It was at that point Clara spoke to Marianna again and arranged for all the paintings to be couriered to her in Three Pines.

“I’ll get them out this morning. I’m sorry, I thought you knew he’d painted them. Not very good, are they?” Marianna said with barely disguised pleasure. “He showed some to me when he came over. Seemed to want me to say something about them. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.”

Poor Peter, Clara thought as she sat in the garden. So used to applause for everything he did. So used to getting it right the first time. How strange it must be to suddenly not be very good at something he was once celebrated for. Like a great golfer changing his swing, to become greater. But making it worse in the short term.

Sometimes the only way up is down. Sometimes the only way forward is to back up. It seemed that was what Peter had done. Thrown out all he knew and started again. In his mid-fifties.

A brave man, thought Clara.

“I received a message from the Sûreté in Paris this morning,” said Gamache. “They visited LaPorte and spoke with their Chef des bénévoles. He confirmed that Peter had volunteered there last year, but had left after a couple of months.”

“Why go all the way to Paris, to volunteer at LaPorte, then leave so soon?” asked Clara.

“Peter went to LaPorte because it had worked for Vincent Gilbert,” said Myrna. “Vincent arrived at LaPorte a selfish, callow, vile asshole. And he emerged an asshole saint.”

“Progress,” said Gamache. “Of a kind. I think it was like Oz and Peter was the Tin Man, looking for a heart. He thought he could find it there, doing a good deed for the less fortunate. And that would in turn make him a better painter.”

“No heart, no art,” said Myrna. “He must’ve thought that if it worked for such a ridiculous creature as Vincent Gilbert, surely it would work for him. But Peter’s reasons were selfish, and more than a little condescending. That might’ve changed, had he toughed it out, but he took off. Looking for another quick fix.”

“Sometimes the magic works,” said Clara, and looked at them expectantly. “You don’t know where that comes from?”

Gamache and Myrna shook their heads.

“It’s from my favorite scene in a movie,” she said. “Little Big Man. Chief Dan George is old and frail and he decides his time has come. He and Dustin Hoffman build a bed on stilts and Chief Dan George climbs up, lies down, and folds his arms over his chest.”

Clara mimicked the action, closing her eyes and turning her face to the cloudy skies.