[JJ06] Quicksand (24 page)

CHAPTER 47

The sunrise couldn’t have been more heavenly. The storm clouds had passed, and the sun rose above the ocean with Saint Michael watching over us. We stood on solid concrete, wearing dry clothing, warming ourselves in front of a bonfire.

While Lane, North, and I were making our way back to shore, Sébastien found the energy to let himself into a construction trailer and find clothing we could change into to stave off hypothermia. He also found a phone from which to call the authorities.

Using scrap wood, North started a bonfire inside a metal trash can. The four of us gathered around the fire and watched the sunrise.

“Tell us where Hugo is,” Lane said.

“I’m not revealing his location, but he’ll be free by the day’s end. I give you my word.”

“You think your word is good enough any more?”

“Isn’t it? I risked my neck for you lot, and if you didn’t notice, I saved your girlfriend from Marius in the tides. At great personal risk, mind you.”

“I was doing just fine myself,” I said.

“That’s gratitude for you.”

“Thank you, North,” I said. “I’m being serious now. I know what you did. You knocked Marius into the water, giving me the opening I needed to get free.” I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“Well, there’s no need for that.”

“Shouldn’t we be looking for Dante?” I asked.

“He’s gone,” North said.

“What do you mean
he’s gone
?”

“Didn’t you see him on shore? He’s smarter than any of us gave him credit for. He saw that all was lost. Unlike Marius, he let it go. The last I saw, he was walking toward the mainland. Just like I’ll be doing as soon as I’m warm enough to walk properly.”

“The police will be here any minute,” Sébastien said.

“I’m sure they will,” North said. “I take it you’re all intelligent enough to realize it wouldn’t be prudent to turn me over to them, or to mention me at all. After all, I’m not the one who recently robbed the Louvre. It would be such a shame for them to find out who did.”

Lane locked his eyes on North’s. “Wouldn’t it, though,” he said, matching North’s accent perfectly.

“You won’t have to worry about me again. I’m not going to ruin your lives. I’m even going to let you have this treasure.”

“It’s not any of our treasures,” I said. “The proper authorities will locate it, without doing damage to the Mont. I’m sure you’ll be able to read about it in the papers, then visit it in a museum.”

“
Nobody
is going to find it, dear girl,” North said. “You’re welcome to use the papers in my room—I know you already have a key. By the way, that was very nice work, Mr. Renaud.”

“Thank you,” Sébastien said. “It was good to practice my sleight of hand. I was afraid I might be rusty.”

“I doubt the information will lead anywhere,” North added. “I’m starting to think the whole thing was a hoax. Expecting anyone to find a secret room through one of the thousands of stones across three crypts? The clue was probably the work of a bored monk having a laugh.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I figured out where it’s hidden. And I think I know what we’ll find.”

Lane and North both raised an eyebrow at me. Only Sébastien seemed unconcerned about the treasure.

“What will you do now?” I asked North.

“Your concern is touching.”

Sirens sounded in the distance.

“That’s my cue,” North said. “Have a wonderful life.”

Lane pulled me against him and we huddled close to the fire, watching North walk down the causeway to the mainland.

“What an odd fellow,” Sébastien commented.

We spent half the day explaining to the police what had happened. We suggested Sébastien go to a hospital to make sure he was okay after collapsing from his earlier chill, but he wouldn’t have it. He said all he needed was an extra hot double espresso. I could have used about five coffees and an equal number of croissants. I was pleased the French police agreed.

It was surprisingly easy to tell the truth. By omitting the fact that the parchment clue came from a secret hiding place at the Louvre, it was easy to explain that a criminal had gotten his hands on Nazi plunder that suggested a lost treasure was hidden on Mont Saint-Michel, and that he’d kidnapped us when we tried to stop him. Regional police knew the history of the Mont, so they believed the story. Especially when they learned an Englishman was involved.

We told them there was a Frenchman involved, too, who had perished after getting stuck in the quicksand. They were used to hearing this news. Every year, dozens of people drowned in the perilous tides.

Last, they asked for the specifics about the treasure. I told them there was one last piece of information I needed, and that then I could show them where it was hidden. 

When they said we were free to leave, I knew where I needed to go. But first, we had two stops to make: North’s hotel room, and our own. Using the key Sébastien had copied, we retrieved the complete set of documents related to the treasure, then stopped in the room Sébastien and I had rented to take hot showers and dress in the changes of clothes we’d brought with us. My sneakers were ruined, but I happily slipped on my high heels. Now we were ready.

In the cloisters, I located what I needed. I was now certain I was right, but there was one last thing I needed to put it all together. We climbed to the top of the Mont to see Massi Bruel.

The blind historian was cooking a lamb stew for lunch when w
e knocked on his door. He generously invited us inside to share his meal. I didn’t think I could eat another bite after the number of croissants I’d devoured, but with the scent of the sweet fruits and savory spices in the stew, I again found myself hungry.

“Justice,” he said at the conclusion of our story. “The man who perished in the quicksand deserved his fate.”

It had taken the entire meal for us to tell Massi what had happened. We now sat in the living room, drinking Maghrebi mint tea. Sébastien watched in awe as Massi poured the steaming liquid from high above the teacups as expertly as he had before.

“It’s amazing that the knowledge of the lower level of rooms has been lost for so long,” Massi said.

“I wish the hoard from Saint-Lô that North purchased contained all the missing records,” I said, “but it doesn’t look like that’s the case.”

“It’s the illuminated manuscript clue for which you need my assistance?” Massi asked.

“It is.
Sequere cementarium claustri ad cryptam.
Follow the stonemasons of the cloisters to the crypt.”

“My Latin isn’t nearly as good as my English, but I don’t believe you came to me for a translation. How may I be of assistance?”

“I think the clue refers to the stonemasons themselves.”

Massi shook his head. “The names of nearly all of the architects and masons are lost. If that’s what you seek, I’m afraid I must disappoint you.”

“Two stonemasons from the 12
th
century carved their likenesses into the cloisters. The revolutionaries didn’t destroy their carvings during the French Revolution. Therefore there are
literally
stonemasons sitting in the cloisters. I believe they want to tell us something.”

“
C’est vrai.
” Massi’s cloudy eyes widened. “This is true.”

After the meal, Massi walked with us to the cloisters. “It’s nice to have a beautiful lady on my arm,” he said, patting my elbow.

“How do you know I’m beautiful?”

“A man can sense these things.”

“Here they are,” I said, stopping in front of the carving.

Lane set down the stepping stool we’d acquired for this purpose, helped Massi up, and placed his hands over the carving. I was hoping a blind man’s hands would be more sensitive to slight variations in the worn stone.

“Their hands are pointing down,” I said, “but I’m hoping there’s some sort of number or marking that indicates a specific stone.”

“A ‘jobbers mark,’ you mean?” Massi asked.

“Exactly. I hope.”

“You brought paper?”

I handed him a pad of paper and pencil. He took it in his hands and made a sketch of a symbol that looked similar to two number eights, or a double infinity symbol.

“If we find this symbol on a single stone in the floor of one of the crypts,” I said, “we’ll find our treasure.”

CHAPTER 48

In the
Crypt des Gros Piliers
, we found a solitary stone in the floor with the infinity symbol the stonemasons in the cloisters had pointed us to.

The head of renovations at the Mont was so intrigued by learning of the fabled treasure that might be buried under his nose that he insisted on removing the stone right away. Removing one stone from the floor wouldn’t cause any structural problems, and would, in his estimation, give a more thorough understanding of the layout of the Mont that might in fact help with the renovations. I thought that was a stretch, but it was his prerogative. Who was I to say no to a man who was a huge fan of treasure hunt movies? I wanted to see the treasure dug up too.

I was fairly confident that I was right, but I couldn’t be sure until the treasure was revealed. The foreman scheduled the rock to be removed the following day.

In the meantime, Lane booked a room on the Mont. I moved my things into his room, g
iving Sébastien our old room to himself. As soon as it was late enough to call California, I phoned Sanjay from the room to tell him what was going on.

Once I’d filled him in, the silence on the other end of the line nearly killed me. Either I’d been speaking to a lost connection or he’d had a heart attack and lost the ability to speak.

“Did Sébastien put you up to this call?” he said finally. “Is this a gag about one of his new automatons? Did he build something even cooler than Jeeves?”

After I convinced Sanjay I wasn’t joking, he yelled at me for several minutes. Then there was another pause.

“You really think you’re going to find a version of Tipu’s Tiger in France?” he asked.

“You know about Tipu’s Tiger?”

“I’m a magician, Jaya. How could I not? It’s one of the most famous automatons in the world. It has a crank organ inside its belly that mimics the sounds of both a screaming man and raging tiger. It was very much ahead of its time. It was a Frenchman who created it in India. I never heard of anything else like it, but if he survived the various wars there, it stands to reason he’d have created other similar beasts. I wonder what he put into the belly of this one.”

North was true to his word. By nightfall, Lane received a phone call from Hugo. He was safe, and not too worse for wear. He had a bump on the head and a deep cut on his hand, which is where all the blood came from that I saw at his apartment.

North had supplied him with every comfort, aside from freedom. He thought he’d even gained a couple of pounds during his few days of captivity. He wasn’t far, so he wanted to meet us on the Mont and be there for the discovery of the treasure the next day.

Hugo arrived as we were sitting down to dinner at Mère Poulard. He greeted me with two kisses on my cheeks and a warm hug. Over two bottles of wine, the four of us talked until we were the last people in the restaurant and the wait staff began to hover.

Back at the hotel room, I stepped into the bathroom to freshen up after the hectic day. When I emerged, Lane was fast asleep.

In the morning, the foreman oversaw the careful cleaning out of the mortar around the heavy stone and then its removal. Beneath it, we found a narrow staircase.

A room approximately ten feet in each dimension lay at the bottom of the stairway. The room was stuffed with treasures. On two sides, simple wooden tables held stacks of breathtaking antique books.

The item in the center sent an even bigger thrill through me. There lay Tipu’s Tiger, only not. Here in the secret room at Mont Saint-Michel lay a six-foot elephant with a wooden man wrapped in its trunk. At their feet, a tiger crouched, ready to pounce.

The same man who created Tipu Sultan’s Tiger, now housed at the Victoria and Albert Museum, must have created this. Except this one was even more impressive. Unlike the one at the museum, this elephant and tiger hadn’t been poked and prodded for centuries by enthusiastic spectators.

Trenton Smith’s ravings hadn’t been completely accurate, though. The creation was made of wood, not gold.

The foreman stepped toward the automaton, his hand reaching out to a piece of thick, darkened paper in the tiger’s mouth.

“Don’t touch it!” I cried. “It could crumble if it’s not handled properly.”

“She’s right,” Hugo said. “
Attendez
, Jaya, what are you doing?”

“Just because we can’t touch it,” I said, “doesn’t mean we can’t read what the man wrote.”

Standing inches from the tiger, I read the visible portions of the paper in the tiger’s mouth. Or, I tried to. “It’s in French!”

Hugo laughed and traded places with me. “This man, Devereaux, served as an officer in the French East India Company. He wished to donate his treasures to France, and what better place than Mont Saint-Michel. He hoped that this fortune stolen from British officers in India would honor the French. Ah! Such a rivalry! This is why, as the centerpiece of his gift, Devereaux wished to bequeath an automaton made for Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore, of an elephant and tiger eating an Englishman.
Mais
, this is all I can see without touching the letter.”

After photographing the treasures and finding archival storage bags and gloves, we removed the letter and learned the rest of the story.

To the Sultan, this grand automaton was neither ferocious enough, nor was the tiger central enough. He asked the creator to make him another one, with only a tiger. The sultan discarded this one, giving it back to the French creator. With some of the riches Devereaux had already acquired in India, he purchased the automaton from the French inventor.

As for his earlier riches, he claimed that he’d beaten Robert Clive, aka Clive of India, in a game of chess, and had won a portion of Clive’s treasures. But based on the dates and location of this man’s station in India, I was skeptical.

Regardless of where he found them, he wanted his treasures to go to the French, to serve God and country.

“Hold on,” I said. “If this is like Tipu’s Tiger, then it’s an automaton with moving pieces that does something.”

“Like what?” Hugo asked.

“Tipu’s Tiger has an organ that makes sounds to imitate a roaring tiger and a screaming man.”

“You’ve gotta love the French,” Lane said loudly enough for only me to hear.

“Sébastien,” I said. “I can’t see where this opens. Maybe this isn’t an automaton. It was made earlier than Tipu’s Tiger.”

“Hmm...” Sébastien said, crouching down like the tiger. “The tusk appears to be a lever.” He pulled on the tusk of the elephant. It moved. Everyone in that small room held their breath. I hoped he knew what he was doing.

Hugo let out a low whistle.

“Well, what do you know,” Lane whispered.

Inside the mouth of the elephant sat a stack of gold coins.

“Clive’s gold coins, thought to have disappeared at the bottom of the ocean when the Doddington sank,” I said. “North and I were
both
right.”

With that unexpected discovery, I was ready for another celebratory night—when the bad news came in. The tide had gone down and the bay searched. No body had been found.

With the strong tides in the area, the authorities expected the body was swept out to sea. I wasn’t so sure...

But I knew that if I ever crossed paths with Marius again, I would recognize him by the scar across his face from where I’d slashed him with stained glass.