‘I said-what did you think caused the accident?’
‘This,’ said Craig weakly. ‘I guess I never thought about it, but I guess later I was told it was this. It-it was just-I don’t know-strange the way you brought it all back to me today.’
‘I’m sorry if I threw you off.’
‘It’s all right,’ he said, hardly aware of her. His mind was on Leah, and almost to himself, more to himself than to her, he said, ‘Yes, Leah, Leah took care of-of everything.’
‘What?’
‘I said-’ The shock was receding, and his surroundings were taking on their perspective, the walnut desk, and shelf of green ledgers, and the wall of books, and the glass cases, and Sue Wiley so confused with her eyes eternally blinking. ‘I forget what I said. I’d better be moving along. Thanks for everything. I hope you write as fairly as you research.’
‘I only wanted to show you how we work, so you’d understand-’
‘I understand a lot now, Miss Wiley. Good-day.’
In the study of Carl Adolf Krantz’s apartment on Norr Mälarstrand, Daranyi observed that the time was 7.41 and that he had only two more dossiers to report, and after that, one more odious task, and after that he would be free, free of the oppressive room with its crowded furniture and lukewarm tea and suddenly grubby fern, and its disgusting owner.
‘So,’ said Daranyi, lowering his trouser belt to make his stomach more comfortable, and picking up his sheaf of memoranda once more. ‘If you are ready, we will proceed with the last of the two names on my list.’
‘I am ready,’ said Krantz. ‘Proceed.’
‘We come now to the redoubtable Professor Max Stratman, formerly of Berlin, now resident of Atlanta, Georgia. By the biography you left with me, I see that you have already acquired most of the pertinent data on this great man.’
‘Yes. Our Nobel committee has researched the obvious facts, which are public, on his past. However, as to personal insights-’
Daranyi nodded. ‘I understand. I have done my best, but there was nothing I could find that bore the slightest hint of impending scandal. However, I will pass on to you the few items I have acquired. Only one of these, as I see it, might be of even passing interest. I refer to Professor Stratman’s heart condition.’
He waited, and was pleased with the instant heed that Krantz had given to this information.
‘Heart condition? Do you mean he is ill? Are you certain?’
‘I am certain,’ said Daranyi complacently. ‘I have my connections at our Southern Hospital, and that is where Professor Stratman has been to visit for examinations and shots. I do not know the particulars of his condition. I am informed there is an irregularity, but no immediate danger. I am told that if he takes care, he will have some useful years ahead.’
Krantz was writing furiously. ‘Anything else on that?’
‘I am sorry, but no more. Except this afternoon-this afternoon, Professor Stratman visited the Southern Hospital a third time. I can only presume this was for further treatment, necessitated by the excessive excitement of the week and tomorrow’s Ceremony.’
‘What else?’ demanded Krantz.
‘Little else, I am afraid. His activities in this city have not been unusual. He is rarely without his niece beside him. I believe his affection for her is genuine, but there seems some indication that he feels a moral obligation to care for her, some debt he owes her father, his brother-’
‘We know about that,’ said Krantz impatiently.
‘With one exception,’ said Daranyi, ‘the people here whom Professor Stratman has seen are people well known to Scandinavian science or officials of the Academy. The exception is this. In the early afternoon of December fifth, Professor Stratman lunched at Riche with a Dr. Hans Eckart. I made an effort, in my limited time, to learn something of this Eckart, but current biographical dictionaries have nothing on him. A prewar dictionary listed him as a German physicist. I then checked the Bromma Airport and learned that he had disembarked from a Czech aeroplane that had taken off from East Berlin. I do not know if this has any value-’
‘None,’ said Krantz sharply, massaging the back of his neck.
‘I only mentioned it because this was the one person with whom Professor Stratman had met who was not known to me.’
‘Unimportant,’ said Krantz. ‘What else?’
‘That is all I have on Professor Stratman.’
Daranyi could see the flashing dip of disappointment on Krantz’s features, through the leaves of the plant, and instinctively, he comprehended that the object of his entire assignment had been to research this one man. All the rest had been camouflage. One man: Stratman.
Daranyi revelled in his secret knowledge, and tried to retain his professional, non-committal demeanour. ‘This brings us to the last name,’ he said. ‘Professor Stratman’s niece, who is Miss Emily Stratman.’
‘Go on.’
‘The contact you suggested to me, Miss Sue Wiley, the American journalist, proved helpful in gathering this brief dossier. There is not much, of course.’ Daranyi had made the decision to withhold his most dramatic find for the very end. It would make his bargaining position the stronger.
He ran a finger down his jottings. ‘Miss Stratman resides with the Professor in a bungalow in the city of Atlanta. Several days a week, she works, as a nurse’s aide, without salary, in the Lawson General Hospital, a government establishment where American war veterans are kept. This appears to be her principal outside interest, except an occasional film and the social affairs she sometimes attends with her uncle. You have seen her, so you know that she is beautiful. Yet, she has never been married. And she has not been engaged. She has not been seen alone in the company of men. It is Miss Wiley’s opinion that she is a virgin.’
‘It takes one to know one,’ said Krantz grumpily. ‘How has this niece behaved in Stockholm?’
‘Exactly as I told you when I discussed Mr. Craig. She has been seen in his company. Apparently, they do have interest in one another. She has seen no one else alone, to the best of my knowledge. I do not think Professor Stratman would permit it. As I have indicated, he is over protective. In the case of Mr. Craig, I should imagine that Professor Stratman would trust a fellow laureate. This is her record here. I have been thorough, Dr. Krantz. I know of her movements up until a quarter to five this very afternoon. That was when she left the hotel on foot, by herself, and walked across Kungsträdgården, and crossed Hamngatan, and went into Nordiska Kompaniet, along with all the other late shoppers…’
Emily Stratman had been sitting at the table beside the window, in the fourth-floor grill-room of the Nordiska Kompaniet department store, for five minutes, waiting.
Suddenly, now, she had an impulse to run.
She could not go through with the embarrassment of this meeting, she told herself. She should not have agreed to it. Her mind was a turmoil. She had cried herself to sleep last night, and her eyes were a fright. And worst of all, she felt inadequate for the encounter.
Why had she consented?
Nervously, her hand kneaded the handbag on the table, almost knocking off the menu, as she recalled the telephone call.
Only a few hours ago, she had lain listlessly on the sofa of the hotel sitting-room, trying to read, when the telephone behind her rang. She had taken up the receiver, still reclining and still morose.
‘Yes?’
‘Miss Emily Stratman, please.’ The voice on the other end was young, female, possibly Swedish, and unfamiliar to Emily.
‘This is she.’
‘I am Lilly Hedqvist,’ said the voice.
The name had already been branded distinctly in Emily’s mind since Andrew Craig’s confession, but the reality of hearing the name spoken aloud by its possessor was paralysing.
So disconcerted that she was at a loss for words, Emily could not reply. Her knuckles whitened on the receiver, but her vocal chords were mute.