All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #16) - Louise Penny Page 0,40
It would cause too much of a mess, but that was a lie. The truth is, once he’d made one body, he wouldn’t hesitate to make two more. And he certainly should have killed me when I was chasing him. It would’ve been easy enough.”
“Yes,” said Beauvoir.
His father-in-law had hit on the one great argument against trusting Claude Dussault.
A stranger would not have hesitated to murder the Gamaches. But a friend … ?
“And when I was chasing him down the stairs, I heard a phone ring. It was muffled, but I’m pretty sure it came from the intruder.”
“Yes?” said Beauvoir, not sure how this linked up with the Prefect.
“Reine-Marie would’ve been calling Claude at about that time.”
There it was.
“Maybe we don’t tell the Prefect everything,” said Jean-Guy. “But we do need to get our hands on that annual report.”
“How did Stephen seem to you last night?”
“He was in good spirits. As good as it ever got with Stephen.”
“But not especially giddy,” said Gamache. “Not like a man about to expose some big swindle?”
“Not giddy, no. You’re thinking he found something out about GHS? That’s why he wanted to go to the board meeting?”
If Stephen was about to topple a tower of malfeasance he’d probably be quite bubbly. It was just about his favorite thing to do.
As it was, he was clearly pleased to see everyone and to be there, but there was no sense of triumph. Nor did he seem guarded or nervous.
“But he did check his phone a few times,” said Beauvoir. “That was strange.”
“Yes, you mentioned that before. I wonder if he was looking for a message from Monsieur Plessner. There was no phone found on the body or in the apartment?”
“Non, but they might find one eventually.”
“I doubt it,” said Armand, and so did Jean-Guy. The killer would have taken it.
And there was something else.
“Stephen helped me get the job at GHS,” said Jean-Guy. “Could there have been a reason? But if he had suspicions about the company, he’d have told me, right? Or at least hinted?”
Gamache shook his head. His godfather was a complicated man. He kept his own counsel, and always had. His early experiences in the war had taught him that the fewer people who knew what was going on, the safer everyone was.
It was a quality he and his godson shared. A quality others did not always appreciate.
It seemed obvious that someone knew what Stephen Horowitz was about to do. And needed to stop him.
It was their turn now to connect the dots. But first they had to collect the dots.
“If he put you in GHS because he had suspicions, he might’ve wanted you to figure it out on your own,” said Gamache. “And not prejudice your thoughts.”
“Yeah, well, he obviously overestimated my ‘thoughts.’ I have none. At least, no suspicions. Though—”
“Oui?”
“Well, it’s just that my number two—”
“Madame Arbour.”
“Oui. She was pushing some file on me yesterday afternoon. A project we have in Luxembourg.”
“Luxembourg?”
“Yes. Small by comparison to others. When I changed the subject to Patagonia, she seemed miffed. I put it down to a very tiring power struggle we still seem to be having. I thought she might be testing, to see if I was up on even the smaller projects. What is it?”
“I’m remembering my conversation with Stephen in the Rodin. A mistake he made.”
“He made a mistake?” Jean-Guy had never heard of the financier making, or certainly admitting to, an error.
“More like a memory lapse. He said that he’d convinced me to propose to Reine-Marie in the jardin du Luxembourg. But that was wrong. He’d actually suggested a small garden in the Marais, just off rue des Rosiers.”
“And that’s where you did propose?”
“Yes. I put the mistake down to his age and lingering jet lag. But clearly he wasn’t suffering from jet lag since he’d arrived days earlier.”
“So, what was it? If it wasn’t a mistake, you think he might’ve said it on purpose?”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far. He might’ve had Luxembourg on his mind. What’s the project there?”
“A funicular.”
“An outdoor elevator?”
“Yes, up the side of a cliff. But this’s a newer, safer design. We’re incorporating it into elevators all over the world, not just funiculars. Jesus, could Stephen be worried about the design? Could something be wrong?”
“Stephen isn’t an engineer. He can read a financial statement in moments, but I doubt he could make heads or tails of an engineering report.”
They were now wandering in the dark, and in danger of believing they weren’t totally lost. It