Le mystère de la chambre jaune. English Page 2

  CHAPTER II. In Which Joseph Rouletabille Appears for the First Time

  I remember as well as if it had occurred yesterday, the entry of youngRouletabille into my bedroom that morning. It was about eight o'clockand I was still in bed reading the article in the "Matin" relative tothe Glandier crime.

  But, before going further, it is time that I present my friend to thereader.

  I first knew Joseph Rouletabille when he was a young reporter. At thattime I was a beginner at the Bar and often met him in the corridors ofexamining 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, "agood nut." He seemed to have taken his head--round as a bullet--out ofa box of marbles, and it is from that, I think, that his comrades ofthe press--all determined billiard-players--had given him that nickname,which was to stick to him and be made illustrious by him. He was alwaysas red as a tomato, now gay as a lark, now grave as a judge. How, whilestill so young--he was only sixteen and a half years old when I saw himfor the first time--had he already won his way on the press? That waswhat everybody who came into contact with him might have asked, if theyhad not known his history. At the time of the affair of the woman cut inpieces in the Rue Oberskampf--another forgotten story--he had taken toone of the editors of the "Epoque,"--a paper then rivalling the "Matin"for information,--the left foot, which was missing from the basketin which the gruesome remains were discovered. For this left foot thepolice had been vainly searching for a week, and young Rouletabille hadfound it in a drain where nobody had thought of looking for it. Todo that he had dressed himself as an extra sewer-man, one of a numberengaged by the administration of the city of Paris, owing to an overflowof the Seine.

  When the editor-in-chief was in possession of the precious foot andinformed as to the train of intelligent deductions the boy had beenled to make, he was divided between the admiration he felt for suchdetective cunning in a brain of a lad of sixteen years, and delight atbeing able to exhibit, in the "morgue window" of his paper, the leftfoot of the Rue Oberskampf.

  "This foot," he cried, "will make a great headline."

  Then, when he had confided the gruesome packet to the medical lawyerattached to the journal, he asked the lad, who was shortly to becomefamous as Rouletabille, what he would expect to earn as a generalreporter on the "Epoque"?

  "Two hundred francs a month," the youngster replied modestly, hardlyable to breathe from surprise at the proposal.

  "You shall have two hundred and fifty," said the editor-in-chief; "onlyyou must tell everybody that you have been engaged on the paper for amonth. Let it be quite understood that it was not you but the 'Epoque'that discovered the left foot of the Rue Oberskampf. Here, my youngfriend, the man is nothing, the paper everything."

  Having said this, he begged the new reporter to retire, but before theyouth had reached the door he called him back to ask his name. The otherreplied:

  "Joseph Josephine."

  "That's not a name," said the editor-in-chief, "but since you will notbe required to sign what you write it is of no consequence."

  The boy-faced reporter speedily made himself many friends, for hewas serviceable and gifted with a good humour that enchanted the mostsevere-tempered and disarmed the most zealous of his companions. Atthe Bar cafe, where the reporters assembled before going to any of thecourts, or to the Prefecture, in search of their news of crime, he beganto win a reputation as an unraveller of intricate and obscure affairswhich found its way to the office of the Chief of the Surete. When acase was worth the trouble and Rouletabille--he had already been givenhis nickname--had been started on the scent by his editor-in-chief, heoften 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 needadvertisement, the latter information. We chatted together, and I soonwarmed towards him. His intelligence was so keen, and so original!--andhe had a quality of thought such as I have never found in any otherperson.

  Some time after this I was put in charge of the law news of the "Cri duBoulevard." My entry into journalism could not but strengthen the tieswhich united me to Rouletabille. After a while, my new friend beingallowed to carry out an idea of a judicial correspondence column, whichhe was allowed to sign "Business," in the "Epoque," I was often able tofurnish 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 moreI learned to love him; for, in spite of his careless extravagance, Ihad discovered in him what was, considering his age, an extraordinaryseriousness of mind. Accustomed as I was to seeing him gay and, indeed,often too gay, I would many times find him plunged in the deepestmelancholy. I tried then to question him as to the cause of this changeof 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 leftme, pretending not to have heard what I said.

  While things were in this state between us, the famous case of TheYellow Room took place. It was this case which was to rank him as theleading newspaper reporter, and to obtain for him the reputation ofbeing the greatest detective in the world. It should not surprise us tofind in the one man the perfection of two such lines of activity if weremember that the daily press was already beginning to transform itselfand to become what it is to-day--the gazette of crime.

  Morose-minded people may complain of this; for myself I regard it amatter for congratulation. We can never have too many arms, public orprivate, against the criminal. To this some people may answer that,by continually publishing the details of crimes, the press ends byencouraging their commission. But then, with some people we can never doright. Rouletabille, as I have said, entered my room that morning of the26th of October, 1892. He was looking redder than usual, and his eyeswere bulging out of his head, as the phrase is, and altogether heappeared 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 thatcommitted the crime."

  "Be serious!"

  "Well, I don't much believe in murderers* who make their escape throughwalls of solid brick. I think Daddy Jacques did wrong to leave behindhim the weapon with which the crime was committed and, as he occupiedthe attic immediately above Mademoiselle Stangerson's room, thebuilder's job ordered by the examining magistrate will give us the keyof the enigma and it will not be long before we learn by what naturaltrap, or by what secret door, the old fellow was able to slip in andout, and return immediately to the laboratory to Monsieur Stangerson,without his absence being noticed. That, of course, is only anhypothesis."

  *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 neverwithout, smoked for a few minutes in silence--no doubt to calm theexcitement which, visibly, dominated him--and then replied:

  "Young man," he said, in a tone the sad irony of which I will notattempt to render, "young man, you are a lawyer and I doubt not yourability to save the guilty from conviction; but if you were a magistrateon the bench, how easy it would be for you to condemn innocentpersons!--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 becomemore and more mysterious. That's why it interests me. The examiningmagistrate is right; nothing stranger than this crime has ever beenknown."

  "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 ideaas to the revolver; the murderer did not use it."
<
br />   "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 wereparticularly struck?"

  "Nothing,--I have found the whole of the story it tells equallystrange."

  "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 againstentry? Mademoiselle Stangerson took quite extraordinary precautions!It is clear to me that she feared someone. That was why she took suchprecautions--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 astruggle, and she used the revolver skilfully enough to wound theassassin in the hand--which explains the impression on the wall and onthe door of the large, blood-stained hand of the man who was searchingfor a means of exit from the chamber. But she didn't fire soon enough toavoid 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; becauselogically it appears to me that the revolver was used by MademoiselleStangerson against the assassin. Now, what weapon did the murderer use?The blow on the temple seems to show that the murderer wished to stunMademoiselle Stangerson,--after he had unsuccessfully tried to strangleher. 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 quietweapon,--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 beexplained. I am going to the Chateau du Glandier, and have come to seewhether you will go with me."

  "I?--"

  "Yes, my boy. I want you. The 'Epoque' has definitely entrusted thiscase 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?" Iasked.

  "Yes."

  That was all he would say. He retired to my sitting-room, begging me todress quickly.

  I knew Monsieur Robert Darzac from having been of great service to himin a civil action, while I was acting as secretary to Maitre BarbetDelatour. Monsieur Robert Darzac, who was at that time about forty yearsof age, was a professor of physics at the Sorbonne. He was intimatelyacquainted with the Stangersons, and, after an assiduous seven years'courtship of the daughter, had been on the point of marrying her. Inspite of the fact that she has become, as the phrase goes, "a personof a certain age," she was still remarkably good-looking. While I wasdressing I called out to Rouletabille, who was impatiently moving aboutmy 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, atleast, a man belonging to the upper class. But that, again, is only animpression."

  "What has led you to form it?"

  "Well,--the greasy cap, the common handkerchief, and the marks of therough boots on the floor," he replied.

  "I understand," I said; "murderers don't leave traces behind them whichtell the truth."

  "We shall make something out of you yet, my dear Sainclair," concludedRouletabille.