The Black Mountain Page 3

  "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?"