Clara nodded and thought maybe they could just leave. She could go back to Three Pines, make up a guest list for the vernissage and forget about it. Already Fortin’s comment about Gabri was fading. Surely it wasn’t that serious.
“So, what did you want to talk about? Whether you should buy a home in Provence or Tuscany? How about a yacht?”
Clara wasn’t sure if he was kidding, but she did know he wasn’t making this easy.
“It’s just a tiny thing, really. I must have heard wrong, but it seemed to me when you came down to Three Pines yesterday you said something about Gabri.”
Fortin looked interested, concerned, puzzled.
“He was our waiter,” Clara explained. “He brought us our drinks.”
Fortin was still staring. She could feel her brain evaporate. Suddenly, after practicing most of the morning what she’d say, she couldn’t even remember her own name. “Well, I just thought, you know . . .”
Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t do it. This must be a sign, she thought, a sign from God that she wasn’t supposed to say anything. That she was making something out of nothing.
“Doesn’t matter,” she smiled. “I just thought I’d tell you his name.”
Fortunately she figured Fortin was used to dealing with artists who were drunk, deranged, stoned. Clara appeared to be all three. She must, in his eyes, be a brilliant artist to be so unhinged.
Fortin signed for the bill and left, Clara noticed, a very large tip.
“I remember him.” Fortin led her back through the restaurant with its dark wood and scent of tisane. “He was the fag.”
VDTK?? MMF/X
They stared at the letters. The more they stared the less sense they made, which was saying something.
“Any other suggestions?” Jérôme looked up from his desk.
Gamache was flabbergasted. He was sure they had it, that “Charlotte” was the key to break the cipher. He thought for a moment, scanning the case.
“Woo,” he said. They tried that.
Nothing.
“Walden.” But he knew he was grasping. And sure enough, nothing.
Nothing, nothing, nothing. What had he missed?
“Well, I’ll keep trying,” said Jérôme. “It might not be a Caesar’s Shift. There’re plenty of other codes.”
He smiled reassuringly and the Chief Inspector had a sense of what Dr. Brunel’s patients must have felt. The news was bad, but they had a man who wouldn’t give up.
“What can you tell me about one of your colleagues, Vincent Gilbert?” Gamache asked.
“He was no colleague of mine,” said Jérôme, testily. “Not of anyone’s from what I remember. He didn’t suffer fools easily. Do you notice most people who feel like that consider everyone a fool?”
“That bad?”
“Jérôme’s only annoyed because Dr. Gilbert thought himself God,” said Thérèse, perching on the arm of her husband’s chair.
“Difficult to work with,” said Gamache, who’d worked with a few gods himself.
“Oh no, it wasn’t that,” smiled Thérèse. “It annoyed Jérôme because he knows he’s the one true God and Gilbert refused to worship.”
They laughed but Jérôme’s smile faded first. “Very dangerous man, Vincent Gilbert. I think he really does have a God complex. Megalomaniac. Very clever. That book he wrote . . .”
“Being,” said Gamache.
“Yes. It was designed, every word calculated for effect. And I’ve got to hand it to him, it worked. Most people who’ve read it agree with him. He is at the very least a great man, and perhaps even a saint.”
“You don’t believe it?”
Dr. Brunel snorted. “The only miracle he’s performed is convincing everyone of his saintliness. No mean feat, given what an asshole he is. Do I believe it? No.”
“Well, it’s time for my news.” Thérèse Brunel stood up. “Come with me.”
Gamache followed her, leaving Jérôme to fiddle with the cipher. The study was filled with more papers and magazines. Thérèse sat at her computer and after a few quick taps a photograph appeared. It showed a carving of a shipwreck.
Gamache pulled up a chair and stared. “Is it . . .”
“Another carving? Oui.” She smiled, like a magician who’d produced a particularly spectacular rabbit.
“The Hermit made this?” Gamache twisted in his chair and looked at her. She nodded. He looked back at the screen. The carving was complex. On one side was the shipwreck, then some forest, and on the other side a tiny village being built. “Even in a photograph it seems alive. I can see the little people. Are they the same ones from the other carvings?”