The Da Vinci Code

Inside the Grand Gallery, Langdon stares at Sauniére’s final message:

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O, Draconian devil!

Oh, lame saint! (47).

He puzzles over the enigmatic message, noting that it’s written in English rather than French. Fache pulls back the light to reveal a circle circumscribed around the body, what Langdon interprets as a reference to Da Vinci’s famous sketch, Vitruvian Man, the circle a symbol of male/female harmony. Langdon hypothesizes that the Da Vinci reference plus the coded message might be a condemnation of the Church’s marginalization of the divine feminine in favor of a male-centric orthodoxy, an idea Fache dismisses. He thinks the curator was trying to communicate the identity of his killer, a person he presumably knew.

Back in Sauniére’s office. Collet listens to the conversation through headphones, replaying in his mind Fache’s orders earlier in the evening: “‘I know who murdered Jacques Sauniére,’ Fache had said. ‘You know what to do. No mistakes tonight’” (52). Collet pulls up a schematic of the Grand Gallery on his computer; a flashing red marker appears on the screen.

Fache’s conversation with Langdon is interrupted by Collet who calls to inform him that the Bureau’s cryptographer has arrived. He is displeased to discover that she is Sophie Neveu, a young, headstrong agent whose methods conflict with the more traditional Bureau. He also sees her gender as a distraction to the male-dominated cryptography department. Collet informs Fache that she is on her way to the gallery without waiting for Fache’s approval. Entering the gallery, Sophie announces that she has deciphered the code and that she also has a message for Langdon: He must contact the U.S. Embassy immediately. She hands him a slip of paper with a phone number on it, and Langdon asks where he can find a phone. Using Fache’s cell phone, he dials the number, but he gets an automated voice message, a message from Sophie warning him that he’s in danger and to listen to her instructions.

As Silas waits outside the Church of Saint-Sulpice, he recalls his own troubled past. The son of a brutal, alcoholic father who beat Silas’s mother to death, he killed his father and began living on the streets, stealing food and sleeping in an abandoned warehouse. At eighteen, he killed a man and was sentenced to prison. After 12 years, an earthquake opened a hole in the prison wall through which he escaped. He fled through the open countryside until at last, starving and unconscious, he was rescued by a missionary—Manuel Aringarosa—who gave him food and a warm bed. When he feared Aringarosa knew he was an escaped prisoner, he tried to run, but the young missionary handed him a Bible with a marked passage. It told of a prisoner who was freed from his bonds by a great earthquake. The prisoner’s name was Silas, the name Aringarosa gives to him (he can’t remember his given name).

In the present, Aringarosa is instructed by the anonymous “Teacher” to refrain from contacting Silas, that all communication must go through him. Aringarosa has agreed to pay the Teacher 20 million euro in exchange for the prize Silas now seeks.

Sauniére’s numeric code, when rearranged, Sophie explains, is the famous Fibonacci sequence in which each number equals the sum of the previous two. When pressed by Fache, Sophie argues that the sequence is irrelevant to Sauniére’s death, that he must have written it as a joke. Fache is dissatisfied with her explanation, but Sophie insists her interpretation is correct and walks out of the room in defiance of her stunned superior.

Langdon, after hearing Sophie’s message, tells Fache that he must fly home immediately, but Fache senses Langdon isn’t telling him everything. Langdon excuses himself to use the restroom, and Fache returns to Sauniére’s office where he monitors Langdon’s location on Collet’s laptop.

As instructed by Sophie’s message, Langdon tries to gather his wits in the restroom. The cryptographer enters. She warns him that he is being monitored, that he is Fache’s primary suspect in Sauniére’s murder. He finds the monitoring device in his jacket pocket which Sophie instructs him to keep so as not to alert Fache. She also tells him that Fache erased the final line of Sauniére’s message before Langdon arrived at the crime scene: “P.S. Find Robert Langdon” (74).

Sophie details Fache’s “evidence” against Langdon: the message on the floor, Langdon’s appointment with the victim, and the timeframe. Despite protesting his innocence, Sophie informs him that Fache will be under pressure to make an arrest in the high-profile case, and Langdon is his most convenient suspect. She also reveals that the message was intended for her. Sauniére knew that a jumble of numbers would bring the Cryptology Department into the case, and he wanted her, his granddaughter, to find Langdon.

Back in Sauniére’s office, Collet continues to monitor Langdon, unaware that Langdon’s discovered the tracking device. Fache, he notes, seems more emotionally invested in this case than usual. He attributes it to Fache’s financial debt as well as the precariousness of his career. Fache sorely needs an indictment in this case. Suddenly, Fache receives a call from the director of the Bureau’s Cryptology Department. Something is amiss with Agent Neveu, he is told.