The Confessions of Arsène Lupin

The Confessions of Arsène Lupin

Maurice Leblanc

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INTRODUCTION

IF MAURICE LEBLANC (1864–1941)
had done nothing except create Arsène Lupin—the rogue who has been wildly popular in France for more than a century—his place in the pantheon of French literature would still have been assured.

Born in Rouen, he was educated in France; Berlin, Germany; and Manchester, England, and studied law before becoming a hack writer and police reporter for French periodicals. His sister Georgette—a famous actress and singer—was the mistress of Maurice Maeterlinck, the noted dramatist, and it is possible that this relationship influenced Leblanc’s work; some critics claim that his plays are his most polished literary productions.

In 1906 Leblanc’s previously undistinguished career skyrocketed when he was asked to write a short story for a new journal and produced the first Lupin adventure. His subsequent success and worldwide fame culminated in his induction into the French Legion of Honor.

Reading his fiction today, one is generally impressed with the fast pace and diversified action, although it borders on burlesque, and the incredible situations and coincidences may be a little difficult to accept.

Unlike Fantômas, the other great criminal in French literature, Arsène Lupin is not violent or evil; his unlawful acts center on theft and clever cons rather than murder or anarchy.

A brilliant rogue, he pursues his career with carefree élan, mocking the law for the sheer joy of it rather than for purely personal gain. Young, handsome, brave, and quick-witted, he has a joie de vivre uniquely and recognizably French. His sense of humor and conceit make life difficult for the police, who attribute most of the major crimes in France to him and his gang of ruffians and urchins.

Like most French criminals and detectives, Lupin is a master of disguise. His skill is attested to by the fact that he once became Lenormand, chief of the Sûreté, and, for four years, conducted official investigations into his own activities. He employs numerous aliases, including Jim Barnett, Prince Renine, le Duc de Charmerace, Don Luis Perenna, and Ralph de Limezy; his myriad names, combined with his brilliant costumes, make it nearly impossible for the police to identify him (the reader of his exploits sometimes encounters a similar difficulty).

After a long criminal career of uninterrupted successes, Lupin begins to shift position and aids the police in their work—usually for his own purposes and without their knowledge. Toward the end of his career, he becomes a full-fledged detective, and although he is as successful in his endeavors as ever before, his heart does not seem to be in it.

The first book about him is
Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur
(1907; US title:
The Exploits of Arsène Lupin
, 1907; reissued as
The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar
, 1910; British title:
The Seven of Hearts
, 1908). One of the stories, “Holmlock Shears Arrives Too Late,” is a parody of Sherlock Holmes. The second book in the series, and the worst, is
Arsène Lupin contre Herlock Sholmes
(1908; British title:
The Fair-haired Lady
, 1909; reissued as
Arsène Lupin versus Holmlock Shears
, 1909; reissued again as
The Arrest of Arsène Lupin
, 1911; US title:
The Blonde Lady
, 1910; reissued as
Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes
, 1910). Other short story collections about Lupin are
The Confessions of Arsène Lupin
(1912),
The Eight Strokes of the Clock
(1922), and
Jim Barnett Intervenes
(1928; US title:
Arsène Lupin Intervenes
). Among the best of the novels are
813
(1910), in which Lupin, accused of murder, heads the police investigation to clear himself by finding the true killer, and
The Hollow Needle
(1910), in which Lupin is shot by a beautiful girl and falls in love with her, vowing to give up his life of crime. Among the other Lupin novels are
The Crystal Stopper
(1913),
The Teeth of the Tiger
(1914),
The Golden Triangle
(1917), and
The Memoirs of Arsène Lupin
(1925; British title:
The Candlesticks with Seven Branches
).

There are many early screen versions of Arsène Lupin’s basic conflicts with the Paris police, both in the United States, starting in 1917, and in Europe.
The Teeth of the Tiger
(Paramount, with David Powell) of 1919 is an old-dark-horse murder melodrama with sliding panels, secret passageways, and serial-like thrills. Wedgewood Nowell portrays Lupin in
813
(Robertson-Cole, 1920), in which Lupin impersonates a police officer to clear himself of a murder charge. There are several later European Lupins, notably French, in films even until the 1950s. The most important American Lupin films are given below.

Arsène Lupin.
MGM, 1932. John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Karen Morley, John Miljan. Directed by Jack Conway. Based on the play by Leblanc and Francis de Croisset. When the silk-hatted Lupin announces that he will steal a famous painting from the Louvre under the nose of the police, and does so, the chief of detectives uses a pretty lady crook to lure him into a trap.

Arsène Lupin Returns.
MGM, 1938. Melvyn Douglas, Warren William, Virginia Bruce, Monty Woolley, E. E. Clive. Directed by George Fitzmaurice. The signature of Arsène Lupin, long thought dead, is scrawled across a safe from which a necklace has been stolen; the real Lupin, innocent and now living as a country gentleman, is as perplexed as the police are.

Enter Arsène Lupin.
Universal, 1944. Charles Korvin, Ella Raines, J. Carrol Naish, Gale Sondergaard, Miles Mander. Directed by Ford Beebe. International thief Lupin, on a train from Istanbul to Paris, steals an emerald from a young heiress but returns it when he begins to suspect that the girl’s aunt and uncle plan to murder her.

I. TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND FRANCS REWARD! …

“Lupin,” I said, “tell me something about yourself.”

“Why, what would you have me tell you? Everybody knows my life!” replied Lupin, who lay drowsing on the sofa in my study.

“Nobody knows it!” I protested. “People know from your letters in the newspapers that you were mixed up in this case, that you started that case. But the part which you played in it all, the plain facts of the story, the upshot of the mystery: these are things of which they know nothing.”

“Pooh! A heap of uninteresting twaddle!”

“What! Your present of fifty thousand francs to Nicolas Dugrival’s wife! Do you call that uninteresting? And what about the way in which you solved the puzzle of the three pictures?”

Lupin laughed:

“Yes, that was a queer puzzle, certainly. I can suggest a title for you if you like: what do you say to
The Sign of the Shadow
?”

“And your successes in society and with the fair sex?” I continued. “The dashing Arsène’s love-affairs! … And the clue to your good actions? Those chapters in your life to which you have so often alluded under the names of
The Wedding-ring
,
Shadowed by
Death
, and so on! … Why delay these confidences and confessions, my dear Lupin? … Come, do what I ask you! …”

It was at the time when Lupin, though already famous, had not yet fought his biggest battles; the time that preceded the great adventures of
The Hollow Needle
and
813
. He had not yet dreamt of annexing the accumulated treasures of the French Royal House nor of changing the map of Europe under the Kaiser’s nose: he contented himself with milder surprises and humbler profits, making his daily effort, doing evil from day to day and doing a little good as well, naturally and for the love of the thing, like a whimsical and compassionate Don Quixote.

He was silent; and I insisted:

“Lupin, I wish you would!”

To my astonishment, he replied:

“Take a sheet of paper, old fellow, and a pencil.”

I obeyed with alacrity, delighted at the thought that he at last meant to dictate to me some of those pages which he knows how to clothe with such vigour and fancy, pages which I, unfortunately, am obliged to spoil with tedious explanations and boring developments.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Quite.”

“Write down, 20, 1, 11, 5, 14, 15.”

“What?”

“Write it down, I tell you.”

He was now sitting up, with his eyes turned to the open window and his fingers rolling a Turkish cigarette. He continued:

“Write down, 21, 14, 14, 5 …”

He stopped. Then he went on:

“3, 5, 19, 19 …”

And, after a pause:

“5, 18, 25 …”

Was he mad? I looked at him hard and, presently, I saw that his eyes were no longer listless, as they had been a little before, but keen and attentive and that they seemed to be watching, somewhere, in space, a sight that apparently captivated them.

Meanwhile, he dictated, with intervals between each number:

“18, 9, 19, 11, 19 …”

There was hardly anything to be seen through the window but a patch of blue sky on the right and the front of the building opposite, an old private house, whose shutters were closed as usual. There was nothing particular about all this, no detail that struck me as new among those which I had had before my eyes for years …

“1, 2 …”

And suddenly I understood … or rather I thought I understood, for how could I admit that Lupin, a man so essentially level-headed under his mask of frivolity, could waste his time upon such childish nonsense? What he was counting was the intermittent flashes of a ray of sunlight playing on the dingy front of the opposite house, at the height of the second floor!

“15, 22 …” said Lupin.

The flash disappeared for a few seconds and then struck the house again, successively, at regular intervals, and disappeared once more.

I had instinctively counted the flashes and I said, aloud:

“5 …”

“Caught the idea? I congratulate you!” he replied, sarcastically.

He went to the window and leant out, as though to discover the exact direction followed by the ray of light. Then he came and lay on the sofa again, saying:

“It’s your turn now. Count away!”

The fellow seemed so positive that I did as he told me. Besides, I could not help confessing that there was something rather curious about the ordered frequency of those gleams on the front of the house opposite, those appearances and disappearances, turn and turn about, like so many flash signals.

They obviously came from a house on our side of the street, for the sun was entering my windows slantwise. It was as though some one were alternately opening and shutting a casement, or, more likely, amusing himself by making sunlight flashes with a pocket-mirror.

“It’s a child having a game!” I cried, after a moment or two, feeling a little irritated by the trivial occupation that had been thrust upon me.

“Never mind, go on!”

And I counted away … And I put down rows of figures … And the sun continued to play in front of me, with mathematical precision.