Three days later appeared a paragraph in the Morning Post to say that the marriage between Baron Adelbert Gruner and Miss Violet de Merville would not take place. The same paper had the first police-court hearing of the proceedings against Miss Kitty Winter on the grave charge of vitriol-throwing. Such extenuating circumstances came out in the trial that the sentence, as will be remembered was the lowest that was possible for such an offence. Sherlock Holmes was threatened with a prosecution for burglary, but when an object is good and a client is sufficiently illustrious, even the rigid British law becomes human and elastic. My friend has not yet stood in the dock.

The ideas of my friend Watson, though limited, are exceedingly pertinacious. For a long time he has worried me to write an experience of my own. Perhaps I have rather invited this persecution, since I have often had occasion to point out to him how superficial are his own accounts and to accuse him of pandering to popular taste instead of confining himself rigidly to facts and figures. “Try it yourself, Holmes!” he has retorted, and I am compelled to admit that, having taken my pen in my hand, I do begin to realize that the matter must be presented in such a way as may interest the reader. The following case can hardly fail to do so, as it is among the strangest happenings in my collection though it chanced that Watson had no note note of it in his collection. Speaking of my old friend and biographer, I would take this opportunity to remark that if I burden myself with a companion in my various little inquiries it is not done out of sentiment or caprice, but it is that Watson has some remarkable characteristics of his own to which in his modesty he has given small attention amid his exaggerated estimates of my own performances. A confederate who foresees your conclusions and course of action is always dangerous, but one to whom each development comes as a perpetual surprise, and to whom the future is always a closed book, is indeed an ideal helpmate.

I find from my notebook that it was in January, 1903, just after the conclusion of the Boer War, that I had my visit from Mr. James M. Dodd, a big, fresh, sunburned, upstanding Briton. The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association. I was alone.

It is my habit to sit with my back to the window and to place my visitors in the opposite chair, where the light falls full upon them. Mr. James M. Dodd seemed somewhat at a loss how to begin the interview. I did not attempt to help him, for his silence gave me more time for observation. I have found it wise to impress clients with a sense of power, and so I gave him some of my conclusions.

“From South Africa, sir, I perceive.”

“Yes, sir,” he answered, with some surprise.

“Imperial Yeomanry, I fancy.”

“Exactly.”

“Middlesex Corps, no doubt.”

“That is so. Mr. Holmes, you are a wizard.”

I smiled at his bewildered expression.

"Perhaps I'm in the way?" Lupin suggested.

"Not at all, doctor, not at all," said Daubrecq. "Besides, what I have to say has a certain bearing on your errand." And, into the telephone, "Hullo! M. Prasville?... Ah, it's you, Prasville, old cock!... Why, you seem quite staggered! Yes, you're right, it's an age since you and I met. But, after all, we've never been far away in thought... And I've had plenty of visits from you and your henchmen... In my absence, it's true. Hullo!... What?... Oh, you're in a hurry? I beg your pardon!... So am I, for that matter... Well, to come to the point, there's a little service I want to do you... Wait, can't you, you brute?... You won't regret it... It concerns your renown... Hullo!... Are you listening?... Well, take half-a-dozen men with you... plain-clothes detectives, by preference: you'll find them at the night-office... Jump into a taxi, two taxis, and come along here as fast as you can... I've got a rare quarry for you, old chap. One of the upper ten... a lord, a marquis Napoleon himself... in a word, Arsene Lupin!"

Lupin sprang to his feet. He was prepared for everything but this. Yet something within him stronger than astonishment, an impulse of his whole nature, made him say, with a laugh:

"Oh, well done, well done!"

Daubrecq bowed his head, by way of thanks, and muttered:

"I haven't quite finished... A little patience, if you don't mind." And he continued, "Hullo! Prasville!... No, no, old chap, I'm not humbugging... You'll find Lupin here, with me, in my study... Lupin, who's worrying me like the rest of you... Oh, one more or less makes no difference to me! But, all the same, this one's a bit too pushing. And I am appealing to your sense of kindness. Rid me of the fellow, do... Half-a-dozen of your satellites and the two who are pacing up and down outside my house will be enough... Oh, while you're about it, go up to the third floor and rope in my cook as well... She's the famous Victoire: you know, Master Lupin's old nurse... And, look here, one more tip, to show you how I love you: send a squad of men to the Rue Chateaubriand, at the corner of the Rue Balzac... That's where our national hero lives, under the name of Michel Beaumont... Do you twig, old cockalorum? And now to business. Hustle!"

When Daubrecq turned his head, Lupin was standing up, with clenched fists. His burst of admiration had not survived the rest of the speech and the revelations which Daubrecq had made about Victoire and the flat in the Rue Chateaubriand. The humiliation was too great; and Lupin no longer bothered to play the part of the small general practitioner. He had but one idea in his head: not to give way to the tremendous fit of rage that was urging him to rush at Daubrecq like a bull.

Daubrecq gave the sort of little cluck which, with him, did duty for a laugh. He came waddling up, with his hands in his trouser-pockets, and said, incisively:

"Don't you think that this is all for the best? I've cleared the ground, relieved the situation... At least, we now know where we stand. Lupin versus Daubrecq; and that's all about it. Besides, think of the time saved! Dr. Vernes, the divisional surgeon, would have taken two hours to spin his yarn! Whereas, like this, Master Lupin will be compelled to get his little story told in thirty minutes... unless he wants to get himself collared and his accomplices nabbed. What a shock! What a bolt from the blue! Thirty minutes and not a minute more. In thirty minutes from now, you'll have to clear out, scud away like a hare and beat a disordered retreat. Ha, ha, ha, what fun! I say, Polonius, you really are unlucky, each time you come up against Bibi Daubrecq! For it was you who were hiding behind that curtain, wasn't it, my ill-starred Polonius?"