A family conference was held and there was much discussion about what was to be done. Finally Oddi, Bjarni’s brother spoke. “I’m not blaming you for what you’ve done, Bjarni. Thorvald the Stubborn deserved what he got. But it seems to me if you stay around here, your head and your shoulders will soon be parted. I’m thinking a voyage of some distance and some duration might be in order here. I say we take two longboats, and some men who are willing, and head for Scotland. It may be that those who care for Sigurd’s young lad Thorfinn can intercede on our behalf with Einar, persuade him to have a change of heart. In the meantime, we will be out of harm’s way. We won’t be the first to leave Orkney because of Einar. Nor will we be the last.”
All agreed that this was the best course of action. And so it was that Bjarni, Oddi, and some of their kin, including the skald or “poet,” Svein the Wiry set off in two longboats on a voyage that would take some of them farther than they ever dreamed.
You are thinking I am making this up, which I can certainly understand, but you’ll find the stories of Sigurd the Stout, his sons Brusi and Einar, Sumarlidi and Thorfinn if you look. The lives of all of them are therefor anyone to see in the pages of the Orkney inga Saga. As I’ve said, our story is not inconsistent with the facts. True, you’ll not be finding Bjarni the Wanderer or his brother Oddi in the saga. No, you’ll not be finding them.
You didn’t need a degree in criminology to guess the number one murder suspect in the death of Trevor Wylie. After all, Blair Bazillionaire had been swinging an axe about in front of approximately seventy-five people, one of whom was the chief of police. Not that anything was said about an axe-murderer, mind you, that being evidence the police were keeping to themselves. It was suggested strongly to me that I do the same.
For a while, though, it seemed to me that I was spending as much time at the local police station as Blair was. Like Blair, I had to be fingerprinted. The police said it was to eliminate mine from the many at the scene, which made sense, I suppose, given my prints were all over just about everything, even a half-empty coffee cup I’d moved so that I could get at Trevor’s files. Blair’s prints were all over the same things mine were, with one unfortunate addition: the axe. Neither Blair nor the staff at his residence were able to produce the axe he’d so publicly used to chop up the furniture, so while it couldn’t be proven definitely, it pretty much looked as if the same one had been used to chop up Trevor’s head.
It looked open and shut as they say, and not good at all for Blair, and just about everything I said to Detective Ian Singh only made it worse.
“Take me through this,” Singh said, after I’d explained that I’d gone to Scot Free to discuss Baldwin’s purchase of the writing cabinet. “Baldwin was a good customer, and you went with him to Trevor Wylie’s establishment to check out this desk that Baldwin wanted to buy.”
“I met him there, yes.”
“You thought it was genuine, the desk, I mean.”
“I thought it might be,” I said, reluctantly.
“And Baldwin bought it on your say so.”
“I guess so.” This was going to be really painful. “I did point out I’d like to do more research.”
“And Baldwin later found it to be a fake.”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him it was?”
“No. I don’t know who told him.”
“But it was a fake.”
“I think so. I did manage to get a piece of it, after it was chopped up, and had a good look. The lock used was not consistent with the supposed age of the cabinet. It was brand-new, in fact.” I really hoped he didn’t ask me how I got that piece of wood. I still had the scratches.
“How much was the desk thing worth?”
“Under the circumstances not much,” I said. “A few thousand, maybe. It was a nice piece regardless of who made it.”
“Let me rephrase the question. How much would it have been worth if it was genuine?”
“A similar one sold for a million and a half not that long ago.” Trevor had been right about that. I’d checked it myself later.
Singh’s eyebrows went up. “So, in your opinion, Baldwin, thinking it was genuine, might have paid well over a million for it.”
“I guess so. I don’t know, though. I left before they discussed price.”
“I’d like to ask you a few questions about your relationship with Baldwin.”
“He was a longtime customer, at least ten years.”
“He bought a lot of merchandise from you over those ten years?”
“Yes.”
“How did he normally pay?”
“What?”
“How did he pay for this merchandise?”
“The usual way. Check, credit card, cash.”
“How often did he pay cash?”
“I can’t recall. From time to time, I guess, for the smaller purchases.”
“Can you recall the largest purchase he paid cash for?”
“Not really.”
“Would he have paid, say, a hundred thousand in cash?”
“Hardly. We don’t carry that kind of merchandise often. He might give us a couple of hundred dollars in cash, on occasion, maybe four hundred? Anything over that, and he wrote a check or paid by card. Why are you asking this?”
“Just part of our investigation,” Singh said.
“Surely it’s academic. He couldn’t have paid cash for the writing cabinet,” I said. “Could he?”
Singh didn’t answer. Instead, he went on to ask about the evening at Baldwin’s, which we went over in excruciating detail, and then back to my unfortunate discovery of the body.
“The shop was empty when you got there,” he said.
“It was. No, it wasn’t, but I thought it was. There was a customer upstairs.”
“So you waited.”
“Yes.”
“As did this customer wait with you?”
“Yes.”
“And then you both went looking for him.”
“Yes. The shop was open. I thought Trevor had to be there somewhere. You don’t just go out and leave the merchandise for all takers. For one thing, there have been a number of robberies at antique stores around here. So far there have been no arrests.”
Singh ignored the jibe. “And this customer, what did you say his name was? Percy?”
“Yes. He looked for Trevor, too.”
“Percy who?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t get that far.”
“So, you and this fellow with whom you are on a first-name-only basis decided to look in the basement?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that a little odd?”
“As I said, Trevor had to be there. I mean, what if he’d had an accident and fallen down there?”
“An accident,” he repeated, and he almost smiled. “And this Percy came downstairs with you.”
“I didn’t want to go by myself,” I said. That was partly true, I suppose.
“And when you found Trevor, then what?”
“I ran upstairs and called nine-one-one.”
“And Percy?”
“He ran outside. I don’t think he was feeling well.” Actually, he’d made little retching sounds and dashed up the stairs.