Chapter VI

In the Heart of the Oak Grove

We reached the château, and, as we approached it, saw four gendarmes

pacing in front of a little door in the ground floor of the donjon. We

soon learned that in this ground floor, which had formerly served as a

prison, Monsieur and Madame Bernier, the concierges, were confined.

Monsieur Robert Darzac led us into the modern part of the château by

a large door, protected by a projecting awning—a “marquise” as it is

called. Rouletabille who had resigned the horse and the cab to the care

of a servant, never took his eyes off Monsieur Darzac. I followed his

look and perceived that it was directed solely towards the gloved hands

of the Sorbonne professor. When we were in a tiny sitting-room fitted

with old furniture, Monsieur Darzac turned to Rouletabille and said

sharply:—

“What do you want?”

The reporter answered in an equally sharp tone:—

“To shake you by the hand.”

Darzac shrank back.

“What does that mean?”

Evidently he understood, what I also understood, that my friend

suspected him of the abominable attempt on the life of Mademoiselle

Stangerson. The impression of the blood-stained hand on the walls of

“The Yellow Room” was in his mind. I looked at the man closely. His

haughty face with its expression ordinarily so straightforward was

at this moment strangely troubled. He held out his right hand and,

referring to me, said:—

“As you are a friend of Monsieur Sainclair who has rendered me

invaluable services in a just cause, monsieur, I see no reason for

refusing you my hand—”

Rouletabille did not take the extended hand. Lying with the utmost

audacity, he said:—

“Monsieur, I have lived several years in Russia, where I have acquired

the habit of never taking any but an ungloved hand.”

I thought that the Sorbonne professor would express his anger openly,

but, on the contrary, by a visibly violent effort, he calmed himself,

took off his gloves, and showed his hands; they were unmarked by any

cicatrice.

“Are you satisfied?”

“No!” replied Rouletabille. “My dear friend,” he said, turning to me,

“I am obliged to ask you to leave us alone for a moment.”

I bowed and retired, stupefied by what I had seen and heard. I could

not understand why Monsieur Robert Darzac had not already shown the

door to my impertinent, insulting, and stupid friend. I was angry

myself with Rouletabille at that moment, for his suspicions, which had

led to this scene of the gloves.

For some twenty minutes I walked about in front of the château, trying

vainly to link together the different events of the day. What was in

Rouletabille’s mind? Was it possible that he thought Monsieur Robert

Darzac to be the murderer? How could it be thought that this man, who

was to have married Mademoiselle Stangerson in the course of a few

days, had introduced himself into “The Yellow Room” to assassinate his

fiancée? I could find no explanation as to how the murderer had been

able to leave “The Yellow Room”; and so long as that mystery, which

appeared to me so inexplicable, remained unexplained, I thought it was

the duty of all of us to refrain from suspecting anybody. But, then,

that seemingly senseless phrase—“The presbytery has lost nothing of its

charm, nor the garden its brightness”—still rung in my ears. What did

it mean? I was eager to rejoin Rouletabille and question him.

At that moment the young man came out of the château in the company

of Monsieur Robert Darzac, and, extraordinary to relate, I saw, at a

glance, that they were the best of friends.

“We are going to ‘The Yellow Room.’ Come with us,” Rouletabille said

to me. “You know, my dear boy, I am going to keep you with me all day.

We’ll breakfast together somewhere about here—”

“You’ll breakfast with me, here, gentlemen—”

“No, thanks,” replied the young man. “We shall breakfast at the Donjon

Inn.”

“You’ll fare very badly there; you’ll not find anything—”

“Do you think so? Well, I hope to find something there,” replied

Rouletabille. “After breakfast, we’ll set to work again. I’ll write my

article and if you’ll be so good as to take it to the office for me—”

“Won’t you come back with me to Paris?”

“No; I shall remain here.”

I turned towards Rouletabille. He spoke quite seriously, and Monsieur

Robert Darzac did not appear to be in the least degree surprised.

We were passing by the donjon and heard wailing voices. Rouletabille

asked:

“Why have these people been arrested?”

“It is a little my fault,” said Monsieur Darzac. “I happened to remark

to the examining magistrate yesterday that it was inexplicable that

the concierges had had time to hear the revolver shots, to dress

themselves, and to cover so great a distance as that which lies between

their lodge and the pavilion, in the space of two minutes; for not more

than that interval of time had elapsed after the firing of the shots

when they were met by Daddy Jacques.”

“That was suspicious evidently,” acquiesced Rouletabille. “And were

they dressed?”

“That is what is so incredible—they were dressed—completely—not one

part of their costume wanting. The woman wore sabots, but the man had

on laced boots. Now they assert that they went to bed at half-past

nine. On arriving this morning, the examining magistrate brought with

him from Paris a revolver of the same calibre as that found in the room

(for he couldn’t use the one held for evidence), and made his Registrar

fire two shots in ‘The Yellow Room’ while the doors and windows were

closed. We were with him in the lodge of the concierges, and yet we

heard nothing, not a sound. The concierges have lied, of that there

can be no doubt. They must have been already waiting, not far from

the pavilion, waiting for something! Certainly they are not to be

accused of being the authors of the crime, but their complicity is not

improbable. That was why Monsieur de Marquet had them arrested at once.”

“If they had been accomplices,” said Rouletabille, “they would not

have been there at all. When people throw themselves into the arms of

justice with the proofs of complicity on them, you can be sure they are

_not_ accomplices. I don’t believe there are any accomplices in this

affair.”

“Then, why were they abroad at midnight? Why don’t they say?”

“They have certainly some reason for their silence. What that reason

is, has to be found out; for, even if they are not accomplices, it

may be of importance. Everything that took place on such a night is

important.”

We had crossed an old bridge thrown over the Douve and were entering

the part of the park called the Oak Grove. The oaks here were centuries

old. Autumn had already shrivelled their tawny leaves, and their high

branches, black and contorted, looked like horrid heads of hair,

mingled with quaint reptiles such as the ancient sculptors have made

on the head of Medusa. This place, which Mademoiselle found cheerful

and in which she lived in the summer season, appeared to us as sad and

funereal now. The soil was black and muddy from the recent rains and

the rotting of the fallen leaves; the trunks of the trees were black

and the sky above us was now, as if in mourning, charged with great,

heavy clouds.

And it was in this sombre and desolate retreat that we saw the white

walls of the pavilion as we approached. A queer-looking building

without a window visible on the side by which we neared it. A little

door alone marked the entrance to it. It might have passed for a tomb,

a vast mausoleum in the midst of a thick forest. As we came nearer,

we were able to make out its disposition. The building obtained all

the light it needed from the south, that is to say, from the open

country. The little door closed on the park. Monsieur and Mademoiselle

Stangerson must have found it an ideal seclusion for their work and

their dreams.

[Illustration: A ground plan of the pavilion, a square building,

situated such that its north and east sides connect with a wall that

encloses the surrounding park. The building contains four rooms,

labeled “1” through “4”. The front door is in the southwest corner and

leads into room 3. A door in the north side of room 3 leads into room

4, a narrow room by a staircase labeled “5”. Room 1 is in the northwest

corner and contains a bed in one corner. Room 2 fully occupies the

right half of the building. It has doors connecting to rooms 1 and 3,

and windows on the north and east walls. Against its south wall is a

rectangle labeled “6”. There is a trail of footsteps marked on the

plan, starting just outside a window in room 3 and leading off into the

park.]

Here is the ground plan of the pavilion. It had a ground-floor which

was reached by a few steps, and above it was an attic, with which we

need not concern ourselves. The plan of the ground-floor only, sketched

roughly, is what I here submit to the reader.

1. The Yellow Room, with its one window and its one door opening into

the laboratory.

2. Laboratory, with its two large, barred windows and its doors, one

serving for the vestibule, the other for The Yellow Room.

3. Vestibule, with its unbarred window and door opening into the park.

4. Lavatory.

5. Stairs leading to the attic.

6. Large and the only chimney in the pavilion, serving for the

experiments of the laboratory.

The plan was drawn by Rouletabille, and I assured myself that there

was not a line in it that was wanting to help to the solution of the

problem then set before the police. With the lines of this plan and the

description of its parts before them, my readers will know as much as

Rouletabille knew when he entered the pavilion for the first time. With

him they may now ask: How did the murderer escape from The Yellow Room?

Before mounting the three steps leading up to the door of the pavilion,

Rouletabille stopped and asked Monsieur Darzac point blank:—

“What was the motive for the crime?”

“Speaking for myself, Monsieur, there can be no doubt on the matter,”

said Mademoiselle Stangerson’s fiancé, greatly distressed. “The

marks of the fingers, the deep scratches on the chest and throat of

Mademoiselle Stangerson show that the wretch who attacked her attempted

to commit a frightful crime. The medical experts who examined these

traces yesterday affirm that they were made by the same hand as that

which left its red imprint on the wall; an enormous hand, Monsieur,

much too large to go into my gloves,” he added with an indefinable

smile.

“Could not that blood-stained hand,” I interrupted, “have been the hand

of Mademoiselle Stangerson who, in the moment of falling, had pressed

it against the wall, and, in slipping, enlarged the impression?”

“There was not a drop of blood on either of her hands when she was

lifted up,” replied Monsieur Darzac.

“We are now sure,” said I, “that it was Mademoiselle Stangerson who was

armed with Daddy Jacques’s revolver, since she wounded the hand of the

murderer. She was in fear, then, of somebody or something.”

“Probably.”

“Do you suspect anybody?”

“No,” replied Monsieur Darzac, looking at Rouletabille.

Rouletabille then said to me:—

“You must know, my friend, that the inquiry is a little more advanced

than Monsieur de Marquet has chosen to tell us. He not only knows that

Mademoiselle Stangerson defended herself with the revolver, but he

knows what the weapon was that was used to attack her. Monsieur Darzac

tells me it was a mutton-bone. Why is Monsieur de Marquet surrounding

this mutton-bone with so much mystery? No doubt for the purpose of

facilitating the inquiries of the agents of the Sûreté? He imagines,

perhaps, that the owner of this instrument of crime, the most terrible

invented, is going to be found amongst those who are well-known in the

slums of Paris who use it. But who can ever say what passes through the

brain of an examining magistrate?” Rouletabille added with contemptuous

irony.

“Has a mutton-bone been found in The Yellow Room?” I asked him.

“Yes, Monsieur,” said Robert Darzac, “at the foot of the bed; but I beg

of you not to say anything about it.” (I made a gesture of assent.) “It

was an enormous mutton-bone, the top of which, or rather the joint,

was still red with the blood of the frightful wound. It was an old

bone, which may, according to appearances, have served in other crimes.

That’s what Monsieur de Marquet thinks who has had it sent to the

municipal laboratory at Paris to be analysed. In fact, he thinks he has

detected on it, not only the blood of the last victim, but other stains

of dried blood, evidences of previous crimes.”

“A mutton-bone in the hand of a _skilled_ assassin is a frightful

weapon,” said Rouletabille, “a more certain weapon than a heavy hammer.”

“The scoundrel has proved it to be so,” said Monsieur Robert Darzac,

sadly. “The joint of the bone found exactly fits the wound inflicted.

My belief is that the wound would have been mortal, if the murderer’s

blow had not been arrested in the act by Mademoiselle Stangerson’s

revolver. Wounded in the hand, he dropped the mutton-bone and fled.

Unfortunately, the blow had been already given, and Mademoiselle was

stunned after having been nearly strangled. If she had succeeded in

wounding the man with the first shot of the revolver, she would,

doubtless, have escaped the blow with the bone. But she had certainly

employed her revolver too late; the first shot deviated and lodged in

the ceiling; it was the second only that took effect.”

Having said this, Monsieur Darzac knocked at the door of the pavilion.

I must confess to feeling a strong impatience to reach the spot where

the crime had been committed. It was some time before the door was

opened by a man whom I at once recognised as Daddy Jacques.

He appeared to be well over sixty years of age. He had a long white

beard and white hair, on which he wore a flat Basque cap. He was

dressed in a complete suit of chestnut-coloured velveteen, worn at the

sides; sabots were on his feet. He had rather a waspish-looking face,

the expression of which lightened, however, as soon as he saw Monsieur

Darzac.

“Friends,” said our guide. “Nobody in the pavilion, Daddy Jacques?”

“I ought not to allow anybody to enter, Monsieur Robert, but of course

the order does not apply to you. These gentlemen of justice have seen

everything there is to be seen, and made enough drawings, and drawn up

enough reports—”

“Excuse me, Monsieur Jacques, one question before anything else,” said

Rouletabille.

“What is it, young man? If I can answer it—”

“Did your mistress wear her hair in bands, that evening? You know what

I mean—over her forehead?”

“No, young man. My mistress never wore her hair in the way you suggest,

neither on that day nor on any other. She had her hair drawn up, as

usual, so that her beautiful forehead could be seen, pure as that of an

unborn child!”

Rouletabille grunted and set to work examining the door, finding that

it fastened itself automatically. He satisfied himself that it could

never remain open and needed a key to open it. Then we entered the

vestibule, a small, well-lit room paved with square red tiles.

“Ah! This is the window by which the murderer escaped!” said

Rouletabille.

“So they keep on saying, monsieur, so they keep on saying! But if he

had gone off that way, we should have been sure to have seen him. We

are not blind, neither Monsieur Stangerson nor me, nor the concierges

who are in prison. Why have they not put me in prison, too, on account

of my revolver?”

Rouletabille had already opened the window and was examining the

shutters.

“Were these closed at the time of the crime?”

“And fastened with the iron catch inside,” said Daddy Jacques, “and I

am quite sure that the murderer did not get out that way.”

“Are there any blood stains?”

“Yes, on the stones outside; but blood of what?”

“Ah!” said Rouletabille, “there are footmarks visible on the path—the

ground was very moist. I will look into that presently.”

“Nonsense!” interrupted Daddy Jacques; “the murderer did not go that

way.”

“Which way did he go, then?”

“How do I know?”

Rouletabille looked at everything, smelled everything. He went down on

his knees and rapidly examined every one of the paving tiles. Daddy

Jacques went on:—

“Ah!—you can’t find anything, monsieur. Nothing has been found. And now

it is all dirty; too many persons have tramped over it. They wouldn’t

let me wash it, but on the day of the crime I had washed the floor

thoroughly, and if the murderer had crossed it with his hobnailed

boots, I should not have failed to see where he had been; he has left

marks enough in Mademoiselle’s chamber.”

Rouletabille rose.

“When was the last time you washed these tiles?” he asked, and he fixed

on Daddy Jacques a most searching look.

“Why—as I told you—on the day of the crime, towards half-past

five—while Mademoiselle and her father were taking a little walk before

dinner, here in this room; they had dined in the laboratory. The next

day, the examining magistrate came and saw all the marks there were on

the floor as plainly as if they had been made with ink on white paper.

Well, neither in the laboratory nor in the vestibule, which were both

as clean as a new pin, were there any traces of a man’s footmarks.

Since they have been found near this window outside, he must have made

his way through the ceiling of The Yellow Room into the attic, then

cut his way through the roof and dropped to the ground outside the

vestibule window. But—there’s no hole, neither in the ceiling of The

Yellow Room nor in the roof of my attic—that’s absolutely certain! So

you see we know nothing—nothing! And nothing will ever be known! It’s a

mystery of the devil’s own making.”

Rouletabille went down upon his knees again almost in front of a small

lavatory at the back of the vestibule. In that position he remained for

about a minute.

“Well?” I asked him when he got up.

“Oh! nothing very important,—a drop of blood,” he replied, turning

towards Daddy Jacques as he spoke. “While you were washing the

laboratory and this vestibule, was the vestibule window open?” he asked.

“No, Monsieur, it was closed; but after I had done washing the floor,

I lit some charcoal for Monsieur in the laboratory furnace, and, as I

lit it with old newspapers, it smoked, so I opened both the windows

in the laboratory and this one, to make a current of air; then I shut

those in the laboratory and left this one open when I went out. When I

returned to the pavilion, this window had been closed and Monsieur and

Mademoiselle were already at work in the laboratory.”

“Monsieur or Mademoiselle Stangerson had, no doubt, shut it?”

“No doubt.”

“You did not ask them?”

“No.”

After a close scrutiny of the little lavatory and of the staircase

leading up to the attic, Rouletabille—to whom we seemed no longer to

exist—entered the laboratory. I followed him. It was, I confess, in

a state of great excitement. Robert Darzac lost none of my friend’s

movements. As for me, my eyes were drawn at once to the door of The

Yellow Room. It was closed and, as I immediately saw, partially

shattered and out of commission.

My friend, who went about his work methodically, silently studied

the room in which we were. It was large and well-lighted. Two big

windows—almost bays—were protected by strong iron bars and looked

out upon a wide extent of country. Through an opening in the forest,

they commanded a wonderful view through the length of the valley and

across the plain to the large town which could be clearly seen in fair

weather. To-day, however, a mist hung over the ground—and blood in that

room!

The whole of one side of the laboratory was taken up with a large

chimney, crucibles, ovens, and such implements as are needed for

chemical experiments; tables, loaded with phials, papers, reports,

an electrical machine,—an apparatus, as Monsieur Darzac informed me,

employed by Professor Stangerson to demonstrate the Dissociation of

Matter under the action of solar light—and other scientific implements.

Along the walls were cabinets, plain or glass-fronted, through which

were visible microscopes, special photographic apparatus, and a large

quantity of crystals.

Rouletabille, who was ferreting in the chimney, put his fingers into

one of the crucibles. Suddenly he drew himself up, and held up a piece

of half-consumed paper in his hand. He stepped up to where we were

talking by one of the windows.

“Keep that for us, Monsieur Darzac,” he said.

I bent over the piece of scorched paper which Monsieur Darzac took

from the hand of Rouletabille, and read distinctly the only words that

remained legible:—

“Presbytery—lost nothing—charm, nor the gar—its brightness.”

Twice since the morning these same meaningless words had struck me,

and, for the second time, I saw that they produced on the Sorbonne

professor the same paralysing effect. Monsieur Darzac’s first anxiety

showed itself when he turned his eyes in the direction of Daddy

Jacques. But, occupied as he was at another window, he had seen

nothing. Then tremblingly opening his pocket-book he put the piece of

paper into it, sighing: “My God!”

During this time, Rouletabille had mounted into the opening of the

fire-grate—that is to say, he had got upon the bricks of a furnace—and

was attentively examining the chimney, which grew narrower towards the

top, the outlet from it being closed with sheets of iron, fastened into

the brickwork, through which passed three small chimneys.

“Impossible to get out that way,” he said, jumping back into the

laboratory. “Besides, even if he _had_ tried to do it, he would have

brought all that ironwork down to the ground. No, no; it is not on that

side we have to search.”

Rouletabille next examined the furniture and opened the doors of the

cabinet. Then he came to the windows, through which he declared no one

could possibly have passed. At the second window he found Daddy Jacques

in contemplation.

“Well, Daddy Jacques,” he said, “what are you looking at?”

“That policeman who is always going round and round the lake. Another

of those fellows who think they can see better than anybody else!”

“You don’t know Frédéric Larsan, Daddy Jacques, or you wouldn’t speak

of him in that way,” said Rouletabille in a melancholy tone. “If there

is anyone who will find the murderer, it will be he.” And Rouletabille

heaved a deep sigh.

“Before they find him, they will have to learn how they lost him,” said

Daddy Jacques, stolidly.

At length we reached the door of The Yellow Room itself.

“There is the door behind which some terrible scene took place,” said

Rouletabille, with a solemnity which, under any other circumstances,

would have been comical.