The Nature of the Beast

by Louise Penny

  “The gun?” he asked.

  “No, the man. I asked Al Lepage that question. Why did he come to Three Pines, when he was dodging the draft.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said he’d walked across the border from Vermont and saw the lights of the village.”

  Now she turned to look at her former boss. His brows were raised, but he said nothing.

  “But he couldn’t have, could he?” she said. “The forest is too thick. No one would just walk across the border, unless they wanted to get lost in the woods. He’d have to have known where he was going.”

  Gamache nodded.

  “He’d have to have had a guide. Someone who brought him here.”

  They looked again at the old village. And the tall pine trees planted for one purpose. To signal to those seeking sanctuary that they were safe.

  They’d made it to Three Pines.

  CHAPTER 21

  Reine-Marie and Armand knocked first, then let themselves into Clara’s home. Some of the other guests had already arrived, though “guests” made it sound too formal. They’d received a call late that afternoon from Clara inviting them for a potluck.

  “And the luck,” said Clara, “is that Olivier and Gabri are taking the night away from the bistro and are providing a main course and hors d’oeuvre.”

  “We’ll bring a salad,” said Reine-Marie.

  “Salad?” Clara had said. “What’s that?”

  They arrived with an apple crumble and a container of Coaticook vanilla ice cream.

  Olivier and Gabri showed up at the same time, with Ruth and Rosa.

  “Here’s our casserole,” said Gabri, putting it on the counter as though he himself had made it.

  “Looks delicious,” said Reine-Marie. “What is it?”

  “Rock Cornish game hens,” said Olivier, when it appeared Gabri was about to fabricate the ingredients. “With wild cranberry and”—he looked at the crumble on the counter—“apple stuffing.”

  “Exactly,” said Gabri.

  “Well, if you’re the luck, I suppose she’s the ‘pot,’” said Myrna, coming into the kitchen from the living room and pointing to Ruth.

  “That would make you the kettle,” said Ruth.

  “She’s calling the kettle black,” said Gabri.

  “I know, I got it,” said Myrna.

  “What’s that?” asked Ruth, turning around and listening to the strange sound.

  “Something you’ve never used,” said Clara. “The doorbell.”

  “A doorbell?” Ruth asked. “I thought they were a myth, like Pegasus.”

  “And boundaries,” said Gabri.

  Clara reappeared a moment later with Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme.

  “I think you know some of the people here,” said Clara.

  They nodded to Gamache and Jean-Guy, then Clara introduced them to Reine-Marie and Ruth, who said, “They don’t look like spies.”

  “And you don’t look like an invited guest,” said Clara. “Yet here you are.”

  “We didn’t know what to bring,” said Mary Fraser. “We picked this up at the general store.”

  Clara took the bottle of apple cider.

  “Thank you,” she said, putting it in the fridge alongside the clinking row of other cider bottles.

  “So, what were you up to today?” asked Armand, as he and Reine-Marie walked with the newcomers into Clara’s living room. “I didn’t see you in the village.”

  “Oh, we were about,” said Sean Delorme. He lowered his voice. “Doing some legwork on the you-know-what.”

  “The gun?” asked Ruth. “That great big goddamned thing in the forest where Laurent was murdered?”

  That fell like a brain aneurysm on the gathering. Everyone in the living room stopped moving, talking, breathing.

  “Yes,” said Delorme. “That would be the one. Nice duck.”

  Rosa, in Ruth’s arms, thrust her beak toward the CSIS agent, who stepped back.

  “What have you found out about it?” asked Myrna. She’d returned to the sofa and was sitting beside Professor Rosenblatt.

  “We can’t say much,” said Mary Fraser, who obviously wished she didn’t have to say anything. She shot a withering look at Rosenblatt, who refused to wither. He sat contentedly holding a glass of Scotch, like a benign grandfather among precocious children.

  “Don’t worry,” said Delorme. “We’re on it.”

  “Don’t worry?” asked Ruth. “There’s a huge fucking missile launcher in our backyard and apparently the only thing between us and Armageddon is some guy who’s afraid of a duck.”

  Sean Delorme gave a strained smile and squirmed slightly. But Gamache thought his discomfort stemmed as much from the social situation as Ruth’s caustic comment. Delorme seemed more at home with people on paper than in person. And Mary Fraser, while perhaps better at covering it up, looked like she was searching for someplace to hide. Or a file to read.

  She drifted, naturally, over to the bookcases and read the spines.

  The phone rang and Clara left to answer it.

  “Don’t mind Ruth,” said Olivier, taking Delorme’s arm with one hand and Mary Fraser’s with the other and steering them to the drinks table. “She’s one sneeze away from the asylum.”

  “We’re already there,” shouted Ruth.

  Armand turned his attention to the old poet.

  Ruth had said “Armageddon.” Not “catastrophe,” not “disaster,” but the one word associated with the gun. With the etching. With the Whore of Babylon, marching toward the end of the world.

  But no one had been told about the etching. Was it a coincidence, or did she know something? It was the sort of word she’d use, and certainly the sort of event she evoked.

  “Speaking of asylum,” Beauvoir said to Ruth. “Do you have a record player at home?”

  “Is that a non sequitur?”

  “No. I have Al Lepage’s record and I’d like to hear it, but it’s only on LP.”

  “Come over if you must after dinner,” she said. “I have a record player somewhere.”

  It was as gracious an invitation as he’d had from Ruth.

  Myrna excused herself to see if she could help in the kitchen, and Armand and Reine-Marie took her place beside Professor Rosenblatt.

  Gamache hadn’t spoken with him since that morning when the elderly physicist had left the breakfast table with Armand’s question ringing in his head.

  Did Gerald Bull create the Supergun, or was he just the salesman, and someone else the actual designer? Did Dr. Bull have a silent partner, who’d survived assassination because Bull had taken all the credit? And all the bullets.

  Gamache hadn’t tried very hard to track down Rosenblatt and continue that conversation. He knew, from years of investigation, that sometimes a difficult question was best left to burrow into a person. And sit there, barbed.

  He suspected Professor Rosenblatt had been avoiding him, and that was fine with Gamache. Let the question fester. For now.

  “Professor,” said Gamache, with a cordial nod. “I’m not sure you’ve met my wife, Reine-Marie.”

  “Madame,” said the professor.

  “We’ve been discussing taking courses at either McGill or the Université de Montréal,” said Armand. “I know Reine-Marie has been anxious to talk with you about that.”

  “Oh, really?” Rosenblatt turned to her.

  Taking her cue, Reine-Marie started chatting with Rosenblatt about McGill, while Armand walked over to Jean-Guy.

  “Interesting group,” said Jean-Guy, surveying the gathering. “Was it your idea to invite everyone?”

  “Not at all,” said Armand. “I’m as surprised as you.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Clara, returning from the phone call.

  “What is?” asked Jean-Guy.

  “I invited Antoinette and Brian, but Brian’s in Montréal at a meeting of the Geological Survey and she just called to ask for a rain check. I think she wants a quiet evening

to herself. Les Filles de Caleb is on, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Armand. “We’re taping it. For Reine-Marie, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Clara. “I’m taping it too.”

  It was a repeat of the old Québécois drama that had gripped the nation years ago, and was even more of a hit now. Few strayed far from the television on nights it was on.

  “It’s been a difficult time for Antoinette,” said Armand. “Is she still getting grief from members of her play group?”

  “I don’t think they call it a play group,” said Clara, laughing. “But the answer is yes. They’re still pissed at her for choosing the Fleming play without telling them. A lot of bad blood there now, I’m afraid.”

  John Fleming, Gamache knew, had a habit of creating blood, most of it very bad.

  “A shame she didn’t come tonight. This is nice,” he said, looking around the gathering. “Been a while.”

  “I haven’t been in the mood for entertaining,” said Clara.

  “So what brought this on?” asked Jean-Guy.

  “Seeing the Lepages this afternoon,” said Clara. “They were so sad, and so alone. It made me miss this.”

  She looked around her living room. The hubbub of conversation had increased, as guests mingled and chatted. Isabelle Lacoste had arrived and was offering around a platter of cheeses. But instead of crackers the cheese sat on top of thin slices of apple. It was actually, Clara had to admit, inspired and delicious.

  “I came home and decided I’d had enough of my own grief. I wanted to move on.”

  “Is such a thing a choice?” asked Gamache.

  “In a way,” said Clara. “I think I might’ve gotten stuck. I haven’t even been able to paint. Nothing.” She waved toward her studio. “But after seeing the size of their loss, mine suddenly seemed manageable. And this”—she looked around the room—“is how I decided to manage it. With friends. I called up Evie and invited them, but she said they couldn’t.”

  Evie Lepage had made it sound as though they had another engagement, which Clara supposed was true in a way. They were bound to their home and engaged to their grief.

  Evie had hesitated, though, and Clara could hear that part of her wanted to come. To try. But the grip was too strong, the loss too new, the desire to isolate too powerful. And then there was the guilt.

  Clara knew how that felt.

  “The painting will come back,” said Armand. “I know it.”

  “Do you?” she asked, searching his eyes for the truth, or evidence of a lie.

  He smiled and nodded. “Without a doubt.”

  “Merci,” she said. “Ruth’s helping me.”

  “Ruth?” both Armand and Jean-Guy asked at once. Neither had realized Clara had a creative death wish.

  “Well, to be honest, more as a cautionary tale.” Clara looked over at the old poet, who was having an animated conversation with a painting on the wall.

  In the foreground they saw Reine-Marie with a fixed smile on her face as Professor Rosenblatt entertained her with anecdotes from the world of algorithms.

  “I think I’ll just see if Madame Gamache needs rescuing,” said Jean-Guy, and walked off.

  “Not that I’m not delighted,” said Armand, turning back to Clara, “but I’m wondering why you invited them?”

  He looked toward Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme, then over to Rosenblatt.

  “They don’t know anyone here,” she said. “I thought they might be lonely. Especially the professor. I wanted them to feel welcome. We all want that.”

  “True. And the fact they have information about the Supergun?”

  “Totally irrelevant. Never entered my mind. But now that you bring it up, since they won’t talk, what can you tell us?”

  “Us?”

  “Me. Spill.”

  He smiled. “Sorry, I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know.”

  “But I know nothing. None of us does.”

  “Someone does, Clara. The gun was built here, just outside Three Pines, for a reason.”

  “Exactly. Why? What’s its purpose? Does it work? Who built it?”

  Unfortunately they were all questions he genuinely couldn’t answer.

  * * *

  Reine-Marie Gamache, relieved of physicist duty, wandered over to where Isabelle Lacoste was talking with Mary Fraser.

  Someone who seemed less like an intelligence agent would be hard to find, though Mary Fraser did look very intelligent, thought Reine-Marie, but not exactly sharp. More the slow, steady, often frightening mind, that took its time and arrived at a conclusion others might miss or did not want to see.

  Having worked in archives and research all her professional life, Reine-Marie knew and admired that type of mind, though they could be a little frustrating to work with. They were often stubborn. Once a conclusion was finally reached they were loath to leave it, since it had taken so long to get there.

  “Lots of people spent lots of time in the early nineties looking, but the plans were never found,” Mary Fraser was telling Isabelle Lacoste.

  “Who were these people?”

  Mary Fraser gave Reine-Marie a swift glance.

  Reine-Marie veered away, recognizing this was not a conversation she should interrupt.

  “Arms dealers hoping to sell the plans,” said Mary Fraser, once Madame Gamache had walked out of earshot. “Or intelligence agencies hoping to suppress them.”

  “Including CSIS?” asked Isabelle Lacoste.

  “Yes. We looked for them but weren’t successful. After a while most agencies gave up, thinking either the plans to Dr. Bull’s Supergun never existed, just another of his fantasies, or, if real, it had become obsolete, overtaken by advances in technology. Project Babylon would be just an oddity now. Everyone lost interest.”

  “Except you.”

  “And him.” She pointed to Professor Rosenblatt, now deep in conversation with Jean-Guy Beauvoir.

  “But now we have the Supergun,” said Lacoste. “It proves everyone wrong, and Gerald Bull right. The plans just got valuable, didn’t they?”

  “I don’t think ‘valuable’ quite covers it,” said Mary Fraser. “With the discovery of the gun they just got priceless.”

  She sounded triumphant, as though the accomplishment was her own. And in a way it was. The find had vindicated her and Delorme. Thrust them into the spotlight at CSIS. They’d gone from low-level functionaries correlating useless information in the basement to valuable resources. Priceless in their own way.

  “Governments would pay a great deal for the plans?” asked Isabelle.

  “Not just governments. Anyone with money and a target.” Mary Fraser glanced quickly over to Professor Rosenblatt. “Have you wondered why he’s still here? He’s identified the gun, done what you asked. He’s supposed to be retired. Shouldn’t he be at home, or in Florida, or somewhere else? Relaxing.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think weapons of mass destruction are a strange hobby,” said Mary Fraser. “Don’t you?”

  Isabelle Lacoste had to agree.

  * * *

  “He worked for Gerald Bull, did he tell you that?” said Delorme, looking across the room to where Rosenblatt and Beauvoir were talking.

  “He did,” said Gamache.

  “He insinuates that he was more than just some assistant, but he hasn’t contributed a thing to the field.”

  Again with the “field,” thought Gamache. For something that was supposed to be covert, that field seemed surprisingly large and crowded.

  “Was he good at what he did?” Armand asked.

  “Rosenblatt?” said Delorme. “We studied him, you know, thinking with Dr. Bull dead then Rosenblatt might be the next best thing, and perhaps even better. But all his research hit dead ends.”

  “I thought he helped design the Avro Arrow jet fighter,” said Gamache.

  “Peripherally, yes. But it wasn’t a contribution someone else couldn’t have made. And the Arrow was scrapped, so again, we’re back to nothing. Professor Rosenblatt has nothing to show for fifty years’ work. Had he never lived, it wouldn’t have mattered.”

  It was such a brutal thing to say, and said so casually, that Gamache found himself reassessing this man. Perhaps it was just the unthinking utterance of a socially and emotionally inept person. Or maybe it was more than that. Maybe he genuinely loathed the man.

  “Michael Rosenblatt’s genius is attaching himself to brilliant people,” said Delorme. “He’s a leech. And now he’s trying to take credit for the Supergun.”

  “Credit?” asked Gamache. “Can such a word be applied to such a thing?”

  “You might not like it,” said Delorme, “and I might not, but the Supergun is a remarkable achievement. That’s just a fact. What we don’t really know is what Gerald Bull planned to do with it. The problem is that it’s an ever-changing world. Friends become enemies, and the weapons you sold them are suddenly killing your own people.”

  “Non,” said Gamache. “The problem is that these weapons are built in the first place and people like Gerald Bull have no allegiances.”

  “There’ve been weapons since there’s been man,” said Delorme. “Neanderthals had them. It’s the nature of the beast. Whoever can make a better one wins. Where do you think weapons come from?”

  They grow in a field, thought Gamache, though no one was suggesting hammering their swords into plowshares.

  “We can’t predict the future,” said Delorme. “So we do our best to choose our allies.”

  “And your weapons,” said Gamache. “You said ‘we.’ I thought you were a file clerk.”

  “I’m sorry, I meant the collective ‘we.’”

  “Of course, forgive me.”

  But for just a moment, Sean Delorme no longer looked or sounded like a low-level office worker. He no longer seemed maladroit or ill at ease. An unexpected edge had appeared in this rather dull, almost comical, clerk.

  There was an act going on here, Gamache was sure of it. Sean Delorme was alternately plodding and sly. A slightly muddled bureaucrat one moment, and in the next he was implying he was himself involved in the secretive world of arms dealing.

  Was it more fantasy? Like Laurent playing soldier on the village green?

  Was Sean Delorme playacting in a dangerous field? And then going home for dinner?

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