Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  “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 listen to me and declared, ironically, that he admired the prudent doubt with which certain people approached the most simple problems, risking nothing by saying “that is so, or ‘that is not so.” Their intelligence would have produced about the same result if nature had forgotten to furnish 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 meant that 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, “I should have to assume a balloon! — My dear fellow, the science of the aerostation of dirigible balloons is not yet developed enough for me to consider it and suppose that a murderer would drop from the clouds! So don’t say a thing is possible, when it could not be otherwise. We know now how the man entered by the window, and we also know the moment at which he entered, — during the five o’clock walk of the professor and his daughter. The fact of the presence of the chambermaid — who had come to clean up “The Yellow Room” — in the laboratory, when Monsieur Stangerson and his daughter returned from their walk, at half-past one, permits us to affirm that at half-past one the murderer was not in the chamber under the bed, unless he was in collusion with the chambermaid. What do you say, Monsieur Darzac?”

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

  “Besides,” he added, “at five o’clock Monsieur Stangerson went into the room 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 would necessarily 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 gravel path, a dozen yards from the pavilion, and on account of the three oaks that are growing at that spot.”

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Monsieur Darzac, who had followed us and listened with almost breathless attention to all that Rouletabille had said.

  “I’ll explain all to you later on, Monsieur, when I think the moment to be ripe for doing so; but I don’t think I have anything of more importance 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 of much too grave a nature to speak of it, so long as it continues to be only 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 I suspected that Rouletabille’s confident assertion was not pleasing to him. Why, I asked myself, if he was really afraid that the murderer should be discovered, was he helping the reporter to find him? My young 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 Mademoiselle Stangerson’s fiance, with a vehemence that amazed me.

  “I believe you,” said Rouletabille gravely; “but you have not answered my question.”

  We were passing by the thicket, of which the young reporter had spoken to us a minute before. I entered it and pointed out evident traces of a man 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, who uses 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 footprint which he had given me to take care of, and applied it to a very clear footmark behind the thicket. “Aha!” he said, rising.

  I thought he was now going to trace back the track of the murderer’s footmarks to the vestibule window; but he led us instead, far to the left, saying that it was useless ferreting in the mud, and that he was sure, now, of the road taken by the murderer.

  “He went along the wall to the hedge and dry ditch, over which he jumped. See, just in front of the little path leading to the lake, that was 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 this morning. 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 which floated some dead water-lily leaves. The great Fred may have seen us approaching, but we probably interested him very little, for he took hardly any notice of us and continued to be stirring with his cane something which we could not see.

  “Look!” said Rouletabille, “here again are the footmarks of the escaping man; they skirt the lake here and finally disappear just before this path, which leads to the high road to Epinay. The man continued his flight to Paris.”

  “What makes you think that?” I asked, “since these footmarks are not continued on the path?”

  “What makes me think that? — Why these footprints, which I expected to find!” he cried, pointing to the sharply outlined imprint of a neat boot. “See!” — and he called to Frederic Larsan.

  “Monsieur Fred, these neat footprints seem to have been made since the discovery of the crime.”

  “Yes, young man, yes, they have been carefully made,” replied Fred without raising his head. “You see, there are steps that come, and steps that go back.”

  “And the man had a bicycle!” cried the reporter.

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

  “The bicycle explains the disappearance of the murderer’s big foot-prints,” I said. “The murderer, with his rough boots, mounted a bicycle. His accomplice, the wearer of the neat boots, had come to wait for him on the edge of the lake with the bicycle. It might be supposed that the murderer was working for the other.”

  “No, no!” replied Rouletabille with a strange smile. “I have expected to find these footmarks from the very beginning. These are not the footmarks 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 had been disturbed by big and heavy heels; “the man seated himself there, and took off his hobnailed boots, which he had worn only for the purpose of misleading detection, and then no doubt, taking them away with him, he stood up in his own boots, and quietly and slowly regained the high road, holding his bicycle in his hand, for he could not venture to ride it on this rough path. That accounts for the lightness of the impression made by the wheels along it, in spite of the softness of the ground. If there had been a man on the bicycle, the wheels would have sunk deeply into the soil. No, no; there was but one man there, the murderer on foot.”

  “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 the young man’s reasoning, Monsieur Robert Darzac. Do you know whether there is one at the chateau?”

  “No!” replied Monsieur Darzac. “There is not. I took mine, four days ago, to Paris, the last time I came to the chateau before the crime.”

  “That’s a pity!” replied Fred, very coldly. Then, turning to Rouletabi
lle, he said: “If we go on at this rate, we’ll both come to the same conclusion. Have you any idea, as to how the murderer got away from The 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 no two ways of reasoning in this affair. I am waiting for the arrival of my chief 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, in the laboratory, all those who have played any part in this tragedy. It will 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 the detective in a tone not wholly free from irony. “You’d make a wonderful detective — if you had a little more method — if you didn’t follow your instincts and that bump on your forehead. As I have already several times observed, Monsieur Rouletabille, you reason too much; you do not allow yourself to be guided by what you have seen. What do you say to the handkerchief full of blood, and the red mark of the hand on the wall? You have seen the stain on the wall, but I have only seen the handkerchief.”

  “Bah!” cried Rouletabille, “the murderer was wounded in the hand by Mademoiselle Stangerson’s revolver!”

  “Ah! — a simply instinctive observation! Take care! — You are becoming too strictly logical, Monsieur Rouletabille; logic will upset you if you use it indiscriminately. You are right, when you say that Mademoiselle Stangerson fired her revolver, but you are wrong when you say that she wounded the murderer in the hand.”

  “I am sure of it,” cried Rouletabille.

  Fred, imperturbable, interrupted him:

  “Defective observation — defective observation! — the examination of the handkerchief, the numberless little round scarlet stains, the impression of drops which I found in the tracks of the footprints, at the moment when they were made on the floor, prove to me that the murderer was not wounded at all. Monsieur Rouletabille, the murderer bled at the nose!”

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

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

  “The man allowed the blood to flow into his hand and handkerchief, and dried 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 be the murderer.”

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

  “There is something — a something, Monsieur Frederic Larsan, much graver than the misuse of logic the disposition of mind in some detectives which makes them, in perfect good faith, twist logic to the necessities of their preconceived ideas. You, already, have your idea about the murderer, Monsieur Fred. Don’t deny it; and your theory demands that the murderer should not have been wounded in the hand, otherwise it comes to nothing. And you have searched, and have found something else. It’s dangerous, very dangerous, Monsieur Fred, to go from a preconceived idea to find the proofs to fit it. That method may lead you far astray Beware of judicial error, Monsieur Fred, it will trip you up!”

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

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

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

  “I shall beat him!” he cried. “I shall beat the great Fred, clever as he is; I shall beat them all!”

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

  We thought he was about to faint. His eyes, bulging with terror, avoided us, while his right hand, with a spasmodic movement, twitched at the beard that covered his honest, gentle, and now despairing face. At length regaining his self-possession, he bowed to us, and remarking, in a 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 he took a piece of white paper as I had seen him do before, and with his scissors, cut out the shape of the neat bootmarks that were on the ground. Then he fitted the new paper pattern with the one he had previously made — the two were exactly alike. Rising, Rouletabille exclaimed again: “The deuce!” Presently he added: “Yet I believe Monsieur Robert Darzac to be an honest man.” He then led me on the road to the Donjon Inn, which we could see on the highway, by the side of a small clump of trees.

  CHAPTER X. “We Shall Have to Eat Red Meat — Now”

  THE DONJON INN was of no imposing appearance; but I like these buildings with their rafters blackened with age and the smoke of their hearths — these inns of the coaching-days, crumbling erections that will soon exist in the memory only. They belong to the bygone days, they are linked with history. They make us think of the Road, of those days when highwaymen rode.

  I saw at once that the Donjon Inn was at least two centuries old — perhaps older. Under its sign-board, over the threshold, a man with a crabbed-looking face was standing, seemingly plunged in unpleasant thought, if the wrinkles on his forehead and the knitting of his brows were any indication.

  When we were close to him, he deigned to see us and asked us, in a tone anything but engaging, whether we wanted anything. He was, no doubt, the not very amiable landlord of this charming dwelling-place. As we expressed a hope that he would be good enough to furnish us with a breakfast, he assured us that he had no provisions, regarding us, as he said this, with a look that was unmistakably suspicious.

  “You may take us in,” Rouletabille said to him, “we are not policemen.”

  “I’m not afraid of the police — I’m not afraid of anyone!” replied the man.

  I had made my friend understand by a sign that we should do better not to insist; but, being determined to enter the inn, he slipped by the man on the doorstep and was in the common room.

  “Come on,” he said, “it is very comfortable here.”

  A good fire was blazing in the chimney, and we held our hands to the warmth it sent out; it was a morning in which the approach of winter was unmistakable. The room was a tolerably large one, furnished with two heavy tables, some stools, a counter decorated with rows of bottles of syrup and alcohol. Three windows looked out on to the road. A coloured advertisement lauded the many merits of a new vermouth. On the mantelpiece was arrayed the innkeeper’s collection of figured earthenware pots and stone jugs.

  “That’s a fine fire for roasting a chicken,” said Rouletabille. “We have no chicken — not even a wretched rabbit,” said the landlord.

  “I know,” said my friend slowly; “I know — We shall have to eat red meat — now.”

  I confess I did not in the least understand what Rouletabille meant by what he had said; but the landlord, as soon as he heard the words, uttered an oath, which he at once stifled, and placed himself at our orders as obediently as Monsieur Robert Darzac had done, when he heard Rouletabille’s prophetic sentence— “The presbytery has lost nothing of its charm, nor the garden its brightness.” Certainly my friend knew how to make people understand him by the use of wholly incomprehensible phrases. I observed as much to him, but he merely smiled. I should have proposed that he give me some explanation; but he put a finger to his lips, which evidently signified that he had not only determined not to speak, but also enjoined silence on my part.

  M
eantime the man had pushed open a little side door and called to somebody to bring him half a dozen eggs and a piece of beefsteak. The commission was quickly executed by a strongly-built young woman with beautiful blonde hair and large, handsome eyes, who regarded us with curiosity.

  The innkeeper said to her roughly:

  “Get out! — and if the Green Man comes, don’t let me see him.”

  She disappeared. Rouletabille took the eggs, which had been brought to him in a bowl, and the meat which was on a dish, placed all carefully beside him in the chimney, unhooked a frying-pan and a gridiron, and began to beat up our omelette before proceeding to grill our beefsteak. He then ordered two bottles of cider, and seemed to take as little notice of our host as our host did of him. The landlord let us do our own cooking and set our table near one of the windows.

  Suddenly I heard him mutter:

  “Ah! — there he is.”

  His face had changed, expressing fierce hatred. He went and glued himself to one of the windows, watching the road. There was no need for me to draw Rouletabille’s attention; he had already left our omelette and had joined the landlord at the window. I went with him.

  A man dressed entirely in green velvet, his head covered with a huntsman’s cap of the same colour, was advancing leisurely, lighting a pipe as he walked. He carried a fowling-piece slung at his back. His movements displayed an almost aristocratic ease. He wore eye-glasses and appeared to be about five and forty years of age. His hair as well as his moustache were salt grey. He was remarkably handsome. As he passed near the inn, he hesitated, as if asking himself whether or no he should enter it; gave a glance towards us, took a few whiffs at his pipe, and then resumed his walk at the same nonchalant pace.

  Rouletabille and I looked at our host. His flashing eyes, his clenched hands, his trembling lips, told us of the tumultuous feelings by which he was being agitated.

  “He has done well not to come in here to-day!” he hissed.