men to their families, to wives and children awaiting them in heated living-rooms, with steaming food in dining- rooms, enveloped Craig and heightened his sense of fantasy. Before him paraded the happy, relaxed, workaday world of ordinary living people. And here sat he, ready to meet a ghost.
‘This is Palsundet,’ he heard Krantz say.
‘Where?’
‘A block to the left.’
‘Where are they?’
‘You will see shortly. We will park on Soder Malarstrand.’
The light had changed. Krantz drove the car forward, slowed, and then swung sharply to the left. They hugged to the outer left lane, along the quay, cruising beneath the holiday lights.
‘We will put the car here,’ announced Krantz, easing the sleek sedan into an opening on the kerb.
They quickly left the car, and Krantz preceded Craig into the unlighted recesses of a public park, empty of all life but their own, crowded with weeping willows. They crunched across the hard, snow-damp soil, into lowering darkness, as they left behind the row of apartment houses, and festive lights, and traffic.
‘It is across this park and then down to the wharves,’ Krantz was saying. ‘The boat is moored-’
‘Keep moving,’ ordered Craig.
They went on through the trees, descending and slipping often, until they reached the canal and the first wharf.
‘We are near,’ said Krantz.
‘Which boat?’
Krantz pointed to a large cabin cruiser moored to the next wharf. ‘There,’ he said. His hand shook as he pointed. ‘Emily and Walther Stratman are in there.’
It was 4.57 in the afternoon.
Outside the Concert Hall, which was ablaze with festive lighting, in the vast market-place cleared of snow, several thousand Stockholmers, bundled against the weather, still stood waiting for a glimpse of late arrivals in their evening dress. There was civic pride in the air, and a spirit of lavish holiday fun, and for an hour, the mass of onlookers had been enjoying the smooth approach of Rolls-Royces, Cadillacs, Daimlers, Facel Vegas, and a dozen other foreign cars, many with Embassy and legation flags on the front fenders, and the native Saabs and Volvos, too, as they drew up before the stone steps of the auditorium, and discharged the men in formal coats and evening suits and the women in furs and long evening gowns.
A lesser crowd, but one more densely packed and contained by numerous police, had gathered at the side stage entrance on Oxtorgsgatan, where an illuminated ‘14’ projected above the arched door. Through this door, the King and royal entourage had passed to cheers and applause, and through this the new laureates, and the old, and the members of the prize-giving academies had also passed. A sign outside read TYSTNAD!-which mean silence, but which one and all knew was observed on only minor days when concerts and symphonies were given, while for tonight there was no silence but a mass extroversion of pleasure.
The side entrance led, through a bewildering warren of passages and staircases, to the roomy backstage area of Concert Hall. There now the participants in the final Ceremony had assembled, and were being hastily formed into lines by Count Bertil Jacobsson-the representatives of the Nobel committees to the left, the laureates and former laureates to the right.
Jacobsson bustled among the laureates, directing and advising, setting each in his position, according to protocol.
He had reached Denise and Claude Marceau, to remind them of their seating, but they were absorbed in conversation, Denise’s features earnest, Claude’s contrite. Denise was saying, ‘
He saw that Carlo Farelli and John Garrett were engaged in an animated colloquy, He wondered if he should disturb them, but before he could decide, he felt a hand on his elbow. Jacobsson turned to find Professor Max Stratman staring worriedly at him.
Jacobsson followed the physics laureate off to one side. ‘Count,’ Stratman was saying, ‘I have a concern. I have not seen my niece since this morning.’
‘Surely, she is in the audience.’
‘No, I think not. I had a note this afternoon from Mr. Craig that he was taking her out-where I do not know- and that they would meet us here for the Ceremony. But where is Mr. Craig?’
‘Why, I-’ Jacobsson cast about. He had not counted noses. He had assumed that all were present. But now, he could not find Craig. ‘He must be somewhere around.’
‘I have not seen him, Count.’
‘He will be here, of that you may be certain.’ Yet now Jacobsson was worried, too.
Before he could make further inquiries, the trumpets began sounding from beyond the partition.
Jacobsson was cued into feverish activity. He clapped his hands for attention. ‘Everyone, hear me! In your places-the trumpets-the King is entering-we will follow.’
In the gigantic auditorium of Concert Hall, like the building of a tidal wave, the 2,100 members of the audience, in the rear and side balconies above, in the rectangular first floor below, rose from their red-felt seats to honour the monarch of Sweden. The uniformed soldier and sailor were finishing their trumpet fanfare, and now they lowered their instruments and stood to attention.
The Royal March, and the pomp and pageantry, began.
One of the ten entry doors to the auditorium opened, and past a white pillar came the King from his private parlour, followed closely by the members of the royal family and palace household. The King took his place in the first orchestra row, off the centre aisle, facing the flower-bedecked stage with its lectern and microphones, its four rows of empty chairs, its flags bowed forward from poles between the four alcoves of classical statuary. The moment that the King sat, and his entourage settled into their seats, the 2,100 members of the audience also sat.
Immediately, the centre doors upstage swung wide, to the blast of trumpets, and through them, two by two, Nobel committee-men side by side with laureates paraded down to the platform. As the march swelled, committee-men taking chairs on one side, laureates on the other, the King rose to his feet-the rare occasion on which he stood first before his subjects and guests-because tonight he was greeting his equals, the royalty of intellect.
Jacobsson found his place on the stage nervously. Scanning the Concert Hall, there was much to please him. He did not even mind the four detestable television cameras, two on the podium and two in the balconies. Every seat in the assembly room was taken, and the formality of the attire was gratifying. In the loges above, reserved for relatives of the laureates, he could make out Mrs. Saralee Garrett next to Signora Margherita Farelli, and beside them Miss Leah Decker. One chair was empty, and then he remembered Miss Emily Stratman.
The stage itself glittered beneath fern plants and great arrangements of white chrysanthemums. Covertly, Jacobsson examined the rows of chairs. All were filled save two, and now he no longer needed to count noses. Across the long steps, covered by Oriental carpets, that led down from the rear stage door, among the stiff committee-men, one hole gaped at him. Dr. Carl Adolf Krantz, who was to introduce Professor Max Stratman, was missing. This was disagreeable, but not serious.
What was serious was the empty chair next to his own. This was to have been occupied by Mr. Andrew Craig. Never, in the long history of the awards, had a laureate who had come to Stockholm failed to appear at the Ceremony. If Craig did not appear, it would become a national insult and an international scandal. The empty laureate chair became Gargantuan. Jacobsson gave silent thanks that the programme was a long one, so that the chair might yet be filled.
Suddenly, Jacobsson realized that the opening moment of the Ceremony was upon them. He rose to his feet and walked to the lectern where his salutatory oration lay waiting. He made his reverence to his King, and then gazed out at the audience. Could one of them know what was really in his head? Krantz was in his head. And Andrew Craig.
