Of the two cards so miraculously found by the Underground _contrôleur_ and handed by him to the police, one, as I have stated, was a card of invitation to my husband's exhibition, and the other bore the name of a certain Mme. Mazeline, and the addresses of two wig-makers and that of M. Guilbert, a theatrical costumier.
Mme. Mazeline, a painter of repute, was then sixty-two, I had known her well in the days of President Faure. She had resided many years at Le Hâvre, Félix Faure's birth-place, and had been on terms of friendship with Félix Faure and his family. She had begun painting a portrait of the President in his studio at the Elysée, shortly before his death and had to complete the portrait from memory. The portrait was shown at the Salon.
Mme. Mazeline and I have never met since the death of the President.
Questioned about her card found in a carriage on the Underground, she suggested that it might possibly be a card which many years before she had given to some model, man or woman, who had kept it to use it as a means of introduction to other artists. (She had written her address on the card herself, in pencil.)
The other addresses on the card were those of the two wig-makers and that of M. Guilbert. The investigations at the wig-makers yielded no result. But when the inspector called on M. Guilbert his researches were rewarded.
I had described the mysterious men and the woman first on the morning of May 31st, 1908, a few hours after they had left my house--on June 1st and again June 5th, when a detective wearing a black gown and hat was paraded before me at Count d'Arlons, and I had described their attire as follows: "The three men wore long black gowns, and the woman wore a man's cloak, long and dark. The long black gowns with their flat, tight sleeves reminded me of the _soutanes_ worn by Catholic priests; the hats were felt hats with high crowns." As regards these hats--and the reader, a little later, will realise the importance of the statement I made--the report of the _Sûreté_ (Criminal Investigation Department) drawn up on June 5th, contained this:
"_Concerning the hats, it is useful to recall that, on Monday, June 1st, when Mme. Steinheil gave a description of the individuals whom she saw on the night of May 30th-31st, she specified that the men did not wear hats such as those usually worn by priests, but hats of black felt, the brims of which, bent down, had appeared to her as wide and the crowns higher and more pointed than the hats of ecclesiastics._"