Page 112 of Miss Wolcott’s Ghost

“What do you mean?”

“Well, presumably, when she trekked through the forests and jungles, she came across all sorts of varieties new to her. New to the West. But she didn’t try to bring everything back. She chose. So what was her criteria?”

Now there was an interesting question, thought Gamache as he watched the botanist. This seemed a new thought to her too.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have a list of the plants she brought back, so it would be impossible to say if there was a focus. It could be anything. Or maybe it was random.”

“Is that likely?” Gamache asked.

“An amateur. Who knows? Gifted and determined, certainly, but not trained.”

“Isn’t that how discoveries are made?” asked Gamache. “By people breaking away from rigid training? From received wisdom?”

Isabelle looked at the Chief. It was, she knew, a comment designed to annoy the botanist, or at least to challenge her. Which the expert did not like.

She wondered why the Chief would run the risk of antagonizing someone there to help them.

“Do you value agents who break away from their training, Chief Inspector? I’d have thought, in your job, training and discipline is vital.”

Gamache laughed, dispelling any ill feelings. “That’s true. So, all Miss Wolcott’s work was for nothing?”

“Apparently, yes.”

“I thought everything in nature has a purpose,” said Jean-Guy. At least that’s what he’d taught Honoré and had heard the boy explain to his adoring sister. “But you say those plants had none?”

“Well, if they did, no one found it.”

“Did she ever come to Canada?” Isabelle asked.

“Not that I know of.”

“If she brought back a lot of samples,” said Armand, “why did she choose to seed only the one. What was it about that plant, what’s its Latin name?”

“As far as I know, it was never given one.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it wasn’t worth naming.”

“And yet Miss Wolcott considered it so important, it needed to be spread and therefore preserved? Maybe she hoped someone would finally pay attention.”

“Actually, the opposite seems to be true,” said the botanist with a smile, happy to correct the cop. “The received wisdom is that Miss Wolcott spread that one because it was the least interesting. The least attractive. It was a sort of guerilla attack on her neighbors’ well-ordered gardens.”

“Interesting,” said Gamache.

“How’re your feet?” Dr. Lagacé asked.

“My feet?” He’d forgotten about the leaves. Now he considered and smiled.

He was blissfully unaware of them. “Just fine.”

He’d put some in Reine-Marie’s shoes.

“I’m assuming by what you’re saying that none of Daisy Wolcott’s papers survived,” said Isabelle.

“I asked my European colleagues, including one in Cambridge. They don’t know of any and frankly didn’t seem to care. I did speak to my friend who heads L’école d’horticulture du Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. She was once fascinated by Miss Wolcott. Studied her and tried to track down the plants she brought back. That’s how we know what little we know. Unfortunately, her estates fell into disrepair and were sold and her papers donated to various institutions, then destroyed either in bombings during the wars or later when universities needed more space. They did a triage, and her papers—”

In an unexpectedly dramatic gesture, the botanist drew her thumb across her throat.