Rouletabille and the Mystery of the Yellow Room Read online

  “Please, Monsieur, let me assure you that I’m not at all interested in his investigation. I’m not one of those yellow journalists who spend their lives scavenging through other people's garbage,” he added, his lower lip twisting to express his presumed contempt for such low-lives. “No, I’m a theatrical reporter, and this evening, I have to review the new play opening at the Scala.”

  “I see! Please, do get in, Monsieur,” said the clerk.

  Rouletabille hopped inside the train. I followed him and sat next to him. The clerk got in last and closed the door behind him.

  Monsieur de Marquet looked at him disapprovingly.

  “Please, Monsieur,” Rouletabille began, “don’t be angry with the good Monsieur Maleine for not following your instructions to the letter. It isn’t to Monsieur de Marquet, Investigating Magistrate, that I wish to speak, but to ‘Castigat Ridendo.’ As the new theatrical critic of L’Epoque, please allow me to offer you my heartfelt congratulations…”

  Rouletabille, having first introduced me, then introduced himself.

  Monsieur de Marquet nervously caressed his beard and told Rouletabille, in a few words, that he was too modest to desire that his real identity be exposed, and that he hoped that my friend’s enthusiasm for his work would not lead him to reveal to the public that “Castigat Ridendo” was, in reality, the Investigating Magistrate of the Tribunal of Corbeil.

  “The work of the dramatic author may interfere,” he said, after a slight hesitation, “with that of the Magistrate, especially outside of Paris where people tend to be more conservative.”

  “Oh, Monsieur, you may rely on my discretion!” said Rouletabille, raising his right hand as if to take an oath.

  The train started.

  “We’re on our way,” said the Magistrate, surprised at seeing us still in the carriage.

  “Yes, Monsieur—towards the truth,” said Rouletabille, smiling amiably. “Towards the Chateau du Glandier. A fine case, Monsieur de Marquet, a fine case indeed!”

  “An obscure, incredible, unfathomable, inexplicable affair… I fear only one thing, Monsieur Rouletabille, that the Press will bungle things by wanting to solve it before the Law does.”

  My friend didn’t flinch.

  “You’re right, Monsieur,” he said simply. “That is a legitimate concern. They meddle in everything. As for me, I mentioned it only because luck—pure, blind luck—brought us together at the same time, in the same train.”

  “Really? Where are you going, then?” asked Monsieur de Marquet.

  “To the Chateau du Glandier, of course,” replied Rouletabille, without batting an eye.

  “You won’t be able to get inside, Monsieur Rouletabille!”

  “Would you stop me?” said my friend, always ready for a fight.

  “Not at all! I like the Press too much to wish to alienate any bona fide reporter, but Professor Stangerson has given strict orders for his door to be barred to everyone, and it’s well guarded, believe me. Not a single journalist was admitted through the gates yesterday.”

  “Excellent,” said Rouletabille cheerfully. “I hate crowds.”

  Monsieur de Marquet’s lips tightened, and he seemed ready to lapse into an obstinate silence. He only relaxed a little when Rouletabille told him that we were going to the Glandier to meet an “old and close friend,” Monsieur Robert Darzac—a man whom Rouletabille had perhaps seen only once in his life.

  “Poor Robert!” continued the young reporter. “This dreadful affair may kill him. He’s so much in love with Mademoiselle Stangerson, don’t you think?”

  “His suffering is indeed truly painful to watch,” muttered Monsieur de Marquet, reluctantly.

  “One can only pray that Mademoiselle Stangerson’s life can be saved.”

  “Let’s hope so. Only yesterday, her father told me that, if she doesn’t recover, it won’t be long until he joins her in the grave. What a loss to science his death would be!”

  “The wound on her temple is serious, isn’t it?”

  “Absolutely! It was lucky it didn’t kill her. That blow was struck with great force.”

  “So it wasn’t the revolver that caused the wound,” said Rouletabille, glancing at me triumphantly.

  Monsieur de Marquet appeared greatly embarrassed.

  “I didn’t say anything. I don’t wish to say anything, and I won’t say anything further,” he said. And he turned towards his clerk, as if he no longer knew us.

  But it wasn’t so easy to get rid of Rouletabille. He moved closer to the Magistrate and, pulling a copy of Le Matin from his pocket, showed it to him.

  “There’s one thing, Monsieur, which I may ask of you without committing an indiscretion,” he said. “You must have read the account published in Le Matin? It’s nonsense, isn’t it?”

  “Not in the slightest, Monsieur.”

  “What!? The Yellow Room has but one barred window—the bars of which have not been tampered with—and only one door, which had to be broken open—and still, Mademoiselle Stangersom’s attacker was nowhere to be found!”

  “That is exactly so, Monsieur Rouletabille. That’s how the matter stands.”

  Rouletabille fell silent and became absorbed in his own thoughts. A quarter of an hour passed. Then, he became animated again, and addressed the Magistrate:

  “How did Mademoiselle Stangerson wear her hair on that evening?”

  “I don’t understand what you mean?” replied Monsieur de Marquet.

  “That’s a very important point,” said Rouletabille. “Her hair was in plaits, wasn’t it? I’m certain that, on that evening, the evening of the crime, she had her hair arranged in plaits.”

  “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Monsieur Rouletabille,” replied the Magistrate. “That evening, Mademoiselle Stangerson had her hair drawn up in a bun on the top of her head—her usual way of arranging it, I’m told. Her forehead was entirely uncovered. I can attest to this, because I had to examine her wound carefully myself. There was no blood on the hair, and its arrangement had not been disturbed since the crime was committed.”

  “You’re sure? You’re certain that, on the night of the crime, she didn’t have her hair in plaits?”

  “Quite certain,” the Magistrate continued, smiling, “because I remember the Doctor saying to me, while he was examining the wound, ‘It’s a great pity that Mademoiselle Stangerson wore her hair drawn back. If she’d worn it in plaits, the blow she received on the temple might have been softened.’ It seems strange to me that you should attach so much importance to this detail...”

  “Oh!” whined Rouletanille. “If she didn’t have her hair in plaits, then I don’t understand… I don’t understand at all.... It doesn’t make any sense…” He made a despairing gesture, then asked again: “And the wound on her temple was serious?”

  “Very serious.”

  “With what weapon was it made?”

  “That, Monsieur, is a secret of the investigation.”

  “Have you found the weapon—whatever it was?”

  The Magistrate did not answer.

  “What about the wound in the throat?”

  Here, the Investigating Magistrate was kind enough to share with us the doctor’s opinion that, “if the perpetrator had strangled her for a few seconds longer, Mademoiselle Stangerson would now be dead.”

  “The case, as it’s been reported in Le Matin,” admitted Rouletabille, “appears indeed to be more amd more mysterious. Could you tell me, Monsieur, how many entrances there are in the pavilion? I mean, doors and windows.”

  “There are five in total,” replied Monsieur de Marquet, after having coughed once or twice, but no longer resisting the desire to talk about the whole mysterious affair. “The first is the door to the vestibule, which is the only entrance to the pavilion, which closes automatically, and cwhich an only be opened, from either the outside or the inside, with two special keys, which are always kept by Père Jacques and Professor Stangerson. Mademoiselle Stangerson didn’t need a key, sinc
e Père Jacques slept in the pavilion and, during the day, she was always at her father’s side. When the four witnesses rushed from the laboratory into the Yellow Room, after breaking its door open, the vestibule door remained closed as usual. The two keys were still with Père Jacques and the Professor. As to the windows, there are four: one in the Yellow Room, two in the laboratory, looking out onto the neighboring countryside, and one in the vestibule, looking out onto the grounds.”

  “That’s the window the perpetrator used to flee the pavilion!” stated Rouletabille.

  “How can you know that?” asked Monsieur de Marquet, looking at my friend strangely.

  “We’ll deal with how he left the Yellow Room later,” replied Rouletabille, “but he must have left the pavilion by the vestibule window.”

  “Once again—how can you know that?”

  “That’s easy! Since the attacker couldn’t escape through the door of the pavilion, his only way out was through a window—one that wasn’t barred. The window of the Yellow Room was secured by iron bars because it looks out onto the open countryside; the same must be true of the two windows in the laboratory. Since our man did get away, it means that he used a window that wasn’t barred. The only one left is that of the vestibule, which opens onto the grounds, that is to say, inside the estate. Hence, no bars. Not much magic in that, you see?”

  “Indeed,” said Monsieur de Marquet, “but what you don’t know is that the vestibule window, though it has no bars, as you surmised, was nevertheless closed by two solid iron shutters. We found those two shutters locked with an iron latch; and yet, we have proof that the attacker made his escape by that very window! We found traces of blood on the inside wall and on the shutters themselves, as well as on the floor, and also footprints outside, identical to those found in the Yellow Room. All this evidence proves that the man escaped through that window. But, how did he do it, since the shutters were fastened from the inside? Did he walk through them like a ghost? What’s even more bewildering is that we can’t figure out how the villain got out of the Yellow Room in the first place, nor how he got across the laboratory to reach the vestibule! Yes, Monsieur Rouletabille, it is, as you’ve just said, a fine case, the key to which, I hope, will not be discovered for a long time.”

  “You hope that, Monsieur?”

  Monsieur de Marquet corrected himself.

  “I do not hope that, I believe that.”

  “Could the shutters have been closed and refastened after the attacker escaped?” asked Rouletabille.

  “That is the most natural explanation, but it would imply that he had an accomplice, or accomplices, inside, and I can’t honestly imagine…” After a short silence, the Magistrate added: “Ah, if only Mademoiselle Stangerson was well enough to be questioned!”

  Rouletabille, following up his line of thought, asked:

  “What about the attic? There must be some kind of entrance there?”

  “You’re right. I forgot to mention it. So there are, in fact, six entrances in total. There is a small window, a skylight in fact, in the attic. Since it, too, looks out towards the countryside, Professor Stangerson had it barred, like the rest of the windows. Those bars were intact, and the shutters, which naturally open inwards, were also tightly shut. In any event, we haven’t found any evidence that would lead us to suspect that the attacker passed through the attic.”

  “So you’re certain that he escaped—in some as yet unknown fashion—through the vestibule window?”

  “Everything points to it.”

  “I happen to think so, too,” said Rouletabille gravely. After a brief silence, he continued: “If you didn’t find any traces of the perpetrator in the attic, such as the same dirty footprints left in the Yellow Room, you must have come to the conclusion that it wasn’t he who stole Père Jacques’s revolver?”

  “There were no footprints in the attic other than Père Jacques’,” said the Magistrate with a meaningful nod. To clarify his thoughts, he added: “The old man was with Professor Stangerson in the laboratory—luckily for him.”

  “Then, what part did his gun play in the attack? It seems to me that that weapon did less harm to Mademoiselle Stangerson than it did to her attacker.”

  The Magistrate didn’t reply to this question, which probably embarrassed him, but told us that they had found two bullets in the Yellow Room, one embedded in the wall stained with the bloody handprint—a man’s hand—the other, in the ceiling.

  “Oh! oh! In the ceiling!” muttered Rouletabille. “Really? That’s very curious! In the ceiling…”

  He puffed for a while in silence, wrapping himself in a thick cloud of tobacco smoke. When we reached Epinay-sur-Orge, I had to tap him lightly on the shoulder to pull him out of his meditation, and encourage him to step out onto the platform of the station.

  There, the Magistrate and his clerk bowed to us, making it quite clear that they’d had enough of us, and got into a cab which had been waiting for them.

  “How long will it take to walk to the Chateau du Glandier?” Rouletabille asked one of the station employees.

  “An hour and a half, or an hour and three quarters, without rushing,” the man replied.

  Rouletabille looked up at the sky and found it clear enough for his tastes—and mine—and grabbed my arm.

  “Come on, Sainclair!” he said. “I need a walk.”

  “Are things getting clearer?” I inquired.

  “Not at all!” he said. “If anything, it’s getting more complicated than before! But I do have an idea…”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell at the moment. It might be a matter of life and death for at least two people.”

  “Do you believe someone helped the attacker?”

  “No.”

  We fell into silence.

  “It was a bit of luck, meeting the Investigating Magistrate and his clerk, eh?” Rouletabille went on. “What did I tell you about the gun?”

  Rouletabille was walking briskly, his head down, his hands in his pockets, whistling. After a while, I heard him murmur:

  “Poor woman!”

  “Are you talking about Mademoiselle Stangerson?”

  “Of course. She’s a noble woman, worthy of compassion! A woman of great, very great character, I imagine. I believe...”

  “You know her then?”

  “Not really. I’ve only met her once.”

  “Why, then, do you say that she’s a woman of great character?”

  “Because she bravely faced her attacker and courageously defended herself. And, above all, because of that bullet in the ceiling.”

  I looked at Rouletabille and inwardly wondered whether he was having fun at my expense, or if he had suddenly gone mad. But I quickly saw that he’d never been more serious, and the light in his keen, round eyes convinced me of his sanity. I was used to our disjointed conversations—disjointed to me, because I usually found them incoherent and puzzling, at least until a few clear, quick words from Rouletabille clarified his train of thought. Then, I understood the meaning of what he’d been trying to tell me. What had previously seemed nonsensical became suddenly so logical and easy to grasp that I never could understand why I hadn’t succeeded in connecting the dots earlier.

  Chapter Four

  “Its Very Solitude, Deep in the Woods”

  The Chateau du Glandier was one of the oldest chateaux in the Ile-de-France region, where so many medieval buildings still stand today. Originally built hidden deep inside a forest during the reign of King Philip IV, The Fair, it now could be seen from a hundred yards or so down the road going from Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois to Monthlery. It was a jumble of mismatched structures, dominated by a single, massive tower. When a visitor finished climbing the crumbling steps leading to its top, he found himself on a small platform where, in the 17th century, Georges-Philibert de Sequigny, Lord of the Glandier, Maisons-Neuves and other places, had erected an ugly, rococo-styled lantern. From that platform, one could see, beyond the valleys
and the plains, as far as the proud tower of Monthléry, located three leagues away. The two towers still gazed at each other, after so many centuries, and, over the verdant forests and the dead woods, seemed to be sharing the oldest legends in French History.

  People from the region knew that the tower of Glandier watched over a heroic and saintly spirit, that of the patron saint of Paris itself, St Genevieve, before whom Attila himself had fled.8 They claim that the saint’s final resting place lies beneath the Chateau’s ancient moat. During the summer, young lovers carrying picnic bags come to plan their lives together or swear undying fidelity before the saint’s tomb, always piously decorated with bouquets of forget-me-nots. Not far from the tomb is a well whose waters are reputed to perform miracles. The grateful mothers of the region have erected a statue to St Genevieve, under which hang the tiny slippers and bonnets of the children whose lives were saved by the miraculous waters.

  It was in this very place, which seemed to entirely belong to the past, that Professor Stangerson and his daughter had chosen to live, in order to lay the foundations of the science of the future. Its very solitude, deep in the woods, had appealed to them right away. The only witnesses to their hopes and labors were the ancient stones of the Chateau and the grand old oaks of its grounds. Glandier—Glandierum, as it was once called—derived its name from the large quantity of acorns which used to be harvested on the estate.9 The property, which is now famous for all the wrong reasons, had been allowed to revert to its original wild and primitive state, due to the neglect or abandonment of its past owners. Only its hidden buildings had preserved some traces of their various metamorphoses. Every century had left its mark on them; every bit of architecture was connected to some terrible historical event or some bloody adventure. The Chateau, where science had now found a new home, was a place that seemed better suited to be the stage of mysterious terrors and deaths.

  That said, I have to make one, final observation:

  If I have spent so much time painting a rather gloomy picture of Glandier, it isn’t because I’m trying to do so for purely dramatic purposes, in effect “creating” the necessary atmosphere suitable for the tragedy taking place before my readers’ eyes. On the contrary, in this matter, my first concern is always be to be as simple and direct as possible. I have no ambition to be a great writer, or a famous novelist. God knows that there are enough real, tragic horrors in the Mystery of the Yellow Room to not need any unnecessary literary effects. I am, and only desire to be, a faithful “reporter.” My first duty is to report the events that took place there, and in order to do so properly, I must provide their context, that is all. It makes sense that you should know where the things happened.