An Officer and a Spy

‘Ha! Mercier? Really? I suppose I might have guessed he’d be in there somewhere!’ The staring and the moustache-smoothing and the grunting resume. Eventually he gives a long sigh. ‘I don’t know, Picquart. It’s a devil of a problem. You’re going to have to let me think about it. Obviously, there would be consequences if it turned out we had locked up the wrong man for all this time, especially having made such a public spectacle out of doing it — profound consequences, for both the army and the country. I’d have to talk to the Prime Minister. And I can’t do that for at least a week — I’ve got the annual manoeuvres in Rouillac starting on Monday.’

‘I appreciate that, General. But in the meantime do I have your permission to continue my investigation of Esterhazy?’

The massive head nods slowly. ‘I should think so, my boy, yes.’

‘Wherever the investigation leads me?’

Another heavy nod: ‘Yes.’

Filled with renewed energy, that evening I meet Desvernine in our usual rendezvous at the gare Saint-Lazare. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since the middle of August. I am slightly late. He is already sitting waiting for me in a corner seat, reading Le Vélo. He has stopped drinking beer, I notice, and gone back to mineral water. As I slip into the chair opposite him, I nod to his newspaper. ‘I didn’t know you were a cyclist.’

‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Colonel. I’ve had a machine for ten years.’ He folds the paper up small and stuffs it into his pocket. He seems to be in a bad mood.

I say, ‘No notebook today?’

He shrugs his shoulders. ‘There’s nothing to report. Benefactor’s still on leave at his wife’s place in the Ardennes. The embassy’s quiet, half shut up for the summer — no sign of either of our men for weeks. And your friend Monsieur Ducasse has had enough and gone to Brittany for a holiday. I tried to stop him but he said if he stayed in the rue de Lille much longer he’d go crazy. I can’t say I blame him.’

‘You sound frustrated.’

‘Well, Colonel, it’s been five months since I started investigating this bastard — if you’ll excuse me — and I don’t know what else we’re supposed to do. Either we pick him up and sweat him for a bit, see if we can make him admit something, or we suspend the operation: that would be my proposal. Either way, the weather’s turning colder and we ought to pull those speaking-tubes out within a day or two. If the Germans decide to light a fire, we’ll be in trouble.’

‘Well, for once let me show you something,’ I say, and pass the photographs of Esterhazy’s letters face-down across the table. ‘Benefactor is trying to get a position on the General Staff.’

Desvernine looks at the letters and immediately his expression brightens. ‘The bastard!’ he repeats happily, under his breath. ‘He must owe more than we thought.’

I wish I could tell him about the bordereau and Dreyfus and the secret file, but I daren’t, not yet — not until I have official clearance from Billot to broaden the scope of my inquiry.

Desvernine says, ‘What do you propose to do about him, Colonel?’

‘I think we need to become much more active. I’m going to suggest to the minister that he actually agrees to Benefactor’s request and gives him a position on the General Staff, in a department where we can monitor him round the clock. We should let him believe he has access to secret material — something apparently valuable, but which we’ve forged — and then we should follow him and see what he does with it.’

‘That’s good. And I’ll tell you what else we could do, if we’re indulging in a little forgery. Why don’t we send him a fake message from the Germans inviting him to a meeting to discuss the future? If Benefactor turns up, that’s incriminating in itself. But if he turns up carrying secret material, we’ll have caught him red-handed.’

I think this over. ‘Is there a forger we could use?’

‘I’d suggest Lemercier-Picard.’

‘Is he trustworthy?

‘He’s a forger, Colonel. He’s about as trustworthy as a snake. His real name is Moisés Lehmann. But he did a lot of work for the section when Colonel Sandherr was there, and he knows we’ll come looking for him if he tries to pull any tricks. I’ll find out where he is.’

Desvernine leaves looking much happier than he did when I arrived. I stay to finish my drink, then take a taxi home.

The next day it suddenly starts to feel like autumn — a threatening dark grey sky, windy, the first leaves blowing off the trees and chasing down the boulevards. Desvernine is right: we need to get those sound-tubes out of the apartment in the rue de Lille as soon as possible.