Nero Wolfe (24): Black Mountain, The by Stout Rex

Author:Stout, Rex [Stout, Rex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime, Detective, Detective Series, Murder, Mystery, Novel
ISBN: 0553023659
Google: XXVn_rUg8ZMC
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 77595
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1954-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

IX

It was a two-story stone house on a narrow cobbled street, back some three hundred yards from the river, with a tiny yard in front behind a wooden fence that had never been painted. If I had been Yugoslavia I would have spent a fair fraction of the fifty-eight million from the World Bank on paint. We had covered considerably more than three hundred yards getting there because of a detour to ask about Grudo Balar at the house where he had lived years before in his youth—a detour, Wolfe explained, which we bothered to make only because he had mentioned Balar to Gospo Stritar. The man who answered the door to Wolfe’s knock said he had lived there only three years and had never heard of anyone named Balar, so we crossed him off.

When the door was opened to us at the two-story house on the narrow cobbled street I stared in surprise. It was the daughter of the owner of the haystack who had changed her clothes in our honor. Then a double take showed me that this one was several years older and a little plumper, but otherwise she could have been a duplicate. Wolfe said something, and she replied and turned her head to call within, and in a moment a man appeared, replaced her on the threshold, and spoke in Serbo-Croat.

“I’m Danilo Vukcic. Who are you?”

I won’t say I would have spotted him in a crowd, for he didn’t resemble his Uncle Marko much superficially, but he was the same family all right. He was a little taller than Marko had been, and not so burly, and his eyes were set deeper, but his head sat exactly the same and he had the same wide mouth with full lips—though it wasn’t Marko’s mouth, because Marko had spent a lot of time laughing, and this nephew didn’t look as if he had laughed much.

“If you would step outside?” Wolfe suggested.

“What for? What do you want?”

“I want to say something not for other ears.”

“There are no ears in my house that I don’t trust.”

“I congratulate you. But I haven’t tested them as you have, so if you’ll oblige me?”

“Who are you?”

“One who gets messages by telephone. Eight days ago I received one saying, ‘The man you seek is within sight of the mountain.’ Four days ago I received another saying that a person I knew had died a violent death within sight of the mountain. For speedy communication at a distance the telephone is supreme.”

Danilo was staring at him, frowning, not believing. “It’s impossible.” Then he shifted the stare and frown to me. “Who is this?”

“My associate who came with me.”

“Come in.” He sidestepped to make room. “Come in quickly.” We passed through, and he shut the door. “No one is here but my family. This way.” He took us through an arch into an inner room, raising his voice to call as he went, “All right, Meta! Go ahead and feed them!” He stopped and faced Wolfe.

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