Gaston Leroux: The Mystery of the Yellow Room

CHAPTER 1: In Which We Begin Not to Understand (continued)

"'If nothing is added to the material facts so far established, I fear that the mystery which surrounds the abominable crime of which Mademoiselle Stangerson has been the victim will never be brought to light; but it is to be hoped, for the sake of our human reason, that the examination of the wails, and of the ceiling of The Yellow Room - an examination which I shall to-morrow intrust to the builder who constructed the pavilion four years ago - will afford us the proof that may not discourage us. For the problem is this: we know by what way the assassin gained admission, - he entered by the door and hid himself under the bed, awaiting Mademoiselle Stangerson. But how did he leave? How did he escape? If no trap, no secret door, no hiding place, no opening of any sort is found; if the examination of the walls - even to the demolition of the pavilion - does not reveal any passage practicable - not only for a human being, but for any being whatsoever - if the ceiling shows no crack, if the floor hides no underground passage, one must really believe in the Devil, as Daddy Jacques says!'"

And the anonymous writer in the "Matin" added in this article - which I have selected as the most interesting of all those that were published on the subject of this affair - that the examining magistrate appeared to place a peculiar significance to the last sentence: "One must really believe in the Devil, as Jacques says.

The article concluded with these lines: "We wanted to know what Daddy Jacques meant by the cry of the Bete Du Bon Dieu." The landlord of the Donjon Inn explained to us that it is the particularly sinister cry which is uttered sometimes at night by the cat of an old woman, - Mother Angenoux, as she is called in the country. Mother Angenoux is a sort of saint, who lives in a hut in the heart of the forest, not far from the grotto of Sainte-Genevieve.

"The Yellow Room, the Bete Du Bon Dieu, Mother Angenoux, the Devil, Sainte-Genevieve, Daddy Jacques, - here is a well entangled crime which the stroke of a pickaxe in the wall may disentangle for us to-morrow. Let us at least hope that, for the sake of our human reason, as the examining magistrate says. Meanwhile, it is expected that Mademoiselle Stangerson - who has not ceased to be delirious and only pronounces one word distinctly, 'Murderer! Murderer!' - will not live through the night."