Opening Passage:
Mr. Kesselbach stopped short on the threshold of the sitting-room, took his secretary's arm and, in an anxious voice, whispered:
"Chapman, someone has been here again." (p. 1)
Summary: Arsene Lupin, the greatest thief in France and perhaps the world, does not kill -- clever in a thousand ways, he does not need to do so in order to steal. But when he robs the diamond magnate Rudolf Kesselbach, Kesselbach turns up dead, with all the evidence pointing to Lupin. This sends Lupin on a hunt to uncover who has framed him, but he soon finds himself in a fight for his life as his opponent turns out to be an extraordinarily clever serial killer who has an uncanny knack for being a step ahead. At the same time, Lupin strives to maintain his current plan -- to steal much of Europe -- and prevent it from collapsing into ruin due to the machinations of his unknown and unusually dangerous foe, and to save Dolores Kesselbach, the wife of the late Rudolf Kesselbach, from sharing the same fate as her husband. Unfortunately for him, even Lupin cannot successful juggle all three aims at once. Something will give.
This was an extraordinarily good story. It was not as fun as Arsene Lupin vs. Herlock Sholmes; this is deliberately darker. It was at least as well plotted as the prior book, The Hollow Needle. In the earlier works of the series, we have seen Lupin being a mischievous joker; in The Hollow Needle, we saw him both ruthless and harried. But here, for the first time, we find Lupin anxious and afraid. More people than Mr. Kesselbach will be dead by the end of it, and Lupin eventually finds himself in a situation in which, for the first time, he kills someone. Lupin himself, in fact, has more than one 'death' in this book. Many of the characters -- the cunning chief of detectives, Lenormand, or the scheming Prince Sernine, are quite interesting in their own right, and add new dimensions to our understanding of Lupin, who comes across as more of a person-in-the-round here. This story was intended to end Lupin; Leblanc is perhaps less abrupt about it than Doyle was with Holmes, but there is an air of finality and fatality hovering around everything in the tale. Of course, we know that Lupin will return, because the reading public would no more let him die than it had let Holmes die, but as an attempt to bring his story to an end, this is a very solid one.
Favorite Passage:
He lit the young man's cigarette and his own and, at once, in a few words uttered in a hard voice, explained himself:
"You, the late Gérard Baupré, were weary of life, ill, penniless, hopeless....Would you like to be well, rich, and powerful?"
"I don't follow you."
"It is quite simple. Accident has placed you on my path. You are young, good-looking, a poet; you are intelligent and -- your act of despair shows it -- you have a fine sense of conduct. These are qualities which are rarely found united in one person. I value them...and I take them for my account."
"They are not for sale."
"Idiot! Who talks of buying or selling? Keep your conscience. It is too precious a jewel for me to relieve you of it."
"Then what do you ask of me?"
"Your life!" (p. 100)
Recommendation: Highly Recommended.
*****
Maurice Leblanc, 813, Fox Eye Publishing (Leicester, UK: 2022).
