AVIGNON
5:00 PM
MALONE STOPPED THE PEUGEOT. ROYCE CLARIDON WAS WAITING on the roadside, south of the sanatorium, exactly where he'd said. The man's scruffy beard was gone, as were the stained clothes and jersey. The face was clean-shaven, the nails trimmed, and Claridon was wearing a pair of jeans and a crew-necked shirt. His long hair was slicked back and tied in a ponytail, and there was vigor to his step.
"Feels good to get that beard off," he said, climbing into the rear seat. "To pretend to be a Templar, I needed to look like one. You know they never bathed. Rule forbade it. No nakedness among the brothers and all that stuff. What a smelly lot they must have been."
Malone shifted the car into first and motored down the highway. Storm clouds filled the sky. Apparently, the weather from Rennes-le-Chateau was finally making its way eastward. In the distance lightning forked across the rising plumes, followed by growls of thunder. No rain was falling yet, but soon. He exchanged glances with Stephanie and she understood that the man in the rear seat needed interrogating.
She turned back. "Mr. Claridon--"
"You must call me Royce, madame."
"All right. Royce, could you tell us more of what Lars was thinking? It's important we understand."
"You don't know?"
"Lars and I were not close in the years before he died. He didn't confide much in me. But I've recently read his books and the journal."
"Might I ask, then, why are you here? He's been gone a long time."
"Let's just say I'd like to think Lars would have wanted his work finished."
"On that you are right, madame. Your husband was a brilliant scholar. His theories were well founded and I believe he would have been successful. If he'd lived."
"Tell me of those theories."
"He was following the abbe Sauniere's path. That priest was clever. On the one hand, he wanted no one to know what he knew. On the other, he left many clues." Claridon shook his head. "It's said he told his mistress everything, but she died without ever saying a word. Before his death, Lars thought he'd finally made progress. Do you know the full tale, madame? The real truth?"
"I'm afraid my knowledge is limited to what Lars wrote in his books. But there were some interesting references in his journal that he never published."
"Might I see those pages?"
She thumbed through the notebook, then handed the book back to Claridon. Malone watched in the rearview mirror as the man read with interest.
"Such wonders," Claridon said.
"Could you enlighten us?" Stephanie asked.
"Of course, madame. As I said this afternoon, the fiction Noel Corbu and others manufactured about Sauniere was mysterious and exciting. But to me, and to Lars, the truth was even better."
Sauniere surveyed the church's new altar, pleased with the renovations. The marble monstrosity was gone, the old top now rubble in the churchyard, the Visigoth pillars enlisted for other uses. The new altar was a thing of simple beauty. Three months ago, in June, he'd organized an elaborate first communion service. Men from the village had carried a statue of the Virgin in a solemn procession throughout Rennes, ending back at the church where the sculpture was placed atop one of the discarded pillars in the churchyard. To commemorate the event, he'd carved PENITENCE, PENITENCE on the pillar's face to remind the parishioners of humility, and MISSION 1891 to memorialize the year of their collective accomplishment.
The church roof had finally been sealed, the exterior walls shored. The old pulpit was gone and another one was under construction. Soon a checkerboard tile floor would be installed, then new pews. But prior to that, the floor's substructure required mending. Water seeping from the roof had eroded many of the base stones. Patching had worked in places, but several required replacement.
Outside loomed a wet, windy September morning, so he'd managed to secure the help of half a dozen townspeople. Their job was to bust away several of the damaged slabs and install new ones before the tilers arrived in two weeks. Men were now working in three separate locations throughout the nave. Sauniere himself was tending to a warped stone before the altar steps, which had always wobbled.
He remained puzzled by the glass vial found earlier in the year. When he'd melted the wax seal and removed the rolled paper, he found not a message but thirteen rows of letters and symbols. When he showed them to Abbe Gelis, a priest in a neighboring village, he was told that the arrangement was a cryptogram, and somewhere among the seemingly meaningless letters lay a message. All one needed was the mathematical key to its deciphering, but after many months of trying he was no closer to solving it. He wanted to know both its meaning and why it had been secreted away. Obviously, its message was of great importance. But patience would be needed. That was what he told himself each night after he again failed to find the answer, and, if nothing else, he was indeed patient.
He gripped a hammer with a short handle and decided to see if the thick floor stone could be cracked. The smaller the pieces, the easier their removal. He dropped to his knees and slammed three blows into one end of the yard-long slab. Cracks immediately spread down its length. More blows lengthened them into crevices.
He tossed the hammer aside and used an iron bar to pry the smaller pieces loose. He then wedged the bar underneath a long, narrow fragment and angled the thick chunk out of its cavity. With his foot, he slid it aside.
Then he noticed something.
He laid down the iron bar and brought the oil lamp close to the exposed subfloor. He reached down and gently swiped away debris and saw that he was staring at a hinge. He bent close and swiped away more dust and debris, exposing more corroded iron, his fingertips stained with rust.
The shape became clear.
A door.
Leading down.
But to where?
He glanced around. The other men were hard at work, talking among themselves. He set the lamp aside and calmly replaced the pieces he'd just removed back into the cavity.
"The good priest did not want anyone to know what he discovered," Claridon said. "First the glass vial, now a doorway. This church of his was full of wonder."
"A doorway to what?" Stephanie wanted to know.
"That's the interesting part. Lars never told me everything. But after reading his notebook, I now understand."
Sauniere cleared the last of the stone from the iron door in the floor. The church doors were locked, the sun having set hours ago. All day he'd thought about what lay beneath the door, but he'd not said a word to any of the workers, merely thanking them for their labors and explaining that he intended to take a few days' rest, so they wouldn't be needed back until next week. He'd not even told his precious mistress what he'd found, only mentioning after dinner that he wanted to inspect the church before going to bed. Rain now pelted the roof.
In the light from the oil lamp he calculated that the iron door was just over a yard long and half a yard wide. It lay flush to the floor with no lock. Thankfully its frame was stone, but he worried about the hinges, which was why he'd brought a container of lamp oil. Not the best lubricant, but it was all he could find on short notice.
He doused the hinges with oil and hoped time's grip would loosen. He then wedged the tip of an iron bar beneath one edge of the door and pried upward.
No movement.
He pried harder.
The hinges started to give.
He wiggled the bar, working the rusted metal, then applied more oil. After several efforts the hinges screamed and the door pivoted open and froze in place, pointing toward the ceiling.
He shone the lantern into the dank opening.
Narrow steps led down five yards to a rough stone floor.