whereas his biographer is obliged, if he would throw light upon what is
not known, to begin at the beginning and to relate in full detail all
that which is already public property.

It is because of this necessity that I am compelled to speak once more of
the extreme excitement which the news of that shocking series of crimes
created in France, in Europe and throughout the civilized world. The
public heard of four murders practically all at once, for the particulars
of Cosmo Mornington's will were published two days later.

There was no doubt that the same person had killed Cosmo Mornington,
Inspector Verot, Fauville the engineer, and his son Edmond. The same
person had made the identical sinister bite, leaving against himself or
herself, with a heedlessness that seemed to show the avenging hand of
fate, a most impressive and incriminating proof, a proof which made
people shudder as they would have shuddered at the awful reality: the
marks of his or her teeth, the teeth of the tiger!

And, in the midst of all this bloodshed, at the most tragic moment
of the dismal tragedy, behold the strangest of figures emerging from
the darkness!

An heroic adventurer, endowed with astounding intelligence and insight,
had in a few hours partly unravelled the tangled skeins of the plot,
divined the murder of Cosmo Mornington, proclaimed the murder of
Inspector Verot, taken the conduct of the investigation into his own
hands, delivered to justice the inhuman creature whose beautiful white
teeth fitted the marks as precious stones fit their settings, received a
cheque for a million francs on the day after these exploits and, finally,
found himself the probable heir to an immense fortune.

And here was Arsene Lupin coming to life again!

For the public made no mistake about that, and, with wonderful intuition,
proclaimed aloud that Don Luis Perenna was Arsene Lupin, before a close
examination of the facts had more or less confirmed the supposition.

"But he's dead!" objected the doubters.

To which the others replied:

"Yes, Dolores Kesselbach's corpse was recovered under the still smoking
ruins of a little chalet near the Luxemburg frontier and, with it, the
corpse of a man whom the police identified as Arsene Lupin. But
everything goes to show that the whole scene was contrived by Lupin, who,
for reasons of his own, wanted to be thought dead. And everything shows
that the police accepted and legalized the theory of his death o