The Mystery of the Yellow Room
advertisement, the latter information. We chatted together, and I soon
warmed towards him. His intelligence was so keen, and so original!—and
he had a quality of thought such as I have never found in any other
person.
Some time after this I was put in charge of the law news of the “Cri du
Boulevard.” My entry into journalism could not but strengthen the ties
which united me to Rouletabille. After a while, my new friend being
allowed to carry out an idea of a judicial correspondence column, which
he was allowed to sign “Business,” in the “Epoque,” I was often able to
furnish him with the legal information of which he stood in need.
Nearly two years passed in this way, and the better I knew him, the
more I learned to love him; for, in spite of his careless extravagance,
I had discovered in him what was, considering his age, an extraordinary
seriousness of mind. Accustomed as I was to seeing him gay and, indeed,
often too gay, I would many times find him plunged in the deepest
melancholy. I tried then to question him as to the cause of this change
of humour, but each time he laughed and made me no answer. One day,
having questioned him about his parents, of whom he never spoke, he
left me, pretending not to have heard what I said.
While things were in this state between us, the famous case of “The
Yellow Room” took place. It was this case which was to rank him as the
leading newspaper reporter, and to obtain for him the reputation of
being the greatest detective in the world. It should not surprise us to
find in the one man the perfection of two such lines of activity if we
remember that the daily press was already beginning to transform itself
and to become what it is to-day—the gazette of crime.
Morose-minded people may complain of this; for myself I regard it a
matter for congratulation. We can never have too many arms, public or
private, against the criminal. To this some people may answer that,
by continually publishing the details of crimes, the press ends by
encouraging their commission. But then, with some people we can never
do right.
Rouletabille, as I have said, entered my room that morning of the 26th
of October, 1892. He was looking redder than usual, and his eyes were
bulging out of his head, as the phrase is, and altogether he appeared
to be in a state of extreme excitement. He waved the “Matin” with a
trembling hand, and cried:—
“Well, my dear Sainclair,—have you read it?”
“The Glandier crime?”
“Yes; ‘The Yellow Room’!—What do you think of it?”
“I think that it must have been the Devil or the Bête du Bon Dieu that
committed the crime.”
“Be serious!”
“Well, I don’t much believe in murderers who make their escape through
walls of solid brick. I think Daddy Jacques did wrong to leave behind
him the weapon with which the crime was committed and, as he occupied
the attic immediately above Mademoiselle Stangerson’s room, the
builder’s job ordered by the examining magistrate will give us the key
of the enigma and it will not be long before we learn by what natural
trap, or by what secret door, the old fellow was able to slip in and
out, and return immediately to the laboratory to Monsieur Stangerson,
without his absence being noticed. That, of course, is only an
hypothesis.”
Rouletabille sat down in an armchair, lit his pipe, which he was never
without, smoked for a few minutes in silence—no doubt to calm the
excitement which, visibly, dominated him—and then replied:—
“Young man,” he said, in a tone the sad irony of which I will not
attempt to render, “young man, you are a lawyer and I doubt not
your ability to save the guilty from conviction; but if you were a
magistrate on the bench, how easy it would be for you to condemn
innocent persons!—You are really gifted, young man!”
He continued to smoke energetically, and then went on:—
“No trap will be found, and the mystery of ‘The Yellow Room’ will
become more and more mysterious. That’s why it interests me. The
examining magistrate is right; nothing stranger than this crime has
ever been known.”
“Have you any idea of the way by which the murderer escaped?” I asked.
“None,” replied Rouletabille—“none, for the present. But I have an idea
as to the revolver; the murderer did not use it.”
“Good Heavens! By whom, then, was it used?”
“Why—by Mademoiselle Stangerson.”
“I don’t understand,—or rather, I have never understood,” I said.
Rouletabille shrugged his shoulders.
“Is there nothing in this article in the ‘Matin’ by which you were
particularly struck?”
“Nothing,—I have found the whole of the story it tells equally strange.”
“Well, but—the locked door—with the key on the inside?”
“That’s the only perfectly natural thing in the whole article.”
“Really!—And the bolt?”
“The bolt?”
“Yes, the bolt—also inside the room—a still further protection against
entry? Mademoiselle Stangerson took quite extraordinary precautions!
It is clear to me that she feared someone. That was why she took such
precautions—even Daddy Jacques’s revolver—without telling him of it. No
doubt she didn’t wish to alarm anybody, and least of all, her father.
What she dreaded took place, and she defended herself. There was a
struggle, and she used the revolver skilfully enough to wound the
assassin in the hand—which explains the impression on the wall and on
the door of the large, blood-stained hand of the man who was searching
for a means of exit from the chamber. But she didn’t fire soon enough
to avoid the terrible blow on the right temple.”
“Then the wound on the temple was not done with the revolver?”
“The paper doesn’t say it was, and I don’t think it was; because
logically it appears to me that the revolver was used by Mademoiselle
Stangerson against the assassin. Now, what weapon did the murderer use?
The blow on the temple seems to show that the murderer wished to stun
Mademoiselle Stangerson,—after he had unsuccessfully tried to strangle
her. He must have known that the attic was inhabited by Daddy Jacques,
and that was one of the reasons, I think, why he must have used a quiet
weapon,—a life-preserver, or a hammer.”
“All that doesn’t explain how the murderer got out of ‘The Yellow
Room,’” I observed.
“Evidently,” replied Rouletabille, rising, “and that is what has to be
explained. I am going to the Château du Glandier, and have come to see
whether you will go with me.”
“I?”—
“Yes, my boy. I want you. The ‘Epoque’ has definitely entrusted this
case to me, and I must clear it up as quickly as possible.”
“But in what way can I be of any use to you?”
“Monsieur Robert Darzac is at the Château du Glandier.”
“That’s true. His despair must be boundless.”
“I must have a talk with him.”
Rouletabille said it in a tone that surprised me.
“Is it because—you think there is something to be got out of him?” I
asked.
“Yes.”
That was all he would say. He retired to my sitting-room, begging me to
dress quickly.
I knew Monsieur Robert Darzac from having been of great service to
him in a civil action, while I was acting as secretary to Maître
Barbet Delatour. Monsieur Robert Darzac, who was at that time about
forty years of age, was a professor of physics at the Sorbonne.
He was intimately acquainted with the Stangersons, and, after an
assiduous seven years’ courtship of the daughter, had been on the
point of marrying her. In spite of the fact that she has become, as
the phrase goes, “a person of a certain age,” she was still remarkably
good-looking.
While I was dressing I called out to Rouletabille, who was impatiently
moving about my sitting-room:—
“Have you any idea as to the murderer’s station in life?”
“Yes,” he replied; “I think if he isn’t a man in society, he is, at
least, a man belonging to the upper class. But that, again, is only an
impression.”
“What has led you to form it?”
“Well,—the greasy cap, the common handkerchief, and the marks of the
rough boots on the floor,” he replied.
“I understand,” I said; “murderers don’t leave traces behind them which
tell the truth.”
“We shall make something out of you yet, my dear Sainclair,” concluded
Rouletabille.
Chapter III
“A Man Has Passed like a Shadow through the Blinds”
Half an hour later Rouletabille and I were on the platform of the
Orleans station, awaiting the departure of the train which was to take
us to Epinay-sur-Orge.
On the platform we found Monsieur de Marquet and his Registrar, who
represented the Judicial Court of Corbeil. Monsieur de Marquet had
spent the night in Paris, assisting in the final rehearsal, at the
Scala, of a little play of which he was the unknown author, signing
himself simply “Castigat Ridendo.”
Monsieur Marquet was beginning to be a “noble old gentleman.” Generally
he was extremely polite and full of gay humour, and in all his life had
had but one passion,—that of dramatic art. Throughout his magisterial
career he was interested solely in cases capable of furnishing him with
something in the nature of a drama. Though he might very well have
aspired to the highest judicial positions, he had never really worked
for anything but to win a success at the romantic Porte-Saint-Martin,
or at the sombre Odéon.
Because of the mystery which shrouded it, the case of “The Yellow
Room” was certain to fascinate so theatrical a mind. It interested him
enormously, and he threw himself into it, less as a magistrate eager
to know the truth, than as an amateur of dramatic embroglios, tending
wholly to mystery and intrigue, who dreads nothing so much as the
explanatory final act.
So that, at the moment of meeting him, I heard Monsieur de Marquet say
to the Registrar with a sigh:—
“I hope, my dear Monsieur Maleine, this builder with his pickaxe will
not destroy so fine a mystery.”
“Have no fear,” replied Monsieur Maleine, “his pickaxe may demolish the
pavilion, perhaps, but it will leave our case intact. I have sounded
the walls and examined the ceiling and floor and I know all about it. I
am not to be deceived.”
Having thus reassured his chief, Monsieur Maleine, with a discreet
movement of the head, drew Monsieur de Marquet’s attention to us.
The face of that gentleman clouded, and, as he saw Rouletabille
approaching, hat in hand, he sprang into one of the empty carriages
saying, half aloud to his Registrar, as he did so, “Above all, no
journalists!”
Monsieur Maleine replied in the same tone, “I understand!” and then
tried to prevent Rouletabille from entering the same compartment with
the examining magistrate.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,—this compartment is reserved.”
“I am a journalist, Monsieur, engaged on the ‘Epoque,’” said my young
friend with a great show of gesture and politeness, “and I have a word
or two to say to Monsieur de Marquet.”
“Monsieur is very much engaged with the inquiry he has in hand.”
“Ah! his inquiry, pray believe me, is absolutely a matter of
indifference to me. I am no scavenger of odds and ends,” he went on,
with infinite contempt in his lower lip, “I am a theatrical reporter;
and this evening I shall have to give a little account of the play at
the Scala.”
“Get in, sir, please,” said the Registrar.
Rouletabille was already in the compartment. I went in after him and
seated myself by his side. The Registrar followed and closed the
carriage-door.
Monsieur de Marquet looked at him.
“Ah, sir,” Rouletabille began, “You must not be angry with Monsieur de
Maleine. It is not with Monsieur de Marquet that I desire to have the
honour of speaking, but with Monsieur ‘Castigat Ridendo.’ Permit me to
congratulate you—personally, as well as the writer for the ‘Epoque.’”
And Rouletabille, having first introduced me, introduced himself.
Monsieur de Marquet, with a nervous gesture, caressed his beard into