This 1943 novel by Noël Corbu has been summarized by Beatrice Frouté de
Domec,
who also provides a translation, at the
end, of the 2005 Preface by Claire Corbu
& Antoine Captier.
Le Mort Cambrioleur
THE LIVING-DEAD THIEF
The
Ghost Thief?
Death
Burglar?
The Thief
of Death?
The Dead
Thief?
On Christmas Eve at the
Imperial Hall in London at around 1:00 am the lights go out for a few moments
and then suddenly a woman’s scream is heard. When the lights come back on, Lord
Malfeston’s body is lying lifeless on the ground. An inspector Adam is called to the scene
bringing a friend of his, Georgie Gray, to investigate the death. Lady
Malfeston is discovered to be the woman who screamed earlier, and she is joined
by her four friends who were at the party as well, Lawrence Sidney, Frank
Burton, Lord Aymeri, and Richard Walls.
They decide to take her home and watch the body overnight, which is
being transported by ambulance to their domicile. It seems Lord Malfeston has
had a heart attack, and the coroner decides to sign the burial certificate
without further delay.
That same night, while Lady
Malfeston, sedated by the doctor, is sleeping soundly, her four friends who are
watching over Lord Malfeston, finally fall asleep around 4:00 am. It’s about
that time when Robert, Lady Malfeston’s chauffeur, comes back drunk from his
own partying, and not being able to sleep, he grabs his flashlight and decides
to come down from the second floor where his room is to the ground floor where
the kitchen is so he can pour himself a glass of water. Reaching the first floor, he hears some noise
and flashes his light towards the hallway where he sees a discontented Lord
Malfeston leaving his wife’s bedroom. Robert apologizes and rushes down the
stairs to the kitchen, not knowing that it was an oddity that he should have
seen his Master alive when he was found dead earlier.
The morning after, Lady
Malfeston discovers that her jewelry is missing from the safe, and she finds a
note there in what looks like Lord Malfeston’s handwriting: “I’m giving you
back your freedom; you can certainly repay me with some of your jewelry.” The
safe has not been broken into, and the only people with the key and combination
are Lord and Lady Malfeston. The inspector
Adam is called back in, who interrogates everyone in the house, including
Robert, who then explains that he did see Lord Malfeston coming out of his
wife’s bedroom and now, come to think of it, that his pockets looked stuffed
up. The dead body is still lying in bed, however, so everyone is quite puzzled
and cannot reconcile Robert’s testimony with the corpse.
It is then decided that the
burial will go on as scheduled.
In the meantime the
newspaper has printed out the story of “Le Mort Cambrioleur,” the ghost
thief, and two crooks, Tom Bene and Drake, reading this, come up with their own
story about the case. They figure that
one of the guests did steal the jewelry and hid it on the dead body and will go
retrieve it after the burial that same night, and it could only be a matter of
being first at the scene for them to become rich. They proceed to the cemetery
around 11:00pm and enter the mausoleum where Lord Malfeston is buried. They
exhume the body and while searching for the jewels, a hand starts grabbing and
holding on to Bene, who begins screaming in dismay as Lord Malfeston lifts
himself up to a sitting position inside his coffin. The two thieves escape and
run away as fast as they can.
Without further clues, the
story eventually dies out, and Scotland Yard decides to file it as an unsolved
mystery.
Two years later.
Alan Freme, a famous romance
novelist is having writer’s block for his new story soon due to his publisher
and isolates himself at a remote house outside London, surrounded by trees and
ponds. Feeling hungry, he decides to drive his convertible to the city, only 10
minutes away. It is foggy, and he sees a light coming from the opposite
direction that is approaching far too fast. The onrushing car collides with
his, and he is thrown into the bushes and loses consciousness. Three days
later, he wakes up from his delirium with what seems to be a burned leg in what
he thinks is a hospital. When his nurse
explains how catastrophic the wreck was that he had been in, he realizes that
eleven people died in the accident and three were wounded. In fact, what he witnessed was a car chase
between Scotland Yard and four car thieves that turned into a carnage, killing
an entire family, two policemen, and the four thieves. Alan Freme actually burnt his leg while
crawling out of the bushes to try to save some of the people caught in the
fire. One of the policeman he saved happens to be his friend Georgie Gray
(Inspector Adam’s assistant, remember) , who enters Alan’s room to welcome him
back to the world from his delirium of three days. To
occupy their joint convalescence, Georgie tells Alan that he should write a
mystery novel for once, instead of a romance novel, and maybe that would solve
his writer’s block and maybe also, in the process, solve the mystery of the
house they’re staying in. That’s when Freme
gradually learns that he is not at a hospital but at Lady Malfeston’s castle,
and that the nurse that he has fallen in love with is not a nurse, but Lady
Malfeston herself, who has also fallen in love with him. Freme decides that
Georgie’s idea is good and that he is going to solve the mystery while writing
a great book.
One afternoon the three—Alan,
Georgie, and Lady Malfeston--decide to go on a boat ride, and while on the
water, they cross the wake of a fast motorboat whose driver seems to be one of
her friends, Lawrence Sidney. But she
finds this odd since she had just received a postcard from him, that same day, that
was sent from Scotland where his estate is. In fact, not only does he does not live anywhere
close to where they are, neither does he have any friends living in the area
besides her where he could stay. Puzzled, she decides to call him at home in
Scotland on the pretense of inviting him to a party to celebrate Alan Freme’s
recovery, figuring he will never answer the phone. So you can imagine her
surprise when he actually answers the phone but then explains that there has
been an identity theft of his name and persona from someone who looks just like
him and acts just like him. He has filed a formal claim, but his opponent has
done the same and has been bullying him since then. Lawrence Sidney #1, the one
in Scotland, accepts the invitation to the party, and Georgie Gray announces
that the second act of the murder mystery has begun.
That same night, Lord Aymeri
comes to visit and tells everyone that they are wrong and that he saw Lawrence
Sidney in London that same day, therefore he cannot be in Scotland. May Malfeston decides to go with Freme to
London to Lawrence’s flat and see for herself.
As they approach thunder breaks out, rain starts pouring down, and what
seems like a scream is heard from the first floor. Freme rushes up and sees an
open window at the end of the corridor with the shadow of a body underneath. He
can hear the shadow moan, but while approaching the window he sees a striking
ray of light, feels a sudden pain and falls unconscious. When he wakes up he
realizes he’s been struck by lightning and that Robert, the chauffeur, has been
murdered. He calls out to Georgie to call the police, but the phone line is
dead. Meanwhile, a Lawrence Sidney, we’re not sure which one, who while driving
his convertible was caught in the rain and found cover in Lady Malfeston’s
garage, walks into the castle. A few
moments later, May, back from London, walks in, followed by Lawrence Sidney #2.
They grab each other’s throat as soon as they see each other, and stop fighting
when the police walks in, after Georgie went to get them (since the phone was
not working). It turns out that Robert
was hit with a metal stick that is part of a display that stands next to the
window where he was found. The police suspect right away Lawrence Sidney #1 as
well as Lord Aymeri who happened to show up uninvited that night, caught also
in the rainstorm.
After some investigating, it
is clear that several things happened before the murder. First, Freme himself
saw Lord Aymeri park his car inside the garage while looking through the
hallway window when trying to reach Robert. Second, Lawrence Sidney claims that
he saw one of the servants, Walter, at the castle, when in fact Walter remembers
seeing Lawrence Sidney inside the garage when the events were unfolding. Third,
it is mentioned that a staircase leads directly from the garage to the first
floor, and, finally, according to Walter again, Lord Aymeri’s car was already
parked in the garage when Lawrence Sidney showed up. Which in the end does not
prove anything nor makes anyone a suspect to resolve the murder mystery since
no fingerprints are found. Everyone then
goes back to where they came from, leaving May, Freme and Georgie still without
answers.
Freme decides to conduct his
own investigation from there on, without really informing Georgie of his
findings. A few days later, he goes to Lawrence’s flat in London to visit him.
This Lawrence tells him about the first time he met his double, who was coming
back from a Christmas party he went to with a friend of his, Richard Walls.
When he entered his flat, his double was there and started beating him up, won
the fight, and threw him out of his own flat. The following day he filed an
official claim against him.
Freme decides then to go to
the second Lawrence Sidney’s house, also in London, but no one is there to
answer the door. While walking back in the heat of the day, a passerby reading
a paper bumps into him and tries to steal his wallet. That is when he
recognizes Bene, an old friend from his regiment who happened to have saved his
life back in the war. Seeing that his former friend is in need, he forces him
to follow him to his house in the woods to try to reconnect with him and help
him out. While they are at the house, they hear some noises outside and while
checking out the surroundings, they get shot at by a Lawrence Sidney that Bene
happens to recognize as Lord Malfeston from his previous encounter at the
cemetery two years ago. They escape the shooting and while driving back to the
castle, Flowers Manor, Bene tells the whole story to Freme as it happened back
then. Freme decides to hire him as his
chauffeur as long as Bene promises to stay away from petty crimes. When they
tell the story to Georgie, he asks May to show him old pictures of Lord
Malfeston and Lawrence Sidney so as to compare the faces, to find to their
stupefaction that with a moustache Lawrence Sidney is the exact copy of Lord
Malfeston.
Freme decides to go back to
Lawrence Sidney #1’s house who further explains to him that he never attended
Lord Malfeston’s funeral nor did he know about the jewelry being stolen. He
further explains that he only remembers going to sleep at the watch, and waking
up a month later at a clinic without any more memories of anything.
Freme, still not satisfied
with the story, goes back again the day after to visit with Lawrence #1 to try
to get more information from him. He thinks by telling him all the events that
have unfolded since Lord Malfeston’s death that he does not recall himself, it
will show Lawrence his goodwill and allow him to trust Freme with further
information. While Freme tells the story, Lawrence realizes that he is the only
plausible suspect in Freme’s attempted shooting at his house, since he knows
that Lawrence #2 is in Scotland and therefore could not have been there at the
time. He decides then to open up to Freme to further deny his guilt, with the
strict condition that he will not disclose some sensitive pieces of
information. He also wants to know before preceding why Freme is so eager to solve
the mystery that no one else has been able to do so far. Freme answers because
he is madly in love with May and would like to offer her some closure. Lawrence
then proceeds with his story: “May Stever’s father, a rich Scottish industrial,
wanted his daughter to marry into nobility and forced her to marry Lord Malfeston.
I was myself in love with May, but my fortune was not sufficient for her father
because I did not have a name. I was so unhappy and disappointed that I started
drinking and use morphine to the point of being fully addicted. May did not
love her husband, but complied, and when her father died six months after the
wedding, they moved from Scotland to England, and I decided to enter a
rehabilitation clinic. Meanwhile Lord Malfeston, who was behaving properly
while the father was alive, became a monster of debauchery as soon as he died,
spending his wife’s money and assets as fast as he could get his hands on them.
So when he died, it was actually a relief for her and the happiest moment of my
life, because she was going to be free again. By that time I was not using
anymore, and yet found myself at Dr. Naradewski’s clinic on January 18th,
where he told me that I arrived during the night of the 26-27th of
December, in a complete state of collapse due to a massive dose of morphine,
that should have been deadly for anyone else whose body was not used to the
poison like mine was. I remained 5 months at the clinic and recovered
completely. Intense light that hurt my eyes is the only memory I have from that
night.
Freme goes back to Flowers
Manor where he finds Georgie, May and Lawrence Sydney, who had just arrived
from Scotland. Bene comes back around midnight and tells Freme to be quiet
because of footsteps he can hear coming from the first floor. As they go up the
stairs, they spot a man at the end of the corridor who is banging slightly on
the wall next to the window, while holding a small flashlight. Bene tries to
approach quietly to surprise him, but the man hears him, turns off the
flashlight and escapes into the library followed by Bene who pursues him into
the night. Meanwhile Georgie rejoins Freme down the corridor and investigates a
hole in the wall that uncovers a small safe, which is empty.
They immediately decide to
drive to London to figure out which of the Lawrence Sydneys is not home. Taking a short cut, they arrive six minutes
later in front of Lawrence Sydney #1’s home, whose butler tells them that he
left around 8:00pm and has not been back home since. They rush to the 2nd
Lawrence Sydney’s home and find him in the company of Richard Walls in front of
the house, just coming back from a play. He also explains that the other
Lawrence was actually at his other place earlier, starting a fight again
and arguing with him about wanting to
stay at that house, instead of this one, and since he did not want to fight
again, he obliged him and switched houses.
Freme and Georgie go back to
the manor and find it all lit up with May searching the entire place holding
her revolver. She explains she found all the servants sleeping in the kitchen,
drugged out. Nothing comes out of the search.
In the meantime Bene came
back fruitless from his pursuit, but took upon himself to investigate and
question further the doctor at the clinic. He tells everybody to listen to the
story he heard from the doctor.
“About eight years ago, a
man was shot and left for dead in the Brazilian forest, where a certain Dr.
Bendeck found him and saved his life. Unfortunately, the man became amnesic.
Lord Wilen who sponsored the expedition for Dr. Bendeck took him under his wing
and treated him as the son he never had. We named him Lawrence Sydney and
that’s how he got his new name, not remembering his previous identity. Lawrence
followed Lord Wilen to Argentina and then inherited his great fortune when Lord
Wilen died. When Dr. Bendeck found him near death, he was delirious and heard
him whisper a name, Eric, asking this Eric why he had killed him since he was
his friend, James. In actuality, James Malfeston met Eric Elliott, his double,
eight years ago. One was rich and the other one poor. They used to fool around
and switch identities for fun. Then one day, James decided to go on an
expedition with Eric in Brazil, from which Lord Malfeston came back alone
telling the story that Eric had died from a fever. So, to resume the story, it would seem that
Eric Elliott is Lord Malfeston and one Lawrence Sydney, and the other Lawrence
Sydney is the real Lord Malfeston“. At that moment a voice is heard coming from
the smoking lounge threatening to kill one of the Lawrence Sydneys because
there is one too many. Everyone looks at each other puzzled, not understanding
where the voice is coming from. At the same time, Lawrence shows up at the
manor, wondering why his butler was questioned about his whereabouts, and that
he was with both doctors that night. Unfortunately, the second Lawrence shows
up also and gives the same alibi.
Inspector Adams is called to
the scene ,and he decides to fingerprint both men. During the process, Freme
notices that one of the Lawrence’s has yellow phalanges and wonders if it might
cover up fake fingerprints. He also sees a small sewing rubber thimble on the
ground and decides to keep his thoughts for himself. None of the fingerprints
match Lord Malfeston’s.
Later that day, Freme goes
to town to try to investigate if anyone specializes in working with rubber, and
if a small layer of it could be used to reproduce fingerprinting. He is advised
to go to Lienthal Brothers and lands a meeting with the owner’s son who
supervises the production department. He explains that it’s in fact possible to
make finger covers that would be thin enough not to be noticed, and that
someone by the name of Lord Malfeston placed an order for such items back in
November. The only downfall is that fingers turn yellow in time.
Back at the manor, one of the Lawrences has been
involved in a car accident and is near death. Bene went to get Dr. Bendeck, and
Lawrence is transported at the clinic to be operated on, but the outcome is
grim. Freme, May, and Bene go have dinner and then to bed. Once Freme is in bed,
his bedroom door opens and he sees Lord Malfeston with a gun pointing at him.
He tells Freme to follow him for a walk that will end painlessly but will kill
him, since he knows now by following him that he is the only one who knows
about the fingerprint trick and his yellow fingers.
But Freme figures out a way
to stall him by asking him to tell his story, hoping that he will be able to
make sense of everything that has gone down since the night of his supposed death
on Christmas eve. Since Freme is a novelist, Lord Malfeston does not sense any
ruse on his part, while his vanity is too content to show how clever he really
is.
Malfeston (really Eric Elliott) starts by
explaining that the library vent communicates with the smoking lounge, and that
you can hear just as well from one room to the other, and therefore he was able
to hear everything that was said and always be a step ahead. There is also, as
with many old castles, a secret passage that connects from the outside to the
library, making his back and forth unnoticed. For his death, he used a
Brazilian plant whose property is to slow down the heart rate significantly
without killing you when used at a proper dosage, which by the way is what he’s
going to use to kill Freme. As his friends were watching over him believing him
dead, he waited for them to fall asleep, and used a syringe with a high dose of
morphine on Lawrence Sydney, hoping that it would kill him. Unfortunately, it
did not work, because of his previous abuse and body tolerance to drugs, which
he was not aware of. Then he switched him onto the bed, changed the content of
his pockets, took his wife’s jewelry, hid them inside the safe close to the
corridor’s window, hoping he could retrieve them at a further date. Then he
came back to the room and sat where Lawrence Sydney was until the morning.
Everything else fell into place when he met the real Lawrence Sydney and
realized that he resembled him as well, and that he could get his money also,
since he was starting to run low on Lord Malfeston’s assets. He did try to kill
Lord Malfeston in Brazil so he could take his identity and his money, and did
not know for a while that he had survived and returned as Lawrence Sydney. When
he figured it out he thought he could play both angles because of his resemblance
with the two men and get the jackpot. Unfortunately Freme became a liability
when he started to investigate the matter out of his love for May. Now that he
was done with the story Eric was ready to take him down, when he heard a noise
and turned his head for a split second, long enough for Freme to aim his
flashlight at him in the hope he could throw it at his face. But Eric guessing
his gesture pulled the trigger aiming at Freme. But somehow the bullet hit the
flashlight and ricocheted
towards Eric killing him instantly!!! Bene
rushed into the room after hearing the shot to find Eric on the floor and Freme
shivering in his bed. Once the investigation was over, word from the clinic
came to announce that Lord Malfeston (Lawrence Sydney) was out of danger and
had also recovered his memory. May became distressed at the thought that now
she was once again married since the real Lord Malfeston was alive.
Fortunately, Lord Malfeston, who really never knew his wife, decided to remain
Lawrence Sydney and leave her his castle and belongings on the count that he
was himself a rich man and did not want to interfere with her new love life,
which gave Freme the possibility of still marrying her.
THE END.
Noël Corbu
was born in Paris in
April 1912. His father, a cavalry officer, distinguished himself as the head of
the El’Rarb mission, during the peacemaking process in
A former
student of the famous organ player Marcel Dupré, Noël Corbu
shows a great interest in
orchestra music and literature, as well as sciences. His favorite hobbies are
writing novels, scenarios and songs.
Prolific
with ideas, he becomes an entrepreneur, but his adventurous mind fails him when
he tries to create an enterprise in
He
inherits the domain of l’abbé Saunière from Marie Dénarnaud, after falling in
love with Rennes-le-Château, where he used to go with his family on the
weekend.
In 1955 he
transforms the domain into a hôtel-restaurant, named “La Tour” (the tower).
Then his
imagination and romantic mind starts taking hold of the fascinating life of the
priest from Rennes-le-Château. The story he likes to tell his visitors, about
the “priest with billions,” has been the starting point of Bérenger Saunière’s
celebrity.
He dies in
a car accident on
It is in
1943 that his only novel “le Mort Cambrioleur” is published. One could
recognize in this thriller, where the ending might surprise the reader, the
muffled atmosphere found in the works of Agatha Christie and the suspense of a
Gaston Leroux.
Claire Corbu & Antoine Captier, October 2005