The Club Dumas

“As I said, not much.” She turned the pages of the book, preoccupied. “It provides a method, a formula. But there’s something in it that isn’t as it should be. And I ought to know what that is.”

Corso lit another cigarette but said nothing. He already knew the answer to the question: the hermit’s keys, the hour­glass, the exit from the labyrinth, the chessboard, the halo ... And other things. While Frieda Ungern was explaining the meaning of the pictures, he had discovered more differences, confirming his theory: each book differed from the other two.

The game of errors continued, and he urgently needed to get to work. But not with the baroness breathing down his neck.

“I’d like to take a good, long look at all of this,” he said.

“Of course. I have plenty of time. I’d like to see how you work.”

Corso cleared his throat, embarrassed. They’d reached the point he’d worried about: the unpleasantness. “I work better on my own.” It sounded false. Frieda Ungern frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.” She glanced at Corso’s can­vas bag suspiciously. “Are you hinting that you want me to leave you alone?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.” Corso tried to hold her gaze as long as possible. “What I’m doing is confidential.”

She blinked. Her frown became threatening, and Corso knew that everything could go out the window at any moment.

“You’re free to do as you like, of course.” Frieda Ungern’s tone could have frozen all the plants in the room. “But this is my book and my house.”

At that point anyone else would have apologized and beat a retreat, but not Corso. He remained seated, smoking, his eyes fixed on the baroness. At last, he smiled cautiously, like a rabbit playing blackjack about to ask for another card.

“I don’t think I’ve explained myself fully.” He smiled as he took a well-wrapped object from his canvas bag. “I just need to spend some time here with the book and my notes.” He gently tapped the bag as he held out the package with his other hand. “As you can see, I’ve brought all I need.”

The baroness undid the wrapping and looked at its contents in silence. It was a publication in German—Berlin, September 1943—a thick brochure entitled Iden, a monthly journal from Idus, a circle of devotees of magic and astrology which was very close to the leaders of Nazi Germany. Corso had put in a marker at a page that had a photograph. The photograph showed a young and very pretty Frieda Ungern smiling at the photog­rapher. She had a man on each arm (for she had both arms then). One of the men was in civilian clothes and the caption named him as the Fiirher’s personal astrologer. She was men­tioned as his assistant, the distinguished Miss Frieda Wender. The man on the left had steel-rimmed glasses, a timid expres­sion, and wore a black SS uniform. One didn’t need to read the caption to recognize Reichsfiihrer Heinrich Himmler.

When Frieda Ungern, nee Wender, looked up and her eyes met Corso’s, she no longer seemed a sweet little old lady. But it lasted only a moment. She nodded slowly and carefully tore out the page with the photo, ripping it into tiny pieces. And Corso reflected that witches and baronesses and little old ladies who worked surrounded by books and potted plants had their price, just like anyone else. Victa iacet Virtus. And he didn’t see why it should be any other way.

once he was alone, he took the folder from his bag and set to work. He sat at a table by the window, The Nine Doors open at the frontispiece. Before starting, he parted the net curtains and glanced out. A gray BMW was parked across the street. The tenacious Rochefort at his post. Corso couldn’t see the girl at the bar on the corner.

He turned his attention to the book: the type of paper, the pressure of the engravings, any flaws or misprints. Now he knew that the three copies were only outwardly identical: the same black leather binding’with no lettering, five raised bands, a pentacle on the cover, the same number of pages and location of the engravings... With great patience, page by page, he completed the comparative tables he’d begun with book num­ber one. On page 81, at the blank page on the reverse side of engraving number V, he found another of the baroness’s cards. It was a translation of a paragraph on the page.