I was finally going to find out about that astonishing incident which Rouletabille had kept mentioning for the last half-hour without any further explanation. But I had learned never to press my friend when he was telling a story. He spoke when the fancy took him, or when he judged it useful. He was less concerned about my curiosity than he was about drawing for himself a full picture of an important event in which he was interested.
At last, in short rapid phrases, he acquainted me with the nature of that incident, which plunged me into a state of total bewilderment. Indeed, the results attributed to the science of mesmerism, which is still largely unknown, seemed just as inexplicable to me as the “dissociation of the matter” of the perpetrator that happened when four persons were within touch of him. I’m using mesmerism here as an example, just as I would electricity, because we happen to be ignorant of the fundamental nature of either and know little about the laws they follow. At that moment, the strange and extraordinary incident seemed to me explicable only by the inexplicable, that is to say, by an event outside the known laws of Nature. And yet, if I had had Rouletabille’s brain, I should have had, like him, an intuition of its natural explanation—because the most peculiar thing about all of Glandier’s mysteries was the natural manner in which my friend eventually explained them.
But who could flatter himself that he has a brain as powerful as that of Rouletabille? I have never seen the same rather unappealing bumps on anyone else’s forehead—except, perhaps, but in a far less pronounced fashion, on Frederic Larsan’s. But you had to look closely to see Larsan’s bumps, while Rouletabille’s were obvious to everyone.
I have, among the papers that were sent me by my young friend after the Yellow Room affair was over, one of his notebooks in which he wrote a detailed account of the “strange and extraordinary incident of the dissociation of the matter of the perpetrator,” and the thoughts which it provoked in his mind.
It is better, I think, to give the reader this account verbatim rather than continuing to reproduce my conversation with Rouletabille, for in such an important case, I’m concerned there should be no extraneous content that is not in accordance with the strictest truth.
Chapter Fifteen
The Trap
Excerpts from Joseph Rouletabille’s notebook:
Last night—the night of October 29-30—I woke up around 1 a.m. Was it caused by sleeplessness, or some noise from outside? I don’t know. I heard the sinister cry of the Holy Beast coming from the other end of the estate.
I got up and opened the window. Outside, there was only rain, cold wind, darkness and silence. I closed the window. Again, I head a weird cry in the distance. I dressed quickly. The weather was too ghastly, I thought, for even the Holy Beast to be out. So who could be imitating Mère Angenoux’ cat so close to the Chateau? I grabbed a good-sized stick, the only weapon I had, and, silently, I opened the door.
The corridor outside my room was well lit by a reflector lamp. Its flame, however, was trembling; I felt a draft. I turned around and saw that the window at the end of the corridor was open. Both Larsan’s and my room opened onto the corner corridor. Mademoiselle Stangerson’s apartment, on the other hand, opened onto the central, right-wing corridor. Who might have left that window open? Or perhaps, who came upstairs and opened it? I went to the window and leaned out. Five feet below me was a semi-circular terrace built over the roof of an oval-shaped room located on the ground floor. One might, if one wanted to, jump from the window onto that terrace, and from there, drop into the courtyard of the Chateau. Obviously, whoever had entered through this window didn’t have a key to the main door. But why was I picturing such nocturnal gymnastics in my mind? Was it solely because of that open window? Perhaps it had been inadvertently left open by a servant? I reclosed it, smiling at myself because of the ease with which I had built a full-length drama at the mere suggestion of an open window…
Suddenly, I heard the cry of the Holy Beast again, followed by a long silence; the rain had stopped beating on the window. Everyone in the Chateau was asleep. I walked warily along the carpet of the corridor. Upon reaching the corner, I looked around cautiously. There was another reflector lamp lighting up the sparse furnishings of the right-wing corridor: three chairs and a few pictures hanging on the wall. I asked myself what I was doing there… Never had the Chateau seemed so quiet. Everyone was in bed. What strange instinct, then, compelled me to move towards Mademoiselle Stangerson’s door? Why did a voice within me shout: ‘Go to her apartment!’ I looked down upon the carpet and saw that my steps were unconsciously following another set of footprints. Yes, there were definitely muddy footprints on the carpet, heading towards Mademoiselle Stangerson’s room! Horror! Horror! I recognized those footprints! They were the same as those left by the perpetrator’s expensive boots! So he had returned from outside during that awful night. If one could leave the Chateau by the corner corridor through the window and the terrace, then one could get inside it by the same means.
I realized that the perpetrator was still inside, for there were no returning footprints. He had come in through the open window at the end of the corner corridor. He had walked by Frederic Larsan’s door and mine, turned right, and had entered Mademoiselle Stangerson’s room.
I now stood before the door of her anteroom. It was open. I pushed it silently. I immediately noticed a streak of light coming from under the door of her bedroom. I listened, but there were no sounds, not even of that of breathing! Ah! If I only I could find out what was going on in the silence behind that door! I looked at the door and saw that it had been locked from the inside. I thought that the perpetrator might still be in there. He had to be… Would he escape again? It all depended on me! I had to be calm, and, above all, make no mistakes. I had to look into that room. I could try to go in through Mademoiselle Stangerson’s sitting room, but in order to do so, I would have to cross her boudoir and, during that time, the perpetrator might escape into the corridor, through the very the door before which I now stood.
I became certain that no other crime was being committed, because there was complete silence from Mademoiselle Stangerson’s bedroom. I knew that two nurses slept in the boudoir, taking care of their mistress until she was recovered.
Since I was almost certain that the perpetrator was in the bedroom, why didn’t I give the alarm? Yes, he might escape again, but Mademoiselle Stangerson’s life would be saved. But what if he hadn’t come to murder her? The bedroom door had to be opened in order to allow him to enter. By whom? And it was locked behind him. Again, by whom? Mademoiselle Stangerson locked herself in every night. So who turned the key to allow the perpetrator to enter? The nurses? They were two faithful family retainers. The old chambermaid, or her daughter, Sylvie? Improbable. Besides, they all slept in the boudoir. Monsieur Darzac had told me that Mademoiselle Stangerson, worried and cautious, had seen to her own security since she’d been well enough to move about in her room, which I hadn’t yet seen her leave. This concern of hers, which had struck Monsieur Darzac, had also given me food for thought. During the night of the events in the Yellow Room, there was no doubt that Mademoiselle Stangerson had been expecting her attacker. Was she also expecting him to return tonight? Had she herself opened her door to him? Since she could—or should—fear him, did she have some other compelling reason for letting him in? Was she forced to do it? What was the dreadful purpose of their meeting? Was it some kind of criminal conspiracy? Certainly, it couldn’t be a lover’s meeting, for I believe Mademoiselle Stangerson was genuinely in love with Monsieur Darzac. All these thoughts ran through my brain like flashes of lightning through the darkness. What would I not have given to know the truth!
If there was such an awful silence behind that door, there must have been a good reason for it. My intervention might do more harm than good, I thought. But how could I tell? How could I be sure that, if I intervened, I might not trigger another crime? If only I could only see and find out what was going on without breaking that ghastly silence!
I left the anteroom and walked down the central staircase. Once in the downstairs vestibule, I ran as silently as possible towards the small room where Père Jacques had been sleeping since the attack at the pavilion.
I found him already dressed, his eyes wide open, quite agitated. He didn’t seem surprised to see me. He told me that he had gotten up because he had heard the cry of the Holy Beast and heard footsteps outside his window. He had looked out and seen a black shadow go by. I asked him if he had a gun. He replied that he didn’t since the Magistrate had confiscated his revolver. We went out together by a back door. We walked alongside the walls until we reached a point just below Mademoiselle Stangerson’s bedroom.
I pushed Père Jacques against the wall, instructing him not to move. Then, taking advantage of a moment when the Moon was hidden by a cloud, I stepped back to try to look through Mademoiselle Stangerson’s half-opened window, careful to stay outside the patch of light emanating from it! Why was it half-opened, I asked myself? Was it a precaution to enable the intruder to leave the room more quickly if someone walked in through the door? Anyone jumping out of that window risked breaking his neck! But perhaps the perpetrator had a rope with him? He must have planned for everything. Ah, if only I could find out what was going on in that silent bedroom, and understand the reasons for that very silence!
I returned to Père Jacques and whispered the word “ladder” in his ear. At first, I had thought of using the same tree which, a week earlier, I had used as a watching post. But I had noticed that the window was opened in such a way that I wouldn’t be able to see anything inside from that vantage point. Besides, I didn’t want just to see, but also to hear—and possibly to act.
Greatly agitated, almost trembling, Père Jacques disappeared for a moment and returned without a ladder, but waving at me with his arms, asking me to come quickly. When I got there, he gasped:
“Come with me!”
We walked around the tower until we reached its entrance. There, he said:
“I went to the tower looking for my ladder, which I normally keep in the lower room that the gardener and I use for storage. But when I got there, I found the door open and the ladder gone. When I came out, I caught sight of it by the moonlight.”
He pointed to the far end of the Chateau, where a ladder stood resting against the stone brackets supporting the terrace, under the window which I had found open earlier. The terrace had prevented me from seeing it before.
Thanks to that ladder, it was quite easy to get into the corner corridor of the first floor. I no longer doubted that this was the path taken by the perpetrator.
We ran to the ladder, but as we were about to grab it, Père Jacques drew my attention to the half-open door of the small oval room located just under the terrace, at the extremity of the right wing of the chateau. The old man pushed the door open a little further and looked in.
“He’s not there!” he whispered.
“Who?”
“The gamekeeper.”
With his lips to my ear, he added:
“Didn’t you know that he’s been sleeping in this room since they started renovating the tower?”
And with the same gesture, he pointed to the half-open door, the ladder, the terrace, and the window in the corner corridor which I had reclosed earlier.
What were my thoughts then? I had no time to think. I felt more than I thought.
Obviously, I felt that if the gamekeeper was up there, in Mademoiselle Stangerson’s bedroom—I said “if,” because at that time, I had no evidence that it might be him, except for the presence of the ladder and his vacant room—if he was up there, he had to use the ladder, because the ground floor rooms lying between his oval room and the stairs were occupied by the butler and his wife, the cook, and the kitchens, thereby barring his way to the vestibule and the rest of the Chateau. If it was the gamekeeper who was up there, it would have been easy for him, during the evening, on any pretext, to go to the corner corridor and see that the window there could be opened by a simple push from the outside, thereby facilitating his later access into the first floor. That window, unfastened from the inside, narrowed my field of research regarding the identity of the perpetrator. He had to belong to the household, unless he had an accomplice inside, which I didn’t believe… Unless… Unless Mademoiselle Stangerson had opened that window herself! But then, what could be the frightful secret forcing her to remove the obstacles separating her from her would-be murderer?
I grabbed the ladder, and we returned to the back of the Chateau. Mademoiselle Stangerson’s bedroom window was still lit and half-open. The curtains had been drawn, but not completely, allowing a bright stream of light to fall upon the lawn at our feet.
I positioned the ladder under the window. I was careful to not make any noise. While Père Jacques remained at the foot of the ladder, I mounted it, very quietly, my stout stick in my hand. I held my breath as I lifted my feet one at a time with the greatest care. Suddenly, a heavy cloud dropped a fresh downpour of rain upon us. I considered that lucky.
Then, I heard the sinister cry of the Holy Beast again, as if it had come from just behind me, only a few yards away. Could that be a signal? Had some accomplice of the perpetrator spotted me climbing on the ladder? Was that cry meant to bring the man to the window? Perhaps! Yes! There he was, at the window! I felt him above me. I heard the sound of his breath! But I couldn’t look up. The least movement on my part and I might be lost. Would he see me? Would he look down and peer into the darkness? No! He went away. He had seen nothing. I felt him, rather than heard him, moving on tip-toe inside the bedroom. I carefully climbed a few more steps. My head now reached the bottom of the windowsill. My forehead rose just a little above it. My eyes looked between the opening in the curtains…
I saw a man seated at Mademoiselle Stangerson’s desk, writing. His back was turned toward me. A candle was lit before him. As he bent over the flame, its light cast distorted shadows. I could see nothing but his monstrous, stooping back.
The most amazing thing was that Mademoiselle Stangerson herself didn’t seem to be present! Her bed hadn’t been turned down! Where, then, was she sleeping that night? Probably in the boudoir with the nurses… But this was only a guess… I was happy to find the man alone, the better to prepare my trap.
Who, then, was that man, writing before my eyes, seated at that desk as if he were in his own home? If there hadn’t been those footprints on the carpet in the corridor, that open window, that ladder under it, I could well have believed that that man had a right to be there, that he was there as a matter of course and for reasons which I didn’t as yet understand… But there was no doubt that this mysterious person was the man from the Yellow Room, the same man who had attacked Mademoiselle Stangerson, who had done nothing but fend off his murderous blows… Ah, if only I could have seen his face! If only I could have surprised and captured him!
But if I sprang into the room, he would escape by the anteroom or the boudoir. There, by crossing the sitting room, he would reach the corridor and I would lose him. Now, I had him; in another five minutes, he would be trapped, better than if he’d been in a cage.
What was he doing there, alone in Mademoiselle Stangerson’s room? What was he writing?
I finally decided to climb down the ladder. Having placed it back on the ground, I asked Père Jacques to follow me. We went back to the Chateau. There, I sent the old man wake up Professor Stangerson, but told him to wait for me there and say nothing to the scientist until I returned. In the meantime, I planned to go and wake up Larsan. It was a shame, because I would have preferred to work alone and reap all the glory, right under the detective’s very nose, but Père Jacques and the Professor were both old men, and I, well, I wasn’t very strong… Larsan was used to wrestling villains to the ground and handcuffing them as they struggled.
Larsan opened his door, looking surprised to see me, his eyes still swollen with sleep. I could tell that he was ready to send me to the Devil, without b
elieving any of my reporter’s fancy notions. I had to assure him that our man was indeed here!
“That’s strange!” he said. “I thought I’d left him in Paris this afternoon.”
He dressed himself quickly and took his service revolver. We walked silently into the right-wing corridor.
“Where is he?” asked the detective.
“In Mademoiselle Stangerson’s room.”
“What about Mademoiselle Stangerson?”
“She isn’t there.”
“Let’s go then!”
“No! At the first sign of trouble, the perpetrator will escape. He’s got three ways by which to do it: the door, through the anteroom, the window, and the boudoir, where the women are sleeping.”
“I’ll shoot him…”
“But what if you miss? Or even if you only wound him? Then he’ll escape again. Besides, he might be armed too… Please, let me manage the situation and I’ll answer for everything.”
“As you wish,” he replied, with fairly good grace.
Then, after satisfying myself that all the windows of the corridors were thoroughly secure, I placed Larsan at the end of the corner corridor, in front of the window which I had found open and had reclosed.
“Under no circumstances,” I said to him, “must you leave this post until I call you. There’s a 100% probability that our man, once the chase begins, will return to this window and try to escape that way, because that’s how he got in here and prepared for his eventual flight. You have the most dangerous position.”
“Where will you be?” asked Larsan.
“I’ll run into the room and chase him your way.”
“Then take my revolver,” said the detective. “I’ll take your stick.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “You’re a brave man.”
So I took his gun. I was now going to be alone with the man in the room and I was really thankful to have that weapon with me.
Rouletabille and the Mystery of the Yellow Room Page 14