He bowed to her, saluted the count and the other guests, and departed.
Four days later, the countess de Dreux found upon the table in her chamber a red leather case bearing the cardinal’s arms. She opened it, and found the Queen’s Necklace.
But as all things must, in the life of a man who strives for unity and logic, converge toward the same goal—and as a little advertising never does any harm—on the following day, the Echo de France published these sensational lines:
“The Queen’s Necklace, the famous historical jewelry stolen from the family of Dreux-Soubise, has been recovered by Arsène Lupin, who hastened to restore it to its rightful owner. We cannot too highly commend such a delicate and chivalrous act.”
VI. The Seven of Hearts
I am frequently asked this question: “How did you make the acquaintance of Arsène Lupin?”
My connection with Arsène Lupin was well known. The details that I gather concerning that mysterious man, the irrefutable facts that I present, the new evidence that I produce, the interpretation that I place on certain acts of which the public has seen only the exterior manifestations without being able to discover the secret reasons or the invisible mechanism, all establish, if not an intimacy, at least amicable relations and regular confidences.
But how did I make his acquaintance? Why was I selected to be his historiographer? Why I, and not some one else?
The answer is simple: chance alone presided over my choice; my merit was not considered. It was chance that put me in his way. It was by chance that I was participant in one of his strangest and most mysterious adventures; and by chance that I was an actor in a drama of which he was the marvelous stage director; an obscure and intricate drama, bristling with such thrilling events that I feel a certain embarrassment in undertaking to describe it.