in the Forest of Fontainebleau, Sarah Bernhardt, La Duse, La Belle
Otero, and a number of Paris stage celebrities visited me on summer
afternoons, while my life-long friend, Paul Deschanel, then President
of the Chamber of Deputies, often motored out to me for a run in the
glorious forest. I, in turn, often went to the artists’ colony at
Barbizon, and there I first met the clever young artist named Gaston
Deltour, who, by the way, afterwards designed several covers for my
books. He introduced me to his very pretty sister Gabrielle, who had
married a publicity-expert named Sohet. They often visited me, and
one Sunday Madame Sohet, who was about twenty-four and a typically
smart Parisienne, was accompanied by a tall, refined, dark-haired
man, named Comte de Rebecque. I rather liked him. As we took tea
together in the garden on the border of the Forest he told me that
he had properties in Chile, but lived mostly in Paris. I quickly saw
that he was a great admirer of my artist friend’s pretty sister.
They stayed till evening, taking me in their car for a run round the
Gorge aux Loups, and then returned to Paris.
Two days later the pretty Gabrielle was missing from her home, while
inquiries at the Count’s fine house near the Arc de Triomphe made it
plain that he too was missing. It was evident that she had eloped
with him.
A week later Paris was startled by a strange truth. The millionaire
Count was in reality a Paris bank-clerk named Delloye. Most readers
of these pages will recollect how this plausible young man led a dual
existence, working hard in the bank all day, and posing at night as
a wealthy nobleman, giving expensive parties and entertaining on a
lavish scale.
At once a warrant was issued for the arrest of the missing pair,
as it had been found that Delloye, whose salary was about two
hundred and fifty pounds a year, had by a most ingenious system that
astounded the experts in banking embezzled over four million francs
belonging to the bank.
Next day it was discovered that the pseudo-Count had bought a fine
steam-yacht at Havre, and, having engaged a crew, the pair had sailed
away in it.
To this sensational story the newspapers devoted much space, and
weeks elapsed before the yacht was heard of again, for she purposely
kept out of the track of the shipping. Because of an accident the
vessel put into Buenos Ayres, but its name had been changed and its
appearance altered. Delloye and the pretty Gabrielle Sohet were
arrested, and after long legal delays were extradited and brought
back to Paris.
When Gabrielle faced her trial the jury found that on her part she
had honestly believed her lover to be a millionaire, so she was
released, but the pseudo-Count was sent to hard labour for a very
long period, one that has not yet expired.
I remember discussing the case with Paul Deschanel in 1920, after he
had become President, when, smiling, he said:
“Ah, Delloye was like so many others, _mon cher_ Le Queux. He
ploughed the water, built upon the sand, and wrote upon the wind.”
Poor Deschanel! He was eight years older than myself, but first and
foremost in all our students’ pranks on the Boul’ Mich’. He was at
the St. Barbe College, and passed in literature and law. Elsewhere
I have described our student life together, and I often reflect
how strange it was that after our buoyant youth spent together,
that I should drift into becoming a wanderer and a novelist, while
he, always merry and irresponsible, should enter the cold austere
officialdom of France, as _sous-préfet_ of Dreux, _secrétaire
général_ of the Seine-et-Marne, then Deputy for the Eure-et-Loir, and
so on till he presided over the destinies of France.
His untimely end, hastened by an imbalanced mentality, which betrayed
itself suddenly in recent years, came as a great shock to me. I
wrote at the time my reminiscences of him in the _Daily Sketch_.
To him I was much indebted in many ways. He introduced me, after I
had found my public as a novelist, to Daudet, Rostand, Willy, Baron
de Constant, Foch, Emile Legouis, the Professor of English at the
Sorbonne, the dramatic author Eugène Brieux, whose _La Femme Seule_
is so well known as a gem of dramatic art, M. Raymond Poincaré, and a
host of others, whom I met, and some of whom I still meet each time I
spend a few days at the Hôtel Chatham, in Paris, of which I have been
a constant habitué for many years.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
More Criminals I Have Met--Dr. Crippen, the Poisoner, Gives
me Material for a Murder Mystery--My Secret Knowledge of
Him--On his Arrest I Remain on the Continent in Order to
Avoid being Called as Witness--My Friendship with Armstrong
the Poisoner--Our Chats in the Club--At the Invitation of
the Paris Police, I Assist in the Investigations against
Landru, “the French Bluebeard”--What Landru Said to Me when
he was Brought to Gambais--My Suspicions of an American
Multi-Millionaire.
My adventures among criminals have been many. One little incident is
kept ever fresh in my memory by the ring that is on my finger as I
write these lines.
I happened, as I periodically am, to be on a visit to the Balkans,
seeking local colour for a new novel, but principally picking up any
scrap of information that might be of service to the confidential
department at Whitehall that Lord Roberts had organized.
I found myself in the picturesque little capital of Herzegovina,
arriving at the Hotel Narenta late one evening. The town was well
known to me, and the hotel, with its delightful garden sloping to the
river, is among the most comfortable in Eastern Europe. Ivan, the
tall, bald-headed _maître d’hôtel_, welcomed me, and gave me a very
late dinner, after which I went along to the Officers’ Casino and
returned at about twelve o’clock.
I suppose it was about three when I was awakened by a half-dressed
waiter, who, speaking in Serbian--which I understood slightly--told
me that an elderly English gentleman, who had arrived that morning,
had been taken very ill. The waiter could not understand English.
Would I kindly see him?
I got up, and, following the man, was taken to a large bedroom, where
in bed lay a white-bearded old man, apparently in great pain.
With difficulty he asked me to summon a doctor, which I did at once.
The stranger’s face was death-like, and very soon after my entry he
lost consciousness. Presently a young Serbian doctor arrived, and,
the patient being conscious again, I translated his symptoms as well
as I could. Then, after a further half hour, the mixture that the
doctor had hastily given him brought him round again completely, so
much so that he sat up in bed and chatted quite cheerily.
He told me that sometimes he had similar attacks.
“Curiously enough, they generally come on when I am travelling
alone,” he went on. “It is really very good of you to have taken so
much trouble over a stranger. But now, please, you must return to
bed, and not worry about me any more. I shall be quite all right. My
name is Askew--Charles Askew. We will meet in the morning. What is
your name?”
I told him.
But I sensed something peculiar--an air of mystery that I could not
define. He seemed very anxious about a battered tin box that lay on a
table near him. I had the impression that he suspected me of taking
the key and opening it during the time he was unconscious.
When I returned to my room, I began to wonder whether he was a crook
in hiding, for Herzegovina is a good country in which to hide one’s
identity.
Next day we went for a long walk together, and the old fellow talked
shrewdly of many matters, but concerning himself he was extremely
reticent. I showed him the bazaar where one can buy beautiful
Oriental work much cheaper than in the bazaar at Sarajevo or at
Constantinople. On the following day we walked a long way up the
beautiful valley of the Buna river.
Whatever else Mr. Askew was, he was a studious man, a lover of
nature, and something of a botanist, possessing a wide knowledge of
wild birds and their habits. He had a keen, rugged face that made him
look younger than his years. In his habits he was frugal. For his
breakfast he took fruit, which he ate sparingly, and at both lunch
and dinner limited himself to a single glass of white wine. He also
smoked only three cigarettes a day.
One day, as we were wandering about the Town of the Thirty Mosques,
as the place is often called, he turned to me and, with a laugh, said:
“You may think me a bit of a crank. Perhaps I am. I sometimes come
abroad alone, just for a change, and forget to leave my address,
and----” Then he suddenly hesitated, rather embarrassed, I thought,
and did not finish his sentence.
As we returned to lunch I became more than ever convinced that Mr.
Askew was a crook in hiding.
That same night, however, when I went to my room before dinner, I
found on my dressing-table an envelope addressed to me.
I tore it open and, to my surprise, found inside the curious antique
ring that Mr. Askew had worn on his finger and in which, as it was
unique, I had evinced an interest.
With it was a charming little note of thanks, begging me to accept
the ring as a souvenir--a letter signed by one of America’s
multi-millionaires, a man who is credited to be one of the richest
men in all the world!
I dashed downstairs, only to be told by the porter that Mr. Askew had
left Mostar an hour before for Agram.
The ring has ever since been on my finger, as a present from one of
the most modest, charming, and unassuming of men I have ever been
privileged to meet.
And I had suspected him of being a crook in hiding!
The keeper of the gems at the Louvre in Paris has pronounced the gem
set in the ring to be one of the smallest engraved Greek gems in the
world. It still has its ancient oval setting in ivory, yellow with
age, while the perfectly engraved Greek figures can be seen only by
the aid of a magnifying glass. How it was ever engraved in the days
before the invention of the microscope is a mystery.
* * * * *
Among the many letters I have received from readers of my books in
various parts of the world, none perhaps has been more curious that
the epistle that the hall-porter at the Devonshire Club handed me
one night on my return from the Continent. Many letters from unknown
readers are of interest, some of them suggesting new themes, and new
plots for books.
It was so in this case. The brief, polite letter was from a certain
Doctor Adams, living in Essex, who expressed himself greatly
interested in my mysteries of love and crime, and asking when it
would be convenient for me to see him, as he had a suggestion to put
before me regarding a new and exciting plot. I was particularly busy
at the time, and was about to go to Khartoum, therefore I replied
that I was leaving London for three months. After the lapse of that
period he wrote again, and was so anxious to see me “at any time or
any place in London” that I made an appointment at the club, and one
morning he called.
He was a dapper, fair-haired man, of middle age, very well-dressed,
with a tall hat and patent-leather boots. I took him into one of the
smaller rooms, and while we smoked he told me that he was a doctor in
the country, and an ardent reader of my books, especially those that
concerned secret poisoning.
“In one of your books you mention a volume, _Secrets of the State
of Venice_,” he said. “I believe it gives, in Latin, copied from
the original secret documents of the Council of Ten, still preserved
in the archives of Venice, the formula used in preparing the slow
poisons used by those in the pay of the Council to poison their
enemies.”
I explained that it was a very rare book, which had been printed
in Petrograd about 1869, and that I had found it in a second-hand
booksellers’ shop in Stockholm. It was at the moment in my study in
Florence.
My visitor expressed regret that it was not in London, but hoped that
he might one day be permitted to read it. He went on to tell me that
he had been in the Far East and had made deep studies in toxicology.
Indeed, he seemed to know the standard _Manual_ of Dr. Witthaus by
heart, and he then quoted many bewildering facts concerning poisons.
“I suppose many people are deliberately poisoned and the murderer
never traced?” I remarked.
“Hundreds,” he declared. “Since the days when Palmer poisoned
thirteen people with his old-fashioned strychnine--in those days very
hard to discover--hundreds of people of both sexes have been got rid
of by poison or the bacteria of fatal diseases.”
I was inclined to be a little sceptical, and mentioned the skill
of such pathologists as Drs. Willcox and Spilsbury, both of whom I
knew, and whose marvellous mirror-tests for arsenic I had witnessed,
whereupon, smiling, and in a strange, mysterious voice he said:
“Ah, of course you do not know the newly-invented poisons, some of
them German--poisons that, if administered in their proper doses,
produce death from apparently perfectly natural causes and which
utterly defy detection.”
This interested me, and I listened while he explained the effects of
several of them, naming them, and telling me the minimum fatal dose
of each. He spoke of death calmly and coolly, as only medical men can.
“Poisoners are always bunglers,” he declared. “The fools use
arsenic, antimony, alkaloidal and glucosidal poisons, under the
delusion that they won’t be found out. Sometimes they are not. The
doctor, who has been attending the patient for some disorder and the
patient apparently dies from it, is often unsuspicious. He gives a
certificate of death without even dreaming that poison is the cause.”
“Have you ever known such cases?” I asked.
He hesitated, then with some little evasion, I thought, declared that
there had, no doubt, been many.
Our conversation was certainly such as would interest anyone who,
like myself, studied the psychology of crime.
The next time we met was in Devonshire. He happened to be at
Plymouth, and motored across Dartmoor one afternoon to call.
Again as we sat in my study our conversation drifted to his pet
subject--one by which he seemed obsessed--namely, that of secret
poisoning.
He described to me the formula of certain secret poisons, and, after
a long chat, told me more about the newly-discovered poisons, and of
one which, if given hypodermically, would cause almost instant death,
as though from heart-failure.
“If the body were discovered at once, poison might be suspected
because of a peculiar smell, which, however, would disappear after
about four hours,” he added. “To obviate that, the puncture or
scratch should be rubbed with menthol. And I defy any pathologist to
discover the true cause of death!”
Then he confessed to me that the reason he had approached me was
because my books had attracted him, and that he thought he might be
able to suggest the plot of an up-to-date novel dealing with the most
subtle form of poisoning.
I listened as he unfolded to me a most diabolical and ingenious plot,
at which I sat aghast at the man’s mentality. He had weighed every
detail and taken every precaution that there was no flaw by which the
assassin could be traced. I agreed that it was wonderful, but far too
morbid and horrible.
“Bah!” he laughed. “Tell the public the truth, and show them how easy
it is to commit murder and go scot-free. It would protect them from
jealous, murderously inclined enemies.”
We met several times afterwards, and he unfolded to me many plots
from his fertile brain, one of which, indeed, I did use later in my
novel, _The Red Widow_.
But in his presence I always felt a strong antipathy towards him,
though he was such a frank, merry, easy-going man. He had explained
so many means by which deadly poisons and bacteria of fatal diseases
could be disseminated that at last, whenever I received a letter from
him, I opened it with the scissors, held it from me as I read it, and
dropped it straight into the fire. I confess that I feared lest he
might do me harm!
At last I refused to see him any more, and a few weeks later I went
back to Florence, where I had rented a villa on the Viale dei Colli
and forgot about the affable but repulsive Adams.
One day, however, on opening the _Daily Mirror_, I saw a large
photograph of him smiling out at me. He was wanted by the police,
having eloped with a young girl, named Le Neve, after the sudden
disappearance of his wife in Hilldrop Crescent, Holloway.
Beneath the photograph of my whilom friend Dr. George Adams was the
name of “Dr. Crippen”!
I confess that the unexpected charge against him caused me
considerable anxiety. I knew that he was an expert poisoner, and felt
certain that his poor wife had died at his hand. He had on that first
day we met declared to me that “Poisoners are always bunglers,” and
certainly he himself had been no exception.
That his wife was not the only person he had murdered I feel
confident, because of the halting and evasive replies he gave to
many of my questions. He was, no doubt, an expert who knew as much
about the latest discovered poisons and their effects as any of our
greatest toxicologists. He had declared to me--with what truth I know
not--that a certain chemist in Frankfort sold secret poisons with
full directions at very high figures and asked no questions. This
seems to be borne out, for in at least two recent cases of murder by
poison, one in France and one in Italy, the poison used is known to
have come from Frankfort.
At last, by means of wireless, Crippen was detected and arrested with
the girl. Portions of his wife’s body were discovered, and he was
charged with poisoning her.
Then I suddenly recollected. I had written him two or three letters!
Would the police discover them and call me as witness? I knew that
the evidence I could give would have great weight with the jury, but
I had no desire to appear at the Old Bailey. Therefore I remained in
Florence and said nothing to anyone till, on Crippen being executed,
I breathed more freely.
* * * * *
Another queer but perfectly cool murderer was “the world’s great
lover,” Henri Désiré Landru, the French “Bluebeard.” He was a little
bald-headed, spade-bearded man, with deep-set, ferret eyes. In April,
1919, he was arrested at his home in the Rue Rochechouart, in Paris,
because a woman to whom he had promised marriage had mysteriously
disappeared. The sister of the missing woman had accidentally
recognized him in the street and insisted that a police agent should
watch where he went.
Slowly and with great patience the Sûreté learned that their prisoner
was a man of mystery known as Diard, Dupont, Freminet, Guillet, and
a dozen other names, and one of the most alert and cunning _escrocs_
in France. Soon the police began to discover that on at least eight
occasions he had proposed marriage to women, who, in each case,
were never afterwards seen, and of whose fortunes he had managed to
acquire entire possession. It was plain that he had been gambling in
women’s lives, but if he had murdered them, where were the bodies?
For over a year he was kept in prison and constantly interrogated,
but not by a single word did he betray the truth. There was no
evidence against him, and he constantly declared his innocence.
The houses in which he had lived out in the country at Neuilly,
Vernouillet, and the villa of mystery at Gambais in the Forest of
Rambouillet, about forty miles from Paris, had been investigated,
but nothing had been found. Indeed it looked as though he would have
to be released, when in 1921 the police decided on making a more
thorough investigation at the villa at Gambais, which several of the
missing women had been known to visit.
As one interested in criminology I was invited by the Chief of
the Sûreté to assist the police and the medicolegists in their
investigations. I motored out each day from Paris to a lonely house
called “The Hermitage,” on the high road to Houdan. There I rendered
what assistance I could in the excavations, which consisted in
digging up the rather extensive garden and a field adjoining, taking
up the floors of the villa itself, as well as the concrete flooring
of the outhouses and garage.
It was under the concrete of the latter that we discovered a number
of small pieces of charred bone, which, after microscopic examination
in Landru’s dining-room, where an apparatus had been set up, the
medical experts, Doctors Anthony and Paul, declared to have come
from at least three bodies. In addition, we found burned hairpins,
two steel stay-busks, bone buttons, and other objects. The search
had been exciting enough, and we were all keen on examining most
critically each handful of earth and stone. But those were the
discoveries that eventually brought Landru to the guillotine.
[Illustration: Le Queux helping the French police to excavate at
Landru’s villa.]
[Illustration: Crippen, the poisoner.]
The authorities resolved on a reconstruction of the crime, for
now they were certain that several of the missing women had been
lured to that lonely house, killed, and their bodies cremated in the
kitchen-stove.
I was present. Landru, brought by car under police-guard and in
secret, arrived at the scene of his crimes at about eleven o’clock
one morning.
When he was brought into the small dining-room, where it was supposed
he had poisoned his victims before disposing of their bodies, his
demeanour showed nothing of the criminal.
He wished us a polite, “_Bon jour, messieurs._” Then glancing
round that room, which had no doubt been the scene of several most
diabolical crimes--six it is believed--smiled superciliously.
“Henri Désiré Landru, you are accused of wilfully poisoning in this
room Madame Héon on December 6th, 1916, and of poisoning Madame
Collomb, on Christmas Day 1916!” said the examining magistrate in
French, in a deep hard voice.
“Rubbish!” laughed the prisoner with a nonchalant air.
“It is the accusation against you!”
“Then prove it!” said Landru jeeringly.
“You must prove your innocence,” replied the magistrate.
“I am innocent--that is all!” was his reply. “And I thank you for a
very pleasant motor-ride. The air of Gambais is always delightful.
I wish I were coming back here to spend a holiday. But I shall,
messieurs--never fear.”
I whispered in English to a detective who had been working in the
excavations for the past fortnight, and he overheard me.
“Ah!” he sneered. “I don’t know who you are, but you seem very amused
at all this. So am I. You call me Bluebeard. Oh! how foolish and
farcical it is!”
I made no reply. But addressing me again, he said:
“I suppose, monsieur, that you are one of the wonderful doctors who
hope to establish the fact that when I brought ladies here I killed
them for their valuables. Well, all I reply is--just establish the
facts. I thank you all for a glorious run through the Forest.”
The examining magistrate put to him other severe questions, but never
for a second could he upset the marvellous equanimity of the prisoner.
The next time I saw Landru, on November 30th, 1921, was in the
crowded and stifling Assize Court at Versailles. The place was
packed. The Court had risen. The Jury were absent to consider the
verdict, and before their box was an array of furniture and women’s
clothing that gave one the idea of a second-hand dealer’s shop.
The atmosphere was electrical. All the world waited to hear the
verdict.
Suddenly Landru was brought in, his face pale, more yellow and
strained that when he had jeered at us at Gambais. He noticed the
smart women of Paris straining their necks to get sight of him. From
his seat a few seconds later, he rose, and bowing politely to the
spectators, said with the same cynical smile that he had given me:
“I wonder if there be any lady in court who would like to take my
place? I am quite ready to vacate it--I assure you!”
Those were the last words to the public of one of the greatest and
most callous criminals of our time.
Five minutes later he was condemned to death. He was theatrical to
the end, but his calmness never deserted him. His counsel, Maître
Moro-Giafferi, who is an old friend of mine and one of the most
famous criminal lawyers in Europe, appealed, but the conviction was
upheld and at four o’clock on the morning of February 25th, 1922,
Landru, on being offered the usual glass of rum and a cigarette, said
with the same cynical laugh:
“I do not need them. I am brave!”
A few seconds later the knife fell and he was dead. How many women
he had murdered will never be known.
* * * * *
My next meeting with a murderer was one cold March afternoon. I
was sitting before the big fire in the smoking room of a certain
West End club of which I am a member--I omit its name for obvious
reasons--when there strolled in a fellow member with whom I often
chatted when we were spending an idle hour of gossip over our tea and
toast. He was a country solicitor, living in Herefordshire and had
been a member only a couple of years. Business frequently brought
him to London, and on such occasions he slept at the club. He was a
man of refinement and taste, a good talker, a golf enthusiast and
somewhat humorous. He was, indeed, quite popular.