“Oh, yes. Waldo had been a great mentor to him. It was almost a father and son relationship. Waldo confided to me once that he believed Darius possessed an intellect on an order of magnitude greater than his own.”
“Did Darius continue with his own work, once the team was dismantled?”
“Oh, I’ve no idea. He left California, I know that. He was at MIT for a time, then I lost track. Waldo was the only one who kept up with him. By telephone, of course.”
“Just curious, Stella,” Ambrose said. “This fellow Darius, as a key player, must have been dismayed when the project was shut down. Was he?”
“Oh, yes, I suppose he was. I think that’s why he stayed in contact with Waldo. The two of them exchanged theorems and ideas over the years.”
“But your husband was no longer sharing his ideas, isn’t that what you said?”
“Correct. He stopped short of revealing anything he considered dangerous ground.”
“Frustrating for his young pupil.”
“I’m sure. But Waldo was adamant, I can assure you.”
“Fascinating,” Hawke said. “I wonder, could you possibly show us the spot where you found your husband’s body? It might prove helpful.”
“I can indeed. If you don’t mind traipsing through the woods in this stinky weather.”
Congreve rose to his feet and said, “You forget, my dear lady, we are Englishmen. Hardy souls, stiff upper lips.”
“Ambrose, please,” Hawke said.
“Yes?”
“Never mind. Shall we go?”
Thirty-eight
The widow led the way through the sodden woods. The rain was heavier now and they were slogging through mud. She had a powerful flashlight, which was a good thing. The massive exposed roots of the redwood trees would trip up a bull moose coming through here, Congreve thought, cinching his overcoat a bit tighter, wiping rainwater from his eyes as he stepped gingerly over a root as thick as his waist.
“Not far now,” Stella said over her shoulder. “There’s a lookout toward the ocean. Ten minutes. Quite lovely up there, were it not obscured by weather and tainted with sadness.”
They carried on, each alone with his or her thoughts.
“Here we are,” she said as they finally emerged from the wood. It was a rocky promontory that jutted out from the side of the mountain. In the distance, beneath lowering clouds, the Pacific Ocean rolled on in great grey swells. In the sky above, a nighthawk circled and cried.
“This is where I found them,” Stella said, looking at the pool of white light on the ground, avoiding their eyes.
“Them?” Congreve asked.
“Yes. Them. My husband, before he turned the gun on himself, shot his dog, Chief Inspector. An old black Lab named Feynman. And I will tell you something. Sometimes I felt he loved that dog more than me. I don’t care what the police say. That he was secretly depressed, dying of some fatal disease he didn’t want to suffer through for my sake. Utter nonsense. Even if it were true, he never, ever, would have killed his dog.”
“You said he seemed distant after that phone call,” Congreve said. “How, may I ask?”
“Not himself. Everything about him was flat, distant, mechanical. Whoever that man was who hung up the phone, he wasn’t my Waldo.”
“Mechanical? In what way?”
“Robotic, Chief Inspector, robotic.”
“As if someone else was controlling his actions.”
“That is exactly what I mean.”
R eturning to the house, they came to a fork in the path. Stella paused and said, “Would you care to see Waldo’s laboratory? Having come all this way, I assume you would. It’s only a brief walk down this path here to the left.”
“We should be delighted,” Ambrose said. He had intended to ask to see it in any event.
The path was short but snaky, winding around trees and boulders, but soon they came upon it. A little log cabin with a cedar-shingled roof and a stone chimney. A place where a man might escape the world and lose himself in his work.
“Here we are,” Stella said at the door, inserting an old-fashioned iron key into the lock and twisting it. “Wait here a moment until I can get some lights going.”
When they were all inside, she said, “If I had to compete with Feynman for Waldo’s affection, I also had to compete with this cabin. I was victorious, of course, but it was a constant struggle, I don’t mind telling you. Have a look. Not much to see, mostly books and knickknacks he’d collected over the years. That’s his Nobel certificate on the wall. I had it framed for him; otherwise, it would have ended up lost.”
“Ah, I’ve never seen one,” Congreve said, and he went over to inspect it.
“Each certificate is different, Chief Inspector, unique creations for each winner. They are all lovely, rich in color, as you can see. Before and after the celebratory dinner, you are shown into a room where all the laureates’ certificates are in protective cases so everyone can see.”
“And where did you find the note?” Hawke asked.
“There on his worktable, between the computer and the telephone. He always kept a pad next to the phone. Scribbled things down while he was talking, reminder notes to himself that he rarely saved and probably never read.”
Congreve sat on the stool at the worktable, and Hawke could almost see the invisible wheels beginning to spin. He said:
“He wrote ‘Darius, 7:47PM, H50,’ and then the equation. So Darius called him before or after your anniversary dinner?”
“Just before. We always had dinner at eight. And Waldo was never late.”
“And the ‘H50.’ Does that have any scientific significance?”
“No. I’m sure he was just writing what Darius said. ‘Happy fiftieth.’ That’s what he would have considered the salient fact of the call. That Darius remembered our anniversary. The equation beneath deals with the speed of light. It was a common topic between them.”
“Why?”
“Because if we can exceed the speed of light, which is theoretically impossible, but not necessarily so, then whole new worlds open up to us. This is one of the things Waldo was working on when he went… off the scientific community’s radar.”
“Stella,” Hawke said, “is this the same computer your husband was working on when he was pursuing the Perseus Project?”
“Yes. For the last few years he was using it in his office at Stanford, then he brought it here when his beloved project was disbanded.”
Congreve said, “Those file drawers. Contain all his scientific papers, I presume. Articles he wrote for journals, that sort of thing?”
“Indeed. Everything pertaining to Perseus is in there.”
“So that would include work created by other members of the team? Darius, for example?”
“I imagine so, yes. Would you like me to check?”
“Indeed. I’m interested in anything pertaining to the work of Darius or created by him while he was under your husband’s tutelage. Was Darius his last name?”
“No. It was something else. Odd name. Saffari. Like an African safari. That was it. Darius Saffari. Why are you so curious about him, Chief Inspector?”
“Oh, it’s probably nothing, I assure you. But the timing of the phone calls is interesting. One just prior to dinner and one just following it. Coincidences are by their very nature intriguing, don’t you think?”
