Beauvoir saw a look pass between the two men and knew he’d missed some reference. But not the meaning.

They walked the professor back to the B and B and made sure he got up to his room. A light was on under Mary Fraser’s door, and Gamache paused, then tapped.

“What’re you doing?” Beauvoir whispered.

“The CSIS agents need to know that the plans might’ve been found,” Gamache whispered back.

“Just a minute,” came Mary Fraser’s pleasant voice. The door opened and she stood there adjusting an unexpectedly frilly dressing gown. “Oh.”

“You were expecting someone else?” Jean-Guy asked.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting you,” she said. She had her glasses on and papers were spread out on the bed. Jean-Guy strained to get a look at them, but she stepped out and closed the door.

“What can I do for you? It must be late.” She peered at her watch. “It’s past midnight.”

It’s later than we thought. Rosenblatt’s words drifted into Beauvoir’s mind.

“The plans might’ve been found,” said Armand.

The bookish woman who lived in a filing cabinet disappeared and a much sharper person stood before them, albeit in a frilly pink dressing gown.

“Come with me,” said the CSIS agent, and led them downstairs and into the farthest corner of the B and B’s living room.

“Should we get Monsieur Delorme?” Gamache asked.

“No need,” she said, taking a seat. “You can tell me and I’ll pass the information on to him.”

Gamache and Beauvoir sat in the two remaining armchairs.

“You might have heard about another murder in the area,” said Gamache. “A woman named Antoinette Lemaitre.”

“Yes, the owner of the B and B told me. He seems to be town crier.”

“Antoinette Lemaitre was Guillaume Couture’s niece.”

Fraser stared at Gamache, the words sliding off her expressionless face to drop into silence. It took effort for an intelligent person to look that vacant, and Gamache suspected she was working very, very hard at that moment.

“Whose niece?” she asked.

“Please, madame,” said Gamache. “We have no time for this. You know as well as I do that Guillaume Couture worked with Gerald Bull at HARP, and almost certainly on the Supergun.”

Once again he took the photograph out of his pocket. Unfolding it, he handed it to her. Her brows rose very slightly, creating tiny crevices in her forehead.

“You cannot possibly be an expert on Gerald Bull and not know that,” said Gamache.

Mary Fraser folded the picture in half and offered it back.

“Dr. Bull had many colleagues. Including, might I remind you, Professor Rosenblatt.”