Richard Langham

Richard Langham was an Interpol special agent in serious art theft. He posed as the main antagonist for Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse.

Role
During the reconstruction on Le Lézard Bleu, George showsFather Simeon one of Hobbs’ sketches which makes the priest lose control unable to believe what he is seeing and storms out the gallery screaming that evil is coming and that the “Tabula Veritatis” is real. At that same time, Richard Langham enters the Gallery.

Langham speaks with Inspector Navet about a previous phone conversation they both had and asks him about his strange machine. He requests him to step aside, and kneels in front of the blood stain located underneath the device. He tastes the blood and tells Navet that the suspect is a Hawaiian. Before letting Navet make any kind of assumptions, Langham explains him that the stain is not blood but pizza sauce, Hawaiian pizza sauce. He then suggests Navet to try to get Father Simeon back and invites Nico and George to Café Le Tricolore for a chat.

Because Richard Lanham appears to be quicker and better at solving puzzles in comparison to Navet, George and Nico agree to have a coffee with him. Maybe he can bring a dose of common sense to the case.

At the café, the inspector explain them that Inspector Navet brought him up to speed with the case and told him about them. Langham has been tracking a gang of art-thieves for some time, and this looked like a good lead. The problem is that Navet is worse than useless, so he is hoping George and Nico might be able to help. Trouble with doing deals with cops, is that there's usually a payback down the line. But George figures that would be a price worth paying to bring down Medovsky, and shares with the Interpol inspector that they’ve evidence that links Medovsky to the company that installed the security at the gallery. Also that they found a letter from someone called Gehnen, wanting to buy “La Maledicció” from Medovsky. “Gehnen” rings a bell on Langham and has the curiosity to know if they’ve found something else about him. Luckily for him, George was in a rush at the moment and couldn’t gather anything else. Before the inspector leaves the cafe, he thanks both of them and tells George and Nico that he'll keep in touch to investigate further about the painting.

Some time later, George and Nico find a way to exit Hobbs’ Studio trying to escape from the fire through the roof only to see no one other than Richard Langham, the alleged Interpol Inspector, walking peacefully out of the property. Both try to scream for help, but not only he hears them but casually wives them back and walks away. Nico, disconcerted, asks George why Langham isn’t helping them. George explains her that clearly he is the one who broke into the building before them to kill Hobbs and steal the painting. Fortunately, he doesn’t have the original painting and is not succeeding in killing them either.

Later in the story in Castell dels Sants in Spain, Nico discovers an interesting map belonged to Gehnen which might point to where the Tabula Veritatis is hidden. After George and Marqués return from the secret chapel, Nico ask George to take “La Maledicció” with him. Tiago is not going to let anything happen to the painting again, so he requests his daughter Eva to go with George so she can take good care of it. Once in the library they learn, thanks to a map founded inside Gehnen’s trunk, a connection between some relevant places of Catalonia and “La Maledicció” that in a specific order show the location of the “Tabula Veritatis”. After discovering this breakthrough Richard Langham appears on the scene, exposed now as Gehnen’s grandson, with Tiago Marqués being held captive. Langham now knows where the Tabula is located and plans to take Marqués with him to Montserrat. He leaves Nico, George and Eva locked inside the library with no way out. Luckily, thanks to a shoot from Langham’s gun to a wall of the room, a dim of light is exposed meaning that this particular part of wall is fake or hidden door. George inspects it and finds a secret mechanism which opens a hidden passage outside the property. Once outside, they all agree to travel to Montserrat’s train station to follow Langham’s footsteps and save Tiago Marqués’ life.

Already in the station, Eva decides to follow Langham while George and Nico visit Santa Cova Chapel, a religious sanctuary and refuge used by the Gnostics hundreds of years ago up the hill.

Once George and Nico are able to reopen the stone door of the dark cave after recovering the Tabula Veritatis found by Gehnen, George takes Marqués’ medallion back from the circle of iron and they proceed to leave the Gnostic shrine. Near the entrance leading to the chapel they see Richard Langham talking to Eva and Tiago Marqués. Luckily he hasn’t spot them yet so they have some time to think what they should do to stop or distract him. George decides to use the old gun found near Gehnen’s body to divert Langham’s attention, but this is useless. Either way, he ends up with the Tabula Veritatis, shoots Tiago and takes Eva with him. Already gone, George and Nico try to talk to Marqués who warns them to bring the tabula back. When trying to revise all the clues about where Langham is heading, Tiago realizes that the exact location is Eden, paradise, where a “river flows from and divides into four”. It’s where Jehovah created life and where Lucifer gave Eva knowledge. Where the Gods are held in balance. Now Marqués is gone, but he was right – they have to stop Langham and rescue Eva.

Following the story in Eden, Langham commands his men to use a vast amount of explosives to create an opening on a mountain just between two interesting statues.

When George realizes the presence of Langham’s henchmen, he ideates a plan involving an evil goat and an explosive sausage. Moments later – Shears, George and Nico can approximate to the cave where supposedly Langham is now that his men have abandoned their position. The cave is pitch black, too dark to see a thing. George tries to light up the place with the lighter he found on the knapsack in Wolfram's trunk, through the gloom he can just see stairs leading down. George and Nico proceed to go into the cave. While Shears waits patiently outside because he is scared of tight spaces.

Already inside the cavern across a fallen bridge, Richard Langham can be spotted wearing a white robe with the Tabula Veritatis on one of his hands. Meanwhile, Eva is tied to the left column of what it looks like an ancient altar. In the middle of this, a glowing section which has the shape of the Tabula. On both sides, two gigantic statues frame the structure. On the left, Jehovah holding an orb in his hand. Behind him stands the Tree of Life. On the right, Lucifer holding another orb in his hand. Behind him stands the Tree of Knowledge.

As ever Nico and George are knee deep in an ancient conspiracy. They need to find a way to cross to where Langham is about to execute his sinister plan. The old collapsed bridge before them that prevents them from getting near the altar seems to have fallen many years ago. This is why Langham has used a ladder to cross - but that ladder is now on the other side. A tangled mass of dry old vines hangs from the ceiling and the ladder has got caught up in them. Near George, a dried up and dead-looking bush is attached to a wall. By setting on fire the dead bush, very biblical indeed, he might have an interesting idea on how to get to the other side. George takes Henri’s awful perfume from his pocket and proceeds to spray it near the fire aiming for the dead vines that are holding the ladder on its place. Luckily, the large amount of flames reach the vines and free the ladder.

George tries to talk with Langham and convince him not to summon Lucifer. But Langham is determined to wake up the gods upon his command. Lucifer shall smite Jehovah with his power, annihilate him. Langham has nothing left to say and throws George to what it looks like a bottomless foggy source of water. This leaves Nico on her own while George tries to float on the water to avoid sinking. Langham places the Tabula Veritatis on the altar and the powers start rising. Both of the orbs held by the enormous statues light up in green and blue. Flashes of light and immense power are focused now on Langham who, by now, is levitating over the foggy water almost near where George is.

Nico screams for George, but she can’t do anything for him now. She tries to speak to Langham with no luck. Nico asks Eva for answers on what to do now, but Tiago’s daughter has nothing relevant to say apart from a phrase his father repeated when she was young: “Pure light, white light, will conquer". By taking a look to her surroundings, Nico spots a large crack that runs from one side of the altar. A sublime light radiates from it, that’s it. Nico remembers she is loaded with very potent explosives so tells Eva to run and goes ahead to plant the incendiary device into the crack. Both Eva and Nico run rapidly from there and hide behind a rock formation. The explosion expands the crack and lets white light into the cave, pure light. George, with Tiago’s old medallion in hand, tries to focus the light so that it reflects where Langham is levitating just like he did with the fresco in the Gnostic Chapel of Castell dels Sants. Pura lux victura est, pure light will win.

Langham reprimands George for trying to stop him from destroying Jehovah and ask him to stop. Nevertheless, George is not going to let the world embrace Lucifer because that would only mean the humanity’s destruction. He keeps holding Marqués’ medallion until the light consumes Langham’s body until its disintegration. The immense power that is created during this action makes the whole cavern tremble and fragments of rock start to fall as the floor shakes at the same time. George, Nico and Eva must leave quickly the cave before everything gets destroyed with them inside. Nico doesn’t forget to take the Tabula with them moments prior the collapse of the ancient sanctuary.

Trivia

 * Langham's name is taken from Robert Langdon, the main protagonist of Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code.
 * Nicholas Boulton voiced Langham.