“This ball was fired straight, not from above, and consequently, not from below.”
Rouletabille went back to the door and carefully examined the lock and the bolt, satisfying himself that the door had certainly been burst open from the outside, and, further, that the key had been found in the lock on the inside of the chamber. He finally satisfied himself that with the key in the lock, the door could not possibly be opened from without with another key. Having made sure of all these details, he let fall these words: “That’s better!”—Then sitting down on the ground, he hastily took off his boots and, in his socks, went into the room.
The first thing he did was to examine minutely the overturned furniture. We watched him in silence.
“Young fellow, you are giving yourself a great deal of trouble,” said Daddy Jacques ironically.
Rouletabille raised his head and said:
“You have spoken the simple truth, Daddy Jacques; your mistress did not have her hair in bands that evening. I was a donkey to have believed she did.”
Then, with the suppleness of a serpent, he slipped under the bed. Presently we heard him ask:
“At what time, Monsieur Jacques, did Monsieur and Mademoiselle Stangerson arrive at the laboratory?”
“At six o’clock.”
The voice of Rouletabille continued:
“Yes,—he’s been under here,—that’s certain; in fact, there was no where else where he could have hidden himself. Here, too, are the marks of his hobnails. When you entered—all four of you—did you look under the bed?”
“At once,—we drew it right out of its place—”
“And between the mattresses?”
“There was only one on the bed, and on that Mademoiselle was placed; and Monsieur Stangerson and the concierge immediately carried it into the laboratory. Under the mattress there was nothing but the metal netting, which could not conceal anything or anybody. Remember, monsieur, that there were four of us and we couldn’t fail to see everything—the chamber is so small and scantily furnished, and all was locked behind in the pavilion.”
I ventured on a hypothesis:
“Perhaps he got away with the mattress—in the mattress!—Anything is possible, in the face of such a mystery! In their distress of mind Monsieur Stangerson and the concierge may not have noticed they were bearing a double weight; especially if the concierge were an accomplice! I throw out this hypothesis for what it is worth, but it explains many things,—and particularly the fact that neither the laboratory nor the vestibule bear any traces of the footmarks found in the room. If, in carrying Mademoiselle on the mattress from the laboratory of the chateau, they rested for a moment, there might have been an opportunity for the man in it to escape.
“And then?” asked Rouletabille, deliberately laughing under the bed.
I felt rather vexed and replied:
“I don’t know,—but anything appears possible”—
“The examining magistrate had the same idea, monsieur,” said Daddy Jacques, “and he carefully examined the mattress. He was obliged to laugh at the idea, monsieur, as your friend is doing now,—for whoever heard of a mattress having a double bottom?”
I was myself obliged to laugh, on seeing that what I had said was absurd; but in an affair like this one hardly knows where an absurdity begins or ends.
My friend alone seemed able to talk intelligently. He called out from under the bed.
“The mat here has been moved out of place,—who did it?”
“We did, monsieur,” explained Daddy Jacques. “When we could not find the assassin, we asked ourselves whether there was not some hole in the floor—”
“There is not,” replied Rouletabille. “Is there a cellar?”
“No, there’s no cellar. But that has not stopped our searching, and has not prevented the examining magistrate and his Registrar from studying the floor plank by plank, as if there had been a cellar under it.”
The reporter then reappeared. His eyes were sparkling and his nostrils quivered. He remained on his hands and knees. He could not be better likened than to an admirable sporting dog on the scent of some unusual game. And, indeed, he was scenting the steps of a man,—the man whom he has sworn to report to his master, the manager of the “Epoque.” It must not be forgotten that Rouletabille was first and last a journalist.
Thus, on his hands and knees, he made his way to the four corners of the room, so to speak, sniffing and going round everything—everything that we could see, which was not much, and everything that we could not see, which must have been infinite.
The toilette table was a simple table standing on four legs; there was nothing about it by which it could possibly be changed into a temporary hiding-place. There was not a closet or cupboard. Mademoiselle Stangerson kept her wardrobe at the chateau.
Rouletabille literally passed his nose and hands along the walls, constructed of solid brickwork. When he had finished with the walls, and passed his agile fingers over every portion of the yellow paper covering them, he reached to the ceiling, which he was able to touch by mounting on a chair placed on the toilette table, and by moving this ingeniously constructed stage from place to place he examined every foot of it. When he had finished his scrutiny of the ceiling, where he carefully examined the hole made by the second bullet, he approached the window, and, once more, examined the iron bars and blinds, all of which were solid and intact. At last, he gave a grunt of satisfaction and declared “Now I am at ease!”
“Well,—do you believe that the poor dear young lady was shut up when she was being murdered—when she cried out for help?” wailed Daddy Jacques.
“Yes,” said the young reporter, drying his forehead, “The Yellow Room was as tightly shut as an iron safe.”
“That,” I said, “is why this mystery is the most surprising I know. Edgar Allan Poe, in ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue,’ invented nothing like it. The place of that crime was sufficiently closed to prevent the escape of a man; but there was that window through which the monkey, the perpetrator of the murder, could slip away! But here, there can be no question of an opening of any sort. The door was fastened, and through the window blinds, secure as they were, not even a fly could enter or get out.”
“True, true,” assented Rouletabille as he kept on drying his forehead, which seemed to be perspiring less from his recent bodily exertion than from his mental agitation. “Indeed, it’s a great, a beautiful, and a very curious mystery.”
“The Bete du bon Dieu,” muttered Daddy Jacques, “the Bete du bon Dieu herself, if she had committed the crime, could not have escaped. Listen! Do you hear it? Hush!”
Daddy Jacques made us a sign to keep quiet and, stretching his arm towards the wall nearest the forest, listened to something which we could not hear.
“It’s answering,” he said at length. “I must kill it. It is too wicked, but it’s the Bete du bon Dieu, and, every night, it goes to pray on the tomb of Sainte-Genevieve and nobody dares to touch her, for fear that Mother Angenoux should cast an evil spell on them.”
“How big is the Bete du bon Dieu?”
“Nearly as big as a small retriever,—a monster, I tell you. Ah!—I have asked myself more than once whether it was not her that took our poor Mademoiselle by the throat with her claws. But the Bete du bon Dieu does not wear hobnailed boots, nor fire revolvers, nor has she a hand like that!” exclaimed Daddy Jacques, again pointing out to us the red mark on the wall. “Besides, we should have seen her as well as we would have seen a man—”
“Evidently,” I said. “Before we had seen this Yellow Room, I had also asked myself whether