Page 175 of All the Devils Are Here

“I’ll go with you,” said Séverine Arbour. “I can help.”

“Non,” said Armand. “Jean-Guy, can you go with Reine-Marie?”

“Absolument.”

“You come with me,” he said to Arbour. “I think we can rattle them a bit more.”

“How?” she asked.

“By going to the Hôtel Lutetia.”

“A punch in the face?” asked Jean-Guy.

“Let’s start with a tap on the shoulder,” said Gamache, with a smile. “Sometimes more frightening. Besides”—he turned to Madame Arbour—“I need more information from you about the Patagonia and Luxembourg projects before I see Claude Dussault.”

“You’re still going to meet him?” asked Reine-Marie.

“Unless something changes, yes. If Claude wants to talk, I want to listen.”

“What if he wants to do more than talk?” she asked, trying to keep her tone casual. But the stress was obvious.

“Then he wouldn’t have chosen such a public place,” said Armand. “A side street. A private home. I’d be worried. But Place de la Concorde? It’s far too public to do anything other than stroll and talk.” He held her eyes. “Believe me.”

Reine-Marie nodded. She believed him. She trusted him. It was Claude Dussault she didn’t trust.

“Jean-Guy?” she said, turning to her son-in-law.

“I agree. It’s safe. I think Dussault wants to see how much we know without revealing his own position. They’re worried.”

Armand handed Reine-Marie the scrap of paper from Stephen’s agenda after first taking a photo of it.

“You might look up those dates, too. See if anything significant happened.” He got to his feet. “We need to go up.”

“So soon?” asked Jean-Guy.

CHAPTER 34

Monsieur Beauvoir?” asked the concierge, crossing the lobby of the grand hotel.

“Oui?”

Up from that crypt, Jean-Guy was breathing in the sweet scent of the fresh flowers in the lobby and almost tearing up at the sight of the fading daylight beyond the doors of the George V.

“A man dropped this off for you.”

She handed him an envelope. Beauvoir opened it. On the slip of paper was written one word.

Neodymium.

And below that the letters XL.

He showed it to the others. “What does this mean?”

They crowded around.

“Neodymium is a rare earth element,” said Séverine Arbour.

“Extra large?” asked Daniel. “Oh, right, it’s—”