They bent over to examine the spot, like scientists over a litmus test. Then Gamache straightened up.
“Did you ever talk about your time in Paris with Peter Morrow?” he asked.
“Not specifically, no,” said Gilbert. “But he might’ve heard me talking about it. Why?”
“Because he’s missing.”
“I thought Clara sent him away.”
“She did, but they made a date to meet up exactly a year later. That was a few weeks ago. He never showed.”
Vincent Gilbert was obviously surprised.
“He loved Clara. I miss a lot in life,” said Gilbert. “But I have a nose for love.”
“Like a truffle pig,” said Beauvoir, then regretted it when he saw the asshole saint’s reaction.
Then, unexpectedly, Gilbert smiled. “Exactly. I can smell it. Love has an aroma all its own, you know.”
Beauvoir looked at Gilbert, amazed by what he’d just heard.
Maybe, he thought, this man was—
“Smells like compost,” said Gilbert.
—an asshole after all.
TWELVE
Armand Gamache swayed on his horse/moose and thought about their visit to Vincent Gilbert. And Paris.
His Paris. Gilbert’s Paris. Peter’s Paris. And as he thought, the cool forest receded and the gnarled old tree trunks metamorphosed. They shifted and reformed until they were no longer impenetrable woods but a grand Parisian boulevard. Gamache was riding down the middle of a wide street, lined with magnificent buildings. Some Haussmann, some art nouveau, some beaux arts. He rode past parks and small cafés and great monuments.
He turned his horse/moose down boulevard du Montparnasse. Past the red awnings, past Parisians reading at round marble-topped tables. Past La Coupole, La Rotonde, Le Select—cafés where Hemingway and Man Ray lived and drank. Where centuries of writers and artists debated and inspired each other. And some never left. Off to his left Gamache could just see the Cimetière du Montparnasse, where Baudelaire lay and Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir would spend eternity under a single slab, in the company of The Kiss, the glorious sculpture by Brancusi.
And in the near distance, beyond the cemetery, the hideous Tour Montparnasse rose as a kind of warning against the modern belief that it was possible to improve on perfection.
Gamache and Beauvoir clopped past the past. Beyond the long-dead artists and writers. Beyond Montparnasse. To the neighborhood Peter Morrow had chosen to stay. So close to such an explosion of creativity.
But a world away.
They turned onto rue de Vaugirard. And the charm slowly, slowly dissipated. The City of Light faded and became just another city. At times lovely. Lively. But not the Paris of Manet and Picasso and Rodin.
Finally they arrived at their destination.
Gamache pulled softly on the reins and felt a slight shudder as Beauvoir’s horse head-butted his mount.
Both Beauvoir and his horse had fallen into a stupor. But now they woke up.
“Why did we stop?” Beauvoir and his horse looked around.
Gamache was staring at a tree as though expecting the trunk to swing open and admit them.
* * *
Oomph. Clara landed in one of the Adirondack chairs in her garden and slid to the back, until she hit the pillow. On one wide armrest was the gin and tonic she’d been dreaming of since getting in Myrna’s sweltering car for the drive home from Montréal. On the other armrest was a bowl of chips.
She was happy to be home.
“You first,” she said, feeling her body relax into the pillow.
Reine-Marie, Armand, Jean-Guy, and Myrna were in her back garden, exchanging information.
“I think I know where Peter went when he left here,” said Gamache.
“We already know,” said Clara. She gestured toward the map Gamache was spreading on the table. “Paris.”
“Yes. Paris, Florence, Venice,” said the Chief, looking at Clara over his reading glasses. “It all seemed to make sense, except for one obvious question.”
“Dumfries,” said Reine-Marie.
Her husband nodded. “Why go to Dumfries? I got distracted by that big question, by the forest, and failed to look more closely at one very odd tree. A detail.”
“Why go all the way to Paris and stay in the 15th arrondissement?” asked Clara, sitting up in her chair again.
“Oui. Exactly.” His deep brown eyes glowed. It was unmistakable. Not that he was enjoying this, but that he was good at it. He was like a miner, carrying a torch. Illuminating dark passages. Digging deep, often dangerously deep. To get at what was buried there.
Reine-Marie recognized that gleam. And heard, again, the beating of the moth’s wings.
It was all she could do not to stand up. To look at her watch. To suggest to Armand that they had to go. Had to leave. Had to get back to their cheerful home. Where they belonged. Where they could garden, and read, sip lemonade and play bridge. And if they died, it would be in bed.