Mouzon [to the recorder] What a rogue, eh? One might have taken him in the act, knife in hand, and he'd say it wasn't true! A crafty fellow too—he defends himself well.
Recorder. I really thought, at one time, that your worship had got him.
Mouzon. When I was speaking of his children?
Recorder. Yes, that brought tears to one's eyes. It made one feel one wanted to confess even though one hadn't done anything!
Mouzon. Didn't it? Ah, if I hadn't got this headache! [A pause] I did a stupid thing just now.
Recorder. Oh, your worship!
Mouzon. I did. I was wrong to show him how improbable that new story of his was. It is so grotesque that it would have betrayed him—while, if he goes on asserting that he never left the house, if the servant insists he didn't, and if the wife says the same thing, that's something that may create a doubt in the mind of the jury. He saw that perfectly, the rascal! He felt that of the two methods the first was the better. That's one against me, my good Benoît. [To himself] That must be set right. Let me think. Etchepare is the murderer, there's no doubt about that. I am as certain of that as if I'd been present. So he wasn't at home on the night of the crime and his wife knows it. After the way he hesitated just now—if I can get the wife to confess that he was absent from home till the morning, we get back to the ridiculous story of the lost horse, and I catch him twice in a flagrant lie, and I've got him. Come, we must give the good woman a bit of a roasting and get the truth out of her. It'll be devilish queer if I don't succeed. [To the recorder] What did I do with the police record of the woman Etchepare that was sent from Paris?
Recorder. It's in the brief.
Mouzon. Yes—here it is—the extract from her judicial record. Report number two, a month of imprisonment, for receiving—couldn't be better. Send her in.
The recorder goes to the door and calls.