The Mystery of the Yellow Room
more I raise my head above it. Through an opening in the curtains, the
arrangement of which has not been changed, I am ready to look, anxious
to note the position in which I am going to find the murderer,—whether
his back will still be turned towards me!—whether he is still seated
at the desk writing! But perhaps—perhaps—he is no longer there!—Yet
how could he have fled?—Was I not in possession of his ladder? I force
myself to be cool. I raise my head yet higher. I look—he is still
there. I see his monstrous back, deformed by the shadow thrown by the
candle. He is no longer writing now, and the candle is on the parquet,
over which he is bending—a position which serves my purpose.
“I hold my breath. I mount the ladder. I am on the uppermost rung
of it, and with my left hand seize hold of the window-sill. In this
moment of approaching success, I feel my heart beating wildly. I
put my revolver between my teeth. A quick spring, and I shall be on
the window-ledge. But—the ladder! I had been obliged to press on it
heavily, and my foot had scarcely left it, when I felt it swaying
beneath me. It grated on the wall and fell. But, already, my knees were
touching the window-sill, and, by a movement quick as lightning, I got
on to it.
“But the murderer had been even quicker than I had been. He had heard
the grating of the ladder on the wall, and I saw the monstrous back of
the man raise itself. I saw his head. Did I really see it?—The candle
on the parquet lit up his legs only. Above the height of the table the
chamber was in darkness. I saw a man with long hair, a full beard,
wild-looking eyes, a pale face, framed in large whiskers,—as well as I
could distinguish, and, as I think—red in colour. I did not know the
face. That was, in brief, the chief sensation I received from that
face in the dim half-light in which I saw it. I did not know it—or, at
least, I did not recognise it.
“Now for quick action! It was indeed time for that, for as I was about
to place my legs through the window, the man had seen me, had bounded
to his feet, had sprung—as I foresaw he would—to the door of the
ante-chamber, had time to open it, and fled. But I was already behind
him, revolver in hand, shouting ‘Help!’
“Like an arrow I crossed the room, but noticed a letter on the table
as I rushed. I almost came up with the man in the ante-room, for he
had lost time in opening the door to the gallery. I flew on wings,
and in the gallery was but a few feet behind him. He had taken, as
I supposed he would, the gallery on his right,—that is to say, the
road he had prepared for his flight. ‘Help, Jacques!—help, Larsan!’
I cried. He could not escape us! I raised a shout of joy, of savage
victory. The man reached the intersection of the two galleries hardly
two seconds before me for the meeting which I had prepared—the fatal
shock which must inevitably take place at that spot! We all rushed to
the crossing-place—Monsieur Stangerson and I coming from one end of
the right gallery, Daddy Jacques coming from the other end of the same
gallery, and Frédéric Larsan coming from the ‘off-turning’ gallery.
“The man was not there!
“We looked at each other stupidly and with eyes terrified. The man had
vanished like a ghost. ‘Where is he—where is he?’ we all asked.
“‘It is impossible he can have escaped!’ I cried, my terror mastered by
my anger.
“‘I touched him!’ exclaimed Frédéric Larsan.
“‘I felt his breath on my face!’ cried Daddy Jacques.
“‘Where is he?—where is he?’ we all cried.
“We raced like madmen along the two galleries; we visited doors and
windows—they were closed, hermetically closed. They had not been
opened. Besides, the opening of a door or window by this man whom we
were hunting, without our having perceived it, would have been more
inexplicable than his disappearance?
“Where is he?—where is he?—He could not have got away by a door or a
window, nor by any other way. He could not have passed through our
bodies!
“I confess that, for the moment, I felt ‘done for.’ For the gallery was
perfectly lighted, and there was neither trap, nor secret door in the
walls, nor any sort of hiding-place. We moved the chairs and lifted the
pictures. Nothing!—nothing! We would have looked into a flower-pot, if
there had been one to look into!”
When this mystery, thanks to Rouletabille, was naturally explained, by
the help alone of his masterful mind, we were able to realise that the
murderer had got away neither by a door, a window, nor the stairs—a
fact which the judges would not admit.
Chapter XVII
The Inexplicable Gallery
(Extract from the Note-Book of Joseph Rouletabille, continued)
“Mademoiselle Stangerson appeared at the door of her ante-room,”
continues Rouletabille’s note-book. “We were near her door in the
gallery where this incredible phenomenon had taken place. There are
moments when one feels as if one’s brain were about to burst. A bullet
in the head, a fracture of the skull, the seat of reason shattered—with
only these can I compare the sensation which exhausted and left me void
of sense.
“Happily, Mademoiselle Stangerson appeared on the threshold of her
ante-room. I saw her, and that helped to relieve my chaotic state of
mind. I breathed _her_—I inhaled the perfume of the lady in black, whom
I should never see again. I would have given ten years of my life—half
my life—to see once more the lady in black! Alas! I no more meet
her but from time to time,—and yet!—and yet! how the memory of that
perfume—felt by me alone—carries me back to the days of my childhood.¹
It was this sharp reminder from my beloved perfume, of the lady in
black, which made me go to her—dressed wholly in white and so pale—so
pale and so beautiful!—on the threshold of the inexplicable gallery.
Her beautiful golden hair, gathered into a knot on the back of her
neck, left visible the red star on her temple which had so nearly been
the cause of her death. When I first got on the right track of the
mystery of this case I had imagined that, on the night of the tragedy
in The Yellow Room, Mademoiselle Stangerson had worn her hair in bands.
But then, how could I have imagined otherwise when I had not been in
The Yellow Room!
¹ When I wrote these lines, Joseph Rouletabille was eighteen years of
age,—and he spoke of his “youth.” I have kept the text of my friend,
but I inform the reader here that the episode of the mystery of The
Yellow Room has no connection with that of the perfume of the lady
in black. It is not my fault if, in the document which I have cited,
Rouletabille thought fit to refer to his childhood.
“But now, since the occurrence of the inexplicable gallery, I did
not reason at all. I stood there, stupid, before the apparition—so
pale and so beautiful—of Mademoiselle Stangerson. She was clad in
a dressing-gown of dreamy white. One might have taken her to be a
ghost—a lovely phantom. Her father took her in his arms and kissed
her passionately, as if he had recovered her after being long lost
to him. I dared not question her. He drew her into the room and we
followed them,—for we had to know!—The door of the boudoir was open.
The terrified faces of the two nurses craned towards us. Mademoiselle
Stangerson inquired the meaning of all the disturbance. That she was
not in her own room was quite easily explained—quite easily. She had a
fancy not to sleep that night in her chamber, but in the boudoir with
her nurses, locking the door on them. Since the night of the crime she
had experienced feelings of terror, and fears came over her that are
easily to be comprehended.
“But who could imagine that on that particular night when _he_ was to
come, she would, by a mere chance, determine to shut herself in with
her women? Who would think that she would act contrary to her father’s
wish to sleep in the drawing-room? Who could believe that the letter
which had so recently been on the table in her room would no longer
be there? He who could understand all this, would have to assume that
Mademoiselle Stangerson _knew_ that the murderer was coming—she could
not prevent his coming again—unknown to her father, unknown to all but
to Monsieur Robert Darzac. For he must know it now—perhaps he had known
it before! Did he remember that phrase in the Élysée garden: ‘Must
I commit a crime, then, to win you?’ Against whom the crime, if not
against the _obstacle_, against the murderer? ‘Ah, I would kill him
with my own hand!’—And I replied, ‘You have not answered my question.’
That was the very truth. In truth, in truth, Monsieur Darzac knew the
murderer so well that—while wishing to kill him himself—he was afraid
I should find him. There could be but two reasons why he had assisted
me in my investigation. First, because I have forced him to do it; and,
second, because she would be the better protected.
“I am in the chamber—her room. I look at her, also at the place where
the letter had just now been. She has possessed herself of it; it was
evidently intended for her—evidently. How she trembles!—Trembles at
the strange story her father is telling her, of the presence of the
murderer in her chamber, and of the pursuit. But it is plainly to be
seen that she is not wholly satisfied by the assurance given her until
she had been told that the murderer, by some incomprehensible means,
had been able to elude us.
“Then follows a silence. What a silence! We are all there—looking
at _her_,—her father, Larsan, Daddy Jacques and I. What were we all
thinking of in the silence? After the events of that night, of the
mystery of the inexplicable gallery, of the prodigious fact of the
presence of the murderer in her room, it seemed to me that all our
thoughts might have been translated into the words which were addressed
to her. ‘You who know of this mystery, explain it to us, and we shall
perhaps be able to save you.’ How I longed to save her—from herself,
and, from the other!—It brought the tears to my eyes.
“She is there, shedding about her the perfume of the lady in black. At
last, I see her, in the silence of her chamber. Since the fatal hour
of the mystery of The Yellow Room, we have hung about this invisible
and silent woman to learn what she knows. Our desires, our wish to know
must be a torment to her. Who can tell that, should we learn the secret
of her mystery, it would not precipitate a tragedy more terrible than
that which had already been enacted here? Who can tell if it might not
mean her death? Yet it had brought her close to death,—and we still
knew nothing. Or, rather, there are some of us who know nothing. But
I—if I knew _who_, I should know all. Who?—Who?—Not knowing _who_, I
must remain silent, out of pity for her. For there is no doubt that
_she_ knows how he escaped from The Yellow Room, and yet she keeps the
secret. When I know _who_, I will speak to him—to _him_!
“She looked at us now—with a far-away look in her eyes—as if we were
not in the chamber. Monsieur Stangerson broke the silence. He declared
that, henceforth, he would no more absent himself from his daughter’s
apartments. She tried to oppose him in vain. He adhered firmly to his
purpose. He would install himself there this very night, he said.
Solely concerned for the health of his daughter, he reproached her
for having left her bed. Then he suddenly began talking to her as
if she were a little child. He smiled at her and seemed not to know
either what he said or what he did. The illustrious professor had lost
his head. Mademoiselle Stangerson in a tone of tender distress said:
‘Father!—father!’ Daddy Jacques blows his nose, and Frédéric Larsan
himself is obliged to turn away to hide his emotion. For myself, I am
able neither to think or feel. I felt an infinite contempt for myself.
“It was the first time that Frédéric Larsan, like myself, found himself