the young reporter invited me to go and make the tour of
the chateau with him. The only sound to be heard was the crunching of
the dead leaves beneath our feet. The silence was so intense that one
might have thought the chateau had been abandoned. The old stones, the
stagnant water of the ditch surrounding the donjon, the bleak ground
strewn with the dead leaves, the dark, skeleton-like outlines of the
trees, all contributed to give to the desolate place, now filled with
its awful mystery, a most funereal aspect. As we passed round the
donjon, we met the Green Man, the forest-keeper, who did not greet us,
but walked by as if we had not existed. He was looking just as I had
formerly seen him through the window of the Donjon Inn. He had still
his fowling-piece slung at his back, his pipe was in his mouth, and his
eye-glasses on his nose.

"An odd kind of fish!" Rouletabille said to me, in a low tone.

"Have you spoken to him?" I asked.

"Yes, but I could get nothing out of him. His only answers are grunts
and shrugs of the shoulders. He generally lives on the first floor of
the donjon, a big room that once served for an oratory. He lives like
a bear, never goes out without his gun, and is only pleasant with the
girls. The women, for twelve miles round, are all setting their caps for
him. For the present, he is paying attention to Madame Mathieu, whose
husband is keeping a lynx eye upon her in consequence."

After passing the donjon, which is situated at the extreme end of the
left wing, we went to the back of the chateau. Rouletabille, pointing
to a window which I recognised as the only one belonging to Mademoiselle
Stangerson's apartment, said to me:

"If you had been here, two nights ago, you would have seen your humble
servant at the top of a ladder, about to enter the chateau by that
window."

As I expressed some surprise at this piece of nocturnal gymnastics, he
begged me to notice carefully the exterior disposition of the chateau.
We then went back into the building.

"I must now show you the first floor of the chateau, where I am living,"
said my friend.

To enable the reader the better to understand the disposition of these
parts of the dwelling, I annex a plan of the first floor of the right
wing, drawn by Rouletabille the day after the extraordinary phenomenon
occurred, the details of which I am about to relate.

boudoir
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