It had been 6.18 when the young man had gone from her stateroom. No one would understand, but that had been the exact time that the last of Emily Stratman had died. Did the Nobel people know that their laureate in physics was arriving with a corpse? The celebrated Professor Max Stratman and corpse. Stockholm. She played the word-association game. What does the word Stockholm mean to you, Miss Stratman? Quickly, now, what? And she replied, quickly, trepidation, dread, anxiety, fear, men. All one and the same, all finally-men.
My crazy mind, she thought, wandering. Wonderful, drugful tablet, work, go on, work. When will I sleep?…
On the sunny, late morning of December 2, Carl Adolf Krantz, Count Bertil Jacobsson, and Ingrid Påhl were once more, the second time this morning, the fourth time in two days, seated in the rear of a Foreign Office limousine, en route to the Arlanda Airport. Because two winners and their relatives-Dr. John Garrett and his wife Saralee Garrett, and Mr. Andrew Craig and his sister-in-law Leah Decker-were arriving at 12.35, on the same flight of the Scandinavian Airlines System from Copenhagen, another Foreign Office limousine had been dispatched half an hour earlier to the air terminus.
To make this seventy-minute ride more bearable, Jacobsson had deliberately placed himself between Krantz and Påhl. He wished no more bickering. He wanted unity before the final reception duty was performed.
Carl Adolf Krantz, however, was in no mood for bickering this late morning. His spirits were high, his beady eyes bright, his goatee bristling, as he continued the monologue he had begun after they had finished breakfast with Stratman and his niece and left them in the Grand Hotel.
He had been praising, without restraint, Stratman’s findings in the field of solar energy, and now he was extolling the winning physicist’s background and character.
‘Did you ever meet a more remarkable man?’ he asked, and did not wait for an answer. ‘Wisdom shines in his face. And his true modesty. So rare to find in a famous man. One of the marks of greatness, I would say, a humility that confesses, “Yes, I have gone so far, but there are more curtains to lift, let us go on, let us go further.” I tell you both, I cannot recollect another laureate who has impressed me more.’
‘Obviously,’ said Ingrid Påhl.
‘Yes, I liked him,’ Jacobsson agreed. ‘I hope he did not mind our staying for breakfast.’
‘I am sure not,’ said Krantz.
‘I wonder. I had the feeling he was weary-’
‘He is not a youngster,’ said Krantz, ‘and he has had a long trip. Besides, it was not weariness I detected so much as a sense of a genius whose mind is still on his work. After all, as he told us, he is continuing with his solar investigations. He has only begun. We have just come along and interrupted-’
‘He seemed perfectly fine to me,’ said Ingrid Påhl. ‘It was his niece-I thought she was a little strange.’
‘How so?’ Jacobsson wanted to know.
‘Remote-and-oh, scared.’ Ingrid Påhl considered the judgment. ‘To begin with, at the depot. She was separated from him for a moment when the photographers closed in, and she appeared frantic. I saw her face. That was just one thing. For the rest of the time, she was withdrawn. I do not know-as if she were not part of the group, a stranger-’
‘She is a stranger,’ said Krantz.
‘At any rate, an interesting young lady. I studied her face. Flawless. She is going to create quite a stir in our little social whirl.’ lngrid Påhl leaned across Jacobsson. ‘And she does not look a bit like Dr. Stratman,’ she added to Krantz.
‘No reason why she should,’ said Krantz. ‘She is his brother’s child.’
‘What happened to the brother?’ asked Ingrid Påhl.
‘How the devil should I know?’ said Krantz testily.
Ingrid Påhl opened her voluminous handbag and brought out her cigarettes and holder. ‘Well, they are settled, thank God. Now, Bertil, what about this noon’s visitor? I know all about Andrew Craig. But this Dr. Garrett-’
‘You read the typescript I gave you, did you not?’ asked Jacobsson.
Ingrid Påhl had the light to her cigarette, shook the flame off the match, and dropped it to the floor. ‘I read it twice. It was all about his work. What about the man? What are we to expect?’
‘There is little I can tell you,’ said Jacobsson. ‘He lives in this city near Los Angeles, California, and has three children. He had no reputation in academic circles until he and Dr. Farelli made their heart transplantations. I do not think he is wealthy, but I believe he is well off. I have read excerpts of his speeches in the press. They seem fairly routine. I have the picture of a rather single-minded, dedicated man, with few outside interests-’
‘Dull, you mean,’ said Ingrid Påhl.
Jacobsson’s face looked pained. To him, no winner of the Nobel Prize could possibly be dull. ‘I would prefer not to characterize him in that way. Rather, I would say that he is a man whose work is his world. Perhaps he is not so colourful in personality as Dr. Farelli, but more the typical, businesslike American scientist who has collaborated in producing a marvel for humanity.’
Ingrid Påhl’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Collaborated? I did not know he and Farelli worked together-’
‘No, no.’ Jacobsson hastened to amend his statement to lngrid Påhl. ‘I used the word only in its broadest definition. They researched separately, and made their discoveries, of an identical nature, quite apart but at the same time. Not unfamiliar in science, as Carl will tell you. You may recall that Dr. Farelli confessed he and Dr. Garrett had neither met nor corresponded.’
‘Then this meeting in Stockholm will be their first?’ Ingrid Påhl savoured the drama. ‘I wonder what they will have to say to each other.’
‘They will devote hours to discussing immunity mechanism,’ said Krantz, ‘as well as organ banks for the heart, pancreas, and liver. Appetizing.’
‘In any case, you may both have an opportunity to hear what they discuss,’ said Jacobsson. He bent across Krantz for a view through the window. ‘We have not far to go. I presume Dr. Garrett and Mr. Craig have had an opportunity to become acquainted in this last hour since Copenhagen. I rather hope so. It’ll save us the formal introductions…’
The French-made Caravelle jet, that had taken off from Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen at 11.20 in the morning, had been airborne fifty-five minutes and was twenty minutes out of Stockholm.
It was now precisely 12.14, according to Saralee Garrett’s platinum wristwatch, a gift of John’s on their recent fifteenth wedding anniversary, and she wished desperately that it were 12.25 and that they had already landed. She wanted them to be swept up in a busy social programme, so that her husband would have no more time alone with his ulcerating obsession. Tiny and thin as a hummingbird, Saralee’s outward appearance belied her inner resilience. But the last hour with John had proved almost more than she could bear. From the corner of her eye, she espied her husband once more studying the three Copenhagen newspapers, and she knew that he was fuming.
Dr. John Garrett was, indeed, fuming. He would not even allow himself the comfort of sitting back and enjoying the soft leather seat in the aeroplane. Instead, he leaned forward tensely, in the attitude of a pugilist stalking a formidable foe and awaiting an opening. He jabbed nervously at the three newspapers in his lap, as if they were the embodiment of his opponent, and, indeed, they were, for Dr. Farelli’s smiling, cocky Latin countenance mocked him from a photograph on each front page.