“Whoever it is, she obviously thinks she’s found out something that they will urgently want to know.”
“And we can guess what it is. Time is running out, Philip. We’ve got to climb down into that area under the paving slabs and get those other bamboo tubes out.”
He took a deep breath to calm his pounding pulse. “OK. I’ll go straight down there as soon as we get to the site.”
“Have you worked out how you’re going to get down through the hole? And, what’s more, how you’re going to get out again with the tubes?”
“I noticed there’s still a coil of the safety rope left behind in the shed. I’ll cut a length off that, drop it down the hole, and let myself down feet first. There should be plenty of room to get through now that the wall has collapsed.”
“Please be very careful not to tread on any of the bamboo tubes when you land at the bottom. I don’t want them to be damaged anymore.”
“You could help me to see my way by pointing the torch down beside me to light up the floor where I’m landing. Then I can be careful to avoid treading on anything lying around.”
“Also,” she reminded him, “you must take the camera. We need to have flash photos of the cavern from above and below and of the pile of rubble, hopefully with the tubes on top the stones. While you’re down there you could also take some shots of the room. Who knows, they may be useful later.”
They soon reached the top of the site and, without pausing for breath, went straight to the office and unlocked the door. Jackie hastily checked that the first tube was where she had hidden it, while Philip got himself a decent length of rope.
“We’ll pick this first tube up on our return,” she decided.
They locked the door and Philip led the way down the path. When he reached the trench he looked round quickly, but everything seemed to be as they had left it the previous night. The small bag of tools was still there and the short crow-bar lay where he had abandoned it in the dark. Of course the hammer was somewhere in the void below.
He set down the duffle bag, filled with its protective padding, and uncoiled the rope. He soon found a suitable trunk of a large shrub to tie it to. There was enough rope to have a double length for safety. He then trailed the ends down the hole and straightened up, preparing to lower himself into the void.
“What on earth are you doing?” A man he vaguely recognised was standing on the bank of soil above the trench.
Jackie spun round. “Er -hello. Why, you’re the man we discovered in the office the other day. It’s Alain Hebert, isn’t it?”
“Quite right. What are you doing here?”
“Er. We’re carrying out archaeological investigations. What else?”
“I heard the site had been closed down.”
“Where did you hear that?”
He waved a hand vaguely. “Oh, the news gets around.”
“You wouldn’t have heard it from a certain journalist by any chance?” She looked at him suspiciously. “Would your informant have been a Mademoiselle Cesar Renoir who we saw leaving the site a quarter of an hour ago?”
“Maybe. But you haven’t answered my question. What are you doing?”
“I don’t know that it’s any business of yours,” she replied. “But, as explained to you before, we’re looking for Cathar remains. That’s what we have a licence to do.”
“You mean you’re not looking for treasure?”
Jacqueline drew herself up to her full height. “What we are hoping to recover has no monetary worth but is more valuable to science. It is original material.”
“You’re doing this even though the site has been closed down?”
“The licence is still in existence. Only the funding has been withdrawn.”
“Why was the site closed?”
She shrugged expressively. “The powers that be at TV France were got at. Somebody was afraid we were finding out too much truth about the Cathars - information they didn’t want to become public.”
“What information is that?”
“That’s exactly what we intend to find out in the next few hours.”
“Are you going down into that room under the paving?”
“Philip is.”
“He can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Well - he… He doesn’t know what’s there.”
“Yes I do,” said Philip, “because I caused it. There’s a heap of stones and rubble and four precious lengths of bamboo. That’s what I intend to pass up to Jackie. I just hope they’re not damaged.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s all we’re interested in. It’s the whole purpose of our exploration.”
“Those bamboos are of Cathar origin,” said Jacqueline coldly.“That’s what my licence permits me to remove from the site.”
“What about TV France?”
“They were providing the money. I have the licence.”
“So what about you?” asked Philip. “Are you something to do with TV France?”
Hebert laughed. “Nothing at all.”
“So - who are you?” Jacqueline was suspicious. “What are you doing here?”
He looked at her with his head slightly on one side. “Let’s just say that I have a watching brief to ensure that you keep within the terms of your licence.”
“From the Department of Ancient Monuments?”
“If you like to call it that.”
She squared up to him. “Well, in that case you will know that I have a perfect right to remove those bamboo tubes. I will even give you a receipt, if you wish.”
“That won’t be necessary. It will be sufficient for me to look in that bag before you remove it from site.”
There was a pause while they confronted each other like a pair of pugilists at the weigh-in. At last she turned to her partner.
“All right, Philip. You can go on down. Make sure that we take away nothing except the bamboo tubes. Remember to take photos showing their location.”
“Very well. Can you use your torch to light my way down? I’ll sling mine round my neck.”
He took one out of the bag and handed it to her. Then he cut a short length of rope, threaded it through the steel loop on the end of his torch and tied it round his neck, leaving the light to hang down on his chest.
“When I get down,” he said to her, “you can pull up one of the lengths of rope and tie on the duffle bag and lower it down to me.”
“Do you want me to help?” asked Hebert.
“No thank you,” she said firmly. “I want you to remain on the bank where you are. I shall feel safer like that.”
The man smiled but said nothing, remaining at his distance.
Philip took the two lengths of rope together and tied the ends round his waist. He then backed towards the rock-face. He started the descent by bending down and taking the weight on his hands at the edge of the paving slabs and lowering his legs into the hole. At a certain point he had to transfer the load onto the ropes and the result was some scuffed knuckles. Jackie helped him until his head disappeared with his feet hanging in space.
“Can you give me some light?”
She switched on her torch and pointed it down into the void beside him. “Can you see anything?”
“Not yet.” He continued lowering himself. “Yes I can. The hole isn’t very deep - not much more than head-height. And there’s only a narrow gap about half a metre wide between the rock-face and what looks like a rough timber wall.”
“What was that?” asked Hebert.
She repeated Philip’s comments for him.
“Can you see the tubes?” she asked.
He switched on his torch. “I can see one on top of the heap of rubble. I can’t see the rest. Oh, yes - there they are against the wood wall - two of them.”
“Don’t stand on them please.”
“I won’t. There’s enough room to avoid them. In fact I’m standing on the rubble now. I’ll untie the ropes from my waist and you can pull
one up so that you can tie the handles of the duffle bag to it.”
“Remember to take the photos.”
“I’ll do that now.” Having released himself from the ropes, he made his way across the uneven heap of rubble to one side. Then he removed the camera from his pocket and took a number of shots of all the things he could see in the confined space.
As he did so, the padded bag landed on top of the stones. He abandoned photography to collect the three bamboo tubes that he could see and he carefully packed them into the bag, pulling the padding round them to protect them.
“How are you getting on?” came floating down the hole from above.
“I’ve found three of the tubes and put them in the bag with the padding round them. The fourth one must have bounced further away. I’m just going to look for it.”
With a certain amount of difficulty, Philip climbed over the heap and carefully worked his way along the narrowing corridor between the rock-face and the timber wall, probing his way with the torch. Within a metre there was a narrow break in the timber wall and here a big stone had hit the corner and smashed away a lump of wood. It was at that moment that Philip realised he was looking at the back of a couple of large wooden boxes which were almost as high as the room.
He pulled off a piece of broken timber and shone the torch into the hole which it left. What he saw took his breath away.
In the torchlight there was the unmistakeable gleam of gold shining back at him. He swivelled the torch and peered as far as he could in all directions. Wherever he looked he could see golden shapes, although it was impossible to make out exactly what they were from his restricted viewpoint.
With a rising sense of excitement he eased his way into the gap between the two boxes which could not have been much more than twenty centimetres wide. He could just squeeze his body through. In less than a metre his head came out into a larger space. When he raised his torch and shone it round he realised he had come into the centre of the room. Here were stone columns and beams supporting the large stone slabs forming the roof which they had started to uncover earlier in the week.
Round all four walls stood a range of magnificent hardwood chests, each one with panelled full height doors with brass hinges, clasps and locks which glowed in the torchlight. In the central area stood a number of splendid brass-bound chests about a metre high with only narrow spaces to walk between them. Whatever these wonderful cupboards contained, somebody had obviously spent a lot of money and put a huge amount of work into storing the artefacts. Were they all full of golden treasure like the one he had peeped into?
“What are you doing down there?” Jackie’s anxious voice echoed down to him.
“I’m searching for the last tube,” he shouted up to her. Instinctively he didn’t want to let Hebert know what he had found.
Philip realised he couldn’t stay here any longer without raising suspicions in the man watching them up on the surface. So he pointed the camera round the room and took several photos. Then he eased his way back between the chests into the passageway behind. Through the hole in the broken chest he took a couple of shots of the golden contents. Then he turned away to start searching the narrowing gap in front of the rock wall with the torch.
There it was, right in the corner where it had bounced. He had to go down on his hands and knees and twist his body sideways to reach for the length of bamboo.
“I’ve got it,” he shouted triumphantly, extracting himself carefully from the tight space and returning the tube to the padded bag.
“I’m afraid it’s a bit damaged at one end,” he called up as he packed it carefully into the duffle bag. “It must have bounced on its end and shot off into the corner.”
“Has anything come out?”
“No. It’s not that badly damaged.” Philip straightened up from closing the zip. “OK. You can pull it up now.”
He watched it disappear through the hole. Soon after, the rope was lowered again and he tied them both round his waist again.
“Right. I’m coming up now.”
Philip switched off the torch and started to climb out of the underground room. Now he knew where everything was he was able to get additional support from pushing with his feet against the back of the heavy chests and the sloping back wall of the cave. Soon his head was above the slab and Jackie was able to grab his jacket and help him up. After a bit of frantic scrabbling with his feet he was lying on his chest on the stone.
“Phew.” He got to his feet. “Have you looked at the damaged tube?”
“Yes. I think it’s only the end of the bamboo that’s been split. The sealed fabric around the bamboo hasn’t been torn. I hope the contents are undamaged.”
“OK then. Let’s get it back to the hotel and we can take a look at what’s inside.” He untied the rope from round his waist and began to coil it up. He wanted to tell Jackie about his discoveries in the room below but he had no intention of saying anything in front of Hebert.
The old fellow had approached. “Have you got them all?”
“Yes.”
“What’s it like down there?”
“It’s very tight. The space between the rock-face and the timber wall is just about wide enough for me to get my shoulders through, but it narrows down towards the far end.” Philip pointed. “The last tube had bounced right down there so I had to twist on my side to reach it.”
“Can I see them?”
Jackie opened the duffle bag and he peered in.
“Not much to see, is there?”
“We hope they contain the secrets of the Cathar faith. History has failed to provide any details about their beliefs, except that the Catholic Church considered them to be heretical without really explaining why.”
“I’m not interested in research into strange religions.” Hebert raised his hands. “All right. I’m satisfied that you are only taking away what your licence entitles you to.”
That seemed to be the end of his involvement. With a brief wave he turned and disappeared up the path.
“Well, what did you make of that?” asked Jackie.
“I don’t know.”
She pulled a face. “I’ve never heard of the Department of Ancient Monuments having inspectors before. I think it’s more likely that he was sent to check up on us by some other body. And what about this journalist woman? They must have met up here. But, most importantly, why didn’t he object to our taking the bamboo tubes away?”
“Perhaps because he couldn’t have done anything to stop us on his own. Perhaps his job is just to observe us and report back, which,” he pointed out, “he’s done pretty well.”
“All I can tell you is that I’m going to keep these tubes very safe.” She shrugged. “Well, there’s nothing more we can do here. Let’s pick up the other one and get back to Quillan.”
Philip put the crow-bar back in the tool bag and pushed it into the side of the trench. “We may need that later.” He spoke quietly. “There’s been a development I didn’t want to mention in front of Hebert.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll tell you when we get back to the car. I don’t want any flapping ears to hear it round here.” He put the coil of rope over his shoulder, picked up the duffle bag and set off up the path.
- 26 -
When they reached the car, carefully carrying their precious burden of five bamboo tubes, Philip unlocked the vehicle and placed the duffle bag on the back seat. They got in and shut all the doors and locked them from inside. Then he started the engine and set off down the track, driving gently.
“What’s this mystery development you were talking about?” demanded Jackie.
“Ahah. When I was in the underground room, I discovered that the timber wall that I was telling you about wasn’t a wall at all. It was actually the backs of several large packing chests pushed together. They were nearly as high as the room itself.”
He paused for a response but she said nothing.
“I found a gap between two of the
chests,” he continued, “which was wide enough to allow me to squeeze through into the middle of the room. Once there I found that the whole of the room was packed full of magnificent brass-bound chests. There must have been at least twenty of them.”
“Were they locked?”
“Well, it was just at that time that you started calling down from above, asking where I was. So I didn’t stay long enough to check. But I noticed that most of them seemed to have padlocks on the doors.”
“How intriguing.”
“More than that. I found that a large stone from the collapsing wall had crashed into the bottom back corner of one of the chests and had broken away some of the timber. Now - are you ready for this? When I shone the torch into the interior of the chest, I couldn’t see a lot. But what I could see looked like gold.”
She put her head on one side and looked at him. “Gold what?”
“I couldn’t really tell - gold furniture, gold items of equipment, gold funerary goods - something like that. I poked the camera into the hole and took a couple of photos . Perhaps we’ll be able to make out some more when we inspect them.”
She was quiet for a while before she asked, “So what do you make of that?”
“The evidence points to it being some sort of collection of valuable artefacts. Somebody has obviously spent a lot of time and effort and money having those chests made and then storing them away. The quality of the workmanship is impressive. I think it may be the storehouse for the wealth of some organisation.”
“What organisation?”
“I don’t know.” He concentrated on steering through the little village of St Just. “Perhaps it’s the fabled treasure of the Cathars.”
She shook her head. “That’s not likely. The Cathars didn’t have the time or the manpower to create a proper store for their treasure. Beside it must have been made after the bamboo tubes were hidden, which would be too late for the Cathars.”
“What about the Templars? Didn’t I hear you say that there are legends about the Templars hiding their wealth in this area?”
“Well, it’s normally dismissed as pure fiction. But, yes. That’s a possibility.”
The Secret Of The Cathars (2011) Page 19