An Officer and a Spy (31 page)

“Quite the polemicist,” I say, flicking through it. “And now he’s working with Mathieu Dreyfus?”

“No doubt of it.”

“So he’s another who must know about the secret file?”

Guénée hesitates. “Yes, presumably.”

I add Lazare’s name to the list; that makes twenty-one; this is becoming hopeless. “Do we know when this pamphlet is likely to appear?”

“We haven’t picked up anything from our sources in the French printing trade. They may be planning to publish abroad. We don’t know. They’ve become much more professional.”

“What a mess!” I toss the photograph of Lazare back across the desk towards Guénée. “This secret file is going to become a real embarrassment. You were involved in its compilation, isn’t that right?”

I don’t ask the question in an interrogatory way, but entirely casually. To my surprise Guénée frowns and shakes his head, as if making a great effort at memory. “Ah no, Colonel, not I.”

The stupid lie puts me on immediate alert. “No? But surely you provided Major Henry with a statement from the Spanish military attaché? It was a central part of the case against Dreyfus.”

“Did I?” Suddenly he looks less sure.

“Well, did you or didn’t you? Major Henry says you did.”

“Then I must have.”

“I have it here, in fact: what you said Val Carlos told you.” I take the secret file from my desk drawer, open it and extract Henry’s deposition. Guénée’s eyes widen in amazement at the sight of it.
“ ‘Be sure to tell Major Henry on my behalf (and he may repeat it to the colonel)’
—that’s Colonel Sandherr, I presume—
‘that there is reason to intensify surveillance at the Ministry of War, since it emerges from my last conversation with the German attachés that they have an officer on the General Staff who is keeping them admirably well informed. Find him, Guénée: if I knew his name, I would tell you!’ ”

“Yes, that sounds about right.”

“And he actually said this to you roughly six months before Dreyfus was arrested?”

“Yes, Colonel—in March.”

Something in his demeanour tells me he is still lying. I look again at the statement. It doesn’t sound much like a Spanish marquis to me; it reads more like a policeman making up evidence.

“Wait a moment,” I say. “Let me be clear about this. If I go to see the marquis de Val Carlos and say to him, ‘My dear Marquis, between you and I, is it true that you said these words to Monsieur Guénée that helped send Captain Dreyfus to Devil’s Island?’ he will reply, ‘My dear Major Picquart, that’s absolutely correct’?”

Panic flickers in Guénée’s face. “Well I don’t know about that, Colonel. Remember, he said that to me in confidence. Given all this stuff in the press about Dreyfus now—how can I swear to what he’d say today?”

I stare at him.
My God
, I think.
What in the name of heaven were they up to?
If Val Carlos didn’t say it to Guénée, it stands to reason he didn’t say it to Henry either. Because it wasn’t just Guénée whom the Spaniard was supposed to have warned about a German spy on the General Staff: it was Henry. It was their alleged conversation that provided the basis for Henry’s theatrical testimony at the court-martial:
The traitor is that man!

A long pause is ended by a knock at the door. Lauth thrusts his blond head into the room. I wonder how long he has been listening. “General Boisdeffre would like you to go over and see him straight away, Colonel.”

“Thank you. Tell his office I’m on my way.” Lauth withdraws. I say to Guénée, “We’ll talk about this some other time.”

“Yes, Colonel.” He leaves, looking—or so it seems to me—mightily relieved to have escaped without any further interrogation.

Boisdeffre is seated behind his grand desk, his elegant hands palm-down on the surface; a copy of
L’Éclair
lies between them. He says, “I gather you saw the minister yesterday.” His tone is one of a calmness that is only being maintained with great difficulty.

“Yes, I see him most days, General.”

Boisdeffre has left me standing to attention on the carpet, the first time this has happened.

“And you showed him the secret file on Dreyfus?”

“I felt he needed to be aware of the facts—”

“I will
not
have it!” He lifts one of his hands and brings it down hard on his desk. “I told you to speak to General Gonse and to no one else! Why do you think you can disobey my orders?”

“I’m sorry, General, I wasn’t aware your order applied to the minister. If you remember, last month you gave me permission to brief General Billot about the Esterhazy investigation.”

“About Esterhazy, yes! But not about Dreyfus! I thought it was made absolutely clear to you by General Gonse that you were to keep the two matters separate?”

I continue to stare straight ahead, at a particularly hideous oil painting by Delacroix hanging just above the Chief of Staff’s scanty white hair. Only occasionally do I risk a brief glance at the general himself. He seems to be under tremendous stress. The Virginia creeper–like mottling on his cheeks has ripened from crimson to purple.

“Frankly, I don’t believe it’s possible to keep the two matters separate, General.”

“That may be your opinion, Colonel, but you have no business trying to create dissension in the high command.” He picks up the newspaper and waves it at me. “And where did this come from?”

“The Sûreté believe the story may have originated with the Dreyfus family.”

“And did it?”

“It’s impossible to say. A considerable number of people have knowledge of the file.” I pull out my list. “I count twenty-one so far.”

“Let me see that.” Boisdeffre holds out his hand. He runs his eye down the column of names. “So you are saying that one of these must be behind the leak?”

“I can’t see where else it could have come from.”

“I notice you haven’t put your own name on it.”

“I know that I’m not a suspect.”

“You might know that, but I don’t. A casual observer might find it a curious coincidence that just as you begin agitating for a reopening of the Dreyfus case, revelations about it start to appear in the press.”

There is a loud crack from somewhere beyond the tall windows. It sounds as though a tree has blown down. Rain slashes against the glass. Boisdeffre, still staring at me, doesn’t seem to notice.

“I deny that insinuation absolutely, General. These stories do nothing to help my investigation, as you have just made clear. They only make it more difficult.”

“That’s one view. Another is that you are seeking every possible
means to reopen the Dreyfus case, whether by going to the minister behind my back, or fomenting an agitation in the press. Did you know that a member of the Chamber of Deputies has announced he is seeking to question the government about the whole affair?”

“I give you my word I had nothing to do with this.”

The general bestows on me a look of deep suspicion. “Let us hope this is the end of these disclosures. It’s bad enough for the press to report the existence of the file. If they were to describe its actual contents, it would become much more serious. I’ll keep this list, if I may.”

“Of course.” I bow my head in a way that I hope indicates contrition, even though I don’t feel it.

“Very well, Colonel.” He flicks his fingers, as if dismissing a waiter at the Jockey Club. “You may go.”

I step out into the rue Saint-Dominique to find a hurricane blowing: a freak system that moves across Paris between noon and three. I have to clutch the railings to prevent myself being knocked off my feet; by the time I reach our building I am drenched to the skin. The wind takes roofs off the Opéra-Comique and the Préfecture of Police. It blows out the windows on one side of the Palace of Justice. Riverboats are torn from their moorings and dashed against the quays. Some of the laundrywomen on the banks of the Seine are blown into the water and have to be rescued. The stalls in the flower market in the place Saint-Sulpice are entirely whisked away. Walking home that evening I pass through streets that lie ankle-deep in shredded vegetation and broken tiles. The havoc is terrible, but privately I am relieved: the press will have other things to talk about for the next few days apart from Captain Dreyfus.

The respite is brief. On Monday,
L’Éclair
publishes a second and longer article. Its headline couldn’t be worse from my point of view: “The Traitor: The Guilt of Dreyfus Demonstrated by the Dossier.”

Feeling sick, I carry it over to my desk. The story is grossly inaccurate but it includes some telling details: that the secret dossier was passed to the judges in the room where they were deliberating; that the dossier contained confidential letters between the German and Italian military attachés; and that one of these letters referred specifically to “that animal Dreyfus”—not exactly “that lowlife D” but close enough. “It was this irrefutable proof,” concludes the article, “that determined the verdict of the judges.”

I drum my fingers. Who is revealing all this detail? Guénée says it is the Dreyfus family. I’m not so sure. Who stands to gain from the leaks? From where I sit, the most obvious beneficiaries are those who want to create a siege mentality within the Ministry of War and curtail my inquiry into Esterhazy. It is the phrase “that animal Dreyfus” that strikes a chord in my memory. Isn’t that what du Paty always claimed about Dreyfus: that he had “animal urges”?

I take a pair of scissors from my desk and carefully cut out the article. Then I write a letter to Gonse, who is still on leave:
Recently I took the liberty of telling you that in my opinion we were going to have a major problem on our hands if we did not take the initiative. The attached article in
L’Éclair
unfortunately confirms me in my opinion. I feel obliged to repeat that in my view it is imperative to act without delay. If we wait any longer, we will be overwhelmed, locked into an inextricable position, and unable either to defend ourselves or ascertain the real truth
.

I hesitate before I post it. I am putting my opinion formally on the record. Gonse is a consummate soldier of the filing cabinet, if not the battlefield. He will recognise this for what it is: an escalation of hostilities.

I send it anyway.

The next day he summons me. He has cut short his vacation. He is back in his office. I can sense his panic at a range of two hundred metres.

The corridors of the ministry are quieter than usual. Billot and Boisdeffre are both away in the southwest, accompanying President Fauré as he inspects the autumn manoeuvres. Most General Staff officers with career ambitions—and that is nearly all of them—have made sure they are in the field. As I walk down those empty, echoing passages I am reminded of the atmosphere at the time of the traitor hunt two years ago.

“I got your letter,” says Gonse, waving it at me as I settle down in a chair in front of his desk, “and don’t think I’m not sympathetic to your point of view. If I could put back the clock to the start of this whole damned business, believe me, I would. Cigarette?” He pushes a box towards me. I hold up my hand to decline. He takes one, lights it. His tone could not be friendlier. “Let’s face it, dear Picquart: the investigation into Dreyfus was not handled as professionally as it should have been. Sandherr was a sick man, and du Paty—well, we all know what Armand is like, despite his many fine qualities. But we have to proceed from where we are, and really we can’t go back over it all again. It would reopen too many wounds. You’ve seen the press these past few days, the potential hysteria there is about Dreyfus. It would tear the country apart. We just have to shut it down. You must appreciate that, surely?”

There is a look of such entreaty on his face—such yearning for me to agree—that for a few fleeting moments I am almost tempted to give in. He is not a bad man, just a weak one. He wants a quiet life, pottering back and forth between the ministry and his garden.

“I do see that, General. But these leaks to the press are a warning to us in another way. We have to recognise that an inquiry into the Dreyfus case is already going on as we speak. Unfortunately, it’s
organised by the Dreyfus family and their supporters. The process is slipping out of our control. The point I was trying to make in my letter is a basic military principle: that we should be the ones taking the initiative, while there’s still time.”

“And we do that—how? By surrendering? By giving them what they want?”

“No, by abandoning a position that is frankly becoming indefensible and establishing a new line on higher ground.”

“Yes—as I say—by giving them what they want! Anyway, I don’t agree with you. Our present position is highly defensible, just as long as we all stand together. It shelters behind an iron wall of law. We simply say: ‘Seven judges considered all the evidence. They reached a unanimous verdict. The case is closed.’ ”

I shake my head. “No, I’m sorry, General, but that line won’t hold. The judges only reached a unanimous verdict because of the secret file. And the evidence in the secret file is, well …” I stop, unsure how to proceed. I am remembering Guénée’s expression when I started to question him about his supposed conversation with Val Carlos.