BEING A RECORD OF THE DUEL OF WITS BETWEEN ARSÈNE LUPIN AND THE ENGLISH DETECTIVE BY MAURICE LEBLANC TRANSLATED BY ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS Illustrated by H. Richard Boehm Frontis Image New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1910 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY MAURICE LEBLANC COPYRIGHT, 1909, 1910, BY THE SHORT STORIES COMPANY, LTD. COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY MAURICE LEBLANC PUBLISHED, JUNE, 1910 This boo

On the 8th of December last, M. Gerbois, professor of mathematics at Versailles College, rummaging among the stores at a second-hand dealer's, discovered a small mahogany writing-desk, which took his fancy because of its many drawers. "That's just what I want for Suzanne's birthday," he thought. M. Gerbois' means were limited and, anxious as he was to please his daughter, he felt it his duty to beat the dealer down. He ended by paying sixty-five francs. As he was writing down his address, a well

In the evening of the twenty-seventh of March, old General Baron d'Hautrec, who had been French Ambassador in Berlin under the Second Empire, was sleeping comfortably in an easy-chair in the house which his brother had left him six months before, at 134, Avenue Henri-Martin. His lady companion continued to read aloud to him, while Sœur Auguste warmed the bed and prepared the night-light. As an exceptional case, the sister was returning to her convent that evening, to spend the night with the Mot

"What can I get you, gentlemen?" "Anything you please," replied Arsène Lupin, in the voice of a man who takes no interest in his food. "Anything you please, but no meat or wine." The waiter walked away, with a scornful air. I exclaimed: "Do you mean to say that you are still a vegetarian?" "Yes, more than ever," said Lupin. "From taste? Conviction? Habit?" "For reasons of health." "And do you never break your rule?" "Oh, yes ... when I go out to dinner, so as not to appear eccentric." We were di

However impervious to outside influences a man's character may be—and Shears is one of those men upon whom ill-luck takes hardly any hold—there are yet circumstances in which the most undaunted feel the need to collect their forces before again facing the chances of a battle. "I shall take a holiday to-day," said Shears. "And I?" "You, Wilson, must go and buy clothes and shirts and things to replenish our wardrobe. During that time, I shall rest." "Yes, rest, Shears. I shall watch." Wilson utter

Holmlock Shears restrained his feelings. What was the use of protesting, of accusing those two men? Short of proofs, which he did not possess and which he would not waste time in looking for, no one would take his word. With nerves on edge and fists tight-clenched, he had but one thought, that of not betraying his rage and disappointment before the triumphant Ganimard. He bowed politely to those two mainstays of society, the brothers Leroux, and went downstairs. In the hall he turned toward a sm

By eight o'clock on Wednesday morning, a dozen pantechnicon vans were blocking the Rue Crevaux from the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne to the Avenue Bougeaud. M. Félix Davey was leaving the flat which he occupied on the fourth floor of No. 8. And, by a sheer coincidence—for the two gentlemen were not acquainted—M. Dubreuil, the expert, who had knocked into one the fifth-floor flat of No. 8 and the fifth-floor flats of the two adjoining houses, had selected the same day on which to send off the colle

Holmlock Shears and Wilson were seated on either side of the fireplace in Shears's sitting-room. The great detective's pipe had gone out. He knocked the ashes into the grate, re-filled his briar, lit it, gathered the skirts of his dressing-gown around his knees, puffed away and devoted all his attention to sending rings of smoke curling gracefully up to the ceiling. Wilson watched him. He watched him as a dog, rolled up on the hearth-rug, watches its master, with wide-open eyes and unblinking li

"You see, old chap," said Holmlock Shears to Wilson, waving Arsène Lupin's letter in his hand, "the worst of this business is that I feel the confounded fellow's eye constantly fixed upon me. Not one of my most secret thoughts escape him. I am behaving like an actor, whose steps are ruled by the strictest stage-directions, who moves here or there and says this or that because a superior will has so determined it. Do you understand, Wilson?" Wilson would no doubt have understood had he not been s