Memoirs of Arsène Lupin

Chapter 2: PREFACE

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About This Book

A young man at twenty narrates the early episodes that establish him as a cunning and audacious figure: secret keys and hidden letters expose a plot of abduction and a clandestine tribunal aimed at silencing an enigmatic woman tied to an ancestral conspiracy. He moves through jealous rivals, nocturnal entries, and clashes with persistent detectives while unraveling puzzles involving a mutilated hand, a seven-branched candlestick, a ruined estate, and an isolated lighthouse. The narrative alternates tense set pieces of pursuit and theft with reflections on genius and madness, building to a personal confrontation that mixes passion, revenge, and long-buried family revelations.

PREFACE

This is the story of the first adventure of Arsène Lupin, and undoubtedly it would have been published before the stories of the others if he had not so often and so resolutely opposed it.

“No,” he would say, “there are one or two little matters yet to be settled between the Countess of Cagliostro and me. We must wait.”

The waiting lasted longer than he foresaw. More than a quarter of a century passed before the final settlement; and only to-day am I permitted to relate the frightful duel of love and hate which brought a boy of twenty to grips with Cagliostro’s daughter.