Rex Stout: The Black Mountain

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 peak few men can reach.”

I had only had milk in mind, but Fritz’s personal version of cottage cheese with fresh pineapple soaked in white wine is something that even a Vishinsky wouldn’t veto. Also Wolfe offered me a wing and a drumstick, and it would have been unsociable to refuse. Fritz fixed a tasty tray and took it in to Carla, but when Wolfe and I rejoined her, some twenty minutes later, it was still untouched on the table at her elbow. I admit it could have been that she was too upset to eat, but I suspected her. She knew damn well that it irritated Wolfe to see good food turned down.

Back at his desk, he frowned at her. “Let’s see if we can avoid contention. You said earlier that you supposed I was surprised, but that you weren’t. Surprised at what?”

She was returning the frown. “I don’t — oh, of course. Surprised that Marko was murdered.”

“And you weren’t?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because of what he was doing. Do you know what he was doing?”

“Circumstantially, no. Tell me.”

“Well, in the past three years he has put nearly sixty thousand dollars of his own money into the cause, and he has collected more than half a million. He has gone seven times to Italy to confer with leaders of the movement who crossed the Adriatic to meet him. He has sent twelve men and two women over from this country to help — three Montenegrins, three Slovenians, two Croats, and six Serbs. He has had things printed and arranged for them to get to the peasants. He has sent over many tons of supplies, many different things—”

“Weapons? Guns?”

She gave it a thought. “I don’t know. Of course, that would be against the law — American law. Marko had a high regard for American law.”

Wolfe nodded. “Not unmerited. I didn’t know he was in so deep. So you are assuming that he was murdered because of these activities. That either Belgrade or Moscow regarded him as a menace, or at least an intolerable nuisance, and arranged for his removal. Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“Belgrade or Moscow?”

Carla hesitated. “I don’t know. Of course there are those who secretly work with the Russians all over Yugoslavia, but more in Montenegro than other parts, because it is next to Albania, and Albania is ruled by the puppets of the Russians.”

“So are Hungary and Rumania and Bulgaria.”

“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.”

“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 — 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 no means of convincing you that I am not verminous, so 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 will also assume — my vanity insists on it — that I am not far from the top in the councils of depravity. So. Each question I put, ask yourself if it isn’t extremely likely either that I already know the answer or that it is readily available to me. If yes, tell me. If no, don’t. The way I act on the information will show you whether you should trust me, but that’s unimportant.”

She was concentrating on it. “It’s a trick.”

He nodded. “And rather ingenious. For the record, I say that your misgiving about me is groundless; but assuming that I am of the 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 and see how it goes?”

She didn’t like it “You might tell the police. We are not criminals, but we have a right to our secrets, and the police could make it very difficult.”

“Bosh. 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 as well go. I’ll manage without you.”

She studied him. “All right. Ask me.”

“Eat something first. That food is still palatable.”