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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.