Chapter 3: I Wish I Was Kidding.

Ahead of widening her pool of potential victims, which forced her to switch how she delivered her poison pen letters and work out a way of keeping Tulle’s grapevine robust — Angele Laval made her most significant tactical change. After three-ish years of peppering the prefecture with anonymous notes which ultimately failed to secure her Mouray’s love or prevent his marriage to her rival Marie-Antoinette (and perhaps seeking a way to take credit for her work) — Angele started signing her malice filled missives. 

Obviously, she didn’t use her real name. 

An Example of Tiger’s Eye signature. It’s on the second page, one line above the ‘BRAVO’.

Instead, she assumed the pseudonym Tiger’s Eye. (Or Eye of the Tiger, depending on how you translate the French. I’m sticking with Tiger’s Eye as it’s how I first read it, and, more importantly, it doesn’t make me want to sing the 1980s anthem Eye of the Tiger by Survivor or make my mind’s eye play snippets of Rocky III every time I write the nom de plume.) At first blush, this change appears only mildly important compared to the others. However, as Angele descended deeper into her addiction, she needed to increase both the frequency and cruelty of her jaundice correspondence to feel the same rush — and this simple stylistic evolution of adding a signature inspired a genuinely evil idea.

First Pic: Auguste Gilbert

Second Pic: The line that sent Gilbert over the edge.

Late in December of 1921, Angele Laval sent at least two letters to the Bailiff of the Prefecture’s Council, Auguste Gilbert. At least one accused Gilbert’s wife of having an affair. Another purportedly written by Mrs. Gilbert, though obviously not really, confessed her secret identity to her husband.

Somehow the false confession managed to convince Auguste his wife was the notorious Tiger’s Eye. Horrified by this revelation and frantic to keep his wife’s name from being dragged through the mud: he either confessed to being Tiger’s Eye and committed suicide — or — he suffered a mental breakdown, which caused a stroke, which killed him a few days later. (I’m pretty sure he, unfortunately, committed suicide.) Although the accounts of Auguste Gilbert’s death are muddled they all agree Angele Laval’s letters led Gilbert to his grave. 

Transforming her from a slanderous semi-stalker type into a killer overnight. 

(Unlike the malefactor in The Moving Finger, who, from the outset of his campaign, had murder on his mind.) 

Gilbert’s death heralded two critical changes in the case. 

Firstly, between the sheer volume of victims, blood being spilled, and the rapidly approaching end to Henri Landru’s trial (swindler, murderer, and generally a nasty piece of work — who was executed by guillotine in February 1922), the French newspapers needed a new case to captivate their readers with….So French editors sent their reporters, en masse, to Tulle.

Followed, in short order, by the rest of the world.

With the spotlight firmly fixed on and feeding the ego of Tiger’s Eye, there was little hope that Auguste’s death would shock Angele into ceasing her caustic campaign. Indeed, she continued to single out individuals for similarly executed deceptions as those perpetrated against Auguste. Though no one else died, Angele’s pernicious notes did manage to usher one woman into a nervous breakdown and at least three more men into permanent insanity or mental derangement.

(Though my sources didn’t specifically say Auguste Gilbert and the others suffered from shell-shock (what we now call PTSD) from fighting in WWI, they did say the affected men: “…were subject to terrible mental strain during the war and were in a condition which made them susceptible to mental injury.” (Washington Times April 23, 1922) Thereby graduating Angele’s campaign from the category of contemptible into the realm of the truly despicable.) 

Secondly, prompted by the death of one of their own and the humiliation caused by a list Tiger’s Eye nailed to the municipal theater (where Angele linked seven high-profile married men or their wives — with the names of their extramarital lovers), Tulle’s top officials finally abandoned their laissez-faire attitude towards the deluge of poison pen letters plaguing the city. 

The first order of business? Calling a top-secret meeting, of course! Assembling behind shuttered windows and locked doors, said officials made two critical decisions: A) The Police Prefect would send a plea to Paris for help. Since no one wanted to inadvertently put Tiger’s Eyes in charge of finding themselves. B) The Postmaster would start fingerprinting all known correspondence from Tiger’s Eyes.

These clandestine resolutions prodded Angele into her first major mistake.

Perhaps feeling bulletproof in her anonymity or, in the throws of her addiction, needed to impress the press with her reach. Angele couldn’t resist leaving two taunting letters for the aforementioned officials — less than 24 hours after their classified confab. The former was told his decision to send for outside help was futile, and the latter was informed that Tiger’s Eyes always wore rubber gloves when composing their pernicious missives. (A claim they tested and found truthful.)

However, this reckless revelation did more to help than hinder the incoming investigator, Magistrate Francois Richard. By showing off her inside knowledge, Angele narrowed the pool of suspects from all of Tulle to one of the members of the secret meeting or their closest relations.

A mistake she unintentionally compounded by inadvertently eliminating their prime suspect.

Unwilling, and undoubtedly unable, to cease her cruel campaign Angele continued planting her noxious notes around town — whilst Marie-Antoinette lay in hospital for seven to ten days after giving birth. Undoubtedly abreast of this event, Angele might have successfully shifted all the blame onto Marie-Antoinette had she been able to stop herself. As it was, Angele’s need to feed her addiction handed Marie-Antoinette a nearly cast-iron alibi. Seems all the doctors, nurses, and other patients, aware of her unearned reputation, kept a weather eye on the purported poison pen. Upon learning this Magistrate Richard concluded it was highly improbable Marie-Antoinette could’ve traipsed all over Tulle without someone noticing her suspiciously empty bed. 

With the elimination of Tulle’s prime suspect, Magistrate Richard called Mouray to his office. Again accounts vary on what happened during this meeting — either way the end result is the same — Mouray pointed the finger at his former subordinate. Above thirty, a respectable spinster who still lived with her mother, Angele fit the conventional image of a poison pen far better than Marie-Antoinette ever did. With Angele firmly in his sights, Magistrate Richard’s set out to secure the evidence needed to prove Angele Laval and Tiger’s Eyes were one and the same. 

Magistrate Francois Richard

Though instead of using tried and true methods to secure said proof, Magistrate Richard employed a sorcerer, a hypnotist, and a medium. 

The sorcerer produced a pendulum which he claimed could locate hidden wells, mineral veins, buried treasure, and detect when people lied. How? When held said pendulum above a person’s head during questioning, a luminous spot would appear on their temple if they told a falsehood. The only fly in the ointment? He’d only perform the test if representatives from the French Institute were present and the French government bought the pendulum for 20,000 francs. Needless to say, he left empty-handed.

Next, the hypnotist, several reporters, three suspects (one of whom sounds a lot like Marie-Antoinette), and Magistrate Richard sequestered themselves within Richard’s office, pulled the curtains, locked the doors, and posted guards outside. Once they felt safe from Tiger’s Eye’s prying orbs, the hypnotist put the first woman to sleep…..and learned nothing as the woman never uttered a single word. The second woman proved immune to the hypnotist’s influence. The last woman fell easily into a trance, however, she started screaming the building down after the first question. Which, unsurprisingly, brought people sprinting into the office, thereby ending that avenue of inquiry.

Lastly, Magistrate Richard brought in a famous medium from Paris. Who, after entering a deep trance, eventually revealed that the letters were written by the sister of an officer in the prefecture.

Proof at last?

Magistrate Richard thought so…Until the papers, who’d not been sworn to secrecy, publicized the methods Magistrate Richard was employing to suss out the notorious Tiger’s Eyes.

The French Minister of Justice was not best pleased.

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