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Beauvoir paused "It just seems too pat His son buys a derelict old home no one wanted They ed father shows up at almost exactly the sa slightly, "beyond a feeling"

He could sense his second in cos," with "intuition" Gaht," said the Chief "And what about ht have wanted the Hermit dead, but ould anyone else? If the motive was robbery the killer made a pretty poor job of it Fro was stolen"

"What other e The Her terrible and the ht have been hunting him for years That would also explain why the Her Those treasures had to come from somewhere He almost certainly stole them himself"

"Then why didn’t the murderer take the there?"

Gaain the home buried in the wilderness Fro cabin,boxes of flowers and herbs, a vegetable garden, a fresh streaned first editions, ancient pottery, tapestries, a panel froold and silver candlesticks And the violin

And he saw young Agent Morin standing in the cabin, so aard, like a wooden puppet, all gangly ars But as soon as he’d played that priceless violin his body had changed

The haunting first notes of "Colley" returned to Gamache

"There’s another possibility," said Beauvoir "Theelse the Hermit had done"

"Your theory then is that the treasure distracted us Distracted me"

"No one alked into that cabin believed theother than the treasure It see uncharacteristically tactful He, Ganed the agents and investigators and he’d followed his own instincts, often in the face of strong protests on the part of Inspector Beauvoir who’d insisted all along both the murderer and the motive were in Three Pines

Ga And perhaps had put an innocentto do with theof value the murderer wanted was the Hermit’s life and once taken he left"

"So," said Beauvoir, slinging his leg over the side of the easy chair and burrowing into the wing He was hidden fro visible No one could see him, but neither could he see anyone "Take away the treasure but that still leaves us with other clues The repetition of the word ‘Woo’ whittled into that chunk of red cedar, and woven into the web Itup, re across the continent to a o in northern British Columbia, on what now appeared to be a fool’s errand

"There’s so over each one again in his head

"Oui?"

"They’re allto cohed Beauvoir

"I just wonder if we should be considering some of the women," said Gamache "Women have patience Some of the most vicious crimes I’ve seen have been committed by women It’s more rare than men, but women are more likely to bide their ti this afternoon"

"How so?" Ga Clara Morrow had to say was, in the Chief’s opinion, worth listening to

"She spent the e Apparently Old’s wife said so odd She quoted some instruction manual that advised anti-terrorism squads to kill the women first"

"The Mossad," said Gamache "I’ve read it"

Beauvoir was silent The Chief Inspector often surprised him Sometimes it ith incomprehensible bits of Ruth’s poetry but s like this, hat he knew