M. the President, being of the old school of lawyers, shook his head at this value set on publicity; but he made no comment.
"Are you ready for to-morrow?" he asked. Raymond nodded.
"I saw the presiding judge this morning and he was full of praise for you," went on his father with a fond gleam in his eyes. "They are going to make a place for me to-morrow."
"So you told me. But you'll make me terribly nervous!" protested Raymond.
"Not a bit of it! Have you really an interesting case?"
"Well, yes and no," replied the young advocate. "A wretched woman who has killed her lover for no reason that anyone can find out—and she won't speak. For the last three months she has not uttered a word in the prison that can be of any interest to anybody. We don't know who she is, where she comes from or what her name is. I haven't even seen her or heard the sound of her voice; and when the names of the judges, the public prosecutor and her defending lawyer were sent in to her, she tore up the paper without looking at it."
"And couldn't the Examining Magistrate get anything out of her?"
"Nothing! He dubbed her Madame X," added Raymond with a smile.
"What sort of a woman is she?"
"Oh, like all women of her kind. She is, I understand, addicted to the use of drugs, and her supply being cut off she naturally turns from stupidity to hysteria all the time. I'm afraid it's one of the cases that are worked out before they come to trial. I don't see how the court proceedings can last much longer than five minutes. But I'll do my best."