In Which Rouletabille Sets Out on an Expedition Under the
Bed

Rouletabille having pushed open the door of The Yellow Room paused on
the threshold saying, with an emotion which I only later understood,
"Ah, the perfume of the lady in black!"

The chamber was dark. Daddy Jacques was about to open the blinds when
Rouletabille stopped him.

"Did not the tragedy take place in complete darkness?" he asked.

"No, young man, I don't think so. Mademoiselle always had a nightlight
on her table, and I lit it every evening before she went to bed. I was
a sort of chambermaid, you must understand, when the evening came. The
real chambermaid did not come here much before the morning. Mademoiselle
worked late--far into the night."

"Where did the table with the night-light stand,--far from the bed?"

"Some way from the bed."

"Can you light the burner now?"

"The lamp is broken and the oil that was in it was spilled when the
table was upset. All the rest of the things in the room remain just as
they were. I have only to open the blinds for you to see."

"Wait."

Rouletabille went back into the laboratory, closed the shutters of the
two windows and the door of the vestibule.

When we were in complete darkness, he lit a wax vesta, and asked Daddy
Jacques to move to the middle of the chamber with it to the place where
the night-light was burning that night.

Daddy Jacques who was in his stockings--he usually left his sabots
in the vestibule--entered The Yellow Room with his bit of a vesta. We
vaguely distinguished objects overthrown on the floor, a bed in one
corner, and, in front of us, to the left, the gleam of a looking-glass
hanging on the wall, near to the bed.

"That will do!--you may now open the blinds," said Rouletabille.

"Don't come any further," Daddy Jacques begged, "you may make marks
with your boots, and nothing must be deranged; it's an idea of the
magistrate's--though he has nothing more to do here."

And he pushed open the shutter. The pale daylight entered from without,
throwing a sinister light on the saffron-coloured walls. The floor--for
though the laboratory and the vestibule were tiled, The Yellow Room had
a flooring of wood--was covered with a single yellow mat which was
large enough to cover nearly the whole room, under the bed and under the
dressing-table--the only piece of furniture that remained upright. The
centre round table, the night-table and two chairs had been overturned.
These did