An Officer and a Spy

– antique silkscreens, masks, bowls, vases. Gonse notices my surprise. ‘My brother’s a collector,’ he explains. ‘This is his place for most of the year.’
    Tea has been laid out in a garden room full of wicker furniture: petits fours on the low table, a samovar on the sideboard. Gonse pours me a cup of lapsang souchong. The cane seat squeaks as he sits down. He lights a cigarette. ‘Well then. Go ahead.’
    Like a commercial traveller, I unlock my briefcase and lay out my wares among the porcelain. It is an awkward moment for me: this is the first time I have even mentioned my investigation of Esterhazy to Gonse, the Chief of Intelligence. I show him the petit bleu , and in an attempt to make it seem less of an insult, I pretend that it arrived in late April rather than early March. Then I repeat the presentation I made to Boisdeffre. As I hand him the documents, Gonse studies each in turn, in his usual methodical manner. He spills cigarette ash on to the surveillance photographs, makes a joke of it – ‘Covering up the crime!’ – and blows it away calmly. Even when I produce the secret file he looks unperturbed.
    I suspect Boisdeffre must have warned him beforehand of what I was planning to tell him.
    ‘In conclusion,’ I say, ‘I had hoped to find something in the file that would establish Dreyfus’s guilt beyond doubt. But I’m afraid there’s nothing. It wouldn’t withstand ten minutes’ cross-examination by a halfway decent attorney.’
    I lay down the last of the documents and sip my tea, which is now stone cold. Gonse lights another cigarette. After a pause he says, ‘So we got the wrong man?’
    He says it matter-of-factly, as one might say, ‘So we took the wrong turning?’ or ‘So I wore the wrong hat?’
    ‘I’m afraid it looks like it.’
    Gonse plays with a match as he considers this, flicking it around and between his fingers with great dexterity, then snaps it. ‘And yet how do you explain the contents of the bordereau ? None of this changes our original hypothesis, does it? It must have been written by an artillery officer who had some experience of all four departments of the General Staff. And that’s not Esterhazy. That’s Dreyfus.’
    ‘On the contrary, this is where we made our original error. If you look at the bordereau again, you’ll see it always talks about notes being handed over: a note on the hydraulic brake . . . a note on covering troops . . . a note on artillery formations . . . a note on Madagascar . . .’ I point out what I mean on the photograph. ‘In other words, these aren’t the original documents. The only document that was actually handed over – the firing manual – we know that Esterhazy acquired by going on a gunnery course. Therefore I’m afraid the bordereau indicates precisely the opposite of what we thought it did. The traitor wasn’t on the General Staff. He didn’t have access to secrets. He was an outsider, a confidence trickster if you like, picking up gossip, compiling notes and trying to sell them for money. It was Esterhazy.’
    Gonse settles back in his chair. ‘May I make a suggestion, dear Picquart?’
    ‘Yes please, General.’
    ‘Forget about the bordereau .’
    ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘Forget about the bordereau . Investigate Esterhazy if you like, but don’t bring the bordereau into it.’
    I take my time responding. I know he is dim, but this is absurd. ‘With respect, General, the bordereau – the fact that it’s in Esterhazy’s handwriting, and the fact that we know he took an interest in artillery – the bordereau is the main evidence against Esterhazy.’
    ‘Well you’ll have to find something else.’
    ‘But the bordereau —’ I bite my tongue. ‘Might I ask why?’
    ‘I should have thought that was obvious. A court martial has already decided who wrote the bordereau . That case is closed. I believe it’s what the lawyers call res judicata: “a matter already judged”.’ He smiles at me through his cigarette smoke, pleased to have remembered this piece of schoolroom Latin.
    ‘But if we discover Esterhazy was the traitor and Dreyfus wasn’t . . .?’
    ‘Well we won’t discover that, will we? That’s the point. Because, as I have just explained to you, the Dreyfus case is over. The court has pronounced its verdict and that is the end of that.’
    I gape at him. I swallow. Somehow I need to convey to him, in the words of the cynical expression, that what he is suggesting is