The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot Read Free

had sublet his luxurious house to a deliveryman. They spent two hours tracking down the sender of the letter, Raymond Lion, and the intended recipient, Camille Vanderheyden, who worked with him at the Maison Lepesme. Lion, not knowing his fellow employee’s exact address, had randomly written “21,” whereas Vanderheyden actually lived in a small apartment at 20 rue Le Sueur, where he was nursing a head cold when the police made their dramatic entrance. He had never even heard of Petiot, and it took the police some time to make him understand why they were there. They did not tell him they were there only to waste time—but they were.
    It was late in the morning when Chief Inspector Marius Batut of the Police Judiciaire arrived at the rue Caumartin with two other detectives. They stopped at the concierge’s loge to ask whether Petiot was in. The concierge was out, but her twelve-year-old daughter, Alice Denis, told the police officers she had seen the doctor and Madame Petiot at 9:30 the previous evening and believed they were still at home. Batut knocked on the door of their first-floor apartment and, receiving no reply, automatically tried the latch and found it unlocked. He took this as possible evidence of a hasty departure (police later learned that, in reality, Petiot never locked his door, believing that a determined burglar would get in anyway, and by leaving the door open he would at least save himself the expense of repairing a broken lock); indeed, the apartment proved empty and the bed had not been slept in. It was several days before the police discovered that Petiot had not left in haste at all; he had been there packing only half an hour before the detectives’ arrival and had persuaded Alice Denis, who had often enjoyed Madame Petiot’s cakes and cookies, to lie to them about his movements.
    The police did not spend the rest of the day searching train stations and circulating photographs of Dr. Petiot as one would expect. Instead they went to the Simon Real Estate Agency. They learned that Monsieur Simon was a Jew and had fled France when the Germans dissolved his business. A further search turned up a former employee of the agency and the notary who had handled the sale of the rue Le Sueur house. Petiot had purchased the building in his son Gérard’s name on August 11, 1941. He paid F495,000—F373,000 down, the balance payable in annual installments of F17,500.
    Investigators then located the construction firm that had built the triangular room, installed the iron rings, and erected the wall that sheltered the courtyard from the eyes of curious neighbors. Two masons and several workers had done the job in October 1941 at a cost of F14,458.52. They had seen Petiot frequently at the time, they told the police, and the doctor had said he intended to install a clinic in the house after the war. The wall was to prevent neighbors from bothering his patients and to keep children from throwing peach pits into the yard. He intended to set up an electrotherapy apparatus in the triangular room and monitor its functioning through a viewer in the wall. The workers had found Petiot quite an amiable fellow.
    The police found these details of mild interest but such information did little in helping to capture the criminal. Nor was it intended to at first—as headquarters soon came to realize. Superiors learned that the agents Teyssier and Fillion had let a prime suspect escape, and the two fled France for fear of reprisals (they did not return until after the Liberation). The Germans now told Commissaire Massu they were astonished that Petiot had not yet been caught. Massu replied that he was surprised by their astonishment, since the files showed that the Germans had once actually held Petiot in prison and had voluntarily released him. The impasse lasted only briefly, after which it became all too evident that Petiot’s crimes, far from being committed in the name of France,