Then other persons arrived. I remained some time near Mme. Steinheil, who was still in a state of great agitation, but whose terror was gradually diminishing. Doctor Puech arrived on the scene, but Mme. Steinheil asked for her own doctor, M. Acheray, whom Couillard had now gone to fetch.
Question. "What impression did Mme. Steinheil, whom you had never seen before, make on you as regards her age?"
Answer. "I had two strong impressions. When I entered the room where Mme. Steinheil was lying I thought I stood before a young lady of about twenty: but when she talked about her husband and her daughter and when I observed her more closely she appeared to me as a woman of twenty-six. I don't know the Steinheils, and did not even know their names."
Signed Lecoq
Leydet.
(Dossier, Cote 71.)
In spite of this statement—and although it must seem evident to any one that if, after such a night of terror and agony, M. Lecoq took me for a girl of twenty, the murderers, who saw me in a dimmer light and when I was quietly resting, may easily have taken me for my daughter—the Prosecution declared (I quote from the Indictment itself) that: "She thought she was spared because the assassins, taking her for Marthe, took pity on her youth. Such a confusion is most unlikely, for Mme. Steinheil could not be taken for a young lady barely seventeen."
While the reader has still fresh in his—or her—mind the details of the crime, I will give all explanations on the matter of the "binding," as I have given those about the "gag."
The Indictment said: "The inquiries of medical experts have revealed quite early the contradictions and lies of Mme. Steinheil. She claimed that a cord had been fastened round her neck—but there were no traces of it." Elsewhere the same extraordinary Indictment declares: "Mme. Steinheil did her best to make the law believe that she had really been bound; but the traces left by the cords disappeared too rapidly to allow any one to believe in her statement."
How was I bound?
M. Lecoq declared that the cords round my feet were "securely fastened" to the bed. Couillard stated that "the cord went round the feet seven or eight times," and also that "the wrists were fastened over one another to the rails of the top of the bed, the arms being raised above and behind the head." (Dossier, Cote 3257.) Couillard further stated "the head was held by a cord fastened to the railings of the bed." True, on another occasion Couillard declared he "had unfastened the cords by pulling on one end, as one undoes the knot of bootlaces." But on the morning of May 31st he made some statements to one of the policemen, M. Debacq, who declared afterwards: "The valet told me and my colleagues that he had found his mistress entirely secured with cords, and that he had cut the cords with which she was bound." The expert, Doctor Balthazard, made a special report in which he asserted that one of the cords had a knot of a kind called "galley-knot" (nœud de galère) which it is most difficult to make and which is only used in certain professions (sailors, horse-dealers, &c.). Dr. Courtois-Suffit mentioned "grooves on the feet and hands, corresponding to the diameter of the cords." Dr. Lefevre, who had made the remark, so dangerous to my cause: "It is all a sham" (c'est de la frime), explained at my trial what he had exactly meant. His idea was that the way I had been bound could not be a source of great pain to me. Dr. Acheray found on my wrists and ankles "very clear and marked traces." In his report, dated June 23rd, 1908, Dr. Lefevre stated: "I found on the wrists and the ankles parallel lineal ecchymoses."
Finally, as regards the cord round my neck which the prosecution said left no traces and was quite loose, I will merely say that I myself stated that "the cord did not hurt when I did not move my head," and further that it was wound round my neck over the cloth which covered my head. When that cloth, which formed a kind of pad at the neck, was removed, the cord of course slipped down and became loose.