Rouletabille and the Mystery of the Yellow Room

by Gaston Leroux

  “However, two gunshots had been heard that night. For my theory—which looked increasingly like the truth to me—to work, it required that one gunshot was fired during the first part of the attack, and not two during the second part. One gunshot to wound the perpetrator before, one gunshot caused by the nightmare after. So, were we certain, in fact, that two shots had been fired after midnight? First, the alleged gunshots were heard among the fracas of the overturned furniture. Professor Stangerson said he had heard a dull shot first, followed by a sharp ringing one. What if the dull shot had been caused by the falling of the marble-topped table? Then the ringing shot was that of the actual gunshot that had struck the ceiling. It was absolutely necessary that this be the case for my theory to be true. I became convinced that I was indeed correct when the two caretakers, the Berniers, who were up and about poaching near the pavilion, testified that they’d heard only one gunshot. That’s exactly what they told the Investigating Magistrate.

  “So I had already virtually reconstructed the two parts of the attack when I stepped into the Yellow Room for the first time. However, I still had to fit the serious wound on Mademoiselle Stangerson’s temple in my circle of logic. That wound was too severe to have been inflicted by the perpetrator with the sheep-bone during the first stage. Further, Mademoiselle Stangerson couldn’t have kept it hidden, and indeed had not tried to do so by rearranging her hair. So logically, it had to have been inflicted during the second part, that of the nightmare. It was to find out what had happened exactly that I went into the Yellow Room, and I did find my answer there.”

  Rouletabille drew a piece of white folded paper from his bag, and out of it, an almost invisible object which he held between his thumb and forefinger. He showed it to the President.

  “This, Monsieur,” he said, “is a hair, a blond hair stained with blood. It is a hair from the head of Mademoiselle Stangerson. I found it stuck to one of the corners of the overturned table. The corner of the table was itself stained with blood, a tiny stain, hardly visible, but very important, because it told me that, when she tried to rise from her bed, Mademoiselle Stangerson fell heavily and struck her head on the corner of the marble top, which retained some of her blood and hair stuck to it. The doctors said that Mademoiselle Stangerson had been hit by a blunt object, and since the sheep-bone was there, the Investigating Magistrate just assumed that it was the weapon that had caused the blow. But the marble-top corner of a table is also a blunt object, one that neither the doctors nor the Investigating Magistrate considered, and that I might have missed too if the right end of logic hadn’t pointed me toward it!”

  The courtroom exploded with cheers, but Rouletabille continued his story and silence returned at once.

  “I still had to find out, in addition to the perpetrator’s name, which I only discovered later, the time of the original attack. I learned it from the Investigating Magistrate’s questioning of Mademoiselle Stangerson and her father, even though the answers she gave were designed to deceive Monsieur de Marquet. Mademoiselle Stangerson provided a detailed account of how she had spent her time during that fateful day. We had otherwise established that the perpetrator had entered the pavilion between 5 and 6 p.m. Let’s assume it was 6:15 p.m. when the Professor and his daughter resumed their work. Logically, therefore, the attack had to have taken place between 5 and 6:15 p.m. Not even 5 p.m. because Professor Stangerson was with his daughter then, and the attack could only have occurred in his absence. Therefore, I had to find out exactly when he had left her.

  “I found the answer in the transcript of the interview that took place in Mademoiselle Stangerson’s bedroom, in her father’s presence. It stated that the Professor and his daughter returned to the pavilion at 6 p.m. Professor Stangerson declared: ‘At that moment, our gamekeeper came and detained me for a few minutes.’ The Professor then became involved in as conversation with the gamekeeper about ‘a section of the grounds which he had decided to thin.’ Mademoiselle Stangerson was nowhere in sight. She had gone into the pavilion. The Professor further stated: ‘After the gamekeeper left… I rejoined my daughter. I had given her my key to the pavilion, and she’d gone inside, leaving the key in the lock outside. When I walked into the laboratory, she was already at work.’

  “Therefore, it was during that short interval of time that the tragedy took place. It is logical. I imagine Mademoiselle Stangerson entering the pavilion, going to her room to take off her hat, and finding herself face-to-face with the man who had been pursuing her. The perpetrator had been in the pavilion for some time, waiting for her. He had presumably planned to wait for nightfall. He had already taken off Père Jacques’s old, muddy boots, as I pointed out to the Investigating Magistrate. And he had already removed the Professor’s scientific papers from the safe, as I described. Then, he had slipped under the bed of the Yellow Room to hide when Père Jacques had returned to wash the floors of the laboratory and the vestibule. After the old man had left, finding the time long, he had gotten up, wandered off to the laboratory, then to the vestibule. There, he had looked into the garden, and had seen, in the twilight, coming towards the pavilion, Mademoiselle Stangerson, alone.

  “He would never have dared to attack her at that hour, if she hadn’t been alone. In order to seem that way, the conversation between Professor Stangerson and the gamekeeper had to have taken place at a spot along the path hidden from sight, such as a small clump of trees, or a thicket, blocking the perpetrator’s view.

  “His mind was now made up. He would be less disturbed alone with Mademoiselle Stangerson in the pavilion than in the middle of the night, with Père Jacques sleeping in the attic. So he shut the vestibule window. That explains, by the way, why neither the Professor, nor the gamekeeper, who were at some distance from the pavilion, heard the first gunshot later.

  “So the perpetrator went back to the Yellow Room. Mademoiselle Stangerson came in. What happened then must have taken place very quickly. Mademoiselle Stangerson called, or rather tried to call, for help, but the perpetrator seized her by the throat. He was about to strangle her… Her hand sought and grasped the revolver which she had been keeping in the drawer of her nightstand, since she had come to fear the threats of her stalker. The perpetrator was about to strike her on the head with the sheep-bone—a terrible weapon in the hands of a Ballmeyer—but she fired, just in time, and her shot wounded the perpetrator in the hand. The sheep-bone fell to the floor, covered with the blood of the perpetrator, who staggered, clutched at the wall for support, leaving his red handprint behind. Then, fearing another bullet, the man fled.

  “Mademoiselle Stangerson saw the perpetrator run through the laboratory, and listened. It took several minutes for him to get out of the pavilion by the vestibule window. At last, she heard him jump out. She ran to the window and shut it. Now that the danger was past, all her thoughts turned to her father. Had he either seen or heard anything? With superhuman energy, she planned to keep all this from him to the best of her abilities. Thus, when Professor Stangerson returned, he found the door of the Yellow Room closed, and his daughter in the laboratory, at her desk, apparently at work!”

  Turning towards Darzac, Rouletabille cried:

  “You know the truth! Tell us, then, if that is not how things happened.”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” replied Darzac.

  “You’re a true hero, Monsieur Darzac,” said Rouletabille, folding his arms, “but if Mademoiselle Stangerson knew your situation, she would release you from your oath. She would beg you to tell all that she confided to you. She would be the first here to defend you!”

  Darzac made no movement, nor uttered a word. He looked at Rouletabille sadly.

  “Still,” said the young reporter, “since Mademoiselle Stangerson isn’t here, I must do that job myself. But, believe me, Monsieur Darzac, the only means to save Mademoiselle Stangerson and to restore her sanity is to secure your acquittal.”

  A thunder of applause greeted that last statement. The President didn’t ev
en try to stop the cheering. It was clear that Darzac had just been saved from the scaffold. Looking into the eyes of the jurors was evidence enough. Their body language reflected their conviction of his innocence.

  “But, Monsieur Rouletabille,” said the President, “what is this secret motive compelling Mademoiselle Stangerson to hide her near-murder from her father?”

  “That, Monsieur, I do not know,” said Rouletabille. “It’s none of my business.”

  The President, turning to Monsieur Darzac, tried again to make him tell what he knew.

  “Do you still refuse, Monsieur, to tell us how you employed your time during the attempts on Mademoiselle Stangerson’s life?”

  “I cannot tell you anything, Monsieur.”

  The President turned to Rouletabille as if appealing for an explanation.

  “We must assume, Monsieur,” the young reporter said, “that Monsieur Darzac’s absences were indeed closely connected with Mademoiselle Stangerson’s secret, and that Monsieur Darzac feels himself honor-bound to remain silent. But let’s suppose that Larsan, who, during his three attempts on Mademoiselle Stangerson’s life, did everything he could to frame Monsieur Darzac, had arranged, on just those occasions, a meeting with Monsieur Darzac at a compromising spot, a meeting where Mademoiselle Stangerson’s secret would be discussed. That would explain why Monsieur Darzac would rather be condemned than reveal his fiancée’s secret. And Larsan was cunning enough to have arranged such a trap.”

  The President seemed somewhat convinced, but, still curious, he asked:

  “So what is Mademoiselle Stangerson’s secret?”

  “That, I cannot tell you, Monsieur,” said Rouletabille. “I think, however, that you now know enough to order Monsieur Darzac’s acquittal! Unless Larsan should return, but I don’t think he will,” he added, with a laugh.

  Everyone laughed with him.

  “One more question,” said the President. “Accepting your explanation, we understand why Larsan wished to cast suspicion on Monsieur Darzac, but what interest did he have in doing the same to Père Jacques?”

  “The interest of the detective, Monsieur,” replied Rouletabille. “Larsan liked to prove himself as a superior investigator, a first-class solver of mysteries, which meant being able to see through false clues which he had planted himself! As I said, he is a very cunning man, and that trick often served to deflect suspicion from himself. He proved the innocence of one man, before accusing another. You can easily believe, Monsieur, that such a complicated scheme must have been carefully planned in advance. I’m telling you that Larsan had made a careful study of Glandier and its residents beforehand. If you care to learn how he had gathered such information, you will find out that he had, on several occasions, impersonated a messenger dispatched by the forensic laboratory of the Sûreté to Professor Stangerson, who had been asked to run some tests. In this way, he was able, before the crime, to visit the pavilion twice. He was so well disguised that Père Jacques didn’t recognize him, but he, Larsan, used that opportunity to steal an old pair of boots and a Basque béret which the old man had tied in a handkerchief, with the intention of giving them to one of his friends, one of the charcoal-burners on the road to Epinay. When the crime was discovered, Père Jacques immediately recognized these objects as his, but as they made him appear guilty, he lied to us when we asked him about them, and was extremely distressed.

  “In the end, it was all very simple, and Larsan proudly confessed all these details to me, because if he’s a criminal—which, I hope, no one here any longer doubts!—he is also something of an artist. It’s his trademark… He used a similar bag of tricks in the affair of the Crédit Universel, and that of the gold bullion robbery of the Hôtel de la Monnaie.

  “Because, if I may be so bold, Monsieur, I think those cases should be reopened at once. Since Ballmeyer-Larsan joined the Sûreté, a number of innocent persons have been sleeping in jail.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  In Which It Is Proved That

  One Can’t Always Think of Everything

  Great excitement, applause and cheers erupted when Rouletabille had finished.

  Maître Robert immediately called for an adjournment pending further investigation, and was supported in his motion by the Public Prosecutor. The case was thus adjourned. The next day, Monsieur Darzac was released on bail, while Père Mathieu was acquitted of all charges and freed. The police searched everywhere for Frederic Larsan, but in vain. The proof of Monsieur Darzac’s innocence was firmly established, and the Sorbonne Professor escaped the awful fate that, at one time, might have been in store for him. After a visit to Mademoiselle Stangerson, he hoped that she might, someday, with some careful nursing, recover her full mental faculties.

  As for Rouletabille, naturally, he became the “man of the hour.” On leaving the Palais de Justice, the crowd carried him in triumph. The world press published his exploits and his photos. He, who had interviewed so many famous personalities, had himself become famous and the subject of interviews. I’m glad to say that his enormous success in no way turned his head.

  We left Versailles together, after having dined at the notorious Chien Qui Fume restaurant. In the train, I started to ask him a number of questions which, during our meal, had been on the tip of my tongue, but which I had refrained from asking, knowing that he didn’t like to talk shop while eating.

  “My friend,” I said, “that Larsan case was wonderful. It was worthy of you and your phenomenal brain.”

  There, he stopped me and urged to me use less aggrandizing adjectives to describe him, humorously pretending that he would never console himself if a brilliant mind such as mine would fall into an abyss of stupidity just because I felt an undeserved admiration for him.

  “I’ll come to the point, then,” I said, somewhat miffed. “None of what you revealed tell me why you went to America. If I understood what happened correctly, when you left, you already knew that Frederic Larsan was the perpetrator, and you knew how he had tried to murder Mademoiselle Stangerson?”

  “That’s correct. What about you?” he said, trying to turn the conversation around. “Did you suspect anything?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Amazing!”

  “Since you took great pains to conceal your thoughts from me, my friend, I don’t see how I could have suspected anything. When I arrived at Glandier with the revolvers, did you already suspect Larsan?”

  “Yes! I had just reasoned my way through the incident of the unfathomable corridor. But Larsan’s return to Mademoiselle Stangerson’s room was only cleared up, however, by the discovery of the spectacles. In any event, my suspicions of Larsan were purely logical; the idea of him being the perpetrator seemed so extraordinary that I’d resolved to wait for material proof before venturing to act. Nevertheless, that suspicion was never far from my mind, and I sometimes spoke to you about Larsan in a way that should have opened your eyes.

  “First, I no longer credited him for making a good faith mistake; indeed, I no longer said that he was making a mistake at all. I described his approach as some kind of ‘system’ that deserved our contempt. That contempt, which you thought I felt for the detective, was, in fact, directed at the criminal!

  “Remember that when I was enumerating all the evidence gathered by Larsan against Monsieur Darzac, I said: ‘All of this seems to fit nicely with Larsan’s theory… I myself believe that theory to be false, and I think that Larsan is mistaken,’ and then, I added in an ominous tone that should have surprised you: ‘But is Larsan truly mistaken? That is the question!’

  “That ‘That is the question!’ should have given you food for thought. My entire suspicions were in there. Because, if Larsan wasn’t mistaken, then the logical deduction was that he was trying to make us commit a mistake! I was looking straight at your eyes when I said this, but I could tell you didn’t get my meaning. In a way, I wasn’t too unhappy about it, because until Madame Bernier found those spectacles, I could only consider Larsan-as-the-p
erpetrator as a rather far-fetched hypothesis. But remember how my mood changed after the discovery of the spectacles in the groove of the parquet of Mademoiselle Stangerson’s bedroom. After that, I became elated, full of joy. Remember when I told Larsan at dinner: “Yes, we’ll be doing battle and I will beat you.” Obviously, I was thinking of Larsan-the perpetrator, not Larsan-the-detective.

  “And when, that same evening, Monsieur Darzac had begged me to watch over Mademoiselle Stangerson, I undertook no efforts until after we had dined with Larsan, at about 10 p.m. I was certain nothing would happen because he sat right there, in front of me. That, my friend, should have told you that he was the only man I feared. And when we were discussing the perpetrator’s arrival, I said to you: ‘I’m quite sure Larsan will be here!’

  “But I confess that there was one important clue that we both missed. It was the one thing which should have opened our eyes with respect to Larsan’s true nature. Do you remember the matter of his cane?

  “Leaving aside for a moment the right end of logic that accused Larsan, there was the matter of his cane that should have exposed him to any observing mind!

  “I was surprised—as you may not have realized—to find that Larsan had made no use of that potential clue against Darzac during his investigation. Had the can not been purchased the night of the first attack by a man whose description tallied exactly with that of Darzac?

  “Well, when I saw Larsan off during the recess, I asked him why he hadn’t used the cane as evidence against Darzac. He replied that he never had any intention of doing so, and that our discovery in Epinay that he had lied to us had greatly bothered him. If you remember, he told us that his cane had been given to him in London, just before we realized that it had, in fact, been purchased in Paris. Why, then, instead of saying: ‘Larsan is lying. He was in London. He couldn’t have received a Parisian cane there,’ didn’t we say: ‘Larsan is lying. He wasn’t in London. He bought that cane in Paris’?