All the Devils Are Here

This kitchen, this home, had not changed. Though he had. From child to adult. Father and grandfather now. From boy with flour on his hands to man with blood on them.

Still, he’d always be “the boy” to them. And they’d always be Madame and Monsieur to him.

Monsieur watched as Armand took a long sip of beer, coming away with a slight foam mustache, which he wiped away.

“Délicieux.”

And it was. Monsieur had obviously had long practice making beer.

Madame Faubourg, back in control of her movements, cut thick slabs of pain au citron and put out a ceramic tub of whipped butter.

“You want to ask us about what happened,” she said, shifting the point of the knife from one to the other. “Well, we didn’t see anything, and thank God for that.”

“Wish we had.”

“Don’t say that, Monsieur. They’d have killed us, too.” She put down the knife and touched his hand, in an act as sacred as the sign of the cross.

“Monsieur Horowitz has the whole top floor, as you know. And you can’t see his windows from here,” said Monsieur. “He looks out over the street, not into the courtyard.”

“The police are still up there going over things,” said Madame. “We expect they’ll want to talk to us eventually.”

“They haven’t yet?” asked Beauvoir, glancing at Gamache.

“No.”

“And you saw no stranger cross the courtyard yesterday?” asked Armand. “No one rang you?”

“Do murderers normally ring the concierge for admittance?” asked Madame, and Jean-Guy smiled.

“Non,” admitted Armand.

The apartment building was fairly typical of the quartier. The large wooden door from the sidewalk opened onto a private courtyard. The residents walked across it to access another door that led to the elevator, though most took the stairs if they could.

The elevator was the cage type, tiny, old, rickety.

“And this morning?” asked Gamache. “Did you see anyone arrive?”

“I saw you and Madame Gamache,” said Monsieur. “That was mid-morning. I came out to say bonjour, but you’d already gone into the building. You found the body?”

“Oui.”

“Pauvre Madame Gamache,” said Madame. “You must give her some cake.”

Gamache considered declining, but realized it would just hurt her feelings. He accepted the slab of warm pain au citron wrapped in wax paper and put it in his pocket.

“You saw no one else?” asked Beauvoir.

“No strangers,” said Monsieur. “The children of the family on the third floor came in from Provence for the weekend, but we know them well. And the woman on the second floor had a delivery from Le Bon Marché. We know the deliveryman. See him often. He came and left right away.”

“And you didn’t see Monsieur Plessner arrive?” asked Jean-Guy.

They looked blank.

“The man who was killed,” Jean-Guy explained.

“No,” said Madame. “But Fridays are always busy. I’m doing the cleaning, and Monsieur here is dealing with the garbage and recycling.”

“There was a leak in the radiator of the apartment on the first floor,” he said. “I was fixing that. It’s always something in these old buildings.”

But what had happened the day before, thought Armand as they left, was something else entirely.

Once in the courtyard, Gamache touched Beauvoir’s arm in a silent request to pause.

A single tree, thick-trunked, tall and gnarled, dominated the space. Lace curtains fluttered at windows where boxes were planted with bright red geranium and soft blue pansies.

Even Beauvoir, not given to appreciating aesthetics, could appreciate this.

It was one of the many peculiarities of Paris. Hidden behind many of the simple wooden doors were these courtyards and secret gardens.

It was a city of façades. Of beauty, both obvious and obscure. Of heroism, both obvious and obscure. Of dreadful deeds, both obvious and obscure.

“Is it possible,” Armand began, his voice low so that none of the other residents, whose windows opened onto the courtyard, could hear, “Alexander Plessner let his killer into the apartment?”

“But why would he do that?”

“Two reasons,” said Gamache. “Either Plessner had been bought off, and the killer was actually an accomplice—”

“Then why kill him?” asked Beauvoir. “Especially before he’d found the documents? The place was turned upside down. They were pretty desperate to find something. And apparently never did.”

“Or,” continued Gamache, “Plessner was working with Stephen to uncover something. He’d hidden the evidence in his apartment and sent Plessner there to recover it. And to meet someone else there. Someone they trusted.”