Superintendent Battle—M. Lemoine

Superintendent Battle and M. Lemoine are cross-national investigative partners whose cooperation at Chimneys depends on information being withheld as well as shared. Lemoine’s delayed appearance as Battle’s colleague is deliberate: he first investigates unofficially, accepting suspicion as a means of keeping the people he is pursuing unaware, while Battle coordinates the larger inquiry and eventually makes the partnership public. Their alliance connects the murder investigation to the pursuit of King Victor and to the wider network gathered at Chimneys.

The investigation behind the partnership

Battle’s inquiry reaches beyond the immediate case. He tells the assembled group that Count Stylptitch’s memoirs had been conveyed away secretly before the count’s death and that they were sent to James McGrath, a Canadian then in Africa. That lead places a politically consequential missing manuscript within the investigators’ broader field of concern, and illustrates how information about the case travels across national borders and through intermediaries.

The partnership is not simply a matter of two detectives pursuing the same clue. At one point, Battle tells Herman Isaacstein that he, George Lomax, and the Herzoslovakian Loyalist Party are all implicated in a dangerous political situation. The exchange shows that Battle understands the investigation as entangled with political and financial interests, rather than confined to the circumstances of a single death. Lemoine’s French connection and Battle’s access to the British circle allow the inquiry to move across those overlapping domains.

Lemoine’s unofficial work

Battle had received word from Paris that Lemoine was coming to work with him, but could not understand why the expected colleague had not appeared. Lemoine later explains that he arrived on the morning after the murder and chose not to identify himself officially. He believed an unofficial approach offered greater possibilities: he knew that he would become an object of suspicion, but judged that suspicion useful because it would keep his targets from being put on their guard. He says that during the next two days he observed a good deal of interest.

The choice creates a revealing contrast between formal cooperation and practical concealment. Lemoine is Battle’s colleague, yet he withholds that status from the people around him—including those who might otherwise have treated his presence as official. The disguise of independence is not evidence that the two detectives are opposed; it is part of their shared investigative design. When the truth comes out, Battle explains that secrecy cannot be maintained indefinitely. He argues that Bill Eversleigh, as Lomax’s secretary, may know what needs to be known, and that Anthony Cade has been drawn into the affair and deserves to understand it as well.

Disclosure at Chimneys

Battle’s disclosure changes how the other people at Chimneys interpret the investigation. He presents Lemoine as the colleague from the Sûreté in Paris whom they had been expecting, and smiles at the astonishment of those who had not known the truth. The delayed introduction gives visible form to the arrangement Lemoine has described: the official partnership existed before the group could recognize it.

Lemoine also explains why Hiram Fish’s apparent identity should not be trusted. Fish is a Pinkerton’s man who came to England to trail King Victor; Battle and Lemoine had known this for some time. The revelation unsettles Virginia Revel, whose carefully constructed understanding of the situation collapses. Lemoine adds that they had expected King Victor eventually to come to Chimneys, which was the place where they were sure of catching him. Thus the house is not merely the setting for the immediate mystery: it is the anticipated point of convergence for an international pursuit.

Shared strategy and its limits

Anthony Cade later recounts how the investigators’ suspicions and staged disclosures fit together. Battle had doubted that the French colleague was genuine and wired to Paris for fingerprints and other means of identification. Meanwhile, the false Lemoine was eager to pass information about the diamond to an accomplice while keeping everyone else in the room. A note intended for Mademoiselle Brun was sent upstairs by Tredwell; the false Lemoine’s accusation that Anthony was King Victor created a diversion and delayed the group from leaving. The plan depended on exploiting mistaken identity while the investigators worked to establish who was genuine.

The episode clarifies both the strength and the cost of Battle and Lemoine’s collaboration. Their methods rely on controlled uncertainty: Lemoine allows suspicion to surround him, Battle withholds what he knows, and the false investigator attempts to use the same confusion for criminal ends. By checking Lemoine’s identity through information from Paris and by interpreting Fish’s role correctly, Battle and his colleague distinguish their concealed investigation from the impostures designed to obstruct it. Their partnership therefore serves as an organizing link among the political inquiry, the hunt for King Victor, and the effort to expose the false identities operating at Chimneys.