The Black Mountain

XI

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 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-hundred-meter 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.”

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 Pasic, and gave him ours — Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. That had been accepted as unavoidable, since Danilo couldn’t have justified bringing Toné 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 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 Carla 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.”

“Carla 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 betrayed 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. Carla 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 Carla 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. Coming from a distance, Carla 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 Carla 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 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 Carla were left 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 Carla would walk past it to the cell. That was all we arranged. We left it to circumstances whether she would enter 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 Carla 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 Carla 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 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 Carla 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 Carla 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 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 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, ‘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 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.