An Officer and a Spy

ask Monsieur Gribelin to stamp a letter?’
    ‘To stamp a letter?’
    ‘To stamp a letter, not with the date of its arrival, but with an earlier date?’
    ‘No.’
    Gribelin says sarcastically, ‘Colonel, let me refresh your memory. You returned to your office one afternoon at two o’clock. You sent for me, and as you were taking off your overcoat, you said: “Gribelin, could you get the post office to stamp a letter?”’
    ‘I have no such recollection.’
    The judge says, ‘But surely you made the same request of Major Lauth?’
    ‘Never.’ I shake my head. ‘Never, never.’
    ‘Major Lauth, would you come forward, please?’
    Lauth rises from his place next to Henry and comes to join us. Staring straight ahead, as if on parade, he says, ‘Colonel Picquart asked me to remove all traces of tearing from the petit bleu . He said, “Do you think we could get this stamped by the post office?” He also said that I should testify that I recognised the handwriting on the petit bleu as being that of a certain foreign gentleman. But I said to him, “I never saw this handwriting before.”’
    I look at the pair of them: clearly years of running spies has made facile liars of them both. I grit my teeth. ‘But this was a document torn into sixty pieces,’ I say, ‘fastened together by adhesive strips on the side where the address was written. How could a stamp have been put on that? It would have looked ridiculous.’
    Neither answers.
    Labori is on his feet again. He hitches up his robes and says to Lauth, ‘You write in your deposition that Colonel Picquart could very easily have added the petit bleu to the cone of unprocessed intelligence material waiting in his safe – in other words, that it is a fabrication.’
    ‘That is true. He could.’
    ‘But you don’t have any proof?’
    ‘Nevertheless, I believe he did it.’
    ‘Colonel Picquart?’
    ‘Major Lauth may believe it, but that doesn’t make it true.’
    The judge says, ‘Let us go back to the incident with the secret file. Colonel Henry, would you approach the witness?’
    Now Henry heaves himself to his feet and comes forward. Close up, I can see he is in an agitated state, flushed and sweating. All three of them seem to be under great strain. It is one thing to repeat their lies in a small and secret military court; it is quite another to do it here. They can never have expected this. He says, ‘It was in October, I think. I’ve never been able to fix the date precisely. All I know is that there was an open file in the room. The colonel was sitting down, and at his left sat Monsieur Leblois, and before them on the desk were several files, among them the secret file, which I had labelled with blue pencil. The envelope was open, and the document in question – the one with the words “that lowlife D” – was outside it.’
    The judge says, ‘Colonel Picquart, what have you to say?’
    ‘I repeat that I never had the file on my desk in the presence of Maître Leblois, either open or closed. In any case, it would have been impossible for this incident to have occurred as Colonel Henry describes it, because Maître Leblois can prove that he didn’t return to Paris until November the seventh.’
    Henry blusters, ‘Well I say it was October. I’ve always said October, and I can’t say anything else.’
    I ask the judge, ‘May I question Colonel Henry?’ He gestures for me to go ahead, and I say to Henry, ‘Tell me, did you enter my office by the door opposite the desk, or by the little side door?’
    After a slight hesitation he says, ‘By the main door.’
    ‘And about how far into the office did you come?’
    ‘Not far. I can’t say exactly whether it was just half a pace or a full one.’
    ‘But whichever it was, you must have been on the other side of my desk – that is, on the side opposite to where I was sitting. So how could you have seen the document?’
    ‘I saw the document perfectly.’
    ‘But the writing on that document is very murky even if it’s directly beneath your eyes. How could you possibly have made it out at such a distance?’
    ‘Listen, Colonel,’ he replies, still trying to bluff his way out of it, ‘I know that document better than anyone and I would certainly recognise it at a distance of ten paces. There’s no question about it. Let me say it bluntly once and for all. You want the light? You shall have it!’ He points at me and turns to the jury. ‘ Colonel Picquart is lying! ’
    He