'May I?' Beauvoir handed him the tennis racket with the quiver hanging from it. Gamache held the racket as high as he could and strained to look at the round leather bottom of the old quiver.
'Have you got a flashlight?'
Matthew took a bright yellow Eveready from a hook and handed it over. Gamache switched it on and saw six shadowy points on the belly of the quiver. He showed them to Beauvoir.
'There were six arrows until recently,' said Beauvoir.
'Recently? How do you figure that, Inspector?' Listening to Matthew Croft's attempt at calm Gamache felt for the man. He was clamping down for control, tighter and tighter. So tight his hands were trembling slightly now and his voice was rising.
'I know leather, Mr Croft,' Beauvoir lied. 'This is thin calves' leather, used because it's supple, yet durable. These arrows, which I assume are hunting arrows-' Croft shrugged '- these arrows can sit in this leather-bottomed quiver, tip down and neither dull the tip nor break through the bottom. And, now this is important, Mr Croft, the leather will not keep the form of whatever it holds. It's so supple it will slowly go back to its original shape. These six blemishes have been made by six arrow tips. Yet only five arrows remain. How is that possible?'
Now Croft was silent, his jaw clamped shut.
Beauvoir handed the tennis racket and quiver to Nichol with instructions to hold it while he and Gamache continued the search. Now Croft had joined his wife, and side by side they awaited whatever was coming their way. The two men spent the next half-hour searching the basement inch by inch. They'd just about given up when Beauvoir wandered over to the furnace. Once there he actually stepped on it. Sitting practically in plain sight was a recurve bow, and beside it an axe.
A search warrant was sought and issued and the Croft farm was scoured from the attic to the barn to the chicken coop. Philippe was found in his bedroom plugged in to his Sony 'Discman'. Beauvoir checked the ash bin under the wood-burning furnace and found a metal arrowhead, charred by the fire, but still intact. At this discovery Matthew Croft's legs gave way and he sank to the cold concrete floor, to a place no rhyming verse existed. He had finally been hurt beyond poetry.
Beauvoir arranged for all the things they'd collected to go to the Surete labs in Montreal. Now the team sat around the fire hall once again.
'What do we do about the Crofts?' Lacoste wanted to know, sipping a Tim Horton's double double.
'Nothing for now,' replied Gamache, biting into a chocolate donut. 'We wait for the report to come back from the labs.'
'They'll have results for us tomorrow,' said Beauvoir.
'About Matthew Croft. Shouldn't we take him into custody?' Lacoste spoke up, smoothing back her shiny auburn hair with her wrist, trying not to get chocolate glaze into it.
'Inspector Beauvoir, what do you think?'
'You know me, I always want to be on the safe side.' Gamache was reminded of a cartoon he'd cut from the Montreal Gazette years ago. It showed a judge and the accused. The punch line read, 'The jury has found you "not guilty" but I'm giving you five years just to be on the safe side.' Everyday he looked at it, chuckled, and knew deep down the truth of it. Part of him yearned for 'the safe side', even at the cost of other people's freedom.
'What risk are we running by leaving Matthew Croft free?' Gamache looked around the table.
'Well,' ventured Lacoste, 'there might be more evidence in that house, evidence he could destroy between now and tomorrow.'
'True, but couldn't Mrs Croft destroy it just as easily? After all, she was the one who threw the arrow in the furnace and was about to chop up the bow. She's admitted as much. In fact, if there's anyone we should bring in it's her, for destroying evidence. I'll tell you my thinking.' He took a paper napkin and wiped his hands, then, leaning forward, he put his elbows on the table. Everyone else, except Nichol, did the same, giving it the appearance of a highly secretive gathering.
'Let's say the bow and arrow tip are the ones that killed Jane Neal. Right?'
Everyone nodded. As far as they were concerned they were home free.
'But which of them did it? Was it Matthew Croft? Inspector Beauvoir, what do you think?' Beauvoir with all his might wanted Matthew Croft to be the guilty one. Yet, damn it, it didn't fit.
'No. He was far too relaxed in the public meeting. His panic didn't kick in until later. No. If it'd been him he'd have been more evasive earlier. He has very little skill at hiding how he's feeling.'
Gamache agreed. 'Scratch Mr Croft. How about Suzanne Croft?'
'Well, she could have done it. She clearly knew about the bow and arrow during the public meeting, and she destroyed the arrow and would have chucked the bow in the furnace if she'd had time. But, again, it doesn't fit.'
'If she killed Jane Neal she'd have destroyed the arrow and the bow long before now,' said Nichol, leaning into the group. 'She'd have gone right home and burned the whole lot. Why wait until they know the police are about to arrive?'
'You're right,' said Gamache, surprised and pleased. 'Go on.'
'OK. Suppose it's Philippe. He's fourteen, right? This is an old bow, not as powerful as the newer ones. Doesn't take as much strength. So he takes the old wooden bow and the old wooden arrows and he heads off to hunt. But he shoots Miss Neal by mistake. He picks up his arrow and runs back home. But Maman figures it out-'
'How?' Gamache asked.
'How?' This stopped Nichol. She had to think. 'He might have had blood on his clothing, or his hands. She'd have gotten it out of him eventually, maybe just before the public meeting. She had to go to hear what the police had, but she'd have kept Philippe back at home. That explains her increasing agitation in the meeting.'
'Any holes in this theory?' Beauvoir asked the gathering, trying not to sound hopeful. While he hoped Nichol would prove not a total liability, this was a disastrously good showing. He tried not to look at her, but couldn't help it. Sure enough she was staring straight at him with a tiny smile. She leaned back in her chair, slowly, luxuriously.
'Well done, Nichol.' Gamache rose and nodded to her.
Wait, just wait, she thought, till Dad hears about this.
'So the Croft family stays put for today, until we get the results of the lab tests,' said Gamache.
The meeting broke up, each one looking forward to wrapping up the investigation the next day. Still, Armand Gamache knew better than to count on one theory. He wanted to keep the investigation active. Just to be on the safe side.
It was almost five and time to head to the Bistro. But there was something he wanted to do first.
SEVEN
Gamache walked through the bistro, nodding to Gabri who was setting tables. Each business connected to the next in the row of shops and at the back of the bistro he found the door into the next store. Myrna's Livres, Neufs et Usages.
And there he found himself, holding a worn copy of Being. He'd read Being when it first came out a few years before. The title always reminded him of the day his daughter Annie had come home from first grade with her English homework which was to name three types of beans. She'd written, 'green beans, yellow beans and human beans'.
He turned the book over and looked at the back, with its 'blurb' and brief bio of the author, the famous McGill University doctor and geneticist, Dr Vincent Gilbert. Dr Gilbert glared back, strangely stern for a man who wrote about compassion. This particular book was about his work with Brother Albert Mailloux at 'La Porte', mostly with men and women with Down's syndrome. It was really a meditation on what he'd learned watching these people. What he'd learned about them and the nature of humanity and what he'd learned about himself. It was a remarkable study of arrogance and humility and, above all, forgiveness.
The walls of the shop were lined with bookcases, all ordered and labeled and filled with books, some new, some already read, some French, most English. Myrna had managed to make it feel more like the library in a cultured and comfortable country home than a store. She'd set up a couple of rocking chairs beside an open fire, with a couch facing it. Gamache sank into one of the rockers and reminded himself of the beauty of Being.