The Library Paradox (23 page)

I frowned at him, disappointed and disapproving. Yet there was something in what he said. If I chose to believe that his statements as to the events on the day of the murder were true – and I did find myself believing him, a little in spite of myself – then I needed to investigate all the possibilities, to follow up all the threads. And there were still several. Britta Gad. Bernard Lazare. The rabbi.

And then – whatever Jonathan was hiding, Amy knew it as well. I remembered the look in her eyes as the policemen took him away, and mentally added her as a fourth line of enquiry to my list.

Jonathan bid me goodbye with a chastened air. I responded a little coldly. I do hope he will not make a fool of himself in his interrogation by not being able to answer simple questions such as what he was doing at the library at all, or by trying ineffectually to withhold some information that is probably bound to come out anyway. If I ever fail as an amateur detective, perhaps I could turn to the task of preparing prisoners for their interrogations.

Emerging into Bow Street, I was struck, as I had been many times before, by the contrast between the hidden shadows of prison life, and the sunny freedom of the busy citizens without. There have been times when I have seen a man captured and led off by policemen with his hands
in handcuffs, and it has seemed to me that I saw that man cross the invisible boundary between two parallel worlds. I looked around me, savouring, as I always did, the ability to walk whither I would, before going to see Inspector Reynolds at Scotland Yard. I felt a great need to stretch my legs to the full extent of their possibilities, a reaction, no doubt, to the claustrophobia of the police station. The distance from Covent Garden to the Victoria Embankment did not seem far enough, and the time was too near the midday meal to visit the inspector immediately, so after a moment’s reflection, I decided to go round by way of Piccadilly Circus, where Emily had told me that a quite suitable and agreeable tea shop called Lyons had very recently opened its doors. The idea of finally discovering a decent solution to the daily problem of luncheon was tempting enough for me to take the long route with pleasure.

I walked along rapidly, feeling a hint of springtime piercing delicately through London’s persistent dinginess, located Lyons, found it to be a pleasant enough place indeed, just what London’s ladies are sorely in need of. I emerged refreshed and renewed, ready to set off courageously on the long walk down Haymarket and Cockspur to New Scotland Yard. The inspector was in his office.

‘So,’ he greeted me as soon as I made my appearance within his doors, ‘how is your investigation progressing? Has the arrest of the Sachs youth clarified things for you?’

‘Yes and no,’ I said disapprovingly. ‘I will admit that I was perfectly blind not to predict his arrest from the
newspaper article at once. But I still suspect that it may be a mistake.’

‘Well, well,’ said the inspector not unkindly, although with a rather annoying smile, ‘we have our methods and you have yours, to be sure. With all due respect, I myself am more likely to believe in logical reasoning than in feminine intuition, though my wife would probably beat me about the ears if she heard me say so. Well, it isn’t my fault; I’ve nothing to do with the case myself. So you have other ideas in mind, do you?’

‘They are not ripe yet,’ I said. ‘It is useless to discuss them on a theoretical level without any proof. I need to investigate further.’

‘It isn’t useless to discuss a theory,’ he said hopefully. ‘We do it all the time, how else do you think we work?’

‘Well, the police make their own theories, but past experience has already shown me that they are not too keen on listening to mine,’ I replied. ‘Remember your colleague Inspector Peters in the emerald case.’

‘Yes, I remember it well,’ he smiled. ‘That was the first time we met, you and I, wasn’t it? I remember Peters expressing doubts …’ His voice trailed off, perhaps because he sensed that his remarks were on the point of becoming tactless.

‘I know, I know,’ I said, unable to resist the expression of a latent resentment which I usually manage to forget. ‘Policemen always seem to have doubts about me. If I were a tall, unsmiling, square-jawed man with a cigar and a trench coat, the police would be happier listening to me,
I suppose. The problem comes from the skirt, perhaps, or the general lack of authority. I don’t know. But that isn’t the issue right now – you for one have never treated me that way, and I am grateful. It is I who doesn’t want to talk about my theories quite yet. I need more information. Please, do tell me if you have managed to arrange for me to be able to visit Baruch Gad in Dartmoor.’

‘Yes, yes, of course I have,’ he said. ‘We police are not so useless as all that, you see?’

‘I never said you were useless!’ I protested vehemently.

‘Well, let us not spar,’ he laughed. ‘I have your visiting pass right here, with tomorrow’s date on it. You will have to make your own way down to Dartmoor.’

‘I can’t thank you enough!’ I exclaimed, my good humour all renewed. ‘Please forgive my asperity. This may be immensely useful! Oh, I do hope I find out something from the poor man.’

‘So do I, indeed, and if you do, I hope you will be kind enough to let me know,’ he said, handing me the paper, and I bid him goodbye and took my leave feeling that I had obtained everything I needed in spite of the awkward moment caused by my too-pointed tongue. I set out immediately to walk to King’s College, hastening my steps.

The college building is enormous, but thanks to the careful instructions provided by Professor Taylor, I found the history department without difficulty. It was still reasonably early, but the large lecture hall was already buzzing with curious listeners. I took a seat in the most thickly populated part of the room, and began listening
to the medley of different conversations, snatches of which struck my ears from all sides. I soon distinguished three major themes: first, the question of why exactly Mr Bernard Lazare had been invited to give this lecture today, and whether there was some relation with the mysterious murder of Professor Ralston; secondly, was Mr Bernard Lazare correct or mistaken in his well-known position with regard to the innocence of the Jewish captain; and thirdly, were the captain guilty, what was his motivation? Some thought that he was guilty because he was Jewish, and as such, naturally devoid of patriotic feeling. For others, he was not guilty, but accused in good faith because he was Jewish, and as such, assumed to be devoid of patriotic feeling. And there were those for whom he was not guilty, and his accusation had been made in bad faith, by those who wished to make a scapegoat of a member of the Jewish religion. It seemed quite inconceivable to anybody present that whether guilty or innocent, his acts or the accusations against him might somehow be entirely independent of his religion. This struck me as a strange and rather sad state of affairs. Upon the stroke of three o’clock, Professor Taylor entered the lecture hall, accompanied by a short-legged, stoutish man wearing a pointed beard associated with a well-furnished moustache, a small pair of spectacles, a balding forehead, and a general air of intense thought and willpower. Professor Taylor introduced him sagely, with little commentary, as a French journalist of repute who had come to tell us about the current state of the Dreyfus affair, which is at present an issue of such urgent divisiveness in
French politics. We applauded politely, he sat down, and the stout gentleman took his place behind the lectern, and began to speak in rather heavily accented but perfectly fluent English.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, ‘I am not here merely to inform you of a grave injustice being perpetrated
at this very moment
upon French soil. I will inform you, certainly; I will give you every known detail about the situation. But I will do more than merely inform you: I will ask you for your active and vocal support of the sacred cause I am defending here; your support as Englishmen and Englishwomen, citizens of a country whose great history proves that it is less deeply troubled than my own by the fatal and destructive disease of anti-Semitism.’

He proceeded to give a shocking description of the general movement in France against the Israelite population, illustrated by French newspapers which he held up to our view and whose front pages were decorated with lurid titles and drawings dripping with hatred.

‘As the English befriended the beleaguered French aristocracy during the Revolution, I expect them to befriend the beleaguered Jewish population of France today,’ he said incisively. ‘France is stripping its Jews of their rights, and all but forcing them to leave, just as England is opening her hospitable arms to tens of thousands of those who are fleeing the despair and destruction of the East.’

He spoke as if the phenomenon of anti-Semitism were unheard of in England, something that is obviously false given all that I have learnt lately about Professor Ralston.
However, I thought that his attitude of assuming beyond even a moment’s doubt that the English were on a higher moral plane than their traditional enemies across the Channel – a doubtful fact in itself, I suppose – was probably a wise enough manoeuvre to arouse a feeling of support. Besides, it is undoubtedly true that England has accepted many thousands of Jewish refugees in the last ten or twenty years; enough, as I had seen with my own eyes, to form almost a complete city within a city in the East End of London.

Now Mr Lazare left the subject of anti-Semitism in general, to turn to the Dreyfus affair in particular. He introduced the case as a figurehead for the expression of all the pent-up hatred for the Jews seething within all the different layers of French society, and openly declared Dreyfus himself to be nothing more than an innocent scapegoat.

‘All Paris, all France is divided over the guilt of this man,’ he exclaimed, ‘guilt whose proof was deduced falsely, based on racism, inference and dishonesty. Let me now describe the facts.’

I pricked up my ears, wondering if it was conceivable that some titbit relevant to my investigation might be forthcoming, and scooping out my notebook, prepared to take notes of the salient aspects of the case. Let me set them down here in detail.

September, 1894: In the waste-paper baskets of the German embassy, a French spy discovers an unsigned letter, the
bordereau,
containing a list of military classified documents. Mr Lazare read it out:

This letter apparently accompanied several documents delivered to the German Embassy, which were not discovered. Captain Alfred Dreyfus is selected by the French Army as the most likely culprit, because he has been in contact with the Army divisions dealing with artillery, the hydraulic brake and the negotiations on Madagascar – but above all because he is Jewish.

October 1894: Commandant du Paty de Clam tricks Dreyfus into writing down some of the same words as those which appear in the
bordereau
, decides on the basis of a certain superficial similarity that Dreyfus is guilty – goodness, do not spies even take the trouble to disguise their handwriting? – and has him arrested and sent to prison.

October 31, 1894: The French anti-Semitic newspaper
La Libre Parole
somehow obtains this secret information and publishes it on the front page, which Mr Lazare held up to our astonished eyes:

HAUTE TRAHISON!
Arrestation d’un Officier Juif!
Le Capitaine Dreyfus!

thus simultaneously revealing open anti-Semitism and state secrets.

November–December 1894: A brief and secret investigation into the case ends with the recommendation for a court martial.

December 19th–22nd 1894: Dreyfus is tried in a secret court martial behind closed doors. Handwriting experts all contradict each other. Those who do not agree with the desired analysis are sent away, some are removed from their official positions. It leaks to the public that an unidentified letter on an unidentified topic, shown only to the judge (and certainly not to Dreyfus’s defending lawyer), is a key incriminating document; the public learns only that it contains the words ‘that scoundrel D’. Dreyfus is pronounced guilty of high treason and condemned to military degradation and perpetual deportation.

January 5th, 1895: His appeal rejected, Dreyfus is degraded in a public ceremony where his buttons are removed –
goodness, the imagination pales – and his other military insignia, and his sword is broken. He remains calm and firm throughout the entire ceremony, regularly proclaiming his innocence in a ringing voice. Yet the crowd of onlookers outside the fence surrounding the courtyard ceaselessly screams racist insults. I recalled the captain’s own terrible description of the experience …
last Saturday remains branded in my spirit in letters of fire
…

April 1895: Dreyfus is placed in solitary confinement on Devil’s Island, a sweltering rock off the coast of French Guyana, where he remains under close and hostile surveillance every minute of the day, in constant danger of death from exhaustion and tropical diseases. Unspeakably horrible.

March 1st, 1896: A new document is apparently discovered by the same French spy, in the same place as the
bordereau
. But unlike the
bordereau
, this document is addressed to an explicitly named person. And that person is not Captain Dreyfus.