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Dear God, he hasn’t even read the synopsis I wrote for him, the one that kept me up ’til two in the morning.

We’re on the same side, we’re on the same side. We’re. On. The. Same. Side. Though there was precious little evidence.

“To answer that, I need to go back—”

There was a sustained hufffff from the endlessly patient man on the other side of the desk. His flapping lips made a raspberry sound.

As Gamache leaned forward, the wooden chair creaked. He was not to be deterred. It was vital the prosecutor understood the roots of this crime.

“I need to go back to where this all started. More than a hundred years ago.”

Lebel, clearly on the verge of another long-suffering sigh, stopped when he saw the censorious look on the Chief Inspector’s face.

“It became clear,” Gamache continued, “that this crime revolved around another mystery. That of Daisy Wolcott and her collection. She was, by what few accounts we could find, an eccentric Victorian of means, possessed of a fierce intellect and curiosity about the natural world. She was intrepid, following legends and myths about various flora—”

“As fascinating as this is, Chief Inspector, I’m not interviewing you for a National Geographic special. Just answer the question, before I forget what I asked you.”

“I am answering it. As you so insightfully pointed out, I’m not a botanist. I need to explain how Dr. Lagacé came into our case.”

Maître Lebel leaned back and, in a gesture plump with both resignation and generosity of spirit, indicated Gamache could proceed.

“Merci. Miss Wolcott’s—”

“Who?”

“Daisy Wolcott. I just mentioned her. The Victorian—”

“Right. Proceed.”

Gamache hoped Lebel was doing it to annoy him, and not because he really wasn’t paying attention.

“Miss Wolcott’s travels took her all over the world. But unlike her peers, her male contemporaries, she didn’t harbor contempt for the peoples she encountered, most of them Indigenous. Far from it. Miss Wolcott listened as they described the uses, often medicinal but not always, of the native plants. Some were poisonous. Some aggressive.”

There was another long-suffering sigh from across the desk.

“Please, Monsieur Gamache. I can’t go into court and talk about the life of some long-dead amateur plant collector unless you’re saying Dr. Lagacé also killed Miss Wilmott.”

“Wolcott. No, I am not.” Gamache’s voice was calm, measured. “But it’s important in understanding the motive for the murder, to understand this extraordinary woman and a century-old botanical mystery that’s at the heart of the case.”

Despite himself, Maître Lebel now looked curious.

“Daisy Wolcott was not well-liked,” Gamache continued. “Almost certainly because she broke the mold and insisted on being her own person. She made the great social blunder for a woman of being both smart and brave. I suspect today she’d be the head of a fine university. But back then, Miss Wolcott was viewed with suspicion and contempt. It didn’t help that she was herself prickly. Opinionated. Unwilling to adhere to social norms. And so, she was ostracized. Near the end of her life, fearing that her collection might not survive, she donated her documents to a small university in France, in hopes it would be protected and valued. By then, she’d taken to wearing men’s clothing, which further alienated her contemporaries. And while that might have been one of her purposes, the more practical reason for the tweed slacks and jackets was to hide what she was doing.”

“And that was?” The prosecutor was now leaning forward.

“Miss Wolcott would visit her neighbors’ well-ordered gardens and drop her foreign seeds in the flower beds. But only one type of seed.”

That brought a grin to the stern face. “How odd. Why?”

“Why exactly. Miss Wolcott passed away before her seeds germinated. But when they did, and the alien plants appeared among the well-ordered perennial borders of delphiniums and roses and lilies, the gardeners and owners were at first bewildered, then appalled. These were ugly, spiky things. Suspecting this was an attack, revenge. That their deranged and now dead neighbor had sown an invasive species. The plants were dug out and destroyed. Not a single one survived. As far as anyone knew, the plant was extinct. While never given a proper Latin name, it became known in gardening lore as Miss Wolcott’s Ghost.”

There was a grunt of appreciation from the prosecutor before he reverted.

“This is all very interesting, Chief Inspector, but why are you telling me about a plant that’s extinct?”

“Because, after more than a century, Miss Wolcott’s Ghost reappeared here in Québec. It was growing around and through Brian Fillmore’s body on a grave in Lost Nation. This was no innocent flower. This was the motive for his murder.”

“How so?”