Rex Stout - The Black Mountain

As I approached, Wolfe spoke. “Keep the gun. Give him the knife.”

“There’s a watch and a fold with papers.”

“Give him those.” He turned to Zov. “My son will keep the gun for the time being. If an attempt is made to stop us you might be overhasty with it after what you’ve just gone through.”

Zov took the other things and said, “I want the gun.”

“You’ll get it. Is it an old friend?”

“Yes. I took it from a dead German in the war.”

“No wonder you value it. I suppose you had it on your mission to New York.”

“I did, and other missions. I want it.”

“Later. I assume the responsibility for our safe passage through the mountains, and I don’t know you well, though I hope to. You’re about my son’s age, and it’s a pity you can’t communicate. Do you know any English at all?”

“I know a few words, like ‘okay’ and ‘dollar’ and ‘cigarette’.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t teach him Serbo-Croat. We’ve been here long enough. I’ll lead, and my son will bring up the rear. Come on.”

If Zov had had his gun he might have balked, and we would have had either to go on without him or find a place to spend the day. He did try to argue, but Wolfe got emphatic, and I had the gun, so he came. We went to the brook for a drink and then hit the trail, with Zov in between us. His gait was more of a shuffle than a walk, but he didn’t seem to be in any great pain. It could have been as much from lack of enthusiasm as from the condition of his legs. When we had passed through the defile and topped a rise, and Wolfe stopped for breath, I asked him, “Where will the charade be? You didn’t tell me.”

“It isn’t necessary. We’ll keep colloquy at a minimum. Statements about linguistic proficiency may be equivocal. I’ll tell you when to draw a gun.”

“You might tell me now about the colloquy you just had.”

He did so, and then turned and proceeded. As I padded along behind I was thinking that we certainly had the bacon — not only the murderer but the weapon, and I knew the rest of the evidence was on file because I had seen the assistant medical examiner getting it from Marko’s corpse. I remembered the first sentences of a book I had read on criminology. In criminal investigations , it said, the investigator must always have in mind the simple basic requirements. Once he gains possession of the person of the criminal and of evidence adequate for conviction, the job is done. It is, like hell, I thought. If I had that book here, and the author, I’d make him eat it.

I was supposed to forget about being stopped and leave it to Wolfe, but as we approached the point where one left the trail if one was ass enough to want to walk the ledge to the cave, I kept close behind Zov and had my eyes peeled. We went on by without sight or sound of anyone. If you wonder why Wolfe didn’t let me know, which he could have done in ten words, I can tell you. I would have had to put on an act for Zov’s benefit until I reached the spot that had been agreed on, and he thought I might overdo it or underdo it, I don’t know which. He thought that, not knowing, I would just act natural. You may also wonder why I didn’t resent it. I did. I had been resenting it for years, but that was my first crack at resenting it in the mountains of Montenegro.

With the sun nearly straight above us, blazing down, I wouldn’t have recognized the trail as the one we had climbed the night before with Danilo. We went down rock faces on our rumps, skirted the edges of cliffs, slithered down stretches of loose shale, and at one place crossed a crevice ten feet wide, on a narrow plank bridge with no rails, which I didn’t remember at all. My watch said ten minutes past one when we stopped at a brook for a drink and a meal of chocolate. Comrade Zov ate as much chocolate as Wolfe and me together.

Half an hour later the trail suddenly spilled us out at the edge of a wide level space, and there was the house Wolfe had been born in. I stopped for a look. Apparently its back wall was the side of a cliff. It had two stories, with a roof that sloped four ways from the center, and eight windows on the side I was looking at, four below and four above. The glass in three windows was broken. The door was wooden.

I was just starting to turn to tell Wolfe I was going to step inside for a glance around when his voice snapped at my back, “Gun, Alex!”

I whirled, drawing the Colt from my hip. Danilo, Josip Pasic, and two other men were grouped at the far edge of the space, evidently having come from behind a massive boulder. Danilo had a gun, but the others were empty-handed.

“Don’t shoot,” Danilo said. “You can go wherever you’re going. We only want Peter Zov.”

Wolfe had put himself in front of Zov. “He’s with us, and he’s going with us.”

“No, he’s not. We’re taking him.”

Wolfe’s attitude was perfect for saying “Over my dead body,” but he didn’t say it. My own attitude was no slouch, with my feet planted apart and my Colt steady at Danilo’s belly. Wolfe said, “He’s under our protection, and you can’t have him. We’re American citizens, and if you harm us you’ll regret it.”

“We don’t want to harm you. Zov is a traitor to his country. He crossed the border to the Albanians. We have a right to him.”

“What do you intend to do with him?”

“I’m going to find out what he told the Albanians.”

They must have been ad libbing, for there hadn’t been time to write a script during their brief talk at the fort.

“I don’t believe it,” Wolfe said. “After the hours I spent with you, I don’t believe anything you say. Heaven only knows where your allegiance lies, if anywhere. If you are a true son of Yugoslavia, come with us — you alone, not the others. If Zov has betrayed his country the proper person to deal with him is Gospo Stritar in Titograd, and that’s where we’re taking him. If you want to come, drop your gun and start down the road. You others stay where you are.”

“We’ll deal with him here.”

“You will not. Are you coming?”

“No.”

“Then touch us at your peril. Comrade Zov, I’m going to turn around. You turn also, to face the road entrance. Keep against me, away from them, and we’ll make the road slowly, and on down. Alex, cover us. You’ll have to back out, steering by my voice.”

He turned and had his back to the enemy. Zov turned likewise, and Wolfe put his hands on Zov’s shoulders. I sidestepped and was directly behind Wolfe, back to back, with the Colt still focused on the group. As Wolfe and Zov moved forward, and I backward, Wolfe gave me his voice to guide by.

“ ‘Preamble. We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.’ ”

We had left the open space and started down the road. Since Zov couldn’t possibly see me, I had a strong impulse to grin at Danilo and to wave to him as he had waved to us when he left the fort. I had to bite my lip to control it. He might misunderstand and ruin everything.

Wolfe was guiding me. “I skip to the ten original amendments, the Bill of Rights. ‘Article One. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Article Two. A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Article Three. No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war but in a manner to be prescribed by law. Article Four. The right—’ ”