“I got here about seven, as usual. Luc came a few minutes later.”

“Five hours.” Beauvoir looked at Gamache.

“Where would Vachon have gone to call?” Gamache asked. “Tabaquen?”

“Probably. Phone service is sketchy here, but the harbormaster generally has a good line. Needs it in case there’s an emergency on the water.”

“As far as we know, Luc Vachon never made that call,” said Gamache. “Either because he didn’t want to, or because he couldn’t.”

“If Luc did it, why’d he come back?” Peter demanded, his brain kicking in.

“Maybe he left the knife behind,” Gamache suggested. “Maybe he needed to make sure the professor was really dead. Maybe whoever did it sent him back, to retrieve the knife or other evidence.”

“‘Whoever did it’?” Peter asked. “Who do you mean?”

Gamache was looking at him. Not with the eyes of Armand, his friend. But the sharp, assessing, unrelenting gaze of the head of homicide.

“Me? You think I killed him? But why?”

“Maybe the Muse told you to do it,” Gamache suggested.

“The Muse? What’re you talking about?”

Gamache was still staring at him and Peter’s eyes widened.

“You think I’ve gone mad, don’t you? That this place has driven me insane.”

“Not just the place,” said Gamache. “But the company. Professor Norman lectured on the tenth muse. Isn’t that why you came here? To find him. And her?”

Peter flushed, either with rage or embarrassment at being caught out.

“Maybe it was all too much for you, Peter. You were lost, desperate to find a direction. Maybe the combination of Norman’s beliefs and this place was too much.” Gamache looked out at the vast, open, empty terrain. Sky and rock and water. “It would be easy to lose touch with reality.”

“And commit murder? I’m not the one who’s lost touch with reality, Armand. Yes, I can see how it might appear that I could’ve done it. And yes, Luc might’ve done it. But aren’t you forgetting something, or someone?”

“No,” said Gamache.

He wasn’t forgetting that someone was missing, besides Luc Vachon.

“Was Professor Norman surprised when Massey arrived?” Beauvoir asked.

“I think Professor Norman was beyond being surprised by anything,” said Peter. “He actually seemed pleased to see him.”

“And you left the two of them here, alone, last night,” said Beauvoir.

Peter nodded. Gamache and Beauvoir walked back into the cabin, and over to the bed.

Two young professors had met decades ago. Met and clashed. And then met again as old men. In the land God gave to Cain. They’d sat here. One on the chair. One on the bed.

And in the morning, one was dead. And one was missing.

Gamache looked down at the peaceful, almost joyous, face. And at the long, deep cut, from artery to vein.

Whoever did this had left nothing to chance.