Page:Mystery of the Yellow Room (Grosset Dunlap 1908).djvu/169

 is innocent?—It seems to me that these are extraordinary coincidences—"

"Coincidences," replied my friend, "are the worst enemies to truth."

"What does the examining magistrate think now of the matter?"

"Monsieur de Marquet hesitates to accuse Monsieur Darzac, in the absence of absolute proofs. Not only would he have public opinion wholly against him, to say nothing of the Sorbonne, but Monsieur and Mademoiselle Stangerson.  She adores Monsieur Robert Darzac. Indistinctly as she saw the murderer, it would be hard to make the public believe that she could not have recognised him, if Darzac had been the criminal.  No doubt The Yellow Room was very dimly lit; but a night-light, however small, gives some light.  Here, my boy, is how things stood when, three days, or rather three nights ago, an extraordinarily strange incident occurred."