MOUZON. If I had no one at that moment, I have someone now. Yes, there is a witness who has declared that you were not at home on the night of the crime, and that witness is your wife! ETCHEPARE [_to Yanetta_] You! MOUZON [_to the recorder_] Give me her interrogatory. _While Mouzon looks through his papers Yanetta gazes for some time at her husband, then at Mouzon. She is reflecting deeply. Finally she seems to have made up her mind._ MOUZON. There. Your wife has just told us that you left the house at ten o'clock and did not return until five in the morning. YANETTA [_very plainly_] I did not say that. It is not true. MOUZON. You went on to say that he returned alone. YANETTA. I did not say that. MOUZON. I will read your declaration. [_He reads_] Question: Then he went out alone? Reply: Yes. Question: At ten o'clock? Reply: At ten o'clock. YANETTA. I did not say that. MOUZON. Come, come! And I was careful to be precise. I said to you, "But perhaps you are thinking of another night? It was really on the night of Ascension Day that he went out alone?" And you replied, "Yes." YANETTA. It's not so! MOUZON. But I have it written here! YANETTA. You can write whatever you like. MOUZON. Then I'm a liar. And the recorder too, he is a liar? YANETTA. The night old Goyetche was murdered my husband did not leave the house. MOUZON. You will sign this paper, and at once. It is your interrogatory. YANETTA. All that is untrue! I tell you it's untrue! [_Shouting_] The night old Goyetche was murdered my husband never left the house--he never left the house. MOUZON [_pale with anger_] You will pay for this! [_To the recorder_] Make out immediately an order for the detention of this woman and call the gendarmes. [_To Yanetta_] Woman Etchepare, I place you under arrest on a charge of being accessory to murder. [_To the gendarmes_] Take the man to the cells and return for the woman. _The gendarmes remove Etchepare._ SCENE XI:--_Mouzon, Yanetta, the recorder._ YANETTA. Ah, you are angry, aren't you--furious--because you haven't got your way! Although you've done everything, everything you possibly could, short of killing us by inches! You pretend to be kind. You spoke kindly to us. You wanted to make me send my husband to the scaffold! [_Mouzon has taken up his brief and affects to be studying it with indifference_] It's your trade to supply heads to the guillotine. You must have criminals, guilty men, you must have them at any cost. When a man falls into your clutches he's a dead man. They come in here innocent and they've got to go out again guilty. It's your trade; it's a matter of vanity with you to succeed! You ask questions which don't seem to mean anything in particular, and yet they may send a man to the next world; and when you've forced the poor wretch to condemn himself you're delighted, like a savage would be! MOUZON [_to the gendarmes_] Take her away--be quick!