Maurice Leblanc 
The Confessions of Arsène Lupin 

‘Lupin, ‘ I said, ‘tell me something about yourself.’

‘Why, what would you have me tell you? Everybody knows my life!’ replied Lupin, who lay drowsing on the sofa in my study.

‘Nobody knows it!’ I protested. ‘People know from your letters in the newspapers that you were mixed up in this case, that you started that case. But the part which you played in it all, the plain facts of the story, the upshot of the mystery: these are things of which they know nothing.’

‘Pooh! A heap of uninteresting twaddle!’

‘What! Your present of fifty thousand francs to Nicolas Dugrival’s wife! Do you call that uninteresting? And what about the way in which you solved the puzzle of the three pictures?’

Lupin laughed:

‘Yes, that was a queer puzzle, certainly. I can suggest a title for you if you like: what do you say to The Sign of the Shadow?’

‘And your successes in society and with the fair sex?’ I continued. ‘The dashing Arsène’s love–affairs!…And the clue to your good actions? Those chapters in your life to which you have so often alluded under the names of The Wedding–ring, Shadowed by Death, and so on!…Why delay these confidences and confessions, my dear Lupin?…Come, do what I ask you!…’