After lunch the Drummonds picked up the tickets for the charlotade (comic bullfight) from the Grand Hotel’s reception desk and then went to the Bar du Soleil, where they waited until four o’clock for the spectacle to begin. Several witnesses noted that “the English” took a lively interest in the proceedings, but they left some twenty minutes before the end, at about 5:40 p.m., possibly because of the crippling heat or maybe because they wanted to avoid the rush to the exits.
Rose, the wife of the patron (owner) of La Taverne, claimed to have seen the Drummonds’ car parked outside her establishment between 6:30 and 7:00 p.m. Elizabeth was reportedly playing with a dog while waiting for her parents. This testimony, however, contradicts that of a gendarme who later gave a detailed account of a curious encounter involving the Drummonds.
Émile Marque was a gendarme from Valensole, a town about 31 miles away, who had been detached to Digne for the festival.12 He was on road patrol and had taken up position outside the Hotel L’Ermitage, which was situated a little outside the town on the main road to Nice. It hardly merited its four stars, but its restaurant was described as one of the best in the region. At about 6:15 p.m., Marque saw a gray-green station wagon with a GB plate entering the hotel’s courtyard parking lot. Three people got out: a man, a woman, and a child. They went inside the hotel and stayed there for about an hour. When they drove out onto the main road, they stopped beside the gendarme. The man, who was at the wheel, asked in French for the directions toward Château-Arnoux. He said a few words in English to the woman, who was seated to his left, and Marque thought that he heard the word “Lurs” mentioned.
Marque said the man appeared to be about fifty years of age. He had a small mustache. His hair was sparse, and he was somewhat overweight. He was wearing a black jacket. The woman was smaller, hardly reaching his shoulder. She had an oval-shaped face, and her hair was dark brown. The little girl had short hair, but he could not remember what she was wearing. After the gendarme gave them directions, they drove back toward Digne.
About an hour later a car with right-hand drive, coming from the direction of Nice, pulled up outside the hotel. It was a small, box-shaped brown car, looking like a cross between a Renault 4CV and a Peugeot 203. It appeared to be an older model. A man and a woman were inside. The man got out and with a strong English accent asked the gendarme where they could get something to eat. He also asked whether an English car had passed by recently. Marque told them that he had indeed seen one and that it had driven off in the direction of Château-Arnoux. He also said that they could eat at the hotel. He saw the car drive into the parking lot, where both people got out. The man went into the hotel, while the woman remained standing by the car. The man emerged from the hotel about a quarter of an hour later in an agitated state. Both jumped into the car and drove off at considerable speed in the direction of Digne.
The man was about five feet nine, slim, around thirty years old, and bareheaded with pomaded hair. He was dressed in a white shirt and white trousers. The woman was about six inches shorter and dressed in black. She was thin, with short curly light brown hair. The car had a GB plate at the back on the left-hand side.
There are a number of problems with this story. Jack Drummond spoke no French and was not driving. He had left his license at Villefranche. It is somewhat curious that he had asked the way to Château-Arnoux, which would have been a slight detour had he been heading for Lurs. It is an attractive little town, but there is little there of particular interest, apart from a sixteenth-century château. Besides, it was also getting late. Although there was large chemical factory at nearby Saint-Auban, it would not have been of any professional interest to Sir Jack as it did not have a research laboratory and only produced standard chemicals.13 It is unlikely that he would have wanted to pay it a visit the following day because that would have meant canceling the lunchtime appointment with the Marrians, and he almost certainly would have informed them that evening of any such change of plan. Marque’s testimony implies that the Drummonds dined at the hotel, but we know from the postmortems that their stomachs were empty. The mysterious “woman in black” appears at various points in the narrative, but she was probably Anne Drummond, who had black clothing in her bag and had changed her dress before settling in for the night.
Rather than setting off to Château-Arnoux or Lurs, the Drummonds indeed drove back to Digne and parked the car outside the Grand Hotel. The precise time of their arrival is uncertain. It is highly probable that Gendarme Marque, who testified months afterward, may have thought that the Drummonds arrived later than in actual fact. In any case, two reliable witnesses saw their Hillman outside the hotel sometime between 6:30 and 7:15 p.m. There is no indication why the family went back to the hotel. Was it to see if by chance there was a room available, to leave a message, or to make a telephone call?
They had obviously abandoned any possible idea of going to Château-Arnoux. Leaving Digne at about 7:30 p.m., they drove directly toward Lurs. About 9 miles from Digne, at the village of Malijai, they were noticed by a motorcyclist, who was extremely irritated because their car was driving so slowly. The Drummonds pulled up outside a small store, where Jack bought a bottle of Vichy water. Then they drove to Les Mées with its spectacular rock formations on the banks of the Durance. Known as the “Penitents,” the sandstone columns that stand 164 feet high are said to be the petrified remains of monks from the Lure Mountain. Saint Donat had turned them into rocks for their having dallied with the beautiful Saracen maidens whom the local baron had brought back from the Crusades.14 The formations would have looked particularly splendid with the setting sun casting deep shadows and giving them a warm glow.
Having crossed the Durance at Les Mées, they drove a few miles along what was then the main road to Manosque and Aix-en-Provence before stopping on the side of the road to set up camp, thus granting Elizabeth her special wish. It was, after all, not such a great hardship. The moon was full, and August is the month of falling stars, offering an extraordinary spectacle. Jack Drummond was a doting father, who found it hard to resist his daughter’s every wish. Both father and mother were, by the standards of the day, elderly parents who could be excused for giving way. Besides, why shouldn’t Elizabeth’s wishes be taken into consideration? The Drummonds were determined that this trip should not be a typical nightmare family holiday, in which a child is treated as a tiresome impediment and a needless expense, with her wishes utterly ignored. Jack had inquired at the Grand Hotel whether a room was available for the night of 4 August but had been told that Digne was fully booked because of the festival. It would thus only have been possible to see the charlotade if they spent the night afterward, and they had come all the way from England fully prepared for such an eventuality. The Marrians’ daughter Valerie told the police that the Drummonds had said that they would camp on the side of the road and that they were fully equipped to do so. As it was swelteringly hot during the day and the nights were still very warm, however, they had left their tent behind in Villefranche.
The spot where the Drummonds chose to spend the night was far from picturesque. It was on the then main road from Digne to Manosque and Forcalquier.15 They parked on a level turnout covered with gravel that was used for vehicles doing repair work on the road and to deposit gravel and sand. It was one of the few places along the road where it was possible to park a car, and it had the additional advantage of offering relatively easy access to the river. Although the Durance River ran nearby, it was hidden from view by a clump of dwarf oak trees.
It was still light when they arrived, but the sun would have already fallen behind the steep hill on the other side of the road. A short distance away was a shabby yellow farmhouse, hidden from the road by a high wall in which was set the dilapidated remains of a door. Behind it was a flight of steps leading down to a courtyard, in which the farmer’s family would sit on wooden benches to drink their homemade pastis and wine and occasionally welcome a neighbor or family member. Between the Drummond’s campsite
and the farmhouse were rows of vines and apricot trees interspersed with alfalfa. Not far was a stone bridge that crossed a railway line, and on the other side a steep slope led down to the Durance. What seemed from a distance to be an attractive riverbank along an inviting river was viscous black clay strewn with huge jagged rocks, uprooted trees, and sundry detritus, including the rotting remains of a sheep. It was not at all the place for a leisurely evening stroll. The river branches into several streams, some of which have impressive currents, and a number of stagnant pools of some depth. It was hardly an inviting place for a young girl looking to take a dip. Perhaps the Drummonds had deliberately chosen the spot, thinking that a nearby farm and a busy road offered them a greater degree of security than an idyllic and remote spot in the country.
The farmhouse, situated a few hundred yards farther down the road, was known as the Grand’ Terre. It was a desolate property from which an elderly peasant, Gaston Dominici, managed to scratch a living. He lived there with his wife, Marie; his son Gustave; his daughter-in-law, Yvette; and his grandson Alain, who was ten months old. Relations between Gustave and his father had never been good, but they had recently reached the breaking point. They lived under the same roof but maintained separate households. They rarely spoke to one another except to quarrel. Things had grown even worse since April of last year, when Gustave announced his intention to set up on his own as a tenant farmer. Gaston had flown into a towering rage, denouncing him as a useless layabout who had proved himself inept in his attempt to run the Grand’ Terre and who would be totally incapable of setting up on his own.
Gustave deeply resented that he was the only one of the nine Dominici children who had been compelled to stay at home. There had been no jobs available during the war and no possibility of finding an apprenticeship. Now he was thirty-three years old with a young wife, infant son, and a baby on the way, working for his board and lodging but with virtually no income. The sale of apricots brought in 72,000 francs that year, and the bank had advanced 65,000 francs in anticipation of the wheat harvest.16 Precious little of this money ended up in Gustave’s pocket. In short he was trapped by his seventy-five-year-old father, who needed him to run the farm but whom he loathed and feared. Gaston’s death would be the only way of escaping from his tyrannical hold over Gustave.
Although there was a major fete in Digne, on the farm the fourth of August passed as usual. Gaston got up sometime between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. to take his goats to pasture. He came back to the house for his midday meal, changed his boots for slippers, ate his lunch, and took his habitual siesta in an armchair. By 4:30 p.m. the heat had subsided sufficiently for him to venture out once more. As he led his goats out again, he noticed that a field of alfalfa, which was being watered, was in danger of flooding. He went back to the farmhouse and asked his daughter-in-law, Yvette, to turn off the water. The sluice gate was about 330 feet away from the house and about 98 feet higher. For whatever reason, possibly because she was pregnant, Yvette refused. Gaston then ordered his wife to do it for her. She replied with unaccustomed forcefulness: “Do it yourself!” Gaston raged at such insubordination, pointing out that he could not leave his goats alone because they would start nibbling at his barley. With great reluctance and after a significant pause, Marie went and turned off the water.
Meanwhile, Gaston went to the bridge across the railway, only a short distance from the farmhouse, to see the extent of the damage. Mud, shrubs, and undergrowth had slipped down the slope and had reached the gravel bed of the railway. He was therefore concerned that the landslide might continue during the night and block the railway so that the first train, scheduled for 6:45 a.m., would be unable to pass. He would then be faced with a hefty fine.17
Gaston was furious that his son was not at hand to deal with this awkward situation. He was away that day, helping his wife’s maternal uncle with the threshing on his nearby farm. Gaston continued to graze his goats, while keeping an eye on the landslide, and returned to the house at about 7:30 p.m. On his way back across the bridge and along the path that led to the main road, he noticed the Drummonds’ Hillman parked on the side of the road, a few yards to his right. Given Gaston’s difficult dialect and the parents’ poor French, it is unlikely that they exchange any words between them.
Gustave returned to the Grand’ Terre soon after eight o’clock. He went almost at once to make sure that the railway line was free from any obstruction so that the last train of the day, scheduled at nine o’clock, could pass. On the way he also noticed the Hillman parked in the turnout.
Having seen that for the moment the track was free, Gustave had a quick supper. Then he went on his motorcycle to Peyruis, about 2 miles down the road in the direction of Digne, and reported the flooding incident to Faustin Roure, who was in charge of a gang of platelayers working for the French state railway Société nationale des chemins de fer français (SNCF). Roure and his wife, Rose, invited Gustave in for a drink just as the nine o’clock train passed through the station. He assured Gustave that he and his team from the Lurs railway station, situated 547 yards away from the Grand’ Terre, would come and look at the landslide early the next morning and make sure that it was free from any obstruction.
On his way home, Gustave passed La Serre, a farmhouse on the edge of the road where his sister Germaine lived with her husband, Roger Perrin, and their sixteen-year-old son, Roger. Known as Zézé, he was Gustave’s much loved nephew. Zézé later testified that Gustave honked his horn “as usual” as he rode past the farm. Gustave returned home shortly after nine o’clock.
Meanwhile, Anne and Elizabeth Drummond had taken a canvas bucket to the farmhouse and asked for water. Yvette filled it up at the outdoor pump. Elizabeth was well prepared for this task. Her last bit of homework for her French class at her boarding school before the end of term involved translating from French the following passage:
The girl gave the white hen to her mother.
Do you have any fine butter, Madame?
There is no milk in my bottle.
Please give me some.18
Elizabeth was considered reasonably proficient in French and had recently recited Jean de la Fontaine’s fable “Le Corbeau et le Renard” to the satisfaction of her French teacher, Miss Hancock.
Jack Drummond spread out a tablecloth, and the family nibbled at some biscuits and cake. They placed the two camp beds parallel, hidden from the road by the car, and prepared a bed for Elizabeth in the back of the Hillman. A rug was hung over it to provide an added degree of privacy and some shade from the bright moonlight and the headlights of passing cars. The sun set that day at 7:55 p.m., but it did not get fully dark until 10:00 p.m. The moon rose at 8:21 p.m., and it would be full the following night. A full moon with clear, starlit skies in Provence in August is an impressive sight, providing unexpected visibility, deep shadows, and haunting luminosity. It would reach its zenith at 11:53 p.m. and set at 4:35 a.m.
Elizabeth and her father changed into pajamas, but her mother, who had not brought any nightclothes with her, simply changed into another dress without removing her under garments. Exhausted after a hectic day, they went early to bed and were soon asleep.
2
The Murder
Shortly before six o’clock in the morning of 5 August 1952, Jean-Marie Olivier was returning home to Oraison on his New-Map motorcycle, having finished the night shift at the chemical factory in Château-Arnoux-Saint-Auban. He was halfway home on the route nationale N96 when, on the left-hand side of the road, a man popped up “like a jack-in-the-box” from behind a vehicle parked on the side of the road and flagged him down.1 Olivier, who recognized the man by sight, slammed on the breaks and pulled up about 98 feet farther down the road. The man ran after him and, after pausing to catch his breath, asked Olivier to go to the gendarmes in Oraison because he had seen “a dead body on the slope on the edge of the road.” Without pausing to investigate the scene of the crime or to ascertain the precise location, Olivier drove off in the direction of Oraison.
Just over 130 yards from where he had stopped, two women—one old, one young—were leaning motionless against a farmhouse wall.
While Olivier drove to Oraison, Faustin Roure left home on his moped at about 6:15 a.m. to examine the damage done by the landslide, as he had promised Gustave Dominici. On the way he overtook three men on bicycles: Gustave’s brother Clovis, Roger Drac, and Marcel Boyer, who was also Clovis’s brother-in-law. They were all were members of Roure’s SNCF team.2 Faustin arrived at the Grand’ Terre at 6:35 a.m. Ignoring the car parked on the side of the road, he went directly to the bridge over the railway and examined the extent of the landslide. Crossing the bridge he turned left, walked parallel to the railway for a couple of hundred yards, then went down the slope to see whether any immediate action was required.
Boyer was the next to arrive on the scene. He pedaled past the parked British car without noticing anything untoward and went to join Gustave, who was standing on the road near the farmhouse. Gustave just had time to tell Marcel that there was a dead body nearby, when his brother Clovis arrived.3 He noticed the general disorder around the parked car, with empty suitcases, cardboard boxes, pillows, and blankets strewn around. He remarked that the campers must have had quite a party. According to Boyer’s testimony, Gustave replied that he had heard five or six shots at about five or six o’clock that morning. Gesturing with his arm in the direction of the Durance, he added that he had discovered “a dead body.” Clovis and Boyer walked in the direction indicated. Boyer stayed at the top of the slope, while Clovis scrambled downward toward the Durance to have a closer look.
When Roure arrived after examining the landslide, Clovis asked him, “Have you seen it?” Roure, imagining that he was referring to the landslide, replied that fortunately he had seen nothing that would hinder the train’s passage. Clovis then nodded his head in the direction of the body of a young girl lying in the tall grass a few meters down the slope. For whatever reason, whether out of indifference or an anxiety not to get involved in any way, neither Roure nor Boyer went to have a closer look. The three men then returned to the farm.
The Dominici Affair Page 3