Hard Cheese

by Ulf Durling

  My remark did, of course, not mean that I believed in that possibility, but I wanted to have it eliminated. Carl brushed it aside immediately.

  ‘By attaching a thread to the bow of the key—or of a spare one—and pulling the key back into the room through the lower chink of the door after having locked it from the corridor? Slipping a strong thread though the keyhole is no great matter and neither is locking the door without cutting the thread inside the hole, but just try to get the key in place by pulling the string so that it leaves the floor of the corridor, glides into the room and up to the inner opening of the lock and finally into the hole in a proper way! It would take a lot of practice and dexterity and the laws of leverage and balance would almost have to be suspended, all in all a miraculous achievement. Moreover, they did not find any thread loop around the key-bit and the space under the door does not even permit the passage of a nail-file so … no, gentlemen, it is definitely not possible.’

  ‘An extra key was mentioned. What happened to the spare one?’

  ‘Thanks for reminding me. It disappeared with a guest about a month before Nilsson arrived. Blom has forgotten the name of the person and, when asked about it, he hadn’t got his ledger to hand. Anyway, the door needn’t have been destroyed if he’d been able to push the key on the inside away by inserting a duplicate key from the outside. Before Ivehed broke the door open he was asked to try his picklock, but it failed. It could have been then that the key fell down inside the room.’

  ‘Why didn’t the picklock work? The police use it everywhere. And why, for that matter, didn’t they call a locksmith?’

  ‘They were pressed for time. Gunnar thought that Ivehed’s picklock hadn’t worked because the key on the inside was in the way.’

  Nobody could think of anything more to say about the door. It would have been convenient if it could have been locked from the outside but, given the appearance of having been locked from the inside, that seemed to be out of the question. We were all rather surprised that Blom hadn’t had an extra key, but Carl assured us that the hotel owner had been credible on that point. A previous guest had simply forgotten to return it when leaving.

  We now proceeded to discuss the windows overlooking the garden, from where one could see, beyond the gravel which surrounded The Little Boarding House, a passage leading to Björkstigen, a parallel street to Sandstensgatan. From Nilsson’s windows one could see a fence to the left of the path, partly obscured by shrubbery, behind which stood the home of Director Arvander. To the right of the path stood Ekbom’s Laundry; Miss Ekbom’s kitchen window peeped out from behind a hawthorn bush. A wide flower bed ran the length of the wall beneath Nilsson’s window. Anyone who passed in or out through the rear door on the left side of the house had to go round a wooden espalier, which protruded from the corner. Obviously the purpose of the espalier was not so much to prop up the miserably maintained and almost dead Virginia creeper, as to facilitate the hotel owner’s secret surveillance of the rear door.

  Blom had further improved the view from his lookout by mounting a window mirror in the window recess and a lantern above the rear door, providing efficient illumination for a distance of several metres from the rubber mat on the doorstep.

  Gunnar had asked Ivehed to tiptoe on the gravel path while he himself lurked near Blom’s open window. The footsteps could be distinctly heard five metres away.

  Carl took his time as he described these circumstances. A strangely agreeable mood prevailed. The fire and the arrack punch had warmed us pleasantly, but not in such a way as to make us drowsy. Quite the contrary: our thoughts became clearer and new questions and speculations occurred to us in the same way that the temperature of a hothouse accelerates the growth of plants and vegetables.

  The doctor made notes with his fountain-pen in his usual illegible handwriting. As for myself, I was able to readily absorb every new detail and analyse it thoughtfully without effort.

  ‘Do you happen to know the size of the windows?’

  ‘When both halves of the window were open, there was an aperture of about one and a half metres square. They could be locked from the inside with window latches.’

  ‘Were the windows actually locked?’

  ‘No, but they were pulled-to. The curtain wasn’t drawn.’

  We pondered for a while. Then came the inevitable question:

  ‘So the room was not truly locked?’

  ‘If you want to be pedantic about it, no. But since nobody could have got in or out, it was effectively hermetically sealed.’

  ‘How high above the ground is the window?’

  This time I was the one asking the question.

  ‘Gunnar measured the height to be three and a half metres.’

  ‘Then it must have been possible to jump out!’

  ‘Not really. Anyone trying it would inevitably have ended up in the flower bed, which is two metres wide. Theoretically, a physically fit younger man could have leapt from that height without landing in the earth. However, in our case he could either have jumped from the window-ledge, which did not show any signs that a person of normal weight had stood on it, or from the window-sill, but the cloth there was not creased or dirty, as it would have been after a take-off. It was further cluttered with a tight row of hideous pot-plants and bric-a-brac. There was no space for feet with all that congestion. We have no choice but to assume the murderer didn’t get out that way.’

  ‘That sounds convincing enough. No rain gutters, niches or bay windows of any kind?’

  ‘None. The outer wall is completely smooth.’

  ‘I suppose it’s pointless to ask if there are any other ways out of the room?’

  ‘Absolutely none. No extra doors, no stove with a flue you could climb up, no hole in the floor, and no secret passage.’

  That was, of course, what I had suspected, but according to our rules we have to ask for such information. I glanced furtively at the doctor, who obediently began to speak.

  ‘If the room was impossible to get out of, then we have to assume that Nilsson was alive when he was left alone. He listened, as we know, to the radio and switched it off later that night.’

  ‘Do you mean he died a natural death?’

  ‘No, it means the murder was committed later.’

  Neither I nor Carl followed. Carl managed to object first.

  ‘Are you saying that the murderer got into a still-locked room later that night, a room inside a hotel nobody could enter without the knowledge of the host--?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘—and then left the room, like a ghost?’

  ‘No. We can only regret that we don’t know exactly when Nilsson died, but the trick’s the same, in principle, whenever it was perpetrated.’

  ‘You’re sure you’re saying that the murder took place after the visitor had left the room?’

  ‘No, it was accomplished later. Suppose that Nilsson gets a blow to the head during a fight, but that he rapidly recovers. The quarrel continues and there’s seemingly no reason to worry about Nilsson when the other person leaves at a quarter to ten—while the back door is still unwatched. Blom thinks the visitor is still in the room since Nilsson moves about for a while, swearing under his breath, before he switches on the radio and takes a rest. Then, probably after several hours, the after-effects of the concussion of the brain set in. At first he doesn’’ notice his faintness and the increasing headache. The wine has limited his ability to register, and the feeling of sickness and dizziness get the upper hand when he gets to his feet. He manages to switch off the radio but faints by the table, falling flat on his face on the table, causing the bottle to overturn and the red wine to flow out. Whereupon he slides backwards and hits his head on the footboard. Previously, he had locked the door himself behind his heavy-handed guest.’

  ‘Are you saying that even a slight concussion could have such severe consequences?’

  ‘Yes. Usually a concussion doesn’t cause major problems but, if you’re unlucky, an unpleasant
complication may set in.’

  ‘Can you please be a little more specific?’

  ‘I am talking of an epidural haematoma, a haemorrhage between the membranes of the brain, which can be caused by even a mild blow on the head. The patient gets better while he recovers from the concussion itself, but a vessel further inside the brain has been injured and blood is pumped out. When that inner bleeding gets big enough, he will become unconscious; it can happen within a few hours or after a couple of days. If the condition is discovered at an early stage it’s possible to operate and staunch the bleeding, but Nilsson was lying there the whole night.’

  ‘Could the perpetrator have anticipated such a development might happen?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  I have to admit that the doctor's solution to the locked room puzzle was certainly an elegant variation on our beloved theme, but hardly what we were accustomed to from the literature. In books, the murderer outwits the police or the detective until the very end. He is not taken by surprise, as he was here, by circumstances without malice aforethought.

  I thought of the poor devil who, twenty-four hours after his apparently innocent blow, was still completely unaware that an autopsy within the next few days would reveal that he had committed manslaughter.

  The doctor seemed very pleased with himself. He was sitting comfortably on the sofa, puffing smugly at the Corona he had lit previously during my exposition.

  ‘Can you think of anything wrong with my theory?’

  He was addressing Carl, who had extracted the factual information from Gunnar earlier in the day and was clearly in the best position to form an opinion.

  ‘Not offhand. Just to recap, you believe that Nilsson had a visitor in the evening and that the unknown guest managed to reach the room unnoticed. There he is served red wine and cheese—.’

  ‘Cheese?’

  This was the first time cheese had been mentioned. The doctor immediately became concerned.

  ‘Yes, in the wastebasket they found a piece of cheese, which was probably eaten with the red wine. It was a Chianti, you know, in a straw-covered flask.’

  ‘Hold on!’ I exclaimed. ‘What if the visitor left poisoned wine behind?’

  ‘Nonsense!’ snorted the doctor, rather brusquely. ‘That would be the most clumsy murder by poison of the twentieth century, preceded by two hours of rowdy argument just to attract attention! No, it can’t be that simple. Let’s go back to the cheese. How do the police think it was cut up? With a cheese slicer or a knife?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because if one of them had a knife, it could have been the weapon that caused the wound we suspect the murderer needed a piece of plaster for! Was there blood anywhere?’

  ‘That I don’t know either. Ivehed’s first impression was that Nilsson was covered in blood, but that was before he smelt the wine. It had dried up in a couple of places, but there were small pools on the linoleum and on the table. The towel in the wastebasket was also—.’

  ‘What towel?’

  The doctor jumped to his feet as though his pants were on fire, dropping the glowing cigar on the carpet in his excitement. He contented himself with kicking it out of the way onto the parquet floor.

  ‘There was a wet towel in the wastebasket, together with the cheese.’

  ‘Wet from what? Red wine?’

  ‘That’s what Gunner thought.’

  The doctor looked very satisfied.

  ‘My friends,’ he said, ‘they sacrificed one of the hotel’s few towels for the purpose of cleaning up after themselves at the same time that the table is wet and red wine is running in rivulets on the linoleum!’

  ‘My dear Efraim,’ I interposed gently, ‘you’ve just explained how it was the half-conscious Nilsson, and Nilsson alone, who upset the red wine on the table.’

  The doctor was momentarily nonplussed but recovered quickly.

  ‘So we have to conclude that the red wine was spilled twice during the evening, but the towel was only used after the first accident.’

  ‘So it seems. Anyway, Gunnar said the towel was stained red.’

  ‘There’s too much red wine sloshing around in the damned room.’

  The good doctor seemed suddenly upset. It doesn’t happen very often.

  ‘How much wine did they manage to down?’ he continued. ‘And what kind of drunkards are content with only one bottle of wine? By the way, was there only one bottle, Carl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would it really be worth breaking the rules of the hotel to smuggle such a small amount of alcohol on the fly? They also made an awful noise, fought and took to the knife. It must have been either an incredibly powerful wine or an incredibly powerful cheese!’

  After firing off this round of ammunition the doctor seemed to be extremely happy and rehabilitated. He recuperated the cigar and relit it, sneering at us in a satanic way. There was perspiration on his forehead and his hair, or what was left of it, stood up on his head.

  It seemed, all the same, that some sensible points had been made and I developed the idea that the doctor had brought up:

  ‘Didn’t they find any corks or bottle caps in the room or outside, under the window?’

  ‘The investigation’s not over and it’s possible they’ll find more evidence. The flower bed is quite wide and there could be more stuff in there.’

  ‘So you think the towel was bloodstained?’

  ‘Think?’ sniffed the doctor. ‘Not at all: I know! Carl, you said that the towel was wet. Did you really mean that?’

  Carl looked puzzled and taken aback.

  ‘Well, it couldn’t have been wet all night. I think Gunnar meant it was soiled with dried-up red wine.’

  ‘What colour?’

  ‘Red, of course. Red-coloured spots, Gunnar said.’

  ‘Dark or light? Clearly defined or blurred?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Carl, distressed.

  ‘Wine spots are not really red. They may possibly be pink but are principally violet. If the spots really were red, it must have been blood. Well?’

  The doctor looked around triumphantly. I seized my chance.

  ‘Nilsson didn’t bleed anywhere, and there was no wound.’

  ‘True. Continue.’

  ‘But the murderer needed plaster.’

  ‘Right again! If the towel was filled with blood, a plaster wouldn’t have gone far. It could at the very most have sealed up the edges of a wound. Suppose the murderer’s knife slipped while he was cutting up the cheese, but he didn’t think the blood would spurt in such abundance. He patched up the wound and wrapped a towel around it. Then the argument started and they fell out. Nilsson was hit, but they reconciled. Then the murderer, who had not managed to become one as yet, discovered that his wound had opened and that the towel was wet. He became frightened, threw the used and worthless towel in the wastebasket, wound the other towel around his hand and disappeared through the back door before the news broadcast started on the radio.’

  ‘Was there just one towel in the room?’

  That was my question. Mostly there are at least two, according to my own experience of hotel visits. That was the case in Las Palmas, where, in spite of my age, I spent a week holidaying a couple of years ago. I would like to take this opportunity to complain about Spanish food. It causes stomach disease. Incidentally, the airplane food was also inferior. It was simply not edible. That was a digression.

  ‘I can’t answer that,’ Carl replied thoughtfully.

  ‘We’ll know soon enough,’ said the doctor, still full of himself. ‘And where, dear friends, do you think our unsuspecting murderer heads for, since he doesn’t think he has anything on his conscience and can still get about on his own two feet.’

  ‘To the hospital!’ Carl and I replied in chorus.

  ‘Exactly! At the emergency ward he can get his problem fixed with a couple of simple sutures at any time of day or night.’

  So it was as simple as
that. We felt very pleased with ourselves and celebrated our success by downing the last drops of punch. The doctor had made the most important contribution, but on the other hand, as I reminded myself, many of the issues fell within his sphere of medical knowledge.

  After a while he got to his feet, stretched his legs and put on his jacket.

  ‘May I use the phone, please?’

  Carl nodded and the doctor lumbered to the telephone table in the hall and dialled the hospital switchboard.

  ‘Good evening, this is Dr. Nylander, could you put me through to emergency, please?’

  He had to wait for thirty seconds.

  ‘This is Nylander. Fine, and you? Were you the sister on duty last night? Excellent. A patient called during the evening and wanted to show me a wound he’d dressed in the ward last night. I directed him back to the hospital. From his description it seemed as if an inflammation may have occurred in the wound. It was itching and painful. I wonder, have you heard from him tonight? No? Nothing? Well, he may turn up tomorrow. His name? No, sorry. If sister checks yesterday’s register I am sure that … yes, I can wait.’

  The doctor winked meaningfully at us and we were full of admiration. I must admit that he handled it excellently.

  ‘Hello. What time it would have been? Around half past nine, I think. No? Wait, when….? Half past twelve? With a gash in his hand? There we have him! Good, let me write it down. Fritiof Strömlund.Yes, I’ll remember it.’

  He continued talking about this and that. We stopped paying as much attention to the conversation as we had in the beginning and I began to gather up our files while Carl collected the washing-up on a tray.

  Our activities were interrupted by a long, drawn-out: ‘No, sister,’ and a sigh from the doctor. Then he excused himself, added a few words and put down the receiver in a slow and sorrowful way.

  If he had lumbered briskly to the telephone, he now dragged himself from it. We felt a strong sympathy, since we assumed he had learnt something sad which had dampened his spirits. I guessed it was about someone who recently had died at the hospital, perhaps one of his old patients.