“This is what I wanted. Let him down.”
I went and took the chain off the peg and eased it up. I suppose I should have been more careful, but my nerves were a little ragged, and when I saw his feet were on the floor I loosened my grip, and his weight jerked the chain out of my hands as he collapsed on the stone. I went to him and got out my pocket knife to cut the cord from his wrists, but Wolfe spoke.
“Wait a minute. Is he alive?”
I inspected him. “Sure he’s alive. He just passed out, and I don’t blame him.”
“Will he die?”
“Of what? Did you bring smelling salts?”
“By heaven,” he blurted with sudden ferocity, “you’ll clown at your funeral! Tie his ankles and we’ll go upstairs. I doubt if the shots could have been heard outside even if there were anyone to hear them, but I want to get out of here.”
I obeyed. There was a choice of ropes to tie his ankles with, and it didn’t take long. When I finished, Wolfe was at the door with a lantern in his hand, and I got one from the shelf and followed him out and up the fifteen steps. We went up faster than we had come down. He said we had better make sure there was no one else in the fort, and I agreed. He knew his way around as well as if he had built it himself, and we covered it all. He even had me climb the ladder to the tower, while he stood at the foot with my Colt in his hand, talking Albanian — I suppose warning anyone in the tower that if I were attacked he would pump them. When I rejoined him intact we went back to ground level and on outdoors, and he sat down on a flat rock at the corner nearest the trail. On its surface beside him was a big dark blotch.
“That’s where Pasic killed the dog,” I remarked.
“Yes. Sit down. As you know, I look at people when I talk to them, and I don’t like to stretch my neck.”