Robert Harris - An Officer and a Spy

We are at the very top of the building, looking west. It swelters like a greenhouse with the trapped heat. Beyond the windows of Bertillon’s laboratory, past the chimneypots of the Préfecture , the massive roofs of the Palace of Justice rise and plunge, a blue slate sea, pierced by the dainty gold and black spire of the Sainte-Chapelle. The lab’s walls are papered with hundreds of photographs of criminals, full-face and profile. Anthropometry — or ‘Bertillonage’, as our leading practitioner modestly calls it — holds that all human beings can be infallibly identified by a combination of ten different measurements. In one corner is a bench with a metal ruler set into it and an adjustable gauge for measuring the length of forearms and fingers; in another, a wooden frame like a large easel, for recording height, both seated (torso length) and standing; in a third, a device with bronze calipers for taking cranial statistics. There is a huge camera, and a bench with a microscope and a magnifying glass mounted on a bracket, and a set of filing cabinets.

I wander around examining the photographs. It reminds me of a vast natural science collection — of butterflies, perhaps, or beetles, pinned and mounted. The expressions on the prisoners’ faces are variously frightened, shamed, defiant, disinterested; some look badly beaten up, half starved or crazy; no one smiles. Amid this dismal array of desperate humanity I suddenly come across Alfred Dreyfus. His bland accountant’s face stares out at me from above his torn uniform. Without his habitual spectacles or pince-nez his face looks naked. His eyes bore into mine. There is a caption: Dreyfus 5.1.95 .

A voice says, ‘Colonel Picquart?’ and I turn to find Bertillon holding my card. He is a squat, pale figure in his early forties with a thick pelt of black hair. His stiff beard is cut square, like the blade of an axe: I feel that if I ran my finger along the edge, it would draw blood.

‘Good day, Monsieur Bertillon. I was just noticing that you have Captain Dreyfus here among your specimens.’

‘Ah yes, I recorded him myself,’ replies Bertillon. He comes over to stand beside me. ‘I photographed him when he arrived at La Santé prison, straight from his degradation.’

‘He looks different to how I remember him.’

‘The man was in a trance — a somnambulist.’

‘How else could one endure such an experience?’ I open my briefcase. ‘Dreyfus in fact is the reason for my visit. I’ve replaced Colonel Sandherr as chief of the Statistical Section.’

‘Yes, Colonel, I remember you from the court martial. What new is there to say about Dreyfus?’

‘Would you be so good as to examine these?’ I hand him the photographs of the two Esterhazy letters. ‘And tell me what you think.’

‘You know that I never give instant judgements?’

‘You might want to in this case.’

He looks as if he might refuse. But then curiosity overcomes him. He goes to the window and holds up the letters to the light, one in either hand, and inspects them. He frowns and gives me a puzzled look. He returns his attention to the photographs. ‘Well,’ he says; and then again: ‘Well, well. .!’

He crosses to a filing cabinet, slides open a drawer and takes out a thick green folder bound with black ribbon. He carries it over to his bench. He unties it, and pulls out a photograph of the bordereau and various sheets and charts. He lays the bordereau and the letters in a row. Then he takes three identical sheets of squared transparent paper and lays one over each of the three documents. He switches on a lamp and pulls the magnifying glass into position and starts to examine them. ‘A-ha,’ he mutters to himself, ‘a-ha, yes, yes, a-ha. .’ He makes a series of rapid notes. ‘A-ha, a-ha, yes, yes, a-ha. .’

I watch him for several minutes. Eventually I can’t stop myself. ‘Well? Are they the same?’

‘Identical,’ he says. He shakes his head in wonder. He turns to me. ‘Absolutely identical!’

I can scarcely believe he can be so certain so quickly. The main prop in the case against Dreyfus has just vanished: kicked away by the very expert who put it there in the first place. ‘Would you be willing to sign an affidavit to that effect?’

‘Absolutely.’

Absolutely? The photographs of the criminals on the walls seem to whirl around me. ‘What if I told you that those letters weren’t written by Dreyfus at all, but here in France this very summer?’

Bertillon shrugs, unconcerned. ‘Then I would say that obviously the Jews have managed to train someone else to write using the Dreyfus system.’

I head back from the Île de la Cité to the Left Bank. I try to track down Armand du Paty at the Ministry of War. I am told he is not expected in that day, but he may be found at home. A junior staff officer gives me his address: 17, avenue Bosquet.

I set off yet again on foot. At some point I seem to have ceased to be an army officer and become a detective. I pound pavements. I interview witnesses. I collect evidence. If and when this is all over, perhaps I should apply to join the Sûreté.

The avenue Bosquet is pleasant and prosperous, close to the Seine, sun-dappled beneath its trees. Du Paty’s apartment is on the second floor. I knock several times without receiving a reply, and I am on the point of leaving when I notice a shadow shifting slightly in the gap below the door. I knock again. ‘Colonel du Paty? It’s Georges Picquart.’

There is a silence, and then a muffled command: ‘A moment, if you please!’ Bolts are drawn back, a lock turns, and the door opens a crack. A distorted eye blinks at me through a monocle. ‘Picquart? Are you alone?’

‘Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘True.’ The door opens fully to reveal du Paty dressed in a long red silk dressing gown covered in Chinese dragons; on his feet are pale blue Moroccan slippers; on his head a crimson Turkish fez. He is unshaven. ‘I was working on my novel,’ he explains. ‘Come in.’

The apartment smells of incense and cigar smoke. Dirty plates are piled beside a chaise longue. Manuscript pages are stacked on an escritoire and strewn across the rug. Above the fireplace hangs a painting of a naked slave girl in a harem; on the table is a photograph of du Paty and his aristocratic new wife, Marie de Champlouis. He married her just before the Dreyfus affair began. In the picture she holds a baby in its christening robes.

‘So you have become a father again? Congratulations.’

‘Thank you. Yes, the boy is one year old. 1He’s with his mother on her family’s estate for the summer. I’ve stayed behind in Paris to write.’

‘What are you writing?’

‘It’s a mystery.’

Whether he is referring to the genre of his composition or its current state I am not sure. He seems to be in a hurry to get back to it: at any rate he doesn’t invite me to sit. I say, ‘Well, here is another mystery for you.’ I open my briefcase and give him one of the Esterhazy letters. ‘You’ll recognise the handwriting, perhaps.’

He does, immediately — I can tell by the way he flinches, and then by the effort he makes to conceal his confusion. ‘I don’t know,’ he mutters. ‘Perhaps it could be familiar. Who is the author?’

‘I can’t tell you that. But I can tell you it definitely wasn’t our friend on Devil’s Island, because it was written in the last month.’

He thrusts it back at me: it’s clear he doesn’t want any part of it. ‘You should show this to Bertillon. He’s the graphologist.’

‘I already have. He says it’s identical to the bordereau — “identical”, that was his word.’

There is an awkward silence, which du Paty tries to cover by breathing on both sides of his monocle, polishing it on the sleeve of his dressing gown, screwing it back into his eye and staring at me. ‘What exactly are you about here, Georges?’