The Forest Lake Mystery Read online

  Holst immediately decided to visit the Captain and, putting all due consideration aside, force him to put his cards on the table and reveal everything he knew.

  XII

  When Holst arrived at the district magistrate’s home late in the evening, he was received by his housekeeper with the announcement that the magistrate had gone on leave the previous day accompanied by Captain Ankerkrone and the young Swedish lady. It had been decided a few days before and their destination was the Tyrol.

  Holst felt extremely disturbed by this news. That the district magistrate had taken leave while such an important case was in progress was his business. He had to admit that the prospect of a speedy resolution of the case was very small. That he had travelled together with the Ankerkrones was very unfortunate but also very natural; the friendship between the Captain and the district magistrate had become very close.

  But now Holst stood there. His superior was away; he didn’t want to decide the case with the chief clerk, an industrious Danish lawyer whose life was exclusively engaged in private business. He was thus forced to temporarily let that aspect of the case rest and, by visiting the equerry, Bror Sjöström, see if he could follow Lieutenant Sjöström’s tracks.

  In very low spirits, he was about to return to Elsinore after refusing the housekeeper’s hospitable invitation to stay in the magistrate’s house, when it suddenly occurred to him to go down to the farmer with whom the Captain had been staying, and where he himself had stayed, to see if he could find out anything about the sudden departure.

  His former host received him with great joy and, despite the fact it was late, he had a well-filled dinner table laid, to which Holst did great justice, before afterwards, equipped with a large toddy, talking about the old days.

  Holst only told him a little about himself; he didn’t have any experiences out of the ordinary to relate, he said, but he asked questions and it struck him how strangely circumstances had changed. Now he was sitting here, where he had so often been Ankerkrone’s guest, conducting the most painstaking enquiry into his ‘uncle’s’ life and times recently.

  It went very easily; the farmer admired the Captain and talked about him with the utmost enthusiasm.

  “Yes,” he said, “he’s a nobleman in the full sense of the word, a splendid fellow. Since I first met him, and until he left yesterday, there was not a bad word between us. He paid well, but he made no demands. He is unconditionally the best man I’ve met in my life. And the daughter – how lovely she is.”

  Holst thought of Ulla – yes, she was lovely and her father was a man of honour, beyond all doubt, but why hadn’t he been honest – or had he been honest? No – he had known that the murdered woman was Annie Cederlund; he had concealed it from the authorities; and he had had his reasons for concealing it. However, Holst thought that Ankerkrone should have shown greater trust in him.

  And he began to ask questions to find out when Ankerkrone had first set foot in the district.

  The farmer rubbed his neck.

  “Yes, I really shouldn’t tell you that,” he said, “but you’re a friend of the Captain, and it was a long time ago, so now I can talk about it. It’ll be some time before he comes here again, if he ever comes. His health was not at all good. He has had a couple of fainting attacks recently, after you left. The young lady was completely beside herself, and he bid me such a strange farewell. But we never know when we will depart this life. Yes, Captain Ankerkrone is an old acquaintance.”

  “So…” Holst began – it struck him that he should have known before, but in his relationship with Ankerkrone he hadn’t been on his guard; it wouldn’t happen any more. “When was it then?” he asked.

  The farmer blinked a little while reflecting on it.

  “It could have been back in the early eighties. I’d taken over the farm from my father, who lived in retirement down in the little house where my daughter and her husband now have their business. It was around summer time, then one lovely day, a Swedish gentleman came by with a lovely lady and requested accommodation for a couple of days. She was uncommonly beautiful, a little weak – I suppose there were reasons for that. What sort of person she was, I can’t say, but she was outrageously lovely, and he, by the way, was a charming person. They lived here for a month, went for walks, billed and cooed and were happy for each other. They weren’t married, but that was none of our business. He called himself Cederlund and her name was Annie. The loveliest little female anyone could imagine and, goodness, how much in love she was.”

  Holst drummed his fingers on the table.

  “All right… and then?”

  “Yes, well, they stayed a month and then they left.”

  “And then?”

  The farmer looked up at Holst with a wide, roguish smile.

  “When I saw him again this year, he was no longer called Cederlund, but Ankerkrone. I suppose he felt a little embarrassed by it, but he would surely have understood that I wouldn’t talk about it. And I wouldn’t have done either, by the way, even though those gentlemen from the police are so used to hearing all sorts of secret stories. And it was a long time ago now.”

  Holst had gone pale – he poured down a generous gulp of cognac toddy and leant back in his chair. He was extremely fascinated with what he had heard, even though Annie’s letters had clearly revealed her relationship with him. He knew who this ‘him’ was; it was Ankerkrone, and now here in this place where Ankerkrone had once more seen the woman who had been his mistress 20 years ago as a corpse – murdered and immersed in the deep marl quarry – he had been capable of implementing a complete charade with the man who had to bring the evil deed to light.

  Holst had arrived a day too late. The blood was pulsing in his temples as he instinctively got to his feet.

  “It’s warm in here,” he said.

  The farmer raised his glass.

  “Your health, Lieutenant – shall we drink a glass to our good friend the Captain and his lovely daughter, who has fallen rather heavily for you, believe you me.”

  Holst blushed, but drank the toast.

  “How did it actually come about that the Captain once again became a guest in your house?” he asked a little absent-mindedly.

  “It happened quite naturally,” said his host. “I had travelled down to Elsinore one day in early May, and then I bumped into the Captain and his daughter in the Railway Hotel. We began talking, they said they were heading south, and then I asked if they would like to pay us a visit. They did so and it resulted in them staying here for three months.”

  “And you recognised him right away?” asked Holst. “That sounds strange, given that you hadn’t seen him for twenty years.”

  The farmer laughed.

  “No, my memory isn’t that good, although when I think about, it’s not that bad either. But anyway, I wouldn’t have been able to recognise the Captain. I’d been at the Hotel Øresund – there was a meeting about some county business at the horse group I’m very involved in, sometime back in the spring. I’m just sitting there having a drink with a couple of friends, when I see a gentleman sitting looking straight at me at a table opposite. I thought I ought to know the face, but I had absolutely no idea who it could be. Then he gets up and comes over to me and asks if I’m Anders Mortensen from this town.

  “Yes, I am, I say. Did I recognise him? But no, I didn’t. Then he laughed and said, surely I remembered Mr Cederlund, and then I was immediately with it. But then I thought he became a little abrupt just as the young man he was with came over to him. He blurted out: This is my son. At that time, I didn’t get to know his name and a month later I met him with his daughter, and that was when we became very good friends. He probably thought he had been a little brusque with me last time.”

  Holst had been leaning back and listening with great attention to the long account.

  “When was the horse group meeting?” he asked, when the farmer paused for breath.

  “Well, I don’t know the exact date, but it was in late
March.”

  “Can’t you look up the date?”

  “Yes, just a moment – it’s in my desk diary. I have it organised on a sort of blotting paper, where I make a note of everything of that kind. Nowadays you can find yourself involved in no end of meetings and that sort of thing.”

  Anders Mortensen rummaged around in his papers and found the date.

  “It was on the 26th of March precisely this year. Yes, it was indeed and it was lovely spring weather; I remember I was driving in to town with my wife’s sister and we hardly had any extra clothing with us. Yes, now I’m sure, it was on the 26th of March this year that I saw the magistrate once more after a break of 20 years. It’s rather odd that it wasn’t until he came back that I found out his real name. My wife and I talked about it often – that it was a strange coincidence. We never talked about her, the young woman, him neither – it was probably just a floozy he had that time, but she was outrageously lovely too.”

  They talked for a while about the Captain’s health, which was bad according to the farmer. They hadn’t really noticed anything but eight days ago, round about midday, the Captain had been out to fetch the post; he came home and became extremely ill. The daughter thought he had been walking too briskly, and that was possible because it was very hot.

  “They sent a message for the doctor, but then it had just seemed to get better by itself. The Captain took it easy for a few days, then a friend of his came from Sweden, a tall, stately captain, a baron whom they called Uncle Holger – Kruk was his name, or something like that. He stayed a couple of days and then they decided to leave. They said they wanted to go to the Tyrol and the doctor thought it was a good idea to go up in the mountains where the air was supposed to be so light. Yes, we were sad to lose them. They were lovely people.”

  Holst went to bed late; he carefully read Annie’s letters and blamed himself bitterly for missing the most important clues. That was an unforgivable mistake.

  The next day he left for Scania to visit Equerry Sjöström at Riddartofte.

  XIII

  Riddartofte lies about a mile from Bjärsjöladugård station on the Eslöv-Ystad line, placed high up, surrounded by inviting beech forests overlooking Vomb Lake and the Romele escarpment across the plain surrounding Lund. A splendid gentleman’s seat with large buildings in the Dutch Renaissance style and numerous extensions. In a small pavilion, not unlike the bathhouse at Frederiksborg, the equerry Bror Sjöström lived in a neat little bachelor flat, which was taken care of by frequently changing housekeepers, who invariably allowed the old soldier to attack them, relatively quickly laying down their arms in the hope of winning the day, but who, not long after their defeat, were removed in pain and a great deal of sorrow and were found a place elsewhere at the expense of the estate, at least for the time being.

  The Count of Riddartofte, Tage Falkenberg, a friendly and pleasant Scania tycoon with an awful lot of inherited gold stashed away, had suggested admitting Sjöström to the main household. There was a trial run, but the Countess never allowed it to be repeated. And the compensation sum was transferred as a fixed component of the equerry’s already quite significant remuneration.

  Holst had let the equerry know that he was coming and he was picked up at the station in a smart little dogcart, harnessed to a pair of well-groomed Hungarian half-breeds and driven by a young, flaxen-haired coachman.

  In the door of the pavilion, known to the neighbours as ‘Arcadia’, he was received by an attractive, buxom Jewess, still in the initial stages of surrender, who smiled in a free and easy Swedish way with a pair of inquisitive eyes.

  It was ‘damnably stylish’ in Arcadia.

  The equerry appeared in an elegant dinner jacket and did the honours like a feudal vassal king at an enchanting party. It didn’t occur to him to ask the nature of Holst’s visit; he was the unsurpassed, dapper Swedish host, the born Scanian nobleman and warrior who is unique in this world.

  It was a little difficult for Holst to present his errand so he had to take a considerable detour. He had to admit that it was concerning Hugold and Bror Sjöström shivered at the thought. Hugold always meant paying out money; admittedly the estate financed it, but it always annoyed the equerry to have to draw on this limitless resource for that reason. The Count of Riddartofte had on one such occasion had words with his equerry in more serious terms than usual.

  “Dear Bror – I pay for your women with pleasure and joy. I have no one other than my dear wife myself, and the poor women have to live; to give to them is a noble duty, which you are also performing at Riddartofte, my dear Bror. As for your children, I pay for them too, for I have faith in your offspring, but that idler, your brother Hugold! No, now it’s enough.”

  The equerry knew that the Count invariably paid up, but he didn’t like it. Holst thus brought the matter up extremely carefully and said that he and a friend employed by the General Staff had met Hugold in Nice and made a deal with him there, which admittedly was insignificant, but a paper had been created that was waiting upon Hugold, and he wouldn’t deliver. It was only a trifling matter and it didn’t concern money, but Holst’s friend wanted the paper delivered and it was impossible to find out Hugold’s address.

  He wasn’t in Nice any longer – Holst had found that out through enquiries – and that was true enough. When the equerry realised that it wasn’t about money, he calmed down somewhat and told Holst that he didn’t know the whereabouts of his brother, who was regrettably drifting off course, but that he had met a neighbour at Eslöv Station who had opportunely told him that Hugold was now living in Venice with a charming girl, a little jewel, whom he was struggling to hold on to.

  The equerry shrugged.

  “Hugold is an idler – but he’s my brother. I’ve done what I can for him – I can’t do any more. Just as long as he stays away from Sweden and dies as a reasonably decent nobleman. I daren’t hope for more than that.”

  Holst stayed silent.

  “So, you know my brother Hugold,” continued Sjöström.

  “No,” said Holst, “not personally.”

  Sjöström took a picture off his desk; a tall, erect soldier, with handsome, regular features and a large blond moustache.

  “He was a bright lad,” he said with a sigh. “It’s these women who have spoiled him and especially that devil, Annie Bengtson, wherever in the world she may be.”

  Holst asked airily who Annie Bengtson was and learnt about the same as Kurk had told him.

  “Do you think it’s now over between them,” he asked cautiously.

  “I think so,” said the equerry. “In March this year, Hugold wrote to me that it was all over between them. He promised to come back here; he was in Helsingborg on some kind of business, but when I got there he had left. Since then, I haven’t heard from him, but my understanding was that the affair with Annie was over. Well now – so he’s found another one. These devilish women are the ruin of us men.”

  Holst smiled; at that moment, the house nymph showed up with the pousse-café; she looked like a hostess and moved around with a seductive lack of constraint in a demure outfit that had been adjusted in a suitably appealing way.

  The equerry nodded and lit a monstrously long cigar.

  Holst asked him for his card with a few words to Hugold as introduction should he meet him; he was on his way to Venice, and he would be happy to bring greetings.

  He was given it with a sigh and without ceremony. It was clear to him that there was not much more to learn here about Hugold, so he carefully led the conversation around to the Ankerkrones. He was particularly interested in finding out something about the young man and his relationship with Hugold.

  “Wasn’t Claes Ankerkrone a good friend of your brother?” he asked tentatively.

  “Of Hugold…?” Bror looked completely horrified. “That’s the first time I’ve heard that.”

  So, he didn’t know anything. Holst seemed to recall that Sjöström was the first to tell him about young Ankerkrone so he t
ouched upon this. The equerry shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “I know there is a tale about Claes gadding around France for a couple of years with a lady, but I’ve never heard anything about Hugold being with them.”

  “How did that end?” Holst asked.

  “Very unromantically,” said the equerry, “as it always does with those damn women. Claes’s pappa, old Ankerkrone, had to buy the lady off with Claes’s wife’s money, which is alleged to be inexhaustible. It happened at some point during the winter or spring, so I understand. The lady went away to the south and the old man took his son to Italy, where there was said to have been a tender reconciliation. According to some. Others say that when it came to the pinch, the lady ran off with someone else, and old Ankerkrone kept the money for himself, which was extremely reasonable because he needed it. Anyway, it was all sorted out somewhere in Denmark and we don’t talk about it. The Count here bumped into Claes in Venice a few days ago. He had just arrived with his wife and children when Tage Falkenberg was passing through the city. He was said to have been having a very nice time with his wife and yet it may be falsehood, all of it. Old Ankerkrone is extremely rarely here in Scania, yet he is a charming man and his daughter is pretty – unusually pretty.”

  Holst nodded.

  “I know them quite well. That is, I’ve met them. The Captain is a splendid man, a handsome man.”

  “Well, bless me,” said the equerry, sipping at a maraschino with much devotion.

  He was clearly reluctant to talk about Ankerkrone, and he had quite forgotten the indiscretion he had committed in his first meeting with Holst with regard to the Captain’s earlier life – or he didn’t care to be drawn into the question.

  Holst looked at him a little intensely under lowered eyelids and asked in a light tone whether he believed Captain Ankerkrone could commit any act of dishonesty.

  “Bless me no,” said the equerry, emptying his glass of maraschino. “He’s a complete gentleman.”