The white mountain, p.1
The White Mountain, page 1
The White Mountain
A Nero Wolfe Mystery
Robert Goldsborough
To Janet, for her unfailing support
over more than six decades
To the Reader …
This story is in essence an homage to Nero Wolfe’s creator, Rex Stout. Mr. Stout’s novel The Black Mountain, had Wolfe and Archie Goodwin traveling to Montenegro in the Balkans to hunt down the killer of Wolfe’s oldest friend, Marko Vukcic.
I felt our protagonists should have another opportunity to travel beyond the borders of the United States, and because this tale centers on Wolfe’s superb and troubled chef, Swiss-born Fritz Brenner, Switzerland in general and Geneva in particular seemed like an ideal setting for the narrative.
Chapter 1
It was a normal weekday morning in Nero Wolfe’s old brownstone on Manhattan’s West Thirty-Fifth Street during this, the twelfth year after the end of World War II. I sat at the small table in the kitchen reading the New York Times while Fritz Brenner, chef extraordinaire, served me hot buttermilk wheat cakes off the griddle, one at a time.
Those wheat cakes, along with black coffee, squeezed orange juice, a bowl of raspberries in cream, and scrambled eggs, constituted my typical breakfast, while Wolfe, as was his wont, consumed an essentially similar meal upstairs in his bedroom. Outwardly, it seemed that all was right with the world, but with this exception:
The Swiss-born Fritz, normally the most genial of men, had not been genial for the last few days. At first, I attributed his dark mood to a possible argument with Wolfe over whether to use onions in shad roe in casserole—Fritz was for it, Wolfe against. But that kind of a minor flare-up usually lasted no more than a day, not likely to cause the kind of despondency that engulfed Fritz.
I asked him more than once if something was troubling him and got only a shrug and a look that suggested he preferred not to respond. I hadn’t brought the subject up to Wolfe but, before the morning was over, we were to learn what was bedeviling the man whose place in the brownstone was one of the household’s most stabilizing presences.
After breakfast, I was in the office with a last cup of coffee and sorting through the morning mail, then stacking it on Wolfe’s desk blotter for his perusal. After the nine-to-eleven session with his precious ten thousand orchids up in the plant room on the roof, he strode into the office, asking as he invariably did if I had slept well, and pushed the buzzer on his desk to ring for beer. I answered in the affirmative as Fritz entered with a stein and two chilled bottles of Remmers beer.
Wolfe nodded his thanks, usually the signal for Fritz to return to the kitchen, but he remained and turned toward Wolfe, clearing his throat.
“Yes, Fritz?”
“I need to talk to you, sir,” he said, a slight quaver in his voice.
“With or without Mr. Goodwin present?”
“Oh, Archie can stay, of course,” he said, coloring slightly.
“Very well,” Wolfe said. “Sit down, Fritz.”
“Well, I …” Fritz saw himself as hired help and, in my memory, he had never sat in the office.
“Sit down,” Wolfe repeated firmly, dipping his chin in the direction of one of the yellow chairs in front of his desk.
Fritz perched on the front few inches of the seat, swallowing hard.
“What do you need to talk about?” Wolfe asked in a non-threatening tone. “You have our attention.”
“I have a cousin in Switzerland, in Geneva, Paul. He is my closest relative still alive.”
“You have mentioned him on occasion. I believe he captains a vessel on Lac Leman,” Wolfe said, turning to me. “Archie, Americans call that body of water Lake Geneva.”
“Yes, Mr. Wolfe,” Fritz said. “He has had that job for many years.”
“And now…?”
Fritz was trying with mixed success to compose himself. “And now, I’ve had no word from him, nothing for three weeks.”
“Are the two of you in the habit of communicating frequently?”
“We write letters, of course, usually weekly. I have written him three letters now with no response. When I hadn’t heard from him for so long, I made a long-distance call to his telephone number, not from this house but from outside, and was told it was not in operation. I feel I must go to Geneva.”
Although he didn’t show it, that statement jarred Wolfe. Fritz is as important to him as his orchids or his books or maybe even me. And the thought of his not being in the kitchen and preparing meals that would be the envy of the most discriminating of palates was unthinkable.
“May I make a suggestion, Fritz?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know a man in London who is a private investigator. His name is Geoffrey Hitchcock. I value his abilities, and he has been of help in the past when Archie and I were in need of information from the other side of the Atlantic. I am prepared to ask that he travel to Geneva as quickly as he is able and to seek your cousin. Would that be agreeable to you?”
Wolfe had put Fritz in something of a bind. He clearly wanted to go to Switzerland, but he found it hard to say no to Wolfe’s offer. He nodded and said, “Yes, sir, thank you. I will go back to the kitchen now.”
“Before you go, I believe your cousin’s surname is Bernard. Am I correct?”
“Yes, he is Paul Bernard, my late uncle’s son. He is divorced and has no children, so he lives alone in a Geneva apartment.”
“Do you have Mr. Bernard’s current address and do you have the name of the company that employs him?”
“Yes, I will write them both down for you,” he said as I handed him a pencil and a sheet of paper.
After Fritz left, I swiveled to face Wolfe. “Do you think Hitchcock is up to the job?” I asked.
“I happen to know that he is fluent in French, Archie, and as you are aware, he can be tenacious and thorough, as he has shown in the past.”
“Okay, I guess it’s worth a try. I know you want to keep Fritz on the job.”
“Speaking of which, I need to see how he is coming with the mushroom and almond omelet that is to be our lunch.” With that, Wolfe rose and turned in the direction of the kitchen to play his role as the overseer of the brownstone’s culinary arts.
Chapter 2
After lunch, Wolfe and I were back in the office with coffee. “Archie, what time is it in London?” he asked.
That is my boss for you. He is a certifiable genius, but his gaps in knowledge in areas like local geography and global time zones show his lack of concern for what he considers too mundane to trouble him.
“They are five hours ahead of us this time of year, so it’s”—I checked my watch—“about eight thirty there.”
“Just so. Please telephone Mr. Hitchcock.”
Anticipating the order, I already had pulled the London number from my file and placed the call through a long-distance operator, motioning Wolfe to pick up his instrument. After hearing several female voices and some static, I heard, “Hitchcock here.”
“Good evening, Mr. Hitchcock. This is Nero Wolfe.”
“Ah, Mr. Wolfe, so good to hear your voice. I trust you are well, sir.”
“I am, thank you. Are you occupied with business?”
“Not as much as I would like of late. But the tides, they do ebb and flow, as I’m sure you know.”
“I do indeed. Would you be interested in a commission?”
“I just might be.”
“It would entail a trip to Geneva.”
“A lovely lakeside city indeed and one I am somewhat familiar with. I have been there several times, for both business and pleasure.”
“I suspected as much,” Wolfe replied, proceeding to fill Hitchcock in on all that we knew about Paul Bernard.
“I can leave for Geneva tomorrow morning, Mr. Wolfe,” Hitchcock said. “I assume you expect daily reports.”
“Your assumption is correct,” Wolfe replied. “If I am unavailable when you telephone, Mr. Goodwin will be reachable. He is on the line with me now.”
“Mr. Goodwin! I shall be happy to keep you and Mr. Wolfe apprised of all developments.”
I thanked him and, before signing off, Wolfe assured our agent that all expenses, including telephone and cable charges, would be covered.
“Now we wait,” I told Wolfe.
And wait we did. For two days we heard nothing from Hitchcock and on the third morning, when I was in the office typing letters that Wolfe had dictated the day before, I got a transatlantic
call.
“Good morning, Mr. Goodwin, this is Geoffrey Hitchcock.”
“I recognize your voice. And the connection is very clear.”
“Yes, improvements continue to be made in technology. I am afraid I have little to report to you and Mr. Wolfe, which is why I have not telephoned sooner.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
“I went to Mr. Bernard’s address and learned from the concierge that she had not seen him for at least two weeks, possibly longer. She had no idea where he might have gone and she said he had not been behaving strangely.
“Then I went to the steamship line where he is a captain and the supervisor I talked to essentially said the same thing as the concierge. Mr. Bernard had been an exemplary employee over his long years of service, but one day several weeks ago he did not show up for
Hitchcock went on to tell me he visited one of the local newspapers and was told by reporters that there have been no recent reports of missing persons and no bodies have been found in the lake over the last several months. He also visited a couple of bars where ship crew members hang out and none of them said they knew what had happened to Bernard.
I told Hitchcock to leave a number where he can be reached and said I would ask Wolfe if he had further instructions.
“I certainly won’t charge Mr. Wolfe for the drinks I had in those lakeside pubs,” he told me. “He should not have to finance my alcoholic endeavors.”
“I don’t agree,” I responded. “That was an essential part of your intelligence gathering, even though you had very little success. I will report to Mr. Wolfe.”
When Wolfe came down at eleven after his morning session with the orchids, I filled him in on Hitchcock’s report. After ringing for beer, he scowled and nodded to Fritz, who had come in as usual with two chilled bottles and a stein. After he had gone back to the kitchen, Wolfe sighed deeply.
“Very well, I see no alternative than to send Mr. Hitchcock back to London and to tell Fritz he is free to go to Geneva. Do you concur?”
“I do. Even if he has no more success than Hitchcock did, he needs to satisfy himself. Or maybe, just maybe, his knowledge of Geneva and the general area will lead him to uncover the mystery of the missing cousin. What will you do to replace him in the kitchen?”
Another sigh. “This will be a challenge we must face. Please get Felix on the telephone.”
Wolfe was referring to Felix Martin of Rusterman’s Restaurant. A bit of background here: Rusterman’s, arguably the finest dining spot in Manhattan, had for years been owned and operated by Marko Vukcic, the closest friend Nero Wolfe ever had, dating to their boyhood in Montenegro. When Marko was murdered, Wolfe and I went to Montenegro in search of his killer.* After Wolfe was made the executor of Marko’s estate, which of course included Rusterman’s, he selected Felix to oversee the operations, which the man has continued to do with Wolfe’s oversight and his periodic visits to the restaurant.
I dialed the number from memory and Felix answered on the second ring while Wolfe picked up his receiver. “Felix, I have a favor to ask.”
“Yes, Mr. Wolfe.” Felix has always been in awe of Wolfe, eager to please to the point of being obsequious.
“Fritz must leave us on family business for an undetermined amount of time and I am in need of a replacement to serve in his stead at my home.”
After a prolonged silence, Felix spoke. “I am not sure I can suggest someone who would be satisfactory.”
“What about Leon Farber? I have heard you speak highly of his work.”
“Yes, we could … we could part with him for some period. Do you know how long you would need him?”
“I do not, but I am hoping that for however long we may require his services, it will not be an undue imposition upon you.”
“We will get along, Mr. Wolfe. As you are well aware, we have a fine staff.”
“Thank you, Felix. I will inform you when I know more about Fritz’s absence.”
“So, do you see bringing this guy in as a great sacrifice?” I asked Wolfe when we had hung up.
“This is not what I would have wished, but do you agree that we owe it to Fritz to support this trip?”
“I do and in spades. I don’t have to tell you he hasn’t been himself at all lately and, with the report we got from Hitchcock, his anxiety will only increase. Although he hasn’t spent much time there in recent years, he at least knows a lot about Geneva and its environs and may be able to be more effective than Hitchcock was in figuring out what’s going on.”
“We are in agreement,” Wolfe said. “Please ask Fritz to come in, and I will share Hitchcock’s report with him.”
Overall, Fritz took the news pretty well, nodding a couple of times and otherwise remaining stoic. “I have arranged for a replacement in your absence,” Wolfe told him, “and I will of course cover your expenses to Switzerland.”
“No, sir!” Fritz said, springing to his feet. “I have money, and I will pay my way.”
Wolfe dipped his chin a quarter of an inch. “Very well. I will see if Leon Farber from Rusterman’s can start in the kitchen tomorrow morning. Would you be willing to meet with him and help him to get started?”
“I would, Mr. Wolfe.”
“Good. Perhaps you can secure a flight to Switzerland sometime tomorrow afternoon or evening. Mr. Goodwin can help you make arrangements and he can drive you to the airport as well.”
“I will talk to you later,” I told Fritz. “We can begin to make the arrangements this afternoon.”
“Thank you very much, Archie,” he said in a somber tone, standing and leaving the office. There was a lunch to finish preparing.
* * *
* The Black Mountain by Rex Stout, 1954
Chapter 3
After Wolfe and I finished our meal, I got on the horn to Larry Marks, a travel agent Lily Rowan and I have used several times to help plan our jaunts to Norway, the Caribbean, and Paris, among other destinations.
“Good to hear your voice, Archie,” he said. “Just where are you and the lovely Miss R. going this time? Tahiti, perhaps? Maybe the Austrian Alps? Or even sailing on the Nile?”
“If only that were the case, Larry. No, this time I’m looking to get a flight to Geneva, and as quickly as possible.”
“For you?”
“No, for Fritz Brenner, who is the—”
“I know who Fritz is, Archie. You’ve raved to me about his great meals before. Let me see what I can do,” he said, and I heard pages turning. “Just how soon are we talking about?”
“Is sometime late tomorrow realistic?”
“Hmm. Yes … I think so. Ah, here’s one what leaves Idlewild at five p.m. for London. There he will has to change planes for Switzerland, getting to Geneva at noon the next day. There are no New York-to-Geneva direct flights.”
“No, I suppose that’s asking too much. All right, book it. Can Fritz pay at the airport.”
“He can indeed. He’s last name is Brenner, right?”
“Bingo.”
“Consider it done.”
That taken care of, I phoned Felix at Rusterman’s and arranged to pick up Leon Farber at the restaurant and bring him to the brownstone to meet with Wolfe and Fritz. I had only seen Farber at a distance in Rusterman’s and had never spoken to him. When we drove away from the restaurant, I tried to make conversation, but he seemed unwilling to say much.
He didn’t present an impressive figure—short, balding, stoop-shouldered, and tight-lipped. I had to wonder how he and Wolfe would get along.
I parked in front of the brownstone and walked Farber up the stairs to the door, which Fritz swung open before I could ring. The two men nodded curtly to each other as I did an about-face and took the car back to Curran’s Motors on Tenth Avenue between Thirty-Fifth and Thirty-Sixth Streets, where we had garaged our automobiles for years.
When I got back home and used my key to open the front door, the office was vacant and I could hear muffled voices from the kitchen. Presumably, Wolfe, Fritz, and Farber were huddling and working out the transition. Here was a meeting I was happy to avoid.
I dropped into my chair in the office and was cleaning my typewriter with the little brush that came with it when Wolfe walked in carrying a frosted stein full of beer and went to sit in the reinforced chair at his desk built to accommodate his seventh of a ton. “How are the boys getting along in there?” I asked, tilting my head in the direction of the kitchen.
He raised his shoulders half an inch and dropped them, his version of a shrug. “Mr. Farber appears to be competent,” he answered in a tone that suggested some doubt.
“Well, I know you will generously share with him your vast culinary knowledge, and one can only hope that he will behave accordingly and heed your golden words of wisdom.”
