“Pissing on a tree beats the porcelain anytime.”

“Agreed.”

“And the flush is too loud in our house. Maria wakes up. She’s anxious, you know.”

“I wouldn’t know it by looking at her.”

He nodded once. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

Daniel went inside the gatekeeper’s house, quietly.

I crept back to Brumaire, mounted the steps and re-entered, quietly.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

I went up the stairs to Gilles’ library on the second floor.

The door creaked open on heavy old hinges. I closed it and stood for a moment in the pitch dark. I had already traced the path from door to desk in my mind. So I walked it and flipped on the desk lamp without a fumble. The room glowed in polished wood paneled glory.

Like his house, his wife, his car and his pajamas, Gilles’ library was a classic. The wood paneling was of another era, a time when craftsmanship was available and quality was expected. A time of artisans who had learned from their fathers, and father’s fathers, and so on. The woodwork emanated pride, pride of the craftsman, and pride of the intellect that demanded a special place for special works of the mind.

All of that was expected, in a house like Brumaire, for the social class that Gilles and Simone were a part of. It came part and parcel of a world in which the higher classes felt special, by dint of being born to wealth. But what wasn’t expected was that Gilles Vaugeois hadn’t filled his library with the usual highbrow literary works that nobody ever read, but that everyone knew they were supposed to read. He had filled the library with the fruits of his mental labor and research, with a little wink to entertainment and nostalgia on the side.

One of the walls was taken up by windows. So there were three wall-sized bookshelves. Standing just inside the door, I was looking at Gilles Vaugeois’ desk. A massive oak object set in the center of the room. I went around the desk and sat down in Gilles’ chair. The leather and oak had been brought together by a serious artisan, maybe a long time ago. The cushioned chair was firm and pleasant to sit in. It took my body, without calling attention to itself like a so-called ergonomic chair.

I pulled out the top desk drawer. A sparse collection of objects were neatly squared away. A notepad with a sharpened pencil. A shallow tray of paper clips. A mini-mag flashlight. An Opinel pocket knife with wooden clasp handle. I fingered the knife and then put it back. Flipped through the notepad, it was blank. There were two larger drawers, either side of the desk. The first was empty. In the second I found a cigar humidor and paraphernalia.