by Gavin Scott
“What had they come to do?” asked Forrester.
“You know about heavy water?” asked Sepalla.
“I do,” said Forrester. “It’s water with a higher proportion of some isotope than normal, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Sepalla. “The Germans believed that they could use it to control the fission process and make an atomic bomb.”
“They were making the heavy water up in Norway, weren’t they?” said Harrison. “Didn’t our chaps go in and blow up the plant?”
“Several expeditions tried,” said Sepalla, “and Captain Lyall’s was one of them. But they were betrayed before they could do anything at all.”
“Betrayed by whom?”
“By a farmer. It was unfortunate: they had been told to contact a certain farmer near my village, Lenvik, and they went to that farm, but it had a new owner – the first man, the original contact, had died. They told the new man where they had hidden their boat and he promised to come to them that night. But instead he called the police, who told the Germans.”
“What happened?”
“The Germans sent a gunboat into the fjord, trapping them. Captain Lyall and the other commandos fired at the gunboat and then when it was clear they could not escape tried to ram it. The Germans fired every gun they had and there was a great explosion on the British boat. The water was full of bodies and the Germans believed that everyone was killed.”
“But Lyall survived?” said Forrester.
“There are some small islands in the fjord,” said Sepalla. “Apparently Captain Lyall reached one of those islands – it was just a rock really – and stayed on the edge of it, keeping himself mainly underwater, until the Germans gave up searching and went away. That night he swam from the island to the village.”
“I’m surprised the Germans gave up the search so easily,” said Forrester, who knew something of the thoroughness of German occupation forces.
“Their boat was damaged and had to return to their base,” said Sepalla. “Garrison troops were sent up by road, but it was a few hours before they arrived. It was during that time Captain Lyall arrived at our village.”
“Where there would have been tremendous danger for anyone sheltering him,” said Forrester.
“Yes, it was a risk, although at the time none of us knew that the farmer was a collaborator – that only came out afterwards. But anyway, my people got Lyall out of the village and into the countryside as fast as possible. When the Germans arrived and searched the houses he was gone and there was no sign he had been there.”
“Where did he go?”
“His plan was to get over the mountains into Sweden,” said Sepalla. “He could ski and we gave him some equipment and directions to a shepherd’s house some distance away. Captain Lyall stayed with him for a few hours, and then set off for the mountains on his skis. In fact he set off just in time: the Germans searched the shepherd’s house only hours after he had left – but luckily the shepherd had removed all traces of his visitor.”
“And Lyall had a straight run to Sweden?”
“No,” said Sepalla. “This we did not know for a very long time, but on his way up into the mountains he was caught in a storm.”
Harrison and Forrester looked at each other. It was all too easy to picture the scene.
“He lost his skis and became snowblind. He wandered for a very long time before he was found near Bjornsfjord.”
“Found by whom?”
“The Grevinne Sophie Arnfeldt-Laurvig,” said Ollie Sepalla.
“Could you spell that?” asked Harrison, and as he wrote the name down Sepalla explained.
“There are not so many nobles in Norway,” he said. “Most of them disappeared in the male line during the sixteenth century. But there are still many who descend in the female line, and the Grevinne is one of them. I think the title is like your ‘countess’.”
Harrison was clearly taken by the romance of it all. “Did she have a castle?”
“Well, a fortified dwelling overlooking Bjornsfjord. The family is very ancient.”
“And this countess sheltered Lyall till he could get away?”
“She did.”
“Did the Germans ever find out?”
“I do not believe so.”
“And she survived the war?”
“As far as I know, she is still there.”
There was silence in the room for a moment as Forrester and Harrison digested the information.
“Listen,” said Forrester. “You know we’re trying to find out if anyone other than Dr. Clark might have been responsible for Lyall’s murder. Is it possible that any of the Scandinavian students here in Oxford might have had some motivation to do away with him, perhaps stemming from this betrayal? Perhaps trying to cover it up?”
Sepalla shrugged. “That I cannot say, but I think it not so likely. Within a few months it was discovered that the farmer had told the Germans about the commandos, and he is now in jail. I am proud of what my family did – it was my father who gave Captain Lyall the skis he used to escape. None of the other students here come from that part of Norway so they couldn’t have had anything to do with that betrayal.”
Forrester looked thoughtfully at Sepalla and decided he was telling the truth. Indeed, if he had had anything to hide, there was no reason for him to have come forward like this at all; he would have just kept quiet. Then another question occurred to him.
“I gather Lyall discussed a manuscript with you. Something with Old Norse words in it. What did he tell you about it?”
“He said he had seen it, during the war,” replied Sepalla. “He remembered some of it and was curious about certain words.”
“He didn’t show it to you, then?”
“No.”
“Did he say where he’d seen it?”
“No,” said Sepalla.
“Could it have been at the Grevinne’s?”
“It is possible. He certainly did not see it in our village and I am sure the shepherd who sheltered him had no medieval manuscripts – he was a very simple man.”
“Did he seem fearful about this manuscript in any way? As if someone might be after it?”
“No,” said Sepalla. “He was just curious about some of the old-fashioned words it contained.”
“Magical words?”
“Please repeat that?”
“Were any of the things he asked you to translate… incantations, or spells?”
“What kind of spells?”
“For summoning… dark forces.”
“You mean the Devil?”
“Or Odin, or Wotan, whatever.”
Sepalla’s brow creased. “There were incantations, yes. But who was being summoned, what they were for… that was not clear.”
“I see. Thank you.”
There was a silence as Forrester tried to think if there was a question he should be asking, something that was staring him in the face, but his mind was a blank. Finally he said, “Thank you for telling us this, Ollie. I don’t know yet how it can help my friend, but I really appreciate it.”
“You are very welcome,” said Sepalla.
And minutes later he had disappeared into the night. Forrester looked at Harrison.
“Well done,” he said. “That promises to be immensely useful.”
“All part of the service,” said Harrison modestly, but obviously pleased at Forrester’s praise. “But what do you make of it?”
“Well, if Ollie’s telling the truth, the idea that Lyall was killed because he might reveal who betrayed him has to be ruled out.”
“If he was speaking the truth?” said Harrison. “You didn’t believe him?”
“Think about it,” said Forrester. “Even if what he said was word-for-word truth, it might not be the whole truth.”
“How do you mean?” said Harrison.
“Well, what if the farmer who’s now in jail had an accomplice? What if that accomplice was Ollie himself? And nobody knew except Lyall, who comes a
cross Ollie here in Oxford and threatens to denounce him. Or perhaps doesn’t threaten – is simply seen by Ollie as a threat to be removed.”
“Good Lord,” said Harrison. “I hadn’t thought of that. He seemed such an above-board sort of chap.”
“I agree,” said Forrester. “And I’m not saying I think he had anything to do with Lyall’s death. All I am saying is that the possibility still remains.”
“How would we ever get to the bottom of something like that – I mean, something that happened three years ago in a village in Norway?”
“Hard to say,” said Forrester. “But I’ve already been asked to go to Berlin to make enquiries about Peter Dorfmann, and that gets me halfway there.”
And he told Harrison about MacLean’s surprising offer. Harrison looked at him, puzzled.
“There’s something fishy about that,” he said.
“MacLean’s offer?”
“Yes. I can understand the rationale he offered for sending you, but it seems just that – a rationale. Do you know what I mean?”
Forrester considered. Harrison had a point: he’d been so absorbed by his encounter with Gillian and his memories of Barbara that he hadn’t really analysed MacLean’s proposal. And of course, when he thought about it, Archie usually had several agendas he kept to himself whenever he sent Forrester on a mission. It was his standard operating procedure.
“I know what you mean,” he said to Harrison at last. “And you’re probably right. But frankly I’m not going to worry about that. If it gives me a chance to find out something about Dorfmann which at least muddies the waters for the police and makes the case against Gordon less conclusive, that’s progress as far as I’m concerned.”
“Point taken,” said Harrison. “By the way, I checked with Margaret Roberts about Norton’s alibi and she confirmed it. She’s a slightly alarming woman, isn’t she? Triumph of the Will and all that. She nearly had me joining the Oxford Conservative Association.”
“I’m surprised she and Norton haven’t come to blows. Or she and the rest of the department for that matter. For some reason crystallography seems to be a hotbed of left-wing agitation apart from young Margaret.”
Harrison re-lit his pipe. “The problem with Dorfmann as a suspect,” he said, “is that according to you he couldn’t possibly have done it except by magic. You’ve said all along he was in the Master’s Lodge with you and we know the murder was committed in Clark’s rooms. How do you get round that?”
“The very question I’d been asking myself,” said Forrester. “And in fact this evening I intend to go into it, if I can persuade the Master to let me. If he’s agreeable to us doing a walk-through, are you available?”
“You bet,” said Harrison. “There’s nothing like a chance to visit the scene of the crime.”
15
A WALK IN THE LODGE
Winters looked at Forrester in some surprise when he broached the subject at High Table that night. “I hate to say this, Forrester,” he said, “but this feels to me like clutching at straws.”
“It feels a bit like that to me too,” said Forrester, “but I feel I have to.”
“Tell me what you’ve found out so far,” said Winters, and Forrester told him.
“An Old Norse manuscript?” he exclaimed, when that part of the story emerged. “But why on earth didn’t Lyall come to me if he’d found a manuscript? Why go asking engineering students for help with translations? Why go calling in Arne Haraldson? I’d have been delighted to help him.”
“He may have been embarrassed by the fact that there was an occult aspect to the manuscript.”
“Occult?”
“He told Haraldson there were certain incantations encrypted in the text.”
“I don’t believe it. What nonsense!”
“Can we be certain of that? Can we be sure the Vikings never tried to use runes or incantations to summon their gods? Or demons?”
Winters stared at him. “That is very different,” he said, “from claiming a Norse saga contained text that could have any supernatural power today, which is patently nonsense. But set that aside, my dear chap. If David had found a lost manuscript and wanted to publish it, we’d have been glad to help, whatever it contained. All the more grist to our mill – whether me or Tolkien. It’s the sort of thing we can all make use of.”
“And with your particular expertise in lost manuscripts, it’s particularly odd he never came to you,” said Forrester. “Professor Tolkien reminded me that you made your name with your reconstruction of the lost books of the Heimskringla. He said he often recites passages to his students.”
“How flattering,” said Winters.
“How were you able to reconstruct it?” asked Forrester. Winters rubbed his chin modestly.
“What happened was this: I found myself coming across references to the Heimskringla in other sagas, and I began to see a pattern. Then I collated all those references and went through dozens of hitherto unidentified scraps and remnants of manuscripts. Gradually I realised that if I put them all together and interpolated what we know of actual events, I could recreate the lost volume. To my great good fortune, in an academic sense, people accepted my interpretation and I gained what little reputation I have today.”
“The considerable reputation you have today,” said Forrester.
“Assentatio nimia semper est acceptabilissimum,” said Winters, passing the port. “Excessive flattery is always entirely acceptable.”
Forrester smiled. “So, to return to the question of whether I could have another look at the Lodge, Master, in order to pace things out a bit, get a feel of what might have happened. Is there a possibility of that?”
“But of course,” said Winters. “As I said, I’m happy to do anything I can do to help poor Dr. Clark.”
“Thank you, I very much appreciate that. There’s an undergraduate called Ken Harrison who’s been helping me; would you mind if I brought him along?”
“By all means. In fact, my wife and I are due at Magdalen this evening, and that might be a good time. I don’t want to upset her by dragging the whole thing up again while she’s at home. Would tonight suit you?”
“Perfectly,” said Forrester. “It’s very kind of you.”
“Not at all. Now tell me about this gossip you’ve picked up about Peter Dorfmann. I’ve always regarded him as a perfectly respectable academic. What exactly does this MacLean fellow have against him?”
* * *
Winters had promised to leave the door to the Lodge unlocked for Forrester when he and Lady Hilary left, and he was as good as his word. The house was dark and silent; so silent that when Harrison and Forrester had closed the door behind them and paused in the hall, they could hear the ticking of a clock somewhere on an upper landing. When they entered the sitting room there was the pleasant, lingering smell of wood smoke from the fireplace. Harrison reached to turn on the light but Forrester stopped him.
“No, the lights were off that night,” he said. “Most of the illumination came from the fire.”
“Do you want me to light it?” asked Harrison.
“I think that would be over-exploiting the Master’s hospitality. Let’s open the curtains and see what illumination we get through the windows.”
Indeed there was quite a lot of light from outside: the moon had risen behind the Lady Tower with its ungainly crown of scaffolding. As their eyes grew accustomed to the dimness the shapes in the room became clear. “The furniture was arranged differently,” said Forrester. “Lady Hilary got the Icelanders to swing the sofas round so we had our backs to the fire and were looking up at the minstrels’ gallery.”
“Where’s that?” asked Harrison, and Forrester pointed up into the darkness of the upper part of the room.
“Of course it was lit differently on the night,” he said. “They had reading lights up there.”
“So you could see their faces?” said Harrison.
“Not so much; they were a bit obscured by the balcony,
and of course the light fell on the books. But let’s concentrate on the people down here first.”
“How many were there?”
“About a dozen in all, I think,” said Forrester. “Bitteridge, Calthrop, Dorfmann, Lady Hilary, a few dons from other colleges and their wives.”
“I wonder if Lyall had had his way with any of the wives?” asked Harrison.
“Oh, God,” said Forrester. “That way madness lies. Let’s focus on Calthrop and Dorfmann. Let me think where they were sitting.”
“Where were you sitting?” asked Harrison. “That should help.”
“Good point.” Forrester looked around the room. “I think it was there. That armchair was a bit more to the right.”
Without further ado Harrison moved the armchair into position and Forrester sat down in it.
Suddenly he could hear the voices from that night as if the readers were still up there.
I saw there wading through rivers wild
Treacherous men and murderers too,
And workers of ill with the wives of men;
There Nithhogg sucked the blood of the slain,
And the wolf tore men; would you know yet more?
“So where was Dorfmann sitting?” asked Harrison. “In relation to you?”
“To my left. Calthrop was there, a little in front of me, Dorfmann was somewhere off over here.”
“I’ll be Dorfmann,” said Harrison, who pulled up a chair and sat down. “Does that seem about right?”
Forrester considered. “I think so,” he said. “The truth is of course I wasn’t taking much notice. Good dinner, plenty of port, hypnotic voices. Let’s take it as a working hypothesis that’s where he was.”
“Perfect conditions for an illusion,” said Harrison.
“What?”
“You’ve just described the kind of conditions a magician longs for when he has to perform a complicated trick.”
Forrester chuckled. “You think there was a trick?” he asked.
“Well, if Gordon Clark is innocent there had to have been,” said Harrison. “Because somebody very effectively created the illusion that he killed David Lyall, didn’t they? So keep your eye on the minstrels’ gallery. Can you remember what they were saying?”
