First, they established Groener's average or normal time of reply when there was no emotion or mental effort involved. The judge said "milk" and Groener at once, by association of ideas, said "cream"; the judge said "smoke," Groener replied "fire"; the judge said "early," Groener said "late"; the judge said "water," Groener answered "river"; the judge said "tobacco," Groener answered "pipe." And the intervals varied from four fifths of a second to a second and a fifth, which was taken as the prisoner's average time for the untroubled thought process.
"He's clever!" reflected Coquenil. "He's establishing a slow average."
Then began the real test, the judge going deliberately through the entire list which included thirty important words scattered among seventy unimportant ones. The thirty important words were: 1. NOTRE DAME. 16. DETECTIVE.
2. EYEHOLE. 17. BRAZIL.
3. WATCHDOG. 18. CANARY BIRD.
4. PHOTOGRAPHER. 19. ALICE.
5. GUILLOTINE. 20. RED SKY.
6. CHAMPS ELYSÉES. 21. ASSASSIN.
7. FALSE BEARD. 22. BOOTS.
8. BRUSSELS. 23. MARY.
9. GIBELIN. 24. COACHING PARTY.
10. SACRISTAN. 25. JAPANESE PRINT.
11. VILLA MONTMORENCY. 26. CHARITY BAZAAR.
12. RAOUL. 27. FOOTPRINTS.
13. DREAMS. 28. MARGARET.
14. AUGER. 29. RED HAIR.
15. JIU JITSU. 30. FOURTH OF JULY.
They went through this list slowly, word by word, with everything carefully recorded, which took nearly an hour; then they turned back to the beginning and went through the list again, so that, to the hundred original words, Groener gave two sets of answering words, most of which proved to be the same, especially in the seventy unimportant words. Thus both times he answered "darkness" for "light," "tea" for "coffee," "clock" for "watch," and "handle" for "broom." There were a few exceptions as when he answered "salt" for "sugar" the first time and "sweet" for "sugar" the second time; almost always, however, his memory brought back, automatically, the same unimportant word at the second questioning that he had given at the first questioning.
It was different, however, with the important words, as Hauteville pointed out when the test was finished, in over half the cases the accused had answered different words in the two questionings.
"You made up your mind, Groener," said the judge as he glanced over the sheets, "that you would answer the critical words within your average time of reply and you have done it, but you have betrayed yourself in another way, as I knew you would. In your desire to answer quickly you repeatedly chose words that you would not have chosen if you had reflected longer; then, in going through the list a second time, you realized this and improved on your first answers by substituting more innocent words. For example, the first time you answered 'hole' when I said 'auger,' but the second time you answered 'hammer.' You said to yourself: 'Hole is not a good answer because he will think I am thinking, of those eyeholes, so I'll change it to "hammer" which, means nothing.' For the same reason when I said 'Fourth of July' you answered 'banquet' the first time and 'America' the second time, which shows that the Ansonia banquet was in your mind. And when I said 'watchdog' you answered first 'scent' and then 'tail'; when I said 'Brazil' you answered first 'ship' and then 'coffee,' when I said 'dreams' you answered first 'fear' and then 'sleep'; you made these changes with the deliberate purpose to get as far away as possible from associations with the crime."
"Not at all," contradicted Groener, "I made the changes because every word has many associations and I followed the first one that came into my head. When we went through the list a second time I did not remember or try to remember the answers I had given the first time."
"Ah, but that is just the point," insisted the magistrate," in the seventy unimportant words you did remember and you did answer practically the same words both times, your memory only failed in the thirty important words. Besides, in spite of your will power, the test reveals emotional disturbance."
"In me?" scoffed the prisoner.
"Precisely. It is true you kept your answers to the important words within your normal tone of reply, but in at least five cases you went beyond this normal time in answering the unimportant words."