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“I’m not saying anything, Robert.” Armand’s voice was steady, calm. “I’m just asking.”

“She had cancer, for God’s sake. What’re you suggesting?”

“I’m sorry.” And he was. But still, he had to ask. Again. “Did anyone come to the house yesterday? A delivery, maybe?”

“No.” But now there was a hesitation, a slight shift in the minister’s attitude. “Actually, something was delivered. Sylvie said she didn’t remember ordering it, but I think the cancer had gone to her brain. She was forgetting things, getting more muddled.”

“What was it?”

“A clock.”

“Clock?” Armand thought of the photo Reine-Marie had sent of the detail from the real Paston Treasure. “Do you know what time it was set for?”

“Of course not. Who notices that?”

Gamache was almost afraid to ask the next question. “Was there any writing on it?”

The minister looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. “Writing? What are you talking about? Sylvie’s dead. Don’t you care? For sure, let’s talk about clocks now.”

“I’m sorry, of course I care.” He leaned forward. “I wish I didn’t have to do this, but … Robert, where was she taken?”

The minister looked perplexed, then his eyes widened. “Good God, you’re not suggesting an…”

“Autopsy. Not yet, but we need blood and tissue samples. And I need to see the clock. I am deeply, deeply sorry, but if someone did something to Sylvie, we need to know. It might help us find the person and stop him hurting anyone else.”

Appealing to the minister’s sense of social responsibility might have been manipulative, but it also happened to be the truth. They had to get possession of Sylvie Mongeau’s body before she was embalmed.

“But it’s ludicrous. Why would anyone hurt Sylvie?”

“I don’t know, and she probably died peacefully and naturally. But we need to be sure.”

“No autopsy?” said Robert. “You promise?”

“No autopsy. Not without telling you. I promise.”

Mongeau gave him the name of the funeral home. Armand got to his feet.

“I won’t be able to come to your home after all.” The minister’s voice was cold, formal. “I’ll have Claude drop the clock off at the Old Train Station.”

With that he turned his back on Gamache.

“I wish you’d reconsider, Robert.” The minister didn’t move, but Armand had one more question. “Does Monsieur Boisfranc have a key to your home?”

But Robert just continued to stare ahead. Though Gamache was pretty sure he knew what the answer was.

Instead of heading outside, Armand went down into the basement, where he found the caretaker’s room. It had a single bed and dresser. Armand stood at the threshold and looked in. He had no right to search the man’s place, and anything he found could not be used as evidence.

He considered. Weighing the consequences. The legal and the moral.

And then he entered the room and searched. Quickly, expertly.

But there was nothing there. No photographs, no letters. No handwriting of any sort.

This was the modest room of a man without roots. Then Armand looked behind the door and found a poster. It was from Clara’s first solo show at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.

The museum had chosen the extraordinary portrait of Ruth Zardo as the abandoned, forgotten, embittered Virgin Mary, clutching a blue shawl to her scrawny neck and looking out at the world with contempt.

Except, except, except. For those who did not hurry by, there was a reward beyond imagining. It was the tiny dot in her eyes. The tiniest hint of hope.