The Nature Of The Beast Part 58

"I was thinking the same thing," said Beauvoir, getting up.

"Who?" asked Rosenblatt, setting aside a copy of the Quebec Gazette from 1778.

"Ruth," said Gabri.

"He's going to help her clean? Now?"

Olivier shrugged.

"Keep looking," said Gamache, kneeling by the overturned blanket box. He could feel the fire behind him and hear the clock above him.

CHAPTER 40.

"What is it?" Beauvoir asked, taking a seat next to Ruth in her living room.

Monsieur Beliveau sat across from them on a lawn chair that looked familiar because it had once belonged to the grocer.

Ruth's home was furnished with what she described as "found" objects. Found, that is, in other people's homes.

"I know where the plans are."

"Where?" he asked.

She leaned forward and tapped the play, which was sitting on a plank of wood held up by a stack of books found in Myrna's bookstore.

"The play?" demanded Jean-Guy. "We already know that."

"Not the play, n.u.m.b.n.u.t.s," she snapped. "This."

She thumped the cover and now his eyes widened in frustration.

"For Christ's sake, what are you saying?"

But then he saw what she'd been indicating. Not the play itself, but the t.i.tle.

"She Sat Down and Wept?" he said. "You think the t.i.tle's the key?"

"It's a reference to Babylon, isn't it?" said Ruth. "And what would Fleming want to immortalize? What would give him the most pleasure?"

"A moment of despair," said Monsieur Beliveau.

"I don't understand."

"He came asking for help and I sent him to Al Lepage," she said. "I'd have done anything to get him away from me."

Beauvoir was listening, nodding. None of this was new, so why was she repeating herself? Once again, she tapped the t.i.tle.

She Sat Down and Wept.

"Why did he call it that?" Ruth asked. "We just read it. At no stage does any woman actually sit down and weep. No one does. So why call it that?"

Gamache looked at the mess on the floor of the bistro. Old newspapers and magazines were scattered everywhere. But no plans.

What was he missing? It was ten to six and they were no closer to finding the designs for Project Babylon.

He looked at the play, the G.o.dd.a.m.ned play, which he'd tossed onto one of the armchairs at the bistro. Had Fleming lied? It seemed likely now.

She Sat Down and Wept. She Sat Down and Wept.

It was, he had to admit, a strange t.i.tle. No one in the play, man or woman, ever sat down and cried. Or stood up and cried. No one wept at all.

And the actual biblical quote was "By the waters of Babylon, we sat down and wept." We sat down, not she. It was a misquote. But Fleming knew the Bible, so it must've been done on purpose. With a purpose. Gamache remembered Fleming caressing the play with that one finger. But he wasn't just touching the script, he was stroking the words of the t.i.tle when he'd said, "You have no idea why I wrote this, do you? If you did, you wouldn't need to be here."

"This" wasn't the play, it was the t.i.tle.

She Sat Down and Wept.

Gamache forced himself to sit in the armchair, the play on his lap. Olivier, Gabri and Rosenblatt stared at him.

"Aren't you going to do something?" Gabri demanded. "Have you just given up?"

"Shhh," said Olivier. "He is doing something. He's thinking."

"Ahhh," said Gabri. "That's what it looks like."

What did it mean? Gamache asked himself, tuning out the rest of the world.

Fleming hid the plans, then he wrote the play. A play set in a fictional Three Pines. His eyes narrowed. There was one thing every character was looking for.

Milk. In the hardware store. They came there to find it. But it wasn't there, of course. So where would you find it?

Gamache got up and walked to the door.

"My store?" asked Monsieur Beliveau. "You think he hid the plans in my store?"

"Where else do you find milk?" asked Beauvoir, walking to the window. Looking out, he saw Gamache standing at the bistro door, also looking toward Monsieur Beliveau's general store.

But then Gamache turned away.

Jean-Guy followed the Chief's gaze. Past Monsieur Beliveau's store, past the village green, past the three tall pines, past Clara's place to Jane's home. At Jane Neal's now-empty house, Gamache's gaze paused.

Ruth's best friend. Instead of recommending Jane for the artwork, she'd tossed Al Lepage into the pit.

"Ruth," Jean-Guy asked. "After you spoke to Fleming, did you go over to your friend Jane's place? Did you talk to her about this?"

Gamache turned from Jane's home and looked directly across the village green, to Ruth's place.

He saw movement in the window. Jean-Guy.

Ruth had wanted to see Beauvoir, urgently, but didn't want anyone else to know why. That's why she sent the message about Lysol.

Ruth.

Who'd saved herself by betraying someone else. Ruth. Who'd been forced to face a terrible truth. She was a coward.

She'd have turned in the Jews hiding in her attic.

She'd have named names to McCarthy.

She'd have pointed out heretics to the Inquisition, to avoid the flames and save herself.

And she'd almost certainly have looked at the crosses on a distant hill and whispered "Gethsemane" into a Roman ear.

And then she'd have sat down and wept.

"No, I didn't go to Jane's," said Ruth. "I was too ashamed. I needed to be by myself."

"So you stayed here?" Jean-Guy asked. "You drew the curtains and locked the door and stayed in your home."

"At first."

"And then?"

"My G.o.d," said Monsieur Beliveau to Ruth. "He must've seen."

"Seen what?" Jean-Guy demanded.

Gamache's eyes moved on, swiftly now. Up the hill. Past the old schoolhouse.

And then his gaze stopped. And Armand Gamache started walking. Then running.

"The church," said Beauvoir. "You went to St. Thomas's. That's what Fleming saw."

He ran out of Ruth's home. Gamache was already at the bottom of the wide wooden stairs. He took them two at a time. Beauvoir got there just as Gamache yanked open the large door to the small church.

"Where do you find milk?" Gamache asked, turning around only briefly to speak to Beauvoir.

"A church," said Jean-Guy. "The milk in the play isn't literal."

"It's a metaphor. For kindness and healing."

Gamache was scanning the rows of wooden pews, the simple altar, the unadorned walls. More a chapel than a church.

"And forgiveness," said Beauvoir. "You don't find it in a hardware store, but you might find it here. Ruth came to St. Thomas's after betraying Al Lepage. To pray for forgiveness. Looking for milk."

"John Fleming was a churchgoing man. Enjoying his relationship with a G.o.d he mocked and taunted," said Gamache. "He either followed her or had come here himself, for a moment of gloating, knowing what he'd done to her."

They heard movement behind them as Ruth and Monsieur Beliveau arrived.

"Where did you sit?" Gamache asked her.

"Over there," she pointed. "By the boys."

"The boys," the soldiers of the Great War, who lived forever in the stained-gla.s.s window. They marched through mud and chaos. This was no civilian monument to the glories of war. They were young and they were far from home and they were afraid.

But one young man had turned so that he was looking directly at the congregation. And on his face, alongside the terror, was something else.

Forgiveness.

Beneath the window were written the names of the dead from Three Pines. The boys who would never return to the old railway station, to the parents who waited.

And under their names the words "They Were Our Sons."

Ruth had sat in the light pouring through their bodies. And wept.

And when she left? Someone came out of the shadows.

Gamache dropped to his knees and pushed the pew to one side. Beauvoir joined him and together they started prying up the wide wooden floorboards.

And there, in a long metal tube, they found what they were looking for. The plans for Armageddon hidden in the chapel of St. Thomas. The doubter.

Gamache looked at his watch. It was six o'clock.

CHAPTER 41.