The Sixth Key(92)

The penitents!

‘When he comes back, he digs about in the graveyard like a fox looking for a carcass and the mayor at the time complains to the Bishop of Carcassonne – who is now one Monsignor Beauséjour – that he is moving the graves about. This is a rumour, but it is substantiated by the fact that soon Saunière erects a fence around the graveyard with an iron gate, to which he alone holds the key. Now, some time afterwards, Abbé Gélis is murdered and the police find a fortune secreted in his house, thirteen thousand gold francs! Where did it come from? Who knows? In the meantime, Saunière travels more and more, only returning to keep an eye on his restoration works: the tower, the belvedere, the Villa Bethany. Next, Monsignor Beauséjour suspends him, because he can’t explain where he got his money but that doesn’t prevent him from celebrating the mass at the Villa Bethany. Did you see the chapel in the annex yesterday?’

‘Yes, when we brought the madame in out of the storm,’ Rahn said.

‘The parishioners were so mesmerised by Saunière that they continued to go to him for mass even after the Bishop of Carcassonne sent another priest to this town. At any rate, getting back to the diary: after his suspension, Saunière continued his renovation work, as if nothing had happened. He constructed his conservatory and here, you see, there is a map of the church and his relocation of tombs, including the cavalry cross. He was a wealthy man until the day he died.’

‘When did he die?’ Eva asked.

‘He had a stroke on the seventeenth of January 1915. The feast day of Saint Sulpice.’

Rahn sat stock-still. ‘He died of a stroke?’

‘Yes.’

‘On that date?’

‘Yes.’

Rahn was thinking that the Countess P, the Abbé Cros and now Saunière had all suffered strokes. A coincidence? He didn’t think so, but that date – the seventeenth of January – again! First he finds that date in Monti’s notebook; then he discovers Verger had been sentenced to death on that date; and now he learns that Saunière had also died on that same date.

‘In the church register,’ the priest continued, showing him the page whose topmost part was torn away, ‘Abbé Bigou, Saunière’s predecessor, writes the following line twelve times.’ He showed them.

Jesus of Galilee is not here.

Rahn paused. Bigou was the only priest they knew nothing about on the list.

‘Jesus of Galilee is not here . . . in Rennes-le-Château?’ Rahn asked.

‘Why would he write that?’ Eva leant in to look.

‘Perhaps it means the Devil lives here, because of whatever Marie Blanchefort gave him. You see, the page has been torn out and interpolated in the register on the date of her death.’

‘Which was?’ Rahn said with expectation.

‘The seventeenth of January,’ the priest announced.

Rahn was dumbfounded.

‘Do you know what she gave Abbé Bigou?’ Eva asked.

‘There are rumours that she gave him something on her deathbed but no one knows what it was, however the consensus is that it was some impious treasure which he then hid in the church and which Saunière found during his renovation. Perhaps he never found it and it is still buried somewhere beneath the church, who knows?’

‘We were in the crypt last night,’ Rahn blurted out.

‘You went there? But how did you . . . ?’

‘Through a hatch in the confessional.’ He observed the abbé with a steady eye. ‘We found the crypt under the graveyard. Someone has been using it as a den of black magic.’

‘What? Black magic?’ He blushed and immediately crossed himself.

‘It has been sealed up a long time, by the look of it. That was probably what Saunière was looking for in the cemetery – a way into it. And there’s something else. Someone closed the hatch in the confessional knowing we were down there. We only just managed to escape with our lives. The heavy rain flooded the crypt very quickly. Luckily for us we found a way out through the sacristy.’

‘The sacristy?’

‘Didn’t you know there was a way into the crypt through the closet?’

‘Me? Well . . . no.’ He looked flustered. ‘It must have been Madame Dénarnaud! She must have closed the hatch! She would have known about it from Saunière. Can you show me the list now?’ The man could hardly conceal his interest.

Rahn took it out.

‘Where did you get it?’

‘From the tabernacle at the church of Bugarach.’

The abbé looked at Rahn. ‘The tabernacle?’

‘We think Abbé Cros hid it there to safeguard it. See that priest at the top of the list? He was the priest who murdered the Archbishop of Paris eighty-one years ago. He is alleged to have possessed a copy of the Grimoire of Pope Honorius, after that we don’t know what happened to it.’