I spent the next three hours taking down personal statements from all the ten witnesses in a guest room on the ground floor that became an improvised interview room. At nine o’clock, the deceased was collected by a police doctor, and I did not think there was much hope of getting any more from the ten survivors.
While it was quite clear to me that Magdalon Schelderup’s murderer had been sitting at the table, I still had no idea of where he or she had been sitting. And fortunately, neither did I know that it would take me seven long and demanding days to solve the crime, even with Patricia’s help. Nor could I have predicted that evening that any of the ten guests from Magdalon Schelderup’s final supper would follow him into death in the week that followed.
I decided to start by questioning the person at the table who was closest in age to the deceased Magdalon Schelderup, namely his sixty-seven-year-old sister.
Magdalena Schelderup asked for permission to smoke during the interview. Given the dramatic situation, she seemed otherwise to be remarkably calm. Her body was thin and bony, and the firmness of her handshake was a surprise. I noticed that she was wearing a thin pewter ring, which seemed oddly out of character for an older woman who by all accounts was very well off. However, I deemed what I could not see on her hand to be more significant – a wedding ring, in other words.
In explanation as to why she still had the same surname, Magdalena Schelderup told me without hesitation that she had never been married. To which she added quickly that she had never had any children either. The family had always been small, but now she was the only surviving member of her childhood home. She had grown up with an older and a younger brother. The younger brother, however, had been weak both physically and mentally, and had died as the result of an illness in spring 1946. Magdalon had dominated his siblings ever since they were little. In his first two years, he had enchanted his parents so much that they decided to give their daughter a name that was as close to their son’s name as possible.
Their father had also been a successful businessman, and the children had grown up in very privileged material circumstances. Following the death of the younger brother after the war, Magdalon had taken over the running of the family business and quickly expanded. Magdalena had passed her university entrance exam and taken a two-year course at the business school. However, when her parents died, she was left such a tidy sum of money that she could dedicate herself to her interests without having to worry about making a living. She still received an annual share of the profit from her parents’ companies, which far exceeded her outgoings.
