A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(46)

“Please pack up a few things,” she told Huifen, getting to her feet. “Overnight things. And please bring this with you.”

She handed the stunned young woman the map of Three Pines, and left.

*

Down the hall, Inspector Beauvoir was just leaving Jacques Laurin’s room.

“I’m pretty sure he’s the one who insulted Monsieur Gamache,” said Beauvoir, as the two investigators fell into step.

“Why?”

“Why do I think it, or why would he?”

“Both.”

“Because he’s one of Serge Leduc’s MiniMes. Was his servant, as a freshman.”

“So was Cadet Cloutier.” She waved toward Huifen’s rooms. “Did you find the map?”

“Yes. He still has it.”

“So does Cadet Cloutier. That’s two accounted for.”

“I told him to pack an overnight case and bring the map with him, but I didn’t tell him where he was going. The little shit looked pretty scared.”

“But if Professor Leduc was their mentor, and they respected him, they almost certainly didn’t kill him,” said Lacoste.

“Well, I wouldn’t rule it out,” said Beauvoir. “Worship can turn to hatred pretty fast in young people. If Leduc found new favorites.”

“Like the other two cadets,” said Lacoste. “The freshmen.”

“Maybe.”

“You take the young woman,” said Lacoste. “I’ll speak to Nathaniel Smythe again. See if he’s found his map.”

*

Nathaniel produced the map.

“Bon.” She studied it, then handed it back. Three down. “When you met with Serge Leduc in the evenings, what did you do?”

“How do you know I met with him?”

The young man turned an outrageous color.

“I’ve spoken with other cadets, you know.”

“There were a bunch of us,” said Nathaniel. “We didn’t meet often, just when the Duke invited us over.”

“And were there always others? Were you ever alone?”

“Never.”

“And last night?”

“I had dinner, then hockey practice, then came back here and did homework. We had to design a step-by-step investigation of a break-and-enter.”

“When did you go to bed?”

“About eleven, I guess.”

“From what you saw, did anyone particularly dislike Professor Leduc?”

“Well, he wasn’t the most popular professor,” said Nathaniel. “But people respected him.”

“Respected or feared?”

Nathaniel remained silent.

“You? Which did you feel?”

“I respected him.”

“Why?”

“I— I—”

“You feared him, didn’t you?” she asked quietly.

“Never. I was grateful he chose me.”

Lacoste nodded. That might actually be true. With the Duke as his mentor, the other cadets might leave him alone. But Leduc must have known this young man had been one of his rejects, and that Commander Gamache himself had reversed that decision.

Is that why Leduc had adopted him? Because Gamache had favored him? He wanted to sour anything and anyone special to the Commander?

“Please pack some things for a few nights away,” she said, getting to her feet. “And bring the map along.”

Nathaniel also rose. “What? Why?”

“Have you been taught to question orders?”

“No.”

“Then do it, please.”

She left, shaking her head. She could see what Monsieur Gamache was up against in his new post.

*

“It’s here somewhere,” said Amelia.

First the S?reté agent and now she herself searched the entire room while Jean-Guy Beauvoir watched.

It didn’t take long. There was a single bed, a desk. A chest of drawers and a small closet, with a school uniform hanging there.

The chest of drawers was empty aside from one drawer of socks and underwear and bras.

But there were books. Stacked on the shelves above the desk, and sitting on the floor, lining the walls. Amelia had created a makeshift bookcase using bricks and old two-by-fours.

She opened each book, shaking it. But nothing fell out.

“Give it up,” said Beauvoir. “The map’s not here.”

He indicated the bed, and she sat. He pulled the desk chair close, and after sitting down he leaned toward her and quietly asked, “Where is it?”

“I don’t know.”

She seemed genuinely perplexed.

While Beauvoir didn’t much like what he saw when he looked at Amelia Choquet, he had to admit since the beginning of the term Cadet Choquet had never pretended to be anything other than what she was.

It was refreshing and alarming at the same time.

But that did not mean, Beauvoir knew, that she wasn’t capable of lying.

“Did you give it to Professor Leduc?”

“What?” she asked. “No, of course not. Why would I?”

“When did you last see it?” Beauvoir asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Try, cadet.”