his face hairless. Peering hard, Craig thought that he detected white eyebrows of almost invisible down above the eyes, but he could not be sure. No wrinkle added character to the face, no wart, no scar, and almost, or so it seemed, no human feature. The eyes lay evenly pressed into the head, neither concave nor convex, miniature flat mirrors of watery grey. The broad nose was shapeless, melting into the centre of the face, so that only the nostrils showed. The mouth was a delicate roseate. No more than an inch beneath the lower lip, the pretension of a chin receded, giving the disconcerting effect of no chin at all. In summary, a soft, smooth larva countenance, the consistency of a white slug. The frame beneath the remarkable head was medium in height and width, and garbed impeccably in an old-fashioned, expensive custom-tailored suit.
Craig tried to detect something human about this legendary figure. The feminine hands held a silk handkerchief, and several times, quickly, almost unobtrusively, the handkerchief was touched to the place where Hammarlund’s forehead must be. The forehead perspired, Craig was pleased to note, and then he remembered that on their introduction, he had shaken Hammarlund’s limp hand, and it had been clammy and repellent.
Raised on the traditions of Commodore Vanderbilt and Gould and Fisk, the blustering and savage robber royalty, Craig could not conceive of how this pulpy being had made his first billion. Fleetingly, he wondered what Hammarlund was doing at this affair. What was his connection with Nobel? Or the King? And what was his interest in the laureates, anyway?
He realized that Hammarlund’s head had turned to meet his stare, and quickly he returned his attention to Konrad Evang, apostle of peace.
‘Yes, my friend,’ Evang was saying to Jacobsson, ‘you get all the attention in Stockholm. I suspect most of the world hardly knows that we in Oslo are responsible for possibly the most important of the five prizes.’
‘If you wanted attention, you should have given a prize this year,’ Jacobsson chided him.
‘It is not so easy, not so easy, my friend,’ said Evang. ‘Ours is a perilous task, and infinitely more controversial-political-than any of the four under your guardianship.’
‘Well, why did you skip this year?’ Craig inquired.
‘We were hopelessly deadlocked over three candidates,’ said Evang. ‘Not one could win a majority of the votes. It is just as well, I believe. How could we honestly give a prize for peace in a time like this?’
‘I should think there would be no better time,’ said Craig. ‘There are plenty of men and organizations working to keep the world from being blown apart. Why not recognize and encourage them?’
‘Because,’ said Hammarlund, speaking at last, in a tone so satiny and faint that it automatically forced everyone to lean closer to him, ‘our Norwegian neighbour prefers to keep peace rather than honour peace. An award to any party, no matter how neutral, might be interpreted as an affront to the Soviet Union or the United States.’
‘Come now, Ragnar, that is not so,’ said Evang without anger. ‘We are judicious men, not frightened men, and you know it.’
‘I am not so sure.’ Hammarlund’s handkerchief flicked his forehead. ‘I know your awards very well. You gave your first one to a seventy-three-year-old Swiss, Henri Dunant, because he founded the International Red Cross. I have heard it said that he deserved not the Nobel Peace Prize, but the Nobel Prize in medicine. You could have done better, but you were playing it safe. In 1946, after World War II, you honoured the American Quaker, Emily Greene Balch, who had done her best work in World War I, and John Raleigh Mott, the Protestant, who was in retirement. You would not honour an active worker, because you feared controversy. You reached into the forgotten past. As for you and your colleagues being judicious men-’
‘Now, now, Ragnar,’ protested Evang, ‘do not start in on us again.’
‘I am speaking for the benefit of our guest, Mr. Craig,’ said Hammarlund softly. His glance included Craig, but he continued to address the Norwegian. ‘In 1906, you gave thirty-six thousand dollars and a Peace Prize to Theodore Roosevelt-to the Rough Rider-an obvious warmonger like all the others. Did not this Roosevelt once say, “No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumph of war”?’
‘He mediated the Russo-Japanese War,’ said Evang.
‘Mediators are not good enough for me,’ said Hammarlund. ‘Then go and honour all referees and umpires on earth. They are mediators, too. I know your list of Rough Riders-you honoured Elihu Root, Aristide Briand, Gustav Stresemann, General George Marshall-you call them all genuine pacifists?’
‘You must be fair, Ragnar,’ interrupted Jacobsson. ‘Our Norwegian friends have also honoured Woodrow Wilson, Fridtjof Nansen, Albert Schweitzer, Ralph Bunche, Cordell Hull-’
‘I know about Hull,’ said Hammarlund placidly. ‘Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to Oslo every year between 1938 and 1945, nominating Hull, before Mr. Evang’s committee saw fit to elect him.’ He turned to Craig. ‘This may interest you, Mr. Craig. In 1937, Cuba nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt for the Peace Prize, and Hull seconded it. That was one election your Roosevelt lost. The Peace Prize went to Viscount Cecil of Chelwood instead, a League of Nations man.’
Evang appealed to Craig. ‘My friend Hammarlund is teasing. He knows of our courage. Take the year 1961. Did we not defy the white supremacy people of South Africa to give our honour to Albert Luthuli, a dark-skinned former Zulu chief who fought apartheid?’
‘Too easy,’ said Hammarlund. ‘You were not afraid of South Africa. You were picking on someone your own size.’
‘All right, then,’ persisted Evang, ‘let us speak of someone bigger. In 1946, the Finns nominated Aleksandra Kollontai, Russia’s first female Ambassador, an advocate of free love, for helping to shorten the war between Finland and Russia. It was outrageous, a Russian propaganda move. We voted her down, despite the threats of
‘How did you ever get saddled with that award?’ asked Craig. ‘Why was that single one taken away from Sweden?’
‘Nobel had intended that Sweden give the Peace Prize, too, with the other four awards,’ said Evang, ‘but at the last moment, he had a change of heart. At the time, Sweden and Norway were under a single ruler, King Oscar II and Nobel wanted to bind the countries more closely together. Also, he felt that we in Norway could be more impartial about a political hot potato than his fellow Swedes. There were other reasons, but those were the principal ones.’
Abruptly, Evang turned away from Craig to face the bland Hammarlund once more. ‘I will tell you this, Ragnar-we have made our blunders, yes, but we have had our moments of truth, too, truth and courage. I will mention one name, and then you judge us as you wish.’ He paused, and then he said slowly, ‘Carl von Ossietzky.’
There was a silence. Hammarlund remained imperturbable. His handkerchief flicked. His hairless head moved ever so slightly up and down.
‘Yes, Konrad,’ he said, ‘Ossietzky was your finest hour. For giving the prize to him, I forgive you all else.’
Craig tried to identify Ossietzky in memory, and failed, and was about to inquire who he was, when the liveried servant materialized with a tray, freshly filled with goblets of champagne. Gratefully, Craig traded his empty glass for a full one. By the time the servant moved on, the thread of conversation had been lost.
He prepared to speak to Hammarlund, when he saw that Hammarlund was gazing intently off towards a far corner of the room.
‘Bertil,’ Hammarlund murmured, and Jacobsson was immediately alert. ‘Bertil, that couple over there before the fireplace-the handsome gentleman and his Gallic lady in light blue decolletage-would they be the Drs. Claude and Denise Marceau, your chemistry winners?’
Jacobsson squinted off. ‘Yes, the Marceaus.’
‘Introduce me,’ said Hammarlund. It was not a request, but a command. ‘Introduce me,’ he repeated. ‘I am keenly interested in them. I must know them tonight.’ He nodded at Craig. ‘Forgive me, Mr. Craig. It has been a pleasure.’ He glanced off at the Marceaus again, and then added enigmatically, ‘It is ever thus-business before pleasure.’
The moment that the Ambassador had left them, and they were alone for the first time this evening since leaving the Grand Hotel suite, Denise Marceau flung her accusation at Claude.
That same moment, as he stammered in his bewilderment at her charge, she saw two men approaching them. One she recognized as the Swedish Count who had been on the Nobel reception committee and who had
