The Madness of Crowds

CHAPTER 23

Before the next guest arrived to be interviewed, Beauvoir asked, “Fox?”

“The Fable de La Fontaine, I think,” said Gamache. “‘Les Animaux Malades de la Peste.’”

The Animals Sick of the Plague.

“Oh, right. I was really only watching Honoré. He was a terrific rabbit.”

“One of the greats,” agreed Armand.

“So who was the fox?”

“The cunning one who convinces the others that someone innocent is actually guilty. Blaming the victim.”

“That does sound like the professor. At least Madame Daoud saw you as the lion.”

Gamache wasn’t so sure it was the compliment Beauvoir believed.

The lion, while nominally in charge, had actually been taken in by the fox.

He wondered who Haniya Daoud would be, in that fable.

She’d asked how he thought she’d survived the rapes and torture. He honestly didn’t know, but he did wonder if two things in particular compelled her to survive. A burning desire for revenge that incinerated despair, and her ability, her willingness, to be as brutal, when the time came, as her captors.

It was a life hard to shake once back in polite society, as many warriors knew. As the fox would know.

“Well, there is one piece of good news,” said Jean-Guy, holding up his phone. A message had just come in from the detachment in Abitibi. “They picked up Tardif’s brother, at a hunting cabin outside Val-d’Or. They’re bringing him down tomorrow morning.”

Vincent Gilbert arrived just then. He looked more than usually disheveled, with bags under his eyes, gray hair sticking out, and patchy white stubble around his chin.

Beauvoir rubbed his hand over his own face and felt the scratch. And saw his father-in-law’s salt-and-pepper growth of beard.

Then he looked at the young agent. As fresh as the moment she’d arrived at work, sixteen hours earlier. She looked over at them, bright-eyed, at 3:35 in the morning.

“Thank you for staying up,” said Gamache.

“Are you telling me I had a choice?” Gilbert sat down with a tired groan. “This’s a terrible thing to happen.”

“Yes, very sad,” said Gamache.

“Can’t be good for business,” said Dr. Gilbert, clearly not thinking of the same tragedy as Gamache. “There’s already the persistent rumor that the place is haunted. Bullshit, of course. There’s no such thing. But try to convince the great unwashed.”

Armand suddenly felt the need to shower.

At a glance from Gamache, Beauvoir took the lead and asked Dr. Gilbert about his movements just prior to, and just after, midnight.

He was a little vague. He’d been in the living room for a while. He’d been outside for a while. He’d even been in the library. For a while.

“Hiding, I’m not ashamed to say. I hate parties. Only come to this to support Marc and Dominique. People expect me here.”

He made it sound like his legion of fans expected him. It was true, though, that people knew this was just about the only time they were guaranteed to see the Asshole Saint.

Gamache wondered if Abigail knew that. She’d said Ruth Zardo was who she’d come to see, but he doubted that. She hadn’t approached the elderly poet. But she had made a beeline for Vincent Gilbert.

“When did you leave here?”

“The library? When the fireworks started to go off.”

“You weren’t in the room for the countdown to midnight?” asked Beauvoir.

“So that people could hug me?” He grimaced. “No.”

Though Gamache had the fleeting thought that maybe the Asshole Saint had come in here so that he didn’t have to face no one hugging him.

“You were vague earlier this evening,” said Gamache, “when I asked how you’d read Professor Robinson’s study. Now I’ll ask you again. How did you come to read it?”

“God, it was months ago. I can’t remember. Once I’ve memorized the Cheerios box, I get desperate. The winters are long, and I don’t have many visitors.” He looked at Gamache. “But you’re one, Armand. You bring me books.”

Gamache nodded. Whenever he approached the log cabin, he was reminded of Thoreau, who’d said of his own cabin on Walden Pond, “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”

Vincent Gilbert had two chairs. He did not like society, and society did not like him.

“Someone sent you Professor Robinson’s research?” asked Beauvoir.

“Must have because I read it.”

“Who?”

“I can’t remember. I get all sorts of junk.”

“Was it Professor Robinson herself?”

“No.”

“Then who? You know we can find out,” said Beauvoir, though at the moment he couldn’t think how.

Not used to having his statements questioned, Vincent Gilbert bridled and dug his heels in, like an obstinate ass, thought Gamache. Then he remembered the poor donkey in the fable. Blameless, but blamed.

And he remembered something else.

“Chancellor Roberge told me she’d checked Professor Robinson’s findings herself, then sent them to someone she trusted, to get their opinion. Like a good scientist, she wanted corroboration. Were you that second opinion?”

Vincent Gilbert held Gamache in a stare that had had generations of interns quaking. But Gamache just stared back.

“Good guess.”

“Was it Colette Roberge?” Gamache pressed. He needed confirmation, not word games.

“Yes.”

“Why would she do that?” Beauvoir asked.

“I have no idea. You’ll have to ask Chancellor Roberge. My guess is she thought I’d be interested.”

“Why would she think that?”

“Because Robinson’s conclusions in her paper are inhumane and I’m a famous humanist.”

Oddly, that was true. Again, not unlike Haniya Daoud, here was a renowned humanist who did not actually like humans.

“How do you and Chancellor Roberge know each other?” Gamache asked.

“We sat on a board together a few years ago.”

“Which board?”

Gilbert crossed and uncrossed his legs and hiked himself further up on the sofa.

“I think it was some charity. I was on a lot of boards at one time. I am unstinting in my work for others.”

“Think again,” said Gamache. “Think harder.”

His hackles up, Dr. Gilbert nevertheless caved to the inevitable.

“LaPorte.”

“There,” said Gamache. “That wasn’t so hard.”

Though he could see that it was. And he knew why. As did Beauvoir.

Dr. Gilbert had all but admitted he had a motive for killing Professor Robinson.

Jean-Guy knew LaPorte well by now. It was a community formed to support and protect men and women, boys and girls, with Down syndrome. The very people Professor Robinson thought should not exist.

What Gamache mostly found interesting was that both Colette Roberge and Vincent Gilbert had tried to hide this fact.

“I know you know this.” Gilbert’s voice was quiet now. He’d turned away from Gamache and spoke only to Jean-Guy. “With screening, fewer and fewer children with Down syndrome are being born. I’m not going to judge that choice. I suspect it’s one I’d have made too, as a young parent. Fortunately, I wasn’t faced with it.”

Beauvoir, hearing the soothing voice, remembered being in this man’s cabin. In this man’s care. When he’d been hurt.

He’d felt, through the pain, this man’s hands on his open wound, and knew he was with not just a doctor, but a healer. Someone who actually cared if he lived or died.

“Ça va bien aller,” Gilbert had whispered, as the pain and fear threatened to overwhelm Jean-Guy. “It’ll be all right.”

And he’d believed him.

“I didn’t just sit on the board, I volunteered at LaPorte,” said Gilbert. “And I came to see that maybe, maybe, instead of them being flawed, we’re the ones with the defects. You know?”

He looked from Jean-Guy, to Armand, then back to Jean-Guy.

“They’re kind. Content. They don’t judge. They don’t hide their feelings. There’s no hidden agenda. Complete acceptance. If that isn’t grace, I don’t know what is. I’m not saying people with Down syndrome are perfect or always easy. That would be to trivialize them, make them sound like pets. What I am saying is that in my experience they make better humans than most.” He smiled again. “Than me. And I think that’s worth fighting for, don’t you?”

There was a long silence before Gamache said, softly, “Worth killing for?”

Now Vincent Gilbert turned to him. “Have you ever arrested a person with Down syndrome for murder?”

“Non.”

“You?” he asked Beauvoir.

“Non.”

“No. And there’s a reason for that. I aspire to be as decent, as optimistic, as forgiving.”

Armand took a deep breath. And kept going. “I believe you. But to aspire to and to achieve are two different things. A person with DS did not murder Debbie Schneider. But someone looking to protect them might have.”

“Me?”

“The Chancellor sent you Professor Robinson’s research in hopes of stopping her campaign,” said Gamache. “It focuses mainly on mandatory euthanasia for the terminally ill and elderly. But there are hints of something else.”

“Of eugenics, yes,” said Gilbert, his voice cold, abrupt. The clinical man was back. “Chancellor Roberge didn’t say why she was sending it to me. She just did.”

“And what did you do, after you’d read it?”

“I was appalled, but honestly, I didn’t think anyone would take it seriously.”

“Are you surprised the Premier has?” asked Gamache.

“Taken her report seriously? I didn’t know.”

And yet Gilbert didn’t look like a man surprised. Though her meeting with the leader of the province was not secret, neither was it public. But there was one person who knew.

Colette Roberge.

And there was one person who could have told Vincent Gilbert.

Colette Roberge.

The Chancellor was proving a puzzle.

She was the one who’d suggested the lecture. She’d invited Abigail into her home. She’d brought her to the New Year’s Eve party. And she was walking outside with the victim—

Gamache stopped himself there.

That didn’t make sense. Colette Roberge was also the one person who could not possibly have mistaken Madame Schneider for Professor Robinson.

“How well do you know the Chancellor?” Gamache asked Dr. Gilbert.

“Not well. We might’ve met twice a year, if that. We were both busy. She was the Chancellor of the University, and I had scarlet runner beans to plant.”

There was no mistaking the self-pity. Forgotten and embittered, Vincent Gilbert was a great man, fallen. The Cardinal Wolsey of the scientific world. Gamache could all but hear him lament, Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!

But Wolsey had gone quietly. Gamache doubted Vincent Gilbert would.

Was he willing to do one last magnificent thing, to remind everyone of all his greatness? But the motive might not be just the Idolas of this world.

Gilbert could have another reason for wanting Robinson dead.

“Professor Robinson said you had no moral authority to judge her,” said Gamache. “She even compared you to Ewen Cameron. What did she mean by that?”

Gilbert shook his head. “Not much subtle about our Abigail, is there? Whenever anyone wants to smear a McGill researcher, they drag out the bones of Ewen Cameron. Guilt by association. It just shows how desperate she is.”

“She went on to say, ‘Don’t think I don’t know.’”

“A terrible double negative.”

“Yes. She meant that she does know something. What does she know?”

Gilbert laughed. “I’m not known as the Asshole Saint for nothing. She probably thinks she knows something that will embarrass me, not realizing I’m happy to own all the merde. But I’ve atoned for my sins. I live a quiet, blameless life now, deep in the woods. Away from the temptation, or even ability, to do anything immoral.”

“But not illegal. Was she blackmailing you into supporting her work?”

He laughed again. “Oh, I do like you.” He leaned toward Gamache. “Honestly? Do you think I can be blackmailed? Do you think I care what others think of me? I was once the most prominent medical researcher in Canada. The Order of Canada. The National Order of Québec. Invitations to speak at scientific conferences all over the world. Now I live in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere. Non, Chief Inspector, I have nothing more to lose. I gave it all away. A blackmail attempt would be amusing and diverting. It would pass the long winter days and nights. Nothing more.”

And yet, thought Armand, as he looked into those bloodshot eyes, this was a very long and detailed denial for someone who had nothing more to lose.

What, Gamache asked himself not for the first time, had driven this ego-infested man into the forest? What had he done that demanded perpetual atonement?

And when he falls, thought Gamache, he falls like Lucifer. Never to hope again.

They went through the rest of the interviews quickly. Gabri, Olivier, Clara, Myrna. None of them saw, or heard, or knew anything.

There was one interesting exchange, though, when Beauvoir asked Myrna what she thought of Professor Robinson. He’d asked them all, but Myrna’s answer was particularly penetrating.

“Did you notice that she went directly to the two people in the room who so obviously didn’t want to talk to her? The Asshole Saint and you,” Myrna said to Beauvoir. “There’s something self-loathing about a person who does that, who keeps walking into a propeller blade.”

“Then why do it?” Beauvoir asked.

“To punish herself. I think she puts on a hair shirt every day and goes out to spout crap she doesn’t necessarily support.”

“Wait a minute,” said Beauvoir. “You think she doesn’t believe in her own cause?”

“I think her head believes it, but I’m not so sure about her heart. Assuming, of course, she has one.”

“Then why’s she doing it?”

“Why does anyone do anything? Something’s compelling her.”

“Something? Someone?” asked Beauvoir.

“Either. Both. She’s like an addict. So bound to something that she can’t let it go, even though she knows it’s self-destructive.”

Jean-Guy Beauvoir nodded. He understood addiction and compulsion.

“You’re a psychologist,” said Gamache. “Do you think Professor Robinson wants to stop?”

Myrna sighed and glanced out the window. It had been a long, long horrible night. And that poor woman was still out there.

“If I had to guess, and it is just a guess, I’d say Professor Robinson is torn. I watched her try to ingratiate herself with the crowd, even you,” she said to Beauvoir. “She wants to be liked, that much was obvious. And she is, actually, likable. But she’s dragging around this big stinking albatross of an idea that repulses people. I think she’d love to let it go, but can’t.”

“Put down the cup,” said Gamache.

She examined him for a moment, taking in the thoughtful eyes, and the ghosts swirling behind them.

Here was a man who understood the desire to put down the cup. The difference was, Abigail Robinson’s cup was filled with bile.

“But why can’t she?” Beauvoir asked. “Why keep going if she doesn’t believe in it?”

“Oh, I think she does believe in it. And I think she hates herself for it. It’s not a comfortable place to be. Someone like that might be very unstable.”

“Might kill a friend?” asked Beauvoir.

Again Myrna smiled, but without amusement. “I have no idea. I’m presuming the murder wasn’t planned, is that right?”

Gamache and Beauvoir glanced at each other and nodded. They hadn’t had a chance, yet, to discuss the details, but it seemed obvious. When the murder weapon was a log, it probably wasn’t premeditated.

“Then something must have happened in the party,” said Myrna. “Was there a blowup between the friends? Did they argue?”

“Not that we saw,” said Beauvoir.

“Well, you know more about murder and motives than I do, but I’d have to say someone who’s desperate to be liked might not kill the only person who genuinely does like her.”

“Merci, Myrna,” said Gamache, getting up.

But Myrna paused, still sitting. “I’m not sure I should say this.”

“What?”

Myrna took a deep breath. “What Abigail Robinson is proposing isn’t new. It isn’t revolutionary. It’s evolutionary. It’s already happening.” When Armand went to talk, she held up a thick hand. “Québec was the first province to legalize physician-assisted suicide.”

“With strict rules and oversight,” said Armand. “That’s a choice.”

“But pulling the plug isn’t. At least not by the person about to die. It’s a choice made by relatives. And it’s a cruel position to be put in. Maybe we’d be better off if that decision was taken out of our hands. Off our conscience.”

“Are you saying you agree with her?”

“I’m saying it’s not so clear-cut. People have dug themselves into positions, but maybe we need to listen with a more open mind. I’ve had to pull a plug. I’ll never get over the trauma. Killing my own mother. That’s what it felt like. I’d have liked that cup taken from me.”

Armand had also had to make that decision. It had turned out differently, but it was still traumatic.

“I’m not saying I agree with her,” said Myrna, getting up. “I am saying I understand some of her points. Bonne nuit, Armand. Jean-Guy.”

“Good night.”

She was the last to be interviewed.

By just after four a.m. they were ready to leave too. Reine-Marie was alone in the living room, waiting for them. But there was one more thing the Sûreté officers had to do.

They’d had a text from the Scene of Crime officer.

Putting on their coats and boots, Armand and Jean-Guy walked into the woods. The wind and cold once again scraped their cheeks and stole their breaths.

They could see the tent, lit from the inside. Shadows were moving around like specters trapped.

After ducking in, they had a quiet word with the head of the forensics team. Then both Beauvoir and Gamache removed their tuques as Debbie Schneider was carried past them, on her way to the morgue.