Louise Penny - The Beautiful Mystery

Then he ate it.

Armand Gamache had spent the past few minutes looking around. Perhaps the monks had hidden a key? But there was no potted palm and certainly no welcome mat to look under.

It was, he had to admit, one of the strangest occurrences he’d had in the hundreds of murders his department had investigated. Granted, every homicide had its share of strange behavior. Indeed, normal behavior would be considered among the oddest.

Still, he’d never had an entire community vanish.

He’d had suspects hide. He’d had many people try to run away. But never all of them. The only monk left lay at his feet. The Chief Inspector hoped Frère Mathieu was still the only dead monk in the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.

Gamache gave up the search for a key and looked at his watch. It was almost five. With a sinking heart he slid open the slit in the door and looked out. The sun was low on the horizon, just touching to tops of the woods. He could smell the fresh air, the fragrant pine forest. But what he sought, he found.

The boatman was still at the dock.

“Etienne!” Gamache called, putting his mouth close to the small opening. “Monsieur Legault!”

Then he looked out. The boatman hadn’t moved.

Gamache tried a few more times and wished he could whistle, that shrill, piercing sound some people achieved.

The Chief watched the boatman, sitting in his boat. And he realized the man was fishing. Casting. Reeling in. Casting. Reeling in.

With endless patience.

Or at least, Gamache hoped it was endless.

Leaving the small slit open, he turned back to the corridor and stood very still. Listening. He heard nothing. It was some comfort, he told himself, that he didn’t hear an outboard motor.

Still he stared. Wondering where the monks were. Wondering where his agents were. He pushed away the image that came into his head, created by the small but mighty factory deep within him that produced terrible thoughts.

The monster under the bed. The monster in the closet. The monster in the shadows.

The monster in the silence.

With an effort, the Chief Inspector banished those horrors. Let them glide right past, as though they were water and he a rock.

To occupy himself, he went into the porter’s room. It was really just a recess in the stone wall, with a small window to the corridor, a narrow desk and a single wooden stool.

The Spartans looked positively bourgeois next to these monks. There were no decorations, no calendars on the wall, no photos of the pope or the archbishop. Or Christ. Or the Virgin Mary.

Just stone. And a single thick book.

Gamache could barely turn around and wondered if he’d have to back out. He was hardly petit and when this monastery was built the monks had been considerably smaller. It would be embarrassing if when the others returned they found him wedged into the porter’s room.

But it didn’t come to that, and the Chief finally sat on the stool, adjusting himself to try to find a comfortable position. His back was against one wall, his knees against the other. This was not a place for the claustrophobic. Jean-Guy, for instance, would hate it. As he himself hated heights. Everyone had something they were afraid of.

Gamache picked up the old book on the narrow desk. It was heavy, and bound in soft, frayed leather. There was no date written into the first pages, and the lettering was gray. Faded. And written with a quill pen.

The Chief pulled a book of Christian meditations from his satchel, and from that he withdrew the vellum they’d found on the body. Placed in the slim volume for safekeeping.

Was this page torn from the huge book on his knees?

He put on his reading glasses and for what felt like the hundredth time that day, Gamache examined the page. The edges, while worn, didn’t appear to be torn from a larger volume.

His eyes moved from the book to the page. Back and forth. Slowly. Trying to find similarities. Trying to find differences.

Every now and then he looked up, and down the empty corridor. And listened. At this stage he wanted to see his men more than the monks. Gamache no longer bothered to look at his watch. It didn’t matter.

When Etienne decided to leave, Gamache couldn’t stop him. But so far, no outboard motor.

Gamache turned over the brittle pages of the book.

It appeared to be a collection of Gregorian chants, written in Latin with the neumes above the words. A handwriting analyst could tell far more, but Gamache had examined enough letters to have some expertise.

On first glance, the writing on the page and in the book seemed exactly the same. A simple form of calligraphy. Not the florid swirls of subsequent generations, these were clear, neat, graceful.

But some things didn’t match. Tiny things. A swirl here, a tail on a letter there.

The chants in the book and the one on the torn page weren’t written by the same hand. He was sure of it.

Gamache closed the large book and turned to the yellowed page. But now, instead of looking at the words, he examined the squiggles above them.

The abbot had called them neumes. Musical notations used a thousand years ago. Before there were notes and staffs, trebles and octaves, there were neumes.

But what did they mean?

He wasn’t sure why he was looking at them again. It wasn’t as though he’d suddenly be able to understand them.

As he stared, completely focused, willing the ancient markings to make sense, he imagined he heard the music. He’d listened to the recording of the monks singing their plainchant so often the sound was imprinted on his brain.

As he stared at the neumes he could hear their soft, masculine voices.

Gamache lowered the paper, slowly, and removed his reading glasses.

He stared down the long, long, darkening corridor. And still he heard it.

Low, monotonous. And getting closer.

NINE

Gamache left the body and the book and walked swiftly toward the music.

He entered the Blessed Chapel. The chanting was all about him now. Emanating from the walls and floor and rafters. As though the building was built of neumes.

The Chief quickly scanned the church as he walked, his eyes sweeping into corners, rapidly absorbing everything there was to see. He was almost at the very center before he saw them. And stopped.

The monks had returned. They were filing through a hole in the wall at the side of the church. Their white hoods were up, hiding their bowed heads. Their arms were across their bodies, hands buried in their flowing black sleeves.

Identical. Anonymous.

Not a patch of skin or hair visible. Nothing to prove they were flesh and blood.

As they walked, single file, the monks sang.

This was what neumes sounded like, when lifted from the page.

This was the world-famous choir of the abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, singing their prayers. Singing Gregorian chants. While it was a sound millions had heard, it was a sight few had ever witnessed. Indeed, as far as the Chief Inspector knew, this was unique. He was the first person to ever actually see the monks in their chapel, singing.

“Found ’em,” said a voice behind Gamache. When the Chief turned, Beauvoir smiled and nodded toward the altar and the monks. “No need to thank me.”

Beauvoir looked relieved and Gamache smiled, relieved himself.

Jean-Guy stopped beside the Chief Inspector and looked at his watch. “Five o’clock service.”

Gamache shook his head and almost groaned. He’d been a fool. Any Québécois who’d been born before the Church fell from favor knew there was a service at five in the afternoon and that any monk alive would make his way there.

It didn’t explain where the monks had been, but it did explain why they’d returned.