The Mystery of the Yellow Room

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, apropos of a recent nomination of the illustrious Stangerson to the grade of grand-cross 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 forever forgotten.

“ ‘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.

Robert Darzac, with knit brow, was beginning to show impatience. I presented Rouletabille as a good friend of mine, but, as soon as he learnt that the young man was a journalist, he looked at me very reproachfully, excused himself, under the necessity of having to reach Epinay in twenty minutes, bowed, and whipped up his horse. But Rouletabille had seized the bridle and, to my utter astonishment, stopped the carriage with a vigorous hand. Then he gave utterance to a sentence which was utterly meaningless to me.

“The presbytery has lost nothing of its charm, nor the garden its brightness.”

The words had hardly left the lips of Rouletabille than I saw Robert Darzac quail. Pale as he was, he became paler. His eyes were fixed on the young man in terror, and he immediately descended from the vehicle in an inexpressible state of agitation.

“Come!⁠—come in!” he stammered.

Then, suddenly, and with a sort of fury, he repeated:⁠—

“Let us go, monsieur.”

He turned up by the road he had come from the château, Rouletabille still retaining his hold on the horse’s bridle. I addressed a few words to Monsieur Darzac, but he made no answer. My looks questioned Rouletabille, but his gaze was elsewhere.

“If the thing is mathematically possible, why should it not be humanly!⁠—And if it is humanly possible, the matter is simply awful.”

I interrupted him in his soliloquy:⁠—

“Have they set the concierges at liberty, then?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, “I had them liberated. I needed people I could trust. The woman is thoroughly devoted to me, and her husband would lay down his life for me.”

“Oho!” I said, “when will he have occasion to do it?”

“This evening⁠—for this evening I expect the murderer.”

“You expect the murderer this evening? Then you know him?”

“I shall know him; but I should be mad to affirm, categorically, at this moment that I do know him. The mathematical idea I have of the murderer gives results so frightful, so monstrous, that I hope it is still possible that I am mistaken. I hope so, with all my heart!”

“Five minutes ago, you did not know the murderer; how can you say that you expect him this evening?”

“Because I know that he must come.”

Rouletabille very slowly filled his pipe and lit it. That meant an interesting story. At that moment we heard someone walking in the gallery and passing before our door. Rouletabille listened. The sound of the footstep died away in the distance.

“Like an arrow I crossed the room, but noticed a letter on the table as I rushed. I almost came up with the man in the anteroom, for he had lost time in opening the door to the gallery. I flew on wings, and in the gallery was but a few feet behind him. He had taken, as I supposed he would, the gallery on his right⁠—that is to say, the road he had prepared for his flight. ‘Help, Jacques!⁠—help, Larsan!’ I cried. He could not escape us! I raised a shout of joy, of savage victory. The man reached the intersection of the two galleries hardly two seconds before me for the meeting which I had prepared⁠—the fatal shock which must inevitably take place at that spot! We all rushed to the crossing-place⁠—Monsieur Stangerson and I coming from one end of the right gallery, Daddy Jacques coming from the other end of the same gallery, and Frédéric Larsan coming from the ‘off-turning’ gallery.

“The man was not there!

“We looked at each other stupidly and with eyes terrified. The man had vanished like a ghost. ‘Where is he⁠—where is he?’ we all asked.

“ ‘It is impossible he can have escaped!’ I cried, my terror mastered by my anger.

“ ‘I touched him!’ exclaimed Frédéric Larsan.

“ ‘I felt his breath on my face!’ cried Daddy Jacques.

“ ‘Where is he?’⁠—where is he?’ we all cried.

“We raced like madmen along the two galleries; we visited doors and windows⁠—they were closed, hermetically closed. They had not been opened.