CHAPTER 28

1970–71

ON A QUIET SUNDAY EVENING, TWO WEEKS PRIOR TO Christmas, as Constable Émile Cinq-Mars arrived at the prime minister’s residence at 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa, snow alighted gently upon the grounds, pleasantly decorating trees and shrubbery. Lamplight sparkled on the large, moist flakes, and each vista conveyed a wintry enchantment worthy of the season. Dressed in spiffy, casual attire—a cream jacket, an ascot, dark blue shirt and blue serge trousers—Pierre Elliott Trudeau welcomed him warmly, as though they were old friends.

A fire crackled in the hearth.

“Promise me, Émile,” he requested after they were settled before the blaze, “that the dagger will not fall—directly or indirectly—into the rapacious hands of René Lévesque.” The whimsy in his tone suggested that he was trying to make light. “Or those of his ilk,” he added.

“Actually,” Cinq-Mars began. Then hesitated.

“Don’t tell me.”

“I don’t think it will,” the policeman, equally spiffy in his dress uniform, tendered. “Rumour has it that they’re lovers, though.”

“Lovers! Who?”

“The woman who’ll be receiving the knife, and our Mr. Lévesque. Which is regrettable, on I can’t tell you how many levels.” Unable to restrain himself, Cinq-Mars sighed. “That said, she expects the two of you to duke it out as men. Neither of you will possess the advantage of the knife.”

“If it is an advantage,” Trudeau scoffed. He had offered his guest cognac, coffee and coffee cake, and the policeman, having driven two hundred kilometres up from Montreal, with plans to return that night, consented. The prime minister quipped, “I’m happy to proceed on my own. I’m tired of the dagger taking credit for my success, at least in some circles.”

Cinq-Mars appreciated the man’s humour about this transaction. Although it helped put him more at ease, he still had to give himself a swift boot in the rump—heel to arse. Here he was, a country boy from Saint-Jacques-le-Majeur-de-Wolfestown, Quebec, and a mere patrolman, kibitzing with the prime minister of Canada. In his home. As if he were a visiting dignitary himself.

“She’s a stone thrower, our mystery girl. A tosser of rocks,” the prime minister recalled. “That’s helped me to rationalize this transaction.”

At moments, Émile felt a trifle dumb in the prime minister’s presence.

“She strikes me as someone opposed to the Order of Jacques Cartier, those windbag neo-fascists.”

“For sure,” Cinq-Mars happily piped up. “No doubts there.”

“Then I’m content,” Trudeau added pensively. “We shall see what designs fortune has upon our dagger.”

“Actually, sir,” Cinq-Mars contradicted him, “I doubt it. Time will tell, but what happens next will remain secret, I suspect. Beyond our purview.”

Trudeau chose to soften the young man’s defences. “You’re an educated man, Émile? You don’t talk like an average street cop.”

“I have a degree in, ah, animal husbandry.”

Trudeau seemed to be enjoying a private laugh. “So that’s why.”

Cinq-Mars was stumped. “Sir?”

“Your boss. Captain Touton. He asked me to inquire about your education.”

“He likes to embarrass me, sir. It amuses him. I think he’ll have to get used to educated cops. It’s the future trend, in my opinion. But he can’t get over my choice of subject. He equates the phrase with fornication. Sheep, in particular. Husbandry, you see. He’s even more amused that I was once headed for the priesthood—which, come to think of it, he also may equate with fornication.”

Trudeau honoured Émile’s humour with a laugh, but also offered a small, dismissive gesture of his chin. “Why be embarrassed? You’re an intelligent, small-town boy from the countryside, although not a farmer yourself. You went through the most logical progression there can be in Quebec. Priest, until that didn’t hold, then veterinarian. Then you found your true vocation, a Montreal cop. That’s different, but it tells me you’re on your proper course.”

“Thank you, sir. I believe I am.”

Sagely, the prime minister administered a light rub to the bridge of his nose, as if to sharpen an astute thought. He was unaware that individuals often touched their noses in the presence of Émile Cinq-Mars, as though they felt a need to be thankful for their own modest beaks in the shadow of his monstrosity. Trudeau’s was eminent and decisive, yet well proportioned and no match for the policeman’s. Cinq-Mars noticed this, as he usually examined other men’s noses. He characterized the prime minister’s as intelligent, and the nose of a physically active man.

“I’ll be sad to have the knife gone from my hands, but I’m also glad that you have come to retrieve it.”

“Why’s that, Mr. Prime Minister?” In crossing his ankles, he realized that he had emulated the posture of his host, and quickly uncrossed them again.

“Mainly,” Trudeau attested, “I welcome the chance to thank you for your work on the FLQ file. The country owes you—and your colleagues—a tremendous debt. In recent days, I’ve been advised that your contribution must never be publicly acknowledged. Yours or Armand’s.”

Cinq-Mars sipped his coffee. “You’ve been talking to my captain.”

“Do you possess remarkable powers of deduction to surmise that instantly? A worthy attribute in a detective, I’d say.”

The younger man blushed slightly. “Given that I stormed in here that day, raving, demanding to strike a deal for a valuable relic, I assumed that you’d call Captain Touton.”

“We had you investigated. But I didn’t talk to Armand back then. Only a few days ago, now that matters have calmed down.”

Something about that statement struck the policeman as odd, and he jotted a mental note. “I don’t mean to be falsely modest, sir. I hope to get better at figuring things out. I think I have a knack, but whenever I stumble across what I believe is a clever deduction—or walk blindly into some lucky ray of comprehension—usually I feel like punching a wall that I didn’t think of it sooner. I’m working on my abilities though. I haven’t given up.” He smiled more broadly then, somewhat embarrassed to have said so much.

“So you agree with him, then?”

The query was issued out of context, yet the young man had no need to pretend that he did not trace the connection. “I do, sir. We’re linked to our informant. To associate either of us with solving the case will implicate her. It’s imperative that we never be acknowledged or thanked.”

“Except privately. Tonight. Here. With my words.”

Cinq-Mars lowered his head. He could feel his face burning. “That’s a fine exception, sir,” he said quietly. “I was only doing my job. But I thank you.”

Raising his right hand near his ear, the prime minister drew a few circles in the air, as if stirring a memory. “Last time we met, Émile, you were a detective.” As the hand lowered, his forefinger began to shake at him. “Since then, you’ve helped break the most grievous case in our history.” Cinq-Mars followed the hand down to the armrest. “For your troubles, it appears that you’ve been demoted. You’re in uniform. Explain this to me.”

Cinq-Mars smiled again. “Sir, I was temporarily upgraded to help with the case. Now that it’s solved—it’s back to the beat for me.”

The prime minister did not appear mollified. “The mayor owes me a favour. After all, I invoked the War Measures Act at his behest.”

“I’m willing to earn my rank as I go, sir,” Cinq-Mars assured him.

“I’m convinced that you’ve already earned a promotion.”

They finished their cakes and coffee with talk of the debacle in the Montreal Police Department and discussion of the climate on the streets and in the taverns. The prime minister poured another glass of cognac. Perhaps as a prelude to returning them to the business at hand, he displayed a few prized treasures. “I didn’t buy these on the black market,” he quipped. “I didn’t steal them. In my youth, I was wandering through the ancient land of Ur—Iraq, today—and I picked up these tiles, right off the desert floor. I’ve had them assayed. The inscriptions are Sumerian. They date to the time of Abraham.”

The young man dared not touch them, but examined them closely while standing and sipping his cognac, and permitted himself to feel the presence of that ancient time reflected in the artifacts. He acknowledged the allure of antiquated objects. To imagine a figure from Abraham’s time—or the great patriarch himself—inscribing a tile, not knowing that one day it would be present in the home of a leader of a foreign country unknown, upon a continent as yet undiscovered to that people—his mind boggled.

The reflective moment was interrupted by a ring at the door, in coded sequence. “Security,” the prime minister stated. He moved to the foyer and Cinq-Mars trailed behind. An officer admitted himself.

“Our silent alarms have been triggered, Prime Minister,” the snow-covered man informed him, already dripping on the carpet as he removed his cap. “We believe by a dog, but we are investigating. Is everything in order here, sir?”

“We’re fine, thank you. We’ve had no interruptions. Give Lassie my regards.”

The excitement over, they returned to the hearth, where Trudeau tossed a log on the fire. “Last month it was a family of raccoons.” He remained standing, and stated, with evident solemnity, “I can bring out the Cartier Dagger now, Émile. As you may recall, I had requested a final courtesy.”

Cinq-Mars promptly put down his snifter. “Sir, I’m hoping that you will entertain a reasonable condition. The young lady in question will honour your request. She’ll reveal what was said on Houde’s deathbed. First, she must receive the dagger. She may be turning your condition from the last time back around, by asking for delivery in advance. At least, that’s my assessment.”

The prime minister put up his hands, as though to brush away his concern. “No problem. I hope you’ll forgive my momentary indiscretion.”

“Sir?” This time, the sly, older man did have him confused.

Trudeau directed him back into his chair and sat opposite him again. He knitted his hands together and leaned well forward as his voice went lower and became more directed. “I was curious, Émile, to know what the girl in the closet overheard as Houde lay at death’s door. Who wouldn’t be? He struck quite the figure, Houde did. He lived through astonishing times. In retrospect, I realize that I was requesting highly confidential information—an account, really, of a communication between a dying man and his priest. Initially, I was overcome by curiosity, but I’ve since reprimanded myself. I no longer seek to hear a word.” He brushed his hands together, as if dusting them of crumbs. “I’ve been paid sufficiently. Overpaid, by the outcome of our difficulties.” He resumed his upright posture. “So I want to thank you, Émile, and shall do so by bringing out the knife. No further restitution is required. Our deal is done. Our arrangements concluded.”

“Thank you, sir. I have to tell you, although I realize that the stakes were high, you’ve been a good sport about this. You are losing a valuable possession.” He had to remind himself that he was talking—so casually—with the prime minister.

“Mmm.” Trudeau touched a finger to his lips, and something in his manner suggested that he required a meditative moment to pull a thought together. Then he said, “It worked out well.” The finger rhythmically tapped his lower lip, before he continued. “Émile, you know that I purchased the knife. A mercantile act. So it was never really mine to possess, not in any proper sense. The idea was to remove it from the control of potential fascists, that was one fear, or foreign collectors, that was another. My role, it seems, has been to act as its guardian through a transitional phase. The high road, certainly the legal path, would have been to restore the knife to its rightful owner, the Sun Life company, and to their designated hero, Clarence Campbell. But he was never accepted as the most worthy of recipients, and when you look at the history, really, at a moment in time, Sun Life itself stole the knife. Theirs had been a legal scam—the knife in exchange for an insurance policy—but its value could have insured a man’s family for a thousand generations. So, is Sun Life the rightful owner? Legally, perhaps. Morally, it’s questionable.”

Cinq-Mars weighed in. “The legal is paramount in our society, as a rule.”

“I’m a lawyer. I should know, and, I ought to know better than to disagree. We’re Catholics, Émile. We both know that, at times, the moral and the legal, if not in opposition, arrive at a place of mutual agitation. I’m not trying to rationalize anything here. I admit that I’m in possession of stolen property. You, on the other hand, you’re young, your hands are clean, but you will take the knife from me and, rather than return it to its legal owners, bequeath it to a young woman who mourns her father’s death. You don’t have a legal leg to stand on, do you?”

“I suppose not, Mr. Prime Minister.”

“And yet, not only will you not lose sleep over this, but your conscience probably shines.”

Cinq-Mars wound his hands together, and conceded a smile. “I’d say that as a moralist, sir, you make a compelling jurist.”

Which made the prime minister chuckle. “Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment, even if it wasn’t intended as such. But I still have a point to make, about why surrendering the knife is all right with me. Why it is that I’m comforted by this transaction.”

“Comforted?” He wished that he could drop every last residue of self-consciousness and self-awareness and boundless amazement that he was here, in the prime minister’s home on a snowy night in December, and just fall utterly into the conversation. He was perpetually outside the talk, seeing himself in it, which was an aspect he just had to endure. An affliction of youth. He knew, though, that he did not want this night to end.

“Sir Herbert Holt determined that the knife should be imparted from war hero to war hero, in perpetuity. Apart from the fact that that meant we’d have to keep going to war, forever, it was a grand design. One that I support. But wait, Émile, have we not recently emerged from a major battle? I had to invoke the War Measures Act, did I not? Did Roger Clément’s daughter not commit herself to a heroic undertaking, one with a measure of self-sacrifice? Her effort helped our country resolve its crisis.”

“That’s true.” He felt humbled by the direction the talk had taken, privileged to be the only one to hear this posit.

“She had to experience loss of life. I’m not referring to Pierre Laporte, though there’s that. So the knife is being bequeathed to a true patriot. In this case, a heroine. And so, I was a temporary caretaker. With a measure of satisfaction, my stewardship ends, and a proper heroine now receives the relic.”

Cinq-Mars nodded. “You’ve given this some thought.”

Trudeau considered that, and shrugged. “The knife did my thinking for me,” he said. “I don’t mean to be enigmatic. Any objet d’art is worthy of our meditation. In dwelling on the knife, on its history, these matters came through, as did my resolve to not ask questions of the dead. I’ll leave Houde’s final words alone, then, and fetch the knife.”

“Sir?” Before the prime minister stood, Cinq-Mars stalled his rise. He held up a hand, as though to physically restrain him. “I apologize, but I have also come with a request.”

“Certainly.” Trudeau sat back down. “As your mayor owes me, I owe you. What is it?”

“There’s no debt, sir. I was doing my job. I don’t mean to take up your time, but as you’ve observed, I’m in uniform tonight. To drive here, I borrowed a squad car from the department.”

“I see.”

“I told Captain Touton I’d be talking to you, but I also informed him I’d conduct official business. He doesn’t know about the dagger changing hands tonight. Nor should he. Nor should anyone.” He smiled, amused by his own subterfuge, and regarded his host closely. He noticed Trudeau’s eyes dart to the right and down, then return to meet his. “If I may attend to other business then, sir, I’ll not be negligent in my duties, or fraudulent in borrowing the car. Also, this other matter gives me a reason to be here, to explain my presence should I need to, without having to mention the old knife.”

His host nodded and shared in the subterfuge with a smile. “By all means, Émile, proceed. I’m at your service. What’s this about?”

“Thank you, sir. I don’t know whether you’ve been informed, but you have been cited as another’s man’s alibi. If I may, I’d like to follow that up. I’m still on the case, you see, to solve the original theft of the dagger. More particularly, to solve the murders that occurred that night.”

Crossing his legs, and clearly intrigued, Trudeau invited him to proceed.

“On the night of the Richard riot—needless to say, you remember it …”

“I was there. Only one man might suggest me as his alibi for that evening.”

“Who might that be, sir?”

“Father François Legault. But you’re not inquiring after him?”

Cinq-Mars dismissed the concern with a grimace and a shake of his head. “To unravel an old crime, where the trail’s gone cold, it’s necessary to start from scratch. That means talking to a lot of people and rechecking what they say.”

“I see.” He crooked his head a little, smacked his lips slightly, then declared, “I did meet up with Father François that night, if that’s what you want to know.”

“And how was that?”

Trudeau moved his hands apart in a gesture of openness, then brought them together again. “Like me, he was away from the riot, as I recall. I just arrived and assumed that the action would come towards me, to Phillips Square, so I waited for it to present itself. Father François was also in the square that night, apparently to recuperate. He’d had a bit too much excitement already.”

“What sort of excitement?”

Animated whenever he spoke, Trudeau waved his hands and flipped through an impressive repertoire of facial expressions. He possessed a mercurial mind and a core moral foundation, but his principal asset as a politician had become his ability to communicate effectively, and to do so wonderfully on television. His wit, which he sprinkled with derisive remarks, snapped into a microphone while faultlessly avoiding the clichés that so riddled the speech of his rivals. He also utilized a plethora of gestures, his mouth, eyes, eyebrows, cheekbones, chin and the tilt of his head active in his cause. In the comfort of the official residence at 24 Sussex Drive, with views from the high escarpment down through the trees and over the Ottawa River partially lit by lamps, he gave Cinq-Mars a brief sampling of those tics, and said, “A weak heart. Which we know about, right? I remember having a terrible thought that evening. Perhaps I shouldn’t admit it. But his jacket was undone, you see, and I thought, It’s because he’s fat. A skinny man, such as myself, would have buttoned up. After we sat around for a while, chatting, he buttoned up. Yet—not at first. We were together quite some time—I presume that you want to know all this?”

Excited, Cinq-Mars leaned in. “So the riot was in progress before you met?”

“I didn’t go downtown until after things had heated up. Émile. You don’t think he was involved in the theft of the knife and the murders, do you?”

“Did he initiate your interest in acquiring the knife?”

“I’d say yes, however—” The prime minister suddenly stopped.

“Curious,” Cinq-Mars said.

The young man extracted a notepad from his inner jacket pocket to jot down a few lines. Looking up, he wore his grin somewhat sheepishly.

“Forgive me, sir, but were the two of you, or either of you, rioting?”

Trudeau broke from his spell and had a good laugh. “Father François may have wanted to, that’s my opinion, but he was restricted by his health. He verbally harried a police officer, I remember that. Come to think of it, I may have pitched in. But no, we were not rioting. We were there as interested observers. I’m afraid I can’t help you very much, except to verify that, if called upon, I can honestly present myself as the good friar’s alibi—and he mine, come to think of it, should either of us require one.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that you may?”

The prime minister eyed him curiously. “Your interest, Émile, is in discovering who committed the murders on that fateful night, is it not?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

Trudeau crossed an arm over his torso, offering his wrist to support the opposite elbow, and placed two fingers, meditatively, along his left cheek. Cinq-Mars presumed that the man had something to say, but the words did not appear to be forthcoming. Instead, the prime minister posed a question. “How did you know that Father François initiated my purchase of the knife?”

“I didn’t, until you just told me.”

“You appeared to have known that.”

“I guessed, sir. But it was a reasoned guess.”

“How?”

Cinq-Mars hesitated, sorting through the detritus that had delivered him to that conclusion. “My friend, the young woman, told me that you possessed the knife. I examined everyone who was potentially involved, of course, and the only one from that night with a connection to you was Father François. He named you as his alibi. He didn’t know it, but in doing so, he tipped me off that he might be involved. Father François associated you with that night. When it came time to find a buyer, your name popped to mind—his mind. As well, of course, he’s incriminated as being a part of Houde’s deathbed confession. Though what was said on that specific matter is not known to me.”

Browsing through the policeman’s thinking, Trudeau lightly drew his right hand up and down his opposite forearm. “All right, then. But how did you come to consider Father François, of all people, ‘potentially involved,’ as you put it? I find this quite alarming, I must say.”

Cinq-Mars rocked his head from side to side, as though sifting theories. “I search for connections. Another man murdered around that incident was Michel Vimont, a friend of Roger Clément, who was driving a limo for a mid-rank gangster at the time named Harry Montford. Tracing the tracks of Vimont’s life, I discovered that he used to be the chauffeur for Monsignor Charbonneau.”

“There’s a blast from the past.”

“The much-maligned, much-reviled, Monsignor Charbonneau.”

“And much-revered,” countered Trudeau.

“Yet he had many enemies. I decided to discover if he had any friends. The one name that shone through on that list—”

“Father François Legault. Makes sense. Those two, I mean.”

“Father François was Houde’s priest, he was Roger Clément’s friend—he’s maintained close contact with the family—he was Charbonneau’s confrere—”

“And he also knew me.”

“From your Cité Libre days. If the dagger had been heisted by the right, how could any of those right-wing clowns go to you to help them out by buying the dagger? The idea is ludicrous. So there had to be an intermediary. Another. Someone who both thought of you and could approach you. Among all the names I’ve dealt with, which one was leading me back to you?”

“Father François.”

“Although I did not know it for a fact until you just told me.”

“Émile, I hate to think what kind of detective you’ll make after you develop the powers of deduction you seem so willing to disparage in yourself.”

Cinq-Mars smiled briefly and realized in that instance that he had managed to forget himself and his frets for quite a few minutes. He was feeling good. This conversation had become an excellent dress rehearsal for what still lay ahead. He asked a few questions to draw out what Trudeau was willing to impart about how he acquired the knife, and the prime minister seemed to enjoy the retelling.

“The thug’s name was Harry, or Larry, or—Barry!” Trudeau said at one point. “It’s probably of no importance now, but he told me the name of his boss, too.”

“He did?”

“De Bernonville.”

“Whom you met in Asbestos, sir. Maybe that’s why he was willing to sell to you. Not that he had scruples.”

Trudeau rose to fetch the knife, took a few steps, then retraced them. “Émile,” he asked, “do you know why I admitted you into my office that day? You arrived to see me without an appointment, carrying just the tip of the dagger.”

Surprised by this turn, the cop put his notebook away. “No, sir. I presumed that presenting the knife’s tip to you snagged your attention. Perhaps, are you saying—? Did it have to do with what we previously discussed?”

“Which was?” the prime minister quizzed him.

“You said that the commissioner thought I looked intelligent. That you were only talking to reporters in those days—”

The prime minister, while smiling, was now waving him quiet. “I was only having a bit of fun with you. But before that, before I asked the commissioner to check you out—why did I even go that far, rather than have you turfed out on your backside?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Cinq-Mars acknowledged.

“The knife kept you in the building.”

“Sir?” Their eyes locked momentarily, until the prime minister broke that connection.

He returned to his chair, and stood behind it, resting his weight upon his forearms interwoven across the top of the chair’s high back. “The previous night, I solicited the knife’s help. Hearing that from me, you may want to reconsider your vote, if it happens that you voted for me. But it’s true. I’ve done it before, even though I’m really not inclined towards magic. We all remember the debacle with Mackenzie King, all the spirit-talk he was engaged in—brother. I wouldn’t want that on my record. If you tell the press, Émile, I’ll deny it, of course.”

“Sir, I wouldn’t—” He didn’t finish, realizing that the prime minister expected no response and was even having some fun with him.

“I asked the knife to help me. Call it a prayer, if you will. The next day, I heard that a police officer was trying to barge into my office. I was having you dismissed, when—out of the meditation from the previous evening, or out of some intuitive power that the knife itself possessed, I felt that I should admit you. A swift hunch.”

Cinq-Mars nodded, not knowing how to respond further.

“I still did not act completely on that intuition. First, I asked for your evidence. Then, when the commissioner attested to your intelligence, and mentioned that you were representing Armand Touton—who once tried to recruit me, did you know?”

“Really?” A surprise, but he wouldn’t put anything past his boss.

“I passed on that opportunity, but not without giving him a bit of a head’s up. The episode gave me respect for him. After you had evoked his name, I felt strongly that I should see you. The tip of the knife clinched it. So I did.”

Trudeau kept glancing down at him, then looking away, as though evaluating how his words were being received, as though to determine how much he might dare reveal to this young man.

“But the primary reason—” He stopped. This time, his gaze travelled through the window, to the falling snow. They both heard a dog bark three times. When he spoke again, his voice had gone sombre. Cinq-Mars could hear him, clear as a bell, but he guessed that if he moved five feet away the man would seem mute to him. “I felt the work of the knife in this … in your presence … but earlier than that, in the reports I was hearing of a half-mad Montreal police officer making a scene in the outer office. That was sufficiently bizarre to warrant my attention. So you see, Émile—and I trust that you appreciate the irony—only now that I am about to surrender the dagger to you have I come to believe in it. To trust it, in a way. In the past, I’ve had my suspicions that the rumours about the relic might have some faint validity. Those suspicions have grown. That’s one more reason why I want you to do your level best to protect it.”

The policeman did not feel he could mislead the prime minister in any way. “I will exert my influence, sir, on behalf of the knife’s security. Once out of my hands, it will be beyond my control.”

Trudeau nodded, conceding to that reality. “Do your best, Émile. That’s all I ask. I’ve come to believe that that might be significant.” He looked to the window again, as the barking had resumed, sounding closer now. “Lassie,” he noted, smiling, “seems chagrined.”

On the drive home that night, Émile Cinq-Mars had a little over two hours on his own to stew over a dilemma. He wondered if he was capable of exercising a similar restraint to that shown by the prime minister of Canada. Anik Clément was willing to tell him what she had gleaned in the closet as Houde lay dying, expecting that he would then submit the information to Pierre Trudeau. Would he have the willpower to let her know that that information was no longer required? Or would he listen to her story anyway, for his own edification?

After all, was he not a policeman, an aspiring detective? Did he not traffic in secrets? Did he not still have a crime to solve?

Along the highway, he pulled over. He put on his flashing cherries so that passing trucks and cars would be less likely to ram him from behind.

Snow fell lightly, enough to thwart visibility.

He snapped on the interior overhead light and picked up the modest wooden box that housed the Cartier Dagger.

There, by the side of the road, he took it out.

If the prime minister believed in it, and had asked the knife to help him with a national crisis, then why should he not request help to solve his own critical case? What possible harm could that cause? Besides, was the knife not intricately involved in his investigation, given that it had been the murder weapon? Given that it already knew the answers he sought?

He held it in his grip awhile.

Then, carefully, he put the knife back in its cradle and turned off the interior light. He had to wait for a car to pass before pulling out onto the road. The driver slowed, then braked again, not atypical of a speeding motorist passing a police cruiser, but perhaps overdone. As the car passed him, Cinq-Mars spotted a collie in the rear seat turning to look at his vehicle. Cinq-Mars remained still—frozen. Lassie! The car carried on, and vanished over a low crest down the road. Slowly, he pulled away from the shoulder and drove on. He kept his speed down awhile. His blood ran cold. After a mile or so, he remembered to turn off his flashing overheads. Then he sped up, but never encountered that car again.

Émile Cinq-Mars met with Anik when she was alone at her mother’s house. He carried the treasure, within its wooden case, inside a shoebox.

“You look like a terrorist,” she said, “toting a homemade bomb.”

“I feel like a thief. Toting a bomb.”

He opened the box on the kitchen table, but suddenly Anik did not want to look at it. Not yet. This was the foul weapon that had killed her father, which remained her governing interest. Her curiosity about the knife, its appearance, its effect on her, still resided across an emotional and turbulent divide.

“I’ll check it out,” she promised, “when I get my courage up. On my own.”

Anik had recently rented an apartment, but her old bed remained available to her in her mother’s house. She hid the knife under the box spring, then the two of them ventured outside for a walk in the winter air.

“Nobody followed you, right?”

“Already you’re paranoid. Owning that knife won’t be easy.”

Anik smiled, while willing to take his point seriously. She told him, “I don’t really own it. Nobody does. Or can. Don’t worry, it won’t be under the bed for long.”

“I took precautions getting here. Every trick in the book. Nobody followed me.”

For a while, they strolled along in silence.

“What about the other guys?” she asked. “Laporte’s killers, Paul Rose and them? Any news?”

“Do you know where they are? Can you help?”

She appeared a bit cross, knitting her brow. “I don’t know where they are, and I’m not going to help. I’ve meddled too much already. But you’ll find them. I have a really strong impression that they have a lot of friends who aren’t feeling quite so friendly anymore.”

“That’s been my impression also. They got away with hiding behind a false wall once. That won’t happen again. They shouldn’t have shown up the cops the way they did. Smearing their fingerprints around, that sort of thing. Now every cop takes it personally. Next time, we’ll do better.”

“I can imagine.” She seemed far away from him, adrift.

“Next time, cops will blow up a building before they risk leaving someone inside undetected.”

He didn’t receive the smile he was hoping for, and they resumed their quiet time together.

Without speaking, the pair decided upon a mutual destination—a scruffy, nearby park. Each year, the grass came up, and each year, it was worn back down to dirt by children at their summer games and by adults wandering through for a small dose of tranquility. Now it was well groomed with about an inch of fresh, powdery snow. The benches had been cleared, most likely by teenagers needing a place to neck in winter, or somewhere to sit and smoke, and by aging, saggy bachelors who’d arrive each morning with small sacks of cornmeal for the cooing pigeons. As the pair sat down, a flock flew into the park, appraising the possibilities.

“I’m presuming that you understand the risk, Anik. No one can ever know that you possess the knife. That kind of information makes you a target.”

“You know,” she said. She smiled.

He shook his head. “I’ll keep it to myself. But I don’t want to know anything about the knife—what you do with it, its whereabouts, whatever. Not unless you donate it to a museum.”

“I’m not giving it to a museum,” she revealed. “It’s stolen property. But why don’t you want to know? Can’t you trust yourself?”

The question was valid—a good one, really. He knew he’d take knowledge of the knife to his grave, and never betray her, so that wasn’t the source of his anxiety. “I don’t want you to trust a soul. Beginning with me. Tell me what you tell everyone else—absolutely nothing. If you were to tell me about the knife, I’d be afraid that you’d speak to someone else someday. A future boyfriend, a husband, a child. That won’t be good, Anik. It’ll never be good.”

She sat still on the bench, observing a pigeon. She thought it looked like a juvenile delinquent. Maybe the bird had been studying the attitude of kids in the neighbourhood. “Trudeau knows I have it,” she said.

A valid concern. “I haven’t mentioned your name, but he knows it’s going to Roger Clément’s daughter. So, yeah, he knows you have it.”

“So I’m at risk.”

“That’s what I’m saying.” Cinq-Mars nodded. “Truth is, I want you to think that way. I believe Trudeau’s accepted the loss. He feels it’s been a good trade. He won’t seek you out. He won’t be inclined to blab about it, either, not as long as he’s a politician. How can he bray that he had once owned a murder weapon? Then again, there’s not much stopping him. Someday, he’ll be out of office. That’s why I want you to be wary of everyone.”

If her friend was looking to scare her, or at least make her especially cautious, he was succeeding. “Armand knows I have it. That means you told him.”

“He’ll keep your secret.” He placed his hand on her wrist. “But, Anik, you see, this is what I’m talking about. I didn’t tell him.”

“You must’ve. Émile—he knows. He called me while he was negotiating with the kidnappers. By then, he already knew I bargained for the knife.”

Cinq-Mars did not dispute her argument—rather, he nodded to confirm it. “He had a few things to go on, that’s true. But you see? I never told him. He just called you and made you admit to having the knife, or to say that you were expecting to get it soon, by pretending that he already knew. It’s an old technique. I didn’t tell him.”

She crossed her ankles, just for the relief of getting one foot off the frozen ground, and squeezed herself more tightly against the chill. “It’s a nice lecture, Émile. Armand said similar things. He was worried that other people would come after me. I didn’t think he was only digging for knowledge. Look, I intend to keep quiet. I’m not telling anyone. Not even my mother.”

“Good for you. That’s how it has to be. Whatever measures that go beyond your death—”

“Oh, will you stop worrying. I’m not a child, Émile.”

“Just don’t trust people.”

“I heard you the first time. Honestly. Who are you, anyway? Émile Cinq-Mars, country boy. Comes to the big city and now distrusts everyone. He’s rational about all things. What’s happened to you, country boy?”

He shrugged, and offered back a smile to her tease. “I’ve figured out a few things, I guess.”

“Like what?”

“I have my secrets, too,” he said, being cagey.

“I’m sure you do.”

“Anyway, I still have a job in front of me.”

“Trudeau’s report?” she inquired.

“What you heard in the closet. Yes. The report to our prime minister.” Cinq-Mars nodded, thinking, wondering. “I can set that up.”

She shook her head no. He expected that she’d choose the method they had already agreed upon. “He might throw stones at me.” The remark broke them up a little. “I’ll tell you what I heard in the closet. Then you can tell him.”

Cinq-Mars stared straight ahead then, at a few cars in their bright progress down the adjacent boulevard. He was waiting to hear himself say something of ready importance, waiting to hear himself stop her from speaking. From a distance, a dog’s bark distracted him.

“Émile?” Anik inquired.

As the priest admitted a friend into the church house from out of the snapping cold, Teilhard, the parish cat, poked its nose through the front door. Before its passage could be blocked, he scooted outside. The animal did not go far. This was a day for neither man nor domestic beast. The temperature had plummeted not long after Christmas, staying that way into mid-January. With its first full breath of icy air, the tabby appeared to freeze on the porch, then, stiffly, tried lifting all four paws off the mat at once, doing a dance. Bending down, laughing, the visiting policeman snatched the cat up to return it to the temperate climate of the rectory.

“You have a way with animals.”

“Poor thing’s in shock. He didn’t imagine it could be so cold out.”

“Now he’ll be depressed. Teilhard is miffed to be cooped up inside with the likes of me. Émile, you wanted to be a vet. What would you prescribe for my disgruntled feline?”

Cinq-Mars set the animal down on the hall runner, petting it a little more and receiving appreciative purrs in return. “A youthful playmate might do,” he suggested. “A female kitten.”

“Ha! There’s a thought. Are you sure you’re not thinking of yourself?”

“Father. Please.” He blushed, though.

The priest laughed, his big belly jiggling in his merriment. Cinq-Mars peeled his boots off by prying the heels down with his toes, then allowed Father François to give him a hand in removing his overcoat. “You’ll have a cup of tea, to brace yourself from the cold?”

“Thank you, Father.”

“Good!” He relayed the request to his housekeeper, and the two men made themselves comfortable in the living-room armchairs. “Now, to what do I owe the grand pleasure? I’m on to you. I know you’re not checking up on me without a good—probably a devious—reason.”

The younger man chuckled lightly. “Don’t you visit parishioners, Father, to see how they’re doing? Why be suspicious of me?”

“When I check on the welfare of my flock, I don’t do so equipped with the power to put them in jail. Perhaps I can ship them off to a lower inferno—although that’s arguable—but they still have the option of an audience with St. Peter—who’s tough, we’re told, but fair. The War Measures Act, on the other hand, or whatever it’s called now—the Public Order Act—is a powerful instrument without recourse to the courts or the saints. You could click your fingers and have me locked up, Émile. Is that just?”

“I’m not sure, Father. But I’d like to try it sometime, just for fun.”

The remark caught the priest by surprise, and he responded with another chuckle. Evidently, he was in a good mood, and smiled broadly as he watched the tabby leap onto the policeman’s lap. Cinq-Mars helped the animal settle in, petting its greyish, black-streaked head.

“You’ve made a new pal.”

“Indeed.”

“Teilhard believes priests have private pipelines to God, to dial up the weather. I’ve tried to explain, my God lets the weather take care of itself. My God maintains the attitude of a parent, one who believes His children ought to be seen but seldom heard. God will heed my prayers,” Father François continued in a whisper, “but only if He has nothing better to occupy His time, and never to effect a change of weather for a cat.” Then he returned to his usual voice levels. “But Teilhard—try telling him that. He’s not been persuaded. He blames the current cold snap on me.”

The cat looked over at him as though to agree.

“The workings of God—for that matter, of men—confuse us all, not just cats,” Cinq-Mars offered.

“Touché. That’s a hint, though, isn’t it? You’re here on a serious errand.” While he was doing his best to flaunt a relaxed manner and keep things light, Father François gave the impression of a man trying hard to be at ease, coming across instead as worried.

“As you can see, Father, I’m not in uniform.”

“Plain clothes.”

“Off-duty.”

“Ah. I wished I realized. But it’s not too late. There’s still time to cancel the tea and break out the port.”

“Or have our tea,” Émile suggested, striking a compromise, “and a brief, serious discussion, then move on to the port.”

“Fine with me. A warning, though. Our electric kettle’s on the fritz. The water takes awhile to boil. But I’m eager, Émile. What’s on your mind? Now that Laporte’s killers are behind bars, you and your fellow officers must be feeling vindicated. What did my old friend call me—a bleeding-heart liberal? Well, Trudeau, not Teilhard, is the cat who’s swallowed the canary now. Insufferable, don’t you think? The luck of that man, although I’m also pleased with the final outcome.”

The nod Cinq-Mars proffered, rocking his chin slightly, appeared noncommittal. He was playing his hand close to the vest. “My colleagues are relieved, sure. We pulled double shifts for months.”

“You could probably use some time off yourself. Instead of interrogating me.”

Cinq-Mars cocked his head. “A harsh word,” he pointed out. He tried to not let his tone go grave. “I want to check a few facts, Father, as I’ve been doing for months, with respect to the Richard riot.”

Father François shook his head. “You’d think that man would give it up, once and for all.”

“Captain Touton? No, Father,” Cinq-Mars corrected him. “I’m here on my own. I’m the one obsessed by those old events now.”

“Then poor you. Too bad you can’t take a pill for such an ailment. So tell me, how may I help alleviate your wretched curse?”

“Father,” Cinq-Mars spoke quietly, his fingers lightly caressing the ears of Teilhard, “if you don’t mind, I’d like our tea to arrive, then I’d appreciate closing the doors, to assure our privacy.”

The priest clucked his tongue. “I have a wee problem with that scheme. My housekeeper. I tend to close the doors on her whenever I open the port. She’ll be arching an eyebrow for a fortnight.”

Cinq-Mars lifted the cat onto the floor, weary of the weight. “Then we’ll have to break open the port, so your punishment won’t be in vain.”

“A shrewd mind.” The priest nodded. “You’re unorthodox. I admire that.”

Ensconced, finally, to his liking, with even Teilhard dispatched from the room after the tea’s arrival, Cinq-Mars asked the cleric if he had anything to say about the night of the Richard riot.

“Say?” the priest asked. “You once aspired to the priesthood, but that old desire does not elevate you to be my Father Confessor.”

“She was in the closet, Father,” Cinq-Mars told him.

“Excuse me?” He hesitated before asking his next question. “Who was?” And hesitated again. “What closet?”

Cinq-Mars nodded, as though to relay that his host had managed to figure out the question, even if he wasn’t willing to admit to it. “Anik, Father. She was in the closet when you took Camillien Houde’s last confession. As the English say, ‘The jig is up.’”

The priest’s natural jocularity dissipated, and he sought momentary refuge in his tea. Cinq-Mars noted that his first concern, when next he spoke, was for his office. “Émile, a privileged conversation. I have never repeated what was said back then, but more importantly, no one should. Not even Anik.”

“She’s no more bound by your oath than I am.”

The padre’s head jerked back as if from an impact. “Both of you are bound by the moral issue here. The mayor’s confession was between himself and God—I was merely an intermediary.”

“I understand that, Father. Nonetheless, information has been obtained.”

The priest’s second concern, Cinq-Mars observed, was for Anik. “That poor child. We talked about the death of her father, Houde and me. And it was, in a word, grotesque.”

“I know,” Cinq-Mars told him.

They gazed at one another steadily.

The priest revealed, then, a third concern—this one for himself. “What she must think of me.”

The cop did not respond, but studied his hands.

Father François declared, “I think we’re past due for the port.”

“As you like,” Cinq-Mars concurred.

The tea was set aside, the port poured, and Cinq-Mars was content with his first sips, warming bones that still felt a chill from his trek through the cold.

“That’s better,” the priest surmised. “Now, what is it you’d like to know that you have not already gleaned from Anik’s wayward eavesdropping? Oh, that child.”

Cinq-Mars carefully formed his question. “Her testimony gives me information, but not explanation. You were involved in the sale of the murder weapon, but why? How did that come about? Why would anyone ask you, of all people, to be an intermediary for that task?”

The large man shrugged and resorted briefly to his port. “The sellers found themselves in desperate straits. Their precious knife had become a liability. De Bernonville wanted only money. Houde desired his legacy enhanced, so that he might be seen as a great Quebec hero. How could that happen with two men dead? One, a friend of his. The other, a public servant. The knife not only had the power to incarcerate him again, it now had the power to pummel his legacy. Potentially, he might be remembered only as an accomplice to murder.”

The telephone rang, but Father François indicated that the housekeeper would answer.

“And the other one?” Cinq-Mars dared to ask.

“What other one?”

He smiled. “Politics makes strange bedfellows, they say. That must be equally true of crime.”

“More so, I expect,” Father François admitted, and offered an affirmative guttural grunt.

A knock sounded against the door from the kitchen, and the housekeeper poked her head in. “Telephone, Father.”

“I am not to be disturbed, Madame Caron.”

“The port!” she called out, and almost stormed in. “At this time of day!”

“We are discussing a matter of the utmost gravity, Madame Caron. The utmost—” Father François paused on the word—”gravity.” After she had vanished once again, he confided, “Our code for death. Please depart with sombre visage.”

“Of course.”

Impossible to fathom now, Cinq-Mars was thinking, but his life might have gone this way. Were it not for the upheavals in Church and state, slipping into a priest’s cassock might have become his most natural and available endeavour. He, too, might have brokered his days negotiating the terms of his existence with housekeepers and cats. As the lives of priests went, Father François had not settled for the common routine, having chosen instead to be politically active and involved, perhaps, in criminal conspiracy. Yet he, too, had failed to evade the curse of the cassock, and slowly, steadily, succumbed to a lonely bachelorhood. Cinq-Mars felt relieved, and thanked God on the spot, that he might hope to avoid that destiny.

“Where were we?” Father François inquired.

Cinq-Mars did not want him to feel that their discussion was anything less than friendly. He lifted his wee crystal glass and declared, “I was sipping my port, Father. You’ll forgive me, but that’s where my concentration lies at the moment.”

The priest winked at him and raised his own. Finishing, he poured himself another, and held the bottle across for Cinq-Mars to stretch out and receive.

“The other fellow,” Father François embarked. “Camille Laurin, you mean? As Houde was keen on his legacy, so was Laurin dedicated to his political future. He no more wanted to be associated with a murder weapon than he wanted to contract leprosy. Of course he wanted to sell—everyone was desperate to sell. The problem was how. No one had experience pawning stolen artifacts. What they did know was that two men besides themselves had been involved in the heist—you don’t mind if I use that word? A fun word. Heist.”

“Go ahead. Now, when you say two other men, you’re referring to …?”

“Duplessis. Because he initiated the idea of stealing the knife. Roger was commissioned, shall we say, by him to swipe the knife. But nobody, not even Roger, wanted Duplessis to have it. I’m sure Carole Clément would have had his scalp had that occurred. When it came time to sell the knife, the premier might have presented himself as a potential buyer, except that he was notoriously poor, a pauper in his personal life. While he was a man of many marvels, no one figured that he could tap our tax money to purchase stolen property. Even if he could, it would have rotted Houde’s socks, not to mention Laurin’s, to see Duplessis acquire the knife. So he was out of the picture in the blink of an eye.”

“So that left the second man,” Cinq-Mars intimated.

“Me. Who represented the Catholic Church. Never mind that I didn’t really, and that Monsignor Charbonneau, whom I did represent, was poorer than Duplessis, and poorer than me. Which is saying something. Like le Chef, we were willing to receive the knife from Roger for free, but we did not have the means to purchase it ourselves. But the sellers were not aware of our circumstances. They figured that, since I was a priest, I was probably representing the Church that dreadful night in Dominion Square as we stood below the heels of the Scottish poet. My resources, then, might conceivably be the resources of the Church. Perhaps, it’s true that I guided them into thinking that way. Also, their culpability was already known to me, so I was a safe person to contact. So, they called. Would I like to buy the Cartier Dagger?”

Cinq-Mars encouraged him, tipping his glass. “That put you on the spot.”

“It did. I had to grasp this matter quickly. If I did as they desired and brought it to the attention of the bishop, I’d risk allowing the conservative element within the Church to get their hands on it. It’s alleged to have properties, you know. The liberal element—we’re stronger now, but at the time we were an endangered species. So I concocted the scheme to get Trudeau interested in buying the knife. He had money, he was a risk taker, an adventurer—the illicit side of the bargain would not likely deter him.”

“You gave it considerable thought,” Cinq-Mars praised.

Father François ignored him, and in rhythm to his words, scratched his kneecap. “Unlike Houde and Laurin, he’d never been on the periphery of killing anybody. And I thought I could exploit his romantic weakness for the mythology of the knife, its cultural and historic properties, even for its purported magic. That was a hunch, but a good one. As well, he’s Catholic—more religious than he lets on—which was important to me. So a door opened, at least in my mind. I could imagine that someday he might bequeath the knife back to the Church, should the Church become more interesting to us all, more progressive. That was the best I could do under the circumstances.”

“Speaking,” Cinq-Mars mused, “as you were a while back, of rotted socks—”

The parish priest waited, his head dipped low and tilting forward, his body slumped well back in his chair with his hands knitted together again, resting upon the hillock of his bounteous belly.

“—it must have rotted yours dealing with de Bernonville, to know that money Trudeau paid for the relic would support him.”

Father François sighed, as though the burden remained with him. “Especially after that night in the park, him going off half-cocked like that, stabbing Roger—to see him benefit in any way, that was difficult to accept.”

“Why did he do it, do you think, stab Roger? Go off half-cocked? Again, it’s the explanations I’m hungry for.” Cinq-Mars could not dwell upon the matter at the moment, but he noted to himself that he’d become quite an adroit liar. A good thing that he laboured as a cop, for he might have made a formidable miscreant. He had to hold his exuberance in check, pretend that he had already known what he had only just now discovered: de Bernonville killed Roger. I’ve solved it.

The priest tossed up his hands briefly, as though to appeal to the realm of chaos for an answer. “The man’s a madman, a maniac. What did anybody expect? They thought he was a nice guy, a charmer, an entertaining fop? A dandy to invite up to the cottage for a barbecue and a swim? A bon vivant to deliver a bon mot over whiskey and cigars? What excuses did they make for the man? He liked to chat up the teenagers. About what? Methods of torture? I wanted to scream in Houde’s ear, even while he lay dying, ‘You idiot. He’s a Nazi! He tortured his own countrymen. He killed men himself. He sentenced others to the firing squad. He sent decent men and women, French Jews and Catholics alike, to graves, to concentration camps, into forced labour. What do you expect from a fiend like that? Witty conversation? What, exactly, did you expect?’”

By the conclusion of his spiel, the heavy man was half-bounding out of his chair, the veins in his reddening temples more marked. He settled back then, and his guest had the impression that Father François had reminded himself to be calm, for he did not possess a constitution for intemperate outbursts.

“Sometimes, in this land, we delude ourselves. That’s a great part of our heartbreak.”

“In any land, I think,” Cinq-Mars considered.

“We have a knack. A genius.”

The policeman gave the priest time to collect himself. He had come to the rectory to undertake a subterfuge. So far, the matter was going well.

“You ask why he killed Roger. A good question. One that’s unanswerable. Among ourselves, those who were there that night, we have tried to delve into his heart and mind. Why else did Houde ask that I become his priest as he lay dying, if not to discuss that night with me, alone, under the seal of secrecy? And me, the left winger. I’ve broken bread with Laurin, who puts on a good show now that he’s in the Parti Québécois. Really, in his heart, he sits to the political right of Genghis Khan’s hangman. What did we discuss? A priest who is meant to know the hearts of men, and Dr. Laurin, the psychiatrist, who is meant to know their minds? We discussed the heart and mind of Count Jacques Dugé de Bernonville.”

The port gave him an excuse to pause, and this time they leaned across, at the priest’s instigation, to clink glasses. Both men drank to their own good health.

“What did you surmise, the two of you?”

“Laurin had his cockamamie notions, his usual psychobabble. This is what I intuit, Émile, and I trust this thought: de Bernonville was more like me than I care to admit.”

“I don’t follow.” The thread was unexpected, for he’d be hard pressed to discern two lives more divergent than the Nazi’s and the rebel priest’s.

For a few moments, it appeared as though Father François really didn’t care to admit to the similarities between himself and the count.

Then he began. “In my youth, my politics took me further to the left than I care to acknowledge today. I believed in revolution, even that. I also believed that revolution was as inevitable as the next ice age. A matter of an interval, sluggish though it may be. But my politics then, Émile, are best summed up as idealistic. I was fiercely derisive of the status quo, conscious of every failing of whatever regime had assumed power—which was never difficult, not here in Quebec, under that megalomaniac’s consumptive gaze. But one tyrant is not necessarily the equal of another.”

“Duplessis, say, compared to a Hitler.” Cinq-Mars felt the need to contribute.

The priest shrugged. “Same birthday, those two—a year apart, but oceans apart politically, despite the natural sympathy of one for the other. Duplessis was a quaint potentate, no worse. In the fifties, we were learning more about the tyranny of Stalin, and that dashed a few lefty illusions. When I reflect upon how the young people we recently dispatched to Cuba think, I know that there but for fortune, go I.”

“Really?” He was not surprised that Father François would vouch for them.

“I might have been persuaded, in the right company, or the wrong company, to commit such acts. Trying to acquire the dagger—I assumed there’d be no violence. I could not imagine that two men would die. There I was, a naïve priest, involved in an illicit enterprise that came to a tragic end. Idealism walks on the wild side and gets crushed by the real world. Is that so different from the experience of those now in Cuba?”

“Speaking as a policeman, they committed the more heinous crimes. Your crime, and it is a failing, has been to be a closed-mouthed witness.”

“I don’t disagree with you. Yet there, but for fortune.”

Cinq-Mars adjusted his weight in the chair and moved a hand down his jaw and neck in the midst of his contemplation. “But how,” he asked, “does that make you at all like the count? Are you suggesting that he was once an idealistic young Nazi, deserving our sympathy?”

“He was never deserving of a sympathetic nod from a soul on this earth. God may find the capacity to love such people. Mortal men need not bother.” He chuckled mildly, making his large belly quake. “All right. So the socialist in me is talking, not the priest, but life is jam-packed with contradictions.”

“I’ll forgive you, Father.”

“Thank you, my son. And yet, I tell you, de Bernonville and I were more alike than I care to acknowledge. You see, the count recognized, as have I, belatedly, that those who aspired to one movement or another—my left, or the right of Houde and Laurin—were innocent in the ways of the world. This society’s eminent names, Abbé Lionel Groulx and Henri Bourassa, and that slew of followers and potentates, many of whom should’ve known better, all enchanted by the rise of some great leader to reshape their existence, to reconstitute their paltry lives as men—infantile! Philosophically, socially, psychologically, politically—infantile! The count wanted to make that point. He’d grown weary of aimless discussion. What uprising could there be without action, without death, without carnage, without murder? And so, he murdered poor Roger, to deliver us from our innocence, to stain our lives and our souls for all time, to demonstrate the difference between our idle chatter and pathetic posturing and what it really meant to be a Nazi.”

Cinq-Mars was finding knots amid the threads that were difficult to unravel. “Are you suggesting, Father, that we’d be better off if we all went around killing each other?” He was trying to lessen the other man’s earnestness.

The priest didn’t seem to mind the question, initially. “According to de Bernonville, yes.” He wet his lips. “But the glory of our people, our greatest blessing, which is something that a man like him could never appreciate and would only seek to destroy, is that we’ve remained peaceful. Our penchant for rioting and outbursts aside—you know, for a Latin people, we’ve stayed within the bounds of decorum, don’t you think? Especially when you consider that we derive from rowdy stock, Émile. We’re not a nation of clockmakers. Of priests and nuns, perhaps, and of farmers, but our forefathers also explored every nook and cranny of this continent, long before the Americans knew it was there. Lewis and Clark go west, and who do they find? Indians and Frenchmen. They ask, ‘Where do we go?’ And a French guide says, ‘Follow the trail I marked.’ So no, my son. Guard your tone in the future or you’ll be served no more port—we should not go around killing each other. We’ve managed to do very little of that and must stay the course. For the sake of all humanity, I suggest it. At this point, if we can’t be peaceful, who can? Now, you’ll forgive me for preaching, but what has happened here, Émile, while hard won, has all been forming. We don’t know our way. Partially because we lie to ourselves, and defeat ourselves, and do not accomplish enough on our own, and partially because it’s all been so difficult and—I know, I know, the Church, despite its extraordinary history has also gotten in the way of our progress. And the English, well, I’m not one of those who blames them for everything, for that is infantile, but there’s so many more of them on this continent and they’ve only been forming, too, finding their way. Canadians would probably be Americans if not for our influence. So I say, Émile, let’s accomplish a whole lot more. Learn more and do more so we won’t always act out of weakness. We have driven down a few dark roads, but we have miraculously avoided the great tyranny of war. We can build on that. Let’s accomplish much, then, out of our potency, if a priest may use such a word, and out of our strength—the opposite of Laurin’s vision—we can decide how things will be with us. Soon enough we’ll know what to do with our rugged, cold, astounding homeland.”

The priest had begun sermonizing, and respectfully, Émile assumed a meditative posture to reflect upon his words. He was impressed by the sense of time and long struggle, the wrestling with processes, and ideas, and one’s own conscience embedded in the man’s acquired wisdom. Experience, he thought, might be the word he was searching for. The priest had perhaps not accomplished so much in his time upon the earth, but he had been involved in many projects, and had examined the world, at least as it had been presented to him in his vicinity. Cinq-Mars admired that in the man.

The young cop had taught himself—and his mentor, Touton, had underscored the lessons—to lose neither the objectives nor the threads of a conversation. He felt obliged to pull the priest back to the raw core of this discussion.

“Father, you are both a material witness, and, arguably, an accomplice, in the death of Roger Clément. Would you not agree?”

Reluctantly, the priest did. “We heard that de Bernonville has expired, although no one knows for sure. So I doubt that your investigation will result in a trial. If it comes to that, then yes, Émile. As the English say, the jig is up.”

They sat in the gloom of the afternoon awhile and continued to sip port. As he stood to depart, Cinq-Mars thanked his host, then suggested that he owed him a few words of apology.

“Why’s that, Émile? We only speak truth today. What apology is required?”

“We’ve spoken truth, Father. But I’ve not been thoroughly forthcoming.”

“How’s that?”

His boots on, Cinq-Mars adjusted his coat over his shoulders and fixed the collar, which had gone inside out. From the pockets, he retrieved his hat and gloves.

“Forgive me, Father, but I must tell you that Anik Clément was in the closet, and heard everything that passed between you and the late mayor.”

“As you said,” Father François noted.

“I asked Anik to tell me nothing of that conversation. To keep it between herself, you, Mayor Houde and God. That’s what she’s done.”

The rotund man stepped back and cast his glance away to consider this report. When he returned to gaze upon the aspiring detective, a smile bent the corners of his lips. “So you have tricked me, Émile.”

“I have, Father.”

“But I don’t understand. How did you acquire a confidence, shall we say, in my guilt? You told me that I sold the knife.”

“Trudeau let slip that part. He also told me that when he met you during the riot, you were physically exercised. Your coat was unbuttoned. To me, it sounded as though you might have been running. You’ve never been a jogger. What had occurred that night, I asked myself, to burn a fire under the seat of your pants?”

The priest blew out a gust of air and smiled again. “I should be enraged. Instead, our talk today has left me strangely unburdened. I will deny it, of course, in a court of law,” he said, but he was enjoying the game now, “but you have proved yourself today, twice over, and require no forgiveness.”

“Twice over, Father?” He pulled his wool cap onto his head and donned his gloves for the frigid burst of air soon to assail him.

“You’ve succeeded in your work as a detective, Émile. You’ve succeeded also in the work of a priest, in allowing me to unburden myself after all these years. Thank you. But next time, I’ll be sharper. I shall not drink port with you so early in the day again.”

The cat bolted past them once more, and again the policeman made the arrest, depositing Teilhard back from where he came. “I don’t think he’s too bright.”

“Right you are. I would never allow a smart cat into my house. You’ve been the only exception, and look what’s happened here.”

Cinq-Mars went on his way, hunching his shoulders to fend against an Arctic howl.