The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot Read Online Free PDF Page A

café in their building for coffee. A robust, clean-shaven man of about forty-five was waiting for Van Bever. The two seemed to know one another, and after a brief conversation, Van Bever went up to his room, came down, and was about to go out the door with the stranger when he turned to Papini. The man, Van Bever told his friend, was the husband of one of Jeannette Gaul’s friends and had a letter from Jeannette that had been smuggled out of the prison. Papini asked why the stranger couldn’t have brought the letter with him. “Perhaps Jeannette had some debts that they want me to pay—but don’t worry, I won’t pay them.” Saying he would return that afternoon or evening, Van Bever bid his friend farewell and left.
    Van Bever did not return that day, nor did he work or come home Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. Papini entered his friend’s room and noticed that everything was in its place and that Van Bever, a heavy smoker, had not even taken his tobacco pouch or a letter he had been in a hurry to post. On Wednesday, Papini contacted Van Bever’s lawyer, who advised him to write to the public prosecutor. In his letter, Papini did not even mention Petiot, since Van Bever had not worried much about the case and did not think he would have any further trouble with it. Papini instead wrote that in November 1941 Van Bever had gone to Troyes with France Mignot, a prostitute who had been his mistress before Jeannette Gaul, to meet her family. When the couple had arrived at the house, the entire Mignot family had thrown itself on Van Bever, beating him with clubs, stabbing him twice, and robbing him of F1,200. Van Bever had pressed charges, and the case had been due to come up in Troyes on March 24, 1942—two days after the disappearance. Papini feared that the Mignots had murdered his friend.
    The issue grew more complex on March 26, when a stranger delivered two letters to the boulevard Saint-Germain office of Jeannette Gaul’s lawyer, Françoise Pavie. One asked Maître Pavie to tell Van Bever’s lawyer, Maître Michel Menard, that his services would no longer be required, while the other begged Jeannette Gaul to tell the truth—that Van Bever truly had been an addict. Maître Menard was convinced that neither the handwriting nor the style of the letters was his client’s, and since he was an old family friend he could not believe Van Bever would willingly have dismissed him with a brusque note sent to a third party.
    Police searched hospitals and prisons, and made inquiries at Troyes and among Jeannette Gaul’s circle of friends—all without result. A drug dealer who was tentatively identified as the man who had taken the letters to Maître Pavie could never be found for questioning. Similarly, the husband of a young addict who was both a friend of Jeannette Gaul’s and an occasional client of Dr. Petiot fit the description of the man who had led Van Bever away, but police never found him either. The case remained a mystery; at the time, there was no compelling reason to suspect Petiot, who denied any knowledge of Van Bever’s fate and apparently stood to gain little at that stage by his disappearance. Retrospectively, however, one might find a motive in the fact that ten days after Van Bever vanished, Petiot suddenly “found” a complete report on his medical examination of Van Bever—a report so complete, he boasted to Judge Olmi, that he had even measured the length of the man’s penis. Here, then, was incontrovertible proof that Petiot had diligently fulfilled the obligations of his profession. A prosecutor later wondered whether the careful report was the result not of an examination, but of an autopsy.
    The drug charge came to trial as scheduled in May. Jeannette Gaul was sentenced to six months in prison and fined F2,400. Released in August, she promptly returned to prostitution and drugs, and died of tetanus three months