fully trust. There was something about him that she couldn't place but that she half recognised and admired in him.
*****
Mary drove her car to the Gendamerie as soon as she had finished work for the afternoon. The police station was eight kilometres away in the next village, Formigeures. An elderly officer greeted her at the desk. She immediately thought of the elderly desk sergeant of legend called Dixon of Dock Green whose avuncular manner had endeared him to generations of people in distress.
She told him the story of her research project around the ruin and vandals digging that she had discovered that day. If he was interested his face showed no sign of it but he made some lethargic notes in the big book in front of him.
"I'm surprised that there is anything left up in that valley to find." he said.
"How do you mean" she asked.
"A number of years ago a man used to live up there. He was wild, but generally harmless. He lived in a shepherd's hut and generally kept himself to himself. One night he claims he saw a great hoard of treasure in a cave. Then he started digging. He dug all over the valley. Day and night he worked like a man possessed, at least obsessed. He wouldn't let anyone else come to the valley. He was sure he knew.
"He went completely mad after a while when he didn't find anything. His family had him committed to a lunatic asylum and he spent the last years of his sad life there completely mad."
"Anyway after he was taken away the word spread about his idea of hidden treasure and people came from all around to dig and explore. There were crowds up in that valley all digging little holes all over the place. The cliffs on both sides were tunnelled into as people searched for hidden caves and there was even a landslip and one man was killed. After a while the treasure mania passed and the valley became silent again. But no one ever found anything. I shouldn't worry about a few little holes disturbing your precious site as it has all been well dug over this century very thoroughly."
"But what about today's digging?"
"Now there is a mystery. It is all forestry land. There is no building or fencing needed there. There is no need for anything to be built for a ski du fond trail. I can't see anyone taking the old treasure story seriously after all these years. So we have a mystery. But we will make a note of it and look into it. Strictly speaking it is unlawful to do things like that with out the permission of the Office du Forets. The headquarters of the office de forets is hundreds of kilometers away - all there are in the local office are guys who know how to chop down trees!" He laughed. This must have been the funniest thing he had said all day. "You have mystery holes and we have recorded it in our incident book and we will look into it. But I can't promise you that this investigation will be given the highest priority by our best detectives." He then started chuckling again - "You reported a strange hole and I said we would look into it!" He giggled again.
Mary wondered if the officers that no big town Gendamarie wanted staffed small country police stations. Her French was good enough to understand his sense of humour and wondered if she had been French, her visit would have provoked the same response. She decided to pretend that she didn't fully understand what he had said. She thanked him profusely and seemed to be taking his offer of help at face value. Mary believed the best way to deal with such pathetic attempts at humour was to ignore them. But she left the Gendamerie with the impression that the visit had been a complete waste of time.
It was depressing to think that her precious site had been so vandalised in recent times. Her heart sunk as she thought that many of her meticulously plotted levels and measurements of the old settlement might just be the remains of nineteen twenties gold fever. Perhaps they had concentrated on the sides of the
*****
Mary drove her car to the Gendamerie as soon as she had finished work for the afternoon. The police station was eight kilometres away in the next village, Formigeures. An elderly officer greeted her at the desk. She immediately thought of the elderly desk sergeant of legend called Dixon of Dock Green whose avuncular manner had endeared him to generations of people in distress.
She told him the story of her research project around the ruin and vandals digging that she had discovered that day. If he was interested his face showed no sign of it but he made some lethargic notes in the big book in front of him.
"I'm surprised that there is anything left up in that valley to find." he said.
"How do you mean" she asked.
"A number of years ago a man used to live up there. He was wild, but generally harmless. He lived in a shepherd's hut and generally kept himself to himself. One night he claims he saw a great hoard of treasure in a cave. Then he started digging. He dug all over the valley. Day and night he worked like a man possessed, at least obsessed. He wouldn't let anyone else come to the valley. He was sure he knew.
"He went completely mad after a while when he didn't find anything. His family had him committed to a lunatic asylum and he spent the last years of his sad life there completely mad."
"Anyway after he was taken away the word spread about his idea of hidden treasure and people came from all around to dig and explore. There were crowds up in that valley all digging little holes all over the place. The cliffs on both sides were tunnelled into as people searched for hidden caves and there was even a landslip and one man was killed. After a while the treasure mania passed and the valley became silent again. But no one ever found anything. I shouldn't worry about a few little holes disturbing your precious site as it has all been well dug over this century very thoroughly."
"But what about today's digging?"
"Now there is a mystery. It is all forestry land. There is no building or fencing needed there. There is no need for anything to be built for a ski du fond trail. I can't see anyone taking the old treasure story seriously after all these years. So we have a mystery. But we will make a note of it and look into it. Strictly speaking it is unlawful to do things like that with out the permission of the Office du Forets. The headquarters of the office de forets is hundreds of kilometers away - all there are in the local office are guys who know how to chop down trees!" He laughed. This must have been the funniest thing he had said all day. "You have mystery holes and we have recorded it in our incident book and we will look into it. But I can't promise you that this investigation will be given the highest priority by our best detectives." He then started chuckling again - "You reported a strange hole and I said we would look into it!" He giggled again.
Mary wondered if the officers that no big town Gendamarie wanted staffed small country police stations. Her French was good enough to understand his sense of humour and wondered if she had been French, her visit would have provoked the same response. She decided to pretend that she didn't fully understand what he had said. She thanked him profusely and seemed to be taking his offer of help at face value. Mary believed the best way to deal with such pathetic attempts at humour was to ignore them. But she left the Gendamerie with the impression that the visit had been a complete waste of time.
It was depressing to think that her precious site had been so vandalised in recent times. Her heart sunk as she thought that many of her meticulously plotted levels and measurements of the old settlement might just be the remains of nineteen twenties gold fever. Perhaps they had concentrated on the sides of the
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