I also mentioned as having been stolen a "new art" ring (gold and pearl). That was on the morning of May 31st, when, surely after what I had gone through my thoughts would not be quite clear or my statements strictly accurate. I believed that I had worn that ring on the previous day, and that it had been stolen. I said so to M. Bouchotte, who made a note of it. Later, it suddenly occurred to me that I had left the "new art" ring at Bellevue, and that, consequently, if could not have been stolen. But I thought it was a matter of trifling importance, and I did not mention it. Then, at the d'Arlons, Doctor Acheray told me that the public seemed to suspect me! Here was a new dilemma. What was I to do? If I mentioned my mistake about the "new art" ring, people would say: "She alters her statements, she lies...." Fearing that such a simple declaration might lead to more investigations that would reveal certain chapters of my life which I was anxious should not be disclosed, and remembering also that this "new art" ring had been given me by an admirer, whose name would of course become known if I drew attention to that ring, I dared not mention it now. It was a sad mistake, and I paid a heavy penalty for it, just as it was a sad mistake not to state that I possessed duplicates of the three valuable rings.
When, however, I did say, not that I possessed another set of _real_ rings, but that I had had the three rings in paste, and that these had been stolen--(which was absolutely true) the prosecution denied it. According to them, I had never had duplicates in paste of the three valuable rings given me by my husband. I gave the address of the firms where I had bought them and even the dates, but my statements in this matter were not even verified. And yet, it simply meant sending a detective to a jeweller in the Boulevard des Italiens, to another in the Boulevard des Capucines, and to a shop in the Rue de la Paix... that is, in the very heart of Paris. But the prosecution did not fail to send some one to Briançon, in the Alps (where my husband and I had been, as I have told, in 1897) in search of a merchant of alpenstocks, because an alpenstock with the name "Briançon" engraved on it had been found near the body of my husband on May 31st, 1908!