The Mystery of the Yellow Room

by Gaston Leroux

her love for him. He stabbed her in his anger, determined to convict

  Darzac of the crime. As Larsan he could do it, and had so managed

  things that Darzac could never explain how he had employed the time

  of his absence from the chateau. Ballmeyer's precautions were most

  cunningly taken.

  Larsan had threatened Darzac as he had threatened Mathilde--with

  the same weapon, and the same threats. He wrote Darzac urgent

  letters, declaring himself ready to deliver up the letters that had

  passed between him and his wife, and to leave them for ever, if he

  would pay him his price. He asked Darzac to meet him for the

  purpose of arranging the matter, appointing the time when Larsan

  would be with Mademoiselle Stangerson. When Darzac went to Epinay,

  expecting to find Ballmeyer or Larsan there, he was met by an

  accomplice of Larsan's, and kept waiting until such time as the

  "coincidence" could be established.

  It was all done with Machiavellian cunning; but Ballmeyer had

  reckoned without Joseph Rouletabille.

  Now that the Mystery of The Yellow Room has been cleared up, this

  is not the time to tell of Rouletabille's adventures in America.

  Knowing the young reporter as we do, we can understand with what

  acumen he had traced, step by step, the story of Mathilde Stangerson

  and Jean Roussel. At Philadelphia he had quickly informed himself

  as to Arthur William Rance. There he learned of Rance's act of

  devotion and the reward he thought himself entitled to for it. A

  rumour of his marriage with Mademoiselle Stangerson had once found

  its way into the drawing-rooms of Philadelphia. He also learned of

  Rance's continued attentions to her and his importunities for her

  hand. He had taken to drink, he had said, to drown his grief at

  his unrequited love. It can now be understood why Rouletabille

  had shown so marked a coolness of demeanour towards Rance when they

  met in the witnesses' room, on the day of the trial.

  The strange Roussel-Stangerson mystery had now been laid bare. Who

  was this Jean Roussel? Rouletabille had traced him from Philadelphia

  to Cincinnati. In Cincinnati he became acquainted with the old aunt,

  and had found means to open her mouth. The story of Ballmeyer's

  arrest threw the right light on the whole story. He visited the

  "presbytery"--a small and pretty dwelling in the old colonial style

  --which had, indeed, "lost nothing of its charm." Then, abandoning

  his pursuit of traces of Mademoiselle Stangerson, he took up those

  of Ballmeyer. He followed them from prison to prison, from crime

  to crime. Finally, as he was about leaving for Europe, he learned

  in New York that Ballmeyer had, five years before, embarked for

  France with some valuable papers belonging to a merchant of New

  Orleans whom he had murdered.

  And yet the whole of this mystery has not been revealed.

  Mademoiselle Stangerson had a child, by her husband,--a son. The

  infant was born in the old aunt's house. No one knew of it, so

  well had the aunt managed to conceal the event.

  What became of that son?--That is another story which, so far, I

  am not permitted to relate.

  About two months after these events, I came upon Rouletabille sitting

  on a bench in the Palais de Justice, looking very depressed.

  "What's the matter, old man?" I asked. "You are looking very down.

  cast. How are your friends getting on?"

  "Apart from you," he said, "I have no friends."

  "I hope that Monsieur Darzac--"

  "No doubt."

  "And Mademoiselle Stangerson--How is she?"

  "Better--much better."

  "Then you ought not to be sad."

  "I am sad," he said, "because I am thinking of the perfume of the

  lady in black--"

  "The perfume of the lady in black!--I have heard you often refer

  to it. Tell me why it troubles you."

  "Perhaps--some day; some day," said Rouletabille.

  And he heaved a profound sigh.

  End of Project Gutenberg's The Mystery of the Yellow Room, by Gaston Leroux

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