An Officer and a Spy

My watcher is there as usual, on the opposite side of the street, leaning against the wooden fence surrounding the building site, smoking a cigarette; no doubt he will have a partner somewhere. This particular fellow I have registered before — scrawny, red-bearded, in a thick brown jacket and flat cap. He has given up even pretending to be anything other than a police agent. He flicks away his cigarette and slouches after me, about twenty paces behind, his hands in his pockets. Like a company commander in a bad mood I decide this sluggard could do with a thorough workout, and I quicken my speed until I am almost running — across the avenue Montaigne and along to the place de la Concorde and over the river to the boulevard Saint-Germain. I glance back. I am sweating despite the December cold, but I am not suffering half as much as my tail is, to judge by the look of him: his face is now as red as his hair.

What I need is a guardian of the peace, and I know exactly where to find one: close to the police commissary of Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin, patrolling on the corner of the boulevard Raspail. ‘Monsieur!’ I call to him, drawing closer. ‘I am a colonel in the French army and this man is following me. I request that you arrest him and take us both to your commanding officer so that I can lay a formal complaint.’

He moves with gratifying alacrity. ‘You mean this gentleman, Colonel?’ He takes the elbow of the breathless agent.

The red-bearded man gasps, ‘Let. . go of me, you. . idiot!’

Seeing what is happening, the second Sûreté agent, this one dressed as a travelling salesman with a cardboard briefcase, breaks cover to cross the street and argue on behalf of his partner. He too is perspiring and frustrated and also makes an insulting remark about the general intelligence of uniformed policemen, at which the guardian of the peace loses his temper and within a minute they are both in custody.

Ten minutes later I am able to leave my name and address with the duty sergeant in the commissary and slip away unescorted.

The rue de Grenelle is only just round the corner. Number 11 is an imposing ancient property. I check along the street to make sure I am unobserved and then ring the bell. Almost at once the front door opens and a maid lets me in. Behind her, Louis waits anxiously in the hallway. He glances past my shoulder. ‘Are you being followed?’

‘Not any more.’ I give the maid my umbrella and hat. From behind a closed door comes a drone of male voices.

Louis helps me off with my coat. ‘Are you really sure you want to do this?’

‘Where are they? Through there?’

I open the door myself. Six middle-aged men in morning coats standing around a blazing fire cease talking and turn to look at me: I am reminded of a group portrait by Fantin-Latour — Homage to Delacroix, perhaps. Louis says, ‘Gentlemen, this is Colonel Picquart.’

There is a moment of silence and then one of the men — bald-headed and with a heavy drooping moustache, whom I recognise as Georges Clemenceau, the left-wing politician and editor of the radical newspaper L’Aurore — starts a round of clapping in which everyone joins. As Louis ushers me into the room, another man, dapper and attractive, calls out cheerfully, ‘Bravo Picquart! Vive Picquart!’ and I recognise him too, from the surveillance photographs that used to cross my desk, as Mathieu Dreyfus. Indeed, as I go round shaking their hands, I find I know all these men by sight or by reputation: the publisher Georges Charpentier, whose house this is; the heavily bearded senator for the Seine, Arthur Ranc, the oldest man in the room; Joseph Reinach, a left-wing Jewish member of the Chamber of Deputies; and of course the pudgy figure in pince-nez to whom I am introduced last, Émile Zola.

A fine lunch is served in the dining room, but I spend too much time talking to eat very much. I tell my fellow guests that I need to say my piece and leave; that every minute we spend together increases the chances that our meeting will be discovered. ‘Monsieur Charpentier may believe his servants are above acting as informants for the Sûreté, but regrettably experience has taught me otherwise.’

‘It has certainly taught me,’ adds Mathieu Dreyfus.

I bow to him. ‘My apologies for that.’