A Man in Uniform (18 page)

He approached Le Goff’s table and extended his hand.

The man took it. “Azimut Martin, at your service.”

“Well, I never dreamed …” Dubon stared at Le Goff, not sure what to make of this revelation. Around them the café buzzed with other conversations; it was a good meeting place, too busy for anyone to notice them and too noisy for anyone to overhear them. Le Goff seemed pleased with the effect he was having on Dubon.

“You’ll notice I left my uniform at home,” he said, leaning back in his chair and showing off his suit jacket.

Civilian dress suited his thin frame better, Dubon thought as he sat down across from Le Goff, and in this setting, he appeared both larger and more relaxed than the brittle character he knew through Jean-Jean.

“You write all those articles? But, Le Goff, surely this is a breach of military discipline. I mean …”

“I have never revealed classified information. All my military informants speak to me freely, well aware they are talking to the press, as it were.”

“Still, surely, if you were ever discovered …”

“Yes, perhaps. Although, it’s not as if I actually write every word of it. I give them a first draft, but then the editors get to work. I’m often
surprised when I read in the paper what they wind up with. Azimut Martin is a fictional character, a composite created with my contacts’ information and several different pens.”

He seemed perfectly at ease with this arrangement.

“So, why take the risk? Is there really so much satisfaction in seeing your … well, it’s not even your name … but your ideas in print?”

“A question asked by a man with family wealth. I do it for the money, Dubon. What else?”

Dubon felt compelled to defend himself. “I haven’t a centime I don’t earn myself, and my wife’s income is hardly lavish.”

“Still, it’s a cushion, isn’t it? That little bit extra. I can’t even afford to marry.” His voice was hard but without evident bitterness. “I’m thirty-two. I’ll be thirty-five or older before I can contemplate taking a wife. I’ll have to find some nice young thing whose family is impressed by a splashy uniform but whose tastes are not too extravagant.”

He paused, perhaps embarrassed now by his candor. Dubon got the impression that perhaps he already had his eye on a nice young thing. Or perhaps she was not so young, and she couldn’t wait much longer.

“I hope they pay you well, your editors,” Dubon said, trying to lighten the tone. “You took a while to reply. It’s been two weeks since I left that letter with Chalon.”

“I hesitated because I knew you. I could not contact you without revealing my identity and I didn’t know what your interest might be. Then at dinner last week—so kind of you to include me; you and Madame Dubon have always been most kind—well, at dinner I got the impression that you … that you were asking yourself, as I do, whether it’s possible that Dreyfus might be innocent. Or at least thinking that there is something not right about the whole case.”

“You’ve thought it over carefully.”

“I’ll be honest with you. Since the rumors of the escape—the false rumors—my editors have been pressing me. ‘Who is this Dreyfus?’ they keep asking me. ‘What grounds do you have to question the court martial?’ ”

“And what do you reply?”

“First, I have to ask you, Maître, what your interest is. If we are both of one mind on this affair, I am happy to share information.
Indeed, that is why I finally contacted you. But I have been totally honest with you about my motives.”

“Yes, of course. I represent … that is to say I have a client who believes fervently in the captain’s innocence. Close friend of the Dreyfus family. Swears the man is incapable of such a betrayal of his motherland. I gather there are differences of opinion within the Dreyfus family as to how their relative’s case is best treated, and I have been approached on the side, apart from the main effort that the brother is making. My assignment from my client is quite simple and quite impossible: I am to find the real spy.”

“So they believe there is a spy out there, still at large?”

“Yes, the client has suggested the evidence of espionage is incontrovertible. There is a spy in the ranks—they court-martialed the wrong man.”

“How much do you know about the case?”

“Le Goff, I’ll tell you. I am painfully ill equipped. I know only what the client tells me and what I have read in the press. I have not even seen the actual court evidence against the captain, and the press accounts are thin. The reporters seem to have just taken the military’s explanation that it had caught a spy and punished him accordingly. They’ve done nothing but denounce the traitor and cheer on his prosecutors. Except you, of course. That’s why I approached you; your articles were the most measured.”

“Thank you, but I don’t know how much I can help. The trial was closed to the press, but I have had the evidence described to me. They call it the bordereau, the list. It’s a scrap of paper our intelligence services somehow obtained from the German embassy and it lists various types of information Dreyfus was allegedly offering for sale.”

“A spy’s catalog of wares?”

“That’s right. Documents about troop movements, maneuvers, and that sort of thing, and also possibly about armaments. We are testing various new guns, you know.”

Dubon nodded, thinking of the document he had read in the Statistical Section in which Schwarzkoppen had noted Jean-Jean’s interest in developing better artillery.

“That’s why the intelligence services concluded the writer was an
artillery officer with certain credentials,” Le Goff continued. “They fingered Captain Dreyfus and, as you will have gathered from the papers, the fact that he is Jewish or that his family comes from Alsace is proof enough to them that he is willing to betray his country to the Germans.”

“You distrust that argument?” Dubon asked.

“It’s circular. Jews are spies because Jews aren’t loyal to France. Where’s the proof in that? What proof do we have that Jews or Alsatians are less loyal than the rest of us? And anyway, a hypothetical predisposition to betrayal is hardly enough to convict Dreyfus.”

“My client said the memo was unsigned but that Bertillon, the criminologist, testified at the court martial. His theory was an elaborate one—that the captain had disguised his own hand to write the list.”

“Yes. I heard about that, too.”

“You don’t trust Bertillon’s testimony?”

“You’re a lawyer. You know a lot more about him than I do. But it all sounded too convenient to me. Handwriting doesn’t match? Why it’s because the man was disguising his own writing. What reason would he have to do that? He had no reason to believe the letter would be read by anyone other than the person to whom it was addressed. None of my informants seemed to know whether the letter was unsigned or whether the signature was simply missing. The Germans would need some assurances as to the identity of their would-be spy. The whole thing seemed flimsy to me, but when I questioned it, I was continually assured the generals had their proofs. Indeed, there’s a rumor that there’s more evidence.”

“More evidence?”

“Yes. A secret file that was shown to the judges on the side.”

“Not shared with the defense? That’s a violation of all legal principles.” Here Dubon’s tone grew firm as he moved from the world of spies and military secrets back into his own realm. “How can an accused respond to charges if his legal representation is not privy to the evidence? It is the most basic right, Le Goff.”

“In a civilian court, perhaps, but this was a court martial.”

“The law as it applies to court martial is the same. If a military
court can incarcerate the guilty, not just dismiss someone from his post but actually jail him, it must follow the same procedures as a civilian court. The judges in the captain’s case should never have permitted the prosecution to present evidence on such terms.”

“But surely the nation—”

Dubon cut Le Goff short. “No. We are talking about rights of which no French citizen may be deprived.” His voice was rising with his rhetoric, causing the patrons at the next table to look up from their drinks. “If it’s true the captain was convicted on secret evidence, that itself is a miscarriage of justice and grounds for declaring a mistrial.”

“Yes, yes,” Le Goff agreed in a low voice, restraining Dubon by cocking his head in the direction of their neighbors. “If you can prove that the secret evidence exists.”

“True,” Dubon said, more quietly now. “Find the secret file, and exonerate the captain.”

“Or at least get him a second trial where they can find him guilty fair and square.”

“But do you think he’s guilty, Le Goff?”

“No. I don’t. For two reasons. First, I can’t see the motive. I wouldn’t make the assumption that his religion predisposes him to treachery. So, what am I left with? Money? The family is wealthy; he could live quite comfortably without working at all, I’d say.”

“Yes, my client gave me that impression.”

“Political conviction? Seems an odd way to go about it.”

“And your second reason?”

“I never met the man, but I know several who have. He hasn’t got it in his personality to go adventuring. He’s too rigid, annoyingly so, I gather. He is exceedingly hardworking. To be frank, he’s a rather boring character, not very popular with his colleagues. I did wonder if that might have something to do with his conviction. Convenient scapegoat, that sort of thing.”

“You confirm my own impressions,” Dubon said. He had reached similar conclusions with much less evidence at his disposal. His powers of deduction weren’t half bad for a dull old solicitor.

“What else do you know?” Le Goff asked.

“Not much. I gather the case against him originates in an obscure
department known as the Statistical Section, which is actually a cover for counterespionage.”

“Oh yes. They are quite famous now—the clever fellows who caught the spy.”

“I am not sure they are that clever,” Dubon said, thinking of the disastrous backlog of paper on his desk and the affable Colonel Picquart, the authoritarian Major Henry, and the gleeful Captain Gingras. Thus far only Captain Hermann had shown the skepticism one might have expected from a spy.

“Why do you say that?”

Dubon paused. “I … uh … I have a contact there.”

“You have a contact inside the Statistical Section?”

“Yes, a reliable contact, I’d say.”

Le Goff leaned across the café table and gripped Dubon’s arm.

“Then, Dubon, all you have to do is get him, somehow or other, to let you see the secret evidence.”

The following day, Dubon began his lunch hour skulking around the boulevard Saint-Germain in his uniform looking for a florist who would deliver. He continually scanned the crowd ahead of him to make sure he was not about to bump into anyone he knew, and his progress was slow. It took him about ten minutes walking down the boulevard in fits and starts before he found a little shop hidden behind big buckets of roses and lilies set out on the pavement. He went in and ordered a large bouquet of red roses to be sent to Madeleine before the end of the day and scribbled a small note apologizing for his absence the previous evenings and saying he eagerly anticipated a belated reunion the next night.

It had been well past seven when he said good-bye to Le Goff, promising to report back any more information he could find from his “contact” at the Statistical Section. And it was fifteen minutes past the appointed dinner hour of seven thirty when he finally arrived home to find Geneviève and André already eating. It was the second night in a row that he was late, and if his wife had been largely uninterested in
his apology the night before, she was now even less understanding and more alert to his unusually excited behavior.

“Oh dear. I’m late again. Awfully busy at the office at the moment.” He found himself babbling as she watched him with a disapproving eye, letting a long pause draw attention to his lapse. He felt like a schoolboy whose ominously silent teacher would not speak until he settled down. He glanced across at André to see if he might try raising a joke with him to escape the situation, but his son was staring intently at the meat he was cutting.

“This is most unlike you, François,” Geneviève finally said. “You are usually so punctual. It disrupts the dinner hour when you are late. How are the servants supposed to plan a meal if they don’t know when you will arrive? I can’t have you behaving like Claude. He drives my poor sister to distraction with his lateness. I rely on you, you know.” She looked at him sternly and remained standoffish for the rest of the evening.

Her sister’s husband was not merely tardy; he was also a well-known philanderer whose indiscretions were always causing his wife grief. Geneviève was hardly going to mention that in her son’s presence, but Dubon was being warned. He had long suspected that his wife was not completely unaware of Madeleine’s existence and accepted it as long as her routines and her household were not disrupted. How ironic, Dubon thought, if Geneviève were to stop tolerating his extracurricular activities only because the widow’s case was now causing him to neglect both his wife
and
his mistress!

Standing inside the humid florist’s shop, surrounded by a pleasantly earthy smell, Dubon paused. He couldn’t remember when he had last given Geneviève flowers. Her previous birthday, perhaps? Would this second bouquet be an admission of guilt?

“Was there anything else, Monsieur le Capitaine?” the clerk asked.

“Yes, another bouquet. Not roses, I don’t think.”

“Perhaps the Dutch tulips, Captain, lovely at this time of year. Or we have several colors of lilies now. The pink, a little unusual …”

“Yes, the lilies. The pink ones. No, no, just the yellow ones,” he said, recalling that pink was more Madeleine’s color than Geneviève’s. “They will go well with, uh, with the salon.”

Dubon sent off this second bouquet, with a second apology, this one to his wife, but still lingered. He would dearly have loved to send a third bouquet—he made a mental note to get the widow’s address from Lebrun’s files for future reference—but he would be seeing his client that afternoon anyway. He was now bursting to tell her Le Goff’s news about the secret evidence.