The Caves of Périgord: A Novel

got hold of it. And it looks as if Clothilde’s cavehunting project is not getting the presidential seal of approval, so we might as well continue our inquiries among the old Resistance types.”
    “I have some names for you, and some information,” said Clothilde. “Not very exciting, but one friend of my father—my real father, that is—said he knew of two caves where guns were stored. The big one at Rouffignac, which goes back for miles, and Bara-Bahau. Rouffignac is a possibility. It has been fully explored, but by speleologists, not by modern experts. It’s a small painting, and it’s possible that some great scar on the wall was not noticed.”
    “But the lines continue beyond the edge of the rock, and in the background is that clear white calcite,” Lydia objected. “The lines would have been noticed.”
    “I know, it’s just a faint possibility. Bara-Bahau is out. It’s too well known, and not much calcite there. I feel sure that Horst was on the right track when he talked of a cave that lay waiting to be discovered, like Lascaux in 1940, and somehow the painting came out and then the cave was sealed again.”
    “So your idea of the echo-sounding project would probably be a sure-fire way of finding it again,” said Manners thoughtfully. “Odd that Malrand seemed to be set against it.”
    “I think he was set against the idea of being bullied into a commitment, rather than the idea itself,” said Lydia.
    “It’s curious,” said Clothilde. “The project seemed guaranteed of success when I first proposed it, long before we heard of your new rock. The Air Force was quite happy, saying it could fit into its training schedule. The Ministry of Culture was in favor, and we had a university and a research institute eager to help. But then it got squashed somewhere in the hierarchy, and I was given different explanations why. The culture officials said they thought it was the finance ministry. The research people said they thought it was political, the Prime Minister’s office muttering that too many funds were being steered to Malrand’s Péri gord. And one of Malrand’s people told me it was because they thought that in a year or so we could get half the project financed by Brussels, from the European fund.”
    “There couldn’t be any—well—sinister reason for someone trying to block it, could there?” mused Manners, almost to himself. “Somebody who may have a good reason to make sure the undiscovered cave remained unfound.”
    “What do you mean?” said Clothilde, glancing meaningfully from Manners to the impervious security man who was driving them. Almost imperceptibly, she shook her head warningly.
    “Oh, nothing. Just a fancy,” he said lightly. “Your scientific search is a good idea, and good ideas have a way of getting carried out. The European fund will probably come through from Brussels. I’m sure it will happen someday, Clothilde, and after a hundred and seventy centuries another few years won’t hurt.
    “I’m still awed by that place,” he went on. “It opened my eyes rather. I don’t know much about art, just sort of assumed there were these high points, like the ancient Greeks and the medieval cathedrals, and then Michelangelo and Leonardo at the Renaissance, and then Van Gogh and Cézanne. Just a few high points. Now I know that I’ve seen another, from a time long before I thought there was any civilization at all.” The conversation had now been steered to safer ground. Lydia noticed it was deftly done.
    “Time to add a second postcard,” he went on, drawing his wallet from inside his jacket. He opened it and withdrew a small and much-worn postcard of a Vermeer. Lydia recognized it at once, the Girl with the Pearl Earring, a winsome portrait of deep charm.
    “I was in Appeldorn, one of the Dutch military bases, on a NATO course and we took a weekend off to go to Amsterdam. They had this Vermeer exhibition. Just by chance, since I had nothing better to do that morning, I went along, and fell in love with this girl. Carried this with me ever since. In Northern Ireland sometimes, when it was really bad, I’d take her out and look at her and feel better.”
    “Why not a photo of your children?” asked Lydia.
    “Your own children are the kind of distraction that can get you killed—the last thing you want to think about at times like that,” he said grimly. “Believe me.”
    “So which souvenir image do you want from Lascaux?” Clothilde asked.