Lot n°7.
A stunning original copy of the Corpus Hermeticum
of Hermes Trisgemist.
Manuscript on parchment of 22 booklets
dating from the 8th century BC.
Binding from the 4th century AD.
I will tell you more about it during the conference that will follow.
Starting price: 500,000...
Chléo! Quick, some water!
Chléo, hurry up! Chléo, help me!
What's wrong with him?
Goodbye, Tetsuo Tanaka.
See you, Astrid.
Hi, Véronique! Nice dress.
Hello Raphaëlle. Thank you. Your father is in a meeting! Wait a minute!
- He's used to it. - Wait up!
Oh, it's ok, it's ok.
You know DA Forest?
Coste.
Mathias, what are you doing here?
I was discussing with your father the political
orientation of the DA's Office. Nothing to do with you.
Well, you could have warned me.
Mr. Coste, I'll be in touch this week.
And don't forget: On the 4th hole, use 3 wood.
Not your driver.
Yes, thank you, Mathias. Have a nice day.
That's a good boy.
Ambitious.
What does that mean?
- What did he tell you? - He told me enough.
You should try to make an effort to keep this one a little.
Of all the hairy guys you brought home when you were in college,
Mathias was by far the nicest.
Yes, and the most ambitious. It's okay, we get the idea.
You realize this is completely inappropriate?
Well, I'm just meeting with one of the prosecutors from the Paris
prosecutor's office. Don't make a big deal of it, it's part of my job.
What exactly are you here for? Do you need anything?
I wanted to invite you to dinner on Wednesday night but
- forget it, it wasn't a good idea. - Sweetie, wait!
Ok, I'm coming but I'm cooking.
"Sweetie"?
Don't be ridiculous, please.
Well, see you on Wednesday. And don't be late.
Jean Legrasse, 51 years old, auctioneer.
He was taken by hallucinations in the middle of a sale.
He screamed that he was on fire, he started to suffocate
and died in a few seconds.
- Any psychiatric history? - Not that we know of, no.
He has a puncture wound on his elbow.
You think he was poisoned? During the sale, you think?
Every poison has a lag time:
Some are fatal and others take several hours to kick in.
I'll be able to tell you more when we have the toxicology analysis.
- Good morning Dr. Fournier. - Hello Astrid.
Did you find something?
What is it?
Le fol.
It's old French for "the fool".
It's appropriate.
So we have a victim who's delirious after a lethal injection,
and in his pocket, we find the Fool card.
Looks like it's signed.
No.
I can confirm that I have never seen this card.
And I don't think it belonged to Jean.
You are his collaborator but you call him by his first name.
Were you close?
Uh... at first he was a friend of my father's.
But for the past three years, he has regularly asked me
to help him authenticate old books.
Did he have any enemies?
No, none.
You know, in a collector's eyes, the qualities of an expert are
their uprightness, their rigor, their accuracy.
And Jean was considered one of the best.
So there is a problem.
- What are you saying, Astrid? - There is a problem.
The seal.
The catalog description says
"lion seal with discontinuous outline and erased hind legs".
But here the outline is continuous
and the hind legs are visible.
There is a problem.
Here.
It is not possible...
Yes it is.
It's not the right book.
Well, the forensics is definite: It's not the right book.
It's even a fake.
The original is gone.
Wait a minute, the motive of the murder, would be the theft of a book?
Well, a book, with a price tag of 500,000€!
Wait, wait. 500,000€?
Yeah. And it could have gone for much more.
This is one of the oldest versions of the Corpus Hermeticum
ever put on the market.
And this version includes 5 unpublished booklets.
- I don't know if you realize that, actually. - Not really, no.
And what exactly is the Corpus...
Wait Commissioner, don't you see what the Corpus Hermeticum is?
- Raph, is it not famous... - No, Victor Hugo is famous.
Anyway, it's one of the oldest texts of humanity.
It's a mystical-philosophical essay.
A kind of dialogue between a man and a god.
Ok but isn't it supposed to end up in a museum, antiques like that?
Yes, it should.
But when they come on the market, the prices soar and the museums
can't afford to buy them.
I'm not even talking about the black market.
I didn't know that a book could fall into that category.
Bill Gates bought a Da Vinci codex for over 30 million dollars.
Whoa, but wait, at that price, that's some serious motive there.
OK but why kill when you can just steal the book?
Not so simple.
Here for the sale, it was taken out but normally it's in a safe,
closely guarded.
So we have two leads to follow:
The victim and the book.
Captain, Lieutenant, take a team to search the victim's house.
Ok.
Coste, maybe you could go to the Criminal Documentation
with Miss Nielsen and see if you can find anything about this forger.
A forgery like that, as my grandmother used to say,
can't be found under a horse's hoof.
I have found many cases of forgeries of antiques.
And when it comes to a book, it is not unusual
for the forger to sign their forgery.
Signing a forgery?
Yes.
Doesn't that go against the principle of deception?
Absolutely not.
Didier Vernon, arrested in 2013 for forging a book by Galileo,
had slipped in a dedication from the author to the Duke of Vernon.
Abdullah Hasri, known as the sculptor,
used to hide sculpting tools in the corner of engravings.
There are many other examples.
Ok.
We have to find the signature on the fake Corpus to find the forger.
Exactly.
But we only know the forgers' signatures who have been arrested.
And all of them are in jail.
That is it.
While ours is still active.
So at this point,
the forger's trail is a dead end.
I would not say a dead end.
But rather a locked door.
What do you mean by that?
When you are at a dead end,
you cannot go any further.
There is no way out.
But with a locked door,
you might find the key.
Oh boy, Astrid!
You're getting pretty good with figurative expressions, aren't you?
Thank you.
I am practicing.
That's good.
Yes, it is.
The auctioneer's apartment was robbed?
Yeah.
According to his assistant Chléo Vitrac, our victim
was studying this new Corpus.
There were over a hundred pages of notes, we found none.
I did, however, find this.
- His computer tower? - Yeah.
So it looks intact but when you look inside,
you realize there's nothing there. Nothingness.
Not a single file.
If it has not been formatted, a computer's hard drive is never really empty.
The files have not been destroyed:
Only their indexes have been deleted.
Absolutely, Astrid.
That's why we contacted the cybercrime department.
Well, they're bringing him in five minutes.
- Here you go. - Thank you.
Jean Legrasse in search of the lost manuscript
18 years ago, Legrasse went on an expedition to Iraq and found an original.
Except that the book disappeared less than a week later in a fire.
Henri Berger. Here.
That is the name of the scientist in charge of the 2003 expedition.
That name was on the guest list for the auction.
Good eye, Astrid.
Oh, yeah. Henri Berger.
He is a professor of ancient civilization at Paris One.
Good! And I was dreaming of going back to school.
What do you mean by that?
No touching. No touching.
Many people, upon meeting a member of a more advanced civilization,
have mistaken them for a deity.
Think of Cortez,
in his silver armor,
whom the Aztecs mistook for their demigod
Quetzalcoatl.
This is why I am convinced that the Corpus Hermeticum
is not a discussion between an ancient man
and a god,
but an interaction with a being from a primordial civilization.
A civilization previous to the Greeks,
the Egyptians, the Sumerians.
A civilization mother of all the others
that I baptized
the Protarikos.
To see Jean like that,
dying in front of everybody, what a nightmare!
We had lost sight of each other.
The 2003 expedition left us all with bad memories.
Why were you at the sale this morning, Professor?
The study of the Corpus is my life's work.
The one on which I built my career.
Having been able to study part of the last 5 booklets in 2003.
“Corpus Hermeticum, in search of the Protarikos.”
Ironically, I have only held a real one in my hands for a short week of my life.
So knowing that an original was visible again even for a few hours,
how could I resist?
This card was found in Jean Legrasse's pocket.
Ring any bells?
That's impossible!
Yes, it is possible. It is the Fool.
In 2003 when we unearthed the manuscript, we tried to put it for
safekeeping in the national library of Baghdad, but on April 15th,
it caught fire.
- 2003, was the war in Iraq? - Yes.
The official story is that the conflict was the cause of the fire and therefore
of the destruction of the Corpus.
And the unofficial story?
The fire was used to hide the theft.
The Corpus was in a fireproof box
that was found sealed and empty after the fire.
In place of the book, there was a card.
The House of God.
That makes two cards.
In 2003, we have Legrasse.
We have a stolen Corpus
and we have a tarot card.
And today,
we have Legrasse again,
another stolen Corpus,
and another tarot card.
And you think that this constitutes a body of consistent evidence that
attempts to demonstrate that these two cases would be the work of the same author.
That's it.
So we have to dig up the expedition from 18 years ago.
And every details count.
There are many details in Professor Berger's book.
Corpus Hermeticum, in search of the Protarikos.
The study of life.
Knowing Nicolas, he must be gloating.
And we're going to the morgue.
Are you coming, Astrid?
Yes. Wait, my things.
Raphaëlle.
He was poisoned with Datura stramonium, a hallucinogenic plant.
The vernacular name for it is "madwort".
It is used for ritual, shamanic or religious purposes.
Yes, well in any case, such a dose would rather be for funeral rites.
It causes respiratory depression.
And with what he had in his blood, the poor man had no chance.
It seems to me that Datura stramonium
is a poison that has a short latency time. Less than an hour.
Yes, absolutely, miss. That's right, Astrid, that's right.
So whoever punctured Legrasse was at the scene.
Maybe they were even there at the time of the auction.
- You're not reading? - No, he does it.
I'm more into pictures.
Anyway, I have something to show you, follow me?
Legrasse had planned a press conference right after the sale.
And a press conference means
a press secretary who had worked the event.
And we have pictures from before the sale?
When the killer would've drugged Legrasse.
That's what's great! Right before the sale,
there was a cocktail party. And all the pictures taken are here.
Here.
This man, here.
He was also in the picture from 2003.
Show me the book Nico, please?
Where did I see it?
At the middle.
There.
- That's it. - Yes.
It is indeed the same man.
He is standing up, in the other picture, he is in a wheelchair.
- But it is the same man. - Who the hell is this guy?
Baron Etienne of Erlette.
He's the one who funded the Baghdad expedition in 2003.
Ah okay.
So this sale was a college reunion.
18 years ago, I was the only one who tried saving the Corpus from the fire.
Unfortunately, once upstairs,
the floor gave way underneath my feet and...
and there.
All of this for a book?
Not a book, Ma'am.
The book.
Because while the scientific community is still debating
if it's a religious book or the matrix to all civilizations,
others think, like me,
that this manuscript holds the greatest of secrets.
A secret, right.
And of course, nobody ever succeeded in unveiling this secret?
No, alas.
Because of the Rosicrucian brotherhood.
A secret society
which dates back to Antiquity,
and whose members swore to protect at all costs
the precious knowledge of the Corpus
so it could only be handed over to a few rare initiates.
A secret society.
I hadn't heard that one before yet.
Allow me to show you something.
If you'd just follow me.
Astrid!
Having the manuscript isn't enough,
you have to be able to read it.
The book is encoded.
Encoded, why?
Because what it holds
can offer immense power to whomever has it.
Look, this is a page from an original Corpus.
I have no gloves, may I?
- You may. - Thank you, Sir.
I found it in the Anbar area in 2001.
Look, look carefully.
You see anything?
- No. - Yes.
Some letters
seem more pressed than others.
They seem written in bold.
There, there and there.
Bravo, Ms.
And if we put those letters together,
we get a word.
H, A, R, M, A.
Harma,
chariot in Ancient Greek.
Like the 7th Arcanum of Tarot.
Add to that that the Tarot has 22…
And that the manuscript sold this morning has 22 booklets…
Exactly.
You understand now.
You have the irrefutable proof that those cards
Rosicrucian's signature.
They gave us a warning 18 years ago,
and they did it again this morning
by taking the Corpus away once more from the laymen's eyes.
- Thank you, Sir. - You're welcome.
There is a code.
This guy is crazy.
A secret society,
why not the Illuminati while we're at it?
The magic of the 0s and 1s. Thank you, computing.
Cybercrime managed to recover some data from Legrasse's hard-drive.
There's something for everyone.
Pictures, emails, scans…
And we have scans in Ancient Greek to start with.
Come on.
There.
- That's the original Corpus? - Itself.
There.
The letters.
Some letters are in bold.
The Baron of Erlette is right, the book is encoded.
Yes.
The Baron claims it's some kind of puzzle.
It is the key, Commander Coste.
The key? To the Corpus?
No.
The key to the door that wasn't a dead end.
Look.
There. This is a page from the original Corpus Hermeticum.
Some letters are pressed down.
There, it is the same page. A fake.
Some letters are pressed down too but not the same ones.
It could be the signature.
- The forger's signature. - Exactly.
The forger faithfully copied this page
but they changed this detail.
Why, if not to hide their signature?
Okay, Astrid,
I'm printing it. - Yes, thank you Lieutenant Enguien.
All the pages, all the pages from the original
Corpus Hermeticum, thank you.
Don't worry Commander, I have something for you too.
Legrasse sent an email the day before the sale.
To Prof. Henry Berger.
I thought they weren't in contact anymore?
I'll let you read the content.
“Stop calling, you have until tomorrow or I'll take action.”
Well, that deserves an explanation.
Nico, with me, let's go see Berger.
It's here.
I liked your mustache.
Yeah?
It reminded me of my father when he was young.
Oedipus complex, I'll tell you about it.
What is he doing?
Fuck.
Not sure he'll answer our questions now.
You see what's coming out of his pocket?
What is it?
The Hanged Man.
It's not a usual crime scene.
I mean, Astrid's missing.
Don't worry, Fournier,
you'll get by just fine.
I didn't mean it like that.
What's our victim saying?
I'd say he died a few hours ago.
- Strangled? - Asphyxiated, that's for sure.
Weirdly asphyxiated.
The contusions below the jaw
are wide and the hyoid bone was broken.
Translation, for those who didn't go to pre-med?
The hyoid bone,
the neck bone at the base of the jaw.
It's in a thousand pieces.
It can happen during strangulation but you'd really have to go for it.
It's more frequent in hanging.
Hanging?
It looks like our killer has an eye for detail.
Either the killer is a madman who thinks they belong to the Rosicrucian,
or they're a smart-ass trying to make us believe in the Rosicrucian.
Or they're a member of the Rosicrucian, a real one.
Not you too!
The devil's best trick is to persuade you that he doesn't exist.
Keyser Soze.
No, it's Baudelaire's.
It's from the Paris Spleen.
Exquisite by the way.
Why are you logging into the central server?
We have to call in Chléo Vitrac
and tell her her father is dead.
There is no picture of you as an adult in his flat.
Can you tell me why?
Because it's been years that my father is not a father anymore.
His passion for the Protarikos destroyed our family.
That's why you kept your mother's last name?
Why hide this from me?
I didn't,
I just didn't think it was relevant.
It had been so long since my father had been out of my life.
When I was little, my father was the story-teller.
He would tell me plenty of legends on
the Corpus Hermeticum,
the Rosicrucian brotherhood, Tarot…
It made me dream.
As long as he was looking for the book, as long as there were just stories,
it was great.
And he found it.
Since 2003, he wasn't the same.
He was so
obsessed by his discovery, by its repercussions.
His theory on the primordial civilization was true.
And he had held the proof between his hands.
Until it disappeared.
That's the day we lost contact.
A few weeks ago, he asked to see me so I went to his place,
but I didn't stay.
We always think we'll have time to reconnect,
and now, it's too late.
Bye.
So, the hidden daughter?
I don't know what to think.
But I don't see her killing her father.
In the meantime, I have a riddle for you.
What could have left those marks in your opinion?
At our dear Berger's, the downstairs neighbor
said she heard an argument around the time of death from above her.
She told me she heard the voices of 2 men and a woman
and like a big luggage with wheels.
Or a wheelchair?
The Baron and the blonde at the party?
This blonde, her name isn't on the guest list.
We need to know who this woman is.
I found it.
Already?
The wheelchair standard size is 50 cm.
Thanks to the law of proportions between the Barons's wheelchair
and this blonde woman, I was able to conclude she was over 1m85.
There are only 6 women profiles of this height
with a recent criminal past.
The one you're interested in is Ivana Persic.
There. She was incarcerated from 2009 to 2015.
For art theft with aggravating factors.
Well done, Astrid.
As soon as I can repay you,
signal me.
I am signaling you.
It is a joke.
- I made a joke. - Good one.
Yes.
I actually need immediate help.
Fire away, I'm all ears, anything you want.
Do you read Ancient Greek?
- No. - There it is.
I would rather it be Captain Perran to come to
the Criminal Documentation to help me.
Speaking of the devil.
Yeah Nico? Wait, wait before I forget,
tell Arthur we identified the blonde. - Ok.
Arthur, we have her.
And tell me, you speak Ancient Greek?
Read.
No, of course not.
I'm a little cultivated so I must speak dead languages.
Oh, Nico.
No, I don't speak it, no.
But I read it.
Ah, it's perfect! You can help Astrid.
That works, no problem.
But I'm the one who called you.
I have something you won't like.
Yes, of course.
What do you mean denied?
Pardon me, I'll be right back.
You were saying?
Why was my police search denied?
Just because we sleep together doesn't mean you get special favors.
What?
The Baron was with a criminal
at Berger's during his time of death.
That's not enough for a police search, fuck?!
Pardon me, Sir. I'll call you back, yes, of course.
Your suspect, the Baron,
he's not just anybody.
He dines with the minister.
He could play petanque with the President, I don't give a fuck.
- He's extra-suspicious, I'm telling you. - I don't think so, no.
I checked your evidence.
Between the marks of a wheelchair tire
and the neighbor's testimony, it's a little light.
Come back when you have something more concrete
and we'll talk about it.
- I know why you're angry like this. - Yeah?
It might be because you put your work before your morals.
No, that's not it.
It might be because you're using me to get closer to my father.
You never thought I might be using your father to get closer to you?
What are you saying?
Your brother.
Why did you never tell me about your brother?
I know he died in a fight
related to drugs, just when you broke up with me.
It tells a number of things.
Wanting to change your life,
the police academy,
the fight with your father…
Why did you never tell me?
I am looking for a code in the Corpus Hermeticum.
Every set of circled letters
should match a tarot card.
There.
I copied all the letters in order, but I am stuck.
I do not read Greek.
I'm sorry but I don't know those words.
They could be anagrams.
You're saying we should take all the letters
and mix them around to find our word?
Exactly.
Did you know that the word migraine is Greek?
Did you know that the word migraine is not a tarot card?
Yes. No, I don't think so.
Thank you, dear friend. I'll call you back.
Well, please Commander. Come in!
Why did you tell him about Benjamin?
Listen.
He was trying to understand, that's all.
I don't understand why you didn't tell him about him.
Do you really think your vision of the world is irreproachable?
You doubt nothing.
You never doubt yourself.
Talking to Mathias about Benjamin.
Sending Benjamin to rehab.
You abandoned him.
You should have reached out to him, but you punished him.
You see, I thought we could have found our way back to each other one day.
Obviously not.
There are things you can't erase.
I don't know if I'll ever manage to forgive you.
Me neither.
I don't know if I'll ever forgive myself.
Astrid, the combinations of letters don't match ancient Greek at all.
And if they form an existing word, it has nothing to do with Tarot.
The content of the book is coded. One must find the code.
The baron of Erlette found the chariot. There.
The baron plays with the translation.
Harma doesn't really mean chariot, it's more
a war chariot.
One must find the code.
Yeah.
Something is wrong. You are upset, Raphaëlle.
Is it because of DA Forest?
Because he denied the search warrant at the baron of Erlette's.
Yeah that's it.
There is no immediate solution.
One must wait.
One must gather more proof against the baron of Erlette.
You're right, Astrid.
We need more proof.
- Raphaëlle. What are you doing? - Probably a big mistake.
Mathias wants something tangible? I'll give it to him.
I'm gonna do this search warrant on my own.
I also told you to wait, Raphaëlle.
You will violate at least 24 articles of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
- At least. - It is a lot.
That's why I'm not taking you with me.
- Yes, but that is a lot. - Théo! I'd like you to study? But don't go to bed too late, ok?
It is too many, Raphaëlle.
I think we absolutely need to go back to Berger's before the police...
No, but stop with your stupid ideas.
You know damn well the police are watching the apartment. We can't go back.
What's this?
Shit, that guy is a psychopath.
There's no way I'll go back to his apartment.
It's becoming too dangerous.
But I don't care that he died! Occupational hazard!
I need that book.
And if you don't get rid of that, the police is gonna use it against us.
Ivana, just do what I pay you for.
And let me deal with the cops.
What if you let the cops deal with you?
Don't play with me.
Lay down, hands on your head.
Come on.
There.
Don't move.
Can we know the reason for this intrusion, Commander?
The one your accomplice just dropped on the ground:
The syringe you used to kill Legrasse.
You're on the wrong path.
Because if this syringe is the murder weapon,
the one who used it isn't me.
It's Henri Berger.
What?
We're not allowed to take pictures anymore?
Of two future victims?
Not really.
Yes, okay.
I was spying on them.
But not to kill them.
To take back what was mine.
- The Corpus? - My Corpus.
The one that was stolen from me 18 years ago.
The one that cost me my legs.
Do you think the manuscript that Legrasse tried to sell
was the one found in Iraq?
Listen, at the time I was confident that it was the Rosicrucian brotherhood
who came between us and the book.
But think about it.
The first ever original exhumed Corpus since then.
Conveniently sold by one of the founding members of our expedition.
It was Legrasse who robbed me.
And he was planning to sell it at the highest price with impunity!
So you hired Ivana to rob your robber.
We have the means we give ourselves.
We planned to do it at the end of the sale.
And with no victim.
But Berger cut our feet right out from under us.
And why do you think it was him?
While Legrasse died on the floor, only one person was looking somewhere else.
Berger.
So I asked Ivana to follow him. And as the good pickpocket that she is,
she shoved him and stole this.
Let's say you're right.
It still doesn't explain what you were doing at Berger's
at the estimated time of death.
Isn't it obvious?
I was blackmailing him.
I knew he killed Legrasse, at the same time the Corpus disappeared.
It was him who had my book.
And I was planning on getting it back.
Or you killed Prof. Berger
to blame him for the robbery and the murder of Legrasse.
And you put his fingerprints on the syringe.
I'll stop you right now.
You don't get it at all.
I swear to you that when I left him he was still alive.
Whoever killed him, they came after.
You know Astrid, it's late. You can go if you want to.
I do not mind staying late. Especially when I am facing an unsolved puzzle.
Sorry.
Maybe this was a way of gently telling me to leave.
I am not really good with euphemisms, Théo.
Oh no, not at all. I don't sleep a lot before an exam, anyway.
Ah.
Your things are funny! Looks like constellations.
Here, look. It's Ursa Major.
And that's Orion.
Constellations.
Of course. Constellations. Of course.
And this one? Do you know this one?
No, but I have a great app for that.
Constellation recognized The Sculptor.
So that's a new constellation. It is named The Sculptor.
The Sculptor.
- Are you certain it is named The Sculptor? - Yes. Gotta go.
Yeah, hi, how are you?
- The Sculptor. - The math exercise…
There are other constellations, Théo.
Théo?
I'm sorry.
I didn't see the time fly by.
You should have gone back home, Astrid.
Raphaëlle.
- Yeah? - It is the Sculptor there.
There. The Sculptor. Do you know what that means?
No?
The baron of Erlette is wrong. One must not be wrong.
It is not the tarot cards which allow the deciphering of
the original Corpus Hermeticum, but the constellations.
Wait, wait, Astrid.
No, you know you'll get all the Rosicrucian brotherhood on your back.
- And what does it have to do with our investigation? - Everything.
Absolutely everything. Look.
Sorry.
I'm listening to you.
There. It is a page of the original Corpus Hermeticum.
And the letters in bold form the Orion constellation.
There it is, the same page, but of the fake Corpus Hermeticum.
The bold letters form another constellation.
A constellation not yet identified at the time
of the original Corpus Hermeticum.
And this constellation is named the Sculptor. The Sculptor, Raphaëlle.
- The forger? - Yes.
- He signed with a constellation? - Yes.
The forger. The sculptor. The sculptor, Abdullah Hasri.
It is Abdullah Hasri.
Well, we need to inform Arthur. We need to find this sculptor.
No need. I know where he is.
Astrid, I'll be there all the time and will intervene if needed.
It is not the first time, anymore.
I am prepared.
And you know the subject by heart.
Yes. I know the file. I know the file by heart.
And I think you're the most qualified person to make
him confess he's the author of the fake Corpus.
I am qualified.
It will go well, okay?
I'm there, just behind.
Yes.
I am blue, he is pink.
Have to follow the arrows.
Hello Mr. Abdullah Hasri. Astrid Nielsen. I will conduct this interview.
- Astrid. - Yes.
Like Astraea, daughter of Zeus
who gave birth to the stars.
Astrid, like a star.
Absolutely not. You are wrong. One must not be wrong.
The etymology of Astrid is not Greek but Scandinavian.
Look at the work placed in front of you.
The fake Corpus.
It's beautiful, isn't it?
Honestly, I think it's one of my masterpieces.
Ah.
- You do not deny it. - I signed it. Why deny it?
Yes, with the constellation of the Sculptor.
Do you know that your masterpiece will extend your sentence?
And not only for forgery. For complicity to murder, too.
Wait, wait, wait. I'm not involved in that, okay?
Forgery and falsification, counterfeit, all you want.
Why murder?
Because your forgery played a major role in the robbery of an
invaluable book in which a man was killed.
How did you do it?
And how did you get it out of prison?
Do you have a follower outside? Accomplices?
You don't get it at all.
Ok, that forgery is mine.
But I did it in 2002.
In 2002?
In what context? And for whom?
For a professor.
Henri Pasteur. No, no, no. Not Henri Pasteur, no.
Henri Berger.
There, that's it. Henri Berger.
Here we are at Henri Berger's again.
What are we looking for now?
Anything we didn't find last time.
Ok.
There.
The shelves do not have the same depth. Here, this one sticks out.
And sounds hollow.
Easy. Careful, it is fragile! - Press it, press it. There must be… There.
There is a code.
Chléo. His daughter's name.
Shit, it doesn't work. - Wait, wait! Chléo, in ancient Greek, it's with a K, try that.
Well done.
We did it.
What is that?
Here. That is the Orion constellation. It is the real Corpus Hermeticum.
The original.
What the…
He's in Legrasse's notes. He's trying to understand why Prof. Berger stole them.
Nice!
- Do you have something to tell me? - Yeah, sorry.
Forensics confirmed that the fingerprints on the syringe were indeed his.
Apparently, Berger did kill Legrasse.
Yes. If we go back, the forger told us that Prof. Berger had the entire fake Corpus made
one year before he found the first original.
So they never unearthed the original Corpus in Iraq.
It's been a fake from the start! - Yes.
A fake that Berger stole immediately after so we wouldn't find out about the trickery.
And to cover his tracks, he leaves a tarot card behind.
Which gives credibility to the Rosicrucian legend.
Legend that the baron, who funds the expedition, already believes in.
Very, very good! - The question is why.
Because the Corpus was never actually about the Protarikos.
The famous primordial civilization that Berger built his career on. Careful, it's fragile.
- He lied. - Yes.
He made up the theory his whole career is built on.
And he forged the document that gave it credibility.
And too bad for Berger because after 18 years of dedication,
Legrasse finally finds a complete original Corpus.
That he hurries to translate to find out that Berger was actually lying to everyone since the beginning.
The email Legrasse sent to Berger the day before the auction
“Stop calling, you have until tomorrow night or I'll take action”.
Arthur, you told me Legrasse was planning on giving a press conference after the auction, right?
- Yeah. - Well this is it, that's the email. It's an ultimatum.
Either Prof. Berger gave himself up,
or Legrasse reported him to the press once the Corpus was sold.
And Berger stole his notes, replaced the real Corpus
with the fake from 18 years ago and killed Legrasse.
So now, we need to know who killed Berger.
Yes?
Yes, Fournier! Please, tell me there are news.
Not really news.
I mean, the autopsy confirms the observations done at the crime scene.
Between the whiplash and the asphyxiation, it's indeed a hanging.
So he was hanged, then taken down to do this macabre staging.
Are there any traces that could help us know who did it?
Look, the only DNA traces we found
are his and a DNA that has minisatellites with identical patterns to Henri Berger's.
Fournier…
What did we say about my first year of med school? - It's the DNA of someone related to Berger, his family!
His daughter, maybe? She told me they had seen each other, so…
I don't see her killing her father, something's not working.
And no DNA traces of the baron or Ivana? - No! Or I would have said so. Sorry, Commander.
Thanks Fournier.
This doesn't add up.
Seems like the same perp killed Legrasse and Prof. Berger.
With the same MO.
Now, Legrasse had a great motive to kill Berger but he died before him.
It all points to Berger killing Legrasse.
But who killed Berger? Now, we're at an impasse.
The code in the book seems clear. It leads to constellations. But it stops there.
Raphaëlle.
It really is an impasse.
Are you sure it works?
Nothing is happening.
Oh, well, every time I feel down, it works for me.
Ah. It is maybe not because of the case that you feel down.
You're saying that because I had a fight with Mathias.
A fight with DA Forest is a predictable unexpected event.
Why do you say that?
When we met DA Forest the first time,
you told me that you shouldn't get close to him because he was toxic.
Then you got close to him. Once, bim!
Several times, bim bim! - Yes, yes.
- Yes. - Yes.
Yes.
No, but that's not it. I mean, not exactly.
I talked to my father. He told me something
that upset me.
I don't know what to make of it.
I don't know if he really means what he said,
or if it's just pretend.
Anyway, it's complicated.
I do not think it is complicated. You just need to ask him.
Everything is so simple with you, Astrid.
The forger is right.
You're a star.
When I'm lost, I look up to the sky
and you show me the North.
A star.
Of course.
I need to check something.
Thank you for the pistachio ice cream, in a cup. In a cone it can fall.
It is at least as efficient as using a mechanical puzzle to unlock ideas.
Careful not to stain. One should not stain. - Well, yeah but…
You see, I restore the books of the prison library.
Ironic, isn't it?
We all do small tasks.
With my past, they thought I would know how to take care of the books.
During the interview you said “Astrid, like a star”. But I checked.
You studied ancient Greek. So you know perfectly well that Astrid is not of Greek origin.
Was it a message?
More of a test, let's say.
I do not understand.
When I knew you were investigating Legrasse's death,
and that the fake was involved,
I knew you'd eventually find me.
And I also knew you'd unravel the secret of the book.
We've been following your deeds for a long time, Miss Nielsen.
We?
You know the answer to that question.
So you know who killed Henri Berger.
You know which pieces are missing in order to complete Commander Coste's investigation.
Absolutely not.
I only covered the tracks by creating a fake Corpus 19 years ago.
I have nothing to do with Legrasse, Berger, Erlette and the others' fights.
In nearly 20 years, none of them got close to the secret of the book like you did, you know.
Got close.
The secret of the book is the constellations, right?
Not just the constellations.
What they tell us.
You just have to put it in the right order.
The order in which the Corpus tells us to put the constellations doesn't generate an invocation
but a tale.
A fiction.
The first of all time. That is the secret of the Corpus.
That is the Gods' gift to men.
This magic incantation that makes us bigger than what we are.
That elevates us to the rank of heroes and helps us defeat our fears.
That is fiction.
But why code it?
Why so much effort to hide a simple story?
There's a lot you don't know about the book yet.
Ah.
But it's a little bit too early.
You need to be up to it.
And there's no such thing as a simple story.
Don't underestimate the power of fiction.
It's significant, Miss Nielsen.
It connects people and can put them into motion.
It gives the power to shape the world.
It is not what it looks like.
You saw what you wanted to see.
And you were wrong. One should not be wrong.
- What are you talking about, exactly? - Henri Berger.
What did you see at the crime scene at Henri Berger's?
What did you really see?
You saw a fiction.
You saw a fiction that guided your attention and made you look in the wrong direction.
- Preventing me from seeing who killed Berger? - Yes.
Henri Berger was not murdered.
That is the story someone wanted to tell.
And that was this storyteller's DNA that was collected at the crime scene.
That is the power of fiction.
That's the DNA of someone related to Berger. A family member.
When I was young, my father was the storyteller.
He told me all kinds of legends about the Corpus Hermeticum, the Rosicrucian brotherhood.
When the baron blackmailed him, your father was faced with an impossible choice.
Confess he was a killer
or that his entire life was a sham.
He preferred death.
Your father killed himself.
But
that's not the story you wanted people to remember.
My father sacrificed everything for his work!
His life, his integrity, his family, everything!
All he had left was how we'd remember him!
How could I deny him that? Huh?
So yes, it's true, I covered up the scene as a ritual murder.
I only did that so he could blend into the legend he'd created 18 years ago.
And I refused the hand he extended.
And now it's too late.
I'm having dinner with my dad tonight.
Ah.
It is because of Henri Berger's death that you changed your mind.
No. It's because of what you told me.
What did I tell you?
You just need to ask.
Yes. It is easier.
You know, this thing never leaves my side.
To sew, you have to use a needle.
But you can get hurt. So you can choose not to sew.
Or, you can accept the fact that you could get hurt.
Or- - Wear a thimble to protect yourself.
You are my thimble,
Raphaëlle.
I have a small gift for you.
I do not like gifts.
If I do not like it, I would not know how to react. I do not like gifts.
Come on, take it.
You can open it whenever you like.
Alright.
Goodbye, Astrid.
Goodbye, Raphaëlle.
Thank you. Come in.
- Translated & synced by Team Astraelle -