CHAPTER XI

EVENTS THAT PRECEDED THE CRIME

At the beginning of the year 1908, my little Marthe became engaged to young Pierre Buisson, son of an intimate friend of mine. Shortly afterwards she renounced the Protestant faith and joined the Catholic Church. This suited her somewhat mystical nature. She loved the immensity of cathedrals, the light through stained-glass windows, the beautiful services, the incense and the little bells, the plain-chant and the vestments of the priests. She loved to be guided; she shirked responsibilities; she liked to be able to enter "her" church at any time of the day and any day. She thought it was "restful" to be a Catholic. Perhaps religion to her was more a matter of sensations and feelings than of the mind; perhaps more a question of art, poesy and comforting illusion than of thought. Dogma was nothing to her; atmosphere a great deal.... She thought she could pray better in the semi-darkness and immensity of an ancient cathedral than within the plain white walls of a small Protestant temple. She prayed for the man she loved, and he was a Catholic....

I neither opposed nor encouraged this change of religion. Marthe was seventeen, extremely "wise" for her age and never acted rashly. I did not question whether she was right or wrong; I merely asked her carefully to examine her heart and search her conscience, and when later she told me: "Mother, I feel I shall be happier if I become a Catholic," I raised no further objection.

* * * * *

In March 1908--about two months before the tragedy, I all but fainted one afternoon in the "Metropolitan" (the Paris Underground). I had not quite recovered from a dangerous illness, and this had been my first outing. I must have looked very pale and ill, for several persons rushed to my assistance. A gentleman kindly helped me up the staircase leading to the street and offered to accompany me as far as my house, which was only a short distance away. I gladly accepted. The fresh air did me much good. As we neared the Impasse Ronsin he asked: "Do you happen to know M. Steinheil the painter? He lives somewhere near here."

"I am Mme. Steinheil," I replied.

The gentleman asked permission to call and inquire after my health. He handed me his card and I read "Comte de Balincourt."

* * * * *

Before relating all I have to say about M. de Balincourt, I wish to state that I have no intention whatever of accusing him of any complicity.

I shall merely describe the part he played in the lives of my husband and myself a few weeks before the crime, and why my suspicions against him were aroused then; and again when, in prison, I found in the _Dossier_ of my case a number of documents concerning M. de Balincourt's life, I did not speak of my suspicions except to my counsel and two or three persons who visited me when I was a prisoner at Saint-Lazare.

Rémy Couillard--my man-servant--and Alexandra Wolff--the son of my cook, I did accuse of the murder in circumstances and for reasons which I will fully explain in due time. The Law found Couillard and Wolff absolutely innocent and I bowed--and bow--to the Law.

But since I have had, at a time, the gravest suspicions against them both and against M. de Balincourt, I must--and will--say why with utmost sincerity, although let it be thoroughly understood that I have long ceased to accuse them of having had any part whatsoever, directly or indirectly, in the mystery of the Impasse Ronsin.

I made grave errors and paid dearly for them. But as in these "Memoirs" I take the reader into my confidence and disclose my life and my thoughts, it is only right that I should, without hesitation though without any _arrière-pensée_, explain the reasons which led me to believe, for a short time, my man-servant, the son of my cook, and M. de Balincourt to have some part in the tragedy of May 30th-31st, 1908.

* * * * *

The day after our first encounter M. de Balincourt called. After a few polite inquiries he asked to see M. Steinheil. In the studio he examined the pictures, made himself very pleasant, congratulated my husband on his talent, and asked him whether he would paint his portrait in hunting-costume.

M. de Balincourt, hearing that my husband intended shortly to hold an important exhibition of his pictures, said he had had some experience in organising shows of that kind.

"My paintings will probably be exhibited at the 'Georges Petit Gallery,'" said M. Steinheil.

"It will be expensive," M. de Balincourt suggested. "Why not have the exhibition here, in this vast studio. When I was organising an exhibition some time ago I made some notes, which I have kept, about art-collectors and lists of addresses of people likely to buy paintings. I could help you a great deal. We could fit up the studio specially for that exhibition. I am sure it would be a great success."

He came three days later, and again offered to assist us: "I shall require no payment...." he added, "but perhaps M. Steinheil will charge me less for my portrait."

Shortly afterwards the Count came to sit. He proved full of life and energy--"the very man to push the sale of my pictures when the show takes place," said my husband. At first M. de Balincourt came only to sit for his portrait, but soon he arrived in time for lunch, and remained until after tea-time. I began to be a trifle suspicious, but my husband, who talked a great deal with him, warmly took his part.

One day I overheard a few words of conversation between them, in which, to my intense surprise, the word "documents" and the name "Félix Faure" occurred several times.

I was somewhat alarmed, for a month or so before, the mysterious and dreaded "German" had once more appeared on the scene, and afterwards my husband had told me that he again demanded the ten large pearls and also the famous papers and memoirs. I refused to part with them and said: "Tell the man that I have burnt them."

This strange conversation between my husband and M. de Balincourt, who had only known us a few days, puzzled and irritated me a great deal, and after the Count's departure I asked Adolphe for an explanation. He merely replied that I was mistaken....

M. de Balincourt came more and more frequently, and ingratiated himself with the Buisson family, who were almost constantly with us. He was, above all, on good terms with my husband. I need hardly say that he was extremely attentive to me, and as I was most anxious to find out what was in his mind, and of what it was that he talked with my husband, I pretended to be pleased with his praise and flattery.

M. de Balincourt called on me one evening at Bellevue. Before his arrival I had had a brief conversation with Mariette Wolff, my old cook, who had been in my service, first as an occasional help, and afterwards as cook, for many years.

I had noticed that, in Paris, the Count often went to the kitchen.... Mariette seemed to know a great deal about him, and I asked her how it was.

"Well, Madame," she said, "M. de Balincourt often comes into the kitchen to have his boots cleaned, and also the hunting knife he wears for the portrait which Monsieur is painting. He is very chatty and communicative. I hear that he divorced his wife two years ago, and that he takes a great interest in racing. You know my son, Alexandre, often goes to race meetings. The Count and Alexandre know one another...."

M. de Balincourt arrived and I encouraged him to tell me all about himself. He described his adventurous life to me, his worries, the various "crises" he had gone through, his family affairs. He told me that he had taken an active part in revictualling the famous Fort Chabrol in 1899, and that he often gambled and lost....

He drank wine freely, and talked and talked....

"If you are so often in financial difficulties," I asked, "how are you able to give my husband a commission for a portrait?"

"Oh! I always manage to get out of trouble. Nothing worries me... I have tried my hand at many games, including little political side-games...."

Now was the moment to find out what his conversation with my husband had been about. M. de Balincourt told me that M. Steinheil had talked to him about Félix Faure and the talisman. "He even showed me a very interesting letter written by the late President, on the margin of which there were several notes in your handwriting...."

"You lie," I cried boldly, for I wanted to force him to tell me more....

For a moment M. de Balincourt was taken aback, but he soon pulled himself together, and began to give me such details that it was impossible to doubt his word. "Your husband," he concluded, "tells me everything.... For instance, he told me only yesterday that he does not like to leave the house because he fears burglars; he has received many letters, the contents of which he keeps secret.... He also said the house had been broken into on one occasion...." (That was quite correct.)

It became clearer and clearer that my husband was concealing something from me. I had a further proof of this several months after the tragedy, when Couillard confessed to the examining magistrate that his master had kept up a secret correspondence, and that he, Couillard, had received orders from M. Steinheil, even on May 30th (that is a few hours before the murders were committed) to hide any letter that might come for him under the cloth on the hall-table, and that, above all, Madame must not know anything about them. Two mysterious messages did come by express, and Couillard concealed them as he had been told. These two letters were never traced. Who knows but that if they had been found they might have given some useful clue as to the authors of the murders?

After my conversation with M. de Balincourt I remained at Bellevue for a few days. A mystery yet unsolved is merely irritating, but a mystery which you feel others are determined to prevent you from solving--although you know you must--has a disastrous effect upon the spirit. It is possible to face open danger without flinching, but the bravest of hearts quails before an indefinite peril lurking in the dark and likely to reveal itself you cannot tell when. Imagination inevitably runs amuck and pictures the worst of horrors with a distracting facility.

I spent miserable days at Bellevue, wondering what to do. Sometimes I thought that my anxieties were childish and unfounded, but at other moments, danger seemed as near and real that I half believed that I should touch it if I put out my hand. It was there before me, though I could not see it and could not give a name to it. I thought of President Faure's necklace, of the documents, of the mysterious "German," of my husband's reticence and also of his sudden and inconceivable bursts of confidence in total strangers.... He was nearly sixty now, and on several occasions I had heard him speak to certain of his models as he would have to old and intimate friends. He was both imprudent and nervous, easy-going and suspicious.... What was there at the bottom of this relation with that German? Why were those secret meetings with my husband so carefully arranged that not once had I been able to come face to face with him! Why was not one single letter of his shown to me? And why would my husband never give me any details about his transactions and his conversations with the man?

And now M. de Balincourt had gained M. Steinheil's confidence. He had gained mine, too, but not for long, for, after I had seen him two or three times, I read through him!

I had so little to go by that in spite of every effort to concentrate my whole mind on it I could not solve the problem, and at last gave up all hope of doing so. I was in despair. Years ago I had dismissed the whole matter from my thoughts, but now the mystery had returned with renewed perils. It held me in its tentacles, and I felt that not only was I threatened by it, but also my mother, my husband and my only child, whose lives were so intimately bound up in mine.

Thank Heaven, my little Marthe was with me, and we took long walks with her _fiancé_ and his parents in the Meudon Park. And in the evening we played and sang together....

One morning my husband, whom I had asked to join me at Bellevue, telephoned from Paris, where he had remained to put the finishing touches to a number of paintings destined for the proposed exhibition of his works. He informed me that a very wealthy foreigner had called to order a small portrait of President Fallières, which he wanted for a magnificent album containing drawings by great painters and also a few bars of music by celebrated composers.... He knew a great number of prominent Germans who were coming to Paris for the Horse Show, and whom he would bring to the studio....

"I cannot come to Bellevue," my husband concluded, "for I must do this portrait at once. The foreign gentleman says he is to be received at the Elysée very soon, and he wants to ask the President to sign his name at the foot of my picture.... I should, of course, paint the portrait from a photograph which the gentleman has brought...."

To me all this sounded suspicious, and I told my husband so. "I don't like the idea of President Fallières' autograph under your drawing.... Why don't you tell this wealthy collector to apply to our friend Bonnat?"

The telephone worked indifferently that day, and I could not quite catch the meaning of my husband's reply, so I said: "Please refuse to draw that portrait. At any rate, let the matter stand over for a day or two. Find some pretext and come to see me here."

He came.... The Buisson family were present when he explained to me that the foreigner was quite reliable and that he had promised to bring to the studio two German Princes....

I asked him whether the wealthy foreigner was a German, and he replied in the affirmative. Then, reading a question in my eyes, he said hastily: "No, no... he is not the same man as the German you are thinking of!"

My husband spoke so well of the stranger that I felt almost ashamed of being so suspicious.

He returned to Paris and I remained with my daughter and the Buissons at Bellevue; but, try as I might, I could not keep the mysterious German out of my thoughts, and, becoming anxious about the safety of the Félix Faure documents, I returned to Paris twenty-four hours after my husband had left Bellevue.

At lunch my husband said: "I really must finish that portrait to-day, for this evening a messenger from the 'Grand Hotel' will come to fetch it. So please see that no one disturbs me this afternoon. The gentleman who ordered the Fallières portrait is dining to-night with the German Princes I told you about, and with several other personages, and he wishes to show the picture to them all."

He then asked me several times whether I would go out or remain at home, and it was quite clear that, for some reason which I could not guess, he was most anxious that I should not be in that afternoon. I had a presentiment that it would be better for me to remain at home, and that by doing so I might, perhaps, find out something about this strange commission.

Besides, my dressmaker was there, and I was expecting a few friends. My time was, therefore, fully occupied, and I did not go up to my husband's studio.

In the evening, at about seven-thirty, I told Rémy Couillard to have dinner served. He said: "... Monsieur is not ready.... He is upstairs with the gentleman who brought a large photograph of the President. (Couillard had himself opened the parcel for his master.) The gentleman called this afternoon, and he is still in the studio."

"When did he come?"

"At tea-time, Madame."

I went up to the dressmaker, who was still at work.

"Oh! Monsieur Steinheil was looking for you a little time ago, to show you the portrait of M. Fallières. I saw it--it is very nice...."

It was clear that my husband had come down to find where I was, so that he might let the "foreigner" out of the house without my seeing him.

I was about to go up the stairs leading to the studio when I heard steps coming down in the dark. I was at the door of the sewing-room in the corridor on the first floor. To my intense surprise I saw a man lift the tapestry shutting off the corridor from the landing. The man walked straight on, my husband following him. When he saw me, the man exclaimed in French, but with a pronounced German accent: "Oh! excuse me, Mademoiselle."

"No, no," said my husband, "that is not my daughter, but my wife."

"You are not on the ground floor, Sir," I said coldly, "but on the first floor where the private apartments are."

(It had struck me that he seemed to know his way to the corridor, and perhaps to the boudoir where the documents were kept. The tapestry hid the entrance to the passage so well that it could not possibly occur to any one not familiar with the topography of the house to raise the heavy drapery--in the thought that it led to the hall--for it looked for all the world as if it were hung against the wall of the landing.)

"Ach!" said the German, apologetically... "I have made a mistake. As a matter of fact, I passed through here this morning when M. Steinheil wanted to show me some old bibelots and prints in a small sitting-room you have up here... I came here quite accidentally, and we were going down, your husband and I...."

He stammered and looked most embarrassed. "It is really most extraordinary," I said to him in German, "that you should have found your way in here, especially in the dark. There is a light in the hall, whilst there is none in the staircase at present." Then, as I wished to see this person in a full light, for the passage where we stood was only faintly lit by the light coming from the sewing-room, I added: "If you are fond of old prints, I can show you some downstairs."

I ran and told Couillard to turn the lights on in the drawing-room.

When I was, at last, able to see the man clearly, I was amazed and disgusted. The "wealthy foreigner" was a small man of about fifty with a long Jewish nose, with scanty hair and moustache that were dyed black, small beady eyes, sly and shifty, and a sallow complexion. His dress-suit was shabby and even greasy. The shirtfront was not clean and was adorned with two large paste-diamond studs. The man's ill-shaped hands wanted washing and were certainly not the hands of a gentleman. His whole figure inspired me with repulsion, even with fear.

"It appears," I told him, "that to-night you are attending an important dinner with some princes to whom you wish to show the portrait of Fallières which my husband made for you.... Could I see that portrait?"

The Jew brought out an album of medium size, from which he took a portrait which my husband had drawn of Fallières. As he replaced it in the album I could see that there were other drawings at which he evidently did not want me to look. The haste with which he shut up the album aroused my suspicions once more.

"Still," I remarked, "I cannot understand why you asked M. Steinheil for a portrait of the President. M. Steinheil seldom paints portraits. Like Meissonier, his master, his speciality is miniatures in oils, representing historic scenes, and _genre_ pictures. You should have gone to M. Bonnat, who is the official painter of Presidents."

The man's looks grew almost threatening, and something of a snarl came into his voice: "You forget, Madame, that your husband has painted President Faure!"

"Quite so, but the picture you are referring to could hardly be called a portrait. The right thing to ask M. Steinheil for your album of celebrities would have been a sketch for a stained-glass window, a study of some medieval personage or a _seigneur_ of the Renaissance period...."

The German collected himself. "Perhaps you are right, Madame.... At any rate, I am very thankful to M. Steinheil, and I will try to repay him for this portrait by bringing here some rich clients."

"But," I exclaimed, "I suppose you have paid for the portrait of M. Fallières?"

A quick questioning glance passed between my husband and the Jew. "It is quite all right," said the former.... "I promised this gentleman to do the drawing free of charge, for he will sell a number of my paintings to his friends, and will help us with the forthcoming exhibition of my works. He has taken a whole pack of invitation cards and will send them to the right kind of people."

On the piano stood the box with the comb which President Faure had given me. Wishing to find out whether this strange man knew it, I said: "Since you are fond of beautiful things, what do you think of this?"

The man took the comb and said: "Yes, this is one of the finest works of art Lalique has ever turned out.... You sometimes wore this comb in years gone by, in the days when Félix Faure was President!"

The tone in which the last words were spoken told me more than the words themselves. I left the drawing-room followed by the Jew, who hastily left the house.

"That man," I said to my husband when we were alone, "is the mysterious German of whom you have often spoken to me, the man you have met every few months for the past nine years, the man who first came here shortly after the death of President Faure, the man who 'bought' the pearls and wanted the documents!..."

My husband at first tried to deny, but soon admitted the truth of what I said. However, he kept absolutely silent when I entreated him to give me some details about the man, to tell me the truth at last, to explain the secret of this Fallières portrait and of this "wealthy foreigner," who did not pay for what he ordered, who knew his way about our house even in the dark, and who dined with princes in a shabby shotted coat!

And here, let the reader allow me to state, that I fully realised--and still realise--that had I not consented to keep the necklace for Félix Faure's sake, all these troubles would probably never have occurred. But what woman would have acted otherwise than I did, after the words the President had spoken? And on the other hand is it not evident that, had my husband fully taken me into his confidence as regards that enigmatical personage whom he called "the German Jew" (his nationality may have been anything, but he was undoubtedly a Jew, and spoke German most fluently), matters might have taken another course, and many terrible anxieties have been spared us?

That very night, fearing for the safety of the documents, I took them from the writing-table in my boudoir, and made, with a newspaper and large envelopes, a dummy parcel of papers, as like the genuine one as possible. On the top I wrote as I had written on the real parcel, my name and these words: "Private papers. To be burnt after my death." The dummy was fastened and sealed in exactly the same way and, as in the model, one could see here and there, when the wrapper was torn, corners of large envelopes, duplicates of those in which I had enclosed Félix Faure's papers and the Memoirs which we had partly written in collaboration. The dummy I put in the drawer where the genuine documents had been, and these latter I hid in a place of safety the next day.

The reader may wonder why I was so anxious to keep these papers. I can only say that they reminded me of a most interesting portion of my life, that they contained most enlightening information on many events of national and international importance.... And perhaps there was in me that vague, well-nigh unconscious and yet unconquerable sentiment which makes you loth to part with anything that, you have kept for a long time, for if you live long enough with things, they become, as it were, part and parcel of your existence.

* * * * *

My husband's exhibition was drawing near the date of opening. As the days passed by we saw less and less of M. de Balincourt, although he had so faithfully promised to come and help in the organisation. Several telegrams sent to him by my husband remained unanswered. It then occurred to me to invite him to dinner, together with the Buissons and Count and Countess d'Arlon. We received a note from M. de Balincourt explaining that he had been ill, and away on a journey, but that he accepted the invitation. He arrived at 8.30--an hour late. "You take many liberties with old French politeness," I said to him. "Neither my guests nor I have been used to such treatment. How is it that the three messages my husband sent you to the three different addresses you gave him have all remained unanswered?..."

"There must be some mistake..."

"I agree with you. No, listen, M. de Balincourt. Last Sunday some friends came to take me with them for a motor drive and lunch in the country. They were M. V.--the motor manufacturer--and his wife, whom you met here once. I was told that you called on the V.s afterwards. They wrote to you, but the letter was returned with the mention 'name unknown at this address.' Your life does not concern us, but you might at least give us your proper address! Hearing this from the V.s, I suggested that we should drive to the various addresses you had given my husband. We had the greatest difficulty in discovering the first one. We went to Boulogne (near Paris) and were directed to a narrow, evil-smelling, cut-throat place where rag-and bone-pickers lived. I thought we had made a mistake, and we were about to turn back when M. V. knocked at the worm-eaten door of the house. An evil-looking man appeared, and answered our inquiries: 'M. de Balincourt?... I don't know him, but I believe he sometimes has letters addressed here, and a friend of his, a M. Delpit, has asked us to send his letters on to an address which I will give you, if you like.'

"M. and Mme. V., who were as nonplussed as I was myself, which is saying a great deal, proposed that we should drive to that address. There, our suspicions became greater than ever, for we found ourselves in a worse place than the first. An old woman said: 'M. de Balincourt? He lives yonder, in that house.' We went there and made fresh inquiries. At last a man in tatters shouts from a window: 'He has just left'... I need hardly tell you that we all had the impression that you were there."

M. de Balincourt turned very pale and stammered: "That was not my address... a friend of mine, a very poor artist, lives there.... He forwards my letters to me."

After dinner he apologised profusely, gave me all kinds of possible explanations, talked to my husband before me about the "exhibition," and later addressed a great number of invitation cards... to show his goodwill.

A week elapsed, and M. de Balincourt did not appear. I organised everything myself. I decided to hold the exhibition in the vast "winter garden."

On the opening day, April 7th, 1908, some five hundred persons called, including several Ministers and scores of prominent officials. During the afternoon M. de Balincourt arrived. He came every day while the exhibition lasted, and had long chats with M. Steinheil, through whom, I noticed, he contrived to get introduced to as many important persons as possible. He had a small note-book, in which he jotted down the pictures that were sold and the prices. Several times I saw suspicious-looking characters enter the house. They had invitation cards. Once or twice, in order to test whether my suspicions were well founded or not, I walked straight up to these strange intruders and said severely: "I am sorry; the room is full. We cannot admit any more people." And they at once withdrew without a word.

On the last day of the show I spoke my mind to M. de Balincourt. And I never saw him again, except at my trial, where he gave evidence.