... "Ceasing to regard Mme. Japy as a 'victim,' the Advocate-General has imagined her as a 'witness.'... I have my own version, quite a new one, concerning the death of Mme. Japy, the Advocate-General gravely declares. I have studied, I have searched, and doubted; then, finally, I have reached an explanation, a version....
... "And here is this strange version: the husband alone was to die; his death was premeditated. He was to be killed by two persons—the accomplice, Alexandre Wolff perhaps, but more likely Mariette Wolff.... As for Mme. Japy, she was to live to see, and later on be a 'witness' who would confirm the breaking in of the murderers. Only, by forcing a gag into her mouth, the aggressors acted too brutally; they only aimed at a 'sham,' but they went as far as reality—that is, suffocation, asphyxia. Instead of a living witness: a corpse.
... "Why have I called this version a strange one? Merely because it supposes that the criminals wanted to let Mme. Japy live. Now, investigations show that, on the contrary, the death of Mme. Japy was a decided thing, and that almost certainly the murderers began by killing her. In order to kill her, the miscreants did not only force into her mouth a large gag with such violence that one false tooth, pushed back into the throat, was broken; they strangled her with a cord fastened twice round her neck. Thus with this death, wilfully caused by strangulation, it is impossible to speak of a 'witness' whom Mme. Steinheil and her accomplice needed for their scheme. And then would not Mme. Steinheil really have been compromising and giving herself away if she had thus prepared, as it were, the evidence of her mother against Mariette or her son? But the Advocate-General means that Mme. Japy would have remained silent! But in that case, instead of a 'witness,' she would have become an accomplice herself. As you see, gentlemen of the jury, this version is but one more fable to add to all the fables in this affair. And would you like to know whence it comes? It is very simple. There is a newspaper, the Matin, of which we must speak here without complacency or fear. It was in the Matin, Monsieur l'Avocat General, that you found this gruesome remark: 'My mother, the was the alibi.' A pitiful joke that you have twisted in a different but no more successful form. For in the Matin this sentence, 'My mother, that was the alibi,' meant that Mme. Steinheil, in order not to have been accused of having killed her husband, had thought it necessary to kill her mother. Nothing more or less! Only, the Matin was too precise. It stated that Mme. Steinheil had made that statement to some one who, to relieve her conscience, had rushed to the newspaper's office. It was easy to annihilate that tale. I went to the prison and showed the Matin article to Mme. Steinheil. Without hesitation she wrote at once to Judge André, asking to be confronted with the person who it was said had heard the confession. Then came a difficulty: it was impossible to find that person; she had vanished into space."...
My counsel proceeded to refute the theory of the Prosecution, who stated that there were no burglars, because entrance had not been forced into the house, because no weapons had been brought in from outside... and for other reasons which have already been discussed at length such as: No jewels stolen, no money taken, no real disorder, &c.
Maître Aubin had no difficulty in showing that the burglars needed no skeleton keys since the doors were open. They had placed a ladder near a window of the kitchen, but finding that the kitchen door was open, they entered that way. As for the statement that no "instruments of the crime" were brought in from outside, how did the prosecution know that? All that was known was that the murderers used cords and wadding gags. It was proved that the cord with which M. Steinheil was strangled came from the kitchen cupboard, open, and opposite the door. But the cords with which Mme. Japy was strangled and Mme. Steinheil bound did not come from the house. As for the gags, what could be more natural than that the murderers would use some of the wadding which they found in my mother's room.
My counsel's next task was to answer the statements that there had been no serious binding, no gag in my mouth, and that I had never been seriously ill.
Concerning the last point I may mention that it was chiefly based on the statement made by Mlle. Vogler, who from June 5th to July 5th, 1908, nursed me first at the d'Arlon's and afterwards at my Bellevue villa. Although I was kept alive by sea-water and morphia injections, this nurse did not hesitate to state that my illness was "pure comedy," that my temperature was always normal, and further that "every night at the same hour—between midnight and 1 A.M. Mme. Steinheil used to jump out of bed and wail: 'I am afraid.' Her eyes were dry. I felt her pulse and found it as steady as my own."
(Dossier Cote 3225-3250)
My counsel merely remarked: "One cannot think of everything: Mlle. Vogler forgot this letter sent by her to Mme. Steinheil.
"Friday, November 6th.