PETIOT I don’t have to justify myself for murders I’m not accused of committing.
VÉRON You said earlier that you dumped the bodies outside of buildings occupied by the Wehrmacht. Where? Give us details.
PETIOT Go to hell. I’ll talk about it after I’m acquitted, which is already a certainty.
VÉRON Why didn’t the Gestapo react? And why did the Gestapo let you out of prison when you had admitted smuggling people out of the country?
IBARNE The Germans would have shot him instantly. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a collabo.
PETIOT Monsieur Ibarne, I saw you somewhere that you wouldn’t care to have me mention here.
IBARNE On the contrary, I insist that you mention it, because I’m certain I never saw you anywhere.
Petiot was silent, smiling.
IBARNE Explain yourself!
PETIOT [with hidden meaning] Didn’t you play tennis at the Racing Club?
IBARNE I don’t play tennis and I’ve never been to the Racing Club.
Petiot’s bluff had failed, and he contented himself with a weak attempt at a knowing smirk.
Fourrier, Pintard, Maurice Petiot, Nézondet, and Porchon undoubtedly knew more than anyone except Petiot himself, and when they all appeared on March 27, the audience expected some shattering revelations. They were sadly disappointed. After more than a year in prison, none of the accomplices had any desire to compromise himself, and they were more intent on showing how truthful they were than on providing facts.
Raoul Fourrier scarcely spoke at all. The answers had to be dragged from him one by one, and he usually stopped after furnishing a minimal reply. The civil-suit attorneys battled for the right to question him, and above all others could be heard the shrill voice of a lawyer with a strong Marseille accent, whose questions were senseless to the point of incoherence. The subject turned to the pimps and prostitutes.
LESER You introduced them to Petiot out of the goodness of your heart?
FOURRIER Yes, of course. We only asked twenty-five thousand francs.
LESER Do you call that the goodness of your heart?
FOURRIER I didn’t know they would bring their women.
LESER How did they leave?
FOURRIER On foot. I watched them go from my window.
LESER Didn’t you ever wonder how the organization worked?
FOURRIER The doctor told me it was a secret.
“Francinet” repeated the same story.
PINTARD I’m sorry now that I sent those people to Petiot.
LESER I should hope so. Didn’t you ever worry about them after they left?
PINTARD No. Fourrier showed me a note from Jo le Boxeur saying he had safely arrived in Buenos Aires.
PETIOT It would never have fooled Monsieur de Rougemont. I wrote it.
Nézondet recounted his arrest and his conversation with Maurice.
NÉZONDET They sent me to Fresnes, you know. Then, a little while later, you know, they sent me back to the rue des Saussaies. An inspector said to me, you know, “Tell us the truth or you’ll stay at Fresnes.” I told him, “Okay, then I guess I’ll just stay there for the rest of my life, because I don’t know anything,” you know. So they let me out. Before I left, you know, I asked Petiot what it was all about, and he said he smuggled people out of the country, you know, and they were going to fill him full of bullets. He said to tell his wife he loved her more than anything and that she should go where she knew to go, you know, and dig up what she knew. A little later, you know, I met Maurice. He was white like a sheet. He said, “There’s enough to get us all shot there. The journeys begin and end at the rue Le Sueur.” He had been to the house, you know, and found suitcases, postdated letters, syringes, a formula for poison, and some bodies. I said, “Your brother must be a monster,” and he said, “No, but he’s a very sick man and we have to take care of him.” I know that Maurice has denied it all since, you know, but I never asked him to tell me these things.
Maurice was pale and shuffled slowly to the stand. His throat cancer had spread and he had only a few months to live. He gave Marcel a long look filled with affection and sorrow. He spoke slowly and with difficulty, but was perfectly calm, confident, and even politely defiant.
LESER Speak up.
MAURICE I’m sorry, I can’t.
PETIOT [whispering to Floriot] I may not be doing very well, but he, poor fellow …
LESER The last witness has just told us about certain revelations you made to him in 1943.
MAURICE Monsieur Nézondet is a good fellow and means well, but he never really recovered after his arrest by the Germans. He imagines things.
Maître Charles Henry, the Marseille lawyer representing the family of Paulette Grippay, jumped in.
HENRY Didn’t it seem strange to you to discover all of these clothes, particularly German army uniforms, as you maintain?
MAURICE No. I concluded that my brother had killed German army officers.
HENRY And what conclusion did you draw from the presence of civilian clothes?
MAURICE None.
Maître Henry’s questions followed fast and furious, losing themselves in passionately irrelevant detail. He seemed like a clockwork barrister wound too tight.
PETIOT The further we go, the worse it gets.
LESER [apparently thinking of something else] Voilà!
Roland Porchon could not be sworn in; since his release, he had been convicted of fraud and stripped of his rights as a citizen, including the right to bear witness. He was asked about Monsieur and Madame Marie, the couple he had sent to Petiot but who had been too frightened to leave. Porchon contradicted everyone and blamed everything on his wife. His wife had since divorced him, and blamed everything on him.
PERLÈS Petiot, did you intend to help the Maries escape or to execute them?
PETIOT I don’t remember them. The whole story is completely uninteresting.
Eryane Kahan, the first witness on the tenth day, stepped up to the witness box with her strawberry hair, huge tinted glasses, a brown suit, and a round, veiled fur hat that constantly threatened to fall off her head as she trembled with emotion. Despite the warm weather, she wore gloves and carried a fur muff, and her handbag seemed to be filled with multicolored handkerchiefs, which she nervously pulled out to wipe her face or clean her glasses. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties, but was, in fact, fifty. She had a strong Rumanian accent. Petiot stared at the ceiling as she described the families she had sent to him.
KAHAN Not only weren’t they collaborators, they were in deathly fear of the Germans. They were so happy about the possibility of escaping that they considered Petiot their benefactor—almost a god.
She directly quoted the Wolffs in German, and Petiot winced as though the sound of that language pained him.
KAHAN I wanted to leave as well, but Petiot said I would be more useful to him if I stayed for a while. I see now what a useful patsy I was.
She was asked about her disappearance after the discovery of the rue Le Sueur. She had first maintained she had fled in February because the Gestapo was after her. The evidence proved she had left her rue Pasquier apartment the day the newspapers printed Petiot’s photograph, so she obligingly changed her story.
KAHAN I had worshiped him too. I knew him only as Dr. Eugéne. When the Petiot affair hit the newspapers I had no way of knowing that he was the same person … until I saw a photograph. [She dramatically laid a handkerchief on the suitcases behind her.] I am a Jew, and I felt like a hunted animal, so I hid. I thought of sending my story to the police, but Maître Floriot advised me against it.
Floriot smiled menacingly. Eryane insisted that she had consulted him while she was in hiding. Floriot explained, more persuasively, that she had not contacted him until she was virtually under arrest and had little choice.
KAHAN People have portrayed me as an accomplice, as a procurer. Worse, as an agent of the Gestapo! [Emotion overcame her and her hat teetered dangerously.] They’ve called me a loose
woman! I’ve been called everything! They’ve ruined me, and now they want to destroy me altogether!
Her reputation was, at best, uncertain. During interrogations she had spoken at length about her Resistance activity, but this activity had fallen into two categories: that preceding March 1944, and that following the rue Le Sueur discovery, when she was hiding from the police and needed a good story. In the earlier period, Eryane claimed to have done impressive things, but when the police asked about them, she couldn’t remember the name of a single person who could support her statements—they were all as elusive as Petiot’s Fly-Tox comrades. After March 1944, she really had furnished a few unimportant bits of information to peripheral Resistance members; she remembered not only the names of these people, but their exact addresses. This seemed suspiciously convenient. Moreover, shortly before his execution Henri Lafont identified a photograph of Eryane Kahan, gave accurate details about her life, and said she had given information to the Gestapo and had even denounced Jews. Lafont had no reason to lie; in fact he seemed intent on cleansing his conscience before he died and had become scrupulous about telling the truth.
DUPIN [to Kahan] All the information concerning you in the dossier is quite favorable.
FLORIOT Monsieur l’Avocat Général, you said a little while ago that she had papers identifying her as a member of the Resistance. It says here in the dossier that she is an adventuress who lies easily and consistently.
DUPIN You will have your chance to summarize the case later, Maître.
FLORIOT Madame Kahan, were you paid for sending people to Petiot?
KAHAN No, never.
FLORIOT Several other witnesses, and a number of your friends, have said you told them you had been.
KAHAN I never said that.
FLORIOT Then they are all liars?
KAHAN I don’t know anything about it.
FLORIOT The honesty of this witness, as Dr. Paul might say, floats by in bits and pieces. Madame Kahan, didn’t you have a German lover?
KAHAN He wasn’t German. He was Austrian.
FLORIOT That’s what Hitler said.
KAHAN It’s not the same thing.
She went on to explain that her Austrian lover had given her information she passed on to the Resistance.
FLORIOT It seems that four Germans regularly visited your building, and that one of them was your landlady’s lover.
KAHAN He was only her friend.
During that interchange, Floriot and Eryane Kahan alternately removed and polished their glasses in what seemed like a comedy routine. Dupin was not pleased with the way Floriot was discrediting a prize witness, and he changed the subject.
DUPIN I should mention that Inspector Poirier came to see me in my chambers and told me that some of the things he said on the witness stand were not altogether exact.
FLORIOT There is a dossier that gives us all the facts we need. I don’t understand why you want to make an issue out of minor details. They don’t change the facts.
DUPIN I don’t allow myself to speak to you that way. Don’t force me to answer you. You play quite a different role from mine.
FLORIOT Obviously. I am your adversary.
DUPIN Your position is an ignoble one. I won’t tell you what I think of your attitude.
FLORIOT I—
LESER Why don’t you just ask another question, Maître?
FLORIOT I would like to reply to Monsieur l’Avocat Général’s attack.
DUPIN I demand a recess!
FLORIOT That’s too easy.
LESER Court is recessed. Madame Kahan, we will take up where we left off.
They returned a few minutes later with tempers cooled.
DUPIN I would like to apologize for the harsh words I said a few minutes ago, and which may have offended the defense.
FLORIOT Madame Kahan, did you ever go to a Gestapo office in a German truck?
KAHAN It’s possible.
FLORIOT With a German officer?
KAHAN Never.
FLORIOT Did you greet a group of German soldiers in the street?
KAHAN My Austrian friend was with them.
FLORIOT Could you tell us what happened to the dossier indicting you for intelligence with the enemy?
KAHAN I have never heard of such a dossier.
DUPIN If there were charges against Madame Kahan, she would not be here.
FLORIOT It is dossier number one-six-five-eight-two.
Dupin copied down the number with bad grace. Presumably he never found the dossier since, despite strong suspicions about her, it does not appear she ever had been indicted, but for the moment the court, spectators, and press had the distinct impression that the prosecution was protecting Eryane Kahan.
PETIOT Did I ever have dirty hands, as Monsieur Cadoret has said?
Eryane Kahan did not answer.
PETIOT Perhaps I did. I didn’t feel very safe in the rue Pasquier, as you can well understand. My bicycle had a manual gearshift, and before I came I moved the chain by hand to the larger gear so that I could go more quickly if I needed to escape.
The audience laughed.
PETIOT At least my hands weren’t dirty because I raised them in allegiance to Pétain!
LESER Don’t be insolent.
PETIOT Toward whom? Toward Pétain?
LESER You know very well that magistrates had to swear allegiance. There were unusual circumstances.
PETIOT I know a magistrate who didn’t.
LESER Madame Kahan, you may step down.
Charles Beretta was brought from Fresnes to testify. Floriot described the role he had played and the various Resistance groups he had denounced. Beretta was terrified by this image of himself—one which would shortly be presented at his own trial.
BERETTA But I couldn’t do anything else!
FLORIOT Don’t tire yourself, old man, we understand perfectly well.
Jean Guélin was also brought from Fresnes, where he was being held for collaboration. The only charge against him stemmed from his activity in the Dreyfus case, and his only interest now was to defend himself.*
GUÉLIN I have been in prison for eighteen months and have been questioned only twice. Each day, I dreamed of this moment when I could explain myself before you. Monsieur le Président, you have the advantage of still being on the other side of the stand. I beg you to hear me out.
Guélin told them of the difficulties he had experienced in negotiating Dreyfus’s release. He had done it all out of sheer patriotism and respect for Yvan Dreyfus, whom he praised endlessly as a Resistant and a handsome man. Never had he dealt with the Germans, whom he loathed and despised, except when it helped the noble cause of France. He wept.
GUÉLIN I, who was such a patriot, who did everything I could for the Jews, look what has become of me. After all that I went through, it wasn’t the Germans who prosecuted me, but the French. And now that, for once, they have a man of the world in prison, they don’t want to let him go! Petiot, dare to look at me!
PETIOT You little bastard.
But Guélin’s fury was mainly directed toward Floriot, who effectively destroyed the former lawyer’s defense.
GUÉLIN Even if you are still on the right side of the stand, you can’t stop me from telling you that I—I never received exorbitant fees from collaborators, and if there is someone here who has earned millions from traitors, collaborators, and members of the Gestapo, it is not I, Maître Floriot. You are the collaborators’ lawyer!
FLORIOT Is that why you asked me to defend you?
GUÉLIN [bursting into tears] I’m not a collaborator!
FLORIOT Article eleven fifty-four of the dossier shows that you had a Gestapo identity card and a license to bear arms, and that the Germans protected you. I don’t think we need hear any more from you. Thank you.
Pierre Péhu, the friend and employee of Guélin who had helped negotiate with Dreyfus, was the first witness on the eleventh day of the trial. He, too, was brought from the Fresnes prison to appear.
PÉHU Guélin asked me to help him out. As a service to a countryman, I went to Compiègne to see what was going on. Dreyfus was so conspicuously a patriot that I didn’t hesitate. He signed a certain paper I had been instructed to bring. Guélin took me to the rue des Saussaies, where he concluded the transaction. A month later, Guélin told me that Dreyfus was going to be liberated that evening. And, in fact, I did see him that evening, and I never saw him afterward. But a month later I was called to the rue des Saussaies, and they asked me what I had done with Dreyfus. Guélin had just told me that he was in South America, but, as we had agreed, I told them that Dreyfus had not left Paris yet and was still in hiding. The Germans asked Guélin to swear that this was true. He gave them a paper accepting full responsibility for Dreyfus’s disappearance, and the Germans never bothered me again.
VÉRON You were able to talk to Dreyfus at Compiègne. That proves you had connections somewhere.
PÉHU I had a little piece of paper.
FLORIOT Didn’t you make a report to the German police?
PÉHU Me? I used to be a police commissaire and was thrown out of my job by Vichy! I was a Resistant! I, make a report to the German police?
PETIOT This is the man who fractured my sternum at the rue des Saussaies.
PÉHU I am a Resistant!
FLORIOT This is very serious. If one can believe the last few witnesses, we have mistakenly locked up nothing but Resistants at Fresnes.
Three witnesses who had known Yvan Dreyfus testified that he had been utterly dedicated to the Resistance. Véron read a telegram from Pierre Mendès-France, one of de Gaulle’s ministers: I LEARN WITH STUPEFACTION PETIOT DARES SULLY MEMORY YVAN DREYFUS.
Of all the witnesses, Madame Dreyfus was the most pathetic. She seemed a broken woman and never glanced at Petiot, who, for once, remained silent throughout a witness’s entire testimony. Painfully, she told of her long negotiations with Guélin and Dequeker and the repeated demands for more money.
DREYFUS When I learned that Yvan had signed two letters, I was horrified.
FLORIOT One of them promised that he would help expose a certain escape organization?
DREYFUS Yes, that was the condition. Yvan never would have done such a thing, and I begged Guélin not to use the letter. He told me it was purely a formality, and that Yvan could tear the letters up himself.
The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot Page 24
