Talk:The Black Mountain

by Rex Stout (1954)

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‘Warning’

A lot of the talk I report was in languages I am not on speaking terms with [...]

--Faterson

Nero Wolfe hears of Marko Vukcic's death in chapter 1, page 2 <ref>Page references follow the 1955 Bantam Books edition, in which the novel is 143 pages long.</ref>

¶  I would have preferred to go on talking, but had to stop to clear my throat. Wolfe had put down his knife and fork, quietly and properly, on his plate. His eyes were levelled at me, but he wasn’t scowling. A corner of his mouth twitched, and after a moment twitched again. To stop it he compressed his lips.<ref>This description is at odds with what Archie Goodwin claims, five years later (1959) in chapter 13 of Plot It Yourself, happened when Wolfe heard of Marko's death. Credit goes to our contributor Adonis Guilfoyle for pointing out the inconsistency. [Faterson]</ref>  ¶

“Also I am an accountant, an amanuensis, and a cocklebur. Eight to five you never heard the word amanuensis and you never saw a cocklebur.”

Wolfe on the move

Since that was the first time to my knowledge that he had ever started investigating a murder by a personal visit to the scene of the crime – not counting the occasions when he had been jerked loose by some other impulse, such as saving my life – I was curious to see how he would proceed. It was a chance he had seldom had.

Wolfe and Archie

“Saul will smell it. He’ll know.”

“Let him. He won’t know where she is, and even if he did, no matter. Who is more trustworthy, Saul or you?”

“I would say Saul. I have to watch myself pretty close.”

Wolfe hears of Carla's death

He looked down at his thighs, then at the right arm of his chair, then at the left arm, as if to verify the fact that he really was sitting. Abruptly, he shoved his chair Back, arose, and moved. He went to the television cabinet and stood a while staring at the screen, then turned and crossed to the most conspicuous object in the office, not counting him – the thirty-six inch globe – twirled it, stopped it, and studied geography a minute or two. He about faced, went to his desk, picked up a book he was halfway through – But We Were Born Free by Elmer Davis – crossed to the bookshelves, and eased the book in between two others.

Wolfe to Archie

Silence. I crossed my legs. He surrendered. “Very well. If I hadn’t let you grow into a habit I could have done this without you. Come on.”

Role reversal

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.

Report

His [Wolfe's] face came round to me. It was grim. I got closer to his ear. “About the babble. How many languages do you speak?”

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 after wards, 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.”