The Beautiful Mystery

Captain Charbonneau opened the doors all the way down the hallway. One after another. All were alike.

Thirty of them. Fifteen down one side. Fifteen down the other.

Cells. He’d started off yelling into them, “Hello?” but soon realized there was no need.

This was obviously the bedroom wing. With the toilets and showers in the middle and the prior’s office at the very beginning of the corridor.

A large wooden door at the far end was closed.

The rooms were empty. He’d known that as soon as he’d stepped into the hallway. Not a living soul. But that didn’t mean there weren’t some dead ones.

And so he’d stooped to look under the first few beds. Dreading what he might find, but needing to look anyway.

Twenty years he’d been on the force. He’d seen some terrible things. Horrific accidents. Appalling deaths. Kidnappings, assaults, suicides. The disappearance of two dozen monks was far from the most frightening thing he’d experienced.

But it was the eeriest.

Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.

Saint-Gilbert-Among-the-Wolves.

Who names a monastery that?

“Père Abbé?” he called, tentatively. “Allô?”

The sound of his own voice at first calmed him. It was natural, familiar. But the hard, stone walls changed his voice. So that what came back to his ears wasn’t exactly what had left his lips. Close. But not the same.

The monastery had twisted it. Taking his words and magnifying the feelings. The fear. Making his own voice grotesque.

*   *   *

Beauvoir stepped into the small room. Like the kitchen, there was a vat bubbling away on a stove. But unlike the kitchen, this one wasn’t pea soup.

It smelled bitter. Heavy. Not a pleasant aroma at all.

Beauvoir peered into the vat.

Then he dipped his finger into the thick, warm liquid. And smelled it. Looking around, to see if anyone was watching, he put his finger into his mouth.

He was relieved.

It was chocolate. Dark chocolate.

Beauvoir had never liked dark chocolate. It seemed unfriendly.

He looked around the empty room. No, not just empty. It was abandoned. The unattended vat glugged gently, like a volcano considering whether to explode.

And on the wooden counter sat small mounds of very dark chocolate. Long rows of them, like tiny monks. He picked one up, turning it this way and that.

Then he ate it.

*   *   *

Armand Gamache had spent the past few minutes looking around. Perhaps the monks had hidden a key? But there was no potted palm and certainly no welcome mat to look under.

It was, he had to admit, one of the strangest occurrences he’d had in the hundreds of murders his department had investigated. Granted, every homicide had its share of strange behavior. Indeed, normal behavior would be considered among the oddest.

Still, he’d never had an entire community vanish.

He’d had suspects hide. He’d had many people try to run away. But never all of them. The only monk left lay at his feet. The Chief Inspector hoped Frère Mathieu was still the only dead monk in the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.

Gamache gave up the search for a key and looked at his watch. It was almost five. With a sinking heart he slid open the slit in the door and looked out. The sun was low on the horizon, just touching to tops of the woods. He could smell the fresh air, the fragrant pine forest. But what he sought, he found.

The boatman was still at the dock.

“Etienne!” Gamache called, putting his mouth close to the small opening. “Monsieur Legault!”

Then he looked out. The boatman hadn’t moved.

Gamache tried a few more times and wished he could whistle, that shrill, piercing sound some people achieved.

The Chief watched the boatman, sitting in his boat. And he realized the man was fishing. Casting. Reeling in. Casting. Reeling in.

With endless patience.

Or at least, Gamache hoped it was endless.

Leaving the small slit open, he turned back to the corridor and stood very still. Listening. He heard nothing. It was some comfort, he told himself, that he didn’t hear an outboard motor.

Still he stared. Wondering where the monks were. Wondering where his agents were. He pushed away the image that came into his head, created by the small but mighty factory deep within him that produced terrible thoughts.

The monster under the bed. The monster in the closet. The monster in the shadows.

The monster in the silence.

With an effort, the Chief Inspector banished those horrors. Let them glide right past, as though they were water and he a rock.