"No way."
"I tell you, it moved."
"Try it again."
She replaced her finger on the edge of the circle and repeated the sliding motion around the stone circle. The entire circle of stone oscillated slightly with each rotation of her hand. She applied more pressure, sliding her finger along the back of the carved snake. Abruptly, the whole circle moved inward a half inch.
"I think it's like a loose screw in a big hole. Your oscillations are making it jump its grooves. Slide your fingers in the other direction, counter-clockwise, then push it and let it go." She looked baffled but I motioned her on. "Go ahead. Try it. It will make sense when you do it."
The first time she tried, her timing was wrong and the circle did nothing but oscillate. With the second attempt, her timing was perfect. The disk oscillated and popped out a centimetre, now flush with the surface of the coffin base again.
"YES! I knew it. That's it, do it again," I exclaimed.
She slid her finger around, pressing and letting go, and it popped out again. Excited, she went faster but lost the rhythm. Slowing down, she did it more carefully. The disk popped out more and more until, finally, a rock cylinder sprang out and fell to the floor, followed by a thick, coiled spring. We looked in the exposed hole but there was nothing else. I picked up the cylinder. It was not as heavy as I would have expected, about forty-five centimetres long and almost twenty-five centimetres in diameter. "I think this thing is hollow," I said as I shook it. Something slid around inside.
I heard the crunch of footsteps on the path outside the chapel. Ducking down behind the coffin base, I peeked over the top, keeping my head low. A man was approaching, walking slowly. It was Norton. He had a pistol in his hand and was standing at the chapel's entrance.
Dropping back down, I whispered to Raymonde, "Stay low. We'll try to sneak out when he goes to check the other room."
"What if he comes here first?"
"It's a fifty-fifty chance. I hope the odds are in our favour for once. Shhh, he's moving."
Norton had to know we were here. Our car was in the castle's parking lot. My question was how had he known in the first place? I had no answers and we were running out of time.
Luck was with us. Norton walked into the baptismal chamber.
It was now or never.
Picking up the rock cylinder, we sneaked out, sliding along the wall. Norton reached the back of the baptismal chamber and turned around, looking me straight in the eyes. We broke into a run, Raymonde passing me, as I lumbered on, the stone cylinder slowing me down.
A shot rang out and a chunk of stone broke off the fountain. "Stop where you are. My next bullet will not miss."
We both froze in our tracks.
"Wise choice. I am an excellent shot. Now turn around."
I did as he asked, still holding the stone cylinder in my arms. Norton, twenty yards away, was approaching calmly, his pistol held straight, a smug look on his face.
"How did you find us so quickly?" I asked.
"I placed a GPS tracking device in the boot of your car, you idiot. You can't get away from me that easily. Who do you think you are? James Bond? HA! You make me laugh, Sirenne. You're so pathetic, so gullible. I knew you were lying, right from the start. I just had to follow you until it was time to reel you in. Well, the time has come. Give me that cylinder!"
I began walking towards him.
He jerked his pistol in my direction. "Slowly now, this pistol has a hair trigger."
I made it seem as if I was having trouble holding on to the cylinder, exaggerating its weight. By the time I reached him, it was almost slipping out of my arms. I jostled it, apparently trying to lift it up, while, in fact, allowing it to slip.
"Watch out, you fool!" screamed Norton.
I gave the cylinder an extra push and it flipped out of my hands, falling heavily onto my intended target.
Norton's left foot!
Norton let go a bellow of pain, forgetting everything else for a single moment, the moment I had been waiting for.
I slapped at his right hand, sending the pistol flying. Bringing my hand back and balling it into a tight fist, I hit him with the hardest roundhouse I could muster, putting all my anger and frustration over the murders into it. My clenched fist hit his screaming jaw like a brick. Norton flew back, his body flopping loosely against a hedge. Knocked unconscious, he slid to the ground, his swollen foot pinned beneath the stone cylinder.
Raymonde rushed to my side, her eyes wide. "That was amazing, Paul. Are you all right? Is he all right?"
"I damn well hope not!" I exclaimed, trying to slow my racing heart.
I lifted the cylinder from his foot, straightening out the man's leg. The foot was swollen. I searched him and found his wallet, which I kept just to give the guy more trouble. I retrieved his pistol and found two spare clips in his jacket pocket. I also found a pair of handcuffs and used them on him, throwing the key in the fountain.
"His foot is very bad. I think the cylinder might have broken something," Raymonde noted.
No wallet, no gun, broken foot, and no key for the handcuffs. Not a good day for Norton.
He would have a lot of trouble coming after us. I didn't know if I was doing the right thing, leaving Norton alive, but I had trouble believing he was the Shadow-Killer, no matter what Briar said. He was too pathetic. As well, I wasn't a killer. The only thing I regretted was not calling Interpol and informing them about Norton's location but I couldn't risk getting Raymonde and I involved any further. I had to hope Norton's injuries would delay him sufficiently.
Picking up the stone cylinder, we returned to the Porsche. I found the GPS tracking device Norton had placed in my tire well. I threw it on the ground, crushing it with the heel of my shoe. Noticing Norton's car, I popped the hood, yanked out the distributor cap, and tossed it over the hedge.
We took off as fast as we dared, considering the state of the Porsche, and headed back to Etretat, no more than an hour distant. We were laughing, shaking off the adrenaline rush.
Pulling into the familiar parking lot, we heaved a sigh of relief at being back home. Mrs Leblanc welcomed us with open arms, hugging us warmly. We updated her on the recent events while we ate a small meal. She gave me a stern look when she learned of the 'misunderstanding' about the techno-glasses and was horrified when we told her of Norton's attack.
Our meal done, Raymonde and I headed up to her room. I briefly contacted my friends. Briar was shocked we had not done more to restrain Norton.
Raymonde came to my defence. We had left the man in a physically weakened condition, with no money, no identification, no weapon and a disabled vehicle. If he had become a rogue Interpol agent, he would also have to avoid the authorities. Norton was not going to bother us for a while. Coulter recorded a video of the cylinder, planning to spend a sleepless night figuring out how to open it. We bid our goodbyes to our online friends and disconnected.
I placed the cylinder on the nightstand and lay down in bed next to an exhausted Raymonde. We simply lay there until we fell asleep.
When I woke up next morning, the cylinder was gone!
Chapter 9
The Secret in the Office
I woke Raymonde and pointed toward the bed stand, feeling sick with worry. She went to get out of bed but I held her back. "Let's just lie here and think about things for a second. I know we're panicky about the cylinder's disappearance but I think that this situation requires a little reflection before we act."
She lay back down, nodding in agreement, her exposed bosom distracting me pleasantly. She noticed where I was looking and, covering herself up with the blanket, smacked me lightly. "Keep your eyes on the business at hand!"
I laughed and gave her a kiss. "Listen, Raymonde, let's look at this step by step. The cylinder is gone, so someone must have taken it. It can't be Norton. There's no way he could have been sneaking around, not with his broken foot. The Killer hasn't shown his face, unless of course, the killer is Nort
on. It has to be the Vallin brothers."
"But how did they get in? The outside doors were locked. We heard no noise. How did they know we were here, that we had the cylinder? To get it, they had to come in here, right into my room."
Her eyes went wide and her nostrils flared.
"I know, I know, try and keep calm. Let's go back to figuring it out and see where that gets us. How did they get in and how did they get out? First, the door. It is the most obvious way in. Did they use it?" I asked.
We checked the door. From our position on the bed, we could see the key, still in its lock. I distinctly remembered double-locking it the night before. "What about the window?"
Our heads swivelled in unison. The window was slightly open, allowing a bit of cool air to waft through. Beyond it was a screen. It would have made too much noise to come in through there.
"Then, where could they have come from?" questioned Raymonde, consternation evident in her face.
We searched for the slightest clue. I noticed our glasses on the small table by the window and remembered how special they were. "Raymonde, could you get my glasses? Oh, could you close the drapes as well?" I asked her.
Tip-toeing past the table, she picked up both pairs of glasses. Sliding the drapes closed, she jumped back in bed, pulling up the covers. She put on her glasses, handing me the other pair. She looked quite funny, with her wild morning hair and her cool glasses, making me think of a French Janis Joplin. Keeping that observation to myself, I slipped my glasses on. "Switch them to infrared mode."
"How do you do that?"
I showed her the little toggle. She pushed it and the small screen changed to a monochromatic greenish hue. "I didn't know they could do that. I guess they're not just expensive toys after all. Hey, what's that on the screen?" she asked pointing at the rug between the bed and the window.
"That's the heat signature of your feet," I explained. "The infrared mode displays heat instead of normal light. That's why I asked you to close the drapes. Heat signatures hang around much longer than most people would believe but it can be erased by other heat sources, like the morning sun. If we turn the gain up on the infrared mode to maximum, we might be able to detect the footsteps of the person who stole the cylinder. That might reveal how the invader came in to our room."
Raymonde appeared suitably impressed.
I looked at the bed stand area, allowing the glasses' infra-red camera to absorb as much heat as possible. Red smears appeared in the rug near the bed stand, irregular shapes, too formless to be shoes.
"Maybe they walked around in socks," Raymonde suggested.
"That may be right." I panned slowly to the left, following the footsteps. They headed to the wall facing us, vanishing right through it. "Whoever it was stopped moving for a moment, right there, and stood still. The heat signature of those particular footsteps is quite bright, compared to the others. Looks like only one person. He must have been checking the room. He walked around the bed and came to the stand. Cylinder in hand, he returned to the wall, leaving a second set of prints."
"How could he have gone through the wall?"
"There simply has to be a hidden opening. There is no choice."
"It makes sense, really. If there was ever going to be a hidden passage, it would be here, in this house, once owned by the creator of Arsene Lupin, whose adventures held countless hidden passages. How fitting."
Her voice trailed off momentarily. "So if it's there, how do we open it?"
"We push the button, of course."
"The button? What button?"
I approached the wall, avoiding the fading footsteps, and pressed a section of plaster moulding. It clicked back and a panel of wall swung away, revealing a dark, narrow corridor. Dust was everywhere.
"Wait a minute," she objected. "I heard that button click as clear as day. There was no way he could have pressed that and not woken us."
"He didn't need to use it. He opened the panel from behind, the sound of the mechanism muffled by the wall. After entering, he left the panel open. That way, he was able to retreat in complete silence."
"If he didn't press it, there can't have been any heat left on the button from his finger. How did you know it was there?"
"Cold air insinuates itself in every crack. I thought there might be more cracks around a secret mechanism. All I had to do was look around for cold spots. I found several but only one near the wall where the footsteps disappeared. It had to be our button."
My father's training had become habit over the years until it was second nature. Perhaps we had a chance of solving this puzzle after all.
"So, what should we do now?" she asked.
"Let's follow the footsteps, find out where they lead. We might catch the Vallin brothers in the tunnel."
She shook her head, a slight smile on her face. "Don't you think we should get dressed first?"
I had overlooked that small detail in all the excitement. "I guess you're right. Clothes might be appropriate at this point."
"Anyway, they are long gone. I am sure they did not come here recently. Otherwise, the heat of their footsteps would be glowing more than they are."
Her comment gave me an idea. "Let's shower quickly, contact the team and plan our next step. You go first; I've got something I want to do."
She stood up from the bed, peering into the secret corridor for a second, then approached me, looking incredibly beautiful and happy at the same time. She kissed me and went into the washroom, leaving me to my own devices.
My infrared devices!
I started by recording the track of footprints. Putting on a pair of socks, I stood briefly on the rug, next to the faded marks. Stepping away, I recorded those as well and noted the exact time.
Leaving my equipment on the bed, I joined Raymonde just as she came out of the shower. I 'helped' to dry her, and then had my own shower. Getting dressed, I noted forty-five minutes had passed. I picked up my glasses again and recorded the footprints one final time.
"What are you doing?" asked Raymonde.
"Your comment about the faded footprints made me think. Perhaps we can figure out when they did come into your room. With the recordings I just did, we should be able to come up with a fairly good estimate. I'll get Coulter to crunch the numbers. He's good at that sort of thing."
I activated the glasses' regular viewing mode, and simply waited, knowing Coulter's monitoring program would alert him. It took only a few minutes. Raymonde slipped her glasses on and joined us.
Coulter could not believe we had let the cylinder slip through our fingers. However, even he had to admit there was no way we could have anticipated this. While he might have been upset at the loss of the cylinder, he was happy to learn about the entrance to the secret corridor. He downloaded the infrared video files from my notebook and worked on them as we talked. Within a few minutes, he had an answer. "Although there is a margin of error, it's within an acceptable percentage. I would say that your visitor entered at approximately 3:00 AM."
Briar and O'Flanahan signed on, bleary-eyed. We updated them as we prepared to enter the secret passageway. Raymonde had found a small flashlight with fresh batteries. I brought my laptop, since the wireless signal from the glasses would not reach as far as we expected to go. Our online friends were just as anxious to get started even though they were tired and a continent away.
I entered the corridor, careful not to stir up the dust. Raymonde followed behind. I angled my body sideways and walked along slowly for about three metres. Aiming the flashlight, I saw a descending staircase, exceedingly narrow and steep. The dust had been recently disturbed, no doubt by our unwelcome nocturnal visitor.
Reaching the bottom of the staircase, the corridor ended after two metres, making it seem like we had reached a dead end. Looking around carefully, I found a mechanism with a large toggle. Pushing it up, I heard a muted 'thunk' and a part of the wall cracked open. Filled with trepidation, I pushed it and stepped into Maurice Leblanc's office!
/> Our grand exploratory adventure had taken us a total of ten metres and ended one floor below Raymonde's room.
A SELECTION FROM THE WEISSMULLER MANUSCRIPT
The First Four Days
The invasion of Etretat began on the thirteenth of June 1940, at 11:30 AM. Our tanks led the way, going down each principal road into the small town. Several infantry platoons followed the Panzers under my command.
We had expected strong opposition during our takeover. Instead we found a town in disarray. More than fifteen hundred Etretatais had fled the town in panic, only to be rebuffed near the Seine River, where our planes decimated them. There remained little governmental activity and the local economy had collapsed.
Due to the lack of organized resistance, the first invasion phase was completed ahead of schedule. We were in control before the townspeople could utter a single protest. Our second phase could begin.
One platoon was dispatched to conduct a house-by-house search, in order to ascertain the exact number of able-bodied men, and to seize all available supplies. They were instructed to react strongly to any resistance.
My soldiers found a cache of wine bottles almost immediately and the search degenerated into a destructive, boisterous party. I didn't mind. The drunker they got, the more frightened the villagers would be. We wouldn't be fought off, not like before. I had foreseen every possible nuance of this invasion, anticipating all of its details.
A second platoon headed to the top of the Aval cliff, setting up camp and preparing to dig out the Frefosse fort foundation, while a third took possession of the Lindon and Leblanc villas. Once secured, a thorough search was undertaken to locate the hidden tunnels we suspected were there.
The deputy mayor, Rene Tonnetot, accompanied by several councillors, nervously stood in front of City Hall, the only persons to venture out of their homes. We selected the White Rocks hotel as our temporary base, where we organized the infrastructure necessary for our next phase.
I was baffled by the lack of resistance. The census team reported no weapons cache and few able-bodied men remained. If the French Resistance had been in this village at one time, they were not here now. I felt cheated. I had been looking forward to this moment for so long. Leblanc had scurried off like the coward he was.