Because Morell, like Vanger, had spent thirty-six years pondering the mystery,
Blomkvist had expected a certain resistance—he was the new man who had come
in and started tramping around in the thicket where Morell had gone astray. But
there was not a hint of hostility. Morell methodically filled his pipe and lit it before
he replied.
“Well yes, obviously I had my own ideas. But they’re so vague and fleeting that I can
hardly put them into words.”
“What do you think happened?”
“I think Harriet was murdered. Henrik and I agree on that. It’s the only reasonable
explanation. But we never discovered what the motive might have been. I think she
was murdered for a very specific reason—it wasn’t some act of madness or a rape
or anything like that. If we had known the motive, we’d have known who killed
her.” Morell stopped to think for a moment. “The murder may have been
committed spontaneously. By that I mean that someone seized an opportunity
when it presented itself in the coming and going in the wake of the accident. The
murderer hid the body and then at some later time removed it while we were
searching for her.”
“We’re talking about someone who has nerves of ice.”
“There’s one detail...Harriet went to Henrik’s room wanting to speak to him. In
hindsight, it seems to me a strange way to behave—she knew he had his hands full
with all the relatives who were hanging around. I think Harriet alive represented a
grave threat to someone, that she was going to tell Henrik something, and that the
murderer knew she was about to...well, spill the beans.”
“And Henrik was busy with several family members?”
“There were four people in the room, besides Henrik. His brother Greger, a cousin
named Magnus Sjögren, and two of Harald’s children, Birger and Cecilia. But that
doesn’t tell us anything. Let’s suppose that Harriet had discovered that someone
had embezzled money from the company—hypothetically, of course. She may
have known about it for months, and at some point she may even have discussed it
with the person in question. She may have tried to blackmail him, or she may have
felt sorry for him and felt uneasy about exposing him. She may have decided all of
a sudden and told the murderer so, and he in desperation killed her.”
“You’ve said ‘he’ and ‘him.’”