said Stephen. He was listening closely. So far this wasn’t anything he didn’t already know.
“Merde,” said Olivier. “Wish he’d incriminated me.”
“That was nothing,” said Beauvoir. “The real money was going into a numbered account in Singapore. Not even Shaeffer knew about that. He had no idea of the scope of the embezzlement.”
He looked at Gamache, inviting him to join in. Armand leaned forward, his glass of scotch between his hands.
“It worked well for a few years,” said Armand. “As with most things, it started small. A little money from one or two. But when Hugo realized they weren’t questioning, as long as they got their dividend checks, he increased the amounts and the number of clients.”
“He got greedy,” said Clara.
“Greed, yes. But I’ve seen this sort of thing before,” said Stephen. “It becomes a game. A thrill. A sort of addiction. They have to keep increasing the hit. No one needs three hundred million. He could’ve stopped at fifty and been safe and comfortable for the rest of his life. No, there was something else at work. And I didn’t see it.”
He looked not just upset but drained.
Despite her kidding, Reine-Marie knew perfectly well why Armand had invited his godfather out for a few days. And introduced him to Ruth.
It was so he wouldn’t be alone with his thoughts. With his wounds.
Things were pretty dire when Ruth was the healing agent.
“So what went wrong?” asked Gabri.
“Anthony ran into one of the so-called clients on the street last summer,” said Beauvoir. “The man thanked Anthony for the great job he was doing. Baumgartner didn’t think much of it until he started going through his client list and realized this fellow wasn’t on it. He contacted the man and asked for the financial statement.”
“So he knew someone was stealing, and using his name,” said Stephen. “I got that. But how did he figure out it was his brother?”
Ruth, sitting between Gabri and Stephen, had fallen asleep and was snoring softly. Her head lolling on Stephen’s shoulder. A bit of spittle landing on his cashmere sweater.
But he didn’t push her away.
“He didn’t. Not at first,” said Beauvoir. “When we got into his laptop and uncovered his search history, we found that he seemed to be searching for something. At first we assumed he was looking around for places to put the money, but then we checked the timelines and realized it wasn’t that.”
“He was trying to retrace someone’s steps,” said Armand. “To figure out who was responsible.”
“He started with his own company,” said Jean-Guy. “With Madame Ogilvy, in fact. Then spread it out. When all else failed, he began looking further afield.”
“Or closer to home, really,” said Armand. And not, he thought, in a field but in a garden. Apparently healthy but actually choked with bindweed.
He tried to imagine Anthony Baumgartner’s shock when he realized who was stealing. And setting him up.
Matthew 10:36.
Armand sometimes wished he’d never paused on that piece of Scripture. And he certainly wished he didn’t know the truth it contained.
“What I don’t understand is how Anthony Baumgartner even found that trail,” said Stephen. “Hugo would’ve hidden it well.”
“Let me ask you this,” said Armand. “If you were going to embezzle, would you use your own computer?”
Stephen’s face opened, and he gave a small grunt. “No. I’d use someone else’s and take the opportunity to implicate them while I’m at it, in case it’s ever caught. Smart Hugo.”
“Smart Hugo,” said Beauvoir. “He and Anthony got together once a week for meals. While Tony cooked, Hugo used his brother’s laptop, supposedly to get caught up on the markets.”
“But actually to transfer money,” said Stephen.
“But wouldn’t it be obvious?” asked Olivier. “I do our accounting online, and it’s all right there.”
“Not hard to bury it,” said Beauvoir. “Especially if you want to. And Hugo wanted to. But not too deep. He also wanted people to be able to find it, if need be. And we eventually did. And yes, it made it look like Anthony was the one doing it. Why wouldn’t it? Without the password for the numbered account in Singapore, there’d be no proof it was anyone other than Anthony.”
“But Anthony found it?” said Clara.
“Oui,” Beauvoir continued. “We found Anthony’s searches. He’d made no attempt to hide those. They were more and more frantic, it seems. And then, in September of last year, they stopped.”
“He had what he was looking for,” said Armand.
“He knew then, months ago, that Hugo was stealing?” said Stephen. “Why didn’t he stop it then? Why