The Dominici Affair

by Martin Kitchen

  Among the first witnesses that Chenevier’s team heard was Faustin Roure, who was now living in retirement. Had he told Gustave to go and have a close look at the landslide? Had he stopped off at the Perrins’ farm to get a liter of wine, as Zézé had claimed? Roure could not remember. Chenevier had to tread very carefully for fear of overstepping the boundaries set by Carrias. He could only ask questions concerning the whereabouts of Gustave and Zézé. Little came of this line of questioning. Roure had told Gustave to keep an eye on the landslide, but it was obviously not a major concern. He claimed to have visited La Serre later that morning, but he could not remember whether he had picked up some wine.

  An intensive interview with Clovis Dominici, which lasted for two days, was much more fruitful. He repeated that when he was shown the carbine for the first time, he knew that someone from the Grand’ Terre was involved in the murders. He was further convinced when he noticed that the weapon was no longer on the shelf in the shed where it had been hidden. He initially thought that his brother was responsible for Elizabeth’s death, because he could not imagine his old father chasing after a young girl. Furthermore, his father had not gone hunting for a number of years and had no idea how the Rock-Ola worked, whereas he imagined that Gustave had used the gun on several occasions to hunt boar. Clovis had continued to suspect Gustave even after he had pointed a finger at their father, for his brother’s statements about the murders were vague and often contradictory. His suspicions were strengthened when Gustave tried to imply that Paul Maillet was involved in the crime.

  It was only when he heard his father’s confession that he realized that he was the murderer. Chenevier asked him whether he had perhaps misunderstood his father’s dialect, but Clovis insisted that there had been no ambiguity whatsoever. When asked why he had not told other members of the family, he replied that Gaston had ordered him to keep his mouth shut, and he had respected his authority. Even though Clovis was convinced that his father was involved, he did not alter his position. Unlike Gustave he had refused to retract when confronted with his father. Chenevier suspected that Clovis was covering up for Gustave, for whom he had considerably more affection than for his overbearing father.

  On the second day of interrogation in the police headquarters in Digne, using a small office with the blinds drawn to avoid the telescopic lenses of an army of press photographers, Clovis was confronted with various family members. His sister Augusta Caillat asked him why he had not told other family members of their father’s confession. Clovis replied that it was Gaston’s secret, not his. Marie Dominici, his brother Gaston’s wife, claimed that Clovis had said that it was better for the old man to go to prison rather than a young man like Gustave. Clovis hotly denied ever having made such a statement. She then went on to categorically state that no one from the Grand’ Terre was involved in the crimes. When questioned about her father-in-law’s confession, she simply replied that he was an old man who could easily be manipulated. Her husband, Gaston, the lock keeper on the Manosque Canal at Saint-Auban, had accused Clovis of accepting a million francs from Sébeille during the fateful meeting they held to get Clovis to change his story, but now he flatly denied having said anything of the sort. His brother Gaston claimed that he had spent 200,000 francs ($600) on the case, whereupon Clovis had told him that he was a bloody fool because he had made money out of it. This exchange escalated into yet another family row, which the police found difficult to control.

  When tempers calmed down somewhat, Yvette was the next to be questioned. She remained cool and disdainful, purposefully avoiding eye contact with Clovis. She claimed that as they drove in the police car from the Grand’ Terre to Digne on 16 November 1953, Clovis had said that he had learned of his father’s guilt from his confession and not from Gustave on 8 August 1952. Clovis denied this attempt to make him the first to have denounced Gaston. He insisted that Gustave was the first to have heard Gaston’s confession, which had only confirmed the fears Clovis felt when Sébeille had shown him the M1 on 6 August.

  Gustave was the last to be questioned that day. When asked how he had been able to show where the carbine was kept, even though he claimed never to have seen the weapon, he replied that Clovis had made a sketch for him. Clovis denied ever having done so. A series of recriminations between the two brothers followed, with policemen strategically placed to separate them should they go after one another. Gustave insisted that he had never told Clovis that their father had confessed to killing the Drummonds. He then claimed that Clovis had told him not to be “a little prick” and to say that the old man had gone hunting badgers that night; otherwise, the police would question them for a week. Clovis accused his brother once again of lying.

  It was nearly midnight. Realizing that he was getting nowhere, Chenevier decided to call a halt and continue the next day by interviewing Gustave and Yvette. Gustave got off one defiantly impertinent parting shot by saying that it was up to the commissioner to prove that he was lying.

  The next day’s interviews brought nothing new. Chenevier pointed out that it was Gustave’s and not Clovis’ testimony that had led to Gaston’s conviction and that Gaston was well aware of the fact. He further accused Gustave of cowardice when he begged Périès not to tell his father that he had denounced him. Chenevier tried to get Gustave to admit that he had always blamed his father when he himself was under suspicion, but he got nowhere with this line of attack, beyond Gustave’s admission that he had indeed been under suspicion in December 1953. Gustave left police headquarters in Digne and returned to the Grand’ Terre at about 8:00 p.m. on 25 October 1955, having escaped all Chenevier’s attempts to trap him.

  Gaston Dominici’s favorite grandchild, Marie-Claude Caillat, a young woman of eighteen, reciprocated his affection. She made the following statement to Chenevier:

  On my last visit to Les Baumettes a week ago, my grandfather started to talk about the conversation he had overheard and blamed my mother and I for agreeing that he should die in prison in order to protect Gustave. My mother replied that it was not true and that they were doing everything possible to defend him. My grandfather said it was Gustave who did the deed, but my mother told him that that was not true.14

  Marie-Claude repeated this statement in front of her grandfather and in the presence of Judge Batigne, adding several times that Gaston had said Gustave was responsible for the murders.

  The Dominici clan rejected out of hand any suggestion that anyone from the Grand’ Terre was in any way involved in the murders. They resolutely maintained that the M1 had never been anywhere near the farmhouse and that Clovis was acting out of spite toward the family, hatred for his father, and hope of personal gain. There was one exception, Marie Dominici’s firstborn, Ida Balmonet. Gaston had accepted her with singularly ill grace as his own, but she had broken with the family and lived far from the Grand’ Terre at a farm belonging to the Benedictine Abbey of Hautecombe in Savoy.15 In 1953, some time before Gaston’s arrest, she had visited the family home. Finding the atmosphere exceptionally tense and oppressive, she began to suspect that something was going on. She stated that having accused his father of the murders in the presence of Périès, Gustave had said upon his return to the Grand’ Terre that Clovis had been the first to denounce their father and had forced him to follow suit. Gustave had lied to the entire family, with the exception of his wife and mother. Ida was Clovis’s only ally within the Dominici clan.

  Chenevier and Gillard returned to Les Baumettes with Judge Batigne for a final meeting with Gaston. It was as inconclusive as all the others. Gaston once again denied that he had seen Gustave and Zézé in the alfalfa field during the night of 4–5 August 1952. Chenevier reminded him that he had testified to this effect. Gaston replied that he must have been out of his mind at the time, hastily adding that it could not possibly have been so because he did not get up during the night. He stuck to his preposterous story that he had overheard Gustave and Yvette discussing the jewels. When the commissioner told him that both had deni
ed it, he shrugged his shoulders and said that they were mistaken.

  Chenevier tried to break the deadlock by bringing Gustave to the prison, but he could have saved himself the trouble. Both stuck to their versions of the story: Gaston had overheard the conversation; Gustave denied that it had ever taken place.

  Clovis was also brought in to see his father. It was the first time they had met since the trial. Clovis stuck to his story that Gaston had confessed to the crime. Gaston growled that he should be ashamed of himself for making such a perfidious accusation. As Clovis was about to leave, he turned to his father, who was sitting on the edge of his bed. His parting words were:

  Listen, Papa, I tell you once more for the last time that what I did was not done to harm you. If I had wanted to do that I would have spoken the first time I saw the carbine. I didn’t. You told me that it was you who killed the English people. I wish it weren’t true. So tell Monsieur Batigne it isn’t true, that you lied to me. Tell him you didn’t kill anybody, but don’t say that you didn’t tell me, because you did.16

  That was the last time Clovis ever spoke to his father.

  Gaston’s final encounter with his grandson Zézé Perrin lacked even an iota of affection or respect. It soon degenerated into a shouting match. Zézé was in an insufferably cocky and flippant mood, taking every possible opportunity to mock his grandfather. He denied having been at the Grand’ Terre on the night of 4–5 August. He claimed not to have been with Gaston when he discovered Elizabeth’s body. He also cheekily inquired why Gaston had led his goats away from the direction of the campsite on the morning of 5 August, when he always took them in the other direction. Gaston yelled at him that he was a little bastard. This outburst merely prompted Zézé to taunt his grandfather by saying that if he had anything against him, he should speak up in front of the examining magistrate.

  Gaston’s daughter Augusta Caillat was the last of the Dominicis brought to Les Baumettes. She had always been a stout defender of the old man, but he showed her no gratitude, accusing her instead of wanting him to take the sole blame for the murders so as to protect others. Augusta angrily asked why he had not brought this up during the trial, and Gaston replied that it was because he imagined he would be acquitted. Augusta said that statement was untrue. A few days before the assizes, he had admitted to her that it was going to be extremely tough. Gaston denied having said any such thing.

  Chenevier was now in a familiar bind. The Dominicis retracted their stories, invented new ones, and contradicted themselves at every turn. How was it ever possible to reach anything approximating the truth under such circumstances? Since no one had been placed under oath during the trial, he could not charge anyone with perjury, and anyway such charges would have provided grounds for an appeal and a reopening of the case. That was the last thing that anyone wanted after more than three years of hard work.

  Three other issues were of considerable interest to the Chenevier commission. A roll of unexposed film was found among the Drummonds’ possessions, and the police had asked Scotland Yard to find out what make of camera the Drummonds owned. They quickly discovered that it was a 35mm Kodak Retina. The Marrians were absolutely certain that the Drummonds had not left it behind in Villefranche. It had not been among the family’s possessions on the campsite. Had it been stolen by the murderer or an accomplice? Did it contain compromising photographs, such as shots of family members of the Grand’ Terre? Or had it simply been mislaid somewhere between Villefranche and Lurs?

  Many of the same questions were asked about the family’s missing canvas bucket. Chenevier assumed it had been destroyed as evidence that the Drummonds had visited the farmhouse to get water, as Zézé had consistently claimed and Gustave had confirmed. It is also possible that an item found at the murder site that was described as a “canvas bag” might have been the missing bucket.17 Sébeille had thought it very odd that Yvette had given Zézé Perrin precise details of the bucket when she told him about the Drummonds’ visiting the Grand’ Terre.18

  The only other missing item was a cheap watch belonging to Lady Anne, the loss of which seemed to the police to be of little importance. That she had taken it with her to France rested solely on the testimony of her mother, Mrs. Wilbraham, but she had suffered such a state of severe shock on hearing of the murders that she may well have been mistaken.

  Even more serious was the question of the trousers left out to dry that the police had seen on the morning of 5 August. César Girolami, Sébeille’s assistant, had been very concerned about this important piece of material evidence, which his superior had completely ignored. Girolami had subsequently been posted to Morocco. At the request of a magistrate in Casablanca, he sent a detailed report on the incident. During Chenevier’s investigation, however, Gustave now claimed that there had never been any trousers hanging out to dry. Yvette admitted that she had washed a pair of her husband’s trousers on 5 August, adding that she had a perfect right to do so. Gaston’s son Aimé, then working as a market gardener at Aygalades, had read about the trousers in the press and had asked Yvette about them. She said that they belonged to her father-in-law and that she had washed them several days before the murders but had forgotten to bring them in when they had dried. This was obviously an untruth, because Inspector Girolami had seen the trousers at about 3:00 p.m. on August 5 and had testified that they were still damp. Had traces of a victim’s blood been found upon them, it would have been powerful evidence for Gaston’s guilt. Why Sébeille had chosen to forget this testimony remains a mystery.

  Aimé Dominici’s employer, Madame Bonnafous, who owned the Calarmuso farm at Eygalières, said that on 8 August 1952 Aimé and his young wife, Mauricette, had been called to the Grand’ Terre, where Gustave had told them that he had heard both shots and screams during the night of 4–5 August. Aimé had shared this with Madame Bonnafous on his return to the farm. Aimé and Mauricette, having been well briefed by the clan, now vigorously denied that this had ever happened.

  The Chenevier investigation ended with two epic interviews. First, Gillard tried to tackle Yvette at Forcalquier. He was familiar with the case and with his adversary, having been sent as an observer to Gaston’s trial. By now Yvette had three children, and a fourth was on the way. She had lost none of her feisty determination to defend her father-in-law, to remove all suspicion from her husband, and to denounce the traitors within the clan. During thirteen hours of cross-examination, she did not blink an eyelid, make one false move, or fall into Gillard’s carefully prepared traps. At 12:30 a.m. Gillard finally gave up.

  Chenevier confronted Gustave in the law courts in Digne. He arrived on the bus at 9:00 a.m. They sparred with one another until 1:00 p.m. and then went to lunch together, taking the 250-franc (73-cent) menu, washed down with a local rosé. They then returned to the fray, with the session lasting until the next morning. During this mammoth session, they sometimes took a break. Standing by the window, quietly smoking, they watched the crowds below. Gillard arrived at 1:15 a.m. to tell his superior that he had lost “the battle of Forcalquier.” By 3:00 a.m. the few remaining onlookers abandoned the scene. At 4:00 a.m. the lights went out, and Gustave was driven back to the Grand’ Terre. As it was already light he took a pitchfork and went to work, without having slept a wink.

  Chenevier emerged from the courthouse and told the waiting journalists in an indignant tone that Gustave had accused Périès of being a swindler and a liar. He could do so with impunity because of the technical impossibility of making an investigating magistrate a witness in his own investigation. Only the investigating magistrate in an eventual supplementary inquiry could do that.

  Chenevier and Gillard had exhausted their 420 questions and gained precious little. Although familiar with the criminal underworld of the nation’s capital, they had been outfoxed by the wily Provençal peasants, whose mentality they had failed to comprehend. They had not realized that the Dominicis’ tactic was based unwittingly on Churchill’s premise that “in wartime, truth is so precious
that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” Zézé Perrin was the master of this tactic. He claimed to have bought milk from a man who had died three years before. He frequently withdrew his statements. When asked why he had lied, he simply said that he had no idea. That was the ultimate lie. He knew the reasons full well.

  The main question was whether Zézé had spent the night of 4–5 August at the Grand’ Terre. He was known to be childish and beset with all manner of anxieties. Some claimed that he refused to go to the cinema in Peyruis on his own and that he insisted on his mother going with him to the outhouse to make sure no stranger was there. Would he have dared sleep alone in La Serre? Jean Galizzi, his mother’s lover and with whom he was on good terms, said that when he worked at the farm at Pont Bernard belonging to Daniel Garcin, the mayor of Ganagobie, he always spent the night there. That night Garcin had suggested that Galizzi go to La Serre and keep Zézé company, but he had refused, saying he was too tired. Zézé mostly claimed to have slept alone at La Serre on 4 August, but at other times he said that he had gone to his parents’ new farm at La Cassine at 9 p.m. His mother, Germaine, testified that this was so, but she had no means of proving it. Another witness claimed that he had arrived at the Pont Bernard farm late at night. He appeared to be in a state of shock and had to be given a cordial to revive him. Daniel Garcin stated categorically that Zézé had not spent the night of 4–5 August at his farm and that he had not worked on the farm on 4 August. Zézé claimed that he first heard of the crime when Faustin Roure came in the morning of 5 August to La Serre to buy some wine, but Roure had been unable to say with any confidence whether this was so.19