The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux (thriller books to read TXT) 📖

“And what we saw her do was done to send her father to sleep?”

“Yes.”

“Then there are but two of us for to-night’s work?”

“Four; the concierge and his wife will watch at all hazards. I don’t set much value on them before—but the concierge may be useful after—if there’s to be any killing!”

“Then you think there may be?”

“If he wishes it.”

“Why haven’t you brought in Daddy Jacques?—Have you made no use of him to-day?”

“No,” replied Rouletabille sharply.

I kept silence for awhile, then, anxious to know his thoughts, I asked him point blank:

“Why not tell Arthur Rance?—He may be of great assistance to us?”

“Oh!” said Rouletabille crossly, “then you want to let everybody into Mademoiselle Stangerson’s secrets?—Come, let us go to dinner; it is time. This evening we dine in Frederic Larsan’s room,—at least, if he is not on the heels of Darzac. He sticks to him like a leech. But, anyhow, if he is not there now, I am quite sure he will be, to-night! He’s the one I am going to knock over!”

At this moment we heard a noise in the room near us.

“It must be he,” said Rouletabille.

“I forgot to ask you,” I said, “if we are to make any allusion to to-night’s business when we are with this policeman. I take it we are not. Is that so?”

“Evidently. We are going to operate alone, on our own personal account.”

“So that all the glory will be ours?”

Rouletabille laughed.

We dined with Frederic Larsan in his room. He told us he had just come in and invited us to be seated at table. We ate our dinner in the best of humours, and I had no difficulty in appreciating the feelings of certainty which both Rouletabille and Larsan felt. Rouletabille told the great Fred that I had come on a chance visit, and that he had asked me to stay and help him in the heavy batch of writing he had to get through for the “Epoque.” I was going back to Paris, he said, by the eleven o’clock train, taking his “copy,” which took a story form, recounting the principal episodes in the mysteries of the Glandier. Larsan smiled at the explanation like a man who was not fooled and politely refrains from making the slightest remark on matters which did not concern him.

With infinite precautions as to the words they used, and even as to the tones of their voices, Larsan and Rouletabille discussed, for a long time, Mr. Arthur Rance’s appearance at the chateau, and his past in America, about which they expressed a desire to know more, at any rate, so far as his relations with the Stangersons. At one time, Larsan, who appeared to me to be unwell, said, with an effort:

“I think, Monsieur Rouletabille, that we’ve not much more to do at the Glandier, and that we sha’n’t sleep here many more nights.”

“I think so, too, Monsieur Fred.”

“Then you think the conclusion of the matter has been reached?”

“I think, indeed, that we have nothing more to find out,” replied Rouletabille.

“Have you found your criminal?” asked Larsan.

“Have you?”

“Yes.”

“So have I,” said Rouletabille.

“Can it be the same man?”

“I don’t know if you have swerved from your original idea,” said the young reporter. Then he added, with emphasis: “Monsieur Darzac is an honest man!”

“Are you sure of that?” asked Larsan. “Well, I am sure he is not. So it’s a fight then?”

“Yes, it is a fight. But I shall beat you, Monsieur Frederic Larsan.”

“Youth never doubts anything,” said the great Fred laughingly, and held out his hand to me by way of conclusion.

Rouletabille’s answer came like an echo:

“Not anything!”

Suddenly Larsan, who had risen to wish us goodnight, pressed both his hands to his chest and staggered. He was obliged to lean on Rouletabille for support, and to save himself from falling.

“Oh! Oh!” he cried. “What is the matter with me?—Have I been poisoned?”

He looked at us with haggard eyes. We questioned him vainly; he did not answer us. He had sunk into an armchair and we could get not a word from him. We were extremely distressed, both on his account and on our own, for we had partaken of all the dishes he had eaten. He seemed to be out of pain; but his heavy head had fallen on his shoulder and his eyelids were tightly closed. Rouletabille bent over him, listening for the beatings of the heart.

My friend’s face, however, when he stood up, was as calm as it had been a moment before agitated.

“He is asleep,” he said.

He led me to his chamber, after closing Larsan’s room.

“The drug?” I asked. “Does Mademoiselle Stangerson wish to put everybody to sleep, to-night?”

“Perhaps,” replied Rouletabille; but I could see he was thinking of something else.

“But what about us?” I exclaimed. “How do we know that we have not been drugged?”

“Do you feel indisposed?” Rouletabille asked me coolly.

“Not in the least.”

“Do you feel any inclination to go to sleep?”

“None whatever.”

“Well, then, my friend, smoke this excellent cigar.”

And he handed me a choice Havana, one Monsieur Darzac had given him, while he lit his briarwood—his eternal briarwood.

We remained in his room until about ten o’clock without a word passing between us. Buried in an armchair Rouletabille sat and smoked steadily, his brow in thought and a far-away look in his eyes. On the stroke of ten he took off his boots and signalled to me to do the same. As we stood in our socks he said, in so low a tone that I guessed, rather than heard, the word:

“Revolver.”

I drew my revolver from my jacket pocket.

“Cock it!” he said.

I did as he directed.

Then moving towards the door of his room, he opened it with infinite