MOUZON [_to the recorder_] What a rogue, eh? One might have taken him in
the act, knife in hand, and he'd say it wasn't true! A crafty fellow
too--he defends himself well.
RECORDER. I really thought, at one time, that your worship had got him.
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 worship!
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 asserting 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._