“You were drinking with this maid at the buffet at Laroche. You had more drink with her, or from her hands, afterwards in the car.”
“No, gentlemen, that is not so. I could not—she was not in the car.”
“We know better. You cannot deceive us. You were her accomplice, and the accomplice of her mistress, also, I have no doubt.”
“I declare solemnly that I am quite innocent of all this. I hardly remember what happened at Laroche or after. I do not deny the drink at the buffet. It was very nasty, I thought, and could not tell why, nor why I could not hold my head up when I got back to the car.”
“You went off to sleep at once? Is that what you pretend?”
“It must have been so. Yes. Then I know nothing more, not till I was aroused.”
And beyond this, a tale to which he stuck with undeviating persistence, they could elicit nothing.
“He is either too clever for us or an absolute idiot and fool,” said the Judge, wearily, at last, when Groote had gone out. “We had better commit him to Mazas and hold him there in solitary confinement under our hands. After a day or two of that he may be less difficult.”
“It is quite clear he was drugged, that the maid put opium or laudanum into his drink at Laroche.”
“And enough of it apparently, for he says he went off to sleep directly he returned to the car,” the Judge remarked.