The Mystery of the Yellow Room

The Mystery of the Yellow Room
John Curran

Gaston Leroux

One of the defining novels of the entire crime genre, Gaston Leroux’s The Mystery of the Yellow Room has inspired readers and writers including Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr, and is now republished in hardback in the Detective Club series with a brand new introduction.Breaking down her door in response to the sounds of a violent attack and a gunshot, Mademoiselle Stangerson’s rescuers are appalled to find her dying on the floor, clubbed down by a large mutton bone. But in a room with a barred window and locked door, how could her assailant have entered and escaped undetected? While bewildered police officials from the Sûreté begin an exhaustive investigation, so too does a young newspaperman, Joseph Rouletabille, who will encounter more impossibilities before this case can be closed.The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux, best remembered today as the author of The Phantom of the Opera, has been deservedly praised for more than a century as a defining book in the ‘impossible crime’ genre, as readable now as when it first appeared in French in 1907.This Detective Club classic includes an introduction by John Curran, who discusses how the book impressed and influenced a young Agatha Christie, was lauded by genre giants including John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen and Julian Symons, and remains to this day one of the most effective and enjoyable locked room mysteries ever written.

‘THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB is a clearing house for the best detective and mystery stories chosen for you by a select committee of experts. Only the most ingenious crime stories will be published under the THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB imprint. A special distinguishing stamp appears on the wrapper and title page of every THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB book—the Man with the Gun. Always look for the Man with the Gun when buying a Crime book.’

Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1929

Now the Man with the Gun is back in this series of COLLINS CRIME CLUB reprints, and with him the chance to experience the classic books that influenced the Golden Age of crime fiction.

Copyright (#ulink_866ab3e9-189d-52fc-abbb-847610045b89)

COLLINS CRIME CLUB

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by Edward Arnold 1909

Originally published in French as Le Mystère de la Chambre Jaune 1907

Introduction © John Curran 2018

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008167035

Ebook Edition © August 2018 ISBN: 9780008167042

Version: 2018-03-14

Contents

Cover (#ub05cb254-9cb2-5c29-886f-59d411797bfd)

Title Page (#u7d554719-289a-59e4-9a23-004074b722ab)

Copyright (#u5759d40e-feab-53b3-ab6d-c12a2317fcf5)

Introduction (#uf3e39aef-a8e8-5012-ad01-f67596dd8ca5)

I. IN WHICH WE BEGIN NOT TO UNDERSTAND (#u32fb8e54-3029-5d6f-a8b7-6ad0844cb79a)

II. IN WHICH JOSEPH ROULETABILLE APPEARS FOR THE FIRST TIME (#u14b8cf29-d8ed-5a6a-a903-6066512e7a1d)

III. ‘A MAN HAS PASSED LIKE A SHADOW THROUGH THE BLINDS’ (#u7cf5b485-7e16-53fd-a397-39edc46ac90d)

IV. ‘IN THE BOSOM OF WILD NATURE’ (#u6ea4b87c-ca8d-5852-9340-a380d549b537)

V. IN WHICH JOSEPH ROULETABILLE MAKES A REMARK TO MONSIEUR ROBERT DARZAC WHICH PRODUCES ITS LITTLE EFFECT (#ud4428f93-6f40-5db8-a41d-09aab6272ce0)

VI. IN THE HEART OF THE OAK GROVE (#ufe6c1a3d-af99-5da4-8295-be5a03c4a1b5)

VII. IN WHICH ROULETABILLE SETS OUT ON AN EXPEDITION UNDER THE BED (#u263d3efe-bb6e-5ad2-8633-2152950171e5)

VIII. THE EXAMINING MAGISTRATE QUESTIONS MADEMOISELLE STANGERSON (#litres_trial_promo)

IX. REPORTER AND DETECTIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

X. ‘WE SHALL HAVE TO EAT RED MEAT—NOW’ (#litres_trial_promo)

XI. IN WHICH FRÉDÉRIC LARSAN EXPLAINS HOW THE MURDERER WAS ABLE TO GET OUT OF THE YELLOW ROOM (#litres_trial_promo)

XII. FRÉDÉRIC LARSAN’S CANE (#litres_trial_promo)

XIII. ‘THE PRESBYTERY HAS LOST NOTHING OF ITS CHARM, NOR THE GARDEN ITS BRIGHTNESS’ (#litres_trial_promo)

XIV. ‘I EXPECT THE ASSASSIN THIS EVENING’ (#litres_trial_promo)

XV. THE TRAP (#litres_trial_promo)

XVI. STRANGE PHENOMENON OF THE DISSOCIATION OF MATTER (#litres_trial_promo)

XVII. THE INEXPLICABLE GALLERY (#litres_trial_promo)

XVIII. ROULETABILLE HAS DRAWN A CIRCLE BETWEEN THE TWO BUMPS ON HIS FOREHEAD (#litres_trial_promo)

XIX. ROULETABILLE INVITES ME TO BREAKFAST AT THE DONJON INN (#litres_trial_promo)

XX. AN ACT OF MADEMOISELLE STANGERSON (#litres_trial_promo)

XXI. ON THE WATCH (#litres_trial_promo)

XXII. THE INCREDIBLE BODY (#litres_trial_promo)

XXIII. THE DOUBLE SCENT (#litres_trial_promo)