HE WAS ASKING to see the widow without warning, so he wasn’t surprised to be told to wait outside in the hall while the Negro maid consulted her employer. He’d given his card and hoped that would do the trick, since not many people would turn away an Assistant Director of the FBI, especially in wartime. Yet it seemed the widow of the late Arthur Perkins was in no hurry to have him admitted.
At last, the door opened again. The maid looked at him impassively. ‘Mizz Perkins will see you now.’
He followed her into a short hallway with parquet floors, a mahogany coat stand and framed prints of English landscapes on the wall. The hall opened up into the living room. It had a dramatic view of the Hudson, though the foggy mist that had come in after the midday rain obscured the Jersey side. A chintz-covered sofa was positioned with its back to the window, and an armchair sat at an angle to it. A decorative fireplace hollowed out of the room’s central internal wall was full of dried flowers, which gave out a faint whiff of cinnamon-like scent. On the mantelpiece an array of invitations stood, arranged like so many calling cards in a Jane Austen novel. The far end of the room led into a small dining room, and it was from here that a tall woman came towards him.
‘Nancy Perkins,’ she declared, coming across a large Persian rug to shake his hand. She didn’t smile. ‘And you are Mr Gootman from the FBI,’ she said.
‘Guttman,’ he said, but she didn’t seem to hear, for she was busy ushering him to a seat on the sofa while she sat down, straight-backed and legs uncrossed, in the armchair. She wore a simple, pale blue dress that Guttman’s mother would have said was ‘nothing fancy’, but he could see it was beautifully made – as if its maker had understood that falls from fashion never last, and that quality survives until the wheel of taste comes round again.
‘Thank you for seeing me, Mrs Perkins. I apologise for not phoning ahead.’
She didn’t look impressed by this. ‘What did you want, Mr Gootman?’
He didn’t bother correcting her again. She was a Boston Yankee, after all. Not many Germans up there, and not many Jews with German names. ‘It’s about your husband, Mrs Perkins, and events just before he died.’
‘My husband’s accident was over a year ago, Mr Gootman. Why are you asking me about it now?’ She sounded more curious than cross.
‘I’m not, Mrs Perkins. I’m here about a project started on your husband’s watch. I won’t be very long – most of it is pro forma stuff.’
‘You should know that I’m not a scientist,’ she said with an intonation – dry, cynical and clipped – which Guttman had last heard on a visit to Yale.
‘I realise that. Still, I wanted to ask if anything unusual happened in your husband’s professional life in the months before the accident.’
‘And if it had?’ There was a daunting quality to the blue eyes.
‘There was work of national importance going on in your husband’s labs. There still is. I’m trying to establish how much he was involved with the work going on around him, or whether he stood back, as it were.’
‘As it were,’ she muttered, and when she looked at Guttman it was with a superior knowingness. She said, ‘My husband was the Chairman of the Department. It didn’t leave him a lot of time for participating in research. It was something he felt most keenly. That’s why he was so excited.’
‘What about, ma’am?’
‘He had decided to do science again. He planned to give up the chairmanship and join the team of Professor Fermi.’
She pronounced it Fir-me, and Guttman needed to be sure. ‘Enrico Fermi? The Italian physicist?’
‘That’s the one. Very gifted, apparently, if a little intense for my taste.’
It was what people often said about the Jews – ‘a nice enough fellow, if a little intense’. Guttman tried not to bristle.
Mrs Perkins was saying, ‘My husband was like a little boy at Christmas, even after I told him he might find it difficult to take orders from someone who had been his junior. He said to think of it as an officer with a desk job, who re-enlists as a private in order to join the fighting. It was rather touching when I look back at it, but at the time I’m afraid I wasn’t very sympathetic.’
‘Oh?’
She shrugged and gave a sigh. ‘Arthur said we might have to move because of the new job. It was not a prospect that cheered me. After New York, the delights of Chicago were not apparent to me. Boston would have been acceptable, even if they say you can’t go home again.’
‘You said your husband was going to give up his chairmanship of the department. Was he concerned about who would take his place?’
She shook her head. ‘He said a simpleton could do the job. The only hard part was managing the physicists. Some of them could be impossible, especially the Hungarians.’
‘Szilard?’
‘Particularly Szilard.’ She was emphatic. ‘He should have been named “Lizard”; it’s almost a perfect anagram as it is. There’s something slippery about that man – he’s been in so many countries by now you feel his only nationality is himself. Oh, I know he’s meant to be brilliant, but he could have shown a bit of gratitude. It was Arthur, after all, who got him his position.’
‘Not at all. He did show gratitude, even though he has more reason to have a swelled head – he’s won the Nobel Prize and Szilard hasn’t.’ She sat back decisively in her chair. ‘But no, none of the administrative issues worried Arthur. I’d never seen him so determined. What bothered him was something else.’
Guttman wanted to ask what this was, but decided there was no point pushing; this was a lady who said what she wanted to say, no more and no less. After a pause, Mrs Perkins continued. ‘What troubled him was the scientist whose place he would be taking. Unfortunately, Arthur had told the young man he could join the Fermi team. Then Arthur had to tell him he couldn’t.’
‘Tricky,’ said Guttman mildly.
‘If anyone could smooth things over it would have been my husband,’ she said with a touch of pride. ‘But not this time. Arthur said the young man had taken great exception to being left out, especially when Arthur – unwisely in my view – explained he was joining the team instead. Arthur said the man was not only upset, he was positively insulting.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Guttman, hoping this was the right thing to say. It was not a phrase he was accustomed to using.
Mrs Perkins nodded vaguely, and Guttman pressed on. ‘Do you know the name of the scientist your husband was going to replace?’
She shook her head, but didn’t seem interested.
‘Was he foreign?’ Guttman prompted.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ She smiled, as if both admiring his tenacity and recognising its futility. ‘So many of them are.’
‘Would anyone at the department know?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. Fermi was away when my husband made his mind up – he was going to tell him on the day he … on the day of the accident. He wanted Fermi to be the first to know. And of course, technically Fermi had to approve the move. Though I don’t think there could have been any question – my husband had a very distinguished record in research, even if it was some time ago. No, what bothered Arthur was this other man’s unpleasantness.’
‘But you can’t remember his name?’
‘I can’t, I’m afraid.’ She seemed untroubled by this.
He had reached a dead end, doubly dismaying since his expectations had briefly risen so sharply.
‘You’re looking very disappointed, Mr Gootman.’
‘Guttman,’ he said dully.
‘Of course. I’ve never been very good with names.’
He couldn’t bring himself to reply. He decided to make his excuses and head for the train. Then Mrs Perkins said, ‘I’d tell you to phone the university and ask Miss Debenne but I’m not sure she’d be willing to help.’
‘Who’s Miss Debenne?’
‘She was Arthur’s secretary. Forgive me for my bluntness, but she isn’t awfully fond of Germans. Her family’s suffered terribly since France fell.’
‘But I’m not German,’ Guttman protested. ‘I’m a Jew.’ He sensed he sounded ridiculous.
‘Oh,’ she said, undisturbed. ‘That wouldn’t help, I’m afraid. Miss Debenne isn’t keen on the Jews either – you know the French. I suppose I could call her. You see, she kept Arthur’s appointments diary –’ Suddenly she stopped. ‘I’ve just remembered. She sent all the diaries to me when spring semester ended. I didn’t pay much attention.’
‘You have your husband’s diaries?’ asked Guttman, surprised.
‘Yes,’ she said, looking as if she didn’t know why Guttman was getting so worked up. ‘They’re not diaries as we know them, Mr Guttman. Just appointments and names.’
In the silence that followed you could have heard a pin drop. Gradually, like an awakening flower, Mrs Perkins understood the import of what she’d said. To her credit she seemed embarrassed. ‘My goodness, I’ve been a complete booby, haven’t I? Names are exactly what you want.’
‘One name will do,’ said Guttman.
Five minutes later, Mrs Perkins had deciphered Arthur Perkins’s inscrutable handwriting in the relevant page of the moleskin book he’d used as a diary – the entries had stopped five days later when he’d had his all-too-final appointment. Guttman memorised the entry for January 18, 1942 like a catechism. Ian Grant (Princeton) – 3.30 Fac Club.