Woman on Her Own, False Gods and The Red Robe Part 79

MOUZON. When I was speaking of his children?

RECORDER. Yes, that brought tears to one's eyes. It made one feel one wanted to confess even though one hadn't done anything!

MOUZON. Didn't it? Ah, if I hadn't got this headache! [_A pause_] I did a stupid thing just now.

RECORDER. Oh, your wors.h.i.+p!

MOUZON. I did. I was wrong to show him how improbable that new story of his was. It is so grotesque that it would have betrayed him--while, if he goes on a.s.serting that he never left the house, if the servant insists he didn't, and if the wife says the same thing, that's something that may create a doubt in the mind of the jury. He saw that perfectly, the rascal! He felt that of the two methods the first was the better.

That's one against me, my good Benoit. [_To himself_] That must be set right. Let me think. Etchepare is the murderer, there's no doubt about that. I am as certain of that as if I'd been present. So he wasn't at home on the night of the crime and his wife knows it. After the way he hesitated just now--if I can get the wife to confess that he was absent from home till the morning, we get back to the ridiculous story of the lost horse, and I catch him twice in a flagrant lie, and I've got him.

Come, we must give the good woman a bit of a roasting and get the truth out of her. It'll be devilish queer if I don't succeed. [_To the recorder_] What did I do with the police record of the woman Etchepare that was sent from Paris?

RECORDER. It's in the brief.

MOUZON. Yes--here it is--the extract from her judicial record. Report number two, a month of imprisonment, for receiving--couldn't be better.

Send her in.

_The recorder goes to the door and calls._

RECORDER. Yanetta Etchepare!

_Enter Yanetta._

SCENE IX:--_Mouzon, recorder, Yanetta._

MOUZON. Step forward. Now, Madame, I shall not administer the oath to you, since you are the wife of the accused. But none the less I beg you most urgently to tell the truth. I warn you that an untruth on your part might compel me to accuse you of complicity with your husband in the crime of which he is accused and force me to have you arrested at once.

YANETTA. I'm not afraid. I can't be my husband's accomplice because my husband isn't guilty.

MOUZON. That is not my opinion. I will say further: you know a great deal more about this matter than you care to tell.

YANETTA. I? That's infamous.

MOUZON. Come, come, no shouting! I don't say you took a direct part in the murder, I say it is highly probable that you knew of the murder, perhaps advised it, and that you have profited by it. That would be enough to place you in the dock beside your husband at the a.s.sizes. My treatment of you will depend on the sincerity of your answers to my questions. As you do or do not tell me the truth I shall either set you at liberty or have you arrested. Now you can't say that I haven't warned you! And now, if you please, inform me whether you persist in your first statement, in which you affirm that Etchepare stopped at home on the night of Ascension Day.

YANETTA. I do.

MOUZON. Well, it is untrue.

YANETTA [_excited_] The night on which Daddy Goyetche was murdered my husband never left the house.

MOUZON. I tell you that is not the truth.

YANETTA [_as before_] The night Daddy Goyetche was murdered my husband never left the house.

MOUZON. You seem to have got stuck. You go on repeating the same thing.

YANETTA. Yes, I go on repeating the same thing.

MOUZON. Well, now let us examine into the value of your evidence. Since your marriage--for the last ten years--your conduct has left nothing to be desired. You are thrifty, faithful, industrious, honest--

YANETTA. Well?

MOUZON. Wait a moment. You have two children, whom you adore. You are an excellent mother. One hears of your almost heroic behavior at the time your eldest child was ill--Georges, I think.

YANETTA. Yes, it was Georges. But what has that to do with the charge against my husband?

MOUZON. Have patience. You will see presently.

YANETTA. Very well.

MOUZON. It is all the more to your credit that you are what you are, for your husband does not give us an example of the same virtues. He occasionally gets drunk.

YANETTA. No, he doesn't.

MOUZON. Come--everyone knows that. He is violent.

YANETTA. He's not violent.

MOUZON. So violent that he has been convicted four times for a.s.sault and battery.

YANETTA. That's possible; at holiday times, in the evening, men get quarrelling. But that was a long time ago. Now he behaves better, and I'm very happy with him.

MOUZON. That surprises me.

YANETTA. Anyhow, does that prove he murdered old Goyetche?

MOUZON. Your husband is very grasping.

YANETTA. Poor people are forced to be very grasping or else to die of starvation.

MOUZON. You defend him well.

YANETTA. Did you suppose I was going to accuse him?

MOUZON. Have you ever been convicted?

YANETTA [_anxious_] Me?

Mouzon. Yes, you.

YANETTA [_weakly_] No, I've never been convicted.

Mouzon. That is curious because there was a girl of your name in Paris who was sentenced to a month's imprisonment for receiving stolen property.

YANETTA [_weakly_] For receiving stolen property--

MOUZON. You are not quite so bold now--you are disturbed.