The Locked Room

by Maj Sjowall

  “When did you last speak to him?”

  “It was in February. Then he was whining and complaining, you’d have thought I was some kind of a goddam relative. He said he was going into the hospital—the ‘death factory,’ he called it. The radium clinic, that is. He seemed finished. Just as well, I thought to myself.”

  “But you called up the hospital and checked?”

  “Sure. He wasn’t there. They said he was in some clinic on the South Side. Then I began to suspect something was up.”

  “I see. So you called up the doctor there and said Svärd was your uncle.”

  “There doesn’t seem much sense in my telling you anything, does there? I can’t say anything you don’t know already.”

  “Oh yes …”

  “And what might that be?”

  “What name you gave, for example.”

  “Svärd, obviously. How could I be the bastard’s nephew if I didn’t call myself Svärd? Haven’t you thought that one out?” Mauritzon threw Martin Beck a glance of happy surprise.

  “No, as a matter I hadn’t. You see?”

  Some kind of relationship was beginning to grow up between them.

  “The doctor I talked to said the old boy was well and certainly wouldn’t kick the bucket for another twenty years. I figured that …” He fell silent.

  Martin Beck made a swift calculation and said: “That would mean a hundred and eighty thousand kronor more.”

  “Sure, sure. I give up. You’re too clever for me. That same day I paid in the money for March, so that the goddam deposit slip would be lying there waiting for him when he got home. At the same time … Well, d’you know what I did at the same time?”

  “You decided it was to be the last time.”

  “Precisely. I’d heard he was going to leave the hospital on Saturday, and as soon as he stuck his nose into the shop to buy his lousy cat food I grabbed him and told him it was all over. But he was just as impudent as always, said I knew what would happen if he didn’t get a notification from the bank on the twentieth of next month at the latest. Yet he was real scared, even so. For d’you know what he did then?”

  “He moved.”

  “Of course you knew that too. And what I did then?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Martin Beck reflected that the tape recorder really was completely soundless. Before receiving his visitor he’d checked that it was working and put on a new reel. Now he must choose his tactics.

  Martin Beck said: “Sure, I know that too, as I’ve said. By and large we can regard this conversation as over.”

  Mauritzon looked obviously upset. “Wait a moment,” he said. “Do you really know?”

  “Sure.”

  “Because, you see, I don’t. Goddam it, I don’t even know whether the old boy’s alive or dead. And this is where the spooky stuff begins.”

  “Spooky stuff?”

  “Yeah, and since then everything has gone to … yes, gone to hell, you might say. And in two weeks time I’ll be sentenced to life for something only the devil himself could have fixed up. There’s no goddam lousy sense in it.”

  “You’re from Småland.”

  “Sure, didn’t you notice it until now?”

  “No.”

  “Queer. You who understand everything. Well, and what did I do?”

  “First you tracked down Svärd’s new apartment.”

  “Sure, that was simple. I kept an eye on him for a few days, noticed when he went out, and so forth. It wasn’t often. And the shade of his window was always drawn down, even when he was airing out the apartment in the evenings. I checked on that, too.”

  “Checked” was an “in” word; everyone was using it to death. It had begun with children and then spread to almost everyone in Sweden. Even Martin Beck used it sometimes, though he did his best to speak pure Swedish.

  “You thought you’d give Svärd a real fright. If worst came to worst, you’d kill him.”

  “I didn’t much care which. But he was hard to get at. So I thought up a simple way of doing it. Of course you already know which way I mean?”

  “You thought you’d shoot him through his window, either when he opened it to air the apartment or else as he closed it.”

  “There you are, you see! Those were the only times he showed himself. And I found a fine spot. Obviously you know where.”

  Martin Beck nodded.

  “I can just imagine it. There’s only one place if one doesn’t want to go into the house. The slope up to the park on the other side of the street. Svård opened his window at nine every evening and shut it at ten. So I went there to put a bullet into the old guy.”

  “Which day?”

  “Monday the seventeenth. I did it instead of going to the bank, as it were. Ten in the evening. Now the spooky stuff begins. You don’t believe me? Hell, I can’t prove it. But first let me check up on something. D’you know what I thought I’d do him in with?”

  “Yes. A forty-five automatic—Llama 9-A.”

  Mauritzon put his head in his hands and said: “You’re in this conspiracy too. That’s something, as far as I see, that you couldn’t possibly know. Yet you do. It’s not in nature.”

  “So that the shot wouldn’t attract people’s attention, you put a silencer on it.”

  Mauritzon nodded, amazed.

  “I assume you did it yourself. The usual type, which can only be used once.”

  “Sure, sure, that’s right,” said Mauritzon. “That’s right, that’s right, that’s right. But now you tell me what happened.”

  “You begin,” said Martin Beck. “And I’ll explain the rest.”

  “Well, I went there. Drove there in my own car. It was dark. Not a soul about. Inside the apartment the light was out. The window was open. The shade down. I took up my position on the slope. After a few minutes I looked at my watch: 9:58. Everything turns out precisely as I’d imagined. The goddam old bastard pushes the blind aside, appears in the window, and I guess he thought he’d close it. As it happened, though, I still hadn’t quite made up my mind. But I guess you know that.”

  “You hadn’t made up your mind whether you’d kill Svärd or just warn him with a shot in the arm or maybe in the window frame.”

  “Self-evident,” said Mauritzon in despair. “That you know that, too, is self-evident. After all, these are just things I thought to myself and which were never anywhere except inside here.” He thumped his knuckles against his forehead.

  “But in a flash you make up your mind.”

  “Yeah. Seeing him standing there I think to myself it’s just as well to put an end to him once and for all. So I fire.” He fell silent.

  “What happened?”

  “Well, what happened then? I don’t know. It seems impossible that I could have missed, though at first I thought so. He disappears, and to me it looks as though the window is being shut. Quick as can be. The shade’s hanging down. Everything looks as it usually does.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I drove home. What the hell else could I do? Then, day after day, I look at the newspapers; but there’s nothing in them. Everything seems incomprehensible—so I figured then. But it’s nothing compared to what I’m thinking now.”

  “How was Svärd standing when you fired?”

  “Leaning forward a bit, and his right arm raised. He must have been holding the window hook with one fist and leaning against the sill with the other.”

  “Where did you get the gun from?”

  “Some guys I know had bought some weapons abroad, on an export license. I arranged for them to be brought into the country. At the same time I thought it might be a good idea to have a gun myself. So I bought an extra pistol. They already had one. I’m no expert on firearms, but I thought it looked okay.”

  “Are you sure you hit Svärd?”

  “Sure I am. Anything else is unthinkable. But all the rest is beyond me. Why hasn’t anyone ever bothered about it, for example? I used t
o drive past and take a look up at the window. Always just as closed, with the shade still pulled down. So I began to wonder whether I hadn’t missed, even so. After that the strangest things began happening. Oh my God, what a mess. I don’t understand a thing. And then here you are, all of a sudden, and understand everything.”

  “Some things I guess I can explain,” said Martin Beck.

  “May I ask you a few, just for a change?”

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  “First, did I hit the bastard?”

  “Yes. You killed him on the spot.”

  “That’s something anyway. I’d begun to think he must be sitting in the next room here, reading a newspaper, laughing till he pissed in his pants.”

  “So,” said Martin Beck seriously, “you’ve committed a murder.”

  “I guess so,” said Mauritzon, unconcernedly. “That’s what those bright boys in there are saying, too. My lawyer, for instance.”

  “Any other questions?”

  “Why didn’t anyone bother about him being dead? There hasn’t been a line in the papers.”

  “Svärd wasn’t found until long afterwards. At first various circumstances suggested that he had committed suicide.”

  “Suicide?”

  “Yes, the police are careless too, sometimes. The bullet had hit him from directly in front, which is understandable because at that moment he was leaning forward. And the room where he was lying had been locked from inside, the window too.”

  “He must have pulled it after him as he fell, and the hook dropped into the ring.”

  “That’s the conclusion I’ve come to, too. More or less. Anyone who’s hit by such a big-caliber projectile is flung several yards backwards. Even if Svärd wasn’t exactly holding the window hook, it could very well have fallen into place when the window slammed shut. I’ve seen similar things. Quite recently.” Martin Beck smiled to himself. “And so the whole affair’s pretty well cleared up,” he said.

  “Pretty well cleared up? How could you know what I was thinking just before I fired?”

  “That,” said Martin Beck, “was pure guesswork. Anything more you want to ask about?”

  Mauritzon stared at him in amazement. “Anything more? Are you making fun of me?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “Then would you be so good as to explain the following. That evening I drove straight home. I put the gun in an old bag I’d filled with stones. Then I shook it up, goddam thoroughly, and put it in a safe place. First I take off the silencer and hammer it out flat. It was the kind you can only use once, but I hadn’t made it myself. As you said, I’d bought it with the automatic. Next morning I drive to the station and take the train to Södertälje. On the way I walk into a house like any other house and chuck the silencer into the garbage chute. I don’t even recall exactly which house it was. At Södertälje I get my motor boat, which I keep moored there. I bring it up to Stockholm and arrive in the evening. Next day I take the bag with the automatic and head the boat out to sea—towards Vaxholm—and I chuck the bag overboard. In the deepest part of the channel.”

  Martin Beck frowned.

  “All that I know for certain I’ve done,” said Mauritzon excitedly. “No one can get into my apartment while I’m away. No one has ever had a key to it. And just before I settled my account with Svärd I told the very few acquaintances who know where I live that I’d gone to Spain.”

  “Did you?”

  “But goddam it, there you sit, even so, knowing everything. You know all about the automatic, which quite obviously can’t be lying anywhere except at the bottom of the sea. You knew all that about the silencer, too. Will you please be so goddam kind now as to explain all this.”

  Martin Beck pondered. Finally he said: “You must be in error somewhere.”

  “Error? But haven’t I told you all this in detail? Hell, I know what I do, don’t I? Or …” Mauritzon began laughing shrilly. He broke off suddenly and said: “You’re just sitting there fooling me, you too. And don’t kid yourself I’m going to repeat all this in court.”

  Again the man began laughing uncontrollably.

  Martin Beck got up, opened the door, waved to the patrolman on duty, and said: “I’m finished. For the moment, anyway.”

  Mauritzon was led out. Still laughing. It sounded unpleasant.

  Martin Beck opened the drawer of the desk, ran off the rest of the tape, took it in his hand, and went out to the special squad. Rönn and Kollberg were there.

  “Well,” said Kollberg. “Did you like Mauritzon?”

  “Not particularly. But he’s confessed to murder.”

  “Who’s he murdered now?”

  “Svärd.”

  “Really?”

  “Without any question.”

  “Oh, that tape,” Rönn said. “Is it from my recorder?”

  “Yes.”

  “It won’t do you much good. It’s not working.”

  “But I tested it.”

  “Sure, it works for the first two minutes. After that you won’t hear a squeak. A repairman’s coming tomorrow to fix it.”

  “Oh.” Martin Beck looked at the tape and said: “It doesn’t matter. Mauritzon’s had it. Circumstantial evidence. We’ve tied the murder weapon to him, as Lennard pointed out before. Did Hjelm tell you there’d been a silencer on it?”

  “Yes,” Kollberg said, yawning. “But in the bank he didn’t use one. Why’re you looking so strange?”

  “There’s something odd about Mauritzon,” Martin Beck said. “Something I don’t understand.”

  “What are you asking for?” Kollberg said. “Complete insight into the human psyche? Are you thinking of writing a thesis on criminology?”

  “So long,” said Martin Beck. He left.

  “Well,” Rönn said. “He’ll have plenty of time for that when he’s a commissioner.”

  Mauritzon was brought up before the Stockholm District Court, accused of murder, manslaughter, and armed robbery, as well as narcotics offenses and various other matters.

  To all these charges he pleaded not guilty. To every question he replied that he knew nothing about the matter and that the police had picked him out as a scapegoat and planted the evidence.

  Bulldozer Olsson was at the height of his form, and the accused constantly found himself hard-pressed. In the course of the proceedings the prosecutor even went so far as to change the manslaughter charge into a second count of murder.

  After only a three-day trial, the verdict was given. Mauritzon was sentenced to hard labor for life for the murder of the gymnastics instructor and the bank robbery on Hornsgatan. He was also found guilty of various other offenses, including a conspiracy charge in connection with other Malmström-Mohrén jobs.

  The charge of having murdered Karl Edvin Svärd, on the other hand, was dropped. The defense lawyer who, in the early stages of the trial, had acted apathetically, suddenly woke up and made havoc of the circumstantial evidence. Among other things he called in experts of his own who threw doubt on the ballistic investigation and pointed out, correctly, that the cartridge had been too seriously damaged to be linked with any certainty to Mauritzon’s automatic.

  Martin Beck testified, but what he had to say was found to be full of gaps and to be based to some extent on absurd assumptions.

  From the point of view of justice, so called, this made little difference. Whether Mauritzon was condemned for one murder or two had no effect on the consequences. Formally, life imprisonment is the harshest penalty permitted under Swedish law.

  Mauritzon listened to his sentence with a wry smile. Altogether, throughout the trial, he had behaved a trifle oddly.

  When the judge asked whether the accused had understood his sentence, Mauritzon shook his head.

  “In principle it means you have been found guilty of the Hornsgatan bank robbery and the murder of Mr. Gårdon, the gymnastics instructor. On the other hand the court has acquitted you of the charge of murdering Karl Edvin Svärd. To sum up, you have been co
ndemned to imprisonment for life and will now be taken back into custody until your sentence becomes final and beyond appeal.”

  As the guards were taking him away, Mauritzon laughed. Those who noticed it thought this man—who showed neither remorse nor any respect for the law or the court—was an unusually hardened criminal.

  Monita was sitting in a shady corner of the hotel terrace with the Italian grammar book from her adult-education course on her knee.

  In the little bamboo grove at the bottom of the garden Mona was playing with one of her new-found friends. They were sitting on the sun-speckled ground between the slender bamboo trees, and Monita, hearing their bright cheerful voices, was amazed at the ease with which children communicate even if they don’t understand a word of each other’s language. Anyway, Mona had already learned a number of words, and Monita was sure her daughter would learn this foreign tongue a good deal more quickly than she would. In fact, she had about decided it was hopeless.

  Here in the hotel she managed very well with English and a few halting words of German; but she wanted to talk to other people besides the hotel staff. That was why she had started to learn Italian, which seemed a good deal easier than Slovene and which she hoped she’d be able to use since they were near the Italian border.

  It was terribly hot, and the heat was making her feel sleepy, even though she was sitting in the shade and only a quarter of an hour had passed since she’d gone up and, for the fourth time this morning, taken a shower. She closed her book and stuffed it into her handbag, which was standing on the stone paving beside her chair.

  On the street and the sidewalk outside the hotel garden, lightly clad tourists were strolling to and fro. Among them were many Swedes. Too many, Monita thought. In the crowd it was easy to distinguish the little town’s regular inhabitants. Their movements showed they felt themselves at home and knew what they were about. Many of them were carrying various objects: baskets of eggs or fruit, large loaves of dark bread from the bakery on the pier, fishing nets, or their own children. And a while back a man had walked past with a freshly slaughtered pig on his head. Most of the older people were dressed in black.