I must be calm to prepare my trap.
"But who, then, is this man writing there before my eyes, seated at the desk, as if he were in his own home?
If there had not been that ladder under the window; if there had not been those footprints on the carpet in the gallery; if there had not been that open window, I might have been led to think that this man had a right to be there, and that he was there as a matter of course and for reasons about which as yet I knew nothing.

But there was no doubt that this mysterious unknown was the man of The Yellow Room,--the man to whose murderous assault Mademoiselle Stangerson--without denouncing him--had had to submit.

If I could but see his face! Surprise and capture him! "If I spring into the room at this moment, he will escape by the right-hand door opening into the boudoir,--or crossing the drawing-room, he will reach the gallery and I shall lose him.

I have him now and in five minutes more he'll be safer than if I had him in a cage .-- What is he doing there, alone in Mademoiselle Stangerson's room ?--What is he writing?
I descend and place the ladder on the ground.

Daddy Jacques follows me.