Maurice Leblanc's mystery book The Crystal Stopper follows the exploits of gentleman thief Arsène Lupin. From September to November 1912, the novel was published in serial form in the French daily Le Journal. It was then published as a standalone novel. The terrible Panama scandals of 1892 and 1893 served as Leblanc's inspiration. The concept of hiding something in plain sight is taken from Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Purloined Letter" and used throughout the novel.
Two of Arsène Lupin's associates are detained by the police when a crime is committed during a break-in at the residence of Deputy Daubrecq. Both will get the death penalty, regardless of whether one is guilty or innocent of the crime. Lupin fights against the vicious blackmailer of Deputy Daubrecq, who is holding an incriminating document concealed in a crystal stopper, while he tries to free the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
Maurice Marie Émile Leblanc was a French novelist and short story writer who lived from 11 December 1864 to 6 November 1941. Arsène Lupin, the fictitious gentleman thief and detective which is sometimes referred to be a French equivalent to Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. In the science fiction books Les Trois Yeux (1919) and Le Formidable Evènement (1920), an earthquake forms a landmass between England and France. He was born in Paris in 1859 and raised in Rouen, where he regularly came into contact with Guy de Maupassant and Gustave Flaubert. His first book, "Une femme" (A Woman), which was published in 1893, was very well received. Other books, including "Des couples" (The Couples) and his sole play, "La pitié," which was published in 1902, followed. He released "L'Enthousiasme," an autobiographical book, in 1901. He released "L'Enthousiasme," an autobiographical book, in 1901. He attempted to murder his hero in the novella "813" as early as 1910, but would later that year revive the figure. He purchased an Anglo-Norman home in Étretat in 1918, where he created 39 short tales and 19 novels. He fled Clos Lupin in 1939 and sought safety in Perpignan because of the impending war with Nazi Germany. He passed on there in 1941.
