A Man in Uniform (41 page)

But it was as he read on that Dubon got a real surprise: Clemenceau somehow knew that the Italian diplomat’s letter that Cavaignac had read out in the National Assembly was a fake. Perhaps it was merely bravado on his part, but he denounced the letter as a forgery created by the military to bolster a feeble case.

The paper denounced the perfidy of the military in continuing to pursue the case against Dreyfus and went on to remind readers of the human cost of the affair, describing in the most pitiable language Dreyfus’s plight, festering in a tin shack on Devil’s Island, and that of his family, mourning his absence in Paris. The writer expounded at length on the loyalty and perseverance of Dreyfus’s wife, Lucie, who had never abandoned hope and never allowed herself or others to forget the injustice done her husband, going so far as to wear mourning dress ever since the day, two and a half years before, when he was shipped in shackles to Devil’s Island. The front page article continued on an inside page, and there was a photo that, according to the caption, showed the captain’s wife caught by the photographer the previous month on her way to register her appeal against her husband’s conviction. It wasn’t a very clear photo, but Dubon could see the English detective was right. The woman in the newspaper was not his client.

I wonder if the lady will actually show up for dinner tomorrow night, Dubon thought to himself. He also wondered whether the mysterious lady for whom he had been working since April was going to pay his bill.

L’Aurore
was not a newspaper he would ever have expected his brother-in-law to read, so he was surprised at lunch after the burial when the major, obviously looking for some topic to distract himself from Jean-Jean’s death, observed to him: “Have you seen the papers? Seems Dreyfus must have had an accomplice, because they are saying that fellow Esterhazy is also a spy.”

“Have you been reading
L’Aurore
?”

“Goodness no. I never read that trash. It was in
Le Siècle
. We get it as well as
Le Matin
, just for some balance. They called him a titled officer stationed at a garrison just outside Paris. Well, not hard to identify who they mean if you know the man.”

“You know Esterhazy?”

“He’s come to my card parties once or twice. Bit of a cad. Didn’t invite him back after a small problem with losses that were never paid.”

It seemed to Dubon all Paris should have known that Esterhazy was the spy.

“Someone told me he was at the Fiteaus’ ball the night young Fiteau killed himself.”

“Really? I don’t remember seeing him,” the major said.

“What’s he look like?”

“Insignificant character. Slinks about. You wouldn’t notice him if it weren’t for the mustache. Great walrus thing, all white …”

A shrunken man with a huge mustache. It was the man who had pushed his way past them all after young Fiteau’s body had fallen into their midst. It was the man who had said, “My God, I thought he was joking.”

“I saw him,” Dubon said. “He was in the same room when Fiteau shot himself. They must have been playing cards.” He hesitated, unsure how to ask his next question. “Valcourt … When you have your card parties, how much money …?”

“Oh, little parties. Not high stakes. We would never let someone get into that kind of trouble.”

“How would you stop him?”

“Well, like we did with Esterhazy. Just not invite him if his losses were mounting. It’s only a social thing, after all, a game between friends.”

“But what if it’s not a social thing, if they aren’t friends?”

“You mean if there’s a house? You think Esterhazy was running a game?”

“I don’t know the vocabulary …”

“Taking a cut. Organizing the game, and then taking a cut of the winnings.”

“I assume you don’t do that, when you organize your games?”

“Goodness, no, Dubon. That’s not legal. Mine are gentlemen’s parties.”

“But Esterhazy is clearly not a gentleman.”

“No, clearly. His debts mounting, he tries his hand at spying. Maybe that doesn’t pay enough, so he starts running a game. It’s possible, I guess. Might explain why young Fiteau was in so deep.”

“Why?”

“Some of them can’t do without it. It’s like an intoxication, a mania. They need to bet every night and they don’t live in Monte Carlo. You can’t find a gentlemen’s party every night. So, you’ll find a game. Someone will put you in touch. But they are ruthless. If you don’t pay your debts, they’ll come after you. If that was the kind of card game young Fiteau was playing, it’s little wonder he killed himself.”

So, Madame Fiteau was right, Dubon thought to himself. Esterhazy had entrapped her son. He wondered if she would want to know.

Geneviève glanced up from the mail and remarked, “How kind. You should read this, François. It’s really a beautiful letter, from General Fiteau and Madame. After all their pain …” She proceeded to the second page and then stopped.

“The general says something about how they hope to see you in uniform more often, and a reservist should be equally proud of the service. What can he mean?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s just a conversation we were having. We were talking about the reserves the last time … uh, at the ball, you know before everything …”

Geneviève began to blink back tears at the memory of another death.

It was the day after the funeral and they were sitting in the salon after a brief and subdued Saturday lunch. André had removed himself to his room while Geneviève was working her way through the many letters of condolence that had arrived in the morning post. Dubon had not said anything to her about his conviction that it was
the now-notorious Esterhazy who had got the young Fiteau hooked on gaming. It was probably much better the Fiteaus not know; he didn’t suppose it would help them recover any faster. He scanned the two pages quickly: apart from the general’s leading remark about wearing uniform, his letter, it turned out, expressed nothing more than the predictable sentiments.

Dubon was just replacing it in Geneviève’s pile when the front doorbell rang. She looked up in surprise; despite her own forwardness in visiting Madame Fiteau, one did not expect anyone to disturb a house of mourning. They could hear the sounds of Luc emerging from the kitchen and going to the door, followed by a brief conference in hushed voices. Luc then appeared in the room.

“It is Captain Le Goff, Monsieur.”

“Really, Luc, I don’t think—” Geneviève began.

“I’ll see him in my study. Thank you, Luc,” Dubon said, adding to his wife, “I’ll just go and see what he wants, dear. He was very close to Jean-Jean. We mustn’t stand on ceremony with him.”

He met Le Goff in the hall and showed him down the corridor to the study.

“I’m sorry to show up like this, Dubon. My apologies to Madame, and my condolences, of course. I should send her a letter. I just”—he waited until the door was closed behind them to continue—“found out something I think you need to know.”

“Yes.”

“I have a source who knows the superintendent of the Mont-Valérian prison. Major Henry was taken there last night.”

“Goodness. So he’s going to take the fall. They will no longer try to use the forged letters as evidence.” It was good news, Dubon thought, although at any new trial, the unmasking of forged evidence would have been an ace up the defense’s sleeve.

“Let me finish, Dubon,” Le Goff said. “He was found dead in his cell this morning.”

“Dead?”

“Slit his own throat with his razor.”

“He was allowed a razor?”

“Apparently so. Allowed a razor to shave himself and did the honorable thing. Wherever the affair ends, the generals are desperate to distance themselves from Henry’s antics.”

Poor Henry, Dubon thought. The loyal Mr. Fix-It to the end.

“And
La Presse
? Will it publish this at least?”

“Saw my editor this morning. He is panting to get it into print and curses that he doesn’t publish on Sundays.”

“So, it will be public knowledge by Monday?” Dubon asked, thinking to himself that he now had another piece of news to tell his client if she did show up for dinner that evening.

“Yes. I imagine other papers will have it on Monday too; I am keeping my fingers crossed that none of the Sunday papers get a hold of it.”

“Well, it will be all over town soon enough. Henry’s suicide is tantamount to a confession to his perjury and forgeries. Revision is inevitable now.”

“I hope you’re right, Dubon, but I wouldn’t underestimate how stubborn the anti-Dreyfusards may be. They may try to turn Henry into some kind of martyr: persecuted by his superiors for a little tweaking of the evidence against a man everyone knows is guilty. Unorthodox, perhaps, but all in the best interests of France.”

“The wind is shifting,” Dubon answered. “Even my wife is re-examining her position. She had complained to Jean-Jean that my support of the captain might cost us socially, but he told her that I was right.”

“Your brother-in-law was …” Le Goff began, but his voice cracked. “I am sorry. It’s only the day after the funeral, and here I am barging in with my news. He was a dear friend. Many found him annoying, so earnest. We were very different people, but I really valued him. His death seems so odd. Ironic, and irony is not something I ever associated with him. A military man succumbing to a stupid accident. He deserved a more heroic death. He was a hero in his way, the kind of quiet hero on whom the military depends.”

Not for the first time since his brother-in-law’s death, Dubon felt a pang of guilt. He had undervalued Jean-Jean. It was not merely the sentiment that follows death, the eulogies that canonize the most ordinary
people. Dubon could not imagine anyone calling Jean-Jean’s older brother, the ever-genial major, a quiet hero. Others saw something in Jean-Jean that he had missed, a clarity of purpose, a willingness to risk unpopularity to pursue his goals. Jean-Jean’s letter to Dubon proved as much.

“There was something else I was meaning to ask you,” Dubon said, returning to a previous line of thought.

“Yes?”

“Was it you who told Clemenceau that the diplomat’s letter was a forgery?”

“Well—”

“How else could he have known? Aside from Picquart, only Henry and the generals knew and they weren’t about to tell the editor of
L’Aurore
.”

“After what you said when
La Presse
wouldn’t publish Esterhazy’s name … I felt like a coward. I went to Clemenceau. I told him it was Esterhazy and I told him the letter was a forgery. I decided to risk my column. It seemed more important to get the news out.”

“So, Henry’s suicide …”

“He made his choices.”

“Oh, indeed. Never bother your superior officers. It was a lesson he had learned well.”

He thanked Le Goff for all his help and promised to keep in touch before going back to Geneviève in the salon.

“What did he want?”

“What did he want? Well, to share his grief, I guess. He’s lost a friend. He wanted to tell me how much Jean-Jean had mattered to him.”

“Oh,” said Geneviève, and then, after a pause, “I never liked that man.”

“He has a hard edge to him.”

“Intelligent, but always making you feel stupid … well, not so much stupid, but naive, as though he knows how the world works and you are just an infant in it. Do you know what I mean?”

“Oh, precisely, my dear. He’s a cynic. Rare in the military, I would have thought. Or perhaps not. Perhaps in wartime, the exigencies of battle and the generals’ foul-ups make all the lower ranks cynical, but these days there seems to be such emphasis on esprit de corps, never questioning the brass …”

“You mean because of this affair, no one is allowed to question?”

“Yes. But Le Goff questions. It doesn’t make him likable, but it does, I think, make him admirable.”

“No doubt you are right. Perhaps I should try harder to like him.”

“You are under no obligation, my dear. No obligation at all.”