‘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.
Rahn tipped his brandy in La Dame’s direction before he drank it down. ‘I’ll be the Faust of my generation and you can be my Wagner!’
‘Doctor, to walk with you is ever an honour and a profit, and yet . . . to aid and abet your work for the Devil would, I’m afraid, lead me astray. Facilis descensus Averni and all that! It is far too easy to enter Hell, but getting out is another matter entirely. I’m afraid I’m of rather a different constitution to you.’ He poured more brandy into their glasses.
Rahn looked at it appreciatively; his head was swimming and the room was agreeably blurred. ‘Remember that night in that Czechoslovakian pub? You vowed to be Sancho Panza to my Don Quixote . . . and that means you don’t believe in devils, nor in Hell, because Sancho, the dear man, was a materialist!’ He lifted the glass and took a swig.
La Dame nodded. ‘Like Sancho Panza, I may not believe but I don’t discount the power of belief. Haven’t you heard of those Indians in America who go off to a mountain to die? They may be lunatics but they always die because they believe they will; that is the trouble with lunacy – sometimes your illusions can turn out to be real because you believe in them!’
Rahn said, ‘The Countess P always said she would know the day of her death. Now there is a regal woman, a true descendant of the Cathars! She hasn’t returned any of my letters, you know. I think she’s mad at me because of the way I left France. I’m hoping to see her while I’m here; perhaps she and I can go to the caves at Ornolac again in the Tourster, if she’s feeling up to it. Do you remember how much she loved those caves?’
‘You don’t know, Rahn? Didn’t Deodat get a hold of you?’ La Dame said, all frowns.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Bad news, I’m afraid.’ He paused, trying to construct the words.
‘Come out with it, La Dame.’
‘The Countess P passed away about two months ago. The magistrate was looking for you . . . I assumed you knew.’
Rahn’s heart sank. ‘The last time I saw Deodat was three years ago, after we returned from the caves at Lombrives. I left France shortly after that. Two months, you say?’
‘She had a stroke.’
‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Well, the old buzz— I mean, the grand madame, was right about knowing when she was going to die. Apparently Deodat made a visit a week or so before the fatal day. She seemed perfectly well, in top form, enjoying the best of health, but she told him she had ordered a coffin because she had a sense she was going to meet her maker.’ He fixed Rahn with a significant look. ‘A week later she was cold and in the ground, just like that! You see what a devil of a thing belief is? It can kill you!’
But Rahn wasn’t listening. He was recalling the last time he had seen the Countess. She had been standing, a tall figure dressed in yellow, in front of her old château in Toulouse, with its broken shutters and half-cracked pots brimming with flowers. Her voluminous hair framing a face still beautiful and unlined, her intelligent eyes half closed from the glare, and her mouth upturned in a smile that belied her sadness. She had not waved goodbye, nor had she said the words. She had always expected that he would return.
‘Apparently she left something for you,’ La Dame said, breaking into his thoughts.
‘What?’
‘A box. Don’t ask me what’s in it, nobody knows. Apparently it’s sealed – the instructions were that you alone should open it. She was always a mysterious old crone. Do you remember those séances? And her eyes; I swear she was strange! Not to mention all that talk about being the reincarnation of Esclarmonde de Foix!’
‘I believed it,’ Rahn said, feeling miserable. ‘She could have been that great Cathar dame, the guardian of the Cathar Grail.’
‘I don’t know about the Grail but I can imagine the Countess P giving the Inquisitors a run for their money.’
‘Let’s make a toast to our friend.’ Rahn raised his glass. ‘To the Countess P!’
‘To the old buzzard, may she rest in peace!’
Rahn shot him a glance and La Dame shrugged. ‘I mean it in the most affectionate way.’
They drank in silence, contemplating mortality. The café began to fill. Its interior grew noisy and full of smoke. Rahn turned to look for the commonplace man. He had his back to them.
‘Well,’ Rahn said, slurring his words, ‘before I disappear, I guess I’ll have to make a detour to Arques to see Deodat about that box the Countess left me. After that I’ll go to Toulouse to pay my respects to the Countess. It’s been good seeing you again, La Dame!’
‘Listen, you know I would love to come with you, like old times,’ he said. ‘But all this business sounds, well, a tad on the risky side. In your absence I’ve discovered something rather perturbing about myself. I’ve found, to my great astonishment, that I’m quite fond of my boring little life. Don’t look like that – it does have its advantages, you know! I am a valued member of the faculty and so I don’t have to work too hard; being a professor of scientific methodology is not as boring as you might imagine; I get to pick and choose from an assortment of gorgeous young ladies working in the campus . . . and there are even one or two students nowadays
. I have steady pay and an apartment not far from the Arc de Triomphe; I eat at Le Bouillon at least once a month; and last but certainly not least, I can afford to smoke Cuban cigars and drink a brandy that is better than passable. All these things please me. Pitiful I know, shocking I’ll admit, but there it is: I’m a boring coward!’
‘What happened to living in Morocco and travelling on a slow boat to South America?’
‘Yes, but unfortunately there are realities that one must take into account sooner or later – I abhor the heat and have an aversion to water, and if that weren’t enough, my morbid fear of snakes would not be well served in South America where, I’m told, one very often finds snakes in one’s bed!’ He sighed a defeated sigh. ‘Besides, I have my children to think of. How could I desert them?’
‘You don’t have children, La Dame.’
‘Not that I know of, of course, but one can never be certain!’ The smile was wide behind that beard.
Rahn nodded. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve involved you in this as far as I want to. I’ll call you if I need you to find out anything else. You can be my man on the ground.’
‘So be it! I’m at your beck and call. Bravura at a distance, that’s my style. But I’ll see you off at the station, at least.’
‘Only because you’re curious, La Dame!’
‘Yes, it’s a miracle, isn’t it, that curiosity can survive a formal education.’
Rahn paid the bill and before they left the café, he took a glance around for the man with the forgettable face. His table was empty, a half-full glass and a cigarette paper the only evidence that he had been there at all.
8
A Bird in the Hand
‘Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.’ Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
That night the desk clerk interrupted Rahn’s dinner. There was a phone call for him and he decided to take it in his room.
He wondered if the call was from Weisthor and how he could possibly know where he was staying, since he hadn’t called him yet. Walking up the stairs, he considered what he would say to the man. Was Weisthor part of that inner circle, one of Hitler’s ritters? There was no way of knowing and so he decided to listen and say little.
In his room, Rahn picked up the receiver, expecting to hear Weisthor’s rumbustious voice. Instead, the voice that greeted him was French, polished and courteous.
‘Monsieur Rahn?’
Rahn paused. ‘I am he.’
‘I hope you are enjoying your stay in Paris?’
‘To whom am I speaking?’
‘This is just a courtesy call. We have a mutual friend whom you met on the train.’
Rahn swallowed. ‘Yes, I remember him.’
‘He asked me to call and see how you are getting on.’
‘Just fine, thank you.’
‘We know you have to . . . tie a few loose ends before your journey to the south and we just wanted to wish you well. Will you be keeping your appointment with Plantard tomorrow?’
Rahn hesitated. ‘I expect so.’
‘That is for the better, we think. It is important to have the right information, you know, to understand the lay of the land. Now, it may have occurred to you that you might just lose yourself in the south. I would advise you to think again. You are not travelling light. Running is quite difficult when you have a ball and chain attached to your legs.’
A ball and chain?
‘Soon you will be hearing from us again. In the meantime we rely on you to follow your plans and to do what you do best. Just one word of warning: keep a lookout for wolves.’
‘Who are you working for?’ Rahn asked.
There was a long silence, then: ‘The name is on the card. I bid you a good night and a safe journey.’
Rahn put the phone down, his limbs drained of blood. He had been followed, after all! He took out the card and read the name – Serinus. Whoever these people were, they weren’t going to make it easy for him to disappear. A ball and chain! Yes indeed, he was shown, once again, that he was not free and he would have to make a decision. He sat on the bed and loosened his tie, and wished that he had a brandy.
9
Pierre Plantard
‘This is indeed a mystery,’ I remarked. ‘What do you imagine that it means?’ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’
The office of Alpha Galates was on the first floor of a rundown two-storey building, above a bookshop on a narrow and unfashionable street.
The rain had dried up that morning, leaving in its wake a cold autumnal day with clouds streaking the skies. The streets were busy and Rahn had slipped easily in and out of the crowds, though he guessed he was still being followed. In truth, he knew it was possibly dangerous to try to lose his ‘tail’. After all, he had been warned that he had a ball and chain around his leg and everyone seemed to know his every move. Even so, he had stopped now and again to look through a shop window, hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever was following him in its reflection. He had seen nothing amiss – the man was obviously a professional.
He took a winding stairway to a dirty hallway and followed the numbers until he came to a battered door. He checked his pocket watch for the time; he only had two hours before his train. Waiting for him on the other side of the door could be another way to Hell, he didn’t know. He knocked and waited. He heard shuffling sounds and the door opened a little, revealing one dark, hooded eye, a sunken cheek, half a long nose and a couple of full lips.
‘C’est quoi?’ the mouth said, annoyed.
‘Vincent Varas?’
‘Qui veut savoir?’
‘Otto Rahn,’ he said, ‘I telephoned you yesterday?’
The door closed. Rahn heard the chain. It opened again to reveal the tall young man.
‘Entrez . . . entrez . . .’ he said, his eyes furtive and his manner nervous.
Rahn’s first impression of the apartment was that it smelt of burnt toast and sardines. He imagined a kitchen full of dirty plates and half-drunk cups of coffee. He could also hear soft music coming through the walls and it lent an atmosphere of nostalgia and decadence. He was led to a sitting room that was largely empty except for a table burdened by a typewriter and wads of paper. More piles of paper littered the floor and Rahn had to step over them. The young man – long, gangling and wet-eyed – came to stand before the table, wearing a vaguely disconcerted frown on his oily face. The pale light coming through the window fell on his emaciated frame, catching the plume of cigarette smoke through which his little bloodshot eyes squinted. He removed a pile of papers from a torn armchair and gestured for Rahn to sit, and in the meantime dragged a stool closer.
‘Well?’ Rahn said to him, feeling the onset of a headache and the desire to be out of this place sooner rather than later. ‘As I explained on the telephone, I don’t have much time . . . my train leaves shortly and I must be on it.’
The young man stubbed out his cigarette in a cracked saucer full of old butts and ashes and looked at Rahn with a cursory frown. ‘Forgive me, monsieur, but what exactly did De Mengel say to you about Le Serpent Rouge?’
‘I didn’t speak to De Mengel,’ Rahn confessed, feeling suddenly on the back foot. ‘My superiors tell me it’s an important and rare grimoire and I am to acquire it for the Führer.’
There was a nod of consideration.
Rahn grew annoyed. He didn’t know why he’d come here, and he was of the mind to leave soon if the man didn’t reveal whatever he knew. ‘De Mengel told my superiors that you have information on the grimoire.’
‘Gaston De Mengel says many things,’ the young man replied with an irritating arrogance. He offered Rahn a cigarette from a crushed packet. He was smoking Black Russians – expensive.
‘I’ve given them up,’ Rahn said.
‘Pourquoi?’
‘The superior race must keep itself healthy . . . Himmler’s orders,’ he said, but his sarcasm was lost on the boy, who nodded appreciatively.
Rahn shifted in his
chair and tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. ‘Look, can you help me or not?’
The young man struck a match, lit the end of the cigarette and puffed until it glowed. He was stretching the moment out, making resolves and breaking them in the space of seconds.
‘That depends,’ he said finally.
‘On what? Do you want money?’
There was a wide smile. ‘Money? Look around, do I look like the sort of man who covets material goods, Monsieur Rahn?’
Where did he get the money for those cigarettes?
Plantard leant in. ‘Truth is, monsieur, what I know is more unhealthy than this.’ He took a drag of the cigarette and let the smoke out, looking at Rahn. ‘It is unhealthy not just for the body, but also for the soul.’
‘You mean dangerous?’
‘Dangerous?’ he asked, his long face wrinkled in a mocking smile. ‘Yes.’
‘Are you speaking about what happened to your superior, Monti?’
The young man seemed surprised. ‘If you know about that, then you understand my concern,’ he said, and sat back, satisfied he had made his point.
‘What about Savoire, does he know?’
‘Savoire?’
‘Look, let’s not play games. I know that your name is not Vincent Varas but Pierre Plantard, and I know that Alpha Galates is just a front for another group started by Monti and De Mengel. I also know that after Monti’s murder, this Dr Savoire took his place, and that now there are differences between Savoire and De Mengel, am I right?’
The young man made a considered nod. ‘Yes, you are correct, and yes, there are always differences.’
‘Ideological?’
‘Ideological, esoteric, especially esoteric, monsieur . . . it is the way of the world that there are hierarchies! Those higher on the ladder wish to keep things secret in order to maintain their position, while those who are lower want things revealed so they can rise higher.’ He smiled sardonically. ‘But Monti didn’t believe in ladders. That is to say, he believed he could do what he liked.’ The man ashed his cigarette thoughtfully. ‘And for the most part, he got away with it.’
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