Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 11

  “Then it is almost certain,” said Monsieur Stangerson, “that my daughter did lose the key, and that she did not tell me of it, wishing to spare any anxiety, and that she begged whoever had found it to write to the poste restante. She evidently feared that, by giving our address, inquiries would have resulted that would have apprised me of the loss of the key. It was quite logical, quite natural for her to have taken that course — for I have been robbed once before.”

  “Where was that, and when?” asked the Chief of the Surete.

  “Oh! many years ago, in America, in Philadelphia. There were stolen from my laboratory the drawings of two inventions that might have made the fortune of a man. Not only have I never learnt who the thief was, but I have never heard even a word of the object of the robbery, doubtless because, in order to defeat the plans of the person who had robbed me, I myself brought these two inventions before the public, and so rendered the robbery of no avail. From that time on I have been very careful to shut myself in when I am at work. The bars to these windows, the lonely situation of this pavilion, this cabinet, which I had specially constructed, this special lock, this unique key, all are precautions against fears inspired by a sad experience.”

  “Most interesting!” remarked Monsieur Dax.

  Monsieur Rouletabille asked about the reticule. Neither Monsieur Stangerson nor Daddy Jacques had seen it for several days, but a few hours later we learned from Mademoiselle Stangerson herself that the reticule had either been stolen from her, or she had lost it. She further corroborated all that had passed just as her father had stated. She had gone to the poste restante and, on the 23rd of October, had received a letter which, she affirmed, contained nothing but a vulgar pleasantry, which she had immediately burned.

  To return to our examination, or rather to our conversation. I must state that the Chief of the Surete having inquired of Monsieur Stangerson under what conditions his daughter had gone to Paris on the 20th of October, we learned that Monsieur Robert Darzac had accompanied her, and Darzac had not been again seen at the chateau from that time to the day after the crime had been committed. The fact that Monsieur Darzac was with her in the Grands Magasins de la Louvre when the reticule disappeared could not pass unnoticed, and, it must be said, strongly awakened our interest.

  This conversation between magistrates, accused, victim, witnesses and journalist, was coming to a close when quite a theatrical sensation — an incident of a kind displeasing to Monsieur de Marquet — was produced. The officer of the gendarmes came to announce that Frederic Larsan requested to be admitted, — a request that was at once complied with. He held in his hand a heavy pair of muddy boots, which he threw on the pavement of the laboratory.

  “Here,” he said, “are the boots worn by the murderer. Do you recognise them, Daddy Jacques?”

  Daddy Jacques bent over them and, stupefied, recognised a pair of old boots which he had, some time back, thrown into a corner of his attic. He was so taken aback that he could not hide his agitation.

  Then pointing to the handkerchief in the old man’s hand, Frederic Larsan said:

  “That’s a handkerchief astonishingly like the one found in The Yellow Room.”

  “I know,” said Daddy Jacques, trembling, “they are almost alike.”

  “And then,” continued Frederic Larsan, “the old Basque cap also found in “The Yellow Room” might at one time have been worn by Daddy Jacques himself. All this, gentlemen, proves, I think, that the murderer wished to disguise his real personality. He did it in a very clumsy way — or, at least, so it appears to us. Don’t be alarmed, Daddy Jacques; we are quite sure that you were not the murderer; you never left the side of Monsieur Stangerson. But if Monsieur Stangerson had not been working that night and had gone back to the chateau after parting with his daughter, and Daddy Jacques had gone to sleep in his attic, no one would have doubted that he was the murderer. He owes his safety, therefore, to the tragedy having been enacted too soon, — the murderer, no doubt, from the silence in the laboratory, imagined that it was empty, and that the moment for action had come. The man who had been able to introduce himself here so mysteriously and to leave so many evidences against Daddy Jacques, was, there can be no doubt, familiar with the house. At what hour exactly he entered, whether in the afternoon or in the evening, I cannot say. One familiar with the proceedings and persons of this pavilion could choose his own time for entering “The Yellow Room”.”

  “He could not have entered it if anybody had been in the laboratory,” said Monsieur de Marquet.

  “How do we know that?” replied Larsan. “There was the dinner in the laboratory, the coming and going of the servants in attendance. There was a chemical experiment being carried on between ten and eleven o’clock, with Monsieur Stangerson, his daughter, and Daddy Jacques engaged at the furnace in a corner of the high chimney. Who can say that the murderer — an intimate! — a friend! — did not take advantage of that moment to slip into “The Yellow Room”, after having taken off his boots in the lavatory?”

  “It is very improbable,” said Monsieur Stangerson.

  “Doubtless — but it is not impossible. I assert nothing. As to the escape from the pavilion — that’s another thing, the most natural thing in the world.”

  For a moment Frederic Larsan paused, — a moment that appeared to us a very long time. The eagerness with which we awaited what he was going to tell us may be imagined.

  “I have not been in “The Yellow Room”,” he continued, “but I take it for granted that you have satisfied yourselves that he could have left the room only by way of the door; it is by the door, then, that the murderer made his way out. At what time? At the moment when it was most easy for him to do so; at the moment when it became most explainable — so completely explainable that there can be no other explanation. Let us go over the moments which followed after the crime had been committed. There was the first moment, when Monsieur Stangerson and Daddy Jacques were close to the door, ready to bar the way. There was the second moment, during which Daddy Jacques was absent and Monsieur Stangerson was left alone before the door. There was a third moment, when Monsieur Stangerson was joined by the concierge. There was a fourth moment, during which Monsieur Stangerson, the concierge and his wife and Daddy Jacques were before the door. There was a fifth moment, during which the door was burst open and “The Yellow Room” entered. The moment at which the flight is explainable is the very moment when there was the least number of persons before the door. There was one moment when there was but one person, — Monsieur Stangerson. Unless a complicity of silence on the part of Daddy Jacques is admitted — in which I do not believe — the door was opened in the presence of Monsieur Stangerson alone and the man escaped.

  “Here we must admit that Monsieur Stangerson had powerful reasons for not arresting, or not causing the arrest of the murderer, since he allowed him to reach the window in the vestibule and closed it after him! — That done, Mademoiselle Stangerson, though horribly wounded, had still strength enough, and no doubt in obedience to the entreaties of her father, to refasten the door of her chamber, with both the bolt and the lock, before sinking on the floor. We do not know who committed the crime; we do not know of what wretch Monsieur and Mademoiselle Stangerson are the victims, but there is no doubt that they both know! The secret must be a terrible one, for the father had not hesitated to leave his daughter to die behind a door which she had shut upon herself, — terrible for him to have allowed the assassin to escape. For there is no other way in the world to explain the murderer’s flight from “The Yellow Room”!”

  The silence which followed this dramatic and lucid explanation was appalling. We all of us felt grieved for the illustrious professor, driven into a corner by the pitiless logic of Frederic Larsan, forced to confess the whole truth of his martyrdom or to keep silent, and thus make a yet more terrible admission. The man himself, a veritable statue of sorrow, raised his hand with a gesture so solemn that we bowed our heads to it as before something sacred. He t
hen pronounced these words, in a voice so loud that it seemed to exhaust him:

  “I swear by the head of my suffering child that I never for an instant left the door of her chamber after hearing her cries for help; that that door was not opened while I was alone in the laboratory; and that, finally, when we entered “The Yellow Room”, my three domestics and I, the murderer was no longer there! I swear I do not know the murderer!”

  Must I say it, — in spite of the solemnity of Monsieur Stangerson’s words, we did not believe in his denial. Frederic Larsan had shown us the truth and it was not so easily given up.

  Monsieur de Marquet announced that the conversation was at an end, and as we were about to leave the laboratory, Joseph Rouletabille approached Monsieur Stangerson, took him by the hand with the greatest respect, and I heard him say:

  “I believe you, Monsieur.”

  I here close the citation which I have thought it my duty to make from Monsieur Maleine’s narrative. I need not tell the reader that all that passed in the laboratory was immediately and faithfully reported to me by Rouletabille.

  CHAPTER XII. Frederic Larsan’s Cane

  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 which Monsieur Robert Darzac had placed at our disposal. The reporter was to sleep at the chateau, taking advantage of the to me inexplicable hospitality offered him by Monsieur Robert Darzac, to whom Monsieur Stangerson, in that sad time, left the care of all his domestic affairs. Nevertheless he insisted on accompanying me to the station at Epinay. In crossing the park, he said to me:

  “Frederic is really very clever and has not belied his reputation. Do you know how he came to find Daddy Jacques’s 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. Larsan 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 foot-marks corresponding with that of Daddy Jacques’s boots, which I had established without his suspecting it, on the floor of The Yellow Room. All which was a proof, in my eyes, that the murderer had sought to turn suspicion on to the old servant. Up to that point, Larsan and I are in accord; but no further. It is going to be a terrible matter; for I tell you he is working on wrong lines, and I — 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 have only 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. Rouletabille, in a low tone, made me understand, that this was the window of Mademoiselle Stangerson’s chamber. The sounds which had attracted our attention ceased, then 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!” — Rouletabille whispered in my ear:

  “If we only 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 Rouletabille.

  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 beech tree, the white bole 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 Mademoiselle Stangerson’s chamber. Evidently that was what Rouletabille thought, for, enjoining 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. Rouletabille had mounted alone, and had returned with another.

  “Good evening, Monsieur Sainclair!”

  It was Frederic Larsan. 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 Mademoiselle Stangerson, lying in her bed, and Monsieur Darzac on his knees by her pillow. I guessed that each had drawn different conclusions from what they had seen. It was easy to see that the scene had strongly impressed Rouletabille in favour of Monsieur Robert Darzac; while, to Larsan, it showed nothing but consummate hypocrisy, acted with finished art by Mademoiselle Stangerson’s fiance.

  As we reached the park gate, Larsan stopped us.

  “My cane!” he cried. “I left it near the tree.”

  He left us, saying he would rejoin us presently.

  “Have you noticed Frederic Larsan’s cane?” asked the young reporter, as soon as we were alone. “It is quite a new one, which I have 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 to-day. Where did he find it? It isn’t natural that a man who had 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 in 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. Rouletabille had dropped into silence. His thoughts were certainly still occupied with Frederic Larsan’s new cane. I had proof of that when, as we came near to Epinay, he said:

  “Frederic Larsan 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 is 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 deuce could he have found it?”

  As I had to wait twenty minutes for the train at Epinay, we entered a wine shop. Almost immediately the door opened and Frederic Larsan made his appearance, brandishing his famous cane.

  “I found it!” he said laughingly.

  The three of us seated ourselves at a table. Rouletabille never took his eyes off the cane; he was so absorbed that he did not notice a sign Larsan made to a railway employee, a young man with a chin decorated by a tiny blond 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 Larsan’s assistants and had been charged by him to watch the going and coming of travellers at the station of Epinay-sur-Orge. Larsan neglected nothing in any case on which he was engaged.

  I turned my eyes again on Rouletab
ille.

  “Ah, — Monsieur Fred!” 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 Rouletabille.

  “No, it was given to me in London.”

  “Ah, yes, I remember — you have just come from London. May I look at it?”

  “Oh! — certainly!”

  Fred passed the cane to Rouletabille. It was a large yellow bamboo with a crutch handle and ornamented with a gold ring. Rouletabille, after examining it minutely, returned it to Larsan, with a bantering expression on his face, saying:

  “You were given a French cane in London!”

  “Possibly,” said Fred, imperturbably.

  “Read the mark there, in tiny letters: Cassette, 6a, Opera.”

  “Cannot English people buy canes in Paris?”

  When Rouletabille had seen me into the train, he said:

  “You’ll remember the address?”

  “Yes, — Cassette, 6a, Opera. Rely on me; you shall have word tomorrow morning.”

  That evening, on reaching Paris, I saw Monsieur Cassette, dealer in walking-sticks and umbrellas, and wrote to my friend:

  “A man unmistakably answering to the description of Monsieur Robert Darzac — same height, slightly stooping, putty-coloured overcoat, bowler hat — purchased a cane similar to the one in which we are interested, on the evening of the crime, about eight o’clock. Monsieur Cassette had not sold another such cane during the last two years. Fred’s cane is new. It is quite clear that it’s the same cane. Fred did not buy it, since he was in London. Like you, I think that he found it somewhere near Monsieur Robert Darzac. 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 Darzac.”