An Officer and a Spy

back to the telegraph office and asking them to repeat it?’
    He returns later in the morning. ‘There is no doubt, Colonel,’ he says. ‘They checked in Paris: the text is accurate. Also, this has just arrived for you, redirected from Tunis.’ He gives me a letter. On the envelope, which is marked ‘urgent’, my name is misspelt ‘Piquart’. I vaguely recognise the handwriting. Here it comes: the second shot.
    ‘Thank you, Jemel.’
    I wait until he has gone before I open it.
Colonel,
I have received an anonymous letter informing me that you have organised an abominable plot to substitute me for Dreyfus. The letter alleges, among other things, that you have bribed junior officers to obtain samples of my handwriting; I know this to be true. It is also alleged that you took from the Ministry of War documents entrusted to you in good faith in order to compose a secret dossier which you have passed to friends of the traitor. This I also know to be true, as I have today been given a document from this file.
Despite the evidence I still hesitate to believe that a senior officer in the French army could be party to such a monstrous conspiracy against one of his comrades.
It is unthinkable that you will not provide me with a frank and clear explanation.
Esterhazy
    A letter of complaint from the traitor, in the same hand in which he wrote the bordereau – one almost has to admire the impudence of the fellow! And then the questions start to assail me. How does he know my name? Or that I am in Tunis? Or that I have obtained samples of his handwriting? Presumably from the author of this alleged ‘anonymous letter’. And who could be the author of such a letter? Henry? Is this where the logic of the General Staff’s position has led them – actually to helping the guilty man evade justice as the only means of keeping the innocent man imprisoned? I fetch out the telegram. We have proof that the bleu was forged by Georges. Blanche. What are they up to?
    The next day Jemel brings me another telegram, another menacing riddle: Stop the Demigod. Everything is discovered. Extremely serious matter. Speranza. This message was sent from the rue la Fayette post office in Paris, and actually on the same day as the Blanche telegram, but it has taken an extra twenty-four hours to reach me because, like Esterhazy’s letter, it was wrongly addressed to me in Tunis.
    I have never met anyone called Speranza – I know it only as the Italian word for ‘hope’ – but ‘the Demigod’ is Blanche’s nickname for our mutual friend and fellow Wagnerian Captain William Lallemand. And the only person connected to the Statistical Section who is likely to know that obscure fact from our circle is Blanche’s former lover, du Paty.
    Du Paty. Yes – of course – the moment the name comes into my mind it is obvious: du Paty has been drafted in to help devise this sinister production; his decayed Gothic style, part Dumas, part Fleurs du Mal , is inimitable. But whereas a year or two ago I would have laughed off any threat from so ludicrous a figure, now I know differently. Now I have seen what he is capable of. And that is when I realise I am being fitted for the same convict’s outfit as Dreyfus.
    The echo of the next detonation, on Wednesday 17 November, is sufficient to shake even the sleepy palms of the Sousse Military Club:
DREYFUS’S BROTHER NAMES ‘THE REAL TRAITOR’. Paris, 2h. Here is the text of the letter which the brother of Dreyfus has sent to the Minister of War: ‘Monsieur le Minister, The only basis for the accusation against my brother is an unsigned, undated letter establishing that confidential documents were delivered to an agent of a foreign power. I have the honour to inform you that the author of that document is M. le comte Walsin Esterhazy, an infantry major suspended from active service since last spring for reasons of temporary ill health. The handwriting of Major Esterhazy is identical with that of this document. I cannot doubt, Minister, that once you know the perpetrator of the treason for which my brother has been convicted you will act swiftly to see that justice is done. With the deepest respect, Mathieu Dreyfus.’
    I read it after lunch and then retreat to the window, where I pretend to be immersed in my novel. Behind me the Dépêche is passed from hand to hand. ‘Well,’ says one officer, ‘there you go – that’s the Jews for you – they stick together and they don’t let up.’ Another