Answer. "But yes, of course."...
Another instance:
Question. "It can hardly be admitted that robbery was the motive of the crime, for one cannot very well conceive that the thieves, after committing a double crime in order to act at their ease, would neglect to rob, and should leave on the spot, the following booty: (1) In your mother's room, three rings on a tray; (2) One diamond brooch, two valuable pendants, two pins with small stones—which your mother had brought to your house when she put up there in May.... (3) In your husband's room, the latter's clothes were not searched, and yet they were placed, conspicuously, on a chair, and they contained a gold watch, a purse containing eighty francs (£3 4s.); (4) In the boudoir, a bank note of fifty francs (£2) was left, although it was conspicuous; (5) From the statements you made just now, some of your daughter's jewels, which were then in her room, where you slept, were not stolen!"
Answer. "What can I answer you... anything may be found strange.... People who had just committed a murder would not perhaps be as calm as you think and so would not steal everything."
(I then explained that my mother's bag was on the floor in a box-room, that night.)
Question. "That explanation is hardly satisfactory."
Answer. "All I can say is that people, after committing two such ghastly murders, and after believing they had made a third victim of me, may have lost their heads, and only have had one thought: to disappear as rapidly as possible."
(Dossier Cote 3239)
What likelihood was there that the men had come to kill? M. André took it for granted, and made the extraordinary remark that they had "killed" in order to act at their ease! Personally, and it has been the opinion of every person I have met who has carefully studied the case, that the men came to steal, and were disturbed in their work, by the sudden appearance of my husband, armed with an alpenstock, and by the cries of my mother, and that it was then, and only then, that the murders took place?
As for the robbery, did not the men steal several hundred pounds, and some twenty pieces of jewellery, belonging to me and my mother?