All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #16) - Louise Penny Page 0,26

stronger now.

Bringing the keys out, he made a fist around them, the individual keys between his fingers, like brass knuckles. Not much of a defense. More psychological than practical.

He was halfway down the long hall when he heard a bang. He flinched, even as he realized it wasn’t a shot.

It was a door slamming.

“Damn.”

Racing into the kitchen, he yanked open the fire escape door and heard feet on the concrete stairs. He followed them down, taking the steps two, three at a time.

As he ran, he thought he heard a familiar sound. Muffled. A phone ringing. But not his. His was with Reine-Marie.

The sound of the intruder’s feet echoed in the enclosed stairwell. The person he was chasing was not young, Armand unconsciously noted.

But still, whoever this was, they had a head start and were moving quickly. Desperate to get away.

And it looked like they would.

If he could just catch a glimpse …

A door banged open, and he saw sunlight a few flights down. Then it disappeared as the door swung shut.

When he got to the bottom, Armand threw himself against it and staggered out onto a busy Paris sidewalk. Surprised pedestrians leaped out of the way as Armand swung around, looking this way, then that.

Nothing. Just men and women walking, some gawking. No one running.

He’d lost him.

Walking rapidly toward the Lutetia, Armand turned the corner and saw Reine-Marie hugging the cardboard box. Staring at the front door to Stephen’s building.

Willing Armand to appear.

He called to her, and she turned. Her relief was accompanied by the familiar wail of a police siren quickly approaching.

CHAPTER 9

What the hell’s going on, Armand?”

Claude Dussault and Armand Gamache were standing side by side, looking down at the body while members of the brigade criminelle fanned out in a semicircle, waiting for the Prefect to give them the go-ahead.

Since he didn’t know what the hell was going on, Gamache remained silent.

“Do you know him?”

“I don’t think so,” said Gamache. “But we’ll get a better look when he’s turned over.”

What he could see was that the man was older, perhaps mid-seventies. Caucasian. Slender. In casual but expensive clothes.

Armand lifted his eyes from the body and gazed at the shambles around him. Furniture overturned. Books taken from shelves and splayed on the floor. Drawers pulled out and tossed. Even the art had been taken from the walls, the brown paper at the back of them slashed.

Thankfully none of the art itself appeared to have been destroyed.

Dussault nodded, and the brigade went to work while the two senior officers walked from room to room. Armand hadn’t had a chance to look at the rest of Stephen’s apartment, but now he did.

“Horowitz’s bedroom?” Dussault asked.

“Oui.”

The bed had been taken apart, the mattress thrown to the floor. The doors of the huge armoire were open, and clothing lay in heaps.

“Someone’s done a number on this place,” said the Prefect.

Even Stephen’s bathroom had been searched, the medicine cabinet’s contents in the sink and on the floor.

They walked down the long corridor, glancing into the other bedroom, the bathroom, the dining room.

“Coming?” Dussault asked.

He’d noticed that Armand had stopped.

“What is it?”

“Nothing, really. Désolé.” He looked away, into the second bedroom.

“What?”

Armand turned back to the Prefect, his colleague and friend, and said with a very small, almost sad smile, “Just a memory.”

“Did you stay here as a child?”

“Yes.”

“Hard to see this,” said Dussault. “It must be quite something when not …”

“It is.”

Stephen Horowitz’s Paris apartment spoke of untold wealth and unusual restraint.

The financier preferred the simplicity of the Louis Philippe style, with its warm wood grain and soft, simple lines. Each piece, searched out in auction houses and even flea markets, had a purpose. Each was actually used. The armoires, the bedsteads, the dressers and lamps.

As a result, the place felt more like a home than a museum.

But right now, it could pass as a dump.

“Robbery gone wrong or professional hit?” Dussault asked.

Armand shook his head. “Whoever did this was searching for something. Had Stephen not been attacked last night, I’d have said a robbery gone wrong, but—”

“But it can’t be a coincidence,” agreed Dussault. “The two must be connected. The simplest explanation is that the killer came here knowing Stephen was at dinner, and the apartment would be empty. He could search it without fear of interruption. When he arrived and discovered this fellow, he killed him. Then continued the search. Poor guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Gamache raised his hands. He had no idea if that was