At Captain Michel’s Table by Gaston Leroux

Book Details

Every evening, five old skippers smelling of the sea would gather At Captain Michel’s Table at the old Ship-and-Anchor Cafe in Toulon to enjoy their aperative and to tell each other macabre stories of blood and horror.

The Inn of Terror (1929) – A tale of stark realism and gripping horror. A novelette of five chapters.

The Woman with the Velvet Collar (1929) – A vivid story of a weird Corsican vendetta and a ghastly revenge

The Mystery of the Four Husbands (1929) – A vivid weird mystery story of a gloriously beautiful woman and her four murdered husbands

The Crime on Christmas Night (1930) – A tale of stark horror. A novelette of three chapters.

Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux (1868-1927) was a French journalist and author of detective fiction.

He is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, 1910), which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon Chaney, and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 musical.

At Captain Michel’s Table has 7 illustrations.

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Excerpt: The Inn of Terror

1

“SPEAKING of women,” said Chaulieu, “I would never wish any of you a honeymoon like the one I took with my first wife. Besides coming very close to losing our lives . . . But here’s the story without any further preamble. On my return from Saigon, I asked headquarters for a furlough and took advantage of it to marry little Maria-Luce of Mourillon, as had been previously decided. Her father had died in Madagascar and she lived with her grandfather.

“We went to Switzerland on our honeymoon. It was my idea, because at heart I’m a staid fellow, a landlubber, and I hate adventures. If I was a sea captain for twenty years, it was simply to follow the family tradition and to please my parents, but the very thought of it in the beginning made me seasick.

“Well, there we were in Switzerland, my young bride and I, as in the days of Töppfer. We were very, much in love, and . . . Have you ever been to Soleure?”

“I was married in Borneo,” chuckled Dorat, the biggest wag in the party of old sea-dogs who spun their yarns on the terrace of the “Café of the Old Wet-Doek,” in Toulon.

“I see. . . . Well, Soleure might be called the capital of French Switzerland—a long, quiet street with picture sign-boards swinging on their rods at the slightest puff of wind from the Wesseinstein.

“The Wesseinstein is one of the summits in the Jura mountains. rises at the northwest of the town. More than one tourist has lost his way in the gorges and paths of the forest, and there are no hotels before reaching the summit, with the exception of one which at the time boasted a very sinister reputation.

“Two years before our trip, the town board had discovered, at the bottom of a well and in a near-by grotto, twelve skeletons and some objects belonging to travelers who had found a fatal hospitality there.

“The inquest in investigations brought to light the fact that the crimes had been committed by a couple who had so thoroughly terrorized the neighborhood that even the death of the two innkeepers, the dreadful Weisbachs — you may remember the story perhaps; it was in all the newspapers at the time—did not loosen any tongues. You see, a few old-timers in the mountains had suspected some of the goings-on; but Jean Weisbach had made it very clear that he did not care to have people meddling in his business, and they had let bad enough alone.

“The innkeepers had died quietly in their beds, in the end, rich and esteemed, as also did their factotum, one Daniel. When the mare’s nest was discovered, the examining magistrates were able after questioning hither and yon and forcing some stubborn old neighbors to speak, to reconstruct the crimes. The most important witness was an old woman with a goiter, who related certain horrible details which showed that, besides a grim creed for money, the Weisbachs had had a strain of sadism and cruelty in them that has rarely been exceeded.

“Naturally, this story was the chief topic of conversation in Soleure. The travelers, who were to go by coach to the peak of the Wesseinstein, to sleep in the hotel made famous by Napoleon, and from there go back into France through the Belfort gap, promised themselves by all means to stop for a drink, half-way up, at the ‘Inn of Blood.’ It had been called that as much because of the story as for the color it was painted. To stop there was one of the things planned in the trip up the mountain. While the driver gave the horses to drink, the tourists went inside to the bar and gossiped with the new proprietors. These two had been there only a year. Their predecessors, the immediate successors of the Weisbachs, had left the premises, as soon as the scandal broke, on the grounds that they were ruined. But the Scheffers, being shrewder, had said to themselves that there were plenty of fools in the world, whose curiosity would probably make them rich. Their reasoning had not been bad, if one could believe what was said in town. All the strangers now passing through Soleure wanted, of all things, to see the ‘Inn of Blood,’ and some even went so far as to sleep there.

“The weather was fine the day that Maria-Luce and I left for the Wesseinstein by diligence. We had had an excellent lunch and were prepared to enjoy a lovely drive, and live a few ideally romantic hours like a chapter from a novel. We had left our luggage in Soleure and were to return there for it. Maria-Luce had only a small hand-bag with her. Ah! we narrowly missed never returning to Soleure and also lived that romantic chapter of ours in a way we would never have wished! You will see why. . . .

“When I think of it! . . . Perhaps that is what killed my good little Maria-Luce! . . . She was so pretty, so gay, so full of life . . . with such a clear lovely skin, and cheeks like roses. Well, such is life—a never-tiring destroyer. . . . I often wonder why we are born at all. . . .

Excerpt From: Gaston Leroux. “At Captain Michel’s Table.”