Two women sat weeping, one of whom, elderly and grey-haired, came up to Gaston Dutreuil. He explained the reason for Rénine’s presence and she at once cried, amid her sobs:

“My daughter’s husband is innocent, sir. Jacques? A better man never lived. He was so good-hearted! Murder his cousin? But he worshipped his cousin! I swear that he’s not guilty, sir! And they are going to commit the infamy of putting him to death? Oh, sir, it will kill my daughter!”

Rénine realized that all these people had been living for months under the obsession of that innocence and in the certainty that an innocent man could never be executed. The news of the execution, which was now inevitable, was driving them mad.

He went up to a poor creature bent in two, whose face, a quite young face, framed in pretty, flaxen hair, was convulsed with desperate grief. Hortense, who had already taken a seat beside her, gently drew her head against her shoulder. Rénine said to her:

“Madame, I do not know what I can do for you. But I give you my word of honour that, if anyone in this world can be of use to you, it is myself. I therefore implore you to answer my questions as though the clear and definite wording of your replies were able to alter the aspect of things and as though you wished to make me share your opinion of Jacques Aubrieux. For he is innocent, is he not?”

“Oh, sir, indeed he is!” she exclaimed, and the woman’s whole soul was in the words.

“You are certain of it. But you were unable to communicate your certainty to the court. Well, you must now compel me to share it. I am not asking you to go into details and to live again through the hideous torment which you have suffered, but merely to answer certain questions. Will you do this?”

“I will.”

Rénine’s influence over her was complete. With a few sentences, Rénine had succeeded in subduing her and inspiring her with the will to obey. And once more Hortense realized all the man’s power, authority and persuasion.

“What was your husband?” he asked, after begging the mother and Gaston Dutreuil to preserve absolute silence.

“An insurance broker.”

“Lucky in business?”

“Until last year, yes.”

“So there have been financial difficulties during the past few months?”

“Yes.”

“And the murder was committed when?”

“Last March, on a Sunday.”

“Who was the victim?”

“A distant cousin, M. Guillaume, who lived at Suresnes.”

“What was the sum stolen?”

“Sixty thousand-franc notes, which this cousin had received the day before, in payment of a long-outstanding debt.”

“Did your husband know that?”

“Yes. His cousin told him of it on the Sunday, in the course of a conversation on the telephone, and Jacques insisted that his cousin ought not to keep so large a sum in the house and that he ought to pay it into a bank next day.”

“Was this in the morning?”

“At one o’clock in the afternoon. Jacques was to have gone to M. Guillaume on his motorcycle. But he felt tired and told him that he would not go out. So he remained here all day.”

“Alone?”

“Yes. The two servants were out. I went to the Cinéma des Ternes with my mother and our friend Dutreuil. In the evening, we learned that M. Guillaume had been murdered. Next morning, Jacques was arrested.”

“On what evidence?”

The poor creature hesitated to reply: the evidence of guilt had evidently been overwhelming. Then, obeying a sign from Rénine, she answered without a pause:

“The murderer went to Suresnes on a motorcycle and the tracks discovered were those of my husband’s machine. They found a handkerchief with my husband’s initials, and the revolver which was used belonged to him. Lastly, one of our neighbours maintains that he saw my husband go out on his bicycle at three o’clock and another that he saw him come in at half-past four.