An Officer and a Spy

Duty done, I ran out into the rue Saint-Dominique and managed, by the skin of my teeth, to hail a taxi. By eight thirty I was slipping into my seat beside Blanche de Comminges at the Salle d’Harcourt. I looked around for Debussy but couldn’t see him. The conductor tapped his baton, the flautist raised his instrument to his lips, and those first few exquisite, plangent bars — which some say are the birth of modern music — washed Dreyfus clean from my mind.

¹ Charles du Paty de Clam (1895–1948), subsequently Head of Jewish Affairs in Vichy France.

12

I wait deliberately until the day is almost over before I go upstairs to see Gribelin. He looks startled to see me standing in his doorway for the second time in two days. He gets creakily to his feet. ‘Colonel?’

‘Good evening, Gribelin. I want to see the secret file on Dreyfus, if you please.’

Is it my imagination or do I detect, as with Lauth, a pinprick of alarm in his eyes? He says, ‘I don’t have that particular file, Colonel, I’m afraid.’

‘In that case I believe Major Henry must have it.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because when I took over the section, Colonel Sandherr told me that if I ever had any questions about the Dreyfus file, I should consult Henry. I took that to mean that Henry was the one who had retained custody of it.’

‘Well, obviously, if Colonel Sandherr said that. .’ Gribelin’s voice trails off. Then he adds hopefully, ‘I wonder, Colonel — given that Henry is on leave — I wonder, wouldn’t it be better to wait until he returns. .?’

‘Absolutely not. He won’t be back for several weeks and I need it right away.’ I pause, waiting for him to move. ‘Come along, Monsieur Gribelin.’ I hold out my arm to him. ‘I’m sure you have the keys to his office.’

I sense he would like to lie. But that would mean disobeying a direct order from a superior. And that is an act of rebellion of which Gribelin, unlike Henry, is congenitally incapable. He says, ‘Well, I suppose we can check. .’ He unlocks the bottom right-hand drawer of his desk and takes out his bunch of keys. Together we go downstairs.

Henry’s office overlooks the rue de l’Université. The smell of the drains seems stronger in the unaired room. A large fly knocks itself dementedly against the grimy window. There is the usual War Ministry-issue desk, chair, safe, filing cabinet and thin square of brown carpet. The only personal touches are a carved wooden tobacco jar in the shape of a dog’s head on the desk, an elaborately hideous German regimental beer stein on the windowsill, and a photograph of Henry with some comrades in the uniform of the 2nd Zouaves in Hanoi: he was there at the same time as I was, although if we met I’ve forgotten it. Gribelin crouches to unlock the safe. He searches through the files. When he finds what he wants, he locks it again. As he straightens, his knees make a sound like snapping twigs. ‘Here you are, Colonel.’

It appears to be the same manila envelope with the letter ‘D’ written in the corner that I handed to the president of the court martial twenty months earlier, except that the seal has been broken. I weigh it in my hand. I remember thinking how light it was when du Paty gave it to me originally; it feels the same. ‘This is all there is?’

‘That’s all. If you let me know when you’ve finished with it, I can lock it up again.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it from now on.’

Back in my office I lay the envelope on my desk and contemplate it for a moment. Odd that such a dreary-looking object should assume such significance. Do I really want to do this? Once one has read a thing, there is no un-reading it. There could be consequences — legal and ethical — that I can’t even guess at.

I lift the flap and pull out the contents. There are five documents.

I start with a handwritten deposition from Henry, providing the context for his theatrical testimony at the court martial:

Gentlemen,

In June 1893, the Statistical Section came into possession of a note written by the German military attaché Colonel von Schwartzkoppen. This note showed that he was in receipt, via an unknown informant, of the plans of the fortifications at Toul, Reims, Langres and Neufchâteau.

In January 1894, another intercepted note revealed that he had paid this informant an advance of six hundred francs for the plans of Albertville, Briançon, Mézières and the new embankments on both sides of the Moselle and the Meurthe.