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Over the years she and her husband had become good friends of the Gamaches.

“Thérèse? Armand.”

“Armand, it’s just after seven in the morning here.”

“Did I wake you?”

“Do you care?”

He smiled at her reply.

“Something’s happened,” she said. “What is it? The family?”

“Is fine. It’s a case. At least, I think it’s a case.”

“Could you be more vague?”

He laughed. “I need your help and probably Jérôme’s. It’s about The Paston Treasure.”

“Really? One of my favorite paintings. Now why would it be involved in a homicide case in Québec? That is what we’re talking about, isn’t it?”

“So you know the painting?”

“I do. A real curiosity.”

He explained what they’d found, and where. At first, there were sounds as people make when they’re absorbing information. But after a while, she fell silent.

“I’m glad you called in Mirlande,” said Thérèse when he’d finished. “She’ll be able to help. But I suspect the one you really want to talk to is Jérôme.”

“Eventually, yes, but I’d like to hear what you can tell me about The Paston Treasure.”

“Let me think.” There was silence down the line while she gathered her thoughts. “It was painted in the 1670s, or thereabouts, and shows many of the curios collected by the Paston family in Norfolk. That in itself would make the painting worth noticing, just as a historic record of the times. But there are a number of mysteries surrounding it, not least of which, why didn’t the artist, who clearly put a huge amount of time and effort into the thing, sign it?”

“Theories?”

“He died before he could. Or he didn’t want to be associated with it.”

“Why—”

“—wouldn’t he? I don’t know, Armand. Wish I did. It was a strange and dangerous time in England. Political unrest. Religious unrest. Talk of witches.”

“Witches?”

“Yes. One of the stranger details in the painting is almost hidden. Look closer at the roses around the neck of the cello.”

“Okay.” Armand was bending over the painting. “I don’t see anything.”

“Look closer. Though it might not be there in the version you found.”

“May I borrow your glasses?” he asked Dr. Louissaint, who, while surprised, handed them over. He looked again, then pulled back sharply. It was as though he’d been plunged into the folds of the plump white rose.

And then he saw it. Lifting off the loupe and handing it back to the conservator, he said into the phone, “It’s a ladybug.”

“Right. An exquisitely rendered one, at least in the original.” She paused, then said, almost to herself, “Interesting that your artist chose to copy such a tiny detail.” Then her voice returned to lecture mode. “In England, the bug was, at the time, known as a symbol of the Virgin Mary. But in Norfolk, where it was painted, that bug is called something else. A bishop-that-burneth.”

“Why?”

“Well, what were bishops burning at the time?”