_Question._ "When you moved your head, you say that those movements tightened the rope round your neck?"
_Answer._ "I felt I was strangling myself; but I tried to be brave.... I also tried to free my hands, but found it was impossible, for when I moved them the ropes tightened round my neck.... I did not know if the men were still there.... My mind was in a whirl.... But I had courage, for they had said they would not kill any one."
_Question._ "At what moment?"
_Answer._ "When they asked where the jewels were I had beseeched them to kill no one."
_Question._ "And they said they would not kill any one?"
_Answer._ "No, they didn"t reply; but as they did not kill me I thought they had spared the lives of the others. I had heard no noise, and I did not think that either my husband or my mother was dead. I thought they had been gagged and bound like myself.... I called them I don"t know how many times. They did not answer, and I waited for some one to come, and I was almost mad.... When did I call them? I don"t know.... As soon as I could breathe, as soon as I began to realise that I was there, that I was alive... I had no strength left... I called as best I could...."
_Question._ "How did Remy Couillard come to you in the morning?"
_Answer._ "I don"t remember having called him.... When I saw him I was afraid of him.... When I saw him come near my bed I thought he was going to strangle me, and I don"t remember having talked to him.... All I remember is that I saw him go to the window and shout "_Au voleur!_"
("Thief, thief!")."
_Question._ "In what way do you suppose people might have entered your house on the night of May 30th-31st, 1908?"
_Answer._ "I suppose they entered by the gate in the Impa.s.se, perhaps with the key which Couillard had lost. Then they must have pa.s.sed through the pantry door. I suppose so, as I have since been told that that door had not been locked that night (for when M. Lecoq, a neighbour, heard Couillard"s cries in the morning and came to the rescue, he had only to push that door to enter the house!); or perhaps they pa.s.sed through the little kitchen window, for Couillard stated--and this also I heard later on--that he merely pulled that window to, without closing it, a thing he should never have done.... I have also been struck by the fact that a ladder was seen against the kitchen. None of us had seen that ladder there on May 30th."
_Question._ "Explain to us why there were hardly any traces of acts of violence on the bodies of the victims--that is, of your mother and your husband?"
_Answer._ "I cannot tell... I heard no struggle, no noise, that night...."
_Question._ "How do you explain that your husband was found with his legs bent under his thighs, in a kneeling position, and his arms stretched along his body, and that your mother had her arms resting on her breast--that is, in an att.i.tude quite contrary to an att.i.tude of defence?"
_Answer._ "How can I explain all this?... So much the better if they have not suffered too much...."
_Question._ "How do you explain that you were not made to share the fate of your mother and your husband?"
_Answer._ "Ah! I cannot understand that. In any case, I regret with all my heart that I was not killed.... My mother did not suffer much, it appears.... But I have been through constant agonies; and then there was that awful night of the tragedy, when I felt I was dying.... And all the time I was wondering what had happened to my mother and my husband....
Perhaps those people thought I would pull on the ropes and strangle myself... I don"t know...."
_Question._ "How do you explain the fact that they could spare you when you were a dangerous witness--one who would be the more formidable, more implacable and relentless because the victims were your own mother and husband?"
_Answer._ "I don"t know that they wanted me to live.... The way they had bound me meant death to me at the slightest movement. It needed a woman with my strong will--I was thinking of my Marthe--and also with my good health, to stand what I went through and live...."
_Question._ "On May 31st, at 6 A.M., Remy Couillard saw that you were bound, but the ropes were tied in so indifferent a manner that they left on your wrists and ankles only superficial marks, marks that were not lasting. It was also found that the rope round your neck was rather loose."
_Answer._ "There is nothing extraordinary in the fact, since I did not move...."
(Quoted from _Dossier_, Cote 3239.)
_In reply to a Question._ "Marthe had wished to send a little present to Lucie Ch.--on the occasion of her marriage which took place at the beginning of June (1908) (Lucie was the daughter of M. Ch., who had been for several years my most intimate friend). During the evening of May 30th (a few hours before the crime) either before or after dinner, I sent Couillard to M. Cher., with a card of Marthe"s and a little Sevres vase which I had in the cabinet of the drawing-room. I went upstairs to my room and packed the vase in some cottonwool. As a rule, I kept cottonwool in a small cabinet opposite the bed. I used all the cottonwool, then finding there was not enough to wrap up the vase properly, I fetched some more which was in a large boxroom on the same first floor. I had a great deal of cottonwool at home, on account of the fancy-work I did, especially small cushions...."
_Question._ "What was that cottonwool which on May 31st was found on the floor in the room where you were in bed?"
_Answer._ "I don"t know.... I saw no cottonwool that morning. I only saw many people around me. In any case, there was no cottonwool in my room when I went to bed...."
_In reply to a Question._ "On the evening of May 30th, I don"t remember who served out the soup, whether it was Couillard or myself.... Usually it was Couillard who did so."
_Question._ "In his report, Dr. Balthazard (the Home Office medical expert) has demonstrated that the gag was taken from the sheet of cottonwool which was found near the mantelpiece, in the room where you spent the night!"
_Answer._ "I have nothing to say on that point. It was only long after the drama that I was told that some cottonwool had been found in the room."
_Question._ "Dr. Balthazard further demonstrated by "physical" and chemical processes, that the gag could not have been in your mouth not even for a few seconds, for it contained no traces of saliva!"
_Answer._ "Then the gag which Dr. Balthazard examined was not the one which had been so long in my mouth."
(Quoted from _Dossier_, Cotes 3308-3310.)
(And here I would quote a pa.s.sage from the speech made by my counsel, Maitre Antony Aubin, at my trial):
"In order to demonstrate that Mme. Steinheil was never gagged at all and that she lies, this is the argument used: There never was in Mme.
Steinheil"s room but one piece of cottonwool that might have been a gag, the piece that was on the pillow, on the right side of it. Now this gag was at once put under seal, on the spot, without any possible mistake.
Handed later on to Dr. Balthazard, he found that it had never been wetted with saliva; therefore, the "gag" on the pillow had never been in Mme. Steinheil"s mouth.
"But an important question now arises. How many pieces of cottonwool were placed under seal, on the Sunday morning (May 31st)? Four. There was cottonwool everywhere, so much so that some one present remarked: "One seems to walk on cottonwool."
"Seal number one containing the gag "_which the criminals forced into Mme. Steinheil"s mouth_," for those were the words written on the label attached to it--was put together without it being known by whom it (the gag) was picked up, who handed it to the Police Commissary, without its ident.i.ty being ascertained if only by a question asked of Mme.
Steinheil. No precaution was taken, there was no supervision--so that it is impossible to say whether the piece of cottonwool, placed under the seal, as "_having been forced into Mme. Steinheil"s mouth_," is really the one which had been seen on her pillow, and which she herself pointed out.
"To demonstrate that the piece of cottonwool from the pillow and the one examined by Dr. Balthazard are not the same one is easy enough.
"The gag, which was seen by one or two witnesses near the pillow, was also seen by three or four other witnesses in various places--on the floor, on a chiffonier, on a small table! The gag wanders about. But how can one wonder that, in the excitement which upset everybody--and everything--some mistake as to all those pieces of cottonwool occurred?
"There is another point. In what terms do the witnesses describe the wandering gag? As _a gag made of one single piece (pear-shaped), as big as the fist_. If then the one examined by the expert contains _one single piece_ and answers to the description given, one will be able to admit that this gag, _pear-shaped, and in one piece_, is really the piece of wadding found on the pillow. But Doctor Balthazard himself described the piece of cottonwool he examined as follows: "This gag is made of two pieces, one _rectangular_, the other _triangular_ and almost equilateral."
"How disastrous for the Prosecution.... Besides, gentlemen, if the whole thing had been a sham, Mme. Steinheil, knowing of course the difference in appearance between dry cottonwool and moistened cottonwool, would not have failed to wet it, if only for a few seconds, especially as it was she who drew attention to the gag!"
CHAPTER XIV
AFTER THE MURDER
I need hardly say that on Sunday, May 31st, I was in a terrible state of mind, and even on the verge of utter collapse.
At 6 A.M., it appears, Remy Couillard came down, saw what had happened, went to the window and cried for help, and M. Lecoq, a neighbour, then joined him. Then the police came, also Dr. Acheray, and many others....
I was in bed, after that night of horror and what I had gone through. I could hardly move or breathe. Everything seemed to whirl around me, and yet I had two thoughts. One was: "What had happened to my mother and my husband, and how are they?" (I did not know, of course, that they had both been strangled.) Couillard--so I heard afterwards--after untying the ropes which held me to the bed, had gone with M. Lecoq to the other rooms, and seen the bodies of my husband and my mother, but they had said nothing to me about it.