Лесли Чартерис - The Saint and the Templar Treasure

“Must have been somebody’s dream girl,” the Saint remarked, and was surprised to find himself whispering like a tourist in a cathedral.

He walked around the rubble in the middle of the floor and approached the statue, conscious that wherever he moved the sightless eyes seemed to follow him.

Gaston stayed where he was.

“It is evil, monsieur,” he declared.

The old man was both excited and afraid. He shuffled his feet nervously and glanced anxiously at the ladder as he waited for the Saint.

Simon picked up the casket and inspected it. The wood was splintered where the lid had been levered open and there were bright scratches on the edges of the lock. It carried no clue to its original owner and was too small to contain a hidden compartment. The pieces of parchment were brittle to the touch and blank except for a few faded strokes that might have been the tops of letters. Regretfully he replaced it on the ledge and turned to face Gaston.

“Too bad it’s empty,” he said.

“Yes, yes, it is,” Pichot agreed restlessly. “A great pity.”

Simon promptly turned back to the ladder.

“I’m sorry, Gaston. I was forgetting that you must still be very shaken.”

“I have strained my back,” the other said with a grimace. “But it could have been much worse.”

“Can you climb?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll hold the ladder for you. Take your time.”

The old man began to pull himself up rung by rung. Simon waited until he was at the top and then followed. One of the labourers helped his foreman to safety, and as Gaston sat on a cask to regain his breath the workman Simon had sent to the château returned accompanied by Henri and Norbert.

Briefly Gaston told them what had happened. Henri took a small bottle from his pocket and his uncle gratefully sampled its contents.

“It was very fortunate that you were here, Monsieur Templar,” Henri said stiffly. “It seems that once again we are in your debt.”

“I do seem to have a habit of being around when things happen, don’t I?” said the Saint. “But I didn’t really do anything.” He directed Henri back to Gaston, who was again on his feet. “Don’t you think you had better see him home?”

“Of course,” Henri agreed. “Come, Uncle. I have a car outside, and the doctor has been sent for.”

“There is no need for so much fuss,” Gaston grumbled; but he allowed Henri to take his arm and lead him out. Norbert did not follow. He was trying to peer into the hole in the floor, hopping about like an excited bird.

“A hidden chamber — this is really exciting!”

“I thought that’s what you’d be most concerned about,” Simon said dryly. “Here, take a flashlight and go have a look.”

Even though the Saint had become accustomed to Norbert’s excitable nature, the intensity of his reaction when he finally managed to negotiate the descent and saw the statue for the first time was quite a spectacle. The professor gawped at the figure, his face a study of joyous amazement like a child unexpectedly presented with a long-coveted toy.

“Incredible! Quite incredible,” he breathed, and almost tripped over it in his hurry to get a closer look.

Simon had followed more coolly, and was content to leave the professor alone until his examination was completed and his excitement had subsided enough to allow him to answer questions.

Louis Norbert ran his hands over the grotesque figure as gently as if it were made of the finest bone china. He got down on his knees and traced the carving on the plinth. Simon took in the details of the column for the first time and saw that they depicted a tree through whose heavy foliage peered the contorted faces of what were presumably meant to be wood spirits and devils.

Norbert minutely studied each of the wolves in turn before running his hands up the folds of the dress until by stretching on tiptoe he could glide his fingers over the features of the face. All the while the examination was in progress a steady flow of mumbled superlatives told Simon how important the professor believed the statue to be.

“Well?” Simon prompted at last, when both Norbert’s examination and supply of adjectives appeared to be temporarily exhausted.

The professor turned sharply, irritated at having his thoughts disturbed.

“What?”

“That kind of dialogue will get us nowhere,” Simon rebuked him with a smile. However hard he tried, he found it difficult to take the academic’s antics seriously. “What is it?”

“Hecate,” Norbert replied as if exasperated by such basic ignorance.

Simon searched back through the mythology he had picked up in serendipitous reading. Except for the amorous exploits of Zeus and a feeling of kinship with Odysseus and Jason, he admitted that he had never been deeply drawn into the subject.

“Greek goddess?” he hazarded, hoping that it would act as a cue for one of the professor’s instant lectures.

He was not disappointed. Norbert backtracked until he stood by the Saint’s side, but his eyes continued to absorb every detail of the statue as he spoke.

“Originally, yes. A minor deity. Not one of the true Olympians.”

“Poor girl,” said the Saint.

The professor ignored him.

“She was the goddess of ghosts and the creatures of the night. The queen of graveyards and of the spirits of the lost. Later she became the ruler of witches and all who followed the paths of darkness. A hymn to Hecate was part of the necromancer’s ritual.”

“Sounds like a dead-end job,” Simon remarked, but before Norbert could take offence he added: “Why the three faces and the wolves?”

“Wolves were seen as creatures of evil in the Middle Ages. As for the three faces, they represent the triplicity of her nature. She is powerful in heaven, on earth, and in hell. Also she embodies the stages of the moon, waxing, full, and waning. She was believed to haunt crossroads and it was at crossroads that witches were buried,” Norbert explained.

“What do you make of this place?” Simon asked, and for the first time the professor bothered to look away from the statue and consider the rest of the chamber.

“Obviously a part of the original fortress. I would surmise that it might once have been a meeting place.”

“So the Knights would have been responsible for the statue. And hence the anagram of Regina. But I thought they were supposed to be militant Catholics.”

“You do not listen,” Norbert said testily. “I told you that one of the charges made against the Templars was that they practised black magic. Generally it was most certainly a lie; but here, perhaps, it may have been true.”

“Doesn’t anything strike you as odd about this room?” Simon asked, and after a brief glance around Norbert shook his head.

“No. What is wrong?”

“Well,” Simon pointed out, “we are here because the floor of the storehouse and the roof of this chamber collapsed. If you look up, you’ll see that there is the ceiling of this room, then a layer of rock, above which is a few centimetres of soil, and then there are the flagstones which are the floor of the storehouse.”

“So what?”

“So how did anyone get in here in the old days?”

Norbert looked from the Saint to the ceiling, and then turned his flashlight over every wall and corner.

“There is no door!” he exclaimed, when he had finally authenticated the statement.

“For a great scholar, you do catch on fast,” said the Saint mockingly.

The professor glowered, and Simon patted him consolingly on the head.

“Never mind — we can’t all go to the same schools. But now we had better get out of here in case any more of the ceiling falls in.”

“But you don’t realise how important this is! I have work to do,” Norbert protested.