspect that he had read this novel: I'll ask him sooner or later) and also one by Rogers, for one thing clearly indicated, when it is mentioned at the beginning. And that of the disappearance of the checkbook, based on the absolute innocence of the Chancellor and the Investigating Judge who had it in their possession, once resolved, we would say: overused trick, but, if we refer to the time in which it was written... And frankly I hadn't thought about it, because in a book like this where the impossible lingers everywhere, you don't expect something like that, but it's perfectly logical.
 

Tharps reveals everything and triumphs: and explains why there are two murders, attributable to two different people, but committed without real premeditation. However, the first was put into practice by someone who steals and almost kills Tharps, the second by someone who would like to steal a treasure. While the first uses the impossible escape route, the second accesses the apartment naturally, but is not investigated. And the murder happens while the two agents, in charge of surveillance of the house, are down at the bar sipping a coffee and eating a sandwich, having a perfect view of the door, which can only be accessed from the outside, not seeing anything strange. , but then finding the body of someone who is unknown who he is, but who will remind Tharps of someone.

Tharps, who was originally called Thorpe, and who one day had his surname changed because a certain Thorpe showed up at Meirs' publishing house threatening to take legal action if the character's surname was not changed, today shows his great popularity which the now forgotten Meirs, who seems to have also been the illustrator of the covers of the first editions of his novels, already enjoyed at that time.

To add is that the novel is ignored both by Robert Adey in "Locked Room Murders And Other Impossible Crimes, A Comprehensive Bibliography, Revised and Expanded" of 1991, and by Brian Skupin "Locked Room Murders Second Edition", Revised By Robert Adey, Edited by Brian Skupin from 2018, and in Brian Skupin's 2019 compendium "Locked Room Murders Supplement (to "Locked Room Murders And Other Impossible Crimes" by Bob Adey). Also in volume 99 Chambres Closes by Roland Lacourbe, it is not mentioned.

 
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Georges Meirs: Le Cadavre assassin, 1912

 

 

 

Georges Meirs is an author now forgotten.
The lodging of his novels is that of the so-called realistic mystery, but the French connotations set it apart from other novels of the period (early '900): first, it features adventure, to bring it closer to many other novelists of the period (Leblanc, Sauvestre, Leroux ); then there is a tendency to present a hero who is the protagonist of all the adventures (or nearly so); and finally there is sensationalism typical of the novels of the period, which is cloaked in mystery, in haunted castles, supernatural crimes, cursed jewels. For more Meirs has a significant portion of the sub-genre of the Locked Rooms and Impossible Crimes: is one of its greatest exponents, before Chesterton.
But who was Georges Meirs?
It was one of the many pseudonyms (AM, Asmodé Dayle, Héma, Adrien Méria, Jean Mires, William Thook, Weal) by Adrien Jean Remy Machaux. He was born May 21, 1878 in France. After studying at the School of Fine Arts in Paris, he became a draftsman. This characterization is in common with other French-speaking novelists, most notably Stanislas-André Steeman, who before exploring the genre literature, were designers.
Under the pseudonym of Adrien Meria, he worked for Le Rire, La Fin de Siècle, Frou-Frou and L'Assiette au Beurre. But above all, he founded a satirical magazine, which became very famous: The Gifle.
In 1911 George Meirs began, for the publisher Albert Mericant, the series of adventures of the famous English detective William Tharps. The first books, with covers signed by him, were written in collaboration with J.M. Darros, aka Edmond Fricot: L’Enigme du train 13,1912;  La Carte sanglante,1912;  Le Cadavre assassin, 1912.
"William Tharps, the famous British policeman" (as titled his adventures, the most important series of detective novels in Italy, before the advent of the Mondadori publishing house, that is, "Detective Novels" Sonzogno), is a clone of Sherlock Holmes . Logical, esthete (as the hero by Shiel), Tharps is a graduate in Medicine (coincidentally like Professor Bell, a model for Holmes, which professes to be a former student). He also has his Watson, the lawyer Pastor Lynham; and as Holmes, he has an implacable enemy, Ludovic Marmont. If the mystery and sensationalist characterization are a common feature, even espionage is explored thoroughly in the adventures of Tharps. After 22 novels, Meirs abandoned William Tharps Meirs for a younger hero, Walter Clark, that was involved in a few of them.
During the war, Georges Meirs wrote the Novelization of Les Vampires, directed by Louis Feuillade, which told the struggle between the journalist Guerande and a mysterious gang of criminals whose leaders were called Le Grand Vampire, Venenos, Irma Vep, satanas.
His last work, a novel scandal over parliamentary life, Monsieur le depute et sa Maitresse, dates back to 1924. Until his death in 1962 in Reims, very sick, he did not write anything.

The first novel, co-written with JM Darros was Le Cadavre assassin (=The cadaver murderer, 1912). It 's the debut of Tharps that so pimp, is presented as the most direct and accredited heir of Sherlock Holmes, as a former student of Professor Bell that had provided the model for Conan Doyle for his famous detective. In fact, in the first pages Tharps who is depressed by the death of her former professor of medicine, states that "only a nice murder" could bring him up. The profession on the beauty of the crafted crimes, is a bit the leitmotif, which we will find expressed in Pierre Boileau, who will inherit a lot from Meirs, but derives his "profession of faith" directly from the aesthetics of crime, discussed in " Murder considered as one of the fine arts " by Thomas De Quincey.
And a nice murder happens to him, when his Watson, the lawyer Pastor Lynham, sees the title of a newspaper, which tells about a mysterious murder at Netley, a small town near Southampton: the late Duke of Willingham, waiting to be buried, who had watched over by a priest and an altar boy in a church closed and barred from the inside, he would have killed the priest, stabbing him. The oddity is the fact that the church had been barred with chains and padlocks from the sacristan, the person of the utmost confidence, which had remained in the sacristy, while in church watching over the deceased priest and an altar boy. The sacristan, questioned further by the Tharps, will reveal some shocking details that had anticipated the crime: the fall of a candle at the foot of the dead, the shroud that had stood before the eyes of terrified onlookers, and a current that had invaded the church. And, after the crime, the fact that was cut the ring finger of right hand by the priest, to steal a ring. This particular, however, would coincide with the release of the sexton of the church, which has charge of the portal shut behind him and to call for the intervention of some people passing by the church, which burst into the church armed, determined to find the murderess. But there is none in the church. At this point, the one that makes its way, is the supernatural assumption. From which it dissociates Tharps, who begins to investigate.
First of all, equipped with a large lens, aided by his assistant, who raises the dead man's head cold, he looks at the coffin beneath the body, revealing fragments of short hair blacks. And then the fingerprint of mud on the shroud. To keep in mind is that the presence of these signs is inexplicable: no rain for several days and there is not mud in the streets; and yet there is mud. From where he was taken?
From the initial investigation of Tharps does not show anything that would contradict the only three hypotheses about the death of the priest: He was assassinated by a body that was animated at the moment, falling asleep again later in the sleep of death; or was murdered by the sacristan, such Southam, which would threaten the altar boy, not to speak, or else ...; or was murdered by another person, but they would have to find the strength to penetrate there, through the walls or the door, and not being able to completely access the bell tower. So what? The Inspector Gregger suspects the sacristan, because according to the logic can not be more responsible; also the popular rumor speaks about the fact  that the sacristan's wife was the mistress of the priest. Motive of murder it is the jealousy? Or / and the greed (because part of the goods would have gone to the woman, dying the priest)?
Tharps is doubtful. Both he and Linham hosted by a friend of Tharps, the banker Elijah Callon, they find out that he himself had become intimate acquaintance of the old duke Horace Jesson; and how the old duke, feeling close to death, he ordered that at the study of his notary, in addition to being read other bequests, was handed an envelope to his friend that it should be read only after he died: the old Duke confessed to have done something reprehensible. In addition, we learn that in the  ducal residence was in a room in which opened a secret panel by the hilt of a dagger old, used like a key.

The dagger can not be used for this purpose because through it the priest was murdered and then this knife is in the hands of the police, and then Tharps by the soft wax, produces a mold from which he forges a kind of key that allows him to open a secret compartment, in which, however, he does not find anything about was said from the old Duke.
The magazine must have been opened before them by others. Even by those who long ago, during the night, had terrorized the old man to the point to make him mad and then cause him from death. At that time nothing was stolen except for the value of the trinkets, so to accredit that the robbery was ruled out.
Gregger is ready to stop the sexton, while Tharps does everything to save him not believing him guilty. Tharps suspect a particular person, when he learns: the priest before his death had called “The Virgin Mary” and that "He had killed him," and especially when he learns that the church before it became the place of citizen worship, had been the old chapel of the ancestral castle that the duke had decided to destroy.

An attempt to get away Tharps and his subsequent assassination attempt, make it clear to the amateur detective who someone fears him so much that he groped to shoot: was found the shell of the bullet, a caliber 6, shot from a Webley pistol. It’s also that which directs the investigation of the police officer in one direction, supported by other findings and discoveries, After stopping the culprit, Tharps will explain the whole case and also the incredible dynamics of the murder.
Beautiful novel of the past, it blends skillfully even if naively, feuelliton, betrayed loves, disowned children, an heir who returns, a priest who dies inexplicably, a large inheritance, secret passages, two castles among which one destroyed, an old chapel of the destroyed castle, a pavilion of the guards where you see strange lights, ghostly apparitions, etc ..
All mixed up atmosphere and tension that makes reading the novel with passion, even though the style is that of a book written in 1912.
Direct seems to me the affiliation of this novel from Le Mystère de la chambre jaune by Gaston Leroux, who apparently impressed with his solution  many of the French writers who found him. Too many the leitmotifs of this novel: disguises and double identity; the issue of the curse - here, the contract thanks to a cursed dagger - which affects members of a family (a theme that will be picked up by Carr and Derek Smith for example); the theme of the return of the heir (present in most of the best novelists Anglo-Saxon); secret passages and hidden rooms (a characteristic example at Leblanc); the issue of the assassination taken almost as a work of art (it will return in Boileau), not by a common criminal but by a sublime murderer; the fact that the cadaver can in turn kill or his ghost appear (Boileau alone, and then with Narcejac, Leo Duvic, but also Hake Talbot); the disappearance of a finger (Steeman).

The solution of the Locked Room, despite takes place through a secret passage (escamotage  that complaints the age of the novel, and which in the following years will be completely abandoned, but that is still present in Connington and then in a novel by Herbert Brean, one of the friends by Carr), however it’s spectacular, because it confirms the astonishing fact that the murderer got up from the coffin and just wanted to kill the priest, even to steal the solid gold ring from the finger of the right hand by the priest, although the duke was already long dead.
All this is topped by considerations that make us rediscover the old-fashioned goodness of the investigation, acute observations that must immediately bring to mind Holmes, whose Tharps is credited to be the follower, which makes this novel very enjoyable.
Besides the murderer sets up an ingenious plan (you do not appreciate it at first glance, but it is in fact) to steal the murder weapon. It anticipates here, almost before a century, that trick at the base of "Fracture", thriller of 2007 with Anthony Hopkins: to wipe out the murder weapon. In the film, the weapon is changed between the cop's pistol and the killer's pistol, here the weapon, an antique dagger,  is only used  to kill, but the purpose is the same: to ensure that it is taken over by the police. In this way, the murderer, in the novel by Meirs, subtracts the only key to access not only to the magazine, but also to the secret passage in the church, making sure that it is taken over by Scotland Yard, and then subtracted to investigation on the spot. Really ingenious!
 

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