A Man in Uniform (32 page)

It was a tactful phrasing, Dubon thought; Picquart was not pursuing the issue of the leak.

“Imagine,” Picquart continued, “if it were discovered that at least one of these documents, one piece of this supposedly conclusive evidence, is a fraud. What then would happen to the government’s case against the man?”

“I only thought, Colonel …” Henry was trying to recover himself and was now growing defensive. “The generals have always appreciated my work. They appreciated my testimony at the court martial.”

“Yes, Henry, but now I must go to the same generals and tell them about this forged letter. It throws all your testimony into question.”

“I can go to the generals, too, Colonel. I have friends, good friends in the rue Saint-Dominique.”

“Is that a threat, Major?”

Dubon could hear movements in the room but could not make out Henry’s reply. No doubt he was moving toward the door.

Picquart, he noted, had not named Rivaud. He wasn’t accusing Henry of using the forger, and he certainly wasn’t accusing him of murder. And when Dubon came to think of it, would Henry murder Rivaud?

Dubon could hear footsteps now. It was Henry’s heavy tread proceeding back to his office and closing the door. He waited a bit before cautiously opening the darkroom door and peeking out. Seeing no one, he slipped back to his desk and busied himself with the papers strewn across it.

Neither Henry nor Picquart spoke another word to him that day, although the colonel nodded as he left the office at lunchtime. He was gone for most of the afternoon and reappeared with a particularly grim expression on his face. Dubon guessed the rue Saint-Dominique had not received the news of the forgery well. He himself packed up soon after and hurried back to his real office.

He sorted through business with Lebrun as quickly as he could because he was determined to see Madeleine on his way home. When he had time to think of her these days, a sense of unease nagged at him. He suspected his absences were increasingly forcing her back into the arms of her old circle. Perhaps there was some new recruit with enough money to keep her in style. Some young fellow who wasn’t married yet and who wanted the company of a woman of the world. Dubon should be at his mistress’s hearth, asserting his claim, but he also could not risk being late for dinner.

He arrived on the landing outside her rooms to find her just pulling her door closed. She was dressed to go out and surprised by his appearance.

“You weren’t expecting me?” he asked.

“It’s well past five. I assumed you weren’t coming.”

“My apologies. I should have sent a message.” There was an uncomfortable pause before Dubon cocked his head toward her door and said, “Well, I guess you can keep Lucie and Carl waiting a few minutes.”

“I don’t see them anymore,” she replied, without budging.

“Ah. New friends?”

“None that would interest you,” she replied.

“I
am
interested. Why else would I ask?” He moved to her and took her hands. She did not grip back, and when he tried to tug her gently toward the door, she resisted.

“There’s only one thing you are interested in,” she said. “You don’t care about me, you only care about—”

“Madeleine. You know my feelings for you, love in all its dimensions.”

“Yes, but one dimension in particular.” She pulled a key from her purse and stepped to the door. “All right, then. Shall we?”

Now Dubon stood still. He was not in the habit of forcing himself on reluctant partners.

“No. Thank you,” he said as calmly as he could, and turned to walk down the stairs. “I’ll come back someday when you’re in a better mood.”

Dubon spent the next day miserably sitting at his impostor’s desk trying to banish his unhappy doubts about Madeleine, wondering if the rue Saint-Dominique would really just ignore the news of the forgery, and if it did, what he should do about it. He got an answer of some kind around three when two officers he had never seen before walked through the front door. He scrambled to his feet and saluted, noting that the senior of the two was a colonel.

“Is Colonel Picquart here?” the man asked.

“In his office, Colonel. I’ll just get him,” Dubon said, moving toward Picquart’s door, which had remained shut all day.

“Don’t bother,” the colonel said, and walked over to the door followed by his companion, a captain. As the colonel stood aside, the captain knocked and, without waiting for a reply, opened the door for his superior and stood back to let him step inside.

They shut the door behind them, but emerged only a few minutes later with Picquart following them.

“I’ll be gone for the rest of the day, Dubon,” he said as he walked
by, following the colonel but with the captain at his heels. To Dubon, the image was reminiscent of an arrest.

The following day, to Dubon’s relief, Picquart was back at his post. He could be seen through his open door bustling about, arranging something. After lunch, he called Dubon into his office, where he was packing files into a leather box that sat on his desk. There were several empty crates on the floor.

“I am leaving, Dubon. Won’t be in tomorrow.”

“Leaving, Colonel? Why?”

“I am needed for an assignment in Algeria. I am being seconded to a detachment there immediately.”

“Algeria, Colonel? What on earth could you possibly have to do in Algeria?”

The colonel stood back from his boxes and drew himself up. “It’s not your place to ask such a question, Dubon. I have my orders. I obey them. As should you.”

“Yes, Colonel,” Dubon, recalled to military discipline, replied as briskly as he could.

“Major Henry will be taking over during my absence.”

“How long will you be gone, sir?”

“Indefinitely.”

“So, Major Henry will be in charge of all files, Colonel?”

“Yes, Dubon, exactly,” Picquart said in a neutral tone.

Dubon’s heart sank. Clearly, the higher-ups were not interested in hearing that the case against the captain was flimsy and that a second trial might end in an acquittal. They weren’t exactly shooting the messenger, just replacing him with one who delivered the news they wanted to hear.

“I think you should be leaving too, Dubon,” Picquart said.

“Me, sir?”

“Yes, Dubon, before Major Henry finally decides to march over to the rue Saint-Dominique and pull your personnel file himself.” Picquart now gave him a long look that froze Dubon in his shoes. “In fact, I have told Henry that you have been recalled to the rue
Saint-Dominique as of Monday morning and that he needs to reapply to headquarters for a temporary clerk. Whoever you are, Dubon, it’s time you moved on.”

Dubon’s reply was only a croak. He swallowed and tried again. “Yes, Colonel.”

“I expect to be here late this evening, Dubon. I have arranged with Major Henry that I will drop my keys off at his lodging tonight. I am spending next week with my family in Alsace before I leave for Marseille. My ship sails a week Monday. Henry won’t be in tomorrow morning. Gingras will open and lock up for you. You can say your good-byes to him.”

“Yes, Colonel. So I will come in tomorrow morning, but then return to the rue Saint-Dominique on Monday.”

“Yes, Dubon.” Picquart paused. “Tomorrow morning you may find that in my haste I have forgotten to lock all my file drawers, but Major Henry can tidy everything up next week. He may curse my absentmindedness, but I am sure he wouldn’t find anything missing. You understand me, Dubon?”

“Yes, Colonel. Perfectly. May I say what a privilege it has been working for an officer as honorable as yourself and I wish you the best of success in Algeria in the hopes you will be returned to France very soon.”

“Thank you, Dubon. I certainly hope my assignment will not last long. It may depend a bit on the … well, on the climate.”

“Yes, Colonel. Good-bye, Colonel.”

Dubon saluted and left Picquart’s office. He had his orders. He was to continue the work Picquart could not. For a brief period on Saturday morning he would have access to the captain’s file and the bordereau. Somehow he had to get them out of the Statistical Section and into Le Goff’s hands.

Le Goff’s response was instantaneous. “We need a photograph of the bordereau,” he said when he met Dubon at his office that evening. “Come on. If we hurry, we’ll catch one of the photographers at
La Presse
, and he can lend you a camera.”

“But how am I to photograph it? At best, I’ll be able to sneak another look tomorrow morning. I was thinking I could transcribe the file.”

“We need to be able to identify the hand,” Le Goff replied as he bounded down the stairs ahead of Dubon. “That must be what Picquart hopes you will do. It’s the key to the whole thing. Whoever wrote that list is a spy. The paper will publish it. ‘The handwriting of a traitor … Does anyone know this handwriting?’ It will be a coup!”

Le Goff practically dragged him through the lobby of the building that housed
La Presse
. The unhelpful clerk whom Dubon had met that very first day when he had come looking for Azimut Martin was just closing up for the evening, but Le Goff brushed past him with a nod, pushed through the doors into the office, and was soon clattering down a tiny staircase that led to the basement. He made his
way through a labyrinth of cupboards and storage rooms and found a photographer still working away in a darkroom that was larger than the one at the Statistical Section but seemed to feature the same chemistry set. The man was only too happy to stop what he was doing and produce a camera for Dubon, if it meant he could deliver a lecture on the fundamentals of photography. After unlocking a metal cabinet and removing a large leather suitcase that held the camera, he began with a long lesson about light and chemistry, before finally coming around to the basics: how exactly Dubon was to hold the thing and operate the shutter.

“I just need to load some film for you,” he concluded, pulling a leather pouch toward him and waving it at them. Then he lined up a stack of flat metal cases about the size of postcards on the counter in front of him and snapped off the lights. In the darkness, they could hear the cases clicking open and shut. In a minute, he had the lights back on.

“Each one of these now contains a piece of film,” he said, holding up one of the metal cases. “I’ve loaded a dozen so you can take twelve pictures without having to worry about reloading them. You get used to doing it, but it’s finicky for a beginner, doing it in total darkness. So, you slip the film in like this,” he continued, pushing one case into a slot on the side of the camera and then withdrawing it. “The case protects the film from the light. It pops out again but leaves the film in there. It unloads the same way.”

“What would happen if it wasn’t protected?”

“But that’s what I’ve been explaining,” he said with some exasperation. “If you simply expose the film to light, you’ll just get a fogged bit of film, worthless.”

“Is the paper like that too?” Dubon asked, remembering with guilt that he had pulled a stack of paper out of another leather pouch in the darkroom he had discovered at the Statistical Section.

“Yes, except it doesn’t see light across the entire spectrum. That’s how the safe light works.”