Answer. "People do not kill without some compelling reason; now, you are aware that I adored my mother, and that I have lived on quite good terms with my husband for eighteen years."
Question. "On November 26th, at the time of the proceedings against Rémy Couillard, you attributed the crime to Alexandre Wolff, whilst on the same day, when describing the circumstances in which Wolff acted, you have made different and contradictory statements, then, you have made a retractation. Besides, the investigations that have been made about Alexandre Wolff did not justify the suspicions against him."
Answer. "As I have explained, I imagined, under the influence of journalists who had unhinged my mind, all that I said about Wolff. I repeat once more that Wolff is innocent."
Question. "From the outset until November 26th, then constantly ever since, you have attributed the crime to four individuals—three men and one red-haired woman—all four dressed in long black gowns, and the men wearing hats with high crowns and wide brims."
Answer. "I change nothing in my statements on this point."
Question. "At the beginning of the investigations, two different facts seemed to corroborate your narrative. On June 2nd, a letter bearing the signature of a certain 'Arthur Rewer' whose identity it has been impossible to establish, was sent to the Sûreté. It asserted that on the night of May 30-31st, about 12.45 A.M., four men and a red-haired woman left the Impasse Ronsin. Also, the discovery in a carriage of the Metropolitan, on the evening of May 31st, of an invitation card to the recent exhibition of your husband's paintings together with a visiting card torn in two pieces, which bore a few addresses, took the Sûreté to Guilbert the costumier, and led one to believe that the black gowns you said were worn by the assassins, might have been stolen from a basket of costumes supplied by this Guilbert to the Hebrew Theatre during the afternoon of May 30th.
"But the Rewer letter has lost most of its importance on account of a second letter, obviously written by the same person and dated January 6th, 1909, in which it is stated that the five persons mentioned in the letter of June 2nd, might just as well have been coming from a house close to the Impasse Ronsin. Besides nothing has ever proved that Arthur Rewer did not merely see some peaceful passers by. Now, as regards the gowns stolen at the Hebrew Theatre, this is the last stage of the investigations: the disappearance of the black gowns was discovered with certainty only on May 31st, for there are contradictions between the evidence of Finberg on December 28th, and that of Sumart on March 2nd, concerning the state of the costume basket, and it has not been proved at all that the theft took place on Nov. 30th (!) Besides, even if the theft took place on that same day, there were only two black gowns stolen—according to Riegel's evidence on February 25th, and it is certain that no hats with wide brims were stolen (!) Finally, the fact could be the better considered as a mere coincidence, without connection with the crime, since disappearances of costumes seem to have often taken place at the Hebrew Theatre, especially in 1908.
"During our investigations, however, we have—under the influence of the very grave signs of your personal guilt—wondered whether the theft at the Hebrew Theatre—admitting its reality from May 31st—and the leaving in the underground of the documents we have mentioned, had not been arranged at your instigation, or at that of any other accomplice in the crime in order to give some likelihood to the description you were going to make of the crime." (!)
Answer. "I maintain all my statements. I have always drawn—I still draw—from my conscience, the strength to bear all this mystery. It has always seemed to me as if, thanks to that card of invitation to the exhibition of his works, my husband himself were telling me from his tomb: 'All that you have said is true. Have the courage to discover the murderers.'"
Question. "Your story of the four personages in the black gowns retains all its romantic unlikeliness and incredibility emphasised by the fantastic idea of criminals, who, in their inexplicable plan to mask their clothes and not their faces, decided to entangle themselves, when carrying out the most delicate criminal operations, in the pampering folds of gowns, the sleeves of which fell over their hands (!) We have, none the less, constantly, and to the end, allowed an open field for your investigations, even as regards the reality and the identity of the four persons you described. All your efforts in this line have been no more successful than those which were made during the first months of the inquiries."