The Sixth Key (37 page)

Rahn grabbed La Dame by the shoulders then and
shook him with delight.

‘Steady on, Rahn! Have you lost your senses?’

‘No! The very opposite! I think you’re right,
La Dame! Why not just destroy the list? Why was Grassaud after it, if it had no
value? And why would Madame Dénarnaud say that the moment Abbé Lucien looked at
it he would know what to do?’

‘There has to be something that we’ve missed!’
Eva said.

‘No, he always wanted
someone to find the list, for a reason.’ Rahn took the list from his pocket.
‘After all, he gave us the clue to the tabernacle where it was kept.’ He moved
closer to the candles to study it.

Jean-Louis
Verger – Paris 1857 — Penitents

Antoine
Bigou – Rennes-le-Château — 1781 AA

~

A J
Grassaud – Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet 1886

A C Saunière
– Rennes-le-Château 1885

A K
Boudet – Rennes-les-Bains 1885 — AA

A A Gélis
– Coustaussa murdered 1897

A L Rivière – Espéraza refused last sacrament 1915

‘The two names at the top of the list differ
from the rest,’ Eva pointed out.

‘Yes, they’re separated, as we said before,
because those priests weren’t contemporaries of Saunière,’ Rahn reminded her.

‘No, there’s something else,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘She’s right!’ La Dame erupted. ‘Look, Rahn,
Verger and Bigou both have their first names. The others on the list below only
have initials.’ He gave Eva a conspiratorial smile that annoyed Rahn so much
that he was hard pressed not to kick him. Even so, he had to admit it was true.

‘The A must stand for Abbé because it occurs
before every name,’ Eva said, ‘so we’ll ignore that. Now, logic would say that
the other initials point to first names. But they don’t, do they?

‘Saunière’s first name was Bérenger,’ Rahn
said. ‘And that doesn’t match.’

‘And what about Abbé Grassaud?’ La Dame said.
‘What was his name?’

Eva gave Rahn and La Dame a significant look.
‘His name was Eugene.’

‘Another mismatch,’ Rahn announced.

‘I’ll wager that all the initials are wrong,’
Eva said, finally.

‘Yes, it might be another cipher,’ Rahn
agreed. ‘Let’s see, if you put all the initials together it makes . . . JCKAL.’

Eva looked at it. ‘What if it is meant to be
jackal, but Cros had to conform to the number of priests on the list and so he
had to leave one letter out. Is there a connection?’

‘Anubis!’ Rahn said, looking at the two of
them. ‘Anubis is the jackal-headed Egyptian god . . . the god of the
Underworld!’

‘That took you long enough to figure!’ said a
voice that made them all jump nearly out of their skins. Rahn saw a shape in
the darkness. When it came into the light he wanted to faint.

The man stepped out from the shadows. ‘The
mademoiselle is right. There is a church missing on that list . . . that is why
the word JCKAL is not complete.’

Rahn couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘Deodat! We
thought—’

‘Yes, I know.’ Deodat looked perfectly calm
and not at all tortured, harangued or abused. In fact he looked better than Rahn
felt. Rahn had to sit down, and found a pew. He was breathless and feeling
faint. The crushing weight of responsibility that he had felt until now lifted
from him, leaving him completely unable to speak for a moment. He was
thoroughly numbed.

‘Come, come, dear Rahn, are you alright? I owe
you a thousand apologies!’ Deodat said, making his way to him.

Rahn stood a moment, looking at his friend’s
concerned face. ‘Good gracious! I can hardly believe my eyes. I – I’m in
shock!’ Then, ‘I’ve never been more glad to see anyone in all my life!’ He was
choked up, and took Deodat’s hand and shook it vigorously, but his joy soon
gave way to a sudden vexation. ‘How dare you upset me like that!’ he said,
letting go the hand. ‘For Heaven’s sake, Deodat! Where have you been? What have
you been doing? We found a note, the house was ransacked, you were gone . . .
They nearly killed me!’

‘Hold on, Rahn,’ Deodat said, lifting up a
hand to stay him. ‘For things to make sense you have to tell me everything from
the beginning.’

Rahn held in his annoyance and curiosity until
he had told Deodat of his misadventures: his being locked in the boot of the
Tourster; the man with his throat cut; the conversation with Grassaud at the
hermitage; the Sator Square and what led them to Rennes-le-Château. He told him
about the underground crypt; the desecration of the church; Madame Dénarnaud;
the circle of abbés; the parchment; Saunière’s dealings with Association
Angelica, the penitents and the Freemasons. He told him about Abbé Lucien, the
anchor and the snake, and about the Serbians who accosted them and were killed
for their efforts. He told him how they had managed to decode the parchment using
the Vigenère Square and how the solution had led them to Saint-Just-et-le-Bézu,
where they had found the second clue, which had brought them here to Coustassa.
He also told him about the hearse and the black Citroën that had been following
them.

Deodat listened without interruption, nodding
now and again as was his custom. When Rahn finished, Deodat was thoughtful for
a long time before speaking. ‘Well, Rahn, you’ve exceeded my expectations. Well
done! Capital job. Things are falling into place, everything you’ve told me
coincides quite beautifully with what I have discovered.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Rahn said. His
vexation was not mollified. ‘Are you telling me you weren’t kidnapped –
that this has been an elaborate hoax?’

‘Let me start at the beginning. Yesterday
morning, when we decided to rest before seeing Abbé Grassaud, there was a knock
at the door. It was Inspecteur Beliere. He told me he had gone to Bugarach to
see Mademoiselle Cros to ask her some questions about the abbé’s death. When he
got there, he said the house was open and the maid was missing, as was the
mademoiselle. Every room had been ransacked. It was obvious that whoever had
done it was looking for something or someone, and the inspector said that he was
very concerned for her safety, not to mention ours. He asked me what I knew
about the mademoiselle. I told him we’d only just met on the day the abbé died.
He then told me he was investigating La Cagoule because the police had been
informed of a plot to assassinate the president and that there were various
secret societies in the south involved. In light of this, I could no longer
refrain from telling him about the list, and what we had discovered concerning
Le Serpent Rouge and the key to completing it.’ Deodat’s eyes shone and his
cheeks were flushed with exhilaration in recounting it. ‘And so I gave him the
list, knowing full well that we had made another one. He wanted me to come with
him and asked where you might be; I told him you had gone to Espéraza with the
housekeeper and that I would leave you a note where to find me.’

‘That was the note?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you made it sound like you were
kidnapped!’

‘And I was.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You see, at this point I already knew that
the inspector was suspect.’

‘What?’

‘Yes, he was an imposter!’

‘How did you know that?’

‘After you went to bed I couldn’t rest. I had
suspicions about Beliere, so I called the Paris judiciaire and they told me
that a certain Beliere had been sent to Carcassonne. When I asked them to
describe the man they said he was tall, rather thin and balding. As you know,
this description does not fit with our short, squat, Inspecteur Beliere.’

‘But then, what made you think he wasn’t the
real thing in first place?’

‘In all my years as a magistrate I have seen
many inspectors, but I have never seen one who wears a suit that looks like it
has been slept in—’

‘Is that all?’

‘But you haven’t let me finish, dear Rahn! A
crumpled suit and the most brilliantly polished shoes. Such polarities and
enigmas do draw my attention. I then remembered something, which you will
recall I mentioned to you. He was in possession of a military . . .’

‘A what?’

‘Le Francais Model 28. A revolver specifically
designed for the French army.’

‘I still don’t see!’

‘Of course you wouldn’t. Only those who have
some knowledge of guns, the army and the police would know. You see, the army
and the police had both decided to pass on the design of that gun and none of
those revolvers were ever taken into service. You will only find them in the
hands of civilians nowadays.’

‘Remarkable!’ Rahn said.

‘Observation is paramount, Rahn, as Sherlock
Holmes often tells Watson. Seeing is one thing, observing another! Now, once I
knew he was not the same man who was sent here, I realised that he must have
done away with the real Inspecteur Beliere and taken his place. So, I called
the Carcassonne gendarmerie, as I wanted to know if the man had ever arrived at
all, because this would tell me one of two things: if he never arrived then he
must have been killed en route, and the police should be looking for him if
they are not also in on it; if he had arrived and he was the real Inspecteur
Beliere, he might be completely unware that another man was impersonating him.
So I called and asked to know the whereabouts of our Inspecteur Beliere and
they said he was not in . . . that he was on the way to an address – my
address! When they gave me his description I knew.’

‘Oh!’ Rahn said. ‘Did you tell the police to
come as soon as possible?’

‘No. Are you mad?’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I didn’t know if I could trust them.
At this stage I thought the gendarmes might be in on it too. So I went upstairs
to wake you and to take you to the Tourster. But that blow to your head must
have done more damage than we had estimated because you got up like a
sleepwalker, and it took me quite a time to get you to the barn. By then I
could hear the sound of cars coming. I told you to get into the trunk and,
because you were in some ways like a person who is hypnotised, you did so
without complaint and I closed the lid, but only slightly, just enough to make
it seem closed. I thought when you woke up you could just push the trunk lid
open to get out. I had no time to escape with you, you see, so I did what was
necessary. You must play your cards as best you can when the stakes are high. I
went round the back of the house then, and entered it by the back door, and in
a moment our fake inspector was knocking at the front door. Well, I knew that
in the trunk you were safe for the time being and, if it came to the worst
– if they did away with me – you would find the key before they
did!’

‘This is just like Sherlock Holmes in The
Hound of the Baskervilles!’ La Dame said, looking on with admiration.

Deodat sighed. ‘As Dagobert said to his
hounds: “Sometimes even the best of friends must part if there is to be a hunt
. . .” I knew that if you could just keep out of Beliere’s clutches, you would
be safe.’

‘Why did you think that?’

‘Because your name was in Monti’s diary,
that’s why! Monti being the man he was, he no doubt told others that you were
the one who could find the key. You were
tenet
,
as I said to you that night in my study: the lowest common denominator, the
only one capable of finding what had been lost for hundreds of years. That’s
why the groups looking for the treasure were not going to get in your way. In
fact, it seems some groups were even willing to give up whatever clues they had
to help you along, hoping that they would be the first to seize the treasure
from your hands once you had found it for them.’

‘But what about you – what happened to
you?’ Rahn asked.

‘That’s a long story too. To cut it short,
they took me to Maison de Cros where I was detained in the wine cellar and
that is
where I finally met the real Inspecteur Beliere.

‘So what did he say to you?’ Rahn asked.

‘Not much actually, it’s difficult putting
words together when you’re hanging by your neck from the rafters! At any rate I
wasn’t there long. Last night I heard a commotion, some muffled sounds and this
morning, the man who had been guarding my door seemed awfully quiet, so I
ventured out carefully to take a look and found him sitting in the kitchen with
his face in his dinner and his throat cut from ear to ear. That’s when I took
the Citroën—’

‘The black Citroën!’ Rahn said, suddenly
illuminated. ‘The one that had been parked outside the Maison de Cros!’

‘Exactly so.’

‘Then you’re the one who’s been following us?’

‘Yes – you see, last night the fake
Beliere told me he knew you were at Rennes-le-Château, and he was going to
fetch you so that he could take turns at torturing us into telling him what we
knew. This morning when I escaped I went straight to Rennes-le-Château to find
you but the police were already there. The problem was, I couldn’t tell if it
was the fake Beliere, men working for him, or the actual police, so I waited
outside the town. That’s how I saw you leaving with La Dame and the
mademoiselle, headed for Couiza and the boulangerie. I sent the boy with the
note but you didn’t get my clue, did you? The rebus.’

‘That was you? I thought your kidnappers made
you write it. I feared they were becoming impatient and quite possibly about to
cut off your nose or something equally as precious. Why didn’t you just come
into the boulangerie, or write something simple, for instance: “I’m outside in
the Citroën”?’

‘Because, dear Rahn, firstly, I knew you were
being watched by those Serbians, so I wasn’t about to just walk in and announce
myself; and secondly, I thought you’d be smart enough to instantly recognise
the note as a warning from me about the mademoiselle. I had to make it
enigmatic in case the note was intercepted or the girl got a hold of it. I
thought you would have put two and two together to make four, but instead, once
again, you’ve come up with twenty-two!’

‘Well, whatever the case, we gave you the slip!’

‘Yes you did, and a good chase it was, until I
finally found you lying on the ground with a gun to your head. So I did the
only thing I could do. I shot those men.’

‘That was you? You’re a crack shot, Deodat!’
La Dame effused.

Deodat gave him a sideways glance. ‘Luckily,
that Citroën came fully equipped with a virtually brand new Mosin-Nagant
carbine rifle, with a scope mount, no less – any sniper would have been
proud. A marvellous weapon for a hunt. It’s the latest technology and deadly
accurate, as those men found out.’

‘I didn’t know you could shoot like that!’
Rahn said.

‘Why not? Have you forgotten how we ate when
we were potholing? Those rabbits don’t grow on trees, you know. At any rate,
after that I lost you for a small time and caught up with you again on the road
back from Saint-Just-et-le-Bézu when you were behind that hearse! That was a
clever manoeuvre, Rahn, quite ingenious. After that I drove around Granes
looking for you and found your car in a side street. I waited and followed you
here to Coustassa and now I have something to tell you . . . but first, where
is she?’

‘Who?’

‘Mademoiselle Cros, or should I say –
Mademoiselle Fleury!’

‘What?’ Rahn said. This hunt had more twists
and turns than the Gorges of Galamus! ‘Fleury?’ He looked about him in the
darkness and at that moment he heard the sound of the door to the church
closing. Rahn took himself down the nave but by the time he was at the door he
could hear the Peugeot starting and before he could reach her, she had taken
off.

‘Don’t tell me you left the keys in the car,
Rahn!’ It was Deodat beside him.

‘Why would she do that?’ Rahn stood in the
deathly cold feeling perplexed, watching as the tail-lights of the auto
disappeared into the rain and fog.