Frank Heine

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia
(Redirected from Albert Frank Heine)
Frank Heine
Press photo, Agence Roll, 1929

Frank Heine, also referred to in the contemporary press as Albert-Frank Heine, was a Belgian adventurer, swindler and forger active in the 1920s. He became notorious in 1929 through the Utrecht documents affair, a political scandal involving forged documents presented as a secret Franco-Belgian military treaty. The same year, he was involved in a plagiarism case concerning a fake Sherlock Holmes story attributed to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.


The Utrecht documents affair

In March 1929, Frank Heine was widely reported in the European press as the man behind the forged "secret treaty" which had recently caused a diplomatic stir. The documents purported to reveal a secret Franco-Belgian military agreement, but were soon exposed as false. A French report in Le Petit Journal described him under the headline: "Frank Heine, après ses aveux, est écroué à Bruxelles" (Frank Heine, after his confession, is imprisoned in Brussels) and gave a detailed account of his criminal background, and described him as an adventurer with a long record of convictions, expulsions and questionable activities.

According to this press account, Heine had served in the German navy before 1914, deserted, gone to Buenos Aires, and later appeared in London in 1915, where he was allegedly sentenced to six months in prison for stealing a passport. The article further claimed that he was expelled from England, served for a time in the Belgian army, was later arrested in Paris, escaped from detention, was again arrested in England, and received several later convictions in France and Belgium for offences including theft, fraud, illegal wearing of decorations, breach of expulsion orders and vagrancy.


The Conan Doyle plagiarism affair

Frank Heine's connection with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle arose from a plagiarism case judged in Antwerp in March 1929.

Several newspapers reported that Heine had published in an Antwerp newspaper (Neptune) a story based on, or imitating, one of Conan Doyle's works. Conan Doyle filed a complaint, and the Antwerp criminal court ordered Heine and the newspaper to pay damages.

The Dutch newspaper Goessche Courant reported on 13 March 1929 that the Antwerp criminal court had condemned Frank Heine, together with the newspaper Neptune, to pay a joint indemnity of 1,000 francs.

Other contemporary reports describe the work differently. Some call it a novel, others a serial story, a story, or a pastiche. A French clipping described it as "un conte imité de Conan Doyle" and said that it had been signed "Canon Doyle", a punning deformation of Conan Doyle's name. The report suggested that Conan Doyle might have tolerated the pastiche itself, but objected strongly to the misleading signature.

An English report gave the damages as 1,000 francs, about £5 sterling, confirming that the amount was modest. Another report incorrectly gave the sum as £30, probably through a conversion or transmission error.

"The Crime of the Luxor Palace"

The title under which the fake story was published has been identified from American newspapers from 14 to 17 april 1929, in an article by William Ivy (example The Jest of a Spy in The Atlanta Journal). The column stated that bibliophiles were searching for copies of the newspaper which had printed the fake Sherlock Holmes story: "The Crime of the Luxor Palace" (which in the newspaper Neptune would have been "Le Crime du Luxor Palace" or "Le Crime du Louxor Palace"). The American article added that Frank Heine had signed the story with 'Sir A. Conan Doyle's name'. This may refer to the same fact reported elsewhere as a signature resembling "Canon Doyle", or it may be a simplified account of the false attribution.

Neptune was an Antwerp maritime, commercial and industrial newspaper. It was therefore not a literary periodical but a trade newspaper connected with shipping, commerce, industry and the port of Antwerp. The exact issue of Neptune containing "The Crime of the Luxor Palace" has not yet been dated, but as the Heine trial was in March 1929, the fake story was probably from 1928.

Unresolved points

Several questions remain open:

  • the exact issue date of Neptune in which “The Crime of the Luxor Palace” appeared;
  • whether the byline was printed as "Canon Doyle", "A. Conan Doyle", or another misleading variant;
  • which genuine Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes story, if any, was directly imitated or plagiarized;
  • whether the text was a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, a direct plagiarism, or a mixture of both.


Sources





Retrieved from "https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=Frank_Heine&oldid=139059"