Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 7

  “True, true,” assented Rouletabille as he kept on drying his forehead, which seemed to be perspiring less from his recent bodily exertion than from his mental agitation. “Indeed, it’s a great, a beautiful, and a very curious mystery.”

  “The Bete du bon Dieu,” muttered Daddy Jacques, “the Bete du bon Dieu herself, if she had committed the crime, could not have escaped. Listen! Do you hear it? Hush!”

  Daddy Jacques made us a sign to keep quiet and, stretching his arm towards the wall nearest the forest, listened to something which we could not hear.

  “It’s answering,” he said at length. “I must kill it. It is too wicked, but it’s the Bete du bon Dieu, and, every night, it goes to pray on the tomb of Sainte-Genevieve and nobody dares to touch her, for fear that Mother Angenoux should cast an evil spell on them.”

  “How big is the Bete du bon Dieu?”

  “Nearly as big as a small retriever, — a monster, I tell you. Ah! — I have asked myself more than once whether it was not her that took our poor Mademoiselle by the throat with her claws. But the Bete du bon Dieu does not wear hobnailed boots, nor fire revolvers, nor has she a hand like that!” exclaimed Daddy Jacques, again pointing out to us the red mark on the wall. “Besides, we should have seen her as well as we would have seen a man—”

  “Evidently,” I said. “Before we had seen this Yellow Room, I had also asked myself whether the cat of Mother Angenoux—”

  “You also!” cried Rouletabille.

  “Didn’t you?” I asked.

  “Not for a moment. After reading the article in the ‘Matin,’ I knew that a cat had nothing to do with the matter. But I swear now that a frightful tragedy has been enacted here. You say nothing about the Basque cap, or the handkerchief, found here, Daddy Jacques?”

  “Of course, the magistrate has taken them,” the old man answered, hesitatingly.

  “I haven’t seen either the handkerchief or the cap, yet I can tell you how they are made,” the reporter said to him gravely.

  “Oh, you are very clever,” said Daddy Jacques, coughing and embarrassed.

  “The handkerchief is a large one, blue with red stripes and the cap is an old Basque cap, like the one you are wearing now.”

  “You are a wizard!” said Daddy Jacques, trying to laugh and not quite succeeding. “How do you know that the handkerchief is blue with red stripes?”

  “Because, if it had not been blue with red stripes, it would not have been found at all.”

  Without giving any further attention to Daddy Jacques, my friend took a piece of paper from his pocket, and taking out a pair of scissors, bent over the footprints. Placing the paper over one of them he began to cut. In a short time he had made a perfect pattern which he handed to me, begging me not to lose it.

  He then returned to the window and, pointing to the figure of Frederic Larsan, who had not quitted the side of the lake, asked Daddy Jacques whether the detective had, like himself, been working in “The Yellow Room”?

  “No,” replied Robert Darzac, who, since Rouletabille had handed him the piece of scorched paper, had not uttered a word, “He pretends that he does not need to examine “The Yellow Room”. He says that the murderer made his escape from it in quite a natural way, and that he will, this evening, explain how he did it.”

  As he listened to what Monsieur Darzac had to say, Rouletabille turned pale.

  “Has Frederic Larsan found out the truth, which I can only guess at?” he murmured. “He is very clever — very clever — and I admire him. But what we have to do to-day is something more than the work of a policeman, something quite different from the teachings of experience. We have to take hold of our reason by the right end.”

  The reporter rushed into the open air, agitated by the thought that the great and famous Fred might anticipate him in the solution of the problem of “The Yellow Room”.

  I managed to reach him on the threshold of the pavilion. “Calm yourself, my dear fellow,” I said. “Aren’t you satisfied?”

  “Yes,” he confessed to me, with a deep sigh. “I am quite satisfied. I have discovered many things.”

  “Moral or material?”

  “Several moral, — one material. This, for example.”

  And rapidly he drew from his waistcoat pocket a piece of paper in which he had placed a light-coloured hair from a woman’s head.

  CHAPTER VIII. The Examining Magistrate Questions Mademoiselle Stangerson

  TWO MINUTES LATER, as Rouletabille was bending over the footprints discovered in the park, under the window of the vestibule, a man, evidently a servant at the chateau, came towards us rapidly and called out to Monsieur Darzac then coming out of the pavilion:

  “Monsieur Robert, the magistrate, you know, is questioning Mademoiselle.”

  Monsieur Darzac uttered a muttered excuse to us and set off running towards the chateau, the man running after him.

  “If the corpse can speak,” I said, “it would be interesting to be there.”

  “We must know,” said my friend. “Let’s go to the chateau.” And he drew me with him. But, at the chateau, a gendarme placed in the vestibule denied us admission up the staircase of the first floor. We were obliged to wait down stairs.

  This is what passed in the chamber of the victim while we were waiting below.

  The family doctor, finding that Mademoiselle Stangerson was much better, but fearing a relapse which would no longer permit of her being questioned, had thought it his duty to inform the examining magistrate of this, who decided to proceed immediately with a brief examination. At this examination, the Registrar, Monsieur Stangerson, and the doctor were present. Later, I obtained the text of the report of the examination, and I give it here, in all its legal dryness:

  “Question. Are you able, mademoiselle, without too much fatiguing yourself, to give some necessary details of the frightful attack of which you have been the victim?

  “Answer. I feel much better, monsieur, and I will tell you all I know. When I entered my chamber I did not notice anything unusual there.

  “Q. Excuse me, mademoiselle, — if you will allow me, I will ask you some questions and you will answer them. That will fatigue you less than making a long recital.

  “A. Do so, monsieur.

  “Q. What did you do on that day? — I want you to be as minute and precise as possible. I wish to know all you did that day, if it is not asking too much of you.

  “A. I rose late, at ten o’clock, for my father and I had returned home late on the night previously, having been to dinner at the reception given by the President of the Republic, in honour of the Academy of Science of Philadelphia. When I left my chamber, at half-past ten, my father was already at work in the laboratory. We worked together till midday. We then took half-an-hour’s walk in the park, as we were accustomed to do, before breakfasting at the chateau. After breakfast, we took another walk for half an hour, and then returned to the laboratory. There we found my chambermaid, who had come to set my room in order. I went into The Yellow Room to give her some slight orders and she directly afterwards left the pavilion, and I resumed my work with my father. At five o’clock, we again went for a walk in the park and afterward had tea.

  “Q. Before leaving the pavilion at five o’clock, did you go into your chamber?

  “A. No, monsieur, my father went into it, at my request to bring me my hat.

  “Q. And he found nothing suspicious there?

  “A. Evidently no, monsieur.

  “Q. It is, then, almost certain that the murderer was not yet concealed under the bed. When you went out, was the door of the room locked?

  “A. No, there was no reason for locking it.

  “Q. You were absent from the pavilion some length of time, Monsieur Stangerson and you?

  “A. About an hour.

  “Q. It was during that hour, no doubt, that the murderer got into the pavilion. But how? Nobody knows. Footmarks have been found in the park, leading away from the window of the vestibule, but none has
been found going towards it. Did you notice whether the vestibule window was open when you went out?

  “A. I don’t remember.

  “Monsieur Stangerson. It was closed.

  “Q. And when you returned?

  “Mademoiselle Stangerson. I did not notice.

  “M. Stangerson. It was still closed. I remember remarking aloud: ‘Daddy Jacques must surely have opened it while we were away.’

  “Q. Strange! — Do you recollect, Monsieur Stangerson, if during your absence, and before going out, he had opened it? You returned to the laboratory at six o’clock and resumed work?

  “Mademoiselle Stangerson. Yes, monsieur.

  “Q. And you did not leave the laboratory from that hour up to the moment when you entered your chamber?

  “M. Stangerson. Neither my daughter nor I, monsieur. We were engaged on work that was pressing, and we lost not a moment, — neglecting everything else on that account.

  “Q. Did you dine in the laboratory?

  “A. For that reason.

  “Q. Are you accustomed to dine in the laboratory?

  “A. We rarely dine there.

  “Q. Could the murderer have known that you would dine there that evening?

  “M. Stangerson. Good Heavens! — I think not. It was only when we returned to the pavilion at six o’clock, that we decided, my daughter and I, to dine there. At that moment I was spoken to by my gamekeeper, who detained me a moment, to ask me to accompany him on an urgent tour of inspection in a part of the woods which I had decided to thin. I put this off until the next day, and begged him, as he was going by the chateau, to tell the steward that we should dine in the laboratory. He left me, to execute the errand and I rejoined my daughter, who was already at work.

  “Q. At what hour, mademoiselle, did you go to your chamber while your father continued to work there?

  “A. At midnight.

  “Q. Did Daddy Jacques enter “The Yellow Room” in the course of the evening?

  “A. To shut the blinds and light the night-light.

  “Q. He saw nothing suspicious?

  “A. He would have told us if he had seen. Daddy Jacques is an honest man and very attached to me.

  “Q. You affirm, Monsieur Stangerson, that Daddy Jacques remained with you all the time you were in the laboratory?

  “M. Stangerson. I am sure of it. I have no doubt of that.

  “Q. When you entered your chamber, mademoiselle, you immediately shut the door and locked and bolted it? That was taking unusual precautions, knowing that your father and your servant were there? Were you in fear of something, then?

  “A. My father would be returning to the chateau and Daddy Jacques would be going to his bed. And, in fact, I did fear something.

  “Q. You were so much in fear of something that you borrowed Daddy Jacques’s revolver without telling him you had done so?

  “A. That is true. I did not wish to alarm anybody, — the more, because my fears might have proved to have been foolish.

  “Q. What was it you feared?

  “A. I hardly know how to tell you. For several nights, I seemed to hear, both in the park and out of the park, round the pavilion, unusual sounds, sometimes footsteps, at other times the cracking of branches. The night before the attack on me, when I did not get to bed before three o’clock in the morning, on our return from the Elysee, I stood for a moment before my window, and I felt sure I saw shadows.

  “Q. How many?

  “A. Two. They moved round the lake, — then the moon became clouded and I lost sight of them. At this time of the season, every year, I have generally returned to my apartment in the chateau for the winter; but this year I said to myself that I would not quit the pavilion before my father had finished the resume of his works on the ‘Dissociation of Matter’ for the Academy. I did not wish that that important work, which was to have been finished in the course of a few days, should be delayed by a change in our daily habit. You can well understand that I did not wish to speak of my childish fears to my father, nor did I say anything to Daddy Jacques who, I knew, would not have been able to hold his tongue. Knowing that he had a revolver in his room, I took advantage of his absence and borrowed it, placing it in the drawer of my night-table.

  “Q. You know of no enemies you have?

  “A. None.

  “Q. You understand, mademoiselle, that these precautions are

  calculated to cause surprise?

  “M. Stangerson. Evidently, my child, such precautions are very

  surprising.

  “A. No; — because I have told you that I had been uneasy for two

  nights.

  “M. Stangerson. You ought to have told me of that! This misfortune

  would have been avoided.

  “Q. The door of “The Yellow Room” locked, did you go to bed?

  “A. Yes, and, being very tired, I at once went to sleep.

  “Q. The night-light was still burning?

  “A. Yes, but it gave a very feeble light.

  “Q. Then, mademoiselle, tell us what happened.

  “A. I do not know whether I had been long asleep, but suddenly I

  awoke — and uttered a loud cry.

  “M. Stangerson. Yes — a horrible cry— ‘Murder!’ — It still rings

  in my ears.

  “Q. You uttered a loud cry?

  “A. A man was in my chamber. He sprang at me and tried to strangle

  me. I was nearly stifled when suddenly I was able to reach the

  drawer of my night-table and grasp the revolver which I had

  placed in it. At that moment the man had forced me to the foot

  of my bed and brandished in over my head a sort of mace. But

  I had fired. He immediately struck a terrible blow at my head.

  All that, monsieur, passed more rapidly than I can tell it, and

  I know nothing more.

  “Q. Nothing? — Have you no idea as to how the assassin could

  escape from your chamber?

  “A. None whatever — I know nothing more. One does not know what

  is passing around one, when one is unconscious.

  “Q. Was the man you saw tall or short, little or big?

  “A. I only saw a shadow which appeared to me formidable.

  “Q. You cannot give us any indication?

  “A. I know nothing more, monsieur, than that a man threw himself

  upon me and that I fired at him. I know nothing more.”

  Here the interrogation of Mademoiselle Stangerson concluded.

  Rouletabille waited patiently for Monsieur Robert Darzac, who soon appeared.

  From a room near the chamber of Mademoiselle Stangerson, he had heard the interrogatory and now came to recount it to my friend with great exactitude, aided by an excellent memory. His docility still surprised me. Thanks to hasty pencil-notes, he was able to reproduce, almost textually, the questions and the answers given.

  It looked as if Monsieur Darzac were being employeed as the secretary of my young friend and acted as if he could refuse him nothing; nay, more, as if under a compulsion to do so.

  The fact of the closed window struck the reporter as it had struck the magistrate. Rouletabille asked Darzac to repeat once more Mademoiselle Stangerson’s account of how she and her father had spent their time on the day of the tragedy, as she had stated it to the magistrate. The circumstance of the dinner in the laboratory seemed to interest him in the highest degree; and he had it repeated to him three times. He also wanted to be sure that the forest-keeper knew that the professor and his daughter were going to dine in the laboratory, and how he had come to know it.

  When Monsieur Darzac had finished, I said: “The examination has not advanced the problem much.”

  “It has put it back,” said Monsieur Darzac.

  “It has thrown light upon it,” said Rouletabille, thoughtfully.

  CHAPTER IX. Reporter and Detective

  THE THREE OF us went back towards the pavilio
n. At some distance from the building the reporter made us stop and, pointing to a small clump of trees to the right of us, said:

  “That’s where the murderer came from to get into the pavilion.”

  As there were other patches of trees of the same sort between the great oaks, I asked why the murderer had chosen that one, rather than any of the others. Rouletabille answered me by pointing to the path which ran quite close to the thicket to the door of the pavilion.

  “That path is as you see, topped with gravel,” he said; “the man must have passed along it going to the pavilion, since no traces of his steps have been found on the soft ground. The man didn’t have wings; he walked; but he walked on the gravel which left no impression of his tread. The gravel has, in fact, been trodden by many other feet, since the path is the most direct way between the pavilion and the chateau. As to the thicket, made of the sort of shrubs that don’t flourish in the rough season — laurels and fuchsias — it offered the murderer a sufficient hiding-place until it was time for him to make his way to the pavilion. It was while hiding in that clump of trees that he saw Monsieur and Mademoiselle Stangerson, and then Daddy Jacques, leave the pavilion. Gravel has been spread nearly, very nearly, up to the windows of the pavilion. The footprints of a man, parallel with the wall — marks which we will examine presently, and which I have already seen — prove that he only needed to make one stride to find himself in front of the vestibule window, left open by Daddy Jacques. The man drew himself up by his hands and entered the vestibule.”