The Madness of Crowds

CHAPTER 30

On the drive into Montréal, Reine-Marie and Myrna had talked about the Osler while Jean-Guy drifted in and out of the conversation. Taking in some details.

Basically, what he heard was that the library was named after some long-dead prominent Anglo doctor who had donated his papers and books to McGill more than a century ago.

Blah, blah, blah.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir hadn’t much seen the use of libraries, though he’d never have said that to Annie or her parents, who saw les bibliothèques as sacred places.

He hadn’t grown up going to one, and now, with the internet and easy access to information, he couldn’t imagine why libraries still existed. That is, until he’d gone with Annie and Honoré to a children’s hour at their local library. He’d seen the wonder in his son’s eyes as the librarian read to them.

He’d seen Honoré’s excitement at getting to choose books himself to take out. How he clutched them to his chest, as though he could read with his heart.

Through his infant son, Jean-Guy discovered that libraries held treasures. Not just the written word, but things that couldn’t be seen. Like le Petit Prince said, in the book Jean-Guy had first read as he’d read it to Honoré.

What is essential is invisible to the eye.

Knowledge, ideas, thoughts. Imagination. All invisible. All lived in libraries.

But few knew better than the homicide investigator that not all ideas and thoughts, not everything imagined, should be held tight to the chest.

As the great doors to the great library swung open, Jean-Guy’s jaw actually dropped.

Dr. Mary Hague-Yearl stepped aside so he could take in the soaring ceiling and oak paneling. The tall glass-fronted bookcases and stained-glass windows and quiet corners, and long tables with reading lamps. They’d stepped out of the twenty-first century and into the 1800s.

“Sir William Osler was a McGill grad,” said Dr. Hague-Yearl, leading them through the vast room. “He’s considered the father of modern medicine. This’s been reconstructed from his original library.”

Beauvoir could believe it. It was like walking into a Victorian gentleman’s home.

Dr. Hague-Yearl nodded toward a long oak table.

“If you stay here, I’ll see what I can find on Vincent Gilbert. We should have some documents. He’s quite prominent.”

All three grinned, knowing how annoyed the Asshole Saint would be at the qualifying “quite.” Within minutes they each had a pile in front of them.

“All this?” asked Beauvoir.

“Yes.” Dr. Hague-Yearl seemed surprised herself. “We have some files going back a long way, to his residency. I didn’t bring those, but can if you’d like.”

“Non, merci,” said Beauvoir. “This is more than enough.”

He squirmed on the hard chair and resigned himself to a long, dull afternoon. Though he remained alert. In case something, unseen, emerged from the files.

Isabelle Lacoste had spoken to Dominique and been given a list of staff members.

She’d had a thought.

Édouard Tardif had a son and daughter, Simon and Félicité. They’d been interviewed, along with Tardif’s wife. All had alibis for the day of the event, and could add nothing to the investigation. According to the investigator conducting the interviews, they seemed stunned and naturally upset.

Both Tardif kids were in their early twenties. As Isabelle Lacoste had looked around the Inn, she realized almost all the employees were also in their early twenties. The chambermaids, the waiters, the front desk clerks.

Suppose …

But there was no Tardif on the list.

It was only when she was almost at the barn to find Haniya Daoud that she had another thought. Turning around, she retraced her boot prints in the deepening snow and once again knocked on Dominique’s door.

“Do you hire extra staff for the New Year’s Eve party?”

“Yes. We give a lot of our regular employees time off around Christmas and New Year’s.”

“Do you have a list of those who worked the party?”

Five minutes later she walked into the dining room and spotted the Chief Inspector deep in conversation with Vincent Gilbert.

“Would you believe me, Armand, if I said when I saw the gun I was shocked? Too stunned to act?”

Armand shook his head. “In almost anyone else, I might believe it, but you’re a doctor. A surgeon. You spent your career dealing with the unexpected. I suspect you also spent shifts in Emergency.”

Gilbert nodded.

“Your whole training is to react quickly,” said Armand. “And yet you didn’t. Or”—he examined the man in front of him—“more likely, you did react. You just didn’t act. You saw what was about to happen and let the gunman fire.”

“I’m not going to admit that, not to you. But I think I owe you some possible explanation, since what happened could’ve cost you your life. That was never ever intended, and I’m sorry.”

And he looked it.

“What was intended, Vincent?”

He took a while to answer. When he finally did, Gilbert could not look Armand in the eyes.

“I was a coward. During those long months of the pandemic, I stayed in my cabin. People brought me food and drink. Supplies.”

“Oui. Reine-Marie among them.”

“Is that right? I never looked out. I was too afraid.”

“Of what? The virus didn’t spread by sight.”

“No, but shame does. As long as a bag mysteriously appeared, I could pretend I wasn’t hiding in there. But if I saw someone helping, when I should also be, then…”

Then.

“I’m a doctor. I should’ve been treating the sick. Administering tests. Doing something useful. But I hid.”

“You’re in your seventies,” said Armand. “You’re in the age group ordered to shelter in place. You couldn’t have helped.”

“But I didn’t try.” Vincent raised his voice, angry now. “So when I saw the gun, aimed at Abigail Robinson, aimed at the person convincing others that the sick and the elderly, and now even babies, should die, as they had in the pandemic, well…”

Well …

“Patron?”

Both men looked up.

“Désolée, but may I see you for a moment?” Lacoste asked.

“Do you mind?” he asked Vincent, who shook his head.

Dominique joined Lacoste and Gamache in the far corner of the dining room and pointed.

When their waiter took their bill to the table, Armand broke away and rejoined Gilbert.

“It’s on me, remember?”

After handing his credit card to the young waiter and getting it back, Gamache said, “Merci. Monsieur Tardif.”

The young man stiffened, and for a moment Gamache thought he’d try to run away. But he didn’t.

“Might we have a word?”

Vincent Gilbert looked perplexed but relieved. It was someone else’s turn to be grilled.

And puréed. The waiter walked between Gamache and Lacoste, down into the basement of the Auberge, and took the seat indicated, at the long table.

“You are Simon Tardif?” asked Isabelle Lacoste.

“Oui.”

“Your father is Édouard Tardif?”

“Yes.”

Simon Tardif was small. Slender. His face pale, pasty. He looked like a baby bird balancing on the edge of the nest, and about to be pushed out too soon.

Too soon.

“Where were you on the afternoon of December thirtieth?” Lacoste asked.

“With friends. I can prove it.”

“Not with your father, at the University gym?”

“No.”

“Did you work the New Year’s Eve party last night, here at the Auberge?” Gamache asked.

The two locked eyes.

Gamache could see that Simon Tardif was tempted to lie. But he could also see there was intelligence there, though not, he thought, cunning.

“Yes,” said Simon. “But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t hurt that woman. I—”

The Chief Inspector stopped him there. “You need a lawyer. Do you have one?”

The boy looked like he was about to cry. “No. I’m sorry. I—”

Gamache leaned forward and said, “Say no more. It’ll be all right. Look at me. Look at me.” The third time he said it, Simon Tardif did. He looked into the deep brown eyes, and his shoulders slumped. In resignation. And relief.

It was over.

“Nothing,” said Reine-Marie, sitting back.

Beside her, Jean-Guy had taken off his glasses and was rubbing his eyes.

It was mid-afternoon and already getting dark outside. All the lamps in the huge library had been lit. It made the place feel more intimate. Though as the natural light faded, what had been aisles of books started to resemble tunnels. And it was possible for Jean-Guy’s vivid imagination to conjure all sorts of unnatural things awakening.

So far all they’d found was what they pretty much already knew. Dr. Vincent Gilbert was a gifted thoracic surgeon. The one you wanted with his hands in your chest. But not the one you wanted standing beside your bed.

And certainly not the one you wanted as a chief, if you were an intern or resident. The file was full of letters of complaint from young medical students about his manner.

Those were accompanied by other letters, from patients and their families, thanking him for saving their lives. And from other interns and residents, saying what a wonderful teacher he was. How much he had helped them. His innovations, his challenging them to think for themselves. Yes, he was harsh at times. But so was life in a critical care unit.

The Asshole Saint emergent.

“We need to look at the early documents,” said Beauvoir, resigned to his fate.

“When he was an apprentice asshole,” said Myrna.

“A baby saint,” said Reine-Marie. She was curious to see what they’d find there. Had he started his medical career as a saint, or as the other? Had something happened that changed him?

Twenty minutes later Myrna said, “Look at this. Before starting medical school here at McGill, Vincent applied for, and got, a grant.”

“Really?” Reine-Marie leaned over and read the application.

Gilbert’s father had died, and his mother took in boarders and did laundry.

“But it’s pretty small,” said Myrna. “Did he also get a scholarship?”

Beauvoir found it. “Yes. But it’s not very much.”

Together, grant and scholarship would not be nearly enough to cover medical school at McGill.

“So how did he do it?” Beauvoir asked.

“He must’ve gotten a part-time job,” said Dr. Hague-Yearl. “Lots do, at the student pub, or the cafeteria. In the library shelving books. That sort of thing. Let’s keep looking.”

They didn’t realize it yet, but they’d just come across the first hint of the creature, unseen, that was waiting patiently in a tunnel of documents. To be found.

Twelve minutes later, it was.

“He did get a job,” said Myrna, holding up a slip of paper. “He earned extra money looking after the lab animals.”

“Yech,” said Reine-Marie. “Terrible.”

She assumed the look of revulsion on Myrna’s face was because she too hated the use of animals in experiments. Which she did.

But it wasn’t that.

Dr. Hague-Yearl took the slip, read it, and looked stricken. “Not that. Not again.”

“What?” asked Jean-Guy.

She handed him the piece of paper. It was a receipt for delivery of lab animals to the Allan Memorial Institute of McGill.

She placed a finger on a name at the top.

“Who’s Ewen Cameron?” he asked. The name was familiar. Then he remembered that Gamache and Gilbert had talked about him.

“Wait a minute.” Reine-Marie took the paper and studied it. “Vincent worked with Ewen Cameron?”

“We don’t know that,” said Myrna. “Just that he looked after the animals that Cameron used.”

“Who is he?” repeated Beauvoir, growing more agitated.

Dr. Hague-Yearl had disappeared, as though the name itself was enough to incinerate the librarian.

Jean-Guy was beginning to think his instincts about those huge closed doors were right.

They were partly to keep intruders out, but also to keep something in.

Something, or someone.

A legal aid lawyer Gamache knew well showed up within the hour.

Ten minutes later, after private consultation, Simon Tardif confessed that he’d been involved in the plot at the auditorium.

The boy insisted that the plan was to just scare the professor, not hurt her.

No, he hadn’t thought about the hundreds of other people who’d be in the auditorium.

No, he hadn’t been there himself. His father had insisted he be with friends at the time.

Yes, he was surprised his uncle had confessed. As far as Simon knew, he wasn’t involved.

Yes, the plan was that while his father distracted the caretaker, he hid the gun and firecrackers.

Yes, there were bullets with the gun, but they were blanks. Weren’t they?

When Chief Inspector Gamache showed him the video, Simon Tardif broke down.

“I didn’t know. I didn’t know. Dad couldn’t have…”

His lawyer laid a hand on his arm to stop him.

“And last night?” Gamache asked, once Simon had recovered.

“I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even know that professor woman was here. I have no idea what she looks like.”

“You have no idea what the person your father was targeting looks like?” asked Isabelle, clearly incredulous. “You didn’t want to know why? We can check your search history.”

“No, don’t do that.” The boy blushed, and both investigators and the lawyer could guess why. It wasn’t just a university professor he was googling. “Yes, okay, I did look at her videos. And I could see why Dad would do it. But I spent most of the time at the party last night in the kitchen preparing the trays. I didn’t know she was there.”

“You came up for the countdown to the New Year, didn’t you?” Gamache guessed.

“Yes.”

“And what did you see?” Isabelle asked.

“Almost everyone went outside to the bonfire.”

“Did you see anyone go into the woods?”

“No. I wasn’t watching. I just wanted the night to be over and get home. All I could think of was my father. Of what was going to happen to him. And me.”

Chief Inspector Gamache stood up and said to Lacoste, “Charge him.”

“With what? Accessory to attempted murder?”

Gamache stared at the frightened young man. Thrown out of the nest by an obsessed father. To land, splat, in the arms of the Sûreté du Québec.

“Mischief.”

It was a misdemeanor. If convicted it would not ruin the boy’s life. But it still kept the options open to charge Simon Tardif with a more serious crime. Like murder.

They interviewed Alphonse Tardif again. He admitted he knew his nephew had been involved and confessed in order to protect the young man.

After weighing a charge of obstruction of justice, Gamache ordered that Alphonse Tardif just be released.