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
pavilion.
"That path is as you see, topped with gravel," he said; "the man
must have passed along it going to the pavilion, since no traces of
his steps have been found on the soft ground. The man didn't have
wings; he walked; but he walked on the gravel which left no
impression of his tread. The gravel has, in fact, been trodden by
many other feet, since the path is the most direct way between the
pavilion and the chateau. As to the thicket, made of the sort of
shrubs that don't flourish in the rough season--laurels and
fuchsias--it offered the murderer a sufficient hiding-place until
it was time for him to make his way to the pavilion. It was while
hiding in that clump of trees that he saw Monsieur and Mademoiselle
Stangerson, and then Daddy Jacques, leave the pavilion. Gravel has
been spread nearly, very nearly, up to the windows of the pavilion.
The footprints of a man, parallel with the wall--marks which we
will examine presently, and which I have already seen--prove that
he only needed to make one stride to find himself in front of the
vestibule window, left open by Daddy Jacques. The man drew himself
up by his hands and entered the vestibule."
"After all it is very possible," I said.
"After all what? After all what?" cried Rouletabille.
I begged of him not to be angry; but he was too much irritated to
listen to me and declared, ironically, that he admired the prudent
doubt with which certain people approached the most simple problems,
risking nothing by saying "that is so, or 'that is not so." Their
intelligence would have produced about the same result if nature
had forgotten to furnish their brain-pan with a little grey matter.
As I appeared vexed, my young friend took me by the arm and admitted
that he had not meant that for me; he thought more of me than that.
"If I did not reason as I do in regard to this gravel," he went on,
"I should have to assume a balloon!--My dear fellow, the science
of the aerostation of dirigible balloons is not yet developed enough
for me to consider it and suppose that a murderer would drop from
the clouds! So don't say a thing is possible, when it could not be
otherwise. We know now how the man entered by the window, and we
also know the moment at which he entered,--during the five o'clock
walk of the professor and his daughter. The fact of the presence
of the chambermaid--who had come to clean up The Yellow Room--in
the laboratory, when Monsieur Stangerson and his daughter returned
from their walk, at half-past one, permits us to affirm that at
half-past one the murderer was not in the chamber under the bed,
unless he was in collusion with the chambermaid. What do you say,
Monsieur Darzac?"
Monsieur Darzac shook his head and said he was sure of the
chambermaid's fidelity, and that she was a thoroughly honest and
devoted servant.
"Besides," he added, "at five o'clock Monsieur Stangerson went into
the room to fetch his daughter's hat"
"There is that also," said Rouletabille.
"That the man entered by the window at the time you say, I admit,"
I said; "but why did he shut the window? It was an act which would
necessarily draw the attention of those who had left it open"
"It may be the window was not shut at once," replied the young
reporter. "But if he did shut the window, it was because of the
bend in the gravel path, a dozen yards from the pavilion, and on
account of the three oaks that are growing at that spot."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Monsieur Darzac, who had followed
us and listened with almost breathless attention to all that
Rouletabille had said.
"I'll explain all to you later on, Monsieur, when I think the moment
to be ripe for doing so; but I don't think I have anything of more
importance to say on this affair, if my hypothesis is justified."
"And what is your hypothesis?"
"You will never know if it does not turn out to be the truth. It
is of much too grave a nature to speak of it, so long as it
continues to be only a hypothesis."
"Have you, at least, some idea as to who the murderer is?"
"No, monsieur, I don't know who the murderer is; but don't be afraid,
Monsieur Robert Darzac--I shall know."
I could not but observe that Monsieur Darzac was deeply moved; and
I suspected that Rouletabille's confident assertion was not pleasing
to him. Why, I asked myself, if he was really afraid that the
murderer should be discovered, was he helping the reporter to find
him? My young friend seemed to have received the same impression,
for he said, bluntly:
"Monsieur Darzac, don't you want me to find out who the murderer
was?"
"Oh!--I should like to kill him with my own hand!" cried
Mademoiselle Stangerson's fiance, with a vehemence that amazed me.
"I believe you," said Rouletabille gravely; "but you have not
answered my question."
We were passing by the thicket, of which the young reporter had
spoken to us a minute before. I entered it and pointed out evident
traces of a man who had been hidden there. Rouletabille, once more,
was right.
"Yes, yes!" he said. "We have to do with a thing of flesh and blood,
who uses the same means that we do. It'll all come out on those
lines."
Having said this, he asked me for the paper pattern of the footprint
which he had given me to take care of, and applied it to a very
clear footmark behind the thicket. "Aha!" he said, rising.
I thought he was now going to trace back the track of the murderer's
footmarks to the vestibule window; but he led us instead, far to the
left, saying that it was useless ferreting in the mud, and that he
was sure, now, of the road taken by the murderer.
"He went along the wall to the hedge and dry ditch, over which he
jumped. See, just in front of the little path leading to the lake,
that was his nearest way to get out."
"How do you know he went to the lake?"--
"Because Frederic Larsan has not quitted the borders of it since
this morning. There must be some important marks there."
A few minutes later we reached the lake.
It was a little sheet of marshy water, surrounded by reeds, on which
floated some dead water-lily leaves. The great Fred may have seen
us approaching, but we probably interested him very little, for he
took hardly any notice of us and continued to be stirring with his
cane something which we could not see.
"Look!" said Rouletabille, "here again are the footmarks of the
escaping man; they skirt the lake here and finally disappear just
before this path, which leads to the high road to Epinay. The man
continued his flight to Paris."
"What makes you think that?" I asked, "since these footmarks are
not continued on the path?"
"What makes me think that?--Why these footprints, which I expected
to find!" he cried, pointing to the sharply outlined imprint of a
neat boot. "See!"--and he called to Frederic Larsan.
"Monsieur Fred, these neat footprints seem to have been made since
the discovery of the crime."
"Yes, young man, yes, they have been carefully made," replied Fred
without raising his head. "You see, there are steps that come, and
steps that go back."
"And the man had a bicycle!" cried the reporter.
Here, after looking at the marks of the bicycle, which followed,
going and coming, the neat footprints, I thought I might intervene.
"The bicycle explains the disappearance of the murderer's big
foot-prints," I said. "The murderer, with his rough boots, mounted
a bicycle. His accomplice, the wearer of the neat boots, had come
to wait for him on the edge of the lake with the bicycle. It might
be supposed that the murderer was working for the other."
"No, no!" replied Rouletabille with a strange smile. "I have
expected to find these footmarks from the very beginning. These
are not the footmarks of the murderer!"
"Then there were two?"
"No--there was but one, and he had no accomplice."
"Very good!--Very good!" cried Frederic Larsan.
"Look!" continued the young reporter, showing us the ground where
it had been disturbed by big and heavy heels; "the man seated
himself there, and took off his hobnailed boots, which he had worn
only for the purpose of misleading detection, and then no doubt,
taking them away with him, he stood up in his own boots, and quietly
and slowly regained the high road, holding his bicycle in his hand,
for he could not venture to ride it on this rough path. That
accounts for the lightness of the impression made by the wheels
along it, in spite of the softness of the ground. If there had been
a man on the bicycle, the wheels would have sunk deeply into the
soil. No, no; there was but one man there, the murderer on foot."
"Bravo!--bravo!" cried Fred again, and coming suddenly towards
us and, planting himself in front of Monsieur Robert Darzac, he
said to him:
"If we had a bicycle here, we might demonstrate the correctness of
the young man's reasoning, Monsieur Robert Darzac. Do you know
whether there is one at the chateau?"
"No!" replied Monsieur Darzac. "There is not. I took mine, four
days ago, to Paris, the last time I came to the chateau before the
crime."
"That's a pity!" replied Fred, very coldly. Then, turning to
Rouletabille, he said: "If we go on at this rate, we'll both come
to the same conclusion. Have you any idea, as to how the murderer
got away from The Yellow Room?"
"Yes," said my young friend; "I have an idea."
"So have I," said Fred, "and it must be the same as yours. There
are no two ways of reasoning in this affair. I am waiting for the
arrival of my chief before offering any explanation to the examining
magistrate."
"Ah! Is the Chief of the Surete coming?"
"Yes, this afternoon. He is going to summon, before the magistrate,
in the laboratory, all those who have played any part in this
tragedy. It will be very interesting. It is a pity you won't be
able to be present."
"I shall be present," said Rouletabille confidently.
"Really--you are an extraordinary fellow--for your age!" replied
the detective in a tone not wholly free from irony. "You'd make a
wonderful detective--if you had a little more method--if you
didn't follow your instincts and that bump on your forehead. As I
have already several times observed, Monsieur Rouletabille, you
reason too much; you do not allow yourself to be guided by what you
have seen. What do you say to the handkerchief full of blood, and
the red mark of the hand on the wall? You have seen the stain on
the wall, but I have only seen the handkerchief."
"Bah!" cried Rouletabille, "the murderer was wounded in the hand
by Mademoiselle Stangerson's revolver!"
"Ah!--a simply instinctive observation! Take care!--You are
becoming too strictly logical, Monsieur Rouletabille; logic will
upset you if you use it indiscriminately. You are right, when you
say that Mademoiselle Stangerson fired her revolver, but you are
wrong when you say that she wounded the murderer in the hand."
"I am sure of it," cried Rouletabille.
Fred, imperturbable, interrupted him:
"Defective observation--defective observation!--the examination
of the handkerchief, the numberless little round scarlet stains, the
impression of drops which I found in the tracks of the footprints,
at the moment when they were made on the floor, prove to me that the
murderer was not wounded at all. Monsieur Rouletabille, the murderer
bled at the nose!"
The great Fred spoke quite seriously. However, I could not refrain
from uttering an exclamation.
The reporter looked gravely at Fred, who looked gravely at him.
And Fred immediately concluded:
"The man allowed the blood to flow into his hand and handkerchief,
and dried his hand on the wall. The fact is highly important," he
added, "because there is no need of his being wounded in the hand
for him to be the murderer."
Rouletabille seemed to be thinking deeply. After a moment he
said:
"There is something--a something, Monsieur Frederic Larsan, much
graver than the misuse of logic the disposition of mind in some
detectives which makes them, in perfect good faith, twist logic to
the necessities of their preconceived ideas. You, already, have
your idea about the murderer, Monsieur Fred. Don't deny it; and
your theory demands that the murderer should not have been wounded
in the hand, otherwise it comes to nothing. And you have searched,
and have found something else. It's dangerous, very dangerous,
Monsieur Fred, to go from a preconceived idea to find the proofs to
fit it. That method may lead you far astray Beware of judicial
error, Monsieur Fred, it will trip you up!"
And laughing a little, in a slightly bantering tone, his hands in
his pockets, Rouletabille fixed his cunning eyes on the great Fred.
Frederic Larsan silently contemplated the young reporter who
pretended to be as wise as himself. Shrugging his shoulders, he
bowed to us and moved quickly away, hitting the stones on his path
with his stout cane.
Rouletabille watched his retreat, and then turned toward us, his
face joyous and triumphant.
"I shall beat him!" he cried. "I shall beat the great Fred, clever
as he is; I shall beat them all!"
And he danced a double shuffle. Suddenly he stopped. My eyes
followed his gaze; they were fixed on Monsieur Robert Darzac, who
was looking anxiously at the impression left by his feet side by
side with the elegant footmarks. There was not a particle of
difference between them!
We thought he was about to faint. His eyes, bulging with terror,
avoided us, while his right hand, with a spasmodic movement,
twitched at the beard that covered his honest, gentle, and now
despairing face. At length regaining his self-possession, he bowed
to us, and remarking, in a changed voice, that he was obliged to
return to the chateau, left us.
"The deuce!" exclaimed Rouletabille.
He, also, appeared to be deeply concerned. From his pocket-book he
took a piece of white paper as I had seen him do before, and with
his scissors, cut out the shape of the neat bootmarks that were on
the ground. Then he fitted the new paper pattern with the one he
had previously made--the two were exactly alike. Rising,
Rouletabille exclaimed again: "The deuce!" Presently he added:
"Yet I believe Monsieur Robert Darzac to be an honest man." He
then led me on the road to the Donjon Inn, which we could see on
the highway, by the side of a small clump of trees.
