“Time enough—” Nick sniffed, scowled, then pointed toward a thick pillar near the rear of the big room. “I smell an interloper. Thammuz, Dagon, drag ’im up here! Beel, I fancy he’s the one who forged your signature.”
Beelzebub rose in anger when a shadowy figure darted for the door. The intruder moved as fast as any wraith but the two former gods were too quick for him. A brief struggle, then they dragged the eavesdropper before the throne where they held him upside down.
“It’s the Paperhanger!” Beelzebub roared.
“I guessed that from Charon’s description,” Nick said calmly. “He’s siding with the Reds again—Smell him? Stand up, Adolf, and hear your sentence!”
“I didn’t do a thing, Your Majesty,” Hitler began, but the hot, glowing eyes were too much to face. His knees buckled and he sank, groveling, on the floor. “Didn’t I send you millions of customers?” he wailed. “Haven’t I done a good job of sweeping out and collecting garbage? Have a heart, Nick. I came in here to sweep, and how would I know about this private conference?”
“You talk about hearts?” Nick flared. “You hung around to listen. You forged Beelzebub’s signature on my official paper, then put Charon in charge of the bridge, thinking he’s too dumb to report any Commies coming here.”
“I can prove—”
“You get the same chance at that which you gave people in Berlin. Down the chute with him, boys!”
The chute, connecting with a main one leading down to the burning lake, has a flap which Belial gleefully lifted. Since shades have no mass worth mentioning, the long duct acts like a department store vacuum tube.
“Oh, my beloved emperor, forgive me,” Adolf yelled as he felt the suction. “I only wanted to organize a counter-revolution against the Communists and—”