The Beautiful Mystery

“The archbishop? Thomas à Becket.”

Frère Sébastien nodded. In the uncertain light of the bulbs high in the rafters, shadows were distorted. Eyes became bleak holes, noses were elongated, misshapen.

The Dominican gave them a grotesque smile. “A remarkable thing for Gilbert to do. I’d love to know why he did it.”

“And I’d love to know, mon frère,” said Gamache, not smiling, “why you’re really here.”

The question amazed the monk, who stared at Gamache, then laughed.

“I think we have a lot to talk about, monsieur. Shall we go into the Chapter House? We won’t be disturbed there.”

The door to the room was through the plaque. Gamache knew it. Beauvoir knew it. And the monk seemed to know it. But instead of finding the hidden catch and opening it, Frère Sébastien waited. For one of the others to do it.

Chief Inspector Gamache considered the monk. He seemed pleasant. There was that word again. Inoffensive. Happy in his work, happy in his life. Happy, certainly, to have followed the Angelus bells and found this secluded monastery.

Built almost four hundred years earlier by Dom Clément, to escape the Inquisition. They’d faded into the Canadian wilderness and let the world believe the last rites were said for the last Gilbertine centuries ago.

Even the Church believed they’d gone extinct.

But they hadn’t. For centuries these monks sat by the shores of this pristine lake, adoring God. Praying to him. Singing to him. And living lives of quiet contemplation.

But never forgetting what drove them there.

Fear. Fretting.

As though the walls weren’t high enough, and thick enough, Dom Clément had taken one more measure. He built a room to hide in. The Chapter House. In case.

And tonight the “in case” had finally happened. The Inquisition, in the person of this pleasant monk, had found the Gilbertines.

“At last,” Frère Sébastien had said when he first crossed the threshold. “I found you.”

At last, thought Gamache.

And now the Dominican from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was asking a police officer to show him the secret door. To open it. To take away the Gilbertines’ last hiding place.

Gamache knew it no longer mattered. The secret was out. There was no more hiding to be done. And no need. The Inquisition had ended. But even so, Chief Inspector Gamache was loath to be the man who after four hundred years opened that door for the hound of the Lord.

All this went through Gamache’s mind in a flash, but before he could say anything, Beauvoir stepped forward and pressed the image of the intertwined wolves.

And the plaque clicked open.

“Merci,” said the Dominican. “I wondered briefly if you knew how.”

Beauvoir gave him a dismissive look. That would teach this young monk to underestimate him.

Gamache stepped aside and gestured, inviting the monk to go first. They stepped into the Chapter House and sat on the stone bench that ran around the walls. Gamache waited. He wasn’t going to start the conversation. So the three of them sat in silence. After a minute or so Beauvoir began to fidget slightly.

But the Chief sat absolutely still. Composed.

Then a soft sound came from the monk. It took just a moment for the Chief to recognize it. He was humming the tune Gamache himself had hummed over dinner. But it sounded different. Perhaps, Gamache thought, it was the acoustics of the room. But he knew, deep down, it wasn’t that.

He turned to the man next to him. Frère Sébastien had his eyes closed, his fine, light lashes resting on his pale cheek. And a smile on his face.

It felt as though the stones themselves were singing. It felt as though the monk had coaxed the music out of the air, out of the walls, out of the fabric of his robes. Gamache had the oddest sensation that the music was coming out of himself. As though the music was part of him, and he a part of it.

It felt as though all of everything was broken down and swirled together, and out of that came this sound.

The experience was so intimate, so invasive, it was almost frightening. And would have been, had the music itself not been so beautiful. And calming.

Then the Dominican stopped humming, opened his eyes, and turned to Gamache.

“I’d like to know, Chief Inspector, where you heard that tune.”

TWENTY-NINE

“I need to speak to you, Père Abbot,” said Frère Antoine.

From inside his office, Dom Philippe heard the request. Or demand. Normally he’d have heard the old iron knocker against wood. But these were far from normal times. The rod had been declared the weapon that had killed Frère Mathieu, and taken away.