Yes, it was true, they were beginning to wonder about Jacob’s absence; he always let them know if he was unable to come to work. This was, of course, dreadful news. The bank would assist them in every possible way.
Halldór hung up the phone and looked again at the body lying untouched in the doorway. A cold chill ran down his spine. He was expecting the pathologist, who would arrange the postmortem and should be able to give an estimate of time of death.
Halldór passed through each room, noting down which lights were on and which drapes had been closed, in case they should later need to stage a reconstruction of the crime scene. He noticed that the doors leading to the main parlor from the dining room, the office, and the lobby were all the same: double doors, painted white, with eight glass panes to each door. They all stood wide-open, folded back against the walls.
The floors were of dark wood, and the lower parts of the walls, up to chest height, were paneled in the same wood, with the upper parts and ceilings painted pale yellow.
The main feature of the parlor was the fireplace. Halldór knelt down and looked into the grate. The bottom was covered in ash from its last use, and everything was black with soot. There were a few pieces of wood in a basket next to the fireplace, but they were bits of broken-up boxes and scrap timber, not at all in harmony with the rest of the room.
Three pictures hung on the parlor walls: to the right of the fireplace was a painting of a young woman in a blue dress; to the left, slightly smaller, a photograph of an older couple; and on the north wall, a large painting, obviously a foreign one, depicting a handsome country house in forested surroundings. Initially Halldór thought it might be a reproduction, but on closer examination he saw some fine brush marks on the canvas. He tried without success to make out the artist’s name.
Halldór entered the office in the southwest corner of the house. It featured a window on either outside wall, hung with net curtains and thick drapes, the latter drawn back, making it relatively bright in the room, even without the lights on. In the middle of the floor stood a large, heavy desk made of dark wood, with turned feet and carved molding around the top. There was a matching office chair, upholstered in brown leather, and, opposite the desk, two deeper chairs on either side of a small table that held a large ashtray.
On the gleaming desktop lay five frames containing postage stamps, which Halldór examined without touching. They were old stamps from various countries, with pictures of railway locomotives and carriages, carefully arranged on a black background and covered with glass.
On the south wall was a locked glass-fronted cabinet containing various firearms, while directly opposite it stood a low table against the wall, with an old model of a railroad station and train.
The inner wall behind the desk was lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling. The books were all old, many of them with English titles. There were also some photo albums, one of which Halldór carefully extracted from the shelf and opened. It contained some old photographs of Reykjavik, including one of Birkihlíd being built. The next album contained old family photographs, while the third had pictures of the interior of the house, showing furniture and fittings, with neatly written captions under each photo. He found a picture of the desk and read the accompanying caption: “Desk in library. Design Philip Burden. Made in his workshop at Red Lion Square, London, 1898. Alfred Kieler bought it new that year and had it shipped to Iceland in 1899.”
It dawned on Halldór that this house functioned as a kind of museum, containing all available source material on the life of an upper-class Reykjavik family during the first part of the century. It contained better preservation and documentation than many museums he had visited; a great attention to detail lay behind this. He looked at the next caption: “Electric chandelier in parlor. Purchased by Alfred Kieler in Stettin 1922. Made in Beringer’s workshop in that city. This type is attributed to him.”
Halldór flipped to another page: “Porcelain chamber pot. Purchased in Copenhagen 1895.”
He smiled, closed the album, and put it back in its place.
On the shelf next to the albums was a row of diaries. The period covered by each book was inscribed in black lettering on each book’s spine. There were twelve in all, the first labeled “June 30, 1910–February 23, 1912,” and the last “March 1, 1931–January 10, 1932.” Halldór picked out the first book and examined its title page.
Diary started in the spring of 1910. Jacob Kieler student, born March 4, 1890.
Halldór looked at the dead man in the parlor. His name was the same, but he was known as Jacob Junior, so he was probably the son of the Jacob who had written the diaries. Halldór looked up the first entry. The handwriting was clear and very legible: