The last three hundred yards, after we left the trail, were not the hardest but they were the most interesting. Danilo, saying that at one point we would have to walk a ledge less than a meter wide with a five-hundred-meter drop, had suggested that he bring Pasic to us at the trail, but Wolfe had vetoed it. When we got to the ledge, which was nearly level, apparently it meant nothing to him. As for me, I didn’t spend my boyhood herding goats around cliffs and chasms, and I would have preferred to be walking down Fifth Avenue, or even Sixth. There was enough light from the stars to see the edge, and then nothing. Wide open spaces are okay fairly horizontal, but not straight down.
We were still on the ledge, at least I was, when Danilo stopped and uttered a word, raising his voice a little, and at once an answering voice came from up ahead. Our guide replied, “Danilo. Two men are with me, but I’ll come on alone. You can use the light.”
We had to stand there and wait on the damn ledge. When the beam of a spotlight hit us, after taking in Danilo, it was worse. The light left us and went back to Danilo, and then was turned off. In a moment voices came, not loud, and kept on, and my feeling for the Spirit of the Black Mountain took a dive. I admit it was in order for Danilo to explain us to his pals, but that ledge was one hell of an anteroom. Finally the light came at us again, and Danilo called to us to come. When we moved the light didn’t attend us but stayed focused on the ledge. In a few steps we left it. I would have had to grope, but Wolfe didn’t, and I realized it wasn’t so much his eyes he steered by as his memory.
Two figures were standing in front of a black blotch on the dim face of perpendicular rock — the entrance to the cave. As we reached them Danilo gave us the name of Josip Pasic, and gave him ours — Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. That had been accepted as unavoidable, since Danilo couldn’t have justified bringing Toné Stara and his son Alex in to his friends, nor account for their interest in Carla. Pasic didn’t offer a hand, and neither did Wolfe, who is allergic to handshaking anyhow. Danilo said he had told Pasic who we were and why we wanted to see him. Wolfe said he wanted to sit down. Danilo said there were blankets in the cave, but men were sleeping on them. I thought if it was me I would be under them. It was cold as the devil.
Pasic said, “Montenegrins sit on rocks.”
We did so, after Pasic had turned off the spotlight, Wolfe and Danilo side by side on one, and Pasic and me facing them on another.
“What I want is simple,” Wolfe said. “I want to know who killed Marko Vukcic. He was my oldest friend. As boys we often explored this cave. Danilo says you don’t know who killed him.”
“That’s right. I don’t.”
“But nine days ago you took a message from Carla to Danilo that the man who killed him was here.”
“That wasn’t the message.”