The photograph had been carefully posed. The boy wore short trousers and sat bolt upright on an upholstered chair, and the girl stood beside him wearing a long, full dress. His clothes were dark in color, hers were light; the background was tastefully draped with cloth, and there was a rocking horse and a leather ball in front of them. Brother and sister bore similar expressions—somewhat arrogant, thought Halldór.
Matthías pointed at a picture of an older man with white hair and a full beard. “This is old Jacob Kieler, my grandfather. He was born and brought up in the province of Schleswig, which at different times has belonged to both Denmark and Germany. He arrived in Iceland in 1857 to work as a shop assistant for a fellow countryman of his. This, on the other hand,” he said, pointing to a picture of a young man sporting a generous mustache, “is my father, Alfred. He ran a store, first in Hafnarfjördur and later here in Reykjavik. He built this house. And this is my mother, Kirsten.” Matthías pointed at a picture of a plump older woman wearing Danish ceremonial clothes and decked with jewelry. She reminded Halldór of Queen Victoria of England.
“My niece, Kirsten, was of course named for her. This is the old house in Hafnarfjördur, taken in 1901.” Matthías pointed at a picture of an old two-story wooden house. A young boy wearing shorts was standing in front of it. “This is my brother Jacob. He must have been eleven years old at the time. I think the photo was taken by a foreign friend of my father’s.”
Matthías pointed at another picture, this one of Birkihlíd under construction; the main walls of the house had been set up, and the builders were working on the roof. In front of the house was a small hayfield, where a cow and a few sheep were grazing.
“This picture was taken in 1910, when Birkihlíd was being built,” he said.
“Is this a picture of you?” Halldór asked, pointing at a photo of a slim young man with a dapper mustache, playing the cello.
“Yes, the picture was taken in Berlin in the spring of 1932, the day I gave my first solo concert.”
“I assume these are your niece and nephew with their mother,” Halldór said, referring to an enlarged color snapshot of an older woman with a young woman and a man. Though he had only seen Jacob Junior after his death, he recognized him immediately. The decorations in the background indicated that the picture had been taken during Christmas celebrations.
“Yes,” Matthías replied, “Elizabeth and Jacob Junior went up north every other year to celebrate Christmas with the family there, and in alternate years Kirsten and her husband Árni came south. I understand that after Elizabeth’s death, Jacob Junior used to celebrate Christmas at the home of his friend Reverend Ingimar.”
“May I interrupt?” Jóhann said, appearing at the door of the sitting room carrying a cardboard box.
“Oh, yes, of course,” Halldór said, and turned to Matthías. “This young man needs to take your fingerprints, sir, to compare with the ones found here in the house. We’re assuming, of course, that you were a frequent visitor here, so that many of the prints found will be yours, and we can then exclude them from further investigation.”
“Yes, well, I suppose so,” Matthías said, wrinkling his nose.
Jóhann took a card out of the box and set it on the desk; it had a series of printed squares on it and some markings in English. He then produced an ink pad.
“This is just ordinary printing ink. It washes off easily,” Jóhann said. “It would be better if I might take your hand myself, sir. That’s the best way.”
Matthías held out his hand, and Jóhann carefully took one finger after another, pressing each onto the ink pad before rolling it across one of the squares on the card. Having done this with all the fingers of both hands individually, he then took each thumb, pressing it directly onto a square on the card, and finally, the other four fingers of each hand together, onto the largest squares.
“Thank you,” he said, making notes on the card.
Matthías glanced awkwardly at his blackened hands and then at Halldór. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind escorting me to the bathroom. I can’t touch a thing.”
Holding his hands up in the air, he followed Halldór to the end of the corridor. The bathroom suite was clearly very old and worn after decades of use, but it was obvious from the quality fixtures that no expense had been spared when the bathroom had originally been installed.
“Thank you,” Matthías said, and then added, “Perhaps you would be so kind as to fill the sink with water?”