Gaston appeared in court on Wednesday, 17 November 1954, at 9:15 a.m. with a red-and-blue scarf around his neck, his hair closely cropped, and his mustache carefully trimmed. In daily life his baggy velvet trousers fell on his hips, revealing a flannel waistband, a blue shirt, and a leather belt. He usually wore a woolen vest under a loose jacket. Now he was dressed in his best suit, a blue cotton shirt with a new tie, and a herringbone overcoat. His flat hat was planted squarely on his head. He projected a reassuring air of the naive simplicity typical of a French peasant, patriarch, and grandfather of sixteen grandchildren. He was, in short, the clichéd image of a santon, an image d’Épinal, or a figure like Mr. Seguin from Alphonse Daudet’s Lettres de mon moulin.1 Jean Giono, the chronicler of Provençal life, who was present at the trial, said of Gaston: “I know a thousand Dominicis. They are interchangeable.”2
Giono and the playwright Armand Salacrou were given places of honor to observe the trial. Other distinguished guests included the prefect of the Basses-Alpes; the typographer Maximilien Vox, who had begun to convert Lurs into one of the most desirable villages in Provence; and Madame Pélabon, wife of Prime Minister Pierre Mendès-France’s cabinet secretary, who was said to be the prime minister’s designated observer at the trial. The famous writers François Mauriac, André Maurois, and Simenon were expected to attend the trial, but they failed to appear. A hundred journalists from all over the world were present.
The court of appeal in Aix had courteously contacted the British Consulate General in Marseille to ask whether it should reserve a seat at the trial for a member of the staff. The Foreign Office felt that it would be inconvenient for the consul to spare a member of his staff for several days, was concerned that it would involve unnecessary expenses, and argued that it might well look as if it had no faith in the French legal system were a member of the consular service to attend.3
Gaston’s entrance was greeted with a barrage of flashbulbs as photographers fought to get a shot of the accused. The resulting pandemonium prompted the presiding judge to order all photographers to leave the room. This was met with shrieks of protest. Initially five minutes had been allotted for photographs, after which the use of flash was to be forbidden. The presiding judge, Marcel Bousquet, who had arrived from Nice the previous day, then called a halt after thirty seconds. It took some time for the press to calm down.
From the outset it was the dossier, rather than Gaston, that was on trial. Public Prosecutor Louis Sabatier from the Digne bench and Advocate General Calixte Rozan from Aix-en-Provence, vigorously assisted by Judge Bousquet, set out to defend the dossier and to disguise its many holes and deficiencies, while Émile Pollak, Pierre Charrier, and Léon Charles-Alfred were determined to expose its lacunae and weaknesses. At stake was Gaston’s head.
The selection of the seven jurors took some time. The defense objected strenuously to the choice of a woman, arguing that the case involved the brutal killing of a ten-year-old girl and that a woman could not possibly be objective in such a matter. The objection was sustained.
The clerk of the court then read out the charges. He began with a description of the accused as a man who was “authoritarian, a drinker and secretive.”4 Gaston protested, then sat back with a sigh of resignation. The clerk reminded the court of the chronology of events. On 5 August 1952 the Drummonds had been murdered. In November 1952 Gustave had been convicted for failing to render assistance to Elizabeth. That month Clovis had heard his father admit to the murders. In November 1953 Gustave had accused his father of the murders and then retracted his statement. Clovis stuck to his original version. When the clerk suggested that Gaston might have seen Lady Drummond undressing, the old man smiled salaciously and stroked his mustache. Only Elizabeth’s murder was considered to have been premeditated.
Next came the naming of witnesses. At first it seemed that Yvette, Gustave, and Clovis had vanished, but they were soon found. They explained that the crowd was so dense that they had been unable to enter the courtroom. Aristide Panayotou was present, cutting as strange a figure as ever. Since he had led the police down the garden path, many found it surprising that he was there at all. Zézé Perrin, the pathological liar, was present, with the defense lawyers anxious to have a crack at him. The entire Dominici clan, with the exception of the traitor Clovis, was lined up for the defense.
The presiding judge then called for an intermission. The photographers rushed toward the box. Gaston thumbed his nose at them and hid his head. His lawyers came to talk to him.
The court resumed at 10:30 a.m. Pollak rose to his feet, bitterly complaining that vital evidence had been withheld from the defense. The Hillman had been returned to England, so it was not possible to examine it. He had not seen the camp beds. He expressed his outrage that he had not been permitted to witness the reconstruction of the crime on 16 November 1953.5 The advocate general suggested that a similar model Hillman be made available, but Pollak insisted that it had to be the Drummonds’ own car. The advocate general then suggested that the British consul in Marseille be asked whether it would be possible for the Hillman to be returned to France. The court adjourned to deliberate until 11:05 a.m. It was then announced that the station wagon could not be sent back. The next day Katherine Elliot from Weston-super-Mare, who had bought the car for £650 ($1,820) and put it in her wax museum in Blackpool, charging morbid holidaymakers one-shilling admission, offered to send the vehicle to Digne; but the suggestion was refused.
The presiding judge then launched into a biographical sketch of the accused. He reported that the mayor of Lurs had said that Gaston lived “on the margins of society” and hardly ever went to the village. Gaston testily replied that he had work to do. Bousquet said that Gaston was “easily roused and impulsive.” Gaston countered that he did not like to be mocked. He was then reminded that he had hit a man with a cudgel, causing serious injury. Gaston shrugged his shoulders and said that the incident had happened fifty-six years ago, and anyway the other person had hit him first. He was then accused of being too severe with his children, to which he replied that he had never hit them, and anyway “if a father is not severe with his children, what’s going to happen, eh, Mister President?” The judge then suggested that Gaston was unduly hard on his son Gustave. Gaston noted that he got everything that he wanted. His son took all the farm produce and never gave him a cent for it, even though his father had made the farm what it was. Anyway, Gustave was a bone-idle liar.
The accused initially appeared to be remarkably relaxed and self-confident. His arms were crossed as he leaned back with his head resting on the wood paneling. Constantly chewing on lumps of sugar, he stared fixedly at the presiding judge with the air not of someone who was on trial for a triple murder but of a worthy peasant about to receive a medal for a lifetime of hard and honorable work. But he soon began to tire under the presiding judge’s relentless grilling.6
It is doubtful whether there was ever a judge so inordinately fond of the sound of his own voice as Bousquet was. He would interrupt witnesses to make laborious analyses of what he imagined the witness was trying to say, often to no apparent purpose and frequently in a misleading manner. He fired a seemingly endless series of questions at Gaston, most of which he had great difficulty in understanding. Words such as “prolixity” and “susceptible” did not exist in his vocabulary. When Madame Muzy, the Ganagobie schoolteacher who had taught his children, described him as “crafty,” “authoritarian,” “hard,” and “severe,” he took all four as compliments. The problem of language soon became central.
There were many instances when the court was unable to understand the exact meaning of local slang. Zézé Perrin, for example, said that he had lied to the police because he was afraid “d’être marroné.” A Parisian would understand that he was afraid of being beaten up. For Jean Giono, however, it meant “get dressed down,” “have a strip torn off him,” or “get yelled at.” In prison jargon, it meant “get nabbed by the police.”7 In these cases, the witnesses were never asked precisely what they meant.
From the outset, the presiding judge adopted a blatantly accusatory tone, which most of the journalists present found shocking. British journalists, who had no reason to be sympathetic to Gaston Dominici, found it outrageous that a French judge should treat the accused in a manner sadly reminiscent of Prosecutor General Andrei Vyshinsky in the Moscow show trials or Roland Freisler, president of the Nazi People’s Court. They assumed that this behavior, although regrettable, was normal practice in a French court. French journalists, however, were equally appalled by this court’s blatant lack of objectivity.8
The proceedings were conducted in an atmosphere of mutual incomprehension. Not only did Gaston Dominici speak a Provençal dialect and had great difficulty in understanding standard French, there was also the extreme clash between the mentality of the peasant world and that of the urban jurists. The gulf between urbs and rus—the urban and the rustic—could barely be spanned. Technical legal language and hermetic procedures mystified most of the journalists present as well. They were utterly incomprehensible to those whose vocabulary was largely restricted to rural colloquialisms. Even in a conversation conducted at a common intellectual level, a large part of that which is communicated is nonverbal. Socially conditioned gestures, inflections, and facial expressions have also to be understood. In the theatrical setting of a law court, such factors are of even greater significance.9 Gaston frequently overacted, failed to notice the traps that were set for him, and shrugged off a number of accusations in the absolute certainty that he would be acquitted. In a few instances his peasant cunning enabled him to score a point against the president and the prosecution, but most of the time it was impossible to determine whether his reactions were due to sheer incomprehension, or to certain assurances he had been given, or to a determination to assert his innocence. French law has no provision for a milder sentence should the accused enter a guilty plea, so the police could have given him precious little in the way of assurances.
Heavily indebted to Jean Giono’s account of the trial, the literary theorist and semiologist Roland Barthes was to argue that since the material evidence was uncertain and often contradictory, the court attempted a reconstruction of Gaston Dominici’s mentality in terms of a universal psychology “descending from the charming empyrean of bourgeois novels and essentialist psychology.” The trial, in short, was a literary construct. A further problem resulted from the myth of the transparency and universality of language, as evidenced when Gaston and Judge Bousquet frequently talked in different languages and at cross-purposes.10
This form of psychology is “adjectival” in that the accused is treated as an object with certain attributes such as selfishness, irascibility, lecherousness, or cunning magisterially attributed to it. Le Monde described the prosecutor as an “extraordinary story-teller” of “dazzling wit.” Edmond Sébeille waxed eloquent in his summary of the case: “Never have I met such a dissembling liar, such a wary gambler, such a shifty narrator, such a wily trickster, such a lusty septuagenarian, such a self-assured despot, such a devious schemer, such a cunning hypocrite. . . . Gaston Dominici is an astonishing quick-change artist playing with human souls, and animal thoughts. . . . This false patriarch of the Grand’ Terre has not just a few facets, he has a hundred!”
Justice, for Barthes, here took on the mask of realist literature, with the accused robbed of his language and transformed into a literary construct. He thus saw the trial as a confrontation between the highly educated readers of Le Figaro and a primitive peasant, between the cultured and the uncouth. It was a blatant example of hegemonic power and class justice. This was an elegant expression of a widely held view.
After a two-hour pause for lunch the court resumed at 3:00 p.m., and Gaston was questioned about his life. Toward evening he began to tire, to the point of becoming a sad, pathetic old man, desperately proclaiming his innocence. The accused stated that he had heard three or four shots at 1:10 a.m. on 5 August 1952. He imagined that they had been fired by poachers on the other side of the Durance. He got up at 3:30 a.m. but saw nothing. Having taken his goats to pasture, he returned to the farmhouse at 7:30 a.m., and Yvette told him that a crime had been committed.
Bousquet then questioned him at length about the various versions he had given of events that morning. Gaston repeatedly answered by saying, “I’ve done no harm to anybody!” He then said that he was standing by Elizabeth’s body when someone found a piece of wood under her head. That person handed it to him, and he gave it to the police. His previous story was that he was the one who had discovered the splinter of wood from the carbine’s butt and handed it over to the police. When challenged on this point, he said, “Perhaps I’ve made a mistake. I was out of my mind. I can’t remember.” In fact, it was a gravedigger from Forcalquier, sent to bring the bodies to the morgue, who had made the discovery. Asked about Clovis’s reaction when he saw the carbine, he said, “If Sébeille had done a decent job, he would have gone after Clovis. I don’t want to pay for another.”
The judge then asked Gaston about the statements he had made to Victor Guérino in the law courts in Digne. The judge reminded Gaston that he had said, “It’s Gustave who did it, but I’m going to confess to the crime in order to save the honor of the family.” He then admitted that he was the guilty party. Gaston said he had been interrogated from five in the afternoon until eight in the evening the following day. A policeman had approached him, his mouth agape, yelling that he was an assassin. Gaston told the court, “I had only had a glass of water and was feeling a bit gaga. Mister President, what would you have done in my place?” The courtroom burst out in laughter. Bousquet called for order, testily remarking that this was no laughing matter. When asked about what he had said to his son when they were confronted in front of Examining Magistrate Roger Périès, Gaston said that he could not remember.
He was utterly exhausted and simply let things roll over him. To most questions he wearily repeated that he was innocent.
The judge then addressed the question of the reconstruction of the crime on 16 November 1953. Gaston said, “What they did to me that day showed them up to be a bunch of cowards!” Bousquet brusquely called him to order. Gaston told the court that during the reenactment of the crime, he had been “crazy” and that the investigators had a fine old time making a mockery of him. The judge reminded Gaston that on nine separate occasions he had confessed to the triple crime. Gaston flatly denied it. Bousquet then said that he had confessed to save the honor of his grandchildren. Gaston grunted, “Don’t go over all that again!” Bousquet’s final question was about the carbine. Gaston replied, “I have never seen it. I haven’t killed anyone, and my conscience is clear.”
The court resumed the next day, Thursday, 18 November, at 9:15 a.m. Gaston appeared to be well rested. The presiding judge opened the proceedings by stating, “Among your statements you have accused your sons Gustave and then Clovis. On another occasion you let it be known that your grandson Roger (Zézé) Perrin might also be guilty. So I am now asking you bluntly whether you have a solid suspicion, a precise fact, or a clear accusation. You must make a categorical statement to the court and not simply cast suspicions.”
Bousquet was thus trying to get Gaston to accuse Gustave, Clovis, and Zézé Perrin, but Gaston hit back: “I have one simple thing to say. I do not accuse either Gustave or Clovis. I have sometimes said what I thought of Roger (Zézé) Perrin, because he’s a ne’er-do-well. But it was only a suspicion.” Gaston then accused the judge of speaking as though he thought he was guilty. He continued to insist that he was innocent. Bousquet turned to the jurymen and asked them whether they had any questions. They remained silent. A series of questions were asked about his acting as a midwife for his wife on three occasions and for one of his daughters on another, the implication being that this was singularly primitive and brutal behavior. Gaston muttered, “They were alone in the house. Should I have left them to die in agony?”
Gaston’s principal defense lawyer, Pollak, cut a strange figure with his olive skin, his mane of grey hair, his muffled voice, and his childish pout. He obviously had not done his homework, but he compensated for his lack of detailed knowledge with his neat turns of phrase and his commanding presence. He made elaborate gestures with his hands, which were embellished with incredibly long nails. Renowned in the courts for his verbosity, he was known as “The Word.” He tried to defend his client by saying that although violence had not been used against him, the sheer length of his interrogation was such that an old man’s wits were liable to become dulled.
Pollak then attempted to cast doubt on the medical evidence, but it made very little impression. First, he pointed out that the autopsy showed that Lady Drummond had been hit by three bullets, whereas Gaston had testified that he had fired only once. Similarly, the autopsy revealed that Elizabeth had received three or four blows to the head, whereas during the reconstruction of the crime, Gaston had indicated having hit her only once. He made much of the two statements Gaston was reported to have made about Anne’s death. One was “the woman did not suffer”; the other, “the woman can’t have suffered.” Then he took up the issue that the footprints at the murder site had not been duly examined. He mocked the notion that had Dominici been the murderer, he would not have disposed of the carbine by throwing it into the river only a few yards from his home. Then he asked why the mason who claimed to have seen Gaston buying a carbine from some American soldiers had not been produced as a witness. Rozan glibly replied that it would have served no purpose, because the man was a hopeless drunk.
Pollak then addressed the question of Gaston’s confessions and the circumstances in which they were made. There followed a lengthy discussion of the precise meaning of the statements Gaston had made to Guérino, with Pollak insinuating that it had been Pierre Prudhomme who had suggested the sexual motive as having triggered the murders.
The presiding judge now announced that he had received an interesting letter from Madame Duron, who lived in the Rue des Grands-Augustins in Paris. She had discovered an American gabardine raincoat in the abandoned railway station at Lurs where Clovis worked. It had stains on it that might have been blood. He thought that the lady was on her way to Digne and would appear in court as soon as she arrived. The defense team did not seem particularly interested in this witness.
Subsequent investigations revealed that a British-made blue gabardine raincoat had been found by a “private agent”—that is, a psychic specializing in the examination of electromagnetic radiations—by the name of Reine Ribot, who had spent some time at the murder site in the early stages of the investigation.11 A cutting with the stain and the label was sent to Scotland Yard for analysis. The raincoat was manufactured in Chorley but was not exported to France. The stain, which the French police with their belief in “applied psychology” had not even bothered to analyze, proved to be red oxide from house paint. None of the Drummonds’ neighbors recognized the raincoat. Although Sir Jack was known as an enthusiastic do-it-yourself man, the most recent paint job, on a greenhouse, had used a paint containing white lead. Besides, the work had been done by men from Boots, much to the management’s surprise and annoyance. Further, it is unlikely that Sir Jack, known to be a dapper dresser, would have taken a heavy, paint-stained raincoat with him during the dog days of August in Provence. It was later discovered that a railwayman by the name of Squillari had been living with his family in the abandoned railway station’s bunkhouse. He was a Frenchman who had lived in England, hence the provenance of the raincoat, which he had left behind when he moved out shortly after the crime.12
The next witness was Dr. Merlan, a psychologist who had examined Gaston Dominici at Les Baumettes prison. He stated that Gaston was a strong man who was physically and psychologically normal. He had shown no signs of being sexually obsessed and was in all respects perfectly normal, apart from slight traces of amnesia. The good doctor did not think it abnormal that “he liked to joke about women.” When Pollak asked him whether Gaston was “sensually obsessed,” the doctor replied that he was not. As were many Frenchmen, he was merely égrillard (dirty minded). Gaston thanked the doctor profusely as he left the witness stand. Dr. Merlan’s assessment was seconded by that of Dr. Henri Alliez, who added without a hint of irony that Gaston was “mildly alcoholic.”
When Bousquet said that a number of Gaston’s acquaintances had said that he was “somewhat lacking in gallantry towards women,” the old peasant reacted violently. He muttered, “I had my own wife!” When the presiding judge asked him whether that was enough, Gaston replied, “You can bet your life on it!” Sébeille was convinced that he was excessively prurient. Once, when an airplane flew overhead, he had said, “Those fellows up there have all the luck. They can see the couples making out in the bushes!”
Dr. Henri Dragon, who had been the first to examine the bodies, was the next medical witness. The seventy-year-old, speaking in an affected manner, said that he had first examined Elizabeth. She had suffered two terrible blows in the face. Her nostrils were bloody. Her bare feet showed no signs of any abrasions. He then examined Lady Drummond’s body. One bullet had pierced her heart, which would have proved mortal. A second had gone through her lung. Sir Jack had received a bullet through the liver. The parents’ bodies were already stiff but not that of the daughter, from which he surmised that Elizabeth had died two or three hour later. Questioned on the state of Elizabeth’s feet, the doctor said that she might have run barefoot, or she might have been carried. The police testified that they had tested another ten-year-old, who ran barefoot on the same route. Her feet had shown no signs of abrasions. The doctor further stated that with such massive blows to the head Elizabeth would have died instantly.
Questioned about how long Elizabeth Drummond might have lived having received such terrible blows to the head, Dr. Paul Jouve—a specialist in cranial injuries who readily admitted that he had not examined the body—confidently stated that she could have survived for several hours. He cited two cases to support this view. One involved a child who had fallen from a second-floor window, resulting in a serious fracture of the skull. The child survived for eight hours. Another was that of a young man on a motor scooter who had driven into a reinforced concrete post, and his skull was fractured in two places. He had been in a coma for several hours. This testimony directly contradicted that of Dr. Dragon. An inconclusive argument ensued as to whether Elizabeth had tried to run away or she had been killed as she was lying down and then carried to the slope down to the river.
The court was then adjourned until 3:00 p.m.
The afternoon’s proceedings began with the testimony of Dr. Paul Nalin, one of the two doctors who had conducted the autopsies. He disagreed with his colleague Dr. Dragon on several issues. He argued that the difference in the degree of rigidity between the parents and the child was not a result of the times at which they were killed but because of their difference in ages. There was considerable discussion of the pool of blood near the cesspit. How big was it? Had Jack died there? Could he have crossed the road on his own after having lost so much blood? No definite conclusions were reached.
Professor Guy Marrian was the next witness questioned. He spoke in English with a teacher from the high school in Digne acting as an interpreter. Speaking in a low and dignified voice, he insisted that at no time had his close friend ever worked for the secret service and that the entire notion of the murders involving espionage or clandestine operations was utterly absurd. Later in the trial Commissioner Fernand Constant stated that Roger Autheville, the former Communist Party boss in the Basses-Alpes and captain in the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans Français, had assured him that the prevalent idea that Sir Jack had anything to do with the local Maquis was pure fantasy.
Guy Marrian also stated that the Drummonds had expressed their intention of camping out that night. With distinct disgust he told of how Gaston Dominici had shown him the places where his dear friends had died: he had done so with the detachment of a museum guide and clearly expected a tip, by holding out his right hand and rubbing the thumb and index finger together. Gaston was outraged at this insinuation and growled that peasants in the Basses-Alpes never asked for a reward when passing on information. At this point someone in the courtroom yelled out, “Bravo!”
Mrs. Phyllis Marrian confirmed her husband’s version of Gaston’s behavior, thus provoking another outburst from Gaston. He accused her of lying in such outrageous terms that Pollak ordered him to be silent.
Professor André Ollivier then testified about the carbine and the weapons found in the possession of Paul Maillet. He stated that all the cartridges and bullets found at the scene of the crime had been fired by the Rock-Ola. He had discovered a certain similarity between the oil used on the carbine and the guns belonging to Clovis. Paul Maillet had used a totally different type of oil on his weapons. Pollak was able to get the professor to admit that although the oil used on the Rock-Ola and on Clovis’s guns was similar, it bore no resemblance to that used on the guns at the Grand’ Terre.
There followed a lengthy technical discussion of the distance at which the shots had been fired. The result was inconclusive, with Ollivier arguing that with the techniques then available it was impossible to establish precisely the exact degree of closeness. The principal issue here revolved around the wound on Sir Jack’s hand. The doctors all agreed that it certainly was not a bullet wound.
Several minor witnesses then followed. Marceau Blanc, a truck driver from Gap, had passed the scene of the crime at 4:30 a.m. He reported the rear doors of the Hillman had been open, and a camp bed was in front of the vehicle. Joseph Moynier, a chauffeur from Laragne, drove past half an hour later. The car’s rear doors were then shut, and the camp bed was no longer in front of the Hillman.
The final witness on the second day was Roger Roche, a farmer who lived at Dabise, a village situated on the opposite bank of the Durance and a little farther than a mile from the Grand’ Terre. He had heard five shots at 1:15 a.m. When asked whether they were fired in a burst or shot by shot, he replied shot by shot. He clearly stated that he had looked in the direction of the shots for a quarter of an hour. He saw no vehicles pass along the route nationale N96 that went past the Grand’ Terre.
The first two days of the trial had failed to shine much light on the case. There was a massive police file against Gaston Dominici, but no tangible evidence had been presented. It was therefore hoped that when Gustave, Clovis, and Zézé were questioned the case against Gaston would be more compelling.
The third day of the trial began with other witnesses who had driven past the Grand’ Terre on the night of 4–5 August 1952. An eagerly awaited witness that Friday morning was a distinct disappointment. Aristide Panayotou claimed to have been at the scene of the crime at about 1:10 a.m. He had stopped about 80 yards from the crime scene, not as he had previously claimed to relieve himself, but because his lights had failed. He heard some screams and a number of shots, but he was unable to say how many. He saw a man staggering across the road. That man was followed by a “gentleman” who was about forty years old and had prominent cheekbones. He was carrying some unidentifiable object in his left hand. The judge asked him why he had not informed the police, but Panayotou did not reply. Then the judge pointed out a number of inconsistencies and contradictions in Panayotou’s testimony. He claimed that there had been two bursts of fire, while all other witnesses spoke of single shots. He had not heard any dogs barking, whereas others had. Panayotou was such an unreliable witness, his testimony so full of contradictions and nonsense, that the court soon grew impatient. Pollak asked why he had not been charged for giving the police such a patently absurd story. The advocate general, Rozan, gave the rather lame explanation that the court had decided to give Panayotou a final chance to tell the truth in the assize court. Sabatier apologized for having wasted the court’s time while still seconding Rozan’s reasoning.
It was with some relief when Jean-Marie Olivier, a rather more serious witness, took the stand. He stated that he had been stopped at 5:50 a.m. by Gustave, who had asked him to inform the police. He had seen Marie and Yvette standing by the garden wall. He reaffirmed his statement that Gustave had emerged from behind the Hillman. Prior to the trial, he had insisted that Gustave had not stopped him; rather, he had stopped of his own accord because of the disarray around the Hillman.
Faustin Roure was the next witness. Gustave had visited him on the evening of 4 August to tell him about the landslide. Roure got up early the next day to examine the damage, taking a red flag with him in case he had to stop the train. He had found Clovis standing by Elizabeth’s body, the sight of which had shocked him deeply. He then followed Clovis toward the house. It was then that he saw a camp bed that was parallel to the Hillman. At the farmhouse Yvette told Roure that she had heard shots during the night. Clovis asked Gustave whether he had informed the police. He said that he had, but that it would take some time before they arrived. At that point Gaston returned to the farmhouse. He said something had happened during the night and asked what it was. Yvette said that there had been a killing, and Gaston asked where. She said at the end of the field. He then left to take a look.
Roure was thus witness to a nice little charade, with Gaston pretending to know nothing of the murders and to be surprised at being put into the picture by his daughter-in-law. On 6 August Gaston had told Sébeille that it was Gustave who had first told him of the murders. Why had they felt it necessary to change the story?
For the defense Charrier pointed out that the witness had failed to mention that he had stopped at La Serre on his way back, where he had seen Zézé Perrin. The defense lawyer asked why he had only mentioned Elizabeth and not the other two bodies. Roure replied that he had not seen the others; one was covered with a blanket, the other by a camp bed. Charrier solemnly declared that it contradicted the testimony of Madame Roure on what her husband had told her. Her statement was then read out loud. It was identical to what her husband had just said, leading the courtroom to burst out in loud guffaws. No reference was made to Roure’s statement in March 1953 that he could not remember if he had visited La Serre that morning and his categorical denial of having told Zézé Perrin about the murders.13
The presiding judge called for order. Gaston was then asked what he thought of Roure’s testimony. He replied that he had not seen Roure when he returned to the Grand’ Terre that morning. Roure was somewhat surprised at this statement but remarked that it was true that they had not spoken to one another.
Jean Ricard, the traveling salesman who had been camping at Ganagobie, was the next witness. He had arrived on the scene shortly after Roure had. He stated that Anne’s legs were uncovered below the knee, whereas Roure had said that her body was completely covered. The body was still parallel to the Hillman.
Captain Albert then stated that when he arrived, the body had been moved so it was at an angle to the car. He imagined that it was because someone had been looking for spent cartridges.
The fourth day of the trial began that Saturday with the cross-examination of Zézé Perrin. He created an exceptionally bad impression. His face was distorted by a rictus that resembled a hideous parody of a grin. His legs shook, his fingers drummed on the bar of the witness stand. To one journalist he looked like a cornered fox, ready to bite.14
It was suggested that Zézé had spent the night of 4–5 August at the Grand’ Terre and that his perpetual lying was designed to disguise this fact. First, he claimed that he had worked all day long at La Serre. The judge reminded him that he had also worked for Mr. Delcitte, who had a field across the road. Zézé admitted that was indeed the case. He then said that he got home at about 7:00 p.m. and had supper with his mother. Gustave drove past on his motorcycle while they were eating, but he did not enter the house, as Zézé had previously testified. When asked why he had lied about this, he remained silent but was visibly nervous. The presiding judge then asked him why he had told the gendarmes that he had gone to Peyruis to get bread the next day. It was a false alibi because the shopkeeper in question, Mr. Puissant, had died three years previously. Zézé again remained silent when confronted with this lie. In response to another question, he said that he had borrowed a bicycle belonging to Clovis’s son, Gilbert, to go to the fete in Digne. He had then used it to go the Grand’ Terre on the morning of 5 August, but the gendarmes had stated that the only bicycle at the site was one that belonged to Gustave.
Zézé admitted that Yvette had told him that the English had come to get water, but he added that she had asked him not to tell the police. Pollak, in his attempt to show that Zézé had been at the Grand’ Terre the night of the murders, made much of his statement that Sir Jack had been wearing blue pajamas when his body had been covered with a camp bed. This suggested that Zézé had seen Jack before he was killed, but a police photograph was produced that showed the pajamas were visible under the camp bed.
For the civil suit, attorney Claude Delorme asked about Gaston’s statement that his grandson was a ne’er-do-well. Gaston looked perplexed. Zézé turned crimson. Gaston then blurted out, “It’s possible that he’s the murderer. I don’t know, but he could be. Honestly why would Clovis accuse me? He’s my son and I’ve always got on well with him.” The judge then asked, “Why would he accuse you? Is it because Roger (Zézé) is guilty?” Gaston replied, “To save someone else. As for me, I’ve never even killed a grasshopper at home. All the same, Mister President, have you ever seen anything like that, a son who accuses his father? It’s incredible!” He went on to say that it could very well have been Zézé Perrin, because he often went off poaching with Gustave during the night. “He’s a layabout, a poacher, always cooking up something shady with Gustave, fishing when it’s forbidden, catching rabbits and thrushes with snares.” Bousquet then asked him whether he thought that Gustave was guilty. Gaston replied, “I wouldn’t say no. Both of them were always out hustling.”
At this point Delorme raised the question of the canvas bucket, asking that the Marrians be brought back to the witness stand. Mr. Marrian said that he had not personally seen the object in question, but his wife had. She confirmed this point.
Zézé’s mother, Gaston’s daughter Germaine, was a thin-faced woman of thirty-eight. She created quite a stir when she took the stand. Well dressed, with some impressive jewelry and a fresh permanent wave, she did not conform to the typical image of a peasant’s wife. She said that she had spent the night of 4–5 August with her husband at the Cassine, a farm to which the family was about to move. When she got back to La Serre, she found a note from Zézé saying that there had been an “accident” at the Grand’ Terre. The previous evening she had had supper with Zézé. Gustave had driven past on his motorcycle and had honked the horn as usual, but he did not enter the house. She went on to say that Yvette had told her that the English had come to get water. When asked whether Zézé had spent the night at the Grand’ Terre, she said that he no longer went there because she had had a row with her father and was not on speaking terms with him. She had been very angry with her father for the previous two years. The judge interjected that she had previously stated that Gustave had entered the house and had taken Zézé with him to spend the night at the Grand’ Terre. Germaine denied this.
Charrier repeated Bousquet’s questions by saying that she had told Sébeille that Zézé and Gustave got on well together and that Gustave had stopped at La Serre to take Zézé with him to the Grand’ Terre. Germaine continued to insist that this was not true. When asked why she had broken with her father, she said that he had accused her of being a slut. Thereupon, Gaston launched into a denunciation of his daughter’s morals but added that her husband was the one who had told him that she was sleeping around. At this point the court adjourned for lunch until three o’clock.
The principal witness that Saturday afternoon was Paul Maillet. A voluble and vulgar braggart, he addressed the court as if it were a meeting of the Lurs Communist Party cell. He repeated how Gustave had said to him, “If you had heard the screams! It was horrible!” When he asked where Gustave had been at the time, Gustave replied that he had been in the alfalfa field. Pollak objected, saying that Paul Maillet had hidden this important revelation for months. Maillet replied that it was because he thought that Gustave had been involved in the crime. At this remark, Gaston lost his temper and shouted, “Maillet used to be a friend! Now he is accusing me. He’s been plotting with Clovis for the last eighteen months to get me charged. He’s a liar!” Pollak also accused Maillet of being a liar in terms that revealed the contempt of a party militant for one who had been excommunicated.
At this point Bousquet turned to the question of why there had been no discussion of the supposed meeting of Communist Party members at the Grand’ Terre on the evening of 4 August 1952, as so much had been written about it in the papers. The answer was quite simple: there had been no mention of it in the dossier. This oversight proved once again that the dossier had some serious omissions. Was this meeting just a journalistic fabrication, a result of village tittle-tattle, and a collective hallucination; or had there been a concerted effort to hide a compromising truth?
Commissioner Constant was then questioned about Gustave’s contradictory statements. He replied that he had never believed a word Gustave said. His story was simply unbelievable. Constant denied that he had met with a “wall of silence” in the community of Lurs. On the contrary, people had been cooperative and helpful. The one exception was at the Grand’ Terre, where he had often thought that Gaston was about to attack him. Asked about the meeting on the eve of the murders, he said that he had been unable to get any precise information. There followed a brief but inconclusive cross-examination of Inspector Tardieu before the court adjourned for a day’s rest on Sunday.
The trial resumed on Monday, 22 November. The principal witness that day was to be Commissioner Sébeille. Before he could take the stand, Pollak, who was increasingly frustrated by the persistent lying of the Dominici clan, requested that Zézé Perrin be placed under oath. With a dramatic flourish he pronounced, “May the thunderbolts of the law strike all liars!” The advocate general professed to be in full agreement. He argued that all the Dominicis, not merely Zézé, should be placed under oath because the whole lot of them were liars. Lawyers for the civil case also supported this move. Bousquet then asked whether Gaston was agreeable. With a broad smile, he said that he would be delighted.
The court then adjourned to discuss the proposal. They returned quickly, and Bousquet announced that the defense team’s request had been denied. The Dominicis would not be placed under oath. There was a murmur of disapproval in the courtroom. Pollak muttered, “That’s all right! The witnesses now know that they can lie without running any risk.” Bousquet ordered him to show due respect and spare such comments on a court decision.
The defense’s motive for requesting that the Dominicis be placed under oath was obvious. If they could be trapped into committing perjury, there would be good grounds for an appeal or a retrial. This was precisely what that court wanted to avoid. The point in law was contestable. Paragraph 322 of the code of criminal procedure stated that the parents and relations of the accused were not to be placed under oath, but the code also states that the court could permit it, provided that the prosecution and the defense did not object. In this case the prosecution did not want to see fifteen months of investigation rendered worthless because of almost inevitable perjury by the congenitally mendacious Dominici clan.
Most of the rest of the day was devoted to hearing Sébeille’s deposition. He gave a careful and detailed account of his investigation, explaining how he had come to the conviction that the murderer came from the Grand’ Terre and leading up to Gaston’s confession when he had blurted out: “I’m going to do you a favor, kid. I killed the English. It was a romantic misdeed.”15
There was a cry of horror in the courtroom when Sébeille related his questioning of Gustave about his discovery of Elizabeth’s body. First, there was incredulity when he said that Gustave had thought that her parents had murdered her, then indignation when he claimed that he had thought that they had run away. This reaction turned to anger when Gaston reportedly said that he had gone to the Hillman to keep a watchful eye on the Drummonds’ property.
Bousquet asked the commissioner why he had not questioned Clovis after he had obviously fallen apart when he was shown the murder weapon. Sébeille’s answer was hardly convincing. The scene had happened on the main road. He was surrounded by journalists. He had questioned Clovis for two hours later in the day but to no avail. He then went on the counterattack by complaining that Professor Ollivier had taken several months before delivering his report on the murder weapon. As for Panayotou, he was a storyteller, “to put it mildly.”
Gaston listened to Sébeille’s testimony with lively interest. He leaned forward with his elbows on the box, his chin resting on his hands, a wry smile on his lips.
Pollak interrupted Sébeille on several occasions, protesting that the judge was prejudiced against the accused. Bousquet condescendingly announced that even in the most difficult of cases, his impartiality had never been called into question. Gaston then caused quite a stir when he claimed that he had only made his confession because his coffee had been drugged. Pollak engaged in some swift damage control by assuring the court that he was convinced that his client’s coffee had not been drugged but that in his confusion he might have imagined that it had been. The commissioner indignantly replied that his conscience was clear.
The court was then adjourned.