An Officer and a Spy

8

We decide that if we are going to install one listening-tube, we might as well put in a second, in the bedroom, where Schwartzkoppen and Panizzardi are more likely to discuss their most intimate matters. Desvernine has to smuggle in the necessary equipment: the tubes, a saw, cutters, a hammer and chisel, sacks for the rubble. The work of breaking into the chimney flues can only be undertaken when the ground-floor apartment is empty, usually at night. Ducasse is also worried about the couple who live upstairs, who have already started to ask him suspicious questions about the noises they can hear, and what he does all day. So the work must be undertaken with agonising slowness: a ringing blow from the hammer, and then a pause; a blow from the hammer, another pause. Loosening a single brick can take all night. There is a constant risk of dislodging a fall of soot into the Germans’ fireplaces. It is also filthy work. Nerves become strained. Desvernine reports that Ducasse is starting to drink heavily: another occupational hazard of the spying business.

There is also the problem of gaining access to the Germans’ premises. Desvernine first suggests that we simply break in. He comes to my office with a small leather tool roll, which he opens out on my desk. It contains a set of steel lock-picking instruments, designed for the Sûreté by a master locksmith. They look like a surgeon’s scalpels. He explains what they do: double-ended picks for various types of locks—trunk, wafer, bit key and disc tumbler; rakes for loosening tumblers that are stuck … The very sight of them, and the thought of one of our agents getting caught while burglarising a property rented by the Germans, makes me feel queasy.

“But it’s very simple, Colonel,” he insists. “Look. Show me anything here that’s locked.”

“Very well.” I indicate the top right-hand drawer of my desk.

Desvernine kneels, inspects the lock and selects a couple of his tools. “You need two, do you see? You insert your tension tool to put pressure on the racking stump, like this … Then you insert the pick and you feel for the first tumbler and raise that to the unlocking position …” He grimaces with concentration. “Then you do the same for any other tumblers … And then …” He smiles and opens the drawer. “It’s done!”

“Leave them with me,” I say. “Let me think about it.”

After he’s gone, I lock the tools in my desk. From time to time I take them out and look at them. No, I decide: it’s too risky, too criminal. Instead I come up with a plan of my own, one that has the merit of being perfectly legal. I put it to Desvernine a day or two later.

“All we need is access to their fireplaces, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And this is exactly the time of year when fires are no longer needed and chimneys are swept, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t you simply disguise a couple of your men as chimney sweeps, and have them offer to clean the Germans’ flues?”

In the middle of May, Desvernine comes to see me in my office wearing a rare smile. It turns out that a friend of his wife’s brother knows a chimney sweep, a patriot, who happened to be in the same regiment of dragoons when Desvernine was a sergeant. It was the pleasure of this man, whose father was killed in ’70, to do something to help the Republic, no questions asked. That lunchtime, says Desvernine, when the Germans were drinking before sitting down to eat, he knocked on the door of the ground-floor apartment, announced himself as the sweep, and was admitted without a question being asked. Under the very noses of those stiff-necked Prussians, he went back and forth to the first floor, lowering the tubes while pretending to clean the flues, and then secured both in place. At the end, when he left his card, one of the Germans actually gave him a tip.

“And can you hear much?” I ask.

“Plenty, especially if whoever is speaking is sitting or standing near to the fireplace. Well, let’s put it this way—you can get the sense of a conversation.”

“That’s good work. Well done.”

“And there’s something else, Colonel.”

From his pocket, Desvernine produces an envelope and a magnifying glass. Inside the envelope is a photograph, ten centimetres by thirteen. I take it over to the window, for the light.

Desvernine says, “It was exposed yesterday afternoon, just after three o’clock.”

Without magnification the figure of a man leaving through the embassy gates is difficult to distinguish, and even with it one has to concentrate hard: his forward momentum has slightly blurred the image; the shadow cast behind him by the bright May sun is sharper. However, a prolonged examination leaves little doubt. On this occasion the distinctive round eyes and the extravagant ram’s-horn moustache prove to be the traitor’s own betrayers: it is Esterhazy.

On the Friday of that week Bachir comes creaking and gasping up the stairs to my office with a personal telegram addressed to me care of the ministry. It has taken a while to reach me, and even before he hands it over I have a premonition that it concerns my mother, which can only mean bad news. In some private corner of our minds, from the moment we first become conscious of mortality, are we not all waiting secretly for our parents’ deaths? Or is this constant state of dread unique to those of us who have already been bereaved in childhood? In any case, the telegram is from Anna, my sister, and announces that our mother has fallen and broken her hip. To reset the joint, the doctors have decided to anaesthetise her, to spare her the pain and distress. “She is bewildered and hysterical. If possible, please come at once.”

I walk along the corridor and tell Henry. He offers friendly sympathy: “I know exactly how you feel, Colonel. Don’t worry about things here. I’ll make sure the office runs efficiently in your absence.” His warmth is clearly genuine, and I feel an unexpected pang of affection for the old brute. I say I shall let him know how long I’ll be away. He wishes me luck.

By the time I reach the hospital in Versailles, the operation has been done. Anna is sitting at Maman’s bedside with her husband, Jules Gay. Both are more than ten years older than I am: good family people, capable, with two grown-up children and two still teenaged. Jules is a professor at a Paris lycée, a booming, red-faced Lyon man, devoutly Catholic and conservative, who, by all the laws of logic, I should dislike and yet who, by some strange alchemy, for over a quarter of a century I have always loved. Even as they rise to greet me, I can tell from their faces things are not good.

“How is she?”

In reply, Anna moves aside so I can see the bed. My mother is shrunken, tiny, grey. Her face is turned away from me. The lower side of her body is encased in plaster, which seems weirdly bigger and more substantial than she is. She looks like a sickly fledgling, halfway out of its egg.

“When will she come round from the chloroform?”

“She has come round, Georges.”

“What?” At first I don’t understand. I put my hand gently under her cheek and turn her head towards me. “Maman?” Her eyes are indeed open, but watery and vacant; they peer into mine without a sign of recognition. It is not uncommon, the doctor tells me, for patients in her condition, if given anaesthetic, to leave part of their minds behind in sleep. I start to shout at him—“Why didn’t you tell us that before?”—but Anna calms me: what alternative did we have?

The following day we take her home. On Sunday morning the bells of Saint-Louis ring for Mass, but if she hears them she no longer knows what they mean. She even seems to have forgotten how to eat.

We hire a nurse to look after her during the day, and from now on every evening I leave the office early and return to Versailles to sleep in the spare bedroom. I am not alone in this vigil, of course. Anna and Jules travel out from Paris most days. My cousin Edmond Gast and his wife, Jeanne, drive over from Ville-d’Avray. And one night I arrive back later than usual to find Pauline by the bed reading aloud a novel to her unresponsive audience. When she puts down the book and rises to embrace me, I hold on to her.

I say, “This time I don’t think I’m ever going to let you go.”

“Georges,” she whispers primly, “your mother …”

We glance down at her. She is lying on her back with her eyes closed. The muscles of her face have relaxed; her expression is impassive, almost regal in its indifference; she is beyond all convention now, I think, all stupid narrow morality …

I say, “She can’t see us, and if she could, she’d be delighted. You know she could never understand why we weren’t married.”

“She is not alone in that …”

She says it wryly. She has never reproached me. We grew up together in Alsace. We survived the siege together. We clung to each other when we were both in exile, when everything else had gone. I was her first lover. I should have proposed to her before I left to join my regiment in Algeria. But I always thought there would be plenty of time for that later. As it was, when I finished my foreign soldiering and came home from Indochina, she had given up on me, and had already produced one daughter and was pregnant with a second. I didn’t even mind very much, especially as we soon resumed our love affair where we had left it. “We have something better than a future together,” I used to tell her. “We have the past.” I’m not sure I entirely believe it anymore.

“You realise,” I say, taking her hand, “that we’ve been together, in one way or another, for more than twenty years? It practically is a marriage.”

“Oh Georges,” she says wearily, “I can assure you this is nothing like a marriage.”

The front door opens, we hear my sister’s voice, and immediately she pulls away her hand.

My mother lingers on in this state for a month. It is astonishing how long the body can last without nourishment. Occasionally, as I jolt back and forth on the crowded Versailles train, I remember Henry’s remark: There aren’t many easy ways out of this life … Her path, though, seems to be a smooth and gentle descent into oblivion.

Henry is solicitous throughout. One day he asks me if I might have a moment to step down to the waiting room to meet his wife, who has something for me. I have never before considered what sort of a woman Henry might be married to; I assume she will be a female version of him—large, red-faced, loud, coarse. Instead I find a tall and slender young woman, barely half his age, with thick dark hair, a clear complexion and lively brown eyes. He introduces her as Berthe. Like Henry, she has the accent of the Marne. In one hand she proffers a bunch of flowers, which she has brought for me to pass on to my mother; with the other she is holding on to a boy of two or three, dressed in a sailor suit. It seems strange to see a child in this gloomy building. Henry says, “This is my boy, Joseph.” “Hello, Joseph.” I pick him up and whirl him around for a bit while his parents look on smiling (we bachelors learn to be good with children). Then I set him down and thank Madame Henry for the flowers. She lowers her eyes flirtatiously. As I walk back upstairs, I reflect that Henry may be a more complex character than I appreciated. His pride in his pretty young wife is understandable, and I can see why he wants to show her off; but in Madame Henry I sense ambition, and I wonder what that does to him.

My mother receives the last rites on the afternoon of Friday, 12 June 1896. It is a hot summer’s day outside, full of the noise of the street; the sunlight, fierce beyond the drawn curtains, beats down on the glass regardless as if demanding entrance. I watch as the priest anoints her ears, eyes, nostrils, lips, hands and feet while he intones his Latin spells. His handshake when he leaves is moistly repulsive. She dies in my arms that night, and when I kiss her goodbye, I taste the residue of his oil.

The event has long been anticipated; the arrangements are all in place; but the shock is somehow as great as if she had dropped dead out of the blue. After the requiem Mass in Saint-Louis’s and the interment in a corner of the cemetery, we walk back to her apartment for the wake. It is an uncomfortable occasion. The weather is too warm; the tiny rooms are too crowded and full of tensions. My sister-in-law, Hélène, widow of my brother, Paul, has turned up: for some reason she has always disliked me, and we take pains to avoid each other—no easy feat in that cramped space—so much so that in the end I find myself in my mother’s old bedroom, its mattress stripped, talking to, of all people, Pauline’s husband.

Monnier is a decent enough sort, devoted in his way to his wife and daughters. If he were a brute, our deception would be easier. Instead he is simply dull. Professionally, his role in the Foreign Ministry, as far as I can make out, seems to be that of the senior bureaucrat brought in to pick holes in the bright ideas of younger colleagues. Socially, he has the bore’s trick of seeking one’s opinion on something—in this case he asks my view of the impending state visit of the Russian tsar—and listening to it with barely disguised impatience, until he is at last able to interrupt and launch into his own prepared monologue. It turns out he has been appointed to the Franco-Russian planning commission for the trip—apparently His Imperial Highness’s official train, at four hundred and fifty tons, is two hundred tons heavier than our railways can cope with, and he has had to speak firmly to the ambassador on the matter …

Over his shoulder I can see Pauline talking to Louis Leblois. Her gaze meets mine. Monnier glances behind him, irritated not to have my complete attention, then resumes his speech.

“As I was saying, it’s not so much a question of protocol as of basic good manners …”

I try to concentrate on his diplomatic platitudes; it seems the least I can do.

Throughout this time, Operation Benefactor has continued running like an untended machine, churning out intelligence, almost all of it useless: stacks of blurry photographs and lists of visitors to the rue de Lille (unidentified male, mid-fifties, walks with slight limp, ex-military?) and fragmentary transcripts of conversations (I saw him at the manoeuvres in Karlsruhe and he offered [unintelligible] but I told him we already had [unintelligible] from our source in Paris). By July I have spent thousands from the secret fund bequeathed to me by Sandherr, risked a serious diplomatic crisis, concealed a potential traitor from my superiors, and I have nothing of tangible value to show for it except that one picture of Esterhazy leaving the embassy.

And then, quite unexpectedly, all of this changes, and with it my life and career and everything else.

It is a broiling summer’s evening. I am out of Paris for once, accompanying General Boisdeffre on a staff tour in the Burgundy region. Our advance scouts have found us a good restaurant beside a canal in Venarey-les-Laumes, and we dine out of doors, to the sound of bullfrogs and cicadas, washed by the scent of the citronella candles that are driving away the mosquitoes. I am seated a little way down the table from Boisdeffre, beside his orderly officer, Major Gabriel Pauffin de Saint Morel. Moths dart in and out of the gleam of the lanterns; stars have just started to appear above the hillside vineyards to the east. What could be more agreeable? Pauffin is an exquisitely handsome, vaguely dim aristocrat, exactly my age, give or take a couple of weeks, who I have known since we were cadets at Saint-Cyr. His profile in the candlelight is flushed with the effects of the wine and the heat, and he is in the act of spooning some soft and pungent Époisses de Bourgogne onto his plate when suddenly quite out of the blue he says, “Oh, by the way, I’m sorry, Picquart, I clean forgot—the chief wants you to have a word with Colonel Foucault when we get back to Paris.”

“Yes, of course I will. Do you know what it’s about?” Foucault is our military attaché in Berlin.

Still concentrating on his cheese, without lowering his voice or even turning to look at me, Pauffin replies, “Oh, I believe he’s picked up some story in Berlin about the Germans having another spy in the army. He sent the chief a letter about it.”

“What?” I set down my glass with enough force to spill some wine. “My God, when was this exactly?”

The tone of my voice causes him to glance in my direction. “A few days ago. Sorry, Georges. Slipped my mind.”

There is nothing I can do that evening, but the following morning I seek out Boisdeffre over breakfast in the chateau where we are staying and ask permission to return at once to Paris to interview Colonel Foucault.

Boisdeffre takes a corner of his napkin and wipes a speck of egg from his moustache. “Why the urgency? You think there might be something in it?”

“Perhaps. I’d like to check.”

Boisdeffre seems surprised by my keenness to depart, even mildly offended: an invitation to join him on one of these leisurely tours of inspection to our finer gastronomic regions is regarded as a mark of favour. “As you wish,” he says, dismissing me with a flourish of his napkin. “Keep me informed.”

By early afternoon I am back in the Ministry of War, sitting in Foucault’s office, listening to his report. Our military attaché in Berlin is a competent, straightforward professional, hardened by years of dealing with liars and fantasists. His hair is iron-grey, thick, cut short; it fits him like a helmet. He says, “I was wondering when General Boisdeffre would get around to responding to my letter.” Wearily he retrieves a file from his drawer and opens it. “You remember our agent in the Tiergarten, Richard Cuers?”

The Tiergarten is the district in Berlin where German army intelligence has its headquarters.

“Yes, of course. He was working for German intelligence in Paris until we turned him. Sandherr briefed me about him when I took over.”

“Well, he’s been dismissed.”

“That’s a pity. When did this happen?”

“Three weeks ago. Did you ever meet Cuers?”

I shake my head.

“He’s a nervy fellow at the best of times, but when he came to tell me what had happened, he was in a truly terrible state. He’s scared the German General Staff are going to arrest him for treason. He thinks his friend Lajoux in Brussels ratted him out for money, which may well be true. In any case, he wants to make sure we’ll protect him. Otherwise, he says, he’ll have no choice except to go to Hauptmann Dame—that’s his section chief—and sing his heart out about us.”

“Does he know much?”

“A little.”

“So he’s trying to blackmail us?”

“I don’t think so. Not really. He just wants reassurance.”

“Then let’s give it to him. Reassurance doesn’t cost a sou—he can have all the reassurance he wants. Tell him he can be certain nothing will leak about him from our end.”

“I told him he had nothing to worry about. But it’s rather more complicated than that.” Foucault sighs and rubs his forehead: I realise he is under some strain. “He wants to hear it man to man—a personal meeting with someone from the section itself.”

“But that’s just an unnecessary risk for both of us. What if he’s followed?”

“I made exactly that point. He was quite insistent. That was when I began to realise there was more to it than he was telling me. So I fetched out a bottle of absinthe—he likes absinthe because he says it reminds him of a French girl he was once in love with—and gradually I got him to tell me the whole story.”

“Which is what?”

“He’s scared and wants to meet someone from the section because he says the Germans have a spy in the French army we don’t know about.”

Here it is. I try to put on a show of nonchalance. “Does this spy have a name?”

“No. The best he can offer are some details that he’s picked up here and there.” Foucault checks the file. “This agent is said to be at the level of a battalion commander. He’s between forty and fifty years old. He’s been passing information to Schwartzkoppen for roughly two years, mostly about artillery, and most of it not of high quality—he recently handed over details of a gunnery course at Châlons, for example. The intelligence has gone right up the chain of command to von Schlieffen^* himself, who apparently doesn’t like the smell of it—thinks the source could be a hoaxer, or an agent provocateur—and has told Schwartzkoppen to have nothing more to do with him.” He looks up from the file. “I put all this in my letter to General Boisdeffre. Does it ring any bells for you?”

I pretend to think. “Not immediately.” In truth, it is all I can do not to leap from my chair. “Is that all there is?”

Foucault laughs. “Do you mean: was there a second bottle?” He closes the file and returns it to his drawer. “Yes, there was. In fact I ended up having to clean him up and put him to bed. See how I suffer for my country!”

I join in the laughter. “I’ll arrange a medal.”

Foucault’s smile dies away. “The truth is, Colonel Picquart, our friend Cuers is a neurotic, and like most neurotics he is a fantasist. So let’s be clear: when I pass on to you what he tells me, I’m not endorsing it, you understand? There are some agents I might vouch for; Cuers isn’t one of them. That’s why I haven’t put the rest of his story in writing.”

“I know entirely what you mean.” I wonder what is coming next. “I shall treat everything you tell me in an appropriate spirit of scepticism.”

“Good.” Foucault pauses. He frowns at his desk and then looks at me—a very straight, level gaze, soldier to soldier. “Here it is then: Cuers says German intelligence is still very angry about the Dreyfus business.”

“You mean about the fact that we caught him?”

“No. About the fact that they’d never even heard of him—or so Cuers says.”

I hold the colonel’s gaze. His eyes are dark, and unwavering. “Then presumably,” I reply carefully, “they’re still covering up for him.”

“What? Even in private?” Foucault winces and shakes his head. “No. I accept in public one has to go on denying these things for ever—that’s the diplomatic game. But why carry on denying it behind closed doors to one another, year after year?”

“Perhaps no one in Berlin wants to admit to running Dreyfus—given how badly it ended?”

“We both know that’s not how these things work, though, don’t we? According to Cuers, the Kaiser personally demanded the truth from Schlieffen: ‘Did the Imperial army ever employ this Jew, yes or no?’ Schlieffen in turn asked the question of Dame, who swore he knew nothing of any Jewish spy. On Schlieffen’s orders, Dame recalled Schwartzkoppen to Berlin for consultation—Cuers saw him in the Tiergarten with his own eyes—and Schwartzkoppen insisted that the first time he ever heard the name Dreyfus was when he opened his newspaper after the spy had been arrested. Cuers told me Dame has since made discreet inquiries of every other friendly European intelligence agency, to see if any of them had ever employed Dreyfus. Again: nothing.”

“And they feel angry about this?”

“Yes, of course—you know how touchy our ponderous Prussian neighbours are about being taken for fools. They think the whole thing is some sophisticated French trick designed to make them look bad in the eyes of the world.”

“But that’s absurd!”

“No doubt. But it’s what they believe—or so Cuers says.”

Without realising it, I have been gripping my armrests like a man in a dentist’s chair. I make a conscious effort to relax. I cross my legs, adjust the crease of my trousers, affect a coolness I don’t feel, and which I’m sure doesn’t fool Foucault—a professional connoisseur of dissembling—for a second.

“It seems to me,” I say after a long pause, “that we should approach this business one step at a time, and the first step should be to take Cuers up on his suggestion of a meeting and debrief him thoroughly.”

“I agree with that.”

“And in the meantime we should keep it to ourselves.”

“I agree with that even more.”

“How soon can you return to Berlin?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Might I suggest that you contact Cuers and tell him we want to talk, as early as possible?”

“I’ll do it the moment I get back.”

“The question is: where can we meet him? It can’t really be on German soil.”

“Absolutely not—too risky.” Foucault thinks it over. “What about Switzerland?”

“That would be safe enough. Basel perhaps? It’s full of visitors at this time of year. He could pretend to be on a walking holiday; we could meet him there.”

“I’ll put it to him and let you know. You’ll pay his expenses? Sorry to bring it up, but I know it’ll be the first question he asks.”

I smile. “Ah, the people with whom we work! Of course we will.”

I stand and salute. Foucault does the same. Then we shake hands. No further words are exchanged; none is needed—we both understand the potentially staggering import of what we have just discussed.

So I have found one spy, at least. On that score any vestige of doubt is gone. Major Charles Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy—“Count Esterhazy,” as he likes to style himself—walks the streets of Rouen and Paris, gambles, drinks champagne in nightclubs, fucks most nights with Four-Fingered Marguerite in an apartment near Montmartre, and funds his squalid lifestyle by trying to sell his country’s secrets to a foreign power with all the dignity of a door-to-door pedlar.

Yes, Esterhazy is a simple matter: an open-and-shut case, in point of fact if not in law. But Dreyfus? My God, that is a much bigger question—that is a nightmare, actually—and as I walk back from the ministry to the Statistical Section, my mind begins to race with the implications, so much so that I have to make another deliberate effort to calm down. I issue orders to myself: Take it one step at a time, Picquart! Approach the matter dispassionately, Picquart! Avoid a rush to judgement! Confide in nobody until there is hard evidence!

Still, when I reach the front door, I cast a wistful look down the rue de l’Université towards the apartment of Louis Leblois—what wouldn’t I give for a chance to talk it over with him …

When I get upstairs to my office, I find a message waiting for me from Desvernine asking if he can see me tonight: same time, same place. Thanks to my travels with Boisdeffre, it is ten days since I last met him, and by the time I arrive at the café of the gare Saint-Lazare, a quarter of an hour late, he is already sitting waiting with a glass of beer set up for me and, unprecedentedly, one for himself.

“This is a first,” I say, as we touch glasses. “Do we have something to celebrate?”

“Perhaps.” Desvernine wipes the foam from his moustache, reaches into his inside pocket, places a photograph upside down on the table and slides it across to me. I pick it up and turn it over. No magnifying glass is needed this time. It is as sharp as a studio portrait: Esterhazy in a grey bowler coming out of the German embassy gates. I can even make out a half-smile on his face. He must have paused to enjoy the warmth of the sun.

“So he’s been back,” I say. “That’s significant.”

“No, Colonel, what’s significant is what’s in his hand.”

I look at the image again. “His hand is empty.”

Desvernine slides over another facedown photograph and sits back to enjoy his beer while he watches my reaction. This picture shows a figure in three-quarters profile, in blurry motion, turning from the street to enter the embassy. In his right hand he carries something white: an envelope, perhaps, or a package. I lay the photographs side by side. It is the grey bowler that gives him away: that and the height and the build.

“How long between the two?”

“Twelve minutes.”

“He’s careless.”

“Careless? He’s shameless is what he is. You want to be careful of this one, Colonel. I’ve come across his type before.” He taps the face with an oily thumbnail. “There’s nothing he isn’t capable of.”

Two nights later, I receive a cipher telegram from Colonel Foucault in Berlin: Cuers is willing to meet our representatives in Basel on Thursday, 6 August.

My first instinct is to go myself. I even consult the railway timetable. But then I pause to weigh the risks. Basel straddles the German border: I have visited it a couple of times on my way to the Wagner festival in Bayreuth. The population speaks German; the buildings are Gothic, half-timbered, shuttered: it feels exactly like a city in the Reich; I shall be surrounded by unfriendly faces. And I have to assume that after more than a year in post, there is a chance that Berlin has now discovered my identity as Sandherr’s successor. I am not afraid for my personal safety, but I can’t afford to be self-indulgent: there is too much at stake. If I were to be spotted, the consequences for the rendezvous could be disastrous.

Accordingly, on the morning of Monday, 3 August, three days before the scheduled meeting, I invite Major Henry and Captain Lauth to come into my office. They arrive together, as usual. I sit at the head of the conference table, Henry to my left and Lauth to my right. I have the Benefactor file in front of me. Henry looks at it suspiciously.

“Gentlemen,” I begin, opening the file, “I feel this is an appropriate time for me to brief you on an intelligence operation that has been running now for several months and which has finally started to bear fruit.”

I take them through it stage by stage, starting with a recap of what they already know. I produce the petit bleu addressed to Esterhazy and the draft letter from Schwartzkoppen complaining that he is not getting value for money from “the house of R.” I remind them of my visit to Rouen and of my conversation with my friend Major Curé. “After that,” I say, “I took the decision to commission a thorough investigation.” I read out Desvernine’s reports on Esterhazy: his debts, his gambling, his four-fingered mistress and the rest. They listen in a silence that becomes increasingly tense. When I describe how we have taken the apartment opposite the German Embassy, I notice how they briefly glance at each other in surprise. Then, with a conjuror’s flourish, I pull out the photographs of Esterhazy’s two visits.

Henry puts on his spectacles and scrutinises them for a while. “Does General Gonse know about this?”

“He knows about the surveillance operation, yes.”

“But not specifically about Esterhazy?”

“Not yet. I wanted to wait until we had enough evidence to pick him up.”

“I understand.” Henry passes the photographs over to Lauth and removes his spectacles. He sucks on one of the stems in the manner of a scholar appraising a colleague’s research. “This is very interesting, Colonel, although of course we’re not there yet. It’s impressive circumstantial detail, no question of that. But show all this to Esterhazy and he’ll simply say he was dropping off a visa application. And we can’t prove otherwise.”

“I agree. But in the last few days there’s been a significant new development, which is why I want to widen the scope of the operation.” I pause. This is the decisive moment. A few words from me now and everything will be different. Henry taps his glasses against his teeth, waiting. “We have a source with information from inside German military intelligence. He says they’ve been running an agent in France for several years. This agent holds the rank of major. He’s between forty and fifty years old. He’s been on the gunnery course at Châlons.”

Lauth says, “That must be Esterhazy!”

“I don’t think there can be much doubt. Our source is offering to meet us in Basel on Thursday to tell us all he knows.”

Henry emits a low whistle of surprise, and for the first time I see in his expression a trace of something like respect. It makes me want to go even further, to confide everything (“And you know what else? He also claims Dreyfus was never a German spy!”), but I don’t want to venture that far yet. Take it one step at a time, Picquart!

Henry says, “Who is this source?”

“Richard Cuers—do you remember, the Germans used him here a few years ago? He’s been employed by Hauptmann Dame in Berlin. Now Dame has let him go, probably because he suspects him, and he’s come running to us.”

“Do we trust him?”

“Do we trust anybody? But I don’t see why he should lie, do you? At the very least, we should find out what he has to say.” I turn to Lauth. “Captain, I’d like you to take charge of his debriefing.”

“Of course, Colonel.” Lauth bows quickly in his Teutonic manner. If he were standing up, I think, he would click his heels.

Henry says, “Why my good friend Lauth here, might I ask?”

“Because he’s known about the case since we retrieved the petit bleu, but above all because he speaks German.”

Henry objects: “If Cuers worked here, he must have decent French. Why don’t I go? I’m more experienced in dealing with these rogues.”

“Yes, but I think he’ll talk more freely in his native language. Is that all right with you, Lauth?” Lauth’s German is perfect, almost accentless.

“Yes.” He glances at Henry for approval. “Yes, I’m sure I can handle it.”

“Good. You’ll need at least one man as backup, possibly two, just to make sure Cuers comes on his own and this isn’t all a trap. I’m proposing to assign Louis Tomps to the mission. He knows Cuers from Paris days.” Tomps is another of the Sûreté officers, like Guénée and Desvernine, who does work for the section: a competent, reliable fellow who also has the advantage of speaking good German; I’ve used him before. “We’ll discuss the operational details later. Thank you, gentlemen.”

Lauth jumps up. “Thank you, Colonel!”

Henry stays seated for a moment or two, contemplating the table, then pushes back his chair and rises heavily to his feet. He tugs his tunic down over his commodious belly. “Yes, thank you, Colonel.” There is a wistful look in his eyes: I can tell he’s still not reconciled to being excluded from the Basel meeting, but can’t come up with a way to convince me to let him go. “Interesting,” he repeats, “very interesting. I must say, though, if I were you—if you’ll allow me to make a suggestion—I’d tell General Gonse what’s going on. It’s a serious matter—a French officer meeting a German spy on foreign soil to discuss a traitor in our own ranks. You wouldn’t want him finding out from someone else.”

After he’s gone, I wonder if that was a threat. If so, then in the chess game of military bureaucracy, I have the perfect countermove. I walk over to the ministry, climb the stairs to the office of the Chief of the General Staff, and ask for an appointment to see General Boisdeffre.

Queen takes bishop!

Unfortunately, his orderly officer tells me that the general has gone straight from Burgundy to Vichy.

I send Boisdeffre a telegram asking to speak to him urgently.

The following morning—the Tuesday—I receive a weary reply: My dear Colonel Picquart, Is it really as pressing a matter as all that? I am on vacation taking the waters, and then going home to Normandy for my annual leave. What is this about?

I respond in guarded terms that it concerns a matter similar to that of 1894—meaning the Dreyfus affair.

Within an hour I have an answer: Very well, if you insist. My train arrives tomorrow, Wednesday, 5 August, 18:15 hours gare de Lyon. Meet me. Boisdeffre.

Henry does not give up easily, however.

On the same day that I receive Boisdeffre’s summons to see him, I hold a final meeting in my office with Lauth and Tomps to discuss the arrangements for the Basel interview. The plan is straightforward. The two men—plus Inspector Vuillecard, police commissioner in Vassy, whom Tomps has chosen as his assistant—will catch the sleeper train tomorrow night from the gare de l’Est, arriving in Basel at six o’clock on Thursday morning. All three will be armed. In Basel, they will split up. Lauth will go directly to a private room in the Schweizerhof hotel, which is right next to the station, and wait. Tomps will go to the city’s other main railway terminus, the Badischer Bahnhof, on the opposite side of the Rhine, where the German trains arrive. Meanwhile Vuillecard will position himself in Munsterplatz, in front of the cathedral, which is where the initial rendezvous is to take place at nine o’clock. Tomps, who knows Cuers by sight, will watch as Cuers comes through passport control from the Berlin train to make sure he is not being followed, and will then tail him all the way to Munsterplatz, where Vuillecard will be holding a white handkerchief as a signal. Cuers will approach the inspector and say, in French, “Are you Monsieur Lescure?” (Lescure was the name of the doorkeeper in the rue Saint-Dominique for many years), to which Vuillecard will reply, “No, but I am supposed to take you to him,” whereupon Vuillecard will conduct the German agent to his meeting with Lauth in the hotel.

“I want you to extract absolutely every last scrap of information you can out of him,” I order Lauth, “however long it takes. Continue into the following day if necessary.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“The main focus is Esterhazy, but don’t feel you have to confine yourself to him.”

“No, Colonel.”

“Whatever leads come up, however outlandish, follow them.”

“Of course, Colonel.”

At the end of the meeting we shake hands and I wish them luck. Tomps leaves but Lauth lingers. He says, “I want to make a request, Colonel, if I may?”

“Go ahead.”

“I think it would be useful to take Major Henry with me, as backup.”

At first I think he must be suffering from stage fright. “Come now, Captain Lauth! You don’t need any backup! You’re perfectly capable of handling Cuers on your own.”

But Lauth holds his ground. “I really feel the mission would benefit from Major Henry’s experience, Colonel. There are matters he knows about which I don’t. And he’s good with people. They let their guard down with him, whereas I tend to be rather … formal.”

“Has Major Henry asked you to say all this to me? Because I don’t take kindly to officers questioning my authority behind my back.”

“No, Colonel. Certainly not!” Lauth’s pale neck flushes candy pink. “It’s not for me to interfere in matters above my grade. But sometimes I sense that Major Henry needs to be made to feel … valued—if I can put it that way.”

“And by not sending him to Basel I’ve hurt his feelings—is that what you’re trying to say?”

Lauth doesn’t reply. He hangs his head. As well he might, I think, for there is something preposterous about Henry’s desire to insinuate himself, like a nosy concierge, into every aspect of the section’s work. On the other hand, putting aside my irritation—Approach the matter dispassionately, Picquart!—I can see that there are certain potential advantages to me in letting Henry feel that he is an equal partner in the investigation into Esterhazy. The first rule of survival in any bureaucracy is safety in numbers, and I have no desire to turn into a lone voice—on this issue especially. If it does transpire, God forbid, that we have to look again at the Dreyfus case, I will need to have Henry at my side.

I tap my foot in irritation. “Very well,” I say at length. “If you both feel strongly about it, then Major Henry can accompany you to the meeting.”

“Yes, Colonel. Thank you, Colonel.” Lauth is almost pathetic in his gratitude.

I jab my finger at him to emphasise the point. “But the interview with Cuers should be in German, you understand?”

This time Lauth really does click his heels. “It will be.”

^* Field Marshal Count Alfred von Schlieffen (1833–1913), Chief of the Imperial German General Staff.