A Trick of the Light

His voice rose, and with a jerk Castonguay pitched his glass at Marois. It whizzed by him, shattering against the wall.

And then Castonguay launched himself at the elderly dealer, clasping his strong hands around Marois’s throat, propelling the two of them backward.

The Sûreté officers leapt after them, Gamache and Beauvoir grabbing Castonguay, and Lacoste trying to get her body between the struggling art dealers. Finally Castonguay was pried off Marois.

François Marois held his throat and stared, shocked, at his colleague. And he wasn’t alone. Everyone in the room stared at Castonguay, as he was arrested and led away.

*   *   *

Armand Gamache and Jean Guy Beauvoir returned to Peter and Clara’s home an hour later. This time Gamache did accept a drink, and subsided into the large armchair Gabri offered.

Everyone was still there, as he expected they would be. Too wired from the events, and with too many questions still to be answered to be able to go to bed. They couldn’t rest yet.

And neither could he.

“Ahh,” he said, taking a sip of cognac. “This tastes good.”

“What a day,” said Peter.

“And it’s not over yet. Agent Lacoste is looking after Monsieur Castonguay and the paperwork.”

“By herself?” asked Myrna, looking from Gamache to Beauvoir.

“She knows what she’s doing,” said the Chief Inspector. Myrna’s look said she sure hoped he knew what he was doing.

“So what happened?” asked Clara. “I’m all confused.”

Gamache sat forward in the chair. Everyone took seats or perched on the arms of the easy chairs. Only Beauvoir and Peter remained standing. Peter as a good host, and Beauvoir as a good officer.

Outside the rain had picked up and they could hear it tapping against the windowpanes. The door to the porch was still open, to let in fresh air, and they could hear rain hitting the leaves outside.

“This murder is about contrasts,” said Gamache, his voice low, soft. “About sober and drunk. About appearance and reality. About change for the better, or for the worse. The play of light and dark.”

He looked at their attentive faces.

“A word was used at your vernissage.” He turned to Clara. “To describe your paintings.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” she said, with a weary smile.

“Chiaroscuro. It means the contrast between light and dark. Their juxtaposition. You do it in your portraits, Clara. In the colors you use, the shading, but also in the emotions your works evoke. Especially in the portrait of Ruth—”

“There’s one of me?”

“—there’s a clear contrast. The dark hues, the trees in the background. Her face partly in shadow. Her expression thunderous. Except for one tiny dot. The smallest hint of light, in her eyes.”

“Hope,” said Myrna.

“Hope. Or maybe not.” Gamache turned to François Marois. “You said something curious, when we were standing in front of that portrait. Do you remember?”

The art dealer looked perplexed. “I said something useful?”

“You don’t remember?”

Marois was quiet for a moment, one of those rare people who could keep others waiting without distress. Finally he smiled.

“I asked if you thought it was real,” said Marois.

“You did,” nodded the Chief Inspector. “Was it real, or just a trick of the light? Hope offered, then denied. A particular cruelty.”

He looked around the gathering. “That’s what this crime, this murder was about. The question of just how genuine the light actually was. Was the person really happy, or just pretending to be?”

“Not waving but drowning,” said Clara. She noticed again Gamache’s kindly eyes beneath the deep scar.

“Nobody heard him,” Clara quoted, “the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.”

But this time, as Clara recited the poem, Peter didn’t come to mind. This time Clara thought of someone else.

Herself. Pretending, for a lifetime. Looking on the bright side, but not always feeling it. But no more. Things were going to change.

The room fell silent, except for the gentle tip-tapping of the rain.

“C’est ça,” said Gamache. “How often have we mistaken the one for the other? Too afraid, or in too much of a hurry to see what was really happening? To see someone sinking?”

“But drowning men are sometimes saved.”

They swung their eyes from Gamache to the man who’d spoken. The young man. Brian.

Gamache regarded him for a few moments in silence, taking in the tattoos, the piercing, the studs on the clothing, and through the skin. Slowly the Chief Inspector nodded, then shifted his glance to the others.

“The question that we struggled with was whether Lillian Dyson was saved. Had she changed? Or was it just a false hope? She was an alcoholic. A cruel, bitter, self-absorbed woman. She hurt everyone who ever knew her.”

“But she wasn’t always like that,” said Clara. “She was nice once. A good friend, once.”