Rex Stout - The Black Mountain

It was even briefer than it had been Sunday 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 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 turned 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.”

“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 ‘we’ ?”

“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 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.

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 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, 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.”

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.