A Rule Against Murder

The door opened and all three looked up. It was Elliot with a tray of fresh, sweet strawberries.

“We just picked them. And there’s crème fraîche.” He smiled at Isabelle Lacoste, managing to make it sound like lubricant. “From the nearby monastery.”

Even that sounded sexy.

They ate and stared at the lists. Finally, after scraping the last of the thick cream from the bowl, Beauvoir got up and walked again to their lists. He tapped one.

“Is this important?”

Who wrote the graffiti on the men’s room wall? Does it matter?

“Could be. Why?” asked Gamache.

“Well, at the end of my conversation with David Martin he said he thought he knew who did it.”

“We know,” said Lacoste. “Thomas Morrow.”

“No, Julia’s husband thinks Peter did it.”

Beauvoir and Lacoste spent the rest of the afternoon checking backgrounds and movements. Armand Gamache went in search of Madame Dubois, though it wasn’t a very long or difficult search. There she was, as always, in the middle of the reception hall at her shiny wooden desk looking as though it wasn’t eighty degrees in the shade.

He sat in the comfortable chair opposite. She removed her reading glasses and smiled at him.

“How may I help you, Chief Inspector?”

“I’ve been puzzling about something.”

“I know. Who killed our guest.”

“That too, but I’ve been wondering why you put the statue where you did.”

“Ah, that is a very good question, and my answer will be riveting.” She smiled as she got up. “Suivez-moi,” she said, as though perhaps he wasn’t going to follow her. They walked along the wide plank flooring to the screen door which clacked closed behind them. They were out on the veranda, shaded from the worst of the sun, but still hot. As she waddled by the planters on the edge of the porch she spoke, Gamache bending low, anxious not to miss a riveting word.

“When Madame Finney first approached me about the statue I declined. This was shortly after Charles Morrow died. She was still Madame Morrow then, of course. They’d stayed here often and I knew them quite well.”

“What did you think of him?”

“He was a type I knew. I’d never have married him. Too wrapped up in work and society and right and wrong. Not morals, of course, but things like dessert forks and thank-you notes and proper clothing.”

“Forgive me, Madame Dubois, but all those things clearly matter to you, too.”

“They matter by choice, Chief Inspector. But if you showed up in a striped shirt and a polka-dotted tie I wouldn’t ask you to change. Monsieur Morrow would have. Or he’d have made certain you knew it was offensive. He was easily offended. He had a very keen idea of his place. And yours.” She smiled at him.

“But there’s always more to a person, and you say you got to know them quite well.”

“You’re very clever. I suppose that’s why they made you head of the Sûreté.”

“Only homicide, I’m afraid.”

“One day, monsieur. I will go to your swearing in.”

“If you do, it will be Madame Gamache doing the swearing,” he said.

She stopped at the end of the veranda, where the wood was cut to accommodate the trunk of the large maple tree. She turned to look at him.

“I liked Charles Morrow. For all he was pompous he had a sense of humor and a lot of good friends. You can tell a lot about a man by his friends, or lack of them. Do they bring out the best in each other, or are they always gossiping, tearing others down? Keeping wounds alive? Charles Morrow despised gossip. And his best friend was Bert Finney. That spoke volumes about the man, à mon avis. If Monsieur Finney wasn’t taken I’d have married him myself.”

Madame Dubois didn’t turn away, didn’t look down, didn’t even look defiant as she made this remarkable statement. She looked simply truthful.

“Why?” Gamache asked.

“I like a man who does his sums,” she said.

“He was doing them on the dock this morning.”

“He’s probably doing them now. He has a lot to count.”

“Twenty million, apparently.”

“Really? That many? He is a good catch.” And she laughed.

Gamache looked beyond her to the shade and the white marble that glowed even in the gloom. She followed his stare.

“You relented eventually, about the statue,” he said. “You needed the money.”

“At first the Morrows insisted the statue go in one of those beds,” she indicated the main bank of roses and lilies between the lodge and the lake, “but I refused. Even if the statue was a masterpiece it would still be a blemish there, and honestly I couldn’t see the Morrows managing a masterpiece. As you might have noticed, the Morrows aren’t exactly minimalists.”