Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 196

# Museum Catalog Note

La Marmoset, The Detective Queen; or, The Lost Heir of Morel is a serialized detective narrative by Albert W. Aiken, appearing in this 1882 Beadle's publication. The story opens in Paris at a disreputable tavern frequented by communist workmen, where a disguised visitor recognizes innkeeper Jean Facade—an ex-galley-slave—and proposes a criminal scheme. The visitor, a former convict known as the "Prince of Assassins," is offered substantial compensation to impersonate the lost heir of Count Morel, who died in Florida decades earlier. The narrative simultaneously introduces competing romantic rivals in Paris: the wealthy Russian Prince Vladimir Peterovski and an American artist-poet, Franklin Dunbar, both courting the young Countess Marie Antoinette Morel. The prince attempts to secure intelligence through bribery of the countess's maid. The plot interweaves criminal conspiracy with romantic intrigue across Atlantic and temporal divides.