The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot

by Thomas Maeder

  SANNIÉ Human remains were found here and here. On the landing over there was a sack with half of a corpse in it.

  PETIOT It was a German army mail sack, wasn’t it?

  SANNIÉ I believe it was a cement bag.

  FLORIOT I assume you know where this sack is. You do have it under seals, don’t you?

  Sannié flushed and mumbled incoherently.

  FLORIOT This is really incredible!

  The court forced its way back to the waiting cars. The crowd shouted: “Death to the assassin!” Despite Petiot’s confidence, the rue Le Sueur had seemed more horrifying than most people had previously imagined, and several jurors reported having nightmares about it for days afterward.

  Back at the Palais de Justice, Sannié returned to the stand and described the house again. Floriot forced him to admit that Petiot’s fingerprints had not been found anywhere. No one really listened. Most of the crowd would not even have come back except that Massu was scheduled to speak.

  When Massu took the stand, Petiot returned to the question of the German army mail sack on the steps at the rue Le Sueur.

  MASSU I think it looked more like a potato sack.

  PETIOT Where is it now? Did you keep it?

  MASSU I think the Identité Judiciaire has it.

  FLORIOT That’s what they think, too, but nobody around here seems to be sure of anything.

  Floriot questioned Massu on minute details of the dossier. Massu could only reply that “Inspector Batut handled that, you would have to ask him.” Or Inspector Poirier had covered another point, or Pascaud, Hernis, Renonciat, X, Y, Z …

  FLORIOT Tell me then, commissaire, just what did you do as chief of the Criminal Brigade?

  MASSU I directed criminal investigations.

  FLORIOT I see.

  The court was left with the impression that the entire investigation had been conducted in the most careless fashion imaginable.

  The trial reopened at 1:00 P.M. on the sixth day, and the hall was so crowded that a foreign journalist was squeezed into the prisoner’s box with Petiot, who smiled amiably and edged over to make room. In the audience were Prince Rainier of Monaco and the wife of Félix Gouin, the provisional president of the Republic.

  The first witness was Marius Batut, Massu’s competent assistant. If Floriot expected more easy victories, he was disappointed by the inspector with a face like a friendly prizefighter and a firm command of the facts. Batut described parts of the investigation, the discovery of the suitcases, and the identification of several victims. Floriot tried to trip him up on procedural details, but Batut always had the right answer and had always conducted his investigation strictly according to law. Petiot remained silent, digging his pencil point into the wood of his box.

  BATUT I would like to add that the Germans took a great interest in the affair. They followed the investigation, asked us questions, and required us to file a daily report.

  LESER What do you think of the Kahan woman?

  BATUT I do not believe that she worked for the Gestapo. The Germans said we could arrest her if we liked. They weren’t interested in her. Her friend Dr. Saint-Pierre asked me not to turn her over to the Germans if we caught her.

  VÉRON Collaborators were not usually afraid of the Germans.

  BATUT No. Nor of us. Whenever we arrested them, they were generally released two or three days later. They came back to see us afterward; they were all very polite.

  VÉRON After his arrest, did Petiot make any accusations against Madame Kahan?

  BATUT No, he did not.

  VÉRON Do you think that the Wolffs and the Basches were Gestapo informers?

  BATUT I can swear under oath that they were not.

  VÉRON What do you know about Yvan Dreyfus?

  BATUT Not much. Just what I’ve read in the reports.

  VÉRON What was Guélin accused of?

  BATUT Intelligence with the enemy.

  VÉRON Do you think, then, that his testimony about Dreyfus’s work for the Germans can be believed?

  FLORIOT [interrupting] Didn’t Dreyfus work for the Germans?

  BATUT I don’t think so.

  FLORIOT To regain his freedom, didn’t he agree to do a certain job for the Germans?

  BATUT I would have to say yes. He was a poor unfortunate like the rest of them. To get out of prison he agreed to furnish some information, the importance of which he had no way of knowing.

  FLORIOT Then why did you say he didn’t work for the Germans?

  BATUT You’re trying to confuse me. I warn you, you won’t succeed.

  DUPIN Maître Floriot, you have already spent fifteen minutes picking at this witness for no purpose.

  FLORIOT If you had spent even five minutes reading the dossier, you would see the purpose. For two days the police have been trying to confuse the issue. Their testimony goes on forever and they never say anything. I am just trying to pin down some precise facts. Inspector Batut, were the suitcases shown to the victims’ families during the Occupation?

  BATUT Not as far as I know.

  FLORIOT Why not?

  BATUT Maître, you seem to be forgetting that we were under the Occupation.

  FLORIOT You were in contact with the German police. Lafont came to see Monsieur Massu about Estébétéguy.

  BATUT I wasn’t there. I know that Lafont was interested in some Gestapo members who had committed a robbery at Hautefort. All of them had disappeared, except for a man named Lombard, who didn’t disappear.

  PETIOT Are you sure?

  The spectators turned and stared at him in stupefaction.

  PETIOT You just said that Lombard is alive. Can you give us his address? Don’t ask me where he is.

  No one did. Floriot, at least, already knew perfectly well. Lombard had been a codefendant in the trial of the rue Lauriston Gestapo three months earlier—the trial at which Floriot himself defended Lafont. Lafont’s last words as he went off to be shot had been: “Maître Floriot, you have been admirable. I hope, in the future, you will have better causes to defend.” That future had apparently not yet arrived.

  FLORIOT Your investigation seems to have been conducted very hastily.

  Batut glanced at Floriot’s assistants—seven of them today.

  BATUT I don’t have a dozen secretaries working for me, Maître.

  PETIOT How many patriots did you arrest and turn over to the Germans to be shot?

  Batut was speechless with rage.

  PETIOT Yes, of course, you didn’t count them. There were too many.

  VÉRON Remember, Petiot, you’re the murderer here.

  PETIOT To conclude with this witness, I—

  LESER If anyone is going to do any concluding around here it will be me.

  An Inspector Pascaud came next. He looked like a scholar fallen on hard times and was terrified of Floriot. He had questioned the Spaniards at Levallois-Perret and found that Petiot had never worked with them.

  PETIOT I think someone is confused. My group of Spaniards didn’t live at Levallois.

  Floriot brought up the Braunberger case. It was found that a set of detachable cuffs had disappeared, and an hour was spent trying to find out when they had been misplaced.

  FLORIOT Are you policemen or magicians? Everything seems to vanish around here. Inspector Pascaud, who broke the seals on the suitcase?

  PASCAUD I didn’t.

  FLORIOT Who did break the seals on the suitcase?

  PASCAUD I’m the only one who would have opened it for Madame Braunberger.

  FLORIOT How strange. If you didn’t open the suitcase, and if no one else opened the suitcase, how did the suitcase get open?

  PASCAUD I don’t know.

  An Inspector Casanova was more confident, though his voice tended to come and go like a weak radio broadcast. The first part of his testimony was lost completely when all eyes turned to the actress Paulette Dubost, who entered the courtroom and sat on the steps. The Petiot trial was turning into something of a social event.

&
nbsp; CASANOVA The two people found dead near the forest at Marly could not possibly have been killed by Petiot. They were buried there in July 1944, and were not even dead before March 11. We know who executed them. There were eleven men, and one of them has made a complete confession. They judged the men at the rue de la Pompe Gestapo office and machine-gunned them. There is a complete dossier which gives all the facts.

  Floriot sat leafing through his papers and taking notes.

  Captain Henri Boris was called by Véron. During the war he had directed aerial operations for de Gaulle. He had been arrested by the Germans and imprisoned at Compiègne, where he shared a cell with Dreyfus. He testified that Dreyfus had supplied the Resistance with radios, and claimed the man would never have betrayed his country.

  FLORIOT What about the agreement he signed?

  BORIS He was compelled to sign those letters. I would have done the same thing if I had been in his place and the Germans had offered me a way out of prison—so would anyone. And I would have forgotten about the letters as soon as I was out. While we were in prison, I gave Dreyfus all sorts of names and information. If he had been a collaborator he could have turned them over to the Germans. I never had any reason to regret these confidences.…

  VÉRON Petiot, how did you obtain your plastic explosives?

  PETIOT We got sheets of it from—

  VÉRON Plastic explosives don’t come in sheets.

  PETIOT I knew about detonators when you were still breastfeeding. You’ve never even seen plastic explosives.

  VÉRON No, I’ve only driven around with one hundred fifty kilos of them in the trunk of my car.

  BORIS There were no plastic explosives in France at the time Petiot says he used them.*

  PETIOT A man parachuted in from London brought them.

  BORIS I was in charge of all parachute operations. What was his name? I’m sure I must know him.

  PETIOT I don’t know his name. I didn’t ask questions. I think the Germans found out about him and he fled to Corsica, where he committed suicide.

  The audience broke into laughter. Yet another possible witness had conveniently disappeared.

  VÉRON How did you detonate your plastic explosives?

  PETIOT I put them between two German grenades and set them off.

  BORIS You couldn’t detonate plastic explosives like that.

  PETIOT They didn’t go off.

  VÉRON Captain Boris, have you ever heard of a Resistance group called Fly-Tox?

  BORIS Neither I nor anyone else has ever heard of it.

  PETIOT Captain Boris, since you know everyone in the Resistance, do you know the student who killed a German named Ritter?

  Boris smiled. “No, I don’t.”

  PETIOT Well I do.

  LESER Petiot, can’t you try to control yourself a bit?

  PETIOT We’ve know each other for six days now. Do you really think I can control myself?

  Jean Hotin, the former husband of Denise, managed to amuse everyone. He described the search for his wife that he had undertaken six months after her disappearance.

  HOTIN It was four-thirty. I went to the doctor’s office and saw a sign on the door saying his hours were from five until seven. I didn’t dare ring. Besides, I had a train to catch, and there was work to be done at home. So I left.

  PETIOT I never had such a sign on my door.

  The audience laughed throughout Hotin’s testimony. The newspapers all agreed that he must have escaped from a novel. “It is Zola,” Floriot said, “it is Balzac, but it is not Petiot.” The lawyer questioned the farmer with barely restrained amusement.

  FLORIOT When did your wife discover she was pregnant?

  HOTIN I don’t know.

  FLORIOT Well, when was her last period?

  Hotin blushed.

  FLORIOT Surely you know about these things. You must know when she became pregnant?

  HOTIN No.

  LESER Look, man, when were you married?

  HOTIN Um …

  LESER Forget it.

  The final witness of the day was Captain Mourrot of the Villeneuve-sur-Yonne constabulary. He raked up every old crime, and juxtaposed the murder of Louisette Delaveau with the accusation that Petiot had been driving without headlights. The original dossiers from Villeneuve were all in the record, and Floriot was able to show that the captain had almost invariably forgotten or distorted the facts. It was Mourrot who had testified, years earlier, before a judge, that Petiot’s headlights had been lit but were invisible.

  MOURROT [concluding proudly] And I gave him seven traffic tickets. And besides that, he murdered Madame Debauve—I knew he was the killer all along.

  FLORIOT [laughing] There’s only one problem, gentlemen of the jury. Before he accused Petiot, do you know how many other people he “knew” were guilty and interrogated? Nine, gentlemen, nine. If they hadn’t closed the case, he would have accused the entire town.

  Mourrot remained oblivious of the fact that his vituperation and petty charges were only whitewashing Petiot’s past. Having completed his list, he prepared to sum up with a flourish.

  MOURROT And yet, Petiot was not a sorceror, he—

  FLORIOT Yes, I think we can see that.

  The next day was Sunday. A day’s rest seemed to do Petiot good, and he returned on Monday appearing much more relaxed than the previous week. So relaxed, in fact, that at one point he almost fell asleep; he lay across the front of the box, his fingers against his temples, his eyes staring dreamily into space, his back hunched in a caricature of boredom.

  LESER Come, come, Petiot, sit up straight.

  PETIOT Ummm?

  The audience laughed again.

  The first witness was Madame Guschinov, pale, feeble, “thin as an umbrella,” as one newspaper described her, with profuse blond hair.

  GUSCHINOV Petiot advised my husband to flee. On January 2, 1942, my husband left home. He told me Petiot was going to get him to Argentina, and that he had to have some injections because of health regulations.

  PETIOT That’s idiotic. You just read about injections in the newspapers. Besides, there weren’t any health regulations in Argentina. She’s lying.

  GUSCHINOV My husband said he was worried about these injections.

  PETIOT Why should he have been worried? He was my patient. I had been giving him injections for the past year. Why should he suddenly start worrying? You’re lying.

  LESER The witness is testifying under oath!

  PETIOT No she isn’t.

  LESER What! You dare—

  FLORIOT The witness did not take an oath. She volunteered to testify as a witness in a civil suit and, as such, she did not have to take an oath.

  ARCHEVÊQUE If Guschinov was a regular patient of yours at the rue Caumartin, why did you have to take him to the rue Le Sueur?

  PETIOT We had to discuss the details of the trip. We needed privacy. I had a wife, a nurse, a housekeeper.

  ARCHEVÊQUE I still don’t see why you couldn’t talk at the rue Caumartin.

  PETIOT You don’t know the rue Caumartin. But I will not invite you all over. I saw the mess you made of the rue Le Sueur the other day, and I don’t care to have the same thing happen again.

  ARCHEVÊQUE A suitcase belonging to Guschinov was found at the rue Le Sueur.

  PETIOT I’m the one who told you it was his suitcase, and now you’re using it against me! Look, you don’t cross three borders carrying a big heavy suitcase like that. I told Guschinov, “You’re not traveling first class,” and gave him a bag. He had a lot of suits, and I said, “They’ll get wrinkled, but you can always have them pressed when you arrive.”

  GUSCHINOV Every month, I returned to Paris to ask for news of my husband. Petiot told me all sorts of stories about the passage, and said that my husband’s business was going very well in Buenos Aires and that I should join him there. Petiot said he couldn’t show me the letters, because they were too compromising and he had destroyed them. I cabled to some friends of ours there, and
they said they hadn’t seen my husband.

  PETIOT She’s lying. I showed her the letters. She had found a young lover and didn’t want to join her husband.

  FLORIOT She’s lying! Everyone is lying!

  DUPIN Calm yourself, Maitre.

  Archevêque began speaking again, but Petiot cut him off.

  PETIOT Wait, Maître, let me speak. I haven’t finished.

  ARCHEVÊQUE You’re very intelligent, Petiot.

  Petiot bowed. “Intelligence is only relative, Maître.”

  ARCHEVÊQUE Madame Guschinov, your husband told you, did he not, that it was through the intermediary Lucien Romier, who was then a minister at Vichy, that Petiot had obtained the false papers?

  GUSCHINOV Certainly.

  PETIOT That’s another lie. It was only much later that Lucien Romier or people associated with him began supplying me with false papers. Madame Guschinov, would you be so kind as to tell me—

  LESER If you wish to ask questions, will you kindly do it through me?

  Petiot bowed again, excused himself, and clapped both hands to his mouth. He looked as though he were blowing kisses to the crowd.

  FLORIOT Madame, when your husband wrote asking you to join him in Argentina, why didn’t you go?

  GUSCHINOV My health, business—

  PETIOT She had found a younger lover.

  FLORIOT But you had faith in Dr. Petiot?

  GUSCHINOV Yes, I had faith in him.

  FLORIOT During the investigation you said you didn’t leave because you didn’t have faith in Dr. Petiot.

  LESER We still have a lot of witnesses to hear. At this rate, we’ll still be here in July.

  Joachim Guschinov’s business associate, Jean Gouedo, took the stand. He told of his partner’s preparations for the trip, and mentioned that the five skins Petiot claimed were a gift to his wife had been intended for sale in South America.

  GOUEDO Petiot was going to send the money separately. My associate did not want to part with everything, and sewed some of it into the shoulders of a jacket.