Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris

30.

BLACK FINGERNAILS

THESE INJECTIONS, PETIOT SAID, WOULD RENDER US INVISIBLE TO THE EYES OF THE WORLD.

—Michel Cadoret de l’Epinguen

PROFESSOR Sannié took the stand again in the short late-afternoon session at the Palais de Justice. Maître Jacques Bernays, the civil attorney representing the Wolff family, asked him about Petiot’s statement that he had planned to put medical machinery in the triangular room. “It is absurd and ridiculous,” Sannié answered. He could not squeeze an examination table into the small room, let alone bulky machinery.

Petiot protested that, while the room was small and he had used it to question traitors captured by his group, it had not served as a torture chamber. Nothing he said, however, addressed Sannié’s point that medical equipment for his so-called clinic simply would not fit into the room. Floriot came to his client’s assistance, reminding the court that there was no evidence whatsoever to support the hypothesis that the triangular room was a torture chamber or prison cell. There was not even a sign of a struggle or any attempt to escape its confines, as surely would be the case if the room had been used as the prosecution claimed.

“Did you find any of Petiot’s fingerprints on any of the objects taken from rue Le Sueur?” Floriot asked.

“No, we did not find any of his fingerprints.”

It was an astonishing revelation. Not only were Petiot’s fingerprints lacking, but Sannié further testified that the ones found on-site remained unidentified.

Georges Massu, then serving as commissaire of Grandes Carrières in the 18th arrondissement, followed Sannié to the stand, his left hand and wrist still healing from his suicide attempt. After the tour of rue Le Sueur, his testimony proved anticlimactic. Floriot hounded him about the missing bag that had been found at rue Le Sueur with half a body inside. Massu thought it had been a potato sack. Floriot and Petiot both said it was actually a German mailbag, with the implication that it was the Germans who brought the bodies to rue Le Sueur.

When Floriot asked where the bag was now, Massu said that he thought it was with the Identité Judiciaire. The commissaire added little new substance to the trial, prompting several journalists to criticize him for testimony that seemed vague, imprecise, and even contradictory. “Why do these civil servants, nine times out of ten, cut such pathetic figures?” asked Pierre Scize of Le Figaro. The least difficulty, he added, “sends them hiding behind each other.”

Massu would later defend himself against these charges. Although he had not succeeded in arresting Petiot, he had identified the murderer, uncovered the evidence to bring him to trial, apprehended several accomplices, and identified a number of Petiot’s alleged victims. It was his team that had established the basic parameters of the case. Massu was proud of his work, he said, even if he never had the chance to interrogate Petiot, as he had long wanted.

On Saturday, March 23, the trial resumed at one o’clock in the afternoon, drawing probably the largest crowd yet. Newspaper accounts of the court’s relocation to rue Le Sueur had evoked more curiosity and attracted even more members of high society. Rainier, the heir to the Principality of Monaco, and Laure, the wife of the provisional president of France, Félix Gouin, were among those who came à la Petiot as if it were the theater. The duke of Windsor, it was said, had written Leser to ask permission to attend the trial.

Just before the président opened the proceedings, a man fainted and the ushers struggled in the packed room to remove him to safety. After the delay, Commissaire Massu’s assistant, Inspector Marius Battut, took the stand, carrying a stack of notes. He had handled many of the details of the investigation, including the discovery of the suitcases in Courson-les-Carrières and the identification of many victims. The inspector was able to hold his ground.

When asked if the Wolffs and the Basches had served as Gestapo informers, Battut was adamant: “I can assert the contrary under oath.”

After a heated exchange that ended with Floriot forcing Battut to admit that Dreyfus had been working for the Gestapo, Floriot asked the witness if the suitcases the police found were ever shown to the victims’ families.

“To my knowledge, no.”

“Why not?”

“Maître, you are forgetting that we were under the Occupation.” It was difficult to imagine Nazi authorities making an effort to help families of Jews, criminals, or other people who had tried to escape.

Floriot asked about Lafont’s visit to Massu and the identification of the silk shirts that had belonged to Petiot’s now acknowledged victim, Adrien Estébétéguy. “I am not well informed on that matter,” Battut said. He knew that Lafont was interested in the fate of some of his men who had posed as German police and committed a number of robberies. All of them went missing, he said, except for “a man named Lombard, who did not disappear.”

“Are you sure?” Petiot asked, the tone and timing of his question making some wonder if this man should be considered victim number 28 in the docket.

Despite the impression Petiot’s comments made, this man was not his victim. Charles Lombard, or “Paul the Beautiful,” had fled France, where he was wanted for charges of “intelligence with the enemy.”

“Your investigation was conducted very hastily, Inspector,” Floriot said.

“I did not have a dozen secretaries to prepare my work, maître,” Battut said, glancing over at the defense counsel, who was supported by the “Floriot boys” and a number of other assistants who had joined them that day. The audience appreciated the remark.

“Yet you have a dozen inspectors who work under your orders,” Floriot said.

“Would you like to inform us,” Petiot interjected, “of how many patriots you arrested and sent to the Germans to be shot?”

Inspector Battut glared at the defendant.

“Of course,” Petiot answered for the officer. “There were too many to count.”

“Who is the criminal here?” Véron asked.

In rapid succession, three other police inspectors were called to the stand that afternoon to testify that the investigation could find no confirmation of Petiot’s claims of being a Resistance fighter. A Resistant, Captain Henri Boris, also confirmed that the group Fly-Tox was “completely unknown to Fighting France.” Petiot countered by arguing that his group was independent of the mainstream Resistance forces based in London.

After Jean Hotin’s unimpressive testimony, which added little to the trial except comic relief, Captain Urbain Gouraud, formerly of the Villeneuve-sur-Yonne police department, called Petiot “an adventurer without scruple” and boasted of issuing him seven tickets. He also testified about his long-held suspicions that Petiot had killed his earlier lover, Louisette Delaveau.

Floriot then pointed out a problem with the witness’s testimony: “Before he accused Petiot, do you know how many other people he knew were guilty? … Nine, gentlemen, nine. If they had not closed the case, he would have accused the entire town.”

At the end of the first week of the trial, the police investigation appeared botched, hastily conducted, and riddled with many errors and omissions. The prosecution, likewise, looked lost in the thirty-kilo dossier. Swiss journalist Edmond Dubois summed up the strange dichotomy: While “the Parisian newspapers continue to treat Petiot as a monster and publish his sniggering photograph with the menacing eyes, the conversations that take place in the corridors [of the Palais de Justice] during the intermissions of the trial far from reflect that unanimity.”

AFTER a welcome rest on Sunday, the trial resumed on day seven, Monday, March 25. First to take the stand was the widow Renée Guschinow, a small blond woman dressed in black mourning veils who looked young and thin—“thin as an umbrella,” one journalist put it. With quivering voice, she retraced the reasoning behind her husband’s decision to leave Paris and how Dr. Petiot had invited him to rue Le Sueur to discuss his escape to Argentina.

Guschinow’s attorney, Maître Archevêque, turned to Petiot and asked why he took his client to rue Le Sueur if he was a patient at rue Caumartin.

Petiot replied that he could not organize flights where his wife lived, his housekeeper worked, and medical practice flourished. The physician added with sarcasm that he would like to invite the court to his apartment, but he would have to give the matter some thought because of the mess everyone made at rue Le Sueur.

“You are very intelligent,” Archevêque said.

“You know, Maître, intelligence is only relative.”

Archevêque asked about the injections Petiot had allegedly administered, wondering why they would be necessary for a clandestine journey to Argentina.

“That’s totally idiotic,” Petiot said. The Australian INS correspondent for the trial remarked that Petiot seemed again to turn angry. “There were certainly no health regulations for admittance to Argentina. Everyone who thinks, like you, that I gave injections has just read the newspapers.”

Madame Guschinow testified that her husband told her that Petiot would take care of all the details and he was not concerned, except for the injections.

“Nonsense!” Petiot interrupted. “I gave him injections for a year. Why would he be worried?” He accused her of making up the story based on an article she read in Paris-Soir.

Leser warned Petiot to choose his words wisely. The witness was testifying under oath.

“No, that is just what she is not doing,” Petiot said.

Leser, grabbing the edge of the table, lunged forward in anger at the defendant for this latest defiance. Petiot, however, was correct. The witness had not been sworn in; as a party to a civil suit, she was not legally required to take an oath.

Maître Archevêque asked about the handwriting in the postcards and letters, which appeared shaky and more strained than usual. He was leading into his theory that Petiot had kept Guschinow as hostage for three days, forcing him to write letters to his wife.

“It’s normal,” Petiot said, brushing aside the irregularities in the script. “He was a sick man on the point of making a long journey.” Petiot then challenged the witness, her attorney, and the prosecution to produce a single piece of Guschinow’s clothing or jewelry found at his apartment.

“But a suitcase that he purchased was found there,” Dupin said.

“I’m the one who told you that,” Petiot said. The suitcase had been left behind, he added, because it was too heavy for the upcoming journey. “You do not cross three frontiers with a weight like that. I then suggested to Guschinow that he should exchange that suitcase for a smaller bag.”

Madame Guschinow recounted how she went to Paris every month to ask Petiot about her husband. Each time, the physician told her that his business was thriving in Buenos Aires, and suggested that she sell her belongings and join him. Other than the first communication written in code, Petiot would not show her any of the letters, because he claimed that they contained confidential information about his organization and he had destroyed them.

Petiot accused her again of lying and of wanting to remain in Paris because she had a new lover. Floriot agreed, suggesting that she had memorized her testimony and repeated certain phrases verbatim. Several people began speaking at once.

After order was restored, Floriot wanted to know why Guschinow did not join her husband.

“My health, my business,” she began, before Petiot again interrupted.

“She had found a younger lover.”

“But you had confidence in Dr. Petiot?” Floriot asked.

“Yes, I had confidence in him.”

“You said during the investigation that you didn’t leave because you didn’t have faith in the doctor.”

Petiot asked if she knew about her husband’s condition and the injections he received for his treatment. The way he said the words made it clear that Guschinow had caught a venereal disease. Leser did not like the way the questioning was proceeding. There were many witnesses scheduled to appear, he said, and asked Guschinow to stand down. Otherwise, he added, the trial might drag on until July.

After Guschinow’s former associate Jean Gouedo testified about the fortune that his friend had carried and that the furs in Petiot’s possession were certainly not gifts, Floriot went on the attack. He wanted to know if a court-appointed commission had been sent to Buenos Aires to look for Guschinow.

When Dupin dodged the question, Floriot insisted that the prosecution had had ample opportunity to investigate Guschinow’s whereabouts and neglected this simple means of verification. He was relentless. Leser said that the court should “send a telegram.”

“No one is dead or missing,” Floriot started, before members of the audience laughed and he realized how the words sounded.

“No one is dead or missing in the Guschinow case,” Floriot corrected himself. “Let’s first make these confirmations in Argentina.”

ONE of the more interesting witnesses in the trial took the stand that day. Michel Cadoret de l’Epinguen, a thirty-three-year-old interior designer, was one of the few known people who had attempted to escape through Dr. Eugène but, after gaining admission, backed out. He had left Paris with his wife and son by another underground route in July 1943. When the family returned to the capital after the Liberation, they found that they had been listed among Petiot’s victims. Cadoret de l’Epinguen had a valuable perspective indeed.

The witness explained that he had been referred to Petiot through Robert Malfet, a chauffeur who had been arrested after the Liberation with more than 300,000 francs and a fortune of jewels in his possession, in addition to fur coats, clothes that did not match his size, and a collection of fifty-five newspaper articles about the Petiot case.

Malfet, the witness said, had spoken of the process ahead, including the acquisition of false papers, the stay in a town house belonging to the organization, and the necessity of injections to enter Argentina. These injections, Petiot said, would “render us invisible to the eyes of the world.”

Petiot scoffed. “The mad doctor with his syringe. It was a dark and rainy night. The wind howled under the eaves and rattled the windowpanes of the oak-paneled library.”

Leser admonished him. “Petiot, please.”

Cadoret and his wife, a psychiatrist, had been skeptical of the need for papers and injections, and more than a little concerned about Petiot’s knowledge of drugs like peyote. Petiot himself seemed to be under the influence, as did the woman Cadoret called “his secretary, Eryane.” There was only one Eryane close to Petiot in 1943: Eryane Kahan, the alleged recruiter who herself would soon take the stand.

In December 1944, Cadoret had told the police that he and his wife had met with Kahan. On their way to the hair salon, the three of them passed a number of German soldiers, who, worryingly, saluted Kahan and exchanged a few words in German with her. The Cadorets had also been concerned about Petiot’s vague responses and the inability to get a straight answer from him about the place of departure and the place of arrival in Argentina. What particularly disturbed them, however, was something else: “He had black stains under his fingernails, which we found unusual for a doctor.” Petiot laughed again.

The witness testified that they had also been surprised that a supposed member of the Resistance operating a philanthropic organization would charge a fee of 50,000 francs for passage out of the country.

Wasn’t the charge, Petiot asked, at first 90,000?

Cadoret did not remember.

“It’s very important,” Petiot said. “That’s what saved your life!”

At these words, members of the audience shrieked in horror. Petiot tried to clarify his meaning, claiming that he asked such a high fee to discover if the witness was a real candidate for departure. The Cadorets’ refusal showed that they were not Gestapo informers and so he had reimbursed them for their expenses.

Floriot wanted to underscore this point. Who had backed out first? Cadoret admitted that he contacted Eryane Kahan to decline, but she immediately announced that Petiot would have no further dealings with him and his family.

The defense counsel had scored again, but the question remained why Petiot would, all of a sudden, refuse a client who passed his test for not working for the Gestapo. Wasn’t he claiming to be operating an escape organization, and if not, what did this new admission mean for his assertion that he had helped other clients reach South America? The questions were unfortunately not addressed.

“Will we have the pleasure and honor of seeing Madame Cadoret this afternoon?” Petiot asked, as the witness left the stand.

The next man to testify was Joseph Scarella, a maître d’hôtel at the Café Weber, and a Petiot patient who had, in fact, with his physician’s help, escaped deportation to Germany. Petiot had written a false certificate claiming that Scarella suffered from syphilis. Scarella also told how he had wanted to flee because there was not much work for a master chef in Occupied Paris who did not want to serve the Germans. When he approached Petiot about departure, Scarella said, he was told to bring 100,000 francs and some jewels as a precaution because it sometimes took a lot of time before people found work.

Why didn’t the Scarellas attempt to leave with Petiot’s escape organization? He was prepared to depart, the witness said, but his wife had refused.

By the time Scarella left the stand, it was already a quarter after five in the afternoon and the witnesses scheduled to testify next had left the courtroom. Leser adjourned the court. It had been another long day in a trial that only seemed to become more sensational and controversial, and no closer to resolution.