The Mystery of the Yellow Room E-Book

Gastón Leroux

• Herausgeber: Dedalus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The classic locked room detective novel which still baffles today.

Das E-Book wird angeboten von und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:

Leseprobe

Contents

Title

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIV

Chapter XXV

Chapter XXVI

Chapter XXVII

Chapter XXVIII

Chapter XXIX

Afterword

Copyright

CHAPTER I

In which we begin not to understand

It is not without emotion that I here begin to relate the extraordinary adventures of Joseph Rouletabille. Up until now he had so firmly opposed my doing so that I had given up hope of ever being able to publish the most extraordinary detective story of the past fifteen years. The public might never have known the whole truth about the mystery of the Yellow Room with which my friend was so closely involved, if, apropos of the recent nomination to the rank of Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour of the illustrious M. Stangerson, an evening paper had not revived a terrible drama which Joseph Rouletabille had told me he wished for ever forgotten.

The Yellow Room! Who now remembers an affair that, fifteen years ago, caused so much ink to flow? Things are so very quickly forgotten in Paris. Have not the very name of the Nayves trial and the tragic story of young Ménaldo’s death completely passed out of mind? Yet then, the public were so deeply interested in the details of the trial that a ministerial crisis that happened at the same time went totally unnoticed. The Yellow Room trial, which preceded the Nayves case by a few years, caused an even greater sensation. For months, the whole world pondered this obscure problem, the most obscure, to my knowledge, that has ever challenged the perspicacity of our police or taxed the consciences of our judges. Everyone was bent on finding a solution to this puzzle. It was a drama which fascinated both Europe and America. In truth – and I may say this, since there can be no question of personal pride in the matter, for I do nothing more than transcribe certain facts on which some exceptional documents in my possession enable me to throw a new light – in truth, I do not think that you could find anything to compare with the mystery of the Yellow Room in the domain of fact or fantasy, not even amongst the inventions of Edgar Allen Poe and his imitators.

Young Rouletabille, aged eighteen, then a junior reporter on a leading newspaper, succeeded in discovering what no one else could. But when, at the trial, he gave the key to the whole case, he did not tell the whole truth. He told only what was necessary to explain the inexplicable and to ensure the acquittal of an innocent man. The reasons for his reticence no longer exist. Moreover, my friend ought now to speak out fully. You are about to learn the whole truth and, without further preamble, I shall now place before you the problem of the Yellow Room exactly as it was placed before the eyes of the entire world on the day after the tragedy at the Chateau du Glandier.

On 25th October, 1892 the following note appeared in Le Temps:

‘A fearful crime has been committed at Professor Stangerson’s house in Glandier, on the edge of the forest of Ste-Geneviève, near Epinay-sur-Orge. Last night, whilst the Professor was in his laboratory, an attempt was made on the life of Mademoiselle Stangerson, who was sleeping in an adjoining room. The doctors fear for Mlle Stangerson’s life.’

One can easily imagine the sensation that this news caused throughout Paris. The world was already fascinated by the work of Professor Stangerson and his daughter. They were the first to perform experiments in radiography and, later on, the results of their studies were to lead the Curies to the discovery of radium. Moreover, the Professor was shortly to read before the Academy of Sciences a sensational paper on his new theory: the Dissociation of Matter, a theory destined to shake the foundations of all official science, which has so long been based on the famous principle that nothing is lost and nothing is created; this reading was eagerly anticipated.

The next morning, the newspapers were full of the tragedy. Le Matin, amongst others, published the following article, entitled:

A SUPERNATURAL CRIME

‘Here are the only details’ – explained the anonymous writer – ‘that we have been able to obtain concerning the crime at the Chateau du Glandier. Professor Stangerson’s despair and the impossibility of garnering any information from the lips of the victim, have made our investigations and those of the police so difficult that, for the present, we cannot form any clear idea of what took place in the Yellow Room in which Mlle Stangerson, in her nightdress, was found lying on the floor, on the point of death. We have, however, been able to interview Old Jacques – as he is called in the neighbourhood – an old servant in the employ of the Stangerson family. Old Jacques entered the Yellow Room at the same time as the professor. This room adjoins the laboratory. The laboratory and the Yellow Room are in a pavilion at the far end of the park, about four hundred yards from the chateau.

“It was half-past twelve at night,” the good old man told us, “and when the tragedy happened, I was in the laboratory, where Monsieur Stangerson was still at work. I had spent the evening cleaning and putting away various scientific instruments and was waiting for Monsieur Stangerson to finish work before going to bed. Mademoiselle Mathilde had worked with her father up until midnight. Just as the clock struck midnight in the laboratory, she had risen, kissed M. Stangerson and bade him goodnight. She bade me goodnight too as she pushed open the door of the Yellow Room. We heard her lock the door and shoot the bolt. I could not help laughing, and I said to Monsieur: ‘There’s Mademoiselle double-locking the door. She must be afraid of the Good Lord’s beast!’ Monsieur did not even hear me, for he was deep in thought. Just then I heard a fearful miauling and I immediately recognised the cry of the Good Lord’s Beast. It made me shiver. ‘Is that cat going to keep us awake again all night?’ I said to myself; for I must tell you, sir, that until late October, I live in the attic, right over the Yellow Room, so that Mademoiselle is not left alone through the night in the park. It is Mademoiselle’s fancy to spend the spring, summer and part of the autumn in the pavilion; she obviously finds it more pleasant than the chateau, and for the last four years – that is, ever since the place was built – she has always taken up her lodging there in the early spring. When winter comes, Mademoiselle returns to the chateau, for there is no fireplace in the Yellow Room.

We remained in the pavilion, then, M. Stangerson and I. We made no noise. He was seated at his desk. As for me, I was sitting on a chair, for I had finished my work, and I was watching him and thinking: ‘What a man! What brains! What knowledge!’ I attach considerable importance to the fact that we made no noise since, given the silence, the murderer must have thought that we had left the place. Then, suddenly, while the clock was striking half-past midnight, a desperate scream came from the Yellow Room. It was the voice of Mademoiselle, crying ‘Murder! Murder! Help!’ Immediately afterwards, shots rang out, and there was a great noise of tables and furniture being overturned, as if in the course of a struggle, and again we heard the voice of Mademoiselle screaming ‘Murder! Help! Father! Father!’

As you may imagine, we sprang up, and M. Stangerson and I threw ourselves upon the door. But, alas, as I told you, it had been firmly locked on the inside by Mademoiselle herself with key and bolt. We tried to force it open, but it would not budge. M. Stangerson was like a madman, and, truly, it was enough to make anyone mad, for he could hear Mademoiselle still hoarsely calling out, her voice ever fainter now, ‘Help! Help!’ M. Stangerson rained terrible blows on the door; he wept with rage and sobbed with despair and helplessness.

It was then that I had an inspiration. ‘The murderer must have got in through the window!’ I cried, and I rushed out of the pavilion and ran like a madman.

Unfortunately, the window of the Yellow Room looks out on to the park, so that the park wall, right next to the pavilion, blocked my path to the window. To reach it, it was first of all necessary to go out of the park. I ran towards the gate and, on my way, met Bernier and his wife, the caretakers, who were hastening to the pavilion, obviously drawn there by the sound of gunshots and by our cries. In a few words I told them what had happened. I instructed the concierge to join M. Stangerson at once, and told his wife to come with me and open the park gates. Five minutes later, she and I were standing before the window of the Yellow Room.

The moon was shining brightly, and I saw quite clearly that the window had not been touched. Not only were the iron bars that protect it intact, but the shutters behind were closed exactly as I had closed them myself on the previous evening, as I did every day, although Mademoiselle, knowing that I was tired and had much to do, had told me not to trouble myself, saying that she would close them herself. They were just as I had left them, fastened with an iron catch on the inside. The murderer, therefore, could not have entered that way and could not possibly escape that way. But I could not get in either.

That was terrible – enough to turn one’s brain! The door was locked on the inside and the shutters of the only window were also fastened on the inside, and, as well as those shutters, there were iron bars so close together that you could not even have got your arm through them. And there was Mademoiselle still calling for help or, rather, no, she had ceased to call. She was dead, perhaps. But I could still hear her father in the pavilion trying to break down the door. The concierge and I then ran back to the pavilion. In spite of the furious attempts of M. Stangerson and Bernier to break it down, the door was still holding firm. At length, it gave way before our united and frenzied efforts, and then what did we see?

I ought to tell you, by the way, that the concierge’s wife was standing behind us holding the laboratory lamp – a powerful lamp that lit the whole room.

I must also tell you, sir, that the Yellow Room is quite small. Mademoiselle had furnished it with a fairly large iron bedstead, a small table, a night-commode, a washing-stand and two chairs. We took all that in at a glance by the light of the big lamp. Mademoiselle, in her nightdress, was lying on the floor in the midst of the most incredible disorder. The table and chairs had been overturned, showing that there had been a violent struggle. Mademoiselle had clearly been dragged from her bed. She was covered with blood and had terrible marks on her throat – scratches made by someone’s fingernails – and from a wound on her right temple, a thread of blood trickled forth, making a little pool on the floor. When M. Stangerson saw his daughter in that terrible state, he threw himself on his knees beside her, uttering a cry of despair. It was really pitiful to hear him. He checked that she was still breathing and devoted all his attention to her. As for us, we searched for the wretch who had tried to kill our mistress, and I swear to you, sir, had we found him, it would have gone hard with him!

But how could he not be there, how could he have escaped? It beggars the imagination. There was no one under the bed, no one behind the furniture. All we found were traces of his presence there; the bloodstained marks of a man’s large hand on the walls and on the door; a large handkerchief red with blood, but with no initials; an old cap and many fresh footprints on the floor – the prints of a man with large feet, whose boots had left a sort of sooty impression. How had this man got in? How had he vanished? Don’t forget, sir, that there is no fireplace in the Yellow Room. He could not have escaped by the door, for it is narrow, and besides, the concierge was standing on the threshold with the lamp in her hand while her husband and I were searching for the murderer in this small square room, where no one could possibly hide. As we discovered at once, there was no one behind the door, which we had forced open. No escape would have been possible through the window, still firmly secured, the shutters closed and the iron bars untampered with. What then? Well, to be honest, I began to suspect the Devil’s work.

Then, on the floor, we found my revolver – yes, my own revolver! That brought me back to reality with a jolt. The Devil would not have needed to steal my revolver to kill Mademoiselle. The man who had been there had first gone up to my attic and taken my revolver from the drawer where I keep it, and had used it afterwards against Mlle Mathilde. We then ascertained, by counting the cartridges, that the murderer had fired two shots. When you come to think of it, sir, it was very fortunate for me in those awful circumstances that M. Stangerson was in the laboratory when the crime occurred, and that he saw with his own eyes that I was there with him, for otherwise, with this business of the revolver, there is no telling what would have happened.

Very likely I would already be under lock and key. After all, what the law most wants is to be able to send a man to the scaffold!”

The editor of Le Matin added the following lines to this interview:

‘We have allowed Old Jacques to tell us all that he knows about the crime committed in the Yellow Room. We have reproduced it in his own words, only sparing the reader the endless lamentations with which he adorned his narrative. We should have liked to put some questions to Old Jacques, but just as we were about to ask those questions, he was sent for by the judge, who was carrying out his enquiries in the hall of the chateau. We found it impossible to gain admission to Glandier and, as for the oak grove, it is encircled by detectives and gendarmes, eagerly searching out any footprints leading to the pavilion, and which may, eventually, lead to the discovery of the murderer.

We would also have liked to question the caretakers, man and wife, but they are nowhere to be found. Finally, we waited in a roadside inn, not far from the chateau gates, for the departure of Monsieur de Marquet, the judge of Corbeil. At half-past five, we saw him and his clerk, and, before he entered his carriage, we were able to ask him the following questions:

“Can you, Monsieur de Marquet, give us any information about this affair without prejudicing the course of your inquiry?”

“Impossible!” was the reply. “All I can say is that this is by far the strangest affair I have ever known. The more we think we know something, the further we are from knowing anything at all!”

We asked Monsieur de Marquet to be good enough to explain his meaning, and this is what he said – the importance of which will be evident to all:

“If nothing is added to the material facts so far established, I really fear that the mystery which surrounds the abominable crime of which Mlle Stangerson has been the victim will never be brought to light, but it is to be hoped that the examination of the walls, ceiling and floor of the Yellow Room – an examination, which I shall undertake tomorrow, together with the builder who built the pavilion four years ago – will afford us the proof we need. For the problem is this: We have to find out how the murderer gained entry. He entered by the door and hid himself under the bed, awaiting Mlle Stangerson. But how did he leave? There lies the problem. If no trap, no secret door, no recess or hiding-place, no opening of any sort is found, if the sounding of the walls – even if that involves the demolition of the pavilion – does not reveal any passageway through which a human being or any other being could pass; if the ceiling shows no crack, if the floor conceals no tunnel, we will really have to start believing, as Old Jacques says, that this is the Devil’s work.” ’

And the anonymous writer in Le Matin mentions in this article – which I selected as the most interesting of all those published about the mysterious affair that day – the fact that the judge laid stress on those words.

The article concluded with these lines:

‘We wanted to know what Old Jacques meant by the cry of the Good Lord’s Beast. The landlord of the Tower Inn explained to us that it is the particularly sinister cry that is occasionally heard at night and which is the cry of a cat belonging to an aged woman, known locally as Old Mother Agenoux. Mother Agenoux is a sort of saint, who lives in a hut in the heart of the forest, not far from the grotto of Ste-Geneviève.

The Yellow Room, the Good Lord’s Beast, Mother Agenoux, the Devil, Ste-Geneviève, Old Jacques – here is an amazingly complex crime which the stroke of a pickaxe in the wall of the pavilion may unravel for us tomorrow. Let us at least hope so. Meanwhile, it is feared that Mlle Stangerson – who has not yet emerged from her delirium and can say only one word distinctly, ‘Murderer! Murderer!’ – will not live through the night.’

In conclusion, in its late edition, the same newspaper announced that the head of the Secret Police had sent a telegram to the famous detective, Frédéric Larsan, who was in London investigating the theft of some securities, ordering him to return to Paris at once.

CHAPTER II

In which Joseph Rouletabille appears for the first time

I remember young Rouletabille’s arrival in my room that morning as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. It was about eight o’clock and I was still in bed, reading the article in Le Matin about the Glandier crime.

But before going any further, I must introduce my friend to the reader.

I first met Joseph Rouletabille when he was a junior reporter. At that time, I myself was a very young lawyer, and often met him in the anterooms of the judges at the Law Courts. He was, as they say in France, ‘une bonne bille’ – a good sort, but, literally, ‘a good ball’. Indeed, he seemed to have taken his head, round as a bullet, out of a box of billiard balls, and I presume that is why his fellow journalists – all keen billiard players – had given him that nickname, which he was to retain and eventually make famous. He was always red as a tomato, one moment happy as a lark, the next grave as a judge. How was it that this boy – he was only sixteen and a half when I saw him for the first time – already managed to earn his living as a journalist? That was what everyone who came in contact with him might have asked, had his beginnings not been quite so well known. At the time of the Rue Oberkampf affair in which the body of a woman was found cut into pieces, he had brought to the editor of L’Epoque – a paper then rivalling Le Matin in its swift and comprehensive news coverage – the woman’s left foot, which was the only part missing from the basket in which the gory remains had been discovered. The police had spent the whole week searching for that left foot, and Rouletabille had found it down a drain, where no one else had thought to look. To do this he had used the equipment of a sewer-man, a member of one of the emergency teams engaged by the City of Paris administration after serious damage caused by the flooding of the Seine.

When the editor found himself in possession of the precious foot and heard the string of intelligent deductions that had led the lad to it, he was filled with admiration for such detective cunning in the brain of a sixteen-year-old, and delighted at being able to exhibit in the ‘morgue-window’ of his paper the left foot of the victim of the Rue Oberkampf murder.

‘With this foot,’ he cried jocularly, ‘I’ll make the headlines.’

Then, having handed the ghastly parcel to the forensic expert attached to the journal, he asked the youth, who was soon to become Rouletabille, what he would expect to earn as a junior reporter on L’Epoque.

‘Two hundred francs a month,’ the youngster replied modestly, dumbfounded by the unexpected proposal.

‘You shall have two hundred and fifty,’ said the editor. ‘only I want you to tell everybody that you have been on my paper for a month. Let it also be made quite clear that it was not you, but L’Epoque that discovered the woman’s foot. Here, my young friend, the individual is nothing and the newspaper everything.’

He then asked the new reporter to withdraw, but before the youth reached the door, he called him back and asked him his name. The young man replied:

‘Joseph Joséphin.’

‘That’s not a name,’ said the editor. ‘But since you won’t be signing anything you write, it’s of no matter.’

The beardless junior soon made many friends, for he was hardworking and gifted with a good humour that delighted the most surly and disarmed the most envious of his colleagues. At the café where the reporters assembled before going to the Courts or to the Prefecture in search of that day’s crime, he began to gain a reputation as an unraveller of intricate cases, which even reached the ears of the head of the Criminal Investigation Department. When a case was worth the trouble, and Rouletabille – for that was how he was known by then – had been set on the trail by the editor, he often got the better of even the most renowned detectives.

It was in that café that I became more fully acquainted with him. We chatted and I soon felt a great liking for the young fellow. His intelligence was so wonderfully keen and original; he was the most methodical and able person I have ever met.

Some time after this I was put in charge of the legal news on Le Cri du Boulevard. My entry into journalism could not but strengthen my ties with Rouletabille. After a time, my new friend having meanwhile undertaken a little court reporting for L’Epoque, I was able occasionally to furnish him with the legal terminology he needed.

Nearly two years passed in this way, and the more I got to know Rouletabille, the more I loved him, for beneath his mask of joyous extravagance, I found him to be unusually serious and thoughtful. On several occasions, I, who was used to seeing him happy – often perhaps too happy – found him plunged in deep melancholy.

When I tried to question him as to this change of mood, he merely laughed, but made no reply. One day, after I had questioned him about his parents, of whom he never spoke, he turned away, pretending not to have heard what I had said.

It was at that stage of our friendship that the famous case of the Yellow Room occurred – a case which was not only to place him in the first rank of newspaper reporters, but also to prove him to be the greatest detective in the world – a double rôle which it was not that surprising to find played by the same person, considering that the daily press was already fast becoming what it is today – the gazette of crime.

Some people may complain of this; for myself, I regard it as an excellent thing. We can never have too many weapons, public or private, against criminals. Some people, however, contend that by devoting so many column inches to crime, the newspapers actually encourage it, but then some people are never satisfied.

Rouletabille, as I have said, came into my room that morning, 20th October 1892. His face was redder than usual, his eyes were staring, he was short of breath, and he appeared to be in a state of extreme excitement. Brandishing Le Matin in one trembling hand, he said:

‘Well, my dear Sainclair, you’ve read about …’

‘The Glandier crime?’

‘Yes, the Yellow Room! What do you think of it?’

‘I think it was the work of either the Devil or the Good Lord’s Beast.’

‘Be serious.’

‘Well, I must confess that I can’t really believe in murderers who make their escape through solid brick walls. I think Old Jacques did wrong to leave behind him the weapon with which the crime was committed and, since he occupies the attic immediately above Mlle Stangerson’s room, the search of the building ordered for Friday by the judge will give us the key to the enigma, and we shall soon know by what secret door the old fellow was able to slip in and out, and immediately return to the laboratory to M. Stangerson without his absence being noticed. What else can I say? Of course, I’m only surmising.’

Rouletabille seated himself in an armchair, lit his pipe, and then replied in a tone of great irony:

‘Young man, you are a barrister, and I have no doubt of your ability to save the guilty from conviction; but if you ever become a judge on the bench, you will have no problem at all in condemning innocent people! You really are a most gifted young man!’

For a while, he puffed energetically on his pipe, then he went on:

‘No hiding-place will be found, and the mystery of the Yellow Room will become more and more mysterious. That’s why it interests me. The judge is right: there has never been a stranger crime than this.’

‘Have you any idea how the murderer escaped?’ I asked.

‘None,’ replied Rouletabille, ‘none as yet. But I already have some ideas about the revolver. For example, the revolver was not used by the murderer.’

‘Good heavens! By whom then?’

‘Why – by Mlle Stangerson.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

Rouletabille shrugged his shoulders.

‘Has nothing in the article in Le Matin particularly struck you?’

‘Nothing. I found the whole story utterly bizarre.’

‘What about the door being locked on the inside?’

‘That’s the only perfectly natural thing in the article.’

‘Really! And the bolt?’

‘The bolt?’

‘The bolt – again inside the room – further securing the door? Mlle Stangerson took a lot of precautions. To me it seems obvious that she was afraid of someone. That was why she took those precautions. She had even taken Old Jacques’ revolver without telling him. No doubt she did not wish to alarm anyone, least of all her father. The thing she dreaded happened, 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 large, bloody handprint on the wall and on the door, left by the man groping for a way out; but she did not fire soon enough to avoid the terrible blow she received on the right temple.’

‘It was not with the revolver, then, that she was wounded on the right temple.’

‘The newspaper does not say so, and, personally, I don’t think it was – because it seems logical to me that the revolver was used by Mlle Stangerson against the murderer. Now, what weapon did the murderer use? The blow on the temple seems to show that the murderer wished to stun Mlle Stangerson – after he had unsuccessfully tried to strangle her. He must have known that Old Jacques lived in the attic, and that was one of the reasons, I believe, why he used a silent weapon – a club, maybe, or a hammer.’

‘None of this explains how the murderer got out of the Yellow Room,’ I observed.

‘Evidently,’ replied Rouletabille, rising. ‘And as that is the very thing that requires explanation, I am off to the Chateau du Glandier and I came here to fetch you and take you there with me.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, dear friend, I want you. L’Epoque has entrusted this case to me, and it is up to me to solve it as quickly as possible.’

‘But how can I be of use to you?’

‘M. Robert Darzac is at the Chateau du Glandier.’

‘That’s true. He must be in a state of utter despair.’

‘I must talk to him.’

Rouletabille said that in a tone that surprised me.

‘Do you think he may have something of interest to tell you?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

That was all he would say. He withdrew to my sitting-room, urging me to dress quickly.

I knew M. Robert Darzac, having been of great service to him in a civil action, while I was secretary to Maître Barbet Delatour. Robert Darzac, who was, at the time, about forty years of age, was a professor of physics at the Sorbonne. He was intimately connected with the Stangersons, since, after courting Mlle Strangerson assiduously for seven years, he was now about to marry her. She must have been about thirty-five then, but was still remarkably good-looking.

While I was dressing, I called out to Rouletabille, who was impatiently pacing up and down in my sitting-room:

‘Have you any idea as to the social class of the murderer?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I believe him to be an extremely well-connected person, a man belonging, at the least, to the upper middle classes. That, again, is only an impression.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Well,’ my friend replied, ‘the greasy cap, the common handkerchief and the bootprints on the floor.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘One does not leave so many clues behind one when they tell the truth.’

‘We shall make something of you yet, my dear Sainclair,’ concluded Rouletabille.

CHAPTER III

A man passed through the shutters like a shadow

Half an hour later, Rouletabille and I were on the platform of Orléans station, awaiting the departure of the train which was to take us to Epinay-sur-Orge.

We witnessed the arrival of the Corbeil court, represented by M. de Marquet and his clerk. M. de Marquet had spent the night in Paris in order to watch the final rehearsal of a little revue, of which he was the author, though he signed himself simply ‘Castigat Ridendo’.

M. de Marquet was getting on a bit. Generally, he was extremely polite and good-tempered. He had had but one passion all his life: the theatre. Throughout his career on the bench, he was interested solely in cases that might furnish him with material for plays.

So it was that, when I met him, I heard M. de Marquet say to his clerk, with a sigh:

‘Let us hope, my dear Monsieur Maleine, that this builder with his pick-axe does not destroy such a wonderful mystery.’

‘Have no fear,’ M. Maleine replied, ‘his pick-axe may well demolish the pavilion, but it will leave our case intact. I have sounded the walls and studied the ceiling and floor, and I know all about these things. I am not to be deceived. We need fear nothing, for we shall discover nothing.’

Having thus reassured his chief, M. Maleine then drew M. de Marquet’s attention to us with a discreet movement of his head. The judge frowned, and, as he saw Rouletabille approaching him, hat in hand, he sprang into one of the empty carriages, saying loudly to his clerk: ‘No journalists!’

M. Maleine replied: ‘I understand,’ and endeavoured to prevent Rouletabille from stepping into the judge’s compartment: ‘Excuse me, gentlemen, this compartment is reserved.’

‘I work for L’Epoque,’ said my young friend with the utmost politeness and a number of salutations, ‘and I have a word or two to say to M. de Marquet.’

‘M. de Marquet is busy. His inquiry …’

‘Ah, his inquiry, believe me, is a matter of absolute indifference to me! I am no mere reporter of petty events,’ said Rouletabille, with a look of utter contempt for the literature of the news columns, ‘I am the dramatic critic of L’Epoque and, since I shall have to give a little account of the revue at La Scala this evening …’

‘Step in, please, Monsieur,’ said the clerk courteously.

Rouletabille was already inside the compartment. I followed him and seated myself next to him. The clerk stepped in as well and closed the carriage door.

M. de Marquet looked severely at his clerk.

‘Oh, Monsieur,’ Rouletabille began, ‘do not be angry with the young man. I know I joined you in spite of your instructions to him, but let me tell you that it is not with M. de Marquet that I wish to have the honour of speaking, but with M. Castigat Ridendo. Allow me, as the dramatic critic of L’Epoque, to congratulate you.’

M. de Marquet was nervously stroking his pointed beard. He explained to Rouletabille that he was too modest an author to desire the veil of his pseudonym to be publicly raised, and that he sincerely hoped his enthusiasm for his work as a playwright would not lead him to inform the world that Castigat Riden-do was none other than the judge of Corbeil.

Then he added, after a slight hesitation: ‘The work of the author might be injurious to that of the judge. Especially in the provinces, far from Paris; people are rather narrow-minded and conventional …’

‘You may rely on my discretion,’ Rouletabille exclaimed.

The train was now in motion.

‘We’re off!’ said the judge, surprised that we should be making the journey with him.

‘Yes, Monsieur,’ said Rouletabille, with a happy smile, ‘the Truth is on its way to the Chateau du Glandier. A remarkable case, M. de Marquet, a most remarkable case!’

‘Indeed! In fact, an incredible, unfathomable, inexplicable affair. And my only fear, M. Rouletabille, is that you journalists will interfere and try to explain it all away.’

This thrust went home.

‘Yes,’ he quietly replied, ‘you are right to be afraid. These journalists get everywhere. As for myself, Monsieur, mere chance has placed me in your path and had me travel in your carriage.’

‘Where are you going, then?’ asked M. de Marquet.

‘To the Chateau du Glandier,’ replied Rouletabille, without a flicker.

M. de Marquet was taken aback.

‘You will not be allowed in, Monsieur Rouletabille.’

‘Will you stop me?’ said my friend, already prepared for the fray.

‘Certainly not. I am too fond of the press to be in any way disagreeable to them, but M. Stangerson has given orders for his door to be kept closed to everyone, and it is well guarded. Not a single journalist was able to get as far as the gates of Glandier yesterday.’

‘So much the better!’ Rouletabille retorted. ‘I have come in time.’

M. de Marquet bit his lip and seemed determined to remain obstinately silent. He only relaxed a little when Rouletabille told him that we were going to Glandier in order to visit an old and intimate friend, M. Robert Darzac, whom Rouletabille had perhaps met once in his life.

‘Poor Robert!’ he said. ‘This dreadful affair could be the death of him – he is so deeply in love with Mlle Stangerson.’

‘M. Darzac’s grief is indeed painful to see,’ M. de Marquet muttered, as if sorry to speak at all.

‘But it is to be hoped that Mlle Stangerson will be saved.’

‘Let us hope so. Her father was telling me yesterday that, were she to die, he would not be long in following her. What an incalculable loss that would mean to science!’

‘The wound on her temple is serious, is it not?’

‘Indeed, and it is a miracle that it has not proved fatal. The blow was given with such tremendous force.’

‘So she was not wounded with the revolver,’ said Rouletabille, giving me a triumphant look.

Monsieur de Marquet appeared greatly embarrassed.

‘I have said nothing, I do not wish to say anything, and I shall say nothing.’

He then turned towards his clerk, as if he no longer knew us.

But Rouletabille was not to be so easily shaken off. He moved closer to the judge, and, showing him a copy of Le Matin, which he drew from his pocket, said:

‘There is one thing, Monsieur, which I may inquire of you without being indiscreet. Did you read the account given in Le Matin? It is absurd, is it not?’

‘Not in the least, Monsieur.’

‘What! The Yellow Room has but one barred window, the bars of which have not been moved, and only one door, which had to be broken down – and the murderer was not found?’

‘That is so, Monsieur, that is so. That is how the problem stands.’

Rouletabille said no more, but immersed himself in thoughts known only to himself and remained thus for a quarter of an hour.

When he returned to us, he said, again addressing the judge:

‘How was Mlle Stangerson wearing her hair that evening?’

‘I don’t see what that has to do with anything,’ replied M. de Marquet.

‘It is an extremely important point,’ said Rouletabille. ‘Her hair was parted in the middle, wasn’t it? I am convinced that on that evening, the evening of the tragedy, she had her hair parted in the middle and looped back over her forehead on either side.’

‘Then, Monsieur Rouletabille, you are quite mistaken,’ replied the judge. ‘That evening Mlle Stangerson had her hair drawn up in a knot on the top of her head. It must be her usual way of dressing it. Her forehead was completely uncovered, I can assure you, for we have carefully examined the wound. There was no blood on her hair, and Mlle Stangerson’s coiffure has not been touched since the crime was committed.’

‘You are sure? You are quite sure that, on the night of the crime, she did not have her hair looped over her forehead?’

‘Perfectly sure,’ the judge continued, smiling, ‘for I remember the doctor saying to me, while he was examining the wound, ‘It is a great pity that Mlle Stangerson was in the habit of wearing her hair off her forehead. If she had worn it differently, the blow she received on the temple would have been softened.’ It seems rather odd that you should attach so much importance to this point.’

‘Ah, if only she had worn her hair over her forehead!’ said Rouletabille, looking discouraged. ‘What a mystery! And I must solve it.’ And he really did look desperate.

‘And is the wound to her temple very serious?’ he asked presently.

‘Very.’

‘What weapon did the attacker use?’

‘That, my dear sir, is a secret of the investigation.’

‘Have you found the weapon?’

The judge did not answer.

‘And what about the injuries to her throat?’

M. de Marquet informed us that the injuries were such that, according to the doctors, had the murderer kept the pressure up for a few seconds longer, Mlle Stangerson would have died of strangulation.

‘The case, as reported in Le Matin,’ said Rouletabille, as keen as ever, ‘seems to be more and more inexplicable. Can you tell me, Monsieur, what doors and windows there are in the pavilion?’

‘There are five,’ replied M. de Marquet, having coughed once or twice, giving way at last to the desire he felt to recount the whole fantastic mystery of the case he was investigating. ‘There are five: the door to the hall, which is the only entrance to the pavilion; this door is always closed and cannot be opened, either from outside or in, except by two special keys that Old Jacques or M. Stangerson always keep with them. Mlle Stangerson has no need of a key, since Old Jacques lives in the pavilion, and since, during the daytime, she never leaves her father’s side. When all four of them rushed into the Yellow Room, after breaking down the bedroom door, the door in the hall was closed as usual. Old Jacques had one of the keys in his pocket and M. Stangerson the other.

As for the windows in the pavilion, there are four – one in the Yellow Room, two in the laboratory and one in the hall. The window in the Yellow Room and those in the laboratory look out over open countryside. The only window looking out over the park is the one in the hall.’