The steps were slippery with moss and he half stumbled to the bottom step. Still holding his candle, he stood in a large natural cavity beneath the church, only just high enough in places for a grown man to stand without stooping. In the flickering light he glimpsed open tombs, partly submerged in water, their covering slabs discarded. The crypt seemed to follow the dimensions of the church above it. As above, so is below – the old Hermetic maxim came to his mind. He could hear an echo of water dripping. When he stepped into it the water was high enough to cover his shoes and as it seeped into his feet he cringed from cold. He walked, mindful of his step and invisible submerged debris, until he came to more steps – the hatch in the confessional wasn’t the only way into the crypt. He guessed this access must come out somewhere near the pulpit. He continued, feeling in his element, moving with confidence over tree roots and rotted wood beams until he came to another set of steps leading up to the church. These steps must come out somewhere near the sacristry. There were three entrances!
He also noticed a stain on the wood columns supporting the floor of the church; this crypt was subject to flooding and he could see that the water had reached as high as his shoulder. The old madame told him earlier that Saunière had done some work to shore up the foundations of the church because of the water, now he understood. It also made sense of the network of cisterns that fed the gardens above, as the abbé had mentioned.
Returning, he approached an open tomb and looked into it; it was full of old bones, dirt and debris. As he inspected it he heard something, a whisper of a sound. A voice. He listened but all was still again. His nerves were on edge – was he hearing things? No, there it was again!
He put out his candle and crouched down behind the tomb.
Someone had entered through the hatch and was coming down the stairs!
He tried not to breathe because in the cold his breath formed clouds of condensation around him – a giveaway.
He heard a stumble and then a splash.
‘Where are you?’
Eva!
He relaxed and in a moment his fear was replaced by annoyance. ‘What are you doing here?’ he said, stepping out from behind the tomb, feeling less than the courageous hero. ‘Well?’
She had slipped but luckily her candle had not gone out. Her hair was wet and her cheeks were flushed. She looked exhilarated.
‘I heard you leave the room. How do you expect me to sleep? You were calling out “penitence” all night long! I knew you would come back to the church, so when I saw the door to the confessional open . . .’ She looked about her. ‘This is remarkable! How did you figure it out? Is this the tomb of the Visigoth
– Sigisbert?’
‘I haven’t found anything yet to prove it,’ he said curtly, ‘one way or the other. But if there’s ever been any treasure here it’s gone now, ransacked. See the pickaxes and shovels resting against those walls? There’s been a lot of digging and I suspect it wasn’t all just to shore up the church. It looks like Saunière wasn’t only grave robbing above, but also below.’
‘Looking for what? Hadn’t he already found something in the church?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘All this water – where does it come from?’
‘There’s an underground spring. I suspect this place is practically floating on water.’
‘So what now?’
‘Again, I don’t know.’
Rahn lit his candle from hers and in doing so noticed something he hadn’t seen when he had descended those steps. Some distance from the steps leading to the confessional the wall grew darker at one point. He walked through the water to it and discovered a narrow tunnel. He figured it must lead under the church and away from the crypt in the direction, he guessed, of the cemetery. He looked down. The water seemed deeper here and this made him cautious. He couldn’t imagine why it would be deeper. Every potholer knows that rainfall above can end up inundating a cave below in a matter of minutes. But it had been utterly dry when he’d left the house to come to the church, so he surmised that he was standing in a natural depression in the floor of the crypt.
He resolved to see where this tunnel led and began to make his way into it.
‘Wait, I’m coming with you!’ Eva said.
He turned around, irritated. ‘Certainly not! I forbid it.’
She laughed. ‘You what?’
‘I mean, I beg you to go back up where it’s safe to wait for me. If I don’t come back in an hour send a search party.’ He turned around again, but was halted by her insistent voice.
‘No matter what you say, I’m coming.’