Page 82 of The Grey Wolf
Frère Simon took it and leaned so close to the open flame Jean-Guy was worried it would catch fire. He stepped forward, ready to snatch the evidence away if necessary.
The monk stared at the page. Then, picking up the first sheet, he held the two together.
“Like I said, it’s just a list of herbs and spices.”
“Do you know why Dom Philippe would have it?”
Simon handed the sheets back to Gamache. “No. Most of those aren’t in our gardens, and the Abbot wasn’t the head gardener anyway.”
Gamache replaced the paper in his pocket. “I think it’s far more than a list of herbs and spices. It’s part of a recipe. For Chartreuse.”
Now the acting Abbot made a noise that sounded like a raspberry. Then he looked at the two Sûreté officers. “You’re serious? How much of our cider did you drink?”
“Why would it be so unbelievable?” asked Beauvoir.
It was the monk’s turn to stare. “Now who’s being obtuse? I think you know.”
Gamache gave a thin smile and said, “Please just answer the question.”
The monk sighed, resigned.
“As you know”—clearly he could not resist a dig—“Chartreuse, the real Chartreuse, is made in only one place. By the Carthusian brothers in France. Only two monks at any one time know the recipe. It’s been a tightly guarded secret for centuries. When one brother dies, his recipe is passed to another.”
“Like a torch,” said Beauvoir.
Frère Simon smiled, clearly liking the analogy. “Yes. It’s been like that since the beginning.”
“And they’ve managed to keep the recipe secret all this time? Even now?” Beauvoir had read all this, having done research, but he still barely believed it.
“Oui.The Church is very good at keeping secrets and holding on to its mysteries. There have been imitators, but no one has cracked the actual recipe.”
“Why keep it a secret?”
“Because with secrets comes power. And this was no ordinary secret. It was first given to a monk back in 1605, by an alchemist. He said it was an elixir.”
Frère Simon was now warming to his subject. For a man who’d taken a vow of silence, this monk liked the sound of his own voice. As Gamache listened, he tried to work out what was slightly odd about that voice. It was beautiful, mellifluous. But there was something else.
Then he had it.
Frère Simon’s words were spoken with a sort of lilt. Almost sung. It gave what he said a resonance. Made it all the more captivating. And what he was saying was already compelling.
“It wasn’t just medicinal,” Frère Simon continued. “The concoction the Carthusians had been given was said to be the secret to a long life. Many still consider it that. People would travel hundreds of miles, thousands of miles, to drink it.” Now the monk allowed himself a smile. “Clearly, if you drank enough, your pain and worries would disappear.”
“To be replaced by others,” said Jean-Guy.
“True. May I see the list again?”
Gamache handed him the torn pages.
“We know a few things about the ingredients,” said the monk, scanning the list. “There are one hundred and thirty herbs and spices. We can name some, but what we don’t have are the measurements. Or the process. This”—he put the two pages together—“mentions angelica stems. A rare herb. We know that’s one of the main ingredients. Combined with the others, it seems obvious.” Now he studied the cops. “How did you know?”
Beauvoir looked at the Chief Inspector, who just gave a tight smile. Jean-Guy knew the answer. It was because of the bottle of Chartreuse Dom Philippe had left in Three Pines. And the repetition of the cocktail whose main ingredient was Chartreuse.
The Last Word.
And angelica stems, which no one had heard of, but which were a major ingredient in the liqueur. Alone these factors told the investigators nothing. Put together, it seemed, as the monk said, obvious.
But clearly Gamache was not going to tell this monk, with the shrewd eyes and hypnotic voice, all this.
