The Mystery of the Yellow Room
Room mystery. He explained that Monsieur Stangerson had related to him
all that had taken place in the inexplicable gallery. He several times
expressed his regret at Monsieur Darzac’s absence from the château on
all these occasions, and thought that Monsieur Darzac had done cleverly
in allying himself with Monsieur Joseph Rouletabille, who could not
fail, sooner or later, to discover the murderer. He spoke the last
sentence with unconcealed irony. Then he rose, bowed to us, and left
the inn.
Rouletabille watched him through the window.
“An odd fish, that!” he said.
“Do you think he’ll pass the night at the Glandier?” I asked.
To my amazement the young reporter answered that it was a matter of
entire indifference to him whether he did or not.
As to how we spent our time during the afternoon, all I need say is
that Rouletabille led me to the grotto of Sainte-Geneviève, and, all
the time, talked of every subject but the one with which we were most
interested. Towards evening I was surprised to find Rouletabille making
none of the preparations I had expected him to make. I spoke to him
about it when night had come on, and we were once more in his room. He
replied that all his arrangements had already been made, and this time
the murderer would not get away from him.
I expressed some doubt on this, reminding him of his disappearance in
the gallery, and suggested that the same phenomenon might occur again.
He answered that he hoped it would. He desired nothing more. I did not
insist, knowing by experience how useless that would have been. He told
me that, with the help of the concierges, the château had since early
dawn, been watched in such a way that nobody could approach it without
his knowing it, and that he had no concern for those who might have
left it and remained without.
It was then six o’clock by his watch. Rising, he made a sign to me to
follow him, and, without in the least trying to conceal his movements
or the sound of his footsteps, he led me through the gallery. We
reached the “right” gallery and came to the landing-place which we
crossed. We then continued our way in the gallery of the left wing,
passing Professor Stangerson’s apartment.
At the far end of the gallery, before coming to the donjon, is the room
occupied by Arthur Rance. We knew that, because we had seen him at the
window looking on to the court. The door of the room opens on to the
end of the gallery, exactly facing the east window, at the extremity of
the “right” gallery, where Rouletabille had placed Daddy Jacques, and
commands an uninterrupted view of the gallery from end to end of the
château.
“That ‘off-turning’ gallery,” said Rouletabille, “I reserve for myself;
when I tell you you’ll come and take your place here.”
And he made me enter a little dark, triangular closet built in a bend
of the wall, to the left of the door of Arthur Rance’s room. From
this recess I could see all that occurred in the gallery as well as
if I had been standing in front of Arthur Rance’s door, and I could
watch that door, too. The door of the closet, which was to be my place
of observation, was fitted with panels of transparent glass. In the
gallery, where all the lamps had been lit, it was quite light. In the
closet, however, it was quite dark. It was a splendid place from which
to observe and remain unobserved.
I was soon to play the part of a spy—a common policeman. I wonder
what my leader at the bar would have said had he known! I was not
altogether pleased with my duties, but I could not refuse Rouletabille
the assistance he had begged me to give him. I took care not to make
him see that I in the least objected, and for several reasons. I wanted
to oblige him; I did not wish him to think me a coward; I was filled
with curiosity; and it was too late for me to draw back, even had I
determined to do so. That I had not had these scruples sooner was
because my curiosity had quite got the better of me. I might also urge
that I was helping to save the life of a woman, and even a lawyer may
do that conscientiously.
We returned along the gallery. On reaching the door of Mademoiselle
Stangerson’s apartment, it opened from a push given by the steward who
was waiting at the dinner-table. (Monsieur Stangerson had, for the
last three days, dined with his daughter in the drawing-room on the
first floor.) As the door remained open, we distinctly saw Mademoiselle
Stangerson, taking advantage of the steward’s absence, and while her
father was stooping to pick up something he had let fall, pour the
contents of a phial into Monsieur Stangerson’s glass.
Chapter XXI
On the Watch
The act, which staggered me, did not appear to affect Rouletabille
much. We returned to his room and, without even referring to what we
had seen, he gave me his final instructions for the night. First we
were to go to dinner; after dinner, I was to take my stand in the dark
closet and wait there as long as it was necessary—to look out for what
might happen.
“If you _see_ anything before I do,” he explained, “you must let me
know. If the man gets into the ‘right’ gallery by any other way than
the ‘off-turning’ gallery, you will see him before I shall, because
you have a view along the whole length of the ‘right’ gallery, while I
can only command a view of the ‘off-turning’ gallery. All you need do
to let me know is to undo the cord holding the curtain of the ‘right’
gallery window, nearest to the dark closet. The curtain will fall of
itself and immediately leave a square of shadow where previously there
had been a square of light. To do this, you need but stretch your hand
out of the closet, I shall understand your signal perfectly.”
“And then?”
“Then you will see me coming round the corner of the ‘off-turning’
gallery.”
“What am I to do then?”
“You will immediately come towards me, behind the man; but I shall
already be upon him, and shall have seen his face.”
I attempted a feeble smile.
“Why do you smile? Well, you may smile while you have the chance, but I
swear you’ll have no time for that a few hours from now.”
“And if the man escapes?”
“So much the better,” said Rouletabille, coolly, “I don’t want to
capture him. He may take himself off any way he can. _I will let
him go—after I have seen his face._ That’s all I want. I shall know
afterwards what to do so that as far as Mademoiselle Stangerson is
concerned he shall be dead to her even though he continues to live.
If I took him alive, Mademoiselle Stangerson and Robert Darzac would,
perhaps, never forgive me! And I wish to retain their good-will and
respect.
“Seeing, as I have just now seen, Mademoiselle Stangerson pour a
narcotic into her father’s glass, so that he might not be awake to
interrupt the conversation she is going to have with her murderer, you
can imagine she would not be grateful to me if I brought the man of
The Yellow Room and the inexplicable gallery, bound and gagged, to her
father. I realise now that if I am to save the unhappy lady, I must
silence the man and not capture him. To kill a human being is no small
thing. Besides, that’s not my business, unless the man himself makes it
my business. On the other hand, to render him forever silent without
the lady’s assent and confidence is to act on one’s own initiative
and assumes a knowledge of everything with nothing for a basis.
Fortunately, my friend, I have guessed, no, I have reasoned it all out.
All that I ask of the man who is coming to-night is to bring me his
face, so that it may enter—”
“Into the circle?”
“Exactly! And his face won’t surprise me!”
“But I thought you saw his face on the night when you sprang into the
chamber?”
“Only imperfectly. The candle was on the floor; and, his beard—”
“Will he wear his beard this evening?”
“I think I can say for certain that he _will_. But the gallery is light
and, now, I know—or—at least, my brain knows—and my eyes will see.”
“If we are here only to see him and let him escape, why are we armed?”
“Because, if the man of The Yellow Room and the inexplicable gallery
knows that _I_ know, he is capable of doing anything! We should then
have to defend ourselves.”
“And you are sure he will come to-night?”
“As sure as that you are standing there! This morning, at half-past ten
o’clock, Mademoiselle Stangerson, in the cleverest way in the world,
arranged to have no nurses to-night. She gave them leave of absence
for twenty-four hours, under some plausible pretexts, and did not
desire anybody to be with her but her father, while they are away. Her
father, who is to sleep in the boudoir, has gladly consented to the
arrangement. Darzac’s departure and what he told me, as well as the
extraordinary precautions Mademoiselle Stangerson is taking to be alone
to-night leaves me no room for doubt. She has prepared the way for the
coming of the man whom Darzac dreads.”
“That’s awful!”
“It is!”
“And what we saw her do was done to send her father to sleep?”
“Yes.”
“Then there are but two of us for to-night’s work?”
“Four; the concierge and his wife will watch at all hazards. I don’t
set much value on them _before_—but the concierge may be useful
after—if there’s to be any killing!”
“Then you think there may be?”
“If _he_ wishes it.”
“Why haven’t you brought in Daddy Jacques?—Have you made no use of him
to-day?”
“No,” replied Rouletabille sharply.
I kept silence for awhile, then, anxious to know his thoughts, I asked
him point blank:
“Why not tell Arthur Rance?—He may be of great assistance to us?”
“Oh!” said Rouletabille crossly, “then you want to let everybody into
Mademoiselle Stangerson’s secrets?—Come, let us go to dinner; it is
time. This evening we dine in Frédéric Larsan’s room,—at least, if he
is not on the heels of Darzac. He sticks to him like a leech. But,
anyhow, if he is not there now, I am quite sure he will be, to-night!
He’s the one I am going to knock over!”
At this moment we heard a noise in the room near us.
“It must be he,” said Rouletabille.
“I forgot to ask you,” I said, “if we are to make any allusion to
to-night’s business when we are with this policeman. I take it we are
not. Is that so?”
“Evidently. We are going to operate alone, on our own personal account.”
“So that all the glory will be ours?”
Rouletabille laughed.
We dined with Frédéric Larsan in his room. He told us he had just come
in and invited us to be seated at table. We ate our dinner in the best
of humours, and I had no difficulty in appreciating the feelings of
certainty which both Rouletabille and Larsan felt. Rouletabille told
the great Fred that I had come on a chance visit, and that he had
asked me to stay and help him in the heavy batch of writing he had to
get through for the “Epoque.” I was going back to Paris, he said, by
the eleven o’clock train, taking his “copy,” which took a story form,
recounting the principal episodes in the mysteries of the Glandier.
Larsan smiled at the explanation like a man who was not fooled and
politely refrains from making the slightest remark on matters which did
not concern him.
With infinite precautions as to the words they used, and even as to the
tones of their voices, Larsan and Rouletabille discussed, for a long
time, Mr. Arthur Rance’s appearance at the château, and his past in
America, about which they expressed a desire to know more, at any rate,
so far as his relations with the Stangersons. At one time, Larsan, who
appeared to me to be unwell, said, with an effort:
“I think, Monsieur Rouletabille, that we’ve not much more to do at the
Glandier, and that we sha’n’t sleep here many more nights.”
“I think so, too, Monsieur Fred.”
“Then you think the conclusion of the matter has been reached?”