e":

"These are the only details," wrote the anonymous writer in the
"Matin"--"we have been able to obtain concerning the crime of the
Chateau du Glandier. The state of despair in which Professor Stangerson
is plunged, and the impossibility of getting any information from
the lips of the victim, have rendered our investigations and those of
justice so difficult that, at present, we cannot form the least idea of
what has passed in The Yellow Room in which Mdlle. Stangerson, in her
night-dress, was found lying on the floor in the agonies of death. We
have, at least, been able to interview Daddy Jacques--as he is called
in the country--a old servant in the Stangerson family. Daddy Jacques
entered The Room at the same time as the Professor. This chamber adjoins
the laboratory. Laboratory and Yellow Room are in a pavilion at the
end of the park, about three hundred metres (a thousand feet) from the
chateau.

"'It was half-past twelve at night,' this honest old man told us, 'and I
was in the laboratory, where Monsieur Stangerson was still working, when
the thing happened. I had been cleaning and putting instruments in order
all the evening and was waiting for Monsieur Stangerson to go to bed.
Mademoiselle Stangerson had worked with her father up to midnight; when
the twelve strokes of midnight had sounded by the cuckoo-clock in
the laboratory, she rose, kissed Monsieur Stangerson and bade him
good-night. To me she said "bon soir, Daddy Jacques" as she passed into
The Yellow Room. We heard her lock the door and shoot the bolt, so that
I could not help laughing, and said to Monsieur: "There's Mademoiselle
double-locking herself in,--she must be afraid of the 'Bete du bon
Dieu!'" Monsieur did not even hear me, he was so deeply absorbed in what
he was doing. Just then we heard the distant miawing of a cat. "Is that
going to keep us awake all night?" I said to myself; for I must tell
you, Monsieur, that, to the end of October, I live in an attic of the
pavilion over The Yellow Room, so that Mademoiselle should not be
left alone through the night in the lonely park. It was the fancy of
Mademoiselle to spend the fine weather in the pavilion; no doubt, she
found it more cheerful than the chateau and, for the four years it had
been built, she had never failed to take up her lodging there in the
spring. With the return of winter, Mademoiselle returns to the chateau,
for there is no fireplace in The Yellow Room.

"'We were staying in