An Officer And A Spy Part 22

"Yes, Gribelin told me you'd taken the file. You seem to have stirred things up."

"General Boisdeffre was convinced the dossier no longer existed. He said that General Mercier ordered Colonel Sandherr to get rid of it."

"I didn't know that. The colonel just told me to keep it nice and safe."

"Why did Sandherr disobey, do you think?"

"You'd have to ask him that."

"Perhaps I shall."

"You can ask him all you want, my Colonel, but you won't get much of an answer." Henry taps the side of his head. "He's under lock and key in Montauban. I went all the way down to visit him. It was pitiful." He looks mournful. He suddenly raises his gla.s.s. "To Colonel Sandherr: one of the best!"

"To Sandherr," I respond, and pretend to drink his health. "But why did he retain the file, do you think?"

"I suppose because he thought it might be useful-it was the file that convicted Dreyfus after all."

"Except you and I both know that Dreyfus is innocent."

Henry's eyes open wide in warning and alarm. "I wouldn't talk like that too loudly, Colonel, especially not in here. Some of the fellows wouldn't like it."

I look around. The bar is beginning to fill. I lean in closer and lower my voice. I'm not sure whether I'm seeking a confession or offering one, only that some kind of absolution is required. "It wasn't Dreyfus who wrote the bordereau," I say quietly. "It was Esterhazy. Even Bertillon says his writing is a perfect match. That's the central part of the case against Dreyfus demolished right there! As for your secret file of evidence-"

A gust of laughter from the neighbouring table interrupts me. I glance at them in irritation.

Henry says, very seriously now, studying me intently, "What were you going to say about the secret file?"

"With the best will in the world, my dear Henry, the only thing in it that points to Dreyfus is the fact that the Germans and the Italians were receiving plans of fortifications from someone with the initial 'D.' I'm not blaming you, incidentally: once Dreyfus was in custody, your job was to make the most convincing case you could. But now that we have the facts about Esterhazy, it changes everything. Now we know that the wrong man was condemned. So you tell me: what are we supposed to do in the light of that? Simply ignore it?"

I sit back. After a long silence, during which he continues to scan my face, Henry says, "Are you asking me for my advice?"

I shrug. "By all means, if you have any."

"You've mentioned this to Gonse?"

"I have."

"And Boisdeffre, and Billot?"

"Yes."

"And what do they say?"

"They say drop it."

"Then for G.o.d's sake, Colonel," he hisses, "drop it!"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I'm just not made that way. It's not what I joined the army to do."

"Then you've chosen the wrong profession." Henry shakes his head in disbelief. "You have to give them what they want, Colonel-they're the chiefs."

"Even though Dreyfus is innocent?"

"There you go, saying it again!" He looks around. Now it's his turn to lean over the table and talk quietly. "Listen, I don't know whether he's innocent or guilty, Colonel, and quite frankly I don't give a s.h.i.+t, if you'll excuse me, either way, and neither should you. I did as I was told. You order me to shoot a man and I'll shoot him. You tell me afterwards you got the name wrong and I should have shot someone else-well, I'm very sorry about that, but it's not my fault." He pours us both another cognac. "You want my advice? Well here's a story. When my regiment was in Hanoi, there was a lot of thieving in the barracks. So one day my major and I, we laid a trap and we caught the thief red-handed. It turned out he was the son of the colonel-G.o.d knows why he needed to steal from the likes of us, but he did it. Now my major-he was a bit like you, a little bit of the idealistic type, shall we say-he wanted this man prosecuted. The top bra.s.s disagreed. Still, he went ahead and brought the case anyway. But at the court-martial it was my major that was broken. The thief went free. A true story." Henry raises his gla.s.s to me. "That's the army we love."

15.

The following morning when I go into the office, the Dreyfus file is on my desk-not the secret dossier but the Colonial Office record, which continues to be sent over regularly for my comments.

There have been two security scares about Dreyfus in recent weeks. First there was the English newspaper report that the prisoner had escaped. Then there was a letter addressed to him posted in the rue Cambon and signed with a name that looked like "Weiler" that contained a message supposedly written in invisible ink: Impossible to decipher last communication. Return to the former procedure in your answer. Indicate precisely where the doc.u.ments are and how the cupboard can be unlocked. Actor ready to move immediately. Dreyfus's guards were ordered to observe him closely after he was handed this letter. He merely frowned and put it aside. Manifestly he had never heard of "Weiler." Both we and the Srete were in agreement that this was just a malicious hoax.

Yet as I turn the pages of the file I see that the episodes have been used by the Colonial Ministry as a pretext to make Dreyfus's confinement much harsher. For the past three weeks he has been clapped in irons every night. There is even an ill.u.s.tration of the contraption s.h.i.+pped over from the penal colony in Cayenne that is used to restrain him. Two U-shaped irons are fixed to his bed. His ankles are put into these at sundown. A bar is then inserted through the irons and padlocked. He is left in this position until dawn. In addition, a double perimeter fence of heavy timber is being erected around his hut to a height of two and a half metres. The inner fence is only half a metre from his window. Therefore his view of the sea is entirely cut off. And during the day he is no longer allowed access to the island beyond the second perimeter fence. The bare narrow s.p.a.ce of rock and scrub between the two walls, in which there are no trees or shade, is now the entirety of his world.

As usual, the file contains an appendix of Dreyfus's confiscated writings: Yesterday evening I was put in irons. Why, I know not. Since I have been here, I have always scrupulously observed the orders given me. How is it I did not go crazy during the long, dreadful night? (7 September 1896) These nights in irons! I do not even speak of the physical suffering, but what moral ignominy, and without any explanation, without knowing why or for what cause! What an atrocious nightmare is this in which I have lived for nearly two years! (8 September) Put in irons when I am already watched like a wild beast night and day by a guard armed with rifle and revolver! No, the truth should be told. This is not a security precaution. This is a measure of hatred and torture, ordered from Paris by those who, not being able to strike a family, strike an innocent man, because neither he nor his family will accept submissively the most frightful judicial error that has ever been made. (9 September) I am disinclined to read any further. I have seen what the chafing of leg irons can do to a prisoner's flesh: cut it to the bone. In the insect-infested heat of the tropics, the torment must be unendurable. For a moment my pen hovers over the file. But in the end I simply mark it "Return to the Colonial Ministry" and sign the circulation slip without comment.

Later that day I attend a meeting in Gonse's office to settle last-minute security details for the Tsar's visit. Sombre-faced men from the Interior and Foreign Ministries, the Srete and the elysee Palace-men full of the grand self-importance of those who handle such issues-sit around the table and discuss the minutiae of the Imperial itinerary.

The Russian flotilla will be escorted into Cherbourg harbour on Monday at 1 p.m. by twelve ironclads. The President of the Republic will meet the Tsar and Tsarina. There will be a dinner for seventy in the a.r.s.enal at 6:30, General Boisdeffre to be seated at the Tsar's table. On Tuesday morning the Russian Imperial train will arrive in Versailles at 8:50 a.m. The Imperial party will transfer to the President's train, which will arrive at the Ranelagh railway station at 10 a.m. It will take one and a half hours for the procession to cover the ten-kilometre route into Paris: 80,000 soldiers will be deployed for protection. All suspected terrorists have either been detained or turned away from Paris. After luncheon at the Russian Emba.s.sy, the Tsar and Tsarina will visit the Russian Orthodox church in the rue Daru. At 6:30 there will be a state banquet for two hundred and seventy at the elysee, and at 8:30 fireworks in the Trocadero followed by a gala performance at the Opera. On Wednesday ...

My mind keeps wandering eight thousand miles to the shackled figure on Devil's Island.

When the meeting is finished and everyone is filing out, Gonse asks me to stay for a moment. He could not be friendlier. "I've been thinking, my dear Picquart. When all this Russian fuss is over, I want you to undertake a special mission to the eastern garrison towns."

"To do what, General?"

"Inspect and report on security procedures. Recommend improvements. Important work."

"How long will I be away from Paris?"

"Oh, just a few days. Perhaps a week or two."

"But who will run the section?"

"I'll take it over myself." He laughs and claps my shoulder. "If you'll trust me with the responsibility!"

On Sunday, I see Pauline at the Gasts': the first time I have set eyes on her in weeks. She wears another dress she knows I like, plain yellow with white lace cuffs and collar. Philippe is with her and so are their two little girls, Germaine and Marianne. Usually I can cope perfectly well seeing the family all together, but on this day it is agony. The weather is cold and wet. We are confined indoors. So there is no escaping the sight of her immersed in her other life-her real life.

After a couple of hours I can't keep up the pretence any longer. I go out on to the veranda at the back of the house to smoke a cigar. The rain is coming down cold and hard and mixed with hail like a northern European monsoon, stripping the few remaining leaves from the trees. The hailstones bounce off the saturated lawn. I think of Dreyfus's descriptions of the incessant tropical downpours.

There is a soft chafing of silk behind me, a scent of perfume, and then Pauline is at my side. She doesn't look at me but stands gazing out across the gloomy garden. I have my cigar in my right hand, my left hangs loosely. The back of her right hand barely brushes against it. It feels as if only the hairs are touching. To anyone coming up behind us we are just two old friends watching the storm together. But her proximity is almost overwhelming. Neither of us speaks. And then the door to the pa.s.sage bangs open and Monnier's voice booms out: "Let's hope it's not like this next week for Their Imperial Majesties!"

Pauline casually moves her hand up to her forehead to brush away a stray hair. "Are you very much involved in it, Georges?"

"Not much."

"He's being modest, as usual," cuts in Monnier. "I know the part you fellows have played to make the whole thing secure."

Pauline says, "Will you actually have an opportunity to meet the Tsar?"

"I'm afraid you have to be at least a general for that."

Monnier says, "But surely you could watch the parade, couldn't you, Picquart?"

I puff hard on my cigar, wis.h.i.+ng he would go away. "I could, if I could be bothered. The Minister of War has allocated places for my officers and their wives at the Bourbon Palace."

"And you're not going!" cries Pauline, pretending to punch my arm. "You miserable republican!"

"I don't have a wife."

"That's no problem," says Monnier. "You can borrow mine."

And so on Tuesday morning, Pauline and I edge along the steps of the Bourbon Palace to our allotted places, whereupon I discover that every officer of the Statistical Section has accepted the minister's invitation and has brought his wife-or in Gribelin's case his mother. They make no attempt to hide their curiosity when we appear and I realise, too late, how we must look in their eyes-the bachelor chief with his married mistress on his arm. I introduce Pauline very formally, emphasising her social position as the wife of my good friend Monsieur Monnier of the quai d'Orsay. That only makes it sound more suspicious. And although Henry bows briefly and Lauth nods and clicks his heels, I notice that Berthe Henry, the innkeeper's daughter, with her parvenu's sn.o.bbery, is reluctant even to take Pauline's hand, while Madame Lauth, her mouth tightly crimped in disapproval, actually turns away.

Not that Pauline seems to care. We have a perfect view, looking straight down the bridge, across the Seine, half a kilometre to the obelisk in the place de la Concorde. The weather is sunny but windy. The vast tricolours hanging off the buildings-the red, white and blue stripes vertical for France, horizontal for Russia-snap and billow against their moorings. The crowds on the bridge are ten or twelve deep and have been waiting since dawn. It is reported to be the same all across the city. According to the Prefecture of Police, one and a half million spectators are lining the route.

From the place de la Concorde comes the faint roar of thousands of voices cheering, and then gradually at first but increasing in volume, as in a symphony, an underlying percussion of horses' hooves on cobbles. A s.h.i.+mmering line of light appears spread across the wide thoroughfare, and then more lines behind it, which gradually resolve into helmets and breastplates glinting in the bright sun-wave after wave of lancers and cuira.s.siers, bobbing up and down on their horses, banners streaming, twelve abreast, riding across the bridge. On and on they come, heading straight for us at a stiff trot, until it seems they will mount the steps and charge right through us. But then abruptly at the last moment they sweep round to our right, down the boulevard Saint-Germain. Behind them come the native cavalry-the Cha.s.seurs d'Afrique, the Algerian Saphis, the Arab caids and chiefs, their horses shying at the racket of the crowd-and then after these is the procession of open state carriages-the President, the Russian amba.s.sador, the leaders of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, and all the other prominent figures of the Republic, including General Billot. There is a particularly loud cheer for Boisdeffre in his plumed helmet, which he doffs from side to side: the gossip is that after this he could be Foreign Minister.

There is a gap, and then the Russian state coach appears, surrounded by a mounted bodyguard. Pauline gasps and clutches my arm.

After all the talk of alliances and armies, it is the smallness of the Imperial couple that makes the most impression on me. Tsar Nicholas II might be mistaken for a frightened fair-headed boy wearing a false beard and his father's uniform. He salutes mechanically every few seconds, touching the edge of his astrakhan cap in rapid gestures-more nervous tic than acknowledgement of applause. Sitting by his side the Tsarina Alexandra appears even younger, a girl who has raided the dressing-up box. She wears a swansdown boa and clutches a white parasol in one hand and an immense bouquet in the other. She bows rapidly to right and left. I am close enough to see her clenched smile. They both look apprehensive. Their carriage swings sharply rightwards and they sway gently over to one side with the motion then disappear-sucked out of sight into a funnel of noise.

Still holding my arm, Pauline turns to speak to me. I can't quite hear her voice above the tumult. "What?" She pulls me closer, her lips so close I can feel her breath in my ear, and as I strain to listen, I see Henry, Lauth and Gribelin all staring at us.

Afterwards I follow the trio back to the office along the rue de l'Universite. They are perhaps fifty metres ahead of me. The street is empty. Most people, including our womenfolk, have decided to stay where they are in order to catch a glimpse of the Imperial couple driving back across the bridge after lunch to the Russian Orthodox church. Something about the way Henry is gesturing with his hand and the other two are nodding tells me they are talking about me. I can't resist quickening my step until I am right behind them. "Gentlemen!" I say loudly. "I'm glad to see you're not neglecting your duties!"

I had expected guilty laughter, even embarra.s.sment. But the three faces that turn to meet mine are surly and defiant. I have offended their bourgeois sensitivities even more than I realised. We complete the journey to the Statistical Section in silence and I keep to my office for the rest of the day.

The sun sets over Paris shortly after seven. By eight it is too gloomy to read. I don't switch on my lamp.

The timbers of the old building shrink and creak as the day cools into evening. The birds in the minister's garden fall silent. The shadows achieve a solid geometry. I sit at my desk, waiting. If ever there was a time for the ghosts of Voltaire and Montesquieu to materialise, this is it. At eight-thirty when I open my door I half expect to see a periwig and velvet coat floating down the corridor. But the ancient house seems deserted. Everyone has gone off to watch the fireworks in the Trocadero, even Capiaux. The front door will be locked. I have the place to myself.

From my drawer I take the leather roll of lock-picking tools that Desvernine left behind months earlier. As I climb the stairs I am aware of the ludicrousness of my situation: the chief of the secret intelligence section obliged to break into the archives of his own department. But I have considered the problem rationally from every angle and I can see no better solution. At the very least, it is worth a try.

I kneel in the pa.s.sage outside Gribelin's door. My first discovery is that lock-picking is easier than it looks. Once I have the hang of which instrument to use I am able to find the notch in the underside of the bolt. All I have to do next is press. Then it is a matter of maintaining the pressure with the left hand while with the right I insert the pick and manipulate it to raise the tumblers. One rises, then a second, and finally the third; the racking stump slides forwards; there is a well-oiled click and the door opens.

I turn on the electric light. It would take me hours to pick all the locks in Gribelin's archive. But I remember he keeps his keys in the bottom left-hand drawer of his desk. After ten minutes of patient trial and error, it yields to my pick. I open the drawer. The keys are there.

Suddenly there is a bang that makes my heart jump. I glance out of the window. Searchlights on top of the Eiffel Tower a kilometre away are s.h.i.+ning across the Seine to the place de la Concorde. The beams are surrounded by bursting stars which pulse and flash in silence and then a second or two later come the explosions, loud enough to vibrate the gla.s.s panes in their ancient mouldings. I glance at my watch. Nine o'clock. They are running half an hour late. The fireworks are scheduled to last thirty minutes.

I take Gribelin's bunch of keys and start trying to open the nearest filing cabinet.

Once I have worked out which key fits which lock, I open all the drawers. My first priority is to collect every sc.r.a.p of Agent Auguste material I can find.

The glued-together doc.u.ments are already beginning to yellow with age. They rustle like dried leaves as I sort them into piles: letters and telegrams from Hauptmann Dame in Berlin, signed with his nom de guerre, "Dufour"; letters to Schwartzkoppen from the German amba.s.sador, Count Mnster, and to Panizzardi from the Italian amba.s.sador, Signor Ressmann, and to the military attache of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Colonel Schneider. There is an envelope full of cinders dated November 1890. There are letters to Schwartzkoppen from the Italian naval attache, Rosselini, and the British military attache, Colonel Talbot. Here are the forty or fifty love letters from Hermance de Weede-My dear adored friend ... My Maxi ...-and perhaps half that many from Panizzardi: My dear little one ... My big cat ... My dear big b.u.g.g.e.r ...

There was a time when I would have felt uncomfortable-grubby, even-handling such intimate material; no longer.

Mixed in with all this is a cipher telegram from Panizzardi to the General Staff in Rome, dispatched at three o'clock on the morning of Friday, 2 November 1894: Commando Stato Maggiore Roma 913 44 7836 527 3 88 706 6458 71 18 0288 5715 3716 7567 7943 2107 0018 7606 4891 6165.

Panizzardi The decoded text is clipped to it, written out by General Gonse: Captain Dreyfus has been arrested. The Ministry of War has evidence of his dealings with Germany. We have taken all necessary precautions.

I copy it down in my notebook. Beyond the window, the Eiffel Tower is a cascade of tumbling light. There is one last final thunderous explosion and slowly it fades into darkness. I hear a faint roar of applause. The display is over. I estimate it would take someone roughly thirty minutes to escape from the crowds in the Trocadero gardens and get back to the section.

I return my attention to the glued-together doc.u.ments.

Much of the material is incomplete or pointless, its sense tantalisingly out of reach. It suddenly strikes me as madness to try to read so much meaning into such detritus: that we are little better than the haruspices of the ancient world who decided public policy by scrutinising animal livers. My eyes feel gritty. I have been stuck in my office without food since noon. Perhaps that explains why, when I do come to the crucial doc.u.ment, I miss it at first, and move on to the next. But it nags at my mind, and then I go back and look at it again.

It is a short note, in thin black ink, on squared white paper, torn into twenty pieces, a few of which are missing. The writer is offering to sell Schwartzkoppen "the secret of smokeless powder." It is signed your devoted Dubois and dated 27 October 1894-two weeks after Dreyfus's arrest.

I delve a little further into the file. Two days later, Dubois writes to the German attache again: I can procure for you a cartridge from the Lebel rifle that will enable you to a.n.a.lyse the secret of the smokeless powder. Schwartzkoppen does not seem to have done anything about it. Why should he? The letter looks cranky and I guess he could go into almost any bar in any garrison town in France and pick up a Lebel cartridge for the price of a beer.

It is the name of the signatory that interests me. Dubois? I am sure I have just read that name. I go back to the pile of letters from Panizzardi to Schwartzkoppen. My beautiful little girl ... My little green dog ... Dear Top b.u.g.g.e.r ... Your devoted b.u.g.g.e.r 2nd cla.s.s ... And here it is: in a note of 1893, the Italian writes to Schwartzkoppen: I have seen M. Dubois.

Attached to the letter is a cross-reference to a file. It takes me several minutes to work out Gribelin's system and track it down. In a folder I find a brief report addressed to Colonel Sandherr by Major Henry dated April 1894 regarding the possible ident.i.ty of the agent referred to as "D" who has provided the Germans and Italians with "twelve master plans of Nice." Henry's conclusion is that he is one Jacques Dubois, a printer who works for a factory that handles Ministry of War contracts: it is he who has probably also provided the Germans with large-scale drawings of the fortifications at Toul, Reims, Langres, Neufchteau and the rest. When he sets the printing machine for a run, it is a simple matter for him to print off extra copies for his own use. I interviewed him yesterday, relates Henry, and found him to be a miserable fellow, a criminal fantasist with limited intelligence and no access to cla.s.sified material. The plans he has handed over are publicly available. Recommendation: no further action necessary.

So there it is. "D" is not Dreyfus; he is Dubois.

You order me to shoot a man and I'll shoot him ...

I have made a careful note of where every doc.u.ment and folder originated and now I start the laborious process of putting each one back in its proper place. It takes me perhaps ten minutes to return it all exactly to where it was, to lock up the filing cabinets and wipe down the table surfaces. By the time I finish it is just after ten. I replace Gribelin's keys in his desk drawer, kneel, and set about the tricky business of locking it again. I am conscious of the minutes pa.s.sing as I try to manipulate the two thin metal tools. My hands are clumsy with tiredness and slippery with sweat. For some reason it seems much harder to close a lock than open one, but at last I manage it. I turn off the lights.

My only remaining task is to relock the door to the archive. I am still on my knees in the corridor fiddling with the tumblers when I think I hear the front door slam downstairs. I pause, straining to hear. I can't pick out any suspicious noises. I must be imagining things. I resume my frustrating efforts. But then comes the definite creak of a footstep on the first-floor landing and someone begins to mount the stairs to the archive. I am so close to s.h.i.+fting the final tumbler I am reluctant to abandon the attempt. Only when I hear a much louder creak do I realise I am out of time. I dart across the pa.s.sage, try the nearest door-locked-and then the next one-open-and slip inside.

I listen to the slow, deliberate tread of someone approaching along the corridor. Through the gap between the door and the jamb I see Gribelin come into view. My G.o.d, is there anything in this wretched man's life apart from work? He stops outside the entrance to the archive and takes out his key. He inserts it in the lock and tries to turn it. I can't see his face, but I see his shoulders stiffen. What is this? He tries the handle and opens the door cautiously. He doesn't go in but stands on the threshold, listening. Then he throws the door wide open, turns on the light and moves inside. I can hear him checking his desk drawers. A moment later he returns to the corridor and glances up and down it. He ought to be an absurd little figure-a small dark-suited troll. But somehow he isn't. There is a malevolence about him as he stands there, alert and suspicious-he is a danger to me, this man.

Finally-satisfied presumably that he must have made a mistake in locking up-he goes back into the archive and closes the door. I wait another ten minutes. Then I take off my shoes and creep past his lair in my stockinged feet.

On my walk back to my apartment I stop in the middle of the bridge and drop the roll of lock-picking tools into the Seine.

-- Over the next few days the Tsar tours Notre-Dame, names a new bridge after his father, banquets in Versailles.

While he goes about his business, I go about mine.

I walk over the road to see Colonel Foucault, who has come back from the Berlin emba.s.sy to witness the Imperial visit. We exchange a few pleasantries and then I ask him, "Did you ever hear anything from Richard Cuers after that meeting we arranged in Basel?"

"Yes, he came and complained about it bitterly. I gather you fellows decided to give him some rough treatment. Who on earth did you send?"