The Black Mountain Read online

  He said something to Meta, and she replied, and he pushed back his chair and stood up, flinching only a little. "We'll go in the other room," he told me, and moved, and I followed, leaving the door open, not to be rude to our hostess. He lowered himself onto his former chair, put his palms on his knees, and sighed as far down as it would go. "We're in for another night of it," he said glumly, and proceeded to report. First 190 he sketched it, and then, when I insisted, filled it in. He was in no humor to oblige me or anyone else, but I was in no humor to settle for a skeleton. When he had finished I sat a minute and turned it over. I had certainly seen sweeter prospects. "Is there such a thing," I asked, "as a metal dinar any more? A coin?" "I doubt it. Why?" "I'd like to have one to toss, to decide which side Danilo is really on. I admit his wife thinks she knows, but does she? As it stands now, I could name at least fourteen people I would rather have take me for a ride than Marko's nephew." "I am committed," he said grumpily. "You are not." "Phooey. I want to see your birthplace and put a plaque on it." No comment. He sighed again, arose from his chair, crossed to a sofa with a high back that was against the far wall, placed a cushion to suit him, and stretched out. He tried it first on his back, but protruded over the edge, and turned on his side. It was a pathetic sight, and to take my mind off it I went to another wall and looked at pictures some more. I think he got a nap in. Some time later, when Danilo returned, I had to go to the 191 sofa and touch Wolfe's arm before he would open his eyes. He gave me a dirty look, and one just as dirty to Danilo, swung his legs around, sat, and ran his fingers through his hair. "We can go now," Danilo announced. He had on a leather jacket. "Very well." Wolfe made it to his feet. "The knapsacks, Archie?" As I bent to lift them Meta's voice came from the doorway. Her husband answered her, and Wolfe said something and then spoke to me. "Archie, Mrs. Vukcic asks if we would like to look at the children, and I said yes." I kept my face straight. The day that Wolfe would like to climb steps to look at children will be the day I would like to climb Mount Everest barefooted to make a snowman. However, it was good public relations, and I don't deny he might have felt that we should show some appreciation for her contribution to the discussion of our future. I know I did, so I dropped the knapsacks and gave her a cordial smile. She led the way through the arch and up a flight of narrow wooden stairs, uncarpeted, with Wolfe and me following and Danilo bringing up the rear. On the top landing she murmured something to Wolfe, and we waited there 192 while she disappeared through a doorway and in a moment rejoined us, carrying a lighted candle. After going to another door that was closed, she opened it gently and crossed the sill. With the heavy shoes we were wearing it wasn't easy to step quietly, and with the condition Wolfe's feet were in it wasn't easy for him to tiptoe, but by gum he tried, and made, on the bare floor, quite a little less noise than a team of horses. They were in beds, not cribs, with high wooden posts, against opposite walls. Zosha, who was on her back, with one of her long black curls across her nose, had kicked the cover off, and Meta pulled it up. Wolfe, looking down at her, muttered something, but I can't say what because he has always refused to tell me. Ivan, who was on his side with an arm stretched out, had a smudge on his cheek, but you have to make allowance for the fact that when Meta put them to bed unexpected guests had arrived and she had been under pressure. When Meta turned away with the candle, and Wolfe and I followed, Danilo stayed by Ivan's bed, and we waited for him at the foot of the stairs, with Meta holding the candle high to light him. In the living room Danilo spoke to Wolfe, and Wolfe relayed it to me. "We'll go first, 193 by a route I know, not far, and Danilo will follow. We won't want the knapsacks on our backs in the car, so if you'll carry them?" We shook hands with Meta. I picked up the luggage. Danilo escorted us to the front door and let us out, and we were loose again. It was past midnight and the houses were all dark, and so was the street, except for one dim excuse for a light at the corner a hundred yards away. We headed in the other direction. When we had gone some fifty paces I stopped and wheeled to look back, and Wolfe grumbled, "That's futile." "Okay," I conceded, "but I trust Danilo as far as I can see him, and now I can't see him." "Then why look? Come on." I obeyed, with my arms full of knapsacks. There were some stars, and soon my eyes were adjusted enough for objects thirty feet off and for movements much farther. Before long we came to a dead end and turned left. At the next intersection we turned right, and in a few minutes went left again and were on a dirt road with ruts. There were no more houses, but ahead in the distance was a big black outline against the sky, and I asked Wolfe what it was. "Sawmill. The car's there." He sounded more confident than I felt, 194 but he was right. When we approached the outline it became a building surrounded by other outlines, and closer up they became stacks of lumber. I saw the car first, off the road, in between the second and third stacks, which were twice as high as my head. We went up to it. It was a car all right, an old Chewy sedan, and the hood was warm to my hand, but it was empty. "What the hell," I said. "No driver? I have no road map." "He'll come." Wolfe opened the rear door and was climbing in. "There'll be four of us, so you'll have to ride with me." I put the knapsacks in, taking care not to drop them on his feet, but stayed out on the ground. With my hands free, I had a strong impulse to get the Marley in one and the Colt in the other, and I had to explain to myself why it would be a waste of energy. If someone not Danilo arrived I certainly wasn't going to shoot on sight, and I wouldn't even know what his viewpoint was until Wolfe interpreted for me. I compromised by transferring the Colt from my hip to my side pocket. It was Danilo who arrived. Hearing footsteps, I looked around the corner of the lumber pile and saw him coming down the road. When he was close enough to recog- 195 nize I took my hand out of my pocket, which shows the state of mind I was in. According to me, he was as likely to saw off our limb as anyone. He turned in, brushing past me, went to the car and spoke to Wolfe, turned, and pronounced a word that sounded something like Steven. Immediately a man appeared beside him, coming from above. He had jumped down from the lumber pile, where he had been perched, probably peeking down at me, while I had been talking myself out of drawing my guns. "This is Stefan Protic," Danilo told Wolfe. "I have told him about you and your son Alex. Seen anything, Stefan?" "No. Nothing." "All right, we'll go." Danilo got in with Wolfe, so I circled the car and climbed in beside Stefan. He gave me a long, hard, deliberate look, and I returned it as well as I could in the darkness. About all I could tell was that he was some shorter than me, with a long narrow face that certainly wasn't pale, and broad shoulders. He started the engine, which sounded as if it would appreciate a valve job, rolled into the road, and turned right, without turning his lights on. I can't tell you anything about the first three miles, or five kilometers, of that ride, 196 because I saw nothing. I had already suspected that European drivers had kinks that nothing could be done about, and now concluded that Stefan's was an antipathy for lights, when suddenly he flashed them on, and I saw why we had been bumping so much. You couldn't have driven that road without bumping if it had been lined on both sides with continuous neons. I remarked over my shoulder, "If you'll tell this bird to stop I'd rather get out and run along behind." I expected no reply but got one. Wolfe's voice came, punctuated by bumps. "The main routes from Podgorica are north and south. This is merely a lane to nowhere." Podgorica again. Also he wasn't going to have me casting slurs at Montenegro, which was pretty generous of him, considering the kind of reception Montenegro was giving us. In another mile or so the road smoothed off a little and started up and began to wind. Wolfe informed me that we were now along the Cijevna, and on our right, quite close, I caught glimpses of the white of a rushing stream, but the engine was too noisy for me to hear it. I remembered that one evening after dinner I had heard Wolfe and Marko discussing the trout they had caught in their 197 early days, Marko claiming he had once landed one forty centimeters long, and I had translated it into inches -- sixteen. I swiveled my head to ask Wolfe if it was in the Cijevna that he and Marko had got trout, and he said yes, but in a ton
e of voice that did not invite conversation, so I let it lie. The road got narrower and steeper, and after a while there was no more Cijevna, anyhow not visible. Stefan shifted to second to negotiate a couple of hairpin turns, tried to get going in high again, couldn't make it, and settled for second. The air coming in my open window was colder and fresher, and in the range of our lights ahead there were no longer any leaves or grass, or anything growing, nothing but rock. I had seen no sign of a habitation for more than a mile, and was thinking that Wolfe must have been hatched in an eagle's nest, when suddenly space widened out in front of us, and right ahead, not fifty feet away, was a stone house, and the car stopped with a jerk. I was making sure it was really a house and not just more of the rock, when Stefan switched off the lights and everything was black. Danilo said something, and we all piled out. I got the knapsacks. Stefan went toward the house, came back in a moment with a can, lifted the hood and removed the 198 radiator cap, and poured water in. When that chore was finished he got in behind the wheel, got turned around with a lot of noisy backing and tacking, and was gone. Soon I was relieved to see, down below, his lights flash on. Wolfe spoke. "My knapsack, Archie, if you please?" 199 Chapter 11 We got to Josip Pasic, according to the luminous dial on my wrist, at eighteen minutes past three in the morning. I did not, and still don't, understand how Wolfe ever made it. We didn't actually scale any cliffs -- it was supposed to be a trail all the way except the last three hundred yards -- but it was all up, and at least fifty times my hands had to help my feet. I must admit that Danilo was very decent about it. Even in the dark he could probably have romped along like a goat, but he would always wait like a gentleman for Wolfe to catch up. I had no choice. I was behind, and if Wolfe had toppled he would have taken me with him. There was no taboo on talking, and during the halts Danilo did some briefing, and Wolfe passed it on to me when he had a little breath to spare. Our destination was not the cache but a decoy. The costly and 200 essential supplies had been moved. There were guards at the new cache, but Pasic and five others were at the old one, now empty, expecting and awaiting an invasion. It sounded goofy to me, six guys sitting in a cave asking for it, but I understood it better when we got there. The last three hundred yards, after we left the trail, were not the hardest but they were the most interesting. Danilo, saying that at one point we would have to walk a ledge less than a meter wide with a five-hundredmeter drop, had suggested that he bring Pasic to us at the trail, but Wolfe had vetoed it. When we got to the ledge, which was nearly level, apparently it meant nothing to him. As for me, I didn't spend my boyhood herding goats around cliffs and chasms, and I would have preferred to be walking down Fifth Avenue, or even Sixth. There was enough light from the stars to see the edge, and then nothing. Wide open spaces are okay fairly horizontal, but not straight down. We were still on the ledge, at least I was, when Danilo stopped and uttered a word, raising his voice a little, and at once an answering voice came from up ahead. Our guide replied, "Danilo. Two men are with me, but I'll come on alone. You can use the light." 201 We had to stand there and wait on the damn ledge. When the beam of a spotlight hit us, after taking in Danilo, it was worse. The light left us and went back to Danilo, and then was turned off. In a moment voices came, not loud, and kept on, and my feeling for the Spirit of the Black Mountain took a dive. I admit it was in order for Danilo to explain us to his pals, but that ledge was one hell of an anteroom. Finally the light came at us again, and Danilo called to us to come. When we moved the light didn't attend us but stayed focused on the ledge. In a few steps we left it. I would have had to grope, but Wolfe didn't, and I realized it wasn't so much his eyes he steered by as his memory. Two figures were standing in front of a black blotch on the dim face of perpendicular rock -- the entrance to the cave. As we reached them Danilo gave us the name of Josip Paste, and gave him ours -- Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. That had been accepted as unavoidable, since Danilo couldn't have justified bringing Tone Stara and his son Alex in to his friends, nor account for their interest in Carla. Pasic didn't offer a hand, and neither did Wolfe, who is allergic to handshaking anyhow. Danilo said he had told Pasic who we were and why we 202 wanted to see him. Wolfe said he wanted to sit down. Danilo said there were blankets in the cave, but men were sleeping on them. I thought if it was me I would be under them. It was cold as the devil. Pasic said, "Montenegrins sit on rocks." We did so, after Pasic had turned off the spotlight, Wolfe and Danilo side by side on one, and Pasic and me facing them on another.

  "What I want is simple," Wolfe said. "I want to know who killed Marko Vukcic. He was my oldest friend. As boys we often explored this cave. Danilo says you don't know who killed him." "That's right. I don't." "But nine days ago you took a message from Caria to Danilo that the man who killed him was here." "That wasn't the message." "That's what it meant. Please understand, Mr. Pasic, I have no desire or intention to try to badger you. I merely want all the information you can give me about that message and the events behind it. Danilo will tell you I can be trusted with it." "Caria was his daughter," Danilo said. "He has a certain right to know." "I knew a man who had a daughter." Pasic was scornful. "So did you. She be203 trayed him to the police." "That's another matter. I brought him here, Josip. I don't think the time has come for you to question your trust in me." I was wishing I could have a good look at Pasic. He was just a blur, a big one, taller than me, with a tight, bitter voice. At first, sitting next to him, I had noticed that he smelled, and then had realized that it was me, after the sweat of the climb. "All right," he said, "this is what happened. Caria came to the house -- that's the house at the end of the road, where the car brought you. You saw the house?" "Yes," Wolfe said. "I was born there." "That's right, you were, I have been told. We didn't know she was coming, and it was a big surprise. She wanted to see Danilo, and I went and brought him. They talked a whole day. I don't know what they said because it was not thought desirable for me to be present." "That's foolish," Danilo declared. "I told you what was said. Many things were said, but the main one was that Caria knew from Marko that we had reason to think there was a spy among us, and she wanted to know who. There are spies in the Spirit, of course, that is to be expected, but this one seemed to be close to our most secret affairs. 204 Coming from a distance, Caria was right to exclude no one, not even you or me. She had to talk with someone, and she chose me. And as I told you, I didn't satisfy her." "I know you didn't. Neither did I, when she talked with me after you left. She trusted none of us, and she died for it." Pasic moved his head, to Wolfe. "She decided to find the spy herself. Since you were born here, you know that it is only two kilometers from this spot to Albania, and that just across the border is an old Roman fort." "Certainly. I've killed bats in it." "There are no bats in it now. The Albanians, under the whip of the Russians, have cleaned it up some, and they like to stand in the tower and look across the border. For a while they kept a squad there, but now not so many. I had told Caria that if there was a spy among us working for the Russians it would surely be known to the Albanians at the fort, and they would be in touch with them, and I'm sorry I told her that because it gave her the idea. She decided to go herself to the fort, go straight to them, and offer her services as a spy. I told her it was not only dangerous, it was absurd, but she wouldn't listen. If you think I should have kept her from going, you will please remember that in her mind it was 205 possible that I was myself the spy. Besides, I would have had to restrain her physically. She had decided on it." Wolfe grunted. "So she went." "Yes. She went early Sunday morning. I couldn't keep her, but I persuaded her to make an arrangement with me. I knew how things were in the fort. There are places to sleep and a place to cook, but there is no plumbing. For private necessities there is only one place to go, a little room on the lower side that is more like a cell, with no light when the door is closed, because there is no window." "I know that room." "You seem to know everything. When you knew it, it was not furnished with a bench to sit on with holes in it." "No." "It is now. I figured that if Caria were lef
t free to move at all, she would be allowed to go to that room. A few meters from it, on the other side of the corridor, is another room whose outer wall has crumbled, not used for anything � but of course you know that too. The arrangement was that I would be in that other room at nine o'clock that evening, and Caria would walk past it to the cell. That was all we arranged. We left it to circumstances whether she would enter 206 the room to speak to me, or I would join her in the cell, or what. But she was to walk past the room unless it was absolutely impossible, as near nine o'clock as she could, for if she didn't I was going to find out why." Pasic turned his head to cock an ear in the direction of the ledge, heard nothing whatever if my ears are any good, and turned back. He went on, "There is a thing I would like to mention, since you too are from America, where there is plenty of good food. There are still a few men in Montenegro with some pride, and I am one of them. On Saturday, after Caria arrived, I sent a man down to a farm in the valley and he brought back eight eggs and a piece of bacon. So Sunday morning before she left Caria had for breakfast three of the eggs and some slices of bacon, and she said it was better than American bacon. I want you to know that her last meal in Montenegro was a good one." "Thank you," Wolfe said courteously. "You are welcome. Soon after she left -- in fact, nearly on her heels -- I sent a man, one named Stan Kosor, with a binocular. It is a very fine binocular with a long range, one of the many fine things we have received from America through Marko Vukcic. It has 207 a name engraved on it, 'E. B. Meyrowitz,' which certainly does not seem to be an American name, but it came from America. Stan Kosor went to a high spot near the border, from which the fort is in plain view with the binocular, and stayed there all day. He is now in the cave asleep, and you can speak with him in the morning if you wish. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. No one arrived from the south -- and, particularly, no one departed. Naturally I wanted to know if they took Caria toward Tirana, which is only a hundred and fifty kilometers away. I am trying to accommodate you. You said you wanted all the information I can give you about that message and the events behind it." "Yes. Go ahead." "There were four men here with me besides Stan Kosor. A little after dark Sunday evening we took the trail to the border, and Stan Kosor joined us there. He said he was sure that Caria was still at the fort. We took off our shoes before we went on, not so much on account of the men in the fort, who are merely Albanians, but because of the dog, which liked to lie after dark on a certain rock that is raised a little, at the corner nearest the trail. I left the men at a certain spot and approached alone, and had 208 to climb and circle clear around the fort in order to come at the dog from the other direction, against the wind. That way I got to his rock and sank my knife in him before he moved or made a sound. I pulled his carcass out of the way behind a boulder, and stood a while to listen. I had seen lights at four windows, and I could hear voices, very faint, and I thought one of them was Carla's." He stopped again to turn his ears toward the ledge, and, after ten seconds of the deadest silence I had ever listened to, turned back and resumed. "With the dog out of the way it was simple. I went around to where the wall had crumbled and climbed through a hole into the room where I was to wait. The door into the corridor was open a little, and I stood so I could see through. It wasn't nine o'clock yet. My plan was to wait until ten o'clock, and then, if she hadn't come, I was going to go and bring the men, and we would find her. Of course we would first have to deal with the Albanians, but that wouldn't take long because there wouldn't be more than four of them, and probably only two or three." His hand moved in a quick little gesture. "You will permit me to confess something. I was hoping she would not come, and the 209 Albanians would try to fight and would have to be killed, and we would find her locked in a room, unharmed. That way she would be back with us, and also some enemies would be dead. Of course we could go there and kill them any time, but I admit that would be useless, because, as Danilo says, others would come to take their place, who would give us more trouble than they do now. However, that is what I was hoping. It is not what happened. It was barely nine o'clock when I heard footsteps that sounded like Carla's, and then I saw her in the corridor, carrying a little lantern. I started to stick a hand through the opening for her to see, but pulled it back for fear she was being watched from the end of the corridor. She stopped right at the opening and turned to face the way she had come, and said my name in a whisper, and I answered. She said she was all right and she might come back tomorrow, and then she gave me that message, and --" "If you don't mind," Wolfe put in, "try to remember the exact words." "I don't have to try. She said, 'I'm all right, don't worry, I may come back tomorrow. Tell Danilo to send word to Nero Wolfe that the man he seeks is within sight of the mountain. Did you hear that?' I said, 210 'Yes.' She said, 'Do it at once, tonight. That's all, I must hurry.' She crossed the corridor and went in the little room and shut the door. Naturally I wanted to ask her things, but it was impossible to go and join her in the little room, both for reasons of decency and because it might have placed her in danger. I waited until I saw her come out and return down the corridor and turn a corner, and then I left. I returned to the others and put on my shoes, and we came back to the cave, and I went at once to Podgorica and told Danilo. Is that the information you wanted from me?" "Yes. Thank you. You didn't see her again?" "Not alive. Wednesday morning Danilo and I found her body. I would like to ask you something." "Go ahead." "I have been told that you are an expert detective, with a great reputation for understanding things. In your opinion, am I responsible for Carla's death? Were they moved to kill her because I killed the dog?" "That's silly, Josip," Danilo said gruffly. "I was in a temper when I said that. Can't you forget it?" "He wants my opinion," Wolfe said. "It is this. Many men are responsible for Carla's 211 death, but if I were to name one it would be Georgi Malenkov. He is the foremost champion of the doctrine that men and women must be subjected to the mandates of despotic power. No, Mr. Pasic, you cannot be held accountable, either for Carla's death or for the fact that your information forces me to undertake a distasteful errand. There's nothing else for it, I must go to that fort -- that is, if I can walk in the morning." He started to rise, dropped back on the rock, and groaned as if he meant it. "By heaven, if I can stand up! Can you spare me a blanket, Danilo?" He tried again and made it to his feet. 212 Chapter 12 I nearly froze. There were no extra blankets. I suppose there would have been if the costly and essential supplies had not been moved to another cache, but that didn't keep me warm. Pasic gave Wolfe his blanket, and, being a proud Montenegrin with guests, offered to get one from one of the sleeping men for me, but I said oh no, I wouldn't think of it, through my interpreter. I spent the rest of the night -- what was left -- thinking of it. Wolfe had told me the elevation there was five thousand feet, but he must have meant meters. The pile of hay Pasic assigned me to was damp, and pulling some of it over me only made things worse. I guess I must have slept some, because I know I dreamed, something about a lot of dogs with cold noses. I heard voices and opened my eyes and saw bright sunshine outside the cave en213 trance. My watch said ten past eight, so I had been refrigerating for more than four hours. I lay and figured it out: if I was frozen I couldn't move, so if I could move I wasn't frozen. I bent the legs and raised the torso, scrambled to my feet, and tottered to the entrance. The sun wasn't there yet. To get it on me I would have had to go to the ledge and out on it a way, and I was all through with that ledge if there was any other possible route out of there. Then I remembered, we weren't going back, but forward, we were going to cross the border to the old Roman fort to visit Albanians. Wolfe had explained it all to me before we had entered the cave to hit the hay, including Pasic's strategy with the dog. No doubt that had influenced my dream. "Good morning," Wolfe said. He was sitting on a rock, looking exactly the way I felt. If I reported all the details of the next hour you would think I was piling on the misery just for the hell of it, so I'll mention only a few to give you a notion. The sun stuck to a crazy slant so as not to touch us. There was water in a
can to drink, but none to wash in. I was told that to wash all I had to do was go over the ledge to the trail and 214 down it less than a kilometer to a brook. I didn't wash. For breakfast we had bread, nothing like Meta's, cold slices of mush that had been fried in lard, and canned beans from the United States of America. When I asked Wolfe why they didn't at least start a fire and make some tea, he said because there was nothing to burn, and, looking around, I had to admit he was right. There wasn't a single stick, alive or dead, anywhere in sight. Just rock. And of course I couldn't talk, which might have helped to get the blood started. There wasn't even anything to listen to, except the goddam jabber as usual. The five men whom I hadn't met formally kept off in a group, with their jabber pitched low, evidently, judging from their sidelong glances, discussing Wolfe and me. Wolfe and Danilo and Pasic had a long argument, won by Wolfe, though I didn't know that until later, when he told me they had opposed his announced plan so strongly they had even threatened to set up a trail block. Then he started an argument with me and lost it. His idea was that he would stand a better chance with the Albanians if he went alone, because they would be much more reluctant to talk if there were two of us, and they would be particularly suspicious of one 215 who couldn't speak Albanian, which was a different language from Serbo-Croat. Actually it wasn't an argument, because I didn't argue. I merely said flatly nothing doing, on the ground that there would be nothing at the cave for lunch but cold mush, and Pasic had said there was a place at the fort for cooking. It wasn't until the knapsacks were strapped on and we were ready to go that I realized we would have to return to the trail by way of the ledge. Numb and dumb with cold, I had been supposing that we would go on to the border without any backtracking. With seven pairs of eyes on me, not counting Wolfe's, it was up to me to sustain the honor of American manhood, and I set my jaw and did my best. It helped that my back was to them. An interesting question about walking a narrow ledge over a fifteen-hundred-foot drop is whether it's better to do it at night or in the daytime. My answer is that it's better not to do it at all. After we got to the trail it wasn't bad. The sun and the exercise were thawing me out, and there was no hard going. When we came to a rivulet crossing the trail we stopped and drank, and ate some chocolate. I told Wolfe it would take me only five 216 minutes to rinse off my feet and put on fresh socks, and he said there was no great hurry, so I took off my knapsack and went to it. The water was like ice, but you can't have everything. Wolfe sat on a rock and chewed chocolate. He informed me that Albania was just ahead, about three hundred meters, but was unmarked because a debate had been going on for centuries as to the exact line of the water-parting in this section of the mountains. Also he pointed to a niche in a crag towering above us and said that was where Stan Kosor had perched with the binocular to watch the fort the day Caria had gone there. He added that almost certainly Kosor would be back in the niche today, to watch again. It was a perfect spot for it, since he could aim his glass at the fort through a crack. I asked Wolfe how his feet were. "It is no longer merely my feet," he declared. "It is every muscle and nerve in my body. No words would serve, so I won't waste any." It was warming up, so we took off our sweaters before going on. We crossed into Albania without knowing precisely when, and in another three minutes rounded a corner, and there was the fort. It was against a perpendicular wall of rock so high there was no point in straining my neck to find 217 the top, and was of course a perfect match. Where the trail passed it there was a level space twenty yards wide and twice as long, and at its farther end a little brook splashed across the trail. There were slits in the walls, and in the one facing the trail the rock had crumbled to leave a big hole, presumably Paste's point of entry for his appointment with Carla. There was no sign of life, not even a dog. The idea was just to walk in and introduce ourselves, announcing, I suppose, that we had about decided to hook up with the Kremlin and wanted to discuss matters, so we headed for the only visible door, a big wooden one, standing wide open. We were about twenty paces short of it when somebody inside screamed, a long scream and a real one. A man's scream has more body to it than a woman's. We stopped dead and looked at each other. The scream came again, longer. Wolfe jerked his head to the left and moved that way, toward the hole in the wall, on his toes, though it must have killed him. I was right behind. Climbing through the hole would have been a cinch, even for him, if noise hadn't been a factor, but crawling over the rubble silently was complicated. He managed it, and in a moment I was in beside 218 him. We crossed to a door in the inner wall, which was open a crack, probably just as Pasic had left it ten days before, stood to listen, and heard a voice, and then another, from a distance. Then came another scream, a bad one, and while it was still in the air Wolfe opened the door more and stuck his head out. A voice came faintly. Wolfe pulled his head back in and murmured, "They're down below. Let's see." If there had been a movie camera that would register in that dark corridor, and if I had had it with me, a film of Wolfe trying to navigate that stone floor without making any noise would be something I wouldn't part with. I didn't fully enjoy it at the time, being too busy myself with the problem of moving quietly in the heavy shoes, but it's wonderful to look back at it. At the end was another corridor to the right, narrower and even darker, and ten feet along that took us to the head of a flight of steps going down. The voices were down there. Wolfe started down, going sidewise with his palms flat against the wall, and it was a good thing the steps were stone, since wooden treads would certainly have had something to say to his seventh of a ton. I took the other side right behind him, using the wall too. A thing like that distorts time out of all proportion. 219 It seemed like a good ten minutes on those steps, but after-ward I figured it. There were fifteen steps. Say we averaged ten seconds to a step -- and it wasn't that much -- that would make only two and a half minutes. At the bottom it was darker still. We turned left, in the direction of the voices, and saw a little spot of light in the left wall twenty feet away. Inching along, we got to it. There was the dim outline of a closed door, and the light was coming through a hole in it, eight inches square, with its center at eye level for a man a little shorter than me. Wolfe started to slide an eye past the edge of the hole, thought better of it, moved an arm's length away from the wall, and looked through the hole. Inside, a man was talking, loud. Wolfe moved closer to the hole, then sidestepped and put his face almost against the door, with his left eye at the right edge of the hole. Taking it as an invitation, I moved beside him and got my right eye at the left edge of the hole. Our ears rubbed. There were four men in the room. One of them was sitting on a chair with his back to us. Another one was neither sitting nor standing nor lying down. He was hanging. He was over by the far wall, with his arms stretched up and his wrists bound with a 220 cord, and the cord was fastened to a chain suspended from the ceiling. His feet were six inches above the floor. Tied to each ankle was the end of a rope a few feet long, and the other end of each rope was held by a man, one standing off to the right and the other to the left. They were holding the ropes tight enough to keep the subject's feet spread apart a yard or more. The face of the subject was so puffed and contorted that it was half a minute before I realized I had seen him before, and that long again before I placed him. It was Peter Zov, the man with the flat nose, slanting forehead, and low, smooth voice who had been in Gospo Stritar's office, and who had told Wolfe he was a man of action. He was getting action, no question about that, but his voice wouldn't be so low and smooth after the screams he had let loose. The man in the chair with his back to us, who had been talking, stopped. The two men standing started to pull on the ropes, slow but sure. The gap between the subject's feet widened to four feet, four and a half, five -- more, and then no one looking at Peter Zov's face would have recognized him. An inch more, two, and he screamed. I shut my right eye. I must have made some other movement too, for Wolfe gripped my 221 arm. The scream stopped, with a gurgle that was just as bad, and when my eye opened the ropes were slack. "That won't do, Peter," the man in the chair
said. "You are reducing it to a routine. With your keen mind you have calculated that all you have to do is scream, and that time you screamed prematurely. Your scream is not musical, and we may be forced to muffle it. Would you prefer that?" No answer. "I repeat," the man in the chair said, "that you are wrong to think you are finished. It is not impossible that we can still find you useful, but not unless you play fair with us. Much of the information you have brought us has been of no account because we already had it. Some of it has been false. You failed completely in the one important operation we have entrusted to you, and your excuses are not acceptable." "They're not excuses," Peter Zov mumbled. He was choking. "No? What are they?" "They're facts. I had to be away." "You said that before. Perhaps I didn't explain fully enough, so I'll do it more patiently. I am a patient man. I admit that you must make sure to keep your employers convinced that you are to be trusted, since 222 if you don't you are of no value whatever, either to them or to us. I am quite realistic about it. You're being discourteous, Peter; you're not listening to me. Let him down, Bua." The man on the left dropped the rope, turned to the wall, unfastened a chain from a peg, and played it out through a pulley on the ceiling. Peter Zov's feet got to the floor, and his arms were lowered, but only until his hands were even with his shoulders. He swayed from side to side as if he were keeping time to slow music. "That should improve your manners temporarily," the man in the chair told him. "I was saying that I realize you must satisfy that fool, Gospo Stritar, that you serve him well, but you must also satisfy me, which is more difficult because I am not a fool. You could have carried out that operation without the slightest risk of arousing his suspicion, but instead you went to America on a mission for him, and how you have the impudence to come here and expect to be welcomed -- even to be paid! So I am paying you. If you answer my questions properly the payment may be more to your taste." "I had to go," Peter Zov gasped. "I thought you would approve." 223 "That's a lie. You're not such a blockhead. Those enemies of progress who call themselves the Spirit of the Black Mountain -- you know their chief target is the Tito regime, not us, and it suits our purpose for them to make things as difficult as possible for Belgrade. There is little chance, perhaps none, that they will be able to overthrow the regime, but if they do that will suit us even better. We would march in and take over in a matter of hours. Our hostility to the Spirit of the Black Mountain is only a pretense, and you understood that perfectly. The more help they got from America the better. If that lackey of a crook, that Marko Vukcic who made himself rich pandering to the morbid appetites of the bloated American imperialists -- if he had increased his help tenfold it would have been a great favor to us. You knew that, and what did you do? At the command of Belgrade you went to America and killed him." He made a gesture. "If you thought we wouldn't know, you are so big a fool that you would be better dead. The night of March fourth you entered Italy at Gorizia, with papers under the name of Vito Rizzo, and went on to Genoa. You sailed from Genoa as a steward on the Amilia on March sixth. She docked at New York on March 224 eighteenth, and you went ashore that night and killed Marko Vukcic and were back on the Amilia before nine o'clock. I don't know who briefed you in New York, or whether you had help in such details as stealing the car, but that's of no importance. You stayed aboard the Amilia until she sailed on March twenty-first, left her at Genoa on April second, and returned to Titograd that night. I tell you all this so you may know that you can hide nothing from us. Nothing." He gestured again. "And on Sunday, April fourth, you came here to explain to these men that you had been unable to carry out our operation because you had been sent abroad on a mission. You found a woman here, drinking vodka with them, which was a surprise to you, but a greater surprise was to find that they already knew where you had been and what your mission was. Mistakes were made, I admit it, I only learned of them when I returned to Tirana yesterday from Moscow. They told you that they knew about your mission, and that alarmed you and you fled, and not only that, after you left they told the woman about you. They blame the vodka, but they will learn that it is not a function of vodka to drown a duty. Later they corrected their blunder by disposing of the woman -- that is in their favor 225 -- but they will have to be taught a lesson." His tone sharpened. "That can wait, but you can't. Up with him, Bua." Peter Zov sputtered something, but Bua ignored it. He had it on Peter in bulk, so when he pulled the chain not only Peter's arms went up but also the rest of him. When the feet were well off the floor Bua hooked the chain on the peg and picked up the end of the rope and was ready to resume. So was his colleague. "Of course," the man in the chair said, "you had to come when you got my message yesterday, since you knew what to expect if you didn't, so that's no credit to you. You can get credit only by earning it. First, once more, how many boats patrol out of Dubrovnik, and what are their schedules?" "Damn it, I don't know!" Peter was choky again. "Bah. My patience can't last forever. Split him." As the men tightened the ropes Wolfe lowered himself to a squat, pulling at my sleeve, and I went down to him. He had the long knife in his right hand. I had been so intent with my eye at the hole that I hadn't seen him take it from his belt. His left hand was fumbling at a pocket. He whispered in my ear, "We're going in when he 226 screams. You open the door, and I go first. Gun in one hand and capsule in the other." I whispered back, "Me first. No argument. Rescue him?" He nodded. As we straightened up he was still fumbling in his pocket, and I was reaching to the holster for the Marley. It didn't carry the punch of the Colt, but I knew it better. I admit I felt in my pocket to touch the capsule, but I didn't take it out, wanting the hand free. The door should be no problem. On our side was a hasp with a padlock hanging on a chain. He started to scream. A glance showed me that Wolfe's left hand had left his pocket, and he nodded at me. As I pushed the door open and stepped through, what was at the front of my mind was light. Its source hadn't been visible through the hole. If it was a lamp, as it must be, and if one of them killed it, knives would have it on guns. The only insurance against it would be to plug the three of them in the first three seconds. I didn't do that, I don't know why -- probably because I had never shot a man unless there was nothing else left. The scream drowned the sound of our entry, but Bua saw us and dropped the rope and goggled, and then the other one, and the man in the chair jumped up and whirled to face 227 us. He was closest, and I put the Marley on him. Wolfe, beside me, with the hand that held the knife at his belt level, started to say something but was interrupted. The closest man's hand went for his hip. Either he was a damn fool or a hero, or because I didn't say anything he thought I wasn't serious. I didn't try anything fancy like going for his arm or shoulder, but took him smack in the chest at nine feet. As I moved the gun back to level, the hand of the man on the right darted back and then forward, and how I knew a knife was coming and jerked myself sidewise the Lord only knows. It went by, but he was coming too, pulling something from his belt, and I pressed the trigger and stopped him. I wheeled left and saw a sight. Bua was at the wall with his knife raised, holding it by the tip, and Wolfe, with his knife still at belt level, was advancing on him step by step, leaning forward in a crouch. When I asked him later why Bua hadn't let fly, he explained elementary knife tactics, saying that you never throw a knife against another knife at less than five meters, because if you don't drop your man in his tracks, which is unlikely if he's in a crouch, you'll be at his mercy. If I had known that I might have tried for Bua's shoulder, but I didn't, and 228 all I wanted was to get a bullet to him before his knife started for Wolfe. I fired, and he leaned against the wall, with his hand still raised. I fired again, and he went down. This was funny, or call it dumb. Before Bua even hit the floor I turned around to look for the light. I had entered the room with the light on top of my mind, and apparently it had stayed there and I had to get it off. It was a letdown to see that it came from three spots: two lanterns on a shelf to the right of the door, and one on the floor at the left. I had worried about nothing. Wolfe walked past me to the chair, sat, and said, "Better look at the
m." Peter Zov, still hanging, croaked something. Wolfe said, "He wants down. Look at them first. One of them may be shamming."