Sant’Angelo was well aware of the Nazis’ predilections. The swastika itself was an ancient Sanskrit symbol of peace, now turned back on its axis to suggest something else entirely.
“Obviously, the count—the master of the Egyptian Masonic lodges—was well acquainted with your predecessor,” Mainz said, smiling coldly. “But I wouldn’t go so far as to say they were friends. Professional rivals, I would call them. Wouldn’t you?”
The marquis stifled an impulse to retort that the powers of the count had been vastly overrated.
“Cagliostro seemed to think that the Chateau Perdu contained some powerful secrets.”
“That maybe,” Sant’Angelo replied, “but in that case, they’re still undiscovered.” He might have said more, but he noted that the professor’s attention had been diverted; his ears had pricked up, like a hunting dog’s, and now the marquis could hear it, too—the low thrum of an airplane engine in the distance.
“Come,” Mainz said, hurrying out onto the balcony. “He’s coming!”
Who’s coming? Sant’Angelo thought, following him out. Dusk was falling, and from the west, he saw the red wing lights of a small plane, racing toward the chateau as if it were fleeing from the setting sun. It was going to come in low, just above the ridgeline, and he understood why the soldiers had felled the oaks; they had been clearing a runway approach. All down the sheep meadow, he saw that the armored cars had been placed in parallel lines with their headlamps on, and soldiers with flags and flashlights were positioned on the field.
The wheels of the plane touched the grass, bounced up, and touched again as the ailerons were deployed to cut its ground speed. Even from the parapet, Sant’Angelo could see the Nazi insignia on the fuselage, along with the number 2600—the number that the Führer believed held some mystical power, and that he insisted be placed on all his private aircraft.
Hitler himself had come to his chateau?
The soldiers waved their lights like fireflies as the plane jounced along for the entire length of the meadow. It was only as it was about to run out of room and go crashing into the dense forest that it came to a halt, so abruptly that the nose dipped and the tail end rose up like a scorpion’s stinger.
When the engines were cut off, two SS men ran to the port-side door, just aft of the wings, and helped unfold the stairs. The others—Himmler among them—stood at attention in a single line, facing the plane.
In the descending gloom, the marquis saw a figure appear in the door. He was wearing a mustard-colored field uniform, with breeches, boots, and a visored cap. And even from the balcony, his face, with its doleful eyes and toothbrush moustache, was unmistakable.
Sant’Angelo suddenly realized that the professor standing beside him, like all the SS men on the field, had raised his arm in the stiff-armed Nazi salute.
It was returned with a desultory flip, from the elbow alone, by their master, who was already strutting toward the main gate of the chateau, trailed by several officers and attachés.
“You are being granted a great honor,” Mainz said. “The Führer will be spending the night under your roof.”
Sant’Angelo’s mind reeled.
“So let’s have something to show him!” Like a schoolboy giddily awaiting a visit from his sweetheart, Mainz hurried back inside and began to riffle through the photos.
“For instance,” he said, flourishing a photograph and proffering it to Sant’Angelo, “on this one Cagliostro has scrawled ‘The little palace’ and drawn this hieroglyph beside it.” It was a raven with its wings spread.
“It looks like a raven.”
“Of course it does,” Mainz said impatiently. “And the three short vertical lines beside it indicate a flock of them. But does it mean anything to you? Is such a motif present anywhere in this chateau, or in a family coat of arms, perhaps?”
The little palace—no doubt he meant Le Petit Trianon, Sant’Angelo thought, though he did not share that insight with the professor.
“And this glyph, placed below it,” Mainz said, showing another photo, one depicting a jackal, but with its head thrown back, as if its neck were broken.
“He has written, ‘The master of the lost castle prevails.’ But prevails over what? Over Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead?”
Sant’Angelo remembered well the psychic battle in Marie Antoinette’s hideaway. Apparently, the good count had remembered it, too, even as madness overtook him.
Mainz laid out several more photos of the transcriptions. Even though he had not understood the meaning of what was recorded on the walls of the cell, the French scribe had made fine and accurate renderings. But the marquis sensed that the professor was expecting greater help in deciphering them.