going.' 'In what form and what capacity?' 'My own. To find the man who killed Marko. I can't enter Yugoslavia legally, but among those rocks and ravines what's the difference?' 'That's not the problem. The worst Belgrade would do to Nero Wolfe would be to ship him out, but the rocks and ravines are not Belgrade. Nor are they what you remember. Precisely there, around that mountain, are the lairs of the Tito cutthroats and the Albanian thugs from across the border who are the tools of Russia. They reached to kill Marko in far-off America. They killed your daughter within hours after she stepped ashore. She may have exposed herself by carelessness, but what you propose -- to appear among them as yourself -- would be greatly worse. If you are so eager to commit suicide, I will favor you by providing a knife or a gun, as you may prefer, and there will be no need for you to undertake the journey across our beautiful sea, which is often rough, as you know. I would like to ask a question. Am I a coward?' 'No. You are not.' 'I am not. I am a very brave man. Sometimes I am astonished at the extent of my courage. But nothing could persuade me, 92 known as I am, to show myself between Cetinje and Scutari day or night -- much less to the east, where the border crosses the mountains. Was Marko a coward?' 'No.' 'That is correct. But he never even considered risking himself in that hive of traitors.' Telesio shrugged. 'That's all I have to say. Unfortunately you will not be alive for me to say I told you so.' He picked up his glass and drained it. Wolfe looked at me to see how I was taking it, realized that I would have nothing to take until he got a chance to report, and heaved a deep sigh. 'That's all very well,' he told Telesio, 'but I can't hunt a murderer from across the Adriatic with the kind of communications available, and now that I've got this far I am not going to turn around and go home. I'll have to consider it and discuss it with Mr. Goodwin. In any event, I'll need this Guido. What's his name?' 'Guido Battista.' 'He is the best?' 'Yes. That is not to say he is a saint. The list of saints to be found today in this neighborhood would leave room here.' He passed a fingertip over the nail of his little finger. 93 'Can you bring him here?' 'Yes, but it may take hours. This is Palm Sunday.' Telesio stood up. 'If you are hungry, the kitchen is equipped and there are some items in the cupboard. There is wine but no beer. Marko told me of your addiction to beer, which I deplore. If the phone rings you may lift it, and if it is me I will speak. If I do not speak you should not. No one is expected here. Draw the curtains properly before you turn lights on. Your presence in Bari may not be known, but they reached to Marko in New York. My friend would not like blood on this pretty pink rug.' Suddenly he laughed. He roared with laughter. 'Especially not in such a quantity! I will find Guido.' He was gone. The sound came of the outer door closing, and then of the Fiat's engine as it turned in the courtyard and headed for the street. I looked at Wolfe. 'This is fascinating,' I said bitterly. He didn't hear me. His eyes were closed. He couldn't lean back comfortably on the couch, so as a makeshift he was hunched forward. 'I know you're chewing on something,' I told him, 'but I'm along and I have nothing to chew on. I would appreciate a 94 hint. You've spent years training me to report verbatim, and I would like you to give a demonstration.' His head lifted and his eyes opened. 'We're in a pickle.' 'We have been for nearly a month. I need to know what Telesio said from the beginning.'
'Nonsense. For an hour we merely prattled.'
'Okay, that can wait. Then begin where he toasted Carla.' He did so. Once or twice I suspected him of skipping and stopped him, but on the whole I was willing to accept it as an adequate job. When he was through he reached for his glass and drank. I let my head back to rest on my clasped hands, and so was looking down my nose at him. 'On account of the wine,' I said, 'I may be a little vague, but it looks as if we have three choices. One, stay here and get nowhere. Two, go home and forget it. Three, go to Montenegro and get killed. I have never seen a less attractive batch to pick from.' 'Neither have I.' He put his glass down and took his watch from his vest pocket. 'It's half-past seven, and I'm empty. I'll see what's in the kitchen.' He arose and went 95 for the door through which Telesio had gone for the wine and almonds. I followed. It certainly would not have qualified as a kitchen with the Woman's Home Companion or Good Housekeeping^ but there was an electric stove with four units, and the pots and pans on hooks were clean and bright. Wolfe was opening cupboard doors and muttering something to himself about tin cans and civilization. I asked if I could help, and he said no, so I went and got my bag and opened it, got the necessary articles for a personal hour in a bathroom, and then realized that I hadn't seen one. However, there was one, upstairs. There was no hot water. An apparatus in the corner was probably a water heater, but the instructions riveted to it needed a lot of words, and rather than call Wolfe to come up and decode, I made out without it. The cord of my electric shaver wouldn't plug into the outlet, and even if it had fitted there was no telling what it might do to the circuit, so I used my scraper. When I went back downstairs the living room was dark, but I made it to the windows and got the curtains over them before turning on the lights. In the kitchen I found Wolfe concentrated on cuisine, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, under a bright light from 96 a ceiling fixture, and the window bare. I had to mount a chair to arrange the curtain so there were no cracks, after making a suitable remark. We ate at a little table in the kitchen. Of course there was no milk, and Wolfe said he wouldn't recommend the water from the faucet, but I took a chance on it. He stuck to wine. There was just one item on the menu, dished by him out of a pot. After three mouthfuls I asked him what it was. A pasta called tagliarini, he said, with anchovies, tomato, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper from the cupboard, sweet basil and parsley from the garden, and Romano cheese from a hole in the ground. I wanted to know how he had found a hole in the ground, and he said -- offhand, as if it were nothing -- by his memory of local custom. Actually he was boiling with pride, and by the time I got up to dish my third helping I was willing to grant him all rights to it. While I washed up and put away, Wolfe went upstairs with his bag. When he came down again to the living room he stood and looked around to see if someone had brought a chair his size during his absence, discovered none, went to the couch and sat, and drew in air clear down to the tagliarini he had swallowed. 97 'Have we made up our mind?' I inquired. 'Yes.' 'That's good. Which of the three did we pick?' 'None. I'm going to Montenegro, but not as myself. My name is Tone Stara, and I'm from Galichnik. You have never heard of Galichnik.' 'Right.' 'It is a village hanging to a mountain near the top, just over the border from Albania in Serbia, which is a part of Yugoslavia. It is forty miles southeast of Cetinje and the Black Mountain, and it is famous. For eleven months of each year only women live there -- no men but a few in their dotage -- and young boys. It has been that way for centuries. When the Turks seized Serbia more than five hundred years ago, groups of artisans in the lowlands fled to the mountains with their families, thinking the Turks would soon be driven out. But the Turks stayed, and as the years passed, the refugees, who had established a village on a crag and named it Galichnik, realized the hopelessness of wresting a living from the barren rocks. Some of the men, skilled craftsmen, started the practice of going to other lands, working for most of a year, and returning each July to spend a month at home with 98 their women and children. The practice became universal with the men of Galichnik, and they have followed it for five centuries. Masons and stonecutters from Galichnik worked on the Escorial in Spain and the palaces at Versailles. They have worked on the Mormon Temple in Utah, the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec, the Empire State Building in New York, the Dnieperstroi in Russia.' He joined his fingertips. 'So I am Tone Stara of Galichnik. I am one of the few who one July did not return -- many years ago. I have been many places, including the United States. Finally I became homesick and curious. What was happening to my birthplace, Galichnik, perched on the border between Tito's Yugoslavia and Russia's puppet Albania? I was eaten by a desire to see and to know, and I returned. The answer was not in Galichnik. There were no men there, and the women suspected me and feared me and wouldn't even tell me where the men were. I wanted to learn and to judge, as between Tito and the Russians, and between them both and certain persons of whom I had vaguely heard, persons who were calling themselves champions of freedom. So I made my way north through the mountains, a hard rocky way, and here I 99 am in Montenegro, determined to find out where the truth is and who deserves my hand. I assert my right to ask questions so I may choose my side.' He turned his palms up. 'And I ask questions.' 'Uh-huh.' I wasn't enthusiastic. 'I don't. I can't.' 'I know you can't. Your name is Alex.' 'Oh. It is.' 'It is if you go with me. There are good reasons why it would be better for you to stay here, but confound it, you've been too close to me too long. I'm too dependent on you. However, the decision is yours. I don't claim the right to drag you into a predicament of mortal hazard and doubtful outcome.' 'Yeah. I'm not very crazy about the name Alex. Why Alex?' 'We can choose another. It might not increase the risk of exposure for you to keep Archie, and that would make one less demand on our vigilance. You are my son, born in the United States. I must ask you to suffer that presumption because no lesser tie would justify my hauling you back to Galichnik with me. You are an only child and your mother died in your infancy. That will reduce the temptation for you to indulge 100 your invention if we meet someone who speaks English. Until recently I repressed all sentiment about my homeland, so I have taught you no Serbo-Croat and no Serbian lore. At one point, while I was cooking, I decided you should be deaf-mute, but changed my mind. It would create more difficulties than it would solve.' 'It's an idea,' I declared. 'Why not? I practically am anyway.' 'No. You would be
