I went to sleep, sound. When I woke up my watch said half-past two, but it was broad daylight and I smelled fried bacon, and Wolfe's voice was muttering at my ear, 'I'm hungry. We're ahead of time, and we'll be there in an hour.' 'Did you sleep?' 'Some. I want breakfast.' He ate four eggs, ten slices of bacon, three rolls, and three cups of coffee. I still haven't seen London, because the airport is not in London and Geoffrey Hitchcock was there at the gate waiting for us. We hadn't seen him since he had last been in New York, three years before, and he greeted us cordially for an Englishman and took us to a corner table in a restaurant, and ordered muffins and marmalade and 72 tea. I was going to pass, but then I thought what the hell, I might as well start here as anywhere getting used to strange foreign food, and accepted my share. Hitchcock took an envelope from his pocket. 'Here are your tickets for the Rome plane. It leaves in forty minutes, at twenty after nine, and arrives at three o'clock, Rome time. Since your luggage is being transferred directly to it, the custom chaps here don't want you. We have half an hour. Will that be enough?' 'Ample.' Wolfe dabbed marmalade on a muffin. 'Mostly I want to know about Telesio. Thirty years ago, as a boy, I could trust him with my life. Can I now?' 'I don't know.' 'I need to know,' Wolfe snapped. 'Of course you do.' Hitchcock used his napkin on his thin, pale lips. 'But nowadays a man you can trust farther than you can see is a rare bird. I can only say I've been dealing with him for eight years and am satisfied, and Bodin has known him much longer, from back in the Mussolini days, and he vouches for him. If you have --' A cracking metallic voice, probably female, from a loudspeaker split the air. It sounded urgent. When it stopped I asked Hitchcock what she had said, and he replied 73 that she was announcing that the nineo'clock plane for Cairo was ready at Gate Seven. 'Yeah.' I nodded. 'I thought I heard Cairo. What language was she talking?' 'English.' 'I beg your pardon,' I said politely and sipped some tea. 'I was saying,' he went on to Wolfe, 'that if you have to trust someone on that coast I doubt if you could do better than Telesio. From me that's rather strong, for I'm a wary man.' Wolfe grunted. 'It's better than I hoped for. One other thing -- a plane at Rome for Bari.' 'Yes.' Hitchcock cleared his throat. 'One has been chartered and should be in readiness.' He took a worn old leather case from his pocket, fingered in it, and extracted a slip of paper. 'You should be met on arrival, but if there's a hitch here's the name and phone number.' He handed it over. 'Eighty dollars, and you may pay in dollars. The agent I deal with in Rome, Giuseppe Drogo, is a good man by Roman standards, but he is quite capable of seeking some trivial personal advantage from his contact with his famous American fellow. Of course he had to have your name. If it is now all over 74 Rome, I must disclaim responsibility.' Wolfe did not look pleased, which showed how concentrated he was on his mission. Any man only one-tenth as conceited as he was couldn't help but glow at being told that his name was worth scattering all over Rome. As for Hitchcock, the British might be getting short on empire, but apparently they still had their share of applesauce. A little later the loudspeaker announced in what I guess was English that the plane for Rome was ready, and our host convoyed us out to the gate and stood by to watch us take the air. As we taxied to the runway Wolfe actually waved to him from the window.
With Wolfe next to the window, I had to stretch my neck for my first look at Europe, but it was a nice sunny day and I kept a map open on my knee, and it was very interesting, after crossing the Strait of Dover, to look toward Brussels on the left and Paris on the right, and Zurich on the left and Geneva on the right, and Milan on the left and Genoa on the right. I recognized the Alps without any trouble, and I actually saw Bern. Unfortunately I missed looking toward Florence. Passing over the Apennines a little to the north, we hit an air pocket and dropped a mile or so before we 75 caught again, which is never much fun, and some of the passengers made noises. Wolfe didn't. He merely shut his eyes and set his jaw. When we had leveled off I thought it only civil to remark, 'That wasn't so bad. That time I flew to the Coast, going over the Rockies we --' 'Shut up,' he growled. So I missed looking toward Florence. We touched concrete at the Rome airport right on the nose, at three o'clock of a fine warm Sunday afternoon, and the minute we descended the gangway and started to walk across to the architecture my association with Wolfe, and his with me, changed for the worse. All my life, needing a steer in new surroundings, all I had had to do was look at signs and, if that failed, ask a native. Now I was sunk. The signs were not my kind. I stopped and looked at Wolfe. 'This way,' he informed me. 'The customs.' The basic setup between him and me was upset, and I didn't like it. I stood beside him at a table and listened to the noises he exchanged with a blond basso, my only contribution being to produce my passport when told to do so in English. I stood beside him at a counter in another room and listened to similar noises, exchanged this 76 time with a black-haired tenor, though I concede that there I played a more important part, being permitted to open the bags and close them again after they had been inspected. More noises to a redcap with a mustache who took over the bags -- only his cap was blue. Still more, out in the sunshine, with a chunky signer in a green suit with a red carnation in his lapel. Wolfe kindly let me in on that enough to tell me that his name was Drogo and that the chartered plane for Bari was waiting for us. I was about to express my appreciation for being noticed when a distinguished-looking college boy, dressed for a wedding or a funeral, stepped up and said in plain American, 'Mr. Nero Wolfe?' Wolfe glared at him. 'May I ask your name, sir?' He smiled amiably. 'I'm Richard Courtney from the embassy. We thought you might require something, and we would be glad to be of service. Can we help you in any way?' 'No, thank you.' 'Will you be in Rome long?' 'I don't know. Must you know?' 'No, no.' He perished the thought. 'We don't want to intrude on your affairs -- just let us know if you need any information, 77 any assistance at all.' 'I shall, Mr. Courtney.' 'Please do. And I hope you won't mind --' From the inside breast pocket of his dark gray tailored coat that had not come from stock he produced a little black book and a pen. 'I would like very much to have your autograph.' He opened the book and proffered it. 'If you will?' Wolfe took the book and pen, wrote, and handed them back. The well-dressed college boy thanked him, urged him not to fail to call on them for any needed service, included Drogo and me in a well-bred smile, and left us. 'Checking on you?' I asked Wolfe. 'I doubt it. What for?' He said something to Drogo and then to the bluecap, and we started off, with Drogo in the lead and the bluecap with the bags in the rear. After a stretch on concrete and a longer one on gravel of a color I had never seen, we came to a hangar, in front of which a small blue plane was parked. After the one we had crossed Europe in it looked like a toy. Wolfe stood and scowled at it a while and then turned to Drogo and resumed the noises. They got louder and hotter, then simmered down a little, and finally ended by Wolfe telling me to give him ninety dollars. 78 'Hitchcock said eighty,' I objected. 'He demanded a hundred and ten. As for paying in advance, I don't blame him. When we leave that contraption we may be in no condition to pay. Give him ninety dollars.' I shelled it out, was instructed to give the bluecap a buck and did so after he had handed the luggage up to the pilot, and steadied the portable stile while Wolfe engineered himself up and in. Then I embarked. There was space for four passengers, but not for four Wolfes. He took one seat and I the other, and the pilot stepped on it, and we rolled toward the runway. I would have preferred not to wave to Drogo on account of the extra sawbuck he had chiseled, but for the sake of public relations I flapped a mitt at him. Flying low over the Volscian hills -- see map -- in a pint-sized plane was not an ideal situation for a chat with my fellow passenger, but it was only ninety minutes to Bari, and something had to get settled without delay. So I leaned across and yelled to him above the racket, 'I want to raise a point!' His face came around to me. It was grim. I got closer to his ear. 'About the babble. How many languages do you speak?' 79 He had to jerk his mind onto it. 'Eight.' 'I speak one. Also I understand one. This is going to be too much for me. What I see ahead will be absolutely impossible except on one condition. When you're talking with people, I can't expect you to translate as you go along, but you will afterward, the first chance we get. I'll try to be reasonable about it, but when I ask for it I want it. Otherwise I might as well ride this thing back to Rome.' His teeth were clenched. 'This is a choice spot for an ultimatum.' 'Nuts. You might as well have brought a dummy. I said I'll be reasonable, but I've been reporting to you for a good many years and it won't hurt you to report to me for a change.' 'Very well. I submit.' 'I want to be kept posted in full.' 'I said I submit.' 'Then we can start now. What did Drogo say about the arrangements for meeting Telesio?' 'Nothing. Drogo was told only that I wanted a plane for Bari.' 'Is Telesio meeting us at the airport?' 'No. He doesn't know we're coming. I wanted to ask Mr. Hitchcock about him first. In nineteen twenty-one he killed two 80 Fascist! v^10 na<^ me cornered.' 'What with?' 'A knife.' 'In Ba^i?' 'Yes.' 'I thought you were Montenegrin. What were you doing in Italy?' 'In those days I was mobile. I have submitted to your ultimatum, as you framed it, but I'm ^iot going to give you an account of my youthful gestes -- certainly not here and now.' 'W^hat's the program for Bari?' 'I don't know. There was no airport then, and I don't know where it is. We'll see.' He turned away to look through the window. In a moment he turned back. 'I think we're ov^r Benevento. Ask the pilot.' 'I can^t, damn it! I can't ask anybody anything. You ask him.' He ignored the suggestion. 'It must be Benevento. Glance at it. The Romans finished the Samnites there in three hundred and twelve B.C.' He was showing off, and I approved. Only two days earlier I would have given ten to one that up in an airplane he wouldn't have been able to remember the date of anything whatever, and here he was rattling off one twenty-two centuries back. I went back to 81 my window for a look down at Benevento. Before long I saw water ahead and to the left, my introduction to the Adriatic, and
