Gregg Loomis - The Bonaparte Secret

Outside, the buildings had the dispirited look of public housing. Behind chain-link screens, the few store windows displayed cheap household appliances against backgrounds stark enough to proclaim any hope of good fortune had long since departed. Scruffy cars were parked along the curb, many with flat tires indicating they had taken up permanent residence there. Lang immediately noticed the occasional pedestrians traveling in groups, who glared resentfully at him and Patrick.

He was grateful for Patrick’s company.

Turning the corner around a particular grim high-rise decorated with hanging bedsheets and other laundry despite the sporadic drizzle, they faced the Basilica of Saint Denis. It was like discovering a prize rose growing in a weed patch. Lit by a battery of floodlights, a single tower reached heavenward, oblivious to its dowdy surroundings. The church was a pleasing combination of Gothic and Romanesque built of what Lang guessed was white limestone, burnished to gold by the surrounding lights.

“Is beautiful, no?” Patrick asked. “But what is your plan to get inside?”

“Get inside?” Lang asked. “They lock the church?”

“My friend, in this neighborhood, that which is not securely locked at night has been looted by morning.” He pointed to the left portal, two massive doors secured by a heavy chain and large padlock. “I think it would take some time to get through that.”

Lang fished in his pocket, producing a ring of keys. “Then we’ll just unlock it.”

“You have the key…?”

Lang held one up. At first glance, it resembled any ordinary key. Closer inspection revealed a series of bumps along one edge.

“A bump key. Most people have no idea how simply the normal pin-tumbler lock can be defeated. Watch.”

Lang approached the huge doors, noting with surprise the ornate carvings on the stone frame were signs of the zodiac, more pagan than religious. Holding the big padlock in one hand, he inserted the key and then sharply rapped the bottom of the lock against the wooden door. There was an metallic snap and the lock sprung open.

Patrick was looking over Lang’s shoulder. “That is a very convenient thing to have in your pocket.”

“Us former Boy Scouts come prepared. Now, lets get inside and close the doors before someone gets suspicious and calls the cops.”

Patrick chuckled dryly. “It would take more than a suspicion to get the flics here at night. Even so, they will not come unless there are a number of them. The residents of Saint Denis do not like policemen.”

Once inside, Lang reached through the cracked-open doors and managed to drape the chain back into position along with the open lock. It would require a detailed examination for a passerby to notice the church was no longer secured.

The outside lights shone through huge, airy windows, creating a chiaroscuro of lofty arches soaring far above and columns with the circumference of redwoods marching in soldierly ranks. Lang regretted the outside lights did little to illuminate what he was certain would be exquisite stained-glass windows.

Their footsteps echoing against the marble floor, the pair made their way past candles flickering in front of side chapels from which pained saints suffered a variety of martyrdoms.

At last, Patrick tugged on Lang’s sleeve. “The entrance to the crypt.”

The ambient light from outside created as much shadow as illumination. Still, no matter what Patrick had said about the indifference of the police, Lang hesitated to use his flashlight for fear someone outside might see the flicker. Extending a hand toward Patrick, he felt an iron rail about waist high. Behind it, Patrick seemed to be sinking into the floor. Only when the Frenchman was beneath the level of the church did he turn on his light, revealing a set of steps that ended somewhere in darkness.

“It is OK to use the torch here,” Patrick said. “The crypt has no windows.”

As Lang descended, he could feel a dampness and chill that made him pull his new overcoat more tightly about him. There was the smell that he associated with places where there was little air circulation, a mustiness reminiscent of dust and cobwebs. The sound of outside traffic vanished; the stillness was like a tangible curtain between present and past, demanding any speech be in whispers.

Straight ahead, a low wooden door emerged from the gloom. There was no knob, only a rusted metal plate with a handle about two feet from the floor, below which its ancient keyhole yawned for a key far larger than the one in Lang’s pocket.

“Someone’s afraid the occupants will escape?” Lang asked in surprise.

“To keep out vandals?” Patrick suggested.

“Locking the barn door two hundred years after the horse is gone,” Lang muttered.

Patrick pushed on the iron plate with no result. Then he pulled the handle, surprising both himself and Lang when the door opened an inch or so toward them. Another tug and the door groaned on its hinges and opened another few inches. In seconds, the entrance stood open.

“Look.” Patrick was pointing with his flashlight’s beam. “The key is on the inside.”

Lang contemplated the iron key. The part outside the lock was nearly a foot long. “Either the residents insist on their privacy, or someone wanted to make sure the original key didn’t get swiped by some souvenir hunter.”

Inside, he played his light to his left. Like icebergs in an Arctic sea of darkness, sarcophagi floated in random groupings. Most displayed recumbent likenesses of the original occupant. One, a large mausoleum, depicted a well-dressed royal couple contemplating their nude likenesses. Many had been chipped, cracked or otherwise defaced, the handiwork of revolutionary vandals two centuries past.

It was clear the crypt, like the church itself, had been built in stages. He and Patrick had descended into the older portion, as evidenced by relatively crude barrel vaults. A short distance away, slender Gothic arches opened into dark emptiness.

The previous resting places of Charles Martel and Saint Louis immediately attracted Lang’s attention. He was trying to find an angle with his light that would make the words carved below the latter’s effigy legible.

“We are not here for a history lesson,” Patrick hissed. “We are here to look at this one.”

The tomb of Louis XVI and his queen stood in the beam from Patrick’s light. It was easily identifiable. All other likenesses were prone, as though sleeping. The unfortunate Bourbon monarchs knelt in prayer, the queen facing Louis’ left side. The statuary was placed on a plinth about two feet in height so that even in prayer, both faces were roughly even with the viewer’s.

Patrick ran the beam of his light over the carved marble. “There is nothing here but dust, no?”

Kneeling, Lang was studying the base of the plinth. “There is dust, yes.” He rubbed his hand across the base’s surface, leaving a deep furrow. “And we can’t tell much in this light.”

Patrick’s impatience was showing. “We can come back in the daytime when the lights are on down here.”

“The Chinese may not wait that long.”

The Frenchman sniffed his disagreement. “I do not understand why Bonaparte would have played such games, hiding things in churches.”

Lang was running a hand over the effigy of Louis. So far, all he had produced were dust motes that seemed to sparkle in the light of the flashes. “Remember, the whole time he was on Elba, his wife, the Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria, the woman he divorced Josephine for in order to have an heir, refused to return his letters. He had not even seen his son, who was, by the time of his escape, what? Four or five?”

“So?”

“I’m guessing, but I’d say Napoleon knew he was soon going to be fighting the combined armies of Europe and maybe his chances weren’t so good. For sure he knew that after his escape from Elba, any future exile would be much harsher, no thousand men to accompany him. In fact, he may have guessed he would be killed.”