An Officer and a Spy (51 page)

As we leave, I pass Henry standing with a group of General Staff officers. He is in the middle of telling a joke. I say to him coldly, “My witnesses will be calling on yours in the next few days to make arrangements for our duel; be ready to respond,” and I am pleased to see that this has the effect, at least briefly, of knocking the smile off his porcine face.

Three days later, on Saturday, 26 February, the commandant of Mont-Valérien calls me to his office and leaves me standing at attention while he informs me that I have been found guilty of “grave
misconduct” by a panel of senior officers and that I am dismissed from the army forthwith. I will not receive the full pension of a retired colonel but only that of a major: thirty francs per week. He is further authorised to tell me that if I make any comments in public again regarding my period of service on the General Staff, the army will take “the severest possible action” against me.

“Do you have anything to say?”

“No, Colonel.”

“Dismissed!”

At dusk, carrying my suitcase, I am escorted to the gate and left on the cobbled forecourt to make my own way home. I have known no other life except the army since I was eighteen years old. But all that is behind me now, and it is as plain Monsieur Picquart that I walk down the hill to the railway station to catch the train back into Paris.

The next evening I occupy the familiar corner table in the café of the gare Saint-Lazare. It is a Sunday, a quiet time, a lonely place. I am one of only a handful of customers. I have taken precautions getting here—diving into churches, leaving by side doors, doubling back on myself, dodging down alleys—with the result that I am fairly sure no one has followed me. I read my paper, smoke a cigarette and manage to make my beer last until a quarter to eight, by which time it is obvious Desvernine is not coming. I am disappointed but not surprised: given the change in my circumstances since we last met, one can hardly blame him.

I walk outside to catch an omnibus home. The lower deck is crowded. I climb up to the top, where the chill through the open sides is enough to deter my fellow passengers. I sit about halfway down the central bench, my chin on my chest and my hands in my pockets, looking out at the darkened upper storeys of the shops. I have not been there a minute when I am joined by a man in a heavy overcoat and muffler. He leaves a space between us.

He says, “Good evening, Colonel.”

I turn in surprise. “Monsieur Desvernine.”

He continues to stare straight ahead. “You were followed from your apartment.”

“I thought I’d lost them.”

“You lost two of them. The third is sitting downstairs. Fortunately, he works for me. I don’t think there’s a fourth, but even so, I suggest we keep our conversation brief.”

“Yes, of course. It was good of you to come at all.”

“What is it you want?”

“I need to speak to Lemercier-Picard.”

“Why?”

“There’s been a lot of forgery in the Dreyfus case: I suspect he may have had a hand at least in some of it.”

“Oh.” Desvernine sounds pained. “Oh, that won’t be easy. Can you be more specific?”

“Yes, I’m thinking in particular of the document mentioned in the Zola trial the other day, the so-called absolute proof that General Boisdeffre vouched for. If it’s what I think it is, it consists of about five or six lines of writing. That’s a lot for an amateur to forge, and there’s plenty of original material to compare it with. So I suspect they must have brought in a professional.”

“ ‘They’ being who in particular, Colonel—if you don’t mind my asking?”

“The Statistical Section. Colonel Henry.”

“Henry? He’s acting chief!” Now he looks at me.

“I’m sure I can get access to money, if that’s what your man wants.”

“It will be what he wants: I can tell you that now—and a lot of it. When do you need to see him?”

“As soon as possible.”

Desvernine huddles down in his coat, thinking it over. I can’t see his face. Eventually he says, “Leave it with me, Colonel.” He stands. “I’ll get off here.”

“I’m not a colonel anymore, Monsieur Desvernine. There is no need to call me that. And you aren’t obliged to help me. It’s a risk for you.”

“You forget how much time I spent investigating Esterhazy, Colonel—I know that bastard inside out. It sickens me to see him walking free. I’ll help you, if only because of him.”

For my duel against Henry I need two witnesses to make the arrangements and ensure fair play. I travel out to Ville-d’Avray to ask Edmond Gast to be one of them. We sit on his terrace after lunch with a blanket across our knees, smoking cigars. He says, “Well, if
you’re dead set on it, then of course I should be honoured. But I beg you to reconsider.”

“I’ve issued the challenge in public, Ed. I can’t possibly withdraw. Besides, I don’t want to.”

“What weapons will you choose?”

“Swords.”

“Come on, Georges—you haven’t fenced for years!”

“Neither has he, by the look of him. In any case, I have a cool head and a little physical agility.”

“But surely you’re a better shot than you are a swordsman? And with pistols there’s a healthy convention of deliberately missing.”

“Yes, except that if we use pistols and he wins the draw and chooses to go first, he may not try to miss. It would certainly solve all their problems if he put a bullet through my heart. No, that’s too much of a risk.”

“And who will be your other witness?”

“I wondered if you’d ask your friend Senator Ranc.”

“Why Ranc?”

I puff on my cigar before I reply. “When I was in Tunisia, I made a study of the marquis de Morès. He killed a Jewish officer in a duel by using a heavier sword than was allowed by regulations—pierced him through his armpit and severed his spinal cord. I think it would be good life insurance for me to have a senator on hand. It might deter Henry from trying any similar tricks.”

Edmond looks at me in alarm. “Georges, I’m sorry, but really this is madness. Never mind yourself—you owe it to the cause of freeing Dreyfus not to put yourself in harm’s way.”

“He called me a liar in open court. My honour demands a duel.”

“Is it
your
honour you’re trying to avenge, or Pauline’s?”

I do not reply.

The following evening, on my behalf, Edmond and Ranc call at Henry’s apartment in the avenue Duquesne, directly opposite the École Militaire, to issue the formal challenge. Afterwards Edmond says, “He was plainly at home—we could see his boots in the passage,
and I could hear his little boy crying ‘Papa,’ and then a man’s voice trying to hush the lad. But he sent his wife out to talk to us. She took the letter and said he would respond to it tomorrow. I get the feeling he’s anxious to avoid a fight.”

Wednesday passes without any reply from Henry. At about eight o’clock in the evening there is a knock at the door and I get up to answer it, assuming it will be his witnesses bringing me his answer, but instead standing on the landing is Desvernine. He comes in briefly without taking off his hat or coat.

“Everything is fixed,” he says. “Our man is staying at a lodging house, the hôtel de la Manche, in the rue de Sèvres. He’s using one of his aliases—Koberty Dutrieux. Do you have a weapon, Colonel?”

I open my jacket to show him my shoulder holster. Since my service revolver was taken from me, I have bought myself a British gun, a Webley.

“Good,” he says. “Then we should go.”

“Now?”

“He doesn’t stay long in one place.”

“And we won’t be followed?”

“No, I swapped shifts and made sure I’m in charge of your surveillance this evening. As far as the Sûreté are concerned, Colonel, you will be tucked up in your apartment all night.”

We take a taxi across the river and I pay off the driver just south of the École Militaire. The remainder of the journey we complete on foot. The section of the rue de Sèvres in which the hotel stands is narrow and poorly lit; the Manche is easy to miss. It occupies a narrow, tumbledown house, hemmed in between a butcher’s shop and a bar: the sort of place where commercial travellers might lay their heads for a night and assignations can no doubt be paid for by the hour. Desvernine goes in first; I follow. The concierge is not at his desk. Through a curtain of beads I can see people eating supper in the little dining room. There is no elevator. The narrow stairs creak with every tread. We come out onto the third floor and Desvernine knocks at a bedroom door. No answer. He tries the handle: locked. He puts his finger to his lips and we stand listening. A muffled conversation comes from the room next door.

Desvernine fishes in his pocket and produces a set of lock-picking tools, identical to the one he lent me. He kneels and goes to work. I unbutton my coat and jacket and feel the reassuring pressure of the Webley against my breast. After a minute the lock clicks. Desvernine stands, calmly folds away his tools and returns them to his pocket. He looks at me as he quietly opens the door. The room is dark. He feels for the light switch and turns it on.

My first instinct is that it is a large ebony doll—a tailor’s mannequin perhaps, made of black plaster, folded into a sitting position and propped up just beneath the window. Without turning round or saying anything, Desvernine holds up his left hand, warning me not to move; in the other he has a gun. He crosses the floor to the window in three or four strides, looks down at the object and whispers, “Close the door.”

Once I am in the room, I can just about tell it is Lemercier-Picard, or whatever his name was. His face is purplish-black and has fallen forward onto his chest. His eyes are open, his tongue protrudes, there is dried mucus all down the front of his shirt. Buried deep in the folds of his neck is a thin cord which runs up behind him, tight as a harp string, and is tied to the window casement. Now that I am closer I can see that his feet and the lower part of his legs, which are bare and bruised, are in contact with the floor but his hips are suspended just above it. His arms hang at his sides, fists tightly balled.

Desvernine reaches out his hand to the swollen neck and feels for a pulse, then squats on his haunches and quickly frisks the corpse.

I say, “When did you last speak to him?”

“This morning. He was standing at this very window, as alive as you are now.”

“Was he depressed? Suicidal?”

“No, just frightened.”

“How long has he been dead?”

“He’s cold, but no stiffness yet—two hours; perhaps three.”

He straightens and goes over to the bed. A suitcase lies open. He turns it upside down and shakes out the contents, then sifts through the pathetic little heap of belongings, extracting pens, nibs, pencils, bottles of ink. A tweed jacket hangs on the back of a chair. He tugs
a note case from the inside pocket and flips through it, then checks the side pockets: coins in one, the room key in the other.

I watch him. “No note?”

“No paper of any sort. Curious for a forger, wouldn’t you say?” He puts everything back in the suitcase. Then he lifts the mattress and pats underneath it, opens the drawer of the nightstand, looks in the shabby cupboard, rolls back the square of matting. Finally he stands defeated with his hands on his hips. “It’s all been gone through thoroughly. They haven’t left a scrap. You should go now, Colonel. The last thing you need is to be caught in a room with a corpse—especially this one.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll lock the door and leave everything as we found it. Maybe wait around outside for an hour or two, see who shows up.” He gazes at the corpse. “This’ll be booked straight through as a suicide—just you wait—and you won’t find a policeman or a crook in Paris who’ll say anything different, the poor bastard.” He passes his hand tenderly across the contorted face and closes the staring eyes.

The next day two colonels turn up at my apartment: Parès and Boissonnet, both noted sportsmen and old drinking companions of Henry’s. They inform me grandly that Colonel Henry refuses to fight me on the grounds that I, as a cashiered officer, am a “disreputable person,” with no honour to lose: therefore there can have been no insult.

Parès gives me a look of cold contempt. “He suggests,
Monsieur
Picquart, that you seek satisfaction from Major Esterhazy instead. He understands that Major Esterhazy is anxious to challenge you to a duel.”

“No doubt he is. But you may inform Colonel Henry—and Major Esterhazy too—that I have no intention of stepping down into the gutter to fight a traitor and embezzler. Colonel Henry accused me in public of being a liar, at a time when I was still a serving officer. That is when I issued the challenge, and in those circumstances he is bound by honour to give me satisfaction. If he refuses to do so, the
world will note the fact and draw the obvious conclusion: that he is both a slanderer and a coward. Good day, gentlemen.”

After I close the door on them I realise I am trembling, whether from nerves or fury I cannot tell.

Later that night Edmond comes round with the news that Henry has decided to accept my challenge after all. The duel will take place the day after tomorrow, at ten-thirty in the morning, at the indoor riding school of the École Militaire. The weapons will be swords. Edmond says, “Henry will automatically have an army surgeon in attendance. We need to nominate a doctor of our own to accompany us. Is there anyone you would prefer?”