ARSÈNE LUPIN INTERVENES

BY
MAURICE LE BLANC

NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I FOREWORD 9
II “DROPS THAT TRICKLE AWAY” 13
III THE ROYAL LOVE LETTER 38
IV A GAME OF BACCARAT 61
V THE MAN WITH THE GOLD TEETH 85
VI TWELVE LITTLE NIGGER BOYS 108
VII THE BRIDGE THAT BROKE 137
VIII THE FATAL MIRACLE 164
IX DOUBLE ENTRY 195
X ARRESTING ARSÈNE LUPIN 226
XI AFTERWORD 255

ARSÈNE LUPIN INTERVENES

FOREWORD

Contrary, perhaps, to the opinion of the Bright Young People in our
midst, the World-before-the-War was not by any means barren of
adventure and excitement. Only, they did things differently then. There
was, in those days, a certain sparkling gaiety, a spontaneity, a chic
sadly lacking from the exploits of a younger generation. There was wit
as well as honor among thieves. Just as really good wine differs from
that modern depravity, the cocktail, so does the finished artistry of
Jim Barnett compare with the outrages of bobbed-hair bandits and
cat-burglars.

For Barnett had a brain and used it; a sense of humor, and rejoiced in
it. He was independent of revolvers and racing cars and hypodermic
syringes. He made a confidant of no man—or woman. He was an unassisted
conjurer, as it were, performing his little tricks always in the full
glare of the limelight, relying entirely on his own lightning skill to
vanish his watches and evolve his rabbits.

A curious, memorable figure, Jim Barnett. By profession, a private
detective, principal of the Barnett Agency in the rue Laborde, with a
modest ground-floor office for his headquarters. Unlike others of his
trade, he worked entirely alone. He employed no spies, and saved
himself their possible treachery. He had no secretary for the simple
reason that he kept no records. His telephone rang infrequently, and
when it did he answered it himself.

In appearance, Barnett was something of a problem. He gave the
impression of a man who is wilfully badly dressed, intentionally
careless of his attire. His coat’s sole claim to respect was its
indubitable antiquity. His trousers—but we will spare possible
heartbreak to the tailors who read this description. He wore his
incongruous monocle like some exotic bloom—its startling aristocracy in
conjunction with the rest of his get-up was that of an orchid in an
onion patch.

What a contrast to his friend, Inspector Béchoux, that immaculate sprig
of the Paris Police Force. Béchoux was frankly a dandy, devoting all
his off-time to the adornment of his person. Yet he was no fool. Only,
his brain moved in the channels of detective routine, whereas Barnett’s
leaped nimbly from point to point of a mystery until it plucked out the
heart.

Be it said to Inspector Béchoux’s undying honor that he recognized
Barnett’s gifts quite openly. He even resorted to asking his help in
various problems, and it is the inner history of some of these that
this book now reveals for the first time to the world at large.

The peculiar feature of all the Béchoux-Barnett cases was always either
their apparent insolubility (e.g., the Disappearance of the Twelve
Little Nigger Boys) or the fact that they seemed solved at the outset
(as in the case of the Man with the Gold Teeth). And the finale of each
presented certain similar features—a dramatic and quite unexpected
eleventh-hour dénouement; a swift adjustment of account between the
innocent and guilty parties; and—a highly satisfactory windfall for
Barnett. Only, as Inspector Béchoux bitterly observed, it was always
the kind of windfall that meant shaking the tree. Barnett’s gifts would
have stripped an orchard….

What placed Inspector Béchoux in a serious dilemma was that in every
case Barnett’s position was unassailable from start to finish. His
victims were people who could not be brought to speak a word against
him. You could call it intimidation—blackmail—what you liked. Barnett
merely grinned and fed large checks to his banking account.

Large checks—and yet the slogan of the Barnett Agency was:—

“Information Free. No Fees of Any Kind.”

Which was paradoxically true. Barnett’s income was composed not of fees
but of levies. Sometimes he took toll of his clients, sometimes of
their enemies. A certain poetic justice characterized his depredations.
The poor and the innocent had nothing to fear from Jim Barnett.

And he was undeniably on the side of the law so far as results went.
Only, where it suited his purpose, he meted out his own idea of a
suitable punishment to criminals instead of turning them over to the
police.

Inspector Béchoux was probably Barnett’s only close friend. Yet all he
knew of him was gleaned from the hours they spent together when Barnett
intervened in one of his cases. He was quite ignorant of Barnett’s
private life—his antecedents—even his identity. For there was always
one mystery which remained unsolved. Who was the man who called himself
“Jim Barnett”?

There was something about his methods and his amusing buffoonery which
could not fail to recall the King of Crooks—the one man who persisted
in eluding and baffling the Paris police—the man Inspector Béchoux
would have given his life-savings to lay hands on—whom he sometimes, in
his inmost heart, half suspected to be masquerading as “Barnett,” and
then dismissed the suspicion as fantastic.