The Da Vinci Code

CHAPTER 79
Lieutenant Collet helped himself to a Perrier from Teabing's refrigerator and strode back out 
through the drawing room. Rather than accompanying Fache to London where the action was, he 
was now baby-sitting the PTS team that had spread out through Château Villette.
So far, the evidence they had uncovered was unhelpful: a single bullet buried in the floor; a paper 
with several symbols scrawled on it along with the words blade and chalice; and a bloody spiked 
belt that PTS had told Collet was associated with the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei, which 
had caused a stir recently when a news program exposed their aggressive recruiting practices in 
Paris.
Collet sighed. Good luck making sense of this unlikely mélange.
Moving down a lavish hallway, Collet entered the vast ballroom study, where the chief PTS 
examiner 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 evidence 
bags 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 nave 
as a secret pagan tribute to a woman's womb. This was strange. The notation describing the 

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cathedral's doorway, however, was what startled him. "Hold on! He thinks a cathedral's entrance 
represents a woman's..."
The examiner nodded. "Complete with receding labial ridges and a nice little cinquefoil clitoris 
above 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 glossy 
photograph of what appeared to be an old document. The heading at the top read:
Les Dossiers Secrets—Number 4° lm
1
 249
"What's this?" Collet asked.
"No idea. He's got copies of it all over the place, so I bagged it."
Collet studied the document.