The Forest Lake Mystery Read online

  The magistrate nodded.

  “That means that the murder – if it is a murder – must have been committed within the last five, or maybe only three, months.”

  “Five – probably,” said Holst.

  The magistrate looked acutely at the young man, as if inspecting him from head to foot.

  “Lieutenant Holst,” he said, “could you consult your superiors and get permission to be placed at my disposal in this case? You’re a talented man, and we’ll certainly be needing all the talent we can get hold of. This is a damnable story.”

  Holst bowed.

  “There’s probably nothing to prevent it,” he said.

  The magistrate turned around.

  “Get going immediately, Lieutenant Holst. I shall issue the necessary orders.”

  The magistrate went back over to the body. The Captain was in conversation with the district medical officer.

  “Yes, gentlemen,” the magistrate joined in, “we have some work to do here. You, Captain, were right in your judgement, though it wasn’t a child’s corpse we found in the quarry.”

  “There’s a possibility…” the doctor remarked drily.

  “I’m sure there is,” snarled the magistrate. “Nothing would surprise me any more.”

  The work was started up once again. A tarpaulin was spread over the body while the locomobile hissed and the screw squealed. But there was an oppressive atmosphere hanging over the men and little by little the crowd of spectators stole off while the magistrate and the district medical officer held the post-mortem and Holst and the constable carefully searched the area.

  The quarry was emptied and nothing more was found. Only the poor, frayed rags that the child murderer had talked about, and the naked body of the young, unknown woman, bound with two short, strong ropes around the feet and neck, but without a single characteristic or a fragment that gave them a clue as to who the murdered woman might be, let alone where the murderer was.

  The Captain walked homewards with the magistrate. He was, like everyone else, very unpleasantly affected by what had happened and emphasised strongly how sensible he had been to stop his daughter coming with them, on which point they were in agreement.

  Holst stayed behind after the others had gone. His brain was working overtime; there was something to get stuck into here – and under conditions that suited him down to the ground. He promised himself he would leave no stone unturned and the trail would be found. He was at last facing a task that required a man’s strength and engaged his commitment in working towards a real goal.

  IV

  The news of the murder spread across the country like wildfire. Correspondents and reporters from every newspaper came to the crime scene. The area around the empty quarry was so completely trampled down that all the vegetation was destroyed, and an excellent reporter from a major newspaper in the capital, whose speciality was the portrayal of forest idylls, had to go a couple of miles north to find some scenery that could lift his inspiration to the required heights of lyricism.

  There was no peace, day or night, for the magistrate; he welcomed the journalists with exquisite goodwill, as well as cigars and refreshments, announcing that he was prepared to make information available to them and doing so conscientiously. They were allowed to see and photograph the body, him, the constable and the child murderer; in short, everything they wanted.

  All the newspapers nominated the magistrate as the most talented, humane and discerning official in the country – to the immense annoyance of his colleagues countrywide and especially to the district medical officer who was secretive and unwilling to release any information and therefore presented as being an ignorant fool as the story of the food inside the child’s body came out and was exhaustively discussed.

  Holst was left in peace. A rumour asserted that the investigation was going to be entrusted to this talented policeman, who incidentally was not at all popular among the capital’s crime reporters, but when the rumour was confirmed, Holst could hide behind his new superior with great confidence and his protected position was respected.

  The woman’s corpse preoccupied the entire country for eight days. Every newspaper contained hypotheses, dates and conjecture of every kind. The afternoon press brought new sensational revelations every day, the main content of which was the information they promised to reveal the following day, but the mystery remained unsolved. The autopsy showed that the young woman had been killed with a strong, fast-acting poison and was dead when she was lowered into the water, but nothing more than that.

  Absolutely nothing was found in the quarry and its environs, which were searched and dug up. There seemed to be no information about whether the young woman had been seen in the surrounding countryside. Photographs were taken of the corpse, notices and descriptions issued, all sorts of people interrogated, but not one witness came forward or was found who ventured to say that the woman concerned had been seen in the area. When ten days had elapsed without anything new coming out, interest waned. Visits became fewer. The journalists began to assign the case to the ranks of the numerous undiscovered murders and the government opposition began complaining about confusion in the justice system and poor organisation within the police.

  In short, everything carried on the same as usual, which was most reassuring for everyone.

  But the magistrate and Holst got some peace; just what they had been waiting for. There was already a very large amount of material, admittedly mostly of a negative kind, but the preliminary autopsy and the investigations which had been set in train had provided them with quite a few areas to begin looking, all of which were of such a kind that they were less interesting to the press and the public than to the few people actually working on the case.

  These few were the magistrate, the district medical officer, Holst and Captain Ankerkrone. As far as the first three were concerned, their eagerness was perfectly natural; the Captain may not, strictly speaking, have been authorised, but he had been associated with the incident by circumstances, so he felt obliged to give his utmost attention to it. He was a sensible and serious man who never gave his opinion, but just listened, shaking his head approvingly or disapprovingly according to what was happening.

  He was especially interested in Holst and what he was up to. He was well aware that Holst was a man who had great ambitions and was also very able. From the first day, he followed his work with the utmost attention.

  Circumstances would have it that there was a room available at the farm where the Captain was renting accommodation. He drew Holst’s attention to this.

  Holst rented the room and although he insisted strictly on paying for himself, he gradually became the Captain’s guest without him noticing it. Nor could he hide from himself that he was becoming increasingly appreciative of the time he was spending with these two people and especially, of course, with the young woman who, with her fresh, cheerful warmth, contributed strongly to keeping his spirits up when the task was beginning to dishearten him.

  What particularly charmed him about Ulla Ankerkrone was the fact that she never said a word about the murder case, avoiding mention of it with genuine female tact, so that in her company he felt released from the daily grind and strengthened by the freedom and peace she provided.

  The Captain on the other hand was, as mentioned, extremely interested in the matter; he never talked about it in his daughter’s presence, but at night he frequently sat with Holst for hours and reviewed the material, without offering advice but always listening. Holst became used to regarding him as a silent colleague.

  Twelve days had elapsed and it seemed that they had made no further progress. Holst had been given the transcripts of the interrogations for review in order to organise the material for new interrogations, from which nothing at all was expected.

  The Captain came in to him as usual with a splendid strong cigar and a glass of punch. He asked Holst to repeat his account of the case and this he did – slowly and accurately.

  “There
’s not terribly much we can be certain about. As for the victim, we know that she’s a young woman, about twenty-five years old, probably not married since, while her fingers do bear the imprints of rings, there isn’t any sign of a broad, smooth, gold ring. Probably not from the so-called fine stratum of society; her limbs are indeed well-formed, her hands well-kept, but there are traces of previous employment and her feet are marked by footwear which wasn’t always of the best manufacture. Her torso bears the marks of excessive use of corsets; her hair has undoubtedly been coloured, a chemical test confirms this – it was originally ash blond, but has been treated with strong cosmetic colouring. Her skin is fine and doesn’t show any excessive use of make-up – on the contrary, her complexion was probably fresh and healthy. All the internal organs are normal, except for the effects of the poison. But the examination has also shown that the victim has undoubtedly given birth at some point, although it doesn’t seem to have been immediately before she was killed, more likely rather a long time back. The deceased appears to have breastfed her baby. No external characteristics or specific marks have been found at all, except that it would seem that individual marks on the fingers of the right hand indicate that the deceased at some time in her life has kept herself busy with sewing. But her nails have been cared for in such a way that there seems to be no doubt that the deceased had not participated in any manual work for a long time before she was killed.”

  Holst paused and took a breath.

  “As you can see, not so very little when all is said and done,” he added with a smile.

  The Captain sipped thoughtfully at his glass and exhaled a dense column of smoke.

  “That is to say, a demi-monde lady or at least an ‘easy’ woman from the ordinary people.”

  “Precisely,” replied Holst, “a young woman who, while not belonging to the really loose spirits, has probably not excelled in virtue and chastity, though on the other hand she’s been able to look after herself well physically and has not been encumbered with imperfections of any kind. Quite the opposite, she was as sound as a bell. That’s the positive part.

  “The negative aspect also provides one piece of information. She’s probably not from this country. Very exhaustive examinations have been undertaken. Everything points to a child of the big city and yet not one of our capital’s renowned street walkers has gone missing, not even one of those who few people are familiar with. The time of death is established by the relationship to the child’s corpse. The murder must have been committed after 15th December last year. I’m inclined to think well into spring, as the remains of the rags in which the child murderer wrapped the baby’s corpse are very much decomposed and were compressed under the woman’s corpse. No one has seen the woman in question here in the local area or in the capital – by which I mean, we haven’t been able to find anyone who has the slightest knowledge of her; a number of the people we have had in mind have been confronted with the corpse, but not one of them recognised it, not even our officers in the health police, who have extensive contacts in that world. In addition, the corpse’s face type was not really Danish. You will recall that you yourself immediately conceded that she was very likely to be a compatriot of yours.”

  “I did not,” said the Captain. “To tell the truth, I’ve hardly really looked at the body – it’s a weakness of mine, but one that’s easy to understand. You must be remembering wrongly there.”

  “That’s possible, although I’m in no doubt myself and the next step I took was to ask for information from Stockholm and Gothenburg, but it seems that not even there are they missing any lady from the sort of society I’m thinking about. Of course, it isn’t impossible that I’m mistaken, but I don’t personally think so at this point. That’s what we know about the murdered woman – it isn’t much, maybe, but you’ll admit that it’s something.”

  “Yes, certainly. What about the murderer?” asked the Captain. “What do you know about him?”

  “Very little. I suspect there’s jealousy involved – it’s definitely a premeditated murder. The girl has been poisoned by a calm, restrained man who has thought about all the possibilities. He hasn’t left a single thing on the corpse that could lead to it being identified. We’ve carried out excavations and used a dragnet in several water-filled pits in the forest. I hadn’t expected much out of it, since I’m convinced the man has taken away everything that belonged to the corpse. This indicates that he must have prepared his plan rather well and I’m inclined to believe that he brought a suitcase or similar and committed the murder on the spot.”

  “Why do you think that? Isn’t it more natural to assume that he took the body out there?”

  “No, that would be too difficult. He must have known the place and chosen it deliberately. I imagine that he arrived with the victim from Sweden to Elsinore and travelled here with her. I’ve authorised investigations to this effect but nothing has turned up yet. “

  “Why should the murderer be Swedish too?” said Captain von Ankerkrone, addressing Holst in rather a sharp tone. “Aren’t you Danes equally capable of murder?”

  Holst bowed slightly.

  “I’m not saying the murderer is Swedish. Only that the victim was and that they probably came here together from Sweden. However, I confess I know nothing at all about it. My following hypothesis is more interesting. I assume the man brought a suitcase out to the woods with him – that would look natural enough, wouldn’t it? After the murder, he packed his victim’s clothes in the suitcase and took it with him.”

  “Well I never!” The Captain pondered a while, but had to admit that it was a possibility.

  “But now it gets interesting.” Holst looked up with a glimmer of pride. “So far the killer has conducted himself in a very intelligent way, but now he commits his first act of stupidity, which he no doubt considers to be a very clever act and which, by the way, is quite well thought out, provided that he’s only dealing with total idiots.”

  “So tell me, what does he do?” asked the Captain, who was finding the case increasingly interesting.

  Holst collected himself.

  “If the murderer does what I want him to do,” he added modestly, “he calmly leaves the suitcase somewhere in a waiting room or train compartment and lets it be registered among the lost and found items, to later vanish without a trace by auction.”

  “Well I never!” The Captain sipped his punch with a little smile. “Yes, if these murderers are kind enough to do what the detectives want, it’s not really all that complicated.” Holst smiled.

  “Luck, Captain, luck – that’s what it comes down to. And so far I’ve been lucky.”

  The Captain rose and left the room. He muttered something into his beard about that detective being one hell of a chap, but there was something about Holst that he took to and the man was certainly very sure of himself.

  V

  Holst decided to take a trip to the capital to test his suitcase hypothesis, which was more a sudden idea he had had while in conversation with the Captain than an actual preconceived plan of campaign. It was raining so he couldn’t use his bicycle for the trip; it thus suited him rather well that Miss Ulla had an errand to the station to fetch her brother who had suddenly telegraphed his arrival.

  Their passage was slow up the sandy hill road as Ulla and Holst sat very comfortably reclined in the farmer’s fiacre carriage, which had the hood up because of the weather. The two had gradually become really good friends and the conversation was fairly brisk between them on all sorts of inconsequential things.

  Fourteen days spent at the same place ties many small bands and weaves thoughts, out of which camaraderie and friendship easily grows and Ulla’s lively, cheerful bearing had quite got the better of Holst’s restraint. They talked about the brother who was arriving. Ulla adored him; he was actually a kind of bright, handsome Swedish hussar officer, now a landowner as he had taken over his father’s estate, which lay between Eslöv and Kristianstad where the Scanian manor houses are closely p
acked together between the forests and bogs.

  The Captain had never run his estates himself, she told Holst.

  “Pappa’s an officer and loves to travel in southern Europe and in that regard ‘Gammalstorp’, as the estate is called, is not exactly a beautiful or amusing place to be, and if it wasn’t for my brother Claes being married to a very wealthy woman and having had everything appointed with such charm, he would hardly be able to stand the place.”

  “So your brother’s married?” asked Holst, who had now been offered the opportunity to make closer enquiries into the Captain’s family for the first time.

  “Yes,” said Ulla, “to a conventional but very sweet young lady from England. She’s extremely wealthy and very sweet – not exactly beautiful, far from it – but very sweet and very wealthy.”

  “Has your brother been married long?” asked Holst.

  “Four years, but Emily – my sister-in-law’s name is Emily – has been ill and has been living in the south for two years. There was a baby – a small one – who incidentally was close to dying but has now fully recovered. Now then, you can’t be interested in hearing about Claes’s family situation and, besides, it’s not all that pleasant.”

  Holst smiled.

  “Is that perhaps because your sister-in-law’s wealth was the primary consideration? I thought you emphasised it so strongly.”

  “Not exactly, but Claes is so bright, so handsome and so joyful, and Emily is so austere, such a philistine. Yes, well, you know us so well now, Lieutenant Holst, that I don’t need to keep it from you that Claes and Emily have been on the verge of splitting up. Pappa intervened and Claes became more sensible – because he’d been somewhat imprudent and Emily is partly in the right, but she was sick too and…”