Chapters 45–52
Summary: Chapter 45
Vernet puts Sophie and Langdon in the back of an armored
truck, changes into a driver's uniform, and hides a gun under his
clothes. As he drives them away from the bank, Officer Collet stops
him and interrogates him. Vernet pretends to be a blue-collar driver
and says he does not have the keys to the trunk. Collet sees Vernet's
Rolex and grows suspicious, but ultimately he lets Vernet go.
Summary: Chapter 46
Silas is extremely upset that he has let down Bishop Aringarosa.
He finally brings himself to call the Teacher, who tells him that
Saunière left a message and that he should stand by for further
instructions.
Summary: Chapter 47
Inside the box, Sophie and Langdon find a ball with letters
written on each of its five panels. Sophie recognizes this as a
cryptex, an invention of Leonardo Da Vinci's that provided a secure
way to transport messages over long distances. A password is needed
to get to the message inside the ball. Sophie and Langdon discuss
the meaning of the rose that is on top of the box.
Summary: Chapter 48
Langdon realizes that they must be holding the Priory
keystone. He says that only the leader of the Priory would have
access to the keystone, and Sophie says she thinks her grandfather
may have been the leader of the Priory. The car stops and Vernet
lets them out, but then apologetically pulls a pistol on them.
Summary: Chapter 49
Vernet tells Langdon and Sophie to give him the box. He
just heard over the radio that they are wanted for three other murders.
Langdon realizes who the three must have been. He hands the box
over to Vernet, but he also manages to put a spent shotgun shell
into the mechanism of the door. When Vernet tries to shut them into
the truck, the door balks. Langdon bursts out of the door, takes
the box back, and gets back into the truck while Sophie drives away.
Summary: Chapter 50
Bishop Aringarosa, leaving Gandolfo, realizes that the
Teacher might not have been able to reach him because his cell phone
service was not strong in the mountains. He panics, worried that
the Teacher will think something has gone wrong with the deal.
Summary: Chapter 51
Langdon proposes that he and Sophie visit his friend Sir
Leigh Teabing in Versailles. Teabing is a religious historian and
Grail scholar who might be able to help them. Langdon remembers
a controversial BBC documentary about Teabing's Grail research.
They head toward Teabing's estate, Château Villette.
Summary: Chapter 52
At Teabing's estate, Sophie and Langdon reach Teabing
on the intercom. He asks them three questions before letting them
in.
Analysis
The trope of an ordinary person transforming himself is
common in thrillers. In order to feign innocence, Vernet flips between
cultured and uncultured personas. He disguises himself as if he
is used to it. In the course of The Da Vinci Code,
many ordinary people break through their barriers to help the cause
of the Priory.
However Opus Dei heard about Saunière's message (Fache
is a natural suspect), the two factions in this novel are about
to be drawn together. Until this point, the Silas story has functioned
separately from the Sophie and Langdon story.
Sophie's memories of her childhood with her grandfather humanize
Saunière and turn him into a major figure in the novel. Sophie's
memories have also been instrumental in helping her figure out what
her grandfather's final actions meant. The search for the Grail
begins to seem like a treasure hunt just like the ones Sophie's grandfather
set up for her when she was a young girl running around the house
in search of her birthday present.
Langdon, the retiring academic, finally seems excited
about the chase. When he realizes that Saunière was the head of
the Brotherhood and that the other three members of the Brotherhood
are gone, he understands that it is now his and Sophie's responsibility
to figure out where the Sangreal, or the Holy Grail,
is hidden, and to guard the secret. Now he seems to become more
fully engaged with the problem and with his personal responsibility.
Because he has become involved, he is inspired to take the kind
of wily action—foiling Vernet and getting the box back—that until
now has been the exclusive province of Sophie.
The Bishop's worries about cell phone service are slightly
comical. He behaves like a nervous schoolboy waiting for a call
from the girl he likes. But his nervousness also underlines the
Teacher's power. The fact that the Teacher has secret knowledge
gained by electronic eavesdropping does not provide any clues about
his location, occupation, or allegiances. The only thing the reader
really knows about the Teacher is that he is a mercenary.
For the first time in this part of the novel, Langdon
thinks about Sophie in a sexual way. He smells her perfume as he
leans over to speak into the intercom and thinks about “how close
they are.” Brown's interest in the romantic aspect of Langdon's
and Sophie's relationship seems a little forced, however, almost
as if he included it only in deference to the conventions of thriller
novels.
