The Secret Of The Cathars (2011) (23 page)

At last he decided the hole was big enough to get his head in.

“
Can you see anything?” asked Jackie.

“
It’s pitch black in here. Have you got the torch?”

He held out his hand and she gave it to him. He could just make room to squeeze it in beside his head. He switched it on and was momentarily blinded by the glare. However he moved the torch away from his eyes and pointed it down into the darkness of the expanding cavity. It appeared to just be an empty black hole.

“
There’s nothing here,” he said disappointedly. “This can’t be the right place. There must be more than one little cave in this rock wall.”

He waggled the torch around, trying to point it right down to the bottom of the void. Then suddenly he thought he saw something.

“
Wait a minute. There
is
something there - right down at the bottom. But I can’t see what it is.”

There wasn’t enough room to manoeuvre the torch into a position to light the far extremities of the cavity. Then he had the bright idea of turning the torch up to shine on the rock face so that the reflection would reach the bottom of the hole.

“
Yes,” he called excitedly, “I can see something. It’s not very easy to tell what it is but it looks a bit like some sticks - straight sticks. They’re right down at the bottom, close to the wall and partly obscured by stones projecting above them.”

“
Bamboo tubes look like sticks,” she reminded him. “Let me have a go.”

He withdrew his head and let her look down, pointing the torch for her to try and give her enough light. After a minute or so, she pulled her head out again.

“
I’m not sure,” she admitted. “There are so many shadows. But I think there’s definitely something there.” She looked at him. “But how are we going to reach them? They seem to be an awful long way down.”

Philip had been turning this over in his mind. The cavity seemed somewhat deeper than his ancestor had described. It was indeed a long way to the bottom.

“
Well,” he said, “I don’t think it’s much over a metre down from the top of the paving - perhaps a metre and a quarter. If we clear a decent-sized hole and remove the course of stonework below the edge of the stone slabs, I could lower myself head first into the cavity. You would have to hang on to my legs. Then, with my arms outstretched, I think I could reach whatever it is.”

So they set out to enlarge the hole. This took well over half an hour. By the time they had made it large enough to get the whole of his upper body into the void it was almost dark. Jackie pointed this out.

“
Do you think we ought to give up for tonight and come back tomorrow morning?”

“
Not likely. Not now we’re this close. We’ve got the torch to light the path back.” He took a breath. “Come on, Jackie. I’m ready to go in now.”

Space was restricted in the narrow trench, but Philip lay down on his stomach and eased his way into the enlarged hole. With Jackie hanging on to his legs he was able to gradually wriggle down into the cavity. His progress was made more difficult by the back of one large stone which projected into the void and squeezed his chest. How was he going to get past this?

“
Can you pass me the torch?”

He reached back one arm and she put it into the palm of his hand. He noticed she had the foresight to have already switched it on. He manoeuvred it past his body and pointed down into the hole. Now it was much clearer.

“
Yes, it’s definitely the tubes. They’re wrapped in some kind of material. That’s what made them so difficult to see clearly before. The fabric seems to be sticking out in strange shapes but has gone almost transparent with age.”

“
If you can get hold of the tubes you can pass them up to me.”

In response he tried to reach down to them but he knew he wouldn’t make it. The big projecting stone meant that the tips of his fingers were still at least thirty centimetres from the nearest tube.

“
I just can’t reach them.”

“
If you slide down further I can still hold you.”

“
The problem is that one of the lower stones is very big. It projects into the cavity such a long way that I can’t get my head past it and my arms aren’t long enough to reach down to the tubes without getting part of my body past this large stone. I’ll have to break it off or knock it out of the way to reach to the bottom.”

“
That sounds like a long job,” said Jackie. “It’s almost completely dark now. I don’t think we’ve got any choice but to abandon it for tonight and come back in the morning.”

“
Let me just have one more try. Then we’ll pack it in.”

“
What are you going to do?”

“
Give me the hammer. I think there may be a bit of movement in this big stone. If I can push it out of the way just a little I may be able to get past it.”

Philip transferred the torch to his left hand and reached back with his right. Still sitting on his legs, she put the hammer into it.

He pushed his body to one side to give space to swing the hammer a little. There wasn’t room to get much momentum, but he gave the large stone as strong a knock as he could. He put the end of the torch in his mouth and used his left hand to try and wriggle it loose. There was a definite feeling of movement there. He took another swing at it and felt there was a clear loosening of the large stone. One more swing and he might push it out of the way.

He put all his strength into the next violent whack which he gave to it and the stone suddenly went. With a violent rush and rumble the whole wall gave way below him and cascaded into the void. And with it, before his horrified gaze, the five bamboo tubes lifted on end and fell from his sight. As they went he dropped the hammer and made a despairing grab at one as it upended and fell and he triumphantly caught hold of the end of it. But in the excitement he opened his mouth to shout about his success. He let go the end of the torch and it disappeared into the black hole and was immediately extinguished.

- 23 -

“
What happened,” gasped Jackie as the rumble of the falling stones died away and darkness descended on them.

“
Oh hell,” rejoined Philip. “The whole wall has collapsed into the void below the slabs. I guess that must be the room which my ancestor was in when he hid the stuff. All the tubes but one have gone with it. I don’t know what has happened to them. But I just managed to grab one.”

“
Can you hand it up to me? Then I’ll pull you up.”

“
OK.” With a bit of wriggling he managed to get the length of bamboo, which was swathed in some sort of greased fabric, past his body and Jackie took it.

“
Can you help me out now?”

It took several minutes of pushing and heaving to extract his body from its bent position in the hole. At last he was able to stand up and brush some of the earth and dust from his clothes.

Jackie grinned at him. “You look like a scarecrow.” She smoothed his tousled hair. “Actually, I think you’d make rather a sexy scarecrow.”

“
I think we’d better keep sex out of it until we’ve got ourselves out of this mess. I’m afraid I’ve also dropped the bloody torch. I put it in my mouth so that I could have both my hands free. Then, when the wall caved in and I grabbed at the tube, I let it go.”

“
Well, that means we can’t do any more tonight, without a light. We’ll have to come back in the morning to see what we can find.” She shrugged. “At least we’ve got one tube to look at.”

Philip felt a new surge of hope after the heart-stopping moment of seeing everything disappear into a black hole from just beyond his reach. “Now we’ve got the problem of getting out of here carrying that one precious bamboo tube.”

“
I’ll keep it close to my chest and hang on to you.”

He looked back at what he could see of the opening in the rock. “Do you think that hole is too obvious?”

“
Only if someone comes all the way down here. Who’s going to do that tonight?”

“
That’s right. And we’ll be back here first thing in the morning.”

So they set off back up the rough track, slipping and stumbling in the dark. It took them a long time to get up to the main site. Jackie was carefully cradling the precious tube in her arms and Philip was trying to support her and prevent her from losing her balance on the rough ground. Yet twice she nearly dropped it and the second time she fell heavily and bruised her shoulder protecting the piece of bamboo.

When they reached the office, she said, “It’s no good, Philip. We daren’t risk damaging this as we go down the path.”

“
We’re over the worst part now,” he pointed out. “There’s less risk of dropping it going to the car.”

“
But it’s still rough going in the dark. I don’t think you realise, Philip, that this is a most valuable artefact. We don’t know how fragile the contents are after nearly eight hundred years. I couldn’t face my professional colleagues if I was responsible for damaging it or causing it to deteriorate in some way.”

“
What are you going to do with it?”

“
I think we should leave it here in the office.”

“
Huh. We should have thought ahead and brought a padded bag to carry it. We must do that in the morning.” He shook his head. “But will it be safe here?”

“
I’ll put it under the desk and pile some papers and equipment on top of it. That should keep it safe till morning. We’ll come up here as soon as we can with a bag.”

“
I want to do that anyway. I’ve got to be able to let myself down into the void under the slabs to rescue the other tubes. I just hope they’ve not been seriously damaged. At least the stones went first and, because they’re heavier, they should have hit the floor first and the tubes should have landed on top.”

“
I pray they’re not smashed.” She chuckled humourlessly. “I’m beginning to think of myself as the worst kind of treasure hunter - chasing after artefacts without a thought for what I’m destroying in my search. I’ve always hated that sort of person.”

“
Wait a minute, Jackie. We did agree that I probably have first right to these things, although I guess I’d have a problem trying to prove that in a French court of law. And it was me who blundered by knocking that big stone out of the way.”

“
But Philip, the information contained in these tubes may be vitally important to historical researchers. It’s something we owe to posterity.”

He put his arm round her. “Of course you’re right. We must do everything we can to care for the tubes and their contents.”

“
The other thing we should do is photograph the cache and the circumstances in which we find the tubes. Even that information might be useful to researchers. We can’t do that until the morning.”

So they locked the length of bamboo away in the shed, well hidden from any prying eyes. Then they made their way carefully down the path to the car.

“
We don’t want any twisted ankles or broken limbs,” warned Jackie.

It was nearly eleven by the time they made it back to the hotel. They were filthy and exhausted. The place was in darkness but the concierge let them in, with a surprised look at their condition. After a quick shower, they collapsed into bed, too tired even to make love.

In fact they weren’t able to go back up to the site first thing the next morning because a message was brought to them while they were having breakfast. Sergeant Leblanc wanted to see them at nine o’clock. They agreed that there wasn’t time to go up to le Bezu and return for the meeting. They could only hope that Leblanc didn’t want to detain them for too long.

When they arrived at the police station they were shown straight into the sergeant’s office. He was standing at his desk with a grey-haired elderly gentleman.

“
This is Maitre Amboisard,” he explained. “He is the examining magistrate who is looking into the death of Andre Jolyon.”

“
Good morning, mademoiselle,” began the old man. “I’m afraid I have to tell you that last night I received a telephone call from Toulouse. An initial inspection of Monsieur Jolyon’s body leads the pathologist to the preliminary conclusion that he was struck on the back of the head and rendered unconscious before his body was thrown from the cliffs at le Bezu.”

Jacqueline’s hand went to her forehead and she reeled to clutch at Philip. He helped her to a chair.

“
How can you tell that?” he asked.

The Maitre spared him a brief glance. “Apparently they are able to tell that the impact injuries which killed him when he hit the rocks occurred to an unconscious man.” He turned back to Jackie. “Are you all right, mademoiselle?”

The sergeant passed her a glass of water and she took a gulp before answering.

“
Yes, thank you. It was just a bit of a shock, hearing it suddenly like that.”

“
Well. This means,” continued Amboisard, “that I am now investigating a probable murder. I have to take this very seriously.”

“
Do you have any suspects?”

“
Everyone who had an opportunity is a suspect until I can clear their name.” He inclined his head towards the young Englishman. “You must understand that allegations have been made which includes you among the possible suspects.”

“
Wait a minute,” said Philip, “I realise that I was named by Gaston as a possible murderer, but have you considered how it was done? To make Andre unconscious and carry him up to the cliffs would either need at least two men or one very strong one.”

Jackie was on her feet, suddenly recovered from the shock. “And Philip couldn’t possibly have done that. Who would have helped him? He came to France on his own only the day before Andre was killed. Philip knew nobody here before he arrived. Are you suggesting that I fell instantly in love with him and helped him bump off my long-serving assistant?”