The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot (31 page)

GOURIOU
I saw his grades. I recall that he got “medicore” in dissection. He managed to avoid taking certain courses generally considered essential. His thesis was received with the notation “very good,” but that's not difficult. One can buy a thesis if one wants to. At any rate, a thesis is based on book learning, and gives no evaluation of the true personal integrity of the physician.

FLORIOT
You seem to be insinuating a lot of things for which you have no proof. Tell me, you examined Petiot's family as well. How did you find his sister?

Gouriou hesitated. “She is quite normal.”

FLORIOT
Are you certain?

GOURIOU
As certain as I can be after a brief psychiatric examination.

FLORIOT
Psychiatry moves in strange ways. Petiot does not have a sister.

Gouriou fled the box amid peals of laughter.

Dr. Georges Heuyer complained that Petiot had been difficult to examine, since he had wanted to ask all the questions himself. The audience laughed, Petiot rolled his eyes, Floriot settled down to go to sleep, Leser felt he was losing his grip and recessed the court.

Edouard de Rougemont, a pompous graphologist with a flowing white beard, had examined the Van Bever, Khaït, Hotin, and Braunberger letters. His reports had been written by hand, in Gothic script, with important words illuminated in red, the whole sewn together with gold braid. With an affection bordering on lasciviousness, he discussed the curves of certain letters and the hand's movement while making certain sweeps.

ROUGEMONT
In conclusion, all of the things I have told you lead one to believe that these letters were written in a state of agitation. Either they were dictated to the author or the author was under constraint. It is not impossible that he or she was drugged at the time.

FLORIOT
[in awe] You can tell all these things just from the handwriting?

ROUGEMONT
Yes, Maître. Why, a skillful graphologist can plumb the depths of a man's soul through his handwriting. He can even tell whether the writer is lying or telling the truth.

Floriot quickly scribbled on a sheet of paper.

FLORIOT
None can be more skillful than you. Here. Could you tell me whether I truly believe what I have just written?

ROUGEMONT
Yes, of course. “Monsieur de Rougemont is a great scholar who never makes a mistake.”

He blushed deeply.

FLORIOT
If we had asked Petiot to write out his story and Monsieur de Rougemont to read it, we could have dispensed with this whole trial.

Colonel André Dewavrin was called to the stand. He was a mysterious figure, de Gaulle's right-hand man during the war, and an important leader in the Resistance. Many people had come to the trial today merely to glimpse him. Rather than Dewavrin, a Monsieur Vandeuille appeared in his stead.

LESER
One does not send substitutes to court.

Vandeuille departed with dignity.

Jacques Ibarne (aka Yonnet), the journalist for
Résistance
and Military Security officer who had conducted part of the investigation of Petiot's Resistance activity, came next.

IBARNE
The article “Petiot, Soldier of the Reich” was based on a police interrogation of a man named Charles Rolland. I subsequently discovered that its contents were entirely false, but I had published it with the caution that I took no responsibility for the information given.

FLORIOT
After writing an article like that, Monsieur, a journalist should not have undertaken the military investigation you performed. You were hardly the most objective judge of the facts.

Ibarne mentioned that after publication of the article he had been summoned to Floriot's office and given Petiot's reply. A discussion arose as to whether a lawyer had the right to communicate correspondence he had received from a murderer being sought by the police. The lawyers asked each other, Dupin asked Leser, Leser asked the court clerk. No one seemed to know.

Ibarne described the results of his investigation. Petiot had never known Cumulo, Brossolette, or any members of Rainbow. No one had ever heard of Dr. Eugène or Fly-Tox, and the formation of an autonomous extermination group such as Petiot described would never have been permitted in the organized Resistance. Petiot had shared a cell at Fresnes for some time with a man named Lateulade, since dead in deportation, who had known Cumulo and Rainbow and could have discussed them with his cellmate. Petiot fired hateful glances at Yonnet-Ibarne throughout his testimony.

VÉRON
Petiot, you say that you killed thirty-three collaborators and thirty German soldiers. You have told us how you liquidated two soldiers in June 1940. Tell us about the twenty-eight others.

PETIOT
I had more respect for them than I did for your client.

VÉRON
How did you trap them? How did you kill them?

PETIOT
They were my patients.

VÉRON
But you were not allowed to treat Germans. You were even required by law to post a sign to that effect on your door.

PETIOT
I won't answer your questions. I didn't work for decorations or praise. When there are oppressors, there will always be avengers.

VÉRON
How did you kill them?

PETIOT
That's none of your damn business!

VÉRON
What did you do with the bodies?

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!