The Mystery of the Yellow Room
were all questioned. Rouletabille and I had already agreed on what to
say. I kept back any information as to my being in the dark closet and
said nothing about the drugging. We did not wish to suggest in any way
that Mademoiselle Stangerson had been expecting her nocturnal visitor.
The poor woman might, perhaps, never recover, and it was none of our
business to lift the veil of a secret the preservation of which she had
paid for so dearly.
Arthur Rance told everybody, in a manner so natural that it astonished
me, that he had last seen the keeper towards eleven o’clock of that
fatal night. He had come for his valise he said, which he was to
take for him early next morning to the Saint-Michel station; and had
been kept out late running after poachers. Arthur Rance had, indeed,
intended to leave the château and, according to his habit, to walk to
the station.
Monsieur Stangerson confirmed what Rance had said, adding that he had
not asked Rance to dine with him because his friend had taken his
final leave of them both earlier in the evening. Monsieur Rance had
had tea served him in his room, because he had complained of a slight
indisposition.
Bernier testified, instructed by Rouletabille, that the keeper had
ordered him to meet at a spot near the oak grove, for the purpose of
looking out for poachers. Finding that the keeper did not keep his
appointment, he, Bernier, had gone in search of him. He had almost
arrived at the donjon, when he saw a figure running swiftly in a
direction opposite to him, towards the right wing of the château. He
heard revolver shots from behind the figure and saw Rouletabille at one
of the gallery windows. He heard Rouletabille call out to him to fire,
and he had fired. He believed he had killed the man until he learned,
after Rouletabille had uncovered the body, that the man had died from
a knife thrust. Who had given it he could not imagine. “Nobody could
have been near the spot without my seeing him.” When the examining
magistrate reminded him that the spot where the body was found was very
dark and that he himself had not been able to recognise the keeper
before firing, Daddy Bernier replied that neither had they seen the
other body; nor had they found it. In the narrow court where five
people were standing it would have been strange if the other body, had
it been there, could have escaped. The only door that opened into the
court was that of the keeper’s room, and that door was closed, and the
key of it was found in the keeper’s pocket.
However that might be, the examining magistrate did not pursue his
inquiry further in this direction. He was evidently convinced that we
had missed the man we were chasing and we had come upon the keeper’s
body in our chase. This matter of the keeper was another matter
entirely. He wanted to satisfy himself about that without any further
delay. Probably it chimed in with the conclusions he had already
arrived at as to the keeper and his intrigues with the wife of Mathieu
the landlord of the Donjon Inn. This Mathieu, later in the afternoon,
was arrested and taken to Corbeil in spite of his rheumatism. He had
been heard to threaten the keeper, and though no evidence against him
had been found at his inn, the evidence of carters who had heard the
threats was enough to justify his retention.
The examination had proceeded thus far when, to our surprise, Frédéric
Larsan returned to the château. He was accompanied by one of the
employés of the railway. At that moment Rance and I were in the
vestibule discussing Mathieu’s guilt or innocence, while Rouletabille
stood apart buried, apparently, in thought. The examining magistrate
and his Registrar were in the little green drawing-room, while Darzac
was with the doctor and Stangerson in the lady’s chamber. As Frédéric
Larsan entered the vestibule with the railway employé, Rouletabille and
I at once recognised him by the small blond beard. We exchanged meaning
glances. Larsan had himself announced to the examining magistrate by
the gendarme and entered with the railway servant as Daddy Jacques
came out. Some ten minutes went by during which Rouletabille appeared
extremely impatient. The door of the drawing-room was then opened and
we heard the magistrate calling to the gendarme who entered. Presently
he came out, mounted the stairs and, coming back shortly, went in to
the magistrate and said:—
“Monsieur,—Monsieur Robert Darzac will not come!”
“What! Not come!” cried Monsieur de Marquet.
“He says he cannot leave Mademoiselle Stangerson in her present state.”
“Very well,” said Monsieur de Marquet; “then we’ll go to him.”
Monsieur de Marquet and the gendarme mounted the stairs. He made a sign
to Larsan and the railway employé to follow. Rouletabille and I went
along too.
On reaching the door of Mademoiselle Stangerson’s chamber, Monsieur de
Marquet knocked. A chambermaid appeared. It was Sylvia, with her hair
all in disorder and consternation showing on her face.
“Is Monsieur Stangerson within?” asked the magistrate.
“Yes, Monsieur.”
“Tell him that I wish to speak with him.”
Stangerson came out. His appearance was wretched in the extreme.
“What do you want?” he demanded of the magistrate. “May I not be left
in peace, Monsieur?”
“Monsieur,” said the magistrate, “it is absolutely necessary that I
should see Monsieur Darzac at once. If you cannot induce him to come, I
shall be compelled to use the help of the law.”
The professor made no reply. He looked at us all like a man being led
to execution, and then went back into the room.
Almost immediately after Monsieur Robert Darzac came out. He was very
pale. He looked at us and, his eyes falling on the railway servant, his
features stiffened and he could hardly repress a groan.
We were all much moved by the appearance of the man. We felt that what
was about to happen would decide the fate of Monsieur Robert Darzac.
Frédéric Larsan’s face alone was radiant, showing a joy as of a dog
that had at last got its prey.
Pointing to the railway servant, Monsieur de Marquet said to Monsieur
Darzac:
“Do you recognise this man, Monsieur?”
“I do,” said Monsieur Darzac, in a tone which he vainly tried to make
firm. “He is an employé at the station at Epinay-sur-Orge.”
“This young man,” went on Monsieur de Marquet, “affirms that he saw you
get off the train at Epinay-sur-Orge—”
“That night,” said Monsieur Darzac, interrupting, “at half-past ten—it
is quite true.”
An interval of silence followed.
“Monsieur Darzac,” the magistrate went on in a tone of deep emotion,
“Monsieur Darzac, what were you doing that night, at Epinay-sur-Orge—at
that time?”
Monsieur Darzac remained silent, simply closing his eyes.
“Monsieur Darzac,” insisted Monsieur de Marquet, “can you tell me how
you employed your time, that night?”
Monsieur Darzac opened his eyes. He seemed to have recovered his
self-control.
“No, Monsieur.”
“Think, Monsieur! for, if you persist in your strange refusal, I shall
be under the painful necessity of keeping you at my disposition.”
“I refuse.”
“Monsieur Darzac!—in the name of the law, I arrest you!”
The magistrate had no sooner pronounced the words than I saw
Rouletabille move quickly towards Monsieur Darzac. He would certainly
have spoken to him, but Darzac, by a gesture, held him off. As the
gendarme approached his prisoner, a despairing cry rang through the
room:—
“Robert!—Robert!”
We recognised the voice of Mademoiselle Stangerson. We all shuddered.
Larsan himself turned pale. Monsieur Darzac, in response to the cry,
had flown back into the room.
The magistrate, the gendarme, and Larsan followed closely after.
Rouletabille and I remained on the threshold. It was a heart-breaking
sight that met our eyes. Mademoiselle Stangerson, with a face of
deathly pallor, had risen on her bed, in spite of the restraining
efforts of two doctors and her father. She was holding out her
trembling arms towards Robert Darzac on whom Larsan and the gendarme
had laid hands. Her distended eyes saw—she understood—her lips seemed
to form a word, but nobody made it out; and she fell back insensible.
Monsieur Darzac was hurried out of the room and placed in the vestibule
to wait for the vehicle Larsan had gone to fetch. We were all overcome
by emotion and even Monsieur de Marquet had tears in his eyes.
Rouletabille took advantage of the opportunity to say to Monsieur
Darzac:—
“Are you going to put in any defense?”
“No!” replied the prisoner.
“Very well, then I will, Monsieur.”
“You cannot do it,” said the unhappy man with a faint smile.
“I can—and I will.”
Rouletabille’s voice had in it a strange strength and confidence.
“I can do it, Monsieur Robert Darzac, because I know more than you do!”
“Come! Come!” murmured Darzac, almost angrily.
“Have no fear! I shall know only what will benefit you.”
“You must know _nothing_, young man, if you want me to be grateful.”
Rouletabille shook his head, going close up to Darzac.
“Listen to what I am about to say,” he said in a low tone, “and let
it give you confidence. You do not know the name of the murderer.
Mademoiselle Stangerson knows it; but only half of it; but _I_ know his
two halves; _I_ know the whole man!”
Robert Darzac opened his eyes, with a look that showed he had not
understood a word of what Rouletabille had said to him. At that
moment the conveyance arrived, driven by Frédéric Larsan. Darzac and
the gendarme entered it, Larsan remaining on the driver’s seat. The
prisoner was taken to Corbeil.
Chapter XXV
Rouletabille Goes on a Journey
That same evening Rouletabille and I left the Glandier. We were very
glad to get away and there was nothing more to keep us there. I
declared my intention to give up the whole matter. It had been too much
for me. Rouletabille, with a friendly tap on my shoulder, confessed
that he had nothing more to learn at the Glandier; he had learned there
all it had to tell him. We reached Paris about eight o’clock, dined,
and then, tired out, we separated, agreeing to meet the next morning at
my rooms.
Rouletabille arrived next day at the hour agreed on. He was dressed in
a suit of English tweed, with an ulster on his arm, and a valise in his
hand. Evidently he had prepared himself for a journey.
“How long shall you be away?” I asked.
“A month or two,” he said. “It all depends.”
I asked him no more questions.
“Do you know,” he asked, “what the word was that Mademoiselle
Stangerson tried to say before she fainted?”
“No—nobody heard it.”
“_I_ heard it!” replied Rouletabille. “She said ‘Speak!’”
“Do you think Darzac will speak?”
“Never.”
I was about to make some further observations, but he wrung my hand
warmly and wished me good-bye. I had only time to ask him one question
before he left.
“Are you not afraid that other attempts may be made while you’re away?”
“No! Not now that Darzac is in prison,” he answered.
With this strange remark he left. I was not to see him again until the
day of Darzac’s trial at the court when he appeared to explain the
inexplicable.
Chapter XXVI
In Which Joseph Rouletabille is Awaited with Impatience
On the 15th of January, that is to say, two months and a half after
the tragic events I have narrated, the “Epoque” printed, as the first
column of the front page, the following sensational article:—
“The Seine-et-Oise jury is summoned to-day to give its verdict on one
of the most mysterious affairs in the annals of crime. There never has
been a case with so many obscure, incomprehensible, and inexplicable
points. And yet the prosecution has not hesitated to put into the
prisoner’s dock a man who is respected, esteemed, and loved by all who
knew him—a young savant, the hope of French science, whose whole life