“I congratulate you.” Wolfe was wielding the knife. “To be taken for Montaigne is a peak few men can reach.”
I had only had milk in mind, but Fritz’s personal version of cottage cheese with fresh pineapple soaked in white wine is something that even a Vishinsky wouldn’t veto. Also Wolfe offered me a wing and a drumstick, and it would have been unsociable to refuse. Fritz fixed a tasty tray and took it in to Carla, but when Wolfe and I rejoined her, some twenty minutes later, it was still untouched on the table at her elbow. I admit it could have been that she was too upset to eat, but I suspected her. She knew damn well that it irritated Wolfe to see good food turned down.
Back at his desk, he frowned at her. “Let’s see if we can avoid contention. You said earlier that you supposed I was surprised, but that you weren’t. Surprised at what?”
She was returning the frown. “I don’t — oh, of course. Surprised that Marko was murdered.”
“And you weren’t?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because of what he was doing. Do you know what he was doing?”
“Circumstantially, no. Tell me.”
“Well, in the past three years he has put nearly sixty thousand dollars of his own money into the cause, and he has collected more than half a million. He has gone seven times to Italy to confer with leaders of the movement who crossed the Adriatic to meet him. He has sent twelve men and two women over from this country to help — three Montenegrins, three Slovenians, two Croats, and six Serbs. He has had things printed and arranged for them to get to the peasants. He has sent over many tons of supplies, many different things—”