"Now do you understand,"
Sophie said, her eyes urgent, "why Fache ordered you here tonight, and
why you are his primary suspect?"
The only thing Langdon understood at the moment was why Fache
had looked so smug when
Langdon suggested Saunière would have accused his killer by name.
Find Robert Langdon.
"Why would Saunière write this?" Langdon demanded, his confusion now giving way to anger.
"Why would I want to kill Jacques Saunière?"
"Fache has yet to uncover a motive, but he has been recording his entire conversation with you
tonight in hopes you might reveal one."
Langdon opened his mouth, but still no words came.
"He's fitted with a miniature microphone," Sophie explained. "It's connected to a transmitter in his
pocket that radios the signal back to the command post."
"This
is impossible," Langdon stammered. "I have an alibi. I went directly back to my hotel after
my lecture. You can ask the hotel desk."
"Fache already did. His report shows you retrieving your room key from the concierge at about ten-
thirty. Unfortunately, the time of the murder was closer to eleven. You easily could have left your
hotel room unseen."
"This is insanity! Fache has no evidence!"
Sophie's eyes widened as if to say:
No evidence? "Mr. Langdon, your name is written on the floor
beside the body, and Saunière's date book says you were with him at approximately
the time of the
murder." She paused. "Fache has more than enough evidence to take you into custody for
questioning."
Langdon suddenly sensed that he needed a lawyer. "I didn't do this."
Sophie sighed. "This is not American television, Mr. Langdon. In France, the laws protect the
police, not criminals. Unfortunately, in this case, there is also the media consideration.
Jacques
Saunière was a very prominent and well-loved figure in Paris, and his murder will be news in the
morning. Fache will be under immediate pressure to make a statement, and he looks a lot better
having a suspect in custody already. Whether or not you are guilty, you most certainly will be held
by DCPJ until they can figure out what really happened."
Langdon felt like a caged animal. "Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because, Mr. Langdon, I believe you are innocent." Sophie looked
away for a moment and then
back into his eyes. "And also because it is partially
my fault that you're in trouble."
"I'm sorry? It's
your fault Saunière is trying to frame me?"
"Saunière wasn't trying to frame you. It was a mistake. That message on the floor was meant for
me."
Langdon needed a minute to process that one. "I beg your pardon?"
"That message wasn't for the police. He wrote it for
me. I think he was forced to do everything in
such a hurry that he just didn't realize how it would look to the police." She paused. "The numbered
code is meaningless. Saunière wrote it to make sure the investigation included cryptographers,
ensuring that
I would know as soon as possible what had happened to him."
Langdon felt himself losing touch fast. Whether or not Sophie Neveu had
lost her mind was at this
point up for grabs, but at least Langdon now understood why she was trying to help him.
P.S. Find
Robert Langdon. She apparently believed the curator had left her a cryptic postscript telling her to
find Langdon. "But why do you think his message was for you?"
"The Vitruvian Man," she said flatly. "That particular sketch has always been my favorite Da Vinci
work. Tonight he used it to catch my attention."
"Hold on. You're saying the curator
knew your favorite piece of art?" She nodded. "I'm sorry. This
is all coming out of order. Jacques Saunière and I..."
Sophie's voice caught, and Langdon heard
a sudden melancholy there, a painful past, simmering
just below the surface. Sophie and Jacques Saunière apparently had some kind of special
relationship. Langdon studied the beautiful young woman before him, well aware that aging men in
France often took young mistresses. Even so, Sophie Neveu as a "kept woman" somehow didn't
seem to fit.
"We had a falling-out ten years ago," Sophie said, her voice a whisper now. "We've barely spoken
since. Tonight, when Crypto got the call that he had been murdered, and I saw the images of his
body and text on the floor, I realized he was trying to send me a message."
"Because of
The Vitruvian Man?"
"Yes. And the letters P.S."
"Post Script?"
She shook her head. "P.S. are my initials."
"But your name is Sophie Neveu."
She looked away. "P.S. is the nickname he called me when I lived with him." She blushed. "It
stood for
Princesse Sophie"
Langdon had no response.
"Silly, I know," she said. "But it was years ago. When I was a little girl."
"You knew him when you were a little
girl?"
"Quite well," she said, her eyes welling now with emotion. "Jacques Saunière was my
grandfather."
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