THE MAN WITH THE BLACK FEATHER [Illustration: In horror I recognized my own handwriting (See page 21)] THE MAN WITH THE BLACK FEATHER BY GASTON LEROUX Author of "The Mystery of the Yellow Room," "The Phantom of the Opera," etc. TRANSLATED BY EDGAR JEPSON ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES M. RELYEA [Illustration] BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT, 1912 BY SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY (INCORPORATED) Entered at Stationer's Hall THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. HISTORICAL PREFACE THE SANDALWOOD BOX One evening last year I perceived in the waiting-room of my newspaper, _Le Matin_, a man dressed in black, his face heavy with the darkest despair, whose dry, dead eyes seemed to receive the images of things like unmoving mirrors. He was seated; and there rested on his knees a sandalwood box inlaid with polished steel. An office-boy told me that he had sat there motionless, silent, awaiting my coming, for three mortal hours. I invited this figure of despair into my office and offered him a chair. He did not take it; he walked straight to my desk, and set down on it the sandalwood box. Then he said to me in an expressionless, far-away voice: "Monsieur, this box is yours. My friend, M. Theophrastus Longuet, charged me to bring it to you." He bowed and was going to the door, when I stopped him. "For goodness sake, don't run away like that!" I said sharply. "I can't receive this box without knowing what it contains." "I don't know what it contains myself," he said in the same dull, expressionless tone. "This box is locked; the key is lost. You will have to break it open to find out." "At any rate I should like to know the name of the bearer," I said firmly. "My friend, M. Theophrastus Longuet, called me 'Adolphe,'" he said in the mournfullest tone. "If M. Theophrastus Longuet had brought me this box himself, he would certainly have told me what it contains," I said stiffly. "I regret that M. Theophrastus Longuet--" "So do I," said my visitor. "M. Theophrastus Longuet is dead; and I am his executor." With that he opened the door, went through it, and shut it behind him. I stared at the sandalwood box; I stared at the door; then I ran after the man. He had vanished. * * * * * I had the sandalwood box opened; and in it I found a bundle of manuscripts. In a newspaper office one is used to receiving bundles of manuscripts; and I began to look through them with considerable weariness. Very soon it changed to the liveliest interest. As I went deeper and deeper into these posthumous documents I found the story related in them more and more extraordinary, more and more incredible. For a long while I disbelieved it. However, since the proofs of it exist, I ended, after a searching inquiry into them, by believing it to be true.