Maurice Leblanc, página 3 de 24

On the eighth day of last December, Mon. Gerbois, professor of mathematics at the College of Versailles, while rummaging in an old curiosityshop, unearthed a small mahogany writingdesk which pleased him very much on account of the multiplicity of its drawers."Just the thing for Suzannes birthday present," thought he. And as he always tried to furnish some simple pleasures for his daughter, consistent with his modest income, he enquired the price, and, after some keen bargaining, purchased it for sixtyfive francs. As he was giving his address to the shopkeeper, a young man, dressed with elegance and taste, who had been exploring the stock of antiques, caught sight of the writingdesk, and immediately enquired its price.

Svelte, élégant, raffiné, séducteur, Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur de son état, est le modèle du dandy "Belle Epoque". Son intelligence, sa culture, ses talents dillusionniste entre Fregoli et

"Suppose I were to tell you," said Paul Delroze, "that I once stood face to face with him on French. . . ."Élisabeth looked up at him with the fond expression of a bride to whom the least word of the man she loves is a subject of wonder:"You have seen William II. in France?""Saw him with my own eyes; and I have never forgotten a single one of the details that marked the meeting. And yet it happened very long ago."He was speaking with a sudden seriousness, as though the revival of that memory had awakened the most painful thoughts in his mind."Tell me about it, wont you, Paul?" asked Elisabeth."Yes, I will," he said. "In any case, though I was only a child at the time, the incident played so tragic a part in my life that I am bound to tell you the whole story."The train stopped and they got out at Corvigny, the last station on the local branch line which, starting from the chief town in the department, runs through the Liseron Valley and ends, fifteen miles from the frontier, at the foot of the little Lorraine city which Vauban, as he tells us in his "Memoirs," surrounded "with the most perfect demilunes imaginable."

It was close upon half–past six and the evening shadows were growing denser when two soldiers reached the little space, planted with trees, opposite the Musée Galliéra, where the Rue de Chaillot and

The war has led to so many upheavals that not many people now remember the Hergemont scandal of seventeen years ago. Let us recall the details in a few lines.One day in July 1902, M. Antoine dHergemont, the author of a series of wellknown studies on the megalithic monuments of Brittany, was walking in the Bois with his daughter Veronique, when he was assaulted by four men, receiving a blow in the face with a walkingstick which felled him to the ground.After a short struggle and in spite of his desperate efforts, Veronique, the beautiful Veronique, as she was called by her friends, was dragged away and bundled into a motorcar which the spectators of this very brief scene saw making off in the direction of SaintCloud.

The two boats fastened to the little pier that jutted out from the garden lay rocking in its shadow. Here and there lighted windows showed through the thick mist on the margins of the lake. The Enghien Casino opposite blazed with light, though it was late in the season, the end of September. A few stars appeared through the clouds. A light breeze ruffled the surface of the water.Arsene Lupin left the summerhouse where he was smoking a cigar and, bending forward at the end of the pier:"Growler?" he asked. "Masher?Are you there?"A man rose from each of the boats, and one of them answered:"Yes, governor.""Get ready. I hear the car coming with Gilbert and Vaucheray."

The rays of the September sun flooded the great halls of the old chateau of the Dukes of Charmerace, lighting up with their mellow glow the spoils of so many ages and many lands, jumbled together with the execrable taste which so often afflicts those whose only standard of value is money. The golden light warmed the panelled walls and old furniture to a dull lustre, and gave back to the fading gilt of the First Empire chairs and couches something of its old brightness. It illumined the long line of pictures on the walls, pictures of dead and gone Charmeraces, the stern or debonair faces of the men, soldiers, statesmen, dandies, the gentle or imperious faces of beautiful women. It flashed back from armour of brightly polished steel, and drew dull gleams from armour of bronze. The hues of rare porcelain, of the rich inlays of Oriental or Renaissance cabinets, mingled with the hues of the pictures, the tapestry, the Persian rugs about the polished floor to fill the hall with a rich glow of colour.But of all the beautiful and precious things which the sunrays warmed to a clearer beauty, the face of the girl who sat writing at a table in front of the long windows, which opened on to the centuriesold turf of the broad terrace, was the most beautiful and the most precious.

"813" is gentleman thief Arsene Lupins greatest adventure and it is also considered Maurice Leblancs masterpiece. As usual, Lupin finds himself wrongfully accused of murder. When one of his victims is found dead in a way that implicates the wily criminal, he insists on heading the police search for the real murderer. The mystery involves finding a package of letters once written to Bismarck, locating a clock on which the number 813 has significance, as well as causing a reigning emperor to make several journeys incognito. Murders by the dozens, suicide and mild forms of torture are warp and woof of the plot.

Translator: Alexander Teixera de Mattos

Translator: Alexander Teixera de Mattos

Translator: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos

El Consejo de Egipto es la historia de una imposturaEl Consejo de Egipto es la historia de una impostura. En el siglo XVIII, en la alejada Palermo hasta la que también llegan los aires y las luces de la Razon, un orondo personaje, el abate Vella, va a poner en entredicho los mas conservadores y arraigados cimientos de la sociedad siciliana. Para congraciarse con la Sacra Real Majestad de Napoles, el clerigo, avido de riquezas, finge traducir un codice de la epoca de la dominacio arabe en Sicilia. Lo que esta haciendo, sin embargo, es inventar, con talento de escritor y conocimientos de humanista, El Consejo de Egipto, documento que va a sembrar el terror entre los nobles al descubrir al mundo que los privilegiuos de la aristocracia carecen de legitimidad historica. Como en tantas otras ocasiones, la anectota de la formidable estafa servira a Leonardo Sciascia para llevar a cabo una ironica y siempre lucida reflexion sobre la naturaleza y contradicciones de los hombres.

Arsenio Lupin, el astuto ladrón de guante blanco capaz de medirse con el propio Sherlock Holmes, se encuentra en esta ocasión con una de las aventuras más sorprendentes de su vida: un robo no planeado por el, un misterioso tapon de cristal que se cruza constantemente en su camino y un amigo a quien salvar de la guillotina. Ninguna empresa me ha dado mas quebraderos de cabeza dira ni me ha costado tanto trabajo como esta maldita aventura. Pero al fin, en las doce horas mas brillantes de su carrera, consigue un exito tan asombroso y espectacular, que el mismo Lupin titularia esta novela: El tapon de cristal, o de como no hay que desanimarse nunca.

Illustrator: Albert Matzke

El cuerpo del millonario Kesselbach es encontrado sin vida y solo hay un sospechoso: Arsène Lupin. Una tarjeta de presentación es la prueba que lo incrimina, pero hay alguien que cree en la inocencia