Read Online The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot by Thomas Maeder - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Thomas Maeder
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whatever reason, this plan came to nothing and Gérard remained in Auxerre.
* Or Jodkun, Jokum, Jodkuhn. According to the French historian and former police commissaire Jacques Delarue, âJodkumâ was a pseudonym. Robert Jodkum was arrested by the Germans later in 1944, for reasons unknown, and imprisoned at Fresnes. He was subsequently sent back to Germany, and neither his fate nor real name was ever discovered by the postwar French authorities who investigated war crimes.
4
THE ESCAPE NETWORK
The German report had presented Massu with two other key names: Fourrier and Pintard, who had been arrested for helping Petiot with his âescape network.â Edmond Pintard was fifty-six years old, but the flesh had shrunk on his stooped, large frame, his teeth were broken and discolored, and he looked much older than his age. In the twenties, as a vaudeville actor, he had performed song-and-dance routines at various cabarets under the stage name of Francinet. But changing times and the war had squeezed him out, and he now earned an irregular living doing odd jobs and working as a free-lance cinema makeup man for Paramount. The rest of the time he loitered about cafés in the less desirable quartiers of Paris and reminisced about the old days. He responded to Massuâs questioning like an indignant, wronged innocent.
âMonsieur le Commissaire, do you have any idea who youâre talking to?â
âYes, I do. Edmond Pintard, makeup artist, currently threatened with indictment for complicity.â
âComplicity? Me? The great Francinet? Yes, the great Francinet, a personal friend of every music-hall director in Paris, specialist in songs for weddings and banquets. My name, Monsieur le Commissaire, was on the Morris columns in letters that big. If today you find me a mere makeup artist, it is because I chose to retire at the height of my glory.â
âHow much did Dr. Petiot give you to be his recruiting agent?â
âYou dare â¦â
âI dare say that if you keep telling me the story of your life, Iâm going to get very angry. We are not at the theater here, and in this file that you see here on this desk there are the names of nine people, innocent men and women, who were murdered through the diligent care of your friend Petiot. Murdered and perhaps tortured before being neatly dissected and dropped into a lime pit. I donât suppose you have ever smelled the fragrance of burning human flesh, have you? I asked how much Petiot paid you. I donât believe I heard your answer.â
Pintard was quickly broken and confessed everything. As he left, he begged: âMonsieur le Commissaire, could you ask the photographers to leave me alone? The people who know me ⦠Iâm ashamed â¦â
âI canât do anything about it,â Massu replied with a shrug. âTheyâre only doing their job.â And the photographs of Pintard that appeared in the papers, like those of Fourrier, Nézondet, Porchon, and the others, would show them leaving interrogations tired, unshaven, and frightened, giving readers the impression that Petiot was aided in his work by a band of crazed derelicts.
Raoul Fourrier, the sixty-one-year-old barber, was as short and square as Pintard was lean. The beret thrust down about his ears would have made him look comical but for his tightly clenched teeth and the terrified expression in his eyes. He was crushed in advance. Droplets of sweat ran through the deep wrinkles of his neck, his eyelids fluttered uncontrollably, he never lifted his head or raised his voice above a low monotone as he told his story. Aside from the question of moneyâfor each witness wished to retain a vestige of pride and present himself as a patriot rather than an opportunistâFourrier and Pintard told exactly the same tale of how they had unwittingly sent a dozen people to their deaths. Their story, as follows, was borne out in every detail by
* Or Jodkun, Jokum, Jodkuhn. According to the French historian and former police commissaire Jacques Delarue, âJodkumâ was a pseudonym. Robert Jodkum was arrested by the Germans later in 1944, for reasons unknown, and imprisoned at Fresnes. He was subsequently sent back to Germany, and neither his fate nor real name was ever discovered by the postwar French authorities who investigated war crimes.
4
THE ESCAPE NETWORK
The German report had presented Massu with two other key names: Fourrier and Pintard, who had been arrested for helping Petiot with his âescape network.â Edmond Pintard was fifty-six years old, but the flesh had shrunk on his stooped, large frame, his teeth were broken and discolored, and he looked much older than his age. In the twenties, as a vaudeville actor, he had performed song-and-dance routines at various cabarets under the stage name of Francinet. But changing times and the war had squeezed him out, and he now earned an irregular living doing odd jobs and working as a free-lance cinema makeup man for Paramount. The rest of the time he loitered about cafés in the less desirable quartiers of Paris and reminisced about the old days. He responded to Massuâs questioning like an indignant, wronged innocent.
âMonsieur le Commissaire, do you have any idea who youâre talking to?â
âYes, I do. Edmond Pintard, makeup artist, currently threatened with indictment for complicity.â
âComplicity? Me? The great Francinet? Yes, the great Francinet, a personal friend of every music-hall director in Paris, specialist in songs for weddings and banquets. My name, Monsieur le Commissaire, was on the Morris columns in letters that big. If today you find me a mere makeup artist, it is because I chose to retire at the height of my glory.â
âHow much did Dr. Petiot give you to be his recruiting agent?â
âYou dare â¦â
âI dare say that if you keep telling me the story of your life, Iâm going to get very angry. We are not at the theater here, and in this file that you see here on this desk there are the names of nine people, innocent men and women, who were murdered through the diligent care of your friend Petiot. Murdered and perhaps tortured before being neatly dissected and dropped into a lime pit. I donât suppose you have ever smelled the fragrance of burning human flesh, have you? I asked how much Petiot paid you. I donât believe I heard your answer.â
Pintard was quickly broken and confessed everything. As he left, he begged: âMonsieur le Commissaire, could you ask the photographers to leave me alone? The people who know me ⦠Iâm ashamed â¦â
âI canât do anything about it,â Massu replied with a shrug. âTheyâre only doing their job.â And the photographs of Pintard that appeared in the papers, like those of Fourrier, Nézondet, Porchon, and the others, would show them leaving interrogations tired, unshaven, and frightened, giving readers the impression that Petiot was aided in his work by a band of crazed derelicts.
Raoul Fourrier, the sixty-one-year-old barber, was as short and square as Pintard was lean. The beret thrust down about his ears would have made him look comical but for his tightly clenched teeth and the terrified expression in his eyes. He was crushed in advance. Droplets of sweat ran through the deep wrinkles of his neck, his eyelids fluttered uncontrollably, he never lifted his head or raised his voice above a low monotone as he told his story. Aside from the question of moneyâfor each witness wished to retain a vestige of pride and present himself as a patriot rather than an opportunistâFourrier and Pintard told exactly the same tale of how they had unwittingly sent a dozen people to their deaths. Their story, as follows, was borne out in every detail by
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