The Woman of Mystery

Maurice Leblanc

Description

This early work by Maurice Leblanc was originally published in 1916 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. Set in 1914, "The Woman of Mystery" paints an insightful picture of WWI in France, twined together with the mystery surrounding the murder of main character Paul's father. Maurice Marie Émile Leblanc was born on 11th November 1864 in Rouen, Normandy, France. He was a novelist and writer of short stories, known primarily as the creator of the fictional gentleman thief and detective, Arsène Lupin. From the start, Leblanc wrote both short crime stories and longer novels - and his lengthier tomes, heavily influenced by writers such as Flaubert and Maupassant, were critically admired, but met with little commercial success. Leblanc was largely considered little more than a writer of short stories for various French periodicals when the first Arsène Lupin story appeared. It was published as a series of stories in the magazine 'Je Sais Trout', starting on 15th July, 1905. Clearly created at editorial request under the influence of, and in reaction to, the wildly successful Sherlock Holmes stories, the roguish and glamorous Lupin was a surprise success and Leblanc's fame and fortune beckoned. In total, Leblanc went on to write twenty-one Lupin novels or collections of short stories. On this success, he later moved to a beautiful country-side retreat in Étreat (in the Haute-Normandie region in north-western France), which today is a museum dedicated to the Arsène Lupin books. He died in Perpignan (the capital of the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France) on 6th November 1941, at the age of seventy-six.

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Policier
• Amateur Sleuth
• Detective
• Mystery
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 08 juillet 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781473371811
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE WOMAN OF MYSTERY
by
MAURICE LEBLANC
Author Of “Confessions Of Arsène Lupin,” “The Teeth Of The Tiger,” Etc.


Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.
This book is copyright and may not be
reproduced or copied in any way without
the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library


Contents
THE WOMAN OF MYSTERY
Maurice Leblanc
CHAPTER I. THE MURDER
CHAPTER II. THE LOCKED ROOM
CHAPTER III. THE CALL TO ARMS
CHAPTER IV. A LETTER FROM ÉLISABETH
CHAPTER V. THE PEASANT-WOMAN AT CORVIGNY
CHAPTER VI. WHAT PAUL SAW AT ORNEQUIN
CHAPTER VII. H. E. R. M.
CHAPTER VIII. ÉLISABETH’S DIARY
CHAPTER IX. A SPRIG OF EMPIRE
CHAPTER X. 75 OR 155?
CHAPTER XI. “YSERY, MISERY”
CHAPTER XII. MAJOR HERMANN
CHAPTER XIII. THE FERRYMAN’S HOUSE
CHAPTER XIV. A MASTERPIECE OF KULTUR
CHAPTER XV. PRINCE CONRAD MAKES MERRY
CHAPTER XVI. THE IMPOSSIBLE STRUGGLE
CHAPTER XVII. THE LAW OF THE CONQUEROR
CHAPTER XVIII. HILL 132
CHAPTER XIX. HOHENZOLLERN
CHAPTER XX. THE DEATH PENALTY—AND A CAPITAL PUNISHMENT


Maurice Leblanc
Maurice Marie Émile Leblanc was born on 11th November 1864 in Rouen, Normandy, France. He was a novelist and writer of short stories, known primarily as the creator of the fictional gentleman thief and detective, Arsène Lupin.
Leblanc spent his early education at the Lycée Pierre Corneille (in Rouen), and after studying in several countries and dropping out of law school, he settled in Paris and began to write fiction. From the start, Leblanc wrote both short crime stories and longer novels – and his lengthier tomes, heavily influenced by writers such as Flaubert and Maupassant, were critically admired, but met with little commercial success.
Leblanc was largely considered little more than a writer of short stories for various French periodicals when the first Arsène Lupin story appeared. It was published as a series of stories in the magazine ‘Je Sais Trout’, starting on 15th July, 1905. Clearly created at editorial request under the influence of, and in reaction to, the wildly successful Sherlock Holmes stories, the roguish and glamorous Lupin was a surprise success and Leblanc’s fame and fortune beckoned. In total, Leblanc went on to write twenty-one Lupin novels or collections of short stories. On this success, he later moved to a beautiful country-side retreat in Étreat (in the Haute-Normandie region in north-western France), which today is a museum dedicated to the Arsène Lupin books.
The character of Lupin might have been based by Leblanc on the French anarchist Marius Jacob, whose trial made headlines in March 1905; it is also possible that Leblanc had read Octave Mirbeau’s Les 21 jours d’un neurasthénique (1901), which features a gentleman thief named Arthur Lebeau. By 1907 Leblanc had graduated to writing full-length Lupin novels, and the reviews and sales were so good that Leblanc effectively dedicated the rest of his career to working on the Lupin stories. Like Conan Doyle, who often appeared embarrassed or hindered by the success of Sherlock Holmes and seemed to regard his success in the field of crime fiction as a detraction from his more ‘respectable’ literary ambitions, Leblanc also appeared to have resented Lupin’s success. Several times, he tried to create other characters, such as private eye Jim Barnett, but eventually merged them with Lupin. He continued to pen Lupin tales well into the 1930s.
Leblanc also wrote two notable science fiction novels: Les Trois Yeux (1919), in which a scientist makes televisual contact with three-eyed Venusians (from the planet Venus), and Le Formidable Evènement (1920), in which an earthquake creates a new landmass between England and France.
Leblanc was awarded the Légion d’Honneur - the highest decoration in France - for his services to literature. He died in Perpignan (the capital of the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France) on 6th November 1941, at the age of seventy-six. He is buried in the prestigious Montparnasse Cemetery of Paris.



Unmasked and helpless, she maintained an attitude of challenge and defiance


CHAPTER I. THE MURDER
“Suppose I were to tell you,” said Paul Delroze, “that I once stood face to face with him on French. . . . .”
Élisabeth looked up at him with the fond expression of a bride to whom the least word of the man she loves is a subject of wonder:
“You have seen William II. in France?”
“Saw him with my own eyes; and I have never forgotten a single one of the details that marked the meeting. And yet it happened very long ago.”
He was speaking with a sudden seriousness, as though the revival of that memory had awakened the most painful thoughts in his mind.
“Tell me about it, won’t you, Paul?” asked Élisabeth.
“Yes, I will,” he said. “In any case, though I was only a child at the time, the incident played so tragic a part in my life that I am bound to tell you the whole story.”
The train stopped and they got out at Corvigny, the last station on the local branch line which, starting from the chief town in the department, runs through the Liseron Valley and ends, fifteen miles from the frontier, at the foot of the little Lorraine city which Vauban, as he tells us in his “Memoirs,” surrounded “with the most perfect demilunes imaginable.”
The railway-station presented an appearance of unusual animation. There were numbers of soldiers, including many officers. A crowd of passengers—tradespeople, peasants, workmen and visitors to the neighboring health-resorts served by Corvigny—stood amid piles of luggage on the platform, awaiting the departure of the next train for the junction.
It was the last Thursday in July, the Thursday before the mobilization of the French army.
Élisabeth pressed up against her husband:
“Oh, Paul,” she said, shivering with anxiety, “if only we don’t have war!”
“War! What an idea!”
“But look at all these people leaving, all these families running away from the frontier!”
“That proves nothing.”
“No, but you saw it in the paper just now. The news is very bad. Germany is preparing for war. She has planned the whole thing. . . . Oh, Paul, if we were to be separated! . . . I should know nothing about you . . . and you might be wounded . . . and . . . .”
He squeezed her hand:
“Don’t be afraid, Élisabeth. Nothing of the kind will happen. There can’t be war unless somebody declares it. And who would be fool enough, criminal enough, to do anything so abominable?”
“I am not afraid,” she said, “and I am sure that I should be very brave if you had to go. Only . . . only it would be worse for us than for anybody else. Just think, darling: we were only married this morning!”
At this reference to their wedding of a few hours ago, containing so great a promise of deep and lasting joy, her charming face lit up, under its halo of golden curls, with a smile of utter trustfulness; and she whispered:
“Married this morning, Paul! . . . So you can understand that my load of happiness is not yet very heavy.”
There was a movement among the crowd. Everybody gathered around the exit. A general officer, accompanied by two aides-de-camp, stepped out into the station-yard, where a motor-car stood waiting for him. The strains were heard of a military band; a battalion of light infantry marched down the road. Next came a team of sixteen horses, driven by artillery-men and dragging an enormous siege-piece which, in spite of the weight of its carriage, looked light, because of the extreme length of the gun. A herd of bullocks followed.
Paul, who was unable to find a porter, was standing on the pavement, carrying the two traveling-bags, when a man in leather gaiters, green velveteen breeches and a shooting-jacket with horn buttons, came up to him and raised his cap:
“M. Paul Delroze?” he said. “I am the keeper at the château.”
He had a powerful, open face, a skin hardened by exposure to the sun and the cold, hair that was already turning gray and that rather uncouth manner often displayed by old servants whose place allows them a certain degree of independence. For seventeen years he had lived on the great estate of Ornequin, above Corvigny, and managed it for Élisabeth’s father, the Comte d’Andeville.
“Ah, so you’re Jérôme?” cried Paul. “Good! I see you had the Comte d’Andeville’s letter. Have our servants come?”
“They arrived this morning, sir, the three of them; and they have been helping my wife and me to tidy up the house and make it ready to receive the master and the mistress.”
He took off his cap again to Élisabeth, who said:
“Then you remember me, Jérôme? It is so long since I was here!”
“Mlle. Élisabeth was four years old then. It was a real sorrow for my wife and me when we heard that you would not come back to the house . . . nor Monsieur le Comte either, because of his poor dead wife. So Monsieur le Comte does not mean to pay us a little visit this year?”
“No, Jérôme, I don’t think so. Though it is so many years ago, my father is still very unhappy.”
Jérôme took the bags and placed them in a fly which he had ordered at Corvigny. The heavy luggage was to follow in the farm-cart.
It was a fine day and Paul told them to lower the hood. Then he and his wife took their seats.
“It’s not a very long drive,” said the keeper. “Under ten miles. But it’s up-hill all the way.”
“Is the house more or less fit to live in?” asked Paul.
“Well, it’s not like a house that has been lived in; but you’ll see for yourself, sir. We’ve done the best we could. My wife is so pleased that you and the mistress are coming! You’ll find her waiting for her at the foot of the steps. I told her that you wo