Page 83 of The Grey Wolf
The homicide department of the Sûreté had something in common with the monks. It too guarded its secrets.
Through the window they could hear crickets and a distant splash as either a waterfowl landed on the now calm lake, or a large fish jumped.
“Why would Dom Philippe leave me part of that recipe?”
Brother Simon shook his head. “I honestly have no idea.”
“Is there another significance to it? A code maybe?” Even as he said it, Gamache felt foolish. Speaking of codes. Though the Catholic Church, like most religions, was rife with them. Hidden meanings. Shorthand only the faithful and the chosen would know.
“You said Dom Philippe received a letter from Frère Sébastien, who’d returned to Rome. It seems reasonable to assume that that”—Gamache gestured toward the papers—“was in the letter. Either all of it or half.”
“It would have to be whole,non?” said Beauvoir. “For the Abbot to know what it was? Half wouldn’t be enough.”
He looked from Gamache to the acting Abbot, who nodded. “I think you’re right. Half wouldn’t tell him anything.”
“So you think Dom Philippe tore it in two?” asked Gamache.
“I think it’s possible,” said the monk, slowly.
“Why?” asked Beauvoir.
“Perhaps to continue to protect the secret,” said Simon.
There was, Gamache knew, another possibility. That Sébastien himself had torn the page, sending half to the Abbot and half to someone else. Someone he trusted. And in his letter to Dom Philippe, he’d told him what it was, and why.
Told him to find the person with the other half. That it would be someone he could trust. But again, why use some obscure recipe for an obscure drink as a code?
“That obviously isn’t the original recipe,” Gamache said. “It was written recently. Is that Sébastien’s handwriting?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can we find out? Are there samples? Perhaps in his cell?”
“When he left, he took everything with him. His cell was completely empty. In fact, I’ve put you into it for the night.”
“Is it the Abbot’s handwriting?” Gamache asked.
“No.”
“Is”—Gamache turned over one of the pages—“this?”
“Some malady.” Simon read and nodded. “Oui.But why would he write that?”
“I think it was so that I’d know who’d left it,” said Gamache. “He knew I’d recognize the quote and remember our conversation here.”
“It’s fromMurder in the Cathedral,” said the acting Abbot. “Some malady is coming upon us. We wait. We wait.But for what? What are we waiting for?”
“For the malady,” said Jean-Guy. For, he knew but did not say, someone to poison the drinking water and kill thousands.
A plot it now seemed the head of an obscure monastic order in the wilderness of Québec had stumbled upon. Or been told about. By a Hound of the Lord.
Charles Langlois had also found out. And Langlois was dead. And now the Abbot had disappeared. Had some malady found him?
“How about this word?” Gamache turned the other paper around.
“Water,” read Simon. “It might be the Abbot’s, but it’s kinda scrawled, and his writing is very neat. Is it at all useful for me to ask what it means?”
“Probably not,” said Gamache.
