Answer. "It is impossible for me to explain to you what took place in the minds of those monsters. Perhaps they thought I was bound tightly enough. In any case if, as you believe it, I took some part in the crime and had an accomplice, I should surely have had enough intelligence and presence of mind to have had myself treated with more severity, since I am being reproached with the fact that I remained alive!"
(M. André then mentioned the various bruises found on my body and remarked that they were very slight.)
Answer. "I have no need to reply to all this. If I bore no external marks, I suffered internally to such an extent that I was dangerously ill for two months, as you may find in your own dossier."...
Question. "Beside the very significative absence of real violence, the persistent effort you made to hide facts accuses you. At the very beginning of, and throughout the inquiry you declared that you had never seen the alpenstock and the glove found in the boudoir, but our investigations have made it appear quite likely that the alpenstock was one of the accessories in your husband's studio. And it has been proved that the glove (a man's glove) had been given you."...
Answer. "I never saw the alpenstock in the studio or elsewhere in the house; and granting the glove had belonged to M. Ch. I didn't remember it. (I sometimes asked my friends for their old gloves which I used when I had to cut flowers, to paint certain objects or do some rough work.) Had I remembered that alpenstock and that glove, I should have hastened to say so; I had no reason not to do so."
Question. "You said the violence you had suffered at the hands of the assassins was one of the causes of your illness. We reminded you how little convincing were the external signs of that violence. As for the nervous agitation which was evident in you—the fact is undeniable—after and since the drama, the moral shock of your participation in the crime, the very weight of to heavy a 'penal' responsibility, anxiety on account of the investigations—would be quite sufficient to explain it."...
(M. André evidently forgot that I felt so little those "anxieties on account of the investigations" that month after month, I urged the police to renew their efforts, and even sought the assistance of the Press, when I heard that the solution of the Impasse Ronsin murder mystery was being given up! After discussing once more the question of the gag and the stolen money and jewels, I had once more to explain that the expert had evidently not examined the piece of wadding which had been in my mouth, and also why I had five of my jewels altered by M. Souloy. But M. André merely remarked:)
"You have lied always and about everything.... To such an attitude there is but one explanation: you tried to ward off suspicions, and therefore you took a direct part in the murder."
Answer. "You want to find lies in everything. If I spoke some untruths, it was solely to conceal certain facts of my private life, certain 'friendships' I had had."
(The next remark of the examining magistrate was a fantastic one:)