The Hollow Needle

"My next book is French author Maurice Leblanc’s 1909 novel L’Aiguille Creuse or The Hollow Needle . This belongs to Leblanc’s popular series of novels about an art thief called Arsène Lupin. The interesting thing about Lupin is that, although Leblanc is not considered a great literary author, he created in Lupin an archetype that has infiltrated the popular conception of what an art criminal is like. Lupin combines all the clichés that we have about the art thief – that he is a gentleman; that he is skillful, generally non-violent, dexterous and elegant; that he has aristocratic aspirations, a lovely curlicue moustache, dresses in three-piece suits and a monocle; and most importantly that he usually steals from people who maybe deserve to be stolen from. His British counterpart is, of course, Raffles. And Leblanc’s novels have a jokey relationship with the Sherlock Holmes books – Lupin’s nemesis is a comic character whose name is Homelock Shears. He has, yes. In the 70s there was a TV series about his exploits. And only three or four years ago there was a huge budget French film. His books are bestsellers in the French-speaking world. He hasn’t had the same impact in the English-speaking world but in Germany he became an iconic figure as a lovable villain. There isn’t that much literature in which the villain is the one you’re cheering for. Perhaps you could go back to Milton’s depiction of Satan in Paradise Lost . But in terms of popular literature, Arsène Lupin has been wildly influential and, in fact, he and the plot of The Hollow Needle inspired a real theft of art. In 1934, one of the panels from Jan van Eyck’s famous Ghent altarpiece was stolen in the night. The thieves’ method and the ensuing ransom demands were all directly modelled on The Hollow Needle . It turned out that the mastermind behind the theft, a Belgian stockbroker called Arsène Goedertier,was completely obsessed with Arsène Lupin. He thought the fact that they shared the same name was a great symbol of their connection. And he literally drew a real-life crime out of the plot of a work of fiction. I write about it in my book Stealing the Mystic Lamb . It’s an extraordinary story and, as an aside, one that really deserves to be made into a film."