He stopped abruptly, but then continued when I sent him a quizzical look.
‘He suddenly announced that he had been thinking about some questions from the past in recent months, and hoped that he would finally find some answers. It was, certainly for my wife and me, reasonable to interpret this to mean the war and the Dark Prince.’
He stopped there, with one of his ambiguous smiles. Then he added: ‘We of course hoped that he would say more this Sunday.’
‘Did you notice if any of the others reacted at the time?’
He shook his head.
‘It was completely out of the blue and said in passing. We did not notice any reaction from Herlofsen or the former Mrs Schelderup, either then or during the meal. Both my wife and I looked at Magdalon first, then quickly over at his sister. She looked, as no doubt the rest of us old-timers did, first surprised and then tense. And then there was not much more to be gleaned.’
‘And you did not ask Magdalon about it later?’
He shook his head.
‘No. I realize that may seem strange. But it was impossible to raise the question there and then with eleven people around the table. And I knew Magdalon well enough not to ask later. I knew that he would not answer and he of course knew that I would not ask, for that very reason. If Magdalon knew more about the Dark Prince and other things from the war, he would let me and the others know as and when it suited him.’
‘Let’s go back to Liberation Day 1945. If I have understood correctly, the drama took place in the home of a former NS man who had been exterminated?’
Wendelboe nodded, and again I thought I caught a glimpse of admiration in his eyes. But it still took a few moments before I summoned the nerve to follow this up, and when I did it was again in anticipation.
‘Do you remember when he was killed?’
Wendelboe nodded, but said nothing.
‘On a skiing trip in spring 1942?’
He nodded again, and gave an appreciative shrug.
‘That was why we went to his house on Liberation Day in 1945. We hoped that we would find some papers, weapons or anything else that might confirm that he was the Dark Prince and had been responsible for the death of our two friends. Then we could finally lay the case to rest. Instead the expedition ended in tragedy with us losing one of our men, and this time one we could ill afford to lose.’
‘It is easy to understand that these things have deeply affected you and your wife. Imagine if we were now, many years later, to discover something that in some way linked Magdalena Schelderup, or even Magdalon Schelderup, to any of these murders, how would you react?’
