Zewinski sneered. “That sounds just like the Freemasons.”
Mareuil ignored her. “The Thule wanted to build a pure Germanic society devoid of Judaism and Christianity and heir to the ancient kingdom of Thule. That was the mythical cradle of the Aryan race somewhere in the icy North. It was said to have disappeared after a natural disaster.”
“Something like the legend of Atlantis,” Marcas interjected.
“Yes, an Atlantis composed of fervent anti-Semites with blond hair and blue eyes.”
“That’s grotesque,” Darsan said.
“Yes. We all know what that led to. Many dignitaries and influential people in Hitler’s circle belonged to the Thule, including Himmler, the head of the SS; Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess; and Alfred Rosenberg, who was the party’s theoretician. In fact, Rosenberg was the man who had our archives pillaged. He was after our esoteric documents.”
“I’ve heard that name before,” Marcas said. “Wasn’t he condemned at the Nuremberg Trials?”
“Yes, sentenced to death and executed. He was a crank who wanted to wipe out the three major Abrahamic faiths. He was convinced that the Aryan race had the Tables of the Law — the commandments given to Moses. This divine revelation wasn’t intended for Christians, Jews, or Muslims, but instead for the Aryans and was meant to ensure their supremacy over all other races and religions.”
“I don’t see the connection with freemasonry,” Marcas said.
“For the Thule, the stakes were high. They wanted to reestablish Nordic paganism.”
“So they were wackos,” Zewinski said. “I don’t see the connection either.”
“The Thule latched onto a long-standing fantasy about Freemasons — that they were responsible for the French Revolution. As far as the Thule was concerned, the Freemasons were the first to hack away at Christianity once it had become dominant in Europe.”
Zewinski sat back and crossed her arms. “Still lost here.”
“To make a long story short, they thought the Freemasons held some absolute secret.”
“A secret?”
“Yes, and those fanatics believed it enough to pillage Masonic temples all over Europe. They took everything back to Germany to be studied.”
Darsan stood up and walked to the window. “Okay. So what? The Nazis were dangerous madmen, and the craziest ones belonged to the Thule. What good does that do us? We have a murder to solve.”
Marcas leaned forward. “So Dawes was working on the recovered archives?”
“Yes,” Mareuil said, looking directly at Marcas.
Marcas knew there was more. He turned to Darsan, who had walked over to his desk.
“We have Sophie Dawes’s documents,” Darsan said. “If that’s what the killer was after, she failed in her mission. To be honest, I read them. They’re completely incomprehensible. We’ll get them back to you when the investigation is over. You’re lucky. Marcas is, well, one of yours.”
Mareuil stood up. The others followed suit.
“Before you go,” Darsan said, “Inspector Marcas, you noted that Ms. Dawes’s murder had some Freemason implications.”
“She was struck three times: on the shoulder blade, on the neck, and on the forehead,” Marcas said.
“Hiram’s death,” Mareuil said in barely a whisper.
Darsan opened the door for them. “We got a report from our ambassador in Jerusalem. There was an unusual slaying in an archeological institute. The victim, a scholar, had been beaten. He had taken blows to the shoulder, neck, and forehead.”
The blood drained from Mareuil’s face.
“Didn’t you say that Ms. Dawes was headed abroad?” Darsan asked.
“Israel was not on her itinerary,” Mareuil said.
“It’s a strange murder. But there’s something that makes it even stranger,” Darsan said. “The researcher in Jerusalem was killed the same night as Sophie Dawes. I wish you a good day, Mr. Mareuil. Marcas, Zewinski, keep me updated.”
23
Once in the hallway, Marcas made plans to meet with Zewinski in the morning. Then he caught up with Mareuil.
“Anselme, it’s been a while,” he said. “What a surprise to see you here.”
“Yes, it comes with my duties as special envoy,” Mareuil said. They had known each other for years.
“Do your duties include withholding information?”
“What makes you ask that, Antoine?” Mareuil said as the two of them neared the front entrance. “It looks like you’ll have your hands full with that woman partner of yours.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m just saying. You never know. Maybe you could soften her up. She’s a looker, and you need to get over that damned divorce.”
Marcas glared at him. “Where was Dawes going? She was headed to Jerusalem, wasn’t she?”
Mareuil stopped walking and turned to Marcas. He was silent for a moment and then cleared his throat. “Let’s grab a bite to eat,” he said. “I’ll explain.”
“I suggest we go to the Left Bank. I know a place.”
They exited the building and started walking toward the Rue de l’Ancienne-Comédie. Marcas liked to frequent a Catalan restaurant there. From the outside, it looked like a bookstore.
“Good choice,” Mareuil said shortly after they were seated at their table. Factoids on the history of Catalonia were printed on the paper tablecloth. “I’ve never been here before.”
Marcas dispensed with pleasantries and got straight to the point. “So, Anselme, tell me what you know,” he said.
“Do you come here often?” Mareuil asked, apparently in no hurry to answer. He opened the menu.
“Every so often. Excellent tapas. You should try the blood sausage too.”
“Was your father Catalan?”
Marcas scowled. “No, but he lived in Barcelona a long time. Let’s get down to business.”
Mareuil, however, was still ignoring him. He was examining the wine display that filled an entire wall. “What kind of wine do they produce in Catalonia?” Without waiting for an answer, he changed the subject. “See Le Procope across the street?”
“I mostly see the line of tourists waiting to get in.”
“Oh yes, Paris and its famous sites. Le Procope has been there since the eighteenth century. It was one of the first places in town where you could get coffee and hot chocolate — but not too much, because it was considered an inflamer at the time of Voltaire. That was another way of saying an aphrodisiac.”
“Are we really going to spend our time here talking about beverages in the Age of Enlightenment?”
The waitress, a flat-chested woman with an angular face, walked over to their table. Marcas and Mareuil placed their orders, and Mareuil asked for a glass of tempranillo.
“She shouldn’t pull her hair back like that,” Mareuil said as she headed to the kitchen. “Her face isn’t right for it.” He sighed and took a blue folder out of his leather briefcase. He opened it to a yellowed typewritten page. “In the nineteen fifties, a historian wrote up a report about the documents that were stolen during the war. Here, take a look.”
Marcas took the report and started reading.
Part of our archives, like those of the Grande Loge de France, remained in France in the hands of the Vichy government’s Secret Societies Department. The majority of the documents, however, were sent by train to Berlin, where Nazi scholars picked through them. Political documents ended up with the Gestapo, which used them to identify people who opposed fascism during the period between the two wars.