“But you said no one saw him? Or at least, that’s what the prosecution claims.”
“That’s incorrect, Monsieur!” replied Rouletabille. “We all saw him!”
“Then why didn’t you arrest him?”
“Because no one, besides myself, knew that he was the perpetrator! And for my plans to work, I needed the perpetrator to remain free a little while longer. Besides, I had no proof, other than my own logic. Yes, only my logic told me that the perpetrator was there, among us, that we were looking at him. But I needed more time to find some irrefutable, material proof that I could bring before this Court of Assize and which, I swear to God, will satisfy everyone.”
“Speak out, Monsieur! Tell us the perpetrator’s name.”
“You will find it on the list of names who were present in the courtyard on the night of the tragedy,” replied Rouletabille, who seemed to be in no hurry to share his unformation.
The people in the courtroom began showing some impatience.
“The name! Tell us the name!” some of them even called out.
Rouletabille continued in a tone of voice that would have gotten him slapped in the face had he been in a less solemn place.
“If I’m dragging my feet a bit, Monsieur, it’s because I’ve got good reason, as you’ll soon find out…”
“Tell us the name!” roared the crowd.
“Silence!” shouted the usher.
“You must tell us that name, Monsieur Rouletabille,” said the President, looking at his notes. “The list of those present in the courtyard that night consists of… the dead gamekeeper… Was he the perpetrator?”
“No, he wasn’t, Monsieur.”
“Père Jacques?”
“Not at all.”
“Monsieur Bernier the caretaker?”
“Not him.”
“Monsieur Sainclair?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Mr. Rance, then? The only ones left are Mr. Rance and yourself. Are you the perpetrator, Monsieur Rouletabille?”
“Of course not!”
“So are you accusing Mr. Rance of being the perpetrator?”
“No, Monsieur!”
“Then, I confess I do not understand… What you are driving at? There were no other persons in the courtyard.”
“That’s not the case, Monsieur. While it’s true that there were no persons in the courtyard, or below it, there was someone above it, who was leaning out of his window, looking down on us.”
“Do you mean, Frederic Larsan?” exclaimed the President.
“Yes, Frederic Larsan!” replied Rouletabille in a loud, ringing tone. Then, turning towards the public, who had already started to protest, he shouted with a vehemence I wouldn’t have believed him capable of: “Frederic Larsan is the perpetrator!”
The courtroom exploded with loud cries of astonishment, indignation, incredulity and, for some, enthusiasm for the young man who had dared to utter such an inconceivable accusation. The President himself was so astonished that he didn’t attempt to quiet the crowd. The racket died down by itself under the hushes of those eager to find out more.
In the relative calm that followed, Robert Darzac was heard to distinctly whisper:
“It’s impossible! He’s mad!”
“You dare to accuse Frederic Larsan, Monsieur Rouletabille?” said the President. “Even Monsieur Darzac himself believes you are mad. But if you’re not, you’d better have some solid proof!”
“Proof, Monsieur? You want proof? Well, I’ll give it to you,” said Rouletabille shrilly. “Let Frederic Larsan be called!”
“Usher, call Frederic Larsan,” ordered the President.
The usher hurried to the side door, opened it, and disappeared. The door remained open, while all eyes turned expectantly towards it. The usher reappeared and, stepping forward, said:
“Monsieur Larsan is gone. He left at 4 p.m. and no one has seen him since.”
“That’s my proof!” said Rouletabille triumphantly.
“What proof? I don’t understand! Explain yourself!” demanded the President.
“The irrefutable proof that I mentioned earlier—Larsan’s flight!” said the young reporter. “He won’t be back. You will never see Frederic Larsan again.”
“Unless you’re making fun of this court, Monsieur Rouletabille, why didn’t accuse Monsieur Larsan when he was here, in this box, looking him in the eye? He could then have answered you.”
“But what answer could be less equivocal than the one he’s just given me, Monsieur? He won’t answer. He can’t answer! I accuse Larsan of being the perpetrator, and he takes flight! Don’t you think that’s answer enough?”
“I won’t, no, I can’t believe that Monsieur Larsan has fled, as you’ve just said. There was no reason for him to do so. How could he have known that you were going to accuse him anyway?”
“Because I told him so earlier, in the witnesses’ room.”
“You did that! But why? If you knew that Larsan was the perpetrator, why did you give him an opportunity to escape?”
“Because, Monsieur,” replied Rouletabille, proudly, “I’m not a judge or a policeman, but a simple reporter. My business is not to arrest people; it’s to serve the truth, and I serve it as I see fit. It’s what I do. Your job is to protect society as best as you can, but that’s not mine. I’m not going to deliver a man to the scaffold. If you’re fair, Monsieur—and I know that you are—you will see that I was right. Didn’t I tell you earlier that I couldn’t reveal the perpetrator’s name until 6: 30 p.m.? I’d calculated that it would give me enough time to warn Larsan, and enable him to catch the 4:17 p.m. train for Paris, where he would know where to hide and leave no traces.
“Now, you won’t find Frederic Larsan,” continued Rouletabille, staring at Darzac, “because he’s too cunning. He is the man who has always escaped you and for whom you have long searched in vain. Even though he couldn’t outwit me,” continued the young reporter, laughing heartily, and laughing alone, because no one else in the courtroom felt like laughing, “he will easily outwit all the police forces in the world. For this man who, four years ago, managed to join the Sûreté and become famous under the name of Frederic Larsan, is also notorious under another name, well known to all the students of crime. Frederic Larsan, Monsieur, is also Ballmeyer!”
“Ballmeyer!” cried the President.
“Ballmeyer!” exclaimed Darzac, springing to his feet. “Ballmeyer! It was true, then!”
“Ah! Monsieur Darzac, you don’t think I am so mad now, eh?” said Rouletabille smiling.
Ballmeyer! Ballmeyer! No other word could be heard in the courtroom. The President ordered an immediate adjournment.
You can imagine how eventful was the break which followed! The crowd had something new to chew. Ballmeyer! Everyone was impressed by Rouletabille’s sagacity! Ballmeyer indeed! The rumor of his death had obviously been greatly exaggerated, as the saying went. He had managed to cheat death, just as he had succeeded in escaping from the police.
Is it really necessary, at this point, to remind my readers of the highlights of Ballmeyer’s notorious criminal career? For 20 years, the man’s villainous exploits had been a regular feature of judicial chronicles and newspaper headlines alike. If some of my readers may have forgotten the “Mystery of the Yellow Room,” I doubt that they forgot the name of Ballmeyer!
Ballmeyer exemplified that class of high society criminals known as “gentlemen burglars.” There was no gentleman more gentlemanly than Ballmeyer. There was no stage magician more adept at sleight of hand than he. There was no “apache” (as we call crooks today) deadlier or craftier than he. He had been received in the best society, and had been a member of some of the most exclusive clubs. He had stolen the honor of young girls and the fortunes of their fathers with a gusto never since equaled. Yet, when cornered, he had not hesitated to use a knife or swing a sheep-bone, like the most common of criminals. Ballmeyer never hesitated and no operation was too dangerous for him. He
had been caught once, but had escaped on the morning of his trial by throwing pepper into the eyes of his guards. Later, we learned that, while the best detectives of the Sûreté were hunting for him all over Paris, he had been attending the premiere of a new play at the Théâtre Français, without the slightest disguise.
Ballmeyer had later left France to go to America. There, the police of the State of Ohio had managed to capture him, but he had escaped again the next day. Ballmeyer! I would need an entire tome to recount all the adventures of this master-criminal, this man who had chosen to hide under the guise of Frederic Larsan!
And it was a mere lad of 18 who had exposed him! It was Rouletabille who, knowing Ballmeyer’s long and sinister career, had allowed him to thumb his nose at society again and escape! I couldn’t help but admire the young reporter’s bold move, because I felt certain that his overriding motivation had been to protect both Mademoiselle Stangerson and Monsieur Darzac, and rid them of their enemy at the same time.
The crowd had barely recovered from the effect of Rouletabille’s astonishing revelation when the trial was resumed.
The question on everybody’s mind was: Even if one accepted that Larsan was the perpetrator, how had he escaped from the Yellow Room?
Rouletabille was immediately called to the witness bar and his examination (for it was more an examination than a testimony) continued.
“Monsieur Rouletabille,” said the President, “you have told us that it was impossible to escape from the end of the courtyard. I’m willing to accept, as you suggested, that since Monsieur Larsan was leaning out of his window just above your heads, he was technically in the courtyard. But if he was the man you’d been chasing, in order to reach that window, he first had to leave the courtyard. How did he manage that?”
“He escaped in a most unusual way Monsieur,” replied Rouletabille. “I said that this section of the courtyard was as hermetically closed as the Yellow Room itself. That’s not entirely true. One can’t climb the walls of the Yellow Room to go anywhere; whereas, there, Larsan climbed the wall, sprang onto the terrace, and, while we were busy looking at the gamekeeper’s body, entered the first floor corridor through an open window. After that, it was easy for him to rush to his room, open his window, and call out to us, as if he’d just woken up. It would have been child’s play for a man of Ballmeyer’s strength and skills. And here, Monsieur, is the proof of what I’m saying.”
Rouletabille pulled a small bag from his pocket and produced an iron spike from it.
“This, Monsieur,” he said, “is a spike which will perfectly fit into a hole we have yet to discover in the cornice supporting the terrace. Larsan, who planned and prepared for every contingency—something necessary in his line of work—had planted this spike into the cornice. All he had to do to escape was to plant one foot on a stone at the corner of the Chateau, another on this spike, one hand on the cornice of the gamekeeper’s door and the other on the terrace, and he was clear of the ground. The rest was easy for someone as nimble as he. We had dined together that night, and afterward, he acted as if he had just been drugged. He needed to appear drugged so that no one would be surprised that I had been drugged too! To the extent that we shared the same misfortune, no suspicion would fall on him. Because, you see, Larsan was the one who drugged me! If he hadn’t done so, he could never have gone into Mademoiselle Stangerson’s bedroom that night and tried to kill her.”
A groan came from Darzac, who appeared to be unable to control his suffering.
“You can understand,” added Rouletabille, “that Larsan felt handicapped by the fact that my room was next to his. He knew, or at least had guessed, that I would be watching. Naturally, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that I suspected him! But I could have caught him leaving his room or as he was about to go into Mademoiselle Stangerson’s. So I had to be put out of commission. He waited until I was asleep, when my friend Sainclair was busy trying to rouse me, to enter Mademoiselle Stangerson’s bedroom. Barely ten minutes later, she was crying out in agony!”
“How did you come to suspect Larsan?” asked the President.
“By grabbing logic by its right end,” replied Rouletabille. “That’s why I was watching him! But I didn’t foresee the drugging. He’s very cunning indeed. Yes, grabbing logic by its right end allowed me to discover his true nature, but I still needed some material evidence, so that my eyes could see his guilt just well as my mind already did.”
“What do you mean, grabbing logic by its right end?”
“Well, Monsieur, logic is like a walking stick; it’s got two ends: the right one and the wrong one. But there’s only one end upon which you can lean and rely to walk straight: the right end! You can tell the right end because no amount of pressure will break it, no matter what happens or what anyone says. The day after the strange and extraordinary incident of the unfathomable corridor, when I felt so miserable, like an imbecile who can’t think logically because he can’t tell which end is which, when I was bent over the ground looking at some misleading evidence, I suddenly came to my senses and, leaning on the right end of logic, returned to the unfathomable corridor.
“There, I realized that the perpetrator whom we’d been chasing couldn’t have left the corridor. So I drew a circle inside my mind using the right end of logic. Inside that circle was the mystery of the perpetrator’s escape. Outside, in flaming letters, I mentally wrote the words: ‘Since the perpetrator can’t be outside the circle, he must still be inside it.’ So who was inside that circle? The right end of logic showed me that, in addition to the perpetrator who was still trapped in the circle, there was Père Jacques, Professor Stangerson, Frederic Larsan, and myself. Five persons in total, counting the perpetrator. Yet, when I looked inside the circle, or the corridor if you will, I only saw four people. Now, since I had proved to my satisfaction that the fifth person couldn’t have escaped, couldn’t have left the circle, logic dictated that there was a person in my circle who was in reality two persons! Meaning that that person was both himself and the perpetrator! Why had I not realized this before? Simply because the phenomenon of that person splitting into two persons had not taken place before my eyes.
“Now, who out of the four persons present in the corridor could have split into himself and the perpetrator without my noticing it? It certainly couldn’t be a person whom I had seen simultaneously and separately from the perpetrator. For example, in the corridor, I had seen both Professor Stangerson and the perpetrator simultaneously, Père Jacques and the perpetrator simultaneously, and even myself and the perpetrator simultaneously. So the perpetrator couldn’t be Professor Stangerson, Père Jacques, or myself. Besides, if I’d been the perpetrator, I would have known, wouldn’t I? However, had I seen Frederic Larsan and the perpetrator simultaneously? No! Two seconds had passed, during which I had lost sight of the perpetrator, for, as I have noted in my papers, he had reached the meeting-point of the two corridors two seconds before the Professor, Père Jacques, and myself arrived there. That would have given the perpetrator enough time to turn into the corner corridor, take off his false beard, change back into Larsan, turn around, and collide into us, just as if he, like ourselves, had been in pursuit of the perpetrator! Ballmeyer has managed to successfully pull off more difficult tricks than that before!
“It was child’s play for him to disguise himself in order to appear as a bearded stranger to Mademoiselle Stangerson, or with a small, chestnut-colored beard to make him look like Monsieur Darzac, whom he had sworn to destroy, to the Postal employee at Bureau 40.
“Yes, by leaning on the right end of logic, I was able to bring together two persons, or rather two halves of the same person, whom I had never seen simultaneously: Frederic Larsan and the man I had been chasing, the perpetrator!
“That discovery almost overwhelmed me. I tried to regain my balance by going over all the material clues previously gathered, which now had to fit inside my circle of logic.
“What were the clues which, that night, coul
d have led me away from realizing that Larsan was the perpetrator?
“No.1: I had seen the perpetrator in Mademoiselle Stangerson’s bedroom. On rushing to Larsan’s room, I had found him sound asleep.
“No.2: The ladder.
“No.3: I had placed Larsan at the end of the corner corridor and had told him that I was planning to run into Mademoiselle Stangerson’s bedroom to try to capture the perpetrator. When I returned to her bedroom, I saw that the perpetrator was still there.
“No.1 didn’t bother me very much. It’s likely that, when I got off the ladder, after having seen the perpetrator in Mademoiselle Stangerson’s bedroom, Larsan had already finished what he was doing there. Then, while I was re-entering the Chateau, he’d had time to return to his own room. There, he must have quickly undressed and, when I knocked at his door, he only pretended to have been asleep.
“Nor did No.2, the presence of the ladder, trouble me much. It was obvious that, if Larsan was the perpetrator, he had no need of a ladder to get inside the Chateau, since he slept there, next to my room. I believe he positioned the ladder to make everyone believe that the perpetrator was coming from the outside, which was essential to his plan to frame Monsieur Darzac, who was absent from the Chateau that might. Besides, having the ladder there might have also facilitated his flight in the event of something going amiss.
“But No.3 puzzled me more. Having placed Larsan at the end of the corner corridor, I couldn’t explain why he would have taken advantage of the brief time during which I had gone into the left wing to fetch Professor Stangerson and Père Jacques, to return to Mademoiselle Stangerson’s bedroom. It was a very dangerous thing to do. He risked being captured, and he knew it. And as a matter of fact, he very nearly was captured, not having had the time to regain his post, as he had certainly hoped to do. So he must have had a very compelling reason to go back to Mademoiselle Stangerson’s bedroom, a reason which must have occurred to him only after I had left him, because otherwise he wouldn’t have loaned me his gun!
Rouletabille and the Mystery of the Yellow Room Page 23