The Sixth Key(131)

One of the burly men came down now and told the Englishman that ‘it was ready’ and to make sure that he extinguished his cigarette before he came upstairs. The Englishman paused. ‘This, I’m afraid, is the end of our occult history lesson – something to take to Hell with you. You really should not have jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire!’ He laughed, threw his cigarette on the floor and climbed the steps out of the wine cellar without looking back.

‘What about my position at Oxford?’ La Dame shouted after him.

‘What job at Oxford?’ Rahn said.

‘Never mind, Rahn!’ Deodat shouted. ‘Use your penknife to cut the ropes!’

‘Eva left with it,’ Rahn answered.

‘What?’ La Dame said.

‘Afraid so.’

‘That beautiful Irene Adler will be the cause of our demise,’ La Dame said.

‘Well, perhaps if we bring our feet underneath us,’ Deodat said to Rahn and La Dame, ‘we can push on each other to get to our knees.’

They tried but this was impossible and they toppled, righting themselves again with great effort.

Rahn thought of something. ‘Look, we can inch along on our backsides but we have to do it together, at the same time.’

Rahn pulled while Deodat and La Dame pushed. Rahn imagined they must look like a large octopus scurrying over dry land.

They could smell smoke.

‘They’re going to burn us!’ La Dame cried. ‘This is all your fault, Rahn – if you hadn’t written that damned book we wouldn’t be here!’

‘What? Me? You’re going to blame this on me?’

‘You’re at the centre of everything!’

‘Don’t you point the finger! We wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for you, you traitor! How long have you been setting me up? Was it from before the manuscript of Don Quixote? Before the Pabst film set? Before our potholing . . . ?’

‘Good heavens no, Rahn!’ La Dame said, out of breath, behind him. They had almost reached the steps. ‘It was while you were in Germany.’

‘What was?’

‘I was invited to a party put on by George Darmois, from the faculty of science.’

‘Quite an honour,’ Rahn said, sarcastically.

‘Oh yes! Turns out he is a Freemason and he said he liked my paper on the demise of the Templars and the theory of probability,’ La Dame said, coughing. ‘One thing led to another and I was being made an offer I couldn’t resist. And you know what that’s like, Rahn.’

Rahn strained to breathe – the acrid smoke coming from the fire above them made his lungs shrink to half their size. ‘What was that?’

‘They told me if I helped them get whatever it was you found, they would give me a job at Oxford University.’

‘Now I know why I never liked you, La Dame,’ Deodat said, between gasps.

‘Leave off, Deodat, it’s not so simple as you think,’ La Dame gave back. ‘If I didn’t agree to their conditions they were going to kill both of you as soon as you found what they wanted. And, as they had now exposed their plans to me, if I refused, they were going to kill me first – leaving no one to warn you! I was doomed no matter what, you see?’

A small part of Rahn had to admit he knew what it was like to be in such a position, but he was too angry to acknowledge it and, besides, there were other things to think about now because the fire had taken a hold of the house. They could hear it crackling and embers were floating down into the wine cellar. It was getting louder and hotter.

‘The trouble is, you were always so damned interesting!’ La Dame shouted. ‘The adventurous Otto Rahn – the great Don Quixote!’ He coughed. ‘Author! Archaeologist! Historian!’ He took in a strangled breath. ‘I was boring old Sancho Panza, professor of Scientific Methodology, for God’s sake! A man with only a little imagination and a small talent to match. And though I’ve always been dashingly good-looking, I’m also boringly dependable, and terribly uninteresting. Here I was finally given a chance to be a leading character and I took it.’

‘And the picture’s a flop – everybody dies!’ Rahn said. ‘You could have confided in me at least.’

‘I was scared . . . I was confused. Think about it, Rahn, I could have just gone back to Geneva and let them kill you, but I didn’t. Don’t forget, they killed that man in my room to show me they meant business.’

‘So it wasn’t a case of mistaken identity?’

‘No.’

‘Liar!’

‘For God’s sake, don’t be like that, Rahn!’