Tissue Paper

Paris, Wednesday, September 26, 1894, 11 pm. In the counterespionage office of the War Ministry, six pieces of squared tissue paper, glued onto a green blotterblotter A sheet or pad of absorbent paper used to dry freshly written ink., form an unsigned note.

It came from the wastebasket of the German embassy's military attaché, brought at 9 pm by the cleaning woman who works there and secretly serves the section. The note offers the foreigner four secret documents of the French army.

Lieutenant Colonel Malvy, head of the section, has already picked a name and wants an arrest before dawn. But a name is not proof.

Three people fit this story. One of them wrote every line on that paper.

Counter-espionage office in Paris, 1894, at night, with a torn note pasted together on a green blotterblotter A sheet or pad of absorbent paper used to dry freshly written ink..