Eight or nine hours in a cage!... I thought of an examining-magistrate, M. L., whom I had known years ago. He was a great admirer of mine, and frequently forsook his duties to come and pay me compliments or to listen to some music in my salon.... And I thought him a charming man!
Now, I realised that whenever he wasted time at my house the woman, perhaps several women, had had to wait in a cage, hour after hour, until his return, and I felt bitterly ashamed of myself for not having guessed that a magistrate, like a doctor, has patients who cannot, who must not, wait.
I waited only three hours in my cage! But when I entered M. André's Cabinet, I felt more dead than alive, and I said to him: "You will not see me again. You sent for me at Saint-Lazare hours too soon. I have spent three hours at the Souricière, and I understand that it was owing to an order given by you. How can you expect me to answer your questions, after what I have just passed through?"
On three occasions, before Instructions, I was locked up in a cage at the "Mouse-Trap," and from nine in the morning till seven or eight at night I had to go without any kind of food. But after those three times I looked so weak and haggard, I have been told, that M. André cancelled his order, and once more I was placed in a cell at the Dépôt, pending the Instruction, and once more the Sister Superior with the Madonna face wrapped me about with her radiant kindness, comforting me with her sweet, wise words, and the divine light that shone in her eyes.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE LAST "INSTRUCTION"
I WILL now quote almost in full the final Instruction, which took place on March 13th, 1909. I cannot well conceive a more intensely poignant and dramatic document, and after over two years, when I re-read it, I can hardly believe that those Questions were put to me, and that the Answers were those I made, in the room of an Examining Magistrate, who accused me of having murdered my husband and my mother.
"On March 13th, 1909, before us, André, has been brought the widow Steinheil."
Question. "With the reservations and the restrictions with which we acquainted you during your previous interrogatory, Dr. Balthazard has expressed the opinion that the crime cannot have been committed by one person alone. In any case, the evidence, as a whole, seems to establish the fact of your personal participation in the crime, and we have, to-day, in an interrogatory which we consider as being the final one, to recall to your mind, the various presumptions and charges which have been brought against you."
Answer. "I protest to you with all my soul that I am innocent, and that you have in your dossier the proof of my innocence."
Question. "In what can you protest that we have any proof?"