At the Sûreté when the photograph of Mr. Burlingham was shown to me once more, and I was asked: "Is that the man?" I replied (I quote the very words I used): "If my assertion alone was to bring about the arrest of the man whose photograph you are showing me, and whom otherwise I don't know, I would certainly never dare make such an assertion.... But I am very much struck by the likeness."
I was asked to disguise myself, and to accompany the detectives, who would show me Mr. Burlingham without my being recognised by him. Once I wrapped myself in an ample cloak; another time I had to put on a short skirt that considerably changed my appearance. We followed Mr. Burlingham on foot and in a carriage....
We went several times to Paris for the purpose of my identifying him. I remember seeing him leaving his house near the Gare Montparnasse, I believe, and I found that he was very like the red-bearded man I had seen on the night of the double murder "near the door, frightened and dumb." On another occasion we saw him, from our carriage, in front of the School of Fine Arts. At that time I still had my full reason and was incapable of accusing any one without absolute proofs of their guilt....
But my mind was at work.
Mr. Burlingham was "shown" to me again.... Later, the Matin arranged that I should see him at their offices in the Boulevard Poissonnière.... Through a door left slightly open for the purpose I saw the "red-bearded" man. I "recognised" him, but not absolutely.
Then, once more, I was called to the Sûreté, and there, after so many meetings with the red-bearded man, I said that I unhesitatingly recognised him as one of the men I had seen on the fatal night.... Is it really very much to be wondered at that I did...?
The most wonderful thing about this, as my able counsel Maître Antony Aubin exclaimed at my trial, "is not that Mme. Steinheil then 'recognised' Mr. Burlingham, but that she did not 'recognise' him before."
I returned to Bellevue. The inspectors and detectives all told me: "Be brave! We are nearing the goal!" And I believed them. We are always so ready to believe what we long for.
Whilst firmly believing in the Burlingham clue, I was utterly bewildered by the contents of the anonymous letters I received. Most of them mentioned Couillard, Mariette, and Wolff. A few denounced M. de Balincourt, and, I need hardly add, several denounced... me. A large proportion of these letters were actually brought by hand to Bellevue and dropped, probably by the writers themselves, into my letter-box. The average number was twelve to fifteen a day.... In Paris, a few weeks later, the number rose to thirty or forty.
I read every one of these letters. In any one of them I might find a clue, a useful suggestion, perhaps the whole truth, and I could not afford to neglect this correspondence, disheartening though it was....