It was late, and I supposed that everybody was in bed. Suddenly, I saw a point of light moving through the hall towards the staircase. (My room was separated from the hall by the dining-room, which had large windows opening upon it, and as there was as yet no door to my room--the workmen not having completed their work--but merely a piece of tapestry which was drawn aside at the time, I could see from my room through the dining-room windows, any light moving in the hall.) I was astonished: I walked stealthily to the dining-room window and saw Mariette and her son. What were they doing there at this late hour? It was about midnight.... They went upstairs as softly as possible. I had not yet undressed and I followed. When I reached the foot of the staircase, I heard Mariette tell Alexandre: "Don't make the least noise." I tried to follow them upstairs, but my legs shook under me, and I remained on the lower steps.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALEXANDRE WOLFF AND HIS MOTHER, MARIETTE WOLFF

Sketches by Mme. Steinheil]

The two went up, up.... I heard them open the door of the attic and enter.... How long they remained there I could not tell.... I shook with fear and cold; the blood throbbed painfully through in my temples....

I heard them again and jumped up. They came down, stopped on the second floor at the entrance of the studio, and went in there.... I ran out in the garden to see whether there was any light in the studio. There was none. They evidently held their candle quite low, and away from the windows. I rushed back to the foot of the staircase. They came down.

Just as I was about to go back to my room, so as not to be seen, I heard Wolff say ill-temperedly to his mother: "I tell you that three are missing," and Mariette replied: "Well, I can't help that!..." Wolff then said: "Now that he is locked up, we shan't know anything. Ah! Why couldn't she leave things alone: everything was quiet. Why could not you shut her mouth!... But be careful. She is wide awake. I saw that the other evening when I had dinner here. She was kind as usual, but her eyes were not the same...." They had stopped on the first-floor landing.... I feared that I should not have the strength to reach my room, but I managed somehow to get there. Marthe was sleeping peacefully. The night-light fell on the letters scattered about the table, and cast a soft glow on my daughter's face. The sight of her gave me courage. I looked at the clock. It was 12.40 A.M. I went back to the dining-room window, and saw Mariette and her son creep noiselessly through the hall. I ran to the door and, hearing no noise, went two or three steps into the hall. I then heard the voice of Mariette saying: "Give me a light.... I can't see." The voice came from the staircase leading to the cellar, and the door at the top of the staircase was ajar. What were they doing there?... I hid again, and soon the two came up.

Alexandre Wolff looked wild.... "Hush!" said Mariette, and they went to the _concierge's_ lodge, through the kitchen. (Mariette acted at that time as cook and doorkeeper.) The doors were closed, and I could hear nothing. I waited. The hall being almost entirely of gla.s.s, I could not help seeing Wolff leaving the house. My feelings during all this time may be surmised. At last I saw the door of the lodge open, and then Wolff walked stealthily to the gate, opened it, and disappeared. I went back to my room to see Marthe. She had slept soundly. I looked at the clock; it was 1.30 _A.M._ I wondered what I should do. For the first time I was afraid of Mariette, who had always been the most devoted servant any one could wish to have, in spite of her rather blunt ways.

Mme. Chabrier was upstairs, in her little apartment. Should I go up and ask her for a.s.sistance?... I hesitated, then made up my mind. I lit a candle and went straight to the lodge. The opening on to the garden, near the gate into the street, was still open. I found Mariette sitting near her bed in a state of stupor. She started when she saw me, and she seemed at once to realise that my feelings towards her were changed.

"What are you doing there, at this time of night?" I asked her. "I have just heard the gate of the Impa.s.se being shut. Has some one gone out, then? And why is your door wide open? What is happening?..."

"Nothing, Madame, I opened the door to have more air.... I don't feel well.... All these stories, these new investigations.... I don't like them. Everything will go wrong. Couillard will perhaps give us no end of trouble. Who knows!... He will perhaps accuse me or my son.... Ah! I can swear to you that if they touch my son... you know me.... I shan't be afraid of any one!"

She had a terrifying appearance, the old Mariette, with her eyes that flashed angrily, her threatening jaw, and her big clenched fists. She rose, came close to me, and said: "Well, and what about you? Why aren't you in bed at this time?"

I was afraid, but summoning what little strength was left in me, I said: "Because I have been awake...."

"Since when?"

"For over two hours; since eleven o'clock.... Why do you look so frightened?"

Mariette came still closer to me, until her face almost touched mine. I had not even hinted that I had seen her and her son, and yet she said suspiciously and threateningly: "Well, and then?..."

"And then... Mariette? It is for you to explain to me what you did with your son in the attic, in the studio, and then in the cellar.... Answer me."

She stared at me, hesitated, and then replied: "What did I do in the attic?... That's no business of yours. I am free to do as I please.

There are things of mine in the attic. If I like, I can give things to my son to take with him, can't I?"

"No, Mariette, your son has taken nothing with him. He carried no parcel when I saw him go... or else, what he took must have been very small."

She seized my hands: "Look here, Madame, I have had enough of all this.

Leave me alone. I am not in a mood to give explanations. You had better return to Marthe and go to bed.... Do you hear?"

Her att.i.tude and her tone frightened me so much that I hurried away. I spent the rest of the night on a chair, watching over Marthe, listening to every noise. I seriously thought of calling M. Hamard's attention to the events of that night, but Mariette had been an exemplary servant for many, many years. I suspected her son, who, I had been told, was extremely violent and had had several encounters with the police, but I could not believe that old Mariette had had anything to do with the crime. And I thought of her daughter and her son-in-law, Mme. and M.

Geoffrey, who had both always been most devoted. The wife constantly came to my house to do odd jobs, and the husband was ever ready to help.

They kept the house when we were away on a holiday, and I could rely on them implicitly.... If I accused Mariette and her son in any way, they would all suffer, alas!... I thought, too, that possibly there was nothing evil in that midnight visit to the attic and the cellar.

Perhaps, after all, Mariette had wished to have a private conversation with her son, and had wanted to show or give him various things of hers.... Perhaps her angry att.i.tude towards me could be explained by the fact that she feared lest I should suspect her son, as I had done Couillard. Perhaps she was as distracted as I was myself, and almost irresponsible for what she did or said!...

At the same time, I was trembling with fear, and wondering.... At daybreak, I fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion, but was soon awakened by the banging of the doors. I went out to see what the matter was.

M. Hamard had arrived with a whole troop of detectives to carry out investigations throughout my house. The workmen came as usual, and also a small crowd of journalists. Mariette was furious, and swore like a trooper.

Suddenly, a man rushed in through the gate. He came to me and said: "I hear that M. Hamard, the Chief of the _Surete_, is here. Please Mademoiselle, tell him I absolutely must speak to him!"

"Well, and what have you to tell him?" said M. Hamard. He turned to me, and whispered: "You see, people still take you for your daughter!" Then, addressing the man, whose name was Wagner, he added: "You can talk before this lady. She is Mme. Steinheil herself, and I am M. Hamard."

He waved the journalists away, for all had, of course, eagerly pressed around us. The man then breathlessly declared that he could give most valuable information about Alexandre Wolff; that Wolff, on the day after the crime, had a great deal of money in his possession.... M. Hamard asked me to leave him alone with the man; and I withdrew.

For practically the whole of the day, the detectives searched the house.

They examined everything in Mariette's lodge, searched the cellar, and also the attic. I helped them. I felt sure that they would discover something that would lead to the complete solution of the problem which was driving me crazy. But the detectives found nothing, and I grew desperate.

The attic was a vast one, and enc.u.mbered with boxes, furniture, models'

costumes and what not.... I went up to watch the detectives at work. I wondered what had happened during the night, when Mariette and her son had been there! Those words: "There are three missing...." haunted me. I was care-worn and ill. I had not slept for forty-eight hours and I had gone through a thousand maddening anxieties.... I wanted the men to find something.... It seemed to me that they were not keen enough, that they did not search as thoroughly as they should.... I rushed to my room, took a tiny diamond in a box, rushed back to the attic, and dropped it in the dust. Yes! that was a good idea. They would renew their efforts, now.... I called their attention to the glittering speck, and one of the detectives picked up the small diamond. M. Hamard, who was present, quickly pocketed the stone, and remarked: "We will have to find out whether it is a real diamond or mere paste."

The detectives left the house at the end of the afternoon. The journalists were at liberty to come in now, and they did come in! Fifty or sixty of them. They scampered in like wild beasts! They asked questions of every one in the house. Even those I had thought ponderous and dignified lost all control of themselves.... A shower of questions rained upon me. "Write anything you please," I said wearily, "but do leave me alone, I must sleep, I must forget all this...." I locked myself up in a room and s.n.a.t.c.hed an hour's sleep, and it was Marthe's turn to watch over her mother....

A noise like the voice of an angry sea roused me. I went to the garden gate, and through the small wicket I saw a great crowd of men and women--women especially--who howled fearfully. Marthe held my hand and trembled. "Mother, mother, what is it?" she kept asking. A sedate English--or American--journalist, who was with us at the time, said, "Don't pay any attention, Madame. Leave this gate. Some side with you, but others loathe you--and neither the one nor the other knows why." And he added in a murmur, "The great enemy of reason, the Mult.i.tude...."

Words spoken at a dramatic moment often engrave themselves on the mind, and that last sentence often came back to me. I have since found that the journalist was quoting Sir Thomas Brown.

Mme. Chabrier, who had gone out early in the afternoon, had the greatest difficulty in reaching the house, and so had the messengers and the postman, who brought shoals of letters which I read more eagerly than before.... At last, late in the evening, policemen cleared the Impa.s.se Ronsin and the storm died away. We sat down to dinner, Marthe and I, but couldn't eat....

In the middle of the night--it must have been 1.30 A.M.--the door-bell rang persistently. I rose, and dressed hastily, Mariette was already at the gate. "Who is it?" I cried; "what is it?" There were half a dozen journalists outside, who wanted to know if it were true that I had committed suicide! Mariette shouted, "No, of course not! Go away!" and banged the wicket to. That night again I was unable to sleep. I thought that I could not live through another day such as I had just pa.s.sed, another night such as was now slowly dragging away. I was convinced that I had reached the limit of human endurance, but events were to prove to me, very soon--within the next twenty-four hours in fact!--that I was wrong. My calvary had only begun.... There is perhaps no limit to the human capacity for suffering, physically and mentally.

I thought of Couillard. What was he doing? Saying? Were my suspicions, were all the anonymous letters, quite wrong? Would he confess? Had he anything to confess?

An inspector had called and told me during the afternoon that Couillard had said that M. Steinheil, on the Sat.u.r.day, May 30th, less than twelve hours before the crime, had told him that he expected some important letters, and had ordered him to hide them under the table-cover in the hall, when they came. Two messages had come, and Couillard had hidden them as he had been told.... These were important facts. It was not yet time to go to M. Hamard and tell him the truth about the pearl....

Couillard was making new and highly interesting statements, and might know and say much more.... If Couillard was quite innocent, and knew absolutely nothing that could throw some light on the crime, it was wicked of me to leave him in prison when, by stating that I had placed the pearl in his pocket-book merely in order to make the valet speak, he would have been at once set free. But at that time I did sincerely believe that he was not quite innocent, and was convinced that at any moment I might hear that he had revealed the great secret and the names of the a.s.sa.s.sins. And, therefore, I waited still a little longer....

CHAPTER XX

THE SO-CALLED "NIGHT OF THE CONFESSION" (NOVEMBER 25-26, 1908)

Early in the morning, journalists came as usual to "find out the latest," and as usual they followed the workmen into the house.

At 10 A.M. detectives arrived to continue their searching, and once more, I hoped that they would make some discovery that would lead to "the truth." Mariette was in a state of frenzy and said to me, the moment she saw me: "The crowd is against you. Couillard is arrested.

They will arrest my son and me, next, I bet. You're going to tell the _Surete_ what happened the other night, when you saw me and Alexandre.... Let all this fuss be stopped.... Life isn't worth living.... Send the police away from here. They are driving me mad with their endless investigations. If all this goes on much longer, I don't know what may happen. At any rate, I shan't stop at anything! After all, if there is any one who knows something about the murder, it must be M.

Bdl."

Mariette knew of my brief friendship with M. Bdl, and was fully aware that my relations with him had long ceased, but, for some reason, she wanted to intimidate me, and she hurled that name at me as a weapon, for she realised how anxious I was that Marthe should not know about that indiscretion.

Mariette went on, more fiercely than ever: "If the police don't leave this house, if you say a word against Alexandre or me, I shall say all I know about M. Ch. and M. Bdl., and then we shall see! Ah! you say you love your daughter.... Well, I love my son.... We shall see, we shall see...." Then, abruptly, her tone changed, and she said desperately: "There is only one thing for me to do; I must get drunk."...

There was a constant buzzing in my ears, my whole body was on fire, as it were, and it seemed to me as if my heart, which beat so terribly fast, would suddenly stop.... I looked at Mariette, and with all the resolution I could summon, I said to her: "I shall go to the end of this affair. I shall speak all the truth, I shall say all I know."...

Mariette was no longer listening. She held her poor head and mumbled: "I must get drunk, drunk... that's the only thing to do." I pitied her and walked away.

M. Hamard arrived, saw his men, and then came to me and said: "We can find nothing.... True, many months have elapsed since the murder.... By the way, M. Leydet would like to see you at the Palace of Justice.

Inspector Pouce will come here and accompany you.... The crowd is rather hostile."

"Very well, M. Hamard," I replied.