The Hollow Needle is a novel by Maurice Leblanc

Maurice Leblanc

Maurice Marie Émile Leblanc was a French novelist and writer of short stories, known primarily as the creator of the fictional gentleman thief and detective Arsène Lupin, often described as a French counterpart to Arthur Conan Doyle's creation Sherlock Holmes.- Biography :Leblanc was born in...

 featuring the adventures of the gentleman thief

Gentleman thief

In the Victorian vernacular, a gentleman thief is a particularly well-behaving and apparently well bred thief. A "gentleman" is usually, but not always, a man with an inherited title of nobility and inherited wealth, who need not work for a living. Such a man steals not in order to gain material...

, Arsène Lupin

Arsène Lupin

Arsène Lupin is a fictional character who appears in a book series of detective fiction / crime fiction novels written by French writer Maurice Leblanc, as well as a number of non-canonical sequels and numerous film, television such as Night Hood, stage play and comic book adaptations.- Overview :A...

. As with the preceding two volumes of the Arsène Lupin stories, this was first serialized in the French magazine Je sais tout

Je sais tout

Je sais tout was a French magazine established by Pierre Lafitte in 1905. It was noted for its publication of the works of Maurice Leblanc, in particular the adventures of Arsène Lupin. It appeared on the 15th of each month, but publication was interrupted from August 1914 to the end of 1914. The...

from November 1908 to May 1909. The novel was released, with a few modifications, in June 1909.

Plot summary

Arsène Lupin is opposed this time by Isidore Beautrelet, a young but gifted amateur detective, who is still in high school but who is poised to give Arsène Lupin a big headache. In the Arsène Lupin universe, the Hollow Needle is the second secret of Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....

 and Alessandro Cagliostro

Alessandro Cagliostro

Count Alessandro di Cagliostro was the alias of the occultist Giuseppe Balsamo , an Italian adventurer.-Origin:The history of Cagliostro is shrouded in rumour, propaganda and mysticism...

, the hidden fortune of the kings of France, as revealed to Arsène Lupin by Josephine Balsamo

Josephine Balsamo

Joséphine Balsamo a.k.a. Countess Cagliosto, is a fictional character who is the best known antagonist of Arsène Lupin, the notorious gentleman burglar created by Maurice Leblanc.-History:...

 in the novel The Countess Of Cagliostro (1924). The Mystery of the Hollow Needle hides a secret that the Kings of France have been handing down since the time of Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

... and now Arsène Lupin has mastered it. The legendary needle contains the most fabulous treasure ever imagined, a collection of queens' dowries, pearls, rubies, sapphires and diamonds... the fortune of the kings of France.

When Isidore Beautrelet discovers the Château de l'Aiguille in the department of Creuse

Creuse

Creuse is a department in central France named after the Creuse River.-History:Creuse is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from the former province of La Marche....

, he thinks that he has found the solution to the riddle ("l'Aiguille Creuse" being French for "The Hollow Needle", and also the French title of the novel). However, he did not realize that the château was built by Louis XIV, the king of France, to put people off the track of a needle in Normandy

Normandy

Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...

, near the town of Le Havre

Le Havre

Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...

, where Arsène Lupin, known also under the name of Louis Valméras, has hidden himself.

Sequels

A direct sequel to this novel, featuring Lupin against La Griffe, is the novel Le second visage d'Arsène Lupin by Boileau-Narcejac

Boileau-Narcejac

Boileau-Narcejac is the nom de plume under which French crime fiction writers Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud, aka Thomas Narcejac collaborated...

in 1975.

Principal characters

• Isidore Beautrelet, the boy detective
• Mademoiselle Raymonde
• Arsène Lupin
• Ganimard, a French police detective
• Louis Valméras
• The Count of Gesvres
• Holmlock Shears
• Examining magistrate Filleul

External links

| Project Gutenberg E-text of The Hollow Needle | The Hollow Needle on Wikisource