'No, I suppose not.'
'I'm so glad you think so,' said Vogelmann. 'One always hesitates to recommend such a thing, but I think that in this case, there is really little or no alternative.'
'What will it cost?'
'This is Emmeline's life we're talking about,' Hildegard snapped. 'How can you mention money?'
'The cost is very reasonable,' said Rahn. 'I'm quite sure you'll be entirely satisfied. But let's talk about that at a later date. The most important thing is that you meet someone who can help you.
'There is a man, a very great and gifted man, who is possessed of enormous psychic ability. He might be able to help. This man, as the last descendant of a long line of German men of wisdom, has an ancestral-clairvoyant memory that is quite unique in our time.'
'He sounds wonderful,' Hildegard breathed.
'He is,' said Vogelmann.
'Then I will arrange for you to meet him,' said Rahn. 'I happen to know that he is free this coming Thursday. Will you be available in the evening?'
'Yes. We'll be available.'
Rahn took out a notebook and started writing. When he'd finished he tore out the sheet and handed it to me.
'Here is the address. Shall we say eight o'clock? Unless you hear from me before then?' I nodded. 'Excellent.'
Vogelmann stood up to leave while Rahn bent and searched for something in his briefcase. He handed Hildegard a magazine.
'Perhaps this might also be of interest to you,' he said.
I saw them out and when I came back I found her engrossed in the magazine. I didn't need to look at the front cover to know that it was Reinhard Lange's Urania. Nor did I need to speak to Hildegard to know that she was convinced Otto Rahn was genuine.
Chapter 20
Thursday, 3 November.
The Resident Registration Office turned up an Otto Rahn, formerly of Michelstadt near Frankfurt, now living at Tiergartenstrasse 8a, Berlin West 35.
VC1, Criminal Records, on the other hand, had no trace of him.
Nor did VC2, the department that compiled the Wanted Persons List. I was just about to leave when the department director, an S S SturmbannFnhrer by the name of Baum, called me over to his office.
'Kommissar, did I hear you asking that officer about somebody called Otto Rahn?' he asked.
I told him that I was interested in finding out everything I could about Otto Rahn.
'Which department are you with?'
'The Murder Commission. He might be able to assist us with an inquiry.'
'So you don't actually suspect him of having committed a crime?'
Sensing that the SturmbannFnhrer knew something about an Otto Rahn, I decided to cover my tracks a little.
'Good grief, no,' I said. 'As I say, it's just that he may be able to put us in contact with a valuable witness. Why? Do you know someone by that name?'
'Yes, I do, as a matter of fact,' he said. 'He's more of an acquaintance really.
There is an Otto Rahn who's in the S S.'
The old Hotel Prinz Albrecht Strasse was an unremarkable four-storey building of arched windows and mock Corinthian pillars, with two long, dictator-sized balconies on the first floor, surmounted by an enormous ornate clock. Its seventy rooms meant that it had never been in the same league as the big hotels like the Bristol or the Adlon, which was probably how it came to be taken over by the S S. Now called S S-Haus, and situated next door to Gestapo headquarters at number eight, it was also headquarters to Heinrich Himmler in his capacity as ReichsFnhrer-S S.
In the Personnel Records Department on the second floor, I showed them my warrant and explained my mission.
'I'm required by the S D to obtain a security clearance for a member of the S S in order that he may be considered for promotion to General Heydrich's personal staff.'
The S S corporal on duty stiffened at the mention of Heydrich's name.
'How can I help?' he said eagerly.
'I require to see the man's file. His name is Otto Rahn.'
The corporal asked me to wait, and then went into the next room where he searched for the appropriate filing-cabinet.
'Here you are,' he said, returning after a few minutes with the file. 'I'm afraid that I'll have to ask you to examine it here. A file may be removed from this office only with the written approval of the ReichsFnhrer himself.'
'Naturally I knew that,' I said coldly. 'But I'm sure I'll just need to take a quick look at it. This is only a formal security check.' I stepped away and stood at a lectern on the far side of the office, where I opened the file to examine its contents. It made interesting reading.
S S UnterscharFnhrer Otto Rahn; born 18 February 1904 at Michelstadt in Odenwald; studied philology at the University of Heidelberg, graduating in 1928; joined S S, March 1936; promoted S S, UnterscharFnhrer, April 1936; posted S
S-Deaths Head Division 'Oberbayern' Dachau Concentration Camp, September 1937; seconded to Race and Resettlement Office, December 1938; public speaker and author of Crusade Against the Grail (1933) amd Lucifer's Servants (1937).
There followed several pages of medical notes and character assessments, and these included an evaluation from one S S-GruppenFnhrer Theodor Eicke which described Rahn as 'diligent, although given to some eccentricities'. By my reckoning that could have covered just about anything, from murder to the length of his hair.
I returned Rahn's file to the desk corporal and made my way out of the building.
Otto Rahn.
The more I discovered about him, the less inclined I was to believe that he was merely working some elaborate confidence trick. Here was a man interested in something else besides money. A man for whom the word 'fanatic' did not seem to be inappropriate. Driving back to Steglitz, I passed Rahn's house on Tiergartenstrasse, and I don't thnk I would have been surprised to see the Scarlet Woman and the Great Beast of the Apocalypse come flying out the front door.
It was dark by the time we drove to Caspar-Theyss Strasse, which runs just south of Kurfnrstendamm, on the edge of Grunewald. It was a quiet street of villas which stop only a little way short of being something more grand, and which are occupied largely by doctors and dentists. Number thirty-three, next to a small cottage-hospital, occupied the corner of Paulsbornerstrasse, and was opposite a large florist where visitors to the hospital could buy their flowers.
There was a touch of the Gingerbread Man about the queer-looking house to which Rahn had invited us. The basement and ground-floor brickwork was painted brown, and on the first and second floors it was cream-coloured. A septagonally shaped tower occupied the east side of the house, a timbered loggia surmounted by a balcony the centre portion, and on the west side, a moss-covered wooden gable overhung a couple of porthole windows.
'I hope you brought a clove of garlic with you,' I told Hildegard as I parked the car. I could see she didn't much care for the look of the place, but she remained obstinately silent, still convinced that everything was on the level.
We walked up to a wrought-iron gate that had been fashioned with a variety of zodiacal symbols, and I wondered what the two S S men standing underneath one of the garden's many spruce trees and smoking cigarettes made of it. This thought occupied me for only a second before I moved on to the more challenging
