The Compromised Detective

by Pirate Irwin

  Gaston Palewski

  He established himself as something of a hero leading the Free French forces in Ethiopia before becoming de Gaulle’s head of office in London. Remained faithful to the General throughout his life and was on several occasions a minister as well as ambassador to Italy. A noted womaniser, he had a long-standing affair with Nancy Mitford. He waited until he was 69 to finally marry, appropriately a descendant of another notable womaniser and diplomat, Talleyrand. He explained his tardy conversion to marriage with the delightful phrase: ‘Marriage is a promised land which is best approached slowly.’ He died of heart disease in 1984. ‘He was always present when history was written’ commented de Gaulle of his faithful follower.

  Pierre Drieu La Rochelle

  He was one of many intellectuals and writers to become committed to the Nazi ideology although by the end of his life he claimed to have seen the light and saw Stalinism as the future. Despite his virulent anti-semitism and pro-Nazi beliefs some remained friends with him despite being Gaullists such as André Malraux, who made him godfather to one of his children. A well-regarded writer pre-war – some of whose work has been republished in recent years – he did try and commit suicide twice and succeeded the third time, though, later than I attest to in the book, in March 1945. Malraux had offered as had others to help him escape but he rejected them all. He remained cynical to the end as was revealed in a book that appeared after his death where he remarked: ‘We played, I lost. I desire death.’

  Lucien Pinault

  He remained commissaire of the Brigade Criminelle in his spacious office on the Quai even after the Joanovici affair rocked the establishment. He was still there in 1950, but whether his career rang as true as his crystal glass test remains to be seen. There was much criticism of his leadership of the politically sensitive investigation of the murder of Belgian-born collaborationist, Paris-based publisher Robert Denoёl. The victim was due to stand trial for collaborating. The file for his defence, in which he incriminated other high-profile publishers some of whom are still in business today, though their owners at the time are long dead, was taken by the murderer.

  Charles Luizet

  Remained Prefect of Police until 1947 but was brought down by the Joanovici affair when the latter escaped because of a tip-off from a high-ranking policeman. He was above suspicion but with de Gaulle having gone into the wilderness politically he had no protection. Ill-health also plagued him. He was appointed Governor Gerneral of Equatorial Guinea but he never fully recovered from an operation on a brain tumour and died in September 1947.

  Marshal Philippe de Hauteclocque Leclerc

  France’s most high profile and effective commander in the field during World War II. He did have royalist sympathies before the war and was a devout catholic which played a role in his fealty. However, there was never any question of his loyalty to de Gaulle. He acquiesced when the Americans ordered him to leave any non white soldiers in his ranks out of the march down the Champs Élysées. Unlike the French they did not have mixed regiments and thought it would prove disruptive to their own army if it was seen other Armies operated under different rules. He was killed at the relatively young age of 45 in a plane crash in Morocco in 1947 and was awarded the rank of Marshal posthumously by the French Parliament. Whether the colonial wars in Indochina or indeed Algeria would have had different outcomes had he been in command is one of history’s imponderables.

  Dr Marcel Petiot

  His trial was a farce, not helped by the defendant’s acidic wit, but probably justified a retrial in less febrile times. However, there is little doubt about his guilt. The question that intrigued people was more who his accomplices or business partners were. Many names have been listed such as Bonny and Lafont and even the SS. There was much money to be made – not least the huge amount Petiot charged his desperate clients to enable them to escape – and not all of it by any means was recovered even after his arrest. He protested that he was acting as a one-man Resistance cell but the list of his victims, presumed or otherwise, gave a lie to that claim. Several were rivals of Bonny and Lafont or former members of their gang who had fallen out with them. Geographically the house on Rue Sueur was close to the Gestapo headquarters and not too far from Lauriston. True to form, Petiot remained a mystery to the end. ‘I am a traveller who is taking all his baggage with him,’ he remarked on the morning of his execution on May 25 1946 and he couldn’t resist a last quip: ‘Gentlemen I have one last piece of advice. Look away. This will not be pretty.’

  Jean Cocteau and Jean Marais

  Marais and Cocteau were reunited at war’s end after the former had served with distinction under Leclerc. Cocteau had always been a more ambivalent character through the Occupation and it is doubtful whether he would have saved Marais from being imprisoned – for punching a collaborationist critic – had he not been in love with him. Both, though, enjoyed hugely successful careers post-war, Cocteau and his male muse enjoying acclaim for ‘Beauty and the Beast’ (La Belle et la Bête), but by the 1950s their relationship was all but over. Marais continued to enjoy success as did Cocteau. Marais assumed, without being legally appointed, protector of Cocteau’s works – he had died aged 74 in 1963 – and gradually wound down his acting engagements before he died aged 84 in Cannes in the South of France in 1998.