Page:Mystery of the Yellow Room (Grosset Dunlap 1908).djvu/93

Rh remarking aloud: 'Daddy Jacques must surely have opened it while we were away.'

"Q. Strange!—Do you recollect, Monsieur Stangerson, if during your absence, and before going out, he had opened it? You returned to the laboratory at six o'clock and resumed work?

"Mademoiselle Stangerson. Yes, monsieur.

"Q. And you did not leave the laboratory from that hour up to the moment when you entered your chamber?

"M. Stangerson. Neither my daughter nor I, monsieur. We were engaged on work that was pressing, and we lost not a moment,—neglecting everything else on that account.

"Q. Did you dine in the laboratory?

"A. For that reason.

"Q. Are you accustomed to dine in the laboratory?

"A. We rarely dine there.

"Q. Could the murderer have known that you would dine there that evening?

"M. Stangerson. Good Heavens!—I think not. It was only when we returned to the pavilion at six o'clock, that we decided, my daughter and I, to dine there. At that moment I was spoken to by my gamekeeper, who detained me a moment, to ask me to accompany him on an urgent tour of inspection in a part of the woods which I had decided to thin. I put this off until the next day, and begged him, as he was going by the château, to tell the steward that we should dine in the laboratory. He left me, to execute the errand and I rejoined my daughter, who was already at work.