CHAPTER XVII. The Inexplicable Gallery
"Mademoiselle Stangerson appeared at the door of her ante-room,"continues Rouletabille's note-book. "We were near her door in thegallery where this incredible phenomenon had taken place. There aremoments when one feels as if one's brain were about to burst. A bulletin the head, a fracture of the skull, the seat of reason shattered--withonly these can I compare the sensation which exhausted and left me voidof sense.
"Happily, Mademoiselle Stangerson appeared on the threshold of herante-room. I saw her, and that helped to relieve my chaotic state ofmind. I breathed her--I inhaled the perfume of the lady in black, whom Ishould never see again. I would have given ten years of my life--half mylife--to see once more the lady in black! Alas! I no more meet herbut from time to time,--and yet!--and yet! how the memory of thatperfume--felt by me alone--carries me back to the days of my childhood.*It was this sharp reminder from my beloved perfume, of the lady inblack, which made me go to her--dressed wholly in white and so pale--sopale and so beautiful!--on the threshold of the inexplicable gallery.Her beautiful golden hair, gathered into a knot on the back of her neck,left visible the red star on her temple which had so nearly been thecause of her death. When I first got on the right track of the mysteryof this case I had imagined that, on the night of the tragedy in TheYellow Room, Mademoiselle Stangerson had worn her hair in bands. Butthen, how could I have imagined otherwise when I had not been inThe Yellow Room!
* When I wrote these lines, Joseph Rouletabille was eighteen years of age,--and he spoke of his "youth." I have kept the text of my friend, but I inform the reader here that the episode of the mystery of The Yellow Room has no connection with that of the perfume of the lady in black. It is not my fault if, in the document which I have cited, Rouletabille thought fit to refer to his childhood.
"But now, since the occurrence of the inexplicable gallery, I did notreason at all. I stood there, stupid, before the apparition--so paleand so beautiful--of Mademoiselle Stangerson. She was clad in adressing-gown of dreamy white. One might have taken her to be aghost--a lovely phantom. Her father took her in his arms and kissed herpassionately, as if he had recovered her after being long lost to him.I dared not question her. He drew her into the room and we followedthem,--for we had to know!--The door of the boudoir was open. Theterrified faces of the two nurses craned towards us. MademoiselleStangerson inquired the meaning of all the disturbance. That she wasnot in her own room was quite easily explained--quite easily. She hada fancy not to sleep that night in her chamber, but in the boudoir withher nurses, locking the door on them. Since the night of the crime shehad experienced feelings of terror, and fears came over her that areeasily to be comprehended.
"But who could imagine that on that particular night when he was tocome, she would, by a mere chance, determine to shut herself in with herwomen? Who would think that she would act contrary to her father's wishto sleep in the drawing-room? Who could believe that the letter whichhad so recently been on the table in her room would no longer be there?He who could understand all this, would have to assume that MademoiselleStangerson knew that the murderer was coming--she could not preventhis coming again--unknown to her father, unknown to all but to MonsieurRobert Darzac. For he must know it now--perhaps he had known it before!Did he remember that phrase in the Elysee garden: 'Must I commit acrime, then, to win you?' Against whom the crime, if not against theobstacle, against the murderer? 'Ah, I would kill him with my own hand!'And I replied, 'You have not answered my question.' That was the verytruth. In truth, in truth, Monsieur Darzac knew the murderer so wellthat--while wishing to kill him himself--he was afraid I should findhim. There could be but two reasons why he had assisted me in myinvestigation. First, because I forced him to do it; and, second,because she would be the better protected.
"I am in the chamber--her room. I look at her, also at the place wherethe letter had just now been. She has possessed herself of it; it wasevidently intended for her--evidently. How she trembles!--Trembles atthe strange story her father is telling her, of the presence of themurderer in her chamber, and of the pursuit. But it is plainly to beseen that she is not wholly satisfied by the assurance given her untilshe had been told that the murderer, by some incomprehensible means, hadbeen able to elude us.
"Then follows a silence. What a silence! We are all there--looking ather--her father, Larsan, Daddy Jacques and I. What were we all thinkingof in the silence? After the events of that night, of the mystery ofthe inexplicable gallery, of the prodigious fact of the presence of themurderer in her room, it seemed to me that all our thoughts might havebeen translated into the words which were addressed to her. 'You whoknow of this mystery, explain it to us, and we shall perhaps be ableto save you. How I longed to save her--for herself, and, from theother!--It brought the tears to my eyes.
"She is there, shedding about her the perfume of the lady in black. Atlast, I see her, in the silence of her chamber. Since the fatal hour ofthe mystery of The Yellow Room, we have hung about this invisible andsilent woman to learn what she knows. Our desires, our wish to know mustbe a torment to her. Who can tell that, should we learn the secret ofher mystery, it would not precipitate a tragedy more terrible than thatwhich had already been enacted here? Who can tell if it might not meanher death? Yet it had brought her close to death,--and we still knewnothing. Or, rather, there are some of us who know nothing. But I--if Iknew who, I should know all. Who?--Who?--Not knowing who, I must remainsilent, out of pity for her. For there is no doubt that she knows how heescaped from The Yellow Room, and yet she keeps the secret. When I knowwho, I will speak to him--to him!"
"She looked at us now--with a far-away look in her eyes--as if we werenot in the chamber. Monsieur Stangerson broke the silence. He declaredthat, henceforth, he would no more absent himself from his daughter'sapartments. She tried to oppose him in vain. He adhered firmly to hispurpose. He would install himself there this very night, he said. Solelyconcerned for the health of his daughter, he reproached her for havingleft her bed. Then he suddenly began talking to her as if she were alittle child. He smiled at her and seemed not to know either whathe said or what he did. The illustrious professor had lost hishead. Mademoiselle Stangerson in a tone of tender distress said:'Father!--father!' Daddy Jacques blows his nose, and Frederic Larsanhimself is obliged to turn away to hide his emotion. For myself, I amable neither to think or feel. I felt an infinite contempt for myself.
"It was the first time that Frederic Larsan, like myself, found himselfface to face with Mademoiselle Stangerson since the attack in The YellowRoom. Like me, he had insisted on being allowed to question the unhappylady; but he had not, any more than had I, been permitted. To him, as tome, the same answer had always been given: Mademoiselle Stangerson wastoo weak to receive us. The questionings of the examining magistratehad over-fatigued her. It was evidently intended not to give us anyassistance in our researches. I was not surprised; but Frederic Larsanhad always resented this conduct. It is true that he and I had a totallydifferent theory of the crime.
"I still catch myself repeating from the depths of my heart: 'Saveher!--save her without his speaking!' Who is he--the murderer? Take himand shut his mouth. But Monsieur Darzac made it clear that in order toshut his mouth he must be killed. Have I the right to kill MademoiselleStangerson's murderer? No, I had not. But let him only give me thechance! Let me find out whether he is really a creature of flesh andblood!--Let me see his dead body, since it cannot be taken alive.
"If I could but make this woman, who does not even look at us,understand! She is absorbed by her fears and by her father's distress ofmind. And I can do nothing to save her. Yes, I will go to work once moreand accomplish wonders.
"I move towards her. I would speak to her. I would entreat her tohave confidence in me. I would, in a word, make her understand--shealone--that I know how the murderer escaped from The Yellow Room--thatI have guessed the motives for her secrecy--and that I pity her withall my heart. But by her gestures she be
gged us to leave her alone,expressing weariness and the need for immediate rest. MonsieurStangerson asked us to go back to our rooms and thanked us. FredericLarsan and I bowed to him and, followed by Daddy Jacques, we regainedthe gallery. I heard Larsan murmur: 'Strange! strange!' He made a signto me to go with him into his room. On the threshold he turned towardsDaddy Jacques.
"'Did you see him distinctly?' he asked.
"'Who?'
"'The man?'
"'Saw him!--why, he had a big red beard and red hair.'
"'That's how he appeared to me,' I said.
"'And to me,' said Larsan.
"The great Fred and I were alone in his chamber, now, to talk over thisthing. We talked for an hour, turning the matter over and viewing itfrom every side. From the questions put by him, from the explanationwhich he gives me, it is clear to me that--in spite of all oursenses--he is persuaded the man disappeared by some secret passage inthe chateau known to him alone.
"'He knows the chateau,' he said to me; 'he knows it well.'
"'He is a rather tall man--well-built,' I suggested.
"'He is as tall as he wants to be,' murmured Fred.
"'I understand,' I said; 'but how do you account for his red hair andbeard?'
"'Too much beard--too much hair--false,' says Fred.
"'That's easily said. You are always thinking of Robert Darzac. Youcan't get rid of that idea? I am certain that he is innocent.'
"'So much the better. I hope so; but everything condemns him. Did younotice the marks on the carpet?--Come and look at them.'
"'I have seen them; they are the marks of the neat boots, the same asthose we saw on the border of the lake.'
"'Can you deny that they belong to Robert Darzac?'
"'Of course, one may be mistaken.'
"'Have you noticed that those footprints only go in one direction?--thatthere are no return marks? When the man came from the chamber, pursuedby all of us, his footsteps left no traces behind them.'
"'He had, perhaps, been in the chamber for hours. The mud from his bootshad dried, and he moved with such rapidity on the points of his toes--Wesaw him running, but we did not hear his steps.'
"I suddenly put an end to this idle chatter--void of any logic, and madea sign to Larsan to listen.
"'There--below; some one is shutting a door.'
"I rise; Larsan follows me; we descend to the ground-floor of thechateau. I lead him to the little semi-circular room under the terracebeneath the window of the 'off-turning' gallery. I point to the door,now closed, open a short time before, under which a shaft of light isvisible.
"'The forest-keeper!' says Fred.
"'Come on!' I whisper.
"Prepared--I know not why--to believe that the keeper is the guiltyman--I go to the door and rap smartly on it. Some might think that wewere rather late in thinking of the keeper, since our first business,after having found that the murderer had escaped us in the gallery,ought to have been to search everywhere else,--around the chateau,--inthe park--
"Had this criticism been made at the time, we could only have answeredthat the assassin had disappeared from the gallery in such a way that wethought he was no longer anywhere! He had eluded us when we all had ourhands stretched out ready to seize him--when we were almost touchinghim. We had no longer any ground for hoping that we could clear up themystery of that night.
"As soon as I rapped at the door it was opened, and the keeper asked usquietly what we wanted. He was undressed and preparing to go to bed. Thebed had not yet been disturbed.
"We entered and I affected surprise.
"'Not gone to bed yet?'
"'No,' he replied roughly. 'I have been making a round of the park andin the woods. I am only just back--and sleepy. Good-night!'
"'Listen,' I said. 'An hour or so ago, there was a ladder close by yourwindow.'
"'What ladder?--I did not see any ladder. Good-night!'
"And he simply put us out of the room. When we were outside I looked atLarsan. His face was impenetrable.
"'Well?' I said.
"'Well?' he repeated.
"'Does that open out any new view to you?'
"There was no mistaking Larsan's bad temper. On re-entering the chateau,I heard him mutter:
"'It would be strange--very strange--if I had deceived myself on thatpoint!'
"He seemed to be talking to me rather than to himself. He added: 'Inany case, we shall soon know what to think. The morning will bring lightwith it.'"