(Dossier, Cote 676.)
The three gowns and the dark cloak were never found again. And Mlle. Rallet, basing her claim on the entries in her books, sent a registered letter (on June 9th, 1908) demanding the return of those garments or the payment of a sum of money—which she duly quoted—representing their value.
Thus three black gowns and one black cloak had really been stolen in the corridor of the Hebrew Theatre on May 30th, 1908. And the times when those costumes were stolen is easy to calculate. The basket which contained them was delivered at 6 P.M. M. Feinberg found it "undone and in great disorder" at 8.30 P.M. There had been no one present when the messenger had put down the basket. There had been no one in the corridor of the theatre between 6 and 8.30 P.M.—the whole staff was "at the café," chatting, or dining... And the door needed only to be pushed!
Does it require a great stretch of imagination—not to believe in the theft, for it is impossible not to believe in it—to admit that the gowns worn by the four persons whom I saw in my room on the fatal night were the identical ones that had been stolen from the Hebrew Theatre?
If coincidence be called upon to explain things, let the sceptics turn to my description of the appearance of those persons—the criminals.
Let us suppose I had said, for instance, that the gowns had collars or that the sleeves were wide and loose... Then my description would not have exactly tallied with that of the stolen gowns. But no; I did not mention collars. I did say that the sleeves were tight-fitting, and in every detail my description corresponded to that which M. Guilbert himself would have given of the gown and the cloak he sent to the Hebrew Theatre for the performance of May 31st. Better than that, when Mlle. Rallet, on December 26th, 1908, was once more asked to describe the stolen gown, she declared—as I had done in the case of the gowns worn by the murderers—that those supplied by her firm had "flat and tight sleeves"!
If I had invented the amazing scene, I might have said that there were four men in black gowns, but no. I declared that there had been three men in black gowns and one woman in a dark cloak. And three gowns and one cloak had been stolen!
I will go even further to meet the doubts and questions of the sceptic.
Had I invented this "tale," as M. André called it, how could I have imagined that the three men wearing black ecclesiastical gowns, had not worn black ecclesiastical hats? Surely coincidences have limits. I said that the men wore "felt hats with high, pointed crowns"—not ecclesiastical hats. And the ecclesiastical hats which belonged to the stolen gowns were found in their separate baskets—a small basket; and M. Goldstein declared: "We generally put the hats aside; we hide them so as to prevent the performers from choosing among them just as they please."
There can be no longer any question of coincidence. There cannot exist one single human being endowed with the most ordinary amount of common sense who could or would deny, after the fact which I have quoted from evidence given to the head of the Sûreté and to the magistrate in charge of my case, that suspicions or attacks against me should not have been allowed to go on, and that it was quite unpardonable to dare accuse me of having murdered my husband and my mother.