Viktor Ingolfsson - The Flatey Enigma

“What happens if someone solves the enigma?”

“What happens? Well, nothing really. The winner savors the moment and gets to enjoy some recognition, as well as the admiration and envy of other scholars. I hope it doesn’t happen anytime soon because many people secretly enjoy the failures of these whippersnappers in trying to find the key. Perhaps the enigma is unsolvable. Who knows?”

Question ten: The ice was slippery with…Third letter. The Birkibeins drove the fleet along the ice and killed many because most of them wore studded shoes, whereas the fugitives were on bare soles, and the ice was slippery with blood. The king rode close to them, and his task was to give one spear thrust to every man he attacked, and the Birkibeins then did whatever was necessary to finish them off and kill them. The answer is “blood,” and the third letter is o.

It was late in the day, and the mail boat from Brjansl?kur was soon expected to reappear on its way back to Stykkisholmur. Thormodur Krakur arrived towing his handcart up to the doors of the church, where the three men-Grimur, Kjartan, and Hogni-were waiting. The moment had come to transport the body down to the pier. Reverend Hannes arrived a short moment later, dressed in his robes. This time he was going to accompany his guest all the way to the ship. Grimur and Hogni collected the casket in the church and placed it on the cart. There was also a sealed mail bag on the cart that looked virtually empty. Stina, the postmistress, wanted to take advantage of the trip down to the pier to get the mail onto the ship.

They set off. As had happened the last time the body was transported across the island, the village suddenly seemed deserted again. The inhabitants had all vanished. Kjartan wondered how it was possible for them all to be so synchronized. It was as if an invisible hand had swept over the village, ushering all the locals into their houses at the same time.

But there were two men standing on the embankment by the pass, and they were observing the procession. Kjartan recognized one of them, Benny from Radagerdi, although he couldn’t make out who the second person was because of the considerable distance.

“Who’s that walking with the boy?” Kjartan nudged Grimur, throwing his head back.

Grimur looked back. “That’s some reporter from Reykjavik. He was well oiled when he arrived on the boat today, and he hasn’t sobered up. He seems to have found a drinking buddy.”

“Do you think he’s going to write something about Professor Lund in the papers?” Kjartan asked.

“He’ll probably have to sleep it off first. I think Sigurbjorn in Svalbardi is going to be putting him up during his stay here.”

The mail boat could be seen approaching from the north of the island, and the pallbearers quickened their pace. There was no point in keeping the boat waiting.

The Ystakot clan-Valdi, old Jon Ferdinand, and little Nonni-were alone on the pier when Thormodur Krakur drew the cart around the corner of the fish factory. The boat was pulling in, and now only one hawser came over the gunwale. The islanders had swift hands. The mail bag was thrown on board, and Reverend Hannes read some text while the other four men lifted the casket off the cart and started lowering it onto the boat. Two crew members then took it, while the heavy-browed skipper observed the proceedings through the bridge window with a pipe in his mouth.

“Who’s paying for the freight then?” one of the sailors, who had grabbed the casket, called out.

All eyes were on Kjartan. “The district magistrate in Patreksfjordur will pay the bill,” he answered after a moment’s hesitation.

Then the boat slipped away from the pier, and Valdi loosened the moorings.

“May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you,” Reverend Hannes intoned, winding up his speech and blessing the mail boat with the sign of the cross.

It was as if a weight had lifted from the men’s shoulders as they watched the boat sail south.

Benny and his drinking buddy had observed it all from the corner of the fish factory, but he swiftly turned around and vanished when the funeral cortege returned with an empty cart.

Grimur, the district officer, was in a more cheerful mood and suddenly talkative. Life on the island could get back to normal now. The reasons why Gaston Lund had ended up on Ketilsey were still shrouded in mystery, but that was still a triviality compared to the ordeal of having the corpse of a stranger lying in the church. “Right, lads,” he said, wrapping his arms around Hogni and Kjartan, “we’re going to take the evening off now and play whist with my wife, and tomorrow we’ll go to Reverend Hannes’s Whitsunday mass.”

He looked at Kjartan. “I hope you play whist?” he asked.

“Yeah, I suppose I do,” Kjartan answered, smiling for the first time in many days.

A long telegram from the detective force in Reykjavik awaited the district officer when he got back to his house. It provided a detailed rundown of the day’s investigation and contained nothing new, apart from the fact that Gaston Lund probably had a love child in Iceland in 1927, which he had been unwilling to acknowledge. The child’s mother probably bore a grudge against him. Nothing else was known about this family, but the investigation was set to continue. The district officer was asked to look into it.

Question eleven: The severed head that killed a man. Second letter. A meeting was set up between a Scottish earl, Melbrigd Buck-tooth, and Earl Sigurdur to reach a settlement between them. Each earl was to be attended by a retinue of forty men, but Sigurdur got two men to mount each of the forty horses. When Earl Melbrigd saw this, he said to his men, “Earl Sigurdur has dealt us a treacherous hand, for I see two feet on each horse’s side.” A fierce battle ensued, and Earl Melbrigd and all his men were slain. Earl Sigurdur and his men fastened the heads of the dead to their saddle straps as they rode home rejoicing in their triumph. On the homeward ride, Sigurdur was spurring his horse when he hit his leg against a tooth protruding from the fallen Melbrigd’s head, which made a slight incision that soon became swollen and painful, eventually resulting in his death. The answer is “Melbrigd,” and the second letter is e.

Bryngeir and Benny had watched the casket being lowered onto the mail boat. Bryngeir didn’t want to draw any closer, but he got Benny to identify the men on the pier for him.

“The district officer, the teacher, the deacon, and the priest,” said Benny. “The youngest guy is the magistrate’s assistant,” he added.

“Who owns these boats?” Bryngeir asked, pointing at the small boats moored at the pier.

“Some fishermen from other villages who were going to fish for the factory. But they haven’t been able to catch anything, so they’re moving to another village closer to better fishing grounds. Valdi from Ystakot owns the black one. He was the guy who found the dead man in Ketilsey,” Benny answered.

“What boats were here last fall when the Dane came here?”

“Here by the pier, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“There were no fishing boats here last fall.”

“Were there no boats at all then?”

“Maybe Valdi’s boat, at the most. He stores it away in the heart of winter. I can’t remember when he did that last year.”

“Aren’t there more boats on the island?”

“Yeah, but they’re all stored in the cove in the fall. It’s easier to keep an eye on them from the village that way, if the weather worsens.”

The mail boat was now backing out of the pier, and the funeral cortege was dispersing. Bryngeir dragged Benny around the corner, and they rushed back to the eastern side of the fish factory. There were a few wooden barrels, which they hid behind as the others walked by. Benny was puzzled by this odd behavior but got a bit of a kick from hanging out with such a worldly-wise guy and actually found this touch of spying pretty exciting.