The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont

The Triumph of Eugène Valmont, by
Robert Barr

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Triumph of Eugène Valmont, by Robert Barr This
eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project
Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Triumph of Eugène Valmont
Author: Robert Barr
Release Date: September 25, 2006 [EBook #19369]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIUMPH OF
EUGÈNE VALMONT ***

Produced by David Starner, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's Note:
The Attribution and the Table of Contents are not part of the original book.

The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont
By
Robert Barr
* * * * *

CONTENTS
1. The Mystery of the Five Hundred Diamonds
2. The Siamese Twin of a Bomb-Thrower
3. The Clue of the Silver Spoons
4. Lord Chizelrigg's Missing Fortune
5. The Absent-Minded Coterie
6. The Ghost with the Club-Foot
7. The Liberation of Wyoming Ed
8. Lady Alicia's Emeralds
APPENDIX: TWO SHERLOCK HOLMES PARODIES
1. The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs
2. The Adventure of the Second Swag
* * * * *

1. The Mystery of the Five Hundred Diamonds
When I say I am called Valmont, the name will convey no impression to the reader, one
way or another. My occupation is that of private detective in London, but if you ask any
policeman in Paris who Valmont was he will likely be able to tell you, unless he is a
recent recruit. If you ask him where Valmont is now, he may not know, yet I have a good
deal to do with the Parisian police.
For a period of seven years I was chief detective to the Government of France, and if I
am unable to prove myself a great crime hunter, it is because the record of my career is in
the secret archives of Paris.
I may admit at the outset that I have no grievances to air. The French Government
considered itself justified in dismissing me, and it did so. In this action it was quite within
its right, and I should be the last to dispute that right; but, on the other hand, I consider
myself justified in publishing the following account of what actually occurred, especially
as so many false rumours have been put abroad concerning the case. However, as I said at
the beginning, I hold no grievance, because my worldly affairs are now much more
prosperous than they were in Paris, my intimate knowledge of that city and the country of
which it is the capital bringing to me many cases with which I have dealt more or less
successfully since I established myself in London.

Without further preliminary I shall at once plunge into an account of the case which
riveted the attention of the whole world a little more than a decade ago.
The year 1893 was a prosperous twelve months for France. The weather was good, the
harvest excellent, and the wine of that vintage is celebrated to this day. Everyone was
well off and reasonably happy, a marked contrast to the state of things a few years later,
when dissension over the Dreyfus case rent the country in twain.
Newspaper readers may remember that in 1893 the Government of France fell heir to an
unexpected treasure which set the civilised world agog, especially those inhabitants of it
who are interested in historical relics. This was the finding of the diamond necklace in the
Château de Chaumont, where it had rested undiscovered for a century in a rubbish heap
of an attic. I believe it has not been questioned that this was the veritable necklace which
the court jeweller, Boehmer, hoped to sell to Marie Antoinette, although how it came to
be in the Château de Chaumont no one has been able to form even a conjecture. For a
hundred years it was supposed that the necklace had been broken up in London, and its
half a thousand stones, great and small, sold separately. It has always seemed strange to
me that the Countess de Lamotte-Valois, who was thought to have profited by the sale of
these jewels, should not have abandoned France if she possessed money to leave that
country, for exposure was inevitable if she remained. Indeed, the unfortunate woman was
branded and imprisoned, and afterwards was dashed to death from the third storey of a
London house, when, in the direst poverty, she sought escape from the consequences of
the debts she had incurred.
I am not superstitious in the least, yet this celebrated piece of treasure-trove seems
actually