“What are you saying?” Scott’s face went from red to white. “That I had something to do with this?”

Armand Gamache said nothing. He knew that screaming and yelling upset people. But silence was even more disturbing.

“Tell me the truth, Mr. Scott,” the chief inspector’s voice was calm but commanding. Here was a man used to leading and used to being followed.

“I am.” Tom Scott dropped his eyes to the dead leaves on the ground. A few feet away lay the dead man. The earth seemed covered in death.

Gamache decided to drop the subject and move to another topic.

“You told one of my officers that the man looked familiar. Where did you see him?”

“The Inn. I think he might be one of the guests.”

“Chief?” Inspector Beauvoir waved. He and Dr. Harris were kneeling over the body.

“Excuse me,” Gamache said, and walked over. “What have you found?”

He knelt to join them.

“He’s been dead since last night, probably since early evening,” said Dr. Harris. “Say, seven or eight o’clock. Hanged himself with medium-weight rope. His neck is broken. I suspect he climbed to the second branch, tied the rope on, then tied it around his neck.”

“And threw himself off,” said Inspector Beauvoir.

The chief inspector looked down at the dead man’s face. What despair had driven him to kill himself? And in this terrible way?

“Would his death have been fast?”

“Very,” said Dr. Harris.

That was something, the chief thought. Perhaps he didn’t suffer in death the way he had suffered in life.

“Can I go?” Tom Scott called.

“Do we have his information?” Gamache asked. Beauvoir nodded.

The chief rose. “You can go, but please don’t leave the Inn and Spa.”

“He gives me the creeps,” said Dr. Harris, watching Scott disappear into the woods.

“Creeps?” asked Beauvoir. “Is that your medical judgment? Does he give you the willies, too?”

“No. You give me the willies.”

“You wish.” Beauvoir smiled and all but winked.

Dr. Harris blushed and silently cursed herself. Inspector Beauvoir was kneeling on the opposite side of the body. He was in his mid-thirties, lean, and athletic. His hair was dark and his eyes playful. Beauvoir always made her feel a little uncomfortable.

Chief Inspector Gamache was another matter. She found him very attractive, too, though not as a lover. In his mid-fifties, he was old enough to be her father. His dark hair was greying, and so was his trim moustache. Where Beauvoir was slim, Gamache was a large man, without being fat. Where Beauvoir was active, always moving, always ready with a quick comment, Gamache was calm. But the most striking thing about Armand Gamache was his deep brown eyes.

They were kind.

“Who is he?” Gamache looked at the man lying between them.