ss 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 Arsene 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 Arsene Lupin?"

My connection with Arsene 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.

The first act takes place during that memorable night of 22 June, of
which so much has already been said. And, for my part, I attribute the
anomalous conduct of which I was guilty on that occasion to the unusual
frame of mind in which I found myself on my return home. I had dined
with some friends at the Cascade restaurant, and, the entire evening,
whilst we smoked and the orchestra played melancholy waltzes, we talked
only of crimes and thefts, and dark and frightful intrigues. That is
always a poor overture to a night's sleep.

The Saint-Martins went away in an automobile. Jean Daspry--that
delightful, heedless Daspry who, six months later, was killed in such a
tragic m