‘It concerns the Dreyfus Case.’
To my surprise, Garnier bounded out of the seat into which he had
just dropped.
‘As to that--impossible!’ he exclaimed with vigour. ‘That is our
secret--_ours_, you understand.’
I listened to this declaration with secret dismay. It revealed to
me that the fate of Dreyfus was in some manner connected with the
interest of the heads of the French Army, in short, with Garnier’s
own; and from his tone I suspected that I was questioning the
arch-plotter.
There was still the chance that he might be willing to part with the
secret if he could be assured that it would not be used against him.
‘Suppose I required this information on behalf of a friendly monarch,
who is himself a soldier, and who might be willing to pledge his word
that it should not be made use of to your disadvantage?’
Garnier gazed at me as though he would have read the name of this
monarch in my eyes.
‘Impossible,’ he repeated, in a tone of real regret; ‘_twice
impossible!_’ And, as though anxious to convince me that his refusal
was not unfriendly, he added--‘It is not a question of a Boulanger
this time.’
Perceiving that I could not press him further without showing my own
hand, I reluctantly allowed Garnier to depart. He had in reality told
me more than he suspected.
In the first place, he had convinced me that the Kaiser’s suspicions
were not idle, by his reception of my hint that I was acting for
a foreign Power. If the ferocious sentence on Dreyfus had been
inspired by spite against an unpopular officer, or by a desire to
find a scapegoat for bigger traitors; or if it had merely been an
episode in the secret duel between the Church and the Freemasons, as
the champions of Dreyfus were inclined to believe, there would have
been no meaning in that regretful ‘Twice impossible!’ If Garnier had
refused to sell his secret to a foreign Power, I knew him well enough
to feel assured that it must be because that Power was in some way
interested to defeat Garnier’s conspiracy.
But the real clue had been placed in my hands by those concluding
words--‘It is not a question of a Boulanger this time.’
Such a phrase constituted a riddle which few men in Europe were
better able than myself to decipher.
Boulanger was an adventurer, lifted on a wave of popular favour,
who had seemed likely at one moment to overturn the republic and
replace it by a military dictatorship with himself at the head. He
had failed because he was a mere adventurer, who represented no
principle, and who lacked that personal prestige with the Army which
is only acquired by successful leadership in war.
Nevertheless his career had revealed the weakness of the Republic,
and proved that all that was necessary to bring about its downfall
was an alliance between the military caste and some pretender with
more substantial claims than those conferred by the shouts of the
Paris mob.
Every one who knows anything of France knows that the soldiers have
long chafed under the ascendency of the lawyers, which is a necessary
consequence of Republican institutions. But Garnier’s words, if I
interpreted them rightly, showed that the lesson of Boulanger’s
failure had been laid to heart, and that this time the military
conspiracy which undoubtedly existed had found a really formidable
figurehead. In short, it was a question not of a military dictator,
but of a monarch; not of a Boulanger, but of a Bourbon or a Bonaparte.
I found myself on the brink of a discovery of first-rate importance.
For the success of such a military revolution as that indicated
only two things seemed necessary, a candidate and an occasion. If
my diagnosis were sound, a candidate had been found in Philippe
d’Orléans, the representative of the ancient monarchy, or Victor
Napoleon, the heir of the Bonapartes. The occasion was to be
furnished, perhaps, by the long-delayed war of _la revanche_!
As soon as I had reduced my thoughts to some sort of order I decided
that my next step must be to ascertain which of the two pretenders,
who seemed pointed out for the leading _rôle_ in such a conspiracy,
was the chosen one. The Duke of Orleans was at this time in England,
while the home of Prince Napoleon, as every one knows, is in the
neighbourhood of Brussels.
I despatched two of my most trusted subordinates, one to Belgium,
and the other to England, with instructions to keep a close watch on
the movements of both princes, and to let me know if there were any
signs of unusual activity which would indicate that some stroke was
in preparation.
In Paris I kept up a similar watch on the headquarters of the
Royalist and Bonapartist parties. The Royalists are formidable,
thanks to the influence of society; but the Bonapartist cause is
represented by a small and dwindling clique of journalists and
demagogues, who exhaust themselves in the effort to revive the
Napoleonic legend, by their parrot-like repetition of the words
_Marengo_ and _Austerlitz_.
I did not imagine that this noisy faction would be intrusted with
any important secret; and I was soon satisfied that if the chiefs
of the Army were really contemplating a restoration, Bourbon or
Bonapartist, they had kept their design entirely to themselves.
The first reports which I received from my agents abroad were
discouraging. The Bourbon Pretender, who is without reticence, and
seeks every opportunity of advertising his personality, appeared to
be quite passive for the moment.
Prince Victor Napoleon, a man of a very different character, who
withdraws himself as much as possible from public notice, conscious,
perhaps, that he has inherited some of his father’s unpopularity, was
also leading his usual quiet life, and no evidence was forthcoming
of any secret intelligence between him and the group of generals who
controlled the French army.
Things were in this position, and I was beginning to feel
dissatisfied with the slow progress I was making, when I was suddenly
called to the telephone one evening by my agent in Brussels, who had
at last some important news for me.
‘Prince Victor is going to England,’ he announced, after we had
exchanged the password.
‘To _England_!’ Was it possible that the two rivals were about to
meet? I asked myself. ‘When does he depart?’
‘Perhaps to-morrow. His secretary has been to the Belgian Foreign
Office to procure passports.’
‘There are no passports required in England,’ I returned, my
suspicions instantly roused. ‘You have been deceived. Have you seen
the passport?’
‘No. It was from the servants that I learned the Prince was going to
England.’
‘It is a blind, rest assured. Keep the strictest watch, and do not
allow him to leave Brussels without you. I shall come by the next
train.’
I rang off the communication, and hastened to make the necessary
preparations for a journey of which I could not foresee the end.
On alighting in the Belgian capital I was met by my faithful
henchman, who informed me with sparkling eyes that he had succeeded,
by means of a bribe, in ascertaining from a clerk in the Foreign
Office that a passport had been granted to the Comte de Saint Pol and
secretary, travelling to Berlin.
If anything had been needed to convince me that the journey of Prince
Napoleon had a serious purpose, these concealments would have done
so. I was now confident that I was on the right track, and I did not
grudge the fatigue involved in a journey across Europe.
I ordered Fouqué, as my man was named, to resume his watch on the
Prince’s abode, while I waited at the station from which the Berlin
express takes its departure. It was understood that we were both
to proceed by the same train as the Comte de Saint Pol and his
companion.
No hitch occurred; the Prince, accompanied by his secretary and
my agent, duly arrived to take their seats in the train, and the
four of us alighted together in the capital of Germany. I had spent
the interval in considering my plan of action. I was so far from
foreseeing the true cause of Prince Napoleon’s mysterious journey,
that I expected to find him closeted the next day with the German
Emperor, imparting the confidence which Garnier had refused to me.
The event proved very different.
As soon as the two travellers had taken up their quarters in a hotel,
whither, it is needless to say, we accompanied them, the secretary
was sent out on an errand by himself. Fouqué, of course, followed,
and came back in about an hour with the startling information that
the secretary had been to the Russian Embassy.
The meaning of this proceeding flashed upon me at once. The real
destination of the Prince was not Berlin, but Petersburg. He was
merely passing a few hours in Berlin in order to confuse the trail,
and he had sent his passport to the Embassy to be _viséd_ for Russia.
In order to make sure that my surmise was correct, I decided to
make use of my implied authority to act on behalf of the German
Government. I ordered Fouqué to force his way bodily into the Count’s
apartment, announce himself as an agent of the Berlin police, and
demand to see the stranger’s passport. The ruse was completely
successful, and I learned that the yellow seal of the Russian Eagle
had been affixed to the paper.
My own task had now become difficult and dangerous. Although I
maintain friendly relations with the Russian police, with whom I
have often collaborated, I knew they were not likely to tolerate my
intrusion into their territory as the spy of a foreign Power. In
dealing with half-reclaimed savages like the Slaves, one never knows
what form their revenge will take, and Siberia is not a country in
which I have ever had any inclination to reside.
The plan which presented itself to my mind was an audacious one,
but in such situations audacity is safer than faint-heartedness. I
despatched Fouqué to the headquarters of the Berlin police with a
denunciation against Prince Napoleon’s secretary for the crime of
_lèse-majesté_.
_Lèse-majesté_ is the one offence which is never treated lightly in
German official quarters. Fouqué’s information was eagerly taken
down, and a police officer promptly arrived at the hotel armed with a
warrant for the arrest of the traveller.
M. Rémillard, the secretary, protested in vain that he was a
stranger, who had only that hour arrived in Berlin, and was leaving
Germany the next day; and that he had never been guilty of the least
disrespect towards Wilhelm II.
‘You declared that the Emperor was a babbler,’ he was informed.
‘Ah, but I meant the Emperor of Russia,’ retorted the Frenchman
smartly.
‘What, is he a babbler, too?’ exclaimed the policeman--an answer
which, I believe, has since become celebrated.
But his ingenuity could not save the unlucky secretary from arrest,
and the Comte de Saint Pol found himself obliged to proceed on his
journey alone. It remained for me to complete the execution of my
design, by substituting myself in the place of M. Rémillard.
This project, which would have been beyond the powers of an ordinary
police agent, was rendered possible in my case by my extensive
knowledge of underground politics, and the reputation which I have
striven to deserve of a man whose faith can be depended on.
I dismissed Fouqué, whose further presence would have embarrassed me,
and took my seat in the _coupé_ reserved for the Comte de Saint Pol
in the Petersburg express.
In answer to the remonstrance with which my intrusion was received, I
explained that I was acting under orders.
‘Your travelling companion has been arrested, Monsieur le Comte, but
perhaps I may be allowed to supply his place.’
‘Am I under arrest, too?’ Prince Victor demanded with some
indignation.
‘Not at all,’ I answered, ‘but your movements are of some interest
to the German Government, or rather the Emperor, who has honoured me
with his personal instructions.’
‘What have my affairs to do with his Imperial Majesty?’ inquired the
Prince anxiously.
‘Perhaps nothing, perhaps a great deal. You will, at least allow,
_Monsieur le Comte_, that your passage through Germany appears to be
attended with some mystery.’
‘In short----?’
‘In short, the Emperor will be glad to be honoured by your
confidence, _Monseigneur_.’
The Prince started at this title, and began narrowly scrutinising my
face, while he evidently considered in his own mind what account to
give of himself.
‘It may assist you, perhaps,’ I went on to say, ‘if I tell you that I
already know nearly all that you can tell me. I am M. V----.’
At this name a change passed over Prince Napoleon’s face. A silent
struggle seemed to be taking place in his breast. Presently he raised
his eyes to mine.
[Illustration: “‘Am I under arrest too?’ Prince Pierre demanded with
some indignation.”]
‘Tell me, M. V----, are you capable of forgetting for a couple of
hours that you are the Emperor’s confidential agent, and favouring me
with your disinterested advice?’
‘I believe so, always provided that your Highness does not ask me to
betray the confidences I have received from others.’
The Prince accepted this stipulation with frankness.
‘In all probability you are in a position to tell me more about the
reasons for this journey than I know myself. I am going, as a matter
of fact, in search of information.’
I concealed as much as possible the shock of surprise which this
confession caused me. Up to that moment I had naturally imagined
that the Prince was on his way to consult the Tsar, and obtain
his approval, as the ally of France, of whatever designs were in
progress. I now realised suddenly that I had overlooked a factor in
the situation whose importance might be greater than Prince Victor’s
own.