 CHAPTER XII It was not till six o'clock that I left the chateau, taking with me the article hastily written by my friend in the little sitting-room, with Mongeur Robert Darzak placed at her disposal. The reporter was to sleep at the chateau, taking advantage of the, to me, inexplicable hospitality offered him by Mongeur Robert Darzak, to whom Mongeur Stengerson, in that sad time, left the care of all his domestic affairs. Nevertheless, he insisted on accompanying me to the station at Epine. In crossing the park he said to me, Frederick is really very clever, and has not belied his reputation. Do you know how he came to find Darzak boots? Near the spot where we noticed the traces of the neat boots and the disappearance of the rough ones, there was a square hole, freshly made in the moist ground, where a stone had evidently been removed. Lassan searched for that stone without finding it, and at once imagined that it had been used by the murderer with which to sink the boots in the lake. Fred's calculation was an excellent one, as the success of his search proves. That escaped me, but my mind was turned in another direction by the large number of false indications of his track which the murderer left, and by the measure of the black footmarks corresponding with that of Darzak boots, which I had established without his suspecting it on the floor of the yellow room. All which was approved for my eyes that the murderer had sought to turn suspicion onto the old servant. Up to that point Lassan and I are in accord, but no further. It's going to be a terrible matter, for I tell you he is working on wrong lines, and I must fight him with nothing. I was surprised at the profoundly grave accent with which my young friend pronounced the last words. He repeated, yes, terrible, terrible, for it is fighting with nothing when you only have an idea to fight with. At that moment we passed by the back of the chateau. Night had come. A window on the first floor was partly open. A feeble light came from it, as well as some sounds which drew our attention. We approached until we had reached the side of a door that was situated just under the window. Root-a-bill in a low tone made me understand that this was the window of Manwazel Stangerson's chamber. The sounds which had attracted our attention ceased. Then we were renewed for a moment, and then we heard stifled sobs. We were only able to catch these words which reached us distinctly. My poor Robert! Root-a-bill whispered in my ear, if only we knew what was being said in that chamber my inquiry would soon be finished. He looked about him. The darkness of the evening enveloped us. We could not see much beyond the narrow path bordered by trees which ran behind the chateau. The sobs had ceased. If we can't hear, we may at least try to see, said Root-a-bill. And making a sign to me to deaden the sound of my steps, he led me across the path to the trunk of a tall beach-tree, the white bowl of which was visible in the darkness. This tree grew exactly in front of the window in which we were so much interested, its lower branches being on a level with the first floor of the chateau. From the height of those branches one might certainly see what was passing in Manwazel Stangerson's chamber. Evidently that was what Root-a-bill thought, for, in joining me to remain hidden, he clasped the trunk with his vigorous arms and climbed up. I soon lost sight of him amid the branches and then followed a deep silence. In front of me the open window remained lighted, and I saw no shadow move across it. I listened, and presently from above me these words reached my ears. After you, after you, pray. Somebody was overhead, speaking, exchanging courtesies. What was my astonishment to see on the slippery column of the tree two human forms appear and quietly slip down to the ground? Root-a-bill had mounted alone and had returned with another. Good evening, Monsieur Sinclair. It was Frédéric Lassa. The detective had already occupied the post of observation when my young friend had thought to reach it alone. Neither noticed my astonishment. I explained that to myself by the fact that they must have been witnesses of some tender and despairing scene between Manwazel Stangerson lying in her bed and Monsieur Dazak on his knees by her pillow. I guess that each had drawn different conclusions from what they had seen. It was easy to see that the scene had strongly impressed Root-a-bill in favour of Monsieur Robert Dazak. While to Lassa it showed nothing but consummate hypocrisy acted with finished art by Manwazel Stangerson's fiancee. As we reached the park gate, Lassa stopped us. My cane, he cried. I left it near the tree. He left us, saying he would rejoin us presently. Have you noticed Frédéric Lassa's cane? Asked the young reporter as soon as we were alone. It's quite a new one, which I've never seen him use before. He seems to take great care of it. It never leaves him. One would think he was afraid it might fall into the hands of strangers. I never saw it before today. When did he find it? It isn't natural that a man who'd never before used a walking stick should, the day after the Glandier crime, never move a step without one. On the day of our arrival at the chateau, as soon as he saw us, he put his watch into his pocket and picked up his cane from the ground, a proceeding to which I was perhaps wrong not to attach some importance. We were now out of the park. Root-a-bill had dropped into silence. His thoughts were certainly still occupied with Frédéric Lassa's new cane. I had proof of that when, as we came near to Eponnais, he said, Frédéric Lassa arrived at the Glandier before me. He began his inquiry before me. He has had time to find out things about which I know nothing. Where did he find that cane? Then he added, it's probable that his suspicion, more than that his reasoning, has led him to lay his hand on something tangible. Has this cane anything to do with it? Where the juice could he have found it? As I had to wait twenty minutes for the train at Eponnais, we entered a wine shop. Almost immediately, the door opened and Frédéric Lassa made his appearance, brandishing his famous cane. I found it, he said, laughingly. The three of us seated ourselves at a table. Root-a-bill never took his eyes off the cane. He was so absorbed that he did not notice a sign Lassa made for a railway employee. A young man with a chin decorated by a tiny, blonde, and ill-kept beard. On the sign he rose, paid for his drink, bowed, and went out. I should not myself have attached any importance to the circumstance if it had not been recalled to my mind some months later by the reappearance of the man with the beard at one of the most tragic moments of this case. I then learned that the youth was one of Lassa's assistants and had been charged by him to watch the going and coming of travellers at the station of Eponnais-sur-Age. Lassa neglected nothing in any case in which he was engaged. I turned my eyes again on Root-a-bill. Ah, Mange Fréd, he said, when did you begin to use a walking stick? I have always seen you walking with your hands in your pockets. It is a present, replied the detective. Recent, insisted Root-a-bill. No, it was given to me in London. Ah, yes, I remember. You've just come from London. May I look at it? Oh, ah, certainly. Fréd passed the cane to Root-a-bill. It was a large yellow bamboo with a crutch handle and ornamented with a gold ring. Root-a-bill, after examining it minutely, returned it to Lassa with a bantering expression on his face, saying, You were given a French cane in London. Possibly, said Fréd, imperturbably. Read them out there in tiny letters. Cassette, six-a, opera. Cannot English people buy canes in Paris? When Root-a-bill had seen me into the train, he said, You remember the address? Yes, Cassette, six-a, opera. Rely on me. You shall have word tomorrow morning. That evening, on reaching Paris, I saw Mancha Cassette, dealer in walking sticks and umbrellas, and wrote to my friend. A man unmistakably answering to the description of Mancha Robert Darzak, same height, slightly stooping, putty-colored overcoat, bowler hat, purchased a cane similar to the one in which we're interested on the evening of the crime about eight o'clock. Mancha Cassette had not sold another such cane during the last two years. Fréd's cane is new. It is quite clear that it's the same cane. Fréd did not buy it since he was in London. Like you, I think that he found it somewhere near Mancha Robert Darzak. But if, as you suppose, the murderer was in the yellow room for five or even six hours, and the crime was not committed until towards midnight, the purchase of this cane proves an incontestable alibi for Darzak. End of Chapter 12, recording by Stuart Bell, Cambridge, UK. Chapter 13 of The Mystery of the Yellow Room This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more free audiobooks, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Gloria Zablicki The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Le Roux Chapter 13 The Presbytery has lost nothing of its charm, nor the garden its brightness. A week after the occurrence of the events I have just recounted, on the 2nd of November, to be exact, I received at my home in Paris the following telegraphic message. Come to the Glendier by the earliest train. Bring revolvers. Friendly greetings, Ruta B. I have already said, I think, that at that period, being a young barrister with but few briefs, I frequented the Palais des Justices rather for the purpose of familiarizing myself with my professional duties than for the defense of the widow and orphan. I could therefore feel no surprise at Ruta B. disposing of my time. Moreover, he knew how keenly interested I was in his journalistic adventures in general and, above all, in the murder at the Glendier. I had not heard from him for a week, nor of the progress made with that mysterious case, except by the innumerable paragraphs in the newspapers and by the very brief notes of Ruta B in the apoc. Those notes had divulged the fact that traces of human blood had been found on the mutton bone, as well as fresh traces of the blood of Mademoiselle Stonjison, the old stains belong to other crimes, probably dating years back. It may be easily imagined that the crime engaged the attention of the press throughout the world. No crime known had more absorbed the minds of people. It appeared to me, however, that the judicial inquiry was making but very little progress. And I should have been very glad if, on the receipt of my friend's invitation to rejoin him at the Glendier, the dispatch had not contained the words, bring revolvers. That puzzled me greatly. Ruta B. telegraphing for revolvers meant that there might be occasion to use them. Now I confess it without shame, I am not a hero. But here was a friend, evidently in danger, calling on me to go to his aid. I did not hesitate long, and after assuring myself that the only revolver I possessed was properly loaded, I hurried towards the Orléans station. On the way I remembered that Ruta B. had asked for two revolvers, I therefore entered a gunsmith's shop and bought an excellent weapon for my friend. I had hoped to find him at the station at Eponaise, but he was not there. However, a cab was waiting for me, and I was soon at the Glendier. Nobody was at the gate, and it was only on the threshold of the Chateau that I met the young man. He saluted me with a friendly gesture and threw his arms about me, inquiring warmly as to the state of my health. When we were in the little sitting-room of which I have spoken, Ruta B. made me sit down. It's going badly, he said. What's going badly? I asked. Everything. He came nearer to me and whispered, Frederick Lawson is working with might and mean against Dazak. This did not astonish me. I had seen the poor show Mademoiselle Stonjison's fiancé had made at the time of the examination of the footprints. However, I immediately asked, what about that cane? It is still in the hands of Frederick Lawson. He never lets go of it. But doesn't it prove the alibi for Michel Dazak? Not at all. Gently questioned by me, Dazak denied having on that evening or on any other purchased a cane at Cassettes. However, said Ruta B., I'll not swear to anything. Michel Dazak has such strange fits of silence that one does not know exactly what to think of what he says. To Frederick Lawson, this cane must mean a piece of very damaging evidence. But in what way? The time when it was bought shows it could not have been in the murderer's possession. The time doesn't worry, Lawson. He is not obliged to adopt my theory, which assumes that the murderer got into the yellow room between five and six o'clock. But there's nothing to prevent him assuming that the murderer got in between ten and eleven o'clock at night. At that hour, Mishua and Mademoiselle Stonjison, assisted by Daddy Jacques, were engaged in making an interesting chemical experiment in the part of the laboratory taken up by the furnaces. Lawson says, unlikely as that may seem, that the murderer may have slipped behind them. He has already got the examining magistrate to listen to him. When one looks closely into it, the reasoning is absurd, seeing that the intimate, if there is one, must have known that the professor would shortly leave the pavilion, and that the friend had only to put off operating till after the professor's departure. Why should he have risked crossing the laboratory while the professor was in it? And then, when he had got into the yellow room? There are many points to be cleared up before Lawson's theory can be admitted. I shan't waste my time over it, for my theory won't allow me to occupy myself with mere imagination. Only, as I am obliged for the moment to keep silent, and Lawson sometimes talks, he may finish by coming out openly against Mishua D'Azak, if I am not there, added the young reporter proudly, for there are surface evidences against D'Azak much more convincing than that keen, which remains incomprehensible to me, all the more so as Lawson does not in the least have the courage to let D'Azak see him with it. I understand many things in Lawson's theory, but I can't make anything of that keen. Is he still at the chateau? Yes, he hardly ever leaves it. He sleeps there, as I do, at the request of Mishua Stangerson, who has done for him what Mishua Robert D'Azak has done for me. In spite of the accusation made by Lawson that Mishua Stangerson knows who the murderer is, he yet affords him every facility for a right at the truth, just as D'Azak is doing for me. But you are convinced of D'Azak's innocence. At one time I did believe in the possibility of his guilt. That was when we arrived here for the first time. The time has come for me to tell you what has passed between Mishua D'Azak and myself. Here Rultaby interrupted himself and asked me if I had brought the revolvers. I showed him them. Having examined both, he pronounced them excellent and handed them back to me. Shall we have any use for them? I asked. No doubt this evening. We shall pass the night here, if that won't hire you. On the contrary, I said with an expression that made Rultaby laugh. No, no, he said this is no time for laughing. You remember the phrase which was the open sesame of this chateau full of mystery? Yes, I said perfectly. The Presbytery has lost nothing of its charm nor the garden its brightness. It was the phrase which you found on the half-burned piece of paper amongst the ashes in the laboratory. Yes, at the bottom of the paper where the flame had not reached was this date, 23 October. Remember this date. It is highly important. I am now going to tell you about that curious phrase. On the evening before the crime, that is to say, on the 23rd, Mishor and Mademoiselle Stonjison were at a reception at the LSA. I know that because I was there on duty, having to interview one of the savants of the Academy of Philadelphia, who was being fated there. I had never before seen either Mishor or Mademoiselle Stonjison. I was seated in the room which precedes the salondes ambassadures, and tired of being jostled by so many noble personages, I had fallen into a vague reverie when I sent it near me the perfume of the lady in black. Do you ask me what is the perfume of the lady in black? It must suffice for you to know that it is the perfume of which I am very fond, because it was that of a lady who had been very kind to me in my childhood. A lady whom I had always seen dressed in black. The lady who that evening was scented with the perfume of the lady in black was dressed in white. She was wonderfully beautiful. I could not help rising and following her. An old man gave her his arm, and as they passed I heard voices say, Professor Stonjison and his daughter. It was in that way I learned who it was I was following. They met Mishor Robert Dawzak, whom I knew by sight. Professor Stonjison, accosted by Mr. Arthur William Rantz, one of the American savants, seated himself in the great gallery, and Mishor Robert Dawzak led Mademoiselle Stonjison into the conservatory. I followed. The weather was very mild that evening. The garden doors were open. Mademoiselle Stonjison threw a fissue shawl over her shoulders, and I plainly saw that it was she who was begging Mishor Dawzak to go with her into the garden. I continued to follow, interested by the agitation plainly exhibited by the bearing of Mishor Dawzak. They slowly passed along the wall, abutting on the avenue Marini. I took the central alley, walking parallel with them, and then crossed over for the purpose of getting nearer to them. The night was dark, and the grass deadened the sound of my steps. They had stopped under the vacillating light of a gas jet and appeared to be both bending over a paper held by Mademoiselle Stonjison, reading something which deeply interested them. I stopped in the darkness and silence. Neither of them saw me, and I distinctly heard Mademoiselle Stonjison repeat as she was refolding the paper. The Presbytery has lost nothing of its charm nor the garden its brightness. It was said in a tone at once mocking and despairing, and was followed by a burst of such nervous laughter that I think her words will never cease to sound in my ears. But another phrase was uttered by Mishor Dawzak. Must I commit a crime, then, to win you? He was in an extraordinarily agitated state. He took the hand of Mademoiselle Stonjison and held it for a long time to his lips. And I thought from the movement of his shoulders that he was crying. Then they went away. When I returned to the Great Gallery, continued Ruta B., I saw no more of Mishor Dawzak, and I was not to see him again until after the tragedy at the Glendier. Mademoiselle was near Mr. Rantz, who was talking with much animation, his eyes during the conversation glowing with a singular brightness. Mademoiselle Stonjison, I thought, was not even listening to what he was saying. Her face expressing perfect indifference. His face was the red face of a drunkard. When Mishor and Mademoiselle Stonjison left, he went to the bar and remained there. I joined him and rendered him some little service in the midst of the pressing crowd. He thanked me and told me he was returning to America three days later, that is to say on the 26th, the day after the crime. I talked with him about Philadelphia. He told me he had lived there for five and twenty years, and that it was there he had met the illustrious Professor Stonjison and his daughter. He drank a great deal of champagne, and when I left him, he was very nearly drunk. Such were my experiences on that evening, and I leave you to imagine what effect the news of the attempted murder of Mademoiselle Stonjison produced on me, with what force those words pronounced by Mishor Robert Dawzak must I commit a crime then to win you, recurred to me. It was not this phrase, however, that I repeated to him when we met here at Glendier. The sentence of the Presbytery and the Bright Garden suffice to open the gate of the Chateau. If you ask me if I believe now that Mishor Dawzak is the murderer, I must say that I do not. I do not think I ever quite thought that. At the time I could not really think seriously of anything. I had so little evidence to go on, but I needed to have it once the proof that he had not been wounded in the hand. When we were alone together, I told him how I had chance to overhear a part of his conversation with Mademoiselle Stonjison in the Garden of the Elysees, and when I repeated to him the words, must I commit a crime then to win you? He was greatly troubled, though much less so than he had been by hearing me repeat the phrase about the Presbytery. What threw him into a state of real consternation was to learn for me that the day on which he had gone to meet Mademoiselle Stonjison at the LSA was the very day on which he had gone to the post office for the letter. It was that letter, perhaps, which ended with the words, the Presbytery has lost nothing of its charm nor the garden its brightness. My surmise was confirmed by my finding, if you remember, in the ashes of the laboratory, the fragment of paper dated October the 23rd. The letter had been written and withdrawn from the post office on the same day. There can be no doubt that on returning from the LSA that night, Mademoiselle Stonjison had tried to destroy that compromising paper. It was in vain that Michel D'Auzac denied that that letter had anything whatever to do with the crime. I told him that, in an affair so filled with mystery as this, he had no right to hide this letter, that I was persuaded it was of considerable importance, that the desperate tone in which Mademoiselle Stonjison had pronounced the prophetic phrase, that his own tears and the threat of a crime which he had professed after the letter was read, all these facts tended to leave no room for me to doubt. Michel D'Auzac became more and more agitated, and I determined to take advantage of the effect I had produced on him. You were on the point of being married, Mishua, I said negligently and without looking at him, and suddenly your marriage becomes impossible because of the writer of that letter, because as soon as his letter was read you spoke of the necessity for a crime to win Mademoiselle Stonjison. Therefore there is someone between you and her, someone who has attempted to kill her, so that she should not be able to marry. And I concluded with these words, and now Mishua, you have only to tell me in confidence the name of the murderer. The words I had uttered must have struck him ominously, for when I turned my eyes on him I saw that his face was haggard, the perspiration standing on his forehead, and terror showing in his eyes. Mishua, he said to me, I'm going to ask of you something which may appear insane, but in exchange for which I placed my life in your hands. You must not tell the magistrates of what you saw and heard in the garden of the LSA, neither to them nor to anybody. I swear to you that I am innocent, and I know I feel that you believe me. But I would rather be taken for the guilty man than see justice go astray on that phrase, the Presbyterias lost nothing of its charm nor the garden its brightness. The judges must know nothing about that phrase. All this matter is in your hands. Mishua, I leave it there, but forget the evening at the LSA. A hundred other roads are open for you in your search for the criminal. I will open them for you myself. I will help you. Will you take up your quarters here? You may remain here, to do as you please. Eat, sleep here, watch my actions, the actions of all here. You shall be master of the Glendier Mishua, but forget the evening at the LSA. Root to be here, pause to take breath. I now understood what had appeared so unexplainable in the demeanor of Mishua Robert Dawes Act was my friend, and the facility with which the young reporter had been able to install himself on the scene of the crime. My curiosity could not fail to be excited by all I had heard. I asked Root to be to satisfy it still further. What had happened at the Glendier during the past week? Had he not told me that there were surface indications against Mishua Dawes Act much more terrible than that of the cane found by Lawson? Everything seems to be pointing against him, replied my friend, and the situation is becoming exceedingly grave. Mishua Dawes Act appears not to mind it much, but in that he is wrong. I was interested only in the health of Mademoiselle Stangeson, which was daily improving, when something occurred that is even more mysterious than the mystery of the yellow room. Impossible, I cried. What could be more mysterious than that? I'll let us first go back to Mishua Robert Dawes Act, said Rootabi, calming me. I have said that everything seems to be pointing against him. The marks of the neat boots found by Frederick Lawson appear to be really the footprints of Mademoiselle Stangeson's fiancé. The marks made by the bicycle may have been made by his bicycle. He had usually left it at the chateau. Why did he take it to Paris on that particular occasion? Was it because he was not going to return again to the chateau? Was it because owing to the breaking off of his marriage, his relations with the Stangesons were to cease? All who are interested in the matter affirm that those relations were to continue unchanged. Frederick Lawson, however, believes that all relations were at an end. From the day when Mishua Dawes Act accompanied Mademoiselle Stangeson to the Grand Magazines de la Louvre, until the day after the crime, he had not been at the Glendier. Remember that Mademoiselle Stangeson lost her reticule, containing the key with the brass head while she was in his company. From that day to the evening at the LSA, the Sorbonne Professor and Mademoiselle Stangeson did not see one another. But they may have written to each other. Mademoiselle Stangeson went to the post office to get a letter, which Lawson says was written by Robert Dawes Act. For knowing nothing of what had passed at the LSA, Lawson believes that it was Mishua Dawes Act himself who stole the reticule with the key, with the design of forcing her consent by getting possession of the precious papers of her father, papers which he would have restored to him on condition that the marriage engagement was to be fulfilled. All that would have been a very doubtful and almost absurd hypothesis as Lawson admitted to me, but for another and much graver circumstance. In the first place here is something which I have not been able to explain. Mishua Dawes Act had himself, on the 24th, gone to the post office to ask for the letter which Mademoiselle had called for and received on the previous evening. The description of the man who made application tallies in every respect with the appearance of Mishua Dawes Act who, in answer to the questions put to him by the examining magistrate, denies that he went to the post office. Now even admitting that the letter was written by him, which I do not believe, he knew that Mademoiselle Stongerson had received it, since he had seen it in her hands in the garden at the LSA. It could not have been he then who had gone to the post office the day after the 24th to ask for a letter which he knew was no longer there. To me it appears clear that somebody, strongly resembling him, stole Mademoiselle Stongerson's reticule and in that letter had demanded of her something which she had not sent him. He must have been surprised at the failure of his demand, hence his application at the post office, to learn whether his letter had been delivered to the person to whom it had been addressed. Finding that it had been claimed he had become furious. What had he demanded? Nobody but Mademoiselle Stongerson knows. Then on the day following it is reported that she has been attacked during the night. And the next day I discovered that the professor had, at the same time, been robbed by means of the key referred to in the post restaunt. It would seem then that the man who went to the post office to inquire for the letter must have been the murderer. All these arguments Lawson applies as against Michel Dazak. You may be sure that the examining magistrate, Lawson, and myself have done our best to get from the post office precise details relative to the singular personage who applied there on the 24th of October. But nothing has been learned. We don't know where he came from. Or where he went. Beyond the description which makes him resemble Michel Dazak, we know nothing. I have announced in the leading journals that a handsome reward will be given to a driver of any public conveyance who drove a fare to number 40 post office about 10 o'clock on the morning of the 24th of October. Information to be addressed to MR at the office of the APOC. But no answer has resulted. The man may have walked, but as he was most likely in a hurry there was a chance that he might have gone in a cab. Who, I keep asking myself night and day, is the man who so strongly resembles Michel Robert Dazak, and who was also known to have bought the cane which has fallen into Lawson's hands. The most serious fact is that Michel Dazak was at the very same time that his double presented himself at the post office scheduled for a lecture at the Sorbonne. He had not delivered that lecture, and one of his friends took his place. When I questioned him as to how he had employed the time, he told me that he had gone for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne. What do you think of a professor who instead of giving his lecture obtains a substitute to go for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne? When Frederick Lawson asked him for information on this point he quietly replied that it was no business of his how he spent his time in Paris, on which Fred swore aloud that he would find out without anybody's help. All this seems to fit in with Fred's hypothesis namely that Michel Stangeson allowed the murderer to escape in order to avoid a scandal. The hypothesis is further substantiated by the fact that Dazak was in the yellow room and was permitted to get away. That hypothesis, I believe to be a false one. Lawson is being misled by it, and though that would not displease me, did it not affect an innocent person? Now does that hypothesis really mislead Frederick Lawson? That is the question. That is the question. Perhaps he is right, I cried, interrupting Ruta B. Are you sure that Michel Dazak is innocent? It seems to me that these are extraordinary coincidences, coincidences, replied my friend, are the worst enemies to truth. What does the examining magistrate think now of the matter? Michel de Marquet hesitates to accuse Michel Dazak in the absence of absolute proofs. Not only would he have public opinion wholly against him, to say nothing of the Sorbonne, but Mishor and Mademoiselle Stonjison. She adores Mishor Robert Dazak. Indistinctly, as she saw the murderer, it would be hard to make the public believe that she could not have recognized him, if Dazak had been the criminal. No doubt the yellow room was very dimly lit, but a night light, however small, gives some light. Here, my boy, is how things stood when, three days, or rather, three nights ago, an extraordinarily strange incident occurred. End of Chapter 13. Recording by Gloria Zablicky, Floral Park, New York. Chapter 14 of The Mystery of the Yellow Room. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more free audio books or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Madeira. The Mystery of the Yellow Room. By Gaston Le Roux. Chapter 14. I expect the assassin this evening. I must take you, said Route de Bille, so as to enable you to understand the various scenes. I, myself, believe that I have discovered what everybody else is searching for, namely how the murderer escaped from the yellow room without any accomplice, and without Mademoiselle Stangerson having had anything to do with it. But so long as I am not sure of the real murderer, I cannot state the theory on which I am working. I can only say that I believe it to be correct, and in any case, a quite natural and simple one. As to what happened in this place three nights ago, I must say it kept me wondering for a whole day and a night. It passes all belief. The theory I have formed from the incident is so absurd that I would rather matters remained as yet unexplained. Saying which, the young reporter invited me to go and make the tour of the Chateau with him. The only sound to be heard was the crunching of the dead leaves beneath our feet. The silence was so intense that one might have thought the Chateau had been abandoned. The old stones, the stagnant water of the ditch surrounding the donchon, the bleak ground strewn with the dead leaves, the dark skeleton-like outlines of the trees, all contributed to give to the desolate place now filled with its awful mystery, a most funerial aspect. As we passed around the donchon, we met the green man, the forest keeper, who did not greet us, but walked by as if we had not existed. He was looking just as I had formally seen him through the window of the donchon in. He had still his fouling peace slung at his back, his pipe was in his mouth, and his eyeglasses on his nose. An odd kind of fish, wrote to Beal said to me in a low tone. Have you spoken to him? I asked. Yes, but I could get nothing out of him. His only answers are grunts and shrugs of the shoulders. He generally lives on the first floor of the donchon, a big room that once served for an oratory. He lives like a bear, never goes out without his gun, and is only pleasant for the girls. The women, for twelve miles round, are all setting their caps for him. For the present, he is paying attention to Madame Mathieu, whose husband is keeping in link sigh upon her inconsequence. After passing the donchon, which is situated at the extreme end of the left wing, we went to the back of the château. Ruth de Beal, pointing to a window which I recognized as the only one belonging to mademoiselle dangerouson's apartment, said to me, If you had been here two nights ago, you would have seen your humble servant at the top of a ladder, about to enter the château by that window. As I expressed some surprise at this piece of nocturnal gymnastics, he begged me to notice carefully the exterior disposition of the château. We then went back into the building. I must now show you the first floor of the château where I'm living, said my friend. Ruth de Beal motioned me to follow him up a magnificent flight of stairs ending in a landing on the first floor. From this landing one could pass to the right or left wing of the château by a gallery opening from it. This gallery, high and wide, extended along the whole length of the building, and was lit from the front of the château facing the north. The rooms, the windows of which looked to the south, opened out of the gallery. Professor Stangerson inhabited the left wing of the building. Manuel de Stangerson had her apartment in the right wing. We entered the gallery to the right. A narrow carpet laid on the waxed, oaken floor which shone like glass deadened the sound of our footsteps. Ruth de Beal asked me in a low tone to walk carefully as we were passing the door of Manuel de Stangerson's apartment. This consisted of a bedroom, an anti-room, a small bathroom, a boudoir, and a drawing room. One could pass from one to another of these rooms without having to go by way of the gallery. The gallery continued straight to the western end of the building where it was lit by a high window. At about two-thirds of its length, this gallery, at a right angle, joined another gallery following the course of the right wing. The better to follow this narrative, we shall call the gallery leading from the stairs to the eastern window the right gallery, and the gallery quitting it, at a right angle, the off-turning gallery. It was at the meeting point of the two galleries that Ruth de Beal had his chamber, adjoining that of Frederic Larson, the door of each opening on to the off-turning gallery, while the doors of Manuel de Stangerson's apartment opened into the right gallery. Ruth de Beal opened the door of his room, and after we had passed in, carefully drew the bolt. I had not had time to glance round the place in which he had been installed when he uttered a cry of surprise and pointed to a pair of eyeglasses on a side table. What are these doing here? He asked. I should have been puzzled to answer him. I wonder, he said. I wonder if this is what I've been searching for. I wonder if these are the eyeglasses from the Presbytery. He sees them eagerly, his fingers caressing the glass, then looking at me with an expression of terror on his face, he murmured, oh, oh! He repeated the exclamation again and again as if his thoughts had suddenly turned his brain. He rose and, putting his hand on my shoulder, laughed like one demented, as he said, oh, this glasses will drive me silly. Mathematically speaking, the thing is possible, but humanly speaking, it is impossible. Or afterwards. Or afterwards. Two light knocks struck the door. Ruth de Beal opened it. A figure entered. I recognized the concierge whom I had seen when she was being taken to the pavilion for examination. I was surprised, thinking she was still under lock and key. This woman said in a very low tone. In the grove of the parquet, Ruth de Beal replied, thanks. The woman then left. He again turned to me, his look haggard, after having carefully refastered the door, muttering some incomprehensible phrases. If the thing is mathematically possible, why should it not be humanly? And if it is humanly possible, the matter is simply awful. I interrupted him in his soliloquy. Have they set the concierges at liberty, then? I asked. Yes, he replied. I had them liberated. I needed people I could trust. The woman is thoroughly devoted to me, and her husband would lay down his life for me. Oh-ho! I said. When will he have an occasion to do it? This evening. For this evening. I expect the murderer. You expect the murderer this evening. Then you know him. I shall know him, but I would be mad to affirm categorically at this moment that I do know him. The mathematical idea I have of the murderer gives results so frightful, so monstrous, that I hope it is still possible that I am mistaken. I hope so, with all my heart. Five minutes ago you did not know the murderer. How can you say that you expect him this evening? Because I know that he must come. Root to Beal very slowly filled his pipe and lit it. That meant an interesting story. At that moment we heard someone walking in the gallery and passing before our door. Root to Beal listened. The sound of the footsteps died away in the distance. Is Frederic Larson in his room? I asked, pointing to the partition. No, my friend answered. He went to Paris this morning, still on the scent of d'Arzac, who also left for Paris. That matter will turn out badly. I expect that Montseur d'Arzac will be arrested in the course of the next week. The worst of it is that everything seems to be in league against him. Circumstances, things, people. Not an hour passes without bringing some new evidence against him. The examining magistrate is overwhelmed by it, and blind. Frederic Larson, however, is not a novice, I said. I thought so. Said Root to Beal with a slightly contemptuous turn of his lips. I fancied he was a much abler man. I had indeed a great admiration for him before I got to know his method of working. It's deplorable. He owes his reputation solely to his ability, but he lacks reasoning power. The mathematics of his ideas are very poor. I looked closely at Root to Beal, and could not help smiling on hearing this boy of eighteen talking of a man who had proved to the world that he was the finest police luth in Europe. You smile, he said. You are wrong. I swear I will outwit him, and in a striking way. But I must make haste about it, for he has an enormous start on me, given him by Monsieur Robert d'Azac, who is this evening going to increase it still more. Think of it. Every time the murderer comes to the chateau, Monsieur d'Azac, by a strange fatality, absents himself and refuses to give any account of how he employs his time. Every time the assassin comes to the chateau, I cried. Has he returned, then? Yes. During that famous night when the strange phenomenon occurred, I was now going to learn about the astonishing phenomenon to which Routabil had made an allusion half an hour earlier without giving me any explanation of it. But I had learned never to press Routabil and his narratives. He spoke when the fancy took him, and when he judged it to be right. He was less concerned about my curiosity than he was for making a complete summing up for himself of any important matter in which he was interested. At last, in short, rapid phrases, he acquainted me with things which plunged me into a state porting on complete bewilderment. Indeed, the results of that still unknown science known as hypnotism, for example, were not more inexplicable than the disappearance of the matter of the murderer at the moment when four persons were within touch of him. I speak of hypnotism as I would of electricity, for of the nature of both we are ignorant and we know little of their laws. I cite these examples because, at the time, the case appeared to me to be only explicable by the inexplicable. That is to say, by an event outside of no natural laws. And yet, if I had had Routabil's brain, I should, like him, have had a presentiment of the natural explanation, for the most curious thing about all the mysteries of the Glandia case was the natural manner in which he explained them. I have among the papers that were sent to me by the young man after the affair was over, a notebook of his, in which a complete account is given of the phenomenon of the disappearance of the matter of the assassin, and the thoughts to which it gave rise in the mind of my young friend. It is preferable, I think, to give the reader this account, rather than continue to reproduce my conversation with Routabil, for I should be afraid in a history of this nature to add a word that was not in accordance with the strictest truth. The night between the twenty-ninth and the thirtieth of October wrote Joseph Routabil. I woke up towards one o'clock in the morning. Was it sleeplessness or noise without? The cry of the bet du bon dieu rang out with sinister loudness from the end of the park. I rose and opened the window. Cold wind and rain, opaque darkness, silence. I reclosed my window. Again, the sound of the cat's weird cry in the distance. I partly dressed in haste. The weather was too bad for even a cat to be turned out in it. What did it mean, then, that, imitating of the mewing of Mother Ajanu's cat so near the chateau, I seized a good-sized stick, the only weapon I had, and, without making any noise, opened the door. The gallery into which I went was well lit by a lamp with a reflector. I felt a keen current of air, and, on turning, found the window open, at the extreme end of the gallery, which I called the off-turning gallery, to distinguish it from the right gallery, on to which the apartment of Mademoiselle Stangerson opened. These two galleries cross each other at right angles. Who had left that window open? Or who had come to open it? I went to the window and leaned out. Five feet below me there was a sort of terrace over the semicircular projection of a room on the ground floor. One could, if one wanted, jump from the window on to the terrace, and allow oneself to drop from it into the court of the chateau. Whoever had entered by this road had evidently not had a key to the vestibule door. But why should I be thinking of my previous night's attempt with the ladder? Because of the open window, left open perhaps by the negligence of the servant? I reclosed it, smiling at the ease with which I built a drama on the mere suggestion of an open window. Again the cry of the bit du bon Dieu, and then silence. The rain ceased to beat on the window. All in the chateau slept. I walked with infinite precaution on the carpet of the gallery. On reaching the corner of the right gallery, I peered round it cautiously. There was another lamp there with a reflector, which quite lit up took several objects in it. Three chairs and some pictures hanging on the wall. What was I doing there? Perfect silence rained throughout. Everything was sunk in repose. What was the instinct that urged me towards Mademoiselle Stangerson's chamber? Why did a voice within me cry? Go on, to the chamber of Mademoiselle Stangerson. I cast my eyes down upon the carpet on which I was treading, and saw that my steps were being directed towards Mademoiselle Stangerson's chamber by the marks of steps that had already been made there. Yes, on the carpet were traces of footsteps stained with mud leading to the chamber of Mademoiselle Stangerson. Horror! Horror! I recognized in those footprints the impression of the neat boots of the murderer. He had come, then, from without in this wretched night. If you could descend from the gallery by way of the window, by means of the terrace, then you could get into the chateau by the same means. The murderer was still in the chateau, for here were marks as of returning footsteps. He had entered by the open window at the extremity of the off-turning gallery. He had passed Frédéric L'Arson's door and mine, had turned to the right, and had entered Mademoiselle Stangerson's room. I am before the door of her empty room. It is open. I push it, without making the least noise. Under the door of the room itself, I see a streak of light. I listen. No sound, not even of breathing. Ah, if I only knew what was passing in the silence that is behind that door. I find the door locked and the key turned on the inner side. And the murderer is there, perhaps. He must be there. Will he escape this time? All depends on me. I must be calm, and above all, I must make no false steps. I must see into that room. I can enter it by Mademoiselle Stangerson's drawing room. But to do that, I should have to cross her boudoir. And while I am there, the murderer may escape by the gallery door, the door in front of which I am now standing. I am sure that no other crime is being committed on this night, for there is complete silence in her boudoir, where two nurses are taking care of Mademoiselle Stangerson until she is restored to hells. As I am almost sure that the murderer is there, why do I not at once give the alarm? The murderer may, perhaps, escape, but perhaps I may be able to save Mademoiselle Stangerson's life. Suppose the murderer, on this occasion, is not here to murder. The door has been opened to allow him to enter. By whom? And it has been refastened. By whom? Mademoiselle Stangerson shut herself up in her apartment with her nurses every night. Who turned the key of that chamber to allow the murderer to enter? The nurses? Two faceful domestics? The old chambermaid? Sylvia? It is very improbable. Besides, they slept in the boudoir, and Mademoiselle Stangerson, very nervous and careful, Monsieur Robert d'Arzac, who told me, sees to her own safety since she has been well enough to move about in her room, which I have not yet seen her leave. This nervousness and sudden care on her part, which had struck Monsieur d'Arzac, had given me also food for thought. At the time of the crime in the yellow room, there can be no doubt that she expected the murderer. Was he expected this night? Was it she herself who had opened her door to him? Had she some reason for doing so? Was she obliged to do it? Was it a meeting for purposes of crime? Certainly, it was not a lovers' meeting, for I believe Mademoiselle Stangerson adores Monsieur d'Arzac. All these reflections ran through my brain like a flash of lightning. What would I not give to know? It is possible that there was some reason for the awful silence. My intervention might do more harm than good. How could I tell? How could I know I might not any moment cause another crime, if I could only see and know without breaking that silence? I left the enter room and descended the central stairs to the vestibule and, as silently as possible, made my way to the little room on the ground floor, where Daddy Jacques had been sleeping since the attack made at the pavilion. I found him dressed, his eyes wide open, almost haggard. He did not seem surprised to see me. He told me that he had got up because he had heard the cry of the Bête du Bon Dieu, and because he had heard footsteps in the park, close to his window, out of which he had looked and, just then, had seen a black shadow pass by. I asked him whether he had a firearm of any kind. No, he no longer kept one, since the examining magistrate had taken his revolver from him. We went out together, by a little black door, into the park, and stole along the chateau, to the point which is just below Mademoiselle Stangerson's window. I placed Daddy Jacques against the wall, ordering him not to stir from the spot, while I, taking advantage of a moment when the moon was hidden by a cloud, moved to the front of the window, out of the patch of light which came from it, for the window was half-open. If I could only know what was passing in that silent chamber, I returned to Daddy Jacques and whispered a word, ladder, in his ear. At first I had thought of the tree which, a week ago, served me for an observatory, but I immediately saw that, from the way the window was half-opened, I should not be able to see from that point of view anything that was passing in the room, and I wanted, not only to see, but to hear, and to act. Greatly agitated, almost trembling, Daddy Jacques disappeared for a moment and returned without the ladder, but making signs to me with his arms, as signals to me to come quickly to him. When I got near him, he gasped, come. I went to the donjon in search of my ladder, and in the lower part of the donjon, which shows me, and the gardener, for a lumber room, I found the door open and the ladder gone, on coming out that's what I caught sight of by the light of the moon. And he pointed to the further end of the chateau, where a ladder stood resting against the stone brackets supporting the terrace, under the window which I had found open. The projection of the terrace had prevented my seeing it. Thanks to that ladder it was quite easy to get into the afternoon gallery of the first floor, and I had no doubt of it having been the road taken by the unknown. We ran to the ladder, but at the moment of reaching it, Daddy Jacques drew my attention to the half-open door of the little semicircular room situated under the terrace, at the extremity of the right wing of the chateau, having the terrace for its roof. Daddy Jacques pushed the door open a little further and looked in. He's not there, he whispered. Who is not there? The forest keeper. With his lips once more to my ear he added, do you know that he has slept in the upper room of the donjon ever since it was restored? And with the same gesture he pointed to the half-open door, the ladder, the terrace, and the windows in the afternoon gallery, which a little while before I had reclosed. What were my thoughts then? I had no time to think. I felt more than I thought. Evidently, I felt if the forest keeper is up there in the chamber. I say if, because at this moment, apart from the presence of the ladder and his vacant room, there are no evidences which permit me to even suspect him. If he is there, he has been obliged to pass by the ladder, and the rooms which lie behind his, in his new lodging, are occupied by the family of the steward and by the cook and by the kitchens, which barred away by the vestibule to the interior of the chateau. And if he had been there during the evening on any pretext, it would have been easy for him to go into the gallery and see that the window could be simply pushed open from the outside. This question of the unfastened window easily narrowed the field of search for the murderer. He must belong to the house, unless he had an accomplice, which I do not believe he had, unless, unless Mademoiselle St. Jensen herself had seen that that window was not fastened from the inside. But then, what could be the frightful secret which put her under the necessity of doing away with obstacle that separated her from the murderer? I seized hold of the ladder, and we returned to the back of the chateau to see if the window of the chamber was still half open. The blind was drawn, but did not join, and allowed a bright stream of light to escape and fall upon the path at our feet. I planted the ladder under the window. I am almost sure that I made no noise, and while the Dijac remained at the foot of the ladder, I mounted it very quietly, my stout stick in my hand. I held my breath and lift on my feet, with the greatest care. Suddenly a heavy cloud discharged itself at that moment in a fresh downpour of rain. At the same instant the sinister cry of the Bit du Bon Dieu arrested me in my assent. It seemed to me to have come from close by me, only a few yards away. Was the cry a signal? Had some accomplice of the man seen me on the ladder? Would the cry bring the man to the window? Perhaps? Ah, there he was at the window. I felt his head above me. I heard the sound of his breath. I could not look up toward him. The leased movement of my head, and I might be lost. Would he see me? Would he be here into the darkness? No, he went away. He had seen nothing. I felt rather than heard him moving on tiptoe in the room, and I mounted a few steps higher. My head reached to the level of the windowsill. My forehead rose above it. My eyes looked between the opening in the blinds, and I saw a man seated at Mademoiselle Stangerson's little desk, writing, His back was turned toward me. A candle was lit before him, and he bent over the flame, the light from it projecting shapeless shadows. I saw nothing but a monstrous, stupid back. Mademoiselle Stangerson herself was not there. Her bed had not been laid on. Where, then, was she sleeping that night? Doubtless in the side room with her women. Perhaps this was but a guess. I must content myself with the joy of finding the man alone. I must be calm and prepare my trap. But who, then, is this man writing there before my eyes, seated at the desk, as if he were in his own home? If there had not been that ladder under the window, if there had not been those footprints on the carpet in the gallery, if there had not been that open window, I might have been led to think that this man had a right to be there, and that he was there as a matter of course, and for reasons about which, as yet, I knew nothing. But there was no doubt that this mysterious unknown was the man of the yellow room, the man to whose murderous assault Mademoiselle Stangerson, without denouncing him, had had to submit. If I could, but see his face, surprise and capture him. If I spring into the room at this moment, he will escape by the right-hand door opening into the boudoir, or crossing the drawing room. He will reach the gallery, and I shall lose him. I have him now, and in five minutes more he'll be safer than if I had him in a cage. What is he doing there, alone, in Mademoiselle Stangerson's room? What is he writing? I descend and place the ladder on the ground. Daddy Jack follows me. We re-enter the chateau. I send Daddy Jack to wake Mr. Stangerson, and instruct him to await my coming in Mademoiselle Stangerson's room, and to say nothing definite to him before my arrival. I will go and awake in Frédéric Larsson. It's a bore to have to do it, for I should have liked to work alone, and to have carried off all the honors of this affair myself, right under the very nose of the sleeping detective. But Daddy Jack and Mr. Stangerson are old men, and I am not yet fully developed. I might not be strong enough. Larsson is used to wrestling and putting on the handcuffs. He opened his eyes swollen with sleep, ready to send me flying, without, in the least believing in my reporter's fancies. I had to assure him that the man was there. That's strange, he said. I thought I left him this afternoon in Paris. He dressed himself in haste, and armed himself with a revolver. We stole quietly into the gallery. Where is he? Larsson asked, in Mademoiselle Stangerson's room. And Mademoiselle Stangerson? She is not in there. Let's go in. Don't go there. On the least alarm the man will escape. He has four ways by which to do it, the door, the window, the boudoir, or the room in which the women are sleeping. I'll draw him from below. And if you fail? If you only succeed in wounding him, he'll escape again, without reckoning that he is certainly armed. No, let me direct the expedition, and I'll answer for everything. As you like, he replied, with fairly good grace. Then, after satisfying myself that all the windows of the two galleries were thoroughly secure, I placed Frederic Larsson at the end of the off-turning gallery, before the window which I had found open, and had reclosed. Under no consideration, I said to him, must you stir from this post till I call you? The chances are, even, that the man, when he is pursued, will return to this window, and try to save himself that way. For it is by that way he came in, and is made away ready for his flight. You have a dangerous post. What will be yours? asked Fred. I shall spring into the room and knock him over for you. Take my revolver, said Fred, and I'll take your stick. Thanks, I said. You are a brief man. I accepted his offer. I was going to be alone with the man in the room writing, and was really thankful to have the weapon. I left Fred, having posted him at the window, and, with the greatest precaution, went towards Mr. Stangerson's apartment in the left wing of the chateau. Found him with Daddy Jacques, who had faithfully abate my directions, confining himself to asking his master to dress as quickly as possible. In a few words I explained to Mr. Stangerson what was passing. He armed himself with a revolver, followed me, and we were all three, speedily in the gallery. Since I had seen the majeure seated at the desk, ten minutes had elapsed. Mr. Stangerson wished to spring upon the assassin at once and kill him. I made him understand that, above all, he must not, in his desire to kill him, miss him. When I had sworn to him that his daughter was not in the room, and in no danger, he conquered his impatience and left me to direct the operations. I told them that they must come to meet the moment I called to them. Or when I fired my revolver. I then sent Daddy Jacques to place himself before the window at the end of the right gallery. I chose that physician for Daddy Jacques because I believed that the majeure, trapped on leaving the room, would run through the gallery towards the window which he had left open, and instantly seeing that it was guarded by Larson would pursue his course along the right gallery. There he would encounter Daddy Jacques, who would prevent his springing out of the window into the park. Under that window there was a sort of buttress, while all the other windows in the galleries were at such a height from the ground that it was almost impossible to jump from them without breaking one's neck. All the doors and windows, including those of the lumber room at the end of the right gallery, as I had rapidly assured myself, were strongly secured. Having indicated to Daddy Jacques the post he was to occupy, and having seen him take up his position, I placed Mrs. Stangerson on the landing at the head of the stairs not far from the door of his daughter's enterium, rather than the boudoir where the women were, and the door of which must have been locked by Mademoiselle Stangerson herself if, as I thought, she had taken refuge in the boudoir for the purpose of avoiding the majeure who was coming to see her. In any case, he must return to the gallery where my people were awaiting him at every possible exit. On coming there he would say, on his left, Mrs. Stangerson, he would turn to the right towards the off-turning gallery, the way he had pre-arranged for flight, where, at the intersection of the two galleries, he would say at once, as I have explained, on his left, Frédéric Larsant, at the end of the off-turning gallery, and in front, Daddy Jacques, at the end of the right gallery. Mr. Stangerson and myself would arrive by way of the back of the château. He is ours. He can no longer escape us. I was sure of that. The plan I had formed seemed to me the best, the surest, and the most simple. It would, no doubt, have been simpler still if we had been able to place someone directly behind the door of Mademoiselle's Boudoir, which opened out of her bed-chamber, and in that way had been in a position to besiege the two doors of the room in which the man was. But we could not penetrate the Boudoir except by way of the drawing-room, the door of which had been locked on the inside by Mademoiselle Stangerson. But even if I had had the free disposition of the Boudoir, I should have held to the plan I had formed, because any other plan of attack would have separated us at the moment of the struggle with the man, while my plan united us all for the attack, at his spot which I had selected with almost mathematical precision, the intersection of the two galleries. Having so placed my people, I again left the château, hurried to my ladder, and replacing it, climbed up, revolver in hand. If there be any inclined to smile at my taking so many precautionary measures, I refer them to the mystery of the yellow room, and to all the proofs we have of the weird cunning of the Madra. Further, if there be some who sink my observations needlessly minute at a moment when they ought to be completely held by rapidity of movement and decision of action, I reply that I have wished to report here, at length and completely, all the details of a plan of attack conceived so rapidly that it is only the slowness of my pen that gives an appearance of slowness to the execution. I have wished, by this slowness and precision, to be certain that nothing should be omitted from the conditions under which the strange phenomenon was produced, which, until some natural explanation of it is forthcoming, seems to me to prove, even better than the theories of Professor Stangerson, the dissociation of matter. I will even say, the instantaneous dissociation of matter. End of Chapter 15 Read by J. C. Guan, Montreal, January 2009 Chapter 16 of The Mystery of the Yellow Room This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Le Roux, Chapter 16 Strange phenomenon of the dissociation of matter, extract from the notebook of Joseph Hultaby, continued. I am again at the windowsill, continues Hultaby, and once more I raise my head above it. Through an opening in the curtains, the arrangement of which has not been changed, I am ready to look, anxious to note the position in which I am going to find the murderer, whether his back will still be turned towards me, whether he is still seated at the desk writing. But perhaps, perhaps, he is no longer there. Yet, how could he have fled? Was I not in possession of his ladder? I force myself to be cool. I raise my head, yet higher. I look. He is still there. I see his monstrous back, deformed by the shadow thrown by the candle. He is no longer writing now, and the candle is on the packet over which he is bending, a position which serves my purpose. I hold my breath. I mount the ladder. I am on the uppermost rung of it, and with my left hand sees hold of the windowsill. In this moment of approaching success, I feel my heart beating widely. I put my revolver between my teeth. A quick spring, and I shall be on the window-ledger. But the ladder, I had been obliged to press on it heavily, and my foot had scarcely left it when I felt it swaying beneath me. It created on the wall and fell. But already my knees were touching the windowsill, and by a movement quick as lightning, I got onto it. But the murderer had been even quicker than I had been. He had heard the creating of the ladder on the wall, and I saw the monstrous back of the man raise itself. I saw his head. Did I really see it? The candle on the packet lit up his legs only. Above the height of the table, the chamber was in darkness. I saw a man with long hair, a full beard, wide-looking eyes, a pale face, framed in large whiskers, as well as I could distinguish and, as I think, red in color. I did not know the face. That was, in brief, the chief sensation I received from that face in the dim half-light in which I saw it. I did not know it. Or, at least, I did not recognize it. Now for quick action. It was indeed time for that, for as I was about to place my legs through the window, the man had seen me, had bound it to his feet, had sprung, as I foresaw, he would, to the door of the anti-chamber, had time to open it and fled. But I was already behind him, revolver in hand, shouting, Help! Like an arrow, I crossed the room, but noticed a letter on the table as I rushed. I almost came up with the man in the anti-room, for he had lost time in opening the door to the gallery. I flew on wings, and in the gallery was but a few feet behind him. He had taken, as I supposed he would, the gallery on his right, that is to say, the road he had prepared for his flight. Help! Jack! Help! Larson! I cried. He could not escape us. I raised a shout of joy, of savage victory. The man reached the intersection of the two galleries, hardly two seconds before me, for the meeting which I had prepared. The fatal shock which must inevitably take place at that spot. We all rushed to the crossing-place, M. Strangesson and I, coming from one end of the right gallery, Daddy Jack, coming from the other end of the same gallery, and Frédéric Larson, coming from the off-turning gallery. The man was not there. We looked at each other stupidly and with eyes terrified. The man had vanished like a ghost. Where is he? Where is he? we all asked. It is impossible he can have escaped. I cried. My terror mastered by my anger. I touched him, exclaimed Frédéric Larson. I felt his breath on my face, cried Daddy Jack. Where is he? Where is he? we all cried. We raced like madmen along the two galleries. We visited doors and windows. They were closed, hermetically closed. They had not been opened. Besides, the opening of a door or window, by this man whom we were hunting, without our having perceived it, would have been more inexplicable than his disappearance. Where is he? Where is he? He could not have got away by a door or window, nor by any other way. He could not have passed through our bodies. I confess that, for the moment, I felt done for. For the gallery was perfectly lighted, and there was neither trap, nor secret door in the walls, nor any sort of hiding place. We moved the chairs and lifted the pictures. Nothing. Nothing. We would have looked into a flower pot, if there had been one to look into. When this mystery, thanks to Houl Tabi, was naturally explained by the help alone of his masterful mind, we were able to realize that the murderer had got away neither by a door, a window, nor the stairs. A fact which the judges would not admit. Chapter 17 of The Mystery of the Yellow Room This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more free audio books or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Madeira. The Mystery and the Yellow Room by Gaston La Rue. Chapter 17. The Inexplicable Gallery Mademoiselle Steinsersen appeared at the door of her anti-room, continues Roul Tabi's notebook. We were near her door in the gallery where this incredible phenomenon had taken place. There are moments when one feels as if one's brain were about to burst. A bullet in the head, a fracture of the skull, the seat of reason shattered. With only these can I compare the sensation which exhausted and let me void of sense. Happily Mademoiselle Steinsersen appeared on the threshold of her anti-room. I saw her, and that helped to relieve my chaotic state of mind. I breathed her. I inhaled the perfume of the lady in black, whom I should never see again. I would have given ten years of my life half my life to see once more the lady in black. Alas! I no more meet her but from time to time. And yet, and yet, how the memory of that perfume felt by me alone carries me back to the days of my childhood. It was this sharp reminder from my beloved perfume of the lady in black, which made me go to her, dressed wholly in white, and so pale, so pale, and so beautiful, on the threshold of the inexplicable gallery. Her beautiful golden hair, gathered into a knot on the back of her neck left visible, the red star on her temple which had so nearly been the cause of her death. When I first got on the right track of the mystery of this case, I had imagined that, on the night of the tragedy in the yellow room, Mademoiselle Stancherson had worn her hair in bands. But then how could I have imagined otherwise when I had not been in the yellow room? When I wrote these lines, Joseph Routhabil was eighteen years of age, and he spoke of his youth. I have kept the text of my friend, but I inform the reader here that the episode of the mystery of the yellow room has no connection with that of the perfume of the lady in black. It is not my fault if, in the document which I have cited, Routhabil thought fit to refer to his childhood. But now, since the occurrence of the inexplicable gallery, I did not reason at all. I stood there, stupid, before the apparition, so pale, and so beautiful, of Mademoiselle Stancherson. She was glad in a dressing gown of dreamy white. One might have taken her to be a ghost, a lovely phantom. Her father took her in his arms and kissed her passionately, as if he had recovered her after being long lost to him. I dared not question her. He drew her into the room, and we followed them, for we had to know. The door of the boudoir was open. The terrified faces of the two nurses crained towards us. Mademoiselle Stancherson inquired the meaning of all the disturbance, that she was not in her own rooms, quite easily explained, quite easily. She had a fancy not to sleep that night in her chamber, but in the boudoir with her nurses, locking the door on them. Since the night of the crime, she had experienced feelings of terror, and fears came over her that are easily to be apprehended. But who could imagine that on that particular night, when he was to come, she would, by a mere chance, determine to shut herself in with her women? Who would think that she would act contrary to her father's wish to sleep in the drawing-room? Who could believe that the letter which had so recently been on the table in her room would no longer be there? He who could understand all this, would have to assume that Mademoiselle Stancherson knew that the murderer was coming. She could not prevent his coming again, unknown to her father, unknown to all, but to Montseil Robert Darzac. For he must know it now. Perhaps he had known it before. Did he remember that phrase in the LSE garden? Must I commit a crime, then, to win you? Against whom the crime, if not against the obstacle, against the murderer? Ah, I would kill him with my own hand! And I replied, you have not answered my question. That was the very truth. In truth, in truth, Montseil Darzac knew the murderer so well, that while wishing to kill him himself, he was afraid I should find him. There could be but two reasons why he had assisted me in my investigation. First, because I forced him to do it, and second, because she would be the better protected. I am in the chamber, her room. I look at her, also in the place where the letter had just now been. She has possessed herself of it. It was evidently intended for her, evidently. How she trembles, trembles at the strange story her father is telling her, of the presence of the murderer in her chamber and of the pursuit. But it is plainly to be seen that she is not wholly satisfied by the assurance given her, until she has been told that the murderer, by some incomprehensible means, has been able to elude us. Then follows a silence. What a silence! We are all there, looking at her. Her father, Larson, Daddy Jack and I. What were we all thinking of in the silence? After the events of that night, of the mystery of the inexplicable gallery, of the prodigious fact of the presence of the murderer in her room, it seemed to me that all our thoughts might have been translated into the words which were addressed to her. You who know of this mystery explain it to us, and we shall perhaps be able to save you. How I longed to save her, for herself, and from the other, it brought the tears to my eyes. She is there, shedding about her the perfume of the lady in black. At last I see her, in the silence of her chamber. Since the fatal hour of the mystery of the yellow room, we have hung about this invisible and silent woman to learn what she knows. Our desires, our wish to know, must be a torment to her. Who can tell that, should we learn the secret of her mystery, it would not precipitate a tragedy more terrible than that which had already been enacted here? Who can tell if it might not mean her death? Yet it had brought her close to death, and we still knew nothing, or rather, there are some of us who know nothing. But I, if I knew who, I should know all. Who? Who? Not knowing who, I must remain silent out of pity for her, for there is no doubt that she knows how he escaped from the yellow room, and yet she keeps the secret. When I know who, I will speak to him, to him. She looked at us now with a faraway look in her eyes, as if we were not in the chamber. Monseil Stangerson broke the silence. He declared that, henceforth, he would no more upset himself from his daughter's apartments. She tried to oppose him in vain. He had hear firmly to his purpose. He would install himself there this very night, he said, solely concerned for the health of his daughter, he reproached of her having left her bed. Then he suddenly began talking to her as if she were a little child. He smiled at her and seemed not to know either what he said or what he did. The illustrious professor had lost his head. Monseil Stangerson, in a tone of tender distress, said, Father, Father! Daddy Jacques blows his nose, and Frédéric Lasson himself is obliged to turn away to hide his emotion. For myself, I am able neither to think or feel. I felt an infinite contempt for myself. It was the first time that Frédéric Lasson, like myself, found himself face to face with Manon 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 I had been permitted. To him, as to me, the same answer had always been given. Monseil 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 Lasson 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 Monseil D'Arzac 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 he 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. Montseuse Stangerson asked us to go back to our rooms and thanked us. Frederic Larson, and I bowed to him, and followed by Daddy Jacques. We regained the gallery. I heard Larson murmur. Strange, strange. He made a sign to me to go with him into his room. On the threshold he turned toward 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 Larson. The great Fred and I were alone in his chamber at 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 that the man disappeared by some secret passage in the chateau known to him alone. He knows the chateau. 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. Moment, 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 D'Azak. Can't you 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 in 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 D'Azak? 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 mark from his boots had dried, and he moved with such rapidity and 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 Lausanne to listen. There, below, someone is shutting a door. I rise. Lausanne follows me. We descend to the ground floor of the chateau. I lead him to the little semicircular 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 for it. Come on, I whisper. Prepared, I know not why, to believe that the keeper is the guilty man. I go to the door and wrap smartly on it. Some might think that we were rather late in thinking of the keeper since our first business, having found that the murderer had escaped us in the gallery, or to have been to search everywhere else, around the chateau 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 hand 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 wrapped 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 effected surprise. Not gone to bed yet? No, he replied roughly, even making a round of the park and in the woods. I'm 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 Larsson. His face was impenetrable. Well, I said. Well, he repeated. Does that open out any new view to you? There was no mistaking Larsson's bad temper. On re-entering the Chateau 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. End of Chapter 17, Recording by Madeira in Seattle, Washington 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 Chateau 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 busyed myself with the common, ordinary work of a policeman. Like the least intelligent of detectives, I went unblindly 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 Romensa. Navalists 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 sense is furnished is not proof. If I am taking cognizance 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 Larson. Be of good courage then, friend Roul Tabi. 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 hand 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 Larson rests on his cane. You will then soon prove that the Great Fred is nothing but a fool. 30th October, noon, Joseph Roul Tabi. 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 grew 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 Roul Tabi. End of Chapter 18, recorded by Eswa in Belgium in August 2008.