The Black Mountain

"Go get your lunch." I went, and found that though eating in the dining room would provide a change, it would offer nothing spectacular in companionship. Table Seventeen seated six. One chair was empty and would be all the way, and the other four were occupied by a German who thought he could speak English but was mistaken, a woman from Maryland who spoke it too much, and a mother and daughter, Italian or something, who didn't even know "dollar" and "okay" and "cigarette." The daughter was seventeen, attractive, and almost certainly a smoldering volcano of Latin passion, but even if I had been in the humor to try stirring up a young volcano, which I wasn't, mamma stayed glued to her all the way over. During the twelve days there was plenty of time, of course, to mo$ey around and make acquaintances and chin at random, 288 but by the third day I had learned that the only three likely prospects, not counting the volcano, were out. One, a black-eyed damsel with a lisp, was on her way to Pittsburgh to get married. Another, a tall slender Nor- die who needed no makeup and used none, loved to play chess, and that was all. The third, a neat little blonde, started drinking Gibsons an hour before lunch and didn't stop. One morning I decided to do some research in physiology and keep up with her, but late in the afternoon I saw that she was cheating. There were two of her, and they could both float around in the air. So I called it off, fought my way down to the cabin, and flopped on the bed. Wolfe shot me a glance but had no comment. In Genoa he had bought a few dozen books, all in Italian, and apparently had bet himself he would clean them up by the time we sighted Sandy Hook. He and I did converse now and then during the voyage, but not too cordially, because of a basic difference of opinion. I completely disapproved of the plan which he wanted opportunity to discuss with Peter Zov. The argument had started in the hotel at Genoa and had continued, off and on, ever since. My first position had been that the way to handle it was to wait until we 289 were well at sea, the second or third day, and then see the captain and tell him Zov had committed a murder in New York and had the weapon with him, and ask him to lock Zov up, and find his gun and take it, and radio Inspector Cramer of the New York Police Department to meet the boat at Quarantine. Wolfe had rejected it on the ground that the New York police had never heard of Zov and would probably radio the captain to that effect, and with nothing but our word, unsupported by evidence, the captain would refuse to act, and not only that, but also the captain, or someone he told about it, might warn Zov and even arrange somehow to get him off the ship before we reached American waters. On the high seas there was no jurisdiction but the captain's. If not the captain himself, someone on board with some authority must be a Communist, or at least a friend of the Tito regime, or how could it be arranged to get Zov on as a steward whenever they wanted to? So I took a new position. As soon as we entered the North River everyone on board, including the captain, would be under the jurisdiction of the New York police, and Wolfe could call Cramer on the ship-toshore phone, give him the picture, and tell 290 him to meet the boat at the pier. That way there couldn't possibly be any slip. Even if the whole damn crew and half the officers were Commies, there was nothing they could do if Sergeant Stebbins once got his paws on Zov and the Luger. Wolfe didn't try to talk me out of that one; he just vetoed it, and that was the argument. It wasn't only that he was pigheaded. It was his bloated conceit. He wanted to sit in his own chair at his desk in his office, with a bottle of beer and a glass in front of him, tell me to get Cramer on the phone, pick up his instrument, and say in a casual tone, "Mr. Cramer? I've just got home from a little trip. I have the murderer of Marko Vukcic here, and the weapon, and I can tell you where to get witnesses to testify that he was in New York on March eighteenth. Will you please send someone to get him? Oh, you'll come yourself? At your convenience. Mr. Goodwin, who was with me on the trip, has him safely in charge." That was his plan. The Basilia was scheduled to dock at noon on Wednesday. We would disembark and go home. That evening after dark Zov would come ashore and meet me at a waterfront bar, to go with me to the house of a friend of ours who would 291 lend us his car to drive to Philadelphia. The house would be on West Thirty-fifth Street. I would take Zov in and introduce him to Nero Wolfe, taking adequate precautions that he didn't execute his mission then and there. Possibly Wolfe would have to get Cramer on the phone himself instead of telling me to. Wolfe wouldn't budge. That was the plan, no matter what I said, or how often I said it, about the risks involved or the defects in Wolfe's character that made him hatch it. I admit that my remarks about the defects got fairly pointed by the twelfth day, and that morning as we packed, him with his bag on his bed and me with mine on mine, our relations were so strained that when he had prolonged trouble with his zipper he didn't call for help and I didn't offer any. When I had my bag closed and labeled I told him, "See you in the dining room with the immigration officers," and left him. Out in the passage there was Zov, coming along. He asked, "Okay?" and I told him, "Yep, okay." He entered our cabin. Being good and sore, I told my legs to go on to the dining room, but they said no. They kept me standing there until Zov came out again with our bags, and headed for the stairs. I wanted to stop him and make sure he knew where we 292 were going to meet that evening, but Wolfe had said it was all arranged in SerboCroat, and the few times I had tried exchanging English with Zov it hadn't worked too well, so I skipped it. When we had finished immigrating, Wolfe went back to the cabin and I went on deck to take in the harbor and the Statue of Liberty and the skyline. The neat little blonde came and joined me at the rail, and if you had guessed her Gibson intake from the way she looked you would have been way off. She was just a happy and healthy little doll with nice clear eyes and a clear, smooth skin, so much so that a news photographer, who had taken a dozen shots of the only notable on board, an orchestra conductor, and was looking around for something that might appeal to his public, came and asked her to pose. She said all right, but refused to sit on the rail with her skirt up, and I thought it might have been worth the trouble to try to reform her. There was nothing wrong with her legs, so it wasn't that. It was a bright, sunny day. As we passed the Battery and slid up the river I was thinking that now would be the time to telephone Cramer if that big baboon had listened to reason. It would be a crime if something 293 happened now to spoil it -- as, for instance, Zov deciding he liked some other contact in New York better than us. I had a notion to go down to the cabin and have one more try at talking sense into Wolfe, and was debating it as we were being nosed into the slip, when his voice sounded behind me and I turned. He was looking placid and pleased. He glanced left and right at the line of waving passengers and then down at the group of waving welcomers on the pier. He nodded at somebody, and I stretched my neck to see who it was, and there was Zov with three or four other stewards, back against the bulkhead. "Satisfactory," Wolfe said. "Yeah," I agreed. "So far." Somebody yelled, "Nero Wolfe!" I jerked around. It was the news photographer. He was headed for us down the deck, beaming, jostling passengers. "Mr. Wolfe! Look this way! Just a second!" He advanced and got set to focus. It may have been partly me. If I hadn't looked at Zov and started my hand inside my jacket he might have hesitated long enough for Wolfe to get behind something or somebody. He was fast. I never saw a faster hand. Mine had just touched the butt of the Marley when he pulled the trigger. 294 Wolfe took one step toward him and went down. I had the Marley out but couldn't shoot because the other stewards were all over Zov. I jumped over Wolfe's body and was there to help, but they had Zov flat on the deck, and one of them had his gun. I went back to Wolfe, who was on his side, propping himself with an elbow. People were crowding in and jabbering. "Lie down," I commanded him. "Where did he get you?" "Leg. Left leg." I squatted and looked. The hole was in the left leg of his pants, ten inches above the knee. I wanted to laugh, and I don't know why I didn't. Maybe I was afraid the photographer would shoot it and it would look silly. "Probably in the bone," I said. "What did I tell you?" "Have they got him?" "Yes." "The gun?" "Yes." "Was it the Luger?" "Yes." "Satisfactory. Find a phone and get Mr. Cramer." He flattened out and closed his eyes. The ham. 295