World of Curiosities

CHAPTER 28

It looked farcical.

The villagers stood in front of The Paston Treasure, each of them holding a magnifying device to their face.

After inviting them over, Armand had gone into Monsieur Béliveau’s shop. It was a true “general store,” selling everything from fish and oranges to rubber boots and … magnifying glasses.

Clara held her grandmother’s blue enamel opera glasses. Myrna and Billy had their own glasses. Ruth peered through binoculars. No one had the courage, or the will, to ask what she used them for.

Olivier, Gabri, Robert and Sylvie Mongeau, and Reine-Marie each accepted magnifying glasses from Armand.

They were examining something none had noticed before. The small markings that the art conservator had found.

Reine-Marie was the first to lower her magnifier. “They’re everywhere.”

“It’s so strange,” said Gabri. “What do they mean?”

“Don’t you think if he knew,” snapped Ruth, shoving Rosa toward Gamache, “he wouldn’t need us?”

The duck nodded.

Now that they could see them, it seemed, like the roofline and the hidden room, so obvious. These weren’t marks to simulate texture, these were symbols.

“Lots of paintings have hidden messages,” said Clara. “Even the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo painted an angel essentially giving the pope the finger.”

“And writers do it all the time,” agreed Reine-Marie. “They’re only just now decoding Dickens’s Tavistock letter.”

It was the letter Jérôme Brunel was working on as part of his hobby. Armand still hadn’t heard back from the retired doctor and made a mental note to follow up.

“You know the Voynich manuscript?” Myrna asked Reine-Marie.

“Is that the Jesuit one?” she asked. She had a vague memory of reading about it.

“Right. Voynich was an antiquarian bookseller. In 1912 he bought a collection of books from some Jesuit college, and among them was a manuscript from the 1400s. It’s more than two hundred pages all written in this unknown language, with illustrations and graphs. No one knows who did it, or why. Or what it means.”

“It’s strange that the marks would be put on the elephant,” said Olivier.

“Elephant?” asked Sylvie. “There’s no elephant in the painting, is there?”

“No, I mean the bronze statue. A guest took it from the B&B,” said Gabri. “It was in the attic too, with the same markings etched in. I tried to track down Madame Mountweazel but couldn’t find her.”

“Mountweazel?” said Reine-Marie. “Lillian Virginia Mountweazel?”

They turned to her, amazed.

“Oui,” said Gabri. “You know her? You weren’t even here when she was.”

“Who is she?” asked Armand.

Reine-Marie looked torn between amusement and concern. “She doesn’t exist.”

“Then how do you know her name?” asked Jean-Guy.

“And she does exist,” said Gabri. “We met her.”

“No, I mean the name, Mountweazel. It’s a code too.”

“What do you mean?” asked Sylvie. “Code for what?”

Reine-Marie was quiet for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “Years ago, before the internet and electronic ways to investigate intellectual property thefts, publishers would put traps into books. Fictitious entries in reference books, to catch copyright thieves. Lillian Virginia Mountweazel is the most famous.”

“Well,” said Gabri, “famous?”

“Among archivists, yes. She’s almost a folk hero. Lillian Virginia Mountweazel is a fake biographical entry in The New Columbia Encyclopedia. She was described as a fountain designer who died in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine.”

The minister, Robert Mongeau, was the first to break the silence, with a laugh. Soon the others were chuckling too.

“If something’s called a mountweazel, it means it’s a fraud,” said Reine-Marie.

“Shit,” said Gabri. “I wish you’d been around when she was here.”

“Maybe that’s why she came when she did,” said Sylvie. “So you wouldn’t be here.”

Armand was nodding. It was a thought. And a disturbing one. It meant that someone really was feeding information about his family, their travels, their habits and interests. Someone close.

He was happier than ever that Reine-Marie was going away. Though they had to make sure that person did not know where.

“It’s not that funny,” Gabri said to Ruth, who was still chuckling.

Ruth was staring at the painting through her binoculars.

“It’s not that,” she said, lowering them. “It’s that.” She gestured toward the painting.

“What?” asked Armand.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“For fuck’s sake, you old drunk,” said Gabri. “If it was obvious, we wouldn’t be here.”

“I just said that to you.”

“I know. Do you never listen to yourself?”

He turned to Armand. “She doesn’t see anything in the painting. The duck has a better chance of decoding those marks.”

Rosa nodded. But then, ducks often did. Though they almost never broke codes.

“I see a DVD,” said Ruth.

“So do we.” Olivier waved toward the painting.

“But do you see its title?”

They all leaned forward and brought their magnifiers back up to their faces.

“‘Tire’?” suggested Olivier.

“A movie about a tire?” asked Billy. “Or maybe it means tired? Exhausted?”

“No, ‘tire,’” said Olivier. “French. It means shoot.” He turned to Armand. “Shoot? A gun? Is that the message?”

“My God,” said Ruth. “You’re all idiots. How is it I can see what it says and you can’t?”

“It’s because you’re looking through a telescope,” said Gabri. “You could see the markings on Jupiter with that thing, you old witch.”

“Bitch,” she said to him.

“Children,” said Armand. Though he knew they were not really fighting. This was their own code, baffling, sometimes offensive to others, but their way of showing affection. The more Ruth insulted a person, the more she cared about them.

“‘Tiro,’” said Sylvie Mongeau, then repeated it. “‘Tiro.’ That’s what it says.”

“There,” said Ruth. “She got it.”

“‘Tiro’?” said Myrna. “What does it mean?”

“Those markings?” Ruth pointed Rosa at the painting. “They’re not code. They’re shorthand. Almost no one uses it anymore. Technology has killed it.”

“Video killed the radio star,” Clara said to Gabri.

“The Buggles,” he agreed.

“So what’s Tiro?” asked Robert.

“Tironian notes?” Ruth looked from face to face, skipping by Gabri. “He was Cicero’s secretary?” Again, she looked at them. “Anything? Nothing?”

“Cicero?” said Jean-Guy. “My mother bakes with that.”

“That’s Crisco, numbnuts.”

“Got it,” said Reine-Marie, who’d looked up Tiro on her phone. “He was Cicero’s secretary.”

“I just said that,” said Ruth.

“Part of his job was to write down all of Cicero’s speeches when he spoke in the Roman senate or elsewhere,” Reine-Marie said. “And to take notes at meetings. But Tiro had trouble keeping up, so he invented—”

“Shorthand,” declared Ruth. “It’s all over the damned painting—”

“And the elephant,” said Gabri.

“Holy shit. Sorry,” Jean-Guy said to Robert.

“No need. I’m beginning to agree with you.”

“Do you read shorthand, Ruth?” Armand asked.

“A bit. I worked as a personal assistant for a while.”

“To Cicero,” mumbled Gabri, while the rest of them spent a beat imagining Ruth assisting anyone in anything. Though that could explain the fall of the Roman republic.

“I was trained in Gregg shorthand, this looks like Pitman. Or a combination of the two.”

Armand stepped away and placed a call to Jérôme Brunel.

The code breaker was deeply embarrassed. “I can’t believe I missed that. One of the dangers in what we do. We’re looking for the obscure, expecting it. But if something is simple, we can miss it. We see the forest, but not the trees.”

“Do you know shorthand? Can you translate it?”

“Actually”—Jérôme gave a short laugh—“I don’t, but I can look it up. I’m sure I can work it out.”

“You know,” said Olivier after Armand had hung up, “it’s strange that each of us recognizes something in that room. Gabri and I recognized the elephant. Clara the painting.”

“I recognized the music,” said Robert.

“And Ruth knew Tiro,” said Myrna.

“The hidden room’s in your loft,” Clara said to Myrna.

“I knew the grimoire,” said Reine-Marie. “It’s as though each of the elements is meant for specific people.”

“Except you,” said Ruth, looking at Armand.

Though Gamache was far from sure that was true. There was the sheet music. Had that been put there for him? But it was far from specific. It might have been meant for the minister.

No, if there was something in that painting just for him, he hadn’t yet found it. Like Jérôme, he could see the forest, but not the one specific tree.

Armand picked up Agent Choquet and drove her and Reine-Marie to Trudeau International Airport in Montréal for their overnight flight to London.

Once there he took Amelia aside. “You know why you’re going?”

“Oui, patron. To protect Madame Gamache. I won’t let anything happen to her. I promise.” He turned away, but she stopped him. “I know what happened.”

“Pardon?”

“To your parents.” She held his eyes. “I will not let anything happen to your wife.”

He stared at her for a moment. “Merci, Amelia. And look after yourself.”

After embracing Reine-Marie and whispering, “Je t’aime,” he watched them through the sliding doors, then drove back to Three Pines. Thinking. Thinking, all the way.

Before Gamache had left for the airport, Beauvoir had taken him aside to tell him the good news.

“God knows what this hot mess is about,” he said, gesturing toward the giant painting, “and how it might relate to the murder of Madame Godin, but it looks like we can at least stop worrying about Sam.”

He told Armand about his conversation. About the grandchildren reference. About the meaning of the photographs. And the gestures.

“And you believed him?” asked Armand. It wasn’t an accusation. He was genuinely curious. And he realized he really, deeply, profoundly wanted to believe it too.

He glanced at the painting. If his suspicions were right, they had more than enough trouble on their hands without fighting on a second front.

“I do.” It was clear the Chief was just asking, it wasn’t a criticism, and yet Jean-Guy felt a sharp thrust. Sam’s comment about him needing Gamache’s approval for something as trivial as a meal had niggled. “But I’m not so sure about Fiona.”

There. A small thrust back. The insinuation that while Beauvoir had been right about Sam, Gamache was wrong about his sister.

But Armand just nodded. “Merci.” He heaved a sigh, and Jean-Guy, seeing this, felt ashamed of himself.

“What can I do, patron, while you’re at the airport?”

“Can you learn shorthand, please? Both types, Gregg and Pitman?”

“Can do. Now, what’s shorthand again?”

Jean-Guy was relieved to see Armand smile.

“Actually, can you call the SHU?”

Beauvoir’s smile disappeared. “I will.”

By the time Armand returned to Three Pines, it was dark, though there was light in the Old Train Station. Jean-Guy met him at the door to the Incident Room.

“I spoke to the warden of the SHU. All’s well. Everyone accounted for. I also asked about art therapy. He said they stopped it last year when two more inmates were stabbed by sharpened brushes.”

Art Therapy with Psychopaths. Canceled. And none too soon, thought Armand.

“You hungry?”

“You have to ask?” said Jean-Guy. “I’ll call Olivier and order something.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll go over. I need some fresh air.”

He found Fiona, Harriet, and Sam having dinner. He said hello to the women and mentioned to Fiona that Reine-Marie had gone to the Gaspé, to visit a sister.

“If you feel uncomfortable staying in the house without her, I’m sure Gabri can put you up in the B&B.”

“You’re not trying to get rid of her, are you?” said Sam, with a smile.

Armand ignored him. After an awkward silence, Fiona answered.

“No. I trust you and Inspector Beauvoir.”

“Would you like to join us, Chief Inspector?” Sam asked.

Once again, Gamache didn’t even look in his direction. It was as though the chair was empty.

He wanted to believe Jean-Guy, but he also wanted to hedge his bets. If Myrna was right and he ignored Sam, the young psychopath would turn all his attention on him. And leave the others alone.

He walked away, ordered dinner, then took it back to the Old Train Station, feeling Sam’s rage following him every step of the way.

Back in the Incident Room, Armand pulled up a chair and sat beside Jean-Guy. Together they ate their wild mushroom ravioli with sage brown butter, drank iced tea, and stared at the painting.

But nothing new appeared.

Armand woke up in the middle of the night to make sure Reine-Marie’s flight had landed. Then he struggled to get back to sleep. Finally giving up, he dressed, left a note for Jean-Guy, and walked back to the Old Train Station. Henri, Fred, and Gracie plodded sleepily along with him.

Putting the coffee on to perk, he once again pulled up a chair. By now he felt he’d memorized the painting, though he knew that wasn’t close to the truth. It was so detailed. With so many elements hidden in plain sight. It was indeed, as art historians had dubbed it, “A World of Curiosities.”

But this one, theirs, was also, as Dr. Louissaint had said, offensive. There was something aggressive, threatening, about it. He wondered if the real one felt the same way. Reine-Marie would soon find out.

She’d written as soon as they landed, and now there was another message. They were on their way to Norwich. He replied, then settled back with a mug of strong coffee and a chewy oatmeal cookie. And stared at the painting while the dogs, and Gracie, stared at the cookie.

The only light in the room was shining on The Paston Treasure. While the disturbing work was illuminated, Armand himself sat in darkness. In stillness and quiet. The only sounds were the breathing of the dogs at his feet and the slight cries of a dreaming Fred as the puppy chased squirrels.

Armand felt his shoulders drop and his breathing steady as he let the painting come to him. As Clara had taught him.

And then, one by one, he saw them. The people staring out of the painting. At him.

“Armand?”

Gamache jolted, almost falling out of his chair. The now cool coffee spilled on his shirt. The dogs lifted their heads at the disturbance.

“Désolé,” said Jean-Guy. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I saw the light and found your note.” He stopped in his tracks. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

There was no doubt about it. The Chief looked more than startled. He looked frightened.

“It is him.”

“It can’t be.” Beauvoir walked swiftly over.

Gamache got up and went to the painting, pointing. “Look. Here. Here. There.”

He kept pointing. And Jean-Guy kept counting. With each number he felt the vomit rising, burning, until finally at the seventh he could taste wild mushrooms and sage brown butter in his mouth.

He swallowed hard and saw Armand turn pale. His deep brown eyes wide in near panic.

“It’s not possible.” Jean-Guy’s voice was hoarse from the acid burning his throat. He’d turned from the painting, no longer daring to look, not daring to catch the accusing eyes of the seven figures who stared out at them.

“I called,” he said, feeling his own panic threatening to overwhelm him. “I spoke to the warden. He assured me…”

But he knew the Chief was right.

Armand covered his mouth with his hand and turned back to the canvas. Forcing himself to meet those eyes. To let those faces, those people, come to him. And with them came some rough beast slouching toward him.

“Come on, come on.” Reine-Marie’s voice was soft, coaxing. It was the tone she used for Fred when she needed the old dog to try to climb back up the basement stairs.

Amelia moaned. “Can’t we sleep? Just for a little while. I promise. Not long.”

She’d gotten on the plane excited. She got off exhausted. Who knew transatlantic flights were so long? And boring. And now it was nine in the morning in London but—she checked her watch—four a.m. back home.

She hadn’t slept. Tried. Failed. Had shifted this way. That. And then the person in front had put their seat back. All the way.

Fuck. Fuckity, fuck, fuck.

Beside her, Madame Gamache had read for a while, then closed her eyes. What made it worse was knowing that, in the front of the plane, people had beds. Beds. Beds!

“Puh-leeez,” she begged.

Reine-Marie had arranged for a driver, David Norman, to meet them. The same man she and Armand used every visit.

“You can sleep in the car,” she said as she spotted David waiting just beyond the barrier at Heathrow. “And by the way, you did sleep on the flight.”

“Did not.”

Reine-Marie didn’t argue. She knew that tone from when Annie was a child. She knew it from overtired grandchildren. She also knew Amelia had slept. And had dropped her head onto Reine-Marie’s shoulder. She had the drool marks to prove it.

She waved to David, who came over to greet them and take their carry-ons.

He said hello to Amelia, who just grunted.

“Your daughter?” he asked, trying to make it sound like that would be a good thing.

“A friend.” She didn’t dare tell him the truth.

They got in the car for the almost three-hour drive from Heathrow to the Norwich Castle Museum.

Armand stood in front of the locked and bolted metal door in the basement that housed and guarded and imprisoned his files.

Putting in the code, he unlocked it, first glancing behind him to make sure he was alone.

Once inside, he locked the door behind him and opened the drawer where the Beast of Babylon lived. Buried there. Buried alive.

Armand placed the iron ring on the desk. The engineer’s ring he’d found half buried in the dirt. Then he brought out the file and reread it. Forcing himself to relive the details. To go through the photographs again. Every now and then he got up and stepped away, turning his back on the desk.

Then he walked back, sat down, and went through it all again.