Trying not to see their way clear, but to see their way into a dark heart. Trying to solve the first, the oldest, crime. Cain’s crime. Murder.

Beauvoir thought about it. “But if No Man infected his paintings and sent them off to Massey, wasn’t there a chance Massey would sell them on? Find buyers?”

That had been troubling Gamache too. Once out of No Man’s hands anything could happen to the canvases. He had no way of knowing if they’d kill Massey, or a student, or some poor anonymous art collector.

Maybe No Man didn’t really care who else he killed, as long as Professor Massey was one of them. Or maybe …

“Maybe they weren’t very good,” said Gamache. “Maybe he deliberately sent paintings he knew Massey wouldn’t show to anyone else.”

“It still doesn’t make sense,” said Myrna. “Professor Massey hated Sébastien Norman. He got Norman the job, and then Norman took complete advantage of the situation to lecture on his own pet theory of the tenth muse. Then he held the show for the rejected artwork. Professor Norman did everything but burn down the college. Why would Massey help him?”

“Would you?”

The question came from Beauvoir, and it was directed at Gamache.

“Clara and Myrna here both thought Professor Massey reminded them of you, patron. I’ve seen you do some pretty weird things for people everyone else had given up on. Including me. Do you think Massey might still try to help Norman?”

Gamache considered that. “He might. Maybe he didn’t hate Norman,” Gamache said to Myrna, “but felt sorry for him. Maybe he even felt responsible. For putting both Norman and the school in that position.”

Myrna looked at Armand. And Armand looked at Myrna.

“Yes,” she said, remembering their private therapy sessions. “It’s possible.”

“I think Massey was the agent that Luc Vachon was sending the canvases to,” said Gamache.

“Asbestos-infected canvases,” said Beauvoir. “Massey might not have hated Norman, but Norman hated Massey. For getting him fired.”

“How many embittered employees go into their workplaces with a gun?” said Myrna. “The paintings were Norman’s gun.”

“But where did he get the asbestos? And where’re the paintings now?” asked Clara. “Where did Professor Massey put them? We didn’t see any on the walls.”

“They might be in a storage room,” said Gamache. “Maybe that was the hot spot they found. I’ll call the principal back.”

“Fortunately it looks like No Man’s plan didn’t work,” said Myrna, as Gamache placed the call.

“What do you mean?” asked Beauvoir.

“I keep forgetting that you didn’t see Professor Massey. A more healthy eighty-five-year-old would be hard to find. If those paintings began arriving decades ago, and the asbestos had done its job, he’d be either dead or dying.”

“What was it Julie called it?” said Clara. “A twist of fate.”