King Victor

King Victor is a notorious jewel thief whose command of disguise allows him to cross between criminal legend and political identity. Known in Paris as Captain O’Neill and, in an American fraud, as Prince Nicholas Obolovitch, he is Queen Varaga’s former lover and accomplice. The prospect of his release from a seven-year sentence sets suspicion moving well before he appears directly; when he finally surfaces, the novel turns his talent for impersonation into part of a larger contest over who is real and who is playing a role.

Identity and Reputation

King Victor’s name is a criminal nickname, not a disclosed birth name. In Paris, he became notorious as a daring jewel thief and the leader of a gang headquartered there. The authorities imprisoned him for seven years on a lesser charge because they could not prove the more serious crimes attributed to him. Anthony Cade believes he may soon be free, or may already have been released, and wonders whether King Victor’s gang had attacked Count Stylptitch in revenge. He cannot establish that connection, but places the possibility beside the Count’s death, the threatened memoirs, and reports of newly discovered oil in Herzoslovakia: clues that suggest powerful interests may soon converge on the country.

The reputation reaches the English investigation through more than one channel. Superintendent Battle has received a warning from the Sûreté in Paris that King Victor may be in England. When Anthony discusses the criminal, he describes him as a jewel thief who is exceptionally bold and difficult to deter. Battle gives the more operational assessment: King Victor is, in his experience, the one man with a positive genius for impersonation. The contrast matters. To the public and the police he is a notorious offender; to anyone trying to identify him, he is a problem of recognition itself.

The Paris Past and Queen Varaga

M. Lemoine’s account gives King Victor a past that joins criminal enterprise to dynastic politics. Nearly eight years earlier, he was carrying out robberies in Paris under the name Captain O’Neill. The Sûreté suspected that O’Neill was King Victor, but lacked proof. They also suspected that Angèle Mory, a young actress at the Folies Bergères, was involved in his operations, though they could not establish that either.

According to Lemoine, Angèle Mory was more ambitious than her criminal associates understood. She captivated King Victor, who fell deeply in love with her and showered her with jewels. She then sought not merely the position of a king’s mistress but that of a queen. Presented in Herzoslovakia as Countess Varaga Popoleffsky, supposedly a distant Romanov relation, she became Queen Varaga. King Victor’s wealth and influence thus helped make possible a transformation from Parisian actress and suspected accomplice to royal consort.

Lemoine believes the partnership endured after Varaga’s rise. From the Herzoslovakian court she continued to correspond with King Victor in a secret code. The letters were written in English and signed with the name of an Englishwoman serving at the Embassy: Virginia Revel. Because their contents read as the intimate correspondence of a guilty woman to her lover, the forged signature offered both concealment and a way to implicate someone else. Virginia already knows that her name appeared on the letters; Lemoine’s explanation identifies the hidden author and discloses the connection between the queen and the criminal.

The political setting makes that private conspiracy dangerous. The Comrades of the Red Hand regarded Varaga’s royal position as betrayal and twice attempted to kill her. A revolution followed, and the king and queen were believed to have perished among bodies so mutilated that they were hardly recognizable. Lemoine presents Varaga’s survival and correspondence with King Victor as part of an unresolved history rather than an isolated love affair: the old criminal connection reaches into a royal court, a revolution, and the evidence now being examined in England.

Impersonation and Suspicion

The possibility that King Victor is in England changes how the investigators interpret events. Battle raises the warning during a discussion of Prince Michael’s affairs, and George Lomax recognizes the name as that of a jewel thief. Lomax nearly connects the warning to a further point but breaks off; Battle’s glance makes clear that the subject is sensitive. The name already carries information that cannot yet be spoken freely, and its appearance turns an ordinary inquiry into a contest over what the assembled men know and what they are willing to disclose.

Battle later tests Anthony’s response by asking whether he has heard of the criminal. He explains that disguises can defeat recognition, particularly when a woman changes her hair, complexion, eye colouring, and clothes, but argues that very few men can evade identification so completely. For King Victor, disguise is not a casual accessory but a distinctive capacity. Anthony checks the answer that first rises to his lips and replies cautiously that the name seems familiar. The exchange makes suspicion reciprocal: Battle is assessing Anthony, while Anthony understands that the question may itself be a probe.

The allegation becomes explicit when Anthony is accused of being King Victor. He laughs at the charge and teases M. Lemoine for seeing the famous criminal everywhere. Lemoine says that he has requested King Victor’s fingerprints and Bertillon measurements from France, intending to compare them with Anthony’s. The prospect of physical identification appears to offer a firm answer after so much reliance on appearance, aliases, and inference. Anthony observes that the French detective will want him to provide fingerprints and measurements, then points out that Lemoine cannot know what it feels like to be King Victor unless he is King Victor himself.

Anthony also turns the criminal’s record against the accusation. If he were King Victor, he argues, the old Paris crimes could not now be proved, and he has already served the seven-year sentence imposed on a lesser charge. Lemoine counters with the American fraud: someone posing as Prince Nicholas Obolovitch had obtained money under false pretences. Anthony says he was nowhere near America and claims that he can prove it. The dispute hinges on a distinction the impersonator’s history has made crucial: if King Victor impersonated Prince Nicholas, the false claimant was not the genuine man. But establishing that distinction does not by itself identify who was responsible for the fraud.

Capture and Narrative Role

The accusation against Anthony collapses when the real M. Lemoine arrives. The Frenchman whom the household has been treating as the detective is exposed as an impostor. Hiram Fish, stationed at the window to prevent an escape, covers him with a gun and declares that he has caught him. Anthony later explains that he went to Dover and that Fish followed, believing Anthony to be King Victor. There they found a mysterious stranger imprisoned; once they heard his story, they recognized the familiar pattern of a real person kidnapped while an impostor took his place. In this instance, the false Lemoine was King Victor himself.

The false detective’s use of identity is calculated rather than ornamental. Battle had suspected that his French colleague was not what he claimed to be and had wired to Paris for fingerprints and other identifying information. King Victor, meanwhile, used the detective’s authority to keep the household gathered in one room and to divert attention from the missing jewel. He accused Anthony of being King Victor, creating a distraction while he tried to pass information to an accomplice. The supposed identification test thus becomes part of the imposture: the man invoking official measurements is himself wearing another man’s identity.

King Victor’s narrative importance lies in this recursive uncertainty. His aliases connect Parisian robberies, the fraud committed in America under Prince Nicholas Obolovitch’s name, and the false French detective encountered in England. His past with Varaga explains why forged letters and political scandal can travel along the same channels as criminal schemes. Yet his gift for disguise is not invulnerability: the investigators’ attention to fingerprints, measurements, correspondence, and the missing prisoner eventually pierces the performance. The criminal whose name has encouraged suspicion of others is finally caught through the very impersonation that made him difficult to find.