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The warden, seeing this and sensing the danger too late, scrambled to his feet and reeled back, trying to get out of the Chief Inspector’s grasp as Gamache moved forward.

He did not make it.

Gamache was upon him, stopping just inches from the man. He didn’t touch the warden, but the force of his wrath pressed the man hard against the wall.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” Gamache shouted, finally letting all his pent-up anger out. Aiming it at this stupid, stupid man. “You’ve released a monster.” Gamache reached into his pocket and brought out one of the photographs.

“Look,” he roared, shoving the picture into the man’s face. “Look!”

The warden dropped his eyes to the picture.

And blanched.

Beauvoir, tense, ready to act, knew then that the warden had never really read Fleming’s file, and if he had, he hadn’t bothered, or dared, look at the pictures. Of the seven-headed creature John Fleming had created. The Beast of Babylon.

He himself had never seen it, and now Jean-Guy realized Gamache had removed the photos from the files so he would not. But the look of sheer horror on the warden’s face told the story.

“You let this madman out,” Gamache shouted. “How much did it cost? What were you paid? What’s the going price these days for monsters, you stupid piece of shit?”

He was practically screaming. Shaking with fury and on the verge of tears.

It went beyond anger, beyond rage, into a territory Beauvoir had never seen in the Chief Inspector. Gamache was losing it.

“Where is he? Where?”

When the warden didn’t answer, Gamache lifted his hand toward the man’s throat. Jean-Guy stepped forward just before it got there and pulled Gamache back.

The Chief shook him off and moved toward the warden again. Beauvoir gripped more tightly and this time dragged Gamache back.

“Get away,” he hissed into Armand’s ear. “Go. Step away.”

It was, he realized, almost exactly what Gamache had said when saving him from Fleming years ago.

Gamache stumbled back, his eyes drilling into the now pale and trembling man. He yanked his arm free, straightened his clothes, took a deep ragged breath, then turned to Beauvoir.

“Charge him. He’s an accomplice in the murder of Patricia Godin. More charges will follow.” Gamache, trembling with rage and adrenaline, glared at the warden, then said in a whisper, far more frightening than the shouting, “Do you know what you’ve done?”

“You can’t arrest me. I did nothing wrong,” the warden shouted as Gamache reached the door. “You have no proof.”

“Be quiet, you goddamned fucker,” shouted Beauvoir.

Gamache turned back. “You’d better pray we find some.”

He slammed the door behind him.

“What did he mean by that?” demanded the warden.

Beauvoir turned him around and shoved him against the wall.

“Imagine what will happen if you’re released,” Beauvoir snarled before snapping the cuffs in place and turning him back around.

It took the man a moment to see what Beauvoir meant. To imagine what Fleming would do to him now that he was no longer useful.

While Beauvoir drove the pale and panicky warden to the Sûreté in Montréal to be booked, Gamache returned to Three Pines, needing to pull over a couple of times to regain something close to composure.

What he’d almost done, and might have had Jean-Guy not been there, shocked the Chief Inspector. If he was going to find Fleming, he could not afford to lose his mind.

He needed help.