The Flatey Enigma

by Ingolfsson, Viktor Arnar

  Large, thick folders of newspapers lay on the table in front of the two men, and Dagbjartur ensured each pile was renewed as soon as it had been viewed. It was a moderate task to be performing on a beautiful June day, and it seemed to be proceeding nicely. It was also a quiet day at the library on that Saturday, and there was only a small group of regulars at work. Every now and then a smothered cough, sneeze, whisper, or shifting chair could be heard. Otherwise everything was as quiet as a morgue.

  Dagbjartur was dozing off in his seat when the reception manager suddenly exclaimed, “There he is!”

  Dagbjartur popped off his chair. “Are you sure?” he asked, disappointed.

  “Yes, yes,” he said, “absolutely sure.”

  Dagbjartur looked at the paper. The picture was of an amiable-looking silver-haired man, who was named underneath as Fridrik Einarsson. The title of the article was “Killing methods in the Orkneyinga saga.”

  Dagbjartur glanced at his watch. There was still plenty of time left in the day to find this man and talk to him. There was no way of avoiding it. Dagbjartur sighed wearily.

  Question two: Most impudent. First letter. When they reached Reine, they spotted three longships rowing down the fjord. The third was a dragon ship. As the ships passed the merchant vessel, an imposing figure walked onto the deck of the dragon ship and said, “Who is the commander of this ship, and where did you first make land and camp last night?”

  Sarcastic Halli replied, “We spent the winter in Iceland and sailed from Gasir, and our commander is called Bard. We made land at Hitra and camped at Agdanes.”

  The man, who in actual fact was King Harald Sigurdsson, then asked, “Didn’t Agdi sodomize you?”

  “Not yet,” Halli answered.

  The king smiled and said, “Have you made some arrangement for him to perform this service on you later then?”

  Halli answered, “If you’re curious to know, Agdi is saving that up for nobler people than us and is expecting you to arrive this evening so that he can pay you this debt in full.”

  “You’re exceedingly impudent,” said the king.

  The answer is “sarcastic Halli,” and the first letter is s.

  CHAPTER 19

  The island’s store was a two-story building close to the co-op building. Its doors faced west, but on its eastern side there was an extension and other entrances. From there was a staircase to the top floor where Ásmundur, the storekeeper, lived with his wife in a small apartment. The store and stockroom were on the lower floor. When Kjartan opened the door into the store, a shrill bell resounded in the empty space. Kjartan looked around and took a deep breath. Strong and familiar odors lingered in the air. Wooden furnishings gave off a symphony of smells to the accompaniment of a broad range of products: candy, shoe polish, coffee, nails, books, oatmeal, hooks, potatoes, needles, baking powder, coffee jugs, raisins, scythes, brown sugar, paint, lemonade, grindstones, snuff, caps, peas, rubber shoes, vanilla drops, rakes, chocolate, and net buoys. These and many other products were crammed into cluttered piles on the shelves that covered all of the store’s walls. Some categories of products simply lay in bundles on the floor or on the counter.

  Ásmundur soon appeared in the store. He was a short, fat man, bald with a round jovial face, dressed in a white storekeeper’s apron tied around his potbelly. In his breast pocket there were two pencils and a folding ruler. The storekeeper greeted him amiably: “Hello, young man. We’ve got special offers on penknives and vitamins this week, cattle feeding corn is back in stock, and we’ve got the latest fashion in shoes from Reykjavik.”

  “I’m not here to buy anything and I apologize for the intrusion, but I came for another reason,” said Kjartan at the end of the storekeeper’s sales pitch. He then asked him the same questions he had asked the farmers earlier. Ásmundur’s answers were similar. He remembered the Danish visitor quite well. The man had come into the store to ask about film for his camera.

  “Unfortunately, I didn’t have any rolls of film. I order them especially from Reykjavik when someone requests it. Since the Dane was on his way south anyway, I didn’t bother ordering any film for him,” said Ásmundur. “I did, however, manage to sell him two pairs of woolen socks.” Then he thought a moment and said, “My boat certainly wasn’t moved during that time.”

  “What do you use the boat for?” Kjartan asked.

  “Mainly for small deliveries from the store,” the storekeeper answered. “Having a decent motorboat can come in quite handy when you need to pop over to the mainland or to the inner isles when the farmers are busy in the summer. The co-op doesn’t offer a good service like that, and that’s how you get customers. But I never go south to Stykkishólmur because the mail boat brings supplies over once a week. Then I always take my boat away after the slaughtering season and let it rest in the storehouse over the winter. I don’t like traveling by sea in the winter, both because of the dark and the cold. Farmers also normally find they have more time on their hands in the winter and like the change of doing their shopping in town.”

  “Have you any idea how that Danish man could have ended up in Ketilsey?” Kjartan asked.

  “It’s all people can talk about in the village,” the trader answered. “But nobody can figure it out. Who the hell could have left the man out there? I know every single person on these islands, and I can assure you there isn’t an ounce of evil in any of them. Maybe there was an accident. Maybe the man boarded the mail boat without any of the crew really noticing him. Then maybe he was standing by the gunwale and fainted and fell into the sea. Then perhaps he regained consciousness and swam until he found something to hang onto. Or the current was really fast and carried him all the way to Ketilsey. But it’s all so unlikely that one can barely believe it.”

  Kjartan was on the point of giving up on the investigation. He felt no closer to solving Gaston Lund’s death.

  “How much do you charge for these penknives of yours?” he asked.

  Question three: The bad choice he made for me. Second letter. King Magnús said, “Many people can be grateful to their fathers, and so am I in many ways and more than most, but he made a bad choice in the mother he selected for me.” So “mother” is the answer, and the second letter is o.

  CHAPTER 20

  Kjartan was on his way back to the district administrative officer’s home when he suddenly remembered that a new name had cropped up in connection with the Danish visitor. The farmer Sigurbjörn had told him that Hallbjörg in Innstibaer had allowed the guest into the library. It could do no harm to hear more details about that side of the story. The young boy who had taken the priest’s message down to Grímur was now on Kjartan’s path and was able to direct him toward Innstibaer. It was easy enough. There was only one path in that direction, and Innstibaer was the last croft on the sea side of the path. Two amicable orphaned lambs greeted him with their bleating by a quaint little house. Two women were sitting on wooden footstools on the sidewalk, knitting woolen socks in the sunshine. One of them was in her seventies, tall and stout. The other might have been just over fifty and was small with delicate features.

  Kjartan greeted them and introduced himself. The women returned the greeting, intrigued, but did not introduce themselves in return.

  “Is one of you called Hallbjörg?” Kjartan then asked.

  “Yes, that’s good old me, young man,” the eldest answered.

  Kjartan recounted his conversation with Sigurbjörn to her and asked if she remembered the Danish visitor.

  “Yes, that’s my job in the village, to take care of the key to the library. Anyone who wants to borrow a book has to get the key from me first. But when strangers come and want to take a look at the library, I take them there myself. That’s the general rule, dear.”

  “Do you remember this Danish man?” Kjartan asked.

  “Yes, yes. He wanted to have a go at the old riddle.”

  “Do you mean the questions in the Flatey Book?”

  “Yes, it’s a terribly
innocent little riddle, but they haven’t managed to solve it yet.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “All kinds of bigheads who claim to know things about the Flatey Book.”

  “Do you know if Professor Lund was able to solve the riddle?”

  “No. I don’t think so. Not that I was peeping over his shoulder when he was having a go at it. He worked on it until the early hours.”

  “Can I get to see the list of questions?”

  “Yes, I don’t see any danger in that. I’ll lend you the key and you can have a look yourself. My leg’s bad today.”

  The woman stood up stiffly and vanished into the croft.

  The other woman silently glanced at Kjartan but immediately averted her gaze and focused on her knitting when he returned her gaze. She must have been a pretty woman in her day, and even though age was clearly creeping up on her, she still possessed a graceful air.

  Kjartan stooped over the lambs that had settled by his feet and patted them until Hallbjörg returned.

  “Here,” she said, handing him an old key, which Kjartan took.

  “Will I be able to find it on my own?” he asked.

  “Yes. The Munksgaard book is in a glass case against the northern wall. You can’t miss it. It’s not a big building. You can open the drawer, and the enigma sheets are slipped inside the beginning of the book. Just remember not to take the sheets out of the library. Misfortune and bad luck will follow anyone who takes those pages out or copies them.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “It’s just a fact, everyone knows. An old curse, dear. There are ancient magical runes on the sheets, and no one knows what curse they unleash if they’re not treated carefully. The key to the riddle can only be found on those sheets, and they can never be taken out of the library. Unless, of course, the riddle has been solved, in which case the winner can keep the sheets.”

  “Is that the winner’s prize then?”

  “Yes, and the honor, of course. The person who solves the enigma will become famous.”

  “Is it a very old enigma?”

  “Not that old, but a good hundred years at least.”

  “Have the sheets been in the library all that time?”

  “No, no. The old librarian who received the Munksgaard book for the library’s centenary celebration received the riddle with it. Before that it had been kept by the king in Copenhagen. These are very important documents.”

  Kjartan was on the point of leaving when Hallbjörg beckoned him over and shoved something into the palm of his hand.

  “Here’s a piece of candy, dear. Something sweet’ll do you good.” She gave him a warm smile.

  Kjartan looked at the dark piece of candy in his hand and thanked her. He then said good-bye, and the lambs followed him as he headed toward the village.

  Question four: Who was the cruelest woman? First letter. The saga of the Greenlanders talks about Freydís, the daughter of Eirik the Red, and how she reached an agreement with the brothers Helgi and Finnbogi to travel with her to Vinland. But after they arrived, Freydís’s real wickedness was revealed and she got her men to enter their lodge and kill them. When all the men were dead, there were five women left that no one wanted to kill. Then Freydís picked up an axe, struck the women, and killed them. The answer is “Freydís,” and the first letter is f.

  He said, “Here the guest writes the name Sigrid, the daughter of Skogul-Tosti.”

  She browsed through the book and said, “This one is also possible. Harald Grenski came to the estate of Queen Sigrid the daughter of Skogul-Tosti. That same evening another six kings had arrived there, and all proposed to Sigrid. The kings sat in the ancient hall. There was no shortage of drink, so everyone got very drunk and fell asleep. Then in the night Sigrid bade her men fall on them with fire and weapons. The hall was burned down with the seven kings and their men inside. Sigrid said that this would dissuade puny kings from other lands from coming to her and trying to woo her. The letter is therefore s.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Inspector Dagbjartur found Fridrik Einarsson, a university lecturer in Icelandic philology, at home in his quaint bungalow in Aragata. It had been two hours since Dagbjartur had left Egill, his collaborator at the National Library. He had been allowed to use the library phone and had immediately been able to reach the man Egill had recognized from the newspaper photograph. They set an appointment, and Dagbjartur had a bite to eat at a diner while he was waiting. He then took a stroll by the pond in the mild weather and eventually waved down a cab that took him past the university to Aragata.

  Dagbjartur was led into a living room and invited to sit in a deep armchair. The walls were lined with crammed bookshelves, and large, hand-carved chess pieces stood on a chessboard on a beautiful table. The inspector gazed at them, sensing there was something odd about them.

  “That’s Viking chess,” said Fridrik, a tall thin man in his sixties. “In addition to the traditional chessmen, there are two Vikings on each team. The chessboard is therefore ten squares wide on each side, instead of the traditional eight.”

  Fridrik adjusted the chess parts on the board and patiently waited for Dagbjartur to come to the point.

  The policeman gave himself plenty of time to study the chess set and finally said, “You went to Hotel Borg at the end of August last year and asked for Professor Gaston Lund of Copenhagen. Is that correct?”

  Fridrik seemed startled. He thought a moment and then said, “Yes. That’s absolutely right. How on earth do you know that?”

  “It doesn’t really matter, but why were you looking for him?”

  “Is this investigation linked to Professor Lund’s death on that island in the west? I heard about that.”

  “Yes, we’re investigating his death,” Dagbjartur answered. “Why were you trying to find the man?”

  Fridrik needed to reflect on this a moment. “I was driving my car down Pósthússtræti,” he finally said, “and I just happened to glance through the hotel’s restaurant window as I was passing. I thought I’d spotted the professor sitting at a table. I knew him very well from the days when I worked in Copenhagen and thought it was incredible that he would come to Reykjavik without contacting me or even giving me a call. It was bugging me all day, so next morning I went to the hotel and asked them if he was staying there. It turned out to be a mirage.”

  Dagbjartur gave Fridrik an inquisitive look. “But now you know that he was here during that period, don’t you?”

  “Yes, like I said, I heard about that dreadful thing in the west. I must have had some kind of premonition. It’s happened to me before. I think I recognize someone and it turns out to be a mistake. Then maybe a short while later I meet the same person in some other place. It’s an inexplicable gift.”

  Dagbjartur shook his head. “This time you were probably seeing right. You just got the wrong information at the hotel.”

  “Really, did I? It had to be. I saw Lund so clearly.”

  “You said you would have expected him to visit you?”

  “Yes, of course. We worked together for many years in Copenhagen and often chatted about what we were going to do when he came to Iceland. He came here twice in the twenties and thirties but traveled far too little. But he knew the historical spots so well that he could describe them in the minutest detail. He must have intended to surprise me with his visit when that terrible thing happened to him.”

  Fridrik stared down at the table.

  Dagbjartur paused a moment and then said, “It looks as if no one knew about the professor’s trip.”

  “Oh really? Not that there’s anything strange about that.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. The professor didn’t have any family, and when I knew him best, he was used to taking summer vacations alone. He never let anyone know about them and just wandered around Europe, following his personal whims. He’d always have lots of fun stories to tell when he came back to Copenhagen, though. He felt he could establish better contact with the l
ocals if he traveled alone.”

  Fridrik stood up and walked to the bookshelves.

  “The priest in Flatey claims he avoided his acquaintances in Iceland because of some controversy over a manuscript. Do you reckon that’s true?” Dagbjartur asked.

  Fridrik smiled numbly. “Oh yeah? Is that what it was? He was certainly adamantly opposed to most of his Icelandic colleagues on the issue, but I can’t think of anyone who would have tried to make him pay for it in any way, although I’m sure he would have been the toughest opponent to dissuade. He cared more about those manuscripts than any human being. And he knew all the arguments and legal loopholes to prevent them from being handed over.”

  As Fridrik spoke, he took a folder off the shelf, opened it, found a typed sheet, and said, “I’ve been collecting material on this manuscript issue. Here’s a thesis by Gaston Lund that I translated. Listen to this extract: ‘The international research that is being conducted on the basis of these manuscripts would be hindered if the collection were to be dispersed. The results of the studies that are being made in Copenhagen are published in all the major European languages, whereas in Reykjavik the results would only be published in modern Icelandic. The humanities departments of the University of Copenhagen would unanimously oppose any handing over of the manuscripts.’”