Porter Wilson all but swooned. Winnie and Elizabeth exchanged glances. If they’d only realized it was so easy. But then Porter’s face clouded again as the reality sunk in.
This might not be an improvement. They’d gone from no police to now two forces occupying their building.
Not to mention the body.
“I wonder if I could leave Henri with you while I go into the basement?”
“Absolutely,” said Winnie, taking the leash. Gamache also gave her some biscuits for Henri, patted him, told him to be a gentleman, then left.
“I don’t like this,” he heard Porter say just as the door closed. He suspected he was meant to hear it. But, then, he didn’t much like it either.
A uniformed officer was waiting for him in the corridor and together they made their way through the warren of hallways and staircases. Gamache had to admit he was completely lost, and suspected the officer was too. Boxes full of books and papers lined the linoleum floors, elaborate stairways led to grotty washrooms and deserted offices. They came to two huge wooden doors and opening them they walked into a spectacular double-height ballroom that led into an equally spectacular twin. Both empty except for a few ladders and the ubiquitous boxes of books. He opened one of them. More leather-bound volumes. He knew if he picked one up he would be well and truly lost, so he ignored it and instead followed the increasingly frustrated officer down another corridor.
“Never seen anything like it,” said the officer. “All this beautiful space, gone to waste. Doesn’t seem right. What’re they doing with this great building? Shouldn’t it be used for something worthwhile?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. But there must be something someone could use it for.”
“Someone is using it.”
“Les Anglais.”
Gamache stopped. “Excusez-moi?”
“Les têtes carré,” the young officer explained.
The square heads.
“You will treat these people with respect,” said Gamache. “They’re no more tête carré than you and I are frogs.” His voice was hard, sharp. The officer stiffened.
“I meant no harm.”
“Is that really true?” Gamache stared at the young officer, who stared back. Finally Gamache smiled a little. “You won’t solve this crime by insulting these people, or mocking them. Don’t be blinded.”
“Yes sir.”
They walked on, down endless hallways, past some magnificent rooms and past some dreary rooms, all empty. As though the Literary and Historical Society was in full retreat, regrouping into that one splendid library where General Wolfe watched over them.
“Over here, sir. I think I’ve found it.”
They went down some steps and found a uniformed officer standing bored guard over a trap door. On seeing the Chief Inspector he stood straighter. Gamache nodded and watched his young guide leap down the metal ladder.
Gamache hadn’t been prepared for this.
At the bottom the officer stared up, waiting, his face going from eager to questioning. What could be keeping this man? Then he remembered. He walked a few rungs up the ladder and extended his hand.
“It’s all right, sir,” he said quietly. “I won’t let you fall.”
Gamache looked at the hand. “I believe you.” He carefully descended and took the strong young hand in his.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir sat by the fire, a beer and a steak sandwich in front of him. Peter and Clara had joined him and Myrna and Gabri sat on the sofa facing the fireplace.
It was Beauvoir’s first time back in Three Pines since they’d arrested Olivier Brulé for the murder of the Hermit, Jakob. He looked into the huge, open fire and remembered loosening the bricks at the back and sticking his arm all the way in, right up to his shoulder and rummaging around. Afraid of what he might feel, or what might feel him. Was there a rat’s nest back there? Mice? Spiders? Maybe snakes.
As much as he declared himself to be rationality itself, the truth was, he had an active and untamed imagination. His hand brushed something soft and rough. He’d stiffened and stopped. His heart pounding and his imagination in overdrive, he forced his hand back. It closed around the thing, and he’d brought it out.
Around him the Sûreté team had clustered, watching. Chief Inspector Gamache, Agent Isabelle Lacoste and the trainee, Agent Paul Morin.
Slowly he dragged the thing out from its hiding place behind the fire. It was a small, coarse burlap sack, tied with twine. He’d placed it on the very table where his beer and sandwich now sat. And he’d gone in again, finding something else hidden back there. A simple, elegant, beautiful candelabra. A menorah, actually. Centuries old, perhaps thousands of years, the experts later said.
But the experts had told them something else, something more precise.
This ancient menorah that had brought light to so many homes, so many solemn ceremonies, that had been worshiped, hidden, prayed around, treasured, had also been used to kill.
The Hermit’s blood and hair and tissue were found on it as were his fingerprints. As were the fingerprints of only one other.
Olivier.
And inside the sack? A carving the Hermit had done. His finest work. An exquisite study of a young man, sitting, listening. It was simple and powerful, and telling. It told of aching loneliness, of desire, of need. It was clearly a carving of Olivier, listening. And that carving told them something else.
Jakob’s sculptures had been worth hundreds of thousands, finally millions of dollars. He’d given them to Olivier in exchange for food and company and Olivier had sold them. Making millions for himself.
But that hadn’t been enough, Olivier had wanted more. He wanted the one thing the Hermit had refused to give him. The thing in the sack.
Jakob’s last treasure, his most precious possession.
And Olivier wanted it.
In a fit of rage and greed he’d taken the Hermit’s life, then he’d taken the beautiful and priceless murder weapon and the sack, and hidden them.
Behind the fireplace Beauvoir now stared at.
And once found, the sack with its carving started to speak. It had only one thing to say and it said it eloquently, over and over. Olivier had killed its creator.
Between finding the carving and the murder weapon hidden in the bistro, as well as all the other evidence, there was no question what had to happen next. The Chief Inspector had arrested Olivier Brulé for murder. He’d been found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to ten years. Painfully, Three Pines had come to accept this terrible truth.
Except Gabri, who every day wrote the Chief Inspector to ask that question. Why would Olivier move the body?
“How’s the Chief Inspector?” Myrna asked, leaning her considerable body forward. She was large and black. A retired psychologist, now the owner of the bookstore.
“He’s all right. We speak every day.”
He wouldn’t tell them the full truth, of course. That Chief Inspector Gamache was far from “all right.” As was he.
“We’ve been in touch a few times,” said Clara.
In her late forties Clara Morrow was on the cusp, everyone knew, of making it huge in the art world. She had a solo show coming up in a few months at the Musée d’art Contemporain, or MAC, in Montreal. Her unruly dark hair was growing lighter with gray and she always looked as though she’d just emerged from a wind tunnel.