An Officer and a Spy

that.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘It would be too obvious. The ambassador would complain.’
    ‘Actually, I think I know a way we can do itted">ht, humming the tune I have just been playing, slightly the worse for drink but much the better for company.
    The following Thursday evening, at seven precisely, I sit in a corner of the cavernous yellow gloom of the platform café of the gare Saint-Lazare, sipping an Alsace beer. The place is packed; the double-hinged door swings back and forth with a squeak of springs. The roar of chat and movement inside and the whistles and shouts and percussive bursts of steam from the locomotives outside make it a perfect place not to be overheard. I have managed to save a table with two seats that gives me a clear view of the entrance. Once again, however, Desvernine surprises me by appearing at my back. He is carrying a bottle of mineral water, refuses my offer of a beer, and is pulling out his little black notebook even as he sinks into his place on the crimson banquette.
    ‘He’s quite a character, your Major Esterhazy, Colonel. Big debts all over Rouen and Paris: I have a list here for you.’
    ‘What does he spend the money on?’
    ‘Mostly gambling. There’s a place he goes to in the boulevard Poissonnière. It’s a sickness that’s hard to cure, as I know to my cost.’ He passes the list across the table. ‘He also has a mistress, a Mademoiselle Marguerite Pays, aged twenty-six, a registered prostitute in the Pigalle district, who goes by the name of “Four-Fingered Marguerite”.’
    I can’t help laughing. ‘You’re not serious?’
    Desvernine, the earnest former non-commissioned officer turned policeman, does not see the humour. ‘She’s from the Rouen area originally, daughter of a Calvados distiller, started work in a spinning factory when she was a kid, lost a finger in an accident and her job with it, moved to Paris, became an horizontale in the rue Victor-Masse, met Esterhazy last year either on the Paris–Rouen train or at the Moulin Rouge – there are different versions depending on which of the girls you speak to.’
    ‘So this affair is common knowledge?’
    ‘Absolutely. He’s even set her up in an apartment: 49, rue de Douai, near Montmartre. Visits her every evening when he’s in town. She’s furnished it, but the lease is in his name. The girls at the Moulin Rouge call him “The Benefactor”.’
    ‘That kind of life can’t come cheap.’
    ‘He’s working every racket he can think of to keep it going. He’s even trying to join the board of a British company in London – which is a rum thing for a French officer to do, when you think about it.’
    ‘And where is his wife during all this?’
    ‘Either on her estate at Dommartin-la-Planchette in the Ardennes or at the apartment in Paris. He goes back to her after he’s finished with Marguerite.’
    ‘He seems to be a man to whom betrayal is second nature.’
    ‘I’d say so.’
    ‘What about the Germans? Any links there?’
    ‘I haven’t got anywhere on that yet.’
    ‘I wonder – perhaps we could follow him?’
    ‘We could,’ says Desvernine doubtfully, ‘but he’s a wary bird from what I’ve seen. He’d soon get wise to us.’
    ‘In that case, we can’t risk it. The last th

9
    AT FIVE O’CLOCK the following afternoon, the Swiss expedition assembles in the lobby, kitted out in stout walking boots, high socks, sports jackets and knapsacks. The cover story is that they are four friends on a hiking holiday in the Baselbiet. Henry’s jacket is of an unfortunate broad-check design; his felt hat sprouts a feather. He is red-faced and grumpy in the heat. It makes one wonder why he has schemed so hard to join the party.
    ‘My dear Major Henry,’ I laugh, ‘this is taking disguise too far – you look like a Tyrolean innkeeper!’ Tomps and Vuillecard and even Lauth all join in the amusement, but Henry remains sullen. He likes teasing others but can’t abide to be teased himself. I say to Lauth, ‘Send me a telegram from Basel to let me know how the meeting goes, and what time you’ll be back – in coded terms, of course. Good luck, gentlemen. I must say, I wouldn’t let you into my country dressed like that, but then I’m not Swiss!’
    I walk with them out of the door and see them into their cab. I wait until the landau is out of sight before setting off on foot towards my own rendezvous. I have plenty of time, enough to make the most of this perfect late summer