I stared at Patricia in fascination and nodded eagerly. With what could have passed for a shrug, she picked up her notebook and wrote down a short text, the content of which was: ‘The police request that the person who visited the deceased Leonard Schelderup in his home in Skøyen on Sunday, 12 May between 10 p.m. and midnight, please contact Oslo Police Station as soon as possible. This person is not suspected of being connected with his death in any way, but must be cleared from the case.’
‘Ask for this to be read out on the radio tomorrow, and I would be very surprised if you do not hear from the person in question pretty soon thereafter. The person will no doubt be following news of the case closely.’
I looked at Patricia with some scepticism and pensively stroked my finger over the last sentence.
‘But, my dear Patricia, the person who visited Leonard Schelderup yesterday will naturally not contact us if he or she was, despite what we think, party to the murder. The opposite is more likely to happen. The person will not contact us for fear of being unfairly suspected of being involved in the murder. And possibly for fear of a public scandal.’
When I said the latter, my head finally started to clear.
‘Because we are talking about some secret lady love, are we not?’
Patricia sighed.
‘I thought the situation would be clear to any intelligent person under forty. But apparently that is not the case. Secret lady love or something of the sort is certainly an acceptable general description, yes. But that is only down to luck, really.’
I was not entirely sure what age or luck had to do with it, but nodded in agreement and took it to mean that we were talking about a lover. How Leonard Schelderup had met this lady was interesting enough in itself.
‘But how can you be so certain that this outsider, who left proof of their presence in the flat yesterday, did not murder Leonard Schelderup?’
Patricia sighed again.
‘Theoretically it is not impossible. But the very reason that Leonard Schelderup did not want police protection was clearly that he was expecting a visit from this person, and wanted it to go ahead as planned. He would hardly have done that if it was someone who might have a motive for killing him. It is of course possible to make mistakes. If any theory that it was an outsider with no connection to Schelderup Hall was to hold water, however, it would, to put it mildly, be hard to explain how this person managed to get hold of the revolver from the gun cabinet at Schelderup Hall.’
I had known that, just forgotten it – or so I hoped. Fortunately, Patricia was on a roll and promptly carried on.
‘Here is something to cheer you up: the investigation may in fact uncover a criminal alliance. But if that were the case, it would not in any way be linked to the murder, and would not be something that you or anyone else at the police station would wish to pursue through the courts in the given situation. And if we return to things that are of greater interest, in terms of the murder, the most striking thing in this case is in fact the murder weapon,’ she added, swiftly.
I felt somewhat at sea, but still made a feeble attempt to protest.
‘But surely that is the most obvious fact? You yourself just said that the revolver found at the scene of the crime was the murder weapon and that someone had taken it there from Schelderup Hall?’
Patricia nodded.
‘So far so good. But why on earth did the murderer leave the gun lying on the floor by the front door? If you can give me one credible reason for that, I am almost certain that I could promise to find out who it was within twenty-four hours.’
Unfortunately, I could not. I had not given the position of the revolver much thought until Patricia mentioned it now, whereas she clearly had.
‘This was in no way a crime of passion. It would seem that the murderer stole the gun from Schelderup Hall with the intention of using it to shoot Leonard Schelderup. It might of course be smart to take the murder weapon away with you in order to avoid leaving any clues. Or, one could leave the weapon beside Leonard Schelderup’s dead body, which would also open up the possibility of suicide. But why on earth did the murderer take the gun out of the room, only to leave it by the front door of the flat? Say, for a moment, that the murderer was very absent-minded and forgot to leave the gun behind and only realized this on reaching the front door, the most logical thing would then be to go back and leave it by the body. There are of course several possible motives here, that one or other of the inheritors wants to increase their share, or that there is an avenger out there who, having killed Magdalon Schelderup, has now started on his children. But neither of these alternatives give any reason to leave the murder weapon in such a peculiar place. So I simply do not have a clue what to make of the murder of Leonard Schelderup.’
The maid came into the room at this point and Patricia demonstratively kept her lips closed.
‘Excuse me, but are you Beate or Benedikte?’ I asked the maid as she approached with the dessert. I should not have done that. She looked questioningly at Patricia, who chose to answer on her behalf.
‘That is most definitely Beate. And, may I add, she is the only one you will see here now, because if Benedikte was here you would have no problem telling them apart.’
Patricia sighed and shook her head in exasperation, while the colour drained from Beate’s face and she looked as though she wished she was anywhere other than here. I could of course not help but ask what had happened to Benedikte. And I should not have done that either. Patricia immediately transformed into a gossiping teenage girl. And a rather self-centred and unbearable one at that.
‘Well, would you believe what the ninny has managed to do now? She let the latest of her halfwit boyfriends get her pregnant and so will now be busy with the preparations, delivery and consequences of childbirth for the entire summer. It is very tempting to say that she made the bed so she could lie in it. But it is Beate and I who have to bear the brunt of it, Beate because she now has to work every day for the whole summer, and me because the help I get will not be so good!’
Sometimes I seriously doubted whether Patricia was actually joking or not. This was one such time. I sat there, waiting for the laughter that never came. Patricia composed herself and apologized for her outburst. But she still looked more irritated than self-deprecating when she added: ‘It is all very inconvenient for me, just before summer. And I could never bear little children, not even when I was one myself. Excessive IQ is really not a problem in that family. Let us hope that Beate is smarter than her sister, though she barely knows what IQ is, all the same.’
Beate’s face blanched even more and she made a hasty exit as soon as she had gathered up the plates.
There were times when I wondered whether Patricia was serious, but knew that she could be truly horrible. And this was certainly such an occasion. But at such a critical stage in a murder investigation, it would perhaps not be prudent to raise the issue. So I took the episode as another example of how self-centred Patricia could be, and how vulnerable she became when the order in her domestic universe was threatened. In order to lighten the situation as swiftly as possible, I quickly asked how she knew the Wendelboes’ telephone number off by heart.
‘I have memorized the numbers of all those involved. You have nothing to fear, though, I will most definitely leave all direct contact with them to you. I have always found it easy to remember numbers, and being able to keep telephone numbers in my head has proved – as just demonstrated – to be very practical.’
I had to agree with her, yet again.
XIII
Around nine o’clock I went back to the police station to finish my report. Once I had done this I wrote out Patricia’s suggested wording for a police bulletin. In the absence of any new findings, I could think of no other means of solving the murder of Leonard Schelderup. It was still a mystery to me who of the possible suspects might want to kill Leonard Schelderup and how it had come to pass. Even though I did not place as much weight on the position of the murder weapon as Patricia did, I had to admit that it was yet another puzzling piece within the greater mystery.