The Mystery of the Yellow Room
my reason would be this—there can be no doubt that the murderer you
pursued was in the gallery.” I paused.
“After making so good a start, you ought not to stop so soon,” he
exclaimed. “Come, make another effort.”
“I’ll try. Since he disappeared from the gallery without passing
through any door or window, he must have escaped by some other opening.”
Rouletabille looked at me pityingly, smiled carelessly, and remarked
that I was reasoning like a postman, or—like Frédéric Larsan.
Rouletabille had alternate fits of admiration and disdain for the great
Fred. It all depended as to whether Larsan’s discoveries tallied with
Rouletabille’s reasoning or not. When they did he would exclaim: “He is
really great!” When they did not he would grunt and mutter, “What an
ass!” It was a petty side of the noble character of this strange youth.
We had risen, and he led me into the park. When we reached the court
and were making towards the gate, the sound of blinds thrown back
against the wall made us turn our heads, and we saw, at a window on the
first floor of the château, the ruddy and clean shaven face of a person
I did not recognise.
“Hullo!” muttered Rouletabille. “Arthur Rance!”—He lowered his head,
quickened his pace, and I heard him ask himself between his teeth: “Was
he in the château that night? What is he doing here?”
We had gone some distance from the château when I asked him who this
Arthur Rance was, and how he had come to know him. He referred to his
story of that morning and I remembered that Mr. Arthur W. Rance was the
American from Philadelphia with whom he had had so many drinks at the
Élysée reception.
“But was he not to have left France almost immediately?” I asked.
“No doubt; that’s why I am surprised to find him here still, and not
only in France, but above all, at the Glandier. He did not arrive this
morning; and he did not get here last night. He must have got here
before dinner, then. Why didn’t the concierges tell me?”
I reminded my friend, apropos of the concierges, that he had not yet
told me what had led him to get them set at liberty.
We were close to their lodge. Monsieur and Madame Bernier saw us
coming. A frank smile lit up their happy faces. They seemed to harbour
no ill-feeling because of their detention. My young friend asked them
at what hour Mr. Arthur Rance had arrived. They answered that they did
not know he was at the château. He must have come during the evening
of the previous night, but they had not had to open the gate for him,
because, being a great walker, and not wishing that a carriage should
be sent to meet him, he was accustomed to get off at the little hamlet
of Saint-Michel, from which he came to the château by way of the
forest. He reached the park by the grotto of Sainte-Geneviève, over the
little gate of which, giving on to the park, he climbed.
As the concierges spoke, I saw Rouletabille’s face cloud over and
exhibit disappointment—a disappointment, no doubt, with himself.
Evidently he was a little vexed, after having worked so much on the
spot, with so minute a study of the people and events at the Glandier,
that he had to learn now that Arthur Rance was accustomed to visit the
château.
“You say that Monsieur Arthur Rance is accustomed to come to the
château. When did he come here last?”
“We can’t tell you exactly,” replied Madame Bernier—that was the name
of the concierge—“we couldn’t know while they were keeping us in
prison. Besides, as the gentleman comes to the château without passing
through our gate he goes away by the way he comes.”
“Do you know when he came the _first_ time?”
“Oh yes, Monsieur!—nine years ago.”
“He was in France nine years ago, then,” said Rouletabille, “and,
since that time, as far as you know, how many times has he been at the
Glandier?”
“Three times.”
“When did he come the last time, as far as you know?”
“A week before the attempt in The Yellow Room.”
Rouletabille put another question—this time addressing himself
particularly to the woman:—
“In the grove of the parquet?”
“In the grove of the parquet,” she replied.
“Thanks!” said Rouletabille. “Be ready for me this evening.”
He spoke the last words with a finger on his lips as if to command
silence and discretion.
We left the park and took the way to the Donjon Inn.
“Do you often eat here?”
“Sometimes.”
“But you also take your meals at the château?”
“Yes, Larsan and I are sometimes served in one of our rooms.”
“Hasn’t Monsieur Stangerson ever invited you to his own table?”
“Never.”
“Does your presence at the château displease him?”
“I don’t know; but, in any case, he does not make us feel that we are
in his way.”
“Doesn’t he question you?”
“Never. He is in the same state of mind as he was in at the door of The
Yellow Room when his daughter was being murdered, and when he broke
open the door and did not find the murderer. He is persuaded, since he
could discover nothing, that there’s no reason why we should be able to
discover more than he did. But he has made it his duty, since Larsan
expressed his theory, not to oppose us.”
Rouletabille buried himself in thought again for some time. He aroused
himself later to tell me of how he came to set the two concierges free.
“I went lately to see Monsieur Stangerson, and took with me a piece of
paper on which was written: ‘I promise, whatever others may say, to
keep in my service my two faithful servants, Bernier and his wife.’ I
explained to him that, by signing that document, he would enable me to
compel those two people to speak out; and I declared my own assurance
of their innocence of any part in the crime. That was also his opinion.
The examining magistrate, after it was signed, presented the document
to the Berniers, who then did speak. They said, what I was certain they
would say, as soon as they were sure they would not lose their place.
“They confessed to poaching on Monsieur Stangerson’s estates, and it
was while they were poaching, on the night of the crime, that they
were found not far from the pavilion at the moment when the outrage
was being committed. Some rabbits they caught in that way were sold
by them to the landlord of the Donjon Inn, who served them to his
customers, or sent them to Paris. That was the truth, as I had guessed
from the first. Do you remember what I said, on entering the Donjon
Inn?—‘We shall have to eat red meat—now!’ I had heard the words on the
same morning when we arrived at the park gate. You heard them also,
but you did not attach any importance to them. You recollect, when we
reached the park gate, that we stopped to look at a man who was running
by the side of the wall, looking every minute at his watch. That was
Larsan. Well, behind us the landlord of the Donjon Inn, standing on his
doorstep, said to someone inside: ‘We shall have to eat red meat—now.’
“Why that ‘now’? When you are, as I am, in search of some hidden
secret, you can’t afford to have anything escape you. You’ve got
to know the meaning of everything. We had come into a rather
out-of-the-way part of the country which had been turned topsy-turvey
by a crime, and my reason led me to suspect every phrase that could
bear upon the event of the day. ‘Now,’ I took to mean, ‘since the
outrage.’ In the course of my inquiry, therefore, I sought to find a
relation between that phrase and the tragedy. We went to the Donjon
Inn for breakfast; I repeated the phrase and saw, by the surprise
and trouble on Daddy Mathieu’s face, that I had not exaggerated its
importance, so far as he was concerned.
“I had just learned that the concierges had been arrested. Daddy
Mathieu spoke of them as of dear friends—people for whom one is sorry.
That was a reckless conjunction of ideas, I said to myself. ‘Now,’ that
the concierges are arrested, ‘we shall have to eat red meat.’ No more
concierges, no more game! The hatred expressed by Daddy Mathieu for
Monsieur Stangerson’s forest-keeper—a hatred he pretended was shared
by the concierges—led me easily to think of poaching. Now as all the
evidence showed the concierges had not been in bed at the time of
the tragedy, why were they abroad that night? As participants in the
crime? I was not disposed to think so. I had already arrived at the
conclusion, by steps of which I will tell you later—that the assassin
had had no accomplice, and that the tragedy held a mystery between
Mademoiselle Stangerson and the murderer, a mystery with which the
concierges had nothing to do.
“With that theory in my mind, I searched for proof in their lodge,
which, as you know, I entered. I found there under their bed, some
springs and brass wire. ‘Ah!’ I thought, ‘these things explain why
they were out in the park at night!’ I was not surprised at the dogged
silence they maintained before the examining magistrate, even under
the accusation so grave as that of being accomplices in the crime.
Poaching would save them from the Assize Court, but it would lose them
their places; and, as they were perfectly sure of their innocence of
the crime, they hoped it would soon be established, and then their
poaching might go on as usual. They could always confess later. I,
however, hastened their confession by means of the document Monsieur
Stangerson signed. They gave all the necessary ‘proofs,’ were set at
liberty, and have now a lively gratitude for me. Why did I not get them
released sooner? Because I was not sure that nothing more than poaching
was against them. I wanted to study the ground. As the days went by,
my conviction became more and more certain. The day after the events
of the inexplicable gallery I had need of help I could rely on, so I
resolved to have them released at once.”
That was how Joseph Rouletabille explained himself. Once more I could
not but be astonished at the simplicity of the reasoning which had
brought him to the truth of the matter. Certainly this was no big
thing; but I think, myself, that the young man will, one of these days,
explain with the same simplicity, the fearful tragedy in The Yellow
Room as well as the phenomenon of the inexplicable gallery.
We reached the Donjon Inn and entered it.
This time we did not see the landlord, but were received with a
pleasant smile by the hostess. I have already described the room in
which we found ourselves, and I have given a glimpse of the charming
blonde woman with the gentle eyes who now immediately began to prepare
our breakfast.
“How’s Daddy Mathieu?” asked Rouletabille.
“Not much better—not much better; he is still confined to his bed.”
“His rheumatism still sticks to him, then?”
“Yes. Last night I was again obliged to give him morphine—the only drug
that gives him any relief.”
She spoke in a soft voice. Everything about her expressed gentleness.
She was, indeed, a beautiful woman; somewhat with an air of indolence,
with great eyes seemingly black and blue—amorous eyes. Was she happy
with her crabbed, rheumatic husband? The scene at which we had once
been present did not lead us to believe that she was; yet there was
something in her bearing that was not suggestive of despair. She
disappeared into the kitchen to prepare our repast, leaving on the
table a bottle of excellent cider. Rouletabille filled our earthenware
mugs, loaded his pipe, and quietly explained to me his reason for
asking me to come to the Glandier with revolvers.
“Yes,” he said, contemplatively looking at the clouds of smoke he was
puffing out, “yes, my dear boy, I expect the assassin to-night.”
A brief silence followed, which I took care not to interrupt, and then
he went on:—
“Last night, just as I was going to bed, Monsieur Robert Darzac knocked
at my room. When he came in he confided to me that he was compelled to