The Templar legacy

MARIE D'HAUTPOUL DE BLANCHEFORT

He was familiar with the countess. She was the last of the d'Hautpoul heirs. When she died in 1781, control of both the village and surrounding lands slipped away from her family. The Revolution, which came only a dozen years later, forever eliminated all aristocratic ownership.

But there was a problem.

He quickly climbed back to ground level. Outside, he locked the church doors and, through a blinding rain, hustled around the building to the parish close and worked his way through the graves where the tombstones seemed to swim in the living blackness.

He stopped at the one he sought and bent down.

Shining the lamp, he read the inscription.

"Marie d'Hautpoul de Blanchefort was buried outside, too," Claridon said.

"Two graves for the same woman?" Stephanie asked.

"Apparently. But the body was in the crypt."

Malone remembered what Stephanie had said yesterday about Sauniere and his mistress molesting the graves in the churchyard, then chiseling away the inscription on the countess's headstone. "So Sauniere dug up the grave in the churchyard."

"That's what Lars believed."

"And it was empty?"

"Again, we'll never know, but Lars felt that to be the case. And history would seem to support his conclusion. A woman of the countess's stature would never have been buried. She would have been laid in a crypt, which is indeed where the body was found. The grave outside was something altogether different."

"The tombstone was a message," Stephanie said. "We know that. That's why Eugene Stublein's book is so critical."

"But unless you know the story of the crypt, the grave in the cemetery would generate no interest. Just another memorial, along with all the others. The abbe Bigou was smart. He hid his message in plain sight."

"And Sauniere discovered it?" Malone asked.

"Lars believed so."

Malone turned back to the wheel and motored the car onto the road. They headed down the last stretch of highway, then turned west and crossed the swift-moving Rhone. Ahead rose Avignon's fortified walls, the papal palace looming high above. Malone turned off the busy boulevard into the old city, passing the market square containing the book fair they'd visited earlier. He wound a path back toward the palace and parked in the same underground garage.

"I have a stupid question," Malone said. "Why doesn't somebody just dig beneath the church at Rennes, or use ground radar to verify the crypt?"

"The local authorities will not allow it. Think about that, monsieur. If nothing were there, what would happen to the mystique? Rennes lives off Sauniere's legend. The whole Languedoc benefits. The last thing anyone wants is proof of anything. They profit far too well from myth."

Malone reached under the seat and retrieved the gun he'd taken from his pursuer last night. He checked the magazine. Three rounds left.

"Is that needed?" Claridon asked.

"I feel a whole better with it." He opened his door and stepped out, stuffing the gun beneath his jacket.

"Why do we have to go inside the palace of the popes?" Stephanie asked.

"That's where the information is stored."

"Care to explain?"

Claridon opened his door. "Come and I'll show you."