User:Beegirls

For, despite the most diligent search, your past history remains unknown. Your

case is unique in the annals of crime. We know not whom you are, whence you came,

your birth and breeding—all is a mystery to us. Three years ago you appeared in

our midst as Arsène Lupin, presenting to us a strange combination of intelligence

and perversion, immorality and generosity. Our knowledge of your life prior to

that date is vague and problematical. It may be that the man called Rostat who,

eight years ago, worked with Dickson, the prestidigitator, was none other than

Arsène Lupin. It is probable that the Russian student who, six years ago, attended

the laboratory of Doctor Altier at the Saint Louis Hospital, and who often

astonished the doctor by the ingenuity of his hypotheses on subjects of bacteriology

and the boldness of his experiments in diseases of the skin, was none other than

Arsène Lupin. It is probable, also, that Arsène Lupin was the professor who

introduced the Japanese art of jiu-jitsu to the Parisian public. We have some

reason to believe that Arsène Lupin was the bicyclist who won the Grand Prix de

l'Exposition, received his ten thousand francs, and was never heard of again.

Arsène Lupin may have been, also, the person who saved so many lives through the

little dormer-window at the Charity Bazaar; and, at the same time, picked their

pockets.