THE MYSTERY OF THE YELLOW ROOM

By Gaston Leroux




CHAPTER I. In Which We Begin Not to Understand


It is not without a certain emotion that I begin to recount here the
extraordinary adventures of Joseph Rouletabille. Down to the present
time he had so firmly opposed my doing it that I had come to despair of
ever publishing the most curious of police stories of the past fifteen
years. I had even imagined that the public would never know the whole
truth of the prodigious case known as that of The Yellow Room, out of
which grew so many mysterious, cruel, and sensational dramas, with which
my friend was so closely mixed up, if, propos of a recent nomination of
the illustrious Stangerson to the grade of grandcross of the Legion of
Honour, an evening journal--in an article, miserable for its ignorance,
or audacious for its perfidy--had not resuscitated a terrible adventure
of which Joseph Rouletabille had told me he wished to be for ever
forgotten.

The Yellow Room! Who now remembers this affair which caused so much ink
to flow fifteen years ago? Events are so quickly forgotten in Paris.
Has not the very name of the Nayves trial and the tragic history of the
death of little Menaldo passed out of mind? And yet the public attention
was so deeply interested in the details of the trial that the occurrence
of a ministerial crisis was completely unnoticed at the time. Now The
Yellow Room trial, which, preceded that of the Nayves by some years,
made far more noise. The entire world hung for months over this obscure
problem--the most obscure, it seems to me, that has ever challenged the
perspicacity of our police or taxed the conscience of our judges. The
solution of the problem baffled everybody who tried to find it. It was
like a dramatic rebus with which old Europe and new America alike became
fascinated. That is, in truth--I am permitted to say, because there
cannot be any author's vanity in all this, since I do nothing more than
transcribe facts on which an exceptional documentation enables me to
throw a new light--that is because, in truth, I do not know that, in
the domain of reality or imagination, one can discover or recall to mind
anything comparable, in its mystery, with the natural mystery of The
Yellow Room.

That which nobody could find out, Joseph Rouletabille, aged eighteen,
then a reporter engaged on a leading journal, succeeded in discovering.
But when, at the Assize Court, he brought in the key to the whole case,
he did not tell the whole truth. He only allowed so much of it to appear
as sufficed to ensure the acquittal of an innocent man. The reasons
which he had for his reticence no longer exist. Better still, the time
has come for my friend to speak out fully. You are going to know all;
and, without further preamble, I am going to place before your eyes
the problem of The Yellow Room as it was placed before the eyes of the
entire world on the day following the enactment of the drama at the
Chateau du Glandier.

On the 25th of October, 1892, the following note appeared in the latest
edition of the "Temps":

"A frightful crime has been committed at the Glandier, on the border of
the forest of Sainte-Genevieve, above Epinay-sur-Orge, at the house of
Professor Stangerson. On that night, while the master was working in his
laboratory, an attempt was made to assassinate Mademoiselle Stangerson,
who was sleeping in a chamber adjoining this laboratory. The doctors do
not answer for the life of Mdlle. Stangerson."

The impression made on Paris by this news may be easily imagined.
Already, at that time, the learned world was deeply interested in the
labours of Professor Stangerson and his daughter. These labours--the
first that were attempted in radiography--served to open the way for
Monsieur and Madame Curie to the discovery of radium. It was expected
the Professor would shortly read to the Academy of Sciences a
sensational paper on his new theory,--the Dissociation of Matter,--a
theory destined to overthrow from its base the whole of official
science, which based itself on the principle of the Conservation of
Energy. On the following day, the newspapers were full of the tragedy.
The "Matin," among others, published the following article, entitled: "A
Supernatural Crime":

"These are the only details," wrote the anonymous writer in the
"Matin"--"we have been able to obtain concerning the crime of the
Chateau du Glandier. The state of despair in which Professor Stangerson
is plunged, and the impossibility of getting any information from
the lips of the victim, have rendered our investigations and those of
justice so difficult that, at present, we cannot form the least idea of
what has passed in The Yellow Room in which Mdlle. Stangerson, in her
night-dress, was found lying on the floor in the agonies of death. We
have, at least, been able to interview Daddy Jacques--as he is called
in the country--a old servant in the Stangerson family. Daddy Jacques
entered The Room at the same time as the Professor. This chamber adjoins
the laboratory. Laboratory and Yellow Room are in a pavilion at the
end of the park, about three hundred metres (a thousand feet) from the
chateau.

"'It was half-past twelve at night,' this honest old man told us, 'and I
was in the laboratory, where Monsieur Stangerson was still working, when
the thing happened. I had been cleaning and putting instruments in order
all the evening and was waiting for Monsieur Stangerson to go to bed.
Mademoiselle Stangerson had worked with her father up to midnight; when
the twelve strokes of midnight had sounded by the cuckoo-clock in
the laboratory, she rose, kissed Monsieur Stangerson and bade him
good-night. To me she said "bon soir, Daddy Jacques" as she passed into
The Yellow Room. We heard her lock the door and shoot the bolt, so that
I could not help laughing, and said to Monsieur: "There's Mademoiselle
double-locking herself in,--she must be afraid of the 'Bete du bon
Dieu!'" Monsieur did not even hear me, he was so deeply absorbed in what
he was doing. Just then we heard the distant miawing of a cat. "Is that
going to keep us awake all night?" I said to myself; for I must tell
you, Monsieur, that, to the end of October, I live in an attic of the
pavilion over The Yellow Room, so that Mademoiselle should not be
left alone through the night in the lonely park. It was the fancy of
Mademoiselle to spend the fine weather in the pavilion; no doubt, she
found it more cheerful than the chateau and, for the four years it had
been built, she had never failed to take up her lodging there in the
spring. With the return of winter, Mademoiselle returns to the chateau,
for there is no fireplace in The Yellow Room.

"'We were staying in the pavilion, then--Monsieur Stangerson and me. We
made no noise. He was seated at his desk. As for me, I was sitting on
a chair, having finished my work and, looking at him, I said to myself:
"What a man!--what intelligence!--what knowledge!" I attach importance
to the fact that we made no noise; for, because of that, the assassin
certainly thought that we had left the place. And, suddenly, while the
cuckoo was sounding the half after midnight, a desperate clamour
broke out in The Yellow Room. It was the voice of Mademoiselle, crying
"Murder!--murder!--help!" Immediately afterwards revolver shots rang out
and there was a great noise of tables and furniture being thrown to
the ground, as if in the course of a struggle, and again the voice of
Mademoiselle calling, "Murder!--help!--Papa!--Papa!--"

"'You may be sure that we quickly sprang up and that Monsieur Stangerson
and I threw ourselves upon the door. But alas! it was locked, fast
locked, on the inside, by the care of Mademoiselle, as I have told you,
with key and bolt. We tried to force it open, but it remained firm.
Monsieur Stangerson was like a madman, and truly, it was enough to make
him one, for we heard Mademoiselle still calling "Help!--help!" Monsieur
Stangerson showered terrible blows on the door, and wept with rage and
sobbed with despair and helplessness.

"'It was then that I had an inspiration. "The assassin must have entered
by the window!" I cried;--"I will go to the window!" and I rushed from
the pavilion and ran like one out of his mind.

"'The inspiration was that the window of The Yellow Room looks out in
such a way that the park wall, which abuts on the pavilion, prevented my
at once reaching the window. To get up to it one has first to go out
of the park. I ran towards the gate and, on my way, met Bernier and his
wife, the gate-keepers, who had been attracted by the pistol reports and
by our cries. In a few words I told them what had happened, and directed
the concierge to join Monsieur Stangerson with all speed, while his wife
came with me to open the park gate. Five minutes later she and I were
before the window of The Yellow Room.

"'The moon was shining brightly and I saw clearly that no one had
touched the window. Not only were the bars that protect it intact, but
the blinds inside of them were drawn, as I had myself drawn them early
in the evening, as I did every day, though Mademoiselle, knowing that
I was tired from the heavy work I had been doing, had begged me not to
trouble myself, but leave her to do it; and they were just as I had
left them, fastened with an iron catch on the inside. The assassin,
therefore, could not have passed either in or out that way; but neither
could I get in.

"'It was unfortunate,--enough to turn one's brain! The door of the room
locked on the inside and the blinds on the only window also fastened on
the inside; and Mademoiselle still calling for help!--No! she had ceased
to call. She was dead, perhaps. But I still heard her father, in the
pavilion, trying to break down the door.

"'With the concierge I hurried back to the pavilion. The door, in spite
of the furious attempts of Monsieur Stangerson and Bernier to burst
it open, was still holding firm; but at length, it gave way before our
united efforts,--and then what a sight met our eyes! I should tell you
that, behind us, the concierge held the laboratory lamp--a powerful
lamp, that lit the whole chamber.

"'I must also tell you, monsieur, that The Yellow Room is a very small
room. Mademoiselle had furnished it with a fairly large iron bedstead,
a small table, a night-commode; a dressing-table, and two chairs. By
the light of the big lamp we saw all at a glance. Mademoiselle, in
her night-dress, was lying on the floor in the midst of the greatest
disorder. Tables and chairs had been overthrown, showing that there had
been a violent struggle. Mademoiselle had certainly been dragged
from her bed. She was covered with blood and had terrible marks of
finger-nails on her throat,--the flesh of her neck having been almost
torn by the nails. From a wound on the right temple a stream of
blood had run down and made a little pool on the floor. When Monsieur
Stangerson saw his daughter in that state, he threw himself on his knees
beside her, uttering a cry of despair. He ascertained that she still
breathed. As to us, we searched for the wretch who had tried to kill our
mistress, and I swear to you, monsieur, that, if we had found him, it
would have gone hard with him!

"'But how to explain that he was not there, that he had already escaped?
It passes all imagination!--Nobody under the bed, nobody behind the
furniture!--All that we discovered were traces, blood-stained marks of
a man's large hand on the walls and on the door; a big handkerchief red
with blood, without any initials, an old cap, and many fresh footmarks
of a man on the floor,--footmarks of a man with large feet whose
boot-soles had left a sort of sooty impression. How had this man got
away? How had he vanished? Don't forget, monsieur, that there is no
chimney in The Yellow Room. He could not have escaped by the door, which
is narrow, and on the threshold of which the concierge stood with the
lamp, while her husband and I searched for him in every corner of the
little room, where it is impossible for anyone to hide himself. The
door, which had been forced open against the wall, could not conceal
anything behind it, as we assured ourselves. By the window, still in
every way secured, no flight had been possible. What then?--I began to
believe in the Devil.

"'But we discovered my revolver on the floor!--Yes, my revolver! Oh!
that brought me back to the reality! The Devil would not have needed to
steal my revolver to kill Mademoiselle. The man who had been there had
first gone up to my attic and taken my revolver from the drawer where
I kept it. We then ascertained, by counting the cartridges, that the
assassin had fired two shots. Ah! it was fortunate for me that Monsieur
Stangerson was in the laboratory when the affair took place and had seen
with his own eyes that I was there with him; for otherwise, with this
business of my revolver, I don't know where we should have been,--I
should now be under lock and bar. Justice wants no more to send a man to
the scaffold!'"

The editor of the "Matin" added to this interview the following lines:

"We have, without interrupting him, allowed Daddy Jacques to recount
to us roughly all he knows about the crime of The Yellow Room. We have
reproduced it in his own words, only sparing the reader the continual
lamentations with which he garnished his narrative. It is quite
understood, Daddy Jacques, quite understood, that you are very fond of
your masters; and you want them to know it, and never cease repeating
it--especially since the discovery of your revolver. It is your right,
and we see no harm in it. We should have liked to put some further
questions to Daddy Jacques--Jacques--Louis Moustier--but the inquiry
of the examining magistrate, which is being carried on at the chateau,
makes it impossible for us to gain admission at the Glandier; and, as
to the oak wood, it is guarded by a wide circle of policemen, who are
jealously watching all traces that can lead to the pavilion, and that
may perhaps lead to the discovery of the assassin. "We have also wished
to question the concierges, but they are invisible. Finally, we have
waited in a roadside inn, not far from the gate of the chateau, for
the departure of Monsieur de Marquet, the magistrate of Corbeil. At
half-past five we saw him and his clerk and, before he was able to enter
his carriage, had an opportunity to ask him the following question:

"'Can you, Monsieur de Marquet, give us any information as to this
affair, without inconvenience to the course of your inquiry?'

"'It is impossible for us to do it,' replied Monsieur de Marquet. 'I can
only say that it is the strangest affair I have ever known. The more we
think we know something, the further we are from knowing anything!'

"We asked Monsieur de Marquet to be good enough to explain his last
words; and this is what he said,--the importance of which no one will
fail to recognise:

"'If nothing is added to the material facts so far established, I
fear that the mystery which surrounds the abominable crime of which
Mademoiselle Stangerson has been the victim will never be brought to
light; but it is to be hoped, for the sake of our human reason, that
the examination of the walls, and of the ceiling of The Yellow
Room--an examination which I shall to-morrow intrust to the builder who
constructed the pavilion four years ago--will afford us the proof that
may not discourage us. For the problem is this: we know by what way the
assassin gained admission,--he entered by the door and hid himself under
the bed, awaiting Mademoiselle Stangerson. But how did he leave? How did
he escape? If no trap, no secret door, no hiding place, no opening
of any sort is found; if the examination of the walls--even to the
demolition of the pavilion--does not reveal any passage practicable--not
only for a human being, but for any being whatsoever--if the ceiling
shows no crack, if the floor hides no underground passage, one must
really believe in the Devil, as Daddy Jacques says!'"

And the anonymous writer in the "Matin" added in this article--which I
have selected as the most interesting of all those that were published
on the subject of this affair--that the examining magistrate appeared
to place a peculiar significance to the last sentence: "One must really
believe in the Devil, as Jacques says."

The article concluded with these lines: "We wanted to know what Daddy
Jacques meant by the cry of the Bete Du Bon Dieu." The landlord of the
Donjon Inn explained to us that it is the particularly sinister cry
which is uttered sometimes at night by the cat of an old woman,--Mother
Angenoux, as she is called in the country. Mother Angenoux is a sort of
saint, who lives in a hut in the heart of the forest, not far from the
grotto of Sainte-Genevieve.

"The Yellow Room, the Bete Du Bon Dieu, Mother Angenoux, the Devil,
Sainte-Genevieve, Daddy Jacques,--here is a well entangled crime which
the stroke of a pickaxe in the wall may disentangle for us to-morrow.
Let us at least hope that, for the sake of our human reason, as the
examining magistrate says. Meanwhile, it is expected that Mademoiselle
Stangerson--who has not ceased to be delirious and only pronounces
one word distinctly, 'Murderer! Murderer!'--will not live through the
night."

In conclusion, and at a late hour, the same journal announced that the
Chief of the Surete had telegraphed to the famous detective, Frederic
Larsan, who had been sent to London for an affair of stolen securities,
to return immediately to Paris.




CHAPTER II. In Which Joseph Roultabille Appears for the First Time


I remember as well as if it had occurred yesterday, the entry of young
Rouletabille into my bedroom that morning. It was about eight o'clock
and I was still in bed reading the article in the "Matin" relative to
the Glandier crime.

But, before going further, it is time that I present my friend to the
reader.

I first knew Joseph Rouletabille when he was a young reporter. At that
time I was a beginner at the Bar and often met him in the corridors of
examining magistrates, when I had gone to get a "permit to communicate"
for the prison of Mazas, or for Saint-Lazare. He had, as they say, "a
good nut." He seemed to have taken his head--round as a bullet--out of
a box of marbles, and it is from that, I think, that his comrades of
the press--all determined billiard-players--had given him that nickname,
which was to stick to him and be made illustrious by him. He was always
as red as a tomato, now gay as a lark, now grave as a judge. How, while
still so young--he was only sixteen and a half years old when I saw him
for the first time--had he already won his way on the press? That was
what everybody who came into contact with him might have asked, if they
had not known his history. At the time of the affair of the woman cut in
pieces in the Rue Oberskampf--another forgotten story--he had taken to
one of the editors of the "Epoque,"--a paper then rivalling the "Matin"
for information,--the left foot, which was missing from the basket
in which the gruesome remains were discovered. For this left foot the
police had been vainly searching for a week, and young Rouletabille had
found it in a drain where nobody had thought of looking for it. To
do that he had dressed himself as an extra sewer-man, one of a number
engaged by the administration of the city of Paris, owing to an overflow
of the Seine.

When the editor-in-chief was in possession of the precious foot and
informed as to the train of intelligent deductions the boy had been
led to make, he was divided between the admiration he felt for such
detective cunning in a brain of a lad of sixteen years, and delight at
being able to exhibit, in the "morgue window" of his paper, the left
foot of the Rue Oberskampf.

"This foot," he cried, "will make a great headline."

Then, when he had confided the gruesome packet to the medical lawyer
attached to the journal, he asked the lad, who was shortly to become
famous as Rouletabille, what he would expect to earn as a general
reporter on the "Epoque"?

"Two hundred francs a month," the youngster replied modestly, hardly
able to breathe from surprise at the proposal.

"You shall have two hundred and fifty," said the editor-in-chief; "only
you must tell everybody that you have been engaged on the paper for a
month. Let it be quite understood that it was not you but the 'Epoque'
that discovered the left foot of the Rue Oberskampf. Here, my young
friend, the man is nothing, the paper everything."

Having said this, he begged the new reporter to retire, but before the
youth had reached the door he called him back to ask his name. The other
replied:

"Joseph Josephine."

"That's not a name," said the editor-in-chief, "but since you will not
be required to sign what you write it is of no consequence."

The boy-faced reporter speedily made himself many friends, for he
was serviceable and gifted with a good humour that enchanted the most
severe-tempered and disarmed the most zealous of his companions. At
the Bar cafe, where the reporters assembled before going to any of the
courts, or to the Prefecture, in search of their news of crime, he began
to win a reputation as an unraveller of intricate and obscure affairs
which found its way to the office of the Chief of the Surete. When a
case was worth the trouble and Rouletabille--he had already been given
his nickname--had been started on the scent by his editor-in-chief, he
often got the better of the most famous detective.

It was at the Bar cafe that I became intimately acquainted with him.
Criminal lawyers and journalists are not enemies, the former need
advertisement, the latter information. We chatted together, and I soon
warmed towards him. His intelligence was so keen, and so original!--and
he had a quality of thought such as I have never found in any other
person.

Some time after this I was put in charge of the law news of the "Cri du
Boulevard." My entry into journalism could not but strengthen the ties
which united me to Rouletabille. After a while, my new friend being
allowed to carry out an idea of a judicial correspondence column, which
he was allowed to sign "Business," in the "Epoque," I was often able to
furnish him with the legal information of which he stood in need.

Nearly two years passed in this way, and the better I knew him, the more
I learned to love him; for, in spite of his careless extravagance, I
had discovered in him what was, considering his age, an extraordinary
seriousness of mind. Accustomed as I was to seeing him gay and, indeed,
often too gay, I would many times find him plunged in the deepest
melancholy. I tried then to question him as to the cause of this change
of humour, but each time he laughed and made me no answer. One day,
having questioned him about his parents, of whom he never spoke, he left
me, pretending not to have heard what I said.

While things were in this state between us, the famous case of The
Yellow Room took place. It was this case which was to rank him as the
leading newspaper reporter, and to obtain for him the reputation of
being the greatest detective in the world. It should not surprise us to
find in the one man the perfection of two such lines of activity if we
remember that the daily press was already beginning to transform itself
and to become what it is to-day--the gazette of crime.

Morose-minded people may complain of this; for myself I regard it a
matter for congratulation. We can never have too many arms, public or
private, against the criminal. To this some people may answer that,
by continually publishing the details of crimes, the press ends by
encouraging their commission. But then, with some people we can never do
right. Rouletabille, as I have said, entered my room that morning of the
26th of October, 1892. He was looking redder than usual, and his eyes
were bulging out of his head, as the phrase is, and altogether he
appeared to be in a state of extreme excitement. He waved the "Matin"
with a trembling hand, and cried:

"Well, my dear Sainclair,--have you read it?"

"The Glandier crime?"

"Yes; The Yellow Room!--What do you think of it?"

"I think that it must have been the Devil or the Bete du Bon Dieu that
committed the crime."

"Be serious!"

"Well, I don't much believe in murderers* who make their escape through
walls of solid brick. I think Daddy Jacques did wrong to leave behind
him the weapon with which the crime was committed and, as he occupied
the attic immediately above Mademoiselle Stangerson's room, the
builder's job ordered by the examining magistrate will give us the key
of the enigma and it will not be long before we learn by what natural
trap, or by what secret door, the old fellow was able to slip in and
out, and return immediately to the laboratory to Monsieur Stangerson,
without his absence being noticed. That, of course, is only an
hypothesis."

   *Although the original English translation often uses the words
   "murder" and "murderer," the reader may substitute "attack" and
   "attacker" since no murder is actually committed.

Rouletabille sat down in an armchair, lit his pipe, which he was never
without, smoked for a few minutes in silence--no doubt to calm the
excitement which, visibly, dominated him--and then replied:

"Young man," he said, in a tone the sad irony of which I will not
attempt to render, "young man, you are a lawyer and I doubt not your
ability to save the guilty from conviction; but if you were a magistrate
on the bench, how easy it would be for you to condemn innocent
persons!--You are really gifted, young man!"

He continued to smoke energetically, and then went on:

"No trap will be found, and the mystery of The Yellow Room will become
more and more mysterious. That's why it interests me. The examining
magistrate is right; nothing stranger than this crime has ever been
known."

"Have you any idea of the way by which the murderer escaped?" I asked.

"None," replied Rouletabille--"none, for the present. But I have an idea
as to the revolver; the murderer did not use it."

"Good Heavens! By whom, then, was it used?"

"Why--by Mademoiselle Stangerson."

"I don't understand,--or rather, I have never understood," I said.

Rouletabille shrugged his shoulders.

"Is there nothing in this article in the 'Matin' by which you were
particularly struck?"

"Nothing,--I have found the whole of the story it tells equally
strange."

"Well, but--the locked door--with the key on the inside?"

"That's the only perfectly natural thing in the whole article."

"Really!--And the bolt?"

"The bolt?"

"Yes, the bolt--also inside the room--a still further protection against
entry? Mademoiselle Stangerson took quite extraordinary precautions!
It is clear to me that she feared someone. That was why she took such
precautions--even Daddy Jacques's revolver--without telling him of it.
No doubt she didn't wish to alarm anybody, and least of all, her father.
What she dreaded took place, and she defended herself. There was a
struggle, and she used the revolver skilfully enough to wound the
