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Authors: Robert Harris
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conviction, not evidence in court.’ Same point repeated with emphasis several times . . . After departure of B, A remained seated in state of obvious emotion. A paid bill (see copy attached) and left hotel at 9.25.
I look at Henry. ‘The President has revealed that the judges were shown secret evidence?’
Henry shrugs. ‘People talk. It was bound to come out one day.’
‘Yes, but the President . . .? You’re not concerned?’
‘No. Why? It’s just a bit of legal procedure. It doesn’t alter a thing.’
I brood on this; I’m not so sure. I think of how my lawyer friend Leblois might react if he heard about it. ‘I agree it doesn’t alter Dreyfus’s guilt. But if it were to become widely known that he was convicted on the basis of secret evidence that he and his lawyer never even saw, then some will certainly argue he didn’t get a fair trial.’ Now I start to understand why Boisdeffre scents political trouble. ‘How are the family planning to use this information, do we know?’
Henry glances at Guénée, who shakes his head. ‘They were all very excited about it at first. There was a family conference in Basel. They brought in a journalist, a Jew called Lazare. He moves in anarchist circles. But that was four months ago; since then, they’ve done nothing.’
‘Well, they have done one thing,’ says Henry, with a wink. ‘Tell the colonel about Madame Léonie – that’ll cheer him up!’
‘Oh yes, Madame Léonie!’ Guénée laughs and rummages through his report. ‘She’s another friend of Dr Gibert.’ He hands me a second photograph, of a plain-faced woman of about fifty, staring straight at the camera, wearing a Norman bonnet.
‘And who is Madame Léonie?’
‘She’s a somnambulist.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Absolutely! She goes into a clairvoyant sleep and tells Mathieu facts about his brother’s case which she claims to get from the spirit world. He met her in Le Havre and was so impressed he brought her to Paris. He’s given her a room in his apartment.’
‘Can you believe it?’ Henry roars with laughter. ‘They are literally stumbling around in the dark! Really, Colonel, we have nothing to worry about from these people.’
I lay the photographs of Mathieu Dreyfus and Madame Léonie side by side and I feel my uneasiness begin to lift. Table-tapping, fortune-telling, communing with the dead: these are all the fashion in Paris at the moment; sometimes one despairs of one’s fellow men. ‘You’re right, Henry. It shows they’re getting nowhere. Even if they have discovered there was a secret file of evidence, they obviously realise that on its own it means nothing. We just need to make sure it stays like that.’ I turn to Guénée. ‘How are you handling the surveillance?’
‘We have them very tightly surrounded, Colonel. Madame Dreyfus’s nanny reports to us weekly. The concierge in Mathieu Dreyfus’s apartment building in the rue de Châteaudun is our informant. We have another who works as his wife’s maid. His cook and her fiancé keep an eye out for us. We follow him wherever he goes. All the family’s communications are diverted here by the postal authorities, and we make copies.’
‘And this is the correspondence of Dreyfus himself.’ Henry holds up the file he has brought with him and hands it over to me. ‘They need it back tomorrow.’
It is tied with black ribbon and stamped with the official seal of the Colonial Ministry. I unfasten it and flick open the cover. Some of the letters are originals – the ones the censor has decided not to let through and which therefore have been retained in the ministry – others are copies of the correspondence that was cleared. My dear Lucie, I ask myself in truth how I can go on living . . . I put the letter back and take out another. My poor Fred darling, what anguish I felt as I parted from you . . . It jolts me. It’s hard to think of that stiff, awkward, chilly figure as ‘Fred’.
I
I look at Henry. ‘The President has revealed that the judges were shown secret evidence?’
Henry shrugs. ‘People talk. It was bound to come out one day.’
‘Yes, but the President . . .? You’re not concerned?’
‘No. Why? It’s just a bit of legal procedure. It doesn’t alter a thing.’
I brood on this; I’m not so sure. I think of how my lawyer friend Leblois might react if he heard about it. ‘I agree it doesn’t alter Dreyfus’s guilt. But if it were to become widely known that he was convicted on the basis of secret evidence that he and his lawyer never even saw, then some will certainly argue he didn’t get a fair trial.’ Now I start to understand why Boisdeffre scents political trouble. ‘How are the family planning to use this information, do we know?’
Henry glances at Guénée, who shakes his head. ‘They were all very excited about it at first. There was a family conference in Basel. They brought in a journalist, a Jew called Lazare. He moves in anarchist circles. But that was four months ago; since then, they’ve done nothing.’
‘Well, they have done one thing,’ says Henry, with a wink. ‘Tell the colonel about Madame Léonie – that’ll cheer him up!’
‘Oh yes, Madame Léonie!’ Guénée laughs and rummages through his report. ‘She’s another friend of Dr Gibert.’ He hands me a second photograph, of a plain-faced woman of about fifty, staring straight at the camera, wearing a Norman bonnet.
‘And who is Madame Léonie?’
‘She’s a somnambulist.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Absolutely! She goes into a clairvoyant sleep and tells Mathieu facts about his brother’s case which she claims to get from the spirit world. He met her in Le Havre and was so impressed he brought her to Paris. He’s given her a room in his apartment.’
‘Can you believe it?’ Henry roars with laughter. ‘They are literally stumbling around in the dark! Really, Colonel, we have nothing to worry about from these people.’
I lay the photographs of Mathieu Dreyfus and Madame Léonie side by side and I feel my uneasiness begin to lift. Table-tapping, fortune-telling, communing with the dead: these are all the fashion in Paris at the moment; sometimes one despairs of one’s fellow men. ‘You’re right, Henry. It shows they’re getting nowhere. Even if they have discovered there was a secret file of evidence, they obviously realise that on its own it means nothing. We just need to make sure it stays like that.’ I turn to Guénée. ‘How are you handling the surveillance?’
‘We have them very tightly surrounded, Colonel. Madame Dreyfus’s nanny reports to us weekly. The concierge in Mathieu Dreyfus’s apartment building in the rue de Châteaudun is our informant. We have another who works as his wife’s maid. His cook and her fiancé keep an eye out for us. We follow him wherever he goes. All the family’s communications are diverted here by the postal authorities, and we make copies.’
‘And this is the correspondence of Dreyfus himself.’ Henry holds up the file he has brought with him and hands it over to me. ‘They need it back tomorrow.’
It is tied with black ribbon and stamped with the official seal of the Colonial Ministry. I unfasten it and flick open the cover. Some of the letters are originals – the ones the censor has decided not to let through and which therefore have been retained in the ministry – others are copies of the correspondence that was cleared. My dear Lucie, I ask myself in truth how I can go on living . . . I put the letter back and take out another. My poor Fred darling, what anguish I felt as I parted from you . . . It jolts me. It’s hard to think of that stiff, awkward, chilly figure as ‘Fred’.
I
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