The Mystery of the Yellow Room
I thought.
“Evidently, I felt, if the forest-keeper is up there in the chamber
(I say, _if_, because at this moment, apart from the presence of the
ladder and his vacant room, there are no evidences which permit me
even to suspect him)—if he is there, he has been obliged to pass by
the ladder, and the rooms which lie behind his, in his new lodging,
are occupied by the family of the steward and by the cook, and by the
kitchens, which bar the way by the vestibule to the interior of the
château. And if he had been there during the evening on any pretext,
it would have been easy for him to go into the gallery and see that
the window could be simply pushed open from the outside. This question
of the unfastened window easily narrowed the field of search for the
murderer. He must belong to the house, unless he had an accomplice,
which I do not believe he had; unless—unless Mademoiselle Stangerson
herself had seen that that window was not fastened from the inside.
But, then,—what could be the frightful secret which made her under the
necessity of doing away with obstacles that separated her from the
murderer?
“I seized hold of the ladder, and we returned to the back of the
château to see if the window of the chamber was still half-open. The
blind was drawn but did not join and allowed a bright stream of light
to escape and fall upon the path at our feet. I planted the ladder
under the window. I am almost sure that I made no noise; and while
Daddy Jacques remained at the foot of the ladder, I mounted it, very
quietly, my stout stick in my hand. I held my breath and lifted my feet
with the greatest care. Suddenly a heavy cloud discharged itself at
that moment in a fresh downpour of rain.
“At the same instant the sinister cry of the Bête du bon Dieu arrested
me in my ascent. It seemed to me to have come from close by me—only
a few yards away. Was the cry a signal?—Had some accomplice of
the man seen me on the ladder!—Would the cry bring the man to the
window?—Perhaps! Ah, there he was at the window! I felt his head above
me. I heard the sound of his breath! I could not look up towards him;
the least movement of my head, and—I might be lost. Would he see
me?—Would he peer into the darkness? No; he went away. He had seen
nothing. I felt, rather than heard, him moving on tip-toe in the room;
and I mounted a few steps higher. My head reached to the level of the
window-sill; my forehead rose above it; my eyes looked between the
opening in the blinds—and I saw—
“A man seated at Mademoiselle Stangerson’s little desk, writing. His
back was turned toward me. A candle was lit before him, and he bent
over the flame, the light from it projecting shapeless shadows. I saw
nothing but a monstrous, stooping back.
“Mademoiselle Stangerson herself was not there!—Her bed had not been
lain on! Where, then, was she sleeping that night? Doubtless in the
side-room with her women. Perhaps this was but a guess. I must content
myself with the joy of finding the man alone. I must be calm to prepare
my trap.
“But who, then, is this man writing there before my eyes, seated at
the desk, as if he were in his own home? If there had not been that
ladder under the window; if there had not been those footprints on the
carpet in the gallery; if there had not been that open window, I might
have been led to think that this man had a right to be there, and that
he was there as a matter of course and for reasons about which as yet
I knew nothing. But there was no doubt that this mysterious unknown
was the man of The Yellow Room,—the man to whose murderous assault
Mademoiselle Stangerson—without denouncing him—had had to submit. If I
could but see his face! Surprise and capture him!
“If I spring into the room at this moment, he will escape by the
right-hand door opening into the boudoir,—or crossing the drawing-room,
he will reach the gallery and I shall lose him. I have him now and in
five minutes more he’ll be safer than if I had him in a cage.—What
is he doing there, alone in Mademoiselle Stangerson’s room?—What
is he writing? I descend and place the ladder on the ground. Daddy
Jacques follows me. We re-enter the château. I send Daddy Jacques
to wake Monsieur Stangerson, and instruct him to await my coming in
Mademoiselle Stangerson’s room and to say nothing definite to him
before my arrival. I will go and awaken Frédéric Larsan. It’s a bore
to have to do it, for I should have liked to work alone and to have
carried off all the honors of this affair myself, right under the
very nose of the sleeping detective. But Daddy Jacques and Monsieur
Stangerson are old men, and I am not yet fully developed. I might
not be strong enough. Larsan is used to wrestling and putting on the
handcuffs. He opened his eyes swollen with sleep, ready to send me
flying, without in the least believing in my reporter’s fancies. I had
to assure him that _the man_ was there!
“‘That’s strange!’ he said; ‘I thought I left him this afternoon in
Paris.’
“He dressed himself in haste and armed himself with a revolver. We
stole quietly into the gallery.
“‘Where is he?’ Larsan asked.
“‘In Mademoiselle Stangerson’s room.’
“‘And—Mademoiselle Stangerson?’
“‘She is not in there.’
“‘Let’s go in.’
“‘Don’t go there! On the least alarm the man will escape. He has four
ways by which to do it—the door, the window, the boudoir, or the room
in which the women are sleeping.’
“‘I’ll draw him from below.’
“‘And if you fail?—If you only succeed in wounding him—he’ll escape
again, without reckoning that he is certainly armed. No, let me direct
the expedition, and I’ll answer for everything.’
“‘As you like,’ he replied, with fairly good grace.
“Then, after satisfying myself that all the windows of the two
galleries were thoroughly secure, I placed Frédéric Larsan at the end
of the ‘off-turning’ gallery, before the window which I had found open
and had reclosed.
“‘Under no consideration,’ I said to him, ‘must you stir from this post
till I call you. The chances are even that the man, when he is pursued,
will return to this window and try to save himself that way; for it is
by that way he came in and made a way ready for his flight. You have a
dangerous post.’
“‘What will be yours?’ asked Fred.
“‘I shall spring into the room and knock him over for you.’
“‘Take my revolver,’ said Fred, ‘and I’ll take your stick.’
“‘Thanks,’ I said; ‘You are a brave man.’
“I accepted his offer. I was going to be alone with the man in the room
writing and was really thankful to have the weapon.
“I left Fred, having posted him at the window (No. 5 on the plan),
and, with the greatest precaution, went towards Monsieur Stangerson’s
apartment in the left wing of the château. I found him with Daddy
Jacques, who had faithfully obeyed my directions, confining himself
to asking his master to dress as quickly as possible. In a few words
I explained to Monsieur Stangerson what was passing. He armed himself
with a revolver, followed me, and we were all three speedily in the
gallery. Since I had seen the murderer seated at the desk ten minutes
had elapsed. Monsieur Stangerson wished to spring upon the assassin at
once and kill him. I made him understand that, above all, he must not,
in his desire to kill him, miss him.
“When I had sworn to him that his daughter was not in the room, and
in no danger, he conquered his impatience and left me to direct the
operations. I told them that they must come to me the moment I called
to them, or when I fired my revolver. I then sent Daddy Jacques to
place himself before the window at the end of the ‘right’ gallery.
(No. 2 on my plan.) I chose that position for Daddy Jacques because I
believed that the murderer, tracked, on leaving the room, would run
through the gallery towards the window which he had left open, and,
instantly seeing that it was guarded by Larsan, would pursue his course
along the ‘right’ gallery. There he would encounter Daddy Jacques, who
would prevent his springing out of the window into the park. Under that
window there was a sort of buttress, while all the other windows in
the galleries were at such a height from the ground that it was almost
impossible to jump from them without breaking one’s neck. All the doors
and windows, including those of the lumber-room at the end of the
‘right’ gallery—as I had rapidly assured myself—were strongly secured.
“Having indicated to Daddy Jacques the post he was to occupy, and
having seen him take up his position, I placed Monsieur Stangerson
on the landing at the head of the stairs not far from the door of
his daughter’s ante-room. Everything led me to suppose that when
I surprised the murderer in the room, he would run by way of the
ante-room, rather than the boudoir, where the women were, and of which
the door must have been locked by Mademoiselle Stangerson herself if,
as I thought, she had taken refuge in the boudoir for the purpose
of avoiding the murderer who was coming to see her. In any case, he
must return to the gallery where my people were awaiting him at every
possible issue.
“On coming there, he would see on his left, Monsieur Stangerson; he
would turn to the right, towards the ‘off-turning’ gallery—the way he
had pre-arranged for flight, where, at the intersection of the two
galleries, he would see at once, as I have explained, on his left,
Frédéric Larsan at the end of the ‘off-turning’ gallery, and in front,
Daddy Jacques, at the end of the ‘right’ gallery. Monsieur Stangerson
and myself would arrive by way of the back of the château.—He is
ours!—He can no longer escape us! I was sure of that.
“The plan I had formed seemed to me the best, the surest, and the most
simple. It would, no doubt, have been simpler still, if we had been
able to place some one directly behind the door of Mademoiselle’s
boudoir, which opened out of her bedchamber, and, in that way, had
been in a position to besiege the two doors of the room in which the
man was. But we could not penetrate the boudoir except by way of the
drawing-room, the door of which had been locked on the inside by
Mademoiselle Stangerson. But even if I had had the free disposition
of the boudoir, I should have held to the plan I had formed; because
any other plan of attack would have separated us at the moment of the
struggle with the man, while my plan united us all for the attack, at
a spot which I had selected with almost mathematical precision,—the
intersection of the two galleries.
“Having so placed my people, I again left the château, hurried to my
ladder, and, replacing it, climbed up, revolver in hand.
“If there be any inclined to smile at my taking so many precautionary
measures, I refer them to the mystery of The Yellow Room, and to all
the proofs we have of the weird cunning of the murderer. Further, if
there be some who think my observations needlessly minute at a moment
when they ought to be completely held by rapidity of movement and
decision of action, I reply that I have wished to report here, at
length and completely, all the details of a plan of attack conceived
so rapidly that it is only the slowness of my pen that gives an
appearance of slowness to the execution. I have wished, _by_ this
slowness and precision, to be certain that nothing should be omitted
from the conditions under which the strange phenomenon was produced,
which, until some natural explanation of it is forthcoming, seems to me
to prove, even better than the theories of Professor Stangerson, the
Dissociation of Matter—I will even say, the instantaneous Dissociation
of Matter.”
Chapter XVI
Strange Phenomenon of the Dissociation of Matter
(Extract from the Note-Book of Joseph Rouletabille, continued)
“I am again at the window-sill,” continues Rouletabille, “and once