‘With respect, General, that is a preposterous allegation.’
‘Is it? Then why did you ask Captain Lauth for his assistance in making the petit bleu look more genuine?’
‘I did not.’
‘You did. You ordered him to have it franked by the postal authorities, so that it would look as if it had actually been delivered – deny it if you dare!’
The lies and accusations are flying at me so fast I am finding it difficult to keep track. I grip the armrests of my chair and reply as calmly as I can, ‘I asked Lauth if he could photograph the petit bleu in such a way that it would appear to be a whole document rather than one that had been torn up – exactly the technique he used earlier with the bordereau. And my motive was the same: to have a version that could be circulated within the ministry without compromising our source. Lauth pointed out, correctly, that the address side had not been franked, therefore anyone looking at it would deduce that it must have been intercepted before it was posted. That was when I mused on the possibility of getting it franked. But it was no more than that and the idea was dropped.’
‘Captain Lauth gives a different version.’
‘Perhaps he does. But why would I go to such lengths to falsely implicate a man I had never even met?’
‘That is for you to tell us.’
‘The notion is absurd. I had no need to forge any evidence. The bordereau alone is proof of Esterhazy’s guilt – and no one can suggest I altered that!’
‘Ah yes, the bordereau,’ says Pellieux, sorting through his papers. ‘Thank you for bringing that up. Did you, either directly or indirectly, pass a facsimile of the bordereau to Le Matin in November last year?’
‘No, General.’
‘Did you, directly or indirectly, pass details of the so-called “secret dossier” to L’Éclair that same September?’
‘I did not.’
‘Have you passed information, directly or indirectly, to Senator Scheurer-Kestner?’
The question is inevitable; so is my answer. ‘Yes, I have, indirectly.’
‘And the intermediary was your lawyer, Maître Leblois?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you knew when you gave this information to Leblois that it would be passed to the senator?’
‘I wanted the facts placed in the hands of a responsible person who could raise the matter confidentially with the government. I never intended the details to reach the press.’
‘Never mind what you intended, Colonel. The fact is, you went behind the backs of your superior officers.’
‘Only when it became clear that I had no alternative – that my superiors would not fully investigate this whole affair.’
‘You showed Maître Leblois various letters sent to you by General Gonse?’
‘Yes.’
‘Just as last year you showed Maître Leblois the secret dossier, the existence of which he then leaked to L’Éclair?’
‘No.’
‘But there is a witness who saw you showing the secret file to Leblois.’
‘I showed him one file only – it was not secret. It related to carrier pigeons, of all things. Major Henry witnessed that.’
‘Colonel Henry,’ Pellieux corrects me. ‘He has just been promoted. And I am not interested in pigeons but in the secret dossier about Dreyfus. You showed it to your lawyer last September, who then revealed it either to the Dreyfus family or to L’Éclair in order to embarrass the army. That is your modus operandi.’
‘I deny that absolutely.’
‘Who is Blanche?’
Once again the sudden switch in his angle of attack catches me off balance. I say slowly, ‘The only Blanche I know is Mademoiselle Blanche de Comminges, the sister of the comte de Comminges.’
‘She is a friend of yours?’
‘Yes.’
‘An intimate friend?’
‘I have known her a long time, if that is what you mean. She has a musical salon attended by a number of officers.’
‘She sent you this telegram in Tunisia: We have proof that the bleu was forged by Georges. Blanche. What are we to make of that?’
‘I received a telegram with that wording. But I am sure it was not from her.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she knows nothing of the secret details of the Dreyfus case nor of my involvement in it.’
‘Even though she has gone around Paris quite openly, I understand, for several years now, telling people of her conviction that Dreyfus is innocent?’
‘She has her opinion. That has nothing to do with me.’
‘This salon of hers – does it include many Jews?’
‘A few perhaps – among the musicians.’
Pellieux makes another note, as if I have just conceded something highly significant. He searches through his file. ‘Here is another coded telegram sent to you in Tunisia: Stop the Demigod. Everything is discovered. Extremely serious matter. Speranza. Who is Speranza?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘And yet this person wrote to you a year ago, shortly after you left the Statistical Section.’
‘No.’
‘Yes, they did. I have the letter here.’ Pellieux gives it to the captain, who once again walks round to hand it to me:
I am leaving the house. Our friends are dismayed. Your unfortunate departure has upset everything. Hasten your return, hurry! As the holiday time is very favourable for the cause, we are counting on you for the 20th. She is ready but cannot and will not act until she has talked to you. Once the Demigod has spoken, we will act.
Speranza
Pellieux stares at me. ‘What do you say to that?’
‘I don’t know what to say. I’ve never seen it before.’
‘No, you wouldn’t have done. It was intercepted by the Statistical Section last December and a decision was taken not to forward it to you, due to the highly suspicious nature of the language. But still your position remains that none of it means anything to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then what do you make of this, which was allowed to be delivered to you after you left Paris but before you went to Tunisia?’
Most honourable sir,
I would never have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes. As of today, the masterpiece is finished: we are to call it Cagliostro Robert Houdin. The comtesse speaks of you all the time and tells me every day that the Demigod asks when it will be possible to see the Good God.
Her devoted servant who kisses your hand.
J
The copy has been written out by Lauth and is stamped ‘Secret’, with a serial number appended by Gribelin. I remember reading the original when I was stuck in some godforsaken garrison town last winter: in my drab quarters it was like opening a bouquet from the boulevard Saint-Germain. I say, ‘It’s from an agent of mine, Germain Ducasse. He’s reporting on the closing-down of an operation I was running against the German Embassy. When he writes “the masterpiece is finished” he means that the apartment we were renting has been cleared out successfully. “Robert Houdin” is the cover name of a police agent, Jean-Alfred Desvernine, who was working for me on the investigation of Esterhazy.’
‘Ah,’ says Pellieux, as if he has caught me out. ‘So “J” is a man?’
‘Yes.’
‘And yet he “kisses your hand”?’
I think how amused Ducasse would be if he could see the general’s expression of disgusted disbelief.
Pellieux says, ‘Don’t smirk, Colonel!’
‘I’m sorry, General. He is an affected young fellow, I admit, and quite silly in some respects. But he did his work well, and is perfectly trustworthy. It’s merely a joke.’
‘And “Cagliostro”?’
‘Another joke.’
‘Pardon me: I’m a simple family man, Colonel. I don’t understand these “jokes”.’
‘Cagliostro was an Italian occultist – Strauss wrote an operetta about him, Cagliostro in Vienna – and a man less likely to be susceptible
to the occult than Desvernine you could not hope to find. Therein lies the irony. It’s all very harmless, General, I assure you. But obviously suspicious minds in the Statistical Section have used it to build a case against me. I do hope that at some point your inquiry will investigate these other forgeries which are obviously designed to blacken my name.’
‘On the contrary, I think you have blackened your own name, Colonel, by associating in the first place with this circle of neurotic homosexuals and table-turners! So I take it the “comtesse” referred to must be Mademoiselle Blanche de Comminges?’
‘Yes. She is not actually a comtesse but she can sometimes behave like one.’
‘And the “Demigod” and the “Good God”?’
‘They are nicknames invented by Mademoiselle de Comminges. A mutual friend of ours, Captain Lallemand, is the Demigod; I’m afraid to say that I am the Good God.’
Pellieux regards me contemptuously: to my other sins can now be added blasphemy. ‘And why is Captain Lallemand the Demigod?’
‘Because of his fondness for Wagner.’
‘And is he also part of a Jewish circle?’
‘Wagner? I very much doubt it.’
It is a mistake, of course. One should never attempt wit in these circumstances. I know it the moment the words leave my lips. The major and the captain and even the secretary smile. But Pellieux’s face sets rigid. ‘There is nothing in the least amusing about the situation you are in, Colonel. These letters and telegrams are highly incriminating.’ He flicks back to the beginning of his file. ‘Now, let us go over the discrepancies in your testimony once again. Why did you falsely claim to have taken possession of the petit bleu at the end of April last year when in fact it was pieced together at the beginning of March . . .?’
The interrogation continues throughout the day – the same questions, again and again, designed to catch me in a lie. I am familiar with the technique; Pellieux is remorseless in deploying it. At the end of the afternoon session he consults an antique silver pocket watch and says, ‘We will resume tomorrow morning. In the meantime, Colonel, you are not to communicate with anyone, or to leave, for so much as a minute, the supervision of the officers appointed by this inquiry.’
I stand and salute.
Outside it is dusk. In the waiting room Mercier-Milon pulls back the edge of the curtain and peers down at the crowd of reporters in the place Vendôme. He says, ‘We should try to leave by a different route.’ We go downstairs to the cellar and cross a deserted kitchen to a rear door that opens on to a yard. It has started raining. In the gloom the piles of rubbish seem to move and rustle like living things, and as we pick our way past them I see the wet brown backs of rats slithering among the rotted food. Mercier-Milon finds a gate in the wall that leads to the garden at the back of the Ministry of Justice. We pass across a muddy lawn and out on to the rue Cambon. A couple of journalists, posted as pickets, see us emerge through the wall next to a street lamp and we have to sprint two hundred metres to the taxi rank in the rue Saint-Honoré, where we seize the only cab. We pull away just as our pursuers catch up with us.
The jolt of the horse throws us back in our seats, damp and breathless, and Mercier-Milon laughs. ‘My God, Georges, we’re certainly not young men any more!’ He pulls out a large white cotton handkerchief and mops his face and grins at me. For a moment he seems to forget that I am in his custody. He opens the window and shouts up to the driver, ‘Hôtel Terminus!’ then slams it shut.
He spends most of the short journey with his arms folded, staring out at the street. It is only as we pull into the rue Saint-Lazare that he suddenly says, without turning round, ‘You know, it’s funny, General Pellieux asked me yesterday why I’d testified in Dreyfus’s defence.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I said one could only speak as one found – that he was always a good soldier and loyal as far as I was concerned.’
‘And what did he say to that?’
‘He said he’d tried to keep an open mind on the subject himself. But last week when he was asked to lead this inquiry he was shown evidence at the ministry by General Gonse that absolutely proved beyond question that Dreyfus was a traitor. And from that moment on he’s had no doubt that your allegations about Esterhazy are false – the only question now as far as he’s concerned is whether you’ve been duped by a syndicate of Jews or paid by them.’ He turns to look at me at last. ‘I thought you ought to know.’
At that moment the taxi pulls up, and even before the door is opened we are surrounded by reporters. Mercier-Milon clambers out and descends into the melee, using his elbows to clear a path. I follow, and once I reach the lobby the concierge puts his arms across the entrance to prevent anyone following us in. On the marble floor, beneath the lurid diamanté chandeliers, Périer is already waiting to rush me straight upstairs. I turn to thank Mercier-Milon for his warning, but he has already gone.
I am not allowed to eat downstairs in public. I don’t protest: I have no appetite in any case. Dinner is brought up to our room and I push a piece of veal around my plate with my fork until I give up in disgust. Just after nine, a bellboy delivers a letter that has been left for me at reception. On the envelope I recognise Louis’s writing. I’d like to read what he has to say. I suspect he wants to warn me of something before tomorrow’s hearing. But I don’t want to give Pellieux any excuse to bring fresh disciplinary charges against me. So I burn it, unopened, in the grate in front of Périer.
That night I lie awake listening to Périer snoring in the other bed and try to calculate the weakness of my position. It seems to me precarious whichever way I look at it. I have been delivered to my enemies trussed hand and foot by the tiny threads of a hundred lies and innuendos carefully spun out over the past year. Most people will be only too happy to believe I work for a Jewish syndicate. And as long as the army is allowed to investigate its own misdeeds I see no hope of escape. Henry and Gonse can simply invent whatever ‘absolute proof’ they require and then show it privately to the likes of Pellieux, safe in the knowledge that such loyal staff officers will always do what is expected of them.
Outside in the rue Saint-Lazare even at midnight there is a greater profusion of motor cars than I have ever heard before. The sound of pneumatic tyres on wet asphalt is new to me, like a continual tearing of paper, and eventually it lulls me to sleep.
The next morning when he comes to pick me up, Mercier-Milon has reverted to his former brusque silence. His only comment is to tell me to bring my suitcase: I will not be returning to the hotel.
In the place Vendôme, in the room set aside for the inquiry, Pellieux and the others are in exactly the same positions as when I left them, as if they have spent the night under dust sheets, and the general resumes where he left off as though there had been no interruption. ‘Tell us once again, if you would, the circumstances in which you came into possession of the petit bleu . . .’
This goes on for another hour or so, and then he says, without any change of tone, ‘Madame Monnier – how much of your work have you disclosed to her?’
My throat tightens immediately. ‘Madame Monnier?’
‘Yes, the wife of Monsieur Philippe Monnier of the Foreign Ministry. What have you told her?’
I say in a strained voice, ‘General – please – I insist – she has nothing to do with this.’
‘That is not for you to determine.’ He turns to the secretary. ‘Colonel Picquart’s documents, please.’ And while the secretary opens his dispatch box, Pellieux switches his attention back to me. ‘You will probably not be aware of the fact, Colonel, because you were at sea, but an official search was carried out of your apartment on Tuesday, following an allegation by Major Esterhazy that you were keeping official papers there.’
For a moment I can only gape at him. ‘No, I most certainly was not aware of it, General. And if I had been I would have protested strongly. Who authorised this raid?’
‘I did, at the request of Colonel Henry. Major Esterh
azy claims to have received information from a woman whose name he does not know but who swears that she is an acquaintance of yours. This woman, whom he has only seen heavily veiled, says that you have been keeping secret documents relating to his case at your private address.’
It is such an absurd idea, Pauline and Esterhazy together, that I find myself emitting a gasp of laughter. But then the secretary places several bundles of letters in front of Pellieux and I recognise them as my private correspondence: old letters from my mother and my dead brother; correspondence from my family and friends; business letters and love letters; invitations and telegrams kept for their sentimental value. ‘This is an outrage!’
‘Come now, Colonel – why such sensitivity? I don’t believe we have taken any action against you that you haven’t taken against Major Esterhazy. Now,’ he says, picking up a collection of Pauline’s letters tied with a blue silk ribbon, ‘it’s apparent from the nature of her letters to you that you have an intimate relationship with Madame Monnier – one that I assume her husband is not aware of?’
My face is burning now. ‘I absolutely refuse to answer that question.’
‘On what grounds?’
‘On the grounds that my relationship with Madame Monnier has no conceivable relevance to this inquiry.’
‘Surely it does if you disclosed secret information to her, or if she is the so-called “veiled lady” in contact with Major Esterhazy? And most certainly it does if you have left yourself open to blackmail as a result of it.’
‘But none of those things is true!’ Now I know what Louis was trying to warn me about in his letter the previous evening. ‘Tell me, General, am I at any point going to be asked about the central facts of this business?’
‘There is no need to be impertinent, Colonel.’
‘For example, about the fact that Esterhazy plainly wrote the bordereau – that even the government’s main expert concedes his handwriting is a perfect match?’
‘That is outside the scope of this inquiry.’
‘Or the use of falsified material in the dossier used to convict Dreyfus?’