The killer's art

47

Karin Jacobsson arrived at Waldemarsudde, accompanied by Kurt Fogestam from the Stockholm police. In the meantime, Kihlgard was taking care of the interviews with Sixten Dahl and Hugo Malmberg.

They started by walking around the cordoned-off park area surrounding the museum building. The garden was completely covered with snow, and the water outside had frozen over. It was exquisitely beautiful.

‘We suspect that the perpetrator got away across the ice,’ said Fogestam.

He and Jacobsson had met several times before when she had visited police headquarters in Stockholm.

‘I know. But aren’t there boats that go through here even in the winter?’

‘Yes, but it has been exceedingly cold this year, so there’s ice all along the Djurgarden shore, and it extends out for several yards. Closest to shore, the ice is four inches thick and solid enough to walk or skate on. And for a change, it’s unusually smooth. We think he made his getaway on long-distance skates.’

‘An art thief who comes in the middle of the night to steal a famous painting from a museum, and then takes off wearing long-distance skates. It sounds like pure James Bond.’

Kurt Fogestam laughed. ‘I suppose it does. But that’s how he did it.’

The inspector led the way down the steep steps to the rocks at the icy shore. He stopped and pointed. ‘This is where he came ashore. He left the same way.’

‘How far were you able to follow his tracks?’

‘We got here ten minutes after the alarms went off, but it took another fifteen or twenty minutes before the dogs arrived. And unfortunately that cost us a lot. They were only able to track him down to this spot. Nothing after that. And it’s impossible to see the marks of his skates because there’s hardly any snow on the ice.’

‘How did he get inside the building?’

‘This guy knew what he was doing. He entered through the ventilation shaft at the back and climbed down so that he landed in the hallway. After that he didn’t care about the alarm sounding; he just took what he came for and got out.’

‘A real cool customer,’ said Jacobsson. ‘And speaking of cool, it’s freezing out here. Shall we go inside?’

In the entrance they found the museum director, Per-Erik Sommer, who insisted on offering them coffee so the two frozen police officers could thaw out a bit first. He was a tall, vigorous-looking man with kind eyes behind his horn-rimmed glasses.

They sat down in the cafe, which was located in what had once been the prince’s kitchen. Coffee and warm apple cake with vanilla sauce was served. It tasted delicious after their cold walk outdoors.

Kurt Fogestam had explained to Jacobsson that he was simply there to keep her company. The Stockholm police had already interviewed Sommer, so now it was Jacobsson’s turn to ask any other questions that she wanted answered.

‘This is so terrible, just terrible,’ said Sommer with a sigh as he stirred his coffee. ‘We’ve never had a burglary here before. Well, not from inside the building,’ he quickly corrected himself. ‘Several sculptures have been stolen from the garden, and that was serious enough. But this… this is a whole different matter. The alarm system was on, but what good did it do? The police didn’t get here in time.’

‘Do you have security cameras?’

‘In a few places, but unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures of the thief.’

‘How many people work here?’

‘Let me see now…’ The museum director mumbled to himself, counting on his fingers. ‘There are nine full-time employees, if you count taking care of the grounds and building maintenance. We have our own gardener and caretaker. There are also a number of temporary staff that we bring in now and then.’

‘How many altogether?’

‘Hmm… probably ten or fifteen, I’d think.’

‘Do any of them have ties to Gotland?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Did you or anyone else here know Egon Wallin?’

‘I didn’t, but I can’t speak for the others. Although I think I would have heard about it if they did, considering the horrible thing that happened to him.’

‘Have you ever had any sort of collaboration with his gallery in Visby?’

‘Not since I’ve been the director here.’

‘Do you know if anyone has been in contact with Muramaris, the gallery in Visby, or any other enterprise on Gotland?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Jacobsson turned to Fogestam. ‘Have you interviewed all the staff?’

‘The interviews are still being conducted. I don’t think they’re finished yet.’

‘I’d like a list of the employees.’

‘Of course. I’ll take care of it. But there are no indications that this was an inside job.’

‘The thief was very familiar with the site,’ Jacobsson pointed out.

‘Yes, but the blueprints of the building are available to anybody who bothers to look for them.’

‘By the way, what else is on display in the current exhibition?’ she asked Sommer.

‘Swedish art from the early 1900s to 1930s. And of course we have paintings from the prince’s personal collection. Some of them are on permanent display and are never moved. Many of the works of art are much more valuable than the Dardel painting. We have works by Liljefors and Munch that could raise a significantly higher price than “The Dying Dandy”. Why was that the only painting that the thieves took? It’s incomprehensible.’

On their way to the room where the painting had hung, Sommer took the opportunity to tell Jacobsson about Waldemarsudde, since this was her first visit.

‘The prince was a broad-minded person who supported the Swedish artists of his day,’ he explained. ‘His home was finished in 1905, and it became a gathering place for free-thinking people; the social life flourished out here. He was personal friends with many of the artists. And he himself became a great landscape painter. His collection contains more than two thousand works,’ Sommer went on enthusiastically, as if forgetting why Fogestam and Jacobsson were there.

‘Do you have other paintings by Nils Dardel here?’

‘We’ve borrowed three other paintings for this exhibition. And Dardel did a pencil sketch of Prince Eugen that is part of his collection. No other paintings were stolen.’

They entered the bright, beautiful areas that were the former living quarters of the prince. They immediately noticed a strong floral scent. The rooms were furnished in a style typical of Sweden in the early 1900s. Fresh flowers filled all the rooms, in accordance with the prince’s wishes. There were scarlet amaryllis, shimmering blue hyacinths, and great bouquets of tulips in assorted colours.

Jacobsson knew that Prince Eugen had never married, and he’d had no children. She wondered whether he might have been homosexual, but didn’t dare ask.

The dominant room was the prince’s drawing room. Light flooded in through the tall French windows and on to the yellow silk wallpaper. Most eye-catching was the large painting titled ‘Stromkarlen’ by Ernst Josephson, with the motif of the fiddle-playing Nacken spirit sitting on the rocks by a roaring river. Sommer stopped there.

‘This painting has been set into the wall and can’t be moved. It was the prince’s favourite.’

The naked young man who was the central figure was handsome and sensitive-looking; there was something both tragic and tender about the scene. The position of the painting was well chosen. It was highly visible, and the gilded fiddle of the river sprite harmonized with the yellow silk wallpaper in the room.

The floor creaked under their feet as they passed through the rooms: the conservatory, with its marvellous view of the city and Stockholm’s estuary; the dark-green library, its shelves filled with art-history books, and its ostentatious fireplace.

Finally the museum director ushered them towards the dining room, where ‘The Dying Dandy’ had hung. The room was still cordoned off, so they had to make do with looking inside from the doorway. The dining room had light-green walls, an impressive crystal chandelier, and elegant Rococo furniture typical of the eighteenth century. One of the walls was noticeably bare. The frame had been removed to be examined by the police technicians.

‘Yes, well,’ sighed Sommer, ‘that’s where it was.’

‘Isn’t the painting quite large?’ asked Jacobsson.

‘Yes, it is. Almost six feet wide and four feet tall.’

‘So he must have stood on something to be able to cut it out of the frame.’

‘Yes, that’s right. We found one of those ultra-light aluminium ladders in the room. He didn’t bother to take it with him.’

‘And the sculpture? Where did you find it?’

‘Right in front, on that little table.’

‘Where is it now?’

‘The police have taken it.’

Jacobsson stared at the bare wall and then at the table in front. A triangular pattern was emerging. Egon Wallin — Muramaris — ‘The Dying Dandy’. At the moment it seemed impossible to figure out how everything fitted together. By stealing the sculpture from Wallin’s gallery and placing it here, the thief obviously wanted to tell them something. Was the thief who took the painting the same person who had killed Egon Wallin?

It suddenly seemed highly likely.