"What! Has Couillard kept the letter all this time!"
M.D. rubbed his hands: "You see, I was right about Couillard. A letter written by your daughter is found in your valet's pocket-book, that is most suspicious. He surely did not take the letter just for the sake of the stamp, which has been cut off, by the way. He would have destroyed the letter." He hesitated, then, suddenly exclaimed: "That letter was written—and stolen—at the very time you had decided to take up the Affair again. I suppose Couillard wanted to know what you and your daughter intended doing.... Let me go and examine his bag. We may discover something more important and more conclusive." M.D. went up to the attic with Marthe. Couillard was not in the house at the time. I had engaged him again at the end of October, to please my daughter; she thought, very justly, that if Couillard had been unable to find a situation, it was on account of the Impasse Ronsin drama, and owing to the fact that after his examination at Boulogne, there had been rumours of his arrest. Couillard worked in the house all day, but did not sleep there. He had asked me, however, to let him leave his bag in the attic, and he frequently went up there.
M.D. returned and said: "The bag is locked, and so I cannot open it. But we are nearing the solution of the mystery!"
When the young journalist had gone, I had a long conversation with my daughter. Marthe was amazed. She could not believe what she had seen. She had always had the greatest confidence in Couillard. We both tried to find out why he had stolen that letter. It could not have been for the sake of a penny stamp! What was the real reason, then?... (Later another stolen letter was found, in Couillard's bag this time, a letter written by me to an old friend, Mlle. Lefèvre.)
Since that dreadful month of November 1908, I have fully realised my mistake. I asked my former valet's forgiveness at my trial, as I have already stated, and I do so now, unhesitatingly, in these Memoirs. Moreover, I have gladly offered him, recently, some financial compensation. I did a dreadful thing when I accused him without proofs of his guilt. But the reader should try to bear in mind the state I was in—a state of mind which made me see as proofs the untruths he had told me about his past, and the letters he had stolen.
All night long I lay awake, and worked myself up against Couillard.... I remembered and re-read the anonymous letters... in which he was stated to be the murderer, or, at any rate, a "man who knew," and others telling me: "What Public Opinion does not understand is why you should have been spared, whilst your husband and your mother were killed." And he was still alive, like myself! I was told over and over again that the murder must have been committed by some one who lived in the house. Well, there were only Couillard and myself besides the victims, in the house. Since it was not I, it must be Couillard!... Then there was the key that he had lost shortly before the fatal night.... Then, he had kept the revolver, instead of handing it back to my husband.... I thought, too, of another crime, the murder of M. Rémy, a banker, a week or so after the Impasse Tragedy. M. Rémy had been killed by his valet, a young man... who was not suspected for a long time, and it suddenly occurred to me that Couillard had been out on Saturday, May 30, in the evening. I had sent him to take a wedding present—the Sèvres vase—to M. Ch.'s daughter.... On his way Couillard had perhaps met his accomplices. During the night he had left his room above the studio, and gone down to receive the other men. The red-haired woman was perhaps his mistress, and he had let her come so that she might get some of the jewels.... Couillard was rather timid and nervous. Perhaps he was the one man who remained motionless, near the door of my room, and whose eyes had looked so frightened.... I did not recognise him because of the black gown, the long felt hat, and the false beard. It must have been a false beard.... How my imagination ran riot, how the most insignificant facts that I had observed began to fit in with the theory with which I became more and more obsessed. Madness had begun. Henceforth, I was almost irresponsible. I had had so many shocks, gone through so many crises, been played with, insulted, threatened, accused, and tortured so relentlessly during the past weeks that I ceased to distinguish between what was right and what was wrong, what good and what bad, what criminal and what legitimate.... I was in the hands of several journalists, who forced my door open when I refused to receive them, who treated my house as their own, and wrote almost anything they pleased about me. So many clues had been taken up and abandoned, that I clung desperately to this one. Yes, Couillard would have to confess, and then it would all be over. I should have the right to live, to breathe, to sleep.... I had no friends.... My beloved Marthe was as ill as I was, and wept day after day. She had lost her father, her grandmother, her fiancé.... Winter had come, with howling winds, chill, driving rain, and days of gloom.... It was dark and it was cold.... An effort, and I should win. Yes, M. D. was right; Couillard was the man. Of course he was the criminal... of course....
The next morning there came more letters, still more letters, and Couillard's name was mentioned in most of them....
I went to M. Goron, the ex-chief of the Sûreté, in whose judgment I had the greatest confidence, and told him all about the discovery of the stolen letter.
He was greatly surprised: "Of course," he explained, "there may be nothing in it, but it certainly looks suspicious. Your valet will have to be carefully watched. Now, don't do anything without the Chief of the Sûreté. Write to Hamard about this new development or send some one to him. Ask for two inspectors, who will witness the discovery of the letter in the pocket-book. Do everything to-day. Couillard might destroy the letter, if he suspected anything."
"And if M. Hamard attaches no importance to the discovery, and refuses?"