She refused counsel and when the court appointed an advocate she would not see him. At last, M. Feverel abandoned hope.
"You will have to try the case as a plain homicide," he told M. Valmorin. "The testimony of the servants and the policeman is ample for conviction but—what is back of it all?"
"And you could not even find out her name!" mused the prosecutor.
"Call her Madame X!" snapped the exasperated magistrate. "She is about as thoroughly and stubbornly mysterious and elusive as any quantify in the algebra of my youth!"
M. Valmorin laughed a little and told the story in the courts that day. The mysterious woman had already attracted some attention among the journalists who frequent the halls of justice, and when brilliant M. Feverel called her "Madame X," as an acknowledgement of defeat, her case in the three days became a cause célèbre in Bordeaux. In the cafés, in the courts, in the homes, nothing else was talked about for weeks. In spite of the elaborate passport system and registry, here was a woman who absolutely defied the authorities to find a clue to her identity. The police of Buenos Ayres could not help them, and beyond that city her past was a blank. Who was she? Where had she come from? Why had she killed her companion? Was he her husband? These and a hundred other questions were asked every hour of the day. Scores of rumors were set afloat. She was the daughter of a noble house who had run away from a convent. She was the wife of a marquis, had left him and married an adventurer. She was the queen of a band of kidnappers. She was the leader of a secret society of murder.
She had served a sentence for counterfeiting in an American penitentiary. She was a nihilist, escaped from Siberia. And so on.
Dozens were turned away from the prison gate every day. Morbid women and curious men pleaded with the police for a chance to look at her, assuring the chief that they would be able to identify her. A number of hysterical women started! a fund for her defense, but this was firmly suppressed.
Advocates of established reputation, who had smilingly congratulated Maître Raymond Floriot on his first brief and expressed the hope that it would lead to something worth while, now regretted that they had not been appointed by the court to defend her, though it was an unprofitable and hopeless case.
But M. Valmorin was unaffectedly pleased. He was glad that young Floriot had stumbled into a position to attract so much attention, and was almost sorry that the young man had no chance to win his case. The reason is not far to seek. For several years M. Valmorin and M. Floriot, père, had seen that M. Raymond was in love with blue-eyed, sweet-faced Helene Valmorin. There was nothing remarkable about this, as numbers of young men in Bordeaux were in precisely the same state of mind. But what was important was that it was equally plain that Mademoiselle Helene was passionately in love with the dark-eyed, curly-haired young advocate. The fathers knew that it was only a question of a very short time when they would be formally requested to sanction the marriage. Hence M. Valmorin's desire to see his prospective son-in-law rise as rapidly as possible.
That the young man would rise, he was certain. He had inherited, as has been mentioned, his father's faultlessly logical mind and love of his profession and his mother's quickly sympathetic and emotional temperament. His mind was quick to grasp a situation or an unexpected point and equally quick to give it its true value. Coupled with these gifts he had a marked facility of expression and a smooth, vibrant voice. As Mademoiselle Helene said, he made love beautifully.