“That’s what I think. Champlain was too powerful a symbol for French Québec, a rallying point. Better never found. 1869 was only two years after Confederation. A lot of French Québec wasn’t happy about joining Canada, there were calls for separation even then. Finding Champlain would do no good to the Canadian cause, and might do a great deal of harm. Chiniquy probably didn’t care greatly, but I suspect Dr. Douglas did. He was aware of the political forces, and a conservative by nature, the less fuss the better.”
“And the remains of Champlain would cause a fuss,” said Inspector Langlois, nodding. “Better to bury the dead, and leave it be.”
“But the dead had a habit of leaving the grave,” said Croix. “Especially around James Douglas. You’re familiar with his activities?”
“As a grave robber?” said Gamache. “Yes.”
“And the mummies,” said Croix.
“Mummies?” Langlois asked.
“Another time,” said the Chief Inspector. “I’ll tell you all about it. Now we have another body to find.”
For the next hour the archeologist and his technicians searched the basement again, finding more tin boxes, more vegetables.
But under the stairs, exactly where the metal steps landed, they found something else. Something dismissed in their first sweep earlier in the week as just the blip from the stairs themselves but now, examined closer, proved to be something else.
Digging carefully but without enthusiasm or conviction, the technicians hit something, something larger than the tin boxes. Something, indeed, not tin at all but wood.
Digging more carefully now, excavating, taking photographs and recording the event, they slowly, painstakingly, uncovered a coffin. The men gathered round and by rote crossed themselves.
The Inspector called his forensics team and within minutes the investigators had arrived. Samples were taken, more photographs, prints.
Cameras recording, the coffin was raised and the Chief Archeologist and his head technician pried up the nails, long and rusty red. With a slow shriek they came out of the wood, reluctant to leave, reluctant to reveal what they’d hidden for so long.
Finally freed of the nails the lid was ready to be lifted. Serge Croix reached out then hesitated. Looking over at Gamache he gestured, beckoning him forward. Gamache declined, but when the Chief Archeologist insisted he agreed.
Armand Gamache stood before the worm-eaten coffin. A simple maple wood, made from the ancient forests hacked down to build Québec four hundred years earlier. Gamache could feel the tremble in his right hand, and knew it showed.
He reached out and touched the coffin, and the tremble stopped. Resting his hands there he considered what was about to happen. After centuries of hunting, after lifetimes spent in the singular search for the Father of Québec, after his own childhood spent reading about it, dreaming about it, reenacting it with friends. A stick in his hand, he’d stood astride rocks in Parc Mont Royal, commanding the great ship, fighting noble battles, surviving terrible storms. Valiant. Along with every other school child in Québec his hero had been Samuel de Champlain.
Exploring, mapping. Creating. Québec.
Gamache looked down at his large hands, resting gently on the old wood.
Samuel de Champlain.
Gamache stepped aside and gestured to émile to take his place. The elderly man shook his head but Gamache walked over and led him to the coffin then stepped back and smiled at his mentor.
“Merci,” émile mouthed. Together he and the Chief Archeologist slowly, carefully, raised the heavy, lead-lined lid.
A skeleton lay there. Finally, found.
After a long silence the Chief Archeologist, gazing into the coffin, spoke.
“Unless Champlain had another big secret, this isn’t him.”
“What do you mean?” Gamache asked.
“It’s a woman.”
Something had changed. Jean-Guy Beauvoir could feel it. It was the way people looked at him. It was as though they’d seen him naked, as though they’d seen him in a position so vulnerable, so exposed it was all they could see now.
Not the man he really was. An edited man.
They’d seen the video, all of them. That much was obvious. He was the only one in Three Pines who hadn’t, he and maybe Ruth, who was barely out of the stone ages.
But while the people of Three Pines might know something about him, he knew something about them, something no one else knew. He knew who’d killed the Hermit.
It was late Friday afternoon. The sun had long since set and the bistro was clearing out, people heading home for dinner after a drink.
Beauvoir looked round. Clara, Peter and Myrna were sitting with Old Mundin and The Wife, who held a sleeping Charles. At another table Marc and Dominique Gilbert sipped beer while Marc’s mother, Carole, had a white wine. The Parras were there, Roar and Hanna. Their son Havoc was waiting tables.
Ruth sat alone and Gabri stood behind the bar.
The door opened and someone else blew in, batting snow off his hat and stomping his feet. Vincent Gilbert, the asshole saint, the doctor who’d been so tender with Beauvoir and so cruel with others.
“Am I late?” he asked.
“Late?” said Carole. “For what?”
“Well, I was invited. Weren’t you?”
Everyone turned to Beauvoir then to Clara and Myrna. Old and The Wife had been invited for drinks by the two women, as had the Parras. The Gilberts had come at Beauvoir’s invitation and Ruth was just part of the décor.
“Patron,” said Beauvoir, and Gabri locked the front door then closed the side entrances from the other shops.
“What’s all this about?” Roar Parra asked, looking perplexed but not alarmed. He was short and squat and powerful and Beauvoir was glad he wasn’t alarmed. Yet.
They stared at Beauvoir.
He’d quietly had a word with Gabri earlier and asked him to ask the other patrons to leave, discreetly, so that only these few remained. Outside snow was falling and beginning to blow about, visible in the glow from the homes. The cheery Christmas lights on the three pine trees on the village green bobbed in the wind. They’d be battling a small blizzard by the time they left.
Inside, it was snug and warm and though the wind and snow swirled against the windows it only increased their sense of security. Fires were lit in the hearths and while they could hear the wind outside the sturdy building never even shuddered.
Like the rest of Three Pines, and its residents, it took what was coming and remained standing. And now, together, they stared at him.
With just a touch of pity?
“OK, numb nuts, what’s all this about?” asked Ruth.