Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 5

He might be about fifty years of age. He had a fine head, his hair turning grey; a colourless complexion, and a firm profile. His forehead was prominent, his chin and cheeks clean shaven. His upper lip, without moustache, was finely chiselled. His eyes were rather small and round, with a look in them that was at once searching and disquieting. He was of middle height and well built, with a general bearing elegant and gentlemanly. There was nothing about him of the vulgar policeman. In his way, he was an artist, and one felt that he had a high opinion of himself. The sceptical tone of his conversation was that of a man who had been taught by experience. His strange profession had brought him into contact with so many crimes and villanies that it would have been remarkable if his nature had not been a little hardened.

  Larsan turned his head at the sound of a vehicle which had come from the chateau and reached the gate behind him. We recognised the cab which had conveyed the examining magistrate and his Registrar from the station at Epinay.

  “Ah!” said Frederic Larsan, “if you want to speak with Monsieur Robert Darzac, he is here.”

  The cab was already at the park gate and Robert Darzac was begging Frederic Larsan to open it for him, explaining that he was pressed for time to catch the next train leaving Epinay for Paris. Then he recognised me. While Larsan was unlocking the gate, Monsieur Darzac inquired what had brought me to the Glandier at such a tragic moment. I noticed that he was frightfully pale, and that his face was lined as if from the effects of some terrible suffering.

  “Is Mademoiselle getting better?” I immediately asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “She will be saved perhaps. She must be saved!”

  He did not add “or it will be my death”; but I felt that the phrase trembled on his pale lips.

  Rouletabille intervened:

  “You are in a hurry, Monsieur; but I must speak with you. I have something of the greatest importance to tell you.”

  Frederic Larsan interrupted:

  “May I leave you?” he asked of Robert Darzac. “Have you a key, or do you wish me to give you this one.”

  “Thank you. I have a key and will lock the gate.”

  Larsan hurried off in the direction of the chateau, the imposing pile of which could be perceived a few hundred yards away.

  Robert Darzac, with knit brow, was beginning to show impatience. I presented Rouletabille as a good friend of mine, but, as soon as he learnt that the young man was a journalist, he looked at me very reproachfully, excused himself, under the necessity of having to reach Epinay in twenty minutes, bowed, and whipped up his horse. But Rouletabille had seized the bridle and, to my utter astonishment, stopped the carriage with a vigorous hand. Then he gave utterance to a sentence which was utterly meaningless to me.

  “The presbytery has lost nothing of its charm, nor the garden its brightness.”

  The words had no sooner left the lips of Rouletabille than I saw Robert Darzac quail. Pale as he was, he became paler. His eyes were fixed on the young man in terror, and he immediately descended from the vehicle in an inexpressible state of agitation.

  “Come! — come in!” he stammered.

  Then, suddenly, and with a sort of fury, he repeated:

  “Let us go, monsieur.”

  He turned up by the road he had come from the chateau, Rouletabille still retaining his hold on the horse’s bridle. I addressed a few words to Monsieur Darzac, but he made no answer. My looks questioned Rouletabille, but his gaze was elsewhere.

  CHAPTER VI. In the Heart of the Oak Grove

  WE REACHED THE chateau, and, as we approached it, saw four gendarmes pacing in front of a little door in the ground floor of the donjon. We soon learned that in this ground floor, which had formerly served as a prison, Monsieur and Madame Bernier, the concierges, were confined. Monsieur Robert Darzac led us into the modern part of the chateau by a large door, protected by a projecting awning — a “marquise” as it is called. Rouletabille, who had resigned the horse and the cab to the care of a servant, never took his eyes off Monsieur Darzac. I followed his look and perceived that it was directed solely towards the gloved hands of the Sorbonne professor. When we were in a tiny sitting-room fitted with old furniture, Monsieur Darzac turned to Rouletabille and said sharply:

  “What do you want?”

  The reporter answered in an equally sharp tone:

  “To shake you by the hand.”

  Darzac shrank back.

  “What does that mean?”

  Evidently he understood, what I also understood, that my friend suspected him of the abominable attempt on the life of Mademoiselle Stangerson. The impression of the blood-stained hand on the walls of “The Yellow Room” was in his mind. I looked at the man closely. His haughty face with its expression ordinarily so straightforward was at this moment strangely troubled. He held out his right hand and, referring to me, said:

  “As you are a friend of Monsieur Sainclair who has rendered me invaluable services in a just cause, monsieur, I see no reason for refusing you my hand—”

  Rouletabille did not take the extended hand. Lying with the utmost audacity, he said:

  “Monsieur, I have lived several years in Russia, where I have acquired the habit of never taking any but an ungloved hand.”

  I thought that the Sorbonne professor would express his anger openly, but, on the contrary, by a visibly violent effort, he calmed himself, took off his gloves, and showed his hands; they were unmarked by any cicatrix.

  “Are you satisfied?”

  “No!” replied Rouletabille. “My dear friend,” he said, turning to me, “I am obliged to ask you to leave us alone for a moment.”

  I bowed and retired; stupefied by what I had seen and heard. I could not understand why Monsieur Robert Darzac had not already shown the door to my impertinent, insulting, and stupid friend. I was angry myself with Rouletabille at that moment, for his suspicions, which had led to this scene of the gloves.

  For some twenty minutes I walked about in front of the chateau, trying vainly to link together the different events of the day. What was in Rouletabille’s mind? Was it possible that he thought Monsieur Robert Darzac to be the murderer? How could it be thought that this man, who was to have married Mademoiselle Stangerson in the course of a few days, had introduced himself into “The Yellow Room” to assassinate his fiancee? I could find no explanation as to how the murderer had been able to leave “The Yellow Room”; and so long as that mystery, which appeared to me so inexplicable, remained unexplained, I thought it was the duty of all of us to refrain from suspecting anybody. But, then, that seemingly senseless phrase— “The presbytery has lost nothing of its charm, nor the garden its brightness” — still rang in my ears. What did it mean? I was eager to rejoin Rouletabille and question him.

  At that moment the young man came out of the chateau in the company of Monsieur Robert Darzac, and, extraordinary to relate, I saw, at a glance, that they were the best of friends. “We are going to “The Yellow Room”. Come with us,” Rouletabille said to me. “You know, my dear boy, I am going to keep you with me all day. We’ll breakfast together somewhere about here—”

  “You’ll breakfast with me, here, gentlemen—”

  “No, thanks,” replied the young man. “We shall breakfast at the Donjon Inn.”

  “You’ll fare very badly there; you’ll not find anything—”

  “Do you think so? Well, I hope to find something there,” replied Rouletabille. “After breakfast, we’ll set to work again. I’ll write my article and if you’ll be so good as to take it to the office for me—”

  “Won’t you come back with me to Paris?”

  “No; I shall remain here.”

  I turned towards Rouletabille. He spoke quite seriously, and Monsieur Robert Darzac did not appear to be in the least degree surprised.

  We were passing by the donjon and heard wailing voices. Rouletabille asked:

  “Why have these people been arrested?”

  “It is a little my fault,” said Monsieur Darzac. “I happ
ened to remark to the examining magistrate yesterday that it was inexplicable that the concierges had had time to hear the revolver shots, to dress themselves, and to cover so great a distance as that which lies between their lodge and the pavilion, in the space of two minutes; for not more than that interval of time had elapsed after the firing of the shots when they were met by Daddy Jacques.”

  “That was suspicious evidently,” acquiesced Rouletabille. “And were they dressed?”

  “That is what is so incredible — they were dressed — completely — not one part of their costume wanting. The woman wore sabots, but the man had on laced boots. Now they assert that they went to bed at half-past nine. On arriving this morning, the examining magistrate brought with him from Paris a revolver of the same calibre as that found in the room (for he couldn’t use the one held for evidence), and made his Registrar fire two shots in “The Yellow Room” while the doors and windows were closed. We were with him in the lodge of the concierges, and yet we heard nothing, not a sound. The concierges have lied, of that there can be no doubt. They must have been already waiting, not far from the pavilion, waiting for something! Certainly they are not to be accused of being the authors of the crime, but their complicity is not improbable. That was why Monsieur de Marquet had them arrested at once.”

  “If they had been accomplices,” said Rouletabille, “they would not have been there at all. When people throw themselves into the arms of justice with the proofs of complicity on them, you can be sure they are not accomplices. I don’t believe there are any accomplices in this affair.”

  “Then, why were they abroad at midnight? Why don’t they say?”

  “They have certainly some reason for their silence. What that reason is, has to be found out; for, even if they are not accomplices, it may be of importance. Everything that took place on such a night is important.”

  We had crossed an old bridge thrown over the Douve and were entering the part of the park called the Oak Grove, The oaks here were centuries old. Autumn had already shrivelled their tawny leaves, and their high branches, black and contorted, looked like horrid heads of hair, mingled with quaint reptiles such as the ancient sculptors have made on the head of Medusa. This place, which Mademoiselle found cheerful and in which she lived in the summer season, appeared to us as sad and funereal now. The soil was black and muddy from the recent rains and the rotting of the fallen leaves; the trunks of the trees were black and the sky above us was now, as if in mourning, charged with great, heavy clouds.

  And it was in this sombre and desolate retreat that we saw the white walls of the pavilion as we approached. A queer-looking building without a window visible on the side by which we neared it. A little door alone marked the entrance to it. It might have passed for a tomb, a vast mausoleum in the midst of a thick forest. As we came nearer, we were able to make out its disposition. The building obtained all the light it needed from the south, that is to say, from the open country. The little door closed on the park. Monsieur and Mademoiselle Stangerson must have found it an ideal seclusion for their work and their dreams.

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  PARK ||||| |t |

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  Footsteps|| || | |

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  door enclosing wall

  Here is the ground plan of the pavilion. It had a ground-floor which was reached by a few steps, and above it was an attic, with which we need not concern ourselves. The plan of the ground-floor only, sketched roughly, is what I here submit to the reader.

  1. “The Yellow Room”, with its one window and its one door opening

  into the laboratory.

  2. Laboratory, with its two large, barred windows and its doors,

  one serving for the vestibule, the other for “The Yellow Room”.

  3. Vestibule, with its unbarred window and door opening into the

  park.

  4. Lavatory.

  5. Stairs leading to the attic.

  6. Large and the only chimney in the pavilion, serving for the

  experiments of the laboratory.

  The plan was drawn by Rouletabille, and I assured myself that there was not a line in it that was wanting to help to the solution of the problem then set before the police. With the lines of this plan and the description of its parts before them, my readers will know as much as Rouletabille knew when he entered the pavilion for the first time. With him they may now ask: How did the murderer escape from “The Yellow Room”? Before mounting the three steps leading up to the door of the pavilion, Rouletabille stopped and asked Monsieur Darzac point blank:

  “What was the motive for the crime?”

  “Speaking for myself, Monsieur, there can be no doubt on the matter,” said Mademoiselle Stangerson’s fiance, greatly distressed. “The nails of the fingers, the deep scratches on the chest and throat of Mademoiselle Stangerson show that the wretch who attacked her attempted to commit a frightful crime. The medical experts who examined these traces yesterday affirm that they were made by the same hand as that which left its red imprint on the wall; an enormous hand, Monsieur, much too large to go into my gloves,” he added with an indefinable smile.

  “Could not that blood-stained hand,” I interrupted, “have been the hand of Mademoiselle Stangerson who, in the moment of falling, had pressed it against the wall, and, in slipping, enlarged the impression?”

  “There was not a drop of blood on either of her hands when she was lifted up,” replied Monsieur Darzac.

  “We are now sure,” said I, “that it was Mademoiselle Stangerson who was armed with Daddy Jacques’s revolver, since she wounded the hand of the murderer. She was in fear, then, of somebody or something.”

  “Probably.”

  “Do you suspect anybody?”

  “No,” replied Monsieur Darzac, looking at Rouletabille. Rouletabille then said to me:

  “You must know, my friend, that the inquiry is a little more advanced than Monsieur de Marquet has chosen to tell us. He not only knows that Mademoiselle Stangerson defended herself with the revolver, but he knows what the weapon was that was used to attack her. Monsieur Darzac tells me it was a mutton-bone. Why is Monsieur de Marquet surrounding this mutton-bone with so much mystery? No doubt for the purpose of facilitating the inquiries of the agents of the Surete? He imagines, perhaps, that the owner of this instrument of crime, the most terrible invented, is going to be found amongst those who are well-known in the slums of Paris who use it. But who can ever say what passes through the brain of an examining magistrate?” Rouletabille added with contemptuous irony.

  “Has a mutton-bone been found in “The Yellow Room”?” I asked him.

  “Yes, Monsieur,” said Robert Darzac, “at the foot of the bed; but I beg of you not to say anything about it.” (I made a gesture of assent.) “It was an enormous mutton-bone, the top of which, or rather the joint, was still red with the blood of the frightful wound. It was an old bone, which may, according to appearances, have served in other crimes. That’s what Monsieur de Marquet thinks. He has had it sent to the municipal laboratory at Paris to be analysed. In fact, he thinks he has detected on it, not only the blood of the last victim, but other stains of dried blood, evidences of previous crimes.”

  “A mutton-bone in the hand of a skilled assassin is a frightful weapon,” said Rouletabille, “a more certain weapon than a heavy hammer.”

  “The scoundrel has proved it to be so,” said Monsieur Robert Darzac, sadly. “The joint of the bone found exactly fits the wound inflicted.

  “My belief is that the wound would have been mortal, if the murderer’s blow had not been arrested in the act by Mademoiselle Stangerso
n’s revolver. Wounded in the hand, he dropped the mutton-bone and fled. Unfortunately, the blow had been already given, and Mademoiselle was stunned after having been nearly strangled. If she had succeeded in wounding the man with the first shot of the revolver, she would, doubtless, have escaped the blow with the bone. But she had certainly employeed her revolver too late; the first shot deviated and lodged in the ceiling; it was the second only that took effect.”

  Having said this, Monsieur Darzac knocked at the door of the pavilion. I must confess to feeling a strong impatience to reach the spot where the crime had been committed. It was some time before the door was opened by a man whom I at once recognised as Daddy Jacques.

  He appeared to be well over sixty years of age. He had a long white beard and white hair, on which he wore a flat Basque cap. He was dressed in a complete suit of chestnut-coloured velveteen, worn at the sides; sabots were on his feet. He had rather a waspish-looking face, the expression of which lightened, however, as soon as he saw Monsieur Darzac.

  “Friends,” said our guide. “Nobody in the pavilion, Daddy Jacques?”

  “I ought not to allow anybody to enter, Monsieur Robert, but of course the order does not apply to you. These gentlemen of justice have seen everything there is to be seen, and made enough drawings, and drawn up enough reports—”

  “Excuse me, Monsieur Jacques, one question before anything else,” said Rouletabille.

  “What is it, young man? If I can answer it—”

  “Did your mistress wear her hair in bands, that evening? You know what I mean — over her forehead?”

  “No, young man. My mistress never wore her hair in the way you suggest, neither on that day nor on any other. She had her hair drawn up, as usual, so that her beautiful forehead could be seen, pure as that of an unborn child!”

  Rouletabille grunted and set to work examining the door, finding that it fastened itself automatically. He satisfied himself that it could never remain open and needed a key to open it. Then we entered the vestibule, a small, well-lit room paved with square red tiles.