A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(13)

She gave it to Clara.





CHAPTER 5

“It’s a map,” said Armand, bending over it.

“What was your first clue, Miss Marple?” asked Ruth. “Those lines? They’re what we call roads. This”—she placed her knotted finger on the paper—“is a river.”

She spoke the last few words slowly, with infinite patience.

Armand straightened up and looked at her over his reading glasses, then went back to studying the paper on the table under the lamp.

They’d gathered at Clara’s place this wintery night for a dinner of bouillabaisse, with fresh baguette from Sarah’s boulangerie.

Clara and Gabri were in the kitchen just putting the final ingredients into the broth. Scallops and shrimp and mussels and chunks of pink salmon, while Myrna sliced and toasted the bread.

A delicate aroma of garlic and fennel drifted into the living room and mingled with the scent of wood smoke from the hearth. Outside, the night was crisp and starless as clouds rolled in, threatening yet more snow.

But inside it was warm and peaceful.

“Imbecile,” mumbled Ruth.

The fact was, despite Ruth’s comments, it wasn’t obvious what the paper was.

At first glance, it didn’t look like a map at all. While worn and torn a little, it was beautifully and intricately illustrated, with bears and deer and geese placed around the mountains and forests. In a riot of seasonal confusion, there were spring lilac and plump peony beside maple trees in full autumn color. In the upper-right corner, a snowman wearing a tuque and a habitant sash, a ceinture fléchée, around his plump middle held up a hockey stick in triumph.

The overall effect was one of unabashed joy. Of silliness that somehow managed to be both sweet and very affecting.

This was no primitive drawing by a rustic with more enthusiasm than talent. This was created by someone familiar enough with art to know the masters, and skilled enough to imitate them. Except for the snowman, which, as far as Gamache knew, had never appeared in a Constable, Monet, or even Group of Seven masterpiece.

Yes, it took a while to see beyond all that, to what it really was, at its heart.

A map.

Complete with contour lines and landmarks. Three small pines, like playful children, were clearly meant to be their village. There were walking paths and stone walls and even Larsen’s Rock, so named because Sven Larsen’s cow got stuck on it before being rescued.

Gamache bent closer. And yes, there was the cow.

There were even, faint like silk threads, latitude and longitude lines. It was as though a work of art had been swallowed by an ordnance map.

“See anything strange?” asked Ruth.

“Yes, I do,” he said, turning to look at the old poet.

She laughed.

“I meant in the map,” she said. “And thank you for the compliment.”

Now it was Gamache’s turn to smile as he went back to studying the paper.

There were many words he’d use to describe it. Beautiful. Detailed. Delicate yet bold. Unusual, certainly, in its intersection of practicality and artistry.

But was it strange? No, that wasn’t a word he’d use. And yet he knew the old poet. Ruth loved words and used them intentionally. Even the thoughtless words were used with thought.

If she said “strange,” she meant it.

Though Ruth’s idea of strange might not be anyone’s. She thought water was strange. And vegetables. And paying bills.

His brow furrowed as he noticed the celebrating snowman seemed to be pointing. There. He bent closer. There.

“There’s a pyramid.” Armand’s finger hovered over the image.

“Yes, yes,” said Ruth impatiently, as though there were pyramids everywhere. “But do you notice anything strange?”

“It’s not signed,” he said, trying again.

“When was the last time you saw a map that was?” she demanded. “Try harder, moron.”

On hearing Ruth’s querulous voice, Reine-Marie looked over, caught Armand’s eye, and smiled in commiseration before going back to her own conversation.

She and Olivier were discussing the blanket-box finds that day. A layer of Vogues from the early 1900s.

“Fascinating reading,” she said.

“I noticed.”

Reine-Marie had long marveled at how much you could tell about a person by what was on their walls. The art, the books, the decor. But until now she had no idea you could also tell so much by what was in their walls.

“A woman who loved fashion obviously lived there,” she said.

“Either that,” said Olivier, “or a gay man.”

He looked into the kitchen where Gabri was gesturing with a ladle as though dancing. Voguing, in fact.

“Gabri’s great-grandfather, you think?” asked Reine-Marie.

“If it’s possible to come from a long line of gay men, Gabri’s done it,” said Olivier, and Reine-Marie laughed.

“Now,” she said, “what about the real find?”

They looked over to where Armand and Ruth were huddled.

“The map,” said Olivier. “Some marks on it. Maybe water damage. And dirt, but that’s to be expected. But being in the wall also preserved it. No exposure to sunlight. The colors are still vivid. It must be the same vintage as all the other stuff. A hundred years old or so. Is it worth anything, do you think?”