Le mystère de la chambre jaune. English

  CHAPTER IX. Reporter and Detective

  The three of us went back towards the pavilion. At some distance fromthe building the reporter made us stop and, pointing to a small clump oftrees to the right of us, said:

  "That's where the murderer came from to get into the pavilion."

  As there were other patches of trees of the same sort between the greatoaks, I asked why the murderer had chosen that one, rather than any ofthe others. Rouletabille answered me by pointing to the path which ranquite close to the thicket to the door of the pavilion.

  "That path is as you see, topped with gravel," he said; "the man musthave passed along it going to the pavilion, since no traces of hissteps have been found on the soft ground. The man didn't have wings;he walked; but he walked on the gravel which left no impression of histread. The gravel has, in fact, been trodden by many other feet, sincethe path is the most direct way between the pavilion and the chateau.As to the thicket, made of the sort of shrubs that don't flourish in therough season--laurels and fuchsias--it offered the murderer a sufficienthiding-place until it was time for him to make his way to the pavilion.It was while hiding in that clump of trees that he saw Monsieur andMademoiselle Stangerson, and then Daddy Jacques, leave the pavilion.Gravel has been spread nearly, very nearly, up to the windows of thepavilion. The footprints of a man, parallel with the wall--marks whichwe will examine presently, and which I have already seen--prove that heonly needed to make one stride to find himself in front of the vestibulewindow, left open by Daddy Jacques. The man drew himself up by his handsand entered the vestibule."

  "After all it is very possible," I said.

  "After all what? After all what?" cried Rouletabille.

  I begged of him not to be angry; but he was too much irritated to listento me and declared, ironically, that he admired the prudent doubtwith which certain people approached the most simple problems, riskingnothing by saying "that is so, or 'that is not so." Their intelligencewould have produced about the same result if nature had forgotten tofurnish their brain-pan with a little grey matter. As I appeared vexed,my young friend took me by the arm and admitted that he had not meantthat for me; he thought more of me than that.

  "If I did not reason as I do in regard to this gravel," he went on, "Ishould have to assume a balloon!--My dear fellow, the science of theaerostation of dirigible balloons is not yet developed enough for me toconsider it and suppose that a murderer would drop from the clouds! Sodon't say a thing is possible, when it could not be otherwise. We knownow how the man entered by the window, and we also know the moment atwhich he entered,--during the five o'clock walk of the professor and hisdaughter. The fact of the presence of the chambermaid--who had come toclean up The Yellow Room--in the laboratory, when Monsieur Stangersonand his daughter returned from their walk, at half-past one, permitsus to affirm that at half-past one the murderer was not in the chamberunder the bed, unless he was in collusion with the chambermaid. What doyou say, Monsieur Darzac?"

  Monsieur Darzac shook his head and said he was sure of the chambermaid'sfidelity, and that she was a thoroughly honest and devoted servant.

  "Besides," he added, "at five o'clock Monsieur Stangerson went into theroom to fetch his daughter's hat."

  "There is that also," said Rouletabille.

  "That the man entered by the window at the time you say, I admit,"I said; "but why did he shut the window? It was an act which wouldnecessarily draw the attention of those who had left it open."

  "It may be the window was not shut at once," replied the young reporter."But if he did shut the window, it was because of the bend in the gravelpath, a dozen yards from the pavilion, and on account of the three oaksthat are growing at that spot."

  "What do you mean by that?" asked Monsieur Darzac, who had followed usand listened with almost breathless attention to all that Rouletabillehad said.

  "I'll explain all to you later on, Monsieur, when I think the momentto be ripe for doing so; but I don't think I have anything of moreimportance to say on this affair, if my hypothesis is justified."

  "And what is your hypothesis?"

  "You will never know if it does not turn out to be the truth. It is ofmuch too grave a nature to speak of it, so long as it continues to beonly a hypothesis."

  "Have you, at least, some idea as to who the murderer is?"

  "No, monsieur, I don't know who the murderer is; but don't be afraid,Monsieur Robert Darzac--I shall know."

  I could not but observe that Monsieur Darzac was deeply moved; and Isuspected that Rouletabille's confident assertion was not pleasing tohim. Why, I asked myself, if he was really afraid that the murderershould be discovered, was he helping the reporter to find him? Myyoung friend seemed to have received the same impression, for he said,bluntly:

  "Monsieur Darzac, don't you want me to find out who the murderer was?"

  "Oh!--I should like to kill him with my own hand!" cried MademoiselleStangerson's fiance, with a vehemence that amazed me.

  "I believe you," said Rouletabille gravely; "but you have not answeredmy question."

  We were passing by the thicket, of which the young reporter had spokento us a minute before. I entered it and pointed out evident traces of aman who had been hidden there. Rouletabille, once more, was right.

  "Yes, yes!" he said. "We have to do with a thing of flesh and blood, whouses the same means that we do. It'll all come out on those lines."

  Having said this, he asked me for the paper pattern of the footprintwhich he had given me to take care of, and applied it to a very clearfootmark behind the thicket. "Aha!" he said, rising.

  I thought he was now going to trace back the track of the murderer'sfootmarks to the vestibule window; but he led us instead, far to theleft, saying that it was useless ferreting in the mud, and that he wassure, now, of the road taken by the murderer.

  "He went along the wall to the hedge and dry ditch, over which hejumped. See, just in front of the little path leading to the lake, thatwas his nearest way to get out."

  "How do you know he went to the lake?"--

  "Because Frederic Larsan has not quitted the borders of it since thismorning. There must be some important marks there."

  A few minutes later we reached the lake.

  It was a little sheet of marshy water, surrounded by reeds, on whichfloated some dead water-lily leaves. The great Fred may have seen usapproaching, but we probably interested him very little, for he tookhardly any notice of us and continued to be stirring with his canesomething which we could not see.

  "Look!" said Rouletabille, "here again are the footmarks of the escapingman; they skirt the lake here and finally disappear just before thispath, which leads to the high road to Epinay. The man continued hisflight to Paris."

  "What makes you think that?" I asked, "since these footmarks are notcontinued on the path?"

  "What makes me think that?--Why these footprints, which I expected tofind!" he cried, pointing to the sharply outlined imprint of a neatboot. "See!"--and he called to Frederic Larsan.

  "Monsieur Fred, these neat footprints seem to have been made since thediscovery of the crime."

  "Yes, young man, yes, they have been carefully made," replied Fredwithout raising his head. "You see, there are steps that come, and stepsthat go back."

  "And the man had a bicycle!" cried the reporter.

  Here, after looking at the marks of the bicycle, which followed, goingand coming, the neat footprints, I thought I might intervene.

  "The bicycle explains the disappearance of the murderer's bigfoot-prints," I said. "The murderer, with his rough boots, mounted abicycle. His accomplice, the wearer of the neat boots, had come to waitfor him on the edge of the lake with the bicycle. It might be supposedthat the murderer was working for the other."

  "No, no!" replied Rouletabille with a strange smile. "I have expectedto find these footmarks from the very beginning. These are not thefootmarks of the murderer!"

  "Then there were two?"

  "No--there was but one, and he
had no accomplice."

  "Very good!--Very good!" cried Frederic Larsan.

  "Look!" continued the young reporter, showing us the ground where it hadbeen disturbed by big and heavy heels; "the man seated himself there,and took off his hobnailed boots, which he had worn only for the purposeof misleading detection, and then no doubt, taking them away with him,he stood up in his own boots, and quietly and slowly regained the highroad, holding his bicycle in his hand, for he could not venture to rideit on this rough path. That accounts for the lightness of the impressionmade by the wheels along it, in spite of the softness of the ground. Ifthere had been a man on the bicycle, the wheels would have sunk deeplyinto the soil. No, no; there was but one man there, the murderer onfoot."

  "Bravo!--bravo!" cried Fred again, and coming suddenly towards us and,planting himself in front of Monsieur Robert Darzac, he said to him:

  "If we had a bicycle here, we might demonstrate the correctness of theyoung man's reasoning, Monsieur Robert Darzac. Do you know whether thereis one at the chateau?"

  "No!" replied Monsieur Darzac. "There is not. I took mine, four daysago, to Paris, the last time I came to the chateau before the crime."

  "That's a pity!" replied Fred, very coldly. Then, turning toRouletabille, he said: "If we go on at this rate, we'll both come to thesame conclusion. Have you any idea, as to how the murderer got away fromThe Yellow Room?"

  "Yes," said my young friend; "I have an idea."

  "So have I," said Fred, "and it must be the same as yours. There are notwo ways of reasoning in this affair. I am waiting for the arrival of mychief before offering any explanation to the examining magistrate."

  "Ah! Is the Chief of the Surete coming?"

  "Yes, this afternoon. He is going to summon, before the magistrate, inthe laboratory, all those who have played any part in this tragedy. Itwill be very interesting. It is a pity you won't be able to be present."

  "I shall be present," said Rouletabille confidently.

  "Really--you are an extraordinary fellow--for your age!" replied thedetective in a tone not wholly free from irony. "You'd make a wonderfuldetective--if you had a little more method--if you didn't follow yourinstincts and that bump on your forehead. As I have already severaltimes observed, Monsieur Rouletabille, you reason too much; you do notallow yourself to be guided by what you have seen. What do you say tothe handkerchief full of blood, and the red mark of the hand on thewall? You have seen the stain on the wall, but I have only seen thehandkerchief."

  "Bah!" cried Rouletabille, "the murderer was wounded in the hand byMademoiselle Stangerson's revolver!"

  "Ah!--a simply instinctive observation! Take care!--You are becoming toostrictly logical, Monsieur Rouletabille; logic will upset you if youuse it indiscriminately. You are right, when you say that MademoiselleStangerson fired her revolver, but you are wrong when you say that shewounded the murderer in the hand."

  "I am sure of it," cried Rouletabille.

  Fred, imperturbable, interrupted him:

  "Defective observation--defective observation!--the examination of thehandkerchief, the numberless little round scarlet stains, the impressionof drops which I found in the tracks of the footprints, at the momentwhen they were made on the floor, prove to me that the murderer was notwounded at all. Monsieur Rouletabille, the murderer bled at the nose!"

  The great Fred spoke quite seriously. However, I could not refrain fromuttering an exclamation.

  The reporter looked gravely at Fred, who looked gravely at him. And Fredimmediately concluded:

  "The man allowed the blood to flow into his hand and handkerchief, anddried his hand on the wall. The fact is highly important," he added,"because there is no need of his being wounded in the hand for him to bethe murderer."

  Rouletabille seemed to be thinking deeply. After a moment he said:

  "There is something--a something, Monsieur Frederic Larsan, much graverthan the misuse of logic the disposition of mind in some detectiveswhich makes them, in perfect good faith, twist logic to the necessitiesof their preconceived ideas. You, already, have your idea about themurderer, Monsieur Fred. Don't deny it; and your theory demands that themurderer should not have been wounded in the hand, otherwise it comesto nothing. And you have searched, and have found something else. It'sdangerous, very dangerous, Monsieur Fred, to go from a preconceived ideato find the proofs to fit it. That method may lead you far astray Bewareof judicial error, Monsieur Fred, it will trip you up!"

  And laughing a little, in a slightly bantering tone, his hands in hispockets, Rouletabille fixed his cunning eyes on the great Fred.

  Frederic Larsan silently contemplated the young reporter who pretendedto be as wise as himself. Shrugging his shoulders, he bowed to us andmoved quickly away, hitting the stones on his path with his stout cane.

  Rouletabille watched his retreat, and then turned toward us, his facejoyous and triumphant.

  "I shall beat him!" he cried. "I shall beat the great Fred, clever as heis; I shall beat them all!"

  And he danced a double shuffle. Suddenly he stopped. My eyes followedhis gaze; they were fixed on Monsieur Robert Darzac, who was lookinganxiously at the impression left by his feet side by side with theelegant footmarks. There was not a particle of difference between them!

  We thought he was about to faint. His eyes, bulging with terror, avoidedus, while his right hand, with a spasmodic movement, twitched at thebeard that covered his honest, gentle, and now despairing face. Atlength regaining his self-possession, he bowed to us, and remarking, ina changed voice, that he was obliged to return to the chateau, left us.

  "The deuce!" exclaimed Rouletabille.

  He, also, appeared to be deeply concerned. From his pocket-book hetook a piece of white paper as I had seen him do before, and with hisscissors, cut out the shape of the neat bootmarks that were on theground. Then he fitted the new paper pattern with the one he hadpreviously made--the two were exactly alike. Rising, Rouletabilleexclaimed again: "The deuce!" Presently he added: "Yet I believeMonsieur Robert Darzac to be an honest man." He then led me on the roadto the Donjon Inn, which we could see on the highway, by the side of asmall clump of trees.