The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot

by Thomas Maeder

  VÉRON You felt yourself at the mercy of Guélin and Dequeker?

  DREYFUS They profited from my inexperience.

  FLORIOT How much did it all cost you?

  DREYFUS Over four million francs. My husband returned, and we were going to leave Paris together, but then Guélin told me that there was one last formality that had to be taken care of at the rue des Saussaies. Yvan went the next day, and I never saw him again.

  FLORIOT Did he take any luggage?

  DREYFUS No, Guélin loaned it to him.

  Fernand Lavie, Madame Khaït’s son, explained the circumstances of his mother’s disappearance. He told about the bizarre letters that reported she had fled to the free zone.

  LAVIE My mother never mentioned wanting to leave.

  VÉRON The night that your mother left, she was coming to see me. Do you know where else she may have gone?

  LAVIE My mother had seen her doctor recently and told him that Petiot had given her false injections. I believe that her doctor advised her to go to the police. The evening she left, she did not take any money or luggage.

  FLORIOT Your father-in-law [David Khaït] is deceased?

  LAVIE I don’t know.

  FLORIOT He was deported in June 1944 and never returned. When he first spoke with the police he said that it could only have been your mother who delivered the letter to the house on the day after her “disappearance,” and he gave very good reasons for believing this. And do you know that three people, including a railroad employee, believe they saw your mother in the free zone in June 1943—that is to say, over a year after her disappearance?

  LAVIE No, I didn’t know that.

  DUPIN Those three people had never met Madame Khaït. They identified her from a photograph.

  FLORIOT Which is more than I can say for some people. Monsieur Lavie, didn’t your mother also deliver a letter to your family’s lawyer the day after her disappearance? The lawyer in question has said: “It was certainly Madame Khaït who came, my maid recognized her.”

  VÉRON Let’s call the maid to the stand!

  FLORIOT Surely you do not doubt the word of this lawyer!

  VÉRON Let’s hear my maid.

  FLORIOT Where is Raymonde Baudet, who is one of the most important witnesses in this case?

  DUPIN Isn’t she in Poitiers?

  LAVIE I haven’t heard from her. I only know that she is in the country.

  DUPIN She must be aware that we are discussing her at the Assize Court of the Seine and that her presence would be quite welcome.

  PETIOT How many witnesses does that make whom you haven’t been able to produce? Are we to conclude that they are dead? Did you murder them?

  VÉRON Monsieur Lavie, have you seen another letter, which Jean-Marc Van Bever allegedly delivered to a lawyer at about the same time as your mother’s disappearance?

  LAVIE Yes, an inspector showed it to me. He covered the signature. I thought the handwriting was the same as that in the letters we received.

  FLORIOT Our friend Monsieur de Rougemont does not agree with you.

  VÉRON Maître, if you manage to explain this away, you will, perhaps, eliminate one reason for condemning your client to death. There will still be twenty-six more!

  Leser recessed the court. After the break, they discovered that there were no more witnesses in the room, and court was adjourned.

  Madame Braunberger related the story of her husband’s disappearance one day in 1942, and told how she had identified him among Petiot’s victims by his hat and shirt. The court clerk produced these two items, and she identified them again.

  PERLÈS Perhaps the moment has come to ask Petiot how these articles came to be in his house?

  PETIOT Perhaps the moment has come to ask, but the moment has not come for me to answer.

  LESER Petiot, I would suggest that you answer.

  PETIOT I will answer after the other witnesses in this affair have been heard.

  DUPIN Your silence proves your guilt.

  LESER I order you to answer.

  PETIOT I told you that I will answer in half an hour. I’m not about to go anywhere, am I?

  Raymond Vallée testified about the letters he had received. Petiot was contemptuous and spoke in barely concealed insults.

  VALLÉE I wonder how Dr. Braunberger, who had met Petiot only once, several years earlier, could have known about a house Petiot did not buy until 1941?

  Petiot leaped up and began shouting. The guard next to him grabbed him by the shoulder and tried to push him back into his seat. Using the familiar tu verb form in addressing him, he ordered Petiot to sit down.

  PETIOT I forbid you to use tu to me!

  GUARD Assieds-toi.

  PETIOT Fuck you!

  LESER Behave yourselves, gentlemen. Monsieur Vallée, you may step down.

  Floriot grinned. Petiot had been on the verge of asking the witness a question and the witness had been dismissed. The court clerk whispered to Leser that he was running another risk of a mistrial. Leser sent a guard to find Vallée, who had already left the room. Five minutes later, Vallée returned to the stand. Petiot’s question was perfectly trivial.

  Dr. Braunberger’s housemaid, nurse, and cook told the story of the doctor’s disappearance over again. When they finished, Petiot stood up.

  PETIOT Now, may I see this hat and shirt? I had no earthly reason for killing that old Jew. I scarcely knew him. He had no money with him when he went, so I couldn’t hope to gain anything. His hat and his shirt … The hat has the right initials on it, but it just happens to be two sizes larger than Dr. Braunberger’s head. You say that the shirt is his. You say it has his initials on it. Even someone with my poor eyesight can see that there are no initials on this shirt. No hat, no shirt, no Braunberger case, it’s finished!

  He threw the two items at the clerk’s head and sat down. There was stunned silence.

  Christiane Roart, Clara Noé, and Michel Czobor, all friends of the Knellers, testified about the strange postcards they had received. No one seemed terribly interested in details anymore, and by the end of the questioning even Leser was glancing anxiously at the clock.

  STÉFANAGGI Petiot, perhaps you should tell us under exactly what circumstances the Germans released you from Fresnes.

  LESER Good grief.

  PETIOT Ask the Germans.

  As if this had been a secret signal, several civil-suit lawyers jumped in at once and began to shout accusations.

  HENRY No one has understood anything here. The real question at hand is whether or not Petiot worked for the Gestapo!

  PETIOT I was tortured and I never admitted anything. You, lawyers of so-called innocent victims, you are treading on dangerous ground when you open up this last-minute offensive. In one word, you are all bastards!

  THE LAWYERS [in chorus] Thank you.

  PETIOT You’re welcome. Anytime.

  HENRY This trial is before the wrong court—

  LESER Don’t say that! Do you want this to go on forever?

  HENRY Petiot should not be here, but before the Special Court, to try him for intelligence with the enemy.

  STÉFANAGGI Yes, we are wasting our time here, trying to find out whether Petiot was really a Resistant. What we have to establish is whether he belonged to the Gestapo, and not he alone, but …

  As Stéfanaggi reeled off a list that included many of the witnesses who had already been heard, Petiot shouted, Floriot beamed, and Leser shrieked. Everyone was talking at once, and above them all was heard the high-pitched Marseille accent of Charles Henry.

  HENRY Yes, Petiot should appear before the Special Court. All the obscurities which up to now have allowed Floriot to make a fool out of everyone would disappear …

  Leser finally stood up and walked out, followed by the rest of the court. Henry continued to shout for several minutes before he realized that no one was listening.

  April 1—All Fools’ Day—the thirteenth day of the trial, was to be devoted to defense witnesses. The rumor
spread that Justice Robert H. Jackson and his colleagues from the Nuremberg trials, which were going on simultaneously and receiving second billing in the Paris newspapers, were planning to attend. Indeed, there was a new row of empty chairs behind Leser. Journalists regretted that they were never filled, and that the American judges never had the chance to witness the gay abandon with which the Petiot trial was being conducted, unlike the depressingly serious international war-crimes trials. It was a fairly calm day, with few outbursts from Petiot, but one guard strolled about oblivious of an April Fools’ joke pinned to the back of his uniform, and a couple of foreign journalists embraced passionately during much of the afternoon.

  Charles Henry stood up to explain what he had meant the previous day. He was not, he said, saying that this trial should be transferred to a special court, but that Petiot’s accomplices, and not Petiot himself, should be tried for complicity and collaboration. The lawyer’s intentions were good, but it was impossible to tell where his meandering enthusiasm might lead him, and Leser hurriedly silenced him.

  The defense witnesses filed past in rapid succession.

  A MONSIEUR COMTE Petiot was the doctor of the poor. His devotion was legendary. Do you know Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, Monsieur le Président? There are good people and bad people there. All good Republicans are considered undesirable there. The affair Petiot? It’s nothing but a political move to slur Petiot.

  A MONSIEUR PATHIER Dr. Petiot did astonishing things at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne. He built the sewer system. The school was like a leper colony, and he turned it into a model school.

  A MUNICIPAL OFFICIAL Don’t be mistaken, Monsieur le Président, Villeneuve-sur-Yonne may be small, but it is a veritable hotbed of political turmoil. All you needed was to have good intentions and someone was sure to slander you. There was a murder in the vicinity, a theft, someone stole the cemetery cross; Petiot’s political adversaries blamed it all on him!

  A MONSIEUR MUR There are always fatheads who tell lies. Petiot was a Frenchman one hundred percent—no, two hundred percent!

  A MONSIEUR OLIVIER I’ve known Petiot since 1920. He saved my son’s life, and I’ll always be grateful to him. And later he gave me an injection that made me sick for a few days so I wouldn’t have to go to Germany.

  Another defense witness, not too sure of his words, said that “what Petiot did at Villeneuve was incomprehensible.” When the audience laughed, he turned toward the gallery with great dignity. “That may make you laugh, but we still miss Dr. Petiot at Villeneuve. He is a good man, and we will never forget all that he has done for us.”

  A deaf witness couldn’t hear Leser’s instructions for the swearing in.

  LESER Say, “I swear.”

  WITNESS I can’t hear you.

  LESER No, “I swear.”

  WITNESS You will have to speak up.

  Leser went over and shouted in the man’s face.

  WITNESS You don’t have to shout. I’m not completely deaf.

  Nor, it seemed, could he say much.

  WITNESS I really can’t contribute anything to your trial. I knew Petiot slightly before he left Villeneuve, but I haven’t heard anything about him since.

  LESER I’m not surprised.

  Another witness told of a man who had fallen from a poplar tree. Petiot had treated him every day for forty-five months and had saved his life. Still another, a Monsieur Arent, said Petiot’s motto should be Simplicity, Devotion, Altruism.

  ARENT At that time I was absolutely certain that there was not a man on earth more honest than Petiot, nor more patriotic.

  FLORIOT Are you less sure today?

  ARENT Check.

  FLORIOT What makes you uncertain now?

  ARENT Reading the newspapers.

  Inspector Gignoux, who had conducted the Van Bever and Khaït investigations under, or in spite of, Judge Olmi, put in an unexpected appearance and interrupted the stream of defense witnesses. Véron was pleased by his presence and asked several detailed questions, but Gignoux really had little to say and could only confirm the fact that the two people were missing.

  GIGNOUX I’m sorry that I never found them.

  FLORIOT So am I.

  PETIOT In keeping with the prosecution’s tradition, Inspector Gignoux has related nothing but inexactitudes, but that hardly surprises anyone. Let’s move on.

  Defense witnesses from Paris followed those from Villeneuve-sur-Yonne. One had needed a rest, and Petiot had paid for his vacation. He had cured another’s daughter of constipation with a strange machine. In 1942 he had obtained false identity papers for a Madame Harant and two English officers who had been shot down in France. Many of the witnesses were very moving, but the audience had become so used to the absurd that they laughed in a manner that offended even the prosecution. And even though these statements unexpectedly confirmed less plausible aspects of Petiot’s position, they were too late and too few.

  A star witness was Lieutenant Richard Lhéritier, who entered in the black uniform of the French paratroopers. He had been dropped behind enemy lines in 1942, arrested at Lyon on May 4, 1943, and transferred to Fresnes on June 10, where he shared cell number 440 for five months with Marcel Petiot. It was impossible to doubt his integrity, and his presence commanded respect. Petiot had never spoken to him about Cumulo or Pierre Brossolette. On the other hand, Petiot had spoken at great length about Fly-Tox and his escape organization. He had given Lhéritier useful advice on how to bear up under torture and on how to answer questions during an interrogation without surrendering any useful information. Petiot had been able to smuggle messages out of prison and had furnished his cellmate with names and addresses of Resistance members to look up if he were released or escaped. Lhéritier had never been able to use them, since he was sent straight from Fresnes to Ravensbrück. Petiot had treated his jailers with such sarcastic contempt that he had been an inspiration to his fellow prisoners. The court had not heard this side before and was impressed.

  FLORIOT Do you think it strange that the Germans released Petiot?

  LHÉRITIER Not at all. They were unable to get any information out of him, so they let him go in hopes of following him and discovering his secrets. I know a number of similar cases.

  FLORIOT You spent five months in a cell with Petiot, Lieutenant. Do you think that a man can hide his true nature for that long?

  LHÉRITIER No, sir. I do not believe one can be mistaken after five months together—particularly in a prison cell.

  FLORIOT How can you explain his present situation?

  LHÉRITIER First of all, I do not believe that Petiot acted alone. I cannot see that as being possible. Secondly, he was involved in politics. His party was heavily involved in the Resistance, but not in the official Resistance controlled by the Allies. I believe that his party gave him orders, which he carried out in his own fashion. Later, after the press created such a sensation around him, his party found him an embarrassment. They wouldn’t have had a chance in the elections if they had recognized him, so they dropped him.* I know that Petiot is quite capable of sacrificing himself for a cause. I saw how he acted with the Germans. He risked his life every day just to say what he believed in.

  PETIOT Can a reasonable man accuse me of having worked for the Gestapo?

  LHÉRITIER I don’t believe it. Whatever the outcome of this trial may be, I will always be proud to have shared a cell with Dr. Petiot.

  Roger Courtot had also shared a cell with Petiot. He had been nineteen years old at the time. Petiot had told him about Fly-Tox, the escape route, and Dr. Eugène.

  COURTOT No one can lie for seventy-eight days and seventy-eight nights. Besides, he had no reason to tell me these things. I could very easily have been an informer planted by the Germans, and he was risking a great deal. But he never worried about his personal safety. It’s not possible that he worked for money.

  Petiot wept silently during Courtot’s testimony.

  Mademoiselle Germaine Barré had asked to be allowed to testify. She was a you
ng seamstress and, during the war, had worked for the Allied intelligence service. She had been captured and sentenced to death, and was reprieved only because she was pregnant. She was awaiting torture in Jodkum’s office at the rue des Saussaies when preparations were made for Petiot’s release.

  BARRÉ I have read in certain newspapers that Petiot has been accused of collaborating with the Gestapo. I wanted to tell you that this is not possible. I was in Jodkum’s office when he spoke to Petiot. When Jodkum asked him if he would pay a hundred thousand francs for his liberation, Petiot did not jump at the chance. Quite the contrary. He said: “I don’t give a shit whether you condemn me or not. I have stomach cancer and I’m not going to live very long whatever you do. Don’t do me any favors.” Jodkum telephoned Petiot’s home, and then to his brother for the money.

  PETIOT Do you remember if he asked me to promise to do nothing against Germany?

  BARRÉ I remember very well, Doctor. You refused to sign anything of the sort. Petiot was insolent and condescending, and made it very clear just what he thought of them.

  The witnesses had all been heard. The fourteenth day of the trial would consist of the civil-suit-lawyers’ summaries of their clients’ cases. The same facts would be repeated again with grandiloquence and rattling of swords. Spring had come to Paris, and the audience had more pleasant places to be.

  Maître Archevêque reiterated the Guschinov case. He did not believe Guschinov was in South America, but had been basely murdered at the rue Le Sueur. Floriot lazily asked whether they had received an answer to their telegram. It had never been sent. Floriot lay down across his desk and went to sleep. Petiot had been dozing in exactly the same position all along.

  Véron painted Petiot as a psychopath who eliminated Madame Khaït because she was a minor problem in a trivial lawsuit. He was a Cartesian who plotted his killings and line of defense well in advance.

  VÉRON When someone got in this man’s way, he killed him. That is reason enough to have his head.

  While Perlès spoke of Braunberger’s hat and shirt, Petiot awoke and laughed, then went back to sleep.