Monsieur Corfu grunted. The old woman who sat opposite Rahn chewed her food with her gums, making the occasional sucking sound and drooling over her chin.
‘I hear that you saw Madame Dénarnaud, Saunière’s old housekeeper, this afternoon?’ the mistress broached. ‘Did she tell you anything of interest?’
‘Not very much, I’m afraid,’ Rahn answered evasively, rubbing a stain from his knife with a serviette.
‘That cagey old bird!’ She could hardly contain the malice in her voice. ‘I thought as much.’
‘What does she have to be cagey about?’ Eva asked, open faced, sweet.
She is good at this, Rahn observed.
‘Oh! There is much! Isn’t there, Marcel?’
‘Just gossip!’ Monsieur Corfu dismissed, between spooning food into his mouth and chewing.
Madame Corfu ignored him and considered her guests. There was a raised brow. ‘Did she tell you that she was the priest’s lover? Of course she didn’t . . . but it’s true. She lived with him for years. Everybody knows what they got up to, the two of them in that presbytery – together!’
‘In the presbytery – didn’t he live in the villa?’ Eva asked.
‘What? No, the villa was meant to be a home for retired priests – his circle of friends.’
‘Who in particular?’ Rahn asked.
Madame Corfu regarded Rahn with a pregnant smile, full of teeth and gossip. ‘Did the old woman mention the renovations to the church?’
‘A little,’ Rahn said.
‘Did she say what the bell-ringer found?’
‘No.’
‘Well, he hated the renovations and fussed like an old woman, tidying up after the workmen and telling them to be careful. Anyway, apparently one night he was descending the stairs from the bell room and found that one of the wooden pillars that held up the pulpit had been moved a little and that he could see inside it. There was something hidden there.’
‘Madame Dénarnaud told us that Saunière found something in a stone pillar under the altar,’ Rahn countered.
‘Oh yes, but that comes after,’ she said with relish. ‘The bell-ringer found something in one of the wooden balusters, which he handed over to Abbé Saunière. In any event, whatever it was it must have made Saunière curious because he asked the bell-ringer to help him look around the rest of the church – something about removing the altar and, as the story goes, upon doing so they found bones and other things, perhaps coins glinting in the hollow beneath the stones. Treasure? Who could say?’
‘But doesn’t the bell-ringer know what they found?’ Rahn asked.
She leant forward. ‘He was immediately sent away and told to lock the church doors behind him.’ She gave a significant nod as if to say, you see?
‘All he found were Lourdes medallions, completely worthless, woman!’ her husband pointed out, wiping his dripping chin with his wrist. ‘You’re making a temple out of an outhouse!’
She straightened her back, smoothing down her ample décolletage. ‘Well, Saunière may have said that what he found was worthless . . . But if so why did he continue to dig?’ She looked down at her nails. ‘Night after night.’ She stretched out her hand. ‘Knee-deep in the graveyard, digging up graves, moving the headstones, grave robbing.’ She looked at Rahn. ‘And it didn’t end until the mayor finally demanded that the Bishop of Carcassonne do something to put a stop to him and that diabolical madame.’
‘Madame Dénarnaud was digging in the graveyard?’ Eva asked.
Madame Corfu drank down her wine imperiously and dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. She held their eyes, a master of suspense. Rahn had to prevent himself from smiling.
‘She did everything with him, if you know what I mean! Except that she didn’t go with him when he travelled – and he did a lot of travelling too! The word is, he didn’t understand what he had found and took it to some trusted friends, men of learning: Abbé Gélis of Coustassa; and Abbé Boudet of Rennes-les-Bains.’
Rahn sat up. If he was not mistaken, these were both on Abbé Cros’s list!
The husband glared at his wife, and waving a piece of bread at her, said, ‘Don’t go talking nonsense!’
Defiance shone in her eyes and she raised her double chin and pursed her lips. ‘Shut up! I’ll speak as I please!’ She turned now to her guests with a pleasant smile.‘Do you want to know what happened to Abbé Antoine Gélis?’
Rahn felt a shiver at what her tone implied and, just like in a horror film, at that very moment, the wind howled and shook the shuttered windows, making the fire flap its arms in the hearth like a dying man.