The programme for that evening and the following day was this: My mother was to spend the night at the Impasse Ronsin. My sister, Mme. Herr, would dine with us--but she did not come to the station, and afterwards I heard she was unable to come. At the station, therefore, I was alone to receive my mother. It had been arranged that even in the case of my sister and her family dining on the Saturday evening with us, my mother, my husband, and I would go afterwards to Bellevue to join Marthe and her friends; unless, of course, my mother's state of health would not allow it. On the Friday evening--or the Saturday morning--I received a note from my sister saying she could not come to lunch or to dinner, that she was going to a concert on the Saturday evening, but that she relied on my mother calling on her in the afternoon.
"On the Friday, May 29th, as soon as my mother and I reached home, I told Couillard to return the Geoffreys their dog, and scolded him for having borrowed it without permission, and also because the dog, by ruining one of M. Steinheil's drawings, had made the latter lose a whole week's work."
_Question._ "Why such haste in returning that dog?"
(The judge's idea was quite obvious. Convinced that I was guilty, even before he ever examined me, he thought the fact that I had got rid of the dog a proof of my guilt. I had, "of course," done it in order that the dog might not bark at my accomplices or bark while the murders were being committed!)
_Answer._ "My husband had told me the day before that the dog would have to go the moment he reached home, and Couillard had not yet returned the dog to its owners."
_Question._ "What witnesses have you to prove that your husband wished to get rid of the dog _at once_?"
_Answer._ "I believe Marthe and Mariette the cook heard my husband make the remark."
_Question._ "Why deprive your house so soon of a watch-dog when it was deprived of its usual guardian--the dog, Dick?"
_Answer._ "What importance did it have?... As a matter of fact, Turk hardly barked and was useless; besides, not belonging to the house, the dog was up to all kinds of mischief."
_Question._ "How can one admit that Couillard, in order to be protected, should borrow a dog that did not bark?"