Free The Secret Of The Cathars (2011) by Michael Hillier Page A

they shown on English television?”
    She nodded. “The series on Egypt was translated into English. I did some of the translation myself.”
    “ I’m sorry. I must have missed them. I’m afraid I don’t watch a lot of television.”
    “ I expect they were on at a strange time.” She shrugged. “They wouldn’t have been important to the English.”
    Philip indicated the castle in front of him. “Is this going to be another series?”
    “ It certainly is.”
    “ Then I shall make sure I watch this one.” He took a breath. “May I look around?”
    “ Of course,” she said before Jolyon could refuse. “But I would ask you to be careful when you get close to any roped off areas - for your own safety. There may be holes in the ground and heaps of loose rubble to avoid.”
    “ I promise to be careful.”
    “ Don’t go inside the restricted areas. You might damage or disturb some of our finds. In fact it might be best if I took you round the excavations and explained what we are doing.”
    “ Yes please. I would appreciate that.” Philip admitted he fancied the idea of spending some time with Jacqueline.
    She put her head on one side. “I cannot do it today. I have promised Paris that I will telephone them to make some arrangements. But if you are here at ten o’clock tomorrow morning I will give you a guided tour.”
    “ I look forward to it very much.”
    “ Meanwhile you can explore the rest of the site - those are the areas which aren’t roped off - at your own risk, of course. Remember to be careful. The terrain is very rough and steep.”
    “ I will be careful. And I won’t go into the roped off areas.”
    Jolyon interrupted again. “I will still be here. I will check you go nowhere that is forbidden.”
    Philip noticed that Jacqueline gnawed her lower lip in vexation at her assistant’s churlish attitude. But she said nothing. So he smiled at her and said, “Thank you. I will see you tomorrow morning.” He started to cross the terrace towards the main part of the castle.
    “ Just remember, Monsieur Saint Claire, I will be watching you,” Jolyon called after him as he went. “I am careful about security.”
    Philip ignored him. Jolyon seemed to be one of those men who liked to throw their weight around.
    For the next hour he explored the rest of the site as well as he could. He soon realised that it would be almost impossible to carry out the task his grandmother had set him, at least on his own. As well as being very steep, the ridge on which the castle had originally been built was extremely rough and irregular. Rocks and heaps of rubble stuck up all over the place. These had been covered with soil and small stones which had been washed down from above over the centuries. And more than half a millennium of vegetation - bushes, trees and undergrowth - had grown up, died, collapsed, rotted and been replaced. So it was almost impossible to decide what had been located where.
    A few surviving areas of walling projected through the greenery. The most obvious were standing on the tops of rocky cliffs where the creepers had been unable to cling to them. But these weren’t much help to Philip. He knew from his reading of the journal that the room where the treasure had been secreted was in the depths of the castle. That meant it had either been found by the men who had robbed the fortress of its masonry in mediaeval times or else it was buried under the rubble and completely obscured by centuries of vegetation and detritus which had fallen from further up the hill as the place fell into ruins.
    Finding the hiding place of the treasure was obviously going to be a major problem. Philip was deep in thought as he scrambled back up the precipitous slope to the main site which had been roped off by the archaeologists. Up here he saw that there was an area where almost all the covering vegetation had been stripped away, revealing a chaotic tumble of rocks and masonry. Within the main area a number of