An Officer And A Spy Part 21

Another silence, and then I try again. "All I ask is that the whole case be thoroughly investigated-"

"All you ask!" Gonse finally erupts. "All! I like that! I don't understand you, Picquart! So what are you saying? That the entire army-the entire nation come to that!-is supposed to revolve around your tender conscience? You have a pretty good conceit of yourself, I must say!" His neck is fat and flushed bright pink, like some unspeakable pneumatic rubber tube. It bulges against the collar of his tunic. He is terrified, I realise. Abruptly his manner becomes businesslike. "Where is the secret file now?"

"In my safe."

"And you haven't discussed its contents with anyone else?"

"Of course not."

"You have made no copies?"

"No."

"And you are not the source of these leaks to the newspapers?"

"If I were, I would hardly admit it, would I?" I can no longer keep the contempt out of my voice. "But for what it's worth, the answer is no."

"Don't be insolent!" Gonse stands. I follow suit. "This is an army, Colonel, not a society for debating ethics. The Minister of War gives orders to the Chief of Staff, the Chief of Staff gives orders to me, and I give orders to you. I now order you formally, and for the final time, not to investigate anything connected with the Dreyfus case, and not to disclose anything about it to anyone who isn't authorised to receive such information. Heaven help you if you disobey. Understand?"

I cannot even bring myself to reply to him. I salute, turn on my heel, and walk out of the room.

When I get back to the office, Capiaux tells me Desvernine is in the waiting room with the forger Lemercier-Picard. After my encounter with Gonse, interviewing such a creature is the last thing I feel like doing, but I don't want to send him away.

The moment I enter, I recognise him as another of that little group, along with Guenee, who were playing cards and smoking pipes on my first morning. Moises Lehmann suits him better as a name than Lemercier-Picard. He is small and Jewish-looking, plump with charm and confidence, smelling of eau de cologne and eager to impress me with his skill. He persuades me to write out three or four sentences in my own handwriting-"Go on, Colonel: what harm can it do, eh?"-and then after a couple of practice attempts he produces a pa.s.sable copy. "The trick is speed," he explains. "One must capture the essence of the line and inhabit its character and then write naturally. You have a very artistic hand, Colonel: very secretive, very introspective, if I may say so."

"That's enough, Moises," says Desvernine, pretending to cuff his ear. "The colonel has no time for your nonsense. You can get out of here now. Wait for me in the lobby."

The forger grins at me. "A pleasure to meet you, Colonel."

"It's mutual. And I'd like my sheet of handwriting back, if you please."

"Oh yes," he says, pulling it out of his pocket. "I almost forgot."

After he's gone, Desvernine says, "I thought you ought to know that Esterhazy seems to have done a runner. He and his wife have moved out of the apartment in the rue de la Bienfaisance-and left in a hurry, by the look of it."

"How do you know?"

"I've been inside. Don't worry-I didn't have to do anything illegal. It's up for rent. I pretended I was looking for a place. They've taken away most of their furniture, just left a few bits of rubbish. He burned a lot of paper in the hearth. I found this."

It is a visiting card, singed at the edges: eDOUARD DRUMONT.

Editor

La Libre Parole

I turn it back and forth. "So Esterhazy's a contributor to that anti-Jewish rag?"

"Apparently. Or perhaps he just gives them information-plenty in the army do. The thing is, Colonel-he's gone to ground. He's not in Paris. He's not even in Rouen anymore. He's moved out to the Ardennes."

"Do you think he knows we're on to him?"

"I'm not sure. But I don't like the smell of it. I think if we're going to lay our trap we need to do it quickly."

"Have we done anything about those speaking-tubes yet?"

"They came out yesterday."

"Good. And how soon before the flues can be bricked up again?"

"We have a man going in tonight."

"All right. Leave it with me."

Billot is my only hope now. Billot: the old lizard, the old survivor, the two times Minister of War-surely he will realise not just the immorality but the political insanity of the General Staff's policy?

He is due to return from the manoeuvres in the southwest on Friday. That morning Le Figaro publishes on its front page the text of a pet.i.tion sent by Lucie Dreyfus to the Chamber of Deputies, pointing out that the government hasn't denied the stories about the secret file: And so it must be true that a French officer has been convicted by a court-martial on a charge produced by the prosecution without his knowledge, which therefore neither he nor his counsel was able to discuss.

It is the denial of all justice.

I have been the victim of the most cruel martyrdom for almost two years-like the man in whose innocence I have absolute faith. I have remained silent despite the odious and absurd slanders propagated amongst the public and the press.

Today it is my duty to break that silence, and without comment or recriminations I address myself to you, gentlemen, the only power to whom I can have recourse-and I demand justice.

In the narrow, gloomy pa.s.sages and stairwells of the Statistical Section there is silence. My officers shut themselves away in their rooms. Hourly I expect to be summoned over the road by Gonse for an explanation of this latest bombsh.e.l.l, but the telephone never rings. From my office I keep half an eye on the back of the htel de Brienne. Finally, just after three o'clock, I glimpse uniformed orderlies with dispatch cases pa.s.sing behind its tall windows. The minister must be back. The topography works in my favour: Gonse, sitting in the rue Saint-Dominique, will not yet know he has returned. I go down into the rue de l'Universite, cross the street and take out my key to let myself into the minister's garden.

And then something odd happens. My key does not fit. I try it three or four times, dully refusing to believe it won't work. But the shape of the lock is entirely different to what it used to be. Eventually I give up and walk the long way round, via the place du Palais Bourbon, like any ordinary mortal.

"Colonel Picquart to see the Minister of War ..."

The sentry lets me through the gate but the captain of the Republican Guard in the downstairs lobby asks me to wait. After a few minutes, Captain Calmon-Maison comes downstairs.

I hold up my key to show him. "It doesn't work anymore." I try to make a joke of it. "Like Adam, I appear to have been expelled from the garden for an excess of curiosity."

Calmon-Maison's face is deadpan. "I'm sorry, Colonel. We have to change the locks occasionally-security, you understand."

"You don't have to explain, Captain. But I still need to brief the minister."

"Unfortunately, he's only just returned from Chteauneuf. He has a lot to do, and he's really rather exhausted. Could you possibly come back on Monday?" At least he has the grace to look embarra.s.sed as he says this.

"It won't take long."

"Nevertheless ..."

"I'll wait." I resume my place on the red leather banquette.

He looks at me dubiously. "Perhaps I'd better go and have another word with the minister."

"Perhaps you should."

He clatters off up the marble staircase, and shortly afterwards calls down to me, his voice echoing off the stone walls. "Colonel Picquart!"

Billot is sitting behind his desk. "Picquart," he says, wearily raising his hand, "I'm afraid I'm very busy"-although there is no sign of any activity in his office, and I suspect he has simply been staring out of the window.

"Forgive me, Minister. I shan't detain you. But in the light of the newspaper stories this week, I feel the need to press you now for a decision about the Esterhazy investigation."

Billot peers at me warily from beneath his bushy white brows. "A decision about what aspect of it, exactly?"

I begin to describe the idea I have devised with Desvernine, of luring Esterhazy to a meeting by means of a message purporting to come from Schwartzkoppen, but he cuts me off very quickly. "No, no, I don't like that at all-that's far too crude. In fact, you know, I'm starting to think that the quickest way to deal with this swine is actually not to prosecute him at all but to pension him off. Either that, or send him somewhere a long way away-Indochina or Africa: I don't know-preferably somewhere he can contract a very nasty local disease, or take a bullet in the back without too many questions being asked."

I'm not sure how to respond to this suggestion, so I ignore it. "And what do we do about Dreyfus?"

"He'll just have to stay where he is. The law has p.r.o.nounced and that's an end of it."

"So you've reached a final decision?"

"I have. I had the opportunity before the parade in Chteauneuf to discuss the matter privately with General Mercier. He motored over specially from Le Mans to talk about it."

"I bet he did!"

"Be careful, Colonel ...!" Billot points a warning finger at me. Up till now he has always encouraged me to tiptoe to the edge of insubordination: it has amused him to play the indulgent paterfamilias. Clearly, like access to his garden, that privilege has been withdrawn.

Still, I can't stop myself. "This secret file-you do know that it proves nothing against Dreyfus? That it may even contain downright lies?"

Billot puts his hands over his ears. "There are things I shouldn't hear, Colonel."

He looks absurd, in the way that stubborn old men sometimes do: a sulky child in a nursery.

"I can shout quite loudly," I warn him.

"I mean it, Picquart! I mustn't hear it!" His voice is sharp. Only when he is satisfied that I won't pollute his ears any further does he lower his hands. "Now don't be such an arrogant young fool and listen to me." His voice is conciliatory, reasonable. "General Boisdeffre is about to welcome the Tsar to Paris in a diplomatic coup that will change the world. I have a six-hundred-million-franc budget estimate to negotiate with the Finance Committee. We simply can't allow ourselves to be distracted from these great issues by the sordid matter of one Jew on a rock. It would tear the army to pieces. I would be hounded out of this office-and rightly so. You must keep the whole matter in proportion. Do you understand what I'm saying, Colonel?"

I nod.

He rises from behind his desk with surprising grace and comes round to stand in front of me. "Calmon-Maison tells me we've had to change the locks on the garden. It's such a bore. I'll make sure you get a new key. I do so greatly value your intelligence, dear boy." He offers me his hand. His grip is hard, dry, calloused. He clamps his other hand around mine, imprisoning it. "There's nothing easy about power, Georges. One needs the stomach to take hard decisions. But I've seen all this before. Today the press is Dreyfus, Dreyfus, Dreyfus; tomorrow, without some new disclosure, they'll have forgotten all about him, you'll see."

Billot's prediction about Dreyfus and the press proves correct. As abruptly as they took him up again, the newspapers lose all interest in the prisoner on Devil's Island. He is replaced on the front pages by stories about the Russian state visit, in particular by speculation about what the Tsarina will be wearing. But I do not forget him.

Although I have to tell Desvernine we will not be requiring the services of Monsieur Lemercier-Picard, and that our request to lay a trap has been refused, I continue to pursue my investigation of Esterhazy as best I can. I interview a retired noncommissioned officer, Mulot, who remembers copying out portions of an artillery manual for the major; I also meet Esterhazy's tutor at gunnery school, Captain le Rond, who calls his former pupil a blackguard: "If I met him in the street I would refuse to shake his hand." All this goes into the Benefactor file, and occasionally at the end of the day as I leaf through the evidence we have so far collected-the pet.i.t bleu, the surveillance photographs, the statements-I tell myself that I will see him in prison yet.

But I am not offered a new key to the garden of the htel de Brienne: if I want to see the minister, I have to make an appointment. And although he always receives me cordially, there is an unmistakable reserve about him. The same is true of Boisdeffre and Gonse. They no longer entirely trust me, and they are right.

One day towards the end of September, I climb the stairs to my office at the start of the morning and see Major Henry standing further along the corridor, deep in conversation with Lauth and Gribelin. His back is to me, but those broad and fleshy shoulders and that wide neck are as recognisable as his face. Lauth glances past him, notices me and darts him a warning look. Henry stops talking and turns round. All three officers salute.

"Gentlemen," I say. "Major Henry, welcome back. How was your leave?"

He is different. He has caught the sun-like everyone else apart from me-but he has also changed his haircut to a short fringe so that he looks less like a sly farmer and more like a crafty monk. And there's something else: a new energy in him, as if all the negative forces that have been swirling around our little unit-the suspicion and disaffection and anxiety-have coalesced in his capacious frame and charged him with a kind of electricity. He is their leader. My jeopardy is his opportunity. He is a danger to me. All this pa.s.ses through my mind in the few seconds it takes him to salute, grin and say, "My leave was good, Colonel, thank you."

"I need to brief you on what's been happening."

"Whenever you wish, Colonel."

I am on the point of inviting him into my office, and then I change my mind. "I tell you what, why don't we have a drink together at the end of the day?"

"A drink?"

"You look surprised."

"Only because we've never had a drink before."

"Well, that is a poor state of affairs, is it not? Let us rectify it. Shall we walk somewhere together? Let us say at five o'clock?"

Accordingly at five he knocks on my door, I pick up my cap and we go out into the street. He asks, "Where do you want to go?"

"Wherever you like. I don't frequent the bars round here very often."

"The Royale, then. It saves us from having to think."

The Taverne Royale is the favourite bar of the General Staff. I haven't been in it for years. The place is quiet at this hour: just a couple of captains drinking near the door, the barman reading a paper, a waiter wiping down the tables. On the walls are regimental photographs; on the bare wooden floor, sawdust; the colours are all brown and bra.s.s and sepia. Henry is very much at home. We take a table in the corner and he orders a cognac. For want of a better idea I do the same. "Leave us the bottle," Henry tells the waiter. He offers me a cigarette. I refuse. He lights one for himself and suddenly I realise that an odd part of me has actually missed the old devil, just as one occasionally grows fond of something familiar and even ugly. Henry is the army, in a way that I, or Lauth, or Boisdeffre will never be. When soldiers break ranks and want to run away on the battlefield, it is the Henrys of this world who can persuade them to come back and keep fighting.

"Well," he says, raising his gla.s.s, "what shall we drink to?"

"How about something we both love? The army."

"Very well," he agrees. We touch gla.s.ses: "The army!"

He downs his tumbler in one, tops up mine then refills his own. He sips it, staring at me over the rim. His small eyes are a muddy colour, and opaque: I can't read them. "So-things seem to be in a bit of a mess back at the office, Colonel, if you don't mind me saying."

"I'll have that cigarette after all, if I may." He pushes his cigarette case across the table towards me. "And whose fault is that, do you think?"

"I point no fingers. I'm just saying, that's all."

I light my cigarette and toy with my gla.s.s, moving it around the table as if it is a chess piece. I feel a curious desire to unburden myself. "Man to man, I never wanted to be chief of the section, did you know that? I had a horror of spies. I only achieved the position by accident. If I hadn't known Dreyfus, I wouldn't have been involved in his arrest, and then I wouldn't have attended the court-martial and the degradation. Unfortunately, I think our masters have got the entirely wrong idea about me."

"And what would the right idea be?"

Henry's cigarettes are very strong, Turkish. The back of my nose feels as if it's on fire. "I've been having another look at Dreyfus."