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“Did you take that picture?” Beauvoir asked.

“I did. Paul and I worked on the poster together. We had a lot of fun doing it.”

“You know what I see when I look at this photograph?” said Armand. “I see a happy, relaxed man looking at a woman he loves. Who loves him. I see an amusing, even silly, poster made for a serious scientific conference. About spurious correlations. A phrase you’ve repeated several times. Why did you do that?”

“I wanted you to know that statistics can be manipulated, misinterpreted. They can be made to say anything.”

“I already knew that,” said Armand. “I think most people do, don’t you? I think you wanted us to find this.” He nodded toward the phone and the photo.

“Why would I do that?”

“To muddy the waters,” said Armand. “To confuse us—”

“You don’t seem to need my help for that.”

“—to make us question, doubt, the connections we were making. Between the death of Maria Robinson and the murder of Debbie Schneider. Between Abby and Maria.”

“The connection,” Beauvoir said, “between you and Paul Robinson.”

“There was a connection,” Colette said. “A very deep one. But there was no affair. He was older, a mentor. Like with Vincent, there was a powerful intellectual attraction, but that’s all. And yes, I loved him. And he loved me. But—”

“Colette?” called Jean-Paul Roberge from somewhere in the house.

She jumped to her feet, the book almost falling to the floor. She put it on the table, then took a step toward the voice, before turning to them. Both men were also on their feet.

“But he”—she looked behind her—“is my soul mate. The only man I’ve ever wanted to be with. And still do.”

They watched her go, but only after Armand asked her to leave the book.

“Keep looking, Jean-Guy.”

“You don’t believe her, patron?”

“I think she’s telling the truth when she says there was no affair, but I think there’s a lot she isn’t saying. Like what she did that made Paul Robinson eternally grateful. Notice the date above the inscription.”

“A day before he died,” said Jean-Guy.

Isabelle Lacoste asked the young man at the reception desk if he’d seen Professor Robinson.

“I think I saw her go into the living room.”

Lacoste looked in there. A few guests, including Vincent Gilbert, were relaxing. Most reading. They looked up at her, then away. Not wanting to catch the cop’s eye.

Only Dr. Gilbert continued to stare. Interested but not worried. But then he wouldn’t be, she thought as she left the room. He thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.

She got a few steps away, stopped, turned, and returned to the living room.

“May I join you?” she asked.

He half rose, in a halfhearted invitation. “Please.”

“Dr. Gilbert, can I confide in you?”

He closed the magazine and set it aside. “Of course.”

“Chief Inspector Gamache has asked me to interview Professor Robinson again because, well, we have our suspicions.”

Gilbert raised his bushy gray brows. “Like?”