Lieutenant Collet helped himself to a Perrier from Teabing's refrigerator and strode back outthrough the drawing room. Rather than accompanying Fache to London where the action was, hewas now baby-sitting the PTS team that had spread out through Chateau Villette.

　　So far, the evidence they had uncovered was unhelpful: a single bullet buried in the floor; a paperwith several symbols scrawled on it along with the words blade and chalice; and a bloody spikedbelt that PTS had told Collet was associated with the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei, whichhad caused a stir recently when a news program exposed their aggressive recruiting practices inParis.

　　Collet sighed. Good luck making sense of this unlikely mélange.

　　Moving down a lavish hallway, Collet entered the vast ballroom study, where the chief PTSexaminer was busy dusting for fingerprints. He was a corpulent man in suspenders.

　　"Anything?" Collet asked, entering.

　　The examiner shook his head. "Nothing new. Multiple sets matching those in the rest of the house.""How about the prints on the cilice belt?""Interpol is still working. I uploaded everything we found."Collet motioned to two sealed evidence bags on the desk. "And this?"The man shrugged. "Force of habit. I bag anything peculiar."Collet walked over. Peculiar?

　　"This Brit's a strange one," the examiner said. "Have a look at this." He sifted through the evidencebags and selected one, handing it to Collet.

　　The photo showed the main entrance of a Gothic cathedral—the traditional, recessed archway,narrowing through multiple, ribbed layers to a small doorway.

　　Collet studied the photo and turned. "This is peculiar?""Turn it over."On the back, Collet found notations scrawled in English, describing a cathedral's long hollow naveas a secret pagan tribute to a woman's womb. This was strange. The notation describing thecathedral's doorway, however, was what startled him. "Hold on! He thinks a cathedral's entrancerepresents a woman's..."The examiner nodded. "Complete with receding labial ridges and a nice little cinquefoil clitorisabove the doorway." He sighed. "Kind of makes you want to go back to church."Collet picked up the second evidence bag. Through the plastic, he could see a large glossyphotograph of what appeared to be an old document. The heading at the top read:

　　Les Dossiers Secrets—Number 4° lm1 249"What's this?" Collet asked.............