The Perfume of the Lady In Black
CONTENTS
Title
Chapter I Which begins where other novels end
Chapter II Which reveals the changing moods of Joseph Rouletabille
Chapter III The perfume
Chapter IV En route
Chapter V Panic
Chapter VI The Chateau Hercule
Chapter VII Concerning some precautions taken by Joseph Rouletabille to Defend the Chateau d’Hercule Against Attack by an Enemy
Chapter VIII Concerning the history of Jean Roussel-Larsan-Ballmeyer
Chapter IX The unexpected arrival of Old Bob
Chapter X The day of the 11th
Chapter XI The attack in the Square Tower
Chapter XII The impossible body
Chapter XIII Rouletabille’s terror begins to worry me
Chapter XIV The sack
Chapter XV The sighs of the night
Chapter XVI The discovery of Australia
Chapter XVII Old Bob’s terrible adventure
Chapter XVIII Noon, King of Terrors
Chapter XIX Rouletabille closes the iron gates
Chapter XX In which it is proved that there was a body too many
Epilogue
Afterword
Copyright
CHAPTER I
The marriage of M. Robert Darzac and Mlle Mathilde Stangerson took place in Paris at the church of St Nicholas du Chardonnet on 6th April 1895. It was a strictly private affair. Little more than two years had passed since the events which were the subject of a previous work, too short a period to have entirely erased all memory of The Mystery of the Yellow Room. Indeed, the events which had given rise to that mystery were still so fresh in the public’s mind that the church would doubtless have been filled by a sensation-loving crowd had not the wedding been veiled in secrecy – not so very difficult in such an out-of-the-way parish. Only a few intimate friends had been invited, myself amongst them. I happened to arrive early at the church and the first thing I did was to look for Joseph Rouletabille, the young reporter who had played such an important part in that famous case. I was a little disappointed not to find him there, though I knew instinctively that he would come. While I was waiting, I entered into conversation with Maître Henri-Robert and Maître André Hesse, who, in the solemn silence of the little church, were discussing the remarkable happenings at the Versailles trial and its dramatic finale, which the marriage of two of the main protagonists brought so vividly to the minds of those of us who had been present.
As they talked, I could not help but notice the depressing appearance of the church of St Nicholas du Chardonnet – decrepit, cracked, fissured, dirty, not with the august dirt of venerable age, but with the sordid, dingy grime peculiar to the Quartiers Saint-Victor and des Bernardins. The sky there seemed farther off than elsewhere and only a very dim light filtered through the age-old layer of filth coating the stained-glass windows. It was in this sombre atmosphere, amidst surroundings more suggestive of a funeral, that the marriage of Robert Darzac and Mathilde Stangerson was about to be celebrated. I could not shake off the depressing influence of my surroundings, and it seemed to me a bad omen.
Meanwhile Maître Henri-Robert and Maître André Hesse chatted on serenely. The first admitted to the second that he had never felt easy in his mind concerning the fate of Robert Darzac, even after the fortunate outcome of the Versailles trial, not until he had received official confirmation of the death of that pitiless enemy of both bride and bridegroom – Frédéric Larsan. It will be remembered, perhaps, that some months after Darzac’s acquittal the shipwreck of the great transatlantic liner La Dordogne took place. One night, in thick fog, the liner was rammed by a three-masted sailing vessel and sank in a matter of minutes. A score or so of cabin passengers, whose staterooms happened to be on deck, only just had time to make for the boats. They were picked up the following day by fishing smacks and brought into St John’s, Newfoundland. For days afterwards, the bodies of the less fortunate passengers were washed up along the coast, and among them they found that of Larsan.
The documents on the body – despite their being carefully hidden in the lining of his clothes – left no doubt as to his identity. Mathilde Stangerson was free at last from that preposterous marriage, which, due to the laxity of the American legal system, she had contracted in secret, the result of a momentary mad impulse. The dreadful scoundrel’s real name – which will henceforth be granted a place of infamy in the annals of crime – was Ballmeyer, though he had married Mlle Stangerson under the name of Jean Roussel. Now, however, he would no longer come between her and the man who had loved her for so many years with silent and heroic devotion. I set out the details of this extraordinary affair in The Mystery of the Yellow Room, one of the most remarkable of all court cases, and which would have ended in tragedy but for the timely intervention of an unknown, eighteen-year-old reporter, Joseph Rouletabille, who, alone, was able to see in the police detective, Frédéric Larsan, no less a person than Ballmeyer himself! The accidental and, one might rightly say, providential death of this wretch was surely a fitting end to that long series of dramatic events. And it played no small part in the rapid recovery of Mlle Stangerson, whose very reason had been shaken by the mysterious and horrific events she had recently experienced.
‘In life, it pays to be an optimist,’ said Maître Henri-Robert to Maître André Hesse, who was looking anxiously around the church. ‘Everything comes out all right in the end, even Mlle Stangerson’s troubles. But why do you keep looking behind you in that nervous fashion? Are you expecting someone?’
‘Yes,’ replied Hesse. ‘I’m expecting Frédéric Larsan!’
Henri-Robert laughed as heartily as the sanctity of the place allowed, but I did not, for I felt very much as Hesse did. It is true that I was far from foreseeing the terrible experience that awaited us, but since I was, of course, quite ignorant of all that was about to take place, I cannot but be struck by the curious emotion that the mere name of Larsan evoked.
‘Hesse was only joking!’ said Maître Henri-Robert, noticing, I suppose, my anxious look.
‘I know, I know!’ I replied uneasily, glancing behind me just as Hesse had done.
The truth is that Larsan, when he was known as Ballmeyer, had been reported dead so often that it seemed unreasonable that, as Larsan, he should die only once!
‘Hello! cried Henri-Robert. ‘There’s Rouletabille. I’ll bet he’s not half as worried as you are.’
‘He looks very pale, though,’ added Hesse.
The young reporter came over and absentmindedly shook hands with us.
‘Good morning, Sainclair. Good morning, gentlemen. I’m not late, I hope.’
It seemed to me that his voice was a little unsteady, and, having greeted us, he found a dark corner in the church and knelt down, burying his face in his hands, with a gesture which somehow struck me as childlike in its simplicity.
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