which I have spoken, Rouletabille made me sit down.
"It's going badly," he said.
"What's going badly?" I asked.
"Everything."
He came nearer to me and whispered:
"Frédéric Larsan is working with might and main against Darzac."
This did not astonish me. I had seen the poor show Mademoiselle Stangerson's fiancé had made at the time of the examination of the footprints. However, I immediately asked:—
"What about that cane?"
"It is still in the hands of Frédéric Larsan. He never lets go of it."
"But doesn't it prove the alibi for Monsieur Darzac? "
"Not at all. Gently questioned by me, Darzac denied having, on that evening, or on any other, purchased a cane at Cassette's. However," said Rouletabille, "I'll not swear to anything; Monsieur Darzac has such strange fits of silence that one does not know exactly what to think of what he says."
"To Frédéric Larsan this cane must mean a piece of very damaging evidence. But in what way? The time when it was bought shows it could not have been in the murderer's possession."
"The time doesn't worry Larsan. He is not obliged to adopt my theory which assumes that the murderer got into The Yellow Room between five and six o'clock. But there's nothing to prevent him assuming that the murderer got in between
