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“In the painting, the girl is holding a book of music open to one song. Robert Mongeau began humming it.”

Now Gamache, in his deep baritone, also hummed. Then stopped when it was clear Jean-Guy recognized it.

“‘Babylon,’” he whispered. “You don’t think…”

“I don’t know. We need to check it out. I’m sending Reine-Marie to Norfolk, to see The Paston Treasure and speak to the curator. Agent Choquet’s going with her.”

“Grounds for divorce, patron.”

“Your lunch date. Sam?”

“Yes. If what you’re thinking is true, then he can’t be behind the stuff in the attic. Besides, the kid isn’t that clever. More a club-to-the-head sort of person.”

Or a brick, thought Gamache. Though he knew Beauvoir was right. Sam was cunning, but he didn’t have the patience for a plan that was meticulously thought-out and executed. Besides, the man who visited the Godins looking for the Stone letter was older.

Yes, the Arsenault kids were out of the picture.

Though maybe there was more than one “picture.” Or a much larger picture. Like The Paston Treasure. With far more elements than he knew.

When Jean-Guy left, Armand stood in the living room and opened the thin volume of poetry. To the ticket. To the poem. “Waiting.”

And after all it is nothing new / It is only a memory, after all / a memory of a fear. And then the line, the last one, that Reine-Marie had not read. Perhaps on purpose.

A memory of a fear / that has now come true.

“Is something wrong, Auntie Myrna?”

“Come with me.”

Up the stairs to the loft they went.

“Sit.”

Harriet sat.

Myrna took a few steps this way, then that. And finally ended up where she started. In front of her niece. She sat down and took a couple of deep breaths before speaking.

Harriet had her arguments all lined up, had rehearsed them. Prepared for the onslaught. What she wasn’t prepared for was what Auntie Myrna said.

“You know what I did before I retired?”

“I’m sorry for not coming…” She stopped. Huh? “Pardon?”

“My job. You know what it was, right?”

“You were a therapist, weren’t you?” Harriet’s mind raced. Yes, therapist, but what sort? Physical? Art therapy? Massage maybe?

“I was a psychologist. Had a private practice, but I also worked in the prison system with the worst offenders.”

“Really?” Harriet had been a child when Auntie Myrna had moved to this village. She’d known, somehow, that her aunt had been a therapist in Montréal, but to Harriet, she’d only ever been Auntie Myrna who ran the bookstore. “That must’ve been interesting.”

She was trying to figure out where this was going. Surely her aunt wasn’t suggesting that having consensual sex qualified as an offense, never mind a “worst” one.

Harriet wasn’t just physically attracted to Sam, she liked him. He paid attention to her, listened to her. He saw her. He was even interested in her peculiar hobby of collecting bricks, offering to show her one he had that might interest her.

“Had it since I was a kid,” he had said. “But don’t tell anyone. Gamache already thinks I’m weird.”

“You know about the Arsenaults?” said Myrna.