The Mystery of the Yellow Room

" paused on the threshold saying, with an emotion which I on

ques was about to open the blin

take place in complet

ening before she went to bed. I was a sort of chambermaid, you must understand, when the evening came. The

ith the night-light st

y from t

ight the b

he table was upset. All the rest of the things in the room remain

ai

atory, closed the shutters of the two

sked Daddy Jacques to move to the middle of the chamber with

oom" with his bit of a vesta. We vaguely distinguished objects overthrown on the floor, a bed in one cor

y now open the blinds

marks with your boots, and nothing must be deranged; it's an i

dressing-table-the only piece of furniture that remained upright. The centre round table, the night-table and two chairs had been overturned. These did not prevent a large stain of blood being visible on the mat, made, as Daddy Jacques informed us, by the blood which had flowed from the wound on Mademoiselle Stangerson's forehead. Besides these stains, d

so hard, leaving on the yellow paper the terrible evidence. I don't think there are many hands in the world of that sort. It is big and strong and the fingers are nearly all one as long as the other! The thumb is wan

, chuckling,-"only there is no blood

was proud; "he might have opened the lock with his left hand, wh

ain exclaimed. "We are not fools; and there

-Look what a queer

as been deformed by its having slipped on the wall. The man dried his

you come

t of the mark

with the mark of the bullet in

ht, not from above, and con

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

mine minutely the overturned furn

ourself a great deal of trouble

raised his

your mistress did not have her hair in bands that

serpent, he slipped under the b

did Monsieur and Mademoiselle Sta

ix o'

Rouletabill

else where he could have hidden himself. Here, too, are the marks of his

ew it right out

een the m

boratory. Under the mattress there was nothing but the metal netting, which could not conceal anything or anybody. Remember, monsieur, that there

d on a hy

ble 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 a

etabille, deliberately

her vexed

but anything ap

carefully examined the mattress. He was obliged to laugh at the idea, monsieur, as

I had said was absurd; but in an affair like this

to talk intelligently. He ca

been moved out of

n we could not find the assassin, we asked oursel

lied Rouletabille.

as not prevented the examining magistrate and his Registrar from stud

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 h

to speak, sniffing and going round everything-everything that we could see, which

t it by which it could possibly be changed into a temporary hiding-place. There was

ng, 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

lady was shut up when she was being murdered-wh

ng his forehead, ""The Yellow Room"

ime 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 her

eemed to be perspiring less from his recent bodily exertion than from his ment

te du bon Dieu herself, if she had committed the crime,

retching his arm towards the wall nearest the fore

e du bon Dieu, and, every night, it goes to pray on the tomb of Sainte-Genevieve and nob

the Bete d

oiselle 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!" e

n this Yellow Room, I had also asked my

" cried Ro

you?"

ng to do with the matter. But I swear now that a frightful tragedy has been enacted here

has taken them," the old

r the cap, yet I can tell you how they ar

," said Daddy Jacques, c

th red stripes and the cap is an old Basq

laugh and not quite succeeding. "How do you know

blue with red stripes, it wou

and taking out a pair of scissors, bent over the footprints. Placing the paper over one of them he began

arsan, who had not quitted the side of the lake, asked Daddy Jacques whe

uttered a word, "He pretends that he does not need to examine "The Yellow Room". He says that the murdere

nsieur Darzac had to say,

clever-and I admire him. But what we have to do to-day is something more than the work of a policeman, some

thought that the great and famous Fred might anticipate

of the pavilion. "Calm yourself, my dear

deep sigh. "I am quite satisfied

or ma

one material. Th

ket a piece of paper in which he had place