"What do you mean she's not answering?" Fache looked incredulous. "You're calling her cellphone, right? I know she's carrying it."Collet had been trying to reach Sophie now for several minutes. "Maybe her batteries are dead. Orher ringer's off."Fache had looked distressed ever since talking to the director of Cryptology on the phone. Afterhanging up, he had marched over to Collet and demanded he get Agent Neveu on the line. NowCollet had failed, and Fache was pacing like a caged lion.

　　"Why did Crypto call?" Collet now ventured.

　　Fache turned. "To tell us they found no references to Draconian devils and lame saints.""That's all?""No, also to tell us that they had just identified the numerics as Fibonacci numbers, but theysuspected the series was meaningless."Collet was confused. "But they already sent Agent Neveu to tell us that."Fache shook his head. "They didn't send Neveu.""What?""According to the director, at my orders he paged his entire team to look at the images I'd wiredhim. When Agent Neveu arrived, she took one look at the photos of Saunière and the code and leftthe office without a word. The director said he didn't question her behavior because she wasunderstandably upset by the photos.""Upset? She's never seen a picture of a dead body?"Fache was silent a moment. "I was not aware of this, and it seems neither was the director until acoworker informed him, but apparently Sophie Neveu is Jacques Saunière's granddaughter."Collet was speechless.

　　"The director said she never once mentioned Saunière to him, and he assumed it was because sheprobably didn't want preferential treatment for having a famous grandfather."No wonder she was upset by the pictures. Collet could barely conceive of the unfortunatecoincidence that called in a young woman to decipher a code written by a dead family member.

　　Still, her actions made no sense. "But she obviously recognized the numbers as Fibonacci numbersbecause she came here and told us. I don't understand why she would leave the office withouttelling anyone she had figured it out."Collet could think of only one scenario to explain the troubling developments: Saunière had writtena numeric code on the flo............