And like a painting or a poem, at the heart of his cases there was a strong emotion.
“So no luck?” asked Olivier. “No trace of Peter?”
“Actually, we did finally manage to find someone who not only saw him, but spent time with him,” said Clara. And she told them about their visit to the art college.
“Why would he go back to your old college?” asked Gabri. “Has he done it before?”
“No, neither Peter nor I ever went back,” said Clara.
“Then why do you think he went back this past winter?” asked Gamache, ignoring his grilled shrimp with mango salsa. “What did he want?”
“I don’t really know what Peter wanted. Do you?” she asked Myrna.
“I think he wanted to recapture the feelings he had when he was there as a student,” said Myrna slowly. “Professor Massey said they talked a lot about Peter’s time there. The students, the professors. I suspect he wanted to be reminded of when he was young, vigorous, admired. When the world was his.”
“Nostalgia,” said Gabri.
Myrna nodded. “And maybe something slightly more than that. He might have wanted to recapture some magic.”
Clara smiled. “I don’t think Peter was into magic.”
“No, he wouldn’t have called it that,” Myrna agreed. “But it would come to the same thing. Art college was a magical time for him, so in his distress he was drawn back to the place where good things happened. In case he could find it again.”
“He wanted to be rescued,” said Ruth.
She’d moved Gamache’s dinner in front of her and was finishing off the last grilled shrimp.
“Too many layers of life,” she continued. “His world was slipping away. He wanted to be rescued.”
“And he went to the college for that?” asked Olivier.
“He went to Professor Massey for that,” said Myrna, nodding. Only slightly annoyed that demented Ruth should see what had eluded her. “To be reassured he was still vigorous, talented. A star.”
Reine-Marie looked around the quiet bistro. Out the mullioned windows to the now-empty tables on the terrasse. To the ring of homes, with soft light in the darkness.
Rescued.
She caught Armand’s eye and saw again that look. Of someone saved.
For his part, Gamache took a piece of baguette and chewed it as he thought.
What did Peter want? He surely wanted something, and was quite desperate for it, to travel so far and so fast. Paris, Florence, Venice, Scotland. Toronto. Quebec City.
His journey had the smell of desperation, of both the hunt and the hunted. A one-man game of hide and seek.
“Your professor mentioned a Salon des Refusés,” he said. “What was that?”
“Actually, I mentioned it,” said Clara. “I don’t think Professor Massey was all that happy to be reminded of it.”
“Why not?” asked Jean-Guy.
“Not the college’s finest moment,” said Clara with a laugh. “There is an annual end-of-year show. It’s juried, judged by the professors and prominent art dealers in Toronto. Only the best get in. One of the professors thought this was unfair, so he set up a parallel show.”
“The Salon des Refusés,” said Olivier.
Clara nodded. “A show for the rejected. It was modeled on a famous exhibition in Paris back in 1863, when a Manet painting was refused entry in the official Paris Salon. A Salon des Refusés was set up, and the rejected artists showed there. And not just Manet, but Whistler’s Symphony in White ended up in the Salon des Refusés.” She shook her head. “One of the great works of art.”
“You know a lot about it, ma belle,” said Gabri.
“I should. My works were front and center in the college’s Salon des Refusés. First I knew that they’d been rejected by the jury. There they were, in the parallel exhibition.”
“And Peter’s?” asked Gamache.
“Front and center in the legitimate show,” said Clara. “He’d done some spectacular paintings. My works were not exactly spectacular, I guess. I was experimenting.”
“Not yet rescued?” said Gabri.
“Beyond saving.”
“Avant-garde,” said Ruth. “Isn’t that the term? Ahead of your time. The rest just needed to catch up. You didn’t need rescuing. You weren’t lost. You were exploring. There’s a difference.”
Clara looked at Ruth’s rheumy, tired eyes. “Thank you. But still, it was humiliating. They fired the professor who set it up. He had strange ideas about art. Didn’t fit in. An odd duck.” She turned to Rosa. “Sorry.”