llowed the assassin to escape. For
there is no other way in the world to explain the murderer's flight from
The Yellow Room!"

The silence which followed this dramatic and lucid explanation was
appalling. We all of us felt grieved for the illustrious professor,
driven into a corner by the pitiless logic of Frederic Larsan, forced
to confess the whole truth of his martyrdom or to keep silent, and thus
make a yet more terrible admission. The man himself, a veritable statue
of sorrow, raised his hand with a gesture so solemn that we bowed our
heads to it as before something sacred. He then pronounced these words,
in a voice so loud that it seemed to exhaust him:

"I swear by the head of my suffering child that I never for an instant
left the door of her chamber after hearing her cries for help; that
that door was not opened while I was alone in the laboratory; and that,
finally, when we entered The Yellow Room, my three domestics and I, the
murderer was no longer there! I swear I do not know the murderer!"

Must I say it,--in spite of the solemnity of Monsieur Stangerson's
words, we did not believe in his denial. Frederic Larsan had shown us
the truth and it was not so easily given up.

Monsieur de Marquet announced that the conversation was at an end, and
as we were about to leave the laboratory, Joseph Rouletabille approached
Monsieur Stangerson, took him by the hand with the greatest respect, and
I heard him say:

"I believe you, Monsieur."

I here close the citation which I have thought it my duty to make from
Monsieur Maleine's narrative. I need not tell the reader that all that
passed in the laboratory was immediately and faithfully reported to me
by Rouletabille.

CHAPTER XII. Frederic Larsan's Cane

It was not till six o'clock that I left the chateau, taking with me the
article hastily written by my friend in the little sitting-room which
Monsieur Robert Darzac had placed at our disposal. The reporter was
to sleep at the chateau, taking advantage of the to me inexplicable
hospitality offered him by Monsieur Robert Darzac, to whom Monsieur
Stangerson, in that sad time, left the care of all his domestic affairs.
Nevertheless he insisted on accompanying me to the station at Epinay. In
crossing the park, he said to me:

"Frederic is really very clever and has not belied his reputation. Do
you know how he came to find Daddy Jacques's boots?--Near the spot where
we noticed the traces of the neat boots