Robert Harris - An Officer and a Spy

It is the name of the signatory that interests me. Dubois? I am sure I have just read that name. I go back to the pile of letters from Panizzardi to Schwartzkoppen. My beautiful little girl. . My little green dog. . Dear Top Bugger. . Your devoted bugger 2nd class. . And here it is: in a note of 1893, the Italian writes to Schwartzkoppen: I have seen M. Dubois.

Attached to the letter is a cross-reference to a file. It takes me several minutes to work out Gribelin’s system and track it down. In a folder I find a brief report addressed to Colonel Sandherr by Major Henry dated April 1894 regarding the possible identity of the agent referred to as ‘D’ who has provided the Germans and Italians with ‘twelve master plans of Nice’. Henry’s conclusion is that he is one Jacques Dubois, a printer who works for a factory that handles Ministry of War contracts: it is he who has probably also provided the Germans with large-scale drawings of the fortifications at Toul, Reims, Langres, Neufchâteau, and the rest. When he sets the printing machine for a run, it is a simple matter for him to print off extra copies for his own use. I interviewed him yesterday , relates Henry, and found him to be a miserable fellow, a criminal fantasist with limited intelligence and no access to classified material. The plans he has handed over are publicly available. Recommendation: no further action necessary .

So there it is. ‘D’ is not Dreyfus; he is Dubois.

You order me to shoot a man and I’ll shoot him. .

I have made a careful note of where every document and folder originated and now I start the laborious process of putting each one back in its proper place. It takes me perhaps ten minutes to return it all exactly to where it was, to lock up the filing cabinets and wipe down the table surfaces. By the time I finish it is just after ten. I replace Gribelin’s keys in his desk drawer, kneel, and set about the tricky business of locking it again. I am conscious of the minutes passing as I try to manipulate the two thin metal tools. My hands are clumsy with tiredness and slippery with sweat. For some reason it seems much harder to close a lock than open one, but at last I manage it. I turn off the lights.

My only remaining task is to relock the door to the archive. I am still on my knees in the corridor fiddling with the tumblers when I think I hear the front door slam downstairs. I pause, straining to hear. I can’t pick out any suspicious noises. I must be imagining things. I resume my frustrating efforts. But then comes the definite creak of a footstep on the first-floor landing and someone begins to mount the stairs to the archive. I am so close to shifting the final tumbler I am reluctant to abandon the attempt. Only when I hear a much louder creak do I realise I am out of time. I dart across the passage, try the nearest door — locked — and then the next one — open — and slip inside.

I listen to the slow, deliberate tread of someone approaching along the corridor. Through the gap between the door and the jamb I see Gribelin come into view. My God, is there anything in this wretched man’s life apart from work? He stops outside the entrance to the archive and takes out his key. He inserts it in the lock and tries to turn it. I can’t see his face, but I see his shoulders stiffen. What is this? He tries the handle and opens the door cautiously. He doesn’t go in but stands on the threshold, listening. Then he throws the door wide open, turns on the light and moves inside. I can hear him checking his desk drawers. A moment later he returns to the corridor and glances up and down it. He ought to be an absurd little figure — a small dark-suited troll. But somehow he isn’t. There is a malevolence about him as he stands there, alert and suspicious — he is a danger to me, this man.

Finally — satisfied presumably that he must have made a mistake in locking up — he goes back into the archive and closes the door. I wait another ten minutes. Then I take off my shoes and creep past his lair in my stockinged feet.

On my walk back to my apartment I stop in the middle of the bridge and drop the roll of lock-picking tools into the Seine.

Over the next few days the Tsar tours Notre-Dame, names a new bridge after his father, banquets in Versailles.

While he goes about his business, I go about mine.

I walk over the road to see Colonel Foucault, who has come back from the Berlin embassy to witness the Imperial visit. We exchange a few pleasantries and then I ask him, ‘Did you ever hear anything from Richard Cuers after that meeting we arranged in Basel?’

‘Yes, he came and complained about it bitterly. I gather you fellows decided to give him some rough treatment. Who on earth did you send?’

‘My deputy, Major Henry; another of my officers, Captain Lauth; and a couple of policemen. Why? What did Cuers say?’

‘He said he’d made the journey in good faith, to reveal what he knew about the German agent in France, but when he got to Switzerland he felt he was treated as if he was a liar and a fantasist. There was one French officer in particular — fat, red-faced — who merely bullied him: interrupted him all the time; made it clear he didn’t believe a word of what he was saying. That was a deliberate tactic, I assume?’

‘Not that I’m aware of; not at all.’

Foucault looks at me in consternation. ‘Well, whether it was intentional or not, you won’t be hearing from Cuers again.’

I go to see Tomps at the headquarters of the Sûreté. I tell him, ‘It’s about your trip to Basel.’ Immediately he looks anxious. He doesn’t want to land anyone in any trouble. But it’s clear the episode has been preying on his mind.

‘I won’t quote you,’ I promise him. ‘Just tell me what happened.’

He doesn’t take much prompting. He seems to be relieved to get it off his chest.

‘Well, Colonel,’ he says, ‘you remember our original plan? It worked to the letter. I followed Cuers from the German railway station to the cathedral, saw him make contact with my colleague Vuillecard then followed the pair of them to the Schweizerhof, where Major Henry and Captain Lauth were ready for him upstairs. After that I went back to the bar at the station to wait. I guess it must have been about three hours later that Henry suddenly came in and ordered a drink. I asked him how it was going and he said, “I’ve had enough of this bastard” — you know how he talks — “there’s nothing we can learn from him, I’ll bet a month’s salary on it.” I said, “Well, what are you doing back here so early?” And he said, “Oh, I played Mr Big, pretended to get angry and finally walked out of there. I left him with Lauth: let the young fellow have a try!” Obviously I was disappointed with the sound of how this was going, so I said, “You know I’m an old acquaintance of Cuers? You know he likes a lot of absinthe? He really loves a drink. That might have been a better approach. If Captain Lauth can’t get anywhere, do you want me to have a try?”’

‘And what did Major Henry say to that?’

Tomps continues his passable impersonation of Henry. ‘“No,” he says, “it’s not worth the trouble. Forget it.” Then at six, when Captain Lauth had finished his session and turned up at the station, I asked Henry again: “Listen, I know Cuers well. Why don’t you let me take him out for a drink?” But he just repeated what he’d said before: “No, it’s useless. We’re wasting our time here.” So we caught the night train to Paris and that was that.’

Back in my office, I open a file on Henry. That Henry is the man who framed Dreyfus I have no doubt.

Code-breaking isn’t the province of the Statistical Section, or even the Ministry of War. It is run out of the Foreign Ministry by a seven-man team whose presiding genius is Major Étienne Bazeries. The major is famous in the newspapers for having broken the Great Cipher of Louis XIV and revealed the identity of the Man in the Iron Mask. He conforms to every cliché of the eccentric prodigy — unkempt, abrupt, forgetful — and is not an easy man to get to see. Twice I visit the quai d’Orsay on the pretext of other business and try to find him, only to be told by his staff that no one knows where he is. It is not until the end of the month that I track him to his office. He is in his shirtsleeves, bent over his desk with a screwdriver and a cylindrical enciphering device which lies all around him in pieces. In theory I am his superior officer, but Bazeries doesn’t salute or even stand; he has never believed in rank, just as he doesn’t believe in haircuts or shaving or even, to judge by the atmosphere in his office, washing.