(1961) The Prize

by Irving Wallace

  ‘As you know, Daranyi, this is Nobel Week, one of my busiest weeks of the year—’

  ‘So it is. How time flies. I had almost forgotten.’

  ‘Have you read of this year’s crop of laureates who have come to us from America, France, Italy?’

  ‘I am ashamed to confess this, Dr. Krantz, but I have been so busy, I have hardly had time to glance at my newspapers this week.’

  Krantz brushed at the air with his hand. ‘No matter. The assignment I have for you concerns these Nobel winners. Because of their importance, and the nature of what you must learn, your research—the assignment itself—must be strictly confidential.’

  ‘Dr. Krantz, I have never failed you.’ Then Daranyi added with pride, ‘I am professional.’

  ‘Take no offence. I merely emphasize the—the stature of the persons being investigated—and remind you they are in the international limelight. Now then, a rumour has come to the attention of several of us on the prize-giving committees. One of our laureates, I know not which, may have an unsavoury—no, let me put it this way—may have a questionable past and be of questionable character. There could be a scandal, before or after the Ceremony. If this is true, we must know about it in advance, we must be informed, prepared to take preventive action. The good name of the entire Nobel Foundation is at stake.’

  Daranyi nodded gravely, and did not believe one word of what Krantz had told him. Daranyi’s professional assets were distrust and suspicion, and long experience had taught him that the motives men pretended to have in hiring him were always to be doubted. But Daranyi never fussed about this. Morality had nothing to do with free-lance espionage. An ethical spy was an impoverished spy, or worse, a dead one. You took a job. You rendered efficient services for a fee. You did not think. You survived.

  Daranyi did not think now. He wore the Damon hood. ‘I can see the importance of this, and your concern,’ he said.

  Krantz appeared pleased with himself. For him, so dryly factual, so lacking in the art of fable, the worst of it was over. The rest would be relatively simple. ‘In quite a natural way, several of us on the committees banded together on the matter—unofficially, of course—and determined to take action, sub rosa. I mentioned to my colleagues that I knew someone who could help—and here I am.’

  ‘I am grateful,’ said Daranyi. ‘You wish me to proceed as I did in the investigation of the Australian physicists?’

  Krantz recoiled slightly at the bald mention of an old intrigue, best forgotten. ‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘That was a leisurely research done at long distance. In this research, there is a time element, and the subject—subjects—of the research are close at hand, and therefore your inquiries will be more dangerous. Now, I have spoken of rumour of a scandal, but I do not want you out blatantly snooping for one—not at all. As a matter of fact, you may find no evidence of scandal at all. But we on the committee have our information, our half of the jigsaw, and by supplying us more information, you may supply us with the missing half of the puzzle. Do you understand?’

  ‘I fully understand.’

  ‘I will leave with you pocket-sized photographs of the laureates, a record of their recent activities in Stockholm—public activities, that is—and the remainder of their schedules. I will also leave you condensed public biographies of each laureate, containing their backgrounds, statements, habits, as taken from our official records and gleaned from the press. This we have and is of no importance. I will give it to you merely so that you may familiarize yourself with the subjects, know who they are, know the quarry.’

  ‘Everything will be useful.’

  Krantz’s beady eyes glittered. ‘What we require, and do not possess, is personal data—as much as can be obtained in a hurry—on each laureate, and his or her relatives and associates. I repeat, do not look for overt scandal. What we want is that which has been kept secluded from public view—the small weaknesses of the present, indiscretions of the past, the personal histories unknown, the expurgated sections of experience or conduct. I am certain I need elaborate no further. You are practised in these matters.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Daranyi modestly. ‘How many subjects will I research?’

  Krantz dug inside his jacket pocket and brought out two envelopes. One he placed on the end table. ‘The photographs,’ he said. He opened the second, longer envelope and took out and unfolded what appeared to be half a dozen closely typed pages. He leafed through the pages. ‘Six laureates,’ he said finally, ‘and two wives, one sister-in-law, one niece. Perhaps, because of time limitations, all should not be given equal emphasis.’

  For half a minute Krantz was lost in thought. Eckart had suggested the red herring: because you can trust no one in these affairs, do not give the impression you want only one laureate, Max Stratman, investigated, but make it appear you wish all six laureates investigated, Stratman being only one more among them. This was safe, Krantz realized, but the fallacy was that it spread Daranyi’s investigation too thin. They would obtain a little about everyone, and possibly too little about Stratman. Krantz weighed the risk of emphasizing several names, instead of all, and then he took the risk.

  ‘I will tell you what,’ Krantz resumed. ‘I want to make your inquiry easier. Here, we have ten persons to be looked into, but because of what we already know, perhaps more attention should be given four of them. In your place, I would expend maximum effort on—let us say—Dr. John Garrett and Dr. Carlo Farelli, the laureates in medicine—their wives are of lesser moment, although one never knows—on those two gentlemen, and—let us say—Professor Max Stratman, also—Professor Stratman and his niece, whose name is Emily Stratman. You will keep this in mind, Daranyi?’

  ‘My memory is unfailing.’

  ‘Yes, Garrett, Farelli, the Stratmans.’ He examined the papers in his hand. ‘As for the others—the Marceaus—Andrew Craig—’

  Daranyi’s bland face almost gave away its first surprise. ‘Andrew Craig?’ he echoed.

  Krantz looked up. ‘The literary laureate,’ he said. ‘You know him?’

  Daranyi’s mind had gone back to the tall, gaunt American in Lilly Hedqvist’s bed, to their breakfast, to his monologue on sex life in Sweden with Craig in the restaurant. There could not be two Andrew Craigs, both writers, in Stockholm in one winter. The heavy-drinking man—my God, he had even been to the nudist society with Lilly, the puritanical, troubled, attractive man who was Lilly’s lover—was no more a wanderer, tourist on the run, but he was one of the world’s great authors, a Nobel laureate, no less. And Daranyi remembered that he had lectured this giant as he might a farm lad. Suddenly, he felt foolish and weak, and tried to pin his mind to Krantz’s question, and with effort succeeded.

  ‘Know him? No, no, of course not. I had been reading some books by an American named Craig—’

  ‘Undoubtedly the same, but we have no time for literary digressions, Daranyi.’

  Daranyi’s mind leaped to Lilly: did she know the august position of her paramour? Probably not, or she would have mentioned it. Certainly not, he decided. Lilly, for all her alertness and native wisdom, was widely unread. She was a delightful little animal of the senses, whose frankness sometimes passed for knowledge and erudition. Daranyi, as her fatherly mentor, knew her better. Except for occasional periodicals devoted to health and nature and popular psychology for mothers, she read next to nothing, certainly not books, in fact, not even newspapers. She would know neither Craig’s creative work nor his new reputation. Was there an advantage for her, in knowing? Craig enjoyed her, it was evident, and had interest in her and sympathy for her. What a catch he might make for Lilly.

  Daranyi realized that he would have to give the problem further thought when he was alone. Now his duty was to Krantz, and the physicist’s obvious red herring. The interior titillation was—which of the four emphasized was the one that Krantz was trying to hide from him, and yet learn the most about? Dr. Garrett? Dr. Farelli? Professor Stratman? Miss Stratman? Well, that was the fun of it, abo
ve and beyond the kronor involved.

  ‘—can give them less time,’ Krantz was saying. ‘Mind you I want something on the Marceaus and Craig, indeed I do, and the wives and the Decker lady—one never knows—but I want you to use your time where it counts the most. I will trust your judgment.’

  ‘You have made everything clear, as ever, Dr. Krantz. Now as to the time—’

  ‘The time limitation is immutable,’ said Krantz firmly. ‘I must have your data by the early evening of December ninth, and if you can bring us the research earlier, I might arrange a bonus. But the ninth—’

  Daranyi whistled. ‘Impossible.’

  Krantz recited Eckart’s words to him. ‘Nothing is impossible, Daranyi. I do not ask you to move mountains. A few facts from here, from there—’

  Daranyi had been calculating. ‘You are giving me forty-eight hours—sixty at most.’

  ‘I am fully cognizant of the difficulties, and I come prepared.’ He took out his wallet, removed a wad of notes held together with a paper clip. ‘Two thousand five hundred kronor for expenses alone,’ he said.

  Daranyi picked up the notes and weighed them with satisfaction. ‘This will help.’

  ‘I presume you are going to do as you have always done—?’

  ‘How is that?’

  ‘Buy information from foreign correspondents, among other sources?’

  ‘That is likely.’

  ‘The timing is fortunate. Reporters are here from all over the world—the Grand, Hotel Stockholm, Eden Terrace, Foresta, Carlton are teeming with them. Many need extra money. The sum I have given you should go far.’

  ‘Except with the Americans.’

  ‘True,’ said Krantz. ‘But you will find other means with them. For one lead, I might mention a young woman named Miss Sue Wiley, who represents Consolidated Newspapers of New York—you will remember her name?’

  ‘Sue Wiley.’

  ‘I happen to know that she is preparing an exposé, on the sensational side, of the Nobel history and its many winners, past, present. I suspect she would do anything for new information.’

  ‘Are you suggesting, Dr. Krantz, that she might give me specific information I need, in return for such gossip as I can supply for her stories?’

  ‘No question about it. But I would not pretend for her that I was a journalist. She might worry about the competition—Americans are so conscious of exclusivity—whatever the word is they use.’

  ‘Scoop.’

  ‘Yes, yes, idiotic word. But give yourself another identity.’

  ‘You can leave that to me, Dr. Krantz.’

  The physicist combed his goatee with his fingertips. ‘You might pay heed to the programme that the laureates have been following. You will find they have been drunk at the Royal Palace and at Hammarlund’s villa—’

  ‘Do not worry,’ Daranyi reassured his visitor, ‘I have my sources everywhere—and with two thousand five hundred kronor—’ He hesitated. ‘All that bothers me is the time limitation.’

  ‘You will do your best. I ask no more.’

  ‘Very well. You can depend on me.’ There was the final matter. Daranyi coughed and cleared his throat. ‘Now, as to my services—’

  Krantz came to his feet and pulled his jacket straight. ‘Your fee is not yet settled, Daranyi. I am having another meeting with my colleagues. You will have to trust my judgment. Have I ever failed you in this respect? I have not. It will be good pay for forty-eight hours’ work. It will be more than adequate recompense, more than you received on your last assignment, that I pledge. And I repeat, if you can deliver material earlier, there will be a bonus.’

  ‘In financial affairs, I trust your generosity, your knowledge of my usefulness, entirely.’

  Krantz had taken his overcoat, and now Daranyi was on his feet and helping his employer into it.

  At the door, Krantz paused. ‘Utmost discretion, Daranyi, I warn you.’

  A smile enlivened Daranyi’s face. He made his joke. ‘I have a neck, too. I like it.’

  Krantz grunted. ‘Then it is settled. At any hour of the ninth, when you are ready, telephone my private number. I will be waiting in the apartment until you call. Then I will expect you right over.’

  ‘I hope I have something,’ said Daranyi.

  ‘I expect you will,’ said Krantz.

  He left. The meeting was over. Daranyi stared absently at the closed door. He wondered what was behind all this. Soon enough, he might know. That was the sport of it, that and the money.

  He returned to the end table and took up the biographies that Krantz had left behind. Slowly, he read. His forty-eight hours of voyeurism had begun.

  At exactly 11.05 on the same morning—the air still as frozen as it had been in the earlier hours, but with the landscape of Djurgården now painted zinc-grey rather than black—Denise Marceau had been driven through a rear gate behind Åskslottet, and had seen Dr. Oscar Lindblom through the windshield, slapping his arms and waiting at the forest path ahead.

  As he assisted her from Hammarlund’s Bentley, a luxury that she enjoyed, so fitting for her mood, she was pleased to observe that Lindblom appeared more handsome, more definite, more manly than she had remembered. His hair has been caught by the wind, and rumpled, and the weather had made his cheeks ruddy and alive. The woollen muffler he had bound about his neck and shoulders—the muffler with no overcoat—gave him an indefinable dash. He looked less like a cavity, praise the Lord, she decided, and she went cheerfully on his arm through the rows of stripped trees. Lindblom said that there were some tame deer in the forest, but Denise saw none.

  The private laboratory, a one-storey cement building, thirty by sixty feet, stood in a clearing, isolated from all other construction and habitation. Although the inside of the laboratory—two rooms and a bath—had the familiar appearance of a dozen laboratories Denise had known in France, this one proved infinitely more up-to-date.

  Lindblom, attentive as a military school junior, had helped her off with her heavy grey strolling coat. She had been pleased, certain that she had not imagined it, that he had furtively admired her new silk shantung dress, low-cut and stylishly short for daytime wear.

  After lighting her cigarette, he had guided her proudly through the larger room, the work section of the laboratory, meticulously pointing out and discussing each glass still and its contents, each high vacuum pump, the temperature gauges and heaters and flasks and beakers, the spectrophotometer, the high-speed centrifuge, the experimental rodents in stainless steel cages. Despite her lack of interest in science at the moment, Denise was impressed at the cash outlay the private laboratory represented.

  As they marched up and down, past the counters, Lindblom discoursed with nervous enthusiasm about the work in progress. His love for algae strains and soyabean nodules and Rhodophyceae and Chlorella dinned on her eardrums. His hatred for the chemicals of natural food, his devotion to synthetics, were passionate. What interested Denise was not the knowledge that Lindblom imparted, but rather that he possessed any range of emotion at all. She wondered if only the chemistry of food stimulated him. She wondered if he would react, similarly, to the chemistry of woman.

  She listened occasionally, but for the most part she did not listen at all. It was one of her gifts: the ability to shut off almost all human sound, yet to know intuitively when to nod and when to give assent and when to interject a comment of praise or displeasure. She had employed this ability through the laboratory tour and lecture. She had more momentous things in her head.

  From the moment of her decision at the Hammarlund party last night, until the moment Claude had left her this morning, she had been of cheerful disposition, secure with her secret inner hope. This sudden change in her temperament had confused and dismayed Claude, and she had seen it in him. She had even guessed that he might be suspicious of her. At the end of breakfast, in the hotel suite, he had interrogated her carefully about her activity and enjoyment of the Hammarlund meeting. He had probed, and for the first time
since her humiliation, she had felt real superiority.

  The odds, she had known, despite her secret inner hope, were against her still. Gisèle’s imminent coming from Copenhagen might obliterate her entire effort. Still, she had made up her mind to do something, to make a fight of it, and that was heartening.

  But her effort, she had known, was yet to be launched. Last night, she had made the crucial initial decision. In this laboratory, this morning, she would have to make the ultimate decision. And, once it was made, she would have to see it through.

  Trailing Lindblom, she peered at her watch. She had arrived at 11.05. It was now 11.55. The zero hour that she had set herself loomed close. The ultimate decision. Question One: Should she do it? There were two courses open: (a) mild flirtation, a holding of hands, an embrace, a kiss, romantic whispering, to be followed by similar meetings devoted to the same and no more; or (b) sexual intercourse.

  Instinct advised her that moderation would not work. Claude’s infatuation—hypnotized as he was by Gisèle’s sexuality—would not be shattered by mere retaliatory flirtation. She could not play-act the pretence that it was more, and she knew that Lindblom was even less capable than she. Claude would view the flirtation as a juvenile’s revenge, rather ridiculous, rather foolish, a pathetic joke. On the other hand, illicit love had a sweeping power that could bring real response. Here, no play-acting would be demanded of Lindblom. He would be her lover and know it and show it. And real possession of her body, unviolated by another since her marriage, would be a shattering blow to Claude’s ego. If it was not, her marriage was done anyway, and nothing would be lost. But if his ego was injured, and what remained was jealousy, there was hope.

  She followed Lindblom about the laboratory and continued to reason with herself. She was satisfied that Question One had been resolved. Should she do it? Yes, she should. Now Question Two: Could she do it? This was a difficulty. She had been raised a French Catholic. Her parents had been stern overseers. Yet, in young maturity, free of them and adrift from the Church, she had enjoyed three brief but earnest affairs with male students of the Sorbonne. But after she had met Claude, and made her vows, she had not once cheated, not once flirted, despite the legendary nonsense about the loose morals of French women. She had not even thought of such a thing.