The Mystery Of The Yellow Room - free ebook by Gaston Leroux

The Mystery of the Yellow Room Extraordinary Adventures of Joseph Rouletabille Reporter

by Gaston Leroux...

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Chapter I. In Which We Begin not to Understand

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 f

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Chapter II. In Which Joseph Rouletabille Appears for the First Time

I remember as well as if it had occurred yesterday, the entry of young Rouletabille into my bedroom that morning. It was about eight o’clock and I was still in bed reading the article in the “Matin” relative to the Glandier crime. But, before going further, it is time that I present my friend to the reader. I first knew Joseph Rouletabille when he was a young reporter. At that time I was a beginner at the Bar and often met him in the corridors of examining magistrates, when I had gone to get a “

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Chapter III. “A Man Has Passed like a Shadow through the Blinds”

Half an hour later Rouletabille and I were on the platform of the Orleans station, awaiting the departure of the train which was to take us to Epinay-sur-Orge. On the platform we found Monsieur de Marquet and his Registrar, who represented the Judicial Court of Corbeil. Monsieur de Marquet had spent the night in Paris, assisting in the final rehearsal, at the Scala, of a little play of which he was the unknown author, signing himself simply “Castigat Ridendo.” Monsieur Marquet was beginning to b

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Chapter IV. “In the Bosom of Wild Nature”

The Château du Glandier is one of the oldest châteaux in the Ile de France, where so many building remains of the feudal period are still standing. Built originally in the heart of the forest, in the reign of Philip le Bel, it now could be seen a few hundred yards from the road leading from the village of Sainte-Geneviève to Monthery. A mass of inharmonious structures, it is dominated by a donjon. When the visitor has mounted the crumbling steps of this ancient donjon, he reaches a little platea

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Chapter V. In Which Joseph Rouletabille Makes a Remark to Monsieur Robert Darzac Which Produces its Little Effect

Rouletabille and I had been walking for several minutes, by the side of a long wall bounding the vast property of Monsieur Stangerson and had already come within sight of the entrance gate, when our attention was drawn to an individual who, half bent to the ground, seemed to be so completely absorbed in what he was doing as not to have seen us coming towards him. At one time he stooped so low as almost to touch the ground; at another he drew himself up and attentively examined the wall; then he

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Chapter VI. In the Heart of the Oak Grove

We reached the château, and, as we approached it, saw four gendarmes pacing in front of a little door in the ground floor of the donjon. We soon learned that in this ground floor, which had formerly served as a prison, Monsieur and Madame Bernier, the concierges, were confined. Monsieur Robert Darzac led us into the modern part of the château by a large door, protected by a projecting awning—a “marquise” as it is called. Rouletabille who had resigned the horse and the cab to the care of a servan

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Chapter VII. In Which Rouletabille Sets out on an Expedition under the Bed

Rouletabille having pushed open the door of The Yellow Room paused on the threshold saying, with an emotion which I only later understood, “Ah, the perfume of the lady in black!” The chamber was dark. Daddy Jacques was about to open the blinds when Rouletabille stopped him. “Did not the tragedy take place in complete darkness?” he asked. “No, young man, I don’t think so. Mademoiselle always had a night-light on her table, and I lit it every evening before she went to bed. I was a sort of chamber

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Chapter VIII. 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 château, 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 château, the man running after him. “If the corpse can speak,” I said, “it would be i

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Chapter IX. Reporter and Detective

The three of us went back towards the pavilion. At some distance from the building the reporter made us stop and, pointing to a small clump of trees to the right of us, said:— “That ’s where the murderer came from to get into the pavilion.” As there were other patches of trees of the same sort between the great oaks, I asked why the murderer had chosen that one, rather than any of the others. Rouletabille answered me by pointing to the path which ran quite close to the thicket to the door of the

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Chapter X. “We Shall Have to Eat Red Meat—Now”

The Donjon Inn was of no imposing appearance; but I like these buildings with their rafters blackened with age and the smoke of their hearths—these inns of the coaching-days, crumbling erections that will soon exist in the memory only. They belong to the bygone days, they are linked with history. They make us think of the Road , of those days when highwaymen rode. I saw at once that the Donjon Inn was at least two centuries old—perhaps older. Under its sign-board, over the threshold, a man with

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Chapter XI. In Which Frédéric Larsan Explains How the Murderer Was Able to Get out of The Yellow Room

Among the mass of papers, legal documents, memoirs, and extracts from newspapers, which I have collected, relating to the mystery of “The Yellow Room,” there is one very interesting piece; it is a detail of the famous examination which took place that afternoon, in the laboratory of Professor Stangerson, before the Chief of the Sûreté. This narrative is from the pen of Monsieur Maleine, the Registrar, who, like the examining magistrate, had spent some of his leisure time in the pursuit of litera

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Chapter XII. Frédéric Larsan’s Cane

It was not till six o’clock that I left the château, taking with me the article hastily written by my friend in the little sitting-room which Monsieur Robert Darzac had placed at our disposal. The reporter was to sleep at the château, taking advantage of the to me inexplicable hospitality offered him by Monsieur Robert Darzac, to whom Monsieur Stangerson, in that sad time, left the care of all his domestic affairs. Nevertheless he insisted on accompanying me to the station at Epinay. In crossing

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Chapter XIII. “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 wid

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Chapter XIV. “I Expect the Assassin this Evening”

“I must take you,” said Rouletabille, “so as to enable you to understand, to the various scenes. I myself believe that I have discovered what everybody else is searching for, namely, how the murderer escaped from The Yellow Room, without any accomplice, and without Mademoiselle Stangerson having had anything to do with it. But so long as I am not sure of the real murderer, I cannot state the theory on which I am working. I can only say that I believe it to be correct and, in any case, a quite na

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Chapter XV. The Trap

(Extract from the Note-Book of Joseph Rouletabille) “Last night—the night between the 29th and 30th of October—” wrote Joseph Rouletabille, “I woke up towards one o’clock in the morning. Was it sleeplessness, or noise without?—The cry of the Bête du Bon Dieu rang out with sinister loudness from the end of the park. I rose and opened the window. Cold wind and rain; opaque darkness; silence. I reclosed my window. Again the sound of the cat’s weird cry in the distance. I partly dressed in haste. Th

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Chapter XVI. Strange Phenomenon of the Dissociation of Matter

(Extract from the Note-Book of Joseph Rouletabille, continued ) “I am again at the window-sill,” continues Rouletabille, “and once more I raise my head above it. Through an opening in the curtains, the arrangement of which has not been changed, I am ready to look, anxious to note the position in which I am going to find the murderer,—whether his back will still be turned towards me!—whether he is still seated at the desk writing! But perhaps—perhaps—he is no longer there!—Yet how could he have f

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Chapter XVII. The Inexplicable Gallery

(Extract from the Note-Book of Joseph Rouletabille, continued ) “Mademoiselle Stangerson appeared at the door of her ante-room,” continues Rouletabille’s note-book. “We were near her door in the gallery where this incredible phenomenon had taken place. There are moments when one feels as if one’s brain were about to burst. A bullet in the head, a fracture of the skull, the seat of reason shattered—with only these can I compare the sensation which exhausted and left me void of sense. “Happily, Ma

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Chapter XVIII. Rouletabille Has Drawn a Circle between the Two Bumps on His Forehead

(Extract from the Note-Book of Joseph Rouletabille, continued ) “We separated on the thresholds of our rooms, with a melancholy shake of the hands. I was glad to have aroused in him a suspicion of error. His was an original brain, very intelligent but—without method. I did not go to bed. I awaited the coming of daylight and then went down to the front of the château, and made a detour, examining every trace of footsteps coming towards it or going from it. These, however, were so mixed and confus

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Chapter XIX. Rouletabille Invites Me to Breakfast at the Donjon Inn

It was not until later that Rouletabille sent me the Note-Book in which he had written at length the story of the phenomenon of the inexplicable gallery. On the day I arrived at the Glandier and joined him in his room, he recounted to me, with the greatest detail, all that I have now related, telling me also how he had spent several hours in Paris where he had learned nothing that could be of any help to him. The event of the inexplicable gallery had occurred on the night between the 29th and 30

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Chapter XX. An Act of Mademoiselle Stangerson

“You remember me, Monsieur?” asked Rouletabille. “Perfectly!” replied Arthur Rance. “I recognise you as the lad at the bar. [The face of Rouletabille crimsoned at being called a “lad.”] I want to shake hands with you. You are a bright little fellow.” The American extended his hand and Rouletabille, relaxing his frown, shook it and introduced Mr. Arthur Rance to me. He invited him to share our meal. “No thanks. I breakfasted with Monsieur Stangerson.” Arthur Rance spoke French perfectly,—almost w

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Chapter XXI. On the Watch

The act, which staggered me, did not appear to affect Rouletabille much. We returned to his room and, without even referring to what we had seen, he gave me his final instructions for the night. First we were to go to dinner; after dinner, I was to take my stand in the dark closet and wait there as long as it was necessary—to look out for what might happen. “If you see anything before I do,” he explained, “you must let me know. If the man gets into the ‘right’ gallery by any other way than the ‘

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Chapter XXII. The Incredible Body

I bent in great anxiety over the body of the reporter and had the joy to find that he was deeply sleeping, the same unhealthy sleep that I had seen fall upon Frédéric Larsan. He had succumbed to the influence of the same drug that had been mixed with our food. How was it then, that I, also, had not been overcome by it? I reflected that the drug must have been put into our wine; because that would explain my condition. I never drink when eating. Naturally inclined to obesity, I am restricted to a

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Chapter XXIII. The Double Scent

I had hardly recovered from the surprise into which this new discovery had plunged me, when Rouletabille touched me on the shoulder and asked me to follow him into his room. “What are we going to do there?” “To think the matter over.” I confess I was in no condition for doing much thinking, nor could I understand how Rouletabille could so control himself as to be able calmly to sit down for reflection when he must have known that Mademoiselle Stangerson was at that moment almost on the point of

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Chapter XXIV. Rouletabille Knows the Two Halves of the Murderer

Mademoiselle Stangerson had been for the second time almost murdered. Unfortunately, she was in too weak a state to bear the severer injuries of this second attack as well as she had those of the first. She had received three wounds in the breast from the murderer’s knife, and she lay long between life and death. Her strong physique, however, saved her; but though she recovered physically it was found that her mind had been affected. The slightest allusion to the terrible incident sent her into

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Chapter XXV. Rouletabille Goes on a Journey

That same evening Rouletabille and I left the Glandier. We were very glad to get away and there was nothing more to keep us there. I declared my intention to give up the whole matter. It had been too much for me. Rouletabille, with a friendly tap on my shoulder, confessed that he had nothing more to learn at the Glandier; he had learned there all it had to tell him. We reached Paris about eight o’clock, dined, and then, tired out, we separated, agreeing to meet the next morning at my rooms. Roul

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Chapter XXVI. In Which Joseph Rouletabille is Awaited with Impatience

On the 15th of January, that is to say, two months and a half after the tragic events I have narrated, the “Epoque” printed, as the first column of the front page, the following sensational article:— “The Seine-et-Oise jury is summoned to-day to give its verdict on one of the most mysterious affairs in the annals of crime. There never has been a case with so many obscure, incomprehensible, and inexplicable points. And yet the prosecution has not hesitated to put into the prisoner’s dock a man wh

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Chapter XXVII. In Which Joseph Rouletabille Appears in All His Glory

The excitement was extreme. Cries from fainting women were to be heard amid the extraordinary bustle and stir. The “majesty of the law” was utterly forgotten. The President tried in vain to make himself heard. Rouletabille made his way forward with difficulty, but by dint of much elbowing reached his manager and greeted him cordially. The letter was passed to him and pocketing it he turned to the witness-box. He was dressed exactly as on the day he left me even to the ulster over his arm. Turnin

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Chapter XXVIII. In Which it is Proved That One Does not Always Think of Everything

Great excitement prevailed when Rouletabille had finished. The court-room became agitated with the murmurings of suppressed applause. Maître Henri Robert called for an adjournment of the trial and was supported in his motion by the public prosecutor himself. The case was adjourned. The next day Monsieur Robert Darzac was released on bail, while Daddy Jacques received the immediate benefit of a “no cause for action.” Search was everywhere made for Frédéric Larsan, but in vain. Monsieur Darzac fin

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Chapter XXIX. The Mystery of Mademoiselle Stangerson

During the days that followed I had several opportunities to question him as to his reason for his voyage to America, but I obtained no more precise answers than he had given me on the evening of the adjournment of the trial, when we were on the train for Paris. One day, however, on my still pressing him, he said: “Can’t you understand that I had to know Larsan’s true personality?” “No doubt,” I said, “but why did you go to America to find that out?” He sat smoking his pipe, and made no further

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