The Secret Of The Cathars (2011) (26 page)

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 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.”