The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #8)

But both in charge. Apparently.

Beauvoir wondered if the two men would form an alliance, or start another war.

He looked at Gamache, who’d put his reading glasses on and was making notes.

And where did this leave the Chief? The appearance of Sylvain Francoeur seemed to have left Gamache perplexed but unconcerned. Beauvoir hoped he genuinely was, and there was no need to worry.

But it was too late for that. Worry had taken root in Beauvoir’s belly. An old and familiar ache.

Gamache looked up and met Beauvoir’s eyes. The Chief smiled reassuringly.

“It’s no use speculating, Jean-Guy. We’ll know why Superintendent Francoeur’s here soon enough.”

They spent the next half hour discussing their conversations that morning, Beauvoir with Frère Antoine and Gamache with the abbot.

“So the abbot made Frère Antoine the new choir director?” Beauvoir’s surprise was obvious. “He didn’t tell me that.”

“Perhaps it made the abbot look too good, and Frère Antoine wouldn’t want that.”

“Yeah, maybe. But do you think that’s why the abbot did it?”

“What do you mean?” Gamache leaned forward.

“He could’ve appointed anyone. Could’ve taken the job himself. But maybe he gave it to Frère Antoine just to screw with the prior’s men. A mind fuck. Do the opposite of what they expect. Prove he’s above their stupid little fights by making Frère Antoine the choir director. Maybe the abbot wanted to show he’s better than them. It’s a smart move, if you think about it.”

Gamache thought about it. He thought about the two dozen monks. Messing with each other’s minds. Trying to keep each other off-balance. Is that what was going on here, perhaps for years? A form of psychological terrorism?

Subtle, invisible. A glance, a smile, a turned back.

In a silent order a single word, a sound, could be devastating. A tsk, a sniff, a chuckle.

Had the gentle abbot perfected those weapons?

Promoting Frère Antoine was the right thing to do. He was the best musician, a clear successor to the prior as choirmaster. But did the abbot do it for the wrong reason?

To screw with the prior’s men?

And the vow of silence? Had the abbot fought to keep it because of the spiritual significance to the community? Or, again, to screw with the prior? To deny the prior what he most wanted?

And why was the prior so determined to lift a vow in place for nearly a thousand years? Was it for the good of the order, or the good of the prior?

“What’re you thinking?” asked Beauvoir.

“A phrase popped into my mind and I was just trying to remember where it came from.”

“Is it poetry?” asked Beauvoir, a little nervously. It didn’t take much for the Chief to start quoting some unintelligible poem.

“As a matter of fact, I was thinking of an epic work by Homer.” Gamache opened his mouth as though to start reciting then laughed at the distress on Beauvoir’s face. “No. It’s just a line. To do the right deed for the wrong reason.”

Beauvoir thought about that. “I wonder if the opposite is ever true.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, can you do the wrong thing for the right reason?”

Gamache took off his glasses. “Go on.” He listened closely, his calm brown eyes not straying from his Inspector.

“Like murder,” said Beauvoir. “Killing someone is wrong. But can the reason ever be right?”

“Justifiable homicide,” said Gamache. “It’s a defense, but a shaky one.”

“Do you think this might be justifiable?”

“Why do you ask?”

Beauvoir thought for a moment. “Something went wrong here. The monastery was falling apart. Imploding. Suppose it was the prior’s fault. So…”

“He was killed to save the rest of the community?” asked Gamache.

“Maybe.”

They both knew it was a hideous argument. One made by many a madman. That the killing was for the “greater good.”

But was it ever true?

Gamache had wondered about that himself. Suppose the prior was that one bad apple, spreading dissent, rotting this peaceful community, one monk at a time.

People killed in war all the time. If there was a quiet but devastating war going on at Saint-Gilbert, maybe one of the monks convinced himself this was the only way to end it. Before the entire abbey was rotted out from the inside.

Banishing the prior wouldn’t be possible. He’d done nothing overtly wrong.