The Hangman Read Free

There were clothes neatly put away in the dresser and hung in the closet. Good clothes, but no designer labels.
    Opening the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, he found nothing unusual. Though there was a bottle of extra-strong aspirin. Did Mr. Ellis get headaches? The bottle was half empty. In the Gamache home, a bottle of aspirin could last him and his wife a year or more. Gamache glanced at the “best before” date. Still two years away. It had to be a fairly new bottle, and yet it was already half gone.
    He would ask Inspector Beauvoir to have the room searched for fingerprints, but he was certain this was where Mr. Ellis had spent his last days.
    They had not found a wallet on the dead man, and there was no wallet here. No papers at all to say who he was. And yet Mr. Ellis had signed the register and told people his name. He did not seem to be hiding.
    The facts didn’t make sense. Soon, though, all the things that seemed so odd would begin to form a pattern. And in that pattern Chief Inspector Gamache would find a killer.
    He stopped at the door for one last look.
    Then he saw it: something white, leaning against the white pillow as though resting.
    A letter.
    Gamache picked up the envelope. It was unsealed. With his gloves still on, he removed a single sheet of lined paper with very neat writing on it. All the letters were carefully formed in black ink.
    Did the writer know that the first person to read it would be a police officer?
    Armand Gamache put on his half-moon reading glasses and walked to the window. There, in the sunshine, he read the dark words.
If you are reading this, my body has been found. I am sorry. I hope the discovery did not upset anyone. I tried to go as far away as possible so that no children would find me.
My work is finally done. I am tired, but I am at peace. Finally.
I know you cannot forgive me, but perhaps you can understand.
    Gamache read the letter several times. It was a suicide note. He had read quite a few in his time, and none were clearer than this.
    Lowering the letter, he took off his glasses. He sat in a chair and stared out the window at the horses in the field.
    Mr. Ellis had intended to kill himself. And yet he had been murdered. Someone had beaten him to it.
    Why?
    Perhaps the murderer did not realize that Mr. Ellis was going to do the job himself. If the murderer had just waited a few hours, Ellis would have been dead by his own hand.
    Unless.
    Gamache looked at the letter again. It was neat, clear. Too clear? Surely someone about to end his life would tremble a bit? Would write quickly, before he changed his mind?
    This note had been written by a steady hand. No emotion here. Not in the words. Not in the writing.
    Once again, the chief looked out the window, as though the answer to his question was grazing in the field with the horses.
    Then he smiled. But it was not a happy smile. It did not reach his thoughtful eyes.
    He had his answer.
    The letter he held had not been written by Mr. Ellis, but by his killer. The murderer had tried to make the death look as though Ellis had hanged himself. This letter was meant to confirm it.
    Instead, the letter confirmed that Chief Inspector Gamache was on the trail of a cruel and cunning killer.

Chapter Five

    Back downstairs in the entryway of the Inn and Spa, Gamache met Inspector Beauvoir.
    “I’ve been thinking, Chief,” said the inspector, taking off his hat. His hair, normally so neat, stood on end. “Not everyone could carry a dead man up a tree.”
    “Then tie a rope around his neck and throw him off,” agreed Gamache.
    “Exactly. I’m not sure I could.”
    “If you were afraid enough, you could,” said the chief. He knew that fear was so powerful it made people do things they could not normally do. Like lift a car off a loved one. Or race into a burning building.
    Fear saved lives.
    But fear could also kill. It made men into murderers.
    Beauvoir nodded. “Still, the killer would need to be young and