Clara clasped one hand tightly in the other under the table. How long would she have to wait? How long could she wait? She looked at the Bakelite clock on the diner wall. But while it told time, it wasn’t helpful. Clocks were meaningless here.

Time seemed measured in other terms. Here.

The clock said they’d been in the diner for three quarters of an hour, but Clara knew it was really an eternity.

*   *   *

“Why did you come here?” Gamache asked.

“To find the tenth muse?” asked Beauvoir.

“You know about that?” asked Peter, and when they said nothing he went on. “No. I came to tell Norman what a shit he was. When I visited Professor Massey at the art college, it all came back to me. I’d always regretted not telling Norman about the damage he’d done.”

“With the Salon des Refusés,” said Gamache.

“Yes. He’d hurt Clara, and I’d said nothing at the time. When I left Three Pines, I had no idea how she would feel about me when I returned. I suspected she’d want to end our marriage for good, and I couldn’t blame her. But I wanted to take her one special thing. A gift. I thought and thought about it, and realized what a coward I’d been all our lives. Never defending her or her art. Letting everyone criticize and belittle. And finally even doing it myself when I realized how brilliant she really was. I tried to ruin her art, Armand.”

He looked down at his hands, as though he had blood all over them. The hollow gaze of a sin-sick soul.

“When Professor Massey mentioned Norman, I remembered the Salon des Refusés and knew what I could give her,” said Peter, raising his eyes again. “My apology. But not just words. A deed. Even if I had to go to hell and back, I’d find Professor Norman, and confront him. Only then could I go home. And face her.”

“You’d bring her the head of Professor Norman,” said Gamache.

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

When Gamache continued to stare at him, Peter blanched.

“You don’t still think—” He waved toward the bed.

“Go on,” said Gamache, not taking his eyes off Peter.

“I went to Baie-Saint-Paul, where the files said Norman’s last check had been mailed, years ago. He wasn’t there, but it was so beautiful, and peaceful, and I’d been on the road for so long. So I rented a room and caught my breath. It was only then I remembered the paintings from my mother’s house. The ones I’d stared at for hours. Wishing myself into them. The Clarence Gagnons. They were done in Baie-Saint-Paul. So I found the Galerie Gagnon, and when I wasn’t painting I spent hours staring at them.”

“Why?” asked Beauvoir.