There is a considerable social element in many of Level’s tales—an element that similarly links them to the Grand Guignol’s concern for naturalism, a literary movement that emphasized the plight of the outcast and impoverished and sought to display the harshness and injustice of a social fabric built upon radical inequities in wealth and social position. Many of Level’s stories feature beggars or other characters on the margins of society who plunge into crime to exact vengeance upon a society that has left them no other means of combating economic inequality. “The Beggar” is prototypical in this regard: a beggar tries in vain to bring help to a man who is being crushed by an overturned cart, but he is driven away by the man’s family because they believe he is only looking for a handout. In the end, the beggar can only express a certain wry satisfaction that the man’s own family effectively caused his death.
In tales written during and after World War I, Level cleverly adapted his blood-and-thunder style to grim and poignant narratives involving the war. His surprise endings, featuring sudden twists and unexpected dénouements, work well when applied to war scenarios. The deep resentment by the humiliated French at German occupation and brutality is searingly displayed in several tales. It would be interesting to know if any of these were adapted for the Grand Guignol.
Maurice Level remained a figure of note even after his early death. His play Le Baiser dans la nuit was performed as late as 1938 at the Grand Guignol Theatre and was even adapted (loosely and without credit) as an EC comic. But beyond the three volumes already mentioned, none of his work appeared in English in book form subsequent to 1923, and only a few scattered tales appeared in English-language magazines in the later 1920s and 1930s. (Three of them appeared in the celebrated American pulp magazine Weird Tales.) But among devotees of psychological suspense and the macabre, Level’s work has always retained a shadowy interest, and he has refused to fade away. The present volume, which contains virtually every short story by Level that has been translated into English, should confirm that that interest is well deserved. Few authors have displayed greater psychological acuity, greater craftsmanship in the manufacture of short stories, and a more unflinching gaze at the grotesque crimes that human passions are capable of engendering; and few have exhibited those crimes and those passions with loftier artistry.
This volume reprints, with a single exception, all the short stories by Level that have been translated into English. The first twenty-six stories are taken from Crises (1920). The next six stories are taken from Tales of Wartime France, translated by William L. McPherson (1918). The last seven stories are uncollected tales appearing in magazines. They are: “The Appalling Gift” (Living Age, 24 March 1923); “Night and Silence” (Weird Tales, February 1932); “The Cripple” (Weird Tales, February 1933); “The Look” (Weird Tales, March 1933); “The Horror on the Night Express” (Mystery Magazine, February 1934); “Thirty Hours with a Corpse” (Mystery Magazine, September 1934); and “She Thought of Everything” (Mystery Magazine, May 1935). No translators were given for any of these stories.
The one story by Level that has not been included here is “The Old Maids,” published in Jacqueline and Four Other Stories from the French [no translator indicated] (1925). It is a fine tale (a translation of “Vieilles Filles”), but so obviously a mainstream story that its inclusion could not be justified here.
Where practicable, the translations have been revised by consultation with the original French texts.
The Debt Collector
RAVENOT, DEBT collector to the same bank for ten years, was a model employee. Never had there been the least cause to find fault with him. Never had the slightest error been detected in his books.
Living alone, carefully avoiding new acquaintances, keeping out of cafés and without love-affairs, he seemed happy, quite content with his lot. If it were sometimes said in his hearing: “It must be a temptation to handle such large sums!” he would quietly reply: “Why? Money that doesn’t belong to you is not money.”
In the locality in which he lived he was looked upon as a paragon, his advice sought after and taken.
On the evening of one collecting day he did not return to his home. The idea of dishonesty never even suggested itself to those who knew him. Possibly a crime had been committed. The police traced his movements during the day. He had presented his bills punctually, and had collected his last sum near the Montrouge Gate about seven o’clock. At the time he had over two hundred thousand francs in his possession. Further than that all trace of him was lost. They scoured the neighborhood and waste ground that lies near the fortifications; the hovels that are found here and there in the military zone were ransacked: all with no result. As a matter of form they telegraphed in every direction, to every frontier station. But the directors of the bank, as well as the police, had little doubt that someone had lain in wait for him, robbed him, and thrown him into the river. Basing their deductions on certain clues, they were able to state almost positively that the coup had been planned for some time by professional thieves.
Only one man in Paris shrugged his shoulders when he read about it in the papers; that man was Ravenot.
Just at the time when the keenest sleuth-hounds of the police were losing his scent, he had reached the Seine by the Boulevards Exterieurs. He had dressed himself under the arch of a bridge in some everyday clothes he had left there the night before, had put the two hundred thousand francs in his pocket, and making a bundle of his uniform and satchel, he had dropped the whole, weighted with a large stone, into the river and, unperturbed, had returned to Paris. He slept at a hotel, and slept well. In a few hours he had become a consummate thief.
Profiting by his start, he might have taken a train across the frontier, but he was too wise to suppose that a few hundred kilometers would put him beyond the reach of the gendarmes, and he had no illusions as to the fate that awaited him. He would most assuredly be arrested. Besides, his plan was a very different one.
When daylight came, he enclosed the two hundred thousand francs in an envelope, sealed it with five seals, and went to a lawyer.
“Monsieur,” said he, “this is why I have come to you. In this envelope I have some securities, papers that I want to leave in safety. I am going for a long journey, and I don’t know when I shall return. I should like to leave this packet with you. I suppose you have no objection to my doing so?”
“None whatever. I’ll give you a receipt…”
He assented, then began to think. A receipt? Where could he put it? To whom entrust it? If he kept it on his person, he would certainly lose his deposit. He hesitated, not having foreseen this complication. Then he said easily: