A Man in Uniform (37 page)

The rue du Croissant, the street where much of the Parisian press had its offices, was right in the heart of the financial district, just to the east of the stock exchange in the place de la Bourse. With the heavy camera case in hand, Dubon followed Le Goff as they made their way on foot to the stockbroker’s office. A small man with thinning hair and a nervous demeanor, he reacted with some alarm when Le Goff introduced Dubon as a news photographer.

“Oh, I don’t want my picture taken. I don’t want you to use my name at all. I’ll just tell you what I know.”

“Not to worry. Old Bernard will just sit in a corner while we talk,” Le Goff replied amiably.

Amused at his new pseudonym, Dubon put down the camera case and sank into a chair at some distance from the stockbroker’s desk.

“I recognized the handwriting right away, you know, but I didn’t really want to get involved,” the man began. “It was my wife who persuaded me. I was worried about it and she said if an innocent man had
been condemned, I had a duty to speak up. And it’s not as though I owe the chap any favors. He still owes me three thousand francs.”

“What for?” Le Goff asked.

“Some stock trades. Highly speculative stuff,” the man said.

He looked miserable, Dubon thought, completely unlike the few self-confident and prosperous brokers he knew. Maybe Castro wasn’t much good at the job.

“I made the mistake of lending him the money to make the buy,” Castro added, confirming the impression. “Should never have trusted him; he’s not good for it. The stocks he bought plummeted. I’ll never get my money back. I suppose that’s why he was trying to peddle secrets to the Germans. Desperate for cash.”

“And his name?”

“He always called himself Count Walsin-Esterhazy, but I doubt that he’s really a count.”

Esterhazy. It was the name of the Hungarian on the
petit bleu
that Dubon had seen in the Statistical Section.

“Esterhazy. I might have known it!” Le Goff exclaimed as soon as they were out on the street again.

“You know him?” Dubon was surprised.

“I saw him at a party last week, in fact. He’s a notorious man about town. Little work and much play. You know the type. He was at that horrible ball too, the night young Fiteau shot himself.”

“He was there?”

“Yes. I guess the general knows him. His wife’s from an old family. But I think Castro is right and his own title is pure fabrication. Bastard descendant was what I always heard. Very remote connection to the great name.”

“He’s French?” Dubon asked. Le Goff was painting a very different picture from the faint outlines of some Hungarian nobleman that Dubon had created for himself when he had dismissed the
petit bleu
as unimportant. He had been damn lucky in the Statistical Section; his detecting skills were laughable.

“Oh yes. Born here, lived here all his life,” Le Goff answered. “He’s been hanging around the papers for years. Always trying to peddle something to somebody.
La Presse
won’t use him. Says it doesn’t pay for
information, but I think some of the other papers have bought stuff from him.”

“
La Presse
pays you for information,” Dubon pointed out.

“I am a correspondent,” Le Goff replied, drawing himself up. “I research my stuff and I write it up, or at least I make a stab at writing it up. Anyway, the papers aren’t going to print anything they think is too sensitive—don’t want to get in trouble with the government.”

“Did Esterhazy have that kind of stuff?”

“Hard to know. The list he sent to Schwarzkoppen promised a lot, but who knows what he actually delivered. There was a firing manual. There are probably lots of copies of that floating around, but it might be very useful to the German artillery, if they don’t know the French guns. He offered information on Madagascar—could be totally banal. Then he promised them a note on the 120; that’s a new gun. I’m sure the Germans would love to know how it works, but I don’t think Esterhazy was the man to tell them.”

“Why not?”

“As I suspected, that document wasn’t written by an artillery officer. Esterhazy’s a staff officer. I would be surprised if he knew enough about the functioning of the gun to inform anybody about it. You should talk to your brother-in-law about that, though. He knows a lot more about the 120s than I do.”

“Jean-Jean?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause before Dubon asked what was on his mind.

“So, Le Goff, would you write up the kind of information that Esterhazy was selling for the paper?”

“Let’s get this straight, Dubon. I make a little money on the side getting the army’s point of view into print in ways that the generals might love to but can’t. I know my stuff, but I am not selling secrets. Esterhazy is a traitor.”

“Of course, of course. I wasn’t implying anything. Just trying to get the lay of the land.”

They walked in silence for a bit, Dubon lugging the heavy camera case. It had proved useful in the end because Castro had produced a sample of Esterhazy’s hand, a letter written to him with various stock
orders. It did indeed look like the same handwriting as in the bordereau and Le Goff had asked if Dubon could take a picture of it. The stockbroker had agreed, on the condition his own name and address were blacked out.

“But we can keep Esterhazy’s signature?”

“Oh yes. As I say, I don’t owe the scoundrel anything. He owes me.”

Dubon had set up the camera again, trying to remember all the photographer’s instructions. Now, under circumstances where the result mattered less and he didn’t have that awful sensation that he was about to be caught trespassing, his sangfroid abandoned him and he fumbled badly with the tripod. Then he fussed and fiddled with the camera, unable to remember which button or dial was which. He finally managed to get some shots but didn’t bother with the flash. He hoped the stockbroker knew nothing about photography but suspected his own amateur status was all too apparent.

Now, out on the street, he set the case down beside a bench.

“I have to stop a minute,” he said to Le Goff.

“I’ll carry it the rest of the way.”

“Yes, you can carry it, but I’m going to rest for a minute first,” Dubon replied, settling himself on bench.

Le Goff perched beside him, his posture betraying his haste. “I’ll want to file by the end of the day if they are going to get this in tomorrow’s paper, and it will take me all afternoon to work up my piece. I’m not a quick writer,” he complained.

Dubon ignored him and sat looking at his shoes for a minute.

“There’s something else,” he eventually said, now voicing the thoughts he had had when the stockbroker first uttered the name. “I’ve heard of Esterhazy before … or at least, I have heard of
an
Esterhazy. It must be the same man.”

Le Goff turned to look at him and slid a bit farther back onto the bench.

“It was during my first week in the Statistical Section. I had to clear the desk of all these bits of paper that the cleaning lady had brought in from the German embassy’s wastepaper baskets, what those wags dubbed ‘the usual route.’ A lot of it is in pieces, you know, ripped down the middle like the bordereau. I pieced together a telegram from
the military attaché Schwarzkoppen addressed to a Count Esterhazy. At the time, I thought nothing of it. Well, just that all these bits of paper were so insignificant. Here was a communication between the German embassy and some Hungarian, some business meeting or party or something. But now I wonder if that’s not what alerted Picquart to the existence of the second spy.”

“The second spy?”

“While I was there, there was talk of a second spy, that they had—to their embarrassment—uncovered yet another one. Dreyfus’s accomplice, they thought. It would explain why Picquart opened up the captain’s file again.”

“And gradually realized …” Le Goff prompted him.

“… that there is only one spy—that Esterhazy is the man who wrote the bordereau, that Dreyfus is innocent, and that documents suggesting otherwise are forgeries.”

“Picquart goes to headquarters with his suspicions …”

“… and discovers he is needed in Algeria,” Dubon concluded bitterly.

“So, in the space of a few days, your colonel finds himself on a slow boat to Africa while Esterhazy is still honoring Parisian hostesses with his presence after, what …?”

“A month. The rue Saint-Dominique has known he’s the real spy for at least a month. If the generals are planning to take any action, they are moving awfully slowly.”

“Admitting to a second spy is bad enough,” Le Goff said. “Admitting they not only have the wrong man but have let the real culprit go about his treacherous business for two years completely unmolested …”

“So they don’t take any immediate action against Esterhazy and provide the minister of war with enough falsified evidence against Dreyfus that he will confidently stand up in the National Assembly and swear to the guilt of an innocent man!” Dubon’s voice rose in outrage with these last words.

He got to his feet, his anger now fueling him. Grabbing the camera case, he started running down the street, lugging it awkwardly behind him.

“Come on, Le Goff. You’ve got to start writing.”

Dubon dropped both the camera and Le Goff at the paper, leaving the secretive Azimut Martin to make a rare personal appearance to confer with his editors, while he hurried home for his lunch. When he arrived, no one was about, so he settled himself in the salon with a glass of wine, noting with some surprise that it was almost noon. After a few minutes, Luc appeared.

“Did Monsieur wish to dine?” he asked, a shade anxiously, as though an affirmative answer might come as an unwelcome surprise.

“Well, yes, eventually. I was hoping to,” Dubon replied.

Luc simply nodded. Irony, Dubon had often noted, was completely lost on him.

“Where is Madame?” Dubon asked, suspecting his wife’s whereabouts were the source of the problem. If Madame had been sitting in the salon, lunch would have been served immediately. “She is in the study, helping Captain de Ronchaud Valcourt with his packing.”

“Oh, is he off today, already?”

“Yes, Maître. To Algeria.”

“To Algeria!” Jean-Jean had never mentioned going abroad. “All
right, Luc. I will see if I can extract Madame from the study so that we can have lunch.”

Dubon entered his study to find Jean-Jean standing against the mantelpiece looking grim while Geneviève busied herself with the packing. There were two open trunks on the floor and heaps of clothes on the divan and all the chairs.

“Captain. Congratulations, I hear you have your new assignment. Algeria, is it? How exciting!”

“That’s what I keep telling him,” Geneviève said, looking up from one of the trunks. “It’s a horrible rush, but I’m sure he’ll have a great time when he gets there.”

“When do you leave?”

“I take the train to Marseille tomorrow; I sail Monday.”

Same boat as Picquart, Dubon thought to himself. Something wasn’t right about Jean-Jean’s posting.

“Was this the assignment you had been hoping for?”

“One goes where one is needed. I have my orders.”

“Well, yes, Valcourt, but it’s not the Church, for heaven’s sake. You can at least tell us if it’s not what you wanted.”

“No, it is not what I wanted. I had hoped for a special assignment here at headquarters.”

“Ah, well, still … Algeria. Might be exciting … Good to get some foreign service under the belt.”

Luc appeared at the door now, reminding Dubon why it was he had come into the study.

“Yes, yes. Geneviève, poor Luc has been waiting to serve lunch for ages. Can’t we finish the packing this afternoon? Come, Valcourt. You’ll tell us about Algeria over lunch.”

Dubon returned to the office after lunch, sent the captain’s wife a
petit bleu
telling her he had news he wanted to share, and began eagerly rehearsing their meeting in his head. She had said “find the spy” and he had done it. He noted with some amusement that the only address she had been willing to leave with Lebrun was
poste restante
with a post office in the 8th arrondissement. She must have been checking the box
regularly, though, for she appeared in his office before the end of the day, looking excited, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed. Dubon took a long appreciative look at her. Perhaps, when this whole thing was over … He interrupted his own thoughts: when this whole thing was over, her husband would be returned to her and that would be that.

“News? You’ve caught the man?” she asked.

“Sit down, Madame, do sit down.” Dubon settled her in a chair and sat back down at his own desk, pausing before he spoke—for effect, he had to admit to himself.

“Madame.”

“Yes?”

“Madame, almost two months ago now, it was in April, and now here we are in June already.”

“Yes, Maître.” She directed a quietly expectant gaze at him.

“Madame,” he began again, trying to get his announcement right. “Two months ago you came to me and said, ‘The captain is innocent; find the real spy.’ ”

“Yes.”

“And so far, I have found you evidence not so much of the captain’s innocence as of the abuse of his rights; I have given you sufficient cause to launch an appeal, which you have done. Today, however, I have more than that: I have for you the name of the real spy.” He paused again.