The Mystery of the Yellow Room
“Yes,” replied the Professor, “there were two shots, one dull, and the
other sharp and ringing.”
“Why do you persist in lying?” cried Monsieur de Marquet, turning
to the concierges. “Do you think the police are the fools you are?
Everything points to the fact that you were out of doors and near the
pavilion at the time of the tragedy. What were you doing there? So far
as I am concerned,” he said, turning to Monsieur Stangerson, “I can
only explain the escape of the murderer on the assumption of help from
these two accomplices. As soon as the door was forced open, and while
you, Monsieur Stangerson, were occupied with your unfortunate child,
the concierge and his wife facilitated the flight of the murderer, who,
screening himself behind them, reached the window in the vestibule, and
sprang out of it into the park. The concierge closed the window after
him and fastened the blinds, which certainly could not have closed and
fastened of themselves. That is the conclusion I have arrived at. If
anyone here has any other idea, let him state it.”
Monsieur Stangerson intervened:—
“What you say was impossible. I do not believe either in the guilt or
in the connivance of my concierges, though I cannot understand what
they were doing in the park at that late hour of the night. I say it
was impossible, because Madame Bernier held the lamp and did not move
from the threshold of the room; because I, as soon as the door was
forced open, threw myself on my knees beside my daughter, and no one
could have left or entered the room by the door, without passing over
her body and forcing his way by me! Daddy Jacques and the concierge had
but to cast a glance round the chamber and under the bed, as I had done
on entering, to see that there was nobody in it but my daughter lying
on the floor.”
“What do you think, Monsieur Darzac?” asked the magistrate.
Monsieur Darzac replied that he had no opinion to express.
Monsieur Dax, the Chief of the Sûreté, who, so far, had been listening
and examining the room, at length deigned to open his lips:—
“While search is being made for the criminal, we had better try to
find out the motive for the crime; that will advance us a little,” he
said. Turning towards Monsieur Stangerson, he continued, in the even,
intelligent tone indicative of a strong character, “I understand that
Mademoiselle was shortly to have been married?”
The professor looked sadly at Monsieur Robert Darzac.
“With my friend here, whom I should have been happy to call my son—with
Monsieur Robert Darzac.”
“Mademoiselle Stangerson is much better and is rapidly recovering from
her wounds. The marriage is simply delayed, is it not, Monsieur?”
insisted the Chief of the Sûreté.
“I hope so.”
“What! Is there any doubt about that?”
Monsieur Stangerson did not answer. Monsieur Robert Darzac seemed
agitated. I saw that his hand trembled as it fingered his watch-chain.
Monsieur Dax coughed, as did Monsieur de Marquet. Both were evidently
embarrassed.
“You understand, Monsieur Stangerson,” he said, “that in an affair
so perplexing as this, we cannot neglect anything; we must know all,
even the smallest and seemingly most futile thing concerning the
victim—information apparently the most insignificant. Why do you doubt
that this marriage will take place? You expressed a hope; but the hope
implies a doubt. Why do you doubt?”
Monsieur Stangerson made a visible effort to recover himself.
“Yes, Monsieur,” he said at length. “You are right. It will be best
that you should know something which, if I concealed it, might appear
to be of importance; Monsieur Darzac agrees with me in this.”
Monsieur Darzac, whose pallor at that moment seemed to me to be
altogether abnormal, made a sign of assent. I gathered he was unable to
speak.
“I want you to know then,” continued Monsieur Stangerson, “that my
daughter has sworn never to leave me, and adheres firmly to her oath,
in spite of all my prayers and all that I have argued to induce her to
marry. We have known Monsieur Robert Darzac many years. He loves my
child; and I believed that she loved him, because she only recently
consented to this marriage which I desire with all my heart. I am an
old man, Monsieur, and it was a happy hour to me when I knew that,
after I had gone, she would have at her side, one who loved her and
who would help her in continuing our common labours. I love and esteem
Monsieur Darzac both for his greatness of heart and for his devotion to
science. But, two days before the tragedy, for I know not what reason,
my daughter declared to me that she would never marry Monsieur Darzac.”
A dead silence followed Monsieur Stangerson’s words. It was a moment
fraught with suspense.
“Did Mademoiselle give you any explanation,—did she tell you what her
motive was?” asked Monsieur Dax.
“She told me she was too old to marry—that she had waited too long.
She said she had given much thought to the matter and while she had a
great esteem, even affection, for Monsieur Darzac, she felt it would
be better if things remained as they were. She would be happy, she
said, to see the relations between ourselves and Monsieur Darzac become
nearer to us, but only on the understanding that there would be no more
talk of marriage.”
“That is very strange!” muttered Monsieur Dax.
“Strange!” repeated Monsieur de Marquet.
“You’ll certainly not find the motive there, Monsieur Dax,” Monsieur
Stangerson said with a cold smile.
“In any case, the motive was not theft!” said the Chief impatiently.
“Oh! we are quite convinced of that!” cried the examining magistrate.
At that moment the door of the laboratory opened and the officer in
charge of the gendarmes entered and handed a card to the examining
magistrate. Monsieur de Marquet read it and uttered a half angry
exclamation:
“This is really too much!” he cried.
“What is it?” asked the Chief.
“It’s the card of a young reporter engaged on the ‘Epoque,’ a Monsieur
Joseph Rouletabille. It has these words written on it: ‘One of the
motives of the crime was robbery.’”
The Chief smiled.
“Ah!—young Rouletabille—I’ve heard of him—he is considered rather
clever. Let him come in.”
Monsieur Joseph Rouletabille was allowed to enter. I had made his
acquaintance in the train that morning on the way to Epinay-sur-Orge.
He had introduced himself almost against my wish into our compartment.
I had better say at once that his manners, and the arrogance with which
he assumed to know what was incomprehensible even to us, impressed him
unfavourably on my mind. I do not like journalists. They are a class
of writers to be avoided as the pest. They think that everything is
permissible and they respect nothing. Grant them the least favour,
allow them even to approach you, and you never can tell what annoyance
they may give you. This one appears to be scarcely twenty years old,
and the effrontery with which he dared to question us and discuss the
matter with us made him particularly obnoxious to me. Besides, he
had a way of expressing himself that left us guessing as to whether
he was mocking us or not. I know quite well that the “Epoque” is an
influential paper with which it is well to be on good terms, but the
paper ought not to allow itself to be represented by sneaking reporters.
Monsieur Joseph Rouletabille entered the laboratory, bowed to us, and
waited for Monsieur de Marquet to ask him to explain his presence.
“You pretend, Monsieur, that you know the motive for the crime,
and that that motive—in the face of all the evidence that has been
forthcoming—was robbery?”
“No, Monsieur, I do not pretend that. I do not say that robbery was the
motive for the crime, and I don’t believe it was.”
“Then, what is the meaning of this card?”
“It means that robbery was _one_ of the motives for the crime.”
“What leads you to think that?”
“If you will be good enough to accompany me, I will show you.”
The young man asked us to follow him into the vestibule, and we did.
He led us towards the lavatory and begged Monsieur de Marquet to kneel
beside him. This lavatory is lit by the glass door, and, when the
door was open, the light which penetrated was sufficient to light it
perfectly. Monsieur de Marquet and Monsieur Joseph Rouletabille knelt
down on the threshold, and the young man pointed to a spot on the
pavement.
“The stones of the lavatory have not been washed by Daddy Jacques for
some time,” he said; “that can be seen by the layer of dust that covers
them. Now, notice here, the marks of two large footprints and the black
ash they left where they have been. That ash is nothing else than the
charcoal dust that covers the path along which you must pass through
the forest, in order to get directly from Epinay to the Glandier. You
know there is a little village of charcoal-burners at that place, who
make large quantities of charcoal. What the murderer did was to come
here at midday, when there was nobody at the pavilion, and attempt his
robbery.”
“But what robbery?—Where do you see any signs of robbery? What proves
to you that a robbery has been committed?” we all cried at once.
“What put me on the trace of it,” continued the journalist,—
“Was this?” interrupted Monsieur de Marquet, still on his knees.
“Evidently,” said Rouletabille.
And Monsieur de Marquet explained that there were on the dust of
the pavement marks of two footsteps, as well as the impression,
freshly-made, of a heavy rectangular parcel, the marks of the cord with
which it had been fastened being easily distinguished.
“You have been here, then, Monsieur Rouletabille? I thought I had given
orders to Daddy Jacques, who was left in charge of the pavilion, not to
allow anybody to enter.”
“Don’t scold Daddy Jacques, I came here with Monsieur Robert Darzac.”
“Ah!—Indeed!” exclaimed Monsieur de Marquet, disagreeably, casting a
side-glance at Monsieur Darzac, who remained perfectly silent.
“When I saw the mark of the parcel by the side of the footprints, I had
no doubt as to the robbery,” replied Monsieur Rouletabille. “The thief
had not brought a parcel with him; he had made one here—a parcel with
the stolen objects, no doubt; and he put it in this corner intending
to take it away when the moment came for him to make his escape. He
had also placed his heavy boots beside the parcel,—for, see—there are
no marks of steps leading to the marks left by the boots, which were
placed side by side. That accounts for the fact that the murderer left
no trace of his steps when he fled from The Yellow Room, nor any in
the laboratory, nor in the vestibule. After entering The Yellow Room
in his boots, he took them off, finding them troublesome, or because
he wished to make as little noise as possible. The marks made by him
_in going_ through the vestibule and the laboratory were subsequently
washed out by Daddy Jacques. Having, for some reason or other, taken
off his boots, the murderer carried them in his hand and placed them
by the side of the parcel he had made,—by that time the robbery had
been accomplished. The man then returned to The Yellow Room and slipped
under the bed, where the mark of his body is perfectly visible on the
floor and even on the mat, which has been slightly moved from its place
and creased. Fragments of straw also, recently torn, bear witness to
the murderer’s movements under the bed.”
“Yes, yes,—we know all about that,” said Monsieur de Marquet.
“The robber had another motive for returning to hide under the bed,”
continued the astonishing boy-journalist. “You might think that he was
trying to hide himself quickly on seeing, through the vestibule window,
Monsieur and Mademoiselle Stangerson about to enter the pavilion. It
would have been much easier for him to have climbed up to the attic and