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“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.”

Chapter 36

Well, we now know why Abigail Robinson came to Québec,” said Lacoste, slicing the baguette. “To kill Vincent Gilbert.”

They were back in the Incident Room. Dominique had brought down dinner. A large pot of her winter spécialité, a hearty pot-au-feu.

Jean-Guy ladled it out, while Armand poured beer for himself and Lacoste, and gave Jean-Guy a ginger ale.

Abigail Robinson had come back to the Inn with them, as had Vincent Gilbert. They were now under the same roof, but on different floors, restricted to their rooms.

“She doesn’t admit that,” said Gamache, tearing a thick piece of baguette and dipping it into the stew. “It would be helpful if we had any evidence, like the letter Gilbert wrote and Abigail found among her father’s things.”

“I think Abigail got that much right,” said Isabelle. “Debbie threatened him with it, he panicked and killed her, then burned the letter along with the murder weapon. He admits he destroyed every other document connecting him to Cameron. And he was in the library before the attack. He could’ve taken a piece of firewood without anyone seeing.”

“So they were going to kill each other?” asked Jean-Guy. “Like gladiators in the ring?”

“Not quite,” said Armand. “But close. I think Abigail’s plan was more subtle, more layered. I think she was going to blackmail Gilbert into publicly supporting her campaign—”

“Then she’d release the evidence anyway, that Gilbert had collaborated with Ewen Cameron,” said Jean-Guy. “Why kill the man outright when you can torture him first? Give him some of his own back. Let him watch everything he’d spent a lifetime building up come crumbling down.”

“He was far beyond his depth, in his sea of glory,” said Gamache.

“A quote?” asked Beauvoir. The rich stew and sleepiness had lowered his resistance, and the question popped out before he could stop it.

His eyes widened in fear, some mock, some real, that the Chief would now regale them with the full poem.

He did not. Gamache only smiled and said, “Why is it when I say something profound you assume I’m quoting someone else?”

“Were you?” Beauvoir asked, and could have kicked himself. Stop it. Stop giving him an opening.

Gamache gave a small grunt of laughter. “How well you know me. Yes. Wolsey’s farewell, from Shakespeare’s Henry VIII. I’ve thought of it a few times when I’ve considered Dr. Gilbert in this whole thing. His ego propped open the door to his enemies.”

“I’ve been thinking of eunuchs,” said Isabelle.

“Eunuchs? As in—” Jean-Guy made a gesture over his lap.

“Exactly. Some men in China intentionally castrated themselves in order to rise to a position of power.”

Jean-Guy’s eyes widened. He’d heard of the practice, but had assumed it was a punishment, not a choice. Who would . . . ?

Armand, though, was nodding. “Yes. That might be closer to the truth. What people do for power. How they’re willing to mutilate themselves, physically, intellectually, morally, for power and position.”

“You think that’s what Gilbert did?” asked Jean-Guy, fighting to get the quite vivid image out of his head.

“I think some people would do just about anything, say just about anything, stay quiet about anything, to attain, then hold on to power,” said Armand. “We’ve seen a lot of that in the last few years. Why not Vincent Gilbert? A boy from a poor family, gifted with remarkable intellect, but crippled by a lack of resources and conscience. His brains got him into medical school in McGill, and his faulty moral compass allowed him to stay there.”

“All he had to do was turn a blind eye to torture,” said Isabelle.

“And when, years later, having achieved international recognition as a doctor and humanitarian he was threatened with exposure, his core instincts come out.”

“So you do think Vincent Gilbert killed Debbie Schneider,” said Jean-Guy. “To get those papers off her. To stop the blackmail.”

“I think we finally have a motive for her death. He’d clearly gone to huge lengths to erase any evidence of his work with Cameron, destroying all the paperwork in the files in the Osler Library.”