Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [111]
“What surprises me,” said Lapointe, “is why so few people have reported finding this entrance to the moonbeam roads.”
“I suspect because it is not always open,” Begg speculated. “If Mrs. Persson came this way and was abducted, perhaps she opened the gate but had no time to close it. My guess is that Hitler's men, with whom she was clearly involved in some way, stumbled on the road and bribed Caron, who had already sold them arms, with those filthy photographs. No doubt they also paid M. Caron to let them know when she next planned to use his shop. Your men said they saw others enter the shop and not emerge, eh?”
“Three of them. Isn't it possible Mrs. Persson unwittingly led them here?”
“Impossible to say, Lapointe. I am hoping that question will shortly be solved!”
“But how do you know we are even on the right road?”
Begg pointed downward. Stretching ahead of them the others now detected the faintest of glowing pale traces, like ghostly drops of blood.
“What is it?” Lapointe wanted to know.
“I believe those frauds of mystics like to call it ectoplasm,” said Begg, “but I prefer to think of it as the traces left by each human soul as it passes through the world—or, in this case, between them. Only those ‘old souls’ like Mrs. Persson, who has moved for so long between planes and has developed a form of longevity we might call immortality, leave such clear traces.” His smile was grim. “We are still on her trail.”
Only when he looked back, did Taffy Sinclair see, not unexpectedly, similar phosphorescent traces running behind them. And he knew for certain who had left those.
After walking a bit further, when the booming of the Balance seemed closer, Sinclair realized they had left the moonbeam roads and were once again passing through a more earthly sequence of vaulted chambers. Still the electric lamp was in Begg's left hand. And still his right hand gripped his service revolver. Was it his imagination, the Home Office pathologist asked himself, or was there something familiar about the smell of the air? Was it pine trees? Impossible!
“Where are we?” enquired Lapointe in a whisper.
“If I am not mistaken, my old friend,” answered the Englishman, “we are somewhere in the Bavarian mountains. Probably near a place called Berchtesgaden. Either that, or my nose deceives me!”
“So we were right!” LeBec exclaimed. “Mrs. Persson is working for the German insurgents!”
“That, Inspector LeBec,” responded Begg, “remains to be determined.”
Soon the ground began to slope upward, and they heard voices loud enough to drown out the chiming Balance. Unmistakably speaking German, the loudest of them had a distinct Austrian accent.
Sir Seaton doused his lamp but did not return his revolver to his pocket.
The unseen Austrian's voice rose with excitement. “Victory is in our grasp, my friends. Our army is passing through the Eagle Gate as we speak, to assemble in the Great Siegfried Cavern, where they await our signal. Those degenerate fools thought they had defeated us, reduced us to a mere rabble. But they did not reckon with our heritage, the ancient Nordic secrets locked deep within our Bavarian homeland. The Hollow Earth theory has been proven a scientific fact. You have done well, Frau Persson, leading us to this road. We should have been sad if you were to become the subject of the next set of pictures sold in Herr Caron's shop. By next Saturday the course of history will be changed for ever. We shall strike a blow against the Jewish race from which it will never recover. And if you continue to cooperate, you shall witness my becoming world leader, master of time and space. You will make a fitting consort. Together we shall rule the universe!”
They heard only a faint reply. But the Austrian, evidently Colonel Hitler, continued his monologue unchecked. He hardly understood the nature of his own situation, so blinded was he by petty dreams of power and banal notions of his own superiority. A typical megalomaniac. Yet why on earth would a woman of Una Persson's intelligence and integrity lend herself to such evil folly?
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