"Mademoiselle Stangerson is much better and is rapidly recovering from her wounds. The marriage is simply delayed, is it not, Monsieur?" insisted the Chief of the Surete.
"I hope so.
"What! Is there any doubt about that?"
Monsieur Stangerson did not answer. Monsieur Robert Darzac seemed agitated. I saw that his hand trembled as it fingered his watchchain. Monsieur Dax coughed, as did Monsieur de Marquet. Both were evidently embarra.s.sed.
"You understand, Monsieur Stangerson," he said, "that in an affair so perplexing as this, we cannot neglect anything; we must know all, even the smallest and seemingly most futile thing concerning the victim-information apparently the most insignificant. Why do you doubt that this marriage will take place? You expressed a hope; but the hope implies a doubt. Why do you doubt?"
Monsieur Stangerson made a visible effort to recover himself.
"Yes, Monsieur," he said at length, "you are right. It will be best that you should know something which, if I concealed it, might appear to be of importance; Monsieur Darzac agrees with me in this."
Monsieur Darzac, whose pallor at that moment seemed to me to be altogether abnormal, made a sign of a.s.sent. I gathered he was unable to speak.
"I want you to know then," continued Monsieur Stangerson, "that my daughter has sworn never to leave me, and adheres firmly to her oath, in spite of all my prayers and all that I have argued to induce her to marry. We have known Monsieur Robert Darzac many years. He loves my child; and I believed that she loved him; because she only recently consented to this marriage which I desire with all my heart. I am an old man, Monsieur, and it was a happy hour to me when I knew that, after I had gone, she would have at her side, one who loved her and who would help her in continuing our common labours. I love and esteem Monsieur Darzac both for his greatness of heart and for his devotion to science. But, two days before the tragedy, for I know not what reason, my daughter declared to me that she would never marry Monsieur Darzac."
A dead silence followed Monsieur Stangerson"s words. It was a moment fraught with suspense.
"Did Mademoiselle give you any explanation,-did she tell you what her motive was?" asked Monsieur Dax.
"She told me she was too old to marry-that she had waited too long. She said she had given much thought to the matter and while she had a great esteem, even affection, for Monsieur Darzac, she felt it would be better if things remained as they were. She would be happy, she said, to see the relations between ourselves and Monsieur Darzac become closer, but only on the understanding that there would be no more talk of marriage."
"That is very strange!" muttered Monsieur Dax.
"Strange!" repeated Monsieur de Marquet.
"You"ll certainly not find the motive there, Monsieur Dax," Monsieur Stangerson said with a cold smile.
"In any case, the motive was not theft!" said the Chief impatiently.
"Oh! we are quite convinced of that!" cried the examining magistrate.
At that moment the door of the laboratory opened and the officer in charge of the gendarmes entered and handed a card to the examining magistrate. Monsieur de Marquet read it and uttered a half angry exclamation:
"This is really too much!" he cried.
"What is it?" asked the Chief.
"It"s the card of a young reporter engaged on the "Epoque," a Monsieur Joseph Rouletabille. It has these words written on it: "One of the motives of the crime was robbery.""
The Chief smiled.
"Ah,-young Rouletabille-I"ve heard of him he is considered rather clever. Let him come in."
Monsieur Joseph Rouletabille was allowed to enter. I had made his acquaintance in the train that morning on the way to Epinay-sur-Orge. He had introduced himself almost against my wish into our compartment. I had better say at once that his manners, and the arrogance with which he a.s.sumed to know what was incomprehensible even to us, impressed him unfavourably on my mind. I do not like journalists. They are a cla.s.s of writers to be avoided as the pest. They think that everything is permissible and they respect nothing. Grant them the least favour, allow them even to approach you, and you never can tell what annoyance they may give you. This one appears to be scarcely twenty years old, and the effrontery with which he dared to question us and discuss the matter with us made him particularly obnoxious to me. Besides, he had a way of expressing himself that left us guessing as to whether he was mocking us or not. I know quite well that the "Epoque" is an influential paper with which it is well to be on good terms, but the paper ought not to allow itself to be represented by sneaking reporters.
Monsieur Joseph Rouletabille entered the laboratory, bowed to us, and waited for Monsieur de Marquet to ask him to explain his presence.
"You pretend, Monsieur, that you know the motive for the crime, and that that motive-in the face of all the evidence that has been forthcoming-was robbery?"
"No, Monsieur, I do not pretend that. I do not say that robbery was the motive for the crime, and I don"t believe it was."
"Then, what is the meaning of this card?"
"It means that robbery was one of the motives for the crime."
"What leads you to think that?"
"If you will be good enough to accompany me, I will show you."
The young man asked us to follow him into the vestibule, and we did. He led us towards the lavatory and begged Monsieur de Marquet to kneel beside him. This lavatory is lit by the gla.s.s door, and, when the door was open, the light which penetrated was sufficient to light it perfectly. Monsieur de Marquet and Monsieur Joseph Rouletabille knelt down on the threshold, and the young man pointed to a spot on the pavement.
"The stones of the lavatory have not been washed by Daddy Jacques for some time," he said; "that can be seen by the layer of dust that covers them. Now, notice here, the marks of two large footprints and the black ash they left where they have been. That ash is nothing else than the charcoal dust that covers the path along which you must pa.s.s through the forest, in order to get directly from Epinay to the Glandier. You know there is a little village of charcoal-burners at that place, who make large quant.i.ties of charcoal. What the murderer did was to come here at midday, when there was n.o.body at the pavilion, and attempt his robbery."
"But what robbery?-Where do you see any signs of robbery? What proves to you that a robbery has been committed?" we all cried at once. "What put me on the trace of it," continued the journalist...
"Was this?" interrupted Monsieur de Marquet, still on his knees.
"Evidently," said Rouletabille.
And Monsieur de Marquet explained that there were on the dust of the pavement marks of two footsteps, as well as the impression, freshly-made, of a heavy rectangular parcel, the marks of the cord with which it had been fastened being easily distinguished.
"You have been here, then, Monsieur Rouletabille? I thought I had given orders to Daddy Jacques, who Was left in charge of the pavilion, not to allow anybody to enter."
"Don"t scold Daddy Jacques, I came here with Monsieur Robert Darzac."
"Ah,-Indeed!" exclaimed Monsieur de Marquet, disagreeably, casting a side-glance at Monsieur Darzac, who remained perfectly silent.
"When I saw the mark of the parcel by the side of the footprints, I had no doubt as to the robbery," replied Monsieur Rouletabille. "The thief had not brought a parcel with him; he had made one here-a parcel with the stolen objects, no doubt; and he put it in this corner intending to take it away when the moment came for him to make his escape. He had also placed his heavy boots beside the parcel,-for, see-there are no marks of steps leading to the marks left by the boots, which were placed side by side. That accounts for the fact that the murderer left no trace of his steps when he fled from The Yellow Room, nor any in the laboratory, nor in the vestibule. After entering The Yellow Room in his boots, he took them off, finding them troublesome, or because he wished to make as little noise as possible. The marks made by him in going through the vestibule and the laboratory were subsequently washed out by Daddy Jacques. Having, for some reason or other, taken off his boots, the murderer carried them in his hand and placed them by the side of the parcel he had made,-by that time the robbery had been accomplished. The man then returned to The Yellow Room and slipped under the bed, where the mark of his body is perfectly visible on the floor and even on the mat, which has been slightly moved from its place and creased. Fragments of straw also, recently torn, bear witness to the murderer"s movements under the bed."
"Yes, yes,-we know all about that," said Monsieur de Marquet.
"The robber had another motive for returning to hide under the bed," continued the astonishing boy-journalist. "You might think that he was trying to hide himself quickly on seeing, through the vestibule window, Monsieur and Mademoiselle Stangerson about to enter the pavilion. It would have been much easier for him to have climbed up to the attic and hidden there, waiting for an opportunity to get away, if his purpose had been only flight.-No! No!-he had to be in The Yellow Room."
Here the Chief intervened.
"That"s not at all bad, young man. I compliment you. If we do not know yet how the murderer succeeded in getting away, we can at any rate see how he came in and committed the robbery. But what did he steal?"
"Something very valuable," replied the young reporter.
At that moment we heard a cry from the laboratory. We rushed in and found Monsieur Stangerson, his eyes haggard, his limbs trembling, pointing to a sort of bookcase which he had opened, and which, we saw, was empty. At the same instant he sank into the large armchair that was placed before the desk and groaned, the tears rolling down his cheeks, "I have been robbed again! For G.o.d"s sake, do not say a word of this to my daughter. She would be more pained than I am." He heaved a deep sigh and added, in a tone I shall never forget: "After all, what does it matter,-so long as she lives!"
"She will live!" said Monsieur Darzac, in a voice strangely touching.
"And we will find the stolen articles," said Monsieur Dax. "But what was in the cabinet?"
"Twenty years of my life," replied the ill.u.s.trious professor sadly, "or rather of our lives-the lives of myself and my daughter! Yes, our most precious doc.u.ments, the records of our secret experiments and our labours of twenty years were in that cabinet. It is an irreparable loss to us and, I venture to say, to science. All the processes by which I had been able to arrive at the precious proof of the destructibility of matter were there-all. The man who came wished to take all from me,-my daughter and my work-my heart and my soul."