Gaston Leroux: The Mystery of the Yellow Room

CHAPTER 2: In Which Joseph Rouktabille Appears for the First Time (continued)

"No trap will be found, and the mystery of The Yellow Room will become more and more mysterious. That's why it interests me. The examining magistrate is right; nothing stranger than this crime has ever been known."

"Have you any idea of the way by which the murderer escaped?" I asked.

"None," replied Rouletabille - "none, for the present. But I have an idea as to the revolver; the murderer did not use it."

"Good Heavens! By whom, then, was it used?"

"Why - by Mademoiselle Stangerson."

"I don't understand, - or rather, I have never understood," I said.

Rouletabille shrugged his shoulders.

"Is there nothing in this article in the 'Matin' by which you were particularly struck?"

"Nothing, - I have found the whole of the story it tells equally strange."

"Well, but - the locked door - with the key on the inside?"

"That's the only perfectly natural thing in the whole article."

"Really! - And the bolt?"

"The bolt?"

"Yes, the bolt - also inside the room - a still further protection against entry? Mademoiselle Stangerson took quite extraordinary precautions! It is clear to me that she feared someone. That was why she took such precautions - even Daddy Jacques's revolver - without telling him of it. No doubt she didn't wish to alarm anybody, and least of all, her father. What she dreaded took place, and she defended herself. There was a struggle, and she used the revolver skilfully enough to wound the assassin in the hand - which explains the impression on the wall and on the door of the large, blood-stained hand of the man who was searching for a means of exit from the chamber. But she didn't fire soon enough to avoid the terrible blow on the right temple."