Gamache walks in bitter cold to his lunch with Émile and the Société Champlain members, heading for Québec City’s Chateau Frontenac hotel. Gamache is lost in thoughts of the colony’s early settlers, their struggle with the elements and the deaths of many early arrivals. Over lunch, the men watch an ice canoe in the distance, and one of the men argues that Québec itself is a water craft, specifically a rowboat: “We move forward, but we’re always looking back” (148).

Turning to the case, Gamache asks those assembled if there is any possibility Champlain could be buried under the Literary and Historical Society. They explain that only a few locations could be his resting place, as the area where he died is marked by the statue Gamache observed during his walk. The Literary and Historical Society was not yet settled at the time. The men largely dismiss Renaud as an eccentric “crank,” though one suggests that Gamache meet with the priest at the city’s Notre-Dame Basilica, who knew him.

The narrative shifts to Beauvoir, at a prison in Montreal to visit Olivier. Olivier agrees, finally, to tell the entire truth, describing his relationship with the Hermit and his habit of selling some of his antiques, which the old man gave him in exchange for food.