window gave onto the street, the room was rather dark. It was large, but the heavy, old furniture took up most of the floor space. One half of the window was slightly open, the other half mostly hidden by tall pot plants. The curtains were cream-colored and fussily draped.
In front of a brown plush sofa stood a round mahogany table set with coffee cups and a plate of cakes. Two tall armchairs with antimacassars stood one on each side of the table.
Mrs. Andersson came in from the kitchen carrying a china coffeepot. She poured out the coffee and then sat down on the sofa, which groaned beneath her weight.
'Can't talk without coffee,' she said cheerfully. 'Do tell me now, has anything happened about that man opposite?'
Martin Beck started to say something but his words were drowned by the wail of an ambulance tearing along the street below. Kollberg closed the window.
'Haven't you read the papers, Mrs. Andersson?' Martin Beck asked.
'No, when I'm in the country I never read the papers. I came home last night. Have another cake, gentlemen. Go on, do, they're just fresh from the bakery downstairs. By the way, that's where I met that nice young man in uniform, though how he could know ,' was the one to call up the police, I'm sure I don't know. Anyway, I did and it was the second of June, a Friday, I remember quite well, because my sister's husband's name is Rutger and it was his name day, and when I was there with them at the coffee party I told them about that rude inspector or whatever he was and it was only an hour or two after I had called up.'
Here she had to get her breath and Martin Beck put in quickly:
'Would you mind showing us that balcony?'
Kollberg had already gone over to the window. The woman heaved herself up.
'The third balcony from the bottom,' she said, pointing.
'Beside that window with no curtains.'
They looked at the balcony. The apartment to which it belonged seemed to have only two windows onto the street, large one near the balcony door and a smaller one.
'Have you seen the man recently?' Martin Beck asked.
'No, not for some time. You see, I was in the country over the weekend, but before that I didn't see him for some days.'
Kollberg caught sight of a pair of binoculars between two flower pots on the window sill. He picked them up and looked through them at the apartment house opposite. The balcony door and the windows were shut. The windowpanes reflected the daylight and he could not make out anything inside the dark rooms.
'Rutger gave me those binoculars,' the woman said. I 'They're naval ones. Rutger used to be a naval officer. I usually look at that man through the binoculars. If you open the window you can see better. Don't go thinking I'm inquisitive, now, but you see I had an operation on my leg at the beginning of April and that was when I discovered that man. After the operation, that is. I had this incision in my leg and I couldn't walk and it hurt so much I couldn't sleep either, so I sat here at the window most of the time, watching. I thought there was something very peculiar about a man who had nothing better to do than stand there staring. Ugh. There was something nasty about him.'
While the woman was talking Martin Beck took out the I identikit picture that had been drawn from the mugger's description and showed it to her.
'Quite like him,' she said. 'Not very well drawn, if you ask me. But there's a likeness all right.'
'Do you remember when you saw him last?' Kollberg asked, handing the binoculars to Martin Beck.
'Well, it's some days ago now. Over a week. Let's see now… yes, I think the last time was. when I had the woman in to clean. Wait and I'll have a look.'
Opening the writing desk, she took out a calendar.
'Let's see now… Last Friday, that's it. We cleaned the windows. He was standing there in the morning but not in the evening and not the next day. Yes, that's right. Since then I haven't seen him. I'm sure of that.'
Martin Beck lowered the binoculars and glanced swiftly at Kollberg. They didn't need a calendar to remember what had happened on that Friday.
'On the ninth, that is,' Kollberg said.
'That's right. Now what about another cup of coffee?'
'No, thank you,' Martin Beck said.
'Oh, just a drop, come on.'
'No, thank you,' Kollberg said.
She filled up the cups and sank down onto the sofa. Kollberg perched on the arm of the chair and popped a small almond biscuit into his mouth.
'Was he always alone, that man?' Martin Beck asked.
'Well, I've never seen anyone else there at any rate. He looks the lonely type. Sometimes I almost feel sorry for him. It's always dark in the apartment and when he's not standing on the balcony he sits at the kitchen window. He does that when it rains. But I've never seen anyone with him. But do sit down and have some more coffee and tell me what's happened to him. Just think, my calling up did the trick after all. But it took an awfully long time.'
Martin Beck and Kollberg had already gulped down their coffee. They stood up.
'Thanks very much, Mrs. Andersson. Good-bye. No, please don't bother to see us out.'
They retreated towards the hall.
When they came out of the main entrance Kollberg, law-abiding, started walking towards the pedestrian crossing fifty yards away, but Martin Beck took him by the arm and they hurried across the road towards the apartment house on the other side.
27
MARTIN BECK walked up the three flights, Kollberg took the elevator. They met outside the door and looked at it attentively. An ordinary brown wooden door that opened inwards, with Yale lock, mail slot of brass and a tarnished white-metal nameplate, on which was engraved in black letters: I. FRANSSON. There was not a sound in the whole building. Kollberg put his right ear to the door and listened. Then he knelt down with his right knee on the stone floor and very cautiously pushed up the flap of the mail slot about half an inch. Listened. Lowered the flap as silently as he had raised it. Got up and shook his head.
Martin Beck shrugged, stretched out his right hand and pressed the button of the electric doorbell. Not a sound. The bell was evidently out of order. He tapped on the door. No result. Kollberg pounded with his fist. Nothing happened.
They did not open the door themselves. They went downstairs half a flight and spoke in whispers. Then Kollberg went off to arrange the formalities and send for an expert. Martin Beck remained standing on the stairs and never took his eyes off the door.
After only a quarter of an hour Kollberg returned with the expert, who sized up the door with a quick, trained glance, dropped to his knees and stuck a long but handy instrument like a pair of tongs through the mail slot. The lock had no antiburglar device over it on the inside and he needed only thirty seconds to grip it and work open the door a few inches. Martin Beck pushed past him and put his left index finger against the door. Opened it. The unoiled hinges creaked.
They looked into a hall with two open doors. The left one led into the kitchen and the right one into what was apparently the only room in the apartment. A heap of mail lay on the doormat, so far as they could see chiefly newspapers, advertisements and brochures. The bathroom lay to the right of the hall, just inside the front door.
The only sound was the muffled roar of traffic from Sveavagen.
Martin Beck and Kollberg stepped carefully over the pile of mail and glanced into the kitchen. At the far end was a small dining area with a window on to the street.
Kollberg pushed open the door of the bathroom while Martin Beck went into the living room. Straight in front of him was the balcony door and obliquely behind him to the right he saw another door, which he found led into a clothes closet. Kollberg said a few words to the lock expert, closed the front door and came into the room. 'Obviously no one at home,' he said. 'No,' Martin Beck said.
They went through the apartment systematically but with great caution, taking care to touch as few objects as possible.
