“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 the cat of Mother Angenoux—”
“You also!” cried Rouletabille.
“Didn’t you?” I asked.
“Not for a moment. After reading the article in the ‘Matin,’ I knew that a cat had nothing to do with the matter. But I swear now that a frightful tragedy has been enacted here. You say nothing about the Basque cap, or the handkerchief, found here, Daddy Jacques?”
“Of course, the magistrate has taken them,” the old man answered, hesitatingly.
“I haven’t seen either the handkerchief or the cap, yet I can tell you how they are made,” the reporter said to him gravely.
“Oh, you are very clever,” said Daddy Jacques, coughing and embarrassed.
“The handkerchief is a large one, blue with red stripes and the cap is an old Basque cap, like the one you are wearing now.”
“You are a wizard!” said Daddy Jacques, trying to laugh and not quite succeeding. “How do you know that the handkerchief is blue with red stripes?”
“Because, if it had not been blue with red stripes, it would not have been found at all.”
Without giving any further attention to Daddy Jacques, my friend took a piece of paper from his pocket, and taking out a pair of scissors, bent over the footprints. Placing the paper over one of them he began to cut. In a short time he had made a perfect pattern which he handed to me, begging me not to lose it.
He then returned to the window and, pointing to the figure of Frederic Larsan, who had not quitted the side of the lake, asked Daddy Jacques whether the detective had, like himself, been working in The Yellow Room?
“No,” replied Robert Darzac, who, since Rouletabille had handed him the piece of scorched paper, had not uttered a word, “He pretends that he does not need to examine The Yellow Room. He says that the murderer made his escape from it in quite a natural way, and that he will, this evening, explain how he did it.”
As he listened to what Monsieur Darzac had to say, Rouletabille turned pale.
“Has Frederic Larsan found out the truth, which I can only guess at?” he murmured. “He is very clever—very clever—and I admire him. But what we have to do to-day is something more than the work of a policeman, something quite different from the teachings of experience. We have to take hold of our reason by the right end.”
The reporter rushed into the open air, agitated by the thought that the great and famous Fred might anticipate him in the solution of the problem of The Yellow Room.
I managed to reach him on the threshold of the pavilion. “Calm yourself, my dear fellow,” I said. “Aren’t you satisfied?”
“Yes,” he confessed to me, with a deep sigh. “I am quite satisfied. I have discovered many things.”
“Moral or material?”
“Several moral,—one material. This, for example.”
And rapidly he drew from his waistcoat pocket a piece of paper in which he had placed a light-coloured hair from a woman’s head.
Chapter 8. The Examining Magistrate Questions Mademoiselle Stangerson
Two minutes later, as Rouletabille was bending over the footprints discovered in the park, under the window of the vestibule, a man, evidently a servant at the chateau, came towards us rapidly and called out to Monsieur Darzac then coming out of the pavilion:
“Monsieur Robert, the magistrate, you know, is questioning Mademoiselle.”
Monsieur Darzac uttered a muttered excuse to us and set off running towards the chateau, the man running after him.
“If the corpse can speak,” I said, “it would be interesting to be there.”
“We must know,” said my friend. “Let’s go to the chateau.” And he drew me with him. But, at the chateau, a gendarme placed in the vestibule denied us admission up the staircase of the first floor. We were obliged to wait down stairs.
This is what passed in the chamber of the victim while we were waiting below.
The family doctor, finding that Mademoiselle Stangerson was much better, but fearing a relapse which would no longer permit of her being questioned, had thought it his duty to inform the examining magistrate of this, who decided to proceed immediately with a brief examination. At this examination, the Registrar, Monsieur Stangerson, and the doctor were present. Later, I obtained the text of the report of the examination, and I give it here, in all its legal dryness:
“Question. Are you able, mademoiselle, without too much fatiguing yourself, to give some necessary details of the frightful attack of which you have been the victim?
“Answer. I feel much better, monsieur, and I will tell you all I know. When I entered my chamber I did not notice anything unusual there.
“Q. Excuse me, mademoiselle,—if you will allow me, I will ask you some questions and you will answer them. That will fatigue you less than making a long recital.
“A. Do so, monsieur.
“Q. What did you do on that day?—I want you to be as minute and precise as possible. I wish to know all you did that day, if it is not asking too much of you.
“A. I rose late, at ten o’clock, for my father and I had returned home late on the night previously, having been to dinner at the reception given by the President of the Republic, in honour of the Academy of Science of Philadelphia. When I left my chamber, at half-past ten, my father was already at work in the laboratory. We worked together till midday. We then took half-an-hour’s walk in the park, as we were accustomed to do, before breakfasting at the chateau. After breakfast, we took another walk for half an hour, and then returned to the laboratory. There we found my chambermaid, who had come to set my room in order. I went into The Yellow Room to give her some slight orders and she directly afterwards left the pavilion, and I resumed my work with my father. At five o’clock, we again went for a walk in the park and afterward had tea.
“Q. Before leaving the pavilion at five o’clock, did you go into your chamber?
“A. No, monsieur, my father went into it, at my request to bring me my hat.
“Q. And he found nothing suspicious there?
“A. Evidently no, monsieur.
“Q. It is, then, almost certain that the murderer was not yet concealed under the bed. When you went out, was the door of the room locked?
“A. No, there was no reason for locking it.
“Q. You were absent from the pavilion some length of time, Monsieur Stangerson and you?
“A. About an hour.
“Q. It was during that hour, no doubt, that the murderer