The Secret Of The Cathars (2011)

by Michael Hillier

  “The other thing,” he pointed out, “did you notice that Monsieur Hebert asked if we were looking for treasure? I wonder if he was actually interested in the treasure, and that’s why he had no objection to our removing the tubes. If he thought we had finished searching when we recovered the five pieces of bamboo, he would have been happy to see us go away with them. Did you notice whether he seemed to be relieved at our going?”

  “If he was, he was careful not to show it. On the other hand, I must admit I was expecting more of an argument from him about us taking them.”

  Their conjecture continued all the way back to Quillan, until they parked the car and walked to the hotel, carefully carrying the duffle bag.

  When they arrived at reception, Jackie said,” I’ve been thinking about what to do with the tubes. I think we ought to put them in the hotel safe, if they can fit them in. That ought to keep them secure. I thought we would take the broken one up to the bedroom and open it at the damaged end after lunch. We can see what it contains and, based on that information, decide what to do about the other four. Are you happy with that?”

  “I think it’s a very good idea.” He rang the bell for the concierge.

  “Henri,” began Jackie, “we have some pieces of bamboo which we want to keep in a secure place.” She produced one from the bag, “Will this fit in the hotel safe?”

  “I will try, mademoiselle.”

  He returned a minute later. “There is no problem.”

  “Thank you, Henri. Can you put these four pieces in? Please handle them very carefully because they’re extremely precious.” She smiled persuasively. “Oh, and Henri, it is most important that they are kept safe and only handed back to me or Monsieur Sinclair here.”

  “Certainly, mademoiselle.” He nodded at Philip with his usual disapproving expression. It seemed he did not favour the idea of the young Englishman sweeping their beautiful French TV star off her feet.

  Over lunch, Philip showed Jackie the photos he had taken. She was especially interested in the ones showing the interior of the room.

  “Look at the columns and beams,” she pointed out. “They are single pieces of stone. The material is granite because only granite is strong enough to carry the weight of the stone slabs forming the roof. The nearest granite quarries are two hundred kilometres away in the Massif Central. It must have been a major operation building that room in such an out-of-the-way location.”

  “And look at the chests. The panelled doors are superb.”

  “They certainly are. I’ve seen less imposing ones in the Rue St Germain. And Philip,” she peered more closely, “isn’t that the entrance to the room, in the corner? There would have to be a proper entrance. They wouldn’t have got in the way you did.”

  “Let me have a look.” He inspected the screen carefully. “I think you may be right. I didn’t notice it when I was there because I suppose I was overwhelmed by all the other stuff. But I agree that looks like a corridor coming into the room. As you say, the entrance would have had to be big enough to get the contents into the room.”

  He clicked on a couple of further shots. “Here you are. Here are the ones taken looking into the inside of the chest. I’m sure that’s gold. There seems to be some carving on some of the pieces but you can’t see exactly what they are.”

  He handed the camera back to her to study.

  After a while she said, “Yes. I think one of these items might be a tall candlestick like the ones they have beside the altar in churches. But I can’t make out any other items from the small amount I can see of them.”

  “I reckon, with a hammer and that small crow-bar, I could have the back off that damaged chest in half an hour.”

  She looked at him, unsmiling. “You daren’t do that, Philip. If nobody can prove legal ownership of that hoard, it becomes the property of the French Government. There are serious penalties for removing valuable articles to which you’re not entitled, quite apart from the dreadful publicity which I’d get if you were charged.”

  “I’m not talking about removing them. I just want to expose them enough to know what they are. Then we can report the find to the police and hand the site over to them. Surely that’s not illegal.”

  “No. I agree that isn’t, as long as you can make it clear that you didn’t take anything away. In fact you’d probably be entitled to a handsome reward. I think it’s something like ten percent of the value.”

  “There you are then. Let’s go back, expose a bit more, take plenty of photos. Then report it and claim the reward. I wouldn’t say no to ten percent of a few million.”

  Jackie didn’t respond. She had clicked back to the earlier photos of the room. She looked up. “As you say, Philip, someone has spent a lot of money in building that store. I wonder how long ago it was built.”

  “How could you find out?”

  “Only by looking at the contents, I would guess.”

  “Well, if we report finding the treasure and the police take over protection of it, you could probably get permission, as an archaeologist, to lead the team investigating the finds.”

  “Mmm.” An anticipatory gleam had come into her beautiful eyes. Then she shook her head. “Let’s concentrate first on the job in hand - that bamboo tube. If you’ve finished lunch, we can go upstairs and start opening the tube.”

  When they got up to their room Jackie took the damaged bamboo tube out of the bag. She folded back the bedspread and laid the tube on the pristine white sheet.

  “I’m glad they changed the sheets today. Do you have your penknife?”

  When he produced it she instructed him, “First take a photo of the tube as it is, looking at the broken end.”

  Next she carefully cut through the fabric surrounding the damage and removed the bit covering the open end. She bent back and cut off three short pieces of bamboo which had been split off by the impact. Philip was then instructed to take another photo.

  She lifted up the tube and peered into it. “There seems to be a coil of fabric in there. I think I can reach it with my fingers.”

  She laid the tube back on the bedspread and went to the dressing-table and opened a drawer. From it she took two clean pairs of fine fabric gloves and handed a pair to him.

  “Please put these on to avoid any risk of contamination.”

  She did the same herself, then lifted the tube and handed it to him. “Can you hold this firmly? That will leave me with two hands to extract the material.”

  There followed a couple of minutes of careful manoeuvring of the contents before she began to extract them. A couple of centimetres were carefully pulled out before she stopped.

  “See how flexible it is,” she breathed. “I do believe this may be waxed silk.”

  “Does that mean it’s old?”

  “I should say it is - maybe more than two thousand years. I think it may be one of the first examples found outside India or China. The other great thing about it is that it means we can look at it here, as long as we’re very careful. If it had been papyrus or parchment it would probably have begun to fall apart by now and the investigation would be a laboratory job.”

  She took the tube from him and laid it gently back on the bedspread. “I want another photo - a close-up.”

  They then continued to gently extract the fabric from the tube. Jackie was so careful that it took nearly ten minutes before she finally laid the coil of material back on the bedspread. Then Philip had to photograph it again.

  “The great thing about waxed silk is that is retains its flexibility. It should unroll fairly easily, as long as we take our time. Now, if I gently open up the top edge of the coil, can you place that wooden ruler from my bag on it?”

  She then proceeded, with Philip’s help, to slowly unroll the fabric until they had a sheet of material lying on the bed. It must have taken nearly half an hour, checking the edges all the time to make sure that nothing got caught up. When they had finished they could see a scroll which was approximately thirty centimetr
es wide by nearly a metre long. The edges were slightly tattered.

  There appeared to be four columns of signs on it, written in strange symbols. The rows of markings were so varied that they seemed to have been impressed on the fabric at different times by different people using different tools. Some of the signs near the top of the list had become so faint that they were barely decipherable.

  “What on earth is it?” asked Philip, rather disappointed by the scroll.

  Jackie shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t know. It’s obviously a list - but what of, I’m not quite sure. I can’t read any of the words. They’re in a language I don’t know. I believe it may be ancient Hebrew. But I haven’t studied that language so I can’t tell you anything about it.”

  “Oh heck!” Philip banged his knee despondently. “After all those hopes.”

  “Don’t be too disappointed. I can find people to translate it for us. So we’ll be able to find out what it means - but it’ll take a week or two.”

  He smiled weakly. “I suppose you’re right. Although, after all this effort, I was hoping for a more immediate outcome.”

  “Wait a minute.” She put a hand to her forehead. “I believe Bertrand is a Hebrew scholar. You remember. Abbe Dugard. I think he majored in it at university. A clever chap is our Bertrand. I’ll ring him and see if we can take the tubes over to him this afternoon. I’m sure he’ll be only too willing to help. He always likes to get involved in new mysteries.”

  She picked up the phone by the bed and asked for Dugard’s number. After a couple of minutes she was put through. There followed a quick-fire conversation in French which Philip couldn’t understand. It concluded by Jackie saying, “Oui, merci. Oui. Jusqu’a demain matin.”

  She hung up and turned to Philip. “I spoke to the nun who takes his messages. Apparently he has gone to Narbonne today and won’t be back until late. But he is working tomorrow. She says she’s sure he’ll see us if we go in the morning.”

  “Oh, well. What’s one more day?”

  “Exactly. We can use the time to open up all the tubes and prepare them for Bertrand to look at - that’s assuming they’re all similar.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “First, I want you to split this bamboo tube into two halves down its length. Now we’ll roll up the scroll again and put it in one half. We lay the other half on top and tape the two halves together to protect the fabric. We also tape over the ends to make sure no foreign bodies get in. Tomorrow we can easily open it for Bertrand to look at.”

  “Full of bright ideas, you archaeologists.”

  “We do it all the time.” She fished a roll of broad adhesive tape out of her site bag. “We carry the equipment for it.”

  It took them a further ten minutes to strap up the roll of fabric.

  “OK. Now to collect the others. Where shall we put this?”

  “It should be safe for now on top of the wardrobe,” suggested Philip.

  Having disposed of the first tube, they set off downstairs with the duffle bag to collect the other four. But, when they got to reception, they found Sergeant Leblanc waiting for them.

  - 27 -

  “I was just coming to get you,” said the Sergeant Leblanc curtly.“Can you come to the mairie immediately.” It was more of an order than a request.

  “I’ll just drop the bag at reception,” said Philip.

  They followed the sergeant who was already striding across the square.

  When they got to the mairie he took them straight to his office.

  “Wait here a minute. Monsieur le Maire wants to see you.”

  He went out and left them alone.

  Jackie pulled a face. “What do you think that’s all about?”

  “Not very friendly, was he? Do you think they’ve discovered we’ve been back up to the site?”

  “We’ve got a perfect right to be there. We’re not breaking any laws.”

  “What about it being a crime scene?”

  She shrugged. “It’s some way from where Andre was killed. Besides, they hadn’t told us we were to keep away.”

  There seemed to be no point in speculating.

  They waited in the office for more than half an hour before the sergeant returned and led them in to the mayor’s palatial office.

  “I apologise for keeping you waiting,” said Maitre Amboisard, although his tone was far from apologetic. “I had some important telephone calls coming in.”

  He paused, looking from one to the other. At last he said, “The Bishop’s Palace in Narbonne say they have never heard of Jean-Luc Lerenard.”

  “What?”

  “Furthermore Alain Gisours’ secretary says that he knows nothing about a man of that name and didn’t recommend him to you for employment.”

  “He what?” Jackie looked at Philip. “What is this?”

  “Wait a minute,” intervened Philip. “Have you spoken to Mam’selle Blontard’s agent, Bernard Cambray? He was the one who brought the message about Lerenard.”

  “You didn’t give me his telephone number.” There was an almost accusatory tone to Amboisard’s response.

  “That’s because I didn’t know that you might need it.” Jackie startling blue eyes flashed. “I hadn’t realised then that I was getting embroiled in a conspiracy of lies.”

  “Perhaps,” suggested Philip, trying to calm the atmosphere, “Jackie could use your phone to ring her agent now. She can explain the situation to him and hand the telephone over to you. Then you can ask him whatever questions you wish to ask.”

  “Very well.” The mayor pointed to the phone and she picked it up and dialled the number.

  “Please sit down.” As a sign that he was unbending a little, he indicated a chair for Philip and placed another beside Jackie, before sitting back in the grand leather swivel seat behind his desk.

  Jackie’s fingers drummed on the edge of the desk while she waited. At last she got through. “Oh, bonjour Pauline. Je veux Bernard, s’il vous plait.”

  There was a pause while the woman at the other end spoke.

  “Pourquoi?”

  More explanation.

  “Quand est-il departe?”

  A reply. There came a rapid exchange of question and answer which Philip couldn’t follow before Jacqueline said, “Oh, merci. Oui. Au revoir.”

  With a strange expression on her face she hung up. “Bernard has gone on holiday to the Seychelles for two weeks. He flew from Charles de Gaulle airport at ten o’clock this morning. He won’t be available to be contacted for several days. Apparently he said he would telephone the office at the end of next week to take any messages.”

  There was silence while Amboisard digested this latest set-back.

  “I asked Pauline why Bernard hadn’t rung me to tell me before he went - he always does that. She said he only decided to go last night. He left a message for her to ring his clients later today to tell them.” She passed a hand across her forehead and removed a stray lock of hair. “I feel as though I am the victim of some kind of conspiracy. Wherever I turn, people are against me.”

  “What about Armand Sejour?” Philip asked the mayor. “Have you tried him?”

  Amboisard bowed his head to look at the list in front of him. “We have. He hasn’t yet arrived at the address in Paris which he gave us yesterday morning. They are expecting him but don’t know exactly when he will arrive. They also say they do not know how to contact him. They have promised to ring me when he arrives or when they hear from him.” He frowned. “Strictly speaking he has broken the law by not going straight to his new address, but I can’t do much about it for a few days.”

  “And,” said Jackie, “I bet the same can be said for Gaston Lesmoins and everybody else on your list.”

  “So far we have been unable to contact anybody except you.”

  “I’ve just thought of something,” said Philip. “A room was booked for Lerenard at the hotel and the concierge will be able to confirm that he took it. So you will then know th
at a man of that name was definitely here. Also, Jackie, you told me that you’d received an investigative report about Lerenard. What did you do with it?”

  “It’s in my brief-case.” She stood up. “I’ll get it for you. I can’t remember who the agency was - Bernard organised it - but I expect their details will be on the report.”

  Amboisard had also risen. “Please be seated, mademoiselle. I shall send Leblanc to speak to the concierge and to collect your brief-case.” He picked up the phone and called in the sergeant.

  He put the phone down and leaned back in his chair. “Meanwhile perhaps you would like a coffee.” He smiled at Philip. “I’m afraid my staff would not be able to prepare your English tea.”

  “Coffee will be fine.” Philip sensed a gradual relaxing of tension in the room.

  Leblanc arrived in haste. The situation was explained to him.

  “Where can the sergeant find your brief-case, mademoiselle?”

  “It’s in the bottom of the wardrobe.”

  “Very well. Please can you write the sergeant a note for him to give to the concierge, authorising him to enter your room and remove your brief-case?”

  “All right.” Jackie was still a bit annoyed about not having her word trusted.

  However she relaxed as the conversation became friendlier. Amboisard was clearly being polite to them after his brusque attitude when they first arrived.

  “I must say,” he admitted, “that at first I was annoyed to think that you might have invented a story to give to me so as to prevent me from regarding you as suspects. That was especially so when such authoritative bodies as the Bishop’s Palace and TV France denied it, However I am now inclined to think that you truly believe that you are telling the truth and Leblanc should shortly be able to confirm this.”

  Jackie shook her head. “What I don’t understand is why somebody seems to have gone out of their way to hinder your investigation by shielding this man.”

  “Neither do I. Of course it may be a genuine mistake. Perhaps I contacted the wrong departments at Narbonne and TV France. Once I have confirmed the truth of your story, I will go back to them and question them much more closely.”