"Mlle. Leveque, aged 23... No. 11 Rue du Cher... consulted on the same matter, declared: I have seen nothing of the facts described in the Matin article, and have made no declaration whatever to any one, for the simple reason that I know nothing (about the matter), and that at the time when it is said a motor-car stopped near my shop I was not there.... I also wish to state that I don't know at all Mme. Prévost, and I don't like having been mixed up in that affair."
"M. and Mme. Thomas, doorkeepers, 9 Rue du Cher, also consulted, declared they had not seen the motor-car mentioned in the Matin, and they added that Mme. Prévost, their tenant, had not come down from her apartment on that day—December 31st—for she was unwell and could not leave her room.
"Mme. Prévost herself, asked whether she had received any letter from Mme. Steinheil on that date, and in the circumstances related by the Matin, declared that she had received nothing whatever from her since the last summer.
"(Signed) Inspector Dechet."
(Dossier Cote 3017)
There remains one point to elucidate in the Ghirelli-Sauerwein interviews: the question of the pearl which I was said to have placed in M. Chabrier's pocket-book, and then to have placed it in Couillard's, only after a violent scene with Mme. Chabrier.
Here again I will quote from the Dossier, and the reader will have a further opportunity of looking into the methods of the newspaper which did so much to ruin me in the eyes of public opinion—as much while I was in prison as before my arrest:
"This January 21st, 1909, before us, André", &c.... has appeared M. Chabrier... who states:
"... I have never had any knowledge that Mme. Steinheil tried to put, or did put in my pocket-book the pearl which was afterwards found in that of Couillard. I had never seen that pearl, and had never heard of it until the moment... when at the Matin offices, and before me, M. de Labruyère opened Couillard's pocket-book and made an inventory of its contents—which brought about the discovery of the pearl.
"With respect to this discovery—and as one of the instances of the methods of intimidation adopted by journalists in November 1908, against the various inhabitants of No. 6 bis Impasse Ronsin—I wish to draw your attention to the following fact: