It was this uncompromising attitude on her part toward the friends of Georges, and a rumour which reached the ears of one of them that she intended as soon as possible to take her patient away to Italy, that sounded the first note of danger to her peace of mind. This friend happened to be acquainted with the son of one of the Deputy Public Prosecutors in Paris. To that official he confided his belief that there were suspicious circumstances in the case of Georges de Saint Pierre. The judicial authorities were informed and the case placed in the hands of an examining magistrate. On February 2, nearly a month after the crime, the magistrate, accompanied by Mace, then a commissary of police, afterwards head of the Detective Department, paid a visit to the Rue de Boulogne. Their reception was not cordial. It was only after they had made known their official character that they got audience of the widow. She entered the room, carrying in her hand a surgical spray, with which she played nervously while the men of the law asked to see her charge. She replied that it was impossible. Mace placed himself in front of the door by which she had entered, and told her that her attitude was not seemly. "Leave that spray alone," he said; "it might shoot over us, and then perhaps we should be sprinkled as M. de Saint Pierre was." From that moment, writes Mace, issue was joined between the widow and himself. The magistrate insisted on seeing the patient. He sat by his bedside. M. de Saint Pierre told him that, having no enemies, he was sure he had been the victim of some mistake, and that, as he claimed no damages for his injuries, he did not wish his misfortune to be made public. He wanted to be left alone with his brave and devoted nurse, and to be spared the nervous excitement of a meeting with his family. He intended, he added, to leave Paris shortly for change of scene and air. The widow cut short the interview on the ground that her patient was tired. It was inhuman, she said, to make him suffer so. The magistrate, before leaving, asked her whither she intended taking her patient. She replied, "To Italy." That, said the magistrate, would be impossible until his inquiry was closed. In the meantime she might take him to any place within the Department of the Seine; but she must be prepared to be under the surveillance of M. Mace, who would have the right to enter her house whenever he should think it expedient. With this disconcerting intelligence the men of the law took leave of the widow.