19

JACK HAD THE BOOK IN HIS HANDS—the one removed from the cavern beneath Trubetskoy Bastion. In the day and a half they’d waited for the Israelis to make their appearance, Espy had translated a great deal of it for him, especially those parts that had convinced her of the need to go to Paris. Once she turned those parts into something Jack could understand, he found himself agreeing with her.

Even without the book, there were few cities that made more sense than Paris, few that boasted of such continuous history, and fewer still that had served at various times as the social, artistic, political, and economic capital of the world. To imagine a long-lived organization like the Priests of Osiris selecting Paris as their permanent base wasn’t a stretch of the imagination.

Jack and Espy had taken up temporary residence in Le Marais, the district in which the book suggested they concentrate their investigation. They had a room at Le Pavillon de la Reine. While Espy made use of the hydro-jet shower, Jack took a seat in a rattan chair and began going over all his notes. His new laptop, bought with Israeli money, helped him research some of the questions raised by the aged book.

In her reading, Espy had found two pivotal words: Flamel and Stone. Those two items, listed as chapter headings in consecutive chapters, told Jack’s historically minded wife—who’d spent more time in Paris than most non-natives—where to concentrate their efforts.

Fortified by a strong cup of coffee, Jack tapped a key on the laptop, advancing to the next screen, which resolved into a picture of a house; 51 rue de Montmorency held a distinction among Paris homes as the oldest stone dwelling in the city. Built in 1407, the small structure had outlasted most everything else around it, riding out wars, plagues, and multiple owners to stand alone among Paris dwellings. From the picture, it didn’t look like much, but it was the history that fascinated him—especially the history that centered on its builder.

Alchemist Nicolas Flamel read like an odd duck, but Jack couldn’t diminish the man’s accomplishments. Over the last half hour Jack had learned a great deal about the man. Aside from the legends that tied him to alchemy, he was also a manuscript seller. In other words, he owned a bookstore, and at a time before Herr Gutenberg made such an occupation financially tenable.

Jack leaned back in the chair, allowing his doubts to have their say. According to his wife, the book did little to elaborate on the references to the property. So, in investigating the structure, not only was Jack lacking a starting point, he was missing an expected end result.

One of the interesting things about 51 rue de Montmorency was that, while it qualified as a historical site, it was also a functioning restaurant. And while taking a table for two would be a good way to gain access to the place, the setup wasn’t conducive to the kind of fieldwork he needed to do.

When Espy finished getting dressed, they headed out for a late supper, taking the few blocks on foot. The restaurant was in a quaint area with a lot of foot traffic. As Jack had gathered from the pictures, the exterior was unassuming: faded stone and simple wood trim. Entering, Jack was both charmed and disappointed. Charmed because the restaurant was that perfect combination of quaint and elegant, disappointed because it seemed sacrilegious to renovate the interior of the oldest house in Paris in order to serve from a high-end menu.

Even without a reservation, it didn’t take long to get a seat. The server filled their wineglasses. Jack glanced at the menu, though most of his attention was focused on the room, his hopes fading that he and Espy would find anything there. Little of the original room remained. Despite the gaucheness of it, Jack opened up his laptop on the table, looking for the floor plan. When the server came, Espy ordered for them.

Several minutes of fruitless work left Jack worrying about their chances of finding anything. He suspected that if Nicolas Flamel was a member of the Priests of Osiris, as he was beginning to suspect, then whatever message he might have left in this place was probably gone forever. The only way anything might have been preserved was if Flamel had possessed the foresight to plan for the survival of his message across six hundred years, which might have entailed secreting something within the foundation or behind one of the many original stones that framed the place.

When their food came, Jack closed the laptop and moved it to the floor.

“It’s not here, is it?” Espy asked.

Jack sampled the wine for the first time. Whatever Espy had ordered for them was very good.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe it was once, but I think this level of continued use may have destroyed it.”

Elements of the original house remained, mostly decorative pieces. The exterior façade was still intact, as were some columns and most of the molding. Jack had taken all of it in when they’d entered, then later dismissed every bit of it.

The lobster was excellent. Espy chewed thoughtfully. “What about the man himself?” she asked.

“Flamel?”

“We’re only assuming whatever we’re meant to find is in this building. What if we’re supposed to be looking at Flamel instead of at the house?”

“Then why make a reference to the first stone house in Paris a chapter title?”

Espy shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s possible I’m wrong about this being the place.”

“Nicolas Flamel builds the first stone house in Paris and it’s just coincidence that his name and the word stone are consecutive chapter titles?”

Espy shrugged. “I wasn’t the one who spent two hours researching the guy.”

Her comment gave Jack pause because, in truth, his research on the man paled in comparison to the time he’d spent studying the structure—the layout, the construction, the list of owners through the centuries. Without answering his wife, Jack retrieved the computer. Fifteen minutes later, his Breton lobster cold, he pulled his chair around to Espy’s side of the table, showing her what he’d found.

“I glossed over the fact that Flamel was an alchemist,” he said. “And what are all good alchemists looking for?”

Espy had been skimming the text on the screen, so she had the answer at the ready. “The philosopher’s stone.”

“It’s not the house,” Jack said.

“No,” Espy agreed. “It’s something that doesn’t exist.”

They spent the next half hour researching, much to the consternation of their server, who made periodic appearances to check on them. But after a point, Jack and Espy leaned back in irritation.

“I have no idea,” Jack admitted.

The declaration came just as the server arrived again at their table. Jack had no idea if it was genuine interest, or if she felt that by assisting she could get them out of the restaurant, but she glanced at the computer. “What are you trying to do?” she asked in decent English.

Jack pondered how to ask their server if she could make a connection between a dead alchemist, his lifelong dream, and a secret organization walking around modern-day Paris. “By any chance, does the restaurant’s owner ask the staff to learn about the history of the house so you can answer dumb questions from tourists?”

“Oui,” she said. “What do you want to know?”

“Nicolas Flamel was searching for the philosopher’s stone—”

“Not searching. He found it,” the server said, interrupting Jack.

“Okay, he found it,” he agreed. “But beyond finding it, is there anything else he did that would have had anything to do with the stone?”

The server gave him a puzzled look.

“What my husband is asking,” Espy said, stepping in, “is if Flamel kept any records of his work, anything that documents the steps he took to create the stone.”

The woman brightened. “Yes. He documented everything in Le Livre des Figures Hiéroglyphiques. How do you say? . . . The Book of Hieroglyphic Figures.”

At the mention of the book, Jack frowned. “Wasn’t that published almost two hundred years after he died?”

“From his writings,” the server said, and Jack knew enough not to question her further. In payment for her help, he left a twenty-euro tip on the table. Jack and Espy gathered their things and left the restaurant. They found a nearby coffee shop and again set to work.

Jack found a PDF copy of the out-of-print work in its entirety. The book was short, a mere twenty-eight pages. Espy read it aloud, but Jack was more interested in the pictures. There were several, all ornate representations of religious or mystical scenes, fascinating and even haunting. But as he looked at each of them, and as Espy read the text, nothing of significance jumped out at him. After Espy finished, Jack sat back and sipped his coffee. Neither of them spoke. After a while, Jack leaned forward.

“Let’s go through it again,” he said.

Espy started to read. Ten minutes later, Jack asked her to stop. On page four were three pictures, labeled with Roman numerals. Picture III had caught Jack’s attention. He leaned in toward the screen but couldn’t make out the details. Seeing him squint, Espy pulled the laptop away.

“Wait a minute,” she said. She punched a few keys and increased the magnification, and the details jumped out. The image was strange, resembling a medieval chess set. The pieces were laid out in quadrants, twisted figures, malformed and grotesque. From the center of the board rose a gnarled tree, towering over all else. It was the quadrants, though, that caught Jack’s eye.

“What does that look like to you?” He pointed to one of the spots, partially obscured by the piece on top of it.

Espy leaned closer. “It looks like the image we saw in the Chambers painting,” she said, her voice growing excited.

“And this?”

She looked at another spot on the board. Her eyes widened. “That’s Gordon Reese’s family crest.”

Only when she confirmed the discovery did Jack allow himself a moment of exultation. If he was right, the pages of the book contained the crests or sigils of all the major players within the Priests of Osiris at the time of Flamel.

“That’s interesting.” He pointed to the spot identified by the Chambers crest. The chess piece there was larger than all but one. The figure, a male with no armor or weapons, was shown kneeling in submission to the adjoining piece—a figure with a sword, ready to attack. “I wonder who this is.”

Espy shook her head and read the explanatory text next to the picture. “According to this, the picture is titled Rousseau’s Victory.” She looked at the picture, at the victorious piece poised to smite its enemy or grant mercy. “I’m guessing that’s Rousseau.”

Jack raised an eyebrow, then proceeded to Google the name—and returned far too many results. He sighed, stretched, and took a few sips of cold coffee. While he rested his eyes, Espy performed a second search, checking the name against the book it came from.

There were only a handful of results, most of which dealt with a study of the picture itself. But there were two references to something much more intriguing: short articles about a 2003 auction of rare books. One of the bidders was a man named Rousseau. According to auction records from Sotheby’s, Alain Rousseau owned Le Livre des Figures Hiéroglyphiques, the original manuscript.