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“Do most people who rent this place see it first?” Beauvoir asked.

“I’d say almost all.”

“Then who from Professor Robinson’s group toured it? And when?”

Viau’s brows drew together. “They didn’t. At least not as far as I know.”

“How did they know about this place?” asked Beauvoir. “And who rented it for her?”

Gamache could see the old gymnasium building from the President’s office.

He returned his gaze from the window back to President Pascal and Chancellor Roberge.

He’d gone through what had happened the day before. Step by step. A report. Facts.

“What’s the most likely scenario?” President Pascal asked.

“At this stage, I can’t say.”

“Can’t or won’t?” asked the Chancellor.

Gamache remained silent.

“Basically, Chief Inspector, you’re saying you’re considering every option,” said the President.

“Except space aliens, yes.”

“Including that Professor Robinson herself orchestrated it,” said Pascal.

“That’s one scenario, oui.”

“That sounds like one small step up from space aliens,” said the Chancellor, with a weary smile. This had not been her, or anyone’s, favorite twenty-four hours. “Sounds to me like a spurious correlation. Connecting things that don’t actually go together.”

“We need to look at everything, no matter how unlikely,” Gamache reiterated. Though the more he thought about it, the more Professor Robinson orchestrating an attempt on her own life seemed unlikely. Too many variables. Too many things could go wrong.

As a statistician, she would know that. Would she take the risk?

He doubted it.

“How did the gun get into the place?” asked the President. “I’m assuming he didn’t walk in with it.”

“No. It must’ve been hidden there before the event.” He decided not to tell them that they believed Tardif had an accomplice.

Gamache looked at the President with some sympathy.

Otto Pascal led a small, even sleepy university, and had woken up this morning to chaos. The campus was overrun with police, with journalists from around Québec, soon from around the country and even the world.

The Administration must, by now, be fielding awkward questions from frightened parents. Wondering if their children should return. And not just because of the shooting.

All the journalists, and many of the parents, would be asking how any academic institution could possibly allow a talk by Abigail Robinson, a person many, most, considered a lunatic.

President Pascal looked longingly at his desk, where the latest photos from a find in the Valley of the Kings was awaiting his interpretation.

Otto Pascal had come up with his theory on hieroglyphic fiction in his postdoc work, only because no one else had thought of it. Then he’d spent the last four decades slowly realizing why that was.

Still, it had gotten him some notice. Granted, not as much as his roommate, who had, as a joke and, given this conversation, somewhat ironically, decided to declare that the hieroglyphs, and the pyramids themselves, were the work of ancient aliens.

It pissed Pascal off. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Now he was stuck with the dumb literature theory.