Crimes of Paris_ A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection - Dorothy Hoobler [134]
She hired a lawyer, Anthony Aubin, who would make his reputation on this case. Aubin asked Magistrate Leydet to let him inspect the evidence that had been collected so far. This was so irregular a request that Leydet turned him down. Undaunted, Meg sent a letter to L’Echo de Paris declaring that she would conduct her own search for the murderers. Late in November, she found her first candidate: young Rémy Couillard, who had discovered her bound and naked on that fateful Sunday.
According to her, she first became suspicious of him when she needed the address of his parents at a time when he was out on an errand. She looked inside a leather case he had left in his coat, and found a letter he was supposed to have mailed for her. It was addressed to Marthe’s fiancé, and shockingly, Couillard seemed to have opened and read it. She reported this to the Sûreté, which didn’t think it suspicious. Meg then enlisted the aid of Henri Barby, an editor at Le Matin who had become her confidant. At her urging, Barby searched the leather case again and this time found a pearl wrapped in silk paper. Meg claimed that it was from an art nouveau ring that the burglars had taken.
The Sûreté brought Couillard in for questioning, and he admitted stealing the letter but denied ever having seen the pearl before. If he had been one of the burglars, he said, he could have stolen much more, for he knew secret hiding places that the family used for their valuables.
Meg also claimed that she had received anonymous letters saying that Couillard was in love with her daughter and wanted to break up the engagement. Furthermore, on the morning when he discovered her, she had felt he was tempted to strangle her instead of calling for help.
The police went to search Couillard’s room. Meg accompanied them and triumphantly picked up a small diamond from the floor. Here, she announced, was proof he had been in league with the burglars. The police took the hapless valet into custody.
Two days later, on November 25, Meg was called to the Sûreté, where Hamard and Magistrate Leydet were waiting for her. With them were two jewelers and a gemologist. One of the jewelers declared that the pearl Meg had said was in a ring stolen on May 30 had in fact been brought to his shop on June 12 — by Meg herself. At her request, he had removed it from the art nouveau ring where it had been mounted. When a picture of the pearl found in Couillard’s case appeared in the newspapers, the jeweler recognized it. It had an unusual shape and a distinctively placed hole used to attach it to the ring. The other jeweler, who had made the ring in the first place, confirmed that this was the pearl he had mounted.
It was clear that Meg had deliberately made a false accusation against Couillard and that she now had to be considered a suspect in the murders. Meg called her lawyer, Aubin, who persuaded Leydet to release her. Nonetheless, seven policemen now surrounded her house to keep her from fleeing.
That evening, Meg invited to her home two journalists whose friendship she had cultivated. Supposedly she wanted their advice, but in reality she was preparing a startling new accusation. In tears, she admitted lying about Couillard but then claimed she had done so because she had been threatened by the real culprit — -Alexander Wolff, the son of her trusted chambermaid. Wolff, she said, had long resented the Steinheils because he felt they exploited his mother. The only reason Meg had escaped was that he had tied her up with the intention of raping her but had been thwarted from doing so when he heard Couillard approaching. Nevertheless, he had threatened Meg that he would kill her, or tell the Sûreté that she had been his accomplice, if she revealed his name.
She persuaded the police guarding the house to take her to the Sûreté, where Hamard was summoned to hear her latest accusation. Alexander Wolff was arrested and brought in for questioning. Facing Meg, he flatly denied everything