Lukas was dumbstruck. Eventually it was Thorolfur who asked, “How do you know all this?”
“This isn’t something I know,” Johanna answered, “but I can imagine it, and I can tell you that I’ve thought about him every single hour since I saw him in that casket, and felt a great deal for him. I’ve tried to place myself in his footsteps, tried to convince myself that it went swiftly and that the pain wasn’t unbearable. But everything you’ve said here is pure supposition. I’m in no way responsible for this nightmare Gaston Lund got himself into. The events in my house were exactly as I described them to you.”
Thorolfur peered at her skeptically. “Yeah sure, give it to me all again then, in every detail.”
“Professor Lund knocked on our door and told me what he’d come for. I welcomed him in and immediately recognized him. He obviously didn’t recognize me because I had only been a child when I had been with my father in Copenhagen. I was just about to give him his seasickness tablets when he saw my father through the door. It took them both a moment to decide how they were going to take this reunion, but then they embraced and it was all just like the good old days. They had so much to talk about, and time was precious. Lund told my father that he’d been to the library to try and solve the Flatey enigma. He had the answers to all the questions but couldn’t test them by getting them to fit with the final key. He couldn’t figure out the methodology. My father had spent endless hours at the library poring over the string of letters that constitute the final key. He discovered that if the letters were placed in a certain order, they formed a sentence. If the letters in the answers were placed in the correct order, following the same pattern, they formed the last two lines of the poem and thereby the solution to the whole riddle, the Aenigma Flateyensis. Lund was very taken by all this and decided to go back to the library to test his answers using this method. My father could lend him the key to the library. We could already see the mail boat heading south on its way from Brjansl?kur, so he didn’t have much time. We never saw him after that, so we presumed he’d caught the boat. I later walked up to the library and it wasn’t locked and the key was on the table.”
“But he didn’t catch the mail boat?” said Thorolfur.
“No, it seems not. He must have run to the library, sat down, and started to arrange the letters. The mail boat was steadily approaching, and he finally didn’t dare to wait there any longer. The last thing he did was to write down the key on a piece of paper so that he could continue later. We found that note in his pocket. But that was against the rules of the game.”
“So he was doomed to some mishap, according to folk belief,” said Thorolfur.
“So they say, but I don’t believe in that stuff. In fact, I think it’s just a perfectly honorable and innocent game. But when people start connecting it with accidents and deaths, I think that’s going too far.”
Question thirty-two: Who made Earl Hakon’s crotch itch? Third letter. Thorleifur visited the earl in Hladir on Christmas Eve, disguised as a beggar. The earl had him brought before him and asked him for his name. “My name is an unusual one,” the man answered. “I’m Nidung, the son of Gjallandi, and I come from Syrgisdalir in cold Sweden. I have traveled widely and visited many chieftains. I’ve heard a lot about your nobility.”
The earl said, “Is there something you excel at, old man, to enable you to mix with chieftains?”
Nidung wanted to recite a poem he had composed to the earl. But as the poem was being recited, the earl was puzzled to feel a terrible itch spread all over his body and particularly around his thighs so that he could barely sit still. He had himself scratched with combs wherever they could reach, and three knots were made in a coarse cloth so that two men could pull it between his thighs. The earl started to take a dislike to the poem. The answer is “Thorleifur Asgeirsson,” and the third letter is o.
Kjartan said, “Here the guest writes ‘Nidung.’ So the answer is either o or d.”
CHAPTER 49
The coroner’s preliminary report on Bryngeir’s body, which had been transported by van from Stykkisholmur earlier that day, was expected in the afternoon. Dagbjartur was sent over to collect the results firsthand because it was sometimes difficult to decipher these documents. If there was something in it that was difficult to understand, it was always best to have it explained on the spot. Sometimes it was possible to get the coroner to talk off the record about certain aspects that he would never have put down on paper except until maybe several weeks into the investigation. There seemed to be little doubt about the cause of the reporter’s death, but it needed to be confirmed. Further data might have come to light, such as some indication of the perpetrator’s physical strength, or whether he was left-or right-handed, etc.
Dagbjartur met coroner Magnus Hansen in the examination room. Two humanoid shapes covered with sheets lay on separate slabs in the center of the room. Dagbjartur was relieved to see that the examination seemed to be over. He had witnessed plenty of autopsies over the years and never found them enticing. If at all possible, he preferred to avoid being present.
“You’re certainly keeping us busy these days,” said Magnus. He was a tall man in his sixties, big boned with a big aquiline nose. He made quite an imposing figure as he towered over Dagbjartur in his long white coat, rubber apron, and white hat. A white surgical mask dangled loosely from his throat over his apron. Poised on the tip of his nose were glasses that he never seemed to look through, and he was holding copious sheets of notes in his hands.
Dagbjartur nodded and backed off a step. He was fearfully respectful of Magnus, who was famous for the pleasure he took in winding up investigators he considered to be too cocky.
“Do you have anything for us?” he humbly asked.
Magnus peered at him over his glasses and came to the conclusion that this little soul wasn’t worth teasing. “There’s not much to say about the first one,” he said. “He’s too far gone to be able to draw any conclusions about the cause of his death. There’s actually little more than a skeleton and shreds of skin around the legs that are held together by the clothing. Some wasted muscle and soft tissue around the bones. Except for the spots the birds got at, of course. There’s only bone left there. There’s almost nothing left of his internal organs, except for some remains of his heart and his enlarged prostate gland, which tells me little about the cause of his death but the fact that he probably had difficulties urinating. All the bones are intact, so they weren’t damaged by any attack. I examined the skull particularly well and saw no sign of any damage to it. There is, therefore, nothing to add to the local doctor’s report, which suggests the man died of exposure. The cause of death is therefore most likely to be hypothermia, unless he had some other underlying condition that kicked in once his resistance was weakened.”
Magnus stopped talking and peered over his glasses at Dagbjartur again.
“What about the other guy?” Dagbjartur asked, feeling the onus was now on him to say something.
“The other guy is another kettle of fish altogether,” said Magnus, perking up. He lifted his papers up to his nose and this time looked through his glasses.
“This is a very interesting case,” he said. “I first examined the many wounds on the subject’s back.”