The Mystery of the Yellow Room

“Why that ‘now’? When you are, as I am, in search of some hidden secret, you can’t afford to have anything escape you. You’ve got to know the meaning of everything. We had come into a rather out-of-the-way part of the country which had been turned topsy-turvey by a crime, and my reason led me to suspect every phrase that could bear upon the event of the day. ‘Now,’ I took to mean, ‘since the outrage.’ In the course of my inquiry, therefore, I sought to find a relation between that phrase and the tragedy. We went to the Donjon Inn for breakfast; I repeated the phrase and saw, by the surprise and trouble on Daddy Mathieu’s face, that I had not exaggerated its importance, so far as he was concerned.

“I had just learned that the concierges had been arrested. Daddy Mathieu spoke of them as of dear friends—people for whom one is sorry. That was a reckless conjunction of ideas, I said to myself. ‘Now,’ that the concierges are arrested, ‘we shall have to eat red meat.’ No more concierges, no more game! The hatred expressed by Daddy Mathieu for Monsieur Stangerson’s forest-keeper—a hatred he pretended was shared by the concierges led me easily to think of poaching. Now as all the evidence showed the concierges had not been in bed at the time of the tragedy, why were they abroad that night? As participants in the crime? I was not disposed to think so. I had already arrived at the conclusion, by steps of which I will tell you later—that the assassin had had no accomplice, and that the tragedy held a mystery between Mademoiselle Stangerson and the murderer, a mystery with which the concierges had nothing to do.

“With that theory in my mind, I searched for proof in their lodge, which, as you know, I entered. I found there under their bed, some springs and brass wire. ‘Ah!’ I thought, ‘these things explain why they were out in the park at night!’ I was not surprised at the dogged silence they maintained before the examining magistrate, even under the accusation so grave as that of being accomplices in the crime. Poaching would save them from the Assize Court, but it would lose them their places; and, as they were perfectly sure of their innocence of the crime they hoped it would soon be established, and then their poaching might go on as usual. They could always confess later. I, however, hastened their confession by means of the document Monsieur Stangerson signed. They gave all the necessary ‘proofs,’ were set at liberty, and have now a lively gratitude for me. Why did I not get them released sooner? Because I was not sure that nothing more than poaching was against them. I wanted to study the ground. As the days went by, my conviction became more and more certain. The day after the events of the inexplicable gallery I had need of help I could rely on, so I resolved to have them released at once.”

That was how Joseph Rouletabille explained himself. Once more I could not but be astonished at the simplicity of the reasoning which had brought him to the truth of the matter. Certainly this was no big thing; but I think, myself, that the young man will, one of these days, explain with the same simplicity, the fearful tragedy in “The Yellow Room” as well as the phenomenon of the inexplicable gallery.

We reached the Donjon Inn and entered it.

This time we did not see the landlord, but were received with a pleasant smile by the hostess. I have already described the room in which we found ourselves, and I have given a glimpse of the charming blonde woman with the gentle eyes who now immediately began to prepare our breakfast.

“How’s Daddy Mathieu?” asked Rouletabille.

“Not much better—not much better; he is still confined to his bed.”

“His rheumatism still sticks to him, then?”

“Yes. Last night I was again obliged to give him morphine—the only drug that gives him any relief.”

She spoke in a soft voice. Everything about her expressed gentleness. She was, indeed, a beautiful woman; somewhat with an air of indolence, with great eyes seemingly black and blue—amorous eyes. Was she happy with her crabbed, rheumatic husband? The scene at which we had once been present did not lead us to believe that she was; yet there was something in her bearing that was not suggestive of despair. She disappeared into the kitchen to prepare our repast, leaving on the table a bottle of excellent cider. Rouletabille filled our earthenware mugs, loaded his pipe, and quietly explained to me his reason for asking me to come to the Glandier with revolvers.

“Yes,” he said, contemplatively looking at the clouds of smoke he was puffing out, “yes, my dear boy, I expect the assassin to-night.” A brief silence followed, which I took care not to interrupt, and then he went on:

“Last night, just as I was going to bed, Monsieur Robert Darzac knocked at my room. When he came in he confided to me that he was compelled to go to Paris the next day, that is, this morning. The reason which made this journey necessary was at once peremptory and mysterious; it was not possible for him to explain its object to me. ‘I go, and yet,’ he added, ‘I would give my life not to leave Mademoiselle Stangerson at this moment.’ He did not try to hide that he believed her to be once more in danger. ‘It will not greatly astonish me if something happens to-morrow night,’ he avowed, ‘and yet I must be absent. I cannot be back at the Glandier before the morning of the day after to-morrow.’

“I asked him to explain himself, and this is all he would tell me. His anticipation of coming danger had come to him solely from the coincidence that Mademoiselle Stangerson had been twice attacked, and both times when he had been absent. On the night of the incident of the inexplicable gallery he had been obliged to be away from the Glandier. On the night of the tragedy in “The Yellow Room” he had also not been able to be at the Glandier, though this was the first time he had declared himself on the matter. Now a man so moved who would still go away must be acting under compulsion—must be obeying a will stronger than his own. That was how I reasoned, and I told him so. He replied ‘Perhaps.’—I asked him if Mademoiselle Stangerson was compelling him. He protested that she was not. His determination to go to Paris had been taken without any conference with Mademoiselle Stangerson.

“To cut the story short, he repeated that his belief in the possibility of a fresh attack was founded entirely on the extraordinary coincidence. ‘If anything happens to Mademoiselle Stangerson,’ he said, ‘it would be terrible for both of us. For her, because her life would be in danger; for me because I could neither defend her from the attack nor tell of where I had been. I am perfectly aware of the suspicions cast on me. The examining magistrate and Monsieur Larsan are both on the point of believing in my guilt. Larsan tracked me the last time I went to Paris, and I had all the trouble in the world to get rid of him.’

“‘Why do you not tell me the name of the murderer now, if you know it?’ I cried.

“Monsieur Darzac appeared extremely troubled by my question, and replied to me in a hesitating tone:

“‘I?—I know the name of the murderer? Why, how could I know his name?’

“I at once replied: ‘From Mademoiselle Stangerson.’

“He grew so pale that I thought he was about to faint, and I saw that I had hit the nail right on the head. Mademoiselle and he knew the name of the murderer! When he recovered himself, he said to me: ‘I am going to leave you. Since you have been here I have appreciated your exceptional intelligence and your unequalled ingenuity. But I ask this service of you. Perhaps I am wrong to fear an attack during the coming night; but, as I must act with foresight, I count on you to frustrate any attempt that may be made. Take every step needful to protect Mademoiselle Stangerson. Keep a most careful watch of her room. Don’t go to sleep, nor allow yourself one moment of repose. The man we dread is remarkably cunning—with a cunning that has never been equalled. If you keep watch his very cunning may save her; because it’s impossible that he should not know that you are watching; and knowing it, he may not venture.’

“‘Have you spoken of all this to Monsieur Stangerson?’

“‘No. I do not wish him to ask me, as you just now did, for the name of the murderer. I tell you all this, Monsieur Rouletabille, because I have great, very great, confidence in you. I know that you do not suspect me.’

“The poor man spoke in jerks. He was evidently suffering. I pitied him, the more because I felt sure that he would rather allow himself to be killed than tell me who the murderer was. As for Mademoiselle Stangerson, I felt that she would rather allow herself to be murdered than denounce the man of “The Yellow Room” and of the inexplicable gallery. The man must be dominating her, or both, by some inscrutable power. They were dreading nothing so much as the chance of Monsieur Stangerson knowing that his daughter was ‘held’ by her assailant. I made Monsieur Darzac understand that he had explained himself sufficiently, and that he might refrain from telling me any more than he had already told me. I promised him to watch through the night. He insisted that I should establish an absolutely impassable barrier around Mademoiselle Stangerson’s chamber, around the boudoir where the nurses were sleeping, and around the drawing-room where, since the affair of the inexplicable gallery, Monsieur Stangerson had slept. In short, I was to put a cordon round the whole apartment.

“From his insistence I gathered that Monsieur Darzac intended not only to make it impossible for the expected man to reach the chamber of Mademoiselle Stangerson, but to make that impossibility so visibly clear that, seeing himself expected, he would at once go away. That was how I interpreted his final words when we parted: ‘You may mention your suspicions of the expected attack to Monsieur Stangerson, to Daddy Jacques, to Frederic Larsan, and to anybody in the chateau.’

“The poor fellow left me hardly knowing what he was saying. My silence and my eyes told him that I had guessed a large part of his secret. And, indeed, he must have been at his wits’ end, to have come to me at such a time, and to abandon Mademoiselle Stangerson in spite of his fixed idea as to the consequence.

“When he was gone, I began to think that I should have to use even a greater cunning than his so that if the man should come that night, he might not for a moment suspect that his coming had been expected. Certainly! I would allow him to get in far enough, so that, dead or alive, I might see his face clearly! He must be got rid of. Mademoiselle Stangerson must be freed from this continual impending danger.

“Yes, my boy,” said Rouletabille, after placing his pipe on the table, and emptying his mug of cider, “I must see his face distinctly, so as to make sure to impress it on that part of my brain where I have drawn my circle of reasoning.”

The landlady re-appeared at that moment, bringing in the traditional bacon omelette. Rouletabille chaffed her a little, and she took the chaff with the most charming good humour.

“She is much jollier when Daddy Mathieu is in bed with his rheumatism,” Rouletabille said to me.

But I had eyes neither for Rouletabille nor for the landlady’s smiles. I was entirely absorbed over the last words of my young friend and in thinking over Monsieur Robert Darzac’s strange behaviour.

When he had finished his omelette and we were again alone, Rouletabille continued the tale of his confidences.

“When I sent you my telegram this morning,” he said, “I had only the word of Monsieur Darzac, that ‘perhaps’ the assassin would come to-night. I can now say that he will certainly come. I expect him.”

“What has made you feel this certainty?”

“I have been sure since half-past ten o’clock this morning that he would come. I knew that before we saw Arthur Rance at the window in the court.”

“Ah!” I said, “But, again—what made you so sure? And why since half-past ten this morning?”

“Because, at half-past ten, I had proof that Mademoiselle Stangerson was making as many efforts to permit of the murderer’s entrance as Monsieur Robert Darzac had taken precautions against it.”

“Is that possible!” I cried. “Haven’t you told me that Mademoiselle Stangerson loves Monsieur Robert Darzac?”

“I told you so because it is the truth.”

“Then do you see nothing strange—”

“Everything in this business is strange, my friend; but take my word for it, the strangeness you now feel is nothing to the strangeness that’s to come!”

“It must be admitted, then,” I said, “that Mademoiselle Stangerson and her murderer are in communication—at any rate in writing?”

“Admit it, my friend, admit it! You don’t risk anything! I told you about the letter left on her table, on the night of the inexplicable gallery affair,—the letter that disappeared into the pocket of Mademoiselle Stangerson. Why should it not have been a summons to a meeting? Might he not, as soon as he was sure of Darzac’s absence, appoint the meeting for ‘the coming night?”

And my friend laughed silently. There are moments when I ask myself if he is not laughing at me.

The door of the inn opened. Rouletabille was on his feet so suddenly that one might have thought he had received an electric shock.

“Mr. Arthur Rance!” he cried.

Mr. Arthur Rance stood before us calmly bowing.