"No, Monsieur, it was closed; but after I had done washing the floor,
I lit some charcoal for Monsieur in the laboratory furnace, and, as
I lit it with old newspapers, it smoked, so I opened both the windows
in the laboratory and this one, to make a current of air; then I shut
those in the laboratory and left this one open when I went out. When
I returned to the pavilion, this window had been closed and Monsieur
and Mademoiselle were already at work in the laboratory."
"Monsieur or Mademoiselle Stangerson had, no doubt, shut it?"
"No doubt."
"You did not ask them?"
After a close scrutiny of the little lavatory and of the staircase
leading up to the attic, Rouletabille--to whom we seemed no longer
to exist--entered the laboratory. I followed him. It was, I
confess, in a state of great excitement. Robert Darzac lost none
of my friend's movements. As for me, my eyes were drawn at once to
the door of The Yellow Room. It was closed and, as I immediately
saw, partially shattered and out of commission.
My friend, who went about his work methodically, silently studied
the room in which we were.
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