Victor Huganay (Hugenay in Screaming Clock) - the art thief from France - takes part in two stories of the original series and two of the German books.

In The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot he is acting like a gentleman thief. In The Mystery of the Screaming Clock he is more threatening. In the Swedish edition he says that he is going to make Jupe silent if he screams. Later he offered Jupe to join him in a criminal career. He is still a gentleman, but the threat and the offer indicate that he has a more rough side. If Jupe had accepted the offer his life would have been spoiled.

Huganay made a long-awaited comeback in a German story called "Poltergeist" 1997, and 2002 he was back in a story called "Das Erbe des Meisterdiebs". In "Poltergeist" I think he is the same Huganay as in the "Stuttering Parrot" and "Screaming Clock". At the end of the book the Three Investigators met him in a Hotel room. They talked for a while, but then he fled through the window.

But in "Das Erbe des Meisterdiebs" he has changed. His acting against Jupe is not the acting of a gentleman. Huganay sends a beautiful girl to Jupe and he is falling in love with her. The purpose of this is to get Jupe to find some paintings and then get him to sell them and give the money to the girl, so that she can operate her eyes. But she is deceiving Jupe. If he finds the stolen paintings and get money for them, she is going to give the money to Huganay.

Why has Huganay changed? It could be the acting of a man full of envy and in his effort to win he uses more and more cruel methods. If that is the case it is not hard to explain why he did change. He has been conquerred by the boys three times before, and that must have been hard for him. That could explain the escalation in his methods. I think that is an interesting development of his character - a gentleman falling apart. But perhaps I am wrong. Probably he knows exactly what he is doing. He is only using the methods necessary to get Jupe on his side. Huganay managed to show Jupe that he has a weakness for something. That was very cruel for the moment, but perhaps a vital lesson for the future.