TWENTY-THREE

“Bon Dieu.”

It was all Superintendent Brunel could say, and she said it over and over as she walked round the log cabin. Every now and then she stopped and picked up an object. Her eyes widened as she stared at it, then replaced it. Carefully. And went on to the next.

“Mais, ce n’est pas possible. This’s from the Amber Room, I’m sure of it.” She approached the glowing orange panel leaning against the kitchen window. “Bon Dieu, it is,” she whispered and all but crossed herself.

The Chief Inspector watched for a while. He knew she hadn’t really been prepared for what she’d find. He’d tried to warn her, though he knew the photographs didn’t do the place justice. He’d told her about the fine china.

The leaded crystal.

The signed first editions.

The tapestries.

The icons.

“Is that a violin?” She pointed to the instrument by the easy chair, its wood deep and warm.

“It’s moved,” said Beauvoir, then stared at the young agent. “Did you touch it last night?”

Morin blushed and looked frightened. “A little. I just picked it up. And . . .”

Superintendent Brunel held it now up to the light at the window, tipping it this way and that. “Chief Inspector, can you read this?” She handed him the violin and pointed to a label. As Gamache tried to read she picked up the bow and examined it.

“A Tourte bow,” she almost snorted and looked at their blank faces. “Worth a couple of hundred thousand.” She batted it in their direction then turned to Gamache. “Does it say Stradivari?”

“I don’t think so. It seems to say Anno 1738,” he strained, “Carlos something. Fece in Cremona.” He took off his glasses and looked at Thérèse Brunel. “Mean anything to you?”

She was smiling and still holding the bow. “Carlos Bergonzi. He was a luthier. Stradivari’s best pupil.”

“So it’s not the finest violin?” asked Beauvoir, who’d at least heard of Stradivarius violins, but never this other guy.

“Perhaps not quite as fine as his master, but a Bergonzi is still worth a million.”

“A Bergonzi?” said Morin.

“Yes. Do you know about them?”

“Not really, but we found some original sheet music for violin with a note attached. It mentions a Bergonzi.” Morin went over to the bookcase and rummaged for a moment, emerging with a sheaf of music and a card. He handed it to the Superintendent who glanced at it and passed it on to Gamache.

“Any idea what language it’s in?” she asked. “Not Russian, not Greek.”

Gamache read. It seemed addressed to a B, it mentioned a Bergonzi and was signed C. The rest was unintelligible, though it seemed to include terms of endearment. It was dated December 8, 1950.

“Could B be the victim?” Brunel asked.

Gamache shook his head. “The dates don’t match. He wouldn’t have been born yet. And I presume B couldn’t be Bergonzi?”

“No, too late. He was long dead. So who were B and C and why did our man collect the music and the card?” Brunel asked herself. She glanced at the sheet music and smiled. Handing the sheaf to Gamache she pointed to the top line. The music was composed by a BM.

“So,” said Gamache, lowering the pages. “This original score was composed by a BM. The note attached was addressed to a B and mentions a Bergonzi violin. Seems logical to assume B played the violin and composed and someone, C, gave him this gift.” He nodded to the violin. “So who was BM and why did our victim have his music and his violin?”

“Is it any good?” Brunel asked Morin. Gamache handed him the score. The young agent, mouth slightly open, thick lips glistening, was looking particularly stupid. He stared at the music and hummed. Then looked up.

“Seems okay.”

“Play it.” Gamache handed him the million-dollar violin. Morin took it, reluctantly. “You played it last night, didn’t you?” the Chief asked.

“You what?” demanded Beauvoir.

Morin turned to him. “It’d been dusted and photographed and I didn’t think it’d matter.”

“Did you also juggle the china or have batting practice with the glasses? You don’t mess around with evidence.”

“Sorry.”

“Play the music, please,” said Gamache. Superintendent Brunel gave him the near-priceless bow.

“I didn’t play this last night. I only really know fiddle music.”

“Just do your best,” said the Chief.

Agent Morin hesitated then placed the violin under his chin and curving his body he brought the bow up. And down. Across the gut strings.

The slow, full notes of a tune left the instrument. So rich was the sound the notes were almost visible as they filled the air. The tune they heard was slower than intended by BM, Gamache suspected, since Agent Morin was stuggling to follow the music. But it was still beautiful, complex and accomplished. Obviously BM knew what he was doing. Gamache closed his eyes and imagined the dead man there, alone. On a winter’s night. Snow piling up outside. A simple vegetable soup on the stove, the fireplace lit and throwing heat. And the small cabin filled with music. This music.

Why this music and no other?

“Do you know it?” Gamache looked at Superintendent Brunel, who was listening with her eyes closed. She shook her head and opened her eyes.

“Non, but it’s lovely. I wonder who BM was.”

Morin lowered the violin, relieved to stop.

“Was the violin in tune when you played yesterday or did you have to adjust it?” she asked.

“It was in tune. He must have played it recently.” He went to put it down but the Chief Inspector stopped him.

“What did you play last night, if not that?” He pointed to the sheet music.

“Just some fiddle music my father taught me. Nothing much. I know I shouldn’t have—”

Gamache put up his hand to silence the apologies. “It’s all right. Just play for us now what you played last night.”

When Morin looked surprised Gamache explained, “What you just did wasn’t really a fair test for the violin, was it? You were picking out the tune. I’d like to hear the violin as the victim heard it. As it was meant to be played.”

“But, sir, I only play fiddle, not violin.”

“What’s the difference?” Gamache asked.

Morin hesitated. “No real difference, at least not in the instrument. But the sound of course is different. My dad always said a violin sings and a fiddle dances.”

“Dance, then.”

Morin, blushing in the most unbecoming way, put the fiddle, né violin, up to his chin once again. Paused. Then drew the bow across the strings.

What came out surprised them all. A Celtic lament left the bow, left the violin, left the agent. It filled the cabin, filled the rafters. Almost into the corners. The simple tune swirled around them like colors and delicious meals and conversation. And it lodged in their chests. Not their ears, not their heads. But their hearts. Slow, dignified, but buoyant. It was played with confidence. With poise.

Agent Morin had changed. His loose-limbed awkward body contorted perfectly for the violin, as though created and designed for this purpose. To play. To produce this music. His eyes were closed and he looked the way Gamache felt. Filled with joy. Rapture even. Such was the power of this music. This instrument.

And watching his agent the Chief Inspector suddenly realized what Morin reminded him of.

A musical note. The large head and the thin body. He was a walking note, awaiting an instrument. And this was it. The violin might be a masterpiece, but Agent Paul Morin certainly was.

After a minute he stopped and the music faded, absorbed by the logs, the books, the tapestries. The people.

“That was beautiful,” said Superintendent Brunel.

He handed the violin to her. “It’s called ‘Colm Quigley.’ My favorite.”

As soon as the violin left his hand he went back to being the gangly, awkward young man. Though never again totally that for the people who had heard him play.

“Merci,” said Gamache.

Superintendent Brunel put the violin down.

“Let me know what you find out about these.” Gamache handed Morin the note and sheet music.

“Yes sir.”

Thérèse Brunel returned to the rest of the room, walking up to the treasures, mumbling “Bon Dieu” every now and then. Each seemed more astonishing than the last.

But nothing was more surprising than what awaited Chief Inspector Gamache. In the farthest corner of the cabin, near the rafters. If the search team the day before had seen it they’d have dismissed it as the only normal thing in the whole place. What could be more natural than a spider’s web in a cabin?

But it turned out to be the least normal, the least natural.

“Bon Dieu,” they heard from the Superintendent as she held up a plate with frogs on it. “From the collection of Catherine the Great. Lost hundreds of years ago. Unbelievable.”

But if she wanted “unbelievable,” thought Gamache, she needed to look over here. Beauvoir had turned on his flashlight.

Until he’d seen it Gamache hadn’t quite believed it. But there it was, twinkling almost merrily in the harsh artificial light, as though mocking them.

Woe, said the web.

“Woe,” whispered Gamache.

 

Superintendent Brunel found Armand Gamache an hour later in the bent branch chair in the corner of the vegetable garden.

“I’ve finished looking round.”

Gamache stood and she sat wearily in the chair, exhaling deeply.

“I’ve never seen anything like it, Armand. We’ve broken art theft rings and found the most amazing collections. Remember the Charbonneau case last year in Lévis?”

“The van Eycks.”

She nodded, then shook her head as though trying to clear it. “Fantastic finds. All sorts of original sketches and even an oil no one knew existed.”

“Wasn’t there a Titian too?”

“Oui.”

“And you’re saying this place is even more amazing?”

“I don’t mean to lecture, but I’m not sure you or your people appreciate the scope of the find.”

“Lecture away,” Gamache reassured her. “That’s why I invited you.”

He smiled and not for the first time she thought the rarest thing she’d ever found was Chief Inspector Gamache.

“You might want to grab a seat,” she said. He found a sawn log and turned it on its end and sat on it. “The Charbonneau case was spectacular,” Superintendent Brunel went on. “But in many ways mundane. Most art theft rings, and most black market collectors, have one maybe two specialties. Because the market’s so specialized and there’s so much money involved, the thieves become experts, but only in one or two tiny areas. Italian sculpture from the 1600s. Dutch masters. Greek antiquities. But never all of those fields. They specialize. How else would they know they weren’t stealing forgeries, or replicas? That’s why with Charbonneau we found some astonishing things, but all in the same ‘family.’ Vous comprenez?”

“Oui. They were all Renaissance paintings, mostly by the same artist.”

“C’est ça. That’s how specialized most thieves are. But here,” she waved at the cabin, “there’re handmade silk tapestries, ancient leaded glass. Under that embroidered tablecloth do you know what we found? Our victim ate off the most exquisite inlaid table I’ve ever seen. It must be five hundred years old and made by a master. Even the table cloth was a masterpiece. Most museums would keep it under glass. The Victoria and Albert in London would pay a fortune for it.”

“Maybe they did.”

“You mean it might have been stolen from there? Could be. I have a lot of work to do.”

She looked as though she could hardly wait. And yet, she also looked as though she was in no hurry to leave this cabin, this garden.

“I wonder who he was.” She reached out and pulled a couple of runner beans from a vine, handing one to her companion. “Most unhappiness comes from not being able to sit quietly in a room.”

“Pascal,” said Gamache, recognizing the quote, and the appropriateness of it. “This man could. But he surrounded himself with objects that had a lot to say. That had stories.”

“That’s an interesting way of putting it.”

“What’s the Amber Room?”

“How do you know about that?” She turned a searching eye on him.

“When you were looking around you mentioned it.”

“Did I? You can see it from here. That orange thing in the kitchen window.” He looked and sure enough, there it was, glowing warm in what little light it caught. It looked like a large, thick piece of stained glass. She continued to stare, mesmerized, then finally came out of it. “Sorry. I just never expected to be the one to find it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Amber Room was created in the early 1700s in Prussia by Friedrich the First. It was a huge room made of amber and gold. Took artists and artisans years to construct and when it was completed it was one of the wonders of the world.” He could tell she was imagining what it looked like, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “He had it made for his wife, Sophia Charlotte. But a few years later it was given to the Russian Emperor and stayed in St. Petersburg until the war.”

“Which war?”

She smiled. “Good point. The Second World War. The Soviets apparently dismantled it once they realized the Nazis would take the city, but they didn’t manage to hide it. The Germans found it.”

She stopped.

“Go on,” said Gamache.

“That’s it. That’s all we know. The Amber Room disappeared. Historians, treasure hunters, antiquarians have been searching for it ever since. We know the Germans, under Albert Speer, took the Amber Room away. Hid it. Presumably for safe keeping. But it was never seen again.”

“What’re the theories?” the Chief Inspector asked.

“Well, the most accepted is that it was destroyed in the Allied bombing. But there’s another theory. Albert Speer was very bright, and many argue he wasn’t a true Nazi. He was loyal to Hitler, but not to most of his ideals. Speer was an internationalist, a cultured man whose priority became saving the world’s treasures from destruction, by either side.”

“Albert Speer may have been cultured,” said Gamache, “but he was a Nazi. He knew of the death camps, knew of the slaughter, approved it. He simply looked good while doing it.”

The Chief Inspector’s voice was cold and his eyes hard.

“I don’t disagree with you, Armand. Just the opposite. I’m simply telling you what the theories are. The one involving Speer had him hiding the Amber Room far from both the German and the Allied armies. In the Ore Mountains.”

“Where?”

“A mountain range between Germany and what’s now the Czech Republic.”

They both thought about that, and finally Gamache spoke. “So how did a piece of the Amber Room get here?”

“And where’s the rest of it?”

 

Denis Fortin sat across from Clara Morrow. He was younger than he had any right to be. Early forties probably. A failed artist who’d discovered another, greater, talent. He recognized talent in others.

It was enlightened self-interest. The best kind, as far as Clara could see. No one was the martyr, no one was owed or owing. She was under no illusion that the reason Denis Fortin held a St. Amboise beer in Olivier’s Bistro in Three Pines was not because he thought there was something in it for him.

And the only reason Clara was there, besides unbridled ego, was to get something from Fortin. Namely fame and fortune.

At the very least a free beer.

But there was something she needed to do before she got caught up in the unparalleled glory that was Clara Morrow. Reaching into her bag she brought out the balled-up towel. “I was asked to show you this. A man was found dead here a couple of days ago. Murdered.”

“Really? That’s unusual, isn’t it?”

“Not as unusual as you might think. What was unusual is that no one knew him. But the police just found a cabin in the woods, and this was inside it. The head of the investigation asked me to show it to you, in case you could tell us anything about it.”

“A clue?” He looked keen and watched closely as she unwrapped the bundle. Soon the little men and women were standing on the shore, looking across the expanse of wood to the micro-brew in front of Fortin.

Clara watched him. His eyes narrowed and he leaned closer to the work, pursing his lips in concentration.

“Very nice. Good technique, I’d say. Detailed, each face quite different, with character. Yes, all in all I’d say a competent piece of carving. Slightly primitive, but what you’d expect from a backwoods whittler.”

“Really?” said Clara. “I thought it was very good. Excellent even.”

He leaned back and smiled at her. Not patronizing, but as one friend smiles at another, a kinder, friend.

“Perhaps I’m being too harsh, but I’ve seen so many of these in my career.”

“These? Exactly the same?”

“No, but close enough. Carved images of people fishing or smoking a pipe or riding a horse. They’re the most valuable. You can always find a buyer for a good horse or dog. Or pig. Pigs are popular.”

“Good to know. There’s something written underneath.” Clara turned it over and handed it to Fortin.

He squinted then putting on his glasses he read, frowned and handed it back. “I wonder what it means.”

“Any guesses?” Clara wasn’t about to give up. She wanted to take something back to Gamache.

“Almost certainly a signature, or a lot number. Something to identify it. Was this the only one?”

“There’re two. How much would this be worth?”

“Hard to say.” He picked it up again. “It’s quite good, for what it is. It’s no pig, though.”

“Pity.”

“Hmm.” Fortin considered for a moment. “I’d say two hundred, maybe two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“Is that all?”

“I might be wrong.”

Clara could tell he was being polite, but getting bored. She rewrapped the carving and put it in her bag.

“Now.” Denis Fortin leaned forward, an eager look on his handsome face. “Let’s talk about really great art. How would you like your work to be hung?”

“I’ve done a few sketches.” Clara handed him her notebook and after a few minutes Fortin lifted his head, his eyes intelligent and bright.

“This is wonderful. I like the way you’ve clustered the paintings then left a space. It’s like a breath, isn’t it?”

Clara nodded. It was such a relief talking to someone who didn’t need everything explained.

“I particularly like that you haven’t placed the three old women together. That would be the obvious choice, but you’ve spread them around, each anchoring her own wall.”

“I wanted to surround them with other works,” said Clara excitedly.

“Like acolytes, or friends, or critics,” said Fortin, excited himself. “It’s not clear what their intentions are.”

“And how they might change,” said Clara, leaning forward. She’d shown Peter her ideas, and he’d been polite and encouraging, but she could tell he really didn’t understand what she was getting at. At first glance her design for the exhibition might seem unbalanced. And it was. Intentionally. Clara wanted people to walk in, see the works that appeared quite traditional and slowly appreciate that they weren’t.

There was a depth, a meaning, a challenge to them.

For an hour or more Clara and Fortin talked, exchanging ideas about the show, about the direction of contemporary art, about exciting new artists, of which, Fortin was quick to assure Clara, she was in the forefront.

“I wasn’t going to tell you because it might not happen, but I sent your portfolio to FitzPatrick at MoMA. He’s an old friend and says he’ll come to the vernissage—”

Clara exclaimed and almost knocked her beer over. Fortin laughed and held up his hand.

“But wait, that wasn’t what I wanted to tell you. I suggested he spread the word and it looks as though Allyne from the New York Times will be there . . .”

He hesitated because it looked as though Clara was having a stroke. When she closed her mouth he continued. “And, as luck would have it, Destin Browne will be in New York that month setting up a show with MoMA and she’s shown interest.”

“Destin Browne? Vanessa Destin Browne? The chief curator at the Tate Modern in London?”

Fortin nodded and held tightly to his beer. But now, far from being in danger of knocking anything over, Clara appeared to have ground to a complete halt. She sat in the cheery little bistro, late summer light teeming through the mullioned windows. Beyond Fortin she saw the old homes, warming in the sun. The perennial beds with roses and clematis and hollyhocks. She saw the villagers, whose names she knew and whose habits she was familiar with. And she saw the three tall pines, like beacons. Impossible to miss, even surrounded by forest. If you knew what to look for, and needed a beacon.

Life was about to take her away from here. From the place where she’d become herself. This solid little village that never changed but helped its inhabitants to change. She’d arrived straight from art college full of avant-garde ideas, wearing shades of gray and seeing the world in black and white. So sure of herself. But here, in the middle of nowhere, she’d discovered color. And nuance. She’d learned this from the villagers, who’d been generous enough to lend her their souls to paint. Not as perfect human beings, but as flawed, struggling men and women. Filled with fear and uncertainty and, in at least one case, martinis.

But who remained standing. In the wilderness. Her graces, her stand of pines.

She was suddenly overcome with gratitude to her neighbors, and to whatever inspiration had allowed her to do them justice.

She closed her eyes and tilted her face into the sun.

“You all right?” he asked.

Clara opened her eyes. He seemed bathed in light, his blond hair glowing and a warm, patient smile on his face.

“You know, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but a few years ago no one wanted my works. Everyone just laughed. It was brutal. I almost gave up.”

“Most great artists have the same story,” he said, gently.

“I almost flunked out of art school, you know. I don’t tell many people that.”

“Another drink?” asked Gabri, taking Fortin’s empty glass.

“Not for me, merci,” he said, then turned back to Clara. “Between us? Most of the best people did flunk out. How can you test an artist?”

“I was always good at tests,” said Gabri, picking up Clara’s glass. “No, wait. That was testes.”

He gave Clara an arch look and swept away.

“Fucking queers,” said Fortin, taking a handful of cashews. “Doesn’t it make you want to vomit?”

Clara froze. She looked at Fortin to see if he was kidding. He wasn’t. But what he said was true. She suddenly wanted to throw up.