The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

with the Pharisees. The Pharisees went off, one by one (men, in general, are of course not in the slightest bit free of sin). Finally, only Jesus and the woman remained.
    ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’
    ‘No one,’ she answered.
    ‘Then neither do I condemn you,’ Jesus declared. ‘Go now and sin no more.’
     
    The chief inspector still had his policeman’s sense of smell intact and he was sure he could smell a rat. But Karlsson and Jonsson and Ljungberg and Ljungberg and Björklund and Gerdin were, as of yesterday, declared innocent by Prosecutor Ranelid, and who was Aronsson to call them delinquents? Besides, they were actually a rather appealing bunch and – as Jesus so rightly pointed out – who was in a position to cast the first stone? Aronsson thought back to some darker moments of his own life, but above all he grew angry over how Prosecutor Ranelid had wished the thoroughly pleasant Pike Gerdin dead, just to serve his own purposes.
    ‘No, damn it! You’ll have to sort this out yourself, Ranelid,’ said Chief Inspector Aronsson and headed for the hotel’s breakfast room.
    Cornflakes, toast and egg were washed down with coffee and the two big national dailies, both of which cautiously suggestedthat the prosecutor had made something of a fiasco of the case of the disappearing centenarian who was eventually both accused of murder and declared innocent. The newspapers did, however, have to admit that they didn’t know enough about it. The centenarian himself couldn’t be found, and the prosecutor didn’t want to tell them any more until Friday afternoon.
    ‘As noted, Ranelid, you’ll have to sort this out yourself,’ Aronsson murmured.
    Then the chief inspector ordered a taxi and arrived at Bellringer Farm at 9.51, just three minutes before the prosecutor.
     
    There was no meteorological risk of what Prosecutor Ranelid so devoutly wished for: a lightning strike on Bellringer Farm. But it was cloudy and chilly. So the inhabitants of the farm planned to meet in the spacious kitchen.
    The previous evening the group had agreed on an alternative story to present to Prosecutor Ranelid, and to be on the safe side they had rehearsed the story at breakfast too. Now they were reasonably sure of their roles for the morning’s performance, allowing for the fact that the truth is always much simpler to remember than its opposite. He who tells a big lie can easily find himself in big trouble, so now the members of the group had to think carefully before they opened their mouths.
    ‘Damn and hell,’ was how The Beauty summarized the general tension before Chief Inspector Aronsson and Prosecutor Ranelid were led into the kitchen.
     
    The meeting with Prosecutor Conny Ranelid was more fun for some than for others. This is how it went:
    ‘Well, to start with I would like to thank you for letting me come,’ said Prosecutor Ranelid. ‘And I must apologize on behalf of… er… on behalf of the prosecutor’s office for the fact that several of you had warrants out for your arrest quite withoutcause. Having said that, I would very much like to know what happened, from the moment you, Mr Karlsson, climbed out of the window at the Old People’s Home and right up to the present. Would you like to begin, Mr Karlsson?’
    Allan had no objection to that. He thought that this might turn out to be fun.
    ‘I can indeed, Mr Prosecutor, even though I am old and decrepit, and my memory isn’t what it used to be. But I do remember that I climbed out of that window, yes I do. And there were some very sound reasons for that, very sound reasons. You see, Mr Prosecutor, I was on my way to see my good friend Julius Jonsson here, and you don’t show up to visit him without a bottle of vodka and that is exactly what I had been able to obtain after sneaking off to the local state-run alcohol store when nobody was looking. In fact, nowadays you don’t even have to go all the way to the state-run alcohol store, you can simply knock on the door of… well, I won’t tell you his name, Mr Prosecutor, because that isn’t why you are here, but he sells privately imported vodka for less than half the regular price. Anyway, this time Eklund wasn’t at home – oh dear, now I’ve told you his name – and I had no choice but to buy the vodka at the state store. Then I managed to get the bottle into my room and usually at that point I’m home and dry, but this time I was going to take it out again, and