If I took him alive, Mademoiselle Stangerson and Robert
Darzac would, perhaps, never forgive me! And I wish to retain their
good-will and respect.
"Seeing, as I have just now seen, Mademoiselle Stangerson pour a
narcotic into her father's glass, so that he might not be awake to
interrupt the conversation she is going to have with her murderer,
you can imagine she would not be grateful to me if I brought the
man of The Yellow Room and the inexplicable gallery, bound and gagged,
to her father. I realise now that if I am to save the unhappy lady,
I must silence the man and not capture him. To kill a human being
is no small thing. Besides, that's not my business, unless the
man himself makes it my business. On the other hand, to render him
forever silent without the lady's assent and confidence is to act
on one's own initiative and assumes a knowledge of everything with
nothing for a basis. Fortunately, my friend, I have guessed, no,
I have reasoned it all out. All that I ask of the man who is coming
to-night is to bring me his face, so that it may enter--"
"Into the circle?"
"Exactly! And his face won't surprise me!"
"But I thought you saw his face on the night when you sprang into
the chamber?"
"Only imperfectly.
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