GOTHIC CRIME MYSTERIES: The Phantom of the Opera, The Secret of the Night, The Mystery of the Yellow Room,The Man with the Black Feather & Balaoo. Gaston Leroux
seemed not to know either what he said or what he did. The illustrious professor had lost his head. Mademoiselle Stangerson in a tone of tender distress said: ‘Father!—father!’ Daddy Jacques blows his nose, and Frederic Larsan himself is obliged to turn away to hide his emotion. For myself, I am able neither to think or feel. I felt an infinite contempt for myself.
“It was the first time that Frederic Larsan, like myself, found himself face to face with Mademoiselle Stangerson since the attack in The Yellow Room. Like me, he had insisted on being allowed to question the unhappy lady; but he had not, any more than had I, been permitted. To him, as to me, the same answer had always been given: Mademoiselle Stangerson was too weak to receive us. The questionings of the examining magistrate had over-fatigued her. It was evidently intended not to give us any assistance in our researches. I was not surprised; but Frederic Larsan had always resented this conduct. It is true that he and I had a totally different theory of the crime.
“I still catch myself repeating from the depths of my heart: ‘Save her!—save her without his speaking!’ Who is he—the murderer? Take him and shut his mouth. But Monsieur Darzac made it clear that in order to shut his mouth he must be killed. Have I the right to kill Mademoiselle Stangerson’s murderer? No, I had not. But let him only give me the chance! Let me find out whether he is really a creature of flesh and blood!—Let me see his dead body, since it cannot be taken alive.
“If I could but make this woman, who does not even look at us, understand! She is absorbed by her fears and by her father’s distress of mind. And I can do nothing to save her. Yes, I will go to work once more and accomplish wonders.
“I move towards her. I would speak to her. I would entreat her to have confidence in me. I would, in a word, make her understand—she alone—that I know how the murderer escaped from The Yellow Room—that I have guessed the motives for her secrecy—and that I pity her with all my heart. But by her gestures she begged us to leave her alone, expressing weariness and the need for immediate rest. Monsieur Stangerson asked us to go back to our rooms and thanked us. Frederic Larsan and I bowed to him and, followed by Daddy Jacques, we regained the gallery. I heard Larsan murmur: ‘Strange! strange!’ He made a sign to me to go with him into his room. On the threshold he turned towards Daddy Jacques.
“‘Did you see him distinctly?’ he asked.
“‘Who?’
“‘The man?’
“‘Saw him!—why, he had a big red beard and red hair.’
“‘That’s how he appeared to me,’ I said.
“‘And to me,’ said Larsan.
“The great Fred and I were alone in his chamber, now, to talk over this thing. We talked for an hour, turning the matter over and viewing it from every side. From the questions put by him, from the explanation which he gives me, it is clear to me that—in spite of all our senses—he is persuaded the man disappeared by some secret passage in the chateau known to him alone.
“‘He knows the chateau,’ he said to me; ‘he knows it well.’
“‘He is a rather tall man—well-built,’ I suggested.
“‘He is as tall as he wants to be,’ murmured Fred.
“‘I understand,’ I said; ‘but how do you account for his red hair and beard?’
“‘Too much beard—too much hair—false,’ says Fred.
“‘That’s easily said. You are always thinking of Robert Darzac. You can’t get rid of that idea? I am certain that he is innocent.’
“‘So much the better. I hope so; but everything condemns him. Did you notice the marks on the carpet?—Come and look at them.’
“‘I have seen them; they are the marks of the neat boots, the same as those we saw on the border of the lake.’
“‘Can you deny that they belong to Robert Darzac?’
“‘Of course, one may be mistaken.’
“‘Have you noticed that those footprints only go in one direction?—that there are no return marks? When the man came from the chamber, pursued by all of us, his footsteps left no traces behind them.’
“‘He had, perhaps, been in the chamber for hours. The mud from his boots had dried, and he moved with such rapidity on the points of his toes—We saw him running, but we did not hear his steps.’
“I suddenly put an end to this idle chatter—void of any logic, and made a sign to Larsan to listen.
“‘There—below; some one is shutting a door.’
“I rise; Larsan follows me; we descend to the ground-floor of the chateau. I lead him to the little semi-circular room under the terrace beneath the window of the ‘off-turning’ gallery. I point to the door, now closed, open a short time before, under which a shaft of light is visible.
“‘The forest-keeper!’ says Fred.
“‘Come on!’ I whisper.
“Prepared—I know not why—to believe that the keeper is the guilty man—I go to the door and rap smartly on it. Some might think that we were rather late in thinking of the keeper, since our first business, after having found that the murderer had escaped us in the gallery, ought to have been to search everywhere else,—around the chateau,—in the park—
“Had this criticism been made at the time, we could only have answered that the assassin had disappeared from the gallery in such a way that we thought he was no longer anywhere! He had eluded us when we all had our hands stretched out ready to seize him—when we were almost touching him. We had no longer any ground for hoping that we could clear up the mystery of that night.
“As soon as I rapped at the door it was opened, and the keeper asked us quietly what we wanted. He was undressed and preparing to go to bed. The bed had not yet been disturbed.
“We entered and I affected surprise.
“‘Not gone to bed yet?’
“‘No,’ he replied roughly. ‘I have been making a round of the park and in the woods. I am only just back—and sleepy. Good-night!’
“‘Listen,’ I said. ‘An hour or so ago, there was a ladder close by your window.’
“‘What ladder?—I did not see any ladder. Good-night!’
“And he simply put us out of the room. When we were outside I looked at Larsan. His face was impenetrable.
“‘Well?’ I said.
“‘Well?’ he repeated.
“‘Does that open out any new view to you?’
“There was no mistaking Larsan’s bad temper. On re-entering the chateau, I heard him mutter:
“‘It would be strange—very strange—if I had deceived myself on that point!’
“He seemed to be talking to me rather than to himself. He added: ‘In any case, we shall soon know what to think. The morning will bring light with it.’”
Chapter 18. Rouletabille Has Drawn a Circle Between the Two Bumps on His Forehead
(EXTRACT FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF JOSEPH ROULETABILLE, continued)
“We separated on the thresholds of our rooms, with a melancholy shake of the hands. I was glad to have aroused in him a suspicion of error. His was an original brain, very intelligent but—without method. I did not go to bed. I awaited the coming of daylight and then went down to the front of the chateau, and made a detour, examining every trace of footsteps coming towards it or going from it. These, however, were so mixed and