Gilles Vanberten

In the L'étrange enlèvement du petit Bruno, the French adaptation of Agatha Christie's The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly for the TV series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie, Gilles Vanberten is the secretary of novelist Eloïse Zennefort and he is therefore something of a parallel to Miss Collins in the original story, although he plays a much larger role in this adaptation. He is devoted to his employer. He also detests Eloïse's husband Hadrien Debaer. He regards Hadrien as an ignoramus and a "mere fencing instructor". Because of Hadrien, Eloïse had stopped writing books. Gilles also told commissaire Laurence that Eloïse bore her son Bruno Zennefort just to please her husband.

For a time, Gilles was regarded as a suspect and arrested for the kidnapping of Bruno. This came about after Alice Avril and Marlene discovered that the typewriter type of the notes threatening kidnap matched that produced by Gilles's typewriter. Commissaire Laurence also discovered that Gilles is secretly in love with Eloïse and had written her many love letters.

Towards the end of the episode, Gilles is driving in a car when he spots a wasp inside. He panics as he is allergic to wasp stings. The wasp stings him and he loses control and crashes into a ditch and dies. The police find some money in the car and also some casino chips in his pocket. Commissaire Laurence later surmises that Gilles had seen Hadrien switch the ransom money and thus perceived that Hadrien was in fact the kidnapper. He must have tried to blackmail Hadrien. Hadrien knew that Gilles was allergic to wasps and so introduced one into his car. This was an idea drawn from the plot of one of Eloïse's novels. As for the casino chips, Hadrien had been gambling in a private casino using Gilles's name and had run up huge debts. He had planted the chips in Gilles's pocket to incriminate him.

Gilles is portrayed by Vincent de Bouard.