The Mystery of M. Felix

by B. L. Farjeon

"Nothing of the sort. There was no post-mortem, there was not even an inquest. He is said to have died of heart disease. He lies inanimate on a bed for an inconsiderable number of hours, and then he disappears. My dear Agnold, have you ever heard of such a thing as suspended animation?"

"Of course I have."

"Have you ever heard of a person falling into a trance, and remaining to all appearance dead for three or four times as many hours as M. Felix lay before he disappeared? People have been buried alive in such conditions; others have been happily rescued at the moment the lids of their coffins have been about to be nailed down. I can furnish you with scores of instances of this kind of thing."

"There is no need; I know that they have occurred. Your theory opens out a wide field of possibilities. Then you believe that Sophy was right; that she did see, not M. Felix's ghost as she supposed, but M. Felix himself in the flesh?"

"It is my belief. Sophy is no fool; she has the nerve of a strong and healthy man; she does not believe in the supernatural; she has a heart susceptible of such kindness as you have shown her, but she is at the same time practical and hard-headed. Agnold, M. Felix is alive."

"Do you argue that he simulated death in the first instance for the purpose of carrying out some plan?"

"No. His apparent death was not a trick devised by himself. He had a seizure undoubtedly, to which he was compelled to succumb. After a time he recovered, and for his own ends resolved to take advantage of the opportunity to disappear, whether permanently or not I cannot say. He had a perfect right to do as he pleased with his own body, and he had good reasons for the device. He was threatened on two sides. Choosing for certain motives to drop his proper name of Leonard Paget and to adopt that of M. Felix, he finds himself suddenly standing on a rock with a precipice yawning on each side of him. A bold movement on the part of his sister-in-law hurls him into one; a desperate movement on the part of Dr. Peterssen hurls him over the other--either way, destruction. Of the special power which Dr. Peterssen holds over him I am ignorant, but it must be very potent. We are acquainted, however, with the power his sister-in-law holds over him. Her marriage proved, his life has been one long fraud, and he could be made to pay the penalty. Her unexpected presence in London confounds him, and he sees before him but one means of escape--flight. On the night of his supposed death he has had two agitating interviews, one with Dr. Peterssen, the other with his sister-in-law. She, waiting in the street to obtain an interview with M. Felix, overhears words which unmistakably prove that Peterssen has him at his mercy. Peterssen threatens to ruin M. Felix; he refers to a pleasant partnership in Switzerland nineteen years ago; he asks M. Felix if he has forgotten his brother Gerald. Then he goes into the house with this precious Felix, and when he issues from it he has in his possession the desk which is now on the table before us. After that, the lady in whose behalf we have been working obtains admission to the house and confronts the villain who has ruined her happiness. We know what passed between them; we know that M. Felix was worked up to desperation. The excitement was too much for the plausible scoundrel, who saw the sword about to fall upon him. He staggers into his bedroom with the undoubted intention of getting his revolver; he presses his hand to his heart; he sinks into a chair and becomes insensible. He is to all appearance dead, and is so pronounced. On the following night when he recovers his senses, he hails the mishap as a fortunate chance; he resolves to disappear, and so put his enemies off the scent. Now, follow me. Sophy is below in bed. She hears a noise in the upper part of the house; the brave girl creeps up-stairs from the basement as M. Felix creeps down-stairs from his apartments. He dare not betray himself. He seizes her, disguises his voice, and works upon her fears. Exit M. Felix; for as long or as short a time as he pleases, he is dead to the world. It is a wonder he does not take his revolver with him, but that is an oversight. In such a crisis one cannot think of everything. It may happen--for there is work for us to do, Agnold--that this oversight will work in our favor. I do not despair of tracing the revolver, and you did a good stroke when you wrote down such a description of the weapon as will enable you to identify it. There is no room for doubt that the man who presented himself to Mrs. Middlemore as a police official, and who sent her on a false errand to Bow Street Police Station, was Peterssen. Alone in M. Felix's room he appropriates the revolver; other things as well, perhaps; but of the revolver we are morally convinced. What is his object in going there? I will tell you. He has doubts of M. Felix's death; he believes it to be a trick, and he thinks he may find something in M. Felix's room which will put him on the track of the man who had slipped out of his power. Reasoning the mystery out in this open way is very satisfactory, Agnold. Mists disappear; we see the light. How does it strike you?"

"You have convinced me, Bob," I said. "We will pursue the matter a little further. M. Felix is a man who is fond of pleasures which can be purchased only with money. Do you think he would voluntarily deprive himself of the means of obtaining it--for this is what his disappearance would lead him to, so long as he chose to conceal himself.

"Not at all likely," replied Bob, with a knowing look. "I can enlighten you on the point. It happens that I am acquainted with the manager of the branch bank at which M. Felix kept an account. After you had enlisted me in the present cause I became interested in everything concerning M. Felix, and in a confidential conversation with the bank manager I asked him whether M. Felix had a large balance standing to his credit. I learnt that he never had a large balance at the bank, and that he had certain bonds and shares of which he himself was the custodian. Ordinarily one entrusts such securities to the safe custody of the bank which transacts his business, but it was not so with M. Felix, and this fact leads to the presumption that it was his habit to keep himself personally possessed of negotiable property in preference to entrusting it to other keeping. From time to time checks from stock-brokers were paid in to the credit of M. Felix. In every instance the money was not allowed to lie in the bank for longer than a day or two. M. Felix invariably drew his own check for something near the amount of the last deposit, receiving payment in gold and bank notes. Two days before his supposed death a check for six thousand pounds odd was paid in to his credit, and on the following morning he went to the bank and drew out six thousand pounds in notes of various denominations, the numbers of which of course are known. Thus, unless he paid this money away, which is not at all likely, he must have been in possession of it when he disappeared. I am of the opinion that he had much more than the amount I have named, and if so he was well provided for. The peculiar position in which he stood would predispose him to keep always by him a large available sum of money in case of some emergency arising; an emergency did arise, and he could snap his fingers at the world, so far as money was concerned."

"This is a piece of valuable information, Bob. Do you know if any of these last bank notes have been presented for payment?"