“Larsan lying! Larsan in Paris at the time of the crime! That should have been the beginning of our suspicions! And when, after your visit to Cassette’s, you found out that the cane had been bought by a person who looked just like Darzac, even though we had Mademoiselle Stangerson’s fiancé’s word that he hadn’t made that purchase, and we already knew from the employee at the Poste Restante that there was a man in Paris who looked just like Darzac, why didn’t we logically assume that that man was, in fact, Frederic Larsan?
“The way I see it, Larsan went to Cassette the evening of the crime to buy his cane, still disguised as Darzac. Once we saw that same cane in Larsan’s hands, we should have been asking ourselves: ‘What if the man dressed as Darzac who purchased Larsans’s cane was none other than Larsan?’
“Of course, his position as a Sûreté detective worked in his favor, but when we saw his obvious eagerness to convict Darzac, the passion which he displayed in pursuit of the man, we should have been struck by another question just as important as the lie in which he claimed to have received a cane purchased in Paris while in London. That one only proved that he wasn’t really in England, as his superiors and everyone else believed, but in France. That other question was: Why did Larsan buy that cane if he didn’t intend to use it as additional proof against Darzac? since the cane could have been easily manipulated to incriminate Mademoiselle Stangerson’s fiancé?
“The answer is simple, so simple that we never even thought of it. Larsan bought the cane after having been wounded in the hand by Mademoiselle Stangerson, in order to always keep his hand on it and avoid showing the palm of his hand with the incriminating wound! You understand now? That’s what Larsan himself told me. I remember asking you several times why we never saw Larsan without his cane. And when we dined together, he always held a knife in his right hand, never letting go of it. All these details came back to me after I had determined that Larsan was the perpetrator. By then, of course, they were too late to be of any practical use.
“The night when Larsan pretended to be drugged, I managed to take a sneak look at his hand, without him suspecting anything. I saw a thin silk bandage covering the signs of a slight healing wound. I thought that he might be able to claim that that wound had been caused by something other than a bullet. Still, it was yet another material clue I could fit in my circle of logic. Larsan told me earlier that Mademoiselle Stangerson’s bullet had only grazed his palm, but caused a significant amount of bloodletting.
“Had we been more alert when Larsan lied to us about the cane, and thus more dangerous to him, it’s still possible that he might have tried to divert suspicions by using the fable we had concocted about Darzac buying the cane. But events kept happening at a frantic pace, and we didn’t give a second thought to the cane business. All the same, we had greatly worried Larsan-Ballmeyer without our knowing it.”
“But,” I interrupted, “if Larsan had no intention of using the cane as evidence against Darzac, why was he disguised as Darzac when he bought it? The same overcoat, bowler hat…”
“He wasn’t disguised as Darzac to buy the cane; he had come straight to Cassette’s immediately after he had attacked Mademoiselle Stangerson and was still wearing his Darzac disguise, which he used throughout to frame her fiancé. His wound was bothering him and, as he was passing along the Avenue de l’Opera, the idea of the cane came to him and he acted on it. It was then 8 p.m. A man looking like Darzac bought a cane, which I later found in Larsan’s hands. And I, who had already discovered that the attack had occurred earlier, I, who was convinced of Darzac’s innocence, never suspected Larsan! There are times...”
“There are times,” I said, “when even the greatest intellects...”
Rouletabille motioned me to be quiet. I continued to ask him questions, but I realized that he’d fallen asleep. I had the greatest difficulties in waking him when we reached Paris.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mademoiselle Stangerson’s Secret
During the days that followed, I had several more opportunities to ask Rouletabille the reason for his trip to America, but I received no better answers than those he had given me in the train from Versailles on the evening of the trial. More often than not, he found ways to steer the conversation away onto other aspects of the case.
One day, however, he said:
“Can’t you understand that I had to know Larsan’s true identity?”
“Certainly,” I replied, “but why did you have to go to America to find it?”
He kept smoking his pipe and turned his back on me. Obviously, I was getting closer to Mademoiselle Stangerson’s secret. Rouletabille must have thought that that dread mystery which bound together Mademoiselle Stangerson and Larsan couldn’t be solved in France, and must have originated during her time in America. So he had embarked for the United States, believing that there, he would learn more about Larsan and even find information that would give him power over him. So he had gone to Philadelphia.
What was that secret which had so effectively silenced Mademoiselle Stangerson and Monsieur Darzac? Now that the publicity around the case has died down, and since Professor Stangerson knows and has forgiven everything, the truth may at last be revealed. It is, in any event, very simple and will enable me to set the record straight, since some envious people have accused Mademoiselle Stangerson of being a manipulator, when, in fact, throughout this sinister affair, she was nothing but the victim.
It all started back when she was a young girl, living with her father in Philadelphia. There, at a reception given by one of her father’s business friends, she met one Jean Roussel, a Frenchman, who quickly seduced her using his wit, charm and persistent attentions. He was said to be rich and asked the Professor for her hand in marriage.
After making some discreet inquiries about Monsieur Roussel, Professor Stangerson, who, at first, had thought him to be a captain of industry, discovered that Roussel was, in fact, nothing but a swindler and an adventurer. He was, as we know now, the notorious Ballmeyer, a fugitive from French justice having found refuge in America, and operating there under many aliases, but neither Professor Stangerson nor his daughter knew this.
The Professor not only refused to give his consent to the marriage, but denied Roussel admission into his house. Young Mathilde Stangerson, however, had already fallen head over heels in love with the villain and, to her, he was the best and brightest man in the world. She became indignant at her father’s attitude and didn’t conceal her feelings.
So the Professor sent her away, to stay with an old aunt in Cincinnati in the State of Ohio. But Roussel caught up with her and, despite the respect Mathilde felt for her father, she outwitted her old relative and eloped with Roussel, intent on taking advantage of the laxity of U.S. laws in that respect to get married as soon as possible.
After their marriage, they settled in Louisville, Kentucky, but one morning, a week or so later, there was a knock on the door. It was the police who had come to arrest Roussel, despite his protests and Mathilde’s tears. It was then that Mathilde learned from the police that her husband was none other than the infamous criminal Ballmeyer!
After a failed suicide attempt, the young woman, in despair, returned to her aunt in Cincinnati. The old relative was overjoyed to see her. She had been anxiously searching for her niece and hadn’t dared tell Professor Stangerson of her disappearance. Mathilde swore her to secrecy, so that her father would never learn of her marriage. He aunt was happy to swear, since she felt extremely guilty for not having properly supervised her niece.
A month later, Mathilde returned to her father, repentant, her heart crushed, hoping for only one thing: to never again see or hear from her husband, the terrible Ballmeyer. In order to atone for her disobedience, she swore to spend the rest of her life dutifully assisting her father in his work.
She was true to her word. She eventually shared her story with Robert Darzac, her most trusted friend, because she believed that Ballmeyer had been killed at last. Fina
lly, she decided she deserved to have some joy in her life and agreed to marry Darzac. Then, an evil fate resurrected Ballmeyer who took steps to let her know that he still loved her—which, alas! was true—and would never allow her to marry Darzac, even if it meant killing her.
Mademoiselle Stangerson didn’t hesitate to confide the truth to Darzac. She showed him the letter in which Roussel-Larsan-Ballmeyer reminded her of their wedding ceremony in a beautiful little church near Louisville. “The presbytery has lost none of its charm, nor the garden its glow,” he had written. The scoundrel pretended to be rich and said he wanted to take Mathilde back to America. She told Darzac that, if her father ever learned of her dishonor, she would kill herself. Darzac swore to silence her persecutor, even if it meant killing him. However, he was outmatched and would probably have been killed, had it not been for Rouletabille’s genius.
As for Mademoiselle Stangerson, she was helpless against such a villain. After Roussel-Larsan-Ballmeyer had first threatened her in his letters, when he attacked her in the Yellow Room, she tried to kill him. Unfortunately, she failed. She then became the constant victim of that merciless villain who was continually blackmailing her, who lived near her, invisibly, almost by her side, and demanded her presence at clandestine interviews in the name of their old passion. When she had initially refused to see him, after he had written to her in care of the Poste Restante, the result was the tragic attack of the Yellow Room.
The second time he wrote, still asking for a meeting, the letter reached her in her bedroom, but that time, she managed to avoid her persecutor by sleeping in the boudoir with her nurses. In that letter, the wretch had warned her that, since she was apparently too ill to come to him, he would instead come to her, and would be in her bedroom at a particular hour on a particular night. He left it up to her to take steps to avoid a public scandal. Knowing that she had everything to fear from Roussel-Larsan-Ballmeyer, Mathilde left her room that night. It was then that the incident of the unfathomable corridor occurred.
The third time, Mathilde resolved to keep the appointment. Larsan had asked for it in a letter he had written on her desk during the night of the earlier incident. In that letter, he threatened to destroy her father’s papers if she didn’t meet him at the appointed time. It was to rescue these papers that she made up her mind to see him. It wasn’t the first time, in fact, that Ballmeyer had pilfered the Professor’s papers. Mathilde suspected that, with her unwitting help, he had already plundered her father’s research once before in Philadelphia. She didn’t doubt for one moment that the wretch would carry out his threat if she persisted in avoiding him. In that case, the labors of her father’s lifetime would be reduced to ashes and forever be lost.
Since their meeting was inevitable, she resolved to face her former husband and appeal to his better nature. It was for this interview that she had prepared herself on the night the gamekeeper was killed. We can guess what happened. We can imagine Mathilde’s supplications, his brutal refusal… Ballmeyer insisted that she renounce Darzac. She affirmed her love for him. He stabbed her in anger, determined to send Darzac to the scaffold for the crime, for he was very clever. He knew that his Larsan identity would protect him, while Darzac would never be able to explain how he spent his time away from the chateau. Ballmeyer’s precautions in that respect were cunningly taken, as Rouletabille had guessed.
Larsan had blackmailed Darzac just as he had blackmailed Mathilde, with the same weapon, the same threats. He wrote Darzac urgent letters, declaring himself ready to go away, to surrender their old love letters, if only Darzac would pay his price. Like Mathilde, Darzac was forced to submit. He was obliged to go to those rendezvous at the time and place chosen by Larsan, or else the truth about Mathilde’s marriage would be made public.
When Darzac went to Epinay, expecting to find Ballmeyer there, he was met by one of his accomplices, a strange being, a creature from another world, whom I shall discuss another time, who kept him waiting until such time as the “coincidence” of his absence, which he would be unable to explain, and of the attack on Mathilde could be established, sending him straight to the guillotine. 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, I can briefly describe Rouletabille’s adventures in America. Knowing the young reporter as we do, we can imagine with what acumen he retraced, step by step, the story of Mathilde Stangerson and Jean Roussel.
In Philadelphia, he quickly gathered information on the subject of Mr. Arthur William Rance. There, he learned of the American’s act of devotion, but also of the reward he thought himself entitled to receive for it. A rumor of his marriage with Mademoiselle Stangerson had once found its way into the sitting rooms of Philadelphia, because of Rance’s lack of discretion and modesty. He also learned of Rance’s persistent attentions toward Mathilde, and of his regular and unwelcome visits to Glandier. Rance took to drink, or so he claimed, to drown his grief at his unrequited love. We now understand why Rouletabille was so cool toward him when they met in the witnesses’ room during the trial. In any event, the young reporter had quickly determined that Rance had nothing to do with the affair.
Rouletabille learned of the passion that had brought together Jean Roussel and Mathilde Stangerson. But who was this Jean Roussel? Rouletabille traced him from Philadelphia to Cincinnati. In Cincinnati, he met the old aunt, and found a way to make her talk. Finally, the story of Ballmeyer’s arrest threw a new light on the whole case. He went to Louisville and visited the “presbytery”—a small and pretty church in the old colonial style—which had, indeed, “lost none of its charm.” Then, abandoning Mathilde’s trail, he picked up that of Ballmeyer.
He followed it from prison to prison, from crime to crime. At last, as he was about to return to France, he learned on the seedy wharves of New York that Ballmeyer had, five years before, also gone back to France with, in his pocket, the identification papers of an honorable merchant from New Orleans named “Frederic Larsan” whom he had just murdered.
And now, do you feel that you have learned the whole secret of Mademoiselle Stangerson? You would be wrong! Because Mademoiselle Stangerson had a child by her husband—a son. The infant was born in the old aunt’s house in Cincinnati. No one knew of it, because the aunt managed to conceal the event well.
What became of that son? That’s another story which I shall relate another day.
About two months after these events, I came upon Rouletabille sitting on a bench in the Palais de Justice. He looked very depressed.
“What’s the matter, my friend?” I asked. “You look sad. How are your friends getting on?”
“Apart from you,” he said, “I don’t really have any friends.”
“What about Monsieur Darzac?”
“I suppose...”
“And Mademoiselle Stangerson. How is she?”
“Better, much better.”
“Then, you shouldn’t feel sad.”
“I’m sad,” he said, “because I’m thinking of the perfume of the lady in black.”
“The perfume of the lady in black! I’ve often heard you refer to it. Can you tell me at last why it troubles you so much?”
“Someday perhaps… Someday,” said Rouletabille.
And he heaved a profound sigh.
THE END
This short story, originally published in our edition of Arsène Lupin vs. Sherlock Holmes: The Blonde Phantom, purports to explain what happened to Larsan (Ballmeyer) between the ending of The Mystery of the Yellow Room, and his return in The Perfume of the Lady in Black, which takes place three years later. It is enough to know that, in December 1903, Arsène Lupin, using the alias of Paul Daubreuil, saved the life of Jeanne Darcieux from her stepfather, Baron Maupertuis’ diabolical schemes…17
The Return of Ballmeyer
or
Arsène Lupin Arrives Too Late
by Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier
Excer
pt of a letter from Jeanne Darcieux to Paul Daubreuil, Tuesday, January 12, 1904:
Dear Paul,
As you have surely heard, the Belgian Police arrested my stepfather, Paul Darcieux, in Brussels. Last week, I received a communication from a Belgian policeman named Poirot, who confirmed that he would soon be extradited to France. Oh, how I shudder when I remember the horrible events that took place at Maupertuis. I still see my stepfather’s evil face as he prepared to plunge his dagger into my body that terrible night. I don’t think I shall ever be able to banish that image from my mind... I will never have the right words to thank you for all that you did for me, my dearest friend. (...) I have followed Dr. Gueroult’s sage advice and come to London to start my life afresh. Thank you for recommending a good solicitor in Versailles to oversee the management of the Maupertuis estate, but all that is now a part of the life that I left behind...
Excerpt of a letter from Jeanne Darcieux to Paul Daubreuil, Monday, February 1, 1904:
Dear Paul,
Your letter filled me with joy. Since you were kind enough to inquire as to my progress here, I shall report news that, I am sure, will please you greatly. Yesterday, I found a position as a tutor teaching French to Lord Strongborough’s 12-year-old son, Anthony. Lord Strongborough is a charming widower who is very much involved with the Jockey Club, of which I understand he is one of the stewards. I am expected to live in his beautiful estate in Surrey. My duties will include...
Excerpt of a letter from Jeanne Darcieux to Paul Daubreuil, Friday, May 6, 1904:
Dear Paul,
Edward and I are just back from the Riviera, where he has a house near Saint Paul de Vence. We had the grandest time. Upon our return, Edward decided to announce our formal engagement. A wonderful party was held at the Manor. I so wish that you could have been there. The entire Jockey Club attended. Dr. Taylor regaled us with stories of when he and Edward used to race horses in America, in Kentucky, I believe. Major Roland told us of his service in India...
Rouletabille and the Mystery of the Yellow Room Page 26