The Mystery of the Yellow Room
by a tiny blond and ill-kept beard. On the sign he rose, paid for his
drink, bowed, and went out. I should not myself have attached any
importance to the circumstance, if it had not been recalled to my mind,
some months later, by the reappearance of the man with the beard at one
of the most tragic moments of this case. I then learned that the youth
was one of Larsan’s assistants and had been charged by him to watch
the going and coming of travellers at the station of Epinay-sur-Orge.
Larsan neglected nothing in any case on which he was engaged.
I turned my eyes again on Rouletabille.
“Ah!—Monsieur Fred!” he said, “when did you begin to use a
walking-stick? I have always seen you walking with your hands in your
pockets!”
“It is a present,” replied the detective.
“Recent?” insisted Rouletabille.
“No, it was given to me in London.”
“Ah, yes, I remember—you have just come from London. May I look at it?”
“Oh!—certainly!”
Fred passed the cane to Rouletabille. It was a large yellow bamboo with
a crutch handle and ornamented with a gold ring.
Rouletabille, after examining it minutely, returned it to Larsan, with
a bantering expression on his face, saying:—
“You were given a French cane in London!”
“Possibly,” said Fred, imperturbably.
“Read the mark there, in tiny letters: Cassette, 6a, Opera.”
“Cannot English people buy canes in Paris?”
When Rouletabille had seen me into the train, he said:—
“You’ll remember the address?”
“Yes,—Cassette, 6a, Opera. Rely on me; you shall have word to-morrow
morning.”
That evening, on reaching Paris, I saw Monsieur Cassette, dealer in
walking-sticks and umbrellas, and wrote to my friend:—
“A man unmistakably answering to the description of Monsieur Robert
Darzac—same height, slightly stooping, putty-coloured overcoat, bowler
hat—purchased a cane similar to the one in which we are interested, on
the evening of the crime, about eight o’clock. Monsieur Cassette had
not sold another such cane during the last two years. Fred’s cane is
new. It is quite clear that it’s the same cane. Fred did not buy it,
since he was in London. Like you, I think that he found it somewhere
near Monsieur Robert Darzac. But if, as you suppose, the murderer was
in The Yellow Room for five, or even six hours, and the crime was not
committed until towards midnight, the purchase of this cane proves an
incontestable alibi for Darzac.”
Chapter XIII
“The Presbytery Has Lost Nothing of its Charm, nor the Garden its
Brightness”
A week after the occurrence of the events I have just recounted—on
the 2nd of November, to be exact—I received at my home in Paris the
following telegraphic message: “Come to the Glandier by the earliest
train. Bring revolvers. Friendly greetings. Rouletabille.”
I have already said, I think, that at that period, being a young
barrister with but few briefs, I frequented the Palais de Justice
rather for the purpose of familiarising myself with my professional
duties than for the defence of the widow and orphan. I could,
therefore, feel no surprise at Rouletabille disposing of my time.
Moreover, he knew how keenly interested I was in his journalistic
adventures in general and, above all, in the murder at the Glandier.
I had not heard from him for a week, nor of the progress made with
that mysterious case, except by the innumerable paragraphs in the
newspapers and by the very brief notes of Rouletabille in the “Epoque.”
Those notes had divulged the fact that traces of human blood had
been found on the mutton-bone, as well as fresh traces of the blood
of Mademoiselle Stangerson—the old stains belonged to other crimes,
probably dating years back.
It may be easily imagined that the crime engaged the attention of the
press throughout the world. No crime known had more absorbed the minds
of people. It appeared to me, however, that the judicial inquiry was
making but very little progress; and I should have been very glad, if,
on the receipt of my friend’s invitation to rejoin him at the Glandier,
the despatch had not contained the words, “Bring revolvers.”
That puzzled me greatly. Rouletabille telegraphing for revolvers
meant that there might be occasion to use them. Now, I confess it
without shame, I am not a hero. But here was a friend, evidently in
danger, calling on me to go to his aid. I did not hesitate long; and
after assuring myself that the only revolver I possessed was properly
loaded, I hurried towards the Orleans station. On the way I remembered
that Rouletabille had asked for two revolvers; I therefore entered a
gunsmith’s shop and bought an excellent weapon for my friend.
I had hoped to find him at the station at Epinay; but he was not there.
However, a cab was waiting for me and I was soon at the Glandier.
Nobody was at the gate, and it was only on the threshold of the château
that I met the young man. He saluted me with a friendly gesture and
threw his arms about me, inquiring warmly as to the state of my health.
When we were in the little sitting-room of which I have spoken,
Rouletabille made me sit down.
“It’s going badly,” he said.
“What’s going badly?” I asked.
“Everything.”
He came nearer to me and whispered:
“Frédéric Larsan is working with might and main against Darzac.”
This did not astonish me. I had seen the poor show Mademoiselle
Stangerson’s fiancé had made at the time of the examination of the
footprints. However, I immediately asked:—
“What about that cane?”
“It is still in the hands of Frédéric Larsan. He never lets go of it.”
“But doesn’t it prove the alibi for Monsieur Darzac?”
“Not at all. Gently questioned by me, Darzac denied having, on that
evening, or on any other, purchased a cane at Cassette’s. However,”
said Rouletabille, “I’ll not swear to anything; Monsieur Darzac has
such strange fits of silence that one does not know exactly what to
think of what he says.”
“To Frédéric Larsan this cane must mean a piece of very damaging
evidence. But in what way? The time when it was bought shows it could
not have been in the murderer’s possession.”
“The time doesn’t worry Larsan. He is not obliged to adopt my theory
which assumes that the murderer got into The Yellow Room between five
and six o’clock. But there’s nothing to prevent him assuming that
the murderer got in between ten and eleven o’clock at night? At that
hour Monsieur and Mademoiselle Stangerson, assisted by Daddy Jacques,
were engaged in making an interesting chemical experiment in the part
of the laboratory taken up by the furnaces. Larsan says, unlikely as
that may seem, that the murderer may have slipped behind them. He has
already got the examining magistrate to listen to him. When one looks
closely into it, the reasoning is absurd, seeing that the ‘intimate’—if
there is one—must have known that the professor would shortly leave
the pavilion, and that the ‘friend’ had only to put off operating till
after the professor’s departure. Why should he have risked crossing the
laboratory while the professor was in it? And then, when he had got
into The Yellow Room?—
“There are many points to be cleared up before Larsan’s theory can be
admitted. I sha’n’t waste my time over it, for my theory won’t allow
me to occupy myself with mere imagination. Only, as I am obliged for
the moment to keep silent, and Larsan sometimes talks, he may finish
by coming out openly against Monsieur Darzac,—if I’m not there,”
added the young reporter proudly. “For there are surface evidences
against Darzac, much more convincing than the cane, which remains
incomprehensible to me, all the more so as Larsan does not in the least
hesitate to let Darzac see him with it!—I understand many things in
Larsan’s theory, but I can’t make anything of that cane.”
“Is he still at the château?”
“Yes; he hardly ever quits it!—He sleeps there, as I do, at the request
of Monsieur Stangerson, who has done for him what Monsieur Robert
Darzac has done for me. In spite of the accusation made by Larsan that
Monsieur Stangerson knows who the murderer is he yet affords him every
facility for arriving at the truth,—just as Darzac is doing for me.”
“But you are convinced of Darzac’s innocence?”
“At one time I did believe in the possibility of his guilt. That was
when we arrived here for the first time. The time has come for me to
tell you what has passed between Monsieur Darzac and myself.”
Here Rouletabille interrupted himself and asked me if I had brought the
revolvers. I showed him them. Having examined both, he pronounced them
excellent, and handed them back to me.
“Shall we have any use for them?” I asked.
“No doubt; this evening. We shall pass the night here—if that won’t
tire you?”
“On the contrary,” I said with an expression that made Rouletabille
laugh.
“No, no,” he said, “this is no time for laughing. You remember the
phrase which was the ‘Open sesame’ of this château full of mystery?”
“Yes,” I said, “perfectly,—‘The presbytery has lost nothing of its
charm, nor the garden its brightness.’ It was the phrase which you
found on the half-burned piece of paper amongst the ashes in the
laboratory.”
“Yes; at the bottom of the paper, where the flame had not reached,
was this date: 23rd of October. Remember this date, it is highly
important. I am now going to tell you about that curious phrase. On the
evening before the crime, that is to say, on the 23rd, Monsieur and
Mademoiselle Stangerson were at a reception at the Élysée. I know that,
because I was there on duty, having to interview one of the savants of
the Academy of Philadelphia, who was being fêted there. I had never
before seen either Monsieur or Mademoiselle Stangerson. I was seated in
the room which precedes the Salon des Ambassadeurs, and, tired of being
jostled by so many noble personages, I had fallen into a vague reverie,
when I scented near me the perfume of the lady in black.
“Do you ask me what is the ‘perfume of the lady in black’? It must
suffice you to know that it is a perfume of which I am very fond,
because it was that of a lady who had been very kind to me in my
childhood,—a lady whom I had always seen dressed in black. The lady
who, that evening, was scented with the perfume of the lady in black,
was dressed in white. She was wonderfully beautiful. I could not help
rising and following her. An old man gave her his arm, and, as they
passed, I heard voices say: ‘Professor Stangerson and his daughter.’ It
was in that way I learned who it was I was following.
“They met Monsieur Robert Darzac, whom I knew by sight. Professor
Stangerson, accosted by Mr. Arthur William Rance, one of the American
savants, seated himself in the great gallery, and Monsieur Robert
Darzac led Mademoiselle Stangerson into the conservatory. I followed.
The weather was very mild that evening; the garden doors were open.
Mademoiselle Stangerson threw a fichu shawl over her shoulders and I
plainly saw that it was she who was begging Monsieur Darzac to go with
her into the garden. I continued to follow, interested by the agitation
plainly exhibited by the bearing of Monsieur Darzac. They slowly passed
along the wall abutting on the Avenue Marigny. I took the central
alley, walking parallel with them, and then crossed over for the
purpose of getting nearer to them. The night was dark, and the grass
deadened the sound of my steps. They had stopped under the vacillating
light of a gas jet and appeared to be both bending over a paper held
by Mademoiselle Stangerson, reading something which deeply interested
them. I stopped in the darkness and silence.
“Neither of them saw me, and I distinctly heard Mademoiselle Stangerson
repeat, as she was refolding the paper: ‘The presbytery has lost
nothing of its charm, nor the garden its brightness!’—It was said in