“Did he threaten you?” asked Gamache.

“No, but…”

Young Agent Cohen turned even paler.

“… I made a mistake, sir.”

“It’s all right,” said Gamache.

“You don’t understand,” said Adam.

“But I do, and it’s done now. Please don’t worry.”

They looked at each other and the younger man nodded.

“So Brian admits it all?” said Cohen, leaving the subject of Fleming.

“Hard to deny it, when we found him with the firing mechanism he stole from my desk,” said Gamache.

“That was dangerous, wasn’t it?” said Cohen. “Suppose he’d gotten away?”

“It wasn’t the real one,” said Lacoste. “That’s safe under lock and key. We needed to flush him out. We didn’t have enough evidence against him. He had to incriminate himself.”

“So you let him think you’d stolen the firing mechanism,” said Cohen to Gamache, who nodded.

Young Agent Cohen took a swig of his beer, then reached for the chips, putting some in his mouth before he realized they were not potato but apple chips.

He looked at Chief Inspector Lacoste, and Inspector Beauvoir. His bosses. And he looked at Monsieur Gamache. And he looked at the strong beamed ceiling and thick plank floors and solid fieldstone hearths of the bistro. He looked out the window, but saw only their own reflection.

And he finally felt safe.

Chapter 45

CHAPTER 45

Isabelle Lacoste and Adam Cohen walked up the steps to the B and B. The porch light had been left on by Gabri and the door was, of course, unlocked.

“You said you made a mistake with Fleming,” Isabelle asked. “What was it?”

Adam Cohen gnawed his lip and watched Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir walking, heads down and together, toward the light at the Gamache home. But then the two men paused, veered, and took a turn around the village green.

“I said his name,” said Cohen.

It took Isabelle Lacoste a moment to realize what Cohen meant, and then she too looked at the two men, strolling around the edges of the village green.

Adam Cohen, in his excitement, had called out over the phone. He’d said his name. Monsieur Gamache. And John Fleming, in the backseat, would have heard.

*   *   *

“I wanted to ask you about Professor Rosenblatt,” said Jean-Guy. “What did you say to him tonight, out on the terrasse? Did you thank him?”

“Non. I warned him.”

“About what? He stepped in front of the gun. He saved your life and probably mine, and allowed the plans to burn. Kept them out of the hands of those CSIS agents or whatever they are.”

“I wonder if that’s true.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I don’t think Professor Rosenblatt does much that is unconsidered. I think he knew the moment to get those plans had passed. And when he stepped in front of the gun, he knew that while Delorme might shoot us, he wouldn’t shoot him.”