by Louise Penny
Gamache laughed. “Too true. But Bougainville was.”
“Was what?”
“There,” said Gamache. “At the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.”
“Are we talking about the same man?” Mr. Blake asked. “The navigator? The one who brought bougainvillea back on one of his voyages?”
“The same. Most people don’t realize he was one of Général Montcalm’s aides-de-camp.”
“Wait a minute,” Mr. Blake said. “One of the greatest cartographers and navigators of his time fought at the Plains of Abraham?”
“Well, fought is debatable. That’s what I’m looking into.” More ghosts, thought Gamache. My life is filled with them. Mr. Blake was looking at him, astounded. He had reason to be. This was a little known and curiously little acknowledged historical fact.
“There’s more.” Now Gamache leaned forward. “The French under Montcalm lost the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. Do you know why?”
“Because the English under General Wolfe scaled the cliffs. It’s now considered a brilliant tactic.” The elderly gentleman lowered his voice so that the ghosts and the wooden statue above them wouldn’t hear. “Between us? I think Wolfe was doped up on medicine and didn’t know what in the world he was doing.”
Gamache laughed, surprised. General Wolfe, the Anglo hero of the battle, had indeed been ill in the days leading up to that day.
“You don’t think it was a dazzling strategy?”
“I think he was demented and just got lucky.”
Gamache paused. “Maybe. There is another factor in the English victory, you know.”
“Really? Was Montcalm also doped up?”
“He made some mistakes,” said Gamache. “But that wasn’t one of them. No, I was thinking of something else. When Montcalm realized where the actual attack was coming from, he did two things. He hurried to meet them and he sent a message to his aide-de-camp, Bougainville, to come at once. Then Montcalm engaged the English.”
“Too quickly, if I remember correctly. Don’t people say he should have waited for reinforcements?”
“Yes. One of his mistakes. He rushed into battle without enough men.”
Gamache paused, gathering himself. Watching him, Mr. Blake wondered why this long lost battle should affect his companion so strongly. But it did.
“It cost Montcalm his life,” said Blake.
“Yes, he died, though not on the field. General Wolfe died on the field, but not Montcalm. He was hit several times and was taken to the Ursuline convent inside the walls, not far from here, actually. The nuns tried to save him but he died the next morning and was buried along with some of his men, in their basement.”
Mr. Blake thought for a moment. “What about the aide-de-camp? Bougainville? Where was he?”
“Exactly,” said Gamache. “Where was he? He was waiting for the English further upriver. Everyone expected the first wave to come from there. But when Montcalm sent for Bougainville, desperate for reinforcements, why didn’t he come?”
“Why didn’t he?”
“I don’t know. No one knows. He came, but slowly, and when he finally arrived he held back. His official explanation was that by that time he judged the battle already lost. He didn’t want to destroy his army in a losing cause.”
“Sensible.”
“I agree, but is it likely? His general had ordered him back. He could see the slaughter. Would he have really stopped? Some historians say if Colonel Bougainville had engaged the enemy he’d almost certainly have won. The English were in disarray, most of their senior commanders dead or wounded.”
“What’s your theory? You do have one?” Mr. Blake’s eyes were sharp.
“It’s not likely to be very popular, probably not very accurate either. But there was someone on the English side also in the battle, someone not often mentioned in the histories and yet he’s the most famous of all those present. World famous.”
“Who?”
“James Cook.”
“Captain Cook?”
“The very same. He went on to map most of South America, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. He was the most famous cartographer alive and still famous today. But before all that he commanded a ship that let off the soldiers, who scaled the cliffs and took Québec once and for all for the English. Québec would never again be in French hands.”
“So what’s your theory?”
“In my line of work you grow suspicious of coincidences. They happen, but not often. And when you see one you ask questions.”
“And this is a big one,” agreed Mr. Blake. “Two world-famous mapmakers fighting on opposite sides of the same battle in a far-flung colony.”
“And one of them hesitates, perhaps disastrously.”
“You think he did it on purpose, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
“I think it’s possible they knew each other, had communicated. I think it’s possible Captain Cook, who was the more senior of the men, made a promise to Bougainville in exchange for a favor.”
“A hesitation. A pause,” said Mr. Blake. “It wouldn’t seem much, but it cost the colony.”
“And many lives, including Général Montcalm,” said Gamache.
“And in exchange? What would Bougainville get?”
“Perhaps Cook pointed him toward the West Indies. Perhaps Cook turned his own blind eye and let Bougainville map and navigate some important places. I don’t know. That’s why I’m here.” He held up his book. “I suspect I’m wrong and it really was just a coincidence.”
“But it passes the time,” said Mr. Blake. “And sometimes that’s a blessing.”
Avec le temps, thought Gamache. “And you?” he asked the elderly man.
Mr. Blake handed him the book on ancient Scottish grasses. “Ironically, now that I’m so near the end of my life I seem to have all the time in the world.”
Gamache looked at the dry volume, trying to feign interest. Reading this would certainly make an hour seem an eternity. It would stretch, if not actually waste, time. He opened it. A first edition he noticed, but water damaged and so obscure it almost certainly wouldn’t be worth anything. It was printed in 1845.
And there was something else, another number partly hidden beneath the library card.
“Do you know what this is?” He got up and showed it to Mr. Blake who shrugged.
“They’re not important. This is the one that counts.” Mr. Blake pointed to the Dewey Decimal catalog number.
“Still, I’d like to see the numbers underneath.” Gamache looked round for assistance.
“Maybe we should get Winnie,” said Mr. Blake.
“Good idea.”
Mr. Blake picked up the phone and within minutes the librarian, tiny and suspicious, had arrived. After it was explained she turned to the Chief Inspector. “All right, come with me.”
The three of them went through the corridors, twisting and turning, up some stairs, down others and finally they were in the large back office. Porter Wilson was there as was Elizabeth MacWhirter.
“Hello, Chief Inspector.” Elizabeth came forward and shook hands, as did Porter.
Then, like a surgeon, Winnie bent over the book and with an X-Acto knife pried up the top of the card holder, glued to place a hundred years before.
And below it were the numbers, undamaged, clear as the day they were placed on the dreary first edition.
6-5923
“What does that number mean?” Gamache asked.
There was silence as they took turns looking at it. Finally Winnie answered him.
“I think it’s the old cataloging system, don’t you, Elizabeth?”
“I think you’re right,” said Porter, who clearly didn’t have a clue.
“What old system?” asked the Chief Inspector.
“From the 1800s. We don’t use it anymore,” said Elizabeth, “but back when the Literary and Historical Society was first established this is how they marked items.”
“Go on.”
&nb
“1824, actually,” said Mr. Blake. “There’s a charter somewhere around here.”
He searched for it while Elizabeth talked.
“A call went out to the English community at the time to send in memorabilia, whatever people considered of historic importance,” she laughed. “Apparently people took it as an excuse to empty their attics and basements and barns. They were given stuffed lizards, ball gowns, armoirs. Letters, shopping lists. Finally the Society refined its mandate so that it became mostly a library, and even then it was overwhelmed.”
Gamache could imagine mountains of old, leather-bound books and even loose papers.
“As books came in they put on the year it arrived.” She picked up the Scottish grasses volume and pointed. “That’s the number 6 and the other was the number of the book. This one was the five thousandth, nine hundred and twenty-third.”
Gamache was beyond baffled. “Alors, the first number, 6, means the year. But what decade? And was it the five thousandth book that year to arrive, or ever? I’m afraid I’m confused.”
“Ridiculous system,” sniffed Winnie. “Shocking. They obviously had no idea what they were doing.”
“They were probably overwhelmed,” said Elizabeth.
“And this sort of thing would just add to the confusion.” Winnie turned to the Chief Inspector. “It takes hard work and some guessing to figure out the code. Since this book was published in 1845 we can assume it was donated in 1846. Or ’56, or ’66 and so on.”
“But what about the 5923?” Gamache asked.
“That’s even worse,” admitted Winnie. “They started at number 1 and just kept adding.”
“So this was the five thousandth, nine hundred and twenty-third book?”
“That would make too much sense, Chief Inspector, so no. When they got up to 10,000 they started back at 1,” she sighed. This seemed painful for her to admit.
“They cataloged everything. Some ended up on shelves and some were eventually given Dewey Decimal numbers, some not,” said Elizabeth. “It was and is, a mess.”
“Found it,” said Mr. Blake, holding a worn folder. “This is the wording of the original mandate.” He read, “To discover and rescue from the unsparing hand of time the records which yet remain of the earliest history of Canada. To preserve, while in our power, such documents as may be found amid the dust of yet unexplored depositories, and which may prove important to general history and to the particular history of this province.”
Gamache listened to the old voice reading the old words and was deeply moved by the simplicity and the nobility of them. He suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to help these people, to help save them from the unsparing hand of time.
“What might these mean?” He showed them the numbers found in Augustin Renaud’s diary.
9-8499 and 9-8572.
“Was there a Dewey Decimal number too?” Winnie asked. He had the impression if she could snort Dewey numbers she’d get high. But he had to disappoint her.
“Just those. Do they tell you anything?”
“We could look them up in the catalog.”
Gamache turned and stared at Mr. Blake.
“There’s a catalog?” he asked.
“Well, yes. That’s what a catalog number’s for,” said Mr. Blake with a smile. “It’s over here.”
The “it” turned out to be eight huge volumes, handwritten, collected by decade. They each took one and began looking. The first “hit” was in 1839. There Porter found both a 9-8499 and a 9-8572.
“The first is a travel journal around the horn of Africa, written by a Colonel Ephram Hoskins, and the 9-8572 is a book of sermons, donated by Kathleen Williams.”
It didn’t seem promising.
Gamache closed one catalog book and turned to another, his finger working down the long pages with the precise writing.
“Found one,” said Elizabeth a few minutes later. “It’s 9-8466 to 9-8594. Donated in 1899 by Madame Claude Marchand of Montreal.”
“Nothing more specific?” Gamache asked, his heart sinking. Those were the only entries that might be what Augustin Renaud was interested in but he found it hard to believe a trip in the 1830s around Africa was of interest to the Champlain expert, or a collection of sermons. Even less promising was a lot of more than one hundred books given by a woman in Montreal. Still, it was the only lead.
“Are those books still in the library?”
“Let’s see,” said Winnie, taking the information over to their “modern” system. A card catalog. After a few minutes she looked up.
“The sermon book is in the library, though it hasn’t been given a Dewey number yet. The horn of Africa one must still be in a box somewhere.”
“And the Montreal lot?” Gamache asked.
“I don’t know. All we have here is the lot number. It doesn’t say what happened to the specific books.”
“May I have the book of sermons, please?”
Winnie found it in the library and signed it out to him. He was the first to ever take it out. Gamache thanked them and left, walking with Henri back down the hill, their feet making prints side-by-side in the fluffy snow.
Once home he went onto his laptop and started searching. Émile returned and made a simple dinner of clay pot chicken and vegetables. After dinner Gamache went back to work, trying to track down Colonel Ephram Hoskins and Kathleen Williams. Colonel Hoskins died of malaria and was buried in the Congo. His book was considered important at the time then quickly fell into obscurity.
There was absolutely no connection to Champlain, Québec or Renaud.
Kathleen Williams turned out to be a steadfast benefactor of the Anglican Cathedral of Holy Trinity in old Québec. Her husband was a prosperous dry goods merchant and her son became a ship’s captain. Gamache stared at the scant information, willing something to jump out at him, some connection he was missing.
Still sitting at the desk he scanned the book of sermons, a collection of stern Victorian lectures. Nothing about Québec, Champlain, or God as far as Gamache could tell.
Finally he searched Madame Claude Marchand of Montreal. It took him a while, even with the aid of the Sûreté computers but he finally found her.
“Coming to bed?” asked Émile.
Gamache looked up. It was almost midnight. “Not just yet. Soon.”
“Don’t strain your eyes.”
Gamache smiled and waved good night, then went back to the search.
Madame Marchand was married to Claude Marchand. He died in 1925, she in 1937.
So why did they donate more than a hundred books back in 1899? Was it part of an estate? Had one of their parents died?
But why send the books to Québec? Surely that was a lot of trouble. And why to this little library? An English library when presumably the Marchands were French?
It was curious, Gamache had to admit.
After more searching through genealogical records he discovered neither Monsieur Marchand’s parents nor Madame Marchand’s parents died around 1899. So where did these books come from?
It had been a long time since the Chief Inspector had had to do research of this type. He generally assigned searches to agents or inspectors. It was the sort of thing Inspector Beauvoir in particular excelled at. Order, information.
They’d bring the facts to Gamache, scattered, disjointed often, and he’d try to make sense of it. See threads and connections, put them in order.
The Chief Inspector had almost forgotten the thrill of the information hunt, but as he tried this, then that, then the other lead he found himself getting lost in it, so that all else receded.
How did this couple come by the books? And why go to the effort and expense of having them shipped to Québec?
Gamache leaned back and stared at the screen, thinking.
The books were donated by her, not him, but he was alive at the time. What did that say? Gamache rubbed his still unfamiliar beard and stared.
What did it say?
It said that the books were hers to donate. They belonged not to them, but to her specifically. The census showed her as a housekeeper, though it didn’t list her employer. But it did give her address.
A housekeeper, thought Gamache, in the late 1800s. There couldn’t be that many who were literate, never mind owned a hundred books or more.
He leaned forward again and tapped on the keyboard, going here and there, trying to get information more than a century old on people who almost certainly had done nothing extraordinary. There was no reason for a record of them.
He tried down one route, then down another. The address wasn’t very helpful. There were no phone books at the time, no electrical bills. Almost no paper trail, except, perhaps.
He started typing again. Insurance company records. And there he found it, the man who owned the home Madame Claude Marchand, housekeeper, had listed as an address in the census form.
Chiniquy. Charles Paschal Télesphore Chiniquy.
Who died in 1899.
Gamache threw himself back in the chair and grinned broadly.
He had it, he’d done it.
But what did it mean?
FIFTEEN
“You were up late last night.”
Émile Comeau found Armand setting a pot of coffee on the table along with a plate of croissants and jams. He was looking happy, Émile noticed. A spring in his step.
“I was.”
“What were you up to?” Émile sipped the strong, aromatic coffee and reached for a croissant. A few flakes hit the wooden table as he broke it in two.
“I think I’ve figured out what those numbers in Renaud’s journal mean.”
“Is that so? What?”
“You were right, he wasn’t looking for Champlain’s body in the Literary and Historical Society. I think he was looking for books. Those are catalog numbers. They refer to books given to the Lit and His in 1899.”
Émile lowered his croissant, his eyes gleaming. Once an investigator it never left the blood. The need to know.
“What books?”
“I don’t know.” Gamache took a sip of his coffee. “But I do know they were in a lot donated to the Literary and Historical Society by a Madame Claude Marchand. She was a housekeeper for a family named Chiniquy. Charles Paschal Télesphore Chiniquy. He died in 1899. It seems likely the books belonged to him.”
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