The Monster of Grammont

The Monster of Grammont by George Goodchild

The Monster of Grammont, by George Goodchild, is a mystery thriller set in post-World War One France, following two English friends who stumble into a web of terror and conspiracy centred on an ancient Norman château in the Forêt de Grammont. Ralph Wallace, a young, athletic engineer, and his older friend and guardian Julian Conrad are motoring through northern France on a leisurely holiday when they unexpectedly encounter Conrad's wartime acquaintance Monsieur Fallières, the wealthy owner of the magnificent Château Grammont, and his daughter Yolande. They are invited to lunch and, through a combination of car sabotage by the resourceful Yolande and genuine hospitality, end up staying as guests. Yolande confides to Wallace that the château is haunted by a terrifying entity, a vast, monk-robed figure with cruel eyes and talon-like hands, which periodically emerges to smash mirrors, befoul the furnishings, and emit inhuman noises. She herself has seen it, and the aged butler Severin has encountered it in broad daylight. That same night Fallières disappears from his locked room after firing his pistol. His bed is bloodstained. The room appears to have been entered and exited via thick ivy climbing the château's buttressed outer walls. A search reveals Fallières's body hidden in a large wine barrel in the vaults, his throat cut with a razor. The celebrated Paris detective Arnaud Fouchard is summoned, though the man who initially arrives claiming to be Fouchard is an impostor, a small, wiry man named Niels, who uses the masquerade to gather intelligence before slipping away. The real Fouchard arrives later, having been ambushed and left unconscious by the same man. It emerges that a separate conspiracy, distinct from the Monster, is operating within the château. A German-speaking woman named Bertha, employed as a parlourmaid, is in league with Niels and associates named Heinrich and Walther. They appear to be seeking something of enormous value hidden within the château's structure, their activities guided by a cryptic note bearing three numbers and the word Steinbech. Fouchard retrieves the note but cannot decipher it. Heinrich is captured in the cellars but escapes from police custody. The loyal Severin is subsequently found murdered in the vaults, his throat also cut, deepening the horror. Fouchard detects further conspirators through a pigeon-based messaging system Bertha uses to communicate with Niels's hidden group. Wallace, increasingly in love with Yolande, grows frustrated by his inability to act decisively. The Monster continues its intermittent eruptions, smashing a newly installed mirror and nearly killing Fouchard with the same style of razor used in both murders. Fouchard bites the Monster's wrist during a struggle in darkness, marking the creature indelibly, but fails to detain it. Niels lures Wallace and Conrad into a car chase and captures them both, using chloroform, then hands them to the crew of a private yacht with orders to deliver them to England, removing them from the scene. Wallace escapes by swimming ashore at night near Dieppe, steals Niels's own high-powered car from a hotel where their paths cross, and races back to the château. His return catches Bertha unprepared, and Fouchard moves to exploit the advantage by watching her communications. Shortly afterward, Bertha is found bound to a chair in her room with a sponge gagging her, evidently attacked by the Monster, suggesting she or her associates have crossed or endangered the creature in some way. Throughout the novel the central question remains unresolved: what is concealed within the Château Grammont that drives both the murderous Monster and the determined German conspirators to such lengths, and what is the true nature of the Monster himself, whether human or something more terrible. The story weaves romantic tension between Wallace and the courageous Yolande with escalating violence, cryptographic puzzles, and the oppressive atmosphere of an ancient fortress that seems to harbour secrets reaching back centuries.

By George Goodchild · First published 1932 · Genre: Mystery, Crime Fiction, Thriller · 31 chapters · 84,680 words

First lines

The bronzed, healthy-looking driver of the Bentley car put his foot harder on the accelerator pedal, and averted his head to hear the crackle of the exhaust as the sleek automobile sped along the undulating tree-lined Route Nationale. For the past three hours that white, arrow-like road had held his eyes, and he was "killing" it as fast as safety would permit, for main routes at the best were inclined to be monotonous.

While the speedometer needle wavered between the sixties and seventies his travelling companion was endeavouring to find their exact position on a large-scale French road map, a feat of considerable difficulty for which the execrable road surface was largely responsible.

Genres

Tags

mystery fiction · crime fiction · detective story · thriller · adventure fiction · sensation novel · suspense · investigation · murder mystery · criminal pursuit · secretive villain · danger

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The Monster of Grammont is listed on Textopian as a novel by George Goodchild, dated 1932 CE.

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