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Summary: Chapter 62

Teabing is about to throw Sophie and Langdon out, but when Sophie mentions that they have found the keystone, he lets them stay. Outside, Silas hears the word keystone and prepares to enter. He plans to make them reveal the keystone’s location.

Langdon tells Teabing that all of the members of the Priory are dead. They guess that the Church itself figured out who the brothers were and killed them. They also surmise that the Church struck because it thought the Priory was planning to release the documents. Teabing says the Church may have thought the Priory would time the release of the documents to coincide with the end of the age of Pisces and the beginning of the age of Aquarius, when man will think for himself. Langdon tells Teabing where the keystone is. Silas enters the house with his gun drawn.

Summary: Chapter 63

Collet is outside the chateau. Fache tells him not to arrest the suspect without his presence. Collet thinks Fache is having doubts about Langdon’s guilt, or that he wants to take credit for the arrest himself. Collet and his policemen find the armored truck in front of the house and Silas’s rented Audi parked nearby.

Summary: Chapter 64

Teabing, Langdon, and Sophie look at the cryptex. Langdon tries to determine whether part of the box might contain a clue about the password. He finds a small hole in the interior. When he pushes the end of a paper clip through it, the rose falls out of the wood. Behind the rose there are some lines of text. As he is looking at the text, Silas hits him on the head.

Summary: Chapter 65

Silas has Teabing and Sophie at gunpoint. He orders Teabing to hand him the cryptex. Teabing agrees and then slashes Silas with one of his crutches, right on the punishment belt strapped around Silas’s thigh. Silas goes down, and they bind and gag him.

Summary: Chapter 66

Langdon, Teabing, and Sophie fool Collet and the police into going upstairs. Collet goes down to the barn and finds that most of the sports cars are there, with the exception of one.

Summary: Chapter 67

In a Range Rover driven by Rémy, the group drives across the fields and through the forest behind the chateau. Teabing has Silas at gunpoint in the back seat. Teabing makes a call and orders his plane prepared. He plans to take them to England, away from the French authorities. Silas refuses to give the group information about why Opus Dei wants to see the keystone. Langdon has an idea and asks to use Sophie’s phone.

Analysis: Chapters 62–67

Brown hints that Collet, the good-hearted police inspector, may yet have a key role to play in the story. Collet has a good feeling about Sophie and Langdon, and believes that Sophie would not be involved with Langdon if he were guilty. In some ways, Collet is the classic bumbling police inspector, but he also turns out to be a stand-in for the reader. He recognizes, as the reader does, the fundamental goodness of Sophie and Langdon.

Ironically, Silas is brought down by the punishment belt, the very object he thinks makes him more righteous and worthy than Sophie, Langdon, Teabing, and anybody else who is not in Opus Dei. But the pain that was supposed to elevate him has instead caused him to lose control of the cryptex.

This part of the novel is like the calm in the eye of the storm. Both Sophie and Langdon think relief is in sight. They believe they might be able to get out of France with the cryptex and figure out how to find the Grail without being pursued. They even permit themselves a moment of tenderness toward each other. Despite the possibility of escape, a sense of foreboding persists. Silas prays for a miracle to help him evade his captors, and the narrator says a miracle is indeed coming.

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