And the Yeah, Welcome back everyone to one thousand one classic short stories and tales.

At the turn of the 20th century, mystery writers and mysteries were the rage.

Here at 1001 Classic Short Stories and Tales, we've introduced a number of stories featuring

Sherlock Holmes, as well as Agathichristy stories featuring the Vane Belgian detective Erku Poirot.

In 1906, one of my favorite authors, Robert Barr, also released a collection of Detective Short stories featuring a vain French detective who was working in London and his name is Eugene Belmont. The stories are very good. He offered a book of eight short stories called

The Triumph of Eugene Belmont and today we're going to share the

first of those stories, which is the mystery of the 500 diamonds. In all of

Robert Barr's Eugene Belmont mysteries, Belmont is working in London and solving mysterious cases involving international intrigue,

counterfeiting stolen jewels, blackmail, and ghosts.

And now Part 1 of the Mystery of the Five Hundred Diamonds by Robert Barr.

When I say I'm called Belmont, the name will convey no impression to the reader one way or the other.

My occupation is that of a private detective in London, but if you ask any policeman in Paris who Belmont was, he would likely be able to tell you unless he is a recent

recruit. If you ask him where Valmont is now he may not know yet I have a good deal to do with the Parisian police

For a period of seven years I was chief detected for the government of France and if I am unable to prove myself a great crime hunter

It is because the record of my career is in the secret

archives of Paris. I may admit at the outset that I have no grievances to err. The French government considered itself justified in dismissing me, and it did so. In this action it was quite within its right, and I should be the last to dispute that right.

But, on the other hand, I consider myself justified in publishing the following account of what actually occurred,

especially as so many false rumors have been put abroad concerning the case.

However, as I said at the beginning, I hold no grievance because my worldly affairs are now

much more prosperous than they were in Paris. My intimate knowledge of that

city and the country of which it is the capital bringing to me many cases with which I have

dealt more or less successfully since I established myself in London.

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