Eight Strokes of the Clock

These adventures were told to me in the old days by Ars ne Lupin, as though they had happened to a friend of his, named Prince R nine. As for me, considering the way in which they were conducted, the actions, the behaviour and the very character of the hero, I find it very difficult not to identify the two friends as one and the same person. Ars ne Lupin is gifted with a powerful imagination and is quite capable of attributing to himself adventures which are not his at all and of disowning those which are really his. The reader will judge for himself. M. L