The Library Paradox

by Catherine Shaw

  ‘He prevented a student from obtaining his degree?’ I asked. My ears had perked up at the name ‘Bryant’, and in any case I was always on the qui vive for news of anyone who had reason to hate or resent the deceased professor.

  ‘Temporarily, at least. Of course, he will redefend it this year, with a different jury. Still, it is most unpleasant. You know, a thesis defence is usually a formality. It is difficult, of course – the student must present his work excellently and be prepared for many questions and much criticism; however, the actual refusal of the degree is almost unheard of! One does not allow one’s student to defend his thesis if it is not absolutely complete. Bryant’s work was good enough, but he is an opinionated fellow, and Ralston took exception to some of his statements. Bryant didn’t sit down under it, and the result was an open quarrel. Most embarrassing. And we had offered Bryant a lectureship to begin directly after his defence, as well. He couldn’t take it up, obviously, without having gained his degree, and as his scholarship had run out, he was left with no means of support. It’s all the worse for him as he has to support his elderly mother. She is a widow, is she not?’ and he turned to Professor Taylor for confirmation.

  ‘I don’t know – er, I believe so,’ said the professor, looking very uncomfortable.

  I remembered the thin young man working in the library, and wondered about his choice of a job. Was there some reason behind it? Or did he merely find it a convenient way to tide himself over until, perhaps, a new lectureship should come up?

  ‘It wasn’t the first time we had such problems with Ralston,’ said Professor Taylor. ‘He’s been difficult ever since he first came to King’s, before 1880. It must have been in 1878. He was a young graduate then, so he’d have been about twenty-one or -two. He looked older than his age already. He had a most characteristic face, did he not? Lean-cheeked, a lone wolf. Indicative, perhaps, of the bitterness in his character. He finished his thesis in 1883, if I remember rightly. Yes, he can’t have been more than forty or so when he died.’

  ‘I never saw him,’ piped up young Hilda, a bouncing girl who could never have been described as lean-cheeked. ‘I never got to see the murder victim, it’s not fair! I would so have liked to. I do wonder what he was like!’

  ‘You little vampire,’ began her father, humorously, looking faintly embarrassed. But Mrs Taylor smiled at Hilda from across the table.

  ‘Why, if you want to know what he looked like, perhaps you can,’ she said. ‘He is in the group photograph taken on the day of the Honoris Causa ceremony, isn’t he?’ she asked her husband.

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ he said with a slight shrug. ‘He might be there, I suppose. But who knows where that old photograph is now, anyway?’

  ‘Why, it must be in the Chinese cabinet, with the other photographs,’ she said, and rising, she crossed the room to a beautifully ornate cabinet, painted black with red figures, and opened a little door in it with a finely wrought key. She removed a handful of photographs from within and returned to the table, where she handed them to her husband one by one, smiling.

  ‘Look, dear, here is our wedding day,’ she said happily. ‘I have not looked at these pictures for years!’ The image made the round of the table, and I must confess that there was a certain amount of laughter, as the professor’s high domed forehead and bush of white hair was compared with the curly head of a youth from another time. Other photographs of the family followed, a portrait of the children, now grown up, and a picture of a house in the countryside.

  ‘Here is the department picture,’ she said, handing him a rather larger photograph of a group.

  He scrutinised it closely. Sitting next to him, I could see that though the picture itself was fairly large, there were a dozen people grouped within it, so that the faces were quite reduced in size.

  ‘There he is,’ he said, showing me the picture and pointing at one gentleman, dressed like the others in cap and gown, but somewhat shorter in stature than they.

  I stared at the face intently, wondering what it could reveal to me. Yes, it was lean-cheeked, even hollow-cheeked, and the man in it could easily have been taken to be forty already, even though the picture was several years old. I wondered with a shudder if it did not date from the time when he had appeared in court … to condemn another man to death on cruel and specious grounds. Fixing his features in my mind, I passed the photograph down to the young people, who were eagerly awaiting a sight of the murder victim, more exciting to their youthful minds than wedding pictures of a couple who had reached a peaceful old age with no mishaps.

  ‘Did Ralston ever collaborate with his father?’ asked someone.

  ‘No, as far as I know,’ replied Professor Taylor thoughtfully. I noticed that most people addressed their questions to him, as though he were undisputedly the person best acquainted with the dead man.

  ‘Probably because his father couldn’t stand him,’ snickered the professor of logic.

  ‘Well, they didn’t have the same research speciality, of course. Ralston senior studies the history of Franco-Polish relations. He wrote a book on Henry III – theirs, of course, not ours. You remember – the one who was called upon to be King of Poland, and who had to sneak away and flee secretly in the middle of the night, and come galloping home to become King of France upon the death of his brother. He was the little favourite of his mother, Catherine de Medici. A well-known murderess in her own right, by the by; one wonders, rather, if she didn’t have a hand in the brother’s death. But do you know, I don’t think Gerard Ralston was brought up much at home. His mother died when he was still quite small, and the boy was sent to school, of course.’

  Maybe that explains it, I thought, thinking with a pang of plump little Cedric being removed bodily from my loving arms to a distant boarding school. Of course, he is only one and a half, the precious darling, but I cannot imagine that he will be so very different at six. He is tender and dreamy and needs his mother very much, and I hope he will stay that way for a very long time.

  The subject of Professor Ralston and his untimely death eventually exhausted itself without my finding myself particularly enlightened. Somewhat to my relief, the remainder of the meal, accompanied by its three different kinds of wine, was devoted to conversation of a lighter sort. I felt a little like an overstuffed cushion, and was quite glad when the other guests began to depart, as I was looking forward to lying down and allowing the natural process of digestion to take its course. Yet something prevented me from politely taking my leave even after all the other guests had gone except for Professor Hudson’s family, who could not tear themselves away from the tremendously amusing banter they were engaging in with Emily. I felt that I very much wished to talk more with Professor Taylor.

  ‘I am delighted that Mr Lazare will be coming here,’ I said to him. ‘Do you think I will be able to talk with him privately? I would like to ask him a few things.’

  ‘What things?’ he said.

  ‘Well, for one, I want to know what he can tell me about that empty folder marked with his initials that we saw,’ I said. ‘And also, whether he thinks there was anything in that last letter of his, the one to which Professor Ralston was replying when he died, which might have a connection to the murder. What a pity I know so little about the Dreyfus affair. I would like to know more about it before hearing tomorrow’s lecture.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you more about it,’ he said suddenly. ‘In fact, I can do even better – I can show you some documents you are not likely ever to see anywhere else. Come this way,’ and he led me into a little study giving off the dining room. Sitting down at his desk, he began digging down in the drawers, and pulled out a file filled with papers.

  ‘Yet I wonder if I should show you these,’ he said. ‘They are not for everyone. How much do you actually know about the case?’

  ‘I do know the basic facts,’ I told him. ‘I read quite a number of contemporary newspaper articles on it that I found in Professor Ralston’s study. I know he was arr
ested for treason after his handwriting was identified on a letter apparently found in the German Embassy, written in French and offering a list of important military documents to the Germans. I also know that his trial took place behind closed doors, and that apart from the letter itself, other secret documents were produced, although nobody seems to know what they were. And I know that he was condemned to public degradation, having his military insignia torn off, and to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island off the coast of French Guyana, where he was taken about a year ago.’

  ‘But do you know that he never ceased for a single moment to declare his innocence? And that his family and friends have sworn to fight to the death to have the trial reopened? Do you know that he was condemned on the mere evidence of handwriting experts whose conclusions were all wildly contradictory?’

  ‘I did gather that,’ I said. ‘But I thought there were actually other documents besides the notorious bordereau.’

  ‘Secret – probably fabricated,’ he said. ‘The man is innocent. He was selected as a culprit because of his race.’

  ‘If journalists were the judges, I would say you are certainly right,’ I said. ‘In the newspapers race is the sole reason ever mentioned. Apparently he was too rich to have any need for financial gain. So they continually try to explain the treason by asserting that a Jewish person cannot be expected to have a sense of honour or love for his country.’

  ‘Read these,’ he said suddenly, pushing the file towards me. ‘They are excerpts from the letters Dreyfus has written to his wife since his arrest. She has had copies made and shown them to – to a few of his – defenders.’

  I glanced down at the letters, but hesitated, burdened by a peculiar feeling of indiscretion at not only reading private letters, but reading them in front of another person.

  ‘Go on, read them,’ he said. ‘Dreyfus wrote these letters knowing that they would be read. In fact, they are read by government censors before they ever reach his wife.’

  I took up the first one and began to read, then continued to the others, turning over the pages rapidly.

  My beloved, I think about you day and night. To be innocent, to have spent a life without any kind of stain, and to see myself condemned for the most monstrous crime a soldier can commit – nothing can be more dreadful! I feel like the plaything of a horrific nightmare.

  I don’t even want to tell you what I suffered today. Why make your misery even worse? I can only tell you this: when I promised you that I would continue to live and to resist until my name can be rehabilitated, I made the greatest sacrifice an honest man whose honour has just been torn away can make … Why can’t we open people’s hearts with a scalpel and read what is written within them? In mine, the people who watched me today would read ‘This is a man of honour’ written in letters of gold. But I understand them – I too would have been filled with contempt to see an officer called a traitor. The tragedy is that the traitor is another than I!

  I keep thinking that I don’t know how I found the courage to promise you to go on living after my condemnation. Last Saturday remains branded in my spirit in letters of fire. I have the courage of a soldier who can face danger, but I don’t know if I really have the soul of a martyr … I live only for the conviction that it is impossible for the truth not to be revealed one day, for my innocence to be recognised and proclaimed by my beloved France, my beloved country …

  … The other day, when the crowd covered me with insults, I would have liked to escape from the hands of my guards and offer my breast to those who were so indignant at the sight of me, and tell them: ‘Don’t insult me, you can’t see my soul, but it is absolutely pure of any stain; if you still believe I am guilty, take me and kill me.’ And if they heard me shout ‘Vive la France’ even under physical torture, perhaps then they would believe I am innocent!

  I wanted to die, I wanted to kill myself, until you, my darling, so devoted, so courageous, brought me to understand that I didn’t have the right to give up, to desert my post. I was terrified of the unendurable moral suffering … yet I gave way, and I lived. I underwent the worst torture a soldier can be made to endure, torture worse than any death, and I followed the terrible road from court to degradation to prison to here without ever yielding to the shouts and the insults, without ever ceasing to proclaim my innocence, loud and clear to all who could hear me. But I left behind a shred of my heart at every station on the way.

  I am desperately ill and feverish; in between the torrential rains the humidity is hot and heavy; at ten o’ clock in the morning the temperature is already unbearable. I am shaking with fever, but I have asked them to send me a doctor. I don’t want to die here!

  We are in the season of dry heat; I am covered with insect bites – yet that is nothing, compared to the moral torture! My brain, my heart scream with pain. When will they find the real traitor? Will I manage to live until then? Sometimes I am afraid that I won’t. My whole being dissolves into despair. Yet I refuse to die. I want my honour back; my honour and my children’s honour.

  They don’t let me sleep. All night the guards move around, clanking chains, banging doors and changing shifts. When will it end? When will it end? They have locked me into my cabin now, because there are workers on the island. I think my brain will burst.

  My darling, the boat has just brought me your letters. Still nothing – the traitor has not been discovered! My heart keeps boiling with rage and indignation.

  Today is the 14th of July – they have put up our tricoloured flag. I served it so long, with honour and loyalty. I feel so much pain that the pen just falls out of my hands. There are no words for this.

  The nights are horrible. I am shaken by the insane desire to sob, my suffering is so intense, but I swallow it down, because I am ashamed of my weakness in front of the guards who watch me day and night. I am not alone with my pain even for a single minute!

  This torture is beyond human endurance. Every day the same anguish, the same agony; I am buried alive in the tomb. What is happening within the consciences of those who condemned me on a miserable piece of handwriting, with no proofs, no witnesses, no possible motive for such a heinous crime?

  I put down the last letter. The sounds of laughter from the other room floated eerily through the closed door.

  ‘It seems impossible to continue to believe in his guilt after reading these,’ I said. Very quietly, the professor piled them all together and put them back into their folder. He did not speak, but a glistening in his eyes made me suddenly aware of an intensity of emotion which surprised me.

  ‘Did you not show them to Professor Ralston?’ I asked, perhaps (with hindsight) a little tactlessly.

  ‘I did. It was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made,’ he replied with cold hatred, pushing the folder back into the drawer and snapping it shut with a gesture that precluded further questions.

  I took my departure with a meek exterior but a seething mind. There is more to Professor Taylor than meets the eye.

  London, Monday, March 16th, 1896

  I spent a night of strange and dangerous dreams, many of whose images remained with me even after I had arisen. The flat was empty and quiet. I made a cup of tea and, sitting in front of it, I let its warm, fragrant vapour float comfortingly into my face for a moment, before drawing pencil and paper towards me and writing the following list.

  Suspects:

  1. Britta or Rebecca Gad or any other relation of Baruch Gad

  2. the rabbi

  3. Edmund Bryant

  4. Professor Taylor

  I then rubbed out the fourth name, blushing at being the author of such a ridiculous idea. Yet it was all so strange. How did the professor come to possess copies of the intimate Dreyfus family letters he had shown me? Moving as they were, yet why did they provoke him to such strong emotion? What was the cause – and what was the true intensity – of the flash of anger against Professor Ralston that I had clearly detected in his voice? I wrote his name back onto the list.

&
nbsp; Yet if he were guilty, would he have come to call upon my services? It was really absurd. I rubbed out the name again.

  Still, if Jonathan, all fired up by Emily’s account of my exploits, had joined with Professor Hudson to persuade Professor Taylor to consult me, it might have seemed suspicious to refuse. He may, indeed, have thought it was for the best; in spite of his politeness, I suspect him of lacking a sincere belief in my capacities, and I remembered how he had summarily rejected the idea of consulting Mr Sherlock Holmes. I wrote his name again.

  Yes, but would he then be helping me in my researches, inviting guests, introducing me to Bernard Lazare, lending me the keys to the library and study? I took up the rubber.

  But perhaps someone was aware that he had the keys – his wife, for example. In that case, he might logically consider that it would be safer not to hide the fact from me. And for that matter, had he shown me all that he had? Could he not, for example, also possess a copy of the key to Professor Ralston’s private rooms – and might he not have used it? And as to the guests and the rest, could he not be killing two birds with one stone by appearing to help me while in fact leading me actively up the garden path? I put down the rubber.

  Well – Professor Taylor may be on my secret list, but he is not its foremost member. I set out of the house, determined to locate Britta and Rebecca Gad without delay.