Chapter IX

Reporter and Detective

The three of us went back towards the pavilion. At some distance from

the building the reporter made us stop and, pointing to a small clump

of trees 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 great

oaks, I asked why the murderer had chosen that one, rather than any of

the others. Rouletabille answered me by pointing to the path which ran

quite close to the thicket to the door of the pavilion.

“That path is, as you see, topped with gravel,” he said; “the man

_must_ have passed along it going to the pavilion, since no traces

of his steps 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 his tread. The gravel has, in fact, been trodden by many other

feet, since the path is the most direct way between the pavilion

and the château. As to the thicket, made of the sort of shrubs that

don’t flourish in the rough season—laurels and fuchsias—it offered

the murderer a sufficient hiding-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 and Mademoiselle Stangerson, and then

Daddy Jacques, leave the pavilion. Gravel has been spread nearly,

very nearly, up to the windows of the pavilion. The footprints of a

man, parallel with the wall—marks which we will examine presently,

and which I have already seen—prove that he only needed to make one

stride to find himself in front of the vestibule window, left open by

Daddy Jacques. The man drew himself up by his hands and 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

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 fiancé, 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 Frédéric 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 Frédéric 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

footprints,” 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 Frédéric 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 château?”

“No!” replied Monsieur Darzac. “There is not. I took mine, four days

ago, to Paris, the last time I came to the château before the crime.”

“That’s a pity!” replied Fred, very coldly. Then, turning to

Rouletabille, 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 Sûreté 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 indiscriminatively. 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 Frédéric 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.

Frédéric 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 château, 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.