The Beautiful Mystery

NINE

Gamache left the body and the book and walked swiftly toward the music.

He entered the Blessed Chapel. The chanting was all about him now. Emanating from the walls and floor and rafters. As though the building was built of neumes.

The Chief quickly scanned the church as he walked, his eyes sweeping into corners, rapidly absorbing everything there was to see. He was almost at the very center before he saw them. And stopped.

The monks had returned. They were filing through a hole in the wall at the side of the church. Their white hoods were up, hiding their bowed heads. Their arms were across their bodies, hands buried in their flowing black sleeves.

Identical. Anonymous.

Not a patch of skin or hair visible. Nothing to prove they were flesh and blood.

As they walked, single file, the monks sang.

This was what neumes sounded like, when lifted from the page.

This was the world-famous choir of the abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, singing their prayers. Singing Gregorian chants. While it was a sound millions had heard, it was a sight few had ever witnessed. Indeed, as far as the Chief Inspector knew, this was unique. He was the first person to ever actually see the monks in their chapel, singing.

“Found ’em,” said a voice behind Gamache. When the Chief turned, Beauvoir smiled and nodded toward the altar and the monks. “No need to thank me.”

Beauvoir looked relieved and Gamache smiled, relieved himself.

Jean-Guy stopped beside the Chief Inspector and looked at his watch. “Five o’clock service.”

Gamache shook his head and almost groaned. He’d been a fool. Any Québécois who’d been born before the Church fell from favor knew there was a service at five in the afternoon and that any monk alive would make his way there.

It didn’t explain where the monks had been, but it did explain why they’d returned.

“Where’s Captain Charbonneau?” Gamache asked.

“Down there.” Beauvoir pointed across the chapel, through the monks and to the far end.

“Stay here,” said the Chief and began to move in that direction when the far door opened and the Sûreté officer appeared. Charbonneau looked, thought Gamache, exactly as he must have looked when he’d arrived in the chapel.

Perplexed, alert, suspicious.

And finally, amazed.

Captain Charbonneau saw Gamache and nodded, then briskly made his way along the wall, skirting the monks but keeping his eyes on them.

They were taking their places along the wooden benches, two rows on either side of the altar.

The last man took his place.

The abbot, thought Gamache. He looked like all the others, in simple robes with a rope around his slender middle, but still the Chief knew it was Dom Philippe. Some mannerism, some movement. Something distinguished him from the rest.

“Chief,” said Charbonneau quietly when he arrived at Gamache’s side. “Where did they come from?”

“Over there,” said Gamache, pointing off to the side. There was no door visible, just a stone wall, and the Captain looked back to Gamache, who didn’t explain. Couldn’t explain.

“We need to get out of here,” said Beauvoir. He took a step toward the monks, but the Chief stopped him.

“Wait a moment.”

As the abbot took his place the singing died. The monks continued standing. Absolutely motionless. Facing each other.

The Sûreté agents also stood, facing the monks. Waiting for a signal from Gamache. He was staring at the monks, at the abbot. His eyes sharp. Then he made up his mind.

“Get the body of Frère Mathieu, please.”

Beauvoir looked confused, but left with Charbonneau and returned with the stretcher.

The monks remained motionless, apparently oblivious to the men standing together in the aisle. Staring at them.

Then the monks, in a single synchronized movement, removed their hoods but continued to stare straight ahead.

No, Gamache realized. They weren’t staring. Their eyes were closed.

They were praying. Silently.

“Come with me,” Gamache whispered, and led them down the very center of the chapel. He walked slowly.

The monks, even in a trance, could not fail to hear them approaching. Their feet on the floor. How disconcerting this must be for them, the Chief Inspector thought.

Since the walls were raised more than three hundred years ago, their services had been undisturbed. The same ritual, the same routine. Familiar, comfortable. Predictable. Private. They had never heard a sound during a service they themselves had not produced.

Until this very moment.

The world had found them, and slipped through a crack in their thick walls. A crack produced by a crime. But Gamache knew he was not the one violating the sanctity and privacy of their lives. The murderer had done that.

That vicious act in the garden this morning had summoned up a whole host of things. Including a Chief Inspector of homicide.

He took the two stone steps up and stood between the rows.

The Chief gestured to Beauvoir and Charbonneau to lower the body to the slate floor, in front of the altar.

Then silence again descended.

Gamache studied the rows of monks, to see if any of them were peeking. Sure enough, one was.

The abbot’s secretary. Frère Simon. His heavy face stern, even in repose. And his eyes not quite shut. This man’s mind was not entirely on prayer, not entirely with God. As Gamache watched, Brother Simon’s eyes closed completely.

A mistake, Gamache knew. Had Frère Simon stayed as he was, Gamache might have had his suspicions but could not have been certain.

But that tiny flutter had betrayed him, as surely as if Frère Simon had screamed.

Here was a community of men who communicated all day, every day. Just not with words. The smallest gesture took on a meaning and significance that would be lost in the hurly-burly of the outside world.

Would be lost on him, Gamache knew, if he wasn’t careful. How much had he already missed?

At that moment all the monks opened their eyes. At once. And stared. At him.

Gamache suddenly felt both very exposed and a little foolish. Like being caught where he shouldn’t be. On the altar during a service, for instance. Beside a dead man.

He looked over to the abbot. Dom Philippe was the only monk not staring at him. Instead his cool, blue eyes rested on Gamache’s offering.

Frère Mathieu.

For the next twenty-five minutes the Sûreté officers sat in a pew, side by side, while the monks held Vespers. They, along with the monks, sat, and stood, and bowed and sat. Then stood. And sat, then kneeled.

“I should’ve carbed up,” murmured Beauvoir, standing again.

When not silent, the monks sang their Gregorian chants.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir sat back down on the hard wooden pew. He went to church as rarely as possible. Some weddings, though the Québécois now preferred to simply live together. Funerals mostly. And even those were becoming rarer, at least in churches. Even the elderly Québécois, when they died, now preferred a funeral home send-off.

It might not have nurtured them, the funeral home. But neither had it betrayed them.

The monks had been silent for a few moments.

Please, dear Lord, Beauvoir prayed, let this be over.

Then they stood, and started another chant.

Tabernac, thought Beauvoir, getting to his feet. Beside him, the Chief was also standing, and resting his large hands on the wooden pew in front. His right hand trembled slightly. It was subtle, barely there, but in a man so still, so self-possessed, it was remarkable. Impossible to miss. The Chief didn’t bother to hide the tremor. But Beauvoir noticed Captain Charbonneau glancing at the Chief. And the tell-tale tremble.

And Beauvoir wondered if he knew the tale it told.

He wanted to take him aside and scold Charbonneau for staring. He wanted to make it clear that slight quiver wasn’t a sign of weakness. Just the opposite.

But he didn’t. Taking his cue from Gamache, he said nothing.

“Jean-Guy,” Gamache whispered, his eyes straight ahead, never leaving the monks, “Frère Mathieu was the choir director, right?”

“Oui.”

“So who’s directing them now?”

Beauvoir was quiet for a moment. Now, instead of just biding his time while this interminable, intolerable, tedious chanting droned on and on, he started to pay attention.

There was an obvious empty spot on the benches. Directly across from the abbot.

That must have been where the man now laid at their feet had stood, and sat, had bowed and prayed. And led the choir in these dull chants.

Beauvoir had earlier amused himself by wondering if the prior had possibly done it to himself. Stoned himself to death rather than have to live through yet another mind-numbing mass.

It was all the Inspector could do to not run shrieking into one of the stone columns, hoping to knock himself out.

But now he had a puzzle to occupy his active mind.

It was a good question.

Who was leading this choir of men, now that their director was dead?

“Maybe no one is,” he whispered, after studying the monks for a minute or two. “They must know the songs by heart. Don’t they do the same ones over and over?”

They sure sounded the same to him.

Gamache shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think they change from mass to mass and from day to day. Feast days, saints’ days, that sort of thing.”

“Don’t you mean, et cetera?”

Beauvoir saw the Chief smile slightly and shoot him a glance.

“And so on,” said Gamache. “Ad infinitum.”

“That’s better.” Beauvoir paused before whispering, “Do you know what you’re talking about?”

“I know a little, but not much,” admitted the Chief. “I know enough about choirs to know they don’t direct themselves, any more than a symphony orchestra can conduct itself, no matter how often they perform a work. They still need their leader.”

“Isn’t the abbot their leader?” asked Beauvoir, watching Dom Philippe.

The Chief also watched the tall, slender man. Who really led these monks? both men wondered, as they bowed and sat again. Who was leading them now?

The Angelus bell rang out, its deep, rich notes pealing over the trees and across the lake.

Vespers was over. The monks bowed to the crucifix and filed back off the altar while Gamache and the others stood in their pew and watched.

“Should I get the key from that young monk?” Beauvoir waved to Frère Luc, who was leaving the altar.

“In a moment, Jean-Guy.”

“But the boatman?”

“If he hasn’t left by now, he’ll still be waiting.”

“How d’you know?”

“Because he’ll be curious,” said Gamache, studying the monks. “Wouldn’t you wait?”

They watched the monks leave the altar and pool on either side of the church. Yes, thought Beauvoir, shooting a glance at the Chief, I’d wait.

With their hoods down and heads up Gamache could see their faces. Some looked as though they’d been crying, some looked wary, some weary and anxious. Some just looked interested. As though they were watching a play.

It was difficult for Gamache to trust what he was sensing from these men. So many strong emotions masqueraded as something else. Anxiety could look like guilt. Relief could look like amusement. Grief, deep-felt and inconsolable, often looked like nothing at all. The deepest passions could appear dispassionate, the face a smooth plain while something mammoth roiled away underneath.

The Chief scanned the faces, and came back to two.

The young gatekeeper, who’d met them at the dock. Frère Luc. Gamache could see the large key dangling from the rope about his waist.

Luc looked the most blank. And yet, when they’d first met him, he’d clearly been very upset.

Then Gamache turned his gaze on the abbot’s glum secretary. Brother Simon.

Sadness. Waves of it washed off the man.

Not guilt, not sorrow, not wrath or mourning. Not irae or illa.

But pure sadness.

Brother Simon was staring at the altar. At the two men still there.

The prior. And the abbot.

Who was this profound sadness for? Which man? Or, the Chief wondered, maybe it was for the monastery itself. Sadness that Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups had lost more than a man. It had lost its way.

Dom Philippe paused before the large wooden cross and bowed deeply. He was alone now, on the raised altar. Except for the body of his prior. His friend.

The abbot held his bow.

Was it longer, Gamache wondered, than usual? Was the effort of getting back up, of turning around, of facing the evening, the next day, the next year, the rest of life too much? Was the gravity too much?

Slowly the abbot raised himself to a standing position. He even seemed to square his shoulders, standing as tall as he could.

Then he turned and saw something he’d never seen before.

People in the pews.

The abbot had no idea why there were even pews in the Blessed Chapel. They’d been there when he’d arrived, forty years earlier, and they’d be there long after he was buried.

He’d never questioned why a cloistered order needed pews.

In his pocket Dom Philippe felt the rosary beads, his fingers running over them without conscious thought. They offered a comfort that he also never questioned.

“Chief Inspector,” he said as he stepped off the altar and approached the men.

“Dom Philippe.” Gamache bowed slightly. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to take him away now.” Gamache gestured toward the prior, then turned and nodded to Beauvoir.

“I understand,” said Dom Philippe, though he privately realized he understood none of this. “Follow me.”

Dom Philippe signaled Frère Luc, who hurried over, and the three men made for the corridor that led to the locked door. Beauvoir and Captain Charbonneau followed, carrying the stretcher with Frère Mathieu.

Beauvoir heard something behind him, a shuffling, and looked.

The monks had formed two rows and were following them like a long, black tail.

“We tried to find you earlier, Père Abbé,” said the Chief, “but couldn’t. Where were you?”

“In Chapter.”

“And where is Chapter?”

“It’s both a place and an event, Chief Inspector. The room is just over there,” the abbot waved toward the wall of the Blessed Chapel, just as they walked through the door and into the long corridor.

“I saw you coming out of there,” said Gamache, “but when we looked earlier we didn’t find a door.”

“No. It’s behind a plaque commemorating Saint Gilbert.”

“It’s a hidden door?”

The abbot, even in profile, looked puzzled and a little surprised by the question.

“Not from us,” he finally said. “Everyone knows it’s there. It’s no secret.”

“Then why not just have a door?”

“Because anyone who needs to know about it does,” he said, not looking at Gamache, but looking toward the closed door ahead of them. “And anyone who doesn’t need to know should not find it.”

“So it is meant to be hidden,” said Gamache, pressing the point.

“The option is meant to be there,” admitted the abbot. They’d arrived at the locked door to the outside world. He finally turned to look directly at Gamache. “If we need to hide, the room exists.”

“But why would you need to hide?”

The abbot smiled a little. It was just this side of condescending. “I’d have thought you of all people would know why, Chief Inspector. It’s because the world is not always kind. We all need a safe place, sometimes.”

“And yet the threat, finally, didn’t come from the world,” said Gamache.

“True.”

Gamache considered for a moment. “So you concealed the door to your Chapter room in the wall of the chapel?”

“I didn’t put it there. All this was done long before I came. The men who built the monastery did it. It was a different time. A brutal time. When monks really did need to hide.”

Gamache nodded, and looked at the thick wooden door in front of them. The gateway to the outside world. That was still locked, even after the passage of centuries.

He knew the abbot was right. Back when the massive tree was cut down for this door, hundreds of years ago, it wasn’t tradition but necessity that turned the key in the lock. The Reformation, the Inquisition, the internecine battles. It was a dangerous time to be a Catholic. And, as with recent events, the threat often came from within.

And so, in Europe priest’s holes were built into homes. Tunnels dug for escape.

Some had escaped so far they popped up in the New World. And even that wasn’t far enough. The Gilbertines had gone even further. They disappeared into the blank spot on the map.

Vanished.

To reappear more than three hundred years later. On the radio.

The voices of an order everyone had thought was extinct were heard first by a few, then by hundreds, then by thousands and hundreds of thousands. Then, thanks to the Internet, finally millions of people listened to the odd little recording.

Of monks chanting.

The recording had become a sensation. Suddenly their Gregorian chants were everywhere. De rigueur. Deemed a “must listen” by the intelligentsia, by the cognoscenti, and finally, by the masses.

While their voices were everywhere, the monks themselves were nowhere to be seen. Eventually they’d been found. Gamache remembered his own astonishment when it was discovered where the monks lived. He’d assumed it was some remote hilltop in Italy or France or Spain. Some tiny, ancient, crumbling monastery. But no. The recording was made by an order of monks living right there, in Québec. And it wasn’t just any order. The Trappists, the Benedictines, the Dominicans. No. Their discovery seemed to astonish even the Catholic Church. The recording had been made by an order of monks the Church seemed to think had died out. The Gilbertines.

But there they were, in the wilderness, on the shores of this far-flung lake. Very much alive, and singing chants so ancient and so beautiful they awakened something primal in millions worldwide.

The world had come calling. Some curious. Some desperate for the peace these men seemed to have found. But this “gate,” made from trees felled hundreds of years ago, held firm. It did not open for strangers.

Until today.

It had opened to let them in, and now it was about to open again, to let them out.

The portier came forward, the large black key in his hand. At a small sign from the abbot he inserted it in the lock. It turned easily, and the door swung open.

Through the rectangle the men saw the setting sun, its reds and oranges reflected in the calm, fresh lake. The forests now were dark, and birds swooped low over the water, calling to each other.

But by far the most glorious sight was the oil-stained boatman, smoking a cigarette and sitting on the dock. Fishing.

He waved as the door swung open, and the Chief Inspector waved back. Then the boatman struggled to his feet, his considerable bottom all but mooning the monks. Gamache motioned Beauvoir and Charbonneau, with the body, to leave first. Then he and the abbot followed them to the dock.

The rest of the monks stayed inside, clustered around the open door. Craning to see out.

The abbot tipped his head to the red-streaked sky and closed his eyes. Not in prayer, Gamache thought, but in a sort of bliss. Enjoying the meager light on his pale face. Enjoying the pine-scented air. Enjoying his feet on the uneven, unpredictable ground.

Then his eyes opened.

“Thank you for not interrupting Vespers,” he said, not looking at Gamache, but continuing to soak in the natural world around him.

“You’re welcome.”

They took a few more steps.

“Thank you too for bringing Mathieu to the altar.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I don’t know if you realized it, but it gave us a chance to offer special prayers. For the dead.”

“I wasn’t sure,” admitted the Chief Inspector, also looking ahead at the mirror lake. “But I thought I heard Dies irae.”

The abbot nodded, “And Dies illa.”

Day of wrath. Day of mourning.

“Are the monks mourning?” asked Gamache. Their gait had slowed almost to a halt.

The Chief had expected an immediate answer, a shocked reply. But instead the abbot seemed to consider.

“Mathieu wasn’t always an easy man.” He smiled a little as he spoke. “No one is, I suppose. One thing we learn early when committing to a monastic life is that we have to accept each other.”

“And what happens if you don’t?”

The abbot paused again. It had been a simple question, but Gamache could see the answer wasn’t simple.

“That can be very bad,” said the abbot. He didn’t meet Gamache’s eyes. “It happens. But we learn to set aside our own feelings for the greater good. We learn to get along.”

“But not necessarily to like each other,” said Gamache. It wasn’t a question. He knew the Sûreté was much the same. There were a few colleagues he didn’t like, and he knew the feeling was mutual. Indeed, “didn’t like” was a euphemism. The feeling had gone from disagreement, to dislike, to distrust. And was growing still. It had settled, for now, on mutual loathing. Gamache didn’t know where it would stop, but he could imagine. The fact these people were his superiors made it simply more uncomfortable. It meant, at least for now, they had to figure out how to exist together. Either that, or tear each other and the service apart. And Gamache, as he tilted his own face to the glorious sunset, knew that was a possibility. In the calm of the early evening it seemed far away, but he knew this peaceful time wouldn’t last. Night was coming. And it was a fool who met it unprepared.

“Who could have done this, mon père?”

Now they were stopped on the dock, watching as the boatman and the officers secured Frère Mathieu’s covered body to the boat, beside the catch of bass and trout and the writhing worms.

Again the abbot considered. “I don’t know. I should know, but I don’t.”

He looked behind him. The monks had ventured out and were standing in a semi-circle, watching them. Frère Simon, the abbot’s secretary, was standing a step or two forward.

“Poor one,” said Dom Philippe under his breath.

“Who do you mean?”

“Pardon?”

“You said, ‘Poor one.’ Who did you mean?” asked Gamache.

“Whoever did this.”

“And who is that, Dom Philippe?” He’d had the impression the abbot had been looking at one monk as he’d spoken. Brother Simon. The sad monk. The one who’d separated himself from the rest.

There was a moment’s tense silence as the abbot looked at his community, and Gamache looked at the abbot. Finally the abbot turned back to the Chief Inspector.

“I don’t know who killed Mathieu.”

He shook his head. A weary smile appeared on the abbot’s face. “I actually believed I could look at them just now and tell. That there’d be something different about him. Or me. That I’d just know.”

The abbot gave a small grunt of laughter. “Ego. Hubris.”

“And?” asked Gamache.

“It didn’t work.”

“Don’t feel badly, I do the same thing. I have yet to look at anyone and know immediately that they’re the killer, but I still try.”

“And what would you do if it worked?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Suppose you did look at someone, and just knew?”

Gamache smiled. “I’m not sure I’d trust myself. Probably think it was all in my imagination. Besides, it wouldn’t impress a judge if on the stand I said, ‘I just knew.’”

“That’s the difference between us, Chief Inspector. You need proof in your line of work. I don’t.”

The abbot glanced behind them again and Gamache wondered if this was idle conversation, or something more. The semi-circle of monks continued to watch.

One of them had killed Brother Mathieu.

“What’re you looking for, mon père? You might not need proof, but you need a sign. What sign in their faces are you looking for? Guilt?”

The abbot shook his head. “I wasn’t looking for guilt. I was looking for pain. Can you imagine the pain he must have been in, to do this? And the pain he still feels?”

The Chief scanned their faces again, and finally came to rest on the man right beside him. Gamache did see pain in the face of one of the monks. Dom Philippe. The abbot.

“Do you know who did this?” Gamache asked again, quietly. So that it was only audible to the abbot and the sweet autumn air around them. “If you do, you must tell me. I’ll find him eventually, you know. It’s what I do. But it’s a terrible, terrible process. You have no idea what’s about to be unleashed. And once it starts, it won’t stop until the murderer is found. If you can spare the innocent, I’m begging you to do it. Tell me who did this, if you know.”

That brought the abbot’s full attention back to the large, quiet man in front of him. The slight breeze tugged at the graying hair just curling by the Chief Inspector’s ears. But the rest of the man was still. Firm.

And his eyes, deep brown like the earth, were thoughtful.

And kind.

And Dom Philippe believed Armand Gamache. The Chief Inspector had been brought to the monastery, admitted to their abbey, to find the murderer. It was what this man was always meant to do. And he was almost certainly very good at it.

“I would tell you if I knew.”

“We’re ready,” Beauvoir called from the boat.

“Bon.” Gamache held the abbot’s eyes for another moment then turned to see the boatman’s large hand resting on the outboard motor, ready to pull the cord.

“Captain Charbonneau?” Gamache invited the Sûreté inspector to take a seat.

“Is it possible to keep this quiet?” asked Dom Philippe.

“I’m afraid not, mon père. The news will get out, it always does,” said Gamache. “You might consider issuing a statement yourself.”

He saw the distaste on the abbot’s face and suspected that wouldn’t happen.

“Au revoir, Chief Inspector,” said Dom Philippe, extending his hand. “Thank you for your help.”

“You’re welcome,” said Gamache, taking the hand. “But it isn’t over yet.” At a nod from Gamache, the boatman yanked the cord and the motor leapt into life. Beauvoir dropped the rope into the boat and it drifted away. Leaving Gamache and Beauvoir standing on the dock.

“You’re staying?” asked the abbot, bewildered.

“Yes. We’re staying. I leave with the murderer, or not at all.”

Beauvoir stood beside Gamache and together they watched the small boat chug down the sunset bay, and around the corner. Out of sight.

The two Sûreté investigators remained there until the sound had disappeared.

And then they turned their backs on the natural world and followed the robed figures back into the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.