I turned my eyes again on Rouletabille.
“Ah,—Monsieur Fred!” he said, “when did you begin to use a walking-stick? I have always seen you walking with your hands in your pockets!”
“It is a present,” replied the detective.
“Recent?” insisted Rouletabille.
“No, it was given to me in London.”
“Ah, yes, I remember—you have just come from London. May I look at it?”
“Oh!—certainly!”
Fred passed the cane to Rouletabille. It was a large yellow bamboo with a crutch handle and ornamented with a gold ring. Rouletabille, after examining it minutely, returned it to Larsan, with a bantering expression on his face, saying:
“You were given a French cane in London!”
“Possibly,” said Fred, imperturbably.
“Read the mark there, in tiny letters: Cassette, 6a, Opera.”
“Cannot English people buy canes in Paris?”
When Rouletabille had seen me into the train, he said:
“You’ll remember the address?”
“Yes,—Cassette, 6a, Opera. Rely on me; you shall have word tomorrow morning.”
That evening, on reaching Paris, I saw Monsieur Cassette, dealer in walking-sticks and umbrellas, and wrote to my friend:
“A man unmistakably answering to the description of Monsieur Robert Darzac—same height, slightly stooping, putty-coloured overcoat, bowler hat—purchased a cane similar to the one in which we are interested, on the evening of the crime, about eight o’clock. Monsieur Cassette had not sold another such cane during the last two years. Fred’s cane is new. It is quite clear that it’s the same cane. Fred did not buy it, since he was in London. Like you, I think that he found it somewhere near Monsieur Robert Darzac. But if, as you suppose, the murderer was in The Yellow Room for five, or even six hours, and the crime was not committed until towards midnight, the purchase of this cane proves an incontestable alibi for Darzac.”
Chapter 13. “The Presbytery Has Lost Nothing of Its Charm, Nor the Garden Its Brightness”
A week after the occurrence of the events I have just recounted—on the 2nd of November, to be exact—I received at my home in Paris the following telegraphic message: “Come to the Glandier by the earliest train. Bring revolvers. Friendly greetings. Rouletabille.”
I have already said, I think, that at that period, being a young barrister with but few briefs, I frequented the Palais de Justice rather for the purpose of familiarising myself with my professional duties than for the defence of the widow and orphan. I could, therefore, feel no surprise at Rouletabille disposing of my time. Moreover, he knew how keenly interested I was in his journalistic adventures in general and, above all, in the murder at the Glandier. I had not heard from him for a week, nor of the progress made with that mysterious case, except by the innumerable paragraphs in the newspapers and by the very brief notes of Rouletabille in the “Epoque.” Those notes had divulged the fact that traces of human blood had been found on the mutton-bone, as well as fresh traces of the blood of Mademoiselle Stangerson—the old stains belonged to other crimes, probably dating years back.
It may be easily imagined that the crime engaged the attention of the press throughout the world. No crime known had more absorbed the minds of people. It appeared to me, however, that the judicial inquiry was making but very little progress; and I should have been very glad, if, on the receipt of my friend’s invitation to rejoin him at the Glandier, the despatch had not contained the words, “Bring revolvers.”
That puzzled me greatly. Rouletabille telegraphing for revolvers meant that there might be occasion to use them. Now, I confess it without shame, I am not a hero. But here was a friend, evidently in danger, calling on me to go to his aid. I did not hesitate long; and after assuring myself that the only revolver I possessed was properly loaded, I hurried towards the Orleans station. On the way I remembered that Rouletabille had asked for two revolvers; I therefore entered a gunsmith’s shop and bought an excellent weapon for my friend.
I had hoped to find him at the station at Epinay; but he was not there. However, a cab was waiting for me and I was soon at the Glandier. Nobody was at the gate, and it was only on the threshold of the chateau that I met the young man. He saluted me with a friendly gesture and threw his arms about me, inquiring warmly as to the state of my health.
When we were in the little sitting-room of which I have spoken, Rouletabille made me sit down.
“It’s going badly,” he said.
“What’s going badly?” I asked.
“Everything.”
He came nearer to me and whispered:
“Frederic Larsan is working with might and main against Darzac.”
This did not astonish me. I had seen the poor show Mademoiselle Stangerson’s fiance had made at the time of the examination of the footprints. However, I immediately asked:
“What about that cane?”
“It is still in the hands of Frederic Larsan. He never lets go of it.”
“But doesn’t it prove the alibi for Monsieur Darzac?”
“Not at all. Gently questioned by me, Darzac denied having, on that evening, or on any other, purchased a cane at Cassette’s. However,” said Rouletabille, “I’ll not swear to anything; Monsieur Darzac has such strange fits of silence that one does not know exactly what to think of what he says.”
“To Frederic Larsan this cane must mean a piece of very damaging evidence. But in what way? The time when it was bought shows it could not have been in the murderer’s possession.”
“The time doesn’t worry Larsan. He is not obliged to adopt my theory which assumes that the murderer got into The Yellow Room between five and six o’clock. But there’s nothing to prevent him assuming that the murderer got in between ten and eleven o’clock at night. At that hour Monsieur and Mademoiselle Stangerson, assisted by Daddy Jacques, were engaged in making an interesting chemical experiment in the part of the laboratory taken up by the furnaces. Larsan says, unlikely as that may seem, that the murderer may have slipped behind them. He has already got the examining magistrate to listen to him. When one looks closely into it, the reasoning is absurd, seeing that the ‘intimate’—if there is one—must have known that the professor would shortly leave the pavilion, and that the ‘friend’ had only to put off operating till after the professor’s departure. Why should he have risked crossing the laboratory while the professor was in it? And then, when he had got into The Yellow Room?
“There are many points to be cleared up before Larsan’s theory can be admitted. I sha’n’t waste my time over it, for my theory won’t allow me to occupy myself with mere imagination. Only, as I am obliged for the moment to keep silent, and Larsan sometimes talks, he may finish by coming out openly against Monsieur Darzac,—if I’m not there,” added the young reporter proudly. “For there are surface evidences against Darzac, much more convincing than that cane, which remains incomprehensible to me, all the more so as Larsan does not in the least hesitate to let Darzac see him with it!—I understand many things in Larsan’s theory, but I can’t make anything of that cane.
“Is he still at the chateau?”
“Yes;