CHAPTER XXIII. The Double Scent
I had hardly recovered from the surprise into which this new discoveryhad plunged me, when Rouletabille touched me on the shoulder and askedme to follow him into his room.
"What are we going to do there?"
"To think the matter over."
I confess I was in no condition for doing much thinking, nor couldI understand how Rouletabille could so control himself as to beable calmly to sit down for reflection when he must have known thatMademoiselle Stangerson was at that moment almost on the point of death.But his self-control was more than I could explain. Closing the door ofhis room, he motioned me to a chair and, seating himself before me,took out his pipe. We sat there for some time in silence and then I fellasleep.
When I awoke it was daylight. It was eight o'clock by my watch.Rouletabille was no longer in the room. I rose to go out when the dooropened and my friend re-entered. He had evidently lost no time.
"How about Mademoiselle Stangerson?" I asked him.
"Her condition, though very alarming, is not desperate."
"When did you leave this room?"
"Towards dawn."
"I guess you have been hard at work?"
"Rather!"
"Have you found out anything?"
"Two sets of footprints!"
"Do they explain anything?"
"Yes."
"Have they anything to do with the mystery of the keeper's body?"
"Yes; the mystery is no longer a mystery. This morning, walking roundthe chateau, I found two distinct sets of footprints, made at the sametime, last night. They were made by two persons walking side by side.I followed them from the court towards the oak grove. Larsan joined me.They were the same kind of footprints as were made at the time of theassault in The Yellow Room--one set was from clumsy boots and the otherwas made by neat ones, except that the big toe of one of the sets wasof a different size from the one measured in The Yellow Room incident. Icompared the marks with the paper patterns I had previously made.
"Still following the tracks of the prints, Larsan and I passed out ofthe oak grove and reached the border of the lake. There they turned offto a little path leading to the high road to Epinay where we lost thetraces in the newly macadamised highway.
"We went back to the chateau and parted at the courtyard. We metagain, however, in Daddy Jacques's room to which our separate trains ofthinking had led us both. We found the old servant in bed. His clotheson the chair were wet through and his boots very muddy. He certainly didnot get into that state in helping us to carry the body of the keeper.It was not raining then. Then his face showed extreme fatigue and helooked at us out of terror-stricken eyes.
"On our first questioning him he told us that he had gone to bedimmediately after the doctor had arrived. On pressing him, however, forit was evident to us he was not speaking the truth, he confessed that hehad been away from the chateau. He explained his absence by sayingthat he had a headache and went out into the fresh air, but had goneno further than the oak grove. When we then described to him the wholeroute he had followed, he sat up in bed trembling.
"'And you were not alone!' cried Larsan.
"'Did you see it then?' gasped Daddy Jacques.
"'What?' I asked.
"'The phantom--the black phantom!'
"Then he told us that for several nights he had seen what he keptcalling the black phantom. It came into the park at the stroke ofmidnight and glided stealthily through the trees; it appeared to himto pass through the trunks of the trees. Twice he had seen it from hiswindow, by the light of the moon and had risen and followed the strangeapparition. The night before last he had almost overtaken it; but it hadvanished at the corner of the donjon. Last night, however, he had notleft the chateau, his mind being disturbed by a presentiment that somenew crime would be attempted. Suddenly he saw the black phantom rush outfrom somewhere in the middle of the court. He followed it to the lakeand to the high road to Epinay, where the phantom suddenly disappeared.
"'Did you see his face?' demanded Larsan.
"'No!--I saw nothing but black veils.'
"'Did you go out after what passed on the gallery?'
"'I could not!--I was terrified.'
"'Daddy Jacques,' I said, in a threatening voice, 'you did not followit; you and the phantom walked to Epinay together--arm in arm!'
"'No!' he cried, turning his eyes away, 'I did not. It came on to pour,and--I turned back. I don't know what became of the black phantom."
"We left him, and when we were outside I turned to Larsan, lookinghim full in the face, and put my question suddenly to take him off hisguard:
"'An accomplice?'
"'How can I tell?' he replied, shrugging his shoulders. 'You can't besure of anything in a case like this. Twenty-four hours ago I would havesworn that there was no accomplice!' He left me saying he was off toEpinay."
"Well, what do you make of it?" I asked Rouletabille, after he had endedhis recital. "Personally I am utterly in the dark. I can't make anythingout of it. What do you gather?"
"Everything! Everything!" he exclaimed. "But," he said abruptly, "let'sfind out more about Mademoiselle Stangerson."