“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.” “Then the wound on the temple was not done with the revolver?” “The paper doesn’t say it was, and I don’t think it was; because logically it appears to me that the revolver was used by Mademoiselle Stangerson against the assassin. Now, what weapon did the murderer use? The blow on the temple seems to show that the murderer wished to stun Mademoiselle Stangerson,—after he had unsuccessfully tried to strangle her. He must have known that the attic was inhabited by Daddy Jacques, and that was one of the reasons, I think, why he must have used a quiet weapon,—a life-preserver, or a hammer.” “All that doesn’t explain how the murderer got out of ‘The Yellow Room,’” I observed. “Evidently,” replied Rouletabille, rising, “and that is what has to be explained. I am going to the Château du Glandier, and have come to see whether you will go with me.” “I?”— “Yes, my boy. I want you. The ‘Epoque’ has definitely entrusted this case to me, and I must clear it up as quickly as possible.” “But in what way can I be of any use to you?” “Monsieur Robert Darzac is at the Château du Glandier.” “That’s true. His despair must be boundless.” “I must have a talk with him.” Rouletabille said it in a tone that surprised me. “Is it because—you think there is something to be got out of him?” I asked. “Yes.” That was all he would say. He retired to my sitting-room, begging me to dress quickly. I knew Monsieur Robert Darzac from having been of great service to him in a civil action, while I was acting as secretary to Maître Barbet Delatour. Monsieur Robert Darzac, who was at that time about forty years of age, was a professor of physics at the Sorbonne. He was intimately acquainted with the Stangersons, and, after an assiduous seven years’ courtship of the daughter, had been on the point of marrying her. In spite of the fact that she has become, as the phrase goes, “a person of a certain age,” she was still remarkably good-looking. While I was dressing I called out to Rouletabille, who was impatiently moving about my sitting-room:— “Have you any idea as to the murderer’s station in life?”