A Man in Uniform (35 page)

Dubon sneaked a look at his pocket watch. He would soon be late for Le Goff.

By the time the photographer handed him a dry print, twenty minutes later, he had no time to admire it, only to register that he did indeed have a legible copy of the bordereau and stick it in an envelope. He approached the washing line and began to unclip the negatives.

“Hey there, what are you doing?” the photographer demanded.

“I’m sorry but this material is highly sensitive. Monsieur Martin will return to the paper soon with his copy of the document, the one that will be printed. But I have to take all other copies.”

“But I’ll need the negatives to make another print tomorrow if we are going to publish Monday.”

“What’s wrong with this print?” Dubon asked, indicating the envelope.

“Well, it’s fine, but I’ll tinker some more to get a better contrast.”

“You can tinker tomorrow. Martin or I will bring the negatives back to you then. I am releasing the image to the paper for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to print on the front page of Monday’s paper.”

“By the time they print it on the front page of Monday’s paper there will be thousands of copies throughout France,” the photographer pointed out.

Now there was a wonderful idea, Dubon thought to himself as he tucked the negatives into the envelope with the print.

He hurried back to his office and found Le Goff waiting outside the locked door.

“I’ve got it,” said Dubon, flourishing the envelope.

They went inside and settled at Dubon’s desk as he pulled out the one good print.

“Thank goodness for that flash, in the end. I was very nervous using it, thought I might set fire to the place, and then where would I be?”

Dubon’s excitement was making him voluble, but Le Goff wasn’t listening. He was poring over the document.

“So, as you described it, a sample of wares,” he said, looking up.

“Yes.”

“I tell you one thing. I don’t think an artillery officer wrote this.”

“Why not?”

“Look at this phrase. The author offers information on how the new 120 behaves.”

“Yes?”

“A gun doesn’t ‘behave.’ At least that’s not what a gunner would say. He would simply say how the gun works.”

“It’s a small difference.”

“Still, the lingo is wrong.”

“When the army went hunting for the author of the bordereau, they looked only in the artillery …”

Le Goff completed his thought for him: “… so, they didn’t find the right man.”

Le Goff and Dubon then turned to a discussion of Monday’s publication, debating how the paper should play the document.

“I make no promises, Dubon,” Le Goff said. “My editors always have their own ideas.”

There was a quiet knock at the office’s exterior door. Both men stopped and looked at each other. Le Goff quickly slipped the bordereau back into the envelope while Dubon, reminding himself he had every right to be in his own office, crossed to the outer door and opened it.

The captain’s wife stood there. She looked as though she had spent the week in tears.

He ushered her gently into the inner room and hesitantly introduced her to Le Goff.

“Madame, may I present Captain Le Goff,” he said. “Captain, this is, er, this is Madame Duhamel.” No need to tell Le Goff the real identity of his client.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt you, Maître.”

“Not at all, Madame. Le Goff was just leaving.” Dubon picked up the envelope off his desk and handed it to Le Goff, who smirked in amusement at his haste.

“So we are agreed at least on what we would like your editors to say, yes?” Dubon said as he shepherded him back to the outer office. “The negatives are in here too. The photographer wants to make a better print, but I told him I want them back, all prints and the negatives. We don’t want anyone else to have the opportunity to publish, eh?”

“All right. You’ll be here next week?”

“Yes, back at my post, finally.”

“I’ll be in touch, end of day Tuesday, I imagine, if not before.” He leaned around Dubon and called back to the captain’s wife, “Good afternoon, Madame.”

She inclined her head politely.

After Le Goff left, Dubon said to her, in an attempt to dismiss the
subject quickly, “Captain Le Goff is in the artillery but he sometimes supplies military news to
La Presse.
”

“You mean he’s Azimut Martin?” She seemed to perk up at this news.

“Yes, that’s right, but just forget that, won’t you?” Dubon said, belatedly realizing he should have introduced Le Goff only by his alias. “Better for both of you that you not know each other. I have a lot to tell you,” he continued, but paused as he looked at her face.

“What is wrong, Madame? You look unhappy.”

“I had news of the captain this week. He is now kept shackled at night.”

“Shackled? Didn’t they say he was always shackled? When there were those reports about his escape, a month ago …”

“Yes, the government’s reply was that he was kept in a walled compound and shackled at night. It wasn’t really true. He could see the sea from his prison, and he wasn’t ever shackled. Anyway, I found out this week, they made it true retroactively. Since the reports a wall has been built, and he is now shackled to his cot at night. He can’t get comfortable; he’s barely sleeping. Maître, he has been prone to despair from the start; I fear for his sanity, I really do.”

“He won’t be there much longer, Madame, I promise you. I am glad you are here so I can warn you what to expect on Monday. You are in for a surprise.”

“You have found the spy?”

“Not quite, but let me explain. I have got a copy of the bordereau, the original evidence against the captain. I have a good photograph of it, and the promise from our Azimut Martin that the paper will publish it Monday morning. Our idea is that widespread publication of the handwriting will bring forward someone who can identify the true spy in time for the appeal.”

“That’s wonderful, Maître.”

“Yes. It is wonderful, although you should prepare yourself. I imagine there will be quite a reaction on Monday, some backlash. You can’t have enjoyed the publication of the … that is … that letter.” Dubon felt awkward repeating a word as foul as
bastard
in front of a lady. “Even if it did give you grounds for the appeal.”

“There have been difficult moments.”

“I should tell you, Madame, that we also now have clear evidence that the second letter, the one that named the captain, is a forgery, which in turn throws suspicion on the veracity of the first one.”

She nodded, seeming to take this news for granted.

“You aren’t surprised?”

“Well, no. Any letter that names the captain as a spy is a fabrication. It seems there was a conspiracy against him from the start.”

“No, Madame. I think perhaps it’s worse than that. At first, there was just a stupid mistake made out of laziness, prejudice, and convenience. But in the intervening years, the military has broken more and more laws to avoid ever admitting it, and now a conspiracy has blossomed.”

“Will Monsieur Martin expose the forgery, too?”

“One step at a time, Madame. We don’t want to tip our hand. We find the real spy and we should be able to ensure the captain is granted an appeal. He gets another trial and, if the prosecution is dim enough to introduce the forged letter, we discredit it then. We have to wait for the new trial.”

“The captain cannot wait any longer, Maître,” she said, her voice growing strained.

He moved closer to her and brushed a hand across her cheek, then quickly let it drop.

“Madame, you have been exceedingly patient, but it is only six weeks since you first came to me. Let’s see what happens next week. I have finished my little stint of fancy dress, you know, and now that I am back at my regular desk my schedule is my own. Perhaps you could come and see me some morning. I will send you a message as soon as I hear any news. And I must return that uniform to you,” he said, gesturing down at the pants he was still wearing. “I would do so now, but I would like to have it cleaned first.” In fact, Dubon had rent the tunic under both arms and wanted to have the tears repaired before he gave it back to her.

“There’s no hurry about the uniform, Maître.”

“Still, I should return it. And I’ll send you a message as soon as we catch our spy.”

As he packed up after she had left, he realized he was exhausted. He looked at his watch and was surprised to find it was not yet five. He felt as though he had crossed continents and moved mountains today, yet he would still be home in plenty of time for dinner. Geneviève would be pleased. Or perhaps not. He had sent her a message the previous afternoon telling her not to expect him home for dinner that night or any meal on Saturday. Maybe he should just drop the uniform off at a tailor’s establishment on the rue de Rivoli on the way home so he could pick it up again the following week. He certainly did not want to ask Luc to repair it.

He crossed to the coatrack in the outer office to get his own pants, taking the tunic off the hanger and buttoning it up before slipping it into the canvas bag in which the captain’s wife had brought it. As he did so, he idly tweaked at the tailor’s label sewn on the inside under the collar. Beneath it was a faded tag and if he looked closely he could just make out the name of the uniform’s owner: Dreyfus.

“I can’t believe you read that rag.”

Geneviève was looking up from her preferred daily—which was, in Dubon’s opinion, one of the more offensive of the Catholic papers—and frowning down the breakfast table at his copy of
La Presse
.

“Why do you call it a rag?” he asked innocently. The bordereau was splashed all over the front page; the headline was exactly what he would have chosen. “The hand of a spy: do you know this writing?” And then underneath: “Doubts cast on guilt of Captain Dreyfus. The editors of
La Presse
invite the public to identify true author of document that sent unfortunate officer to Devil’s Island.”

“Look at it. It’s irresponsible, inflaming the public like that. It just invites disorder. The army knows what it is doing; we have to trust the high command when they tell us they have the right man.”

“Perhaps, my dear, but there really is compelling evidence to the contrary.” They had not spoken about his work on the Dreyfus case since the night of the dinner party, when he had held his ground and insisted he would not give it up. Geneviève was ready for a second
assault. “Besides which,” Dubon added mildly, “the man, guilty or innocent, never got a fair trial.”

“Well, really, François, he’s a Jew.”

“And what,” Dubon asked, trying to keep his tone calm, “is wrong with that?”

“Nothing, nothing, but these people … Would you accord him the same rights as a Frenchman?”

“That is a very dangerous argument, and one not worthy of your intellect. What is worth defending about France? Red wine? Sunday lunch? The Napoleonic Code? Liberty, equality, and fraternity? Surely one thing worth fighting for is the notion that all citizens are equal before the law.”

“But in a case such as this, when the very security of the nation is at stake,” Geneviève interrupted him with passion, “the army must be allowed some latitude in dealing with a spy.”

“He hasn’t been proven to be a spy. And until he has been given a fair trial, he has the same right to the presumption of innocence—”

“You underestimate what damage this case is doing to the military, François. What is the life of one man, in the end, when the safety of all France is at stake?”

“Ah, now you are starting to argue like a German,” he said. “He’s probably guilty, and even if he isn’t, the honor of our military is too important for us ever to admit we might have made a mistake.”

“You forget my family has served France—”

“Yes, Geneviève, your family has served France honorably.” His tone was conciliatory, but he couldn’t help noting sadly that she sided with her family’s view of the matter rather than his.

“However,” he continued, “the men who consigned the captain to Devil’s Island on evidence that was both circumstantial and withheld from his defense are not honorable. And their inability to admit to their mistakes and rectify the situation makes them more dishonorable. Thank goodness the press is pursuing them.”

“Don’t think I don’t know those newspaper stories have something to do with you,” she replied fiercely.

“My dear, I—”

“Don’t tell me,” she said, raising her hand to silence him. “I don’t want to know. I have warned you, you can’t say anything about this to our friends. They’ll cut us dead if they believe you are now siding with these ghastly Dreyfusards. And don’t you dare say anything about it to my family.”

“What’s he not supposed to say to your family?”

Jean-Jean appeared at the dining room door and took a place at the table. He was to be in town all week, checking in with headquarters. Something about this new assignment they kept promising him, Dubon supposed.

“Nothing, dear. Did you sleep well?” Geneviève said to him in a motherly tone designed to close the previous conversation.

Dubon refused to be so easily silenced.