The Beautiful Mystery

SEVENTEEN

At a nod from the abbot, Frère Luc put the key in the lock. It turned easily and the door opened, letting in a breeze of pine-scented air, and sunshine, and the sound of a float plane taxiing to the dock.

The monks clustered around the open door. Then the abbot stepped forward.

“I’ll ask them to leave,” he said, his voice determined.

“Perhaps I should come along,” said Gamache.

Dom Philippe studied the Chief, then nodded.

Beauvoir made to join them but was stopped by a subtle wave of Gamache’s hand. “It would be better if you stayed here.”

“What is it?” Beauvoir asked, seeing the look on the Chief’s face.

“I’m not really sure.”

Gamache turned back to the abbot and motioned toward the wharf. “Shall we?”

The plane had almost reached the dock. The pilot cut power, the props slowed, and the plane, on its pontoons, drifted the last few feet to the dock. Gamache and the abbot grabbed the struts and steadied the plane. Then the Chief reached for the ropes dangling in the cold lake.

“I wouldn’t bother,” said the abbot. “They won’t be staying long.”

The Chief turned, the wet line in his hand. “I think they might.”

“You forget who’s in charge here.”

Gamache knelt and made a couple of quick knots, securing the float plane to the dock, then he stood back up.

“I don’t forget. It’s just that I think I know who’s in the plane. It’s not the press, you know.”

“No?”

“I wasn’t completely sure I’d seen it right, when the plane flew over. That’s why I wanted to come with you.”

The Chief pointed to the crest on the door. It showed four fleurs-de-lys. And above them was stenciled MJQ.

“MJQ?” asked the abbot.

The small door opened.

“Ministère de la Justice du Québec,” said Gamache and stepped forward, offering his hand to steady the visitor as he squeezed out of the float plane.

The Chief Inspector’s offer was either not noticed or ignored. A fine black leather shoe appeared, then a second, and a man stood for a moment on the pontoon, then strolled casually onto the dock, as though into an opera house or an art gallery.

He looked around, taking in his surroundings.

Not an explorer, landed in a new world, but a conqueror.

He was in late middle age, sixty perhaps. His hair was gray, his face was clean-shaven, handsome and assured. No weakness there. Neither was it the face of a bully. He appeared to be completely at home, composed and comfortable. While most men would look slightly ridiculous arriving in the wilderness in a fine suit and tie, this man made it seem perfectly natural. Even enviable.

And Gamache suspected, if the visitor stayed long enough, the monks would eventually be in suits and ties themselves. And thanking the visitor.

He had that effect on people. Not adjusting to the world, but having the world adjust to him. Which it did. With few, but notable, exceptions.

The man stood on the dock and looked around, his eyes sweeping over Gamache. Over and through and by him. And came to rest on the abbot.

“Dom Philippe?”

The abbot bowed, but didn’t take his blue eyes off the stranger.

“My name is Sylvain Francoeur.” The man put out his hand. “I’m the Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Québec.”

The abbot’s eyes shifted, for a moment. To Gamache. Then back again.

Armand Gamache knew his own expression was relaxed, attentive. Respectful.

But had Dom Philippe, so good at neumes, read the tiny lines on the Chief Inspector’s face, and seen how Gamache really felt?

“What the fuck is this about?” whispered Beauvoir, as they walked back down the corridor a few feet behind the abbot and Chief Superintendent Francoeur.

Gamache shot Beauvoir a warning. Not a slight visual reprimand, but a club to the head. Shut up, said the stern expression. Hold your tongue now, if you’ve never held it before.

Beauvoir shut up. But that didn’t stop him from watching, and listening. As they progressed they walked through the clouds of conversation created by the two men ahead.

“A terrible shame, mon père,” the Chief Superintendent was saying. “The prior’s death is a national tragedy. I can assure you, though, that we’ll solve this quickly and you’ll have your privacy to grieve. I’ve ordered my people to keep Frère Mathieu’s death quiet for as long as possible.”

“Chief Inspector Gamache said that wouldn’t be possible.”

“And he was quite correct, of course. He couldn’t do it. I have the highest respect for Monsieur Gamache, but his powers are limited.”

“And yours are not?” asked the abbot.

Beauvoir smiled and wondered if the abbot knew who he was dealing with.

Superintendent Francoeur laughed. It was relaxed and good-humored.

“By your measurement, Dom Philippe, my powers are pretty puny. But measured in mortal terms they’re substantial. And are at your disposal.”

“Merci, mon fils. I’m most grateful.”

Beauvoir turned a disgusted face to Gamache and opened his mouth, but shut it again upon seeing the Chief’s expression. It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t even upset.

Chief Inspector Gamache was puzzled. As though trying to work out some complex mathematical formula that didn’t add up.

Beauvoir had a question of his own.

What the fuck is this about?

“Can I say it now?” Beauvoir leaned against the closed door.

“No need,” said the Chief, taking a chair in the prior’s cramped office. “I know the question, but not the answer.”

“Like Jeopardy,” said Beauvoir, crossing his arms over his chest and continuing to lean against the door. A human deadbolt. “I’ll take ‘What the Fuck’ for two hundred, Alex.”

Gamache laughed. “It is puzzling,” he admitted.

And, thought Beauvoir, it might also be jeopardy.

They’d last seen Superintendent Francoeur walking through the Blessed Chapel, deep in conversation with the abbot. The homicide agents and the monks had been dismissed but had, for a moment, stood together watching these two men progress through the church and down the long corridor toward the abbot’s office.

Francoeur’s head, with its distinguished gray hair, was bent toward the abbot’s shaved head. Two extremes. One finely dressed, the other in austere robes. One forceful, the other a study in humility.

But both in charge. Apparently.

Beauvoir wondered if the two men would form an alliance, or start another war.

He looked at Gamache, who’d put his reading glasses on and was making notes.

And where did this leave the Chief? The appearance of Sylvain Francoeur seemed to have left Gamache perplexed but unconcerned. Beauvoir hoped he genuinely was, and there was no need to worry.

But it was too late for that. Worry had taken root in Beauvoir’s belly. An old and familiar ache.

Gamache looked up and met Beauvoir’s eyes. The Chief smiled reassuringly.

“It’s no use speculating, Jean-Guy. We’ll know why Superintendent Francoeur’s here soon enough.”

They spent the next half hour discussing their conversations that morning, Beauvoir with Frère Antoine and Gamache with the abbot.

“So the abbot made Frère Antoine the new choir director?” Beauvoir’s surprise was obvious. “He didn’t tell me that.”

“Perhaps it made the abbot look too good, and Frère Antoine wouldn’t want that.”

“Yeah, maybe. But do you think that’s why the abbot did it?”

“What do you mean?” Gamache leaned forward.

“He could’ve appointed anyone. Could’ve taken the job himself. But maybe he gave it to Frère Antoine just to screw with the prior’s men. A mind fuck. Do the opposite of what they expect. Prove he’s above their stupid little fights by making Frère Antoine the choir director. Maybe the abbot wanted to show he’s better than them. It’s a smart move, if you think about it.”

Gamache thought about it. He thought about the two dozen monks. Messing with each other’s minds. Trying to keep each other off-balance. Is that what was going on here, perhaps for years? A form of psychological terrorism?

Subtle, invisible. A glance, a smile, a turned back.

In a silent order a single word, a sound, could be devastating. A tsk, a sniff, a chuckle.

Had the gentle abbot perfected those weapons?

Promoting Frère Antoine was the right thing to do. He was the best musician, a clear successor to the prior as choirmaster. But did the abbot do it for the wrong reason?

To screw with the prior’s men?

And the vow of silence? Had the abbot fought to keep it because of the spiritual significance to the community? Or, again, to screw with the prior? To deny the prior what he most wanted?

And why was the prior so determined to lift a vow in place for nearly a thousand years? Was it for the good of the order, or the good of the prior?

“What’re you thinking?” asked Beauvoir.

“A phrase popped into my mind and I was just trying to remember where it came from.”

“Is it poetry?” asked Beauvoir, a little nervously. It didn’t take much for the Chief to start quoting some unintelligible poem.

“As a matter of fact, I was thinking of an epic work by Homer.” Gamache opened his mouth as though to start reciting then laughed at the distress on Beauvoir’s face. “No. It’s just a line. To do the right deed for the wrong reason.”

Beauvoir thought about that. “I wonder if the opposite is ever true.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, can you do the wrong thing for the right reason?”

Gamache took off his glasses. “Go on.” He listened closely, his calm brown eyes not straying from his Inspector.

“Like murder,” said Beauvoir. “Killing someone is wrong. But can the reason ever be right?”

“Justifiable homicide,” said Gamache. “It’s a defense, but a shaky one.”

“Do you think this might be justifiable?”

“Why do you ask?”

Beauvoir thought for a moment. “Something went wrong here. The monastery was falling apart. Imploding. Suppose it was the prior’s fault. So…”

“He was killed to save the rest of the community?” asked Gamache.

“Maybe.”

They both knew it was a hideous argument. One made by many a madman. That the killing was for the “greater good.”

But was it ever true?

Gamache had wondered about that himself. Suppose the prior was that one bad apple, spreading dissent, rotting this peaceful community, one monk at a time.

People killed in war all the time. If there was a quiet but devastating war going on at Saint-Gilbert, maybe one of the monks convinced himself this was the only way to end it. Before the entire abbey was rotted out from the inside.

Banishing the prior wouldn’t be possible. He’d done nothing overtly wrong.

That was the thing with the bad apple. It was insidious. Slow. It looked just fine, from the outside, until the rot spread. And by then it was too late.

“Maybe,” said Gamache. “But maybe the bad apple is still here.”

“The murderer?”

“Or maybe it was someone whispering in the murderer’s ear.” On that thought he leaned back. “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”

“You think that’s what was said?” asked Beauvoir. “Seems a little flowery to me. I’d probably say, ‘Fucking die already.’”

Gamache laughed. “You should write to Hallmark with that one.”

“Not a bad idea. There’re lots of people I’d send it to.”

“Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest,” Gamache repeated. “It’s what Henry the Second said about Thomas à Becket.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

Gamache grinned. “Hang in there, young man. This story ends in murder.”

“Better.”

“This was almost nine hundred years ago,” the Chief continued. “In England.”

“I’m already asleep.”

“King Henry promoted his good friend Thomas to be archbishop, thinking that would give him control of the Church. But it backfired.”

Despite himself, Beauvoir leaned forward.

“The king was worried that there was too much crime in England. He wanted to crack down on it—” As Gamache spoke Beauvoir nodded. Sympathizing with the king. “—but he felt all his efforts were undermined by the Church since it was pretty lenient with criminals.”

“So this king—”

“Henry,” said Gamache.

“Henry. He sees his chance and makes his friend Thomas an archbishop. What went wrong?”

“Well, to begin with, Thomas didn’t want the job. He even wrote to Henry saying that if he took the job their friendship would turn to hate.”

“And he was right.”

Gamache nodded. “The king passed a law saying that anyone found guilty in a Church court would be punished by the royal court. Thomas refused to sign it.”

“So he was killed?”

“Not immediately. It took six years, the animosity growing every day. Then one day King Henry muttered those words and four knights took it to be an order.”

“What happened?”

“They killed the archbishop. In Canterbury Cathedral. Murder in the Cathedral.”

“Will no one…” Beauvoir struggled to remember the quote.

“… rid me of this troublesome priest.” Gamache finished it.

“You think the abbot said something like that, and someone took it as an order?”

“Maybe. In a place like this the abbot might not even need to speak. A look would be enough. A raised brow, a grimace.”

“What happened after the archbishop was killed?”

“He was sainted.”

Beauvoir laughed. “That must’ve pissed off the king.”

Gamache smiled. “Henry spent the rest of his life regretting the murder, and said he’d never meant for that to happen.”

“Do you think that’s true?”

“I think it was easy to say, after the fact.”

“So, you think the abbot here might have said something like that, and one of his monks killed the prior?”

“It’s possible.”

“And knowing what happened, Dom Philippe turns around and does the unexpected. He appoints one of the prior’s men to lead the choir.” Beauvoir was picking his way through it. “Guilty mind?”

“Penance? Amends?” Gamache frowned, thinking. “Could be.”

It was so difficult to know why these monks did anything, thought Gamache. They were so different from anyone he’d ever met, or investigated.

But finally, he had to tell himself, they were just men. With the same motives as anyone else, only theirs were hidden behind black robes and angelic voices. And silence.

“The abbot denies there’s a split,” said Gamache, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers together.

“Wow.” Beauvoir shook his head. “The things these monks can believe without evidence. But give them proof of something, and they don’t believe it. The split’s so obvious. Half want to record more chants, half don’t. Half want the vow of silence lifted, half don’t.”

“I’m not sure it’s half and half,” said Gamache. “I suspect the balance had shifted, in the prior’s favor.”

“And that’s why he was killed?”

“I think it’s possible.”

Beauvoir considered what the Chief had said. “So the abbot’s kinda screwed. Frère Antoine called him a frightened old man. Do you think he killed Frère Mathieu?”

“I honestly don’t know. But if Dom Philippe’s filled with fear, he isn’t the only one,” said Gamache. “I think most of them are.”

“Because of the murder?”

“No. I’m not sure these men are really afraid of death. I think they’re afraid of life. But here, in Saint-Gilbert, they finally found where they belonged.”

Beauvoir thought of the field of giant mushrooms, with the floppy hats. And how he’d felt the odd one out, in his pressed slacks and merino wool sweater.

“So if they finally found where they belong, what’re they afraid of?”

“Losing it,” said the Chief. “They’d been in purgatory. Many have probably been in Hell. And once you’ve been there, you sure don’t want to go back.”

Gamache paused and the two men held each other’s eyes. Beauvoir could see the deep scar by the Chief’s temple. And could feel the ache gnawing his own gut. He saw the bottle of tiny pills he kept hidden in his apartment. Just in case.

Yes, thought Beauvoir. You sure don’t want to slip back into Hell.

The Chief leaned forward, put on his glasses, and unrolled a large cylinder of paper on the desk.

Beauvoir watched Gamache, but saw something else. Superintendent Francoeur stepping from the plane that had descended so quickly from the sky. The Chief had offered his hand, but Francoeur had turned his back on Gamache, for all to see. For Beauvoir to see.

The sick feeling sat like a fist in Beauvoir’s stomach. It had found a home there. Was settling in. And growing.

“The abbot gave us a plan of the monastery.” Gamache stood and leaned over the desk.

Beauvoir joined him.

The drawing looked exactly as Beauvoir imagined the abbey in his mind, after walking the halls for twenty-four hours. Shaped like a cross, with the chapel in the very center and the bell tower above that.

“Here’s the Chapter House,” said Gamache. The room was shown on the drawing, attached to the side of the chapel. There was no attempt to hide it in the design. But in real life it was hidden, behind the plaque to Saint Gilbert.

The abbot’s garden was also on the plan, plain to see in ink, but not in real life. It too was hidden but not secret.

“Are there other hidden rooms?” Beauvoir asked.

“The abbot doesn’t know of any, but he admits there’re rumors of secret rooms, and something else.”

“What?” asked Beauvoir.

“Well, it’s almost embarrassing to say,” admitted Gamache, taking off his glasses and looking at Beauvoir.

“I would have thought a man caught in his pajamas on a church altar would have a high tolerance for embarrassment.”

“You make a good point.” The Chief smiled. “Treasure.”

“Treasure? Are you kidding? The abbot says there’s a treasure hidden here?”

“He doesn’t say it,” said Gamache, “he says those are the rumors.”

“Have they looked?”

“Unofficially. I think monks aren’t supposed to care about such things.”

“But men do,” said Beauvoir, looking back down at the plan.

An old abbey with a hidden treasure, thought Beauvoir. It was too ridiculous. No wonder the Chief was embarrassed to say it. But while he ridiculed the idea, Beauvoir’s eyes were bright as he scanned the drawing.

What child, boy or girl, hadn’t dreamed of hidden treasure? Hadn’t lapped up stories of derring-do, of galleons and pirates and fleeing princes and princesses, burying something precious. Or, better yet, finding something precious.

As ridiculous and far-fetched as a hidden room with treasure almost certainly was, Beauvoir couldn’t help but be sucked into the fantasy. In an instant he found himself wondering what the treasure could be. The riches of the medieval Church? Chalices, paintings, coins. Priceless jewels brought back by Crusaders.

Then Jean-Guy imagined finding it.

Not for the sake of the fortune. Or, at least, not entirely for that. But for the fun of finding it.

Instantly he saw himself telling Annie. He could see her watching him, listening. Hanging on his every word. Reacting to each twist in the tale. Her face expressive as he told her about the search. Gasping. Laughing.

They’d talk about it for the rest of their lives. Tell their children and grandchildren. About the time Grandpapa found the treasure. And returned it to the Church.

“So,” said Gamache, rolling the plan back up. “I can leave this with you?”

He handed it to Beauvoir.

“I’ll split everything with you, patron. Fifty-fifty.”

“I already have my treasure, thank you very much,” said Gamache.

“I don’t think a bag of chocolate-covered blueberries could be considered a treasure.”

“Non?” asked Gamache. “To each his own.”

A deep bell started ringing. Not a joyous celebration, but a solemn toll.

“Again?” said Beauvoir. “Can’t I just stay here?”

“Of course you can.” Gamache took from his breast pocket the horarium the abbot’s secretary had given him and examined it. Then he looked at his watch.

“Eleven A.M. mass,” he said and walked toward the closed door.

“Is it only eleven? Feels like bedtime.”

For a place that ran like clockwork, time seemed to stand still.

Beauvoir opened the door for the Chief and after the smallest hesitation, and a whispered curse, he followed him down the corridor and back into the Blessed Chapel.

Gamache slipped into the pew, Beauvoir beside him. They sat quietly, waiting for the service to begin. Again, the Chief marveled at the light falling through the high windows. Split into all different colors. It spilled onto the altar and the benches and seemed to dance there. Waiting happily for the company of the monks.

The Chief glanced around the now familiar space. It felt as though he’d been there a very long time, and it came as a surprise he and Beauvoir hadn’t yet spent a full day at Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.

The Blessed Chapel, Gamache now knew, was built to honor a saint so dull the Church couldn’t find some equally dull complaint to let him patronize.

Few prayed to Saint Gilbert.

And yet in his excruciatingly long life, Gilbert had done one spectacular thing. He’d stood up to a king. He’d defended his archbishop. Thomas had been killed, but Gilbert had stood up to tyranny, and survived.

Gamache remembered joking with the abbot that maybe Gilbert could become the Patron Saint of Fretters, since his monastery had such strong defenses and locked doors.

And so many places to hide.

But maybe he’d been wrong, done Gilbert a disservice. He might have fretted, but Gilbert had finally found more courage than anyone else. Sitting quietly in the refracted light, Gamache wondered if he’d have the same courage.

He spent a moment thinking about the new visitor, and praying to Saint Gilbert.

As the last note of the solemn bell resonated the monks entered. They appeared in single file. Singing. White hoods hid their faces. Hands were buried up to the elbows in their loose black sleeves. The singing grew as more voices entered the Blessed Chapel, until the empty space was filled with the plainchant. And the light.

And then someone else entered.

Chief Superintendent Francoeur bobbed, crossed himself, then, despite all sorts of empty pews, he slipped into the one directly in front of Gamache and Beauvoir, obscuring their view.

And once again the Chief Inspector tilted his head slightly to the side. Hoping to see more clearly. The monks. But also the motives of the man in front of him. Who’d dropped so precipitously from the skies, with a purpose.

As Beauvoir huffed and snorted beside him, Gamache closed his eyes and listened to the beautiful music.

And thought about tyranny, and murder.

And whether it was ever right to kill one for the sake of the many.