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“Then why did he confess?”

“He must’ve guessed that Simon had helped me, and he wanted to protect him.”

Isabelle nodded. This was a close family. A loving family. That had, inadvertently or not, colluded in attempted murder.

“Don’t say anything,” said Maître Lacombe. She turned to Lacoste. “Monsieur Tardif was in extreme distress. His mother was in a home where more than twenty elderly residents had died of Covid. She’d survived. But he was afraid she wouldn’t survive Professor Robinson. He was protecting his family. Or thought he was. Surely you can see that.”

“I have sympathy, but the fact remains, your client shot a gun in a crowded auditorium. Barely missing the professor and a Chief Inspector of the Sûreté.”

“Yes, he has to face the consequences,” agreed the avocat, while Tardif looked on. “But he wasn’t of sound mind.”

“Simon didn’t know,” Tardif repeated.

“He was at the Inn last night. He was working the party when Professor Robinson’s assistant was murdered.”

“He was?” Then his eyes widened. “You can’t believe Simon did that.”

“Given he was your accomplice in the attempted murder of Professor Robinson, it’s hard to believe he didn’t.”

“But he never . . . he couldn’t. He doesn’t have it in him. He was just doing what I asked. He has his whole life ahead of him. Please, for God’s sake, believe me. Let him go. Charge me with anything you want, but let him go. Don’t ruin his life.”

“I’m afraid I’m not the one who’s ruined his life.”

“So,” said Beauvoir, looking up from the letter, “this proves it. Vincent Gilbert did know what Cameron was doing. And was part of it.”

“Yes,” said Gamache.

He’d walked up to the Auberge and gone in the back way to avoid running into Gilbert.

With each mention of Ewen Cameron, the faces in the basement wall seemed to grow more prominent. Pushing forward.

Was Cameron himself in there? Had he been summoned from Hell?

Gamache knew this was fantasy. And yet . . .

“We need to have another word with Dr. Gilbert,” he said.

Beauvoir got up. It had been a while since he’d so looked forward to an interrogation.

“But first,” said Armand, motioning him to sit back down, “I want to hear what you found out from your calls out west.”

“Oh, right. Seems they all knew about the second daughter, Maria,” said Jean-Guy. “She was no secret. Her death had been especially hard on her father. He blamed himself.”

“Why?”

“The little girl choked on a peanut butter sandwich. One he gave her for lunch.”

Armand took a long, deep breath. Imagining, and trying not to imagine, what that would be like. The minutes when it happened, and the years that followed.

“I also called the coroner’s office in Nanaimo,” said Beauvoir.

“Why?”

“Well, it just seemed to me there were quite a few deaths in that family. First Abigail’s mother, then her sister, and finally her father.”

Gamache frowned, then slowly nodded. “Good idea. Anything?”

“Not yet. I asked for the death certificates and any autopsy reports.”