"Most curious," Claridon muttered. "Look here."
Malone followed Claridon's finger and studied the top left portion of the picture where, in the shadows behind the little man, a table and shelf stood. On top lay a human skull.
"What does all this mean?" Malone asked Claridon.
"Caridad translates to 'charity,' which can also be love. The black habit the man at the table wears is from the Order of the Knights of Calatrava, a Spanish religious society devoted to Jesus Christ. I can tell from the design on the sleeve. Acaboce is 'completion.' The A? could be a reference to alpha and omega, the first and last letters in the Greek alphabet-the beginning and end. The skull? I have no idea."
Malone recalled what Bigou supposedly wrote in the Rennes parish register just before he fled France for Spain. Read the Rules of the Caridad. "What rules are we to read?"
Claridon studied the drawing in the weak light. "Notice something about the little man on the stool. See his shoes. His feet are planted on black squares in the flooring, diagonal to one another."
"The floor resembles a chessboard," Stephanie said.
"And the bishop moves diagonally, as the feet indicate."
"So the little man is a bishop?" Stephanie asked.
"No," Malone said, understanding. "In French chess, the bishop is the Fool."
"You are a student of the game?" Claridon asked.
"I've played some."
Claridon rested his finger atop the little man on the stool. "Here is the Wise Fool who apparently has a secret that deals with alpha and omega."
Malone understood. "Christ has been called that."
"Oui.And when you add acaboce you have 'completion of alpha and omega.' Completion of Christ."
"But what does that mean?" Stephanie asked.
"Madame, might I see Stublein's book?"
She found the volume and handed it to Claridon. "Let's look at the gravestone again. This and the painting are related. Remember, it was the abbe Bigou who left both clues." He laid the book flat on the table.
"You have to know the history to understand this gravestone. The d'Hautpoul family dates back to twelfth-century France. Marie married Francois d'Hautpoul, the last lord, in 1732. One of the d'Hautpoul ancestors penned a will in 1644, which he duly registered and placed with a notary in Esperaza. When that ancestor died, though, that will was not to be found. Then, more than a hundred years after his death, the lost will suddenly reappeared. When Francois d'Hautpoul went to get it, he was told by the notary that it would not be wise for me to part with a document of such great importance. Francois died in 1753, and in 1780 the will was finally given to his widow, Marie. Why? No one knows. Perhaps because she was, by then, the only d'Hautpoul left. But she died a year later and it's said she passed the will, and whatever information it contained, to the abbe Bigou as part of the great family secret."
"And that was what Sauniere found in the crypt? Along with the gold coins and the jewels?"
Claridon nodded. "But the crypt was concealed. So Lars always believed the false grave of Marie in the cemetery held the actual clue. Bigou must have felt that the secret he knew was too great not to pass on. He was fleeing the country, never to return, so he left a puzzle that pointed the way. In the car, when you first showed me this gravestone drawing, many things occurred to me." He reached for a blank pad and pen that lay on the table. "Now I know this carving is full of information."
Malone studied the letters and symbols on the gravestones.
"The stone on the right lay flat on Marie's grave and does not contain the sort of inscription normally found on graves. Its left side is written in Latin." Claridon wrote ET IN PAX on the pad. "This translates to 'and in peace,' but it has problems. Pax is the nominative case of peace and is grammatically incorrect after the preposition in. The right-hand column is written in Greek and is gibberish. But I've been thinking about that, and the solution finally came to me. The inscription is actually all Latin, written in the Greek alphabet. When you translate into Roman, the E, T, I, N, and A are fine. But the P is an R, the X becomes a K, and-"
Claridon scribbled on the pad, then wrote his completed translation across the bottom.