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RENNES-LE-CHATEAU

1:30 PM

MALONE AND STEPHANIE MADE THEIR WAY ACROSS THE CROWDED ha its way toward the car park Halfway down the street Stephanie entered a restaurant and spoke with the proprietor Malone eyed so, but realized food would have to wait

He was angry that Stephanie had lied to him Either she didn’t appreciate or didn’t understand the gravity of the situation Deter He’d seen their likes many times, and the more information he possessed the better the chances of success Hard enough dealing with the ene about an ally si the restaurant, Stephanie said, "Ernst Scoville was hit by a car last hile he took his daily walk outside the walls He ell liked He’d lived here a long time"

"Any leads on the car?"

"No witnesses Nothing to go on"

"Did you actually know Scoville?"

She nodded "But he didn’t care for me He and I spoke rarely He took Lars’s side in our debate"

"Then why did you call him?"

"He was the only one I could think of to ask about Lars’s journal He was civil, considering we hadn’t spoken in years He wanted to see the journal So I planned onamends while I was here"

He wondered about her Bad blood with her husband, her son, and friends of her husband The source of her guilt was clear, but what she planned to do about it remained cloudy

She motioned for them to walk "I want to check Ernst’s house He owned quite a library I’d like to see if his books are still there"

"He have a wife?"

She shook her head "A loner Would have reat hermit"

They headed down one of the side alleys betweendead

"Do you really believe there’s a treasure hidden around here somewhere?" he asked

"Hard to say, Cotton Lars used to say that ninety percent of Sauniere’s story is fiction I’d chastise hi so foolish But he always countered with the ten percent of truth That’s what captivated his apparently happened here a hundred years ago"

"You referring to Sauniere again?"

She nodded

"Help me understand"

"I actually need help with that, too But I can tell you er Sauniere"

"I cannot leave a parish where my interests keep me," Sauniere told the bishop as he stood before the older man in the episcopal palace at Carcassonne, twenty miles north of Rennes-le-Chateau

He’d avoided thefor months with statements from his doctor that he was unable to travel because of illness But the bishop was persistent, and the last request for an audience had been delivered by a constable who’d been instructed to personally accorander than mine," the bishop said "I wish to have a statein of your monetary resources, which seeneur, you ask ofI am not able to reveal Deep sinners to whom, with the aid of God, I have shown the way of penitence have given these considerable amounts to me I do not wish to betray the secrets of the confessional by giving you their nauht work

"Then let us talk of your lifestyle That is not protected by the secrets of the confessional"

He feigned innocence "My lifestyle is quite modest"

"That is not what I am told"

"Your information must be faulty"

"Let us see" The bishop parted the cover of a thick book that lay before hi"

Sauniere did not like the sound of that His relationship with the forreat freedom This new bishop was another matter

"In 1891 you started renovations on the parish church At that time you replaced the s, built a porch, installed a new altar and pulpit, and repaired the roof Cost, approxi year the exterior walls were tended to and the interior floor replaced Then came a new confessional, seven hundred francs, statuary and stations of the cross, all hewn in Toulouse by Giscard, thirty-two hundred francs In 1898 a collecting trunk was added, four hundred francs Then in 1900 a bas-relief of St Mary Magdalen, quite elaborate I’m told, was placed before the altar"

Sauniere simply listened Clearly, the bishop was privy to parish records The for that he’d found his duties contrary to his beliefs Someone had obviously tracked him down