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“It’s slightly more than that,” said Gamache. “He said he hadn’t been to the George V in years, but the manager said she’d seen him yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Beauvoir’s brows shot up. “She could be wrong.”

Gamache made a noncommittal guttural sound.

Still, it seemed absurd. Was he going to suspect a friend, a colleague, of murder based on such flimsy evidence? A whiff ? And a possible sighting in a crowded hotel?

Was loyalty so fragile?

What he did know about Claude Dussault, and had seen time and again over the years, was that he had both courage and integrity.

But people changed. Sometimes for the better. Often for the worse.

And there was something else.

“The intruder Reine-Marie and I surprised this morning. If he was responsible for the murder, and the attack on Stephen, then he should have killed us. I told Reine-Marie that he wouldn’t. It would cause too much of a mess, but that was a lie. The truth is, once he’d made one body, he wouldn’t hesitate to make two more. And he certainly should have killed me when I was chasing him. It would’ve been easy enough.”

“Yes,” said Beauvoir.

His father-in-law had hit on the one great argument against trusting Claude Dussault.

A stranger would not have hesitated to murder the Gamaches. But a friend … ?

“And when I was chasing him down the stairs, I heard a phone ring. It was muffled, but I’m pretty sure it came from the intruder.”

“Yes?” said Beauvoir, not sure how this linked up with the Prefect.

“Reine-Marie would’ve been calling Claude at about that time.”

There it was.

“Maybe we don’t tell the Prefect everything,” said Jean-Guy. “But we do need to get our hands on that annual report.”

“How did Stephen seem to you last night?”

“He was in good spirits. As good as it ever got with Stephen.”

“But not especially giddy,” said Gamache. “Not like a man about to expose some big swindle?”

“Not giddy, no. You’re thinking he found something out about GHS? That’s why he wanted to go to the board meeting?”

If Stephen was about to topple a tower of malfeasance he’d probably be quite bubbly. It was just about his favorite thing to do.

As it was, he was clearly pleased to see everyone and to be there, but there was no sense of triumph. Nor did he seem guarded or nervous.

“But he did check his phone a few times,” said Beauvoir. “That was strange.”

“Yes, you mentioned that before. I wonder if he was looking for a message from Monsieur Plessner. There was no phone found on the body or in the apartment?”

“Non, but they might find one eventually.”

“I doubt it,” said Armand, and so did Jean-Guy. The killer would have taken it.

And there was something else.

“Stephen helped me get the job at GHS,” said Jean-Guy. “Could there have been a reason? But if he had suspicions about the company, he’d have told me, right? Or at least hinted?”

Gamache shook his head. His godfather was a complicated man. He kept his own counsel, and always had. His early experiences in the war had taught him that the fewer people who knew what was going on, the safer everyone was.