Free The Sixth Key by Adriana Koulias Page B

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.
    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