The Madness of Crowds

CHAPTER 35

Chancellor Roberge’s eyes widened, slightly, when she saw Vincent Gilbert at her front door.

She was expecting the Sûreté investigators, but not him. And not him with them. Though she quickly recovered herself.

“Welcome,” she said. This time Colette did not lean forward to kiss Armand. The lines, and boundaries, were now clear. “Your people are here, Chief Inspector. They’re in the kitchen with Abigail.”

“Merci.”

They followed her into the house. The Chancellor paused at the door to the now familiar kitchen. Armand could feel warmth radiating off the woodstove.

The agents behind Abigail Robinson stood a little taller when they saw the senior officers.

“Patron,” they said.

Beauvoir went to step into the kitchen, but Chancellor Roberge stopped him.

“I thought since there are so many of us, we should sit somewhere else.”

After passing through the gracious living room, Colette Roberge stopped at the room that was as far from the kitchen as possible.

Gamache quickly took in his surroundings, instinctively checking for any escape route.

The Chancellor had taken them to the solarium. The sofa and armchairs were covered in fresh botanical prints. Gamache could see that the room, with its three walls of windows, would be magnificent in the daylight.

But now, lacking both light and warmth, it felt as though the dark panes of the windows were made of ice.

Dr. Gilbert had taken the seat next to Chancellor Roberge on the sofa, while Abigail Robinson took one of the armchairs.

Beauvoir indicated to the agents that they should stand just outside the door, in the living room. Out of sight, but ready should anything happen. Then he and Gamache brought over two incidental chairs and sat.

Armand contemplated the Chancellor. A woman he admired, respected. Liked. And now distrusted.

She held his thoughtful gaze.

“What’s your role in this?” he asked, going straight to the point.

“This?” Her voice was almost amused. “What ‘this,’ Armand?”

But even as she said it, she recognized her mistake. It was childish. Worse, she’d placed the power back in Gamache’s hands after he’d offered her a chance to frame the events herself.

“The conspiracy, Madame Chancellor, to stop Professor Robinson, by killing her if necessary.”

“That’s not true,” protested Colette Roberge, outraged.

“What?” said Abigail, almost laughing. Then, seeing Gamache’s serious expression, she turned to Colette. “What’s he saying?”

“Nothing. He’s taking leaps of logic. Making spurious correlations.”

“He’s saying,” said Beauvoir, “that your former mentor, your friend, has been involved in a plot to murder you.”

“That’s not possible,” said Abigail, though they could see her hesitation now. “Is it?”

Vincent Gilbert put his hand over Colette’s. To stop her from saying anything more? But Gamache didn’t think so. It was an intimate gesture. Meant to support and comfort.

Colette was shaking her head. “All I wanted to do was change your mind about your campaign. I tried to talk you out of it.”

“You never did,” said Abigail. “I sent you my preliminary research and you thanked me. You never said you disagreed. You invited me here. You set up that talk. You told me I could meet with Dr. Gilbert.”

“Is that why you came to Québec?” Gamache asked. “Not to see Ruth Zardo, not even to see Chancellor Roberge, but to meet Vincent Gilbert?”

Abigail Robinson hesitated, then nodded. “To get him to publicly endorse my work. The Royal Commission would listen to him.”

“What made you think he’d do that?” Gamache asked.

“Because when Colette showed him my report, he didn’t disagree with it. He has a reputation for brutal honesty, so I assumed that meant he, you, agreed.” Gilbert dropped his eyes. “So I came here to see you. To ask for your help.” She turned to her former mentor. “But you actually planned to kill me? Colette?”

“No. We planned to talk you out of it. When you called and said you wanted to visit, we saw our chance. I offered you the event to make sure you’d come. I had no idea so many would show up. That only strengthened our resolve.”

“To kill me?”

“To stop you,” said Gilbert. “The Royal Commission was right not to hear your submission. Even if your findings are correct, they aren’t right. There’re human factors.”

“You’d say that? To me?” demanded Abigail, rounding on him. Sneering at him. “You’d lecture me on what’s right? On human factors?”

Gamache watched this with intense interest and was tempted to interrupt. To ask his question. But once again he remained quiet, to see where this would go.

“Damn right I will,” said Gilbert, leaning toward her. “I was there, at your rally. You whipped them into a frenzy with your patented mix of facts and fear. Like some snake oil salesman at a fairground, trying to get gullible people to buy your poison. First you scare them, then you offer them your false hope. It’s disgusting. But it works. And now the politicians, familiar with the power of fear, have bought your potion wholesale.”

“You’d give me a sermon on morals, then murder me?”

Abigail looked from Gilbert to Colette.

“No,” said Gilbert. “She had no idea what I had in mind. I didn’t even know, not until I saw your rally at the University. Colette wasn’t there. Clips on television or social media couldn’t fully capture the atmosphere. I saw what you did. I saw your face as your supporters chanted. You weren’t triumphant, you were smug. You knew exactly what you were doing. And I knew there was no stopping you.”

Gilbert failed to mention that he’d also seen Édouard Tardif raise the gun to shoot Abigail Robinson. And had done nothing.

It was Vincent Gilbert’s first attempt at the murder of Abigail Robinson. Perhaps not in the eyes of the law, but in a higher court, almost certainly.

Professor Robinson’s eyes widened as she followed the logic, the steps, the evidence, until she reached the only possible conclusion.

“You killed Debbie.”

“No.”

“Yes, you killed her thinking it was me.”

“No, no, I didn’t. I’m not that stupid.”

It was not, they could all see, much of a defense.

Gamache shifted slightly and all eyes went to him.

It was time to ask his question.

After her interview with Édouard Tardif, Isabelle returned to the basement Incident Room.

It was dinnertime and she was hungry, especially walking by the dining room of the Inn and smelling the rich, earthy scent of Québécoise winter cuisine. The soups and sauces, the stews and pies, both savory and sweet.

But she forced herself onward. Downward.

Once at her desk, she checked messages. She’d been copied on Beauvoir’s request to the coroner in Nanaimo, and now she opened it.

No autopsy had been done on Abigail’s mother or father. The attending physician had put down heart failure. Abigail’s sister, Maria, had choked to death on a piece of peanut butter sandwich, lodged deep in her throat.

It was tragic, but straightforward enough. Still … Lacoste called Nanaimo.

“Heart failure” was what doctors put on reports when they either didn’t know what someone died of, or knew and wanted to protect the feelings of the family.

“How did you know that Dr. Gilbert once worked with Ewen Cameron?” asked Gamache.

“He did?” Abigail Robinson asked, eyes wide.

Gamache smiled pleasantly. “Come now, Professor. You all but accused him of it last night at the party, and again today.” He paused before dropping his voice deeper into the inky void. “We know.”

He didn’t say what they knew. The truth was, they knew almost nothing.

He could see her quickly examining the various options. Struggling to find a way out that did not involve the truth.

“I’d hoped to torment you a little longer,” she said, giving up and turning to Gilbert. “But I see the time has come for the truth. A fact, if you prefer. I’d asked Debbie to research you so I’d be prepared for our meeting. She came across some documents suggesting that you worked with Ewen Cameron.”

Gamache kept his focus on Professor Robinson, but he also, in his peripheral vision, watched Chancellor Roberge’s reaction.

There was none.

She knew, he thought. She knew he worked with Cameron.

“What were the documents Madame Schneider found?” Beauvoir asked.

“Just vague references.”

“Like the ones you’re making now?” he said. “We went through your files. We also searched what Debbie Schneider brought with her. There were all sorts of papers, but nothing about Dr. Gilbert.”

“Really? That’s surprising. Something must have happened to them.”

“How were you planning to use those documents?” asked Beauvoir.

“Well, once I got over the shock that he was involved in something so hideous, I thought they might help convince him to support my work, if he was reluctant. He’s still a nationally recognized scientist.”

“Internationally,” said Gilbert, instinctively.

“Blackmail?” said Beauvoir, but Abigail ignored that.

Her brows had drawn together in thought. “I wonder if Debbie showed you what we’d found. Is that what happened? Did she meet you outside and show you the proof? Did you kill her and take the papers?”

It was something that had occurred to Gamache. The one reason Gilbert might have killed Debbie. To destroy the damning evidence.

But there were other possibilities.

Beauvoir’s phone had vibrated with a message, which he ignored. Now it rang. Looking down at it, he glanced at Gamache, who nodded.

Beauvoir walked into the next room, taking the call while Gamache turned to Colette Roberge. “Ewen Cameron would have needed a statistician in his work, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes, that’s true. Are you accusing me?”

“No. You’d have been far too young. Cameron would have made sure to use the best, even if the best was all the way across the continent. In, let’s say, British Columbia.”

He turned back to Abigail Robinson. They all turned to her.

“Is that what you found?” Gamache continued. “Is that why you were reluctant to come right out with it? Debbie Schneider said you were going through your father’s papers. Is that where you found the proof that Dr. Gilbert was involved in Cameron’s experiments? Because your father was too.”

“No, never,” said Abigail. “My father would never have done that. He was a good man. A caring man.”

Beauvoir came back and flashed his phone for Gamache to see the four-word message.

Gamache paused, quickly putting things together. He’d been wrong. Gone down the wrong path. But now, thanks to Lacoste and Beauvoir, he could see where they needed to be.

He turned slowly back to Abigail Robinson, who’d looked from Beauvoir’s phone, though she couldn’t see the message, back up into Gamache’s eyes. And she saw there that he knew the truth.

“Are you going to tell me, or do you want me to say it?”

Her silence stretched on. He gave her thirty seconds, which seemed an eternity. The room felt like a sensory-deprivation chamber. No movement. No sound. No light outside the windows. Not even the ticking of a clock.

Armand Gamache gave Abigail Robinson another thirty seconds.

But the only thing that happened, the only movement, was the thinning of her lips, as she pressed them together.

“Your mother killed herself.”

That had been Lacoste’s message. What the coroner had written in his notes, but did not include on the death certificate.

Mrs. Robinson committed suicide.

Still, Abigail didn’t speak. So Armand did.

“She’d been suffering from insomnia and postpartum depression since your sister Maria’s birth.”

He stepped carefully, feeling his way forward. Backward. Into the past. He had no proof of what he was saying, but finally the pieces fit.

His voice was deep, gentle. “Your father didn’t work with Cameron. That was wrong. He knew of Cameron’s work, though not the exact nature of it. Your father loved your mother and wanted the best treatment.” As he spoke, he kept thoughtful eyes on Abigail. Watching, gauging, her reaction to his words. “He arranged for her to go to Montréal for treatment.” He paused. “With Ewen Cameron.”

Vincent Gilbert’s mouth went slack. Dropped open.

But Gamache kept his attention on Abigail. Her breathing was rapid, like someone hiding in a closet from an intruder.

“She came back worse,” Armand said, quietly. He and Abigail were alone in the room now. In the world. This dreadful world where such things happened. “Broken, beyond repair. A short time later she took her life.”

“No. Cameron took her life. And him.” She narrowed her eyes to stare at Gilbert.

Vincent Gilbert paled, as though her gaze was drawing the blood from him.

“And then, to add insult,” said Gamache, “Dr. Cameron sent a bill. That’s how you knew Gilbert worked with Cameron. Because he signed the demand for payment. And you found it among your father’s papers.”

From his breast pocket he brought out the paper Reine-Marie had given him, unfolded it, and placed it on the table in front of Abigail Robinson.

“This is what you found. A letter like this.”

She bent down and studied it. Looked at the name. Enid Horton.

“Exactly like that.” She looked at Vincent Gilbert. “A form letter?” Gilbert stared at his hands. “You couldn’t even be bothered to write individual letters? By the time Dad got this, my mother was dead. But he paid anyway.”

“And you came here not to get Vincent Gilbert’s endorsement, but for repayment.”

“Yes.”