down.
“So, how has our military correspondent angered you, Monsieur?”
He paused, and Dubon took the opportunity to introduce himself.
“My name is Dubon, Maître Dubon. I’m a lawyer on the rue Saint-Honoré. I bear Monsieur Martin, or whoever he is, no ill will. I am simply investigating a small military matter for a client of mine, and your man seems particularly well informed. I would like to meet him, that’s all.”
“I don’t think that will be possible, Maître. Perhaps if you were to write down your questions I could relay them to our correspondent and send you any answers he could provide.”
Dubon was loath to reveal the nature of his business to this newspaper editor without feeling on firmer footing in his inquiries. He had only thought to get a bit of advice from the secretive Martin that he could pass on to the widow before finding her another advocate, and he did not have a line of questioning he could summarize in a note.
“I need to know how I can contact the man so that I might meet him in person,” he repeated, now more concerned with appearing in control than actually pursuing Martin.
“Maître, you must understand that in a journalist’s line of work it is sometimes necessary to keep one’s true identity from readers,” Chalon continued pleasantly. “The correspondent writing under the name Azimut Martin has excellent connections in military circles, connections that might not wish to speak with him if they knew he was writing for
La Presse
. To some sources he may reveal his identity, to others he may prefer to remain anonymous, all the better to serve our readers by offering the most accurate accounts of military news. The man we call Monsieur Martin is not, you will have gathered, permanently in my employ; he works elsewhere and offers my editors articles as he can. We have come to rely on him over the years; he is seldom wrong. May I say, in my turn, that it is not that I do not trust you, but I would not wish to compromise his fine work. If you will leave your card with me, I will pass it on to him and suggest that he contact you.”
Dubon bit his lip. It seemed he would get no further. “Might I have an envelope?” he asked.
“Certainly,” Chalon replied, and after some searching through hisdesk drawers, he offered one inscribed with the newspaper’s name and address.
Dubon, meanwhile, pulled out a business card and risked writing on it:
Wishing to speak to you about Captain Dreyfus. Please write or visit at your earliest convenience
. He wrote the name Azimut Martin on the envelope and, as an afterthought, surrounded it with large quotation marks. He slipped his card inside the envelope, sealed it, and passed it across the desk. This was the best he could do. Damn these newspaper types with their self-important games, he thought as he thanked Chalon cordially and left. The pace in the room outside the editor’s office seemed if anything more frantic now, and he crossed it hurriedly, glad to leave the journalists to their cacophony.
Out on the street, he turned south toward his office, but then stopped and pulled his watch from his pocket, wondering as he did so if he might not just pop in to see Madeleine while he was in the neighborhood. It was almost eleven and he had thought, since his wife had a lunchtime engagement, to eat at a small restaurant around the corner from his office where the
patron
made a particularly good dish of tripe, but perhaps instead he might share the midday meal with Madeleine. It would cheer him up, bring his mind back to his own affairs. He expected to find her at home because she seldom left the house before noon.
He turned into the rue de Grammont with a light step and the notion of a lunchtime encounter, made all the more pleasurable for both parties by being unexpected, tingled just below the surface of his consciousness. He arrived at the narrow entrance of the small building where Madeleine lived and let himself in with his key,
“So, how has our military correspondent angered you, Monsieur?”
He paused, and Dubon took the opportunity to introduce himself.
“My name is Dubon, Maître Dubon. I’m a lawyer on the rue Saint-Honoré. I bear Monsieur Martin, or whoever he is, no ill will. I am simply investigating a small military matter for a client of mine, and your man seems particularly well informed. I would like to meet him, that’s all.”
“I don’t think that will be possible, Maître. Perhaps if you were to write down your questions I could relay them to our correspondent and send you any answers he could provide.”
Dubon was loath to reveal the nature of his business to this newspaper editor without feeling on firmer footing in his inquiries. He had only thought to get a bit of advice from the secretive Martin that he could pass on to the widow before finding her another advocate, and he did not have a line of questioning he could summarize in a note.
“I need to know how I can contact the man so that I might meet him in person,” he repeated, now more concerned with appearing in control than actually pursuing Martin.
“Maître, you must understand that in a journalist’s line of work it is sometimes necessary to keep one’s true identity from readers,” Chalon continued pleasantly. “The correspondent writing under the name Azimut Martin has excellent connections in military circles, connections that might not wish to speak with him if they knew he was writing for
La Presse
. To some sources he may reveal his identity, to others he may prefer to remain anonymous, all the better to serve our readers by offering the most accurate accounts of military news. The man we call Monsieur Martin is not, you will have gathered, permanently in my employ; he works elsewhere and offers my editors articles as he can. We have come to rely on him over the years; he is seldom wrong. May I say, in my turn, that it is not that I do not trust you, but I would not wish to compromise his fine work. If you will leave your card with me, I will pass it on to him and suggest that he contact you.”
Dubon bit his lip. It seemed he would get no further. “Might I have an envelope?” he asked.
“Certainly,” Chalon replied, and after some searching through hisdesk drawers, he offered one inscribed with the newspaper’s name and address.
Dubon, meanwhile, pulled out a business card and risked writing on it:
Wishing to speak to you about Captain Dreyfus. Please write or visit at your earliest convenience
. He wrote the name Azimut Martin on the envelope and, as an afterthought, surrounded it with large quotation marks. He slipped his card inside the envelope, sealed it, and passed it across the desk. This was the best he could do. Damn these newspaper types with their self-important games, he thought as he thanked Chalon cordially and left. The pace in the room outside the editor’s office seemed if anything more frantic now, and he crossed it hurriedly, glad to leave the journalists to their cacophony.
Out on the street, he turned south toward his office, but then stopped and pulled his watch from his pocket, wondering as he did so if he might not just pop in to see Madeleine while he was in the neighborhood. It was almost eleven and he had thought, since his wife had a lunchtime engagement, to eat at a small restaurant around the corner from his office where the
patron
made a particularly good dish of tripe, but perhaps instead he might share the midday meal with Madeleine. It would cheer him up, bring his mind back to his own affairs. He expected to find her at home because she seldom left the house before noon.
He turned into the rue de Grammont with a light step and the notion of a lunchtime encounter, made all the more pleasurable for both parties by being unexpected, tingled just below the surface of his consciousness. He arrived at the narrow entrance of the small building where Madeleine lived and let himself in with his key,
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