"An inept burglary and grippe indeed": the enemy reads the death as assassination

pivotal · attested 30 April YDAU and ?/9 Nov YDAU

• When: the death is read and re-read across YDAU — Marathe on the mountainside (30 April YDAU), the Antitoi-chapter narration (?/9 Nov YDAU)
• What: Nobody on the Canadian side believes the accident. Marathe, to Steeply, with his false-sounding laugh: "And abruptly M. DuPlessis has now passed away from life. Under circumstances of almost ridiculous suspicion." — "An inept burglary and grippe indeed." The Antitoi chapter's narration (focalized through the cells he protected) goes further: "But M. DuPlessis had been martyred, an assassination only O.N.A.N. would be stupid enough to believe Command would be stupid enough to believe was merely an unfortunate burglary-and-mucus mishap." Against this stands the burglary scene's own frame — "It was either bad luck or kismet or so forth." — plus the federal rumor of event 8 pointing suspicion at Québec itself. So the record holds three incompatible readings at once: accident (the Gately-side narration), U.S.-side assassination (the cells' conviction), and the officially rumored Nucko-political job. Whether the burglary was targeted — by anyone, for the cartridges or otherwise — is never stated anywhere in the record, and this page resolves nothing; each reading is cited as written, and the question stays open.