Page:Mystery of the Yellow Room (Grosset Dunlap 1908).djvu/150

 It was Frédéric Larsan. The detective had already occupied the post of observation when my young friend had thought to reach it alone. Neither noticed my astonishment. I explained that to myself by the fact that they must have been witnesses of some tender and despairing scene between Mademoiselle Stangerson, lying in her bed, and Monsieur Darzac on his knees by her pillow. I guessed that each had drawn different conclusions from what they had seen. It was easy to see that the scene had strongly impressed Rouletabille in favour of Monsieur Robert Darzac; while, to Larsan, it showed nothing but consummate hypocrisy, acted with finished art by Mademoiselle Stangerson's fiancé.

As we reached the park gate, Larsan stopped us.

"My cane!" he cried. "I left it near the tree."

He left us, saying he would rejoin us presently.

"Have you noticed Frédéric Larsan's cane?" asked the young reporter, as soon as we were alone. "It is quite a new one, which I have never seen him use before. He seems to take great care of it—it never leaves him.  One would think he was afraid it might fall into the hands of strangers.  I never saw it before to-day.  Where did he find it?  It isn't natural that a man who had never before used a walking-stick should, the day after the Glandier crime, never move a step without one.  On the day of our arrival at the château, as soon as he saw us, he put his watch in his pocket and picked up his cane from the ground—a proceeding to