There was a constant buzzing in my ears, my whole body was on fire, as it were, and it seemed to me as if my heart, which beat so terribly fast, would suddenly stop.... I looked at Mariette, and with all the resolution I could summon, I said to her: "I shall go to the end of this affair. I shall speak all the truth, I shall say all I know."...
Mariette was no longer listening. She held her poor head and mumbled: "I must get drunk, drunk... that's the only thing to do." I pitied her and walked away.
M. Hamard arrived, saw his men, and then came to me and said: "We can find nothing.... True, many months have elapsed since the murder.... By the way, M. Leydet would like to see you at the Palace of Justice. Inspector Pouce will come here and accompany you.... The crowd is rather hostile."
"Very well, M. Hamard," I replied.
At that very moment, a whole band of journalists literally burst into the house.... Some of them actually entered through the windows on the ground floor. They surrounded me, and such was the babel they made that I could hear only fragments of sentences: "Have you heard.... A jeweller has said that... there is an incident... Couillard... the ring...." Flashlight explosions startled me at every moment.... A thousand questions were hurled at me.... One journalist on the staff of the Gaulois asked to photograph my hand because there was a "ring-story" coming out....
I was ill and I was bewildered. There have been many days in my life when shock has followed shock and emotion emotion, as if some pitiless fate were trying to crush me, but that day, November 25, 1908, was undoubtedly the most painful, the most harrowing in my whole existence.
Whilst I tried to answer the questions of the journalists, since they would not leave me alone until I did, various people came to visit the apartments which were to let. (I had already let the vast studio, with its antique furniture, to a foreign artist for £320 a year. The three-years' lease was signed, but my arrest altered everything, and the lease was made null and void.)
After the journalists had gone, I tried to draw up an inventory of the silver, furniture, and linen in the apartments I wished to let, but the pen shook in my hand and I had to give up the attempt.
Lunch-time came. It was impossible for me to eat. I had lost all appetite, and besides, journalists once more invaded the house. Why did I not barricade my door? For the simple reason that the workmen, who were now nearing the end of their task, came and went constantly. Some brought rolls of wall-paper; others took away boards, ladders, tools.... And whenever the gate was open to a workman, one or several reporters would rush in behind him. Besides, I have no doubt that had everything been barricaded against them, they would have jumped over the wall, as I had seen at least one do....
Inspector Pouce came and said to me: "Take your jewels with you; they will be wanted."