The first novel, entirely built on solving a crime indoors, "The Secret of the Yellow Room" aroused great interest of the reading public. Bookstores have blocked imitations of the novel. Jean Cocteau wrote a preface to it, where he noted the inherent prose of Leroux's raid of poetic surrealism." The Secret of the Yellow Room" introduces Russian readers to Rultaby, the hero of a series of detective novels by the French classic of this genre Gaston Leroux. Rultabius continues the line of famous detectives - Dupont Edgar Poe and Sherlock Holmes Conan Doyle. A journalist by profession, Rultabiy uses his unique abilities to unravel a crime incomprehensible in its mystery. It was published in Russian in 1990 in the series "Library of Adventures and Science Fiction."