The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #11) - Louise Penny Page 0,112

imagined stain.

“There was something about them,” he said into his hands. “Something off. They looked okay, if you didn’t look too close or too long.”

He picked up an apple from the grass. With an expert twist of his hands, the apple split in two. He offered one half to Armand.

The outer flesh was white and moist. Perfect. But the core was dark, decayed.

“After a while, in my profession, you can tell when something’s gone rotten,” said the elderly grocer. “Even if it’s not obvious from the outside.”

Armand looked at the apple in his hand, then cocked his arm, tossing it as far as he could.

“I just wanted to be rid of them,” said Monsieur Béliveau, throwing his own piece, and watching it bounce into the tall grass by the pond. Then he looked at Ruth. “I’ve regretted sending them to you ever since.”

Ruth patted his hand. “You’re one of the good ones, Clément. Always will be.”

“What did they want?” asked Armand.

“They wanted to commission a work of art,” said Ruth. “I explained I was a poet and told them to go away. But they wouldn’t leave until I gave them the name of an artist.”

“Evelyn Lepage,” said Gamache.

“Evie?” said Ruth. “No. She was a child at the time. It was Al Lepage.”

Gamache closed his eyes for a moment. Of course, he thought. It couldn’t have been Evie.

“How did you know he was an artist?” Gamache asked. “Isn’t he a musician?”

“If you can call it that. He drew a bit too,” said Ruth. “If you look at the sleeve of his album, you’ll see some of his drawings.”

“Did Lepage know what was being built?” Armand asked.

“How could he not?” demanded Ruth. “Do you think he did it blindfolded? Maybe he thought he was drawing a horsie but ended up with a sign of the apocalypse.”

“You quoted Yeats’s ‘The Second Coming.’” Gamache pretended she hadn’t just spoken. “How did you know that the image Gerald Bull wanted was the Whore of Babylon. Did he tell you?”

Ruth shook her head. “The other man did.”

Gamache drew his brows together, trying to remember. Then he had it.

“The project manager.”

“Oui,” said Monsieur Béliveau.

“After our first conversation, the project manager returned,” said Ruth. “He wanted me to write a few lines of poetry inspired by the Book of Revelation. He was the one who quoted Yeats.”

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,” said Gamache.

“Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born,” Monsieur Béliveau finished the line.

“I told him to just put the Yeats poem on Lepage’s drawing,” said Ruth. “I couldn’t do better. But he said they wanted something unique. Something inspired specifically by the Whore of Babylon.”

“Were you tempted?” asked Gamache. He hadn’t meant to ask, it wasn’t at all relevant, but he was curious. “It’s a powerful image.”

“It’s a vile image,” she said. “It’s hounded women for centuries and been an excuse for witch trials and torture and burnings. So, no. I wasn’t tempted. I was revolted.”

“Did you still think it was for someone’s private home?” he asked.

“People have different tastes. Some like pastel flowers, some prefer demonic images. I’m not one to judge.”

Even Monsieur Béliveau raised his brows at that statement.

“Clara and Peter weren’t in Three Pines then, but when Gerald Bull asked about an artist, why didn’t you recommend your friend Jane Neal? She lived in the village.” He gestured to the small stone cottage next to Clara’s. “She was an artist. Surely she would’ve appreciated the work.”

“Jane was very private about her art,” said Ruth, turning to face him. Challenging him to challenge her.

But Armand didn’t. He sat waiting. For more.

“Ruth,” Monsieur Béliveau said quietly. “We have to tell him everything.”

“I didn’t want to bring Jane into it,” she said at last.

“Why not?” Armand asked. “Why suggest Al Lepage, someone you didn’t like? Why give him the job and not your closest friend?”

Ruth looked cornered, desperate, and Armand wished he could help her but he didn’t know how, except to say, “The truth, Ruth. Tell me.”

“He looked perfectly normal, of course,” she said. “They do, don’t they? But he wasn’t. He was like Clément’s apple.”

“Gerald Bull?”

Ruth shook her head.

“Al Lepage?”

“No.”

Gamache thought. Who else?

And then he looked from Ruth to Monsieur Béliveau.

“The project manager,” said Armand.

“Oui,” said Clément Béliveau. “He was small, slight. Easy to overlook in the company of Gerald Bull. But if you looked at him, really looked at him, you could see it. Or feel it. There was something wrong with him. Inside.”

Monsieur Béliveau sighed. Heavily. The very thought