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“If you can make some inquiries, I’d appreciate it.”

“Consider it done.”

“Merci,” he said and hung up just as there was a shout from the living room.

“Bonjour?” It was Clara. “You two home?”

“I’m in here,” Reine-Marie called from the kitchen.

Clara appeared at the door and Armand arrived right behind her.

“Can you come to the bistro?” Clara asked. “Billy wants to show us something. Something to do with the hidden room.”

“It’s there?” asked Reine-Marie.

“Looks like it. Billy’s gone to get Ruth to bring her along too.”

“Why Ruth?”

“Oh, how often have we asked that question,” said Clara.

“So, Billy,” said Olivier when they’d all assembled in the bistro. “What’s this all about?”

They were sitting around the huge fieldstone hearth. The fire had been lit, as much for comfort on the gray morning as warmth, and Gabri had brought over rich cafés au lait and lemon loaf.

Armand glanced at Harriet’s hand, where a freshly polished engineer’s ring sat snug on the little finger of her right hand. A tiny memento of a huge tragedy.

He shifted his focus to Fiona. He’d suggested to Reine-Marie that they say nothing about the night before. Better to pretend they hadn’t noticed anything and see what happened next. If anything.

It was possible, probable, that it was done to provoke, and when there was no reaction, Sam, or whoever, would tire of the game.

Billy put a letter on the coffee table. “I got this in the mail a couple of months ago.”

“Jesus,” said Gabri. “Look at the date. It took Canada Post a hundred and fifty years to deliver it?”

“No,” said Billy, with a small laugh. “Someone must’ve found it. It was sent to my old family home, and the woman who lives there now forwarded it to me.”

They passed it around. When it came to Armand, he put on his glasses and read it through. Twice. Then passed it along.

Only when it returned to Billy did Armand ask, “Who’s Pierre Stone?”

“My great-great-grandfather. Might even be another ‘great’ in there,” said Billy.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Ruth.

The fact that “pierre” was French for stone, making the letter writer’s name essentially Stone Stone, or Pierre Pierre, surprised no one coming from a family with a Billy Williams.

Besides, centuries ago, people were often identified by their trade. In this case, a stonemason.

“The date on the letter is 1862,” said Myrna. “The same as the brick you gave me.”

“Yes,” said Harriet. “Do you think he was talking about this place? That room?”

Monsieur Stone was writing to a woman, perhaps his wife or fiancée, maybe a sister. He described having to learn bricklaying in order to get a job. Fewer and fewer places were made with stone, now that bricks were being manufactured.

It was a glimpse into a changing world, and the sadness a skilled craftsman felt having to give up that craft. For a man named Pierre Stone, switching to bricklaying was clearly painful.

But the emotion in the letter went far beyond that.