The Black Mountain

"Shut up," he muttered. Usually I react to that command vocally, but that time I thought it just as well to obey. When we rolled to the curb in front the old brownstone on West Thirty-fifth Street I paid the driver, got out and held the door for Wolfe, mounted the seven steps to the stoop, and opened the door with my key. After Wolfe had crossed the threshold I closed the door and put the chain bolt on, and when I turned Fritz was there and was telling Wolfe, "There's a lady to see you, sir." It popped into my mind that it would save me a lot of trouble if they were going to drop in without being invited, but Fritz was adding, "It's your daughter, Mrs. Britton." There was a faint suggestion of reproach in Fritz's tone. For years he had disapproved of Wolfe's attitude toward his adopted daughter. A dark-haired Balkan girl with an accent, she had appeared out of the blue one day long ago and proceeded to get 29 Wolfe involved in an operation that had been no help to the bank account. When it was all over she had announced that she didn't intend to return to her native land, but neither did she intend to take any advantage of the fact that she had in her possession a paper, dated in Zagreb years before, establishing her as the adopted daughter of Nero Wolfe. She had made good on both intentions, having got a job with a Fifth Avenue travel agency, and having, within a year, married its owner, one William R. Britton. No friction had developed between Mr. and Mrs. Britton and Mr. Wolfe, because for friction you must have contact, and there had been none. Twice a year, on her birthday and on New Year's Day, Wolfe sent her a bushel of orchids from his choicest plants, but that was all, except that he had gone to the funeral when Britton died of a heart attack in 1950. That was what Fritz disapproved of. He thought any man, even Nero Wolfe, should invite his daughter, even an adopted one, to dinner once in a while. When he expressed that opinion to me, as he did occasionally, I told him that he knew damn well that Caria found Wolfe as irritating as he found her, so what was the use? 30 I followed Wolfe into the office. Caria was in the red leather chair. As we entered she got up to face us and said indignantly, "I've been waiting here over two hours!" Wolfe went and took her hand and bowed over it. "At least you had a comfortable chair," he said courteously, and went to the one behind his desk, the only one in the world he thoroughly approved of, and sat. Caria offered me a hand with her mind elsewhere, and I took it without bowing. "Fritz didn't know where you were," she told Wolfe. "No," he agreed. "But he said you knew about Marko." "Yes." "I heard it on the radio. I was going to go to the restaurant to see Leo, then I thought I would go to the police, and then I decided to come here. I suppose you were surprised, but I wasn't." She sounded bitter. She looked bitter too, but I had to admit it didn't make her any less attractive. With her dark eyes flashing, she might still have been the young Balkan damsel who had bounded in on me years before. Wolfe's eyes had narrowed at her. "If you are saying that you came here and waited two hours for me on account of Marko's 31 death, I must ask why. Were you attached to him?" "Yes." Wolfe shut his eyes. "If I know," she said, "what that word means � attached. If you mean attached as a woman to a man, no, of course not. Not like that." Wolfe opened his eyes. "Then how?" "We were attached in our devotion to a great and noble cause! The freedom of our people! And your people! And there you sit making faces! Marko has told me � he has asked you to help us with your brains and your money, and you refused!" ; "He didn't tell me you were in it. He didn't mention you." "I suppose not." She was scornful. "He ( knew that would make you sneer even more. s Here you are, rich and fat and happy with 1 your fine home and fine food and your glass rooms on the roof with ten thousand orchids for you to smirk at, and with this Archie 1 Goodwin for a slave to do all the work and 1 take all the danger! What do you care if the ^ people of the land you came from are groant ing under the heel of the oppressor, with s the light of their liberty smothered and t the fruits of their labor snatched from them 1 and their children at the point of the 32 sword? Stop making faces!" Wolfe leaned back and sighed deeply. "Apparently," he said dryly, "I must give you a lecture. I grimaced neither at your impudence nor at your sentiment, but at your diction and style. I condemn cliches, especially those that have been corrupted by fascists and communists. Such phrases as 'great and noble cause' and 'fruits of their labor' have been given an ineradicable stink by Hitler and Stalin and all their vermin brood. Besides, in this century of the overwhelming triumph of science, the appeal of the cause of human freedom is no longer that it is great and noble, it is more or less than that, it is essential. It is no greater or nobler than the cause of edible food or the cause of effective shelter. Man must have freedom or he will cease to exist as man. The despot, whether fascist or communist, is no longer restricted to such puny tools as the heel or the sword or even the machine gun; science has provided weapons that can give him the planet, and only men who are willing to die for freedom have any chance of living for it." "Like you?" She was disdainful. "No. Like Marko. He died." Wolfe flapped a hand. "I'll get to Marko. As for me, no one has ordained you as my 33 monitor. I make my contributions to the cause of freedom -- they are mostly financial -- through those channels and agencies that seem to me most efficient. I shall not submit a list of them for your inspection and judgment. I refused to contribute to Marko's project because I distrusted it. Marko was himself headstrong, gullible, oversanguine, and naive. He had --" "For shame! He's dead, and you insult --" "That will do!" he roared. It stopped her. He went down a few decibels. "You share the common fallacy, but I don't. I do not insult Marko. I pay him the tribute of speaking of him and feeling about him precisely as I did when he lived, the insult would be to smear his corpse with the honey excreted by my fear of death. He had no understanding of the forces he was trying to direct from a great distance, no control of them, and no effective check on their honor or fidelity. For all he knew, some of them may be agents of Tito, or even of Moscow --" "That isn't true! He knew all about them -- anyway, the leaders. He wasn't an idiot, and neither am I. We do check on them, all the time, and I -- Where are you going?" Wolfe had shoved his chair back and was on his feet. "You may not be an idiot," he 34 told her, "but I am. I was letting this become a pointless brawl when I should have known better. I'm hungry. I was in the middle of dinner when the news came of Marko's death. It took my appetite. I tried to finish anyway, but I couldn't swallow. With an empty stomach, I'm a dunce, and I'm going to the kitchen and eat something." He glanced up at the wall clock. "It's nearly two o'clock. Will you join me?" She shook her head. "I had dinner. I couldn't eat." "Archie?" I said I could use a glass of milk and followed him out. In the kitchen Fritz greeted us by putting down his magazine, leaving his chair, telling Wolfe, "Starving the live will not profit the dead," and going to open the refrigerator door. "The turkey," Wolfe said, "and the cheese and pineapple. I've never heard that before. Montaigne?" "No, sir." Fritz put the turkey on the table, uncovered it, and got the slicer and handed it to Wolfe. "I made it up. I knew you would have to send for me, or come, and I wished to have an appropriate remark ready for you." "I congratulate you." Wolfe was wielding the knife. "To be taken for Montaigne is a 35 peak few men can i reach-' I had only had mnilk in n-iind, ^ut Fritz's personal version of .'cottage cheese with fresh pineapple soaked inn white wine is something that even a Vishins^s-ky wouldn't veto. Also Wolfe offered me aa wing and a drumstick, and it would have boeen unsociable to refuse. Fritz fixed a tasty ^ tray and took it in to Caria, but when Wolfe and I rejoined her, some twenty minutltes l^te^ [t was still untouched on the tabble at her elbow. I admit it could have been i that she was too upset to eat, but I suspecttted her. She knew damn well that it irritated I ^oife to see good food turned down. Back at his desk, hh�e frowned at her. "Let's see if we can avoicid- contention. You said earlier that you supposed I was surprised, but that you weren"/t. SUH^sed at what?" She was retumingg the frown. <

"Yes, but you know the border between Montenegro and Albania. You know those mountains." "I do indeed. Or I did." From the look on Wolfe's face, the emotions aroused by the memory were mixed. "I was nine years old the first time I climbed the Black Mountain." He shrugged it off. "Whether Belgrade or Moscow, you think they had an agent in New York, or sent one, to deal with Marko. Do you?" "Of course!" "Not of course if it is merely a surmise. Can you validate it? Have you any facts?" "I have the fact that they hated him and he was a danger to them." Wolfe shook his head. "Not that kind. Something specific -- a name, an act, a thing said." "No." "Very well. I accept your surmise as worthy of inquiry. How many persons are there in and around New York, other than contributors of money, who have been associated with Marko in this?" "Why, altogether, about two hundred." 38 "I mean closely associated. In his confidence."

She had to think. "Four or five. Six, counting me." "Give me their names and addresses and phone numbers. Archie, take them down." I got my notebook and pen and was ready, but nothing came. I looked at her. She was sitting with her dark Montenegrin eyes focused on Wolfe, her chin up and her lips pressed together. "Well?" he demanded. "I don't trust you," she said. Naturally he would have liked to tell me to bounce her, and I must say I couldn't have blamed him, but she wasn't just a prospective client with a checkbook. She had or might have something he needed for paying a personal debt. So he merely barked at her. "Then why the devil did you come here?" They glared at each other. It was not a sight to impel me to hurry up and get married and have a daughter, especially not an adopted one. She broke the tableau. "I came because I had to do something. I knew if I went to the police they would want me to tell everything about us, and I couldn't do that because some of the things some of us do -- 39 well, you asked about sending weapons." She fluttered a hand. "But Marko was your good friend, and he thought you were his, and you have a famous reputation for catching murderers, and after all I still have that paper that says I am your daughter, so I came without really thinking. Now I don't know. You refused to give money to the cause. When I speak of freedom and the oppressor you make a face. It is true you have Montenegrin blood, you are of the race that fought back the savage Turks for five hundred years, but so are others, still in those mountains, who are licking the bloody feet of the tyrant. Have I looked into your heart? How do I know who you serve? How do I know if you too get your orders from Belgrade or Moscow?" "You don't," Wolfe said bluntly. She stared at him. "You are not a fool," he assured her. "On the contrary, you would be a fool if you took my probity for granted, as little as you know of me. As far as you know it's quite possible that I'm a blackguard. But you haven't thought it through. To test your surmise about the death of Marko I need some facts from you, but what are they? Names and addresses and dates -- things that are already known to the enemy. I have 40 no r^eans of convincing you that I am not vem^ous, s0 I offer a suggestion. I will ask you questions. You will assume that I am a communist, owing allegiance either to Belgrade or Moscow, no matter which. You vyill also assume -- my vanity insists on it --- f)iat I am not far from the top in the cour^^ of depravity. So. Each question I put ask yourself if it isn't extremely likely either tnat I already know the answer or that 11: is readily available to me. If yes, tell i^e. If ^ don't. The way I act on the mfoP^^ion will show you whether you should trust me, but that's unimportant." S^e was concentrating on it. "It's a trick." H^ nodded. "And rather ingenious. For the record, I say that your misgiving about ine 1s groundless, but assuming that I am of tl^ enemy, I'll certainly try to pry something out of you that I don't already have, so you must keep your wit sharp. Shall we Start an(^ see how it goes?" S^e didn't like it. "You might tell the police- We are not criminals, but we have a ri^ht to our secrets, and the police could make it very difficult." �^osh. You can't have everything. You can't have me both a Communist agent and a police informer, I'm not a chameleon. You^re making it a travesty, and you might 41 as well go. I'll manage without you." She studied him. "All right. Ask me." "Eat something first. That food is still palatable." "No, thank you." "Beer, then? A glass of wine? Whisky?" "No, thank you. Nothing." "I'm thirsty. Archie? Beer, please. Two bottles." I went to the kitchen for it. 42 Chapter 3 Three weeks and eight hours later, at eleven in the morning of the second Friday in April, Wolfe descended from the plant rooms in his elevator, entered the office, crossed to the chair at his desk, and sat. As usual, I had opened the morning mail, gone through it, and put it on his blotter under a paper-weight. "That memo on top needs immediate attention," I told him. "Cartright of Consolidated Products is being gypped again, or thinks he is. Last time he paid our bill for twelve grand without a squeak. You're to call him." He shoved the paper-weight off with such enthusiasm that it rolled across the desk and off to the floor. Then he picked up the pile of mail, squeezed it into a ball between his hands, and dropped it into his wastebasket. Of course it was childish, since he knew darned well I would retrieve it later, but it was a nice gesture, and I fully appreciated 43 it. The humor 'he was in, it wouldn't have surprised me ai^y if he had taken the other paperweight, a hunk of carved ebony that had once been msed by a man named Mortimer to crack tflis wife's skull, and fired it at me. And the humor I was in, I probably wouldn't have pothered to dodge. There had be'en plenty of activity during those 512 hours,. Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, and Orrie Gather had all been summoned the first morning and given errands, and had been paid a total of $3,143.87, including expenses. I had put in a good sixteen hours a day, pai^t in the office and part on the go. Wolfe had worked on thirty-one different people, rr^ostly at his desk, but for five of them who couldn't be wrangled in he had gone outdoors and traveled, something he had ne^er done for a fee. Among the hours he had spent on the phone had been time for sLx calls to London, five to Paris, and three to Bari in Italy. Of course all that had been only a dab compared to the capers of the cops. As the days went by artd lead after lead petered out, things would have simmered down if it hadn't been for the papers. They kept hot on it for two reasons: first, they had a suspicion there were international complications and wanted to smoke them out; and 44 second, they thought it was the joke of the year that Nero Wolfe's best friend had been croaked, and Wolfe was supposed to be working on it, but apparently no one had even been nominated for a charge, let alone elected. So the papers kept it going, and the law couldn't relax a little even if it wanted to. Crarner had called on Wolfe five times, and Stebbins more than that, and Wolfe had been downtown twice to conferences at the DA's office. We had dined nine times at Rusterman's, and Wolfe had insisted on paying the check, which probably broke another precedent -- for an executor of an estate. Wolfe went early to spend an hour in the kitchen, and twice he raised hell -- once about a Mornay sauce and once about a dish which the menu called Supremes de Volatile en Papillate. I would have suspected he was merely being peevish if the look on the chefs' faces hadn't indicated that he was absolutely right. Of course Cramer and his army had covered all the routine. The car the shots had been fired from had been hot, stolen an hour earlier from where it had been parked on West Fifty-sixth Street, and abandoned soon after the shooting, on Second Avenue. The scientists, from fingerprint-lifters and bullet-gazers on up, had supplied a lot of 45 dope but no answers, and the same goes for the three or four dozen who went after the woman angle, which after a couple of weeks was spread to include several more, going back four years instead of one, in addition to the original seven. One day Cramer told Wolfe he could go over the whole file if he wanted to, some three hundred reports of sessions with eighty-four people, and Wolfe took him up. He spent eleven hours at it, at the DA's office. The only result was that he made nine suggestions, all of which were followed, and none of which opened a crack. He left the women and the feelings they had aroused to the cops, and kept Saul and Fred and Orrie, not to mention me, on the international angle. A great deal was accomplished. We learned a lot about the ten organizations listed in the Manhattan phone directory whose names began with "Yugoslav." Also that Serbs don't care much for Bosnians, and less for Croats. Also that the overwhelming majority of Yugoslavs in New York are anti-Tito, and practically all of them are anti-Russian. Also that eight per cent of the doormen on Park Avenue are Yugoslavs. Also that New Yorkers who are, or whose parents were, from Yugoslavia are fairly cagey about opening up to strangers and are inclined to shut the valves tight if 46 they get the notion that you're being nosy. Also many other things, including a few that seemed to offer a faint hope of starting a trail that could lead to the bird who had put three bullets in Marko Vukcic, but they all blew a fuse. In the first four days of the three weeks we saw Caria twice more. Saturday noon she came and asked Wolfe if it was true, as announced, that there would be no funeral. He said yes, in accordance with Marko's wish, in writing, that he be cremated and that there should be no services. She objected that there were hundreds of people who wanted to show their respect and love for him, and Wolfe replied that if a man's prejudices were to be humored at all after he was no longer around to impose them, surely he should be allowed to dictate the disposal of his own clay. The best she could get was a promise that the ashes would be delivered to her. Then she had asked about progress in the investigation, and he had said he would report when there was anything worth reporting, which hadn't satisfied her at all. She came again late Monday afternoon. I had had enough of answering the damn doorbell and left it to Fritz. She came charging in and across to Wolfe's desk, and 47 blurted at him, "You told the police! They've had Leo down there all day, and this afternoon they went to Paul's place and took him too! I knew I shouldn't trust you!" "Please �" Wolfe tried, but she had pulled the cork and it had to come. He leaned back and shut his eyes. She went on ranting until she had to stop for breath. He opened his eyes and inquired, "Are you through?" "Yes! I'm all through! With you!" "Then there's no more to say." He jerked his head. "There's the door." She went to the red leather chair and sat on the edge. "You said you wouldn't tell the police about us!" "I did not." He was disgusted and tired. "Since you mistrust me you will credit nothing I say, so why should I waste words?" "I want to hear them!" "Very well. I have said nothing to the police about you or your associates or your surmise about Marko's death, but they are not donkeys, and I knew they would get onto it. I'm surprised it took them so long. Have they come to you?" "No." "They will, and it's just as well. I have only four men, and we are getting nowhere. 48 They have regiments. If you tell them about coming to see me Thursday night they'll resent my withholding it, but that's of no consequence. Tell them or not, as you please. As for giving them the information you gave me, do as you please about that too. It might be better to let them dig it up for themselves, since in the process they might uncover something you don't know about. So much for that. Since you're here I may as well tell you what progress I have made. None." He raised his voice. "None!" "Nothing at all!" "Nothing." "I won't tell the police what I told you, but that doesn't matter. If you haven't, you will." Suddenly she was on her feet with her arms spread out. "Oh, I need you! I need to ask you � I need to tell you what I must do! But I won't! I won't!" She turned and was gone. She moved so fast that when I got to the hall she already had the front door open. By the time I reached it she was out and the door was shut. Through the one-way glass panel I saw her going down the steps, sure and supple, like a fencer or a dancer, which was reasonable, since she had been both. That was the last we saw of her during the three weeks, but not the last we heard. 49 Word of her came four days later, Friday morning, from an unexpected quarter. Wolfe and I were having a session in the office with Saul and Fred and Orrie, one of a series, trying to think up some more stones to look under, when the doorbell rang and a moment later Fritz entered to announce, "A man to see you, sir. Mr. Stahl of the Federal Bureau of Investigation." Wolfe's brows went up, he glanced at me, I shook my head, and he told Fritz to bring the man in. The hired help, including me, exchanged glances. An FBI man was no rare spectacle for any of us, but Stahl wasn't just one of the swarm, he had worked up to where he gave more orders than he took, and the word was that by Christmas he would be occupying the big corner room down at 290 Broadway. He didn't often go out to run errands, so it was quite an event for him to drop in, and we all knew it and appreciated it. When he entered and marched across to Wolfe's desk and offered a hand, Wolfe even did him the honor of rising to shake, which showed how desperate the situation was. "It's been quite a while since I saw you last," Stahl observed. "Three years?" Wolfe nodded. "I believe so." He indicated the red leather chair, which Fred 50 Durkin had vacated. "Be seated." "Thank you. May we make this private?" "If necessary." Wolfe glanced at the trio, and they got up and filed out and shut the door. Stahl went and sat. Medium-sized and beginning to be a little short on hair, he wasn't impressive to look at, except his jaw, which came straight down a good two inches and then jutted forward. He was well designed for ramming. He gave me a look, and Wolfe said, "As you know, Mr. Goodwin is privy to all that I hear and see and do." Stahl knew no such thing, because it wasn't true. I'd like to have a nickel -- or make it a dime, with the dollar where it is -- for every item Wolfe has withheld from me just for the hell of it. Stahl merely nodded. "In a way," he said, "you might consider this a personal matter -- personal to you. We want to get in touch with your daughter, Mrs. Caria Britton." Wolfe's shoulders went up an eighth of an inch and down again. "Then do so. Her address is nine-eighty-four Park Avenue. Her phone number is Poplar three-threeohfour-three."

"I know. She hasn't been there since Tuesday, three days ago. She left no word 51 with anyone. Nobody knows where she is. Do you?" "No, sir." Stahl passed a fingertip across the prow of his chin. "One thing I like about you, you prefer things put plain and straight. I've never seen the room upstairs, right above yours, that you call the South Room, but I've heard about it. You've been known to use it for guests, clients and otherwise, from time to time. Do you mind if I go up and take a look at it?" Wolfe shrugged again. "It will be wasted energy, Mr. Stahl." "That's all right, I have some to spare." "Then go ahead. Archie?" "Yes, sir." I went and opened the door to the hall and, with Stahl at my heels, went to the stairs and mounted the two flights. At the door to the South Room I stepped aside and told him politely, "You go first. She might shoot." He opened the door and went in, and I crossed the sill. "It's nice and sunny," I said, "and the beds are firstrate." I pointed. "That door's the bathroom, and that's a closet. A girl named Priscilla Eads once rented it for fifty bucks a day, but she's dead. I'm pretty sure Mr. Wolfe would shave that for a prominent public servant like you. ..." 52 I saved it because he was moving. He knew he had drawn a blank, but he went and opened the door to the bathroom and looked in, and on his way back detoured to open the door to the closet for a glance. As he retreated to the hall I told his back, "Sorry you don't like it. Would you care to take a look at my room just down the hall? Or the plant rooms, just one flight up?" I kept trying to sell him on the way downstairs. "You might like Mr. Wolfe's own room better -- the bed has a black silk coverlet. I'll be glad to show it to you. Or if you want a bargain there's a couch in the front room." He entered the office, returned to his chair, focused on Wolfe, and inquired, "Where is she?" Wolfe focused back. "I don't know." "W^hen did you see her last?" Wolfe straightened in his chair. "Aren't you being crass, sir? If this inquisition isn't gratuitous, warrant it." "I told you she has been away from her home for three days and we can't find her." "That doesn't justify your tramping in here and branding me a liar." "I didn't." "Certainly you did. When I said I didn't 53 know about Mrs. Britton's connection with this affair." He did so in full, making no objection to Stahl's getting out his notebook and taking notes. At the end he observed, "You asked why I advised you to dismiss the second of your two possibilities, and that's my answer. You will discount it as your caution may dictate. Now I would appreciate a straw. With your prerogatives and resources, you must have one to toss me." I had never heard or seen him being abject before, and in spite of the strain he was under I didn't care for it. Stahl didn't either. He smiled, and I would have liked to wipe it off with one hand. He glanced at his wristwatch and rose from the chair. He didn't even bother to say he was late for an appointment. "This is something new," he stated. "Nero Wolfe asking for a straw. We'll think it over. If you hear from your daughter, or of her, we'll appreciate it if you'll let us know." When I returned to the office after letting him out I told Wolfe, "There are times when I wish I hadn't been taught manners. It would have been a pleasure to kick his ass down the stoop." "Get them in here," he growled. "We must find her." 56 But we didn't. We certainly tried. It is true that Stahl and Cramer had it on us in prerogatives and resources, but Fred Durkin knows how to dig, Orrie Gather is no slouch, Saul Panzer is the best operative north of the equator, and I have a good sense of smell. For the next six days we concentrated on picking up a trace of her, but we might as well have stayed up in my room and played pinochle. Not a glimmer. It was during that period that Wolfe made most of his long-distance calls to London and Paris and Bari. At the time I thought he was just expanding the bog to flounder in, and I still think he was merely making some wild stabs, but I have to admit it was Hitchcock in London and Bodin in Paris who finally put him onto Telesio in Bari, and if he hadn't found Telesio we might still be looking for Caria and for the murderer of Marko. I also admit that I regard myself as the one for hunches around this joint, and I resent anyone homing in, even Wolfe. His part is supposed to be brainwork. However, what matters is that if he hadn't got in touch with Telesio and talked with him forty buck's worth, in Italian, the Tuesday after Stahl's visit, he would never have got the calls from Telesio. There were three of them. The first one 57 came Thursday afternoon while I was out tracking down a lead that Fred thought might get somewhere. When I got back to the office just before dinner Wolfe snapped at me, "Get them here this evening for new instructions." "Yes, sir." I went to my desk, sat, and swiveled to face him. "Any for me?" "We'll see." He was glowering. "I suppose you have to know. I had a call from Bari. It is now past midnight in Italy. Mrs. Britton arrived in Bari at noon and left a few hours later in a small boat to cross the Adriatic." I goggled. "How the hell did she get to Italy?" "I don't know. My informant may, but he thinks it necessary to use discretion on the phone. I am taking it that she's there. For the present we shall keep it to ourselves. The new instructions for Saul and Fred and Orrie will be on the ground that it is more urgent to disclose the murderer than to find Mrs. Britton. As for �" "Saul will smell it. He'll know." "Let him. He won't know where she is, and even if he did, no matter. Who is more trustworthy, Saul or you?" "I would say Saul. I have to watch myself pretty close." "Yes. As for Mr. Cramer and Mr. Stahl, 58 we owe them nothing. If they're still looking for her they may find someone else." He sighed way down, leaned back, and shut his eyes, presumably to try to devise a program for the hired help. So the first call from Telesio didn't stop operations, it merely changed the strategy. With the second one it was different. It came four days later, at two-thirty A.M. Monday. Of course it was half-past eight in the morning at Bari, but I was in no shape to manage that calculation as I yanked myself enough awake to realize that I hadn't dreamed it -- the phone was ringing. I rolled over and reached for it. When I heard that it was a call from Bari, Italy, for Mr. Nero Wolfe I told the operator to hold it, turned on the light, went and flipped the switch controlling the gong that splits the air if anyone steps within ten feet of the door of Wolfe's room at night, and then descended one flight and knocked. His voice came, and I opened the door and entered and pushed the wall switch. He made a magnificent mound under the electric blanket, lying there blinking at me. "Well?" he demanded. "Phone call from Italy. Collect." He refuses to concede the possibility that he will ever be willing to talk on the phone 59 while in bed, so the only instrument in his room is on a table over by a window. I went and switched it on. He pushed the blanket back, maneuvered his bulk around and up, made it over to the table in his bare feet, and took the phone. Even in those circumstances I was impressed by the expanse of his yellow pajamas. I stood and listened to a lingo that I didn't have in stock, but not for long. He didn't even get his money's worth, for it had been less than three minutes when he cradled the thing, gave me a dirty look, padded back to the bed, lowered himself onto its edge, and pronounced some word that I wouldn't know how to spell. He went on. "That was Signer Telesio. His discretion has been aggravated into obscurity. He said he had news for me, that was clear enough, but he insisted on coding it. His words, translated: 'The man you seek is within sight of the mountain.' He would not elucidate, and it would have been imprudent to press him." I said, "I've never known you to seek a man harder or longer than the guy who killed Marko. Does he know that?" "Yes." "Then the only question is, which mountain?"

60 "It may safely be presumed that it is Lovchen -- the Black Mountain, from which Montenegro got its name." "Is this Telesio reliable?" "Yes." "Then there's no problem. The guy that killed Marko is in Montenegro." "Thank you." He twisted around, got his legs onto the bed and under the blanket, and flattened out, if that term may be used about an object with such a contour. Folding the end of the yellow sheet over the edge of the blanket, he pulled it up to his chin, turned on his side, said, "Put the light out," and closed his eyes. He was probably asleep before I got back upstairs. That leaves four days of the three weeks to account for, and they were by far the worst of the whole stretch. It was nothing new that Wolfe was pigheaded, but that time he left all previous records way behind. He knew damn well the subject had got beyond his reach and he was absolutely licked, and the only intelligent thing to do was to hand it over to Cramer and Stahl, with a fair chance that it would get to the CIA, and, if they happened to have a tourist taking in the scenery in those parts, they might think it worth the trouble to give him an errand. 61 Not only that, there were at least two VIPs in Washington, one of them in the State Department, whose ears were accessible to Wolfe on request. But no. Not for that mule. When -- on Wednesday evening, I think it was -- I submitted suggestions as outlined above, he rejected them and gave three reasons. One, Cramer and Stahl would think he had invented it unless he named his informant in Bari, and he couldn't do that. Two, they would merely nab Mrs. Britton if and when she returned to New York, and charge her with something and make it stick. Three, neither the New York police nor the FBI could reach to Yugoslavia, and the CIA wouldn't be interested unless it tied in with their own plans and projects, and that was extremely unlikely. Meanwhile -- and this was really pathetic -- he kept Saul and Fred and Orrie on the payroll and went through the motions of giving them instructions and reading their reports, and I had to go through with my end of the charade. I don't think Fred and Orrie suspected they were just stringing beads, but Saul did, and Wolfe knew it. Thursday morning Wolfe told me it wouldn't be necessary for Saul to report direct to him, that I could take it and relay it. 62 "No, sir," I said firmly. "I'll quit first. I'll play my own part in the goddam farce if you insist on it, but I'm not going to try to convince Saul Panzer that I'm a halfwit. He knows better." I have no idea how long it might have gone on. Sooner or later Wolfe would have had to snap out of it, and I prefer to believe it would have been sooner. There were signs that he was beginning to give under the strain -- for instance, the scene in the office the next morning, Friday, which I have described. As for me, I was no longer trying to needle him. I was merely offering him a chance to shake loose when I told him the memo from Cartright of Consolidated Products needed immediate attention and reminded him that Cartright had once paid a bill for twelve grand without a squeak, and it looked hopeful when he shoved the paperweight off the desk and dumped the mail in the wastebasket. I was deciding how to follow through and keep him going when the phone rang, and I would have liked to treat it as Wolfe had treated the mail. I turned and got it. A female voice asked me if I would accept a collect call from Bari, Italy, for Mr. Nero Wolfe, and I said yes and told Wolfe. He lifted his instrument. It was even briefer than it had been Sun63

day night. I am not equipped to divide Italian into words, but my guess was that Wolfe didn't use more than fifty altogether. From his tone I suspected it was some more unwelcome news, and his expression as he hung up verified it. He tightened his lips, glaring at the phone, and then transferred the glare to me. "She's dead," he said glumly. It always irritated him if I talked like that. He had drilled it into me that when giving information I must be specific, especially in identifying objects or persons. But since the call had been from Bari, and there was only one female in that part of the world that we were interested in, I didn't raise the point. "Where?" I asked. "Bari?" "No. Montenegro. Word came across." "What or who killed her?" "He says he doesn't know, except that she died violently. He wouldn't say she was murdered, but certainly she was. Can you doubt it?" "I can, but I don't. What else?" "Nothing. But for the bare fact, nothing. Even if I could have got more out of him, what good would it do me, sitting here?" He looked down at his thighs, then at the right arm of his chair, then at the left arm, as if to verify the fact that he really was 64 sitting. Abruptly he shoved his chair back, arose, and moved. He went to the television cabinet and stood a while staring at the screen, then turned and crossed to the most conspicuous object in the office, not counting him -- the thirty-six-inch globe -- twirled it, stopped it, and studied geography a minute or two. He about-faced, went to his desk, picked up a book he was halfway through -- But We Were Born Free by Elmer Davis -- crossed to the bookshelves, and eased the book in between two others. He tuned to face me and inquired, "What's the bank balance?" "A little over twenty-six thousand, after drawing the weekly checks. You put the checks in the wastebasket." "What's in the safe?" "A hundred and ninety-four dollars and twelve cents in petty, and thirty-eight hundred in emergency reserve." "How long does it take a train to get to Washington?" "Three hours and thirty-five minutes to four hours and fifteen minutes, depending on the train." He made a face. "How long does it take an airplane?" "Sixty to a hundred minutes, depending on the wind." 65 "How often does a plane go?" "Every thirty minutes � on the hour and the half." He shot a glance at the wall clock. "Can we make the one that leaves at noon?" I cocked my head. "Did you say W?" "Yes. The only way to get passports in a hurry is to go after them in person." "Where do we want passports for?" "England and Italy." "When are we leaving?" "As soon as we get the passports. Tonight if possible. Can we make the noon plane for Washington?" I stood up. "Look," I said, "it's quite a shock to see a statue turn into a dynamo without warning. Is this just an act?" "No." "You've told me over and over not to be impetuous. Why don't you sit down and count up to a thousand?" "I am not being impetuous. We should have gone days ago, when we learned he was there. Now it is imperative. Confound it, can we make that plane?" "No. Nothing doing. God knows what you'll be eating for the next week � or maybe year � and Fritz is working on shad roe mousse Pocahontas for lunch, and if you miss it you'll take it out on me. While I 66 phone the airline and get your naturalization certificate and my birth certificate from the safe, you might go and give Fritz a hand since you're all of a sudden in such a hell of a hurry." He was going to say something, decided to skip it, and turned and headed for the kitchen. 67 Chapter 4 We got back home at nine o'clock that evening, and we had not only the passports but also seats on a plane that would leave Idlewild for London at five the next afternoon, Saturday. Wolfe was not taking it like a man. I had expected him to quit being eccentric about vehicles, since he had decided to cross an ocean and a good part of a continent, and relax, but there was no visible change in his reactions. In the taxis he sat on the front half of the seat and gripped the strap, and in the planes he kept his muscles tight. Apparently it was so deep in him that the only hope would be for him to get analyzed, and there wasn't time for that. Analyzing him would take more like twenty years than twenty hours. Washington had been simple. The VIP in the State Department, after keeping us waiting only ten minutes, had tried at first to 68 explain that high-level interference with the Passport Division was against policy, but Wolfe interrupted him, not as diplomatically as he might have under that roof. Wolfe asserted that he wasn't asking for interference, merely for speed, that he had come to Washington instead of handling it through New York because a professional emergency required his presence in London at the earliest possible moment, and that he had assumed the VIP's professions of gratitude for certain services rendered, and expressions of willingness to reciprocate, could reasonably be expected to bear the strain of a request so moderate and innocent. That did it, but the technicalities took a while anyway. Saturday was crowded with chores. There was no telling how long we would be away. We might be back in a few days, but Wolfe had to have things arranged for an indefinite absence, so I had my hands full. Fred and Orrie were paid off. Saul was signed up to hold down the office and sleep in the South Room. Nathaniel Parker, the lawyer, was given authority to sign checks, and Fritz was empowered to take charge at Rusterman's. Theodore was given bales of instructions that he didn't need about the orchids. The assistant manager of the Churchill Hotel obliged by cashing a check for ten grand, 69 in tens and twenties and Cs, and I spent a good hour getting them satisfactorily stashed in a belt I bought at Abercrombie's. The only squabble the whole day came at the last minute, as Wolfe stood in the office with his hat and coat on, and I opened a drawer of my desk and got out the Marley .32 and two boxes of cartridges. "You're not taking that," he stated. "Sure I am." I slipped the gun into my shoulder holster and dropped the boxes into a pocket. "The registration for it is in my wallet." "No. It may make trouble at the customs. You can buy one at Bari before we go across. Take it off." It was a command, and he was boss. "Okay," I said, and took the gun out and returned it to the drawer. Then I sat down in my chair. "I'm not going. As you know, I made a rule years ago never to leave on an errand connected with a murder case without a gun, and this is a super errand. I'm not going to try chasing a killer around a black mountain in a foreign land with nothing but some damn popgun I know nothing about." "Nonsense." He looked up at the clock. "It's time to go." "Go ahead." 70 Silence. I crossed my legs. He surrendered. "Very well. If I hadn't let you grow into a habit I could have done this without you. Come on." I retrieved the Marley and put it where it belonged, and we departed. Fritz and Theodore escorted us to the sidewalk and the curb, where Saul sat at the wheel of the sedan. The luggage was in the trunk, leaving all the back seat for Wolfe. From the woebegone look on Fritz's and Theodore's faces we might have been off for the wars, and in fact they didn't know. Only Saul and Parker had been shown the program. At Idlewild we got through the formalities and into our seats on the plane without a hitch. Thinking it wouldn't hurt Wolfe to have a little comic relief to take his mind off the perils of the takeoff, I told him of an amusing remark I had overheard from someone behind us as we had ascended the gangway. "My God," a voice had said, "they soak me thirty dollars for overweight baggage, and look at him." Seeing it didn't produce the desired effect, I fastened my seat belt and left him to his misery. I admit he didn't make a show of it. For the first couple of hours I hardly saw his face as he sat staring through the window at the ocean horizon or the clouds. We voted 71 to have our meal on trays, and when it came, fricassee and salad with trimmings, he did all right with it, and no snide remarks or even looks. Afterward I brought him two bottles of beer and was properly thanked, which was darned plucky of him, considering that he held that all moving parts of all machinery are subject to unpredictable whim, and if the wrong whim had seized our propellers we would have dropped smack into the middle of the big drink in the dead of night. On that thought I went to sleep, sound. When I woke up my watch said half-past two, but it was broad daylight and I smelled fried bacon, and Wolfe's voice was muttering at my ear, "I'm hungry. We're ahead of time, and we'll be there in an hour." "Did you sleep?" "Some. I want breakfast." He ate four eggs, ten slices of bacon, three rolls, and three cups of coffee. I still haven't seen London, because the airport is not in London and Geoffrey Hitchcock was there at the gate waiting for us. We hadn't seen him since he had last been in New York, three years before, and he greeted us cordially for an Englishman and took us to a corner table in a restaurant, and ordered muffins and marmalade and 72 tea. I was going to pass, but then I thought what the hell, I might as well start here as anywhere getting used to strange foreign food, and accepted my share. Hitchcock took an envelope from his pocket. "Here are your tickets for the Rome plane. It leaves in forty minutes, at twenty after nine, and arrives at three o'clock, Rome time. Since your luggage is being transferred directly to it, the custom chaps here don't want you. We have half an hour. Will that be enough?" "Ample." Wolfe dabbed marmalade on a muffin. "Mostly I want to know about Telesio. Thirty years ago, as a boy, I could trust him with my life. Can I now?" "I don't know." "I need to know," Wolfe snapped. "Of course you do." Hitchcock used his napkin on his thin, pale lips. "But nowadays a man you can trust farther than you can see is a rare bird. I can only say I've been dealing with him for eight years and am satisfied, and Bodin has known him much longer, from back in the Mussolini days, and he vouches for him. If you have --" A cracking metallic voice, probably female, from a loudspeaker split the air. It sounded urgent. When it stopped I asked Hitchcock what she had said, and he replied 73 that she was announcing that the nineo'clock plane for Cairo was ready at Gate Seven. "Yeah." I nodded. "I thought I heard Cairo. What language was she talking?" "English." "I beg your pardon," I said politely and sipped some tea. "I was saying," he went on to Wolfe, "that if you have to trust someone on that coast I doubt if you could do better than Telesio. From me that's rather strong, for I'm a wary man." Wolfe grunted. "It's better than I hoped for. One other thing -- a plane at Rome for Bari." "Yes." Hitchcock cleared his throat. "One has been chartered and should be in readiness." He took a worn old leather case from his pocket, fingered in it, and extracted a slip of paper. "You should be met on arrival, but if there's a hitch here's the name and phone number." He handed it over. "Eighty dollars, and you may pay in dollars. The agent I deal with in Rome, Giuseppe Drogo, is a good man by Roman standards, but he is quite capable of seeking some trivial personal advantage from his contact with his famous American fellow. Of course he had to have your name. If it is now all over 74 Rome, I must disclaim responsibility." Wolfe did not look pleased, which showed how concentrated he was on his mission. Any man only one-tenth as conceited as he was couldn't help but glow at being told that his name was worth scattering all over Rome. As for Hitchcock, the British might be getting short on empire, but apparently they still had their share of applesauce. A little later the loudspeaker announced in what I guess was English that the plane for Rome was ready, and our host convoyed us out to the gate and stood by to watch us take the air. As we taxied to the runway Wolfe actually waved to him from the window.

With Wolfe next to the window, I had to stretch my neck for my first look at Europe, but it was a nice sunny day and I kept a map open on my knee, and it was very interesting, after crossing the Strait of Dover, to look toward Brussels on the left and Paris on the right, and Zurich on the left and Geneva on the right, and Milan on the left and Genoa on the right. I recognized the Alps without any trouble, and I actually saw Bern. Unfortunately I missed looking toward Florence. Passing over the Apennines a little to the north, we hit an air pocket and dropped a mile or so before we 75 caught again, which is never much fun, and some of the passengers made noises. Wolfe didn't. He merely shut his eyes and set his jaw. When we had leveled off I thought it only civil to remark, "That wasn't so bad. That time I flew to the Coast, going over the Rockies we --" "Shut up," he growled. So I missed looking toward Florence. We touched concrete at the Rome airport right on the nose, at three o'clock of a fine warm Sunday afternoon, and the minute we descended the gangway and started to walk across to the architecture my association with Wolfe, and his with me, changed for the worse. All my life, needing a steer in new surroundings, all I had had to do was look at signs and, if that failed, ask a native. Now I was sunk. The signs were not my kind. I stopped and looked at Wolfe. "This way," he informed me. "The customs." The basic setup between him and me was upset, and I didn't like it. I stood beside him at a table and listened to the noises he exchanged with a blond basso, my only contribution being to produce my passport when told to do so in English. I stood beside him at a counter in another room and listened to similar noises, exchanged this 76 time with a black-haired tenor, though I concede that there I played a more important part, being permitted to open the bags and close them again after they had been inspected. More noises to a redcap with a mustache who took over the bags -- only his cap was blue. Still more, out in the sunshine, with a chunky signer in a green suit with a red carnation in his lapel. Wolfe kindly let me in on that enough to tell me that his name was Drogo and that the chartered plane for Bari was waiting for us. I was about to express my appreciation for being noticed when a distinguished-looking college boy, dressed for a wedding or a funeral, stepped up and said in plain American, "Mr. Nero Wolfe?" Wolfe glared at him. "May I ask your name, sir?" He smiled amiably. "I'm Richard Courtney from the embassy. We thought you might require something, and we would be glad to be of service. Can we help you in any way?" "No, thank you." "Will you be in Rome long?" "I don't know. Must you know?" "No, no." He perished the thought. "We don't want to intrude on your affairs -- just let us know if you need any information, 77 any assistance at all." "I shall, Mr. Courtney." "Please do. And I hope you won't mind --" From the inside breast pocket of his dark gray tailored coat that had not come from stock he produced a little black book and a pen. "I would like very much to have your autograph." He opened the book and proffered it. "If you will?" Wolfe took the book and pen, wrote, and handed them back. The well-dressed college boy thanked him, urged him not to fail to call on them for any needed service, included Drogo and me in a well-bred smile, and left us. "Checking on you?" I asked Wolfe. "I doubt it. What for?" He said something to Drogo and then to the bluecap, and we started off, with Drogo in the lead and the bluecap with the bags in the rear. After a stretch on concrete and a longer one on gravel of a color I had never seen, we came to a hangar, in front of which a small blue plane was parked. After the one we had crossed Europe in it looked like a toy. Wolfe stood and scowled at it a while and then turned to Drogo and resumed the noises. They got louder and hotter, then simmered down a little, and finally ended by Wolfe telling me to give him ninety dollars. 78 "Hitchcock said eighty," I objected. "He demanded a hundred and ten. As for paying in advance, I don't blame him. When we leave that contraption we may be in no condition to pay. Give him ninety dollars." I shelled it out, was instructed to give the bluecap a buck and did so after he had handed the luggage up to the pilot, and steadied the portable stile while Wolfe engineered himself up and in. Then I embarked. There was space for four passengers, but not for four Wolfes. He took one seat and I the other, and the pilot stepped on it, and we rolled toward the runway. I would have preferred not to wave to Drogo on account of the extra sawbuck he had chiseled, but for the sake of public relations I flapped a mitt at him. Flying low over the Volscian hills -- see map -- in a pint-sized plane was not an ideal situation for a chat with my fellow passenger, but it was only ninety minutes to Bari, and something had to get settled without delay. So I leaned across and yelled to him above the racket, "I want to raise a point!" His face came around to me. It was grim. I got closer to his ear. "About the babble. How many languages do you speak?" 79 He had to jerk his mind onto it. "Eight." "I speak one. Also I understand one. This is going to be too much for me. What I see ahead will be absolutely impossible except on one condition. When you're talking with people, I can't expect you to translate as you go along, but you will afterward, the first chance we get. I'll try to be reasonable about it, but when I ask for it I want it. Otherwise I might as well ride this thing back to Rome." His teeth were clenched. "This is a choice spot for an ultimatum." "Nuts. You might as well have brought a dummy. I said I'll be reasonable, but I've been reporting to you for a good many years and it won't hurt you to report to me for a change." "Very well. I submit." "I want to be kept posted in full." "I said I submit." "Then we can start now. What did Drogo say about the arrangements for meeting Telesio?" "Nothing. Drogo was told only that I wanted a plane for Bari." "Is Telesio meeting us at the airport?" "No. He doesn't know we're coming. I wanted to ask Mr. Hitchcock about him first. In nineteen twenty-one he killed two 80 Fascist! v^10 na<^ me cornered." "What with?" "A knife." "In Ba^i?" "Yes." "I thought you were Montenegrin. What were you doing in Italy?" "In those days I was mobile. I have submitted to your ultimatum, as you framed it, but I'm ^iot going to give you an account of my youthful gestes -- certainly not here and now." "W^hat's the program for Bari?" "I don't know. There was no airport then, and I don't know where it is. We'll see." He turned away to look through the window. In a moment he turned back. "I think we're ov^r Benevento. Ask the pilot." "I can^t, damn it! I can't ask anybody anything. You ask him." He ignored the suggestion. "It must be Benevento. Glance at it. The Romans finished the Samnites there in three hundred and twelve B.C." He was showing off, and I approved. Only two days earlier I would have given ten to one that up in an airplane he wouldn't have been able to remember the date of anything whatever, and here he was rattling off one twenty-two centuries back. I went back to 81 my window for a look down at Benevento. Before long I saw water ahead and to the left, my introduction to the Adriatic, and watched it spread and glisten in the sun as we sailed toward it, and then there was Bari floating toward us. Part of it was a jumble on a neck stretched into the sea, apparently with no streets, and the other part, south of the neck along the shore, had streets as straight and regular as midtown Manhattan, with no Broadway slicing through. The plane nosed down. 82 Chapter 5 From here on, please have in mind the warning I put at the front of this. As I said, I have had to do some filling in, but everything important is reported as Wolfe gave it to me. Sure, it was five o'clock of a fine April Sunday afternoon. Palm Sunday, and our plane was unscheduled, and Bari is no metropolis, but even so you might have expected to see some sign of activity around the airport. None. It was dead. Of course there was someone in the control tower, and also presumably someone in the small building which the pilot entered, presumably to report, but that was all except for three boys throwing things at a cat. From them Wolfe learned where a phone was and entered a building to use it. I stood guard over the bags and watched the communist boys. I assumed they were communists because they were throwing things at a cat on Palm 83 Sunday. Then I remembered where I was, so they could have been fascists. Wolfe came back and reported. "I reached Telesio. He says the guard on duty at the front of this building knows him and should not see him get us. I phoned a number he gave me and arranged for a car to come and take us to a rendezvous." "Yes, sir. It'll take me a while to get used to this. Maybe a year will do it. Let's get in out of the sun." The wooden bench in the waiting room was not too comfortable, but that wasn't why Wolfe left it after a few minutes and went outside to the front. With three airplanes and four thousand miles behind him, he was simply full of get-up-and-go. It was incredible, but there it was: I was inside sitting down, and he was outside standing up. I considered the possibility that the scene of his youthful gestes had suddenly brought on his second childhood, and decided no. He was suffering too much. When he finally reappeared and beckoned to me, I lifted the bags and went. The car was a shiny long black Lancia, and the driver wore a neat gray uniform trimmed in green. There was plenty of room for the bags and us too. As we started off, Wolfe reached for the strap and got a good 84 hold on it, so he was still fundamentally normal. We swung out of the airport plaza onto a smooth black-top road, and without a murmur the Lancia stretched its neck and sailed, with the speedometer showing eighty, ninety, and on up over a hundred -- when I realized it was kilometers, not miles. Even so, it was no jalopy. Before long there were more houses, and the road became a street, then a winding avenue. We left it, turning right, got into some traffic, made two more turns, and pulled up at the curb in front of what looked like a railroad station. After speaking with the driver Wolfe told me, "He says four thousand lire. Give him eight dollars."

I audited it mentally as I got my wallet, certified it, and handed it over. The tip was apparently acceptable, since he held the door for Wolfe and helped me get the bags out. Then he got in and rolled off. I wanted to ask Wolfe if it was a railroad station, but there was a limit. His eyes were following something, and, taking direction, I saw that he was watching the Lancia on its way. When it turned a corner and disappeared he spoke. "We have to walk five hundred yards." I picked up the bags. "Andiamo." "Where the devil did you get that?" 85 "Lily Rowan, at the opera- The choru can't get off the stage without: singing it." We set out abreast, but soon. the sidewalk was just wide enough for me and the bags, so I let him lead. I don't know whether one of his youthful gestes had been to pace off that particular route, which included three straightaways and three turns, but if so his memory was faulty. It was more like half a mile, and if it had been much farther the bags would have begun to get heavy. A little beyond the third turn, in a street narrower than any of the others, a car was parked, with a man standing alongside. As we approached he stared rudely at Wolfe. Wolfe stopped practically against him and said, "Paolo." "No." The man couldn't believe it. "Yes, by God, it is. Get in." He opened the car door. It was a little two-door Flat that would have done for a tender for the Lancia, but we made it -- me with the bags in the back, and Wolfe with Telesio in front. As the car went along the narrow street, with Telesio jerking his head sidewise every second to look at Wolfe, I took him in. I had seen dozens of him around New York -- coarse, thick hair, mostly gray; dark, tough skin, quick black eyes, a wide mouth that had 86 done a lot of laughing. He began firing questions, but Wolfe wasn't talking, and I couldn't blame him. I was willing to keep my mind open on whether Telesio was to be trusted as a brother, but in less than a mile it was already closed about trusting him as a chauffeur. Apparently he had some secret assurance that all obstructions ahead, animate or inanimate, would disappear before he got there, and when one didn't and he was about to make contact, his splitsecond reaction was very gay. When we got to our destination and I was out of it on my feet, I circled the Flat for a look at the fenders. Not a sign of a scratch, let alone a dent. I thought to myself, a man in a million, thank God. The destination was a sort of courtyard back of a small white two-story stuccoed house, with flowers and a little pool and high walls on three sides. "Not mine," Telesio said. "A friend of mine who is away. At my place in the old city you would be seen by too many people before I know your plans." Actually it was two hours later that I learned he had said that, but I'm going to put things in approximately where people said them. That's the only way I can keep it straight. 87 Telesio insisted on carrying the bags in, though he had to put them down to use a key on the door. In a small square hall he took our hats and coats and hung them up, and ushered us through into a good-sized living room. It was mostly pink, and one glance at the furniture and accessories settled it as to the sex of his friend -- at least I hoped so. Wolfe looked around, saw no chair that even approached his specifications, crossed to a couch, and sat. Telesio disappeared and came back in a couple of minutes with a tray holding a bottle of wine, glasses, and a bowl of almonds. He filled the glasses nearly to the brim, gave us ours, and raised his. "To Ivo and Garibaldi!" he cried. We drank. They left some, so I did. Wolfe raised his glass again. "There is only one response. To Garibaldi and Ivo!" We emptied the glasses. I found a comfortable chair. For an hour they talked and drank and ate almonds. When Wolfe reported to me later he said that the first hour had been reminiscent, personal and irrelevant, and their tone and manner certainly indicated it. A second bottle of wine was needed, and another bowl of almonds. What brought them down to business was Telesio's raising his glass proposing, "To your 88 little daughter Caria! A woman as brave as she was beautiful!" They drank. By then I was merely a spectator. Wolfe put his glass down and spoke in a new tone. "Tell me about her. You saw her dead?" Telesio shook his head. "No, I saw her alive. She came to me one day and wanted to go across. I knew about her from Marko, on his trips to meet them from over there, and of course she knew all about me. I tried to tell her it was no job for a woman, but she wouldn't listen. She said that with Marko dead she must see them and arrange what to do. So I brought Guido to her, and she paid him too much to take her across, and she went that day. I tried --" "Do you know how she got here from New York?" "Yes, she told me -- as a stewardess on a ship to Naples, which was mere routine with certain connections, and from Naples by car. I tried to phone you before she got away, but there were difficulties, and by the time I got you she had gone with Guido. That was all I could tell you. Guido returned four days later. He came to my place early in the morning, and with him was one of them -- Josip Pasic. Do you know of him?" "No." 89 "Anyway he is too young for you to remember. He brought a message from Danilo Vukcic, who is a nephew of Marko. The message was that I was to phone to you and say these words: 'The man you seek is within sight of the mountain.' I knew you would want more and I tried to get more, but that was all Josip would say. He hasn't known me for many years as the older ones have. So that was all I could tell you. Naturally I thought it meant that the man who had killed Marko was there, and was known. Did you?" "Yes." "Then why didn't you come?" "I wanted something better than a cryptogram."

"Not as I remember you -- but then, you are older, and so am I. You are also much heavier and have more to move, but that is no surprise, since Marko told me about you and even brought me a picture of you. Anyway, now you are here, but your daughter is dead. I can't believe how you got here. It was only Friday, forty-eight hours ago, that I phoned you. Josip came again, not with Guido this time, in another boat, with another message from Danilo. I was to inform you that your daughter had died a violent death within sight of the mountain. 90 Again that was all he would say. If I had known you were coming I would have tried to keep him here for you, but he has gone back. In any case, you will want to see Danilo himself, and for him we will have to send Guido. Danilo will trust only Guido. He could be here -- let's see -- Tuesday night. Early Wednesday morning. You can await him here. Marko used this place. I believe, in fact, he paid for this wine, and he wouldn't want us to spare it, and the bottle is empty. That won't do." He left the room and soon was back with another bottle, uncorked. After filling Wolfe's glass he came to me. I would have preferred to pass, but his lifted brows at my prior refusal had indicated that a man who went easy on wine would bear watching, so I took it and got another handful of almonds.

"This place isn't bad," he told Wolfe, "even for you who live in luxury. Marko liked to do his own cooking, but I can get a woman in tomorrow." "It won't be necessary," Wolfe said. "I'm going over." Telesio stared. "No. You must not." "On the contrary. I must. Where do we find this Guido?" Telesio sat down. "You mean this?" 91 "Yes. I'm going." "In what form and what capacity?" "My own. To find the man who killed Marko. I can't enter Yugoslavia legally, but among those rocks and ravines what's the difference?" "That's not the problem. The worst Belgrade would do to Nero Wolfe would be to ship him out, but the rocks and ravines are not Belgrade. Nor are they what you remember. Precisely there, around that mountain, are the lairs of the Tito cutthroats and the Albanian thugs from across the border who are the tools of Russia. They reached to kill Marko in far-off America. They killed your daughter within hours after she stepped ashore. She may have exposed herself by carelessness, but what you propose -- to appear among them as yourself -- would be greatly worse. If you are so eager to commit suicide, I will favor you by providing a knife or a gun, as you may prefer, and there will be no need for you to undertake the journey across our beautiful sea, which is often rough, as you know. I would like to ask a question. Am I a coward?" "No. You are not." "I am not. I am a very brave man. Sometimes I am astonished at the extent of my courage. But nothing could persuade me, 92 known as I am, to show myself between Cetinje and Scutari day or night -- much less to the east, where the border crosses the mountains. Was Marko a coward?" "No." "That is correct. But he never even considered risking himself in that hive of traitors." Telesio shrugged. "That's all I have to say. Unfortunately you will not be alive for me to say I told you so." He picked up his glass and drained it. Wolfe looked at me to see how I was taking it, realized that I would have nothing to take until he got a chance to report, and heaved a deep sigh. "That's all very well," he told Telesio, "but I can't hunt a murderer from across the Adriatic with the kind of communications available, and now that I've got this far I am not going to turn around and go home. I'll have to consider it and discuss it with Mr. Goodwin. In any event, I'll need this Guido. What's his name?" "Guido Battista." "He is the best?" "Yes. That is not to say he is a saint. The list of saints to be found today in this neighborhood would leave room here." He passed a fingertip over the nail of his little finger. 93 "Can you bring him here?" "Yes, but it may take hours. This is Palm Sunday." Telesio stood up. "If you are hungry, the kitchen is equipped and there are some items in the cupboard. There is wine but no beer. Marko told me of your addiction to beer, which I deplore. If the phone rings you may lift it, and if it is me I will speak. If I do not speak you should not. No one is expected here. Draw the curtains properly before you turn lights on. Your presence in Bari may not be known, but they reached to Marko in New York. My friend would not like blood on this pretty pink rug." Suddenly he laughed. He roared with laughter. "Especially not in such a quantity! I will find Guido." He was gone. The sound came of the outer door closing, and then of the Fiat's engine as it turned in the courtyard and headed for the street. I looked at Wolfe. "This is fascinating," I said bitterly. He didn't hear me. His eyes were closed. He couldn't lean back comfortably on the couch, so as a makeshift he was hunched forward. "I know you're chewing on something," I told him, "but I'm along and I have nothing to chew on. I would appreciate a 94 hint. You've spent years training me to report verbatim, and I would like you to give a demonstration." His head lifted and his eyes opened. "We're in a pickle." "We have been for nearly a month. I need to know what Telesio said from the beginning."

"Nonsense. For an hour we merely prattled."

"Okay, that can wait. Then begin where he toasted Carla." He did so. Once or twice I suspected him of skipping and stopped him, but on the whole I was willing to accept it as an adequate job. When he was through he reached for his glass and drank. I let my head back to rest on my clasped hands, and so was looking down my nose at him. "On account of the wine," I said, "I may be a little vague, but it looks as if we have three choices. One, stay here and get nowhere. Two, go home and forget it. Three, go to Montenegro and get killed. I have never seen a less attractive batch to pick from." "Neither have I." He put his glass down and took his watch from his vest pocket. "It's half-past seven, and I'm empty. I'll see what's in the kitchen." He arose and went 95 for the door through which Telesio had gone for the wine and almonds. I followed. It certainly would not have qualified as a kitchen with the Woman's Home Companion or Good Housekeeping^ but there was an electric stove with four units, and the pots and pans on hooks were clean and bright. Wolfe was opening cupboard doors and muttering something to himself about tin cans and civilization. I asked if I could help, and he said no, so I went and got my bag and opened it, got the necessary articles for a personal hour in a bathroom, and then realized that I hadn't seen one. However, there was one, upstairs. There was no hot water. An apparatus in the corner was probably a water heater, but the instructions riveted to it needed a lot of words, and rather than call Wolfe to come up and decode, I made out without it. The cord of my electric shaver wouldn't plug into the outlet, and even if it had fitted there was no telling what it might do to the circuit, so I used my scraper. When I went back downstairs the living room was dark, but I made it to the windows and got the curtains over them before turning on the lights. In the kitchen I found Wolfe concentrated on cuisine, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, under a bright light from 96 a ceiling fixture, and the window bare. I had to mount a chair to arrange the curtain so there were no cracks, after making a suitable remark. We ate at a little table in the kitchen. Of course there was no milk, and Wolfe said he wouldn't recommend the water from the faucet, but I took a chance on it. He stuck to wine. There was just one item on the menu, dished by him out of a pot. After three mouthfuls I asked him what it was. A pasta called tagliarini, he said, with anchovies, tomato, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper from the cupboard, sweet basil and parsley from the garden, and Romano cheese from a hole in the ground. I wanted to know how he had found a hole in the ground, and he said -- offhand, as if it were nothing -- by his memory of local custom. Actually he was boiling with pride, and by the time I got up to dish my third helping I was willing to grant him all rights to it. While I washed up and put away, Wolfe went upstairs with his bag. When he came down again to the living room he stood and looked around to see if someone had brought a chair his size during his absence, discovered none, went to the couch and sat, and drew in air clear down to the tagliarini he had swallowed. 97 "Have we made up our mind?" I inquired. "Yes." "That's good. Which of the three did we pick?" "None. I'm going to Montenegro, but not as myself. My name is Tone Stara, and I'm from Galichnik. You have never heard of Galichnik." "Right." "It is a village hanging to a mountain near the top, just over the border from Albania in Serbia, which is a part of Yugoslavia. It is forty miles southeast of Cetinje and the Black Mountain, and it is famous. For eleven months of each year only women live there -- no men but a few in their dotage -- and young boys. It has been that way for centuries. When the Turks seized Serbia more than five hundred years ago, groups of artisans in the lowlands fled to the mountains with their families, thinking the Turks would soon be driven out. But the Turks stayed, and as the years passed, the refugees, who had established a village on a crag and named it Galichnik, realized the hopelessness of wresting a living from the barren rocks. Some of the men, skilled craftsmen, started the practice of going to other lands, working for most of a year, and returning each July to spend a month at home with 98 their women and children. The practice became universal with the men of Galichnik, and they have followed it for five centuries. Masons and stonecutters from Galichnik worked on the Escorial in Spain and the palaces at Versailles. They have worked on the Mormon Temple in Utah, the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec, the Empire State Building in New York, the Dnieperstroi in Russia." He joined his fingertips. "So I am Tone Stara of Galichnik. I am one of the few who one July did not return -- many years ago. I have been many places, including the United States. Finally I became homesick and curious. What was happening to my birthplace, Galichnik, perched on the border between Tito's Yugoslavia and Russia's puppet Albania? I was eaten by a desire to see and to know, and I returned. The answer was not in Galichnik. There were no men there, and the women suspected me and feared me and wouldn't even tell me where the men were. I wanted to learn and to judge, as between Tito and the Russians, and between them both and certain persons of whom I had vaguely heard, persons who were calling themselves champions of freedom. So I made my way north through the mountains, a hard rocky way, and here I 99 am in Montenegro, determined to find out where the truth is and who deserves my hand. I assert my right to ask questions so I may choose my side." He turned his palms up. "And I ask questions." "Uh-huh." I wasn't enthusiastic. "I don't. I can't." "I know you can't. Your name is Alex." "Oh. It is." "It is if you go with me. There are good reasons why it would be better for you to stay here, but confound it, you've been too close to me too long. I'm too dependent on you. However, the decision is yours. I don't claim the right to drag you into a predicament of mortal hazard and doubtful outcome." "Yeah. I'm not very crazy about the name Alex. Why Alex?" "We can choose another. It might not increase the risk of exposure for you to keep Archie, and that would make one less demand on our vigilance. You are my son, born in the United States. I must ask you to suffer that presumption because no lesser tie would justify my hauling you back to Galichnik with me. You are an only child and your mother died in your infancy. That will reduce the temptation for you to indulge 100 your invention if we meet someone who speaks English. Until recently I repressed all sentiment about my homeland, so I have taught you no Serbo-Croat and no Serbian lore. At one point, while I was cooking, I decided you should be deaf-mute, but changed my mind. It would create more difficulties than it would solve." "It's an idea," I declared. "Why not? I practically am anyway." "No. You would be overheard talking with me." "I suppose so," I conceded reluctantly. "I'd like to take a crack at it, but I guess you're right. Are we going to Galichnik?" "Good Heavens, no. There was a time when sixty kilometers through those hills was only a frolic for me, but not now. We'll go across to a spot I used to know, or, if time has changed that too, to one that Paolo �" The phone rang. I was up automatically, realized I was disqualified, and stood while Wolfe crossed to it and lifted it to his ear. In a moment he spoke, so it was Telesio. After a brief exchange he hung up and turned to me. "Paolo. He has been waiting for Guido to return from an excursion on his boat. He said he might have to wait until midnight 101 or later. I told him we have decided on a plan and would like to have him come and discuss it. He's coming." I sat down. "Now about my name ..." 102 FR1;Chapter 6 There are boats and boats. The Queen Elizabeth is a boat. So was the thing I rowed one August afternoon on the lake in Central Park, with Lily Rowan lolling in the stern, to win a bet. Guido Battista's craft, which took us across the Adriatic, was in between those two but was a much closer relative of the latter than of the former. It was twelve meters long, thirty-nine feet. It had not been thoroughly cleaned since the days when the Romans had used it to hijack spices from Levantine bootleggers, but had been modernized by installing an engine and propeller. One of my occupations en route was trying to figure out exactly where the galley slaves had sat, but it was too much for me. We shoved off at three P.M. Monday, the idea being to land on the opposite shore at midnight or not long after. That seemed feasible until I saw the Cispadana, which was her name. To expect that affair to navi- 103 gate 170 miles of open water in nine hours was so damn fantastic that I could make no adequate remark and so didn't try. It took her nine hours and twenty minutes. Wolfe and I had stuck to the stuccoed hideout, but it had been a busy night and day for Telesio. After listening to Wolfe's plan, opposing it on various grounds, and finally giving in because Wolfe wouldn't, he had gone again for Guido and brought him, and Wolfe and Guido had reached an understanding. Telesio had left with Guido, and I suppose he got a nap somewhere, but before noon Monday he was back with a carload. For me to choose from he had four pairs of pants, three sweaters, four jackets, an assortment of shirts, and five pairs of shoes, and about the same for Wolfe. They weren't new, except the shoes, but they were clean and whole. I picked them more for fit than looks, and ended up with a blue shirt, maroon sweater, dark green jacket, and light gray pants. Wolfe was tastier, with yellow, brown, and dark blue. The knapsacks weren't new either, and none too clean, but we wiped them out and went ahead and packed. At the first try I was too generous with socks and underwear and had to back up and start over. In between roars of laughter, Telesio gave me 104 sound advice: to ditch the underwear entirely, make it two pairs of socks, and cram in all the chocolate it would hold. Wolfe interpreted the advice for me, approved it, and followed suit himself. I had expected another squabble about armament, but quite the contrary. In addition to being permitted to wear the Marley in the holster, I was provided with a Colt .38 that looked like new, and fifty rounds for it. I tried it in my jacket pocket, but it was too heavy, so I shifted it to my hip. I was also offered an eight-inch pointed knife, shiny and sharp, but turned it down. Telesio and Wolfe both insisted, saying there might be a situation where a knife would be much more useful than a gun, and I said not for me because I would be more apt to stick myself than the foe. "If a knife is so useful," I challenged Wolfe, "why don't you take one yourself?" "I'm taking two," he replied, and he did. He put one in a sheath on his belt, and strapped a shorter one to his left leg just below his knee. That gave me a better idea of the kind of party we were going to, since in all the years I had known him he had never borne any weapon but a little gold penknife. The idea was made even clearer when Telesio took two small plastic tubes from his pocket and handed one to Wolfe 105 and one to me. Wolfe frowned at it and asked him something, and they talked. Wolfe turned to me. "He says the capsule inside the tube is a lullaby -- a jocose term, I take it, for cyanide. He said for an emergency. I said we didn't want them. He said that last month some Albanians, Russian agents, had a Montenegrin in a cave on the border for three days and left him there. When his friends found him the joints of all his fingers and toes had been broken, and his eyes had been removed, but he was still breathing. Paolo says he can furnish details of other incidents if we want them. Do you know what to do with a cyanide capsule?" "Certainly. Everybody does." "Where are you going to carry it?" "My God, give me a chance. I never had one before. Sew it inside my sweater?" "Your sweater might be gone." "Tape it under my armpit." "Too obvious. It would be found and taken." "Okay, it's your turn. Where will you carry yours?" "In my handiest pocket. Threatened with seizure and search, in my hand. Threatened more imminently, the capsule out of the tube and into my mouth. It can be kept in the mouth indefinitely if it is not crushed 106 with the teeth. The case against carrying it j is the risk of being stampeded into using it prematurely." "I'll take the chance." I put the tube in my pocket. "Anyway, if you did that you'd never know it, so why worry?" The lullabies completed our equipment. It was considered undesirable for Telesio to be seen delivering us at the waterfront, so we said good-by there, with the help of a bottle of wine, and then he took us in the Flat to the center of town, let us out, and drove away. We walked a block to a cab stand. I guess we weren't half as conspicuous as I thought we were, but the people of Ban didn't have the basis for comparison that I had. To think of Wolfe as I knew him best, seated in his custom-built chair behind his desk, prying the cap from a bottle of beer, a Laeliocattleya Jaquetta sporting four flowers to his left and a spray of Dendrobium nobilius to his right, and then to look at him tramping along in blue pants, yellow shirt, and brown jacket, with a blue sweater hanging over his arm and a bulging old knapsack on his back -- I couldn't help being surprised that nobody turned to stare at him. Also, in that getup, I regarded myself as worth a glance, but none came our way. The hackie showed no sign of interest when 107 we climbed into his cab and Wolfe told him where to go. His attitude toward obstacles was somewhat similar to Telesio's, but he got us into the old city and through its narrow winding streets to the edge of a wharf without making contact. I paid him and followed Wolfe out, and had my first view of the Cispadana sitting alongside the wharf. Guido, standing there, left a man he was talking to and came to Wolfe. Here where he belonged he looked more probable than in the pink living room. He was tall, thin except his shoulders, and stooped some, and moved like a cat. He had told Wolfe he was sixty years old, but his long hair was jet black. The hair on his face was gray and raised questions. It was half an inch long. If he never shaved why wasn't it longer? If he did shave, when? I would have liked to ask him after we got acquainted, but we weren't communicating. Telesio had said that with the three hundred bucks I had forked over he would take care of everything -- our equipment, Guido, and a certain waterfront party -- and apparently he had. I don't know what kind of voyage it was supposed to be officially, but no one around seemed to be interested. A couple of characters stood on the wharf and 108 watched as we climbed aboard, and two others untied us and shoved the bow off when Guido had the engine going and gave the sign, and we slid away. I supposed one or both of them would jump on as we cleared, but they didn't. Wolfe and I were seated in the cockpit. "Where's the crew?" I asked him. He said Guido was the crew. "Just him?" "Yes." "Good God. I'm not a mariner. When the engine quits or something else, who steers?" "I do." "Oh. You are a mariner." "I have crossed this sea eighty times." He was working at the buckle of a knapsack strap. "Help me get this thing off." My tongue was ready with a remark about a man of action who had to have help to doff his knapsack, but I thought I'd better save it. If the engine did quit, and a squall hit us, and he saved our lives with a display of masterly seamanship, I'd have to eat it. Nothing happened at all the whole way. The engine was noisy, but that was all right, the point was, it never stopped being noisy. t No squall. Late in the afternoon clouds be109 gan coming over from the east, and a light wind started up, but not enough to curl the water. I even took a nap, stretched out on a cockpit seat. A couple of times, when Guido went forward on errands, Wolfe took the wheel, but there was no call for seamanship. The third time was an hour before sundown, and Wolfe went and propped himself on the narrow board, put a hand on the wheel, and was motionless, looking ahead. Looking that way, the water was blue, but looking back, toward the low sun over Italy, it was gray except where the sun's rays bounced out of it at us. Guido was gone so long that I stepped down into the cabin to see what was up, and found him stirring something in an old black pot on an alcohol stove. I couldn't ask him what, but a little later I found out, when he appeared with a pair of battered old plates heaped with steaming spaghetti smothered with sauce. I had been wondering, just to myself, about grub. He also brought wine, naturally, and a tin pail filled with green salad. It wasn't quite up to Wolfe's production the day before, but Fritz himself wouldn't have been ashamed of the salad dressing, and it was absolutely a meal. Guido took the wheel while Wolfe and I ate, and then Wolfe went back to it and 110 Guido went to the cabin to eat. He told us he didn't like to eat in the open air. Having smelled the inside of the cabin, I could have made a comment but didn't. By the time he came out it was getting dark, and he lighted the running lights before he went back to the wheel. The clouds had scattered around, so there were spaces with stars, and Guido began to sing and kept it up. With all the jolts I had had the past two days, I wouldn't have been surprised if Wolfe had joined in, but he didn't. It had got pretty chilly, and I took off my jacket, put on the sweater, and put the jacket back on. I asked Wolfe if he didn't want to do the same, and he said no, he would soon be warming up with exercise. A little later he asked what time it was, my wristwatch having a luminous dial, and I told him ten past eleven. Suddenly the engine changed its tune, slowing down, and I thought uhhuh, I knew it, but it kept going, so evidently Guido had merely throttled down. Soon after that he spoke to Wolfe, and Wolfe went to the wheel while Guido went to douse the lights and then returned to his post. There wasn't a glimmer anywhere on the boat. I stood up to look ahead, and I have damn good eyes, but I had just decided that if there should be anything ahead I wouldn't 111 see it anyway, when I saw something pop up to shut off a star. I turned to Wolfe. "This is Guide's boat, and he's running it, but we're headed straight for something big." "Certainly we are. Montenegro." I looked at my watch. "Five after twelve. Then we're on time?" "Yes." He didn't sound enthusiastic. "Will you please help me with this thing?" I went and helped him on with his knapsack and then got mine on. After a little the engine changed tune again, slower and much quieter. The thing ahead was a lot higher and had spread out at the sides, and it kept going up. When it was nearly on top of us Guido left the wheel, ran in and killed the engine, came out and glided around the cabin to the bow, and in a moment there was a big splash. He came gliding back and untied the ropes that lashed the dinghy to the stern. I helped him turn the dinghy over, and we slid it into the water and pulled it alongside. This maneuver had been discussed on the way over, and Wolfe had informed me of the decision. On account of the displacement of Wolfe's weight, it would be safer for Guido to take him ashore first and come back for me, but that would take an extra twenty minutes and there was 112 an outside choice Aat one of Tito's coastguard boats would happen along, and if it did, not only would Guido lose his boat but also he would probably never see Italy again. So we were to make it in one trip. Guido held the dinghy in, and I took Wolfe's arm to steady him as he climbed over the side, but he shook w off, made it fairly neatly, and lowered himself in the stern. I followed and perched i" the bow. Guido stepped down in the middle, light as a feather, shipped the oars, and rowed. He muttered something, and Wolfe spoke to me in an undertone. "We have twelve centimeters above the water amidship8 -- about five inches. Don't bounce." "Aye, aye, sir." Guide's oars were as smooth as velvet, making no sound at all in the water and only a faint squeak in the rowlocks, which were just notches in the gunwale. As I was riding backward in the bow -- and not caring to twist around for a look, under the circumstances -- the news that we had made it came to me from Wolfe, not much above a whisper- "Your left hand, Archie. The rock." I saw no rock;> but in a second there it was at my elbow, a level slab a foot above 113 the gunwale. Flattening my palm on its surface, I held us in and eased us along until Guido could reach it too. Following the briefing I had been given, I climbed out, stretched out on the rock on my belly, extended a hand for Guido to moor to, and learned that he had a healthy grip. As we kept the dinghy snug to the rock, Wolfe engineered himself up and over and was towering above me. Guido released his grip and shoved off, and the dinghy disappeared into the night. I scrambled to my feet. I had been told not to talk, so I whispered, "I'm turning on my flashlight." "No." "We'll tumble in sure as hell." "Keep close behind me. I know every inch of this. Here, tie this to my sack." I took his sweater, passed a sleeve under the straps, and knotted it with the other sleeve. He moved across the slab of rock, taking it easy, and I followed. Since I was three inches taller I could keep straight behind and still have a view ahead, though it wasn't much of a view, with the only light from some scattered stars. We stepped off the level slab onto another that sloped up, and then onto one that sloped down. Then we started up again, with loose coarse gravel underfoot instead of solid rock. WTien it got 114 steeper Wolfe slowed up, and stopped now and then to get his breath. I wanted to warn him that he could be heard breathing for half a mile and therefore we might as well avoid a lot of stumbles by using a light, but decided it would be bad timing. The idea was to get as far inland as possible before daylight, because we were supposed to have come north through the mountains from Galichnik, and then west toward Cetinje, and therefore it was undesirable to be seen near the coast. Also there was a particular spot about ten miles in, southeast of Cetinje, where we wanted to get something done before dawn. Ten miles in four hours was only a lazy stroll, but not in the dark across mountains, with Wolfe for a pacemaker. He developed several annoying habits. Realizing that we were at the crest of a climb before I did, he would stop so abruptly that I had to brake fast not to bump into him. He would stumble going uphill but not down, which was unconventional, and I decided he did it just to be eccentric. He would stand still, with his head tilted back and swiveling from side to side, for minutes at a time, and when we were well away from the coast and undertones were permitted and I asked him what for, he muttered, 115 "Stars. My memory has withered." The implication was that he was steering by them, and I didn't believe it. However, there were signs that he knew where he was, for instance, once at the bottom of a slope, after we had traveled at least eight miles, he turned sharply right, passed between two huge boulders where there was barely room for him, picked a way among a jungle of jagged rocks, stopped against a wall of rock that went straight up, extended his hands to it, and bent his head. Sound more than sight told me what he was doing, he had his hands cupped under a trickle of water coming down, and was drinking. I took a turn at it too and found it a lot better than what came from the faucet in Bari. After that I quit wondering if we were lost and just roaming around for the exercise. No hint of dawn had shown when, on a fairly level stretch, he decelerated until he was barely moving, finally stopped, and turned and asked what time it was. I looked at my wrist and said a quarter past four. "Your flashlight," he said. I drew it from a loop on my belt and switched it on, and he did the same with his. "You may have to find this spot without me," he said, "so you'd better take it in." He aimed his light to the left down a slope. "That one stone 116 should do it -- curled like the tail of a rooster. Put your light on it. There's no other like it between Budva and Podgorica. Get it indelibly." It was thirty yards away, and I approached over rough ground for a better look. Jutting up to three times my height, one corner swept up in an arc, and it did resemble a rooster's tail if you wanted to use your fancy. I moved my light up and down and across, and, using the light to return to Wolfe, saw that we were on a winding trail. "Okay." I told him. "Where?" "This way." He left the trail in the other direction and soon was scrambling up a steep slope. Fifty yards from the trail he stopped and aimed his light up at a sharp angle. "Can you make it up to that ledge?" It looked nearly perpendicular, twenty feet above our heads. "I can try," I said rashly, "if you stand where you'll cushion me when I fall." "Start at the right." He pointed. "There. Kneeling on the ledge, the crevice will be about at your eye level, running horizontally. As a boy I used to crawl inside it, but you can't. It slopes down a little from twelve inches in. Put it in as far as you can reach, and poke it farther back with your flashlight. When you come to retrieve it you'll have to 117 have a stick to fork it out with. You must bring the stick along because you won't find one anywhere near here." As he talked I was opening my pants and pulling up my sweater and shirt to get at the money belt. Preparations for this performance had been made at Bari, wrapping the bills, eight thousand dollars of them, in five tight little packages of oilskin, and putting rubber bands around them. I stuffed them into my jacket pockets and took off my knapsack. "Call me Tensing," I said, and went to the point indicated and started up. Wolfe changed positions to get a better angle for me with his light. I hooked my fingertips onto an inchwide rim as high as I could reach, got the edge of my sole on another rim two feet up, and pulled, and there was ten per cent of it already done. The next place for a foot was a projecting knob, which I made with no trouble, but then my foot slipped off and I was back at the bottom. Wolfe spoke. "Take off your shoes." "I am," I said coldly. "And socks." It wasn't too bad that way, just plenty bad enough. The ledge, when I finally made it, was at least ten inches wide. I called down to him, "You said to kneel. You come up and kneel. I'd like to see you." 118 "Not so loud," he said. By clinging to a crack with one hand I managed to get the packages from my pockets with the other and push them into the crevice as far as my arm would go, and to slip the flashlight from its loop and shove them back. Getting the flashlight back into the loop with one hand was impossible, and I put it in a jacket pocket. I twisted my head to look at the way back and spoke again. "I'll never make it down. Go get a ladder."

"Hug it," he said, "and use your toes." Of course it was worse than going up -- it always is -- but I made it. When I was on his level again he growled, "Satisfactory." Not bothering to reply, I sat down on a rock and played the flashlight over my feet. They weren't cut to the bone anywhere, just some bruises and scratches, and no real flow of blood. There was still some skin left on most of the toes. Putting my socks and shoes on, I became aware that my face was covered with sweat and reached for my handkerchief.

"Come on," Wolfe said. "Listen," I told him. "You wanted to get that lettuce cached before dawn, and it's there. But if there's any chance that I'll be sent to get it alone, we'd better not go on 119 until daylight. I'll recognize the rooster's tail, that's all right, but how will I find it if I've traveled both approaches in the dark?" "You'll find it," he declared. "It's only two miles to Rijeka, and a trail all the way. I should have said very satisfactory. Come on." He moved. I got up and followed. It was still pitch dark. In half a mile I realized that we were hitting no more upgrades, it was all down. In another half a mile it was practically level. A dog barked, not far off. There was space around us -- my eyes had accommodated to the limit, but I felt it rather than saw it -- and underfoot wasn't rock or gravel, more like packed earth. A little farther on Wolfe stopped, turned, and spoke. "We've entered the valley of the Moracha." He turned on his flashlight and aimed it ahead. "See that fork in the trail? Left joins the road to Rijeka. We'll take it later, now we'll find a place to rest." He turned the light off and moved. At the fork he went right. This was according to plan as disclosed to me. There was no inn at Rijeka, which was only a village, and we were looking for a haystack. Ten minutes earlier we would have had to use the flashlights to find one, but now, as the trail became a road, there 120 was suddenly light enough to see cart ruts, and in another hundred paces Wolfe turned left into a field, and I followed. The dim outline of the haystack was the wrong shape, but it was no time to be fussy, and I circled to the side away from the road, knelt, and started pulling out handfuls. Soon I had a niche deep enough for Wolfe. I asked him, "Do you wish to eat before going to your room?" "No." He was grim. "I'm too far gone." "A bite of chocolate would make a new man of you." "No. I need help." I got erect and helped him off with his knapsack. He removed his jacket, got into his sweater, put the jacket back on, and down he went � first to one knee, then both, then out flat. Getting into the niche was more than a simple rolling operation, since its mattress of hay was a good eight inches above ground level, but he made it. "I'll take your shoes off," I offered. "Confound it, no! I'd never get them on again!" "Okay. If you get hungry ask for room service." I knelt to go to work on another niche, and made it long enough to stow the knapsacks at my head. When I was in and had myself arranged, facing outward, I 121 called to Wolfe, "There's a faint pink glow in the east across the valley, ten miles away, above the Albanian Alps. Swell scenery." No reply. I shut my eyes. Birds were singing.

122 FR1;Chapter 7 My first daylight view of Montenegro, some eight hours later, when I rolled out of the niche and stepped to the corner of the haystack, had various points of interest. Some ten miles off my port bow as I stood, a sharp peak rose high above the others. It had to be Mount Lovchen, the Black Mountain, so that was northwest, and the sun agreed. To the east was the wide green valley, and beyond it more mountains, in Albania. To the south, some two hundred yards off, was a clump of trees with a house partly showing. To the southwest was Nero Wolfe. He was in his niche, motionless, his eyes wide open, glaring at me. "Good morning," I told him. "What time is it?" he demanded. He sounded hoarse. I looked at my wrist. "I should have said afternoon. Twenty to two. I'm hungry and thirsty." 123 "No doubt." He closed his eyes and in a moment opened them again. "Archie." "Yes, sir." "It is not a question of muscles. My legs ache, of course, and my back, indeed, I ache all over, but that was to be expected and can be borne. What concerns me is my feet. They carry nearly a hundredweight more than yours, they have been pampered for years, and I may have abused them beyond tolerance. They must be rubbed, but I dare not take off my shoes. They are dead. My legs end at my knees. I doubt if I can stand, and I couldn't possibly walk. Do you know anything about gangrene?" "No, sir." "It occurs in the extremities when there is interference with both arterial and venous circulation, but I suppose the interference must be prolonged." "Sure. Eight hours wouldn't do it. I'm hungry." He shut his eyes. "I awoke to a dull misery, but it is no longer dull. It is overwhelming. I have been trying to move my toes, but I can't get the slightest sensation of having toes. The idea of squirming out of here and trying to stand up is wholly unacceptable. In fact, no idea whatever is acceptable other than asking you to pull my 124 feet out and take off my shoes and socks, and that would be disastrous because I would never get them back on." "Yeah. You said that before." I moved nearer. "Look, you might as well face it. This time stalling won't help. For years you've been talking yourself out of pinches, but it won't work on sore feet. If you can't walk there's no use trying. Tomorrow or next maybe, to prevent gangrene. Meanwhile there's a house in sight and I'll go make a call. How do you say in SerboCroat, 'Will you kindly sell me twenty pork chops, a peck of potatoes, four loaves of bread, a gallon of milk, a dozen oranges, five pounds --' " Unquestionably it was hearing words like pork and bread that made him desperate enough to move. He did it with care. First he eased his head and shoulders out until he had his elbows on the ground, and then worked on back until his feet slid out. Stretched out on his back, he bent his right knee and then his left, slowly and cautiously. Nothing snapped, and he started to pump, at first about ten strokes a minute, then gradually faster. I had moved only enough to give him room, thinking it advisable to be at hand when he tried standing up, but I never had to touch him because he rolled 125 over to the haystack and used it for a prop on his way up. Upright, he leaned against it and growled, "Heaven help me." "It's you, 0 Lord. Amen. Is that the Black Mountain?" He turned his head. "Yes. I never thought to see it again." He turned his back on it and was facing in the direction of the house in the clump of trees. "Why the devil weren't we disturbed long ago? I suppose old Vidin is no longer alive, but someone owns this haystack. We'll go and see. The knapsacks?" I got them from my niche, and we started for the road, which was only a cart track. Wolfe's gait could not have been called a stride, but he didn't actually totter. The track took us to the edge of the clump of trees, and there was the house, of gray rock, low and long, with a thatched roof and only two small windows and a door in the stretch of stone. Off to the right was a smaller stone building with no windows at all. It looked a little grim, but not grimy. There was no sign of life, human or otherwise. A path of flat stones led to the door, and Wolfe took it. His first knock got no response, but after the second one the door opened about two inches and a female voice came through. After Wolfe exchanged a few noises with the 126 voice the door closed. "She says her husband is in the barn," he told me. "This is preposterous. I heard a rooster and goats." He started across the yard toward the door of the other building, and when we were halfway there it opened and a man appeared. He shut the door, stood with his back against it, and asked what we wanted. Wolfe told him we wanted food and drink and would pay for it. He said he had no food and only water to drink. Wolfe said all right, we would start with water, told me to come, and led the way over to a well near a corner of the house. It bad a rope on a pulley, with a bucket at each end of the rope. One bucket, half full, was on the curb. I poured it into the trough, hauled up a fresh bucket, filled a cup that was there on a flat stone, and handed it to Wolfe. We each drank three cupfuls, and he reported on his talk with our host. "It's worse than preposterous," he declared, "it's grotesque. Look at him. He resembles old Vidin some and may be a relative. In any case, he is certainly Montenegrin. Look at him. Six feet tall, a jaw like a rock, an eagle's beak for a nose, a brow to take any storm. In ten centuries the Turks could never make him whine. Even under the despotism of Black George he kept his 127 head up as a man. But Communist despotism has done for him. Twenty years ago two strangers who had damaged his haystack would have been called to account, today, having espied us in trespass on his property, he tells his wife to stay indoors and shuts himself in the barn with his goats and chickens. Do you know how Tennyson addressed Tsemagora -- the Black Mountain?"

"No." "The last three lines of a sonnet: "Great TseryiagorOy never since thine own Black ridges drew the cloud and broke the storm Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers." He scowled in the direction of the mighty mountaineer standing at the barn door. "Pfui! Give me a thousand dinars." While I was getting the roll from my pocket -- procured for us by Telesio in Bari -- I didn't need to figure how much I was shelling out because I already had it filed that a thousand dinars was $3.33. Wolfe took it and approached our host. His line as later reported: "We pay you for the damage to your hay128 stack, which you can repair in five minutes. We also pay you for food. Have you any oranges?" He looked startled, suspicious, wary, and sullen, all at once. He shook his head. "No." "Any coffee?" "No." "Bacon or ham?" "No. I have nothing at all." "Bosh. If you think we are spies from Podgorica, or even Belgrade, you are wrong. We are �" The man cut in. "You must not say Podgorica. You must say Titograd." Wolfe nodded. "I am aware that the change has been made, but I haven't made up my mind whether to accept it. We have returned recently from the world outside, we are politically unattached, and we are starving. If necessary, my son, who is armed, can engage you while I enter the barn and get chickens � we would need two. It would be simpler and more agreeable for you to take this money and have your wife feed us. Have you any bacon or ham?" "No." "Something left of a kid?" "No." Wolfe roared, "Then what the devil have you?" 129 "Some sausage, of a sort." He hated to admit it. "A few eggs perhaps. Bread, and possibly a little lard." Wolfe turned to me. "Another thousand dinars." I produced it, and he proffered it, with its twin, to our host. "Here, take it. We're at your mercy -- but no lard. I overate of lard in my youth, and the smell sickens me. Your wife might conceivably find a little butter somewhere." "No." He had the dough. "Butter is out of the question." "Very well. That would pay for two good meals in the best hotel in Belgrade. Please bring us a pan, a piece of soap, and a towel." He moved, in no hurry, to the house door and inside. When he came out again he had the articles requested. Wolfe put the metal pan, which was old and dented but clean, on the stone curb of the well, poured it half full of water, took off his jacket and sweater, rolled up his sleeves, and washed. I followed suit. The water was so cold it numbed my fingers, but I was getting used to extreme hardship. The gray linen towel, brought ironed and folded, was two feet wide and four feet long when opened up. After I had got our combs and brushes from the knapsacks, and they had been used and repacked, I poured fresh water in the pan, placed it 130 on the ground, sat on the edge of the well curb, took off my shoes and socks, and put a foot in the water. Stings and tingles shot through every nerve I had. Wolfe stood gazing down at the pan. "Are you going to use soap?" he asked wistfully. "I don't know. I haven't decided." "You should have rubbed them first." "No." I was emphatic. "My problem is different from yours. I lost hide." He sat on the curb beside me and watched while I paddled in the pan, one foot and then the other, dried them with gentle pats of the towel, put on clean socks and my shoes, washed the dirty socks, and stretched them on a bush in the sun. When I started to wash the pan out he suddenly blurted, "Wait a minute. I think I'll risk it." "Okay. I guess you could probably make it to Rijeka barefooted." The test was never made because our host appeared and spoke, and Wolfe got up and headed for the door of the house, and I followed. The ceiling of the room we entered wasn't as low as I had expected. The wallpaper was patterned in green and yellow, but you couldn't see much of it on account of the dozens of pictures, all about the same size. There were rugs on the floor, 131 carved chests and chairs with painted decorations, a big iron stove, and one small window. By the window was a table with a red cloth, with two places set -- knives and forks and spoons and napkins. Wolfe and I went and sat, and two women came through an arched doorway. One of them, middleaged, in a garment apparently made of old gray canvas, aimed sharp black eyes straight at us as she approached, bearing a loaded tray. The other one, following, made me forget how hungry I was for a full ten seconds. I didn't get a good view of her eyes because she kept them lowered, but the rest of her boosted my rating of the scenery of Montenegro more than the Black Mountain had. When they had delivered the food and left I asked Wolfe, "Do you suppose the daughter wears that white blouse and embroidered green vest all the time?" He snorted. "Certainly not. She heard us speaking a foreign tongue, and we paid extravagantly for food. Would a Montenegrin girl miss such a chance?" He snorted again. "Would any girl? So she changed her clothes." "That's a hell of an attitude," I protested. "We should appreciate her taking the trouble. If you want to take off your 132 shoes, go ahead, and we can rent the haystack by the week until the swelling goes down." He didn't bother to reply. Ten minutes later I asked him, "Why do they put gasoline in the sausage?" At that, it wasn't a bad meal, and it certainly was needed. The eggs were okay, the dark bread was a little sour but edible, and the cherry jam, out of a half-gallon crock, would have been good anywhere. Someone told Wolfe later that in Belgrade fresh eggs were forty dinars apiece, and we each ate five, so we weren't such suckers. After one sip I gave the tea a miss, but there was nothing wrong with the water. As I was spreading jam on another slice of bread our host entered and said something and departed. I asked Wolfe what. He said the cart was ready. I asked, what cart? He said to take us to Rijeka. I complained. "This is the first I've heard about a cart. The understanding was that you report all conversations in full. You have always maintained that if I left out anything at all you would never know whether you had the kernel or not. Now that the shoe's on the other foot, if you'll excuse my choice of metaphor, I feel the same way." I don't think he heard me. His belly was 133 full, but he was going to have to stand up again and walk, and he was too busy dreading it to debate with me. As we pushed back our chairs and got up, the daughter appeared in the arch and spoke, and I asked Wolfe, "What did she say?" "Sretan put." "Please spell it." He did so. "What does it mean?" "Happy going." "How do I say, 'The going will be happier if you come along5?" "You don't." He was on his way to the door. Not wanting to be rude, I crossed to the daughter and offered a hand, and she took it. Hers was nice and firm. For one little flash she raised her eyes to mine and then dropped them again. "Roses are red," I said distinctly, "violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you." I gave her hand a gentle squeeze and tore myself away. Out in the yard I found Wolfe standing with his arms folded and his lips compressed, glaring at a vehicle that deserved it. The horse wasn't so bad -- undersized, nearer a pony than a horse, but in good shape -- but the cart it was hitched to was nothing but a big wooden box on two ironrimmed wheels. Wolfe turned to me. 134 T "He says," he said bitterly, "that he put hay in it to sit on." I nodded. "You'd never reach Rijeka alive." I went and got the knapsacks and our sweaters and jackets, and my socks from the bush. "It's only a little over a mile, isn't it? Let's go." 135 FR1;Chapter 8 To build Rijeka all they had to do was knock off chunks of rock, roll them down to the edge of the valley, stack them in rectangles, and top the rectangles with thatched roofs; and that was all they had done, about the time Columbus started across the Atlantic to find India. Mud from the April rains was a foot deep in the one street, but there was a raised sidewalk of flat stones on either side. As we proceeded along it, single file, Wolfe in the lead, I got an impression that we were not welcome. I caught glimpses of human forms ahead, one or two on the sidewalk, a couple of children running along the top of a low stone wall, a woman in a yard with a broom, but they all disappeared before we reached them. There weren't even any faces at windows as we went by. I asked Wolfe's back, "What have we got, fleas?" He stopped and turned. "No. They have. 136 The sap has been sucked out of their spines. Pfui." He went on. A little beyond the center of the village he left the walk to turn right through a gap in a stone wall into a yard. The house was set back a little farther than most of them? and was a little wider and higher. The door was arched at the top, with fancy carvings up the sides. Wolfe raised a fist to knock, but before his knuckles touched, the door swung open and a man confronted us. Wolfe asked him, "Are you George Bilic?" "I am." He was a low bass. "And you?" "My name is unimportant, but you may have it. I am Tone Stara, and this is my son Alex. You own an automobile, and we wish to be driven to Podgorica. We will pay a proper amount." Bilic's eyes narrowed. "I know of no place called Podgorica." "You call it Titograd. I am not yet satisfied with the change, though I may be. My son and I are preparing to commit our sympathy and our resources. Of you we require merely a service for pay. I am willing to call it Titograd as a special favor to you." "Where are you from and how did you get here?" "That's our affair. You need merely to 137 know that we will pay two thousand dinars to be driven twenty-three kilometers -- or six American dollars, if you prefer them." Bilic's narrow eyes in his round puffy face got narrower. "I do not prefer American dollars and I don't like such an ugly suggestion. How do you know I own an automobile?"

"That is known to everyone. Do you deny it?" "No. But there's something wrong with it. A thing on the engine is broken, and it won't go." "My son Alex will make it go. He's an expert." Bilic shook his head. "I couldn't allow that. He might damage it permanently." "You're quite right." Wolfe was sympathetic. "We are strangers to you. But I also know that you have a telephone, and you have kept us standing too long outside your door. We will enter and go with you to the telephone, and you will make a call to Belgrade, for which we will pay. You will get the Ministry of the Interior. Room Nineteen, and you will ask if it is desirable for you to cooperate with a man who calls himself Tone Stara -- describing me, of course. And you will do this at once, for I am beginning to get a little impatient." 138 Wolfe's bluff wasn't as screwy as it sounds. From what Telesio had told him, he knew that Bilic would take no risk either of offending a stranger who might be connected with the secret police, or calling himself to the attention of headquarters in Belgrade by phoning to ask a dumb question. The bluff not only worked; it produced an effect which seemed to me entirely out of proportion when Wolfe told me later what he had said. Bilic suddenly went as pale as if all his blood had squirted out under his toenails. Simultaneously he tried to smile, and the combination wasn't attractive. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said in a different tone, backing up a step and bowing. "I'm sure you'll understand that it is necessary to be careful. Come in and sit down, and we'll have some wine." "We haven't time." Wolfe was curt. "You will telephone at once." "It would be ridiculous to telephone." Bilic was doing his best to smile. "After all, you merely wish to be driven to Titograd, which is natural and proper. Won't you come in?" "No. We're in a hurry." "Very well. I know what it is to be in a hurry, I assure you." He turned and shouted, "Jube!" 139 He might just as well have whispered it, since Jube had obviously been lurking not more than ten feet away. He came through a curtained arch -- a tall and bony youth, maybe eighteen, in a blue shirt with open collar, and blue jeans he could have got from Sears Roebuck. "My son is on vacation from the university," Bilic informed us. "He returns tomorrow to learn how to do his part in perfecting the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Yugoslavia under the leadership of our great and beloved President. Jube, this is Mr. Tone Stara and his son Alex. They wish to be driven to Titograd, and you will --" "I heard what was said. I think you should telephone the Ministry in Belgrade." Jube was a complication that Telesio hadn't mentioned. I didn't like him. To get his contribution verbatim I would have to wait until Wolfe reported, but his tone was nasty, and I caught the Yugoslav sounds for "telephone" and "Belgrade," so I had the idea. It seemed to me that Jube could do with a little guidance from an elder, and luckily his father felt the same way about it. "As I have told you, my son," Bilic said sternly, "the day may have come for you to do your own thinking, but not mine. I think these gentlemen should be conveyed 140 to Titograd in my automobile, and, since I have other things to do, I think you should drive them. If you regard yourself as sufficiently mature to ignore what I think, we can discuss the matter later in private, but I hereby instruct you to drive Mr. Stara and his son to Titograd. Do you intend to follow my instruction?" They exchanged gazes. Bilic won. Jube's eyes fell, and he muttered, "Yes." "That is not a proper reply to your father."

"Yes, sir." "Good. Go and start the engine." The boy went. I shelled out some Yugoslav currency. Bilic explained that the car would have to leave the village by way of the lane in the rear, on higher ground than the street, which the mud made impassable, and conducted us through the house and out the back door. If he had more family than Jube, it kept out of sight. The grounds back of the house were neat, with thick grass and flowerbeds. A walk of flat stones took us to a stone building, and as we approached, a car backed out of it to the right, with Jube at the wheel. I stared at it in astonishment. It was a 1953 Ford sedan. Then I remembered an item of the briefing Wolfe had given me 141 on Yugoslavia: we had lent them, through the World Bank, a total of fifty-eight million bucks. How Bilic had managed to promote a Ford for himself out of it was to some extent my business, since I paid income tax, but I decided to table it. As we climbed in, Wolfe asked Bilic to inform his son that the trip had been fully paid for -- two thousand dinars -- and Bilic did so. The road was level most of the way to Titograd, across the valley and up the Moracha River, but it took us more than an hour to cover the twenty-three kilometers -- fourteen miles to you -- chiefly on account of mud. I started in the back seat with Wolfe, but after the springs had hit in a couple of chuckholes I moved up front with Jube. On the smooth stretches Wolfe posted me some on Titograd -- but, since Jube might have got some English at the university, he was Tone Stara telling his American-born son. As Podgorica, it had long been the commercial capital of Montenegro. Its name had been changed to Titograd in 1950. Its population was around twelve thousand. It had a fine old Turkish bridge across the Moracha. A tributary of the Moracha separated the old Turkish town, which had been inhabited by Albanians thirty years ago and probably still 142 was, from the new Montenegrin town, which had been built in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Twisted around in the front seat, I tried to deduce from Jube's profile whether he knew more English than I did SerboCroat, but there was no sign one way or the other. The commercial capital of Montenegro was a letdown. I hadn't expected a burg of twelve thousand to be one of the world's wonders, and Wolfe had told me that, under the Communists, Montenegro was still a backwater -- but hadn't they changed the name to Titograd, and wasn't Tito the Number One? So, as we jolted and bumped over holes in the pavement and I took in the old gray two-story buildings that didn't even have thatched roofs to give them a tone, I felt cheated. I decided that if and when I became a dictator I would damn well clean a town up and widen some of its streets and have a little painting done before I changed its named to Goodwingrad. I had just made that decision when the car rolled to the curb and stopped in front of a stone edifice a lot bigger and some dirtier than most of those we had been passing. Wolfe said something with an edge on his voice. Jube turned in the seat to face him and made a little speech. For me the words 143 were just noise, but I didn't like his tone or his expression, so I slipped my hand inside my jacket to scratch myself in the neighborhood of my left armpit, bringing my fingers in contact with the butt of the Marley. "No trouble, Alex," Wolfe assured me. "As you know, I asked him to leave us at the north end of the square, but he is being thoughtful. He says it is required that on arriving at a place travelers must have their identification papers inspected, and he thought it would be more convenient for us if he brought us here, to the local headquarters of the national police. Will you bring the knapsacks?" He opened the door and was climbing out. Since the only papers we had with us were engraved dollars and dinars, I had a suspicion that his foot condition had affected his central nervous system and paralyzed his brain, but I was helpless. I couldn't even stop a passer-by and ask the way to the nearest hospital, and I had never felt so useless and so goddam silly as, with a knapsack under each arm, I followed Jube and Wolfe across to the entrance and into the stone edifice. Inside, Jube led us along a dim and dingy corridor, up a flight of stairs, and into a room where two men were perched on stools behind a counter. The 144 men greeted him by name, not with any visible enthusiasm. "Here are two travelers," Jube said, "who wish to show their papers. I just drove them from Rijeka. I can't tell you how they got to Rijeka. The big fat one says his name is Tone Stara, and the other is his son Alex." "In one respect," Wolfe objected, "that statement is not accurate. We do not wish to show papers, for an excellent reason. We have no papers to show." "Hah!" Jube cried in triumph. One of the men said reasonably, "Merely the usual papers, nothing special. You can't live without papers." "We have none." "I don't believe it. Then where are they?" "This is not a matter for clerks," Jube declared. "Tell Gospo Stritar, and I'll take them in to him." Either they didn't like being called clerks, or they didn't like Jube, or both. They gave him dirty looks and exchanged mutterings, and one of them disappeared through an inner door, closing it behind him. Soon it opened again, and he stood holding it. I got the impression that Jube was not specifically included in the invitation to pass through, but he came along, bringing up the rear. This room was bigger but just as dingy. 145 The glass in the high narrow windows had apparently last been washed the day the name had been changed from Podgorica to Titograd, four years ago. Of the two big old desks, one was unoccupied, and behind the other sat a lantem-jawed husky with bulging shoulders, who needed a haircut. Evidently he had been in conference with an individual in a chair at the end of the desk -- one younger and a lot uglier, with a flat nose and a forehead that slanted back at a sharp angle from just above the eyebrows. The husky behind the desk, after a quick glance at Wolfe and me, focused on Jube with no sign of cordiality. "Where did you get these men?" he demanded.

Jube told him. "They appeared at my father's house, from nowhere, and asked to be driven to Podgorica. The big fat one said Podgorica. He said he would pay two thousand dinars or six American dollars. He knew we have an automobile and a telephone. When his request was refused he told my father to telephone the Ministry of the Interior in Belgrade, Room Nineteen, and ask if he should cooperate with a man calling himself Tone Stara. My father thought it unnecessary to telephone, and commanded me to drive them to Titograd. 146 On the way they talked together in a foreign tongue which I don't know but which I think was English. The big fat one told me to let them out at the north end of the square, but I brought them here instead, and now I am fully justified. They admit they have no papers. It will be interesting to hear them explain." Jube pulled a chair around and sat down. The husky one eyed him. "Did I tell you to be seated?" "No, you didn't." "Then get up. I said get up! That's better, little man. You go to the university in Zagreb, that is true, and you have even spent three days in Belgrade, but I have not heard that you have been designated a hero of the people. You did right to bring these men here, and I congratulate you on behalf of our great People's Republic, but if you try to assert yourself beyond your years and your position you will undoubtedly get your throat cut. Now go back home and study to improve yourself, and give my regards to your worthy father." "You are being arbitrary, Gospo Stritar. It would be better for me to stay and hear �" "Get out!" I thought for a second the college boy was 147 going to balk, and he did too, but the final vote was no. He turned and marched out. When the door had closed behind him, the one seated at the end of the desk got up, evidently meaning to leave, but Stritar said something to him, and he went to another chair and sat. Wolfe went and took the one at the end of the desk, and I took the one that Jube had vacated. Stritar looked at Wolfe, at me, and back at Wolfe. He spoke. "What's this talk about your having no papers?" "Not talk," Wolfe told him. "A fact. We have none." "Where are they? What's your story? Who stole them?" "Nobody. We had no papers. You will find our story somewhat unusual." "I already find it unusual. You had better talk." "I intend to, Mr. Stritar. My name is Tone Stara. I was born in Galichnik, and at the age of sixteen I began to follow the well-known custom of spending eleven months of the year elsewhere to earn a living. For seven years I returned to Galichnik each July, but the eighth year I did not return because I had got married in a foreign land. My wife bore a son and died, but still I did not return. I had abandoned my 148 father's craft and tried other activities, and I prospered. My son Alex grew up and joined in my activities, and we prospered more. I thought I had cut all bonds with my native land, shed all memories, but when Yugoslavia was expelled from the Cominform six years ago my interest was aroused, and so was my son's, and we followed developments more and more closely. Last July, when Yugoslavia resumed relations with Soviet Russia and Marshal Tito made his famous statement, my curiosity became intense. I became involved in arguments, not so much with others as with myself. I tried to get enough reliable information to make a final and just decision about the right and the wrong and the true interest and welfare of the people of my birthland." He nodded sidewise at me. "My son's curiosity was as great as mine, and we finally concluded that it was impossible to judge from so great a distance. We couldn't get satisfactory information, and we couldn't test what we did get. I determined to come and find out for myself. I thought it best for me to come alone, since my son couldn't speak the language, but he insisted on accompanying me, and in the end I consented. Naturally there was some difficulty, since we could not get passports for either Albania 149 or Yugoslavia, and we chose to go by ship to Naples and fly to Bari. Leaving our luggage -- and papers and certain other articles -- at Bari, we arranged, through an agent who had been recommended to me, for a boat to take us across to the Albanian coast. Landing at night near Drin, we made our way across Albania to Galichnik, but we discovered in a few hours that nothing was to be learned there and crossed the border back into Albania." "At what spot?" Stritar asked. Wolfe shook his head. "I don't intend to cause trouble for anyone who has helped us. I had been somewhat inclined to think that Russian leadership offered the best hope for the people of my native land, but after a few days in Albania I was not so sure. People didn't want to talk with a stranger, but I heard enough to give me a suspicion that conditions might be better under Tito in Yugoslavia. Also I heard something of a feeling that the most promising future was with neither the Russians nor Marshal Tito, but with an underground movement that condemned both of them, so I was more confused than when I had left my adopted country in search of the truth. All the time, you understand, we were ourselves underground in a way, because we 150 had no papers. I had, of course, intended all along to visit Yugoslavia, and now I was resolved also to learn more of the movement which I was told was called the Spirit of the Black Mountain. I suppose you have heard of it?" Stritar smiled, not with amusement. "Oh yes, I've heard of it." "I understand it is usually called simply the Spirit. No one would tell me the names of its leaders, but from certain hints I gathered that one of them was to be found near Mount Lovchen, which would seem logical. So we came north through the mountains and managed to get over the border into Yugoslavia, and across the valley and the river as far as Rijeka, but then we felt it was useless to go on to Cetinje without better information. In my boyhood I had once been to Podgorica to visit a friend named Grubo Balar." Wolfe turned abruptly in his chair to look at the flat-nosed young man with a slanting forehead, seated over toward the wall. "I noticed when I came in that you look like him, and thought you might be his son. May I ask, is your name Balar?" "No, it isn't," Flat-nose replied in a low smooth voice that was barely audible. "My name is Peter Zov, if that concerns you." 151 "Not at all, if it isn't Balar." Wolfe went back to Stritar. "So we decided to come to Podgorica -- which I shall probably learn to call Titograd if we stay in this country -- first to try to find my old friend, and second to see what it is like here. Someone had mentioned George Bilic of Rijeka, with his automobile and telephone, and we were footsore, so we sought him out and offered him two thousand dinars to drive us here. You will want to know why, when Bilic didn't want to oblige us, I told him to telephone the Ministry of the Interior in Belgrade. It was merely a maneuver -- not very subtle, I admit -- which I used once or twice in Albania, to test the atmosphere. If he had telephoned, it would have broadened the test considerably." "If he had telephoned," Stritar said, "you would now be in jail and someone would be on his way from Belgrade to deal with you." "All the better. That would tell me much." "Perhaps more than you want to know. You told Bilic to ask for Room Nineteen. Why?" "To impress him." "Since you just arrived in Yugoslavia, how did you know about Room Nineteen?" 152 "It was mentioned to me several times in Albania." "In what way?" "As the lair of the panther who heads the secret police, and therefore the center of power." Wolfe flipped a hand. "Let me finish. I told Jube Bilic to take us to the north corner of the square, but when he brought us here instead I thought it just as well. You would soon have learned of our presence, from someone else if not from him, and it would be better to see you and tell you about us." "It would be better still to tell me the truth." "I have told you the truth." "Bah. Why did you offer to pay Bilic in American dollars?" "Because we have some." "How many?" "Oh, more than a thousand." "Where did you get them?" "In the United States. That is a wonderful country to make money, and my son and I have made our full share, but it does not know how to arrange for a proper concentration of power, and therefore there is too much loose-talk. That's why we came here to find out. Who can best concentrate the power of the Yugoslavs -- the Russians, or 153 Tito, or the Spirit of the Black Mountain?" Stritar cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. "This is all very interesting, and extremely silly. It occurs to me that of the many millions lent to Yugoslavia by the World Bank -- that is to say, by the United States -- only one little million is being spent in Montenegro, for a dam and power plant just above Titograd, not three kilometers from here. If the World Bank wanted to know if the money is being spent for the agreed purpose, might it not send some such man as you to look?" "It might," Wolfe conceded. "But not me. I am not technically qualified, and neither is my son." "You can't possibly expect me," Stritar asserted, "to believe your fantastic story. I admit that I have no idea what you do expect. You must know that, having no papers, you are subject to arrest and a thorough examination, which you would find uncomfortable. You may be Russian agents. You may, as I said, be agents of the World Bank. You may be foreign spies from God knows where. You may be American friends of the Spirit of the Black Mountain. You may even have been sent from Room Nineteen in Belgrade, to test the loyalty and vigilance of Montenegrins. But I ask myself, 154 if you are any of those, why in the name of God are you not provided with papers? It's ridiculous." "Exactly." Wolfe nodded approvingly. "It is a pleasure to meet with an intelligent man, Mr. Stritar. You can account for our having no papers only by assuming that my fantastic story is true, as indeed it is. As for arresting us, I don't pretend that we would be delighted to spend a year or two in jail, but it would certainly answer some of the questions we have been asking. As for what we expect, why not allow us a reasonable amount of time, say a month, to get the information we came for? I would know better than to make such a suggestion in Belgrade, but this is Montenegro, where the Turks clawed at the crags for centuries to no purpose, and it seems unlikely that my son and I will topple them. To show that I am being completely frank with you, I said that we have more than a thousand American dollars, but I carry very little of it and my son only a fraction. We have cached most of it, a considerable amount, in the mountains, and it is significant that the spot we chose is not in Albania but in Montenegro. That would seem to imply that we lean to Tito instead of the Russians -- did you say something, Mr. Zov?" 155 Peter Zov, who had made a noise that could have been only a grunt, shook his head. "No, but I could." "Then say it," Stritar told him. "American dollars in the mountains must not go to the Spirit." "There is that risk," Wolfe admitted, "but I doubt if they'll be found, and what I have heard of that movement makes it even more doubtful that we will favor it. You're a man of action, are you, Mr. Zov?" "I can do things, yes." The low, smooth voice was silky. "Peter has earned a reputation," Stritar said. "A good thing to have." Wolfe came back to Stritar. "But if he has in mind prying out of us where the dollars are, it doesn't seem advisable. We are American citizens, and serious violence to us would be indiscreet, and besides, the bulk of our fortune is in the United States, beyond your reach unless you enlist our sympathy and support." "What place in the United States?" "That's unimportant." "Is Tone Stara your name there?" "It may be, or maybe not. I can tell you, I understand the kind of power that is typified by Room Nineteen, and it attracts me, but I prefer not to call its attention to my 156 friends and associates in America. It might be inconvenient in case I decide to return and stay." "You may not be permitted to return." "True. We take that risk." "You're a pair of fools." "Then don't waste your time on us. All a fool can do in Montenegro is fall off a mountain and break his neck, as you should know. If I came back here to fulfill my destiny, and brought my son along, why make a fuss about it?" Stritar laughed. It seemed to me a plain, honest laugh, as if he were really amused, and I wondered what Wolfe had said, but I had to wait until later to find out. Peter Zov didn't join in. When Stritar was through being amused he looked at his wristwatch, gave me a glance -- the eighth or ninth he had shot at me -- and then frowned at Wolfe. "You are aware," he said, "that everywhere you go in Titograd, and everything you say and do, will get to me. This is not London or Washington, or even Belgrade. I don't need to have you followed. If I want you in an hour, or five hours, or forty, I can get you -- alive or dead. You say you understand the kind of power that is typified by Room Nineteen. If you don't, you will. I am now permitting you to go, 157 but if I change my mind you'll know it." He sounded severe, so it came as a surprise to see Wolfe leave his chair, tell me to come, and head for the door. I picked up the knapsacks and followed. In the outer room only one of the clerks was left, and he merely gave us a brief look as we passed through. Not being posted on our status, I was half expecting a squad to stop us downstairs and collar us, but the corridor was empty. On the sidewalk we got a few curious glances from passers-by as we stood a moment. I noted that Bilic's 1953 Ford was gone. "This way," Wolfe said, turning right. The next incident gave me a lot of satisfaction, and God knows I needed it. In New York, where I belong and know my way around and can read the signs, I no longer get any great kick out of it when a hunch comes through for me, but there in Titograd it gave me a lift to find that my nervous system was on the job in spite of all the handicaps. We had covered perhaps a quarter of a mile on the narrow sidewalks, dodging foreigners of various shapes and sizes, turning several corners, when I got the feeling that we had a tail and made a quick stop and wheel. After one sharp glance I turned and 158 caught up with Wolfe and told him, "Jube is coming along behind. Not accidentally, because when I turned he dived into a doorway. The sooner you bring me up to date, the better." "Not standing here in the street, being jostled. I wish you were a linguist." "I don't. Do we shake Jube?" "No. Let him play. I want to sit down." He went on, and I tagged along. Every fifty paces or so I looked back, but got no further glimpses of our college-boy tail until we had reached a strip of park along the river bank. That time he sidestepped behind a tree that was too thin to hide him. He badly needed some kindergarten coaching. Wolfe led the way to a wooden bench at the edge of a graveled path, sat, and compressed his lips as he straightened his legs to let his feet rest on the heels. I sat beside him and did likewise. "I would have supposed," he said peevishly, "that yours would be hardier." "Yeah. Did you climb a precipice barefooted?"