""The forest-keeper!" says Fred.
""Come on!" I whisper.
"Prepared-I know not why-to believe that the keeper is the guilty man-I go to the door and rap smartly on it. Some might think that we were 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,-in the park-
"Had this criticism been made at the time, we could only have answered that the a.s.sa.s.sin had disappeared from the gallery in such a way that we thought he was no longer anywhere! He had eluded us when we all had our hands stretched out ready to seize him-when we were almost touching him. We had no longer any ground for hoping that we could clear up the mystery of that night.
"As soon as I rapped at the door it was opened, and the keeper asked us quietly what we wanted. He was undressed and preparing to go to bed. The bed 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 and in 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 your window."
""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 at Larsan. 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 that point!"
"He seemed to be talking to me rather than to himself. He added: "In any case, we shall soon know what to think. The morning will bring light with it.""
CHAPTER XVIII. Rouletabille Has Drawn a Circle Between the Two b.u.mps 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 chateau, and made a detour, examining every trace of footsteps coming towards it or going from it. These, however, were so mixed and confusing that I could make nothing of them. Here I may make a remark,-I am not accustomed to attach an exaggerated importance to exterior signs left in the track of a crime.
"The method which traces the criminal by means of the tracks of his footsteps is altogether primitive. So many footprints are identical. However, in the disturbed state of my mind, I did go into the deserted court and did look at all the footprints I could find there, seeking for some indication, as a basis for reasoning.
"If I could but find a right starting-point! In despair I seated myself on a stone. For over an hour I busied myself with the common, ordinary work of a policeman. Like the least intelligent of detectives I went on blindly over the traces of footprints which told me just no more than they could.
"I came to the conclusion that I was a fool, lower in the scale of intelligence than even the police of the modern romancer. Novelists build mountains of stupidity out of a footprint on the sand, or from an impression of a hand on the wall. That"s the way innocent men are brought to prison. It might convince an examining magistrate or the head of a detective department, but it"s not proof. You writers forget that what the senses furnish is not proof. If I am taking cognisance of what is offered me by my senses I do so but to bring the results within the circle of my reason. That circle may be the most circ.u.mscribed, but if it is, it has this advantage-it holds nothing but the truth! Yes, I swear that I have never used the evidence of the senses but as servants to my reason. I have never permitted them to become my master. They have not made of me that monstrous thing,-worse than a blind man,-a man who sees falsely. And that is why I can triumph over your error and your merely animal intelligence, Frederic Larsan.
"Be of good courage, then, friend Rouletabille; it is impossible that the incident of the inexplicable gallery should be outside the circle of your reason. You know that! Then have faith and take thought with yourself and forget not that you took hold of the right end when you drew that circle in your brain within which to unravel this mysterious play of circ.u.mstance.
"To it, once again! Go-back to the gallery. Take your stand on your reason and rest there as Frederic Larsan rests on his cane. You will then soon prove that the great Fred is nothing but a fool.
-30th October. Noon.
JOSEPH ROULETABILLE."
"I acted as I planned. With head on fire, I retraced my way to the gallery, and without having found anything more than I had seen on the previous night, the right hold I had taken of my reason drew me to something so important that I was obliged to cling to it to save myself from falling.
"Now for the strength and patience to find sensible traces to fit in with my thinking-and these must come within the circle I have drawn between the two b.u.mps on my forehead!
-30th of October. Midnight."
"JOSEPH ROULETABILLE."
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 30th of October, that is to say, three days before my return to the chateau. It was on the 2nd of November, then, that I went back to the Glandier, summoned there by my friend"s telegram, and taking the revolvers with me.
I am now in Rouletabille"s room and he has finished his recital.
While he had been telling me the story I noticed him continually rubbing the gla.s.s of the eyegla.s.ses he had found on the side table. From the evident pleasure he was taking in handling them I felt they must be one of those sensible evidences destined to enter what he had called the circle of the right end of his reason. That strange and unique way of his, to express himself in terms wonderfully adequate for his thoughts, no longer surprised me. It was often necessary to know his thought to understand the terms he used; and it was not easy to penetrate into Rouletabille"s thinking.
This lad"s brain was one of the most curious things I have ever observed. Rouletabille went on the even tenor of his way without suspecting the astonishment and even bewilderment he roused in others. I am sure he was not himself in the least conscious of the originality of his genius. He was himself and at ease wherever he happened to be.
When he had finished his recital he asked me what I thought of it. I replied that I was much puzzled by his question. Then he begged me to try, in my turn, to take my reason in hand "by the right end."
"Very well," I said. "It seems to me that the point of departure of my reason would be this-there can be no doubt that the murderer you pursued was in the gallery." I paused.
"After making so good a start, you ought not to stop so soon," he exclaimed. "Come, make another effort."
"I"ll try. Since he disappeared from the gallery without pa.s.sing through any door or window, he must have escaped by some other opening."
Rouletabille looked at me pityingly, smiled carelessly, and remarked that I was reasoning like a postman, or-like Frederic Larsan.
Rouletabille had alternate fits of admiration and disdain for the great Fred. It all depended as to whether Larsan"s discoveries tallied with Rouletabille"s reasoning or not. When they did he would exclaim: "He is really great!" When they did not he would grunt and mutter, "What an a.s.s!" It was a petty side of the n.o.ble character of this strange youth.
We had risen, and he led me into the park. When we reached the court and were making towards the gate, the sound of blinds thrown back against the wall made us turn our heads, and we saw, at a window on the first floor of the chateau, the ruddy and clean shaven face of a person I did not recognise.
"Hullo!" muttered Rouletabille. "Arthur Rance!"-He lowered his head, quickened his pace, and I heard him ask himself between his teeth: "Was he in the chateau that night? What is he doing here?"
We had gone some distance from the chateau when I asked him who this Arthur Rance was, and how he had come to know him. He referred to his story of that morning and I remembered that Mr. Arthur W. Rance was the American from Philadelphia with whom he had had so many drinks at the Elysee reception.
"But was he not to have left France almost immediately?" I asked.