King Victor's impersonation of M. Lemoine and capture

King Victor’s impersonation of M. Lemoine and capture is the decisive reversal at Chimneys: the supposed French investigator is revealed as an impostor, the real M. Lemoine appears, and Hiram Fish stops King Victor from escaping. The scene turns on a staged misidentification. King Victor has used the authority of a detective’s identity to divert suspicion and keep the others occupied; Anthony Cade turns that performance against him, exposing it just as the impostor is poised to flee.

The Impostor’s Diversion

Earlier in the evening, Anthony had given a false tip about the jewel and its supposed location, then watched the man posing as M. Lemoine seize on the news. As Anthony later explained, the impostor wanted to pass the information to an accomplice while keeping everyone else in the room. His accusation that Anthony was King Victor supplied a diversion, preventing anyone from leaving while the message was carried upstairs to Mademoiselle Brun. By the time the party went to the library to search for the stone, the false detective expected it to have been removed.

The deception depended on more than a borrowed name. The impostor invoked fingerprints and Bertillon measurements as part of his apparent detective authority, while the genuine investigation had already raised doubts about the supposed French colleague. Superintendent Battle had wired to Paris for fingerprints and other means of identification. The language of verification thus belonged to both sides of the trick: it helped the false Lemoine perform credibility, but it also provided a route to establishing who he really was.

Recognition and Capture

The confrontation begins when Anthony hears footsteps in the hall. He has just invited the assembled company to guess the identity of the mysterious Monsieur X, and Herman Isaacstein concludes that Anthony has somehow obtained Prince Nicholas of Herzoslovakia. Anthony lets the expectation settle, then contradicts the room with a smile and moves quickly to the door. There, instead of the person the company anticipates, stands a bandaged man with a neat black beard, eyeglasses, and a foppish appearance: the genuine M. Lemoine of the Sûreté.

The revelation is immediately followed by physical action. A rush and scuffle breaks out, but King Victor does not get away: Fish, stationed at the window to prevent an escape, has him covered with a gun. Fish’s calm account makes clear that the watch was deliberate and sustained through the evening. The impostor’s disguise had allowed him to direct attention and movement inside the house; the real detective’s arrival and Fish’s armed post now close off both forms of control. Exposure changes the scene’s apparent balance of power into detention.

Anthony’s Explanation

Later that evening, Isaacstein asks Cade to explain what happened. Anthony says that he went to Dover and that Fish followed, believing Anthony himself to be King Victor. There they discovered a mysterious stranger being held prisoner. Hearing the prisoner’s story made the pattern clear to them: the real man had been kidnapped, while the false one—King Victor—had taken his place. The capture at Chimneys therefore completes a recognition that began away from the house, rather than arising from the room’s guesses alone.

Anthony also explains how the false Lemoine’s conduct fitted the impersonation. The impostor wanted his message delivered to Mademoiselle Brun and wanted the gathering kept in place until the jewel could be taken. The note was entrusted to Tredwell, who carried it upstairs to the schoolroom. By accusing Anthony of being King Victor, the impostor created the distraction he needed; his apparent investigative authority was a practical instrument for controlling the others, not merely a disguise.

Consequences and Significance

Anthony acknowledges that he deliberately played along with the supposed Lemoine’s strategy, partly because the idea was clever and partly because doing so puzzled the impostor. His false clue about the jewel helped expose the accomplice’s intended communication and gave the company a reason to move to the library, while the earlier delay created an opportunity for the authorities’ identification checks and Fish’s watch to matter. The plan was risky: George Lomax later rebukes Anthony, warning that a slight hitch could have cost the country one of its national possessions. The jewel’s recovery and the capture are therefore linked to a calculated deception whose success did not make it safe.

The scene echoes the impostor’s own method—substituting one identity for another—but reverses its outcome. King Victor had passed as a detective and used that assumed role to accuse Anthony and manage the room. Anthony answers with a staged revelation, and Fish’s presence turns recognition into capture. The arrival of the genuine M. Lemoine does more than correct a mistaken identity: it strips the false investigator of authority at the precise moment that authority is no longer enough to protect him.