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Gamache didn’t believe that. This was the sort of puzzle that people like Dussault, like him, were good at. Trying to unravel what appeared to be a Gordian knot.

But were they working on the same knot?

“It is possible,” said Armand, looking at Dussault to see his reaction to what he was about to say, “that it wasn’t the killer Reine-Marie and I interrupted, but someone else.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

Claude Dussault sighed. “People coming and going. Mistaken identity. We appear to be looking at two different mises-en-scène. I’m seeing an Émile Zola tragedy, while you see a farce straight out of Molière.”

It was not unlike what Gamache himself had been thinking a few moments earlier. Though Dussault’s description, while said with humor, held an implied criticism. And some mocking.

“Could be,” said Armand, with equanimity. “Fortunately, truth is on the march and nothing will stop it.”

Dussault laughed and clapped Armand on the arm. Clearly recognizing the Zola quote.

“Touché, mon ami.”

Dussault turned and they continued down the hall.

“Is this the way you came, following the intruder?”

“Yes.”

“He obviously knew there was a back stairway through the kitchen,” said Dussault.

“Exactly. He’d had plenty of time to get to know the apartment. It’s unfortunate. I thought I’d trapped him.”

“How did you even know there was someone else here?” asked Dussault.

“We heard a sound.”

Dussault was shaking his head. “And what would you do, Armand, if one of your agents, unarmed, chased a murderer with a gun down a narrow hallway?”

Armand gave a small laugh. “I’d have them on the carpet for sure.”

“You’d probably be scraping them off the carpet. Not very smart of you. He could’ve shot you, too.”

“Interesting that he didn’t. Though I am grateful.”

“As am I,” said Dussault, with a smile. “But I am also a little surprised.”

They were standing in the kitchen. Like most older apartments in Paris, it was small. Not much more than a galley, though there was a large window that looked out over the rooftops.

Cereal, sugar, coffee had been shaken out. The cupboards emptied.

It had become obvious, as they’d moved deeper into the apartment, that a methodical search had turned to panic, had turned into a sort of frenzy.

The back door was ajar, untouched from when Armand had followed the intruder through it less than half an hour earlier.

Once it was clear the killer had been swallowed by the Saturday morning crowd, Armand had joined Reine-Marie and waited for Claude Dussault and the rest of the gendarmes.

When they arrived just minutes later, Reine-Marie had taken the box of Stephen’s things into bar Joséphine, where she was now waiting.

“I’ll show you where he went,” said Armand, opening the back door with a gloved hand. “Let’s go down.”

Just as they stepped into the stairwell, a voice called from the apartment, “Patron?”