The attitude of the three culprits was hardly such as to provoke the sympathies of even a French jury. Fenayrou seemed to be giving a clumsy and unconvincing performance of the role of the wronged husband; his heavy figure clothed in an ill-fitting suit of "blue dittos," his ill-kempt red beard and bock-stained moustache did not help him in his impersonation. Mme. Fenayrou, pale, colourless, insignificant, was cold and impenetrable. She described the murder of her lover "as if she were giving her cook a household recipe for making apricot Jam." Lucien was humble and lachrymose.
In his interrogatory of the husband the President, M. Berard des Glajeux, showed himself frankly sceptical as to the ingenuousness of Fenayrou's motives in assassinating Aubert. "Now, what was the motive of this horrible crime?" he asked. "Revenge," answered Fenayrou.
President: But consider the care you took to hide the body and destroy all trace of your guilt; that is not the way in which a husband sets out to avenge his honour; these are the methods of the assassin! With your wife's help you could have caught Aubert in flagrante delicto and killed him on the spot, and the law would have absolved you. Instead of which you decoy him into a hideous snare. Public opinion suggests that jealousy of your former assistant's success, and mortification at your own failure, were the real motives. Or was it not perhaps that you had been in the habit of rendering somewhat dubious services to some of your promiscuous clients?
Fenayrou: Nothing of the kind, I swear it!
President: Do not protest too much. Remember that among your acquaintances you were suspected of cheating at cards. As a chemist you had been convinced of fraud. Perhaps Aubert knew something against you. Some act of poisoning, or abortion, in which you had been concerned? Many witnesses have believed this.
Your mother-in-law is said to have remarked, "My son-in-law will end in jail."
Fenayrou (bursting into tears): This is too dreadful.
President: And Dr. Durand, an old friend of Aubert, remembers the deceased saying to him, "One has nothing to fear from people one holds in one's hands."
Fenayrou: I don't know what he meant.
President: Or, considering the cruelty, cowardice, the cold calculation displayed in the commission of the crime, shall we say this was a woman's not a man's revenge. You have said your wife acted as your slave—was it not the other way about?