The Mystery of the Yellow Room
face to face with Mademoiselle Stangerson since the attack in The
Yellow Room. Like me, he had insisted on being allowed to question the
unhappy lady; but he had not, any more than had I, been permitted. To
him, as to me, the same answer had always been given: Mademoiselle
Stangerson was too weak to receive us. The questionings of the
examining magistrate had over-fatigued her. It was evidently intended
not to give us any assistance in our researches. I was not surprised;
but Frédéric Larsan had always resented this conduct. It is true that
he and I had a totally different theory of the crime.
“I still catch myself repeating from the depths of my heart: ‘Save
her!—save her without _his_ speaking!’ Who is _he_—the murderer? Take
him and shut his mouth. But Monsieur Darzac made it clear that in
order to shut his mouth he must be killed. Have I the right to kill
Mademoiselle Stangerson’s murderer? No, I had not. But let him only
give me the chance! Let me find out whether he is really a creature of
flesh and blood!—Let me see his dead body, since it cannot be taken
alive.
“If I could but make this woman, who does not even look at us,
understand! She is absorbed by her fears and by her father’s distress
of mind. And I can do nothing to save her. Yes, I will go to work once
more and accomplish wonders.
“I move towards her. I would speak to her. I would entreat her to
have confidence in me. I would, in a word, make her understand—she
alone—that I know how the murderer escaped from The Yellow Room—that
I have guessed the motives for her secrecy—and that I pity her with
all my heart. But by her gestures she begged us to leave her alone,
expressing weariness and the need for immediate rest. Monsieur
Stangerson asked us to go back to our rooms and thanked us. Frédéric
Larsan and I bowed to him and, followed by Daddy Jacques, we regained
the gallery. I heard Larsan murmur: ‘Strange! strange!’ He made a sign
to me to go with him into his room. On the threshold he turned towards
Daddy Jacques.
“‘Did you see him distinctly?’ he asked.
“‘Who?’
“‘The man?’
“‘Saw him!—why, he had a big red beard and red hair.’
“‘That’s how he appeared to me,’ I said.
“‘And to me,’ said Larsan.
“The great Fred and I were alone in his chamber, now, to talk over this
thing. We talked for an hour, turning the matter over and viewing it
from every side. From the questions put by him, from the explanation
which he gives me, it is clear to me that—in spite of all our senses he
is persuaded the man disappeared by some secret passage in the château
known to him alone.
“‘He knows the château,’ he said to me; ‘he knows it well.’
“‘He is a rather tall man—well-built,’ I suggested.
“‘He is as tall as he wants to be,’ murmured Fred.
“‘I understand,’ I said; ‘but how do you account for his red hair and
beard?’
“‘Too much beard—too much hair—false,’ says Fred.
“‘That’s easily said. You are always thinking of Robert Darzac. You
can’t get rid of that idea? _I_ am certain that he is innocent.’
“‘So much the better. I hope so; but everything condemns him. Did you
notice the marks on the carpet?—Come and look at them.’
“‘I have seen them; they are the marks of the neat boots, the same as
those we saw on the border of the lake.’
“‘Can you deny that they belong to Robert Darzac?’
“‘Of course, one may be mistaken.’
“‘Have you noticed that those footprints only go in one direction?—that
there are no return marks? When the man came from the chamber, pursued
by all of us, his footsteps left no traces behind them.’
“‘He had, perhaps, been in the chamber for hours. The mud from his
boots had dried, and he moved with such rapidity on the points of his
toes—We saw him running, but we did not hear his steps.’
“I suddenly put an end to this idle chatter—void of any logic, and made
a sign to Larsan to listen.
“‘There—below; some one is shutting a door.’
“I rise; Larsan follows me; we descend to the ground-floor of the
château. I lead him to the little semi-circular room under the terrace
beneath _the_ window of the ‘off-turning’ gallery. I point to the door,
now closed, open a short time before, under which a shaft of light is
visible.
“‘The forest-keeper!’ says Fred.
“‘Come on!’ I whisper.
“Prepared—I know not why—to believe that the keeper is the guilty man—I
go to the door and rap smartly on it.
“Some might think that we were rather late in thinking of the keeper,
since our first business, after having found that the murderer had
escaped us in the gallery, ought to have been to search everywhere
else,—around the château,—in the park—
“Had this criticism been made at the time, we could only have answered
that the assassin had disappeared from the gallery in such a way that
we thought he was no longer _anywhere_! He had eluded us when we all
had our hands stretched out ready to seize him—when we were almost
touching him. We had no longer any ground for hoping that we could
clear up the mystery of that night.
“As soon as I rapped at the door it was opened, and the keeper asked us
quietly what we wanted. He was undressed and preparing to go to bed.
The bed had not yet been disturbed.
“We entered and I affected surprise.
“‘Not gone to bed yet?’
“‘No,’ he replied roughly. ‘I have been making a round of the park and
in the woods. I am only just back—and sleepy. Good-night!’
“‘Listen,’ I said. ‘An hour or so ago, there was a ladder close by your
window.’
“‘What ladder?—I did not see any ladder. Good-night!’
“And he simply put us out of the room. When we were outside I looked at
Larsan. His face was impenetrable.
“‘Well?’ I said.
“‘Well?’ he repeated.
“‘Does that open out any new view to you?’
“There was no mistaking Larsan’s bad temper. On re-entering the
château, I heard him mutter:
“‘It would be strange—very strange—if I had deceived myself on that
point!’
“He seemed to be talking to me rather than to himself. He added:
“‘In any case, we shall soon know what to think. The morning will bring
light with it.’”
Chapter XVIII
Rouletabille Has Drawn a Circle between the Two Bumps on His Forehead
(Extract from the Note-Book of Joseph Rouletabille, continued)
“We separated on the thresholds of our rooms, with a melancholy shake
of the hands. I was glad to have aroused in him a suspicion of error.
His was an original brain, very intelligent but—without method. I did
not go to bed. I awaited the coming of daylight and then went down to
the front of the château, and made a detour, examining every trace of
footsteps coming towards it or going from it. These, however, were so
mixed and confusing that I could make nothing of them. Here I may make
a remark,—I am not accustomed to attach an exaggerated importance to
exterior signs left in the track of a crime.
“The method which traces the criminal by means of the tracks of his
footsteps is altogether primitive. So many footprints are identical.
However, in the disturbed state of my mind, I did go into the deserted
court and did look at all the footprints I could find there, seeking
for some indication, as a basis for reasoning.
“If I could but find a right starting-point! In despair I seated myself
on a stone. For over an hour I busied myself with the common, ordinary
work of a policeman. Like the least intelligent of detectives I went on
blindly over the traces of footprints which told me just no more than
they could.
“I came to the conclusion that I was a fool, lower in the scale of
intelligence than even the police of the modern romancer. Novelists
build mountains of stupidity out of a footprint on the sand, or from
an impression of a hand on the wall. That’s the way innocent men are
brought to prison. It might convince an examining magistrate or the
head of a detective department, but it’s not _proof_. You writers
forget that what the senses furnish is not proof. If I am taking
cognisance of what is offered me by my senses I do so but to bring the
results within the circle of my reason. That circle may be the most
circumscribed, but if it is, it has this advantage—it holds nothing but
_the truth_! Yes, I swear that I have never used the evidence of the
senses but as servants to my reason. I have never permitted them to
become my master. They have not made of me that monstrous thing,—worse
than a blind man,—a man who sees falsely. And that is why I can triumph
over your error and your merely animal intelligence, Frédéric Larsan.
“Be of good courage, then, friend Rouletabille; it is _impossible_ that
the incident of the inexplicable gallery should be outside the circle
of your reason. You know that! Then have faith and take thought with
yourself and forget not that you took hold of the right end when you
drew that circle in your brain within which to unravel this mysterious
play of circumstance.
“To it, once again! Go back to the gallery. Take your stand on your
reason and rest there as Frédéric Larsan rests on his cane. You will
then soon prove that the great Fred is nothing but a fool.—30th
October. Noon.
“Joseph Rouletabille.”
* * * * *
“I acted as I planned. With head on fire, I retraced my way to the
gallery, and without having found anything more than I had seen on the
previous night, the right hold I had taken of my reason drew me to
something so important that I was obliged to cling to it to save myself
from falling.
“Now for the strength and patience to find _sensible_ traces to fit in
with my thinking—and these must come within the circle I have drawn
between the two bumps on my forehead!—30th of October. Midnight.
“Joseph Rouletabille.”
Chapter XIX
Rouletabille Invites Me to Breakfast at the Donjon Inn
It was not until later that Rouletabille sent me the Note-Book in
which he had written at length the story of the phenomenon of the
inexplicable gallery. On the day I arrived at the Glandier and joined
him in his room, he recounted to me, with the greatest detail, all that
I have now related, telling me also how he had spent several hours in
Paris where he had learned nothing that could be of any help to him.
The event of the inexplicable gallery had occurred on the night between
the 29th and 30th of October, that is to say, three days before my
return to the château. It was on the 2nd of November, then, that I
went back to the Glandier, summoned there by my friend’s telegram, and
taking the revolvers with me.
I am now in Rouletabille’s room and he has finished his recital.
While he had been telling me the story I noticed him continually
rubbing the glass of the eye-glasses he had found on the side table.
From the evident pleasure he was taking in handling them I felt they
must be one of those _sensible_ evidences destined to enter, what he
had called, the circle of the right end of his reason. That strange and
unique way of his, to express himself in terms wonderfully adequate for
his thought, no longer surprised me. It was often necessary to know
his thought to understand the terms he used; and it was not easy to
penetrate into Rouletabille’s thinking.
This lad’s brain was one of the most curious things I have ever
observed. Rouletabille went on the even tenor of his way without
suspecting the astonishment and even bewilderment he roused in others.
I am sure he was not himself in the least conscious of the originality
of his genius. He was himself and at ease wherever he happened to be.
When he had finished his recital he asked me what I thought of it. I
replied that I was much puzzled by his question. Then he begged me to
try, in my turn, to take my reason in hand “by the right end.”
“Very well,” I said. “It seems to me that the point of departure of