Unthinkingly, a furious Taffy Sinclair took a step closer to the crazed creature. ‘I find you unconvincing, Colonel Hitler. How would you establish this new civilisation by blowing up innocents and throwing the whole of our world into turmoil?’
The hideously scarred soldier, Captain Erich Röhm, laughed in Sinclair’s face. ‘Only through blood and iron will Europe be cleansed. I am a soldier. I know only the art of battle. But even I understand how the Jews continue to corrupt political and cultural life! Martin Luther warned us. So, too, have a succession of popes and bishops. Not only do Jews refuse the true Messiah, they wish to wipe all trace of Jesus Christ from the world! Once the warriors of Europe rose up to save Christendom from destruction. Now we rise again to mount our great crusade against the sons of Shem. By working against us, gentlemen, you are making a terrible mistake. Join us! The Holy Grail itself will soon be in our hands. He who holds the Grail controls the Balance and therefore the universe itself!’
’You are as mad as I understood you to be, Messieurs.’ Lapointe drew a set of handcuffs from his overcoat pocket and advanced towards the glowering Hitler. ‘Now, if you will kindly—’
And then a shot rang out from the shadows and the revolver went spinning from Lapointe’s grasp. Another shot and Bardot clutched his right shoulder. Blood began to seep through his fingers.
‘Drop your weapons!’ came a cold commanding voice. ‘Drop them or you shall all die immediately.’
And strolling out into the circle of light came a tall, stiff-backed man wearing a black domino obscuring the upper half of his face. He was dressed in perfect evening clothes. In his right hand was a smoking 9mm Sabatini automatic.
Begg recognised him immediately. ‘So it was a true,’ he murmured. ‘I have been guilty of underestimating you, mein Herr. I knew that if Monsieur Zenith was not helping this gang, it had to be someone as knowledgeable in the ways of the multiverse.’
The newcomer’s thin lips formed a mocking smile of triumph. ‘You had thought me defeated, Sir Seaton, in the matter of the Corsican Collar. Then your life was saved by my old enemy, your cousin, who calls himself Zenith. But you knew I would return to continue with my quest.’
Lowering his revolver, Begg turned at once to Colonel Hitler. ‘Believe me, if you think to link your interests with this creature’s you are mistaken. He will betray you as he has betrayed every other man, woman or spirit whom he has persuaded to act in his interest. You might know him by another name, but I can tell you his real identity, for he is the master of lies. His name is Johannes Klosterheim. Some believe him a fallen angel expelled from Hell itself. I do know that he was once a member of the Society of Jesus, before he was expelled not only from that order, but excommunicated by the Pope himself.’
‘Klosterheim!’ Captain Goering’s plum features shook with amusement. ‘What nonsense! This is Herr Johan Cornelius. You would have us believe that we have linked our fortunes with a figure from folklore - the infamous Gaynor the Damned!’
‘As he is called in the opera,’ said Begg quietly, ‘but Wagner took certain liberties with the old legends, as before him did Milton.’
Even Lapointe, Sinclair and the pale, wounded Bardot looked at him as if he were mad. All knew the stories from the opera, if not from their school-books. The enemy of Parsifal, who had sought the Grail and found it, only to be cursed with eternal damnation, to wander the earth until the end of time for the crime of attempting to drink Christ’s very blood.
‘Drop your weapons, gentlemen, or this time I shoot your colleague in his heart and not his shoulder,’ was Klosterheim’s icy response.
And now the Nazi colonel himself was staring a little nervously at the masked man, as if wondering whether any bargain he might have made with him could possibly any longer be to his advantage.
Then Mrs Persson stepped out of the circle and went to join Klosterheim, standing close beside him, making it clear she was the fiend’s ally.
‘It’s said that promise of the Grail’s power will corrupt even the noblest of human creatures,’ declared Begg. ‘Had I realised exactly what we were up against, my friends, I promise I would never have led you here! This will be forever on my conscience.’
‘Fear not, Sir Seaton,’ came Klosterheim’s hollow, terrible voice. ‘You will not have to suffer for very much longer. Meanwhile, I shall be obliged if you will drop your weapons at your feet.’
And as their revolvers clattered down, he uttered a mirthless laugh which echoed on and on through the vaulted chambers and chilled the blood of all who heard it.
* * * *
THE SIXTH CHAPTER:
THE ULTIMATE POWER
Begg felt physically sick as he stood with his hands raised, watching the Nazi gangster gloat over his reversal. He had underestimated not only Hitler and Company but everyone he had opposed. He had been foolish to assume that he alone, save for Mrs Persson and Monsieur Zenith, knew the secret of the moonbeam roads. He had wanted too badly to trust that pair. Cursing himself for not considering his old enemy Klosterheim’s ambitions, he refused to believe he might have been forgiven for thinking him dead. Klosterheim was generally considered by almost everyone to have met his end in Mirenburg a decade or more earlier. Not that Begg himself had been there to witness the evil eternal’s demise, but it had been none other than Zenith who had given him the information.
From his earliest appearance as a Satanic angel expelled from Hell in the myths and legends of the seventeenth century, Klosterheim had been said to die more than once. But his antipathy to Begg’s family - or at least the German side of the family, the von Beks - was well known. He had survived one apparent death after another through the years, remaining alive for two things only - to kill all who carried the blood of his old enemy, Ulrich von Bek, and to lay his hands upon the Holy Grail and thus control, in his understanding, the very nature of reality. Yet here he was in alliance with Una Persson, Countess von Bek!
More than once Begg had narrowly escaped terrible death at the hands of this near-immortal and now, it seemed, there was no hope of escape at all.
Klosterheim’s sunken sockets hid eyes which burned within like the unquenched flames of Hell. He pocketed his revolver while the triumphant Nazis trained their own weapons on the detectives. Then the masked man bent and placed his thin lips upon those of Mrs Persson. Begg was astonished. Klosterheim had never shown warmth, let alone passion, for another, least of all a woman. And Mrs Persson smiled admiringly back at the deathless devil with whom she had cast her lot. Colonel Hitler meanwhile glowered jealously, clearly furious that the woman had collaborated with him because Klosterheim had instructed her to do so. Noting all these ramifications, Begg now believed himself thoroughly outwitted. Was it possible that Zenith also allied himself with his old rival?
‘I cannot believe this of you, Mrs Persson!’ exclaimed Taffy, still shocked and clearly unable to accept this turn of events. Like all his colleagues save the wounded Bardot, his hands were now firmly tied behind him by Herr Hess. It was just possible that a tear gleamed in his eye. ‘How can any decent Englishwoman possibly ally herself with such riff-raff?’
‘Oh, I think you’ll find it’s quite commonly done, Mr Sinclair.’ Mrs Persson seemed almost drunk as she leaned against the gaunt skeleton who was not only her ally but apparently also her paramour, even her master. ‘We women are silly creatures, eh, thoroughly addicted to powerful men! There’s a larger interest here, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate. Very few of us are privileged to know one of Satan’s own angels . . .’
But Sinclair, his mouth set in a hard, disapproving line, was unable to answer.
Now the Nazis began to push their captives back towards the moonbeam roads.
‘We await only Count Zenith,’ chuckled Captain Goering. ‘And our plan will be complete. On Saturday, the Hindenburg brings from America the Jewish Palestinian deputation to Munich. They intend to discuss an obscenity with Comrade von Hugenberg, chairman of the Munich Supreme Soviet - the
establishment of a new Jewish state in the Bavarian lake district! Can you imagine a worse insult to the Christian community? But it will never take place. Our man Zenith will introduce a bomb on board while the Hindenburg refuels overnight at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. He will take the Star of Judea in exchange. That is the priceless emerald which the Jews intend to use as down payment on the land they buy from the treacherous Bavarian soviet. The Hindenburg will blow up. The French will be blamed for their sabotage and a wedge will be driven between the various allies. Jews, Frenchmen and Bavarian communists will all he implicated by the British and Americans. Chaos will ensue. Meanwhile, we will be ready, as soon as news of the Hindenburg’s destruction comes through, to announce a new National Socialist Bavarian state. But the Freikorps will already be through the Eagle Gate and crossing the moonbeam roads into the Arcades of the Opéra, a stone’s throw from the Arc deTriomphe. We shall announce our victory there. Our guns will by that time command the whole of Paris. Germans will rise to our victorious standard and this time the British and French will find it impossible to subdue us. For Paris will already be hostage to our cannon!’
‘But this is madness!’ gasped Lapointe. ‘All you will succeed in doing is harming hundreds of innocent people. You will be defeated again. Your logic is entirely flawed. Captain Goering.’
‘Nonsense. You are addressing the cream of the Nazi elite!’ put in Herr Goebbels. ‘Our plan is flawless!’
‘Has Herr Klosterheim talked you into this?’ asked Bardot, through gritted teeth. His wound had, for the moment, stopped bleeding. He assured his friends that he had only sustained a flesh wound. Slowly the group had come to a halt at the very edge of the silvery road through the multiverse.
‘We have perfected this plan together with Herr Klosterheim’s involvement,’ said Hess, his strange eyes shifting from one to the other. ‘By Sunday Europe will have accepted the reality of a new Germany. We already know that many Frenchmen as well as English aristocrats will flock to our standard!’
‘Klosterheim uses you for his own purposes,’ said Begg quietly. ‘He has beguiled you, as he has beguiled so many others. He has no interest in reviving Nazi Germany or, indeed, doing anything but gaining control of the Cosmic Balance. Mrs Persson, you know this to be true!’
‘I have no reason to disbelieve him, Sir Seaton.’ With a low laugh the adventuress turned away.
Now again came the rhythmic booming as of some great drum. Most of them shivered as they heard it, standing at the beginning of the moonbeam roads. Motioning again with their pistols, the Nazis forced Begg and Co. to move ahead. By the second, the noise of the great regulator came closer. And the vision of the multiverse grew more vivid, the roads more colourful and complex.
The detectives gasped. Below, above, on every side of them, the distance was filled with glowing silvery roads, twisting in all directions and forming an extraordinary labyrinth. On this spiderweb of pathways, unconscious of the drama being played between the Nazis and their enemies, travellers walked between a million and more realities.
‘Where are they going, Begg?’ murmured Dr Sinclair.
Begg’s own face was alive with wonderment. ‘I had heard of this . . . Sinclair, old friend, these people are walking the moonbeam roads between the worlds. Simply - walking across the multiverse!’
Klosterheim read the bewilderment in Taffy’s eyes. ‘Do not fear, doctor. You will soon have the whole of eternity to contemplate this puzzle. Now - move on. There are still more wonders to greet you . . .’
Bardot groaned, evidently believing himself feverish. He was the only one of the prisoners not to be bound. His arm hung limp at his side and his right hand staunched the blood from his wounded shoulder. He seemed dazed, unable to accept the actuality of these events. He looked up through the swirling, scintillating colour which filled the great ether, the shimmering lines of light cutting between them, the distant figures, the immense beauty of it all. Then he looked back at the grotesquely grinning uniformed men training their Lugers on the captured detectives. Behind them, removing the black diamond mask he affected, Klosterheim stood stock still. He had wrapped his great cloak around him, as if against a chill, though the temperature was moderate. From within the head the cold eyes shifted from face to face, offering no expression, no sense of any humanity.
To Begg’s certain knowledge, the former priest was virtually indestructible. Like Zenith, like Mrs Persson herself, he was an eternal, one of those whose longevity was considerably greater than that of an ordinary human being. He was accustomed to life in the semi-finite. Some said they sustained their long lives by dreaming a thousand years for every day of their ordinary existence and that what we witnessed were dream projections, not the actual person. That most of them lived forever was, in Begg’s opinion, debatable. Yet those who had encountered Klosterheim over the centuries came to believe that he had truly been one of Satan’s favourite accomplices, until the time when Satan himself sought reconciliation with their former lord. Then Klosterheim had turned against Satan, too. As he perceived it, he had been betrayed by the two mightiest masters in his universe. For all his well-hidden spirituality, Begg was not a man to accept superstition or supernatural explanation, but he could almost believe the stories as he stared back at Klosterheim. Begg’s own face was expressionless as he considered ways and means of turning the tables on their captors.
Step by remorseless step they moved along the opaque, silvery causeway towards that sonorous booming until at last the road ended abruptly, upon the edge of the void, its silver falling away like mist. For the first time a smile crossed Klosterheim’s thin, bloodless lips. And he looked down.
Begg was the first to follow his gaze.
The detective’s first instinct was to step back. He stifled a sound. There, immediately below them, its blade pointing down into the dancing, obscuring mist, he made out the shape of a gigantic black sword fashioned to resemble a balance, with a cup depending from either arm. Within the metal of the black blade scarlet characters writhed and twisted while the cups moved slowly, gleaming like jewelled gold. It was as if they measured the weight of the world’s pain. Multicoloured strands of ectoplasm swirled from the cups and Begg knew in his soul that he did indeed look upon the legendary Cosmic Balance, which regulated the entire multiverse, weighing Law and Chaos, good and evil, truth and falsehood, life and death, love and hate, maintaining all the equilibrium and therefore the existence of all man created matter.
In spite of the booming voice of the swaying arm, Klosterheim’s cold tones could be heard clearly. ’If the multiverse has a centre, then this can be said to be it. I have sought it for many years and across many universes. And you, gentlemen, will have the privilege of seeing it before you die. Indeed,’ and now he chuckled to himself, ‘you will always see it before you die . . .’
Now it was Lapointe’s turn to speak. ‘You are a dangerous fool, M’sieu Klosterheim, if you believe you can control that symbol of eternal justice. Only God Almighty has any way of altering the scales maintaining the balance between Law and Chaos. What you see is doubtless only one manifestation of the Cosmic Balance. Can you control a symbol?’
’Perhaps not,’ came the sweet, calm voice of Mrs Persson. She had turned up the collar of her long, military coat. Framed by her helmet of dark hair, her beautiful, pale, oval face shone with the reflected light of the great scale. Her indigo eyes were sardonic. ‘But the one who gives power to the symbol can sometimes control what it controls . . .’
Lapointe turned away from her with an expression of disgust.
Hitler, Hess, Goering, Röhm and Goebbels had crowded to the edge of the road to stare down at the great balance. ‘All we need now is to set into that hilt the Star of Judea,’ said the Nazi colonel.
‘Which you will not receive until next Saturday as I understand it,’ said Begg, genuinely puzzled. ‘Tomorrow is that?’
Hitler became suddenly alert. He turned questioning eyes to Klosterheim.
�
��I brought you here, where Time has no end and no beginning, merely to show you why and for what you will die,’ declared Klosterheim. ‘A small offering to the Gods of Chaos who will soon be serving my cause.’
‘And what is the chief price you pay for their compliance?’ Begg enquired coolly. ‘The souls of four mortals could hardly be enough.’
‘Oh, they are scarcely ordinary mortals. Their crimes have resonated across the entire multiverse. Their souls have far greater weight than yours, Sir Seaton, certainly in that respect. Yet will the Balance accept them? We still await the one who brings us the Star of Judea. The Hindenburg docked an hour ago by his time and now stands ready at Eiffel’s great mooring mast.’ Klosterheim’s cold voice was almost amused. ‘With that great and ancient jewel, I will make my true offering and in return shall have control of the Balance.’
‘How could a mere jewel - any jewel - have value here?’ demanded Dr Sinclair, his eyes half-mad with what they had seen.
‘The Star of Judea is of immense value to the Lords of Chaos, Taffy,’ murmured Begg. ‘They’ll reward any being who brings it to them. It will even seem to give that being control of the Cosmic Balance. Meanwhile . . .’ He noted an opportunity and gestured, drawing the Nazis’ attention away from his friends . . .
Paris Noir [Anthology] Page 12