Publisher's Synopsis
Maurice Marie Emile Leblanc was a French novelist and writer of short stories, known primarily as the creator of the fictional gentleman thief and detective Arsene Lupin, often described as a French counterpart to Arthur Conan Doyle's creation Sherlock Holmes. When one of Arsene Lupin' victims is found dead in a way that implicates the wily criminal, he insists on heading the police search for the real murderer. The mystery involves finding a package of letters once written to Bismarck, locating a clock on which the number 813 has significance, as well as causing a reigning emperor to make several journeys incognito. Murders by the dozens, suicide and mild forms of torture are warp and woof of the plot.