The Sixth Key

by Adriana Koulias

  Deodat sat back to think on it. ‘No. Actually, there is another common denominator: you, Rahn.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, of course. In all your reasoning you’ve missed the most important link. You are the lead character, you are in every scene!’

  Rahn was struck by the truth in this and though he had no idea what it meant, it gave him pause.

  ‘Don’t worry, Rahn, sometimes there’s a simple explanation. Perhaps we are adding two and two together to make twenty-two?’

  ‘But if we are making too much of it and this has nothing at all to do with grimoires, why did Cros write sator? Why not just write tabernacle, as Eva pointed out? After all, sator is not an everyday word. No, I think he wanted you to know where the list was kept, but not just that, he also wanted you to know what the list was for, that it had something to do with grimoires. That’s why he gave you that word. I surmise, therefore, that the list has something to do with a grimoire – my grimoire!’

  ‘I think we should pay a visit to the Abbé Grassaud, from Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet. After all, he is not only on our list, but he also saw Abbé Cros recently.’

  ‘Where is that town?’

  ‘South of here, a couple of hours away . . . Can I see that list again?’ Deodat said, reaching for it. ‘Cros may have told Grassaud about the list and what it means. At this stage he is our best lead.’

  He took a pad and a pencil and set about copying the list. ‘It doesn’t hurt to have more than one copy. Put this copy in your pocket, Rahn, and come with me.’

  He followed Deodat to his library where he slipped the other list into the pages of Éliphas Levi’s book. ‘We will leave our friend here to guard the original.’ He replaced the book under E.

  ‘No one will think to look for it there, except for Madame Sabine, perhaps.’

  Rahn sighed. ‘You know, I feel rather strange, like a puppet or a character in someone’s crazy plot.’

  ‘Your head has taken a good knock, dear Rahn, and I’m not as young as I look. So I suggest before anything else, we should get some sleep. After that, we’ll go to see Abbé Grassaud. What do you say?’

  And so it was decided. Rahn went to his room and closed the curtains to block out the early sun. He lay down feeling drained. The bee was quiet now, but his head was thumping in time to his thoughts on secret brotherhoods, magic squares, the names on that list, the symbol of the lamb . . . until he fell into an uneasy sleep.

  He dreamt he was in a tomb. It was impenetrably dark, the cold went right to the bones and he was running out of oxygen.

  21

  Gone

  ‘– and yet it was dark – all dark – the intense and utter raylessness of the night that endureth for evermore.’ Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Premature Burial’

  Rahn woke with a gasp but when he tried to sit up he hit his head on a solid surface. He almost sank into a double blackness but he bit his lip and concentrated on coming out of it. There was a cramp in his right calf but he couldn’t extend his legs. He was on his back in a foetal position. He opened his eyes.Darkness.

  He was in an undersized coffin or a tomb!

  He panicked.

  What has happened?

  He tried to calm his nerves and piece together those events prior to this nightmare but they were trapped behind a mist at the back of his head. Where was he? Was this a dream? Would he wake up at any moment? He remembered the church, the altar, the tabernacle . . . the blackness. Was he still in the church? Something occurred to him and he felt in his pocket. The box of matches from behind the altar was still there. That much of it at least was real. He took the matches out and struck one in front of his face. He was in a strangely shaped box made from some sort of metal. He was lying on a number of cold, hard objects that were digging into his back. He realised he could smell gasoline and blew the match out. He listened for sounds. The darkness filled him with panic but the smell of gasoline made him nervous about lighting another match. He then remembered his pocket watch. It took him a moment to retrieve it but he had to chance lighting another match to see it.

  Nine o’clock.

  But was it morning or night, today or tomorrow? He didn’t know.

  He blew out the match again.

  It was hot.

  He needed air.

  He loosened his collar and tried not to let the panic take hold. He pushed up on the lid and it moved slightly allowing a blinding light to enter the box for a moment. He was filled with hope. The lid seemed to be caught on something, a latch perhaps? Maybe he could use those metal shapes that were digging into his back to break the latch, or at least to make enough noise to bring notice to himself – wherever he was. As he contrived to reach behind his back, however, a scream tore into his dark captivity. Startled, he involuntarily jerked his knees against the lid and it flew open.

  His eyes were assaulted by the light then but he was breathing fresh air. He sat up carefully and waited for his head to stop taking turns at thumping and spinning and for his eyes to adjust to the glare. He realised where he was. He was sitting in the trunk of the Tourster. The car was in the barn and the door was slightly ajar allowing the sun to slant into his eyes. He took out one leg after the other and flung them over the edge of the trunk where they touched something soft. He looked down and saw a man sprawled out on the ground. The shock of it nearly made him pass out again and he sat still for a time until he was ready to look again. Yes, a man. He got out of the trunk and forced himself to roll the body over. It was lying in a pool of blood mixed with gasoline. An empty fuel can lay nearby. Rahn shivered. It looked like this man had been about to set the car on fire with him in it when someone cut his throat from ear to ear, nearly severing his head. The killer had pulled the man’s tongue through the gash in his throat. Rahn put a hand to his own mouth and fought down a rising revulsion while he searched the man’s pockets. He found an old train ticket and nothing more, no wallet, nothing to identify him.

  Who goes about with nothing in their pockets?

  He inspected the hands looking for an SS ring, or any evidence that he belonged to the Gestapo, but all he found was a small tattoo on the right wrist – an upside down anchor with a snake coiling around it in the shape of an S. He stood up straight, looking about. He didn’t know what any of it meant. The whole place smelt of congealed blood combined with urine and gasoline, and the smell caused a sudden rush and he barely made it outside before emptying the contents of his stomach onto the grass. He sat in the garden then, feeling dismal and confused, trying to get his bearings. He realised he was shaking from head to toe and got up to steady himself. He remembered now lying on the bed upstairs. He and Deodat had resolved to do something.

  What was it?

  Deodat! Where was Deodat?

  He made his way back to the house, treading carefully, fearful that the murderer might be lurking somewhere inside. He took a furtive peek through the front door and saw that the place was a shambles: books, papers and cushions had been strewn over the Persian rugs; furniture lay overturned; and every drawer had been emptied of its contents by the look of it. Nothing was untouched. Rahn’s heart pounded, his head pounded, his ears pounded and his mouth was as dry as kindling and the bee was back, trying to find a way out of his head. A strange urge came over him then – he wanted to lie down. So what if there was a dead man in the barn, a murderer lying in wait in a ransacked house and he didn’t know where Deodat was? This was a dream and nothing more! Surely to sleep in a dream was to wake up in real life! He almost had himself believing it when he heard a noise.

  At this point he remembered the scream – how could he have forgotten it? It sobered him, lifting the fog long enough for him to realise that someone was in the house. Perhaps Madame Sabine had come home? He edged his way to the kitchen. It was topsy-turvy but there seemed to be no one in it. He entered cautiously, looking this way and that. Something caught his leg then and tripped him, causing him to fall flat on his face.

  He heard somethi
ng drop and a gasp.

  ‘Monsieur Rahn!’

  The world spun around itself, making the bee in his head angry. He felt someone turning him onto his back. ‘What are you . . . ?’ he began but forgot what he was going to say. ‘I’m so relieved to see you, I thought you were—’ It was Eva and she was helping him to sit up.

  ‘You thought I was . . . ?’ He looked at her, trying to focus. Her eyes expressed their concern in browns and golds.

  ‘Dead,’ she said, ‘or gone.’

  ‘Gone where?’

  She helped him to a chair then found a glass that wasn’t broken and brought him water. He sipped at it but it made him nauseous. He paused a moment; that bee was in his ear now and the Eiffel Tower was still snowed under. He looked at the girl; she was in the same clothes from the night before. Her face was pale. She was obviously in shock for the second time in as many days and he knew he had to come to grips with himself – no good both of them being hors de combat. This thought seemed suddenly ludicrous and he nearly let go a nervous laugh – something completely inappropriate, he realised, given that there was a man in the barn wearing his tongue for a necktie.

  ‘My uncle’s house is like this too,’ she said, looking around.

  ‘When I got there this morning the whole thing had been turned inside out. I’m glad that I sent Giselle to stay with her family yesterday. I didn’t know what to do, so—’ she looked at him with those rounded eyes, ‘—I just drove around. At first I thought I might go to the gendarmerie at Carcassonne but last night the magistrate said to keep this between us for the time being. I remembered I had the magistrate’s phone number and address in my handbag so I tried to call but there was no answer. I resolved to come here. When I arrived I thought you were taken too.’

  ‘Taken where?’

  ‘I don’t know. I looked through the house before I looked in the barn. He’s not here. I found this – a note – in the kitchen.’

  Rahn tried to read it but couldn’t bring his eyes together. Eva read it for him: ‘They are coming. Find it – don’t trust anyone.’

  ‘They’re coming!’ he said to Eva. ‘Who are they? Where have they taken him?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  Rahn paused to let this sink in. ‘I was passed out.’ He probed his head appreciatively. ‘I must have slept through the whole thing!’

  ‘You were concussed.’

  ‘You don’t say?’

  ‘No need to be sarcastic,’ she said.

  He sensed an inappropriate hint of humour in her tone. He looked at the double image of her face and choosing one, he said to it, ‘I’ve been hit on the head with a candlestick and locked in the trunk of a car in which I was very nearly cremated. Then, having escaped what was to be my funeral pyre, I happen upon the body of a man whose head is hanging by a thread, and now I find out that my good friend is missing, that his house is ransacked and that his life may be in peril . . . I beg your pardon if I sound a little indisposé.’

  ‘You were in the trunk of the Tourster?’ she said, ignoring his various misfortunes and concentrating on what interested her.

  ‘Yes, and rather an undignified end it would have been too if someone hadn’t done-in the man who was about to cremate me!’ he said with passion, seeing an image of it before his eyes.

  ‘I saw the dead man,’ she said.

  ‘And you screamed, I know.’

  ‘The dead man was going to kill you?’

  ‘I don’t know but there was a can of gasoline on the floor not far from the body. Lucky for me someone came along and stopped him with a knife to the throat. I dare say I might have ended up the same way, had I not been in the trunk.’

  Rahn felt for his jacket and realised he wasn’t wearing it. He had taken it off before lying down. He got up and the world was a plaything of his vertigo. He had to wait for it to stop before he could pick his slow way through the mess and up the stairs with Eva following him.

  The bed had been overturned and Eva helped him to move it. Underneath, he found his jacket but the pockets were empty. Monti’s notebook was gone and so was the list. He looked about and found his wallet. It was untouched and his papers were still in it, together with something else, the card the Russian Grigol Robakidze had given him at the Schloss on Lake Malchow. There had been something about Black Swans and if he was ever in any trouble he was to call the number on that card. But he remembered Deodat’s note: Don’t trust anyone!

  He found his lucky fedora – it was badly out of shape but he put it on his head, glad to have it back. He took a change of clothes, stuffed them into a small leather bag and went to Deodat’s room. It had been similarly treated. He told Eva they should go but through the miasma in his head he remembered something and took himself to the library. Some of the books had been tossed out of their comfortable beds, quite a few looked to be missing, but not Éliphas Lévi’s book. He found the original list, still tucked away inside it.

  He put the list in his pocket and went looking for the pendulum clock. There it was, the ugly thing. For some reason he was glad to see it.

  ‘So, are you going to tell me what this is all about?’ Eva asked.

  ‘It’s rather complicated and you’ll have to hear it along the way, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Along the way to where?’ she said.

  He put the clock under his arm and his mind fell into a palsy. What was he to do? Eva was watching him warily. He must look and sound quite mad. He drew himself together and said, ‘My dear Mademoiselle Cros, might I ask you to drive me to Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet, if you will be so kind? I’m really not up to it as you can see.’

  ‘Of course, are we going to see Abbé Grassaud?’

  ‘Yes, I believe he may know quite a lot about this entire loathsome affair.’

  Once they were well on the way, he told Eva what she didn’t know. She listened to all of it heavily, driving a long time in silence; thinking things through, he supposed.

  ‘So, you are a Nazi, Monsieur Rahn!’

  The look in her eye made him sigh. He hated unpleasantness, but he was sick of being judged by all and sundry. ‘I’m an author and a historian but I’m not a Nazi!’ he snapped. ‘I admit I was seduced by the possibility of having the means to continue my work, but that’s all. I despise everything they stand for!’

  ‘You said you came here to look for something?’

  ‘It’s a long story, but in short the SS want me to find a grimoire, a book of black magic written by Pope Honorius called Le Serpent Rouge. I saw a man in Paris who knew something about it and he gave me a notebook that belonged to another man, a man who visited a priest here in Languedoc some months ago. The notebook contained information that has led me to surmise that he wasn’t only looking for the grimoire, but also for a key missing from it. It’s all rather sketchy and complex.’

  ‘A key? You mean like the key to the tabernacle?’ ‘No, in grimoires a key is something that unlocks a secret – that enables one to conjure a spirit. It can be a verbum dimissum, that is, a magic word, or it can be a sign.’

  ‘What sort of pope writes a grimoire of black magic?’

  Rahn nodded. ‘A diabolical one! Can you see now why I don’t like churches?’ He put a hand over one eye and then over the other to see if his vision had improved. ‘You don’t happen to know the symptoms of a brain haemorrhage, do you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A brain haemorrhage, when it bleeds in the brain – the symptoms, do you know them?’

  She shrugged. ‘Headache, dizziness . . .’ She didn’t seem particularly interested.

  ‘I know there’s something about the eyes – the pupils. They either contract or dilate . . .’

  She wasn’t listening. ‘I still don’t understand how this has anything to do with my uncle.’

  ‘I think that your uncle is the priest this man Monti came to see and I also think that the list of priests has something to do with the missing key. On his return to Paris, Monti—’

 
‘The man with the notebook?’

  ‘Yes. Monti grew afraid and for good reason, since he was soon murdered. I think that Inspecteur Beliere turned up so promptly, miles from his jurisdiction, because he was watching your uncle.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I saw a car parked on the road nearby the Maison de Cros when we left for Bugarach and it didn’t follow us. I’ll wager that was an unmarked police car.’

  ‘You think my uncle was involved with this Monti fellow? That’s absurd!’

  ‘But the list isn’t all that connects your uncle to the grimoires. Don’t forget the last word he wrote was sator. He gave that to Deodat as a clue to finding the list.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘It’s part of a very old magic square used in certain grimoires.’

  She raised both brows. ‘Magic square?’

  Rahn took a pencil from his bag and drew the square on the back of the paper with the list.

  She glanced at it.

  ‘The words are the same up and down, backwards and forwards.’

  ‘I see, and that is why it has magical properties?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think your uncle knew that if he gave Deodat that one word, Deodat would be able to figure out not only where the list was kept but also that it was connected to the grimoires. Deodat’s house and your uncle’s house were both ransacked because someone was after this list and they wanted it enough to kill for it.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who that dead man in the barn was?’

  His conversation with Deodat about the various groups floated in his head. ‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘Yesterday Deodat mentioned a number of secret brotherhoods, societies and groups that are at cross-purposes though they sometimes work together without knowing it. I noticed that the man in the barn had a tattoo. I’ve seen something like it before but I don’t remember where exactly.’

  ‘Do you have any idea what nationality or group he may have belonged to?’

  ‘No . . . there were no papers in his pockets but the tattoo was unusual – a snake entwining an anchor. It could be a Hermetic symbol, possibly the symbol of some order, but who knows? I know I’ve been followed. Before I left Paris, a man who called himself Serinus contacted me. He also wanted me to find Le Serpent Rouge but he wanted me to keep it out of Himmler’s hands.’