below.
He'd followed Nelle all day, wondering what he was doing in the high Pyrenees. The village nearby possessed no connection to either Rennes-le-Chateau or any of Lars Nelle's known research. Now it was nearing midnight and blackness enveloped the world around them. Only the gurgle of water running beneath the bridge disturbed the mountain stillness.
He stepped from the foliage onto the road and approached the bridge.
'I wondered if you were going to show yourself,' Nelle said with his back to him. 'I assumed an insult would draw you out.'
'You knew I was there?'
'I'm accustomed to brothers following me.' Nelle finally turned toward him and pointed at the rope around his neck. 'If you don't mind, I was just about to kill myself.'
'Death apparently doesn't frighten you.'
'I died a long time ago.'
'You fear not your God? He does not allow suicide.'
'What God? Dust to dust, that's our fate.'
'What if you're wrong?'
'I'm not.'
'And what of your quest?'
'It's brought nothing but misery. And why does my soul concern you?'
'It doesn't. But your quest is another matter.'
'You've watched me a long time. Your master has even spoken to me himself. Too bad the Order will have to continue the quest-without me leading the way.'
'You're aware we were watching?'
'Of course. Brothers have tried for months to obtain my journal.'
'I was told you're a strange man.'
'I'm a miserable man who simply doesn't want to live any longer. A part of me regrets this. For my son, whom I love. And for my wife, who loves me in her own way. But I have no desire to live any longer.'
'Are there not quicker ways to die?'
Nelle shrugged. 'I detest guns, and something about poison seems offensive. Bleeding to death wasn't appealing, so I opted for hanging.'
He shrugged. 'Seems selfish.'
'Selfish? I'll tell you what's selfish. What people have done to me. They believe that Rennes hides everything from the reincarnated French monarchy to aliens from space. How many searchers have visited with their equipment to desecrate the land? Walls have been torn out, holes dug, tunnels excavated. Even graves opened and corpses exhumed. Writers have postulated every conceivable wild theory-all designed to make money.'
He wondered about the strange suicide speech.
'I've watched while mediums held seances and clairvoyants carried on conversations with the dead. So much has been fabricated, the truth is now actually boring. They forced me to write that gibberish. I had to embrace their fanaticism in order to sell books. People wanted to read drivel. It's ridiculous. I even laugh at myself. Selfish? All those morons are the ones who should be given that label.'
'And what is the truth about Rennes?' he calmly asked.
'I'm sure you'd love to know.'
He decided to try another approach. 'You realize that you're the one person who may be able to solve Sauniere's puzzle.'
'May be able? I did solve it.'
He recalled the cryptogram he'd seen in the marshal's report filed in the abbey's archives, the one abbes Gelis and Sauniere found in their churches, the one Gelis may have perhaps died solving.
'Can't you tell me?' There was almost a plea to his question, one he did not like.
'You're like all the rest-in search of easy answers. Where's the challenge in that? It took me years to decipher that combination.'
'And I assume you wrote little down?'
'That's for you to discover.'
'You're an arrogant man.'
'No, I'm a screwed-up man. There's a difference. You see, all those opportunists, who came for themselves and left with nothing, taught me something.'
He waited for an explanation.
'There's absolutely nothing to find.'
'You're lying.'
Nelle shrugged. 'Maybe? Maybe not.'
He decided to leave Lars Nelle to his task. 'May you find your peace.' He turned and walked away.
'Templar,' Nelle called out.
He stopped and turned back.
'I'm going to do you a favor. You don't deserve it, because all you brothers did was cause me aggravation. But your Order didn't deserve what happened to it, either. So I'll give you a clue. Something to help you along. It's not written down anywhere. Not even in the journal. Only you'll have it and, if you're smart, you might even solve the puzzle. You have a paper and pencil?'
He came back close to the wall, fished into his pocket, and produced a small note pad and pen, which he handed to Nelle. The older man scribbled something, then tossed the pen and pad to him.
'Good luck,' Nelle said.
Then the American leaped over the side. He heard the rope go taut and a quick pop as the neck snapped. He brought the pad close to his eyes and in the faint moonlight read what Lars Nelle had written.
GOODBYE STEPHANIE
Nelle's wife was named Stephanie. He shook his head. No clue. Just a final salutation from husband to wife.
Now he wasn't so sure.
He'd decided that leaving the note with the body would ensure a determination of suicide. So he'd grabbed hold of the rope, pulled the corpse back up, and stuffed the paper into Nelle's shirt pocket.
But had the words really been a clue?
'On the night Nelle died, he told me that he solved the cryptogram and offered me this.' He grabbed a pencil from the table and wrote GOODBYE STEPHANIE on a pad.
'How's that a solution?' Claridon asked.
'I don't know. I never even thought it was, until this moment. If what you're saying is true, that the journal contains intentional errors, then we were meant to find it. I searched for that journal while Lars Nelle was alive, then after with the son. But Mark Nelle kept it locked away. Then when the son turned up here, at the abbey, I learned he was carrying the journal with him in the avalanche. The master took possession of it and kept it under lock until just a few weeks ago.' He thought back to Cassiopeia Vitt's apparent misstep in Avignon. Now he knew it was no mistake. 'You're right. The journal's worthless. We were meant to have it.' He pointed to the pad. 'But maybe these two words have meaning.'
'Or maybe they're more misdirection?'
Which was possible.
Claridon studied them with clear interest. 'What precisely did Lars say when he gave you this?'
He told him exactly, ending with, 'A clue to help you along. If you're smart, you might even solve the puzzle.'
'I recall something Lars mentioned to me once.' Claridon searched the tabletop until he found some folded papers. 'These are the notes I made in Avignon from Stublein's book concerning Marie d'Hautpoul's gravestone.
