“Well, you just never know. On a slow day, or when I’m stuck for inspiration, I’ll pull them out and look again. Sometimes I even put them on their sides, or upside down. That can give me a different perspective. Jog something loose that I hadn’t seen before. Some small thing that’s worth pursuing. A color combination, a series of strokes, that sort of thing.”

Beauvoir looked at the paintings on the floor. Only a series of strokes would explain them.

“You keep the ones that don’t work out,” said Myrna. “But you don’t show them off.”

“True,” admitted Clara.

“Jean-Guy’s right. There’s a reason Peter kept these,” said Gamache. “And a reason he sent them to Bean.”

He walked over to the smaller images on the worn pine table.

“Where’s the one you said was a smile?” Gamache asked Myrna. “The lips? I can’t see them.”

“Oh, that. I’d forgotten,” she said. “It’s over in this group.” She walked him back to the floor show. “You find it.”

“Dreary woman,” he said, but didn’t protest. After a minute or so Myrna opened her mouth, but the Chief stopped her. “Now, don’t tell me. I’ll get it.”

“Well, I’m going outside,” said Clara.

They poured lemonades and went into the garden, but Beauvoir stayed behind with the Chief.

Gamache bent over each painting, then straightened up and held his hands behind his back. He rocked slightly back and forth, heel to toe. Heel to toe.

Beauvoir took a few steps back. Then a few more. Then he dragged one of the chairs over from the pine table and got up on it.

“Nothing from up here.”

“What’re you doing?” Gamache demanded, striding over to Jean-Guy. “Get off that chair right now.”

“It’s sturdy. It’ll hold my weight.” But he jumped down anyway.

He didn’t like the tone in the Chief’s voice.

“You don’t know that,” said Gamache.

“And you don’t know it won’t,” said Beauvoir.

The two stared at each other until a sound made Gamache turn around. Myrna stood at the door, the empty lemonade jug in her hand.

“Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all,” the Chief said, and forced a smile. Then he took a deep breath, expelled the air, and turned back to Beauvoir, who was still glaring.

“I’m sorry, Jean-Guy. Get back up if you want to.”

“No, I’ve seen what I need to see.”

Gamache had the feeling he was talking about more than the paintings.

“There it is,” said Jean-Guy.

Gamache joined him.

Jean-Guy had found the smile. The smiles.

And Gamache realized his mistake. He’d been looking for one big set of lips. A valley that formed a mountain. But Peter had painted a whole bunch of them, tiny smiles, small valleys of mirth that marched across and deep into the painting.

Gamache grinned.