"'I don't know. Servants are not supposed to know what such parcels contain.'
"'You are a model servant,' says the President ironically.
"'I am not a model, thank you.'
"'Did you take your mistress' dressing-gown to the dyers after the crime?'
"'I don't remember. It is possible'....
"'Did you know anything about the tapestries which disappeared from the studio on the night of the crime?'
"'I have never seen them.'
"'Then you are in contradiction with Mme. Steinheil?'
"'I have nothing to do with the studio; I very seldom venture in... I am a cook and my place is in the kitchen.'
"The President then asks very quickly, in order to catch her, a number of questions about the facts which immediately preceded and followed the eventful night, but it is a case of amnesia... Mariette remembers nothing. 'After all those horrors,' she says, 'our minds have become blanks.'