The Hollow Man. Rim of the Pit. The Mystery of the Yellow Room. For connoisseurs of locked-room mysteries and impossible crime fiction in general, this trio of novels has gained a reputation and mystique ever since they were listed as the 3 greatest locked-room mysteries of all time in the famous 1981 poll of GAD authors and experts conducted by Edward D. Hoch. Of course, alongside the amount of praise these books have garnered since their respective publications, they’ve also been subject to an added level of scrutiny due to their high placement in the poll. It’s fair to say that a lot of impossible-crime aficionados question these novels’ fame, especially when some of the most beautifully constructed locked-room puzzles of all time, like Death of Jezebel and Whistle Up the Devil, didn’t even place the top-15 list at all (which could be attributed to mitigating circumstances, like limited availability or the infamous French translation of DoJ.) But Gaston Leroux’s debut mystery novel (and only his second novel at all) is still a hallmark of the subgenre; no less an expert than John Dickson Carr himself listed The Mystery of the Yellow Room as the greatest example of the locked-room mystery.
It was necessary for me to approach Yellow Room somewhat differently than I have most of the other novels I’ve reviewed here. There are a few reasons for this. I need to judge the book’s quality and adherence to fair play based on its publication date: 1907, well before the Golden Age began by any standard. I have to view its presentation of and solution to the locked room in a similar fashion; this was a novel that inspired GAD writers who then improved on the subgenre and made even better locked room mysteries. On top of that, this is one of those iconic mystery novels where the solution is mentioned so often elsewhere it can be hard to avoid spoilers. I went into the novel knowing not only how the two main impossibilities were achieved, but the murderer’s identity as well. Despite all this, I still managed to thoroughly enjoy the novel, not just from a historical perspective, but as a well-told story.
The Mystery of the Yellow Room is narrated by a lawyer named Jean Sainclair, and his narrative is a retrospective of events that took place 15 years before he set it down to paper, and which after over a decade of having been shrouded in mystery he feels comfortable revealing the inner details of. The tale is that of the infamous crime in the Yellow Room, in which Mlle. Mathilde Strangerson, daughter and lab partner of a famous American-French scientist, was attacked brutally in her secluded bedroom. The night of the crime, she had retired from hours of working experiments with her father. Both Prof. Strangerson and their servant Daddy Jacques are in the adjoining room and they hear sounds of struggle and two gunshots. Upon kicking the door of the Yellow Room open, they find her severely injured, and no criminal within – despite the room’s only window having been locked from the inside just like the door.
After the crime is made public, a young and cocky reporter named Joseph Rouletabille invites his friend, Sainclair, to come down with him and investigate the mysterious crime at the Chateau de Glandier. Rouletabille gains access to the house by uttering mysterious phrases to the suspects involved, such as saying “The presbytery has lost nothing of its charm, nor the garden its brightness” to Strangerson’s fiancé, Robert Darzac; or “We shall have to eat red meat—now” to the proprietor of a nearby inn. Rouletabille’s method of investigating focuses more on small details, like these kinds of mysterious phrases, and on human behavior, than the sort of clues the police are looking at, like footprints and bloodstains. Rouletabille himself explains his opinions on the methods of investigation later in the novel:
“I came to the conclusion that I was a fool, lower in the scale of intelligence than even the police of the modern romancer. Novelists build mountains of stupidity out of a footprint on the sand, or from an impression of a hand on the wall. That’s the way innocent men are brought to prison. It might convince an examining magistrate or the head of a detective department, but it’s not proof. You writers forget that what the senses furnish is not proof. If I am taking cognisance of what is offered me by my senses I do so but to bring the results within the circle of my reason. That circle may be the most circumscribed, but if it is, it has this advantage – it holds nothing but the truth! Yes, I swear that I have never used the evidence of the senses but as servants to my reason. I have never permitted them to become my master. They have not made of me that monstrous thing, — worse than a blind man, — a man who sees falsely.”
The Mystery of the Yellow Room, Chapter XVIII: “Rouletabille Has Drawn a Circle between the Two Bumps on His Forehead”
On top of the unique choice of clues on which to circle his detection around, he keeps mum about his revelations for a long time as well. Many of the mysterious phrases and clues he holds close to his investigation, he does not reveal the importance of to Sainclair until many chapters after it has mainly featured. It’s somewhat reminiscent of early Ellery Queen’s choice of not revealing any of his thought process to his father until he’s 100% sure of things. Rouletabille’s inductive technique is challenged frequently by Frédéric Larsan, the Sûreté’s brilliant and dedicated chief investigator. These two detectives become close work rivals while simultaneously taking their own paths to the solution of how Mlle. Strangerson’s attacker left the room, and of course who he is – even though she is still alive, she will be too weak to positively remember any of the incident until after Rouletabille has figured it out for himself.
The first half of the novel, give or take, revolves around Rouletabille’s initial investigation, as capped by an (incorrect) solution of the Yellow Room crime as given by Larsan. The second half begins with Rouletabille explaining some of the occurrences he has kept secret to Sainclair, including his learning of the assassin’s prior stalking of Mlle. Strangerson in America and France prior to the attack, mostly through a series of journal entries written by Rouletabille himself (in an interesting reversal of the “Watson’s Journal” section of The Hound of the Baskervilles.) Rouletabille is witness to a second impossibility: the assassin suddenly vanishes while escaping from Mlle. Strangerson’s room, despite every avenue of escape having been covered by someone. A third attempt as catching the criminal is made, but ends in the sole murder that the book contains, which is a whole ⅔ of the way through! It’s a testament to Leroux’s ability as a thriller writer that he can make a murder-mystery so engaging without anybody actually dying until page 200, out of 307 in my copy.
Leroux’s style of plotting is rather interesting. He includes some seemingly mundane scenes, like those at the Donjon Inn or the flashbacks-by-journal in which Rouletabille waits for the murderer to appear, but omits some other scenes, such as some of the interrogations at the trial that dominates the story’s finale:
“It is not, however, my intention to report in detail the course of the trial. My readers are sufficiently acquainted with the mysteries surrounding the Glandier case to enable me to go on to the really dramatic dénouement of this ever-memorable day.”
The Mystery of the Yellow Room, Chapter XXVI: “In Which Joseph Rouletabille is Awaited with Impatience”
Perhaps this technique of plotting is a part of the style in which The Mystery of the Yellow Room was written. To be fair, it has a lot of similarities to GAD for a French novel from 1907. The lines of reasoning, inclusion of real clues, bona fide impossible crime, and the way layers of untruth are peeled back from the suspects make it feel a lot like something written in 1920s Britain. On the other hand, Leroux hides some of his clues until the very last moment, and pulls the murderer’s motive out of a hat. Overall there’s an added sense of melodrama – for a series of events that would be similar in nature to, say, a Carr mystery, the characters overreact to a nearly unbelievable level, to the point that the culprit is referred to as “the murderer” before the actual murder occurs, because apparently it doesn’t matter that Mlle. Strangerson is still alive. It’s as if the entire cast of characters consists of moody teenagers who constantly get hung up over “drama” within their friend groups.
I felt that those characters are, for what it’s worth, better fleshed out in general compared to a lot of GAD casts. Even though each of them has only one or two defining characteristics, these are put to great advantage in making the suspects seem more mysterious because they are hiding something either related to the crime or not, whether it’s Robert Darzac’s refusal to reveal any of his alibis in a strange attempt to save Mlle. Strangerson’s reputation (owing to his sense of chivalry,) or the chateau concierge and his wife staying mum on why they were outside and able to hear the gunshots from the Yellow Room due to their dual loyalties to the Strangersons and their own privacy. It’s Rouletabille himself, though, who ends up as the most enigmatic character, not only because he hides many of his deductions, but because of the shroud cast over his upbringing and origins. Coupled with his unique way of investigating, his constant references to “the perfume of the lady in black,” his having never known his parents, and how he is a nationally recognized reporter at just 18, make the mystery of Rouletabille almost more interesting than the Mystery of the Yellow Room. However, the questions about Rouletabille himself are never answered, but rather create an overarching arc between (at least) this novel and the next one, aptly titled The Perfume of the Lady in Black.
Unlike the questions about Rouletabille’s youth, the mystery of what happened to Mlle. Strangerson in her room, that of the disappearing assassin, and of the sole murder, are all answered in spectacular fashion by Rouletabille, who after vanishing for several months and returning in the middle of Darzac’s trial, reveals that he knows “both halves” of the murderer and will reveal all to the public – after 6 p.m. The reason for this delay is explained when the time comes, as well as who the assassin is, and how they got out of all those sticky situations. The identity of the murderer is very well-chosen and hidden, and relies on a trick (ROT-13 Va Fureybpxvna grezf, gur Yrfgenqr-nf-zheqrere) that would be repeated – and improved – by many famous authors during and beyond the Golden Age (although Leroux still pulls it off well.) I won’t say too much about it, except that while some people would argue it is an inherently unfair solution, I think that it works in such a way that it is in fact completely fair. One day when I have the time and stamina to write more in-depth essays, I want to examine this sort of choice of murderer, as well as some others. Leroux succeeds in tying his impossible crimes back to the overall solution; the “vanishing assassin” impossibility directly leads to who the killer is, and on top of that there are a few more clues that, when viewed correctly, are seen as very damning for the murderer (ROT-13 Rfcrpvnyyl gur pnar.)
Of course, the solution to the locked-room puzzle is great, even if it doesn’t feel that original after having read many locked-room solutions that use this one as a launching pad of ideas. It’s like watching Citizen Kane or Casablanca – if you go in knowing how much they’ve influenced filmmaking, it’s still hard to spot exactly how those films achieved that, because the innovations within have been copied and expanded so much since then. The Mystery of the Yellow Room, in terms of locked-room mysteries, is much like that – it doesn’t seem like a game-changer today, but if you pay attention you can see how it paved the way for all of the other classic impossible crime novels we revere, while retaining its status as a classic itself.
New Horizons Challenge: 15 works out of 25
Author: Gaston Leroux
The Challenge Requirements so far:
2/3 works translated into English
4/3 works written in English after 1970
2/2 works that are hardboiled or noir
2/2 works written by an American minority author
1/2 works with a musical setting
Other Reviews:
Aidan Curran, A Crime is Afoot, FictionFan’s Book Reviews, gadetection (Wyatt James & Enrique F. Bird Picó), Heavenali, In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel, The Invisible Event, One Catholic Life, Only Detect, The Poisoned Martini, My Reader’s Block, ruined head