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"Ah, yes, I remember you have just come from London. May I look at it?" "Oh! certainly!" Fred passed the cane to Rouletabille. It was a large yellow bamboo with a crutch handle and ornamented with a gold ring. Rouletabille, after examining it minutely, returned it to Larsan, with a bantering expression on his face, saying: "You were given a French cane in London!"
"I was then thinking of Larsan, the murderer. It was that same evening that Darzac begged me to watch over Mademoiselle Stangerson. I made no efforts until after we had dined with Larsan, until ten o'clock. He was right there before me, and I could afford to wait.
Then have faith and take thought with yourself and forget not that you took hold of the right end when you drew that circle in your brain within which to unravel this mysterious play of circumstance. "To it, once again! Go back to the gallery. Take your stand on your reason and rest there as Frederic Larsan rests on his cane. You will then soon prove that the great Fred is nothing but a fool.
You can easily believe, Monsieur, that so complicated a scheme as this must have been long and carefully thought out in advance by Larsan. I can tell you that he had long been engaged on its elaboration.
"How do you explain that, on the night of the murder of the keeper," the President asked, turning to Rouletabille, "the murderer brought back the papers stolen from Monsieur Stangerson? How do you explain how the murderer gained entrance into Mademoiselle Stangerson's locked room?" "The last question is easily answered. A man like Larsan, or Ballmeyer, could have had made duplicate keys.
But it is plainly to be seen that she is not wholly satisfied by the assurance given her until she had been told that the murderer, by some incomprehensible means, had been able to elude us. "Then follows a silence. What a silence! We are all there looking at her her father, Larsan, Daddy Jacques and I. What were we all thinking of in the silence?
The words had scarcely left Larsan's mouth when from the back of the court came a youthful voice: "I agree with Frederic Larsan as to the death of the keeper; but I do not agree with him as to the way the murderer escaped!" Everybody turned round, astonished.
"There are many points to be cleared up before Larsan's theory can be admitted. I sha'n't waste my time over it, for my theory won't allow me to occupy myself with mere imagination. Only, as I am obliged for the moment to keep silent, and Larsan sometimes talks, he may finish by coming out openly against Monsieur Darzac, if I'm not there," added the young reporter proudly.
"You can understand," added Rouletabille, "that Larsan would feel himself hampered from the fact that my room was so close to his, and from a suspicion that I would be on the watch that night. Naturally, he could not for a moment believe that I suspected him! But I might see him leaving his room when he was about to go to Mademoiselle Stangerson.
I appeal to Monsieur Larsan, who saw me, next morning, examine the two sets of footprints." Here Rouletabille turning towards Madame Mathieu, with a bow, said: "The footprints of Madame bear a strange resemblance to the neat footprints of the murderer." Madame Mathieu trembled and looked at him with wide eyes as if in wonder at what he would say next.
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