The Mystery of the Yellow Room Page 2
of the walls--even to the demolition of the pavilion--does not
reveal any passage practicable--not only for a human being, but for
any being whatsoever--if the ceiling shows no crack, if the floor
hides no underground passage, one must really believe in the Devil,
as Daddy Jacques says!'"
And the anonymous writer in the "Matin" added in this article
--which I have selected as the most interesting of all those that
were published on the subject of this affair--that the examining
magistrate appeared to place a peculiar significance to the last
sentence: "One must really believe in the Devil, as Jacques says."
The article concluded with these lines: "We wanted to know what
Daddy Jacques meant by the cry of the Bete Du Bon Dieu." The
landlord of the Donjon Inn explained to us that it is the
particularly sinister cry which is uttered sometimes at night by
the cat of an old woman,--Mother Angenoux, as she is called in
the country. Mother Angenoux is a sort of saint, who lives in a
hut in the heart of the forest, not far from the grotto of
Sainte-Genevieve.
"The Yellow Room, the Bete Du Bon Dieu, Mother Angenoux, the Devil,
Sainte-Genevieve, Daddy Jacques,--here is a well entangled crime
which the stroke of a pickaxe in the wall may disentangle for us
to-morrow. Let us at least hope that, for the sake of our human
reason, as the examining magistrate says. Meanwhile, it is expected
that Mademoiselle Stangerson--who has not ceased to be delirious
and only pronounces one word distinctly, 'Murderer! Murderer!'
--will not live through the night."
In conclusion, and at a late hour, the same journal announced that
the Chief of the Surete had telegraphed to the famous detective,
Frederic Larsan, who had been sent to London for an affair of
stolen securities, to return immediately to Paris.
CHAPTER II
In Which Joseph Roultabille Appears for the First Time
I remember as well as if it had occurred yesterday, the entry of
young Rouletabille into my bedroom that morning. It was about
eight o'clock and I was still in bed reading the article in the
"Matin" relative to the Glandier crime.
But, before going further, it is time that I present my friend
to the reader.
I first knew Joseph Rouletabille when he was a young reporter. At
that time I was a beginner at the Bar and often met him in the
corridors of examining magistrates, when I had gone to get a "permit
to communicate" for the prison of Mazas, or for Saint-Lazare. He
had, as they say, "a good nut." He seemed to have taken his head
--round as a bullet--out of a box of marbles, and it is from that,
I think, that his comrades of the press--all determined
billiard-players--had given him that nickname, which was to stick
to him and be made illustrious by him. He was always as red as a
tomato, now gay as a lark, now grave as a judge. How, while still
so young--he was only sixteen and a half years old when I saw him
for the first time--had he already won his way on the press? That
was what everybody who came into contact with him might have asked,
if they had not known his history. At the time of the affair of
the woman cut in pieces in the Rue Oberskampf--another forgotten
story--he had taken to one of the editors of the "Epoque,"--a
paper then rivalling the "Matin" for information,--the left foot,
which was missing from the basket in which the gruesome remains were
discovered. For this left foot the police had been vainly searching
for a week, and young Rouletabille had found it in a drain where
nobody had thought of looking for it. To do that he had dressed
himself as an extra sewer-man, one of a number engaged by the
administration of the city of Paris, owing to an overflow of the
Seine.
When the editor-in-chief was in possession of the precious foot and
informed as to the train of intelligent deductions the boy had been
led to make, he was divided between the admiration he felt for such
detective cunning in a brain of a lad of sixteen years, and delight
at being able to exhibit, in the "morgue window" of his paper, the
left foot of the Rue Oberskampf.
"This foot," he cried, "will make a great headline."
Then, when he had confided the gruesome packet to the medical lawyer
attached to the journal, he asked the lad, who was shortly to become
famous as Rouletabille, what he would expect to earn as a general
reporter on the "Epoque"?
"Two hundred francs a month," the youngster replied modestly, hardly
able to breathe from surprise at the proposal.
"You shall have two hundred and fifty," said the editor-in-chief;
"only you must tell everybody that you have been engaged on the paper
for a month. Let it be quite understood that it was not you but the
'Epoque' that discovered the left foot of the Rue Oberskampf. Here,
my young friend, the man is nothing, the paper everything."
Having said this, he begged the new reporter to retire, but before
the youth had reached the door he called him back to ask his name.
The other replied:
"Joseph Josephine."
"That's not a name," said the editor-in-chief, "but since you will
not be required to sign what you write it is of no consequence."
The boy-faced reporter speedily made himself many friends, for he
was serviceable and gifted with a good humour that enchanted the
most severe-tempered and disarmed the most zealous of his companions.
At the Bar cafe, where the reporters assembled before going to any
of the courts, or to the Prefecture, in search of their news of
crime, he began to win a reputation as an unraveller of intricate
and obscure affairs which found its way to the office of the Chief
of the Surete. When a case was worth the trouble and Rouletabille
--he had already been given his nickname--had been started on the
scent by his editor-in-chief, he often got the better of the most
famous detective.
It was at the Bar cafe that I became intimately acquainted with him.
Criminal lawyers and journalists are not enemies, the former need
advertisement, the latter information. We chatted together, and I
soon warmed towards him. His intelligence was so keen, and so
original!--and he had a quality of thought such as I have never
found in any other person.
Some time after this I was put in charge of the law news of the "Cri
du Boulevard." My entry into journalism could not but strengthen
the ties which united me to Rouletabille. After a while, my new
friend being allowed to carry out an idea of a judicial
correspondence column, which he was allowed to sign "Business," in
the "Epoque," I was often able to furnish him with the legal
information of which he stood in need.
Nearly two years passed in this way, and the better I knew him, the
more I learned to love him; for, in spite of his careless
extravagance, I had discovered in him what was, considering his age,
an extraordinary seriousness of mind. Accustomed as I was to seeing
him gay and, indeed, often too gay, I would many times find him
plunged in the deepest melancholy. I tried then to question him as
to the cause of this change of humour, but each time he laughed and
made me no answer. One day, having questioned him about his parents,
of whom he never spoke, he left me, pretending not to have heard
what I said.
While things were in this state between us, the famous case of The
Yellow Room took place. It was this case which was to rank him as
the leading newspaper reporter, and to obtain for him the reputation
of being the greatest detective in the world. It should not surprise
us to find in the one man the perfection of two such lines of
activity if we remember that the daily press was already beginning
to transform itself and to become what it is to-day--the gazette
of crime.
Morose-minded people may complain of this; for myself I regard it
a matter for congratulation. We can never have too many arms,
public or private, against the criminal. To this some people may
answer that, by continually publishing the details of crimes, the
press ends by encouraging their commission. But then, with some
people we can never do right. Rouletabille, as I have said, entered
my room that morning of the 26th of October, 1892. He was looking
redder than usual, and his eyes were bulging out of his head, as
the phrase is, and altogether he appeared to be in a state of
extreme excitement. He waved the "Matin" with a trembling hand,
and cried:
"Well, my dear Sainclair,--have you read it?"
"The Glandier crime?"
"Yes; The Yellow Room!--What do you think of it?"
"I think that it must have been the Devil or the Bete du Bon Dieu
that committed the crime."
"Be serious!"
"Well, I don't much believe in murderers* who make their escape
through walls of solid brick. I think Daddy Jacques did wrong to
leave behind him the weapon with which the crime was committed and,
as he occupied the attic immediately above Mademoiselle Stangerson's
room, the builder's job ordered by the examining magistrate will
give us the key of the enigma and it will not be long before we
learn by what natural trap, or by what secret door, the old fellow
was able to slip in and out, and return immediately to the laboratory
to Monsieur Stangerson, without his absence being noticed. That, of
course, is only an hypothesis."
____________________________________________________________________
*Although the original English translation often uses the words
"murder" and "murderer," the reader may substitute "attack" and
"attacker" since no murder is actually committed.
____________________________________________________________________
Rouletabille sat down in an armchair, lit his pipe, which he was
never without, smoked for a few minutes in silence--no doubt to
calm the excitement which, visibly, dominated him--and then
replied:
"Young man," he said, in a tone the sad irony of which I will not
attempt to render, "young man, you are a lawyer and I doubt not your
ability to save the guilty from conviction; but if you were a
magistrate on the bench, how easy it would be for you to condemn
innocent persons!--You are really gifted, young man!"
He continued to smoke energetically, and then went on:
"No trap will be found, and the mystery of The Yellow Room will
become more and more mysterious. That's why it interests me.
The examining magistrate is right; nothing stranger than this crime
has ever been known."
"Have you any idea of the way by which the murderer escaped?" I
asked.
"None," replied Rouletabille--"none, for the present. But I have
an idea as to the revolver; the murderer did not use it."
"Good Heavens! By whom, then, was it used?"
"Why--by Mademoiselle Stangerson."
"I don't understand,--or rather, I have never understood," I said.
Rouletabille shrugged his shoulders.
"Is there nothing in this article in the 'Matin' by which you were
particularly struck?"
"Nothing,--I have found the whole of the story it tells equally
strange."
"Well, but--the locked door--with the key on the inside?"
"That's the only perfectly natural thing in the whole article."
"Really!--And the bolt?"
"The bolt?"
"Yes, the bolt--also inside the room--a still further protection
against entry? Mademoiselle Stangerson took quite extraordinary
precautions! It is clear to me that she feared someone. That was
why she took such precautions--even Daddy Jacques's revolver
--without telling him of it. No doubt she didn't wish to alarm
anybody, and least of all, her father. What she dreaded took place,
and she defended herself. There was a struggle, and she used the
revolver skilfully enough to wound the assassin in the hand--which
explains the impression on the wall and on the door of the large,
blood-stained hand of the man who was searching for a means of
exit from the chamber. But she didn't fire soon enough to avoid
the terrible blow on the right temple."
"Then the wound on the temple was not done with the revolver?"
"The paper doesn't say it was, and I don't think it was; because
logically it appears to me that the revolver was used by Mademoiselle
Stangerson against the assassin. Now, what weapon did the murderer
use? The blow on the temple seems to show that the murderer wished
to stun Mademoiselle Stangerson,--after he had unsuccessfully tried
to strangle her. He must have known that the attic was inhabited
by Daddy Jacques, and that was one of the reasons, I think, why he
must have used a quiet weapon,--a life-preserver, or a hammer."
"All that doesn't explain how the murderer got out of The Yellow
Room," I observed.
"Evidently," replied Rouletabille, rising, "and that is what has to
be explained. I am going to the Chateau du Glandier, and have come
to see whether you will go with me."
"I?--"
"Yes, my boy. I want you. The 'Epoque' has definitely entrusted
this case to me, and I must clear it up as quickly as possible."
"But in what way can I be of any use to you?"
"Monsieur Robert Darzac is at the Chateau du Glandier."
"That's true. His despair must be boundless."
"I must have a talk with him."
Rouletabille said it in a tone that surprised me.
"Is it because--you think there is something to be got out of him?"
I asked.
"Yes."
That was all he would say. He retired to my sitting-room, begging
me to dress quickly.
I knew Monsieur Robert Darzac from having been of great service to
him in a civil action, while I was acting as secretary to Maitre
Barbet Delatour. Monsieur Robert Darzac, who was at that time about
forty years of age, was a professor of physics at the Sorbonne. He
was intimately acquainted with the Stangersons, and, after an
assiduous seven years' courtship of the daughter, had been on the
the phrase goes, "a person of a certain age," she was still
remarkably good-looking. While I was dressing I called out to
Rouletabille, who was impatiently moving about my sitting-room:
"Have you any idea as to the murderer's station in life?"
"Yes," he replied; "I think if he isn't a man in society, he is, at
least, a man belonging to the upper class. But that, again, is only
an impression."
"What has led you to form it?"
"Well,--the greasy cap, the common handkerchief, and the marks
of the rough boots on the floor," he replied.
"I understand," I said; "murderers don't leave traces behind them
which tell the truth."
"We shall make something out of you yet, my dear Sainclair,"
concluded Rouletabille.
CHAPTER III
"A Man Has Passed Like a Shadow Through the Blinds"
Half an hour later Rouletabille and I were on the platform of the
Orleans station, awaiting the departure of the train which was to
take us to Epinay-sur-Orge.
On the platform we found Monsieur de Marquet and his Registrar, who
represented the Judicial Court of Corbeil. Monsieur Marquet had
spent the night in Paris, attending the final rehearsal, at the
Scala, of a little play of which he was the unknown author, signing
himself simply "Castigat Ridendo."
Monsieur de Marquet was beginning to be a "noble old gentleman."
Generally he was extremely polite and full of gay humour, and in
all his life had had but one passion,--that of dramatic art.
Throughout his magisterial career he was interested solely in cases
capable of furnishing him with something in the nature of a drama.
Though he might very well have aspired to the highest judicial
positions, he had never really worked for anything but to win a
success at the romantic Porte-Saint-Martin, or at the sombre Odeon.
Because of the mystery which shrouded it, the case of The Yellow
Room was certain to fascinate so theatrical a mind. It interested
him enormously, and he threw himself into it, less as a magistrate
eager to know the truth, than as an amateur of dramatic embroglios,
tending wholly to mystery and intrigue, who dreads nothing so much
as the explanatory final act.
So that, at the moment of meeting him, I heard Monsieur de Marquet
say to the Registrar with a sigh:
"I hope, my dear Monsieur Maleine, this builder with his pickaxe
will not destroy so fine a mystery."
"Have no fear," replied Monsieur Maleine, "his pickaxe may demolish
the pavilion, perhaps, but it will leave our case intact. I have
sounded the walls and examined the ceiling and floor and I know all
about it. I am not to be deceived."
Having thus reassured his chief, Monsieur Maleine, with a discreet
movement of the head, drew Monsieur de Marquet's attention to us.
The face of that gentleman clouded, and, as he saw Rouletabille
approaching, hat in hand, he sprang into one of the empty carriages
saying, half aloud to his Registrar, as he did so, "Above all, no
journalists!"
Monsieur Maleine replied in the same tone, "I understand!" and then
tried to prevent Rouletabille from entering the same compartment
with the examining magistrate.
"Excuse me, gentlemen,--this compartment is reserved."
"I am a journalist, Monsieur, engaged on the 'Epoque,'" said my
young friend with a great show of gesture and politeness, "and I
have a word or two to say to Monsieur de Marquet."
"Monsieur is very much engaged with the inquiry he has in hand."
"Ah! his inquiry, pray believe me, is absolutely a matter of
indifference to me. I am no scavenger of odds and ends," he went
on, with infinite contempt in his lower lip, "I am a theatrical