An Officer and a Spy

Over my shoulder I glimpse some of the reporters jumping in taxis to follow us. Our journey is short, barely half a kilometre. We arrive to find a dozen more already lying in wait in the corner of the place Vendôme. They block the huge, worm-eaten old door that leads to the headquarters of the military governor of Paris. Only when Mercier-Milon draws his sword and they hear the scrape of steel do they fall back and let us pass. We enter a chilly vaulted chamber, like the nave of an abandoned church, and climb a staircase lined with plaster statues. In this quasi-religious house I perceive that I have become something beyond a mere dangerous nuisance to my masters: I am a heretic to the faith. We sit in silence in a waiting room for a quarter of an hour until Pellieux’s aide comes to fetch me. As I stand to go, Mercier-Milon’s expression is one of pity mixed with a kind of dread. He says, very quietly, ‘Good luck, Georges.’

I know Pellieux by reputation only as a monarchist and a strict Catholic. I suspect that he despises me on sight. In response to my salute he simply points to a chair where I may sit. He is in his middle fifties, handsome, vain: his dark hair, which matches the blackness of his tunic, is brushed back carefully into a severe widow’s peak; his moustaches are full and splendid. He presides at a table flanked by a major and a captain whom he does not introduce; a uniformed secretary sits at a separate desk to take notes.

Pellieux says, ‘The purpose of this inquiry, Colonel, is to establish the facts regarding your investigation of Major Esterhazy. To that end I have already interviewed Major Esterhazy himself, Monsieur Mathieu Dreyfus, and Senator Auguste Scheurer-Kestner and Maître Louis Leblois. At the end of my inquiry I will recommend to the minister what, if any, disciplinary action needs to be taken. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, General.’ Now I know why they have taken such pains to prevent me speaking to anyone: they have already interviewed Louis and they don’t want me to know how much he has told them.

‘Very well, let us begin at the beginning.’ Pellieux’s voice is cold and precise. ‘When did Major Esterhazy first come to your attention?’

‘When the Statistical Section intercepted a petit bleu addressed to him from the German Embassy.’

‘And this was when?’

‘In the spring of last year.’

‘Be more precise.’

‘I’m not sure of the precise date.’

‘You told General Gonse that it was in “late April”.’

‘Then that is when it must have been.’

‘No, in fact it was in early March.’

I hesitate. ‘Was it?’

‘Come, Colonel. You know perfectly well it was in March. Major Henry was on compassionate leave at the bedside of his dying mother. He remembers the date. He returned to Paris on a flying visit, met Agent Auguste and received a consignment of documents, which he then handed over to you. So why did you falsify the date in your report?’

The aggression of his manner and the detail of his research catch me off guard. All I can remember is that by the time I came to submit my report I had been investigating Esterhazy for nearly six months without Gonse’s knowledge: an act of insubordination which I thought I might make slightly more palatable by pretending it was only four. At the time the lie didn’t seem important — it isn’t important — but suddenly now in this room, under the hostile eye of this Grand Inquisitor, it looks inexplicably suspicious.

Pellieux says sarcastically, ‘Take all the time you need, Colonel.’

After a long pause I reply, ‘I must have been confused about the dates.’

‘“Confused about the dates”?’ Pellieux turns mockingly to his aides. ‘But I thought you were supposed to be a soldier of scientific precision, Colonel — part of the modern-thinking generation that would replace such reactionary old fossils as me!’

‘I’m afraid even scientists occasionally make mistakes, General. But in the end the date is of no significance.’

‘On the contrary, dates are always significant. Treason itself is mostly a question of dates, as the saying has it. First you claim Major Esterhazy only came to your attention in April. Now we have established it was at least March. But there is evidence in your file on Esterhazy indicating it was even earlier.’

He passes the captain a newspaper cutting. The captain dutifully comes round from behind the table and hands it to me. It is an announcement of the death of the marquis de Nettancourt, Esterhazy’s father-in-law, dated 6 January 1896.

‘I’ve never seen this before.’

Pellieux affects astonishment. ‘Well then, where did it come from?’

‘I presume it must have been added to the file after I left.’

‘But you would agree at first glance that this suggests you were taking an interest in Esterhazy two months before the arrival of the petit bleu?’

‘At first glance, yes. I think that may be the reason why someone put it there.’

Pellieux makes a note. ‘Go back to the petit bleu. Describe its arrival.’

‘Major Henry brought it in as part of a delivery late one afternoon.’