The Sixth Key(22)

Rahn looked at La Dame; his smile behind that gold beard was all eagerness. The last thing Rahn wanted to do was drag his friend into this messy business. He drank down his brandy before tackling an unpleasant abridged confession, which now seemed to him, all things considered, to be unavoidable.

‘When I saw you in Munich, do you remember me telling you that I had an appointment in Berlin?’

‘Yes, a mysterious telegram – and money if I remember correctly?’

‘Well, who do you think sent it?’

‘I don’t know, Marlene Dietrich?’

‘Cold, La Dame,’ he said. ‘Take another guess.’

‘Well, I’ll look for an antithesis then. Was it the pope?’

‘Close. Hitler’s Black Pope.’ He leant forwards and whispered, ‘It was the Reichsführer, Himmler.’

When La Dame’s disbelief turned to comprehension he laughed. ‘You’re not serious, Rahn!’

Rahn shot him a look.

‘Could it be true? What did he want? I was just reading about that weasel. I have to say, people here are talking about nothing else these days – Hitler and his cronies. Wasn’t he a chicken farmer? I dare say! I wouldn’t want to see him coming for me with an axe. Are you going to let me prattle on, or are you going to tell me what he wanted?’

Rahn’s smile was weak. ‘Himmler made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.’

‘Sounds dangerous?’

At that moment a man entered the café: medium build, medium height, wearing an expression that was so benign, so plain and commonplace that it made an immediate impression on Rahn. The man sat down and began to roll a cigarette. Rahn tried to remember that saying from one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s celebrated Sherlock Holmes tales and found it: There is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.

‘So, are you going to drag it out? Make me beg you to tell me what it was?’

Rahn wrenched his eyes from the man to look at La Dame.

‘They want two books, nothing more than propaganda for the new regime. They gave me an office at SS headquarters and I’ve been writing reports, doing errands, which include some archaeological work, you know, looking for evidence of the Aryan forefathers. All a lot of rubbish, really.’ He felt sour now, saying it out loud, and he didn’t like the look in his friend’s eye. ‘Recently, my superiors received a letter from De Mengel; apparently this Pierre Plantard knows something about a grimoire called Le Serpent Rouge. The fact is, I’m supposed to find it so that Himmler can give it to Hitler on his birthday.’

‘Well, burn my beard!’ La Dame said, rubbing it absently. ‘A grimoire? Isn’t that a book of black magic? What sort of nut-bags are you working for?’

Rahn drank a good mouthful of brandy and wondered what La Dame would say if he knew about Wewelsburg. ‘Nuttier than anyone gives them credit for, I’m afraid.’

‘And you’re working for them!’

‘Look, a man has to eat, La Dame!’ he said, suddenly defensive. ‘You, a man of means, have no idea how cold it gets in winter without heating, nor how difficult it is to walk in the snow when your shoes are full of holes. It’s not comfortable, let me assure you! Do you see how I look? I’ve been under the weather and the weather has been rather appalling. Besides, if you think that I could have said no to Himmler to his face, well, you are sorely mistaken! By now I’d be buried under a mound of rubble at Dachau.’

La Dame turned sombre and looked at Rahn with unfocused, gloomy eyes. ‘Well, you do realise, Rahn, that you have fulfilled the prophecy of the locals at Ussat-les-Bains – they always said you were working for the Nazis.’

Rahn stared out to the street slashed by rain: the traffic was busy and the streetlights came on. He sighed. ‘I’m not working for the Nazis. I’m working for myself.’

‘Oh, yes, I forgot your first rule: you always work for yourself.’

‘Look,’ Rahn said, ignoring his obvious reproof. ‘All I wanted was enough money in my pocket to continue our search for the Cathar treasure.’

‘What about this Le Serpent Rouge, then?’

‘I’m undecided; perhaps now that I’m in France I’ll just disappear in the mountains and hope that sooner or later Himmler will forget about me.’

‘I don’t know about that! He sounds like the type to hold a grudge, if you know what I mean. So, you’re not going to see Plantard tomorrow?’

‘Well, I’m a little curious about it, and my train doesn’t leave until the afternoon.’

‘It all sounds rather diabolical to me.’ La Dame threw the last of his brandy down his throat, exemplifying how much he needed it.