“What’s so important about the key?” Harding looked irritated at what he obviously thought was a waste of time.
“Sir, if the door was locked, and Birkeland didn’t have the key on him, then it must be outside the room. Which is really important. It means someone else took it out, after Birkeland was dead, and locked the door from the outside.”
“After they threw Knut Birkeland out the window,” Kaz added.
“He catches on fast,” I said to Harding, jerking my thumb in Kaz’s direction.
“There’s just one problem with your theory,” Jens interrupted.
“What?” Harding growled. His temper wasn’t improving any.
“Look at this room.” Jens gestured with open arms at the order around us. “What do you think a room would look like if someone tried to throw Knut out this window? He was a very large man. It would not have been easy.”
“Maybe he was killed first,” Kaz suggested halfheartedly.
“Once again, it would not be easy to kill such a man without a struggle.” Jens looked smug. I looked down at my shoes. Kaz gave it another shot.
“Maybe he was poisoned? Last night at dinner?”
“What, a delayed-action poison?” Jens laughed. “He obviously got up this morning early, as was his habit, bathed, dressed, wrote that note, and committed suicide. Skak must’ve been right about the stolen gold…”
His voice trailed off as he looked at the gold coin. “I wonder where the rest of it is?”
“Why would anyone bother taking a bath and getting dressed if they were going to kill themselves anyway?” Harding asked. I could tell he hadn’t been around dead bodies a lot, or at least not after the fact.
“Actually, sir, suicides are pretty careful about their appearance, in their own way. I found a guy once who had shot himself in the heart. He took his shirt off before he did it. I guess it made sense to him, although he still left a bloody mess.”
“So the bath and good suit make sense to you?”
“I’d say it’s consistent with suicide, but the missing key bothers me.”
“What about the suicide note?” Jens asked. “Isn’t that clear proof that he took his own life?”
“It seems so, Jens, I have to admit. But, still, where is the key, and who has it?” He seemed to have an answer for everything, except that.
Harding did, though.
“Well, find the damn key, Boyle! It’s probably just been an hour or so since Birkeland went out that window. No one’s been allowed off the premises, so get cracking!” He turned to Jens.
“Captain Iversen, we should find the king and report to him now.”
“Very well. Would you like some of my men to assist in the search? It is a very large building.” Harding glanced at me and I gave a slight shake of the head.
“No, thank you, Captain. Lieutenant Boyle will take care of it.” He shot me a look as they left the room. I knew he understood we didn’t want any possible suspects in on the search, and that right now anyone with the slightest Norwegian accent was a suspect.
I sent Kaz to fetch Daphne. We’d make better time in the search if we split up, and I figured a rookie like him could use an extra pair of eyes. First, I went outside and searched the flower bed again, in case the key had been in Birkeland’s pocket and bounced out. No dice. I didn’t think it would be there anyway. He had nothing else on him, so why should he put a key in his pocket?
I found the housekeeper and got the spare keys. There was a metal ring of keys for each floor, each one marked with a room number on a small metal tag. I sounded like sleigh bells a-jingling as I trotted up the stairs. Reindeer came from Norway, didn’t they? For the first time I wondered if I’d be going to Norway after the invasion, or maybe as part of it. It then quickly occurred to me that I had just about had my fill of Norwegians, and that they couldn’t take back their country soon enough for me.
CHAPTER TEN
By lunchtime I had rummaged through more Norwegian underwear drawers than I ever thought I’d see in my life, which, if I had really thought about such things, would have been zero. I had learned a few choice Norwegian curses based on comments made by the occupants of rooms as I searched them. I didn’t know if they were referring to me, or my mother, but they weren’t happy with either of us.
Vidar Skak was unexpectedly cordial. He was on his way out, but he offered to let me search him for the key. I realized that word of our search was spreading faster than we could possible conduct it, and that if someone had the key he or she would have to be a complete idiot to be found with it. I patted him down anyway. He must’ve been in a good mood with his rival for senior adviser dead, because he smiled when he left, and probably would’ve whistled if he were a whistling sort of guy.
His room was about the same size as Birkeland’s, but at the other end of the building, maybe so they wouldn’t have to bump in to each other in the hall. His bathroom was even larger, but no marble finishes. His fix- tures were pretty new, probably installed by the government. He had a fireplace, and I poked around the ashes for anything incriminating, getting nothing but soot for my troubles. I went through the motions in the rest of his room, feeling that the search was increasingly useless. Searching a room can actually be interesting, if there’s only one room or even just one house to search. But a repetitive search of a whole bunch of small rooms is very, very boring. What is personal and sacrosanct individually, like family pictures, old photos, and letters, becomes mind-numbingly more and more like the debris of everyday life, devalued a little bit every time you see it again with only the faces changed. I longed to find the room of a monk, someone who had renounced the world and all connections with it. No such luck. Even Vidar Skak kept a picture of his mother or grandmother on the mantel. I hoped to God it wasn’t his wife.
I walked out of his room and shut the door. The hallway was silent, everyone busy in their offices or at lunch. I put the key in the lock and turned it, withdrew it, and started to walk away. Something stopped me. I went back to his door, unlocked it, and then locked it again. For the first time, maybe because of the quiet or because I had lost focus on the search, I noticed something. The key, turning in the lock, made a loud or at least noticeable metallic click clack sound. What would that sound like in the early morning hours, when you were close to waking up? Could someone in an adjacent room have heard that sound just before dawn?
I headed to the stairway to see how far Kaz and Daphne had gotten up on the fourth floor. I wanted to test my theory out in Birkeland’s room. I heard rapid footsteps, heels racing on the wooden floor, and Daphne’s high voice calling out “Billy? Billy, we found it!” I hotfooted it to the stairwell and caught her before she made it all the way down.
“Where?” I asked as I took her arm and turned her around.
“Anders Arnesen. In his room,” she answered breathlessly, “and I found it!”
Major Arnesen. Hmm. I had a strange feeling about him yesterday. He seemed relatively indifferent after I almost took a shot to the head. Had he been the shooter? Was he the killer? What was he thinking about when he left the key in his room?
Kaz was standing in the open doorway. “Billy, we haven’t touched or moved anything. Come, see.”
This room was more like mine, a small guest room, suitable for temporary visits but not outfitted for living space. His bathroom was even smaller than mine, which made me happy.
“It was so easy, wasn’t it, darling?” Daphne gushed as she squeezed Kaz’s arm. “It was terribly gauche going through these people’s personal possessions, don’t you think? But there it was. We didn’t even have to look hard!”
She was thrilled with her find and would probably be walking on air for the rest of the day. Kaz silently walked to the corner of the bed and picked up the mattress. There, lying about ten inches from the edge, was a key.
“Daphne found it just like that. I checked the spare key to this room against it; it’s not the same.”
I pulled the housekeeper’s spare for Birkeland’s room out of my pocket and laid it next to the key. It was a perfect match. Well, well, well.
“Daphne, will you please find Major Arnesen. He should be in his office or the map room. Tell him we need
