Brutal Telling

“I should’ve told you, I know. But he was so afraid, so secretive. You didn’t know him—”

“I guess not.”

“—but if he’d known I’d told anyone he’d have stopped seeing me.”

“Why did you want to see him anyway? He was a hermit, in a cabin for God’s sake. Wait a minute.” There was silence while Gabri put it all together. “Why’d you go there?”

Olivier looked at Gamache, who nodded. It would all come out anyway.

“His place was full of treasure, Gabri. You wouldn’t believe it. Cash stuffed between the logs for insulation. There was leaded crystal and tapestries. It was fantastic. Everything he had was priceless.”

“You’re making that up.”

“I’m not. We ate off Catherine the Great’s china. The toilet paper was dollar bills.”

“Sacré. It’s like your wet dream. Now I know you’re kidding.”

“No, no. It was unbelievable. And sometimes when I visited he’d give me a little something.”

“And you took it?” Gabri’s voice rose.

“Of course I took it,” Olivier snapped. “I didn’t steal it, and those things are no use to him.”

“But he was probably nuts. It’s the same as stealing.”

“That’s a horrible thing to say. You think I’d steal stuff from an old man?”

“Why not? You dumped his body at the old Hadley house. Who knows what you’re capable of.”

“Really? And you’re innocent in all this?” Olivier’s voice had grown cold and cruel. “How do you think we could afford to buy the bistro? Or the B and B? Eh? Didn’t you ever wonder how we went from living in that dump of an apartment—”

“I fixed it up. It wasn’t a dump anymore.”

“—to opening the bistro and a B and B? How did you think we could afford it suddenly?”

“I thought the antique business was going well.” There was silence. “You should’ve told me,” said Gabri, finally, and wondered, as did Gamache and Beauvoir, what else Olivier wasn’t saying.

It was late afternoon and Armand Gamache walked through the woods. Beauvoir had volunteered to go with him, but he preferred to be alone with his thoughts.

After they left Olivier and Gabri they’d returned to the Incident Room where Agent Morin had been waiting.

“I know who BM is,” he said, eagerly following them, barely allowing them to take off their coats. “Look.”

He took them over to his computer. Gamache sat and Beauvoir leaned over his shoulder. There was a black-and-white, formal, photo of a man smoking a cigarette.

“His name is Bohuslav Martinù,” said Morin. “He wrote that violin piece we found. His birthday was December the eighth, so the violin must have been a birthday present from his wife. C. Charlotte was her name.”

Gamache, while listening, was staring at one line in the biography his agent had found. Martinù had been born December 8, 1890. In Bohemia. What was now the Czech Republic.

“Did they have any children?” Beauvoir asked. He too had noticed the reference.

“None.”

“Are you sure?” Gamache twisted in his chair to look at Morin, but the agent shook his head.

“I double- and triple-checked. It’s almost midnight there but I have a call in to the Martinù Conservatory in Prague to get more information and I’ll ask them, but it doesn’t seem so.”

“Ask about the violin, would you?” said Gamache, rising and putting his coat back on. He’d headed to the cabin, walking slowly through the woods, thinking.

A Sûreté officer guarding the cabin greeted him on the porch.

“Come with me, please,” said Gamache and led the agent to the wheelbarrow sitting by the vegetable patch. He explained it had been used to carry a body and asked the officer to take samples. While she did that, Gamache went into the cabin.

It would be emptied the next morning, everything taken away for cataloguing, safe keeping. Put away in a dark vault. Away from human hands and eyes.

But before that happened Gamache wanted to see it all one last time.

Closing the door behind him he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim interior. As always, it was the smell that first impressed him. Wood, and woodsmoke. Then the musky undertone of coffee and finally the sweeter scent of coriander and tarragon, from the window boxes.

The place was peaceful, restful. Cheerful even. While everything in it was a masterpiece, it all seemed at home in the rustic cabin. The Hermit might have known their worth, but he certainly knew their use, and used everything as it was intended. Glasses, dishes, silverware, vases. All put to purpose.

Gamache picked up the Bergonzi violin and cradling it he sat in the Hermit’s chair by the fireplace. One for solitude, two for friendship.

The dead man had no need, or desire, for society. But he did have company.

They now knew who had sat in that other comfortable chair. Gamache had thought it was Dr. Vincent Gilbert, but he’d been wrong. It was Olivier Brulé. He’d come to keep the Hermit company, to bring him seeds and staples, and companionship. And in return the Hermit had given him what Olivier wanted. Treasure.

It was a fair trade.