House of Evidence(49)
“If today’s paper is lying here, then where is yesterday’s?”
Hrefna looked around. “There’s usually somewhere in a home where newspapers are kept,” she said.
They entered the inner lobby and Jóhann spotted a stack of them on the shelf under the telephone. “I should have checked here yesterday,” he said, picking up the paper on the top of the pile. It was dated Thursday, January 18.
“This explains the footsteps we spent all that time examining yesterday,” he remarked. “They belong to the person who delivered the paper, of course. He must have arrived at the house early in the morning, while it was still snowing.”
“But how did it get onto the shelf?” Hrefna asked.
“The old housekeeper must have put it away before we arrived. She wouldn’t have left it on the floor for everyone to trample on.”
“That’s probably right,” Hrefna agreed. “I’ll give her a ring and have her confirm it.”
While Hrefna went to make the call, Jóhann entered the parlor and went around opening the drapes to let the light in; there were potted plants on the windowsill and their flowers already seemed to be fading.
“Sveinborg remembers having picked the newspaper off the floor when the policemen arrived,” Hrefna announced, entering the parlor. “You were right. She didn’t want them to trample over it.”
“Right. That means we have no footprints to work with,” Jóhann said, disappointedly. “They didn’t fit with the time of death, anyway. The pathologist said he had died between one and two, but it didn’t start snowing properly until after that.”
They divided the workload; Hrefna went upstairs to look through Jacob Junior’s personal papers, and Jóhann checked things downstairs, starting in the office.
He sat down at the desk and examined it carefully. It had four drawers on the left side and, on the right, a locked cabinet. In the top drawer he found a Directory of Engineers, dated 1966; he looked up Jacob Kieler’s name:
Jacob Kieler, b. March 4th 1890 in Hafnarfjördur, d. July 15th 1945. Parents Alfred Kieler, merchant, son of Jacob Kieler, store manager, and his wife Kirsten, born Pedersen.
Graduated from MR High School 1910, degree in propaedeutic (cand. phil.) from Copenhagen University 1911, BA in engineering from Polyteknisk Læreanstalt in Copenhagen 1913, MSc in railway engineering from Technische Hochschule in Berlin 1915. Assistant engineer at the Chicago & North Western Railway Company in the United States 1915–1918. Engineer at the James Leslie engineering firm in Leicester, England 1919–1920. Operated his own engineering firm in Reykjavik 1920–1945.
Married June 15th 1919 to Elizabeth b. August 26th 1894, daughter of Joseph Chatfield manufacturer of Leicester and his wife Marjorie, née Stewart. Children 1) Jacob b. Oct. 12th 1925, historian 2) Kirsten b. Nov. 21st 1930, married to Árni Jónsson, headmaster.
The next drawer contained old writing utensils, an inkpot, and some penholders; the third drawer held writing paper with the printed letterhead “Jacob Kieler MSc”; and in the bottom drawer were envelopes containing old photographic films and various pictures. The locked cabinet was no doubt the safe, Jóhann guessed.
Grasping the desktop from beneath, Jóhann tried to lift the desk, but he could hardly move it. The cabinet must be made of really thick steel, he reckoned. Before they could open it, they would need a court order, which Halldór was working on, though that might take all day. They would also need to get a locksmith here if they could not find the key.
He decided to turn his attention to the books on the shelves next. He checked them all, taking each one out one by one and leafing through them before putting them back. It was here he finally found dust. The books had clearly not been touched for ages. They were all old, and most had good quality bindings; the number of English titles was striking. He found the photograph albums and looked through them with interest. In these pictures, one could trace the history of the family and of the house they had lived in; pictures of parties and other holiday celebrations, but also scenes from daily life: girls working in the kitchen and doing the laundry in the basement, a laborer shoveling coal into the coal store, and a man cutting the grass in front of the house with a scythe.
There was a gap on the shelf next to the picture albums where the diaries had been; Jóhann knew that Hrefna had been given the task of going through them, and wished he could have had a chance to look at them as well.
The gun cabinet on the other side of the room was locked, but you could see the contents through the glass. Jóhann recognized the only revolver in the cabinet, which was a .22-caliber Colt, manufactured before the turn of the century, and small enough to keep in a pocket. He knew it was too small to have been used for the murder.