The Beautiful Mystery ciag-8

by Louise Penny

  “Find out if Frère Antoine knew he was about to be replaced as soloist on the next album. Just keep Frère Luc company for a while. See if anyone else shows up at the porter’s door in the next half hour.”

  Beauvoir looked at his watch. The service had started bang on seven thirty, and ended exactly forty-five minutes later.

  “Oui, patron,” he said.

  Gamache’s eyes hadn’t left that dim part of the church.

  Beauvoir willingly followed Frère Luc, just as he willingly followed all of Gamache’s orders. He knew it was a waste of time, of course. The Chief might make it sound like more interrogation, but Beauvoir knew what it really was.

  Babysitting.

  He was happy to do it, if it gave the Chief some peace. Beauvoir would have burped and diapered the monk, had Gamache asked. And had it helped ease the Chief’s mind.

  * * *

  “Would you mind having a look, Simon?”

  The abbot smiled at his taciturn secretary, then turned to his guest.

  “Shall we?” The abbot raised an arm and pointed, like a good host, to the two comfortable armchairs by the fireplace. The chairs were covered in a faded chintz and seemed to be stuffed with feathers.

  The abbot was about ten years older than Gamache. Mid-sixties, the Chief guessed. But he seemed sort of ageless. The shaved head and robes, Gamache supposed, did that. Though there was no disguising the lines in Dom Philippe’s face. And no attempt to disguise them.

  “Brother Simon will find you a plan of the monastery. I’m sure we have one somewhere.”

  “You don’t use one?”

  “Good heavens, no. I know every stone, every crack.”

  Like a commander of a ship, thought Gamache. Coming up through the ranks. Intimately aware of every corner of his vessel.

  The abbot seemed comfortable in command. Apparently unaware a mutiny was under way.

  Or probably supremely aware there had been one, and it had been thwarted. The challenge to his authority had died with the prior.

  Dom Philippe smoothed his long, pale hands over the arms of his chair. “When I first joined Saint-Gilbert one of the monks was an upholsterer. Self-taught. He’d ask the abbot to get the ends of bolts and bring them back. This’s his work.”

  The abbot’s hand stopped moving and rested on the arm, as though it was the arm of the monk himself.

  “That was almost forty years ago now. He was elderly then, and died a few years after I arrived. Frère Roland was his name. A gentle, quiet man.”

  “Do you remember all the monks?”

  “I do, Chief Inspector. Do you remember all your brothers?”

  “I’m an only child, I’m afraid.”

  “I put it badly. I meant your other brothers, your brothers-in-arms.”

  The Chief felt himself grow still. “I remember every name, every face.”

  The abbot held his gaze. It wasn’t challenging, it wasn’t even searching. It felt, to Gamache, more like a hand to the elbow, helping him keep his balance.

  “I thought you probably did.”

  “Unfortunately none of my agents is quite this handy.” Gamache also smoothed the faded chintz.

  “If you lived and worked here, believe me, they’d become handy even if they didn’t start that way.”

  “You recruit everyone?”

  The abbot nodded. “I have to go get them. Because of our history, we’ve taken not just a vow of silence but a vow of invisibility. A pledge to keep our monastery…”

  He searched for a word. It was clearly not something Dom Philippe had had to explain very often. If ever.

  “… secret?” offered Gamache.

  The abbot smiled. “I was trying to avoid that word, but I suppose it’s accurate. The Gilbertines had a happy, uneventful life for many centuries, in England. And then with the Reformation all the monasteries were closed. That’s when we first started fading. We packed up everything we could carry and disappeared from sight. We found a fairly remote plot of land and rebuilt in France. Then, with the Inquisitions, we again came under scrutiny. The Holy Office interpreted our desire for seclusion as a desire for secrecy, and judged us badly.”

  “And you don’t want to be judged badly by the Inquisition,” said Gamache.

  “You don’t want to be judged at all by the Inquisition. Ask the Waldensians.”

  “The who?”

  “Exactly. They lived not far from us in France, a few valleys over. We saw the smoke, inhaled the smoke. Heard the screams.”

  Dom Philippe paused, then looked down at his hands clasping each other in his lap. He spoke, Gamache realized, as though he’d been there himself. Breathing in his brother monks.

  “So we packed up again,” said the abbot.

  “Faded further.”

  The abbot nodded. “As far as we could get. We came over to the New World with some of the first settlers. The Jesuits were the ones chosen to convert the natives and head out with the explorers.”

  “While the Gilbertines did what?”

  “While we paddled north.” The abbot paused then. “When I say we came across with the first settlers, I meant that we came across as settlers. Not as monks. We hid our robes. Hid our holy orders.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we were worried.”

  “Does that explain the thick walls and hidden rooms and locked doors?” asked Gamache.

  “So you’ve noticed those?” asked the abbot with a smile.

  “I’m a trained observer, mon père,” and Gamache. “Hardly anything gets by my keen eye.”

  The abbot gave a soft laugh. He, like the chants themselves, seemed lighter this morning. Less burdened. “We appear to be an order of worriers.”

  “I notice that Saint Gilbert doesn’t seem to have a calling,” said Gamache. “Perhaps he can become the Patron Saint of Fretters.”

  “It would certainly fit. I’ll alert the Holy Father,” said the abbot.

  While recognizing the joke, the Chief Inspector suspected this abbot wanted little, if anything, to do with bishops, archbishops or popes.

  The Gilbertines, more than anything, just wanted to be left alone.

  Dom Philippe moved his hand back to the arm of his chair, his finger probing a hole worn in the fabric. It seemed new to him. A surprise.

  “We’re used to solving our own problems,” he said, looking at the Chief. “From roof repairs, to broken heating, to cancer and broken bones. Every single monk who lives here will die here too. We leave everything up to God. From holes in the fabric to harvests to how and when we die.”

  “Was what happened in your garden yesterday God’s work?”

  The abbot shook his head. “That’s why I decided to call you in. We can handle God’s will, no matter how harsh it can sometimes appear. But this was something else. It was man’s will. And we needed help.”

  “Not everyone in your community agrees.”

  “You’re thinking of Brother Antoine last night at dinner?”

  “I am, and he was clearly not alone.”

  “No.” The abbot shook his head, but held Gamache’s eyes. “I’ve learned in more than two decades as abbot that not everyone will agree with my decisions. I can’t worry about that.”

  “What do you worry about, mon père?”

  “I worry about telling the difference.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Between God’s will and my will. And right now, I’m worried about who killed Mathieu, and why.” He paused, worrying the hole in the upholstery. Making it worse. “And how I could’ve missed it.”

  Frère Simon arrived with a scroll and unrolled it on the low pine table in front of the men.

  “Merci, Simon,” said the abbot, and leaned forward. Frère Simon made to leave but Gamache stopped him.

  “I have another request, I’m afraid. It would be helpful to have a schedule of the services and meals and anything else we should be aware of.”

  “An horarium,” said the abbot. “Simon
, would you mind?”

  It seemed Simon, while looking as though he minded breathing, in fact was willing to do anything the abbot asked of him. One of the abbot’s men, without a doubt, thought Gamache.

  Simon withdrew and the two men leaned over the plan.

  * * *

  “So,” said Beauvoir, leaning against the doorjamb. “Do you spend all day here?”

  “All day, every day.”

  “And what do you do?”

  Even to his ears it sounded like a lame pickup line in a dingy bar. “Come here often, sweet cheeks?” Next he’d be asking this young monk what his sign was.

  Beauvoir was Cancer, which always annoyed him. He wanted to be Scorpio, or Leo. Or even that ram thing. Anything other than the crab that, according to the descriptions, was nurturing, nesting, and sensitive.

  Fucking horoscopes.

  “I read this.”

  Frère Luc lifted the huge book an inch off his lap then dropped it again.

  “What is it?”

  Frère Luc gave him a suspicious look, as though trying to assess the motives of the man he met in the shower that morning. Beauvoir had to admit, he’d be suspicious of himself too.

  “It’s the book of Gregorian chants. I study it. Learn my parts.”

  It was the perfect “in.”

  “You told me this morning that the prior had chosen you to be the new soloist in the next recording. You’d be replacing Frère Antoine. Did Frère Antoine know that?”

  “Must have,” said Luc.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because if Frère Antoine thought he was the soloist, he’d be studying the chants. Not me.”

  “All the chants are in that one book?” Looking at it, balanced on Frère Luc’s thin knees, Beauvoir had an idea. “Who else knows about that?” Beauvoir nodded toward the old volume.

  If knowledge was power, thought Beauvoir, that book was all-powerful. It held the key to their vocation. And now, it was also the key to all their wealth and influence. Whoever possessed this book had everything. It was their Holy Grail.

  “Everyone. It’s kept on a lectern in the Blessed Chapel. We look at it all the time. Take it to our cells, sometimes. No big deal.”

  Merde, thought Beauvoir. So much for the Holy Grail.

  “We also copy out the chants ourselves,” Frère Luc pointed to a workbook on the narrow table. “So we all have our own copies.”

  “It’s not a secret, then?” asked Beauvoir, to be sure.

  “This?” The young monk laid his hand on it. “Many monasteries have one. Most have two or three, and far more impressive ones than ours. I guess because this is such a poor order we only have one. So we have to be careful with it.”

  “Not read it in the bath?” asked Beauvoir.

  Luc smiled. It was the first one Beauvoir had seen from the grim young monk.

  “When were you supposed to do the new recording?”

  “It wasn’t decided yet.”

  Beauvoir thought about that for a moment. “What wasn’t decided? The timing of the recording, or if there’d even be one?”

  “It wasn’t absolutely decided if there’d be another recording, but I don’t think there was much doubt.”

  “But you led the Chief to believe the recording was going ahead, a fait accompli. Now you’re saying it wasn’t?”

  “It was just a matter of time,” said Luc. “If the prior wanted something, it happened.”

  “And Frère Antoine?” asked Beauvoir. “How do you think he took the news?”

  “He’d have accepted it. He’d have to.”

  Not because Frère Antoine was humble, thought Beauvoir. Not as a reflection of his faith, but because it was useless to argue with the prior. Easier, probably, to just kill the man.

  Was that the motive? Had Frère Antoine smashed the prior’s head in because he was about to be replaced as soloist? In an order dedicated to Gregorian chant, the soloist would hold a special place.

  More equal, as Orwell had it, than others. And people killed for that all the time.

  FIFTEEN

  The sunshine through the leaded-glass windows fell on the plan of the abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups. It was drawn on very old, very thick paper and showed the cruciform design of the abbey. Walled enclosures jutted off the two arms and the abbot’s garden hung off the bottom of the cross.

  The Chief Inspector put on his reading glasses and leaned closer to the scroll. He studied the drawing in silence. He’d been in the abbot’s garden, of course. And had collected eggs with Frère Bernard a few hours ago in the walled enclosure with the goats and sheep and chickens, off the right arm of the cross.

  His eyes shifted across the plan, to the opposite arm. With the chocolate factory, the dining hall, the kitchens. And another walled enclosure.

  “What’s this, mon père?” The Chief pointed.

  “That’s our vegetable and herb garden. We grow our own, of course.”

  “Enough to feed all of you?”

  “That’s why we’ve never had more than two dozen monks. It was judged by the founders to be the perfect number. Enough to do the work, and not too many to feed. They were right.”

  “And yet you have thirty cells. Room for more. Why?”

  “Just in case,” said Dom Philippe. “As you so rightly said, Chief Inspector, we’re an order of fretters. Suppose we needed more space? Suppose someone came? We’re prepared for the unexpected. Though the perfect number is twenty-four.”

  “But now you’re down to twenty-three. A spot has opened up.”

  “I suppose it has. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

  The Chief Inspector wondered if that was true, and wondered if that might make a motive. If the abbot did the recruiting, could he have found another monk he wanted to invite to join the Gilbertines?

  But someone would have to go before the new person could come. And who better than the troublesome prior?

  Gamache tucked that possibility away, but without any great enthusiasm. Even in the cutthroat world of universities, or New York co-ops, where there were finite places, people rarely actually cut throats. Or bashed in skulls.

  He could see many reasons this abbot might kill his prior, but to open up a space for someone else seemed among the least likely.

  “Who was the last person you recruited?”

  “Brother Luc. He came just under a year ago, from an order close to the American border. They’re also a musical order. Benedictines. Make wonderful cheese. We trade chocolate for their cheese. You had some at breakfast.”

  “Delicious,” agreed the Chief, who wanted to get off cheese and back to the murder. “Why did you choose him?”

  “I’d had my eye on him since he entered the seminary. Beautiful voice. Extraordinary voice.”

  “And what else does he bring?”

  “Pardon?”

  “I understand that singing might be what you look for first—”

  “I look for piety first,” said the abbot. His voice was still pleasant, but there was no mistaking his tone. He wanted to make that clear. “First I must believe that a brother will fit in with the goal of Saint-Gilbert, to live with God through Christ. If that’s satisfied, then I look at other things.”

  “Like his voice,” said Gamache. “But there has to be more, non? Another skill he brings. As you say, you need to be self-sufficient.”

  For the first time, the abbot hesitated. Looked uncomfortable.

  “Frère Luc has the advantage of youth. He can be taught.”

  But Gamache had seen the crack, the chink. The fret. And he moved in.

  “And yet, every other monk came with a discipline. For instance, I understand Frère Alexandre is getting old, perhaps too old to look after the animals. Wouldn’t it make more sense to find a replacement for him?”

  “Are you questioning my judgment?”

  “I certainly am. I’m questioning everything. Why did you recruit Frère Luc when all he could bring was his v
oice?”

  “I judged that his voice was enough at this stage. As I said, he can be taught other things, like animal husbandry from Frère Alexandre, if he shows an aptitude for it. We’re fortunate now.”

  “How so?”

  “We don’t need to beg other monks to come. Younger monks are interested. That was one of the great gifts of the recording. We now have a choice. And when they arrive we can train them. An older monk can mentor a younger, as Frère Roland was mentored and learned the trade of upholstering.”

  “Perhaps Frère Luc can learn it too,” said Gamache, and saw the abbot smile.

  “That’s not a bad idea, Chief Inspector. Merci.”

  Still, thought Gamache, it didn’t quite explain the volte-face the abbot had made in recruiting. From choosing skilled and trained men, to choosing a novice. With only one outstanding skill. His extraordinary voice.

  Gamache stared at the plan on the table in front of them. There was something wrong with it. Some sense he had, like in the fun house. A slight queasiness when he looked at it.

  “Is there just the one hidden room?” he asked, his finger hovering over the Chapter House.

  “As far as I know. There’re always rumors of long-forgotten tunnels and vaults with treasure, but no one’s ever found them. At least, not that I know of.”

  “And what did the rumors say the treasure was?”

  “That was conveniently unclear,” said the abbot with a smile. “Couldn’t have been much, since the original two dozen monks would have had to paddle it up the river all the way from Québec City. And I can tell you, if you couldn’t eat it or wear it, it probably didn’t come on the voyage.”

  Since those were pretty much his own packing rules, Gamache accepted the abbot’s explanation. Besides, what could men who’d taken vows of silence, poverty and isolation possibly treasure? Though even as he asked himself that question he knew the answer. People always found things to treasure. For little boys it was arrowheads and cat’s-eye marbles. For adolescents it was a cool T-shirt and a signed baseball. And for big boys? Just because they were monks didn’t mean they had no treasures. It simply might not be what others found valuable.

  He rested his hand on the end of the plan to keep the paper from curling up. Then looked over to where his fingers touched.