But then, with some people we can never do right.

Rouletabille, as I have said, entered my room that morning of the 26th of October, 1892.

He was looking redder than usual, and his eyes were bulging out of his head, as the phrase is, and altogether he appeared to be in a state of extreme excitement.

He waved the "Matin" with a trembling hand, and cried: "Well, my dear Sainclair,--have you read it ?" "The Glandier crime ?" "Yes; The Yellow Room!--What do you think of it ?" "I think that it must have been the Devil or the Bete du Bon Dieu that committed the crime." "Be serious!" "Well, I don't much believe in murderers* who make their escape through walls of solid brick.

I think Daddy Jacques did wrong to leave behind him the weapon with which the crime was committed and, as he occupied the attic immediately above Mademoiselle Stangerson's room, the builder's job ordered by the examining magistrate will give us the key of the enigma and it will not be long before we learn by what natural trap, or by what secret door, the old fellow was able to slip in and out, and return immediately to the laboratory to Monsieur Stangerson, without his absence being noticed.