CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND NOTES

CHAPTERS 101 - 105

Summary

Teabing holds Sophie at gunpoint and waits to hear if Langdon is with him or against him. Langdon tries to decide what the best move is. Langdon thinks if only he could free the map, Teabing will have to negotiate. Watching Langdon, Teabing is confident he will join him in finding the Grail. Teabing thinks about how he was able to get Silas into the Louvre to kill Saunière with secret information he accessed through bugging his office. Teabing had Silas call Saunière and claim to be a priest who heard the confession of a man who said he killed Saunière’s family. Silas said the man also mentioned Sophie. Saunière invited Silas to his office immediately.

Langdon tells Teabing he thinks he knows where to look on the tomb for the password. Langdon demands that Teabing releases Sophie before he helps him. Sophie refuses to leave without the cryptex because she does not want the Grail to fall into the hands of Teabing. Teabing refuses to release Sophie because he thinks Langdon is lying. Langdon continues to think about what he should do. Langdon begins to set the cryptex on the ground, then, suddenly tosses it in the air. Teabing fires his gun, but does not hurt anyone. Teabing lurches for the cryptex and catches it. However, he falls too hard and the glass inside the cryptex breaks. As vinegar streams down his hands, Teabing is devastated.

In his hands, the cylinder separates. Teabing looks inside the cryptex but does not find any dissolving paper. The password, which Langdon evidently guessed, is APPLE. Langdon has placed the map in his coat pocket. Just then, Fache and British police enter. Teabing made the mistake of showing his ID when he entered the building.

In Kensington Gardens, Silas prays for Aringarosa. Silas slowly dies.

Aringarosa lies in the hospital thinking about all that has happened. He thinks how clever Teabing was to ask for the one thing he did not need, money. He was also clever to demand his payment in Vatican Bonds, so the entire plot could be blamed on the Church. Fache visits Aringarosa and returns the ring Aringarosa used to bribe the pilot. Aringarosa asks that the money he received from the Vatican is distributed among the families of the deceased. Fache watches on the television as Collet tells reporters that Fache used Sophie and Langdon as a ruse to catch the real murderer.

Langdon and Sophie go to the Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. Saunière’s last clue reads: “The Holy Grail ‘neath ancient Roslin waits.” Langdon is surprised by this clue because people have thought for centuries that the Grail was here. Recently, it had been discovered that a vault with no entrance or exit exists below the chapel. Archeologists petitioned to investigate the chamber, but the Rosslyn Trust forbade it. Langdon had believed that the Grail may have been there years ago, but he never thought it was still there because of all the attention given to the place.

As Langdon and Sophie walk around the chapel, Sophie feels like she has been there before. Langdon tells her there are many replicated aspects of the chapel she could have seen elsewhere. However, Sophie begins to remember her grandfather teaching her how to decipher her first code in this chapel as a child. He left her alone in the chapel for a little while and returned crying. The young man in charge of the chapel asks Langdon and Sophie where they got the wooden box they are holding. They laugh and tell him it is a long story. He persists, telling them his grandmother has the same box.

They learn the young man was raised by his grandmother who is also the head of the Rosslyn Trust. They live on the premises and his family was killed when he was a baby. Sophie walks toward the house behind the chapel. A woman is crying on the porch, holding a picture of Jacques Saunière. The woman recognizes Sophie immediately. She is her grandmother and the man in her brother.

That evening Sophie learns the true story about her family. Both of her parents had been from Merovingian families and thus, descendents of Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ. They had changed their names for protection. When SophieÂ’s parents were killed in a car accident, on an evening when the entire family was supposed to be in the car, the Priory feared they had been discovered. Langdon asks SophieÂ’s grandmother, Marie, if the Priory was planning to reveal the documents. Marie tells him the Priory has always maintained that the Grail should never be revealed. Marie also tells Langdon that while she does not know where the Grail is, she does know that it is not at Rosslyn. When Sophie and Langdon are alone they kiss and make plans to meet Italy the next month.

Notes

These chapters provide the novel’s climax and resolution. The climax of a plot is the major turning point that allows the protagonist to resolve the conflict. In this section the climax occurs when Langdon refuses to help Teabing and solves the riddle. Moreover, Fache captures Teabing and Sophie and Langdon are free to find the Grail. The solution to the riddle should not be surprising since Saunière has proved to be a master of double entendres. The orb is an apple.

The outcome, resolution, or denouement occurs in the final chapters when Sophie learns the truth about her family and Langdon and Marie discuss why the Grail should never be revealed. The search has ended with satisfying results.

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