My Memoirs Part 52

_Answer._ "I change nothing in my statements on this point."

_Question._ "At the beginning of the investigations, two different facts seemed to corroborate your narrative. On June 2nd, a letter bearing the signature of a certain 'Arthur Rewer' whose ident.i.ty it has been impossible to establish, was sent to the _Surete_. It a.s.serted that on the night of May 30-31st, about 12.45 A.M., four men and a red-haired woman left the Impa.s.se Ronsin. Also, the discovery in a carriage of the _Metropolitan_, on the evening of May 31st, of an invitation card to the recent exhibition of your husband's paintings together with a visiting card torn in two pieces, which bore a few addresses, took the _Surete_ to Guilbert the costumier, and led one to believe that the black gowns you said were worn by the a.s.sa.s.sins, might have been stolen from a basket of costumes supplied by this Guilbert to the Hebrew Theatre during the afternoon of May 30th.

"But the Rewer letter has lost most of its importance on account of a second letter, obviously written by the same person and dated January 6th, 1909, in which it is stated that the five persons mentioned in the letter of June 2nd, might just as well have been coming from a house close to the Impa.s.se Ronsin. Besides nothing has ever proved that Arthur Rewer did not merely see some peaceful pa.s.sers by. Now, as regards the gowns stolen at the Hebrew Theatre, this is the last stage of the investigations: the disappearance of the black gowns was discovered with certainty only on May 31st, for there are contradictions between the evidence of Finberg on December 28th, and that of Sumart on March 2nd, concerning the state of the costume basket, and _it has not been proved at all that the theft took place on Nov. 30th_ (!) Besides, even if the theft took place on that same day, there were only two black gowns stolen--according to Riegel's evidence on February 25th, and it is certain that no hats with wide brims were stolen (!) Finally, the fact could be _the better considered as a mere coincidence_, _without connection with the crime_, since disappearances of costumes seem to have often taken place at the Hebrew Theatre, especially in 1908.

"During our investigations, however, we have--under the influence of the very grave signs of your personal guilt--wondered whether the theft at the Hebrew Theatre--admitting its reality from May 31st--and the leaving in the underground of the doc.u.ments we have mentioned, had not been _arranged at your instigation_, or at that of any other accomplice in the crime _in order to give some likelihood to the description you were going to make of the crime_." (!)

_Answer._ "I maintain all my statements. I have always drawn--I still draw--from my conscience, the strength to bear all this mystery. It has always seemed to me as if, thanks to that card of invitation to the exhibition of his works, my husband himself were telling me from his tomb: 'All that you have said is true. Have the courage to discover the murderers.'"

_Question._ "Your story of the four personages in the black gowns retains all its _romantic unlikeliness and incredibility_ emphasised by the _fantastic_ idea of criminals, who, in their inexplicable plan to mask their clothes and not their faces, decided to entangle themselves, when carrying out the most delicate criminal operations, in the pampering folds of gowns, the sleeves of which fell over their hands (!) We have, none the less, constantly, and to the end, allowed an open field for your investigations, even as regards the reality and the ident.i.ty of the four persons you described. All _your_ efforts in this line have been no more successful than those which were made during the first months of the inquiries."

(Which amounted to nothing more or less than telling me: _you_ have been unable to find _who_ these a.s.sa.s.sins were, therefore, you are the a.s.sa.s.sin.)

_Answer._ "I can only repeat what I said at the very start to M. Hamard, in all sincerity, about the men and the red-haired woman I saw, and saw well, around my bed in the circ.u.mstances I have described.

"You think it unlikely that the men would have put on hampering gowns in order to steal. Yet, in the murder of M. Remi, which happened eight days after the double murder in the Impa.s.se Ronsin, the murderers were stark naked. That is not more extraordinary than the men in the black gowns.

Yet, had I said the a.s.sa.s.sins were entirely naked, you no doubt would have called me a mad and hysterical woman!"

_Question._ "Above all we must examine the following point: Is there any real cause to believe that the crime was a _ba.n.a.l_, commonplace one, committed by vulgar burglars. The answer to this question, it appears to us, should be in the negative, and we will say why. Had the crime been the work of ordinary malefactors, it could, logically, have had no other aim than robbery. Now--even admitting the _reality_ of any theft at your house, on that night--the malefactors would not have left behind abundant and conspicuous booty in the rooms they visited... (Here M.

Andre repeated the list of the valuables left in their places by the murderers.) It is absolutely inadmissible that malefactors who had come to steal would have left a sum of 130 francs (5 4s.) and so many jewels. Besides, it seems that the burglary was merely a sham, as one may still realise from the photographs in the dossier where one could see the various objects on the ground, scattered in too good order--which does not fit in with the great hurry inherent in all burglaries....

"Further, it was established by the expert ropemaker, M. Chafaroux, on June 16th, that the cord which was used to strangle your husband was taken from the ball of cord in the cupboard of your kitchen; and it is quite evident that the gag of wadding with which your mother was suffocated, and the one which, according to your statements, was used to gag you, came from the parcels of cotton-wool which, on January 14th and 16th, you said were in the rooms on the first floor of your house.

"How can one believe that ordinary criminals would have relied on chance to find (in your house) the instruments for their double homicide and their attempt on your life! Finally, what reason could they have had to spare you? To allow you to survive was to allow a dangerous witness to survive!"

_Answer._ "It is impossible for me to give you explanation of all this.

I can only and simply repeat what I heard and saw. That I was taken for my daughter is not surprising, although it has made so many people smile, since I looked young in those days, and was occupying my daughter's room. Besides, can one say that those murderers really spared me when one thinks of the way they bound me and of how they struck me on the head? Innocent, yes, I am innocent. I had no reason whatever to kill my husband and my mother. I am innocent."

_Question._ "The various reasons which lead one to eliminate the version of a.s.sa.s.sins who came to rob const.i.tute as many reasons to believe that the crime was a 'domestic' one. And _since you have survived the crime in very peculiar circ.u.mstances; since, concerning all the details connected with the crime, you have acc.u.mulated 'unlikelihoods', contradictions and lies; since you had a personal interest in the crime, the revelation has gradually been made evident that you took a direct part in the crime_."

_Answer._ "I have taken no part whatever in the crime. Why, why, should I have done so?"

_Question._ "Not only did you survive, but you had only the appearance of a victim. The way you were bound... was quite harmless, quite _complaisant_. The cords left no trace round your neck, and mere transient traces on your wrists and ankles.... It is surely not with such mildness that malefactors capable of committing a double murder would have bound you to your bed."

_Answer._ "It is impossible for me to explain to you what took place in the minds of those monsters. Perhaps they thought I was bound tightly enough. In any case if, as you believe it, I took some part in the crime and had an accomplice, I should surely have had enough intelligence and presence of mind to have had myself treated with more severity, since I am being reproached with the fact that I remained alive!"

(M. Andre then mentioned the various bruises found on my body and remarked that they were very slight.)

_Answer._ "I have no need to reply to all this. If I bore no external marks, I suffered internally to such an extent that I was dangerously ill for two months, as you may find in your own dossier."...

_Question._ "Beside the very significative absence of real violence, the persistent effort you made to hide facts accuses you. At the very beginning of, and throughout the inquiry you declared that you had never seen the alpenstock and the glove found in the boudoir, but our investigations have made it appear _quite likely_ that the alpenstock was one of the accessories in your husband's studio. And it has been proved that the glove (a man's glove) had been given you."...

_Answer._ "I never saw the alpenstock in the studio or elsewhere in the house; and granting the glove had belonged to M. Ch. I didn't remember it. (I sometimes asked my friends for their old gloves which I used when I had to cut flowers, to paint certain objects or do some rough work.) Had I remembered that alpenstock and that glove, I should have hastened to say so; I had no reason not to do so."

_Question._ "You said the violence you had suffered at the hands of the a.s.sa.s.sins was one of the causes of your illness. We reminded you how little convincing were the external signs of that violence. As for the nervous agitation which was evident in you--the fact is undeniable--after and since the drama, _the moral shock of your partic.i.p.ation in the crime, the very weight of to heavy a 'penal'

responsibility, anxiety on account of the investigations--would be quite sufficient to explain it_."...

(M. Andre evidently forgot that I felt so little those "anxieties on account of the investigations" that month after month, I urged the police to renew their efforts, and even sought the a.s.sistance of the Press, when I heard that the solution of the Impa.s.se Ronsin murder mystery was being given up! After discussing once more the question of the gag and the stolen money and jewels, I had once more to explain that the expert had evidently not examined the piece of wadding which had been in my mouth, and also why I had five of my jewels altered by M.

Souloy. But M. Andre merely remarked:)

"You have lied always and about everything.... To such an att.i.tude there is but one explanation: you tried to ward off suspicions, and therefore you took a direct part in the murder."

_Answer._ "You want to find lies in everything. If I spoke some untruths, it was solely to conceal certain facts of my private life, certain 'friendships' I had had."

(The next remark of the examining magistrate was a fantastic one:)

_Question._ "It is interesting to observe, at any rate, as an oddity, that your story of the crime and the _mise en scene_ appears to bear the stamp of your own imagination. For the tale of the black gowns sounds very much like reminiscence of the personages in several of your late husband's pictures. On the other hand several of the details bear a striking likeness to the incidents in a famous murder case which took place at Montbeliard in 1885, when you were sixteen years old, and which fascinated the population of that district where you were then living."

_Answer._ "I could not have lost my reason to the extent of saying I had seen men in black gowns if it had not been true. The personages in my husband's paintings, to which you refer, wear black gowns, which look in no way like the ecclesiastical gowns, plain, straight, and with tight-fitting sleeves, which the murderers wore. As for the Montbeliard murder case you mention, I don't remember it; I have never even heard of it at all. At home we [the young girls] did not read the newspapers.

Montbeliard is an hour's distance from Beaucourt; I went there for my piano lessons.... I also learned painting at Montbeliard.... I drove there or went by rail.... I have never heard of that murder."

(M. Andre then proceeded to "prove" my guilt by the fact that I had got rid of "Turk," the borrowed dog, and that I had enticed my mother to come to my house at the end of May, and had prevented her from going to Bellevue, to which accusation I replied by stating once more the real facts, fully corroborated by our doctor.)

"... On Sat.u.r.day, May 30th, it was at the last moment, when I saw that my mother could not stand on her legs, that we decided not to go to Bellevue to sleep."

_Question._ "As regards the problem of finding out _why_ you premeditated the murder, not only of your husband but also of your mother, and if you had a direct _role_ in those murders: the solution appears to lie in the 'moral preoccupation' you had at the time...."

(And M. Andre tried to prove that, being financially embarra.s.sed, disliking my husband, and having constant quarrels with both him and my mother, I had thought of becoming the wife of M. Bdl., that a divorce being out of the question on account of M. Bdl.'s ideas, and also on account of M. Buisson's, on the matter, the "disappearance" of my husband and my mother had appeared to me as settling all difficulties and satisfying all my ambitions....)

_Answer._ "You are fiercely persecuting an unfortunate woman! Neither with my husband nor my mother have I ever had a quarrel or a disagreement. My husband and I had not lived together as husband and wife for the past fifteen years, and I enjoyed by his side a liberty which a divorce could not have increased. M. Bdl. did not wish to marry again. Besides, I don't think I would have married him, for he was terribly jealous. Besides, in his evidence, I believe he has said himself that at the beginning of May 1908 he had already decided not to see us [my husband and me] any more.... I had no reason whatever to kill my husband and my mother.... No one will ever believe that when they see from the letters which are 'under seal' what I was to my mother, and what she was to me. You say we were financially embarra.s.sed in 1908, but that year was precisely the one in which my husband earned the most.... My husband was quite satisfied with everything I did, and as for me, I didn't interfere with his life, but left him quite free. We had been for ten years on intimate terms with the Buissons, and both M.

Buisson and his wife could a.s.sert that there never was any kind of quarrel between my husband and me.... At the time of the drama I was happy, as I had not been for a long time before my husband's return to health, because of my daughter's happiness on account of her engagement to Pierre Buisson, and I because of her father's happiness...."

_Question._ "During the three months after the drama, events twice foiled your plans. Perturbed by the suspicions which existed against you in so many minds, M. Bdl. and also the Buisson family moved away, and kept away from you. In those circ.u.mstances, not only Marthe's future as you conceived it, but also your ambitions in regard to M. Bdl. ran serious risks of being irretrievably compromised. Hence, unless you were to allow a large portion of the advantages of the double murder to escape, the urgent necessity of a justification before public opinion.

Hence, on October 30th, the daring move of your letter to the _Echo de Paris_, that is your claim, made publicly, for a prolongation of the inquiries, and of the search for the murderers of your husband and your mother. And since that prolongation has led to the revelations of your guilt, _your att.i.tude simply shows that you had the temerity to go as far as you could in your purpose of winning and enjoying, somehow or other, and at any cost, the fruits of your double crime_."

_Answer._ "No! On the contrary, you have there a proof of my innocence!

If I had had anything on my conscience, I should not have re-started the case, bravely, without fear of any one. No! If I had been guilty, I should not have had such temerity! A man would not have dared because men are cowards, and a woman would not have dared because women are too weak."

_Question._ "_The result of the proceedings is that you are accused_:

Firstly: _Of having, in Paris, during the night of May 30th-31st, 1908, voluntarily dealt death to M. Steinheil_;

_And that with premeditation._

Secondly: _Of having, in the same circ.u.mstances, time and place, voluntarily dealt death to Madame Edouard j.a.py, your legitimate mother_."

_Answer._ "It is an abominable and monstrous accusation, I protest against it with all my soul, and I beg with all my heart those who will be called upon to examine and judge your Dossier, I beg them in the name of my child to realise, to see, that I could not have murdered either my husband or my mother. No, I cannot be accused of such an infamous, abominable crime. There is nothing in my life which could explain such a deed on my part."...

"The accused cries and sobs."

(This doc.u.ment has been) "Read--Have signed: "WIDOW STEINHEIL.

"SIMON.

"ANDRe."

(_Dossier_ Cote 3433)

..."She cries, she sobs," says the report of the final _Instruction_.

Just four little words, but what deep grief and suffering they represent!