The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

Author:Louise Penny
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780312655464
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2012-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

“Do you know why the Gilbertines have black robes and white hoods? It’s unique, you know. No other order wears it.”

Chief Superintendent Sylvain Francoeur was sitting behind the prior’s desk, leaning back casually in the hard chair, his long legs crossed.

Chief Inspector Gamache was now in the visitor’s chair, on the other side of the desk. He was trying to read the coroner’s report and the other papers Francoeur had brought with him. He looked up and saw the Superintendent smiling.

It was an attractive smile. Not slimy, not condescending. It was warm and confident. The smile of a man you could trust.

“No, sir. Why do they?”

Francoeur had arrived at the office twenty minutes earlier and given the reports to Gamache. He’d then proceeded to interrupt the Chief’s reading with trivial statements.

Gamache recognized it as a twist on an old interrogation technique. Designed to irritate, to annoy. Interrupt, interrupt, interrupt, until the subject finally exploded and said far more than they normally would have, out of frustration at not being allowed to say anything at all.

It was subtle and time consuming, this wearing away at a person’s patience. Not used by the brash young agents of today. But the older officers knew it. And knew, if they waited long enough, it was almost always effective.

The Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté was using it on his head of homicide.

Gamache, as he listened politely to Francoeur’s mundane observations, wondered why. Was it just for fun, to toy with him? Or was there, as there always was with the Chief Superintendent, some deeper purpose?

Gamache looked into that charming face and wondered what was going on inches from the smile. In that rotting brain. In that Byzantine mind.

As much as Jean-Guy might consider this man an idiot, Gamache knew he wasn’t. No one rose to be the most senior police officer in Québec, in one of the most respected forces in the world, without having skills.

To dismiss Francoeur as a fool would be a grave mistake. Though Gamache could never totally shake the impression Beauvoir was partly right. While Francoeur wasn’t an idiot, he wasn’t as clever as he appeared. And certainly not as clever as he thought he was. After all, Francoeur was skilled enough to use an old and subtle interrogation technique, but arrogant enough to use it on someone who’d almost certainly recognize what it was. He was really more cunning than clever.

But that didn’t make him less dangerous.

Gamache looked down at the coroner’s report in his hand. In twenty minutes he’d only managed to read a single page. It showed the prior to be a healthy man in his early sixties. The usual wear and tear on a sixty-year-old body. Some slight arthritis, some hardening of the arteries.

“I looked up the Gilbertines as soon as I’d heard about the prior’s murder.” Francoeur’s voice was agreeable, authoritative. People not only trusted this man, they believed him.

Gamache lifted his eyes from the page and put a politely interested look on his face.

“Is that

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