The Solitaire Mystery Read online

  Mother and Father would soon hear the sad news that I had gone down with the Maria.

  Early the next morning, as the sky above me cleared and the morning blushed forth across the horizon, I suddenly caught sight of a little dot in the distance. At first I thought the dot was a bit of dust in my eye, but although I rubbed my eye and cried, the dot stayed as immovable as before. I finally realised it must be an island.

  I tried to steer the boat closer, but at the same time I felt it strain against a strong current pouring out from the little island I could hardly see. I loosened the sail, found a pair of solid oars, sat with my back to my destination, and put the oars into the rowlocks.

  I rowed and rowed without stopping, but it seemed as though I didn’t move an inch. The endless ocean in front of me would be my grave if I didn’t reach the island. Almost a day had passed since I had drunk the last of the water ration. I struggled for hours, and the palms of my hands were soon bloody from the strokes of the oars, but the island was my last chance.

  After I had rowed furiously for several laborious hours, I turned round and looked in the direction of the small dot. It had now grown into an island with clear contours, and I could see a lagoon with palm trees. But I still hadn’t reached my goal; I still had a tough job ahead of me.

  At last I was rewarded for my pains. Well into the day, I rowed into the lagoon and felt the soft nudge of the boat hitting shore.

  I climbed out of the boat and pushed it up on the beach. After all the long days at sea, it was like a fairy tale to feel solid ground under my feet.

  I ate the last ration of biscuits before I pulled the boat up between the palm trees. The first thing I thought about was whether the island had water.

  Although I had saved myself by landing on a tropical island, I wasn’t that optimistic. The island seemed so terribly small that I thought it must be uninhabited. From where I stood, I could see how it curved over. I could very nearly see over the top of it.

  There weren’t many trees, but from the crown of a palm tree I suddenly heard a bird singing more beautifully than any bird I had ever heard before. It probably sounded so exceptionally beautiful because it was the very first sign that, despite everything, there was life on the island. Having spent many years at sea, I was sure this was not a seabird.

  I left the boat and followed a narrow path to get closer to the bird in the tree. The island seemed to grow, the deeper I moved into it. I realised there were more trees here, and I heard more birds singing further inland. At the same time – I think I must have made a mental note of it just then – I realised that many of the flowers and bushes were different from any I had seen before.

  From the beach I had seen only seven or eight palm trees, but I now saw that the little path I was following continued between some tall rosebushes – and then twisted on towards a small group of palm trees up ahead.

  I hurried towards those trees – now I would find out just how big the island was. As soon as the palm-tree crowns were above my head, I could see they formed the gateway to some dense woodland. I turned round. There lay the lagoon I had sailed into. To my left and right the Atlantic Ocean glittered like gold in the bright daylight.

  I stopped thinking. I just had to see where this forest ended, and so I ran in between the trees. When I emerged on the other side, steep hillsides rose around me. I could no longer see the sea.

  JACK OF SPADES

  … like polished chestnuts …

  I had read as much of the sticky-bun book as my eyes could take before I started to see double. I hid it under my comic books in the back seat, and stared out across Lake Como.

  I wondered what the connection could be between the magnifying glass and the little book the baker in Dorf had baked inside the sticky bun. It was a riddle in itself how anyone could possibly write anything so small.

  When we drove into the town of Como at the end of Lake Como, it was already getting dark. This didn’t necessarily mean it was late at night, because at this time of year it got dark in Italy earlier than it did at home in Norway. It got dark an hour earlier in the evening with each day we drove southwards.

  As we drove around the lively town, the streetlights came on, and I suddenly caught sight of a fairground. For the first time since the beginning of our trip, I put all my energy into getting my way.

  ‘We’re going to that fairground over there,’ I said at first.

  ‘We’ll see,’ Dad replied. He’d started to look around for a suitable place to spend the night.

  ‘Nope!’ I said. ‘We have to go to the fair.’

  He finally agreed, on condition that we found a place to stay first. He also insisted on having a beer before he was willing to negotiate further. So there was no chance of driving to the fair afterwards.

  Luckily, we found a hotel only a stone’s throw away from the fair. Mini Hotel Baradello was its name.

  ‘Olledarab Letoh Inim,’ I said.

  Dad asked me why I’d suddenly started to talk Arabic. I pointed to the hotel sign and he began to laugh.

  After we’d carried our things up to the hotel room and Dad had drunk his beer in the lobby, we set off for the fair. On the way, Dad ran into a little shop and bought himself two miniature bottles of something strong to drink.

  The fair was pretty good, but the only things I managed to get Dad to try were the House of Horrors and the Ferris wheel. I also went on a corny roller-coaster with loops.

  From the top of the Ferris wheel we could look out over the whole town, and even far across Lake Como. Once when we reached the top, the wheel stopped and we were left rocking back and forth as new passengers came on. As we swayed between heaven and earth, I suddenly saw a little man standing on the ground below, looking up at us.

  I jumped up out of my chair, pointed at the little man, and said, ‘There he is again!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The dwarf … the one who gave me the magnifying glass at the garage.’

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ Dad said, but he looked down at the ground all the same.

  ‘It’s him!’ I insisted. ‘He’s got exactly the same hat, and you can see quite clearly that he’s a dwarf.’

  ‘There are lots of dwarfs in Europe, Hans Thomas. There are lots of hats, too. Now sit down.’

  I was absolutely positive it was the same dwarf, and it was quite obvious he was looking at us. When the gondola started to tip down towards the ground again, I watched him dash as quick as lightning behind some booths and disappear.

  I was no longer interested in the things at the fair. Dad asked me if I wanted to drive a radio-controlled car, but I politely said no, thank you.

  ‘I just want to have a look around,’ I explained.

  What I didn’t say was that I was looking for the dwarf. Dad must have been a bit suspicious, because he was unusually eager to pack me off on merry-go-rounds and various fun rides.

  A couple of times as we walked about the fair Dad turned his back to the crowd and had a swig from one of the two miniature bottles he’d bought. I think he’d rather have done this when I was inside the House of Horrors or something.

  At the centre of the fairground was a five-sided tent. The word SIBYLLA was written on the tent, but I read the letters back to front.

  ‘Allybis,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There!’ I said, pointing.

  ‘Sybilla,’ said Dad. ‘It means fortune-teller. Perhaps you want your fortune told?’

  There was no doubt about it: I headed straight for the tent.

  A beautiful girl about my age was sitting in front of the entrance. She had long black hair and dark eyes; she was probably a Gypsy. She was so beautiful to look at, I got butterflies in my stomach.

  Unfortunately, the girl was more interested in Dad. She looked up at him and asked in very broken English, ‘Will you see your future, sir? Only 5,000 lire.’

  Dad unfolded some bills, pointed at me, and gave the girl the money. Just at that moment an old woman
stuck her head out of the tent. She was the fortune-teller. I was a bit disappointed that the girl who took the money wasn’t going to read my fortune.

  I was then shoved into the tent. A red lamp hung from the canvas. The fortune-teller had sat down in front of a round table. On the table was a large crystal ball and a goldfish bowl with a little silvery fish inside. There was also a pack of cards.

  The fortune-teller pointed towards a stool and I sat down. If I hadn’t known Dad was standing outside with a miniature bottle in his hand, I would have felt very nervous.

  ‘Do you speak English, my dear?’ she asked at first.

  ‘Of course,’ I replied.

  She now picked up the pack of cards and pulled out a card. It was the jack of spades, and she placed it on the table. Then she asked me to choose twenty cards. When I had done that, I was told to shuffle them. I did as she said, and then I was told to place the jack of spades in the middle of the pile. When that was done, the fortune-teller placed the twenty-one cards on the table, all the while staring straight into my eyes.

  The cards were arranged in three rows, seven in each. She pointed to the top row and told me it represented the past, the middle showed the present, and the bottom row the future. In the middle row the jack of spades reappeared, and she now laid it beside a joker.

  ‘Amazing,’ she said softly. ‘A very special spread.’

  Not a lot happened for a while; I wondered whether the twenty-one cards were so special that she’d been hypnotised by them, but then she began to speak.

  She pointed to the jack of spades in the middle row and looked at the surrounding cards.

  ‘I see a growing boy,’ she said. ‘He is far away from home.’

  So far I wasn’t that impressed; you didn’t have to be a Gypsy to know I wasn’t from Como.

  But then she said, ‘Are you not happy, my dear?’

  I didn’t answer, and the woman looked down at the cards again.

  She now pointed to the row which told of the past. The king of spades lay among a number of other spades.

  ‘Many sorrows and obstacles in the past,’ she said.

  She picked up the king of spades and said it was Dad. He had had a bitter childhood, she continued. Then she said all sorts of things, of which I understood only about half. She frequently used the word ‘grandfather’.

  ‘But where is your mother, dear son?’

  I said she was in Athens, but regretted it at once, because I’d helped her. She could very well be bluffing.

  ‘She has been away for a very long time,’ the fortune-teller continued. She pointed to the bottom row of cards. The ace of hearts lay to the far right, far away from the king of spades.

  ‘I think this is your mother,’ she said. ‘She is a very attractive woman … wearing beautiful clothes … in a foreign country far away from the land in the north.’

  She continued to tell my fortune like this, and I never understood more than about half of it. When she started to talk about the future, her dark eyes shone like polished chestnuts.

  ‘I have never seen a spread like this,’ she said once again.

  She pointed to the joker, which lay beside the jack of spades, and said, ‘Many great surprises. Many hidden things, my boy.’

  Then she got up and nervously tossed her head. The last thing she said was ‘And it is so close …’

  And with that the session was over. The fortune-teller followed me out of the tent, hurried straight over to Dad, and whispered some words of truth in his ear.

  I ambled along behind her, and then she put her hand on my head and said, ‘This is a very special boy, sir … Many secrets. God knows what he will bring.’

  I think Dad was about to laugh. Maybe it was to stop himself from bursting out laughing that he gave the woman yet another note.

  Even when we’d moved well away from the tent, the fortuneteller was still standing there watching us.

  ‘She read cards,’ I said.

  ‘Really? You asked for the joker, didn’t you?’

  ‘You’re absolutely crazy,’ I replied moodily. His question was like swearing in church. ‘Who are the Gypsies around here – us or them?’

  Dad laughed harshly. I could tell by his tone that both his bottles were empty.

  When we got back to the hotel room, I got him to tell me a couple of old tales from the seven seas.

  He had sailed for many years on oil tankers between the West Indies and Europe, and he had got to know the Gulf of Mexico and towns like Rotterdam, Hamburg, and Lübeck like the back of his hand. But the ships also made other voyages, taking Dad to ports in all corners of the world. We had already visited Hamburg; we’d trudged around the dock area there for half a day. Tomorrow we’d be in another town with a port Dad had visited as a young boy: Venice. And when we eventually reached Athens, he had plans to visit Piraeus.

  Before we’d started out on our long journey, I’d asked him why we couldn’t simply fly. Then we would have had more time to find Mama in Athens. But Dad said the whole point of the trip was to get Mama home, and it was easier to push her into the Fiat than drag her into a travel agency and buy a plane ticket for her.

  I suspected he wasn’t so sure he’d find her, and if he didn’t, then he wasn’t going to be cheated out of a proper holiday. If the truth be known, Dad had wanted to visit Athens ever since he was a boy. When he was in Piraeus, which is only a few kilometres from Athens, the captain hadn’t allowed him to visit the ancient town. In my opinion, that captain should have been demoted to ship’s boy.

  Lots of people travel to Athens to study ancient temples. Dad wanted to visit Athens, first and foremost, because this was where the great philosophers had lived.

  Mama running away from me and Dad was bad enough, but Dad thought it was like a slap in the face when she’d decided to travel to Athens as well. If she was going to try to find herself in a country which Dad also wanted to visit – then they might as well have gone there and worked it out together.

  After Dad had told a couple of juicy stories from his life at sea, he fell asleep. I lay in bed thinking about the sticky-bun book and the strange baker in Dorf.

  I regretted hiding the sticky-bun book in the car. Now I couldn’t find out how Baker Hans had spent the night after the shipwreck.

  Before I fell asleep, I thought about Ludwig and Albert and Baker Hans. They’d all had a tough time before becoming bakers in Dorf. What linked them together was the secret of the Rainbow Fizz and all the goldfish. Baker Hans had also mentioned something about a man called Frode, who’d had some strange playing cards …

  Unless I was completely mistaken, it all had something to do with Baker Hans’s shipwreck.

  QUEEN OF SPADES

  … these butterflies made a

  sound like birdsong …

  Dad woke me unusually early the next morning. There can’t have been so many drops in the small bottles he’d bought on his way to the fair, after all.

  ‘We’re going to Venice today,’ he announced. ‘We’ll leave at sunrise.’

  As I jumped out of bed, I remembered that I’d dreamed about the dwarf and the fortune-teller from the fair. In my dream, the dwarf had been a wax figure in the House of Horrors, but he had suddenly come alive because the dark-haired Gypsy lady had stared deeply into his eyes once when she and her daughter had been there, too. In the dead of night, the little man had crept out of the tunnel, and now he wanders around Europe in constant fear that someone will recognise him and send him back to the House of Horrors. If they did that, he would turn back into a lifeless wax figure.

  Dad was ready to go before I’d managed to get the strange dream out of my head and put on my jeans. I was beginning to look forward to reaching Venice. We would see the Adriatic for the first time in our long journey. It was a sea I’d never seen before, and Dad hadn’t seen it since he was a sailor. From Venice our journey would take us through Yugoslavia to Athens.

  We went down to the dining room and ate the dried-u
p breakfast you get everywhere south of the Alps. We were in the car by seven o’clock, and just as we were setting off the sun peeped above the horizon.

  ‘We’re going to have that bright star in front of us all morning,’ Dad said, putting on his sunglasses.

  The route to Venice went through the famous Valley of the Po, which is one of the most fertile areas in the whole world. The reason for this, of course, is all the fresh Alpine water.

  One moment we were driving past dense orange and lemon groves; the next moment we were surrounded by cypress, olive, and palm trees. In wetter areas we drove past wide rice fields lined with tall poplar trees. Red poppies grew everywhere along the roadside, and they were so brightly coloured that from time to time I had to rub my eyes.

  Later that morning we reached the top of a hill and looked down over a plain so rich in colour that an unfortunate landscape painter would have had to use his entire paintbox to produce a truthful painting.

  Dad parked the car, jumped out onto the roadside, and lit a cigarette while he gathered his thoughts for one of his typical mini-lectures.

  ‘All this bursts through each spring, Hans Thomas. Tomatoes and lemons, artichokes and walnuts – tons of greenery. How do you think this black earth pumps it all out?’

  He stood gazing at the work of creation.

  ‘What impresses me most,’ he continued, ‘is that everything comes from one single cell. Several million years ago a little seed appeared which split in two, and as time passed, this little seed changed into elephants and apple trees, raspberries and orangutans. Do you follow me, Hans Thomas?’

  I shook my head, so he carried on. It was a comprehensive lecture about the origin of different plant and animal species, and in conclusion he pointed to a butterfly which had taken off from a blue flower and explained that this butterfly was able to live in peace, here in the Po Valley, because the dots on its wings looked like the eyes of a wild animal.