The Nature Of The Beast Part 40

After Lacoste and Cohen had gone and the dishes were done, Armand and Henri went for a walk.

"Mind if I join you?" Jean-Guy asked.

The three of them walked in companionable silence around and around the village green. It was a clear, cold night and they could see their breath. The sky was filled with stars, and moon shadows from the three huge pines stretched across the gra.s.s and landed at the bistro.

They could see Professor Rosenblatt sitting alone at a table. Gamache paused and thought. And knew it was time.

"Chilly night," he said to Jean-Guy. "I feel like something to warm me up."

"I was thinking the same thing, patron."

A minute later they were standing over the professor's table.

"Bonsoir," said Armand.

"h.e.l.lo," said the professor, looking up and smiling.

Armand took the photograph from his pocket and placed it on the bistro table, sliding it slowly forward, toward Michael Rosenblatt.

"I'd like an answer to my question now, s'il vous plat," said Gamache. "Did Gerald Bull design the Supergun? Or did someone else? Someone smarter?"

He watched as the smile flattened. Flatlined. Died on Rosenblatt's face.

CHAPTER 27.

"Last call," said Olivier from behind the bar.

There were two other occupants of the bistro, young lovers on a date, holding hands across the table. Gamache wasn't worried about them. They clearly were in their own world. One that, thankfully, did not include genocide, and warheads, and dark things hidden in deep forests. Gamache wanted to make sure the two worlds did not meet.

"Monsieur?" Gamache nodded toward Rosenblatt's cognac.

"Oh, I think not."

The elderly scientist was slurring slightly, and now blood rushed, in a flush, to his face.

"Perhaps a gla.s.s of water, patron," said Beauvoir, and Olivier returned with a pitcher and three gla.s.ses.

"I wondered when you'd find out," said Rosenblatt. "I probably should have told you."

"Oui," said Gamache. "That would've been helpful, and might even have saved a life."

"What'd you mean?" Professor Rosenblatt opened his eyes wide, then screwed them shut, in an attempt to focus.

It wasn't, Gamache thought, simply the alcohol. The man looked exhausted.

"A woman named Antoinette Lemaitre was killed last night," said Beauvoir.

"Yes, I heard. Terrible," said Rosenblatt. "The people here seem to think it had something to do with a play. Must have been a very bad play."

"She was Guillaume Couture's niece," said Gamache.

Michael Rosenblatt stared at them as though they'd gone fuzzy.

"Guillaume Couture," he repeated. "I haven't heard that name in a long time."

"How did you know him?" Beauvoir asked.

Rosenblatt looked surprised by the question. He glanced at the photograph, then from one to the other of his companions.

"We worked together, briefly. With Gerald Bull. Back in the McGill days."

They waited for more. The young couple left, arm in arm, and Olivier began cleaning up.

And still they waited.

It seemed Rosenblatt had fallen into a stupor.

"Where did you get that?" He finally spoke, gesturing toward the picture.

"The McGill alumni magazine. It's from Dr. Couture's obituary," said Beauvoir.

Michael Rosenblatt nodded. "I remember seeing the notice and the photo and wondering if anyone would put it together. But they didn't."

"Put what together?" Gamache asked.

"Or maybe they did," said Rosenblatt, either ignoring the question or lost in his own thoughts.

He seemed to be rallying, rousing. His voice was less dreamy. His eyes sharper.

Gamache wasn't sure this was such a good thing. His defenses would soon go up again, and this man's barriers were thick and old and encrusted with a lifetime of evasions.

"He was very clever, you know. Switched on."

"Dr. Couture?" asked Gamache.

Rosenblatt laughed. "No. Not him. Gerald Bull. Most scientists are sort of idiot savants. They know one thing very well, but fail in most other aspects of their lives. But not Dr. Bull. He could be off-putting. Abrupt, impatient. But he could also be charming and clever. He was shrewd, you know. Picked up on things that others missed. It's a useful tool. He made connections. I don't mean social, though he did that too. He made intellectual connections. He could see how things fit together."

"As a scientist?" asked Gamache.

Now Rosenblatt chuckled. "As a scientist he was c.r.a.p." He reflected a bit on that, then amended what he'd said. "Not c.r.a.p really. He'd earned his Ph.D. He was workmanlike. No, you were right yesterday when you suggested his real genius was public relations. Getting people to agree to the disagreeable. But he was also ruthless."

"Who designed Project Babylon?" asked Gamache.

Rosenblatt nodded toward the photograph. "You already know."

"I need you to confirm it."

Even now, even when worn down and cornered, Gamache could see the elderly scientist twisting, so deep was the instinct and perhaps the training to evade.

"The plans may have been found," Gamache said quietly.

"Ahh," said Rosenblatt. The sound slipped out of him, like a long tail on a sigh.

He nodded a few times, carrying on some internal conversation. A debate. An argument. And then he spoke.

"Guillaume Couture designed Project Babylon. I suspect Gerald Bull conceived of the idea, but he needed someone smarter than himself to actually figure out how to do it. So he found Dr. Couture ferreting away in the engineering department of McGill. Couture became Bull's chief designer and silent partner."

Now that he'd started, Professor Rosenblatt couldn't seem to stop talking. It was such a stream of information and confidences that Gamache found himself wary. Not sure if this was the truth, half-truths, or a blockade of lies.

Though it fit with their own conclusions. Perhaps a bit too well.

"Gerald Bull essentially committed suicide when he put himself forward as the sole designer of Project Babylon," said Rosenblatt. "He was killed to stop him. No one knew about Guillaume Couture."

"Except you," said Beauvoir.

"Oh, I didn't know. Not until much later. All that research on Gerald Bull, it didn't fit, until I factored in someone else. Someone smarter."

"Do you think Dr. Couture would have kept the plans?" Beauvoir asked. "After all, they're what got his boss killed."

"It was his life's work," said Rosenblatt. "Guillaume was a nice man, in many ways a gentle man. But he was unbothered by a conscience. He had no imagination. No, that's probably unfair. He was myopic. Shortsighted. He only saw the challenge, the scheme. He didn't look beyond that, to what his plans would actually do."

"So what does that mean?" Beauvoir demanded. "Would he have kept the plans or not?"

"I think so," said Rosenblatt. "They were the work of a lifetime. Without doubt the highlight of his career." He considered for a moment. "You say the woman killed last night was his niece?"

"She lived in his home," said Gamache.

In the background, the clock on the bistro mantel struck the hour. Midnight.

"And you didn't find the plans?" Rosenblatt asked.

Gamache shook his head and in the silence the clock continued to sound. One measured stroke after another.

"You think the killer has the designs for Project Babylon," said Rosenblatt.

"I think it's possible. We have to a.s.sume he found them," said Gamache.

The clock struck one last time, then stopped.

Michael Rosenblatt looked at it, then back at Gamache.

"The chimes at midnight, Chief Inspector," he said quietly. "It's later than we thought."

Beauvoir saw a look pa.s.s between the two men and knew he'd missed some reference. But not the meaning.

They walked the professor back to the B and B and made sure he got up to his room. A light was on under Mary Fraser's door, and Gamache paused, then tapped.

"What're you doing?" Beauvoir whispered.

"The CSIS agents need to know that the plans might've been found," Gamache whispered back.

"Just a minute," came Mary Fraser's pleasant voice. The door opened and she stood there adjusting an unexpectedly frilly dressing gown. "Oh."

"You were expecting someone else?" Jean-Guy asked.

"Well, I wasn't expecting you," she said. She had her gla.s.ses on and papers were spread out on the bed. Jean-Guy strained to get a look at them, but she stepped out and closed the door.

"What can I do for you? It must be late." She peered at her watch. "It's past midnight."

It's later than we thought. Rosenblatt's words drifted into Beauvoir's mind.

"The plans might've been found," said Armand.

The bookish woman who lived in a filing cabinet disappeared and a much sharper person stood before them, albeit in a frilly pink dressing gown.

"Come with me," said the CSIS agent, and led them downstairs and into the farthest corner of the B and B's living room.

"Should we get Monsieur Delorme?" Gamache asked.

"No need," she said, taking a seat. "You can tell me and I'll pa.s.s the information on to him."

Gamache and Beauvoir sat in the two remaining armchairs.

"You might have heard about another murder in the area," said Gamache. "A woman named Antoinette Lemaitre."

"Yes, the owner of the B and B told me. He seems to be town crier."

"Antoinette Lemaitre was Guillaume Couture's niece."

Fraser stared at Gamache, the words sliding off her expressionless face to drop into silence. It took effort for an intelligent person to look that vacant, and Gamache suspected she was working very, very hard at that moment.

"Whose niece?" she asked.

"Please, madame," said Gamache. "We have no time for this. You know as well as I do that Guillaume Couture worked with Gerald Bull at HARP, and almost certainly on the Supergun."

Once again he took the photograph out of his pocket. Unfolding it, he handed it to her. Her brows rose very slightly, creating tiny crevices in her forehead.

"You cannot possibly be an expert on Gerald Bull and not know that," said Gamache.

Mary Fraser folded the picture in half and offered it back.

"Dr. Bull had many colleagues. Including, might I remind you, Professor Rosenblatt."