When the police entered your cabin, after this
crime had been committed, you refused to answer their questions."
"I told them all that I knew."
"Very well, then, you must repeat what you told them to me."
M. Segmuller had reason to feel satisfied. He had conducted the
examination in such a way that the Widow Chupin would now have to
initiate a narrative of the tragedy. This excellent point gained; for
this shrewd old woman, possessed of all her coolness, would naturally
have been on her guard against any direct questions. Now, it was
essential that she should not suspect either what the magistrate knew
of the affair, or what he was ignorant of. By leaving her to her own
devices she might, in the course of the version which she proposed to
substitute for the truth, not merely strengthen Lecoq's theories, but
also let fall some remark calculated to facilitate the task of future
investigation. Both M. Segmuller and Lecoq were of opinion that the
version of the crime which they were about to hear had been concocted
at the station-house of the Place d'Italie while the murderer and the
spurious drunkard were left together, and that it had been transmitted
by the accomplice to the widow during the brief conversation they were
allowed to have through the wicket of the latter's cell.
Invited by the magistrate to recount the circumstances of the tragedy,
Mother Chupin did not hesitate for a moment. "Oh, it was a very simple
affair, my good sir," she began.
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