Gaston Leroux: The Mystery of the Yellow Room

CHAPTER 17: The Inexplicable Gallery (continued)

"I am in the chamber - her room. I look at her, also at the place where the letter had just now been. She has possessed herself of it; it was evidently intended for her - evidently. How she trembles! - Trembles at the strange story her father is telling her, of the presence of the murderer in her chamber, and of the pursuit. But it is plainly to be seen that she is not wholly satisfied by the assurance given her until she had been told that the murderer, by some incomprehensible means, had been able to elude us.

"Then follows a silence. What a silence! We are all there - looking at her - her father, Larsan, Daddy Jacques and I. What were we all thinking of in the silence? After the events of that night, of the mystery of the inexplicable gallery, of the prodigious fact of the presence of the murderer in her room, it seemed to me that all our thoughts might have been translated into the words which were addressed to her. 'You who know of this mystery, explain it to us, and we shall perhaps be able to save you. How I longed to save her - for herself, and, from the other! - It brought the tears to my eyes.

"She is there, shedding about her the perfume of the lady in black. At last, I see her, in the silence of her chamber. Since the fatal hour of the mystery of The Yellow Room, we have hung about this invisible and silent woman to learn what she knows. Our desires, our wish to know must be a torment to her. Who can tell that, should we learn the secret of her mystery, it would not precipitate a ragedy more terrible than that which had already been enacted here? Who can tell if it might not mean her death? Yet it had brought her close to death, - and we still knew nothing. Or, rather, there are some of us who know nothing. But I - if I knew who, I should know all. Who? - Who? - Not knowing who, I must remain silent, out of pity for her. For there is no doubt that she knows how he escaped from The Yellow Room, and yet she keeps the secret. When I know who, I will speak to him - to him!"