When Monsieur Stangerson saw his daughter in that state, he threw himself on his knees beside her, uttering a cry of despair.

He ascertained that she still breathed.

As to us, we searched for the wretch who had tried to kill our mistress, and I swear to you, monsieur, that, if we had found him, it would have gone hard with him! "'But how to explain that he was not there, that he had already escaped?
It passes all imagination!--Nobody under the bed, nobody behind the furniture!--All that we discovered were traces, blood-stained marks of a man's large hand on the walls and on the door; a big handkerchief red with blood, without any initials, an old cap, and many fresh footmarks of a man on the floor,--footmarks of a man with large feet whose boot-soles had left a sort of sooty impression.

How had this man got away?
How had he vanished?
Don't forget, monsieur, that there is no chimney in The Yellow Room.

He could not have escaped by the door, which is narrow, and on the threshold of which the concierge stood with the lamp, while her husband and I searched for him in every corner of the little room, where it is impossible for anyone to hide himself.