The Vanishers (17 page)

“Crisis?” I said. “May I ask what kind of a crisis?”

“I will answer that question in a moment,” Axel said. “But first let me introduce some more of your
släktingar
, your relations…”

I shook hands with Jan, Gunnar, and another, older, Torsten—I remembered that it was a very common name in the family. These were, apparently, solid middle-aged Swedish citizens like the headman. Having taken care of the formalities, we sat down on the stiff-looking, brocade-covered chairs that reminded me of an antique sofa I’d recently employed for purposes much less respectable.

Axel said, “Very well. I am told that you do not do so well with the Swedish, so we will continue in English. I think everyone here understands it although our accents may leave something to be desired. You have never been to one of the family gatherings we have every few years?”

“It’s a long way across the ocean,” I said. “No, I haven’t.”

“Well, those are mainly social functions. But we do try to keep track of the members of the family everywhere. For instance, we know that you were in Sweden some years ago under rather mysterious circumstances. You were involved in trouble up north. At the time, it was known in official circles that you were working for the United States government, although the fact was never made public. Later during the same visit to Europe, you came here to Torsäter and participated in our yearly
älg
hunt.”

“Without much success,” I said.

“Yes, as you will see, that is important. Very important. We have trouble, Matthew. It could be serious trouble. A certain younger member of the family has become involved in an unpleasant conspiracy… Well, you know how some young people are these days. They must forever be proving, and sometimes proving violently, that they are for the peace and against the atom. This particular plot could have serious consequences internationally which, I understand, is why Mrs. Watrous was able to persuade the head of your agency to let us make use of your services. With your consent, of course.”

I said, “Mrs. Watrous seems to have done a good job as your emissary, but I don’t understand the necessity for all the elaborate mystification in which she has involved us.”

Axel said, a little embarrassed, “I do not know the details. I do know that your chief asked certain things of us in return for his cooperation…”

Okay. Mac was up to his old tricks. Apparently he’d taken advantage of Astrid’s request to get me to Sweden with a convincing cover story. Now all I had to do, while solving my family’s problems, was figure out what I’d really been sent here for with the name Lysaniemi so carefully planted in my brain, and how it related to Mac’s disappearance and that of all those other missing people, an ocean away.

Axel was speaking again: “Of course, while we do consider the national and international danger, our motives are not altogether unselfish. Whether the conspiracy succeeds or fails, the family name will inevitably be involved in much unfavorable publicity, unless drastic measures are taken soon.”

“Drastic? How drastic?” The thought that came to me was fairly incredible in these polite surroundings, but I put the question anyway: “Do I gather that you had me brought all this way because you want some shooting done?”

Axel Stjernhjelm watched me thoughtfully for a moment; then he said, “Some years ago, as we mentioned, you were here on a hunt. You had a very good shot at a trophy moose, but for reasons of your own you did not take it. More recently, we know—we received a complete evaluation last night from Mrs. Watrous; I hope you will not blame her for keeping us informed—a certain young woman aimed a loaded pistol at you. Although, with your skill and experience, you could undoubtedly have created an opportunity to use your own weapon in self-defense, and would certainly have been justified in doing so, you did not. Instead you disarmed her at some risk to yourself.” The headman’s glance touched Olaf Stjernhjelm, and returned to me. “If shooting were all that was required, well, you are not the only expert marksman in the family. For that, we did not need to bring you here over such a distance; we already had a… a suitable candidate available. But for the young person involved to suffer violence would create exactly the publicity we are trying to avoid, besides being distasteful to almost all of us. What we need is a man who knows when
not
to shoot; a specialist capable of solving our problem discreetly. We hope you are the man.”

I could feel Cousin Olaf seething a couple of chairs away. It was clear now why he hated me. He’d obviously proposed himself for the job of saving the family from shame, but he’d been turned down in my favor presumably because, with his killer eyes, he’d never been known to pass up a shot at anything, animal or human. I found it ironical that, after a lifetime in a savage business, I should be receiving so much credit for a couple of triggers I hadn’t pulled.

I said, “I see, sir. And what exactly is the problem? Or should I say, who is the problem?”

“You have already met her. She was just mentioned: the young lady who threatened you with a pistol. Karin Segerby, née Stjernhjelm.”

I hadn’t been aware that the little blonde girl with the gun was a relation of mine, but I wasn’t surprised. It seemed to be that kind of family.

The drinking habits of the Swedes are very odd, at least by the American boozing standards to which I subscribe. I’ve heard that public drunkenness is a big problem in the country, but I don’t see how it can be, since nobody ever offers you a real drink when you need one. That afternoon, after all the surprises that had been sprung on me, and all the strangers I’d had to meet, I still had to make it on a cup of tea and a glass of sherry.

Later, after we’d parked the red Golf in front of the guest villa once more, and gone inside, Astrid said, “If you are heading where I think you are heading, please make mine a double. How can one be expected to be sociable to a group of important new relations on
sherry
, for Heaven’s sake?”

I grinned. “I thought you were the little girl brought up to consider Scandinavia the Promised Land. You sound more like a hard-drinking Yankee wench to me.” In the kitchen, I paused by the refrigerator. “Ice? I think this thing makes all of eight cubes. I’ll split them with you.”

“You are all heart, my dear. What do we do now?”

I glanced at her sharply as I put a glass into her hand. “We? You’ve done your duty, ma’am. You’ve delivered the warm body, complete with a psychological analysis I’d love to read some time.”

A little color came into her face. She busied herself testing the contents of her glass. “I just said that you were a dreadful man; what else could I say?”

“Sure.” I studied her for a moment longer. “Well, Cousin Olaf is coming over to give me a detailed briefing. In the meantime a few questions come to mind.”

“Yes?”

“The original story I heard was that you approached my chief in Washington on behalf of your missing husband. Now I learn that’s not true; you went there on a recruiting mission on behalf of his family, which happens to be my family, too. You went there to arrange for the loan of my services, right?” When she nodded, I asked, “Where does that leave your lost husband, Astrid?”

She hesitated. When she spoke, her voice was hard: “Why should I care about him and his Hannah Gray? Wherever they are, they have each other, do they not?”

“So you’re not really the forgiving woman you wanted me to think you?”

She laughed shortly. “If you believed that, you are really a very gullible man. Any other questions?”

“Always, but let’s go sit in the living room where it’s comfortable,” I said. When we were there, I asked, “Those heart palpitations. They were my chief’s idea, weren’t they? It’s just what he would do, to give himself a plausible reason for assigning me to protect you, in your weakened condition.”

“Yes, of course. He gave me the pills to take. I don’t even know what they were. He said I’d be uncomfortable for a while, but there was no real risk; I guess he was not aware of the possibility of a quinine reaction.” She shrugged. “Or perhaps he did not care. He is really a very ruthless person, is he not?”

“And you’ve been telling me what a nice man he was!”

“Yes, I have told you many things.” Her voice was subdued and her eyes wouldn’t meet mine. “You should not believe anything I tell you, ever.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, Countess.”

She laughed shortly. “I am no more a countess than you are a baron, Matt. Alan was naturalized well before I married him. They just like to hang on to the old traditions around here, and I admit it is rather nice and being a countess would be fun; but actually we are both just good democratic American citizens visiting a foreign land.”

I said, “Whether or not you acquired a title by marriage, you’ve got a pretty classy family of your own, don’t you? No titles, but aristocratic enough to rate the book, here.” I reached for the
Adelskalender
on the nearby table. “Landhammar, Landhammar… I checked on your husband last night and learned that was the original form of your maiden name. Yes, here it is. Apparently an old Swedish-Finnish family, one branch of which returned to Sweden… But you’re not in here.”

“No. That was our name, certainly, but my parents shortened it to Land when they came to America, just as your parents changed Stjernhjelm to Helm. But we would not be in the Swedish book, since we came from the Finnish Landhammars. Does it matter?”

“No, I’m just being nosy.” I went on quickly: “Tell me about Karin Segerby. How well do you know her, really?”

“Well, it was just a social acquaintanceship at first,” Astrid said. “Alan started spending much time in Washington trying to get money for the Institute; he turned out to be very good at it. Usually, I went with him to help him entertain the important people. We heard of the Segerbys and looked them up, since they were relations. We started seeing them fairly often when we were in Washington. He was assigned there by his company, of course.”

“What company?”

She looked surprised. “You do not know the name Segerby? Segerby Vapenfabriks Aktiebolag?”

I said, “My God, you mean SVAB? I always thought that stood for Svenska Vapenfabriks AB.”

“No, it is a Segerby family concern. The Segerby Weapons Factory Company, if you wish a literal translation. Frederik was their Washington representative. When he was murdered, of course, the popular theory was that some pacifists killed him because he was a merchant of death, so-called.”

“But you think she did it. Karin?”

“The two theories are not mutually exclusive, Matt. Karin was engaged in many pacifist and antinuclear activities. I think she was protesting Frederik’s work; they had arguments about it, I know. I think she was madly, blindly in love with him when she married him—such a handsome and considerate and sexy man, somewhat older, with a great deal of money. What girl could resist? But after a while I think she found his business more and more intolerable.”

“So you think she just hauled off and clobbered him because she couldn’t stand his warlike activities.” I shrugged. “Well, it’s a motive, I suppose. How and where did it happen?”

Astrid said, “I do not really know much more about the crime than what was in the Washington newspapers. Apparently Frederik was shot to death in the parking garage in which they kept their two cars. Karin had come home an hour earlier in her little Saab. The attendant remembered seeing her drive in. She is a type that is noticed by young male parking-lot attendants.” Astrid’s voice was dry. “He did not see her leave the garage on foot. The walking exit she would normally have employed was not visible from his station. So she could have hidden among the parked automobiles until Frederik arrived in his Mercedes. She could have shot him and run home to wait for someone to bring her the tragic news. The shooting was done by a woman.”

“How did they figure that?”

“The pistol was found on the garage floor near the body. They said it showed signs of having been carried in a woman’s purse. Among other things, there were traces of face powder in the checkering of the handle.”

“Grips, please. Except for the old broom-handle Mauser, you hold a handgun by the butt or the grips, not the handle.”

“It must be nice to be an expert,” Astrid said.

“What was the police reaction?”

“Karin was investigated very thoroughly. However, while nobody had seen her returning to the apartment when she said she did—they lived two blocks from the garage—nobody had seen her sneaking home after her husband was killed, either. The face powder on the gun turned out to be a shade only a brunette would normally wear; and Karin is quite blonde, you will remember. But apparently the deciding factor was that the police ran some kind of tests that showed she had not discharged a firearm recently, if that makes sense.”

I nodded. “The test is for nitrates produced by the burning of gunpowder. They’re very persistent on the skin; if you’ve done any recent shooting, they won’t wash off.” I grimaced. “I suppose it’s possible to wear long rubber gloves; but if she’d made that kind of preparations for committing murder, wouldn’t she also have arranged an alibi? And I’m not sold on that motive. How many people shoot their spouses for ideological reasons? If she didn’t like his work, if it really turned her off him, she could just move out, couldn’t she?”

“Perhaps not.” Astrid smiled thinly. “Suppose she shot Frederik, or had him shot, because he had discovered evidence of her involvement in certain sinister plans. Maybe one of those protest organizations she joined, apparently a very noble and worthy cause, was actually a cover, if that is what you call it, for something more dangerous. Frederik’s suspicions, and the necessity for silencing him, delayed the scheduled incident, whatever it might be. Karin was forced to behave very properly until the murder investigation was over—which could be the reason she reacted so strongly when I gave her the idea that you might be reopening it. But now that Frederik Segerby is safely buried and forgotten, the plans for violence have been revived, and she is returning to Sweden to help execute them.”