On seeing the Chief Inspector’s expression, Frère Simon explained. “When we enter the religious life we’re rigorously tested and screened. And our first abbey would’ve kept records. But not Dom Philippe, not here at Saint-Gilbert.”
“Why not?”
“Because it can’t possibly matter. We’re like the French Foreign Legion. We leave the past behind.”
Gamache stared at this religieux. Was he really that naïve?
“Just because you want to leave your past at the gate doesn’t mean it stays there,” said the Chief. “It has a way of creeping through the cracks.”
“If it comes all this way, then I suppose it was meant to find us again,” said Frère Simon.
By this logic, thought Gamache, the prior’s death was also God’s will. Meant to happen. God clearly had his hands full with the Gilbertines. The French Foreign Legion of religious orders.
It fit, Gamache thought. No retreat was possible. There was no past to go back to. Nothing outside the walls but wilderness.
“Speaking of cracks, do you know about the foundations?” Gamache asked.
“The foundations of what?”
“The abbey.”
Frère Simon looked confused. “You need to speak to Frère Raymond about them. But give yourself half a day and be prepared to come away knowing more about our septic system than is probably healthy.”
“So the abbot didn’t say anything to you about the foundations of the abbey? And the prior didn’t either?”
Now it dawned on Frère Simon. “Is there something wrong with them?”
“I was asking if you’d heard anything.”
“No, nothing. Should I have?”
So the abbot had kept it to himself, as Gamache had suspected. Only the abbot and Frère Raymond knew that Saint-Gilbert was crumbling. Had, at best, a decade of life left.
And maybe the prior also knew. Maybe Frère Raymond, in desperation, had told him. If so, the prior had died before he could tell anyone else. Was that the motive? To shut him up?
Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?
“You knew the prior had been murdered, didn’t you?”
Frère Simon nodded.
“When did you realize?”
“When I saw his head. And…”
The monk’s voice petered out. Gamache stayed completely quiet. Waiting.
“… and then I saw something in the flower bed. Something that shouldn’t be there.”
Gamache stopped breathing. The two men became a tableau vivant, frozen in time. Gamache waited. And waited. His breathing now was shallow, quiet, not wanting to even disturb the air around them.
“It wasn’t a stone, you know.”
“I know,” said the Chief. “What did you do with it?”
He almost closed his eyes to pray that this monk hadn’t picked it up and thrown it over the wall. To disappear back into the world.
Frère Simon got up, opened the main door into the abbot’s office, and stepped into the corridor. Gamache followed, presuming the monk was leading him to some hiding place.
But instead, Frère Simon stopped at the threshold and reached over, then presented Chief Inspector Gamache with the murder weapon. It was the old iron rod, used for hundreds of years to gain admittance to the abbot’s most private rooms.
And used, yesterday, to crush the skull of the prior of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.
TWENTY-FIVE
Jean-Guy Beauvoir coursed through the corridors of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups. Searching.
The monks who ran into him initially paused to greet him with their customary bow. But as he got closer they stepped back. Out of his way.
And were relieved when he passed them by.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir stalked the corridors of the monastery. Looking in the vegetable garden. Looking in the animalerie, with the grazing goats and Chantecler chickens.
Looking in the basement. Where Frère Raymond was invisible, but his voice echoed down the long, cool corridors. He was singing a chant. The words were slurred and his voice, while still beautiful, held little of the Divine and more of the brandy and Bénédictine.
Beauvoir raced back up the stone stairs and stood in the Blessed Chapel, breathing heavily. Turning this way and that.
Monks in their long black robes stood away from the dancing light, watching him. But he paid no attention. They weren’t his quarry. He was hunting someone else.
Then he turned and pushed his way through the closed door. The hallway was empty, and the door at the end was closed. And locked.